Category Archives: Character and Competence

Posts relating to The Second Resolution: “To overcome the restraining forces of pride and pretension, I resolve to work on character and competence.”

Vietnam and The Three Resolutions

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For the past 8 days I have been dutifully watching a PBS documentary series on the Vietnam War, covering the 1961-1973 American involvement in what had hitherto been a French problem. And the overarching message that I have received has been – if they’d just applied the Second and Third Resolutions, maybe the lives of 282,000 US/South Vietnamese and other allies’ service personnel, 444,000 North Vietnamese/Viet Cong soldiers, and  627,000 civilians, would have been saved. Not all, I suspect – if North Vietnam had simply been handed control there would no doubt have been the kind of casualties usually associated with a communist takeover.*

Why would the Second Resolution have saved them? Character.

You see, the recurring message of the testimony and evidence produced showed (a) how often the US authorities admitted, in secret, that they were fighting a losing battle from when Kennedy was still alive and (b) that the self-interest of Presidential re-election was the focus of some of their decision-making. They even produced evidence that Nixon sabotaged peace talks as a way of supporting his efforts to replace Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 elections. How many of his citizens dies because of self-interest – because of a lack of character?

Which also brings up the Third Resolution. The other factors that killed countless people was unbridled ambition on the part of the leaders of both sides. The North could argue that they wanted to unite their country under one flag, albeit a communist one. The American evidence was clearly that, rather than acknowledge a huge error and step back from it with careful consideration as to how, they just threw people at it to avoid having to admit to a mistake – even someone else’s! Just to maintain power 6,000 miles away.

When I saw how many soldiers died taking ‘strategically important’ hills, only for the victors – survivors – to leave them once they got to the top, I was grateful that my children never volunteered to join the Forces, and simultaneously even more respectful of those who do.

I have always been willing to acknowledge and apologise for my mistakes. Even when my efforts have been rebuffed, and lies told about my errors, my disappointment has been more about another’s unwillingness to accept my apology out of self-interest, than it has been about the negative personal consequences.

Saying sorry often takes courage. It means acknowledging imperfection, it means risking a reputation – it means being vulnerable. Acknowledgement of a genuine effort to apologise is the least one can ask for.

But as Vietnam shows, stubborn insistence on ‘being right’ when patently ‘doing wrong’ in an effort to hide being even more wrongis dangerous to everyone involved.

Particularly for those who didn’t realise they were being misused by the players in the game.

Tell the truth. Live the truth, Acknowledge the truth.

Whatever happens.

*Turns out there weren’t any massacres. Just big re-education camps. Honest.

It’s never too late – nor too early – to learn

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Ordinarily I write my blogs on the day I post them. I wrote this one five days ago, because I knew I’d be busy this morning. I mean that morning. I mean …. Oh, you know.

I knew I was busy on the morning this post would appear (that’ll do) because of my adherence to my personal value relating to ‘intellectual pursuit’ in that I had booked to attend a webinar. To be frank, it’s a webinar the content of which I already know and I could probably plan and present it myself (although the presenter is doing a bang up job). It’s on a subject I’ve studied for decades, hence my apparent over-confidence.

But I have always been of the opinion that ‘competence’, the ‘working’ half of the Second Resolution, is not something you achieve once. Competence is an ongoing obligation, and as competencies develop so does my need to maintain some kind of currency with the latest thinking on the subject at hand. It ahs been said that competencies have a half-life of about two-three years, meaning in that period you’ll lose half your usable ability if you don’t maintain some kind of continuing professional development. I know from recent experience that the procedural changes in the organisation I left in 2014 and to which I returned 18 months later meant that I was way behind in some respects. A steep learning curve was a pleasant surprise!

Many people rue additional training, while some welcome it. I find that the first group is split into people who hate it whatever it is, while some (cough) just detest such training if it is unnecessarily frequent or poorly delivered.

(Did you know that on the first anniversary of the day they are taught how to hit people with a metal bar, police officers are deemed to have forgotten? The same with First Aid. Complete mental collapse in some areas of their work that many apply frequently but on day 366 – all forgotten. Yes, I am being a bit sarcastic and there are valid exceptions.)

In the main, however, frequent attendance at training courses will at best enhance your professional (and personal*) competencies and at worst reinforce the ones you already possess.

So why not approach imposed training as something which will serve you in some way, and proactively seek out training in areas which until now you may have felt unnecessary – or better still, something you want to do just ‘because’.

When the lockdown finishes you will no doubt get the opportunity to return to a community college, further education facility or other provider who will teach you something you will need to know, or will want to know.

I know I will be.

( *I’m booking some ‘relationship’ courses even though I’m approaching my 40th wedding anniversary. Can’t be too careful…….)

For more on principle centred leadership, ready my book The Three Resolutions, available HERE.

Seven Habits Review: Day 0. Introduction.

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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I have written before about how many people confuse The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People with being a business book. It isn’t, never was. What it is, is a book about living effectively as an individual and as part of any relationship. It is not about fame or success, per se, but about living a principled life, which in turn can lead to those things – if they are what you want. But let’s be frank – most of us don’t want them or don’t see them as important as being a good person doing good work for the people they care about, while enjoying life – which this book promotes in spades.

I recall once attending a meeting of personal development teachers preparing to deliver the Seven Habits material to schools with the overall aim of teaching ‘leadership’, and I opined that what we would be teaching was  self-leadership, and this was even more important because while everyone has the potential to be ‘a success’ and a ‘boss’ the vast majority of young people would be the staff, the workers, the led – and they should be trained to be the best they could be at those things, too. Leaders – self-leaders – make great followers.

The Seven Habits are (and I quote) A principle-centred, character-based, inside-out approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.

Let’s break that down a bit.

Principle-Centred. We like to think we can control events, but while we can control what we do, principles (sciences, incontrovertible truths, systems) decide the results. I’ll get deeper into that in future articles but for now I’ll explain that it means that instead of letting fame, wealth, family, church, peers, friends, pleasure, friends, enemies or work dictate how we think and behave, we let principles lead our decisions and resulting actions.

Character-Based. Our personality is what we show other people deliberately, but our character is what we really are. Personality tends to make us follow fashions and popular thought and ‘the latest thing’ so that we can fit in and benefit from that fitting in. Character, on the other hand, requires sacrifice, work and effort. But it lasts well beyond fashion, fame and money.

Inside-Out Approach. There is a tendency for folks to wait for their external world to change so that it suits them, instead of either changing it for the better themselves by changing their approach towards the changes needed. In 2020 we see protest after protest of people demanding other people change to suit their agenda – then they go home and wait for it to happen instead of engaging those in power in an effort to persuade and influence the change they want. The Inside-Out Approach is about looking into yourself and deciding what you need to change in yourself and how you need to change your approach, in order to achieve what you seek. Waiting for ‘them’ to change is ineffective.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness. Effectiveness is not ‘just ‘success. Effectiveness is getting the results you want in such a way as to get them consistently – not once, but as long as they are needed. And it is not just about ‘you’ – it’s about effectiveness with and through other people, too. I have often said ‘Everything we do, we do with, for or because of other people – everything.’ So relationships are important enough to pursue with diligence. Including those we have with ourselves.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, then, are about taking responsibility for making things happen for the benefit of all those you love or serve, including yourself, while acting with good character and respecting the realities of the world.

Over the next 17 days (long story*) I intend to expand upon Stephen Covey’s work with a view to encouraging any reader to take up their own study of The Seven Habits so that they can benefit, as I have, from a better self-understanding and an improved recognition of what is going on around them, how they can respond to the challenges of the modern world – and do so without offending or being offended.

A word of warning, though – as you understand the lessons Covey taught you will start to recognise how many people are trying to tell you how to live. Covey’s main lesson is that you have that choice and it need not be imposed upon you. Reading the book will make you aware of how the world is trying to condition you – not necessarily out of malice but out of a desire to make you agree with ‘them’. After reading it, you may still agree with ‘them’. But it will be a conscious rather than popular agreement.

In the end, a major tenet of this book is this.

You can live your life or your life can be lived for you.

I hope you enjoy the work to follow.

 

(* Michael Heppell, personal development coach, has proposed a 17 day project for his Facebook Group and this is mine. That wasn’t as long a story as I thought.)

Resistance is still futile.

29 Monday Jun 2020

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Since last month’s release of the 7 Habits 30th Anniversary Edition I have read it twice. Added to the 25 years or more of reading, courses and observations I have already learned and made, you may be forgiven for thinking ‘Why?’ Fair comment.

However, what I have found is that when reading this timeless book there is always something new to discover, to understand, or to interpret in a new, more modern context. This time I read every chapter, then read each again while I made notes. I made 295 separate observations, and that is far from the full number of lessons in this classic if you consider that some of my notes were ‘I know this…’ I also made new connections – correction, I recognised the connections I’d missed before – between the lessons in the early pages and their relevance to those in the middle and end of the book.

As I did for so long, I suspect that a lot of people will perceive the 7 Habits as a sequential list of things to apply to life, when in fact that is very far from the whole story. The Habits are sequential in the sense that they address the roots, shoots and fruits of effective living in first the personal and then the public senses of existence. They are easier to learn and understand in sequence, too.

And yet, this 25th year’s reading identified to me the depth of thinking that Covey put into this work over 20-plus years, because I started to discover for myself the intricate web, the extensive inter-connectedness of the 7 Habits. I saw the way each singular element impacts, underpins, and has synergy with all the others. There are no contradictions between what is said on one page, and what you find anywhere else. All is in synch with everything else. This book has an ecology of its own that is a complete parallel with nature’s own ecology. Everything in The 7 Habits ‘library’ works with, and because of everything else. And any failure in one area compromises success elsewhere.

I suspect that recognition of this ecology is why I also enjoyed his later works. They, too, extend the ecology of the original, iconic work. Just as reading the 7 Habits in its laid-out sequence enhanced my ability to understand what could be quite an intellectual work, reading the following books in sequence underpinned and extended one’s understanding of the first as much as reading the first underpins reading of the rest. It may sound a little conceited but I credit understanding this book with an increased awareness and understanding of everything I have experienced in life. Yes, it made me clever. I never wrote like this before 1995.

In moving forward from The 7 Habits, Stephen Covey gave us First Things First (Habits 2 and 3 in more detail), The 3rd Alternative (Habits 4-6 in detail), Principle-Centred Leadership and later The 8th Habit (personal and interpersonal management and leadership in detail) and reading them all – and applying the learning – covers all the principles a manager, leader and individual needs to know in life. Not just for work, and not in terms of ‘do this, do that’. Technique and processes are situationally specific but the philosophy, understanding and execution of principles, as espoused in these books, apply everywhere all the time, and these books are where you come to realise this.

Some resist reading these books, and the original in particular, because they don’t understand what they are about, possibly because they are often mis-filed in bookshops as business books. They aren’t.

They are, without a dount in my experience and opinion, the most essential personal effectiveness books you will ever read.

Anyway, to assist you in realising this and in order to enhance my own deeper understanding, I am going to spend a lot of July writing about some of the 295 sentences in my notes.

Strap in, and maybe I will convince you, too.

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What the 7 Habits Did For Me.

01 Monday Jun 2020

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I came to the Seven Habits later than I’d have liked, but since they weren’t published until 1989 and I was already 37 years old that’s not really surprising. I discovered the book in 1995 after I’d read Stephen Covey’s time management epic First Things First and realised that I enjoyed his writing style and presentation as much as I did the content.

In retrospect the book changed me in many positive ways, ways I wish to put on record and ways that I would encourage others to explore, if not adopt. I won’t look at the Habits themselves, as that would lengthen this article too much. I’ll just focus on their effect.

In reading The Seven Habits (and Covey’s other works):

  • I discovered that people allow themselves to be influenced, even created by their surroundings, and that I could decide that my surroundings would not affect me. We are all Pavlov’s Dogs, if we allow that to happen.
  • I discovered that the best way to achieve anything is to put myself forward rather than rely on things to happen in a way that suits me.
  • I realised that now and then it is better to just say nothing rather than express an opinion that will upset someone else, especially when there was no perceivable positive outcome to such expression.
  • I discovered that what was being presented to me by others is frequently coloured, flowered with opinion rather than objectivity, and designed to tell me what they want me to think, rather than what is actually unbiased and true. It made me question everything rather than just accept. Professionally, it made me a better investigator.
  • I noticed just how much time and effort is wasted on ‘things done the way they’ve always been done’ and without proper, considered thought. It made me challenge demands on my time – some I won, some I lost, but all taught me new ways to approach people whose demands challenged me.
  • I stopped challenging processes until I truly understood their objective, thus recognising what worked and what didn’t, so that I could influence effective change.
  • I started to think about my future and started developing and executing a plan that made my desired outcomes come into being.
  • I found that reading the book, with its considered prose, well-argued observations and incredible wisdom, made me more intelligent. It made me want to seek more knowledge, higher-level qualifications and challenging opportunities.
  • I decided that I wanted to teach this to others, and so I sought out the experiences, training and opportunities to do so. I even funded its availability in my local comprehensive.
  • I recognised that I have made many, many mistakes, but that they do not define me.
  • And many mooooorrrreeeee.

In conclusion, reading that book arguably made me a more productive employee, parent, husband and trainer. Yes, I still make mistakes but it is usually despite my knowledge rather than because of it. The principles apply – it’s my failure to apply the principles (on occasion) that influenced my personal errors. And given Covey’s confession that even he had trouble with them, I can live with it.

The book has sold 40 million copies, has just been re-issued as a 30th anniversary edition, and still surprises me with my recognition of bits of information that tweak my knowledge of the material and how it applies to my life.

I really, emphatically and enthusiastically recommend it. If nothing else, reading it led to some truly impactive self-discovery and personal growth. The hardback costs less than 10 pints and has a longer-term effect.

Or you can choose beer. Make the better choice.

Habit 5 – The Bit We All Missed

28 Thursday May 2020

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I have been studying Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits for a quarter of a century, as have many of those with whom I have connected on LinkedIn. The recent 30th Anniversary Edition hit my hallway floor last Saturday – actually, it hit the outside step as the delivery person stood safely distant –and I am deep within its pages again. I have already discovered a few missed nuggets. Including today.

Habit 5 – Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood – has been a familiar tenet in the corporate world, I am sure. I have read that chapter many times, and always sworn to try to apply it in testing or inquisitorial conversations. The book itself describes its use in many such instances, using examples from the perspective of the lives of individuals in their personal and working lives to illustrate how verbal conversations can be improved through application of the aforementioned Habit..

Today, I found a bit I missed and, according to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (if my experience is anything to go by), so have a lot of other people. And possibly the reason I missed it is because this nugget was detailed not in Habit 5’s chapter, but in Habit 7’s, on renewal.

He wrote about great literature that ‘(reading in various fields) can expand our paradigms and sharpen our mental saw, particularly if we practice Habit 5 as we read, and seek first to understand.’

That was a AHA! moment. Or indeed a DUH! moment. I’d never thought about that, even if I’d exercised it. ‘Seek First to Understand what we READ’. It isn’t just a conversational model.

Realising that, and recognising its importance, led me to ask the question, “If people read the news with an enquiring rather than an assumptive mindset, would most of the rubbish on social media go away?’

Yes. People would read the allegations, check the facts, research any science or laws applicable, review the political past of the reporter/witness/commentator and eventually, perhaps, come to a less) emotional, ideological or ill-informed conclusion. And then shut the hell up.

(Of course, it might wind them up even more…..)

At the moment, we are witnessing a change in the reportage of the media. They have gone from just reporting, worked through and past analysis, and on to out-and-out commentary. Unfortunately, this is proving to be commentary without real, deep, objective or unbiased analysis.

It’s as if the middle bit is a bar to profit for the printed and commercial media, and a bar to fame and notoriety for the public-broadcaster’s employees who are all vying for a better position, or their own programme. The objective is no longer balanced reportage – it is fame and/or profit through a ‘shock-jock’ style approach..

(The last time newsreaders did something outside simple news-reading for fame, they dressed as sailors and did flick-flacks for Morecombe and Wise.)

Where have the Paul Foots and the Martin Bells and the Michael Buerks gone? They all reported injustice and societal disasters without the need for constant personal attack or self-importance. Even the famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward now seems to be left-biased, and only appears when the right is to be attacked. (I would’ve said criticised but they’ve all gone way past that.)

But more to my point – why have we, the public, stopped putting in the effort and started to just accept what is thrown at us by the media without asking ‘Is this true, exaggerated, misunderstood or made up?’ Why have we omitted that step and then just lost our sanity and sense of calm over what we have not checked is worth that effort?

Habit 5 – Seek First To Understand is a sensible, reasoned, objective and intellectually satisfying approach to news, documentaries and other sources of information. The counter to Habit 5, Seeking First to Assume, makes an – well, you know.

Don’t be one of those.

Incongruence cost me – don’t let it cost you.

09 Thursday Apr 2020

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Ever done something you wish you hadn’t? Ever spoken down to someone when you didn’t mean to? Ever knowingly broken a rule, then regretted it? Ever judged a situation at a time of emotional disquiet, acted accordingly and then realised you had it wrong and always did – but let your emotion rule your thinking?

I’ve done most, if not all of those. And in each case, the fault lay within my acquiescing to the deed because I wasn’t wholly acting congruently – that is, either with my own values or (and this is important) the stated values of the organisation for which I was working. I may not have agreed wholeheartedly with those values but I should have accepted and complied with them. Silly me.

In lesser circumstances, the lack of integrity had short term results – poorer relationships that meant reluctance to engage with someone when I really needed to do so. Phone calls being put off, visits being postponed, and so on.

In the worst case, I felt I had to leave my job. Not entirely because of the offending act but because of the untenable situation it left me in. Nevertheless, the time management/productivity consequence of my failure to act with congruence was no job to manage or to be congruent about.

In TimePower, Charles R. Hobbs discussed how a lack of personal integrity – which I never thought was different to professional integrity but my job loss suggests otherwise! – causes problems not just in the productivity sense but also in terms of our own sense of self-esteem.

(I’ve known people use the term ‘personal self-esteem‘. What other kind of self-esteem could there be?)

When we fail to meet our own standards we tend to dwell on that failure. I’m not talking about failure in the sporting sense. If we didn’t fail to win at sports, no-one else would, either. To paraphrase Ziglar, if someone didn’t come second the winner wouldn’t have been first, they’d have been ‘only’. I’m talking about the kind of failure that our conscience tells us is our own damn fault.

In other words, failing to act with integrity – congruence with our personal beliefs or those we have adopted – wastes time in self-examination, further self-doubt, lack of self-confidence and, potentially, a whole host of other things that stop us doing, effectively, what we are supposed to be doing.

Now ‘retired’, I find that my biggest regret isn’t the lost money I would have earned, but the inability to do the work I had the opportunity to do. And the realisation that even when I wasn’t happy at work, I could have been. Which is an odd thing to write about stressful work but it’s true. I now have less to manage my time about, and less of a need to have high professional standards.

Which isn’t to say I won’t have high amateur standards!

Of course, some lucky people have no personal or professional values, so their integrity can float around complying with anything it likes, so they never fracture their self-esteem.

And do you realise just how much you can’t trust those people?

In conclusion, therefore, I encourage you to spend time identifying your values fully, then decide whether you’ve complied with them so far and then how you’re going to be congruent with them from now on. That’s NOW ON, not ‘in the future’, which is a bit nebulous. If you need help in doing that, it is available HERE. At no cost.

It IS worth the effort, and NOW is the time.

Are your habits making or breaking you?

08 Wednesday Apr 2020

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This has been reproduced from the internet. Unfortunately the original author hasn’t been identified, and is frequently stated to be that prolific philosopher, Anon.

Enjoy

The Habit Poem

I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am completely at your command.
Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me,
and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great men.
And, alas, of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine.
Plus, the intelligence of a man.
You may run me for profit, or run me for ruin; it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet.
Be easy with me, and I will destroy you.
Who am I?

I am a HABIT!

 

What Habits do you have that serve you best – and worst?

And what are YOU going to do about the latter?

Start today. Start NOW.

This isn’t worki…… WOW!

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

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I had an experience this morning. I can’t say I haven’t had one like it before but it was the first for a wee while.

Jack Canfield wrote a book about 15 years ago called The Success Principles. It is good. This year he (finally!) brought out a workbook as a parallel. I like workbooks, they make me think. The trouble is that over the years I find them hard to complete because I’ve had the same thoughts over and over again.

There was a set of exercises about finding your Life Purpose. Done it before. One question was ‘define your Joy’. Ick. It was to finish the sentence “I feel joy when ……….” I don’t do joy. I define joy as being almost ecstasy, which means 5 minutes after the miracle of birth I’m all “What’s next?”

Then a few more exercises and finally one I’ve actually done before but ….. well, “Meh!” anyway, in the interests of science I went ahead, anyway. The questions were pretty much ‘Describe 2 characteristics you possess’, ‘Name 2 things you like to do’ and ‘What would your perfect world be like?’

Now, I cannot for the life of me recall what happened in terms of the order of thinking, but I came up with “I use my integrity, intellect and productivity to create, master and promote an inspiring philosophy so that all can live congruent, organised and purposeful lives.”

Pretentious? Moi?

I know I cheated – 3 words instead of 2 – but I realised as I drafted, edited and finalised it that (apart from the mastery part!) I am wholly focused on doing exactly that. Now, you may not be reading this (at all) and thinking, “Yeah, that’s Dave,” but that is what Dave does and that is what Dave aspires to.

It’s not a goal statement. That’s the next bit. But now everything I do and all the goals I seek will reflect more accurately, and more consistently, that Purpose. I’ve written four books, two specifically on my philosophy and productivity, and I have two more on the go. I teach people Advanced Driving and enjoy the requirement that I master it myself. And above all, in a sense, I aspire to mastering myself, too. There is a need for discipline, character, competence and service implied within that sentence, too. Three Resolutions compliant, so it is.

And the best thing of all is – and don’t take this personally – that whether or not people read, accept and implement the counsel that I advocate is not important. Their interest is outside my control. What is within my control is whether my daily activities reflect that sentence. Anything else is a bonus.

The AHA! that came with the realisation that this reflected what I was already doing, allied to having finally been able to put it into as short a sentence as that, boggled my mind. It may not boggle yours, but is there a similar sentence that accurately reflects your purpose and personal aspiration to live by some personal philosophy that you know makes perfect sense but you aren’t quite up to speed in terms of congruent performance?

Go on, I DOUBLE dare you.

Purpose

A Kite, to be free, needs an Anchor. So do we.

06 Monday Apr 2020

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Years ago, I was on a needed holiday. I’d arrived in a bad mood – I can’t remember why – but I felt tired, depressed, unmotivated and just completely uninterested, even in the holiday itself.

On the second day of that break, I found myself lying on a warm, grassy playing field. I was basking in warm sunshine, and I held the string of one of those plastic kites you can only seem to buy at the seaside. As I twisted and pulled the string of the kite to make it go hither an’ thither up in the sky in a fashion that I decreed it should, I had a sudden flash of the blinding obvious. You know the sort of thing: that realisation that you actually know something which you already knew, had forgotten, and needed to know right then.

The kite only succeeded if it was firmly anchored at the other end of its string.

If I let go of it, the kite would plummet uncontrollably to the ground. Even if it flew in a heavy wind for a few moments, eventually gravity – a principle – would take command of the situation and force it to clumsily dive into terra firma, and the flimsy toy would probably perish in the process.

He same applies to us, psychologically. Imagine that you’re like the kite. You are capable of whatever it is you have been trained and prepared for. In an ideal world you’ve selected the profession in which you work.

Then you lose some perspective. You forget why you chose that line. Perhaps someone has changed the rules and the values you upheld last week are no longer welcomed. The impositions have increased, but neither the time available nor the compensation have increased to match the added workload. The situation and the dedication that applied yesterday – have gone.

Suddenly, like an un-anchored kite you lose direction. You float where the wind blows but now it’s with no sense of control.

Maybe that’s how you feel in this period of isolation. You can’t do what you’ve been able to do for ever. So you drift, aimlessly. Towards the fridge, like as not.

But there’s a solution.

Rediscover that anchoring point, that ‘other end’ of the piece of string that can refocus you on what was important, and always will be important. Being current, professionally. Being available to family, friends, colleagues and your community. For me, that is a set of written, defined values and a personal mission statement. It could be like that for you, but you may choose other terms or a different route.

But it’s the anchor that lets you fly. Always was, always will be.

Find it, rediscover it, renew it. Perhaps, given the current uncertainty, completely rewrite it.

Whatever you decide is important, get it down in writing (rather than trying to remember it), and then work from it.

Your kite – a metaphor for your life – will fly all the better for that fixed point.