Category Archives: Purpose and Service

Posts relating to the Third Resolution: “To overcome the restraining forces of unbridled aspiration and ambition, I resolve to dedicate my talents and resources to noble purposes and to provide service to others.”

One step back – a thousand steps forward.

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

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The future can dictate your past – if you let it. Thus spake Tony Robbins, generally accepted to be the world’s  most famous and top performance coach (despite what other coaches claim). His intention is to tell you not to live in the past, but the subtext is not to live in a failure-based past. In a similar vein, many coaches promote the idea of making sure your past is gone – truly gone – before you move along, there.

The reason is that even when you are future focused, there is still something you have done that is incomplete, or you feel an emotional, nagging feeling that something might not be truly over. Either way, not dealing with it can be self-defeating. Not always, but sometimes.

Several writers do suggest that when preparing your future, you look at the past in depth. For some writers, the objective is purely forward focused in the sense that they ask, “What did you do as a child that really made you feel happy?” and then suggest you use the answer as a guide to what to do next. (If that went as well as suggested there’d be thousands more spacemen and no chiropodists.) The other motive for analysis of your past is to simply see what you can learn from it, and to use that knowledge as part of the planning.

In either case, the gazing backwards can identify some things you wish you’d done but hadn’t; some things you wish you hadn’t done but did; and some things that you started but didn’t finish even though you should have, or wanted to. The benefits are clear.

Incompletes, as Jack Canfield calls them, will play on your mind for ever. If your reminiscing identifies some incomplete that you can do something about, organise your time so you can do it. If you’re reminded about an offence you wish you could take back, send an apology or simply let it go. If there was a goal you still have time to achieve, get to it. If there is a lesson to be learned from what was done or was not, write it down and learn from the experience.

Once you’ve looked at what went wrong, look at what went right and ask similar questions. Everything that happens to us, teaches us something. Covey and other put it something like this – experience has no motive. It teaches us lessons we need to learn without judgement. It has no bias or ulterior objective. Experience just ‘is’. It is a valuable teacher.

I therefore recommend analysis of the past with an open-mind.

As Jinny Ditzler puts it her excellent book, ‘Best Year Yet’, ask yourself “What were my disappointments, what were my accomplishments, what did I learn and (importantly) what am I going to do about it?” Find the answers, because therein lie the plans you need to make and the actions you need to take in the near to intermediate future if you are going to have a sense of contentment when it all comes to an end.

Don’t be led by other people’s experience and advice. Listen to it, consider it, decide whether or not it is something you need to act upon, but don’t blindly follow someone else’s plan – their plan is based on their needs, values and experiences. Their plan is based on their disappointments, accomplishments, lessons and wants. Not yours.

What have you/haven’t you done that you need to do or let go? What are you going to do about that discovery?

Do It Now.

The Painful Truth.

02 Thursday Jan 2020

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Jan the 2nd. Where HAS the year gone?

If you’re like me, you’ve already discovered that the resolutions you set 3 days ago are faltering. I think there’s a good reason for this.

You got drunk on New Year’s Eve, and your promise to do something physically or mentally challenging the following day got lost in a fog of sleep deprived, alcohol- or food-induced discomfort. If not, good for you. For the rest of us, it’s reality.

But that excuse doesn’t exist this morning, does it?

Time to go back to work unless you organised time off, and already the routines have obstructed any likelihood that a new behaviour can kick in. Your environment has, over the years, created psychological cues that dictate a conditioned response. Which is why, despite the intent to eat well, the smell and convenience of toast, bacon or a breakfast roll trump those good intentions.

“I can start tomorrow.” When the same conditions apply.

No, folks – personal improvement is never easy. In fact, it’s damn hard. But it’s also common sense.

Which is why I recommend that IF you are lulled by bookshops into buying any self-help title with the words ‘easy’ or ‘secret’ in their title, you resist the impulse to buy them with every fibre of your being. The books that promise how you’ll be unstoppable in your goal-achievement ‘in 90 days’ are also suspect unless your goal is to buy something you can afford.

Seek out the ones that make it plain that it’s going to take some effort on your part to make things happen. Recognise that anything meaningful takes effort, planning, time, occasionally money (which takes time, effort and planning to obtain), and commitment.

Commitment to The Cause, allied to recognition that you are that Cause, followed by the creation of a better, healthier more prosperous you is not selfish – because a better, healthier more prosperous you can serve other better and for longer than an ill, skint, half-arsed version of you.

Happy New Year – and Happy New You.

Now to go walk my talk………….

Did it all go to plan? Did you HAVE a plan??

31 Tuesday Dec 2019

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That’s that, then. In a few hours we’ll be celebrating the end of 2019 and the start of a new set of numbers, the Twenties. And some New Year’s Resolutions will begin their Mayfly-long existence of ‘a day’. ‘Twas ever thus.

Recently you will recall I posted about the planning process, which included an Evaluate the Week activity, where you review that past 7 days to identify what went well, what you learned and what you’ll do next time. (It all gels when you look deeply into what Covey wrote about personal planning, productivity and execution instead of decrying it.)
Today, there’s an opportunity to do your Annual Review, looking at the past 365 days to see – well, you know.

What went well? I got a new job and I was learning as I executed, which was fun. I restarted my daily blog. I maintained qualifications and memberships that helped me to serve others, and everyone I served obtained the objectives my service was intended to support. I had fun learning to enhance those abilities, too. I’d say I achieved 60-70% of what I intended.

What did I learn? I learned that some people have more than one face. That I am not perfect but I can stand up and accept my failings. That some things aren’t worth fighting for. I learned that I have some excellent friends, supportive and non-judgmental. And I have learned that I can’t keep pretending that I can start eating and exercising well ‘tomorrow’. I need to start NOW. (Again.)

And what will I do in the future? To be frank, that’s probably what today will be about (as it is for so many), even though some goals have been telegraphed by the lessons I learned in the last months.

This is, of course, the brief version of a review. I propose you use the Review to look at things like your sense of purpose and meaning, your intellectual life, service to others, your finances, your relationships, and anything else which comes to mind. Ask the three evaluation questions and discover for yourself what the next year is going to ask of you.

I’ll be making an Annual Plan of objectives/outcomes/goals that should keep me occupied and productive. All of which, I hope, will make me better in the round. And as I will be inviting my own circle of family and friends to help me in my pursuit of ‘success’ as I define it, I will be doing my best to help them do the same.

I’ll be utilising the time I have – turning 58 and seeing so many famous people croaking at 79 makes you feel time’s a-wasting – and using my time management skills to best effect. I’ve invested enough time and money is developing those skills, after all.

What’s your plan?

And if you haven’t got one, enjoy helping someone else with theirs. You might as well be doing something useful, even if someone else benefits more than you.

Or you could benefit together?

Just a thought……..

Find the harmony within.

09 Monday Dec 2019

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I like music. When I was about 13 years old, I remember being in school when a million hip youngsters (it seemed) turned up carrying the same album, a blue sleeve upon which was a picture of heavy waves striking a sandy beach under a blue sky, in which was positioned a twisted tubular bell. At the time, it was either Tubular Bells or Yes’ ‘Close to the Edge’ that was the accessory of fashionable choice. In 1978, my brother bought Tubular Bells and after a covert listen (‘Don’t touch my records!’) I invested in Mike Oldfield’s album Incantations. I now have a copy of everything he’s ever done.

What I learned from listening to Oldfield’s music in particular, and which became evident in other records (of course) was that music relies on an interplay – the melody, it’s harmony, the rhythm, percussion. Music is incomplete without every element, and what I find truly magical in some music is that even the silent space between notes creates its own ‘sound’. I often hear music within music that careful listening tells me isn’t actually there. Or I will hear something through headphones for the first time (as opposed to house speakers) and I will hear a whole different tune hidden in the song.

Another thing I often notice is how, if you take the music away from some really famous singers – they sound bloody awful. As if, were you to stand them on a stage and ask them to go acapella they’d get the Big Red Buzzer off Cowell and Co by their second line. (Imagine Van Morrison or Bob Dylan on The X Factor, today.)

In effect, it is the synergy between all the parts that create the symphonic beauty that music can be.

Reading First Things First, Stephen Covey reminds us that, like my take on music, being good at ‘one bit’ can be satisfying and rewarding but being a master of all the bits is better.

We all have four human endowments – they are:

  • Self-awareness – the ability (not utilised buy many) to realise who we are and that we can improve on that;
  • Creative imagination – the ability to see what we want;
  • Independent will – the ability to pursue what we have seen we want; and
  • Conscience – the ability to see that what we want is – or is not – what we should seek.

If you have one bit, you may be

  • Self-aware – but with no idea what to do with that knowledge.
  • Creatively imaginative – but have no discipline to bring into reality what your brilliant mind saw.
  • Independent and productive – but while your trains run on time the way you made that happen destroys other people.
  • Conscience – you’re a saint, but people walk all over you to get their things done.

If you have all the bits, you know that you are capable of imagining a better way, know what to do in order to create it, have the discipline and energy to create it, and can do so with the assistance of others who you bring along with you to mutual benefit.

What does that mean in time management terms?

Having this knowledge means that you can focus your efforts on achieving things within your capabilities, or those of your team. It means not wasting time and effort on things outside your Circle of Influence. It means acknowledging your weaknesses and either manging them or making them irrelevant. It means knowing your strengths and maximising their effect. It also means spending less time on faddy PR programmes that make you seem all fluffy and nice but have little or no effect on what you are for.

(That last one was just me. Maybe. But then again, maybe I’m partly right.)

Now tie all this to your neediness. Can you address your needs to live, love, learn and leave a legacy better by focusing your efforts on knowing who you are, what you can do about it, and how? And all in a conscience-controlled way?

This is where you know that to live long, you need to be aware of your appetites and willingness to exercise, find systems that suit your situation that can help you do that, and then fully implement them. This was where you decided, once, what you wanted to be ‘when you grow up’ and now realise you aren’t there – yet – and you strart to work in that direction. This is where your conscience tells you whether you’re treating loved ones properly, and you rekindle that loving relationship. And this is where you realise that what you want to contribute needs some deep, foundational work on your part if it’s to get done.

It’s weird, isn’t it? That’s how music works. Every separate part designed to complement the other parts so that the whole is magnificent.

But while living that was it isn’t common practice, it could be. Start now.

Compose yourself. 😊

We are all needy – part 2

07 Saturday Dec 2019

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Well, did you think about it? Did you think about your answer to the question, “Can you think of any time management problem that isn’t connected at the root to fulfilling one of those needs?”

I’ve opined in the past that once we know what we are about (or what we are for), the rest of it is time management and communication. (I’m rather smug that Stephen Covey thought the same thing, having worked it out for myself, a momentary intellectual parallel to the great man.)

Our biggest challenges arise when we are stopped from doing what we think we should be doing, are they not?

If we are prevented from taking action because procedures change, laws are made that slow us down or add bureaucracy to our fun, we get frustrated if we have to wait, and we get disappointed and angry if we are just plain stopped from doing it ever again. (I used to love car chases until they stopped me playing on 2001.) A lot of those influences are outside our direct control, and all we can do is proactively grin and bear it (unless we can find a loophole).

Look at it from outside – we are stopped from doing something which pays us, which we love or which we do with those we love, which made us clever and now requires more effort to re-learn, or which gave us meaning and now we can’t do it. All of these are time management problems in the sense that we have to re-adjust how we do what we do, and doing what we do is why we have to manage our time.

Of course, there are also self-imposed obstacles to us living our best life – unwillingness to change, unwillingness to learn, inter-personal differences and a reluctance to invest our finances into something – all Four Needs’ time management problems. And all within our Circle of Influence in terms of the problem to be solved.

When you can’t do something because you haven’t managed your time properly, because (in turn) you haven’t taken the time to discover, learn, apply and master a time management system, your needs won’t be met as well as they could have been met.

If you don’t manage your time well, you can’t take your daughter to that event you looked forward to, which you could enjoy together. If you don’t manage your time well, you can’t exercise with your friends and fulfil a physical and socio-emotional need to connect. If you don’t manage your time well, you may not collect, study and fully understand the data you need for that job interview that will set you up for life. If you don’t manage your time well you may never join that Institute that created intellectual and contribution opportunities that changed your life.

You can, probably, live a reasonably successful life without a time management ‘system’. But it would be a life led by luck, by waiting for opportunities to arise instead of making them happen. Jim Rohn famously said that people who don’t have a plan usually work for someone who does have a plan. “And what have they got planned for you? Not much.”

Are your four needs – to Live, to Love, to Learn and to Leave a Legacy – being met?

If not, ask yourself this – “Will having a values-based, meaning orientated time management system help me meet my needs as a human being?”

Stupid question – you know the answer. It’s just that some of you will now pretend that you’re too clever for that.

It’s called Denial. Try admitting it and try spending a few quid learning better.

100-Day Challenge, Day 20. And ‘Look what THEY have done!’

20 Thursday Jul 2017

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It hasn’t been a great week for the challenge. Fitness wise I haven’t run since Sunday because of the knee, and the (possibly psychosomatic) pain in the back where, until the doctor suggested I should have pain, I didn’t have. Damnit! And I am too easily succumbing to the evening ice cream. What part of “Don’t buy any more!” don’t you understand!

On a better note, I have launched myself into the services I provide, soberingly realising that the social benefits of being an Institute Director, a driving Observer and a Speakers Club President in addition to my own ‘stuff’ mean – additional workload! Well, I never.

For those who know me, rest assured that I deliberately chose those service roles because they involved no physical effort whatsoever (even if my brain sometimes gets fried).

 

Ooh, look what they get!

It’s all kicked off at the BBC, hasn’t it? For those out of the loop, they have voluntarily (!) revealed large pay gaps between male and female presenter/celebs/newscasters, resulting in much debate on other programmes presented by those not earning as much (sic).

Shortly, it will be a legal requirement that businesses with over 250 staff will be forced to publish their pay structures/details, and one suggestion to counter the BBC-initiated but now extended issue of gender/race-related pay gaps ‘in the whole world’ is that ALL business should publish their pay details.

When I was young, my father said, “What I earn and what I pay in tax is my own business”. (He wasn’t a fan of Cliff Richard so he wasn’t talking about bachelorhood.*)

Outside of some public services, where pay IS publicised – like the police service where rates of pay are published, if not individual income – this would mean that everyone would be legally entitled to know what you were being paid. Everyone.

I wonder how that would benefit people? I know that the motive is positive, but like many good-natured ideas, has it been thought through? Imagine schoolyard bullies being able to pick on kids whose parents earn less than theirs. The phone calls to HMRC or Crimestoppers because Fred’s mum is deriving a Range Rover on a private plate and she only earns £21,000 a year so she ‘couldn’t possibly afford it’. The thrifty being asked for charitable donations by chuggers. And so on.

There is an economical tenet to which I subscribe, conditionally. It is that you get paid what you’re worth in terms of service provision. Which is why people who do jobs that ‘anyone can do’ get paid less than jobs which required years of training and effort. After that, the next leveller of pay is the number of people who want to do the job or who could do it – if only 5 people could do a particular job, then the rate of pay would probably be higher than if everyone wanted it – and the lowest bidder would win. That might explain public sector pay. (Hey, I am no economist and this argument may hold no water!)

All of which brings me around to the BBC issue. Notwithstanding the gender/race gap, which is an issue, is it just possible that the service provided by the best-paid talent is paid for at a rate that was agreed by the two parties involved, and was the result of a negotiation from which either side could have withdrawn, thus lowering the proverbial bar for the next applicant? In other words, “I want YOU,” resulted in the response, “Okay, this is what I want” and off they went.

Nothing. Wrong. With. That.

Perhaps the race/gender gap is a reflection of all of the aforementioned factors – plus an unwillingness of some to ask for more. “Life will give to you what you ask of it,” as Tony Robbins espoused.

And for some of those so offended by this issue, I have a question. Do you watch the drivel that is driving this pay up so high?

    I know my place.

*Look it up

100 Day Challenge – Day 3.

03 Monday Jul 2017

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First day at work on the 100 Day Challenge, and it was ‘one of those days’ when urgency was demanded but life got in the way. A job needed to be done that had to be fitted around prior appointments; then the necessary ‘things’ weren’t where they were supposed to be, nor were they where they thought they’d gone, and then miraculously they were back where they’d gone and the job got done. On the he bright side, while travelling from job 2 to job 3 my satnav decided a ‘straight line’ route would be better than a motorway route, so I explored parts of Wales I have never seen before (possibly Stella’s Pontyberry), and drove a spectacular valley route at speeds hitherto unknown for a Hyundai i20. Specifically, 60mph. And the opportunity for some spectacular overtakes.

Arriving home knackered, I still managed a 2-mile run, exercising our youngest family member, who is 5 years old at the weekend. Or 35 plus in dog years. Then it was marking IPI student’s submission, tasks arising, a household task, and then this blog. Soon be 7pm…… and I still have my Roadcraft studies still to do.

I need staff.

The main thing I achieved today was maintaining integrity with my values and mission statement – being patient and productive, particularly when challenged. And complying with my diet objectives.

‘‘You ate…..wisely’.

Philosophy of the Day: “I treat everyone I deal with in the same way that they treat me. Some of them get quite offended when I do that.”

Reboot – I am back.

01 Saturday Jul 2017

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It’s been longer than I thought since I last posted on this blog, and to be frank I am not altogether sure that I had anything meaningfully different to write. That is the trouble with the principle-centred self-leadership field – finding something really new and inciteful tow communicate, or at least finding newer examples to illustrate the philosophies is hard because once you accept the basic premises of a principle-focused life, you realise that they are so simple. It’s executing on those ‘simple’ principles that is so hard.

Or, perhaps put another way, it is conscious execution on those principles that is difficult. Why is this so?

In our day to day work, we do things by habit. Routines, processes, practices and their consequences just ‘happen’ without thought. For example, in my job I take statements of evidence from witnesses, and after 30 years I can do this very, very quickly. My experience tells me what needs to be evidenced. This means I have to give less conscious effort to doing a good job. It just ‘happens’. On the other hand, those things which challenge me have to be consciously attacked if they are to happen. I have to overcome my reluctance to train, or overcome my enthusiasm to eat, for example.

This makes self-leadership a bit harder because in order to ‘feel the buzz’ of having done something principle-centred, one has to know that one has done it, and habit does not feed a sense of accomplishment. What habit can do, however, is raise the bar so that when the buzz IS finally felt, it is because something better has happened.

That drives achievers – that bar being raised so that another achievement makes them better.

When all is said and done (at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, when the rubber meets the road*), even those of us who don’t have the advantage of income, inheritance, geography and talent can still achieve, if only by being the best ‘us’ that we can possibly be. By being good at what we do, being great at ‘how’ we are, and by serving in some capacity. By executing on the Three Resolutions.

I’ll ask you this – are you good in all three dimensions, or two, or even just one? Are you the fittest and slimmest incompetent in the workplace? Are you the best worker who sits at a desk all day because your weight stops you moving about? Do you serve others well, but only when you have the energy and motivation to get out of bed?

That’s where I feel I occasionally fall short. On paper I am good at the Second and Third Resolutions but quite poor at the First. That’s why I am starting a 100-day Challenge during which I intend to improve on my productivity, health, fitness and attitude!

Why 100 days? On the 7th of October 2017 I have committed to providing a public YB12 Keynote talk on Procrastination at the Chepstow Mind and Body Fayre, and that is (was) coincidentally 100 days away from when I committed to do it. I have 100 days to do some serious weight-losing and preparation. Let’s see how I get on, shall we?

Let’s see if I can live in accordance with the contents of my book.

 

(*A colleague used to preface most of his comments with ‘at the end of the day and after 5 days of that I admit I shouted all the others as possible alternatives!

Do what you say, not what I do. After you’ve done what I say, and I do, too.

19 Sunday Mar 2017

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Occasionally, I ask myself what people think about my writing this blog. I wonder if they understand the purpose behind it. It’s simple: like any teacher, I have a desire to (a) tell people about the things that I find interesting, that (b) I would like them to use to their benefit; but also (c) so I can hold myself accountable to the things I ‘preach’. The first of those three is the easy part – the other two are damned hard.

People are reluctant to carry out meaningful self-examination, particularly when they are encouraged by others to do so. They sense judgement, an ulterior motive and, in extreme cases when talking about The 7 Habits, religion – even when all of these, and the other rationales for resistance, are actually absent. It is as if they think, “If I didn’t discover it, it’s dodgy.” Then they discover something and wonder why we apply the same thinking!

The funny thing is – and I refer here specifically to personal and professional development training and advice – the motive is unlikely to be negative. Okay, if I am trying to sell it there will be a perceived self-interest to espousing the principles, but in this field the chances are high that we believe in what we are selling because it did something for us. But what if I am trying to persuade you to just read a book written by someone else? Or providing advice I paid for, but for free? I promote the writing of a personal mission statement, or at least the discovery of a defined set of personal values, and you don’t have to pay for either. You just have to accept that doing so will be of benefit.

The other part – (c) above – is the other motive. I want to be better, I want to hold myself accountable and I want you to hold me accountable. But here’s an important caveat – I want you to hold me accountable to my values and how I define them, not to your values or how you define mine. So if I value fitness, then just because you love swimming does not mean I have to get wet. Make me run, if that is my chosen route to a healthy physiology. Ask me first what my intended route is, and encourage me to take it. Only after doing that might you say, “Have you considered X”, and if I want to know more, tell me then.

Hold me accountable to what I have promised. There’s a big clue on the Personal Mission page of this site. And have a look at your own sense of purpose – or try to discover what it actually is because I bet many people don’t really know.

Just to be clear – in terms of my own MS, this week I will be training someone to drive at an advanced level and representing my industry at a national standards-setting institution 160 miles from chez moi. (I’ll also be trying to diet……)

Apart from your paid work, what will you be doing that is keeping with your values-system this week?

 

Don’t learn TOO much. Find ‘The Way’ that works, then ignore alternatives.

12 Sunday Feb 2017

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I attended a talk last Monday by an excellent speaker, Jamie Denyer, whose presentation included a sobering observation. Once I got past his odd clothing choice – a bit hip-hop for a grandfather living in Swansea – I really enjoyed all of his talk, except that sobering bit. The sobering bit thrown right at me, personally. At least, I thought it was personal. I thought it was personal because the cap did fit and I had to wear it.

He described the individual who buys a personal development book, avidly reads it to the last page, then puts it down and “waits for the magic to work.” Then, when it doesn’t work because they aren’t applying it in a disciplined fashion they go out and buy the next one – and repeat. Then they repeat ad nauseum. He said that this is referred to in the trade as ‘shelf-development’, in that your book shelf gets fitter by holding up all your books.

Ouch. You should see my collection.

When I give talks on self-leadership (yes, fraudulently to some degree), one of the things I tell people is this.

  1. Choose your self-help book carefully. (I recommend The 7 Habits or Awaken the Giant Within, plus a couple of good time management books.)
  2. Apply the content religiously and don’t buy any other book!

There is a personal reason that I do this. I will sit there and read one of my books. I will then think, “This is the system I will now apply.” I will then see another book, listen to another trainer, see a new form, or just have something come to mind when I am walking the dog, and I start to think about how I will apply that instead of what I was already (supposedly) doing. As a result, instead of ‘doing’ I am perpetually ‘thinking about doing’.

The daft thing is – and Stephen Covey wrote about this in The 8th Habit – they are all saying the same thing.

  • They ALL say that taking responsibility for our thoughts is the key to a directed, patient, principled life.
  • They ALL say that having goals and a sense of direction towards a passion is key to a successful life.
  • They ALL say that relationships are important.
  • They ALL say that looking after your body enables success in the former three endeavours.

BUT they all have subtly nuanced alternatives to how to apply the philosophy to the discovery of a purpose and how to define goals.

I have suggested before that success is created by application of self to a simple philosophy.

  1. Know what you want.
  2. Manage your time accordingly.
  3. Communicate with clarity – in and out.

After that, it’s all about method, system and practices. For me, I always come back to Covey’s template because I understand it so well, teach it in schools, and absolutely believe in the systematic approach and principled teaching that it is. You could choose Canfield’s, Robbins’, Ziglars, Hobbs – whoever you like.

But just pick one. It leaves the mind clear for the important stuff. Then apply it with discipline.