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You Have A Legacy To Leave – Your Own Story

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Like many of you I am an unremarkable person. That sounds modest, but I mean it in the sense that I am no celebrity – I am just one of millions of people who do their ‘thing’ on a daily basis, and that ‘thing’ is fairly normal, certainly to those in the same industry and related fields. Such people tell stories to each other and never consider whether, or how much, people outside their fields will find their lives interesting. But we all have a story to tell.

Recently it occurred to me that as much as I loved and respected my father, and we had a very good relationship, my knowledge of who he was “pre-DC” was lacking. I knew he served in WWII as an aircraft mechanic on a Typhoon squadron, and I knew he’d been an electrical engineer with a power supplier until he retired. I had heard a couple of amusing stories, but he died many years ago and I realise I knew less than I should.

I have five beautiful grandchildren. I had my own kids when we were young and they pretty much experienced a lot of my policing life with me, but none of them know the full story. So I decided to write an autobiography. I knew I had a few funny stories to tell and I figured they might find them amusing. So I began. I am 100 pages of A4 in, and I am only up to 1990 – 28 years old. Most of what I have written is based on memory and from before I kept a real diary, so the remaining 32 years are going to fill a lot more pages because i am diarised up the wazoo. And every memory disclosed sparks another tale, regardless of the records, so I keep having to go back and fill an older chapter with a new tale of derring-do – or embarrassment.

And I realised that this is not just an ego-trip – it’s my legacy. Every story can, in some way, provide a life lesson to my descendants.

People tend to provide life lessons when a situation demands, but wouldn’t it always be better to provide the lessons in advance of the challenges they can solve?

This book – which I will publish on Amazon but only so that I can give hard copies to my family, you can ignore it if you want! – will be an opportunity to give my kids the wisdom it took me 60 years to learn. Yes, The Three Resolutions book contains my philosophy on life from which they can learn, but the autobiography will be the background detail as to why I needed them!

My suggestion this week, therefore, is that you consider writing down your own life story so that those who you love, and will love, and who will wonder who you are and what you did, won’t have to listen to vague recollections of others – they can have a first-hand account.

If that isn’t a Legacy, I don’t know what is.

Don’t Be Afraid To Cry. Especially Men.

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I am a traditional male. Not metrosexual. Not a Hipster. Not any of the ‘new man’ alternatives that were designed by people who do not consider themselves ‘just’ men. Each to his own, but ‘my’ idea of a man is someone who’ll back you in a fight, not hang back questioning the morality and whether his hair will get ruffled or his nails scraped. That’s just me – I’m the same age as Jack Reacher, (The book one, not the telly one. There’s been some temporal fiddling going on there.) Not that I’d start the fight, but my criteria for manliness, old-fashioned as it is, is ‘would I be happy if he was my only back up in a scrap?’

But I do have a softer side, and this is the funny thing. I get teary. And this is my list of teary moments.

  1. The last scene in ‘Saving Private Ryan’, where a now elderly Ryan stands over the grave of Lt Tom Hanks and asks his family, “Am I a good man?” (Damn, here I go…….)
  2. The goodbye scene in the movie ‘E.T’. “I’ll be right heeeeeerrreeee.”
  3. Funerals. Anybody’s. I feel the sadness of a life gone by.
  4. My daughters’ births and weddings. I think that’s allowed.
  5. When other people cry on telly in a properly poignant moment. No idea why.
  6. When Mel Gibson, as Lt Col Hal Moore, weeps after the battle at Ia Drang in the film ‘We Were Soldiers’. Made more poignant because the real Hal Moore did exactly that after the actual battle, as he praised the bravery and sacrifice of his men on national TV. (I’m really struggling to see, now.)
  7. The end titles of ‘The Battle of Britain’. Music composer Ron Goodwin’s build-up of strings to brass as they list the losses brings home the sacrifice of young men a third of my age.
  8. ‘Marley and Me’. Can’t watch that.
  9. Artax sinking into the Swamp of Sadness in ‘Never Ending Story’. Moroder’s music did NOT help.
  10. And damn it all, the final scenes of the Bond film ‘No Time to Die’. I’ve known that man since I was 8. And using John Barry’s ‘We Have All The Time In The World’ over it was a killer. And I was in a public place, damnit!

I see no shame in a man crying. It shows some level of understanding and empathy with whatever is causing it. And it shows, I guess, that there is something within said man that underpins his willingness to fight for something that matters, if fighting is needed. If a man didn’t care, then he’d fight for the wrong reason – false, macho, hyped-up patriotism, for example.

I remember 1982. I watched the documentaries as the men left for the Falkland Islands. Singing, “We’re going to the Malvinas, we’re gonna kill a **** or two” at the top of their voices.

And I also saw the documentaries as they came back. Utter silence.

And I wept for their sacrifice – the sacrifice not only of their colleagues and their friends, but also the evident loss of innocence about combat.

Still do, occasionally.

Don’t be afraid to weep.

Buy this book – Be Like Russ.

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Why did you pick up a personal development book?

You are on Amazon or you are in a bookshop, searching in the business or self-help section for one of a few reasons.

  • You’ve tripped over it by mistake. Could be serendipitous, and you’ve accidentally discovered something that piques your interest.
  • You have recently been introduced to the concept of personal development and are exploring available options. You are looking to be better than you perceive you are. This is your first foray in the well of wisdom. Good luck. There’s plenty to see, here.
  • This isn’t your first self-help book. You are an avid reader of this kind of material. You’re addicted to researching the solutions that all your previous reading hasn’t provided. I feel your pain, because I have been there. Like me, you’re into ‘shelf-development’ by accident.
  • You are already successful by all ‘normal’ societal measures but there’s something that you either can put your finger on and you think an answer might be found within these pages, or you can’t put your finder on ‘it’ and you hope to realise what it is as you progress through the chapters. You’d be surprised how many potential readers come under this description.

But do you want to buy and read it, yet? No?

Let’s explore further.

Do you know someone who you think represents your ideal? And why do you think that person is your ‘ideal’?

I had someone in mind when I wrote that question. He was a consummate professional, arguably a leader in his field even though when I really knew him he held low rank in the organisation for which we both worked. He was at the same time one of the most caring supervisors and individuals I had ever known. His name is Russ. I hope you know someone like that.

If you really study people like Russ, you will notice certain things. You’d probably notice that they possess six character traits, and in my book The Three Resolutions I argue that those six traits come under three pairings. Mastery of those pairings will enable you to emulate your ideal and thus become someone else’s representation of ‘great’. Oddly enough, if you look at disgraced celebrities and politicians you will notice the lack of some or more of the same six character traits that make for true greatness.

Do you want to know what they are? Better still, do you want to possess them yourself? Good. But wait a little longer before making the commitment.

What if I said this was a book on ‘the simple, quick way to success?’ Would you buy it then? I certainly hope not.

We should all strive to be the best at what we can do. That is the objective of much of the personal development literature out there, but I think there is one problem with a lot of it.

A lot of the books have a tendency to over-promises and under-deliver. They offer ‘massive’ success, ‘greatness’, an ideal that is all too often defined as rich, famous and accompanied by the lifestyle of millionaires. Which is not to say that isn’t a worthy ambition and that you should never, ever pursue such a goal.

Unfortunately, the sad, sobering truth is that we can’t all be at the top of our respective field, even if we can strive towards that goal. We can’t all be celebrities because don’t all have voices like Katherine Jenkins or Andrea Bocelli, we can’t all act like George Clooney or Tom Hanks, and we can’t all write like J.K. Rowling and Lee Child. We can’t all be immensely rich because there’d be no-one left to do the work that we do. Economics would make all millionaires ‘poor’ if that was even possible. We can’t all run the organisation we work for, because there’d be nobody in the shop floor making the widgets we need to sell in order to pay our salaries.

Which is not to say we can’t try. And I will argue that we all have an inkling of what is required, but many of us tend to avoid actually doing it.

The six character traits under the three ‘headings’ are easy to understand, I assure you. The challenge is that they can be surprisingly hard to do. True greatness doesn’t come about through just pottering at something – it takes some effort, at least. I can’t make it easier to do, sorry and all that. Any author/ trainer/coach who says s/he can, is a liar. A charlatan. A snake-oil salesman.

But what I can do is make it easier to understand the traits, systematically help you see how they inter-relate, and motivate you to do something about what you discover.

Are you willing to consider doing that? To putting in the effort to understand and then actively apply what you read?

Still not convinced? Okay, let me try another tack. What if you don’t buy this book, don’t study its content and leave your success to accident, to other people’s design, or to fortune? What do you think will happen? Could you win a lottery if you haven’t bought a ticket? Can you get a job you haven’t applied for? Can you have a beautiful garden you don’t plant, nurture and maintain? In fact, can you get anything meaningful without taking action towards that end? Without at least doing something? Everything in life requires input if we are going to get output. Everything.

The fact is that while there’s not enough room for everyone to be at the top because the bar is always rising (and what represents talent changes with the mood of the client!), there is no need to be despondent because there is one thing at which we can be best, and once we achieve that we can all have the potential to go for the bigger things.

The one thing at which you can be great is – being the real, best, most competent, nice, disciplined, healthy, slim, helpful, dutiful and ultimately Russ-like ‘you’.

And that’s where The Three Resolutions come in. I invite you to read about them while you’re stuck indoors – and before you’re set free and accidentally default to how things were before.

My Biggest Mistake

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One of my deepest regrets in my professional life relates to a character flaw I had (have?) which was an unintentional, and oddly counter-intuitive effect of having studied the field of personal development, particularly the writings of leadership thought-leader Stephen R Covey.

Those who knew me best overlooked that flaw and saw something which I seemed determined to hide but (at least for them) shone through the cracks in the illusion I’d somehow managed to create.

It was this. Having discovered a sense of self-direction borne of the personal development world, everything that got in its way was annoying. And even if I didn’t say so out loud, which I occasionally did, then I would still somehow manage to communicate that frustration.

For example, in a busy CID office I walked in one morning to the news that my DI had selected me to investigate a vulnerable missing person. He was vulnerable by definition (over 65) but there was no actual fear for his safety. Anyway, that day I had a plan, and the news wasn’t welcome. I rang the DI, who wasn’t in, and left a message about how I was going to comply with his request and ‘then do some proper police work’.

Apparently, I went viral.

Good boss, raised it with my immediate supervisor and I went to apologise. (As an aside, that’s what I mean by ‘people who knew me well’ were able to make allowances.)

With 20/20 hindsight I wish that instead of having a ‘plan’ priority I’d had an ‘excellence’ priority, instead. That instead of moaning and whingeing (while still doing a great job) I did an excellent job in good humour, welcoming the trust and the challenges that were being offered to me. Perhaps I would have achieved just a bit more professionally – I did specialise and I did well, but much later on my hubris – and perhaps unwillingness to absolutely follow the change in political ‘line’ – bit me on the bum.

The same applied at home. If I had a plan and something interrupted it, instant strop. If someone doesn’t do what I ask (reasonable though it may be), I mention it DI-style. Not good for relationships, even if the penalty isn’t quite as drastic as a job loss, for example.

The point is – instead of pausing in the Stimulus-Response Gap and considering that a request was reasonable, do-able, developmental and relationship-building before welcoming those opportunities, I chose conflict. Imagine that – I chose conflict. How dull am I?

After all I have studied, agreed with, understood and desired to apply, I still find a tendency to bite. Not as much as I did, but too late to do anything about those mistakes I made, and to have another chance to learn from them.

Time is a bitch. It won’t move in the direction I need it to.

Anyway, apologies to the offended. It wasn’t personal unless I made it plain that it was.

The message?

Now is the time to adopt a considered, conciliatory approach to work, impositions, interruptions and people. The alternative isn’t worth the lack of effort. (It does make sense.)

Have a great week, everyone. Even those who offended me. Because now – I understand.

Failure is Meaningless – AND Meaningful

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Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist, victim of the Holocaust and author of the most impactive book on a purpose-driven existence (Man’s Search for Meaning), wrote, “Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” In the same vein, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

How true is the life philosophy that such sayings promote? To be frank their veracity can probably be underlined by the fact that so many writers on the subject of personal development and the associated psychologies quote them. But their popularity does not necessarily make them right, any more than Lady Gaga’s views on American politics have a sound academic base because she writes nice songs.*

What is your experience?

My own life is a series of successes, followed by severe disappointments followed by bounce-backs followed by plummeting failure and back again. In fact, if I delve too deeply into my history I’ll probably depress myself – which is okay because I’ll come right back in any case. History says so.

Seriously, most successes have a history of failures to look back on. (Some successes still have those failures to come!) Two good example are Abraham Lincoln – many, many failures in terms of his political ambitions before becoming arguably the greatest US President to date – and Winston Churchill, who was up and down like the proverbial whore’s drawers (best simile I could find, sorry) between:

  • entering Parliament, becoming Home Secretary and being hauled over the coals for personally attending a siege,
  • later First Lord of the Admiralty, resigning over Gallipoli and sending himself to the Western Front,
  • then being constantly carped at over his warning about a famous German painter and decorator before
  • finally being given total command over Britain’s defence during WWII, then
  • voted out of power immediately after victory before
  • becoming PM again at the age of 77 before finally retiring from politics at 81.

Churchill could really have been forgiven for thinking, ‘Bugger all this’ instead of more famously deciding to ‘Keep Buggering On!’

Both these famous men, along with the likes of Gandhi, Malala Yousufzai, Britney Spears, Drew Barrymore and Robert Downey Jr, are testament to the fact that if you have a deep, meaningful reason for doing what you do (and a talent for it that people recognise and appreciate) then the occasional setback – even the really embarrassing ones – need not be your Final Act.

The examples I use – celebrities and politicians – may not have had to deal with quite the levels of Nietzsche’s ‘what’ that Frankl suffered (concentration camp bereavements and horrible experimentation visited upon his person) but ultimately they had a sense of purpose that drove them through the pain and back towards success. As some sage put it – “When you’re going through Hell, keep going.” (I’d say Ducky from NCIS but I think he pinched it).

I’m still really awaiting my next comeback after my last setback, but it’ll come. Meanwhile I have a sense of meaning that revolves around my grandchildren and their parents. (Is that order somehow symbolic?) I am lucky in that income isn’t a big issue – not rich, but secure – and maybe one day all this writing will ‘pay’ off. But if it doesn’t I’m still going to try.

I’m going to try because The Third Resolution drives even the biggest failures towards optimism. It drives me and it serves others – even if they haven’t been served yet. They’ll come around when they need me.

Which reminds me, the grandkids are coming around and I need to brace myself……..

*She may well have a degree in politics but THAT will be why her views have strength, not because she has a Poker Face.

The Daily Win.

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I’ve said it before, so I’ll say it again. All those Californian, rich(ish) personal development speakers and writers and their ‘Rise at 5AM and exercise’ freaks are invited to come and live where I do in South Wales, where it’s easier to pick up the dog eggs in the garden at 6AM because they’re rock hard with ice. Where the idea of a home gym is fine if you live with a spare room big enough for a running machine or static bike, said room being centrally heated to at least ‘bearable’ for that early effort. And where going to bed early so as to get a decent kip before getting up at 5AM isn’t easy because the road and neighbours aren’t 100 yards away and are living their noisy lives while you try to drop off. And fitness clubs remain an expensive luxury.

Which is not to say that exercising is impossible. So far this calendar year, with the exception of the 1st and the 9th, I have exercised daily. Furthermore, with two exceptions, I have done so as soon as I got out of bed. Which, lucky me, is 7.30AM because I ain’t got a proper job.

I have a spin bike, a relatively inexpensive yet reliable (3 years so far) model. I have a mount (thank you Santa) for a 7” tablet through which I watch YouTube videos which inform, entertain or anger depending on the day’s choice. And a garden shed to put it in. There simply is no room in the main dwelling. You see, I am not a financial success like all those 5AM loonies. I am a moderate professional success on that I have always been employed doing work I enjoy, on the public purse in their service. So none of that ‘earn twice as much, work half as hard’ twaddle that Brian Tracy and Jack Canfield promote – which is valid for the entrepreneur or commission-paid individual but not the vast majority of us. If I wanted to earn twice as much as a copper I’d have had to work 76 hour weeks AND ask permission, first.

Each of us loves in his or her own circumstances, which do not necessarily reflect those described by such writers. Some do. Lucky them.

Back to me.

What gets me out of bed at 7.30AM, or more specifically onto the bike at 7.40AM, is The First Resolution. ‘To overcome the restraining forces of appetites and passions, I resolve to work on self-discipline and self-denial.’ I don’t want to ride a bike first, but it would be rude of a promoter of such a concept not to try. So that’s what gets me up. My Integrity. Doing the things I don’t like to do because (a) they serve me and (b) I said I would. If only to myself.

I should also be up front and state that it doesn’t work every day. If I don’t sleep well I’d make the next day worse, not better, if I self-flagellated with exercise before starting work. (I can always exercise afterwards, if I feel up to it.) But here, the point isn’t to apply self-discipline to the point of self-punishment. That’s a route to failure.

But I will also add that doing that exercise first, and educating myself while I do so, sets me up for the day exactly as Stephen Covey promotes in his books. He calls it the Daily Private Victory and to be fair, that’s as good a description of that process as any. It is (as he also puts it) mind over mattress. Long term gain over short term discomfort. Many cliches, all accurate.

I get up. I go out into the cold shed and exercise.

I win. The rest of the day is a breeze.

So much so, this took 15 minutes to write. In the flow. And with integrity – nothing I write is a lie to myself or to my reader. Whoever you are.

Be disciplined. But be disciplined early. Ish.

I never heard David Frost swear.

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We all have an ego. Most of us would prefer to use the expression ‘self-esteem’ because for some reason it lessons any sense of self-importance implied by the shorter word. Ego is a perfectly good term and its strength lies somewhere along a continuum that runs from ‘inert’ to ‘huge gravitational pull.’ I suppose that an ideal strength-level for a reasonable ego would be self-confidence borne of principled competence and character (and thus representative of compliance with The Second Resolution).

Some, however – usually those most vociferous and combative on Twitter in my experience – suffer from an excess, an over-confidence borne from being right, once, then venerated for it regardless of their actual knowledge or character. Or they have truly, expertly specialised in one field only to be asked their opinion on things well outside their Circle of Influence – and they freely give it, uninformed as it may be.

To my mind you can often tell the difference between modest, controlled, ‘self-respect’ level ego and the ‘ooh, look at how clever I am’ ego merely by watching a conversation (verbal or Twittery) take place.

A comment is made, and the reply is:

  • a straightforward attack with no effort to address the argument originally made (huge ego),
  • a question with an evident sub-text (high ego),
  • or a genuine question or provision of alternative, researched facts (principled ego, which is borne of a desire to check or clarify understanding).

 (Another weird one I have seen is when someone genuinely knows something and asks someone else ‘am I right in thinking…..’. That might not seem egotistical on first glance but in that case the sub-text is ‘Tell me again how clever I am.’)

Have you committed any of the sins described, or do you try as hard as I do to be in the third group? I am not always successful. Sometimes I have missed a crucial point and go off on one. But in the main I try to be in group 3, asking questions to seek clarification or providing some kind of reference for my thinking.

Unfortunately there are also those who you know will make their same arguments, or attacks. You know this, in the main, by the language they use about their opponents in the debate. Reference to people they have never met by the various insults available just demonstrate how ignorant, rude and ideological they are. A case in point.

In the 1980s a new, alternative comedy arose. On the face of it, great. No more stereotype humour based on race, religion or mothers-in-law. Meanwhile, lampooning silliness on the part of politicians remained de rigeur. Then the pendulum swung the other way, and now the abuse is directed by name, using words which were banned from use on TV until the late 70s. Politicians are no longer just lampooned for their acts. They are call the c-word. By name. They are fat-shamed, which wouldn’t be permitted against fellow celebs or the public, as a rule.

The comedians responsible for that should be ashamed of themselves. Some of them are exceptionally talented, funny gagsters. But I now find myself turning the off as soon as they start their ideological diatribes, and definitely move on when their personal abuse starts.

I hope their egos can cope. They must need a garage or second home for them.

If your objective has any nobility about it, you don’t need the language. You certainly don’t need the language if your argument has any merit. If you have any character, you don’t need the ego-boost of looking clever by bandying bad language at those who, much as you might think otherwise, can’t hit back using the same weaponry.

Although to be frank, I look forward to the day I hear Boris Johnson call Russell Howard a c**t.

The Christmas Excuse. Bin it.

22 Tuesday Dec 2020

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Here we go again. ‘Tis the season to be merry, and in that spirit I anticipate entry into the annual merry-go-round that is the promise that “I’ll do it when we get Christmas out of the way,” I say merry-go-round because without any doubt whatsoever you know someone who says that and then, immediately after Christmas, replaces that festival with ‘New Year’, ‘Half-term’, ‘Easter’, ‘kid’s exams’, ‘the holidays’, ‘new school year’ and ‘we’re back to Christmas’. I do. I’ve forgotten what our oak dining table looks like, it’s been used as a laundry depot for so long. That’s other people dealt with. Now you/me.

These promises parallel the traditional New Year’s Resolutions, promises made to ourselves in respect of which we excuse inaction for similar reasons. This year I suspect it’ll be, “Well, New Year’s Day is a Friday, and I’ll be sleeping the night off. Then it’s the weekend so I won’t start then. I’m back at work on Monday the 4th, I’ll give it the beans then. Oh, look at all this work that built up because of my Christmas excuse, I’ll just get that out of the way….” And the failure loop spins ever onwards.

That’s the easy option, the comfortable one. The one that almost relies on stuff to happen so that we can excuse the lack of the one thing that changes everything*.

Self-discipline.

There is a continuum that runs from ‘things we like to do’ to ‘things we hate doing’. As the line runs from left to right, the levels of discipline required to do those things rises exponentially. People applaud the successful athlete and artiste, and it is true that the greats have imposed self-discipline on themselves, but I believe that their self-discipline is a reflection of the fact that they are doing what they love. It’s minimally required.

I believe in this motto:

Self-discipline is doing the things you don’t want to do because doing them serves you; Self-Denial is NOT doing the things you want to do, because doing them does NOT serve you.

To me, that couplet defines part of the route to success in any endeavour. Not all of it, because character and competence play an extremely important role as well.

In essence, the time we spend fighting against having to make the choice to do/not do what is under consideration would be better spent elsewhere.

Which means that immediately ‘Christmas is OVER’ you decide what levels of discipline you are willing to exercise in each of the roles you play in the great movie called Life, and then you start executing on that choice vigorously. Make the Hard Choice, or more pertinently Make the Harder Choice. When you don’t want to do something that you’ve decided serves you and that you privately committed to doing – Do It. Do It Now.

Author Mel Robbins wrote a whole book about the idea that when you think, “I have to….” Then you count down 5-4-3-2-1 and then just do it. I have used this to get out of bed on a cold morning, among other, more challenging choices. You can use it to go for a run, clean the car, actually do the things you said you’d do ‘after Christmas.

The time and mental effort you save will astound you.

Happy Christmas. Enjoy the break – you have a lot to do when it’s over.

(*Stephen Covey Jr says that is Trust, but my experience tells me otherwise.)