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Save your children!

19 Wednesday Feb 2020

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Dearly beloved, today’s lesson comes from the Book of Principle-Centred Leadership, Chapter 12, pages whatever (Kindle doesn’t paginate).

Don’t you just love it when you think a profound thought – and then read a book by a great writer who expresses exactly the same idea? Maybe with better prose, but identifying the same concept, nevertheless?

I have suggested in the past that success is basically the result of excellent time management and effective communication, and in the aforesaid book, Stephen Covey suggested that a successful family life is the result of those two skills. Okay, he adds problem-solving as a third competence but two out of three ain’t bad.

Covey proposes that time management, or rather the ability to lead and manage ourselves in the context of the time available and our relationships, is essential if we aren’t to waste time NOT doing those things that create what we define as success. He proposes that the ability to be clear in communication is also key – clearly saying what we mean, ensuring that we understand what others mean, and even getting so good at communication that we hardly have to speak at all. And developing the skill to solve problems, which is based on asking four questions.

  1. Where are we now?
  2. Where do we want to be?
  3. How will we get there?
  4. How will we know we’ve got there?

Which, to be frank and to return ‘his’ three skills back to matching my two and making me feel smug all over again, is basically the formula for setting a Goal – in this case, setting the Goal of Solving the Problem. And goal setting firmly comes under the time management heading. So there.

Can you think of any problem that isn’t solved by asking those four questions? Even if the problem is solved in three seconds flat, the solver undergoes that process even if they don’t realise it.

David Allen, in his book ‘Getting Things Done’ also outlines how we unconsciously undergo a ‘Natural Planning Method’ when we plan even the simplest of projects, which scientists have analysed into Project Management ‘science’. Everything complicated started out as something simple. We just make it harder because we’re sooooo clever. Which might explain why, in 2021, it takes years to implement any idea that used to take weeks. Discuss.

Given that Stephen Covey and I are so clever, one has to ask (as a client, employer or individual):

Why don’t they teach time management, communication and generic problem solving to young people in school?

Imagine an organised student able to express him- or herself with patient sentence construction, who has a plan to achieve what is expected of them as well as what they want to achieve as a person, who sees a problem as a relatively simple A to B issue that s/he has time and resources to solve. Instead of just telling them stuff we want them to regurgitate in December and May.

It seems strange how we expect people to know this stuff without teaching it.

Buy this book and give it to your kids!

7HT

 

What’s the Point?

18 Tuesday Feb 2020

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That was close. This morning I was driving my car to the tip for my umpteenth delivery of packaging from a house re-do, listening to Jack Canfield’s ‘The Success Principles’ (good book) and bemoaning the fact that ‘No-one is reading my posts’, when what was saying struck a chord. He spoke of the obstacles to our success, the benefits of feedback, and what we should do about both.

And it hit home. I was concerned about lack of readers on this blog, and the feedback from an earlier post suggested I wasn’t reaping the benefits for which I fervently hoped, which was leading me to think it wasn’t really worth the effort. Which was an act that was monumentally stupid of me. (It’s a repeating theme, apparently.)

Jack’s chat made me review my paradigm of the situation. My conclusion was that the number of readers was important but it wasn’t the sole benefit of writing a daily blog. (Yesterday I was just plain busy, BTW.)

I am a communicator, a writer, a trainer. I realised that this blog wasn’t ‘just’ there to be read by others. It has another benefit.

It’s practice.

It’s a daily opportunity to think about things, to cogitate, to consider, and to discuss. It’s my 5-times-weekly chance to craft my thinking and writing skills. It’s a time for improved learning on how to express ideas in such a way as to educate, entertain and empower. It’s mission-focused, values-driven and service-oriented.

It’s congruence in action.

I’ve written before about looking for the alternative value that makes a dichotomy easier to resolve (see this post), but on this occasion it was the alternative value that found me. The value that I was focused on was a ‘moving away from’ value – egotism. People didn’t love me so I wouldn’t waste further time on the matter. The value that poked my conscience was a ‘moving towards’ value, and this was Integrity – people don’t have to love me for my stuff to be important enough to put into print.

What is stopping you from achieving something you need or want to complete?

Is that something really true or are you just making an excuse? If the latter I won’t judge you because I feel like that a lot of the time. But occasionally a thought just peeks its head into my mind, or I consciously read my Mission or Values Statements and recognise my need to get it done. Which creates a reinvigorated ‘want’ to get it done.

Whichever works in the moment.

The heading asks, “What’s the Point?”

Don’t ask that question as if you’ve already decided there isn’t one.

Look a bit harder, it’s there.

Half a Life. That’s all you have left….. if you aren’t careful.

14 Friday Feb 2020

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The Half-Life. A physics term identifying how long a radioactive element/isotope takes to lose half its mass through decay. For example, the half life of uranium being from 159,200 years to 4.5 billion years, one kg of uranium will become 500g in 159,200 years or so (!), but that 500g will only become 250g in the next 159,200 years. Simples.

But there is another HalfLife, the one proposed by Stephen Covey, who opined that the Half Life of a career is as little as 2 years, and what he meant was that in just 2 years the currency of your professional knowledge is reduced by half if you don’t maintain competence (Second Resolution). I know from my own experience, after returning to work after an 18-month post-retirement absence, that a lot of new mnemonics and practices had been created while I was gone. I was still competent to do a lot of stuff but I would have needed some retraining to get back up to full speed. Which is why, when it was appropriate, I chased up the training I required.

A surprising number of people object to on-the-job training and to attending courses. I know that some of their reluctance is down to a perceived interruption to the work that they are already doing, that mounts up inexorably while they are away and, occasionally, the belief that the training is unnecessary and irrelevant. We had a saying in the police:

“That was a three-week course crammed into six.”

But if we are to stay relevant, if we are to provide the best possible service, we have to keep up with developments within our selected professions if we aren’t to become redundant-but-still-present.

The problem with being redundant-but-still-present is that it can all too quickly turn into ‘just’ redundant. Being on top of your game and staying on top of your game aren’t distinct processes – they are the same thing. What’s more, by properly engaging in the training you are offered, you start to develop the ability to influence that training – to make sure it IS relevant and appropriate rather than a tick-box exercise.

I do chuckle at CPD that requires ticking a box that you read something. Who actually reads something if all you have to do is declare you read it? Well, the ethical do, but that isn’t all of us, is it?

Look upon training as a development opportunity, and opportunity to ask questions, and an opportunity to have a bit of a rest from the daily grind of that real work you’re worried will come back and bite you.

Of course, the ability to do the latter, to relax during a course while other work isn’t getting done, requires that you apply some of the time management advice of the kind I promote.

So welcome training, seek it out, maximise its effectiveness and utilise what you learn as quickly after the training as is possible.

Or that career you thought you had for ever might just be half as long as you expected.

 

Time Management Training is available HERE.

PTM Pic

 

From Manly Macho Man to Man of Meaning. Why take so long?

13 Thursday Feb 2020

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I am a Man. I’d go as far as to say I am a Manly Man, insofar as I try to be the stoic man-of-action when/if the situation demands. I have had fights and car chases ‘in the name of the law’ although I’ve never asked anyone to stop for that reason. (I did hear someone do that, once, and I cringed.) I have climbed cliffs, done a racing driver’s course, served in HM Forces, and I have experienced many other things that one might associate with the term ‘macho’.

I still, occasionally, would like to do some of that stuff again. I am 58.

Yet just lately, my cultural tastes have changed. Despite all that manliness (I have an exceptionally hairy chest – and back – and I’ll leave you with that image), I no longer seek out war films, I have exceptional problems with the end of E.T., and am in bits when Private Ryan, U.S. Army (Retd.) asks, “Have I been a good man? at the end of the film bearing his name.

And one of the nicest films I have seen of late was ‘The Way’, which was about Martin Sheen walking a religiously significant route across El camino de Santiago, in the Pyrenees. The plot revolves around how his son is killed on the first day of his walk along the route, and Dad elects to take his son’s ashes along the walk for him. Hardly ‘The Dambusters’ (man film, obligatory viewing for all male children – and why didn’t MS Word recognise that term? WHY??).

The truth is that like most ‘blokes’, I suspect that as we mature we start to see that all the fun we had doing blokey stuff was just that – fun – and it’s time to think about more important things like family, legacy, principles and so on.

Which is why I think that many people in the machismo/action ‘field’, and men in particular, seem to dismiss and resist the idea of reading books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People until they are middle-aged. Which is a waste of about 30 years.

When you start to get a bit older, you get a little more mature, mentally. For some sooner than others, I might add. And you start to realise that there is more to existence than just you. Your children stop being funny little human puppies and start needing serious help in their lives. You start to notice how people do stupid things on our roads and admit that you used to do them. You stop worrying about spending your hard-earned cash and start thinking about how it will benefit your spouse and kids. You volunteer to be designated driver and you question the future hearing capability of the teenager driving past you with the ‘BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMP’ so loud inside the car that it actually drowns out the ‘BRRRRRRAAAAAPPPPPP’ coming from the excessively large exhaust.

You suddenly realise that the life of living has turned to a desire to have a life of meaning. And you also realise that time is running out.

Instead of waiting until you’re 50 to discover what you’ve missed, try reading this book, or ones like it, early enough to be able to have fun while living a life of meaning. Have you noticed that the ‘better’ celebrities do that? They have fun and still contribute, while some (the a-holes) just have fun, and they soon become figures of hate and derision.

That book in particular, and many others like it, are valuable reading when you reach that ‘age of maturity’ that differs for all of us.

But wouldn’t it be great if the contents were routinely taught in school?

Never too old for an AHA! Moment.

12 Wednesday Feb 2020

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As I indicated yesterday, my afternoon was spent regaling a crowd of mature people with my reminiscences and observations on policing, 1986 and 2020 style. During that talk, I spoke of how, in the ‘olden days’ of 34 years ago, training of officers was based on laws and practices of law enforcement and how, in the mid-1990s, the focus swung its pendulum from that and more towards teaching diversity. Now, that was an exaggeration and the example I used was how detailed and deep training on The Theft Act was now 7 pages of the training material, whereas diversity was 14. Which might explain why coppers can’t investigate without the internet, any more. 😊

My point, poorly made, was to show how diffusion of training to soft skills had an effect on law enforcement.

Afterwards, two people came up to me and challenged me on the basis that (they heard) I’d said diversity training wasn’t important which was not my intention. It became clear that one lady – an equalities trainer – had an expertise in this area that I did not, but it also meant she had a passion on the subject which I will never match. As Covey said, “One man’s mission is another man’s minutia.”

I countered her ‘need for training’ with a ‘just be nice to everybody’ argument, but then person number two said – and this made me really think – ‘Some people need to be taught how to be nice.’

Now THAT was an argument that I’d never considered, but it made sense. An AHA! Moment.

I come from the school of thought borne of the First Habit ‘ Be Proactive’ which promotes the idea that we all have an ability to choose our response to stimuli. This means that when someone (person 1?) tells me that poverty causes crime/stabbings, I respond, “Doesn’t have to, therefore it is not an excuse.”

But person 2’s statement really piqued my interest. I guess some people DO have to be taught how to be nice.

Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t believe we need three day courses on other cultures to be nice. I believe we simply have to have a half-day course to suggest that other cultures exist, and people may not see things the way I do – but I may not see things the way they do, either.

But in these times of polarity, how about having learned and understood that, instead of screaming every time someone inadvertently transgresses (or tells what is clearly a joke), we try forgiving them and politely asking them, once, not to do it again.

THAT is how you build bridges – not by bombing the other side of the river.

So while person 1’s attack and demand that I understand – no, actively AGREE with – her point didn’t work, that one sentence from person two, which was not directed AT me but FOR me, made me think.

I still don’t believe that ‘poverty’ is an excuse for criminality, but I can see how an upbringing that isn’t all it could be can explain distrust and an argumentative nature. And for that reason I’d love it if the sociologists would stop spreading the ‘poverty is a reason and therefore an excuse for crime’ meme and try, instead and with the same end, the ‘you are not a product of your environment unless you choose to be – and if you choose crime you choose the consequences’ argument.

And teach it in schools, before it’s too late.

If I had a big lottery win…….

Martin Luther King? Meh.

11 Tuesday Feb 2020

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This afternoon I will be giving a talk to members of an organisation celebrating the Third Age, with no idea of the numbers – although 104 13-year-olds is my record.

If you recall, last Thursday I proposed and encouraged the concept of Third-Person Teaching to readers, and this ‘giving talks’ is the result of my adherence to the idea. Many moons ago I was offered the opportunity to teach self-development material to my peers, and the one experience that I lacked was public speaking. I knew the material but I’d not really been heavily involved in speaking to large audiences and I knew that I wold be expected to do exactly that if I entered the world of training. I knew the stuff – I just hadn’t preached it afore.

My first port of call was a local Speakers Club, which welcomed me and over the next few months developed me. But it was Day 1 that amazed me.

I was asked to introduce myself, and so I did. And as I sat down I remember thinking, “That was GREAT!” Admittedly, the subject I had spoken upon was my favourite – me – but their encouragement and a feeling (on my part) that my presentation had ‘flowed’ imbued within me an enthusiasm for speaking. Which was just as well because they volunteered me to talk for two minutes on ‘sycophancy’, the sods. Blew them away.

There is a theory that people fear speaking in public more than death. I recognise that speaking with no preparation and with no notice can be challenging, even though that last one’s happened to me three times and I have more than coped. But if you know your subject and how you are going to put it across – have fun doing so! If you can talk in a group of three – and we all gather around the water fountain and gossip – then you can talk to a group of a hundred. You just have to ‘not whisper’.

I encourage you, therefore, as part of your professional and personal development, to go to a local speakers’ club and see just how ‘normal’ the members are – normal, yet able to enthral an audience with both prepared and ad hoc speeches.

You may never have to make a training presentation, but I’d gamble that you all have clubs you might wish to direct, children whose weddings need your input, best man speeches to deliver – public speaking is common, and it is not hard.

But a very important consideration is this – when you have to prepare a talk, you learn. When you learn, you discover new ways of thinking, and you start to develop an open mind that sees through waffle and ‘the reality of the matter is’ and realise that some public speakers are just semi-professional liars. You also realise that although Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech was magic, his delivery was a bit OTT. He’d get marked down at Speakers Club, I’m telling you.

The only caveat I have is this.

Gestures are encouraged at Speakers Clubs. Appropriate gestures. Not this constant hand waving seen by people sitting down on panel shows. For goodness’ sake people, you’re not lecturing or acting, you’re just answering a bloody question. Hand waving is not required.

Another benefit is you stop saying, “I mean” and “Sort of” and “Kind of” and “obviously” because you start to think before you speak, instead of after. Oh, wonderful thing!

If you just learn that, people will be grateful.

If you don’t think you’re good enough…..

10 Monday Feb 2020

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Stephen Covey’s son-in-law, as I understand it a medical student at the material time, was asked in an interview, “If being considered for surgery, would you prefer your doctor to be a man of good character, or of great competence?

The response provided was considered. “If I needed the surgery, I would want the super-competent surgeon. But if it was a question of whether I needed the surgery, I’d want the one of character.”

Good answer. But still arguably incomplete.

As I review The Three Resolutions book, and by simple virtue of the fact that I constantly review Covey’s written and spoken works (good ol’ YouTube!) I discovered yet another thought-provoker. It was about the relationship between character and competence (the Second Resolution).

In my book, I write about the progressive nature in which The Three Resolutions are applied, and the impression may be that the one leads to the next and that they are in some way separate, which is not so. They are a continuum, so the crossover from one to the next is more of a blurred edge than a fence, if you will. The same goes on the ‘separation’ between the traits linked at each level – self-discipline and self-denial are linked, not separate characteristics, for example.

Therefore, character and competence are also linked, with blurred edges and ‘bleed’ through from one to another and to the higher levels of purpose and service.

To illustrate how they are interdependent, consider how having good character means better decisions, which in turn feeds better performance (competency). Imagine those two doctors addressing the concerns of the patient. The greedy one who is super-competent might agree that the surgery is necessary, but his self-interest trumps that of the patient every time. His poor character might not affect the decision to have the surgery, but it might affect a decision during the surgery, which means he may, super-competently, do something completely unnecessary and risk the patient’s welfare. Not in terms of life or death, perhaps, but any decision made by a person of poor character is suspect. You know that. You’ve probably experienced it!

The person of good character, having concluded the surgery is necessary, is the surgeon who calls in the super-competent dodgy doc – but supervises his operation because she knows that he is suspect. Her good character means she recognises where her skills aren’t as good as his, but she doesn’t abandon her responsibility for her patient to the man of poor character.

When it comes to producing results, the two – competence and character – are inextricably interlinked but they do not, necessarily, have to exist in one person. They can exist within a carefully, ethically managed team. One that communicates, and one that knows the strengths and weaknesses within itself – and manages them in such a way as to make the weaknesses of individuals irrelevant to the whole team.

From a time management perspective this means that doing things right the first time, as a result of an individual with both great character and super competence or as a result of a team possessing those traits between them, saves a lot of do-overs, apologies, law-suits and recriminations. That is a LOT of time saved!

Endeavour to possess both character and competence but recognise when you lack the latter and seek the complementary strength required to fill that gap.

Ain’t no shame in that.

Awaken The Woke!

07 Friday Feb 2020

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I have a huge, qualified distaste for ‘woke’. Every time I hear someone doing something that sits squarely under the ‘woke’ headline, I cringe.

I don’t cringe because of the motive behind Woke. The motives are, on the face of it at least, generally positive. There is nothing wrong with accepting diversity (but why do we have to ‘celebrate’ it if the desire is to make it the norm?), gentle environmentalism, respect for other cultures. But how it’s executed is often extremist, and therefore annoying – even alarming. In the examples below I am speaking of the Extreme Woke, not (for example) the lady who challenges a sexist comment.

In the field of coaching, and more specifically in the field of Seven Habits coaching, there are some presuppositions, just as there are in NLP training. Presuppositions are the ‘unquestioned’ bases for the philosophy being promoted by the coach. I put unquestioned in quotes because one of the presuppositions is that only Principles are undeniable – everything else is up for debate.

The pre-suppositions include:

The Concept of Paradigms. The Woke do not believe that any other ways of seeing things exist but their own. They cannot be wrong. They cannot even be partly mistaken. They are already right. End of.

Circles of Concern. The Woke have a Circle of Concern that envelopes everything. They have an opinion on everything despite rarely being expert in anything. In fact, they believe their Circle of Influence dwarfs their Circle of Concern, such is their Wokeness.

Taking Responsibility. The Woke thinks that everyone else around them should take responsibility for the feelings of The Woke, and they must bend over backwards to serve The Woke’s sensibilities. Safe spaces, FGS.

Be Proactive. This is where we take a moment between stimulus and response to choose – yes, choose – our response. Many of The Woke just seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to any questioning of their thinking and consider shouting down and interruption to be their right. A right that they do not provide to others, who must be non-platformed just for thinking a different way.

Seeking First to Understand. The Woke have their conclusions and they will not be questioned or asked to explain. If someone dares to do so, they conduct a metaphorical ‘hands over years, nah nah nah=nah-nah’ technique to drown them out.

Think Win-Win. The Woke believe in their way, or the highway.

The Concept of Service. The Woke have a concept of service that stops at protestation. They write, they march, they shout, then they go home. By virtue of their youth or position they are usually unable to actually do anything about a problem BUT demand someone else solves it. Preferably with someone else’s money and time. Oh, and it must be done NOW.

The Seven Habits philosophy is about taking responsibility for the things you can and should do something about. They are about having a sense of mission that creates results. They are about understanding other ideas without necessarily agreeing with them, and they are about serving others using our talents and skills. Paradoxically, they are also about listening to the Woke.

If The Woke started applying the Seven Habits, I suspect they’d be (a) less loud and (b) more successful.

Do please pass this on to any Woke that you know. You can often recognise them by the way they take huge, fuax-offence at things that have nothing to do with them.

 

 

Here’s to trainers and teachers. The GOOD ones, anyway.

06 Thursday Feb 2020

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Today, I will end this post with a blatantly stolen question from a Seven Habits workbook – from version 1, pre-1997. I am proud/ashamed (delete as applicable) to say I have a copy of all four, progressive versions of the said workbook, plus their one for policing. I am a Seven Habits nerd. And proud of it.

Trainers. Occasionally pointed at with the comment, “Those who can, do, while those who can’t, teach.” What an arrogant and incorrect paradigm.

In my experience, yes, there may be some who go into training to avoid work. Of course, having done so they realise the amount of work they have to do in order to teach.

But the motive for many must be, “I enjoy what I have learned and what I am doing, so I want to teach others for two reasons. Firstly, to make them better and secondly – to make me better.”

Stephen Covey was the author who introduced (at least to me) the concept of Third Person Teaching. And what a powerful idea.

He proposed that the best way to learn by far, is to teach. Which means when we learn, we must prepare ourselves to teach others what we are learning. This requires attentive listening, a probing mind – and a willingness to stand by what we have learned if we wish to teach it. For example, I couldn’t and wouldn’t have sought to teach teenagers and colleagues The Seven Habits if I had not believed in them, and if I did not wish to live by them. (Okay, I’m still trying…….)

If you listen or watch one of Covey’s lectures on YouTube, you may see or hear the one where he tells the audience on round tables that the person sitting at 6 o’clock will be expected to teach his next concept when he finishes talking, at which those at 6 o’clock desperately squirm and wriggle their chairs towards 5 and 7.

Teaching is hard if you don’t know what it is your expounding, but it is exceptionally hard to teach something you don’t believe in. But when you do believe in it, the information flows, and queries are answered with clarity and aplomb. When you live it, half the lesson is planned and presented even before you pick up a pen or start talking.

So have some respect for trainers who have lived what they are teaching you. They have learned what works and what does not, and they are willing to put their character on the line to show you the better way.

On the other hand, beware trainers who just regurgitate what someone else has told them to say. I recall several ‘debates’ with trainers who tried to instil blind obedience to ‘their’ input, when I could show them they were wrong. It seemed in that particular organisation that a questioning mind wasn’t a prerequisite for a trainer, and it wasn’t welcomed in a student. Unfortunately, I have one, and I also back it up with professional qualifications. Which, for someone training ME, can be a minefield. 😊

I think it soon becomes evident when a trainer is regurgitating, and when a trainer believes in what they are teaching. Learn to spot the difference, and always be mindful that the easier it looks – the harder the effort that was put in to make it that way.

Now, that question. Who will you teach about Three-Person Teaching?

Now, go teach someone about this and see how quickly you go back to Line 1……..

 

What I teach.

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Must try harder…..

05 Wednesday Feb 2020

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Why do I focus this blog on time management when I have written a better book on personal development? Good question.

In total, I have written four books. The first two were related to my profession, specifically investigation and, as a sub-genre, Tracing Wanted and Missing Persons. They were based on my training and experiences and the latter was a field in which I excelled locally, according to some of my peers. They were fairly easy to research and to write.

The third one that I wrote was on time management, you would not be surprised to read. It focused on the field of policing because no-one teaches police officers and staff how to manage their time, despite recommendations by the Home Office that they ought to. Also, easy to write, and just as valid for non-police officers (for whom I recently edited out police references, but then I changed my mind and edited it back.).

The last, which I am currently revising, is The Three Resolutions. This is a personal development ‘philosophy’ based on a single chapter in one of Stephen Covey’s works and one which I am proud of. But here’s the thing, and it’s the reason I don’t blog so much about it – until now, perhaps.

That reason is – the advice in it is the hardest with which to comply.

Personal development has its easy tricks and shortcuts, like any activity, but applying the content of The Three Resolutions is hard. It’s hard because it speaks of self-discipline. It’s hard because it requires character. It’s hard because it promotes service to others as a route to success. Even for the bloke what wrote it. Especially for the bloke what wrote it.

Sometimes I think that the standards that are the hardest to meet are – our own.

When others lay down standards they usually supplement their instructions with ‘how’ to comply. When we write our own we just assume we know how to comply.

When others set standards, they watch over us and enforce compliance. When we set our own standards, only we watch over them.

When we fail to meet others’ standards, there is a consequence. When we fail to meet our own, we rationalise that there are no consequences.

But we’re wrong. So, so wrong.

When we fail to meet our own standards we feel guilt. Conscience, which we told to tell us when we fail to act according to our own values, reminds us when we dither and procrastinate over what we agreed, with ourselves, was ‘best’.

All that said, the reasons I wrote The Three Resolutions are twofold. First, I liked the field and the best way to learn something is to teach it. But second, and maybe more important, was the desire to act in accordance with the contents.

I regularly fail, but at the same time I occasionally succeed. Those are the great days. The ones where I don’t quite make it – still great, because I try.

You can decide not to bother to be great, so all days will be mediocre but satisfying because you’ve achieved ‘average’. But I prefer to at least try.

Where are you on the ‘don’t care – trying a bit – trying hard’ continuum? Join me at this end…….

 

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