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Tag Archives: Man Utd

Why I am writing my autobiography – and you should, too.

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Posted by threeresolutionsguy in General

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author, autobiography, book, Man Utd, memoirs, seven habits, time management, Trump

I am currently engaged in writing my autobiography. I am not a person of great public note, but I recently found myself making a speech about my beloved father, who passed away in 2002, and in doing so I realised just how little I knew about him. I knew what we’d done together over the years, of course, but apart from a few stories about his war-time experiences – and I mean a few, as he seldom spoke of them – I didn’t know much about ‘him’. I decided that I would not leave my kids and grandkids wondering who I was and what I did. So I began writing.

I thought I would do about a hundred pages, but owing to having been a police officer I possessed about forty notebooks for work experiences, supported by about twenty years’ worth of planning systems and diaries with associated entries, plus the occasional journal writings. As of today I’m probably well over the 300-page mark, and I’m only up to 2005.

It occurred to me that we all have a story to tell. I bet, when you’re out with your friends, you tell personal stories as a matter of course. Sometimes you’re the trigger for someone else’s stories, and a competition begins over who has the better tale to tell. (Although I do hate it when someone presages their story with ‘the best one was’ and follows that sentence with an utterly uninteresting and badly told fable.)

It would be true to say that I have two intended audiences – my family, and my old colleagues. Those colleagues will all have similar stories to mine – some will be more interesting, too. But the beauty of a biography is that a relatively common experience, properly told, will still be interesting to those who have ‘been there and done that’, because it triggers their own amusing anecdote. They laugh as they think, “Yes I did that, too.” And thus begin their own musings.

Which begs the question: Why aren’t you writing YOUR story?

One of Stephen Covey’s four human needs he identified as Leave a Legacy. Famous people leave public records – but you have a story to leave your descendants. You can’t rely on the BBC to select you for an edition of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, and they certainly won’t do the research for you. To be frank, the pre-history they discover is interesting – but not much. I find that is a failing in many biographies – the fluff that is put in to make a relatively short biography bigger. A book about a celebrity who hasn’t done much is often padded out by irrelevant social commentary, describing the council estate in which they grew up – no one cares, and anyone living in a council estate already know.

So my book is going to be a chronological history of who I am and what I did, with anecdotes about the funny, tragic, and occasionally routine things I experienced. It’s as much a tribute to those I did those things with, as it is an attempt to flatter my own ego. I’m writing it mainly because of the funny things that happened to me, in the hope that my descendants will laugh at their ancestor – so that they learn to laugh at themselves. My legacy will be – have fun, laugh at yourself, and seek out what you want.

You are the hero of your own legend, as I am in mine. Start writing now.

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Relationships Fund Dentists, You Know.

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Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Character and Competence

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character, competence, ESL, leadership, Man Utd, personal development, relationships, self-help

I would love the patient of a saint. It would be a characteristic could be humbly proud of (it is possible), but of late I find that my patience patina is wearing thin. I shan’t go into why, but suffice to say the expression ‘gritted teeth’ comes to mind because – I think I’m gritting my teeth. Nevertheless, I am trying to keep my counsel because of the relationships involved and the potentially negative and expensive consequences of just telling it like it is.

Which raises the question – is it better to be completely open to the point of bluntness (that’s an oxymoron if ever I wrote one), or hold back because one isn’t walking in the shoes of the people who ‘need telling’? The former approach could be said to be the most honest, but the latter the more respectful. A principled decision is called for in every different case.

There is no blanket strategy. You might argue that there is but have you ever opted for a specific approach only to discover that the facts and assessments that led you to use it – were wrong?

The only advice I can give – and which I would dearly love to consistently apply myself – would be to us the space between stimulus and response to really, conscientiously dig deeply into the situation, and act accordingly. Think broadly and deeply – what do you know, what do you think you know and can find out, and what is the situation as seen from the other side. Just asking those questions can truly serve your strategy for dealing with the event.

But there is another assessment I would invite you to consider.

If your selected approach requires careful wording and you can’t think of the words – consider letting it go.

It is easy to think you’re using the right words only to wonder why the other person didn’t hear what you said, but instead heard what they decided you meant and the situation worsened rather than improved.

And here’s the rub – sometimes they won’t tell you what they thought they heard; instead, they’ll go off and report their inaccuracy to someone else, and it all goes Pete Tong. Of course, that ‘someone else’ will be their friend, therefore on their side by default. They rarely go to an objective listener.

This whole idea is a ‘soft skill’ that requires wisdom, considered thinking and occasionally resignation to a situation.

Which means being willing to surrender, to leave things as they are while mitigating the potential risks of staying silent on the matter.

Which is bloody stressful, my teeth can tell you. Ask my dentist.

For more on good Character as a specific, rather than accidental life choice, read The Three Resolutions.

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