Tag Archives: personal development

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.

Stretch yourself – be like Pregnancy Pants.

27 Friday Mar 2020

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“Sometimes things can go right only by first going very wrong.” Edward Tenner

And here we are. We exist at a time where the whole world has come to a grinding crawl, with the retail and hospitality industries taking a big hit. Which means that we, the citizens, denied our access to the dopamine of retail therapy and the opportunity to get away from it all suddenly find we have to find some other way of feeling good and ‘finding ourselves’.

Charles R Hobbs, of the original, non-Brian Tracy title TimePower, observed that when we go on holiday, the first thing we do on arrival is recreate the Comfort Zone that is home. First, we check the TV channels, and then we find out the wi-fi password. Is he right? Be honest.

Today, the comfort zones of shopping and the workplace have been denied to many, and to be fair that has resulted in a lot of imagination being utilised to cope with new challenges, which is arguably Mankind’s greatest skill. And as one esteemed philosopher put it, Mankind’s development has been the result of Challenge – Response.

The Challenge today is how to live in a confined space and feel happy, secure and productive for the period of the Lockdown. Of course, the nature of this lockdown is, shall we say, a bit like pregnancy trousers – there’s a bit of leeway that will expand and contract as needs demand.

Notwithstanding the ability or otherwise to do your paid work, we have a twenty-day window to:

  • Discover Kindle e-books, which can be in your lap in seconds and can feed your mind on a subject of interest to you.
  • Access on-line courses which can make you more employable.
  • Do all those jobs around the house that have needed doing. (My kitchen FINALLY looks organised.)
  • Talk to your partner and kids.
  • And your neighbours, whether they work for the NHS or not.
  • Telephone friends, neighbours and workmates using those unlimited minutes you’ve paid for.
  • (Personal favourite) Study The Seven Habits, First Things First and Principle-Centred Leadership and discover new ways of thinking – how to think, not what to think – an important distinction. All available on Kindle and, if you’re clever, very cheaply.
  • Read my blogs more often.

All of the above ideas, and any you can discover for yourself, will mean that you come out of the other side of this a better person, more organised, and possibly even more productive than before.

But, above all, doing something like those things will absolutely, unarguably and without fail MASSIVELY increase your sense of self-esteem – the value you place on yourself.

Go on – don’t just be a public hero like everyone else. Stretch yourself.

Win a Private Victory as well.

NEVER Mind the Gap. (I’m proud of this one….)

23 Thursday Jan 2020

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I’ve been cogitating about another space. Not the one between stimulus and response, where we can choose that response and, in that choice, choose wisely or otherwise. There is another Gap, which must be important because I used a capital ‘G’.

The self-help (ugly term) industry is designed to help people close the Gap between ‘where they are and where they want to be’, as Jack Canfield trademarked it. This is the Gap of which I write.

In my latest rewrite The Three Resolutions, which I regularly review as my understanding of the contents improve as my experiences and studies dictate, I reminded myself of a time when I was providing personal development to police colleagues, and in one of my lectures I drew a diagram which illustrated the Gap. It looked a bit like this

The Gap

and was also intended to show how some of us have a HUGE gap between where we are and where we (careful…..), some of us are lucky and have a smaller Gap to close.

And it struck me, counter-intuitively, that the larger that Gap the easier it was to make it smaller, whereas once the Gap narrowed to a sliver its closure was harder to achieve. Which meant I had to figure out why this was.

My conclusion was this: when we start out in that HUGE Gap, we believe we have a million things wrong about our lives that need correction. As time passes, we tick off the faults which are easy to correct, and each closure has a massive effect on our lives. But as we get ever closer to our ideal ‘self’ we start to address the harder challenges, the ones which cause us the most stress, the ones we avoided earlier but which are also, by their very nature, the biggest of our problems.

But here’s the kicker. Despite that remaining Gap and the challenges it represents, we have become better individuals through making the Gap that much smaller. But we tend to forget how far we’ve come. We get so focused on the last 10 yards we forget we’ve travelled miles and miles.

Now and then, I suggest, look at what you were and compare it to what you are.

Not just in terms of wealth and professional standing, but in terms of knowledge, relationships, freedom and some other immeasurables. Are you better than you were at 25? Are you better after closing some of the Gap? In which case, CONGRATULATE YOURSELF.

Then set about that last bit in the knowledge that you are more capable of closing it now than you ever were. Celebrate the fact that you even know that the Gap exists, because penny to a pound you didn’t recognise it when you were younger/less experienced/alone or skint.

Yes, there may be one or two challenges left, and they may be the hard ones, but what have you got now that reflects your progress?

In 1995 I was a sit-at-the-back, let it happen of guy. Now I always sit at the front, I can think and write at a level I would never have thought possible even in my 30s, I have pursued things rather than waited for them.

So I’m a bit broader in the beam than I ought to be.

My family loves me and I love them. I am financially secure. I can read, write, count and argue with people and yet happily lose an argument.

Yup. Today, I like me. Like yourself, see how far you’ve come. Then gird your loins for the next bit……

All at sea, or well on course? It’s up to you.

19 Thursday Dec 2019

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“We all have some vision of ourselves and our future. And that vision creates consequences. More than any other factor, vision affects the choices we make and the way we spend our time.” Stephen R. Covey

And the corollary of that is a lack of vision also affects the choices we make and the way we spend our time. Which also has consequences, consequences we would not ordinarily choose. I thin Jim Rohn put it best when he opined that people who have no sense of a plan work for people who do.

So why do many people drift about?

First of all, society. Philosophers suggest that we are the average of the 5 people with whom we spend most of our time, which means that what those 5 people think, say, feel and do diffuses into our own souls and creates ‘us’. Which would explain why people spend such a lot of time ‘socialising’ by standing in loud, dark rooms imbibing intoxicants and consider that activity to be ‘creative’. (In my world, every retirement ‘do’ starts in the same pub in Cardiff, 20 miles from where most of the participants live. As if there are no pubs nearer. Weird. And hugely unimaginative.)

In other words, the majority goes along with the majority. They talk the same, think the same – and end up with the same. I love my retired colleagues, but when you go to a meet-up for a chat, it’s allotments and holidays. Like they’ve given up.

Secondly, the belief that talent is something you have or you haven’t. maybe. But the key to progress is the ability and willingness to learn. If you know what you want, learn what you need in order to get it, don’t just bemoan the lack of opportunity. Fortune, they say, favours the prepared mind. Go prepare.

In my own case, years ago I had the opportunity to provide training to others but had no training experience. So I joined a speakers’ club, attended courses and gained a training qualification. It is really not rocket science to learn. (Although school is wasted on the young.)

The third, tragic reason for drifting is – not knowing what you want (or not knowing that you are allowed to seek out what you want). Now that really is a challenge. Floaters (unfortunate term!) go with the flow and end up where the masses collect instead of discovering something wonderful, like the opportunity to contribute beyond oneself.

And finally, simple stubbornness. The number of floaters I have met who refuse to take training in self-development ‘because it’s American/pointless/pop-psychology/mumbo-jumbo’ probably equals the number of people whose retirement won’t be noticed because they just did what was expected and nothing else. And they probably didn’t do what was expected very well, either. Turned up, did the minimum, went home. (Although truth be told we all have days when we feel like that!)

Look, if you haven’t ever done an exercise designed to identify what could make you different, to stand out, to succeed, then go to this page and just take 30 minutes or so to find out. Buy a book from Stephen R. Covey, Tony Robbins, Charles R. Hobbs, Hyrum W. Smith or some-such (me?), and do the exercises and thinking they promote. Find out what you really want from life, then develop the plan that will make it happen. Then execute the plan violently, as Patton would say.

You might just surprise yourself.

A Productivity Poser for you.

28 Monday Oct 2019

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Stakeholder.

There’s a word we all understand. Defined, I might say it means anyone who has a financial or emotional interest in the success of a particular entity, be it organisational, community or even family. Anyone, therefore, who has a stake in the entity’s wellbeing.

Consider the organisation for which you work. Ask yourself, “Who are the stakeholders?”, and write them all down.

Of course you won’t. You’re busy, as am I.

I would hazard a guess, though, that if you made that list you would, like 80% of the groups I have asked, miss out one or two. One or two important stakeholders.

Go on – try me out. Make that list before you read further and before I provide the answer/s.

Did you read my last-but-one post on team time management? If you did, first of all thank you. Secondly, the answer to the above question may be found in your understanding of that article. If not, no problem because every article on LinkedIn, on my website or anywhere else contains a nugget of information that you may find useful. For me, it was in David Schwartz’s book ‘Think Big’, and that piece of gold was ‘Be a Front Seater’, where he proposed that people who sit at the front get more engaged and more noticed. People who sit at the front also volunteer, get opportunities and (in my case) make money and get a reputation for being authoritative.

People who sit at the back are scared of something. Think about that next time you go on a seminar.

Back to stakeholders. If you did your list of the stakeholders in your organisation – and therefore the people for whom, with whom and as a result of whom you carry out your tasks and therefore manage your time, I bet the ones your missed were

You, and your family.

They are the most important stakeholders in your workplace. They have the biggest stake in the entity’s success, because no entity equals no money (work), no purpose (work, family, service) and no happiness (relationships).

Think about that next time you go to work.

Ask yourself – “Is what I am doing, or is the quality of the work I am doing, serving the stake I have in the success of ‘X’?”

Thinking about this may just improve your attitude, or perhaps even your sense of purpose in doing what you do, which in turn gets noticed when opportunities arise to improve your own lot.

In essence, how well you do your job for the stakeholders that rely on you doing that job requires that you do the best you can with the resources available to you. Including how you use your time.

And your stakeholders include you and yours.

And if that isn’t motivation for you to learn how to manage your time as well as it can be managed, nothing is.

Have a great, productive day. And love to you and your kinfolk.

Aristotle – as true in 2018 as in 364BC.

30 Saturday Jun 2018

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“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.” Aristotle

Izzatso? Was Aristotle right and, even if he was in ancient Greece, would he be right now?

I think so, and this is why – let’s look at each and consider an example that illustrates how sound his thinking was. (Although I am surprised he said it in English as it predates that language by hundreds of years.)

Chance: does anything happen that arises unexpectedly and gives rise to a response? Do events occur that no-one anticipated? One word: Brexit. ‘Nuff said. This is something that even the most devout EU-phobes would never have thought would occur, but now the Remainers who thought the same bitch about the Government’s failure to have a plan ready in advance. Heigh-ho.

Nature: if you accept that nature can pre-determine behaviour, you have to acknowledge that nature can pre-empt response. It isn’t obligatory, of course, because the next cause is the counter of this one.

Reason: something happens, and we approach it from the perspective of curiosity allied to logic – this has happened, so what can we do about it?

Compulsions: ask any addict.

Habit: how often have you been driving from A to C for a change, and found yourself heading to B like always?

Desire: you want it so you get it. This happens consciously as in having a plan that needs execution, but it also happens psychologically when you see/hear something and conclude it has a meaning that suits your viewpoint. For example, you conclude that anything Trump does is bad, even if it isn’t.

Passion: this happens when you have created a vested self-interest in an outcome and you pursue it single-mindedly.

Applied to ‘life’, we can see:

Shopping – desire, habit. Driving – habit, desire, passion (okay, maybe just me). Getting angry – nature, passion, chance. Maths exam – reason.

You know it makes sense: there are certain principles behind human behaviour that dictate our response. If we let them.

I say ‘if we let them’ because although there may only be 7 causes for action, we can use any of the 7 causes to precede our actions and are not obliged to use the one that involved no consideration at all. That is the essence of proactivity – turning ‘I have to do this because (cause)’ into ‘I am going to do this because I choose (cause)’.

I did that once with a b411-aching job, where I turned a habitual response of ‘this will be tedium’ into a passionate response of ‘how much of this can I get done to the point it will be a spectacular result’. It worked for that day, at least.

Study your own life – how many of your actions have been influenced by Aristotles’ causes? All, some, or none? I’m guessing all.

And where you think you need to – can you identify a better ’cause’, one that serves your purpose rather than obstructs your success? It may take discipline to execute on your new ’cause’, but it’ll be worth it in terms of self-esteem when you realise you control life, and it doesn’t control you.

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.

Happy New Opportunity

01 Sunday Jan 2017

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Bad news, everyone.

If you are going to have a happy 2017, YOU are going to have to make it happen.

The good news is – Mike Oldfield is bringing out a new album.

The other good news is that you CAN make 2017 a great year regardless of what happens to you IF you follow one rule.

Act in complete congruence with your personal code of conduct – Act with Integrity.

All the time. For every decision. No excuses.

That does not mean being a martyr. It just means deciding that in everything you do, you will act in accordance with your personal value system, unifying principles, credo, mission or code of conduct. You know what your rules are, and you know when you break them.

There will be times when bending them is permissible because of the prevailing circumstances. Remember that while you have no control over outside events, you DO have control over how you respond. Sometimes, the response you must provide may not be the one you would like to execute because the external circumstances simply won’t allow it. When that happens, you are not ‘failing’ to live with Integrity – you are just stuck with having to do something else, something slightly less perfect. Don’t focus on things you can’t do anything about – do the best you can and move on to the next opportunity to act congruently.

This is harder than it sounds because of those external influences on our lives, but each negative event is a chance to pause and decide not to be dictated to by emotion, ideology, your past, or other people’s expectations. It is a chance to decide ‘I choose to act differently’ and then to act on that better choice. Our past, and the lessons we learned are powerful influences over our decision-making but they need not dictate our response. We tend to overlook that it was seeing things differently that made our lives better, whether it was through education, experience or bitter regret. Instead of allowing those bad things to teach us by waiting for them to happen, we can instead prepare for bad things well in advance by deciding, using our self-awareness and imagination, how we will deal with them.

I sometimes wonder why, when my parents passed away, I did not collapse in tears. I loved them both dearly, but as they passed away there was some sense of ‘that’s the way it is’ within me, and with hindsight I think it was my values system and my study of Stephen Covey’s works that meant that what was happening wasn’t disaster, but a natural event that emotional collapse wouldn’t change. I waited until the funerals to shed a tear, yet even then did so quietly. I also suspect that dealing with death in a professional capacity took the edge off dealing with their deaths because ‘death’ wasn’t something unfamiliar. I only hope that those close to me didn’t think it cold – it was just that sadness is less of a curse to me than anger!

(Stop moping.)

2016 was bloody awful. (Outside of all the saintly drug addicts, alcoholics and other celebrities that warranted angst when they passed away.) And one of the reasons that it was awful (for me) is that I allowed myself to lose control, on one occasion so badly that it really sobered me up for weeks afterwards.

I fervently intend that 2017 will be a different lesson – where I truly role model that which I believe in, and teach. Like a comedian who is privately depressed, I feel like the personal development trainer who knows his stuff but manifestly fails to perform it. And I encourage you, dear reader, to do differently.

Every time you know you should be doing something but seek out excuses – decide to do it. Whenever you’re about to do something you know undermines your better intentions – decide NOT to do it. It only takes the time needed to take the reluctant action, or to step away from the event that impedes your success. It can be less than one second. One second that lies between guilt – and higher self-esteem. But execute, then repeat.

Decide on your purpose/mission/unifying principles and work damn hard at making it easy to act in their accord by making your decisions absolutely congruent with what you believe, and accepting those moments when you can’t. That’s my intention for 2017.

Happy New Year.

 

 

Don’t just be interested – be QUALIFIED.

19 Sunday Jun 2016

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“Renewal is the principle – and the process – that empowers us to move on in an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.” Stephen R Covey

I am now involved in the provision of a new Third Resolution ‘service’, having qualified (a loose term) as an Institute of Advanced Motorists Local Observer. This means I get to tell other people, with a level of authority, what I think of their driving. That is something I missed from my days as a uniformed copper. Although unlike then, those people will have paid to be told and they won’t argue (much) about my being right.

Yesterday, I attended a training session and was slightly taken aback to learn that for every 100 people who start training as advanced drivers, as many as 60% plus elect NOT to take the test at the end of the programme. Just as we say ‘You’ll pass the test!’, they decide that they don’t want to be tested. They’re good enough, the ‘authority’ tells them so, and they demur.

This is not like school, where you take an exam at the end of a school year, ready or not. These are people who have been prepared for, and told they can pass.

And I am astounded. I have spent my entire life testing myself against higher standards. I have sought out education and gained qualifications. Occasionally I have failed, only to revisit that failure and again take on that challenge, only to succeed. That doesn’t mean I am ecstatic when I approach an exam or assessment. I am nervous about the result. But I welcome the challenge because if I come through, I have proved to myself I am better than I was before.

So when I read that ‘our children are being stressed out through tests’ I think to myself, “Why are we telling our children to fear assessment? What numpty decided that being properly prepared for the challenges that will face us can only be overcome when they face us, and that we should not test ourselves in anticipation of that test.

Fortunately – and here’s the paradox – not one of us would want to be diagnosed by an unqualified doctor, have our accounts done by someone who can’t prove they are qualified (or at least have a Maths GCSE), or use a Uber driver who hasn’t passed his driving test. We absolutely insist that those who provide our services are qualified – trained and assessed – to do so. And yet some twits have decided that asking a teenager to take an exam in a peaceful, quiet room is stressful.

Life is a test. It tests our ability to cope, it tests our ability to overcome, it tests our ability to live a life of meaning. It wants us to be better, to find something about which we can be passionate.

Getting trained and independently assessed in those areas about which we are passionate and which serve our sense of meaning is a discipline (First Resolution), provides competence and builds our character (Second Resolution), and inevitably encourages us to start providing excellence in service when we manifest our training through employment or hobbies (Third Resolution).

And if your training and assessment is connected to your vision/mission/purpose – what the hell is there to get stressed about?

This week I encourage all readers to identify a mission- or passion-related qualification and go and sign up for the course that will demonstrate to others that you aren’t just interested – you are qualified.

For more on The Three Resolutions, go HERE to Amazon to get the Kindle version of the book, or HERE for a Paperback edition.

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