Life is for living

Richard Bach - OneI have just been reading another wonderful little book by Richard Bach called “One”. I first came across Richard’s books when I was introduced to Jonathan Livingston Seagull over 30 years ago. JLS can take you half an hour to read or a lifetime; it can be a simple story about a Seagull are a complex parable about learning. For many years I never left the house without a seagull on a chain around my neck, until the day that I realised the seagull had flown away when the chain broke,  never to be seen by me again.

Anyway, back to this latest book “One”. He posits a situation and an exercise that I challenge you to take on yourself. Somehow or other  he meets himself in the future and that future self  knows, for certain, that he only has six months to live. Let me give you the exercise by quoting from the book:

“I think we ought to take this napkin here”, she reached into her purse, “and this pencil, and we ought to list what we want to do most and make this the best six months, the best time in our lives. What would we do if there were no doctors with their dos and don’ts? They can’t cure you, so who are they to tell others what to do with whatever time we have left? I think we ought to make this list and then go ahead and do what we want.”

I don’t know whether the subject of this piece was lucky or not that he knew for sure that he had another six months to live. I don’t know whether or not I will be alive when you read this entry-there is no reason why I shouldn’t be but who knows what happens on the roads or in that complex biochemistry that keeps is running every day?

So my challenge to you is to do the exercise, to figure out what it is that you want to do (not need to do – that’s usually someone else’s agenda), to make a list and to get out there and do it. Oh, there will be challenges, but isn’t a life full of those anyway? Yes, you might upset a few people but you are living your life and you probably only have one of them so you might as well get the most out of it.

And some people will tell you that it’s impossible, selfish, not affordable, etc  – those are their hangups. So let them deal with them rather than dump them on you. I urge you do this exercise , after all you might only have six months to live.

Finding that creative spark

creative spark between fingersI spent yesterday morning with a group of colleagues who are members of a Net2 group. The me, this group acts partly as networking but more significantly as an informal personal development network where I can share my expertise, have it challenged and add to it on the basis of the work and presentations that we do in the sessions. After yesterday’s meeting I commented to several people how pleasant it had been to share some time with like-minded individuals who operated in similar spheres and had a degree of intellectual and practical capability that offered me a challenge.

I really enjoy these meetings and found myself reflecting on the paradoxical nature of my attendance. On the one hand I have no doubt whatsoever that there is value in this group of like-minded people. The other hand suggests the value of diversity and the importance of exposing myself to new ideas and new people. So perhaps you to need to pay attention to both aspects of your learning. Perhaps you need to be challenged and challenge yourself within your domain of expertise as well as stimulating your creativity by exposing yourself to ideas and experiences that do not seem to be immediately relevant.

For those of us that operating in an essentially data rational world, it is the second aspect that might be particularly challenging. How might spending an afternoon in an art gallery or reading about the history of the Roman Empire or simply going for a walk along a beach help me design a better road, build a better sewage works or facilitate a meeting more effectively? The whole point is that we do not know. It is a simple fact that I often find interesting ideas popping into my head whilst I am doing these off-topic activities and it is received wisdom in creativity circles that both incubation and diversity of experience are important in generating creative ideas.

I guess another paradoxical aspect of the whole experience was that it boosted both my ego and my humility by helping me realise that not only am I rather capable but I also still have quite a lot to learn.

So, my challenge to you is, and this is perhaps especially relevant if you are in one of those are driven jobs or lifestyles where everything is planned and there is no time for anything new. Find creative ways to meet your peers (professional associations, networking groups etc) and also make time to do something that is out of the ordinary. Do both of these knowing that in some way, perhaps not known beforehand, both of them will add value to your life and help you do a better job.

Do let me know what you do and how it goes.

I don’t understand…

George Osborne behind a pile of pound coinsYesterday morning I was reading an article by George Monbiot about possible changes to the Corporation Tax regime in the UK. The deeper I got into the article, the more I realised how complex issue was and how little I knew about the topic. Now, I run my own company so I probably know more about Corporation Tax than the average citizen and yet here I was completely baffled by changes that the government are apparently considering.

How often do you find yourself on the edge of the subject that is getting so complex that you really do not understand the implications? What do you do in these circumstances? I was left wondering whether I should

    a) simply accept that I would never understand it and move on
    b) continue to surf superficially over the topic
    c) Rams in an uninformed way or
    d) seek an expert who might be able to explain it to me.

In the end this took me back to an earlier piece about whether I could Control, choose to Influence or simply Accept what was going on. I can certainly not control government legislation, I could choose to accept whatever happens or I could choose to influence in whatever way I could. Each of these options would be likely to lead to a different selection from the four above. In the end, I decided that others are more likely to be able to influence significantly than I was and so decided that I would simply accept whatever was going on and move my attention elsewhere.

So, how often are you faced with a situation that you do not completely understand? And how do you respond? What response or action most suits your long-term goals or vision? Think about it. Take you mind off autopilot and make a conscious decision about how to deal with your ignorance.

Challenge yourself

man standing out from the packI was watching the new series of Masterchef last night and was seriously impressed by the enthusiasm and commitment of the participants. Some of them very clearly knew how to shake a pan, others perhaps needed a bit more practice. I was left wondering how many of them had decided to cook something safe, well within their capabilities, and how many had decided to take risks with new and challenging recipes in the hope of winning this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Sometimes we do only get one opportunity and you might find it instructive to have a think about how you react in those situations. Do you take the safe but sure approach – which unless you are world class probably puts you in a pack with many others – or do you give it your all in the hope of creating something new and unexpected?

Heston Blumenthal did not become one of the best chefs in the world by cooking conventional French cuisine better than anyone else, he needed to find his own style and even his own techniques.

People who are different, or do things differently, are the ones that get noticed, so what do you do or are you going to do to make yourself noticeable and push the boat out?

Hunter or Harvester?

harvester in field
I was having lunch with my great friend Andy Green recently and, after we had discussed the current state of the market for our work and our approaches to filling the larder, he observed “So, you are a harvester not a hunter?”.

I guess that I prefer to cultivate long-term relationships, look after existing customers very well and nurture new leads and ideas. The hunter is always on the lookout for new customers and then chases them hard, bending over backwards to meet their needs. They are both active but the former waits for the customer to need what they offer whereas the latter operates more like those wonderful people in The Rhubarb Triangle who force their product before having to plant it out to recover.

Harvesters need to be aware that they need to sow seeds, water and fertilise them, prune them if necessary in order to be able to take a harvest when the time is right; they need to be aware that only by saving part of this year’s crop can they reap another next year.

Hunters, on the other hand, need to move around to find new prey, to be constantly alert and energetic just in case a prey animal or a predator appears and they have to deal with it.

Time to think – what is your approach to getting what you want? Are you a hunter or a harvester? Does what you are doing serve you well? Will it continue to serve you inj the same way? Can you keep up the pace?

Are you Browsing or Seeking?

browsing
I am one of those people who sometimes challenges stereotypes and this is one of those occasions. This man is happy to admit that, on occasions, he just loves shopping. I would like to talk about that phrase “on occasions”. In my head, there are two types of shopping – firstly those occasions when I am quite happy just wandering around window shopping and possibly coming across something that interests me that I might or might not buy. Secondly there is that sort of shopping when I am going out to buy something specific and that is when I become a man on a mission.

The first type of shopping I am browsing, the second I am seeking. When browsing, the pleasure is in browsing in itself and not necessarily in making a purchase. When seeking, the pleasure is finding an item that meets my needs (and there is even greater pleasure in finding something that exceeds those needs).

So, how is it for you? Do you wander through life with no particular aim in mind, perhaps picking up the odd gem on the way but generally letting whatever happens happen? Or do you set out every day with specific aims and goals in mind, with your brain primed to look for opportunities and your body ready to take action on those opportunities?

There is certainly room for both of these approaches, however my challenge to you is to be clear which you are doing when and to be certain that you are doing the right one at the right time. If I want to buy a pair of shoes, it is no good me going to a food store and if I want the pleasure of just wandering, visiting a carpet warehouse is likely to be limiting my pleasure.

Without a vision and without goals all we can ever do is browse; indeed, without that vision and those goals operating in the background we might miss major opportunities whilst we are browsing. Once we are clear what it is that we want we can actively choose whether to go and explicitly seek that or just put it in the background whilst we are browsing in case some opportunity comes up. Living a life without goals is a bit like being a tumbleweed, blown where the wind takes its, trapped in some windowless corner and slowly decaying until point at which it disintegrates and is spread to all corners of the wind.

Which is relevant to your quest for a new product or business or job or mate or project worth working on…
If you’re still looking around, making sure you understand all your options, getting your bearings or making sure you’re well informed, you’re most probably browsing. You missed the first, second and third waves of the internet; you missed a hundred great jobs and forty great husbands.; you missed the deadline for that course and who knows what else while you were just browsing..

Quit looking and go buy something.