Recently I have had the pleasure of meeting (virtually!) and doing some business with a very wise man, Kevin Fahey.
Each and every time we would have a chat he would leave me with some pearls of wisdom and when I learnt that this positive, always pushing forward, optimistic businessman was 75 I just had to ask him to come on my podcast.
Kevin is the CEO and Founder of Peer to Peer coaching company, Essence of Leadership.
Kevin came from a family farm, he went into the Irish clothing manufacturing industry and after a board room battle he found himself at home, unemployed.
Never a man to stand still Kevin started off a successful training company and was once labelled a Positive Psychopath by one of his clients. Like so many other businesses the recession that followed the Celtic Tiger crash, had him once again wondering where the next few bob was going to come from.
He talks about very dark days and struggling at times to lift himself from the bed in the morning, but he did, one foot at a time.
Kevin reinvented himself, and with all of his collective wisdom and experience he remodelled his business following the simple principle that often the wisdom that we are searching for actually sits within us. He explains why and how peer to peer coaching is so powerful, in particular for business owners and senior managers.
As I have been very recently grappling with a big birthday number, we also chatted about ageism and moving into “wisdom” and based on his energy and drive I think I am just a young fella still!
Kevin talks so much sense and I hope you can take the time to listen to our chat – you will be better for it, I promise.
Greg
The Win Happy podcast is available on all podcast Apps and on Spotify.
“Klopp has made me a better person” he said to us over a pint. You don’t hear guys talking like that, but he was right.
At the beginning of this year I bought two very overpriced tickets on one of those websites for the last Liverpool FC home match of the season against Wolves for my son and I. Not the worst birthday present for him I thought!
At the time Liverpool were top of the tree and maybe just maybe we might witness a historic premiership win?
Since then a premiership win was impossible after an awful run of matches in April and the occasion instead became a farewell to Jurgen Klopp. Like every Liverpool fan we were heartbroken to hear that he was leaving.
The occasion was amazing , the love for Klopp in the city is so huge and in truth the actual match was a sideshow.
The crowd worked through the usual repertoire of songs during the game but kept on coming back to the anthem for the manager “We’re so glad that Jurgen is a red, we’re so glad and this is what he said ….”
At 87 mins every man woman and child in each corner of the stadium stood up and sang that song, over and over, louder and louder for at least 10 mins until the final whistle.
The podium was moved into the centre of the pitch, the full squad formed a guard of honour while all exiting players and coaches were given a huge send off, and then there was Klopp.
The kind words were said, he gave a perfect rousing speech, he ran to each section of the crowd giving his signature fist pumps and before we knew it it was all over and we were making our way out of the stadium.
An hour later a few of us thirsty souls were enjoying a pint downtown having a post mortem about Jurgen. One of the guys with us, a Liverpudlian ,Adam said a really profound thing.
“Jurgen has made me a better person”
Wow, isn’t that huge I thought and I agree with him 100%, but why?
I’ve been thinking about this ever since and Jurgen has taught us an awful lot about being better people.
Doubters to Believers
The very first day he told us to have the right attitude when you approach anything, including your football team. Support and don’t judge!
Never give up
Until the very last minute you need to keep on trying and when you do anything can happen. He asked us to do this and we saw the result of this on countless occasions,
Enjoy the occasion
He told us continuously that there are lots of things that are a lot more important than football but football was to be enjoyed. Find your escapes, whatever they may be.
Positive attitude
No matter what you do, with the right attitude you can achieve anything. Even when the odds were stacked against this team you can prevail. We all need to remember that, whatever we do.
Every minute countsand never give up
He scolded fans for leaving the stadium early when things didn’t seem to be going well. Supporting the team until the very end paid dividends on so many occasions. If we show belief and encouragement then people will respond accordingly.
Humour and a smile
Every interview and press conference (nearly all!) were conducted with a smile and lots of humour. That huge beaming smile of his was infectious and his use of humour followed with that big hearty laugh got people on his side.
Hugs !!
While some people don’t like hugs Jurgen clearly wasn’t too bothered by that. Big heartfelt hugs are good, show people the love if you mean it!!
Hard Work
You achieve nothing without hard work and preparation – Klopp always spoke about the importance of a tough training camp at the beginning of the season to prepare the team properly. You won’t achieve anything without this!
Friendship and Family
Throughout his time at Liverpool he always made a big deal about the spirit of the team and the importance of team bonding. Every player used speak about the unique spirit at the club, the special bond between everyone, how families were looked after and the difference that makes. I want to work in that environment.
Celebrate the wins
The pure joy of winning was always evident with him. At times he was childlike with his celebrations. Instead of being cool and calm he punched the air, ponded his chest. It’s good to celebrate – show what it means to you.
Solidarity
When asked about tricky situations such as vaccinations of players he never gave a medical opinion but instead he spoke about the importance of solidarity, being in it together.
The Team includes everyone
Before huge matches when “we” were up against it he would say at the press conferences before the game that the team is everyone and we need “everyone” to be in top from. He would mention the fans, the ball boys and the hot dog seller. What a life lesson!
Kindness
Whether it was a kid in a hospital, an invalid, a retiree, anyone – you could see the genuine kindness and warmth he showed them all. He did the most wonderful interviews with these people and you could see how much it meant. We can all be kinder.
His team
He always took responsibility for poor results and never criticised a player, ever. There were some huge games when awful individual mistakes cost us. He never blamed the player.
Departing players
I have never heard of a disagreement or a bad word towards a departing player or a member of his backroom staff. I’m sure there were disagreements but he never spoke about them after, and if anything was said it was always kind.
Bounce back
When we lost big finals or big matches he always saw the positive and used these disappointing occasions as fuel for going again. On one occasion after losing a Champions League Final he was seen singing with fans in pub after!
Humility
From the first very press conference he told us he wasn’t a special one, but an ordinary one. He never brags and he always gives praise and credit to everyone else. That never changed over the years.
Motivator
Even in the last moments of that farewell speech to us he started to sing the name of the incoming manager and he told us how special we were and the power that we bring to every match.
He knew it was the end of his time but he wanted to leave us feeling that we had every reason for feeling good about ourselves.
I’ve always contended that Jurgen Klopp could lead any organisation, any country, we need more of him.
Adam was right. If we take on board Klopp’s attitude, his kindness, his approach, his positivity, his smile, his love and his humanity then we will be better people.
Danke Jurgen for the football and the life advice!
When we were in the process of buying our little West Cork retreat I found myself driving through the beautiful town of Schull in search of a gift for a friend that we were about to visit.
The display of beautifully lit mosaic lamps in the window caught my attention and within minutes I had the perfect gift (one of those lamps) being wrapped while I chatted to the sales assistant. The shop, ‘East Meets West‘ had an eclectic range of beautiful stock, everything from rugs, lamps, clothing, jewellery, furniture children’s toys and much more, all sourced directly from small manufacturers in India.
On another visit to the store a few months later I met the owner, Amanda Connell originally from Norfolk in England, and in no time at all I started to hear abut her colourful story, which was just as fascinating as her very special shop.
Life is full of personal and career choices and there are times when the ones we make aren’t the most obvious and some might say, a little bit crazy!
Amanda agreed to sit down with me at her gorgeous new home near Schull and share her story for the Win Happy podcast – I hope you enjoy getting to know Amanda as much as I did.
Greg
The Win Happy podcast is available on all podcast Apps and on Spotify.
This show has been produced by Fuzion Communications, a Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing Agency in Ireland with offices in Dublin and Cork.
I was listening to a fascinating conversation on a podcast with the founder of Toms Shoes, Blake Mycoskie who was sharing his career story including the incredible story of where the idea of Toms Shoes came from, the powerful notion of giving away a free pair of shoes to those who badly needed shoes for every pair they sold and how this idea caught on and quickly led to a legendary success.
At the close of the chat he was asked to give some advice to the listener and he shared a phrase that he lives by “Carpe Diem”, or seize the day.
His basic philosophy is that life is precious, we have no idea how long it will last so make the most of each and every day.
A little habit he uses to remind people of this advice is to sign off all of his emails with the phrase “Carpe Diem” instead of other meaningless salutations such as yours sincerely, kind regards or even my more casual one “cheers” – I do hate formality!
The cynic might think what is that fella all about but this is really clever as it is using a frequent method of everyday communication to replace something meaningless with something meaningful and possibly trigger a positive thought or emotion for the reader.
I was chatting with the fantastic Paul Born of the Tamarack Institute in Canada on my Win Happy podcast and he does something similar but uses equally powerful words “Much joy” – why not spread joy and remind people of joy each and every single day?
Taking all of this onboard I’ve started to sign off all of my emails with the words “Win Happy” which is my core philosophy – I want people to succeed, whatever success looks like for them but to go about this in a way that makes them and those round them happy. If we all lived by that approach I think life would be better and more positive, in particular our working lives.
And taking this one step further maybe even (when appropriate of course) sign off your social media posts with a hashtag with your “words” – if that’s what you believe let people know.
My challenge for you is to think about replacing your meaningless closing salutation and replacing it with something meaningful.
It might get a few strange reactions to begin with but at least it will give people something to remember you by, something to think about and maybe, just maybe, create a shift in their day.
I’ve been doing this post for quite a while now about planning for the year ahead and using a clever visualisation trick to help me along the way as subscribers of my blog will attest to.
I’m writing this post on the 1st January 2022 sitting in my office (the space that pre-Covid was known as a small bedroom!) and Bert (one of my four legged buddies) is after joining me and lying on the little bed that I have in here for him. He’s probably wondering are we back to that relentless routine that we were on last year and most of the one before that?
As an aside ….a hungover Dee has just made an appearance and has reminded me about the fantastic New Year’s Eve we had last night with our great friends Tommy and Joan and Ellen my daughter and her fiancé Mark. As usual we played music all night long, we ate some great food, drank wine (and other alcoholic temptations), called family members, sent messages to friends and….we were introduced to the most wonderful, feel good, fun fun fun Italian Christmas song called Dominick the Donkey from the sixties!!
I am extremely grateful for the life we have.
Ellen works as a Special Needs Assistant at St.Paul’s Special Needs School in Cork and she tells me the kids love this song – it’s not hard to see why!!
This must be listened to standing up and you must sing along and clap your hands!
While last year was a good one for me despite the unusual circumstances, I was really glad of the end of year break when it came and as sure as eggs are eggs it has flown by and I find myself at the beginning of another year and thinking about firing up the engines again.
Of course I want to change it up a little (or a lot) and of course I want it to be a good one but at the core of all of that is me, that little old (er) me that needs to stare at a mirror and realise that I am the same one that inhabits this body and essentially I probably won’t change a whole pile. Having said all of that, let’s reflect and learn from the past and lets take that and march forward and try to take some control and create that better future.
The other thing I am mindful of as I approach this exercise is that in order for it to work properly I need to really understand me, my limitations and my habits and in that context I must create a little structure or framework (another shite word, but you know what I mean) to increase the chances of success.
So..
I had a great year because..
For the last few years I have been doing this simple little exercise at the start of the year to help me get focused around things that are important both personally and professionally.
I have found it to be really useful and it has made a big difference, and as I look back at last year (even despite Covid) I can see the things that I have achieved as a result of this focus. In Fuzion we also ask all of the team to do this – it is really important to us that everyone in the team achieves their own personal and career goals.
Making plans and actually achieving them is always challenging and at the start of the year we find ourselves at the beginning of that loop all over again making promises that often will never materialise!
A few years ago I was inspired by a book about goal setting in a different way called “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander (a really interesting motivational book by the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and his wife who is an executive coach).
Benjamin Zander, the conductor has the task every year of bringing out the very best from a large group of very talented musicians for his orchestra.
His approach is rooted in the power of visualisation – the simple idea behind this is that if you visualise what you want to achieve then there is a much better chance of it actually happening (disbelievers ….stop reading now !!)
Taking this approach, you can apply it by doing some simple visualisation about the year ahead and tapping into all of Your Possibilities.
Take a quiet few moments so you can concentrate with a blank sheet of paper and a pen and do some visualisation – Take a few deep breaths and relax and close your eyes.
Now imagine the last working day of this year, just before you head out the door to do some last minute shopping and enjoy a well-earned rest. You are feeling really satisfied as you reflect on your fantastic achievements during the year. Some of these were personal things and some of these were professional things – you are feeling great because you have achieved them.
Now open your eyes and start writing:
I had a great year because ….
Now off you go – list the things that will make this year a great one for you.
Take your time and be as specific as you can including all of those business and personal goals that will give you that huge sense of satisfaction on that last working day of the year.
This is the starting point – when you are ready you need to study this list and start figuring out how you can go about making this list come to life.
Put your piece of paper in a safe place so that you can refer to it throughout the year to make sure your list of possibilities stays on track.
The Framework!
Let’s try a few things to make sure this is a list that goes beyond today!
Accessible – As an enhancement to that exercise how about re-writing that list on a notepad on your smartphone (or any other device that you use on a regular basis).
Reminder – To make sure you revisit your list on a regular basis maybe set a reminder on your calendar to check back on it. Does monthly work for you or do you need to check it more frequently?
You decide knowing how you are so choose a time of a particular day of the week or time of month that is most likely to work for you (some day on the last week of the month isn’t the worst idea of all)
Action! – No doubt there will be a mix of actions that will be required to bring the list you have visualised to life. How about when you check that list (at those scheduled times) you decide on some realistic tasks that you can do (big or small) to start moving things along.
Month by month/ Season by season – On your list there will be items that can only happen at certain times of the year. It is no harm marking those with the relevant time periods or even changing the order of your list to reflect that.
Next week/next month – When you do your regular check on your list highlight the things that you can start doing next week or next month (or today!) and again be realistic, you won’t be able to do everything together.
Update that list – Why not change things during the year as circumstances change but make sure that this isn’t an easy way to abandon your initial great intentions.
The Ultimate Review – at the end of the year check that list…how did you do?
One of the things on my list was to get back to writing on a regular basis again – this is a good start!
Enjoy realising all of your possibilities..
Have a WinHappy New Year !!
This clip of Benjamin Zander is really motivational and well worth watching.
Music has played a special role in my life, ever since a Spanish student that was staying with us one summer in 1977 and he had brought his tape recorder and a selection of his favourite albums.
I spent weeks, night after night listening to bands like ELO, Supertramp and the wonderful Lou Reed and I was hooked.
The first proper album I bought for myself was The Boomtown Rats debut album, while I was staying with my aunt and uncle for a few days in Dungarvan when I was 13.
My first concert was Thin Lizzy at the City Hall in Cork when I was just 14, quickly followed by Eric Clapton and then Rory Gallagher.
As well as being an avid collector I ended up doing some work with local bands for a short while and even though I never managed to fulfil my dream of working in a record company, I did mange to fulfil another one, which was owning my own record stores in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin. They were called BlackTrack.
I still buy music the whole time, but I do think you can miss a trick and never listen to some gems, so at the beginning of this lockdown 2021, I decided to brighten my year and expand my collection by asking the wonderful, Declan Murphy, songwriter and guitarist with one of my favourite bands, THE 4 OF US to pick out his favourite 12 albums, one for each month of the year.
He shared his list with me on the Win Happy podcast as well as having a big chat about his love of music, the joy of collecting music, the band and his fascinating story.
The conversation ended up being a huge one that stretched over three parts and he totally cheated by managing to squeeze in 16 classic albums. Even though I have a big collection, I was surprised that I just had two of his 16 – in the meantime I’ve managed to get hold of the other 14 and am loving each and every single one of them.
He was very gracious and didn’t include any of the THE 4 OF US albums, he could have as they are all brilliant.
I’m sure we have all been away on holidays in a special place and you pass an auctioneers window and gaze at the houses for sale and think “what if“?
While it’s a nice dream, quickly after 60 seconds you rationalise and the dream is gone.
For me that place would definitely be Siena in Italy, and while I have had this idea for a while I can think quickly for a bunch of very logical and rational reasons why it just couldn’t work …maybe when I retire (isn’t that the easy way of dodging the thought? )
If Covid has taught us anything, it is that you can get your work done from anywhere, hasn’t it? Of course, there are other reasons why I can’t and it doesn’t take me long to list them in my head.
Ciara O’Toole, our very special friend and her husband gazed at that window in Lake Como and decided “lets do it“!!
She was just married, without a word of Italian, a house in Dublin with a big mortgage and a great career as a marketer…crazy idea Ciara!
What I love about her is her adventurous spirit, that ability to “go for it” without a strong safety net and hey, let’s see what happens!
In Ciara’s case lots happened, including a few nasty bumps and wonderful experiences but it has been and continues to be a great adventure!
Did I tell you she learnt how to fly a sea plane and wrote a book about the experience?
If you get a chance at all you might read her book “Going Solo on Lake Como” and maybe tune into the episode of the Win Happy podcast with this intelligent, funny, adventurer, marketeer, entrepreneur, author and pilot who tells her incredible story that is full of many twists and turns!
Let’s celebrate those who say “Let’s do it”, and maybe think about that being you next time you look at that window.
I was reading an interview in the Irish Times weekend Magazine with the singer/songwriter and guitarist of the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl where he was chatting about their new album, ‘Medicine at Midnight‘.
The band are a few decades into their career and Dave had also been the drummer with Nirvana, and just 25 years old when that band finished due to the death of Kirk Cobain. I wonder did he play that famous gig in Sir Henry’s in Cork – were you there?
The Foo Fighters are a huge band and they have a big following and with each new album there must be a pressure to stick to the “winning formula” and style that has earned them so many loyal fans, or do they refresh, reinvent, reinvigorate and go down new paths, that could be quite risky musically and commercially.
In the interview Dave says “You have to feel comfortable and confident enough to push out to the edges a little bit every time you do it – otherwise it’s just not fun, it’s just not exciting”
My question for you is – is this just the privilege of musicians, writers and artists to think like this?
Is it just these types of people that can have that luxury of “pushing what they do out to the edges” just because life gets boring and less fun, or can that thinking apply to all of us?
This life of ours isn’t a rehearsal. and we do owe it to ourselves to “push out to the edges” – of course we have to pay the bills, but we can also refresh, reinvent, reinvigorate and explore some new paths.
I was chatting to Brendan, my son who is in the middle of his 14 day “luxury” stay at the ‘Holiday Inn’ in Auckland in New Zealand as part of their two week mandatory quarantine period.
The one thing that really struck me from that conversation was him describing the very surprising sense of overwhelming relief of being away from Ireland, from being away from restrictions, from being away from constant thoughts about hand sanitising, keeping our distance, mask wearing, not hugging, walking past our favourite establishments which are all closed, inevitably chatting about it with everyone and listening to the incessant dark news feed, and living each day under a very dark Covid cloud.
He thought he was managing the whole thing fine, getting on with things as we all do BUT … it has been non stop and it has been creeping into all of us incrementally in a way that we I’m not sure that we will fully appreciate until it’s all well and truly behind us.
In tandem with this conversation, I was reading a very interesting piece in the New York Times by Melissa Kirsch about the huge role that art plays in our lives.
She wrote about “how we are all waiting for things to open up so we can resume what we think of as normal life” and the fact that this simple idea suddenly feels daunting.
She wrote about “the promise of going to a play, hearing live music or standing awed before a painting that much more exciting to anticipate“
We have been missing so much, it is hurting in ways that we haven’t been able to fully process and the sooner we get back to all of those simple pleasures we can start to heal and living again.
I’m imagining a fantastic meal with friends in The White Horse in Ballincollig, before heading upstairs to their beautiful, intimate and very special venue to watch a gig. Maybe it’s THE 4 Of US, Mark Geary, John Spillane, Jack O’Rourke, David Syme, the White Horse Guitar Club or Allman Brown. Whoever it is I’m imagining being back there, standing at the bar chatting to the barman and waiting for another feast of music to top up my soul.
Before I do this post about a form of planning for the year ahead, I wanted to write briefly about the attitude “choices” that we can bring to different situations and how this can affect our outlook and our outcomes.
My dad sadly passed away around this time three years ago, so it is naturally an emotionally challenging time of the year for the family and in particular for my mum.
We had her over for dinner on St. Stephen’s Day and a conversation started around the table about Christmas gifts. Mum started to tell us stories about her and dad when they were living in New York in the late fifties and when they were invited to dinner at that time by friends and relatives.
It turns out that the practical presents such as socks and gloves, which would have been the norm in the Ireland they had left, weren’t quite the norm in an abundant, booming New York!
Mum was nearly choking with the laughter as she recalled her and dad nearly running from a relatives house contemplating them opening the meagre gifts they had bought them after seeing what had been bought for them.
We laughed with her and loved her stories – despite the sad time of year, she always sees the positive and instead of being down, we toasted dad and she told us even more stories about their time in the States. He was with us in a nice way.
So..
I had a great year because..
For the last few years I have been doing this simple little exercise at the start of the year to help me get focused around things that are important both personally and professionally.
I have found it to be really useful and it has made a big difference, and as I look back at last year (even despite Covid) I can see the things that I have achieved as a result of this focus. In Fuzion we also ask all of the team to do this – it is really important to us that everyone in the team achieves their own personal and career goals.
Making plans and actually achieving them is always challenging and at the start of the year we find ourselves at the beginning of that loop all over again making promises that often will never materialise!
A few years ago I was inspired by a book about goal setting in a different way called “The Art of Possibility” by Benjamin and Rosamund Zander (a really interesting motivational book by the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and his wife who is an executive coach).
Benjamin Zander, the conductor has the task every year of bringing out the very best from a large group of very talented musicians for his orchestra.
His approach is rooted in the power of visualisation – the simple idea behind this is that if you visualise what you want to achieve then there is a much better chance of it actually happening (disbelievers ….stop reading now !!)
Taking this approach, you can apply it by doing some simple visualisation about the year ahead and tapping into all of Your Possibilities.
Take a quiet few moments so you can concentrate with a blank sheet of paper and a pen and do some visualisation – Take a few deep breaths and relax and close your eyes.
Now imagine the last working day of this year, just before you head out the door to do some last minute shopping and enjoy a well-earned rest. You are feeling really satisfied as you reflect on your fantastic achievements during the year. Some of these were personal things and some of these were professional things – you are feeling great because you have achieved them.
Now open your eyes and start writing:
I had a great year because ….
Now off you go – list the things that will make this year a great one for you.
Take your time and be as specific as you can including all of those business and personal goals that will give you that huge sense of satisfaction on that last working day of the year.
This is the starting point – when you are ready you need to study this list and start figuring out how you can go about making this list come to life.
Put your piece of paper in a safe place so that you can refer to it throughout the year to make sure your list of possibilities stays on track.
Enjoy realising all of your possibilities..
Happy New Year
This clip of Benjamin Zander is really motivational and well worth watching.
Greg Canty Fuzion Blog 