If on your last day on this earth an angel appeared and offered you more time but the offer came with a big catch.
Each of those years was to be made up on Mondays and nothing else, Monday after Monday after Monday.
Would you take it?
Have a great Monday !!
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion a Brand Communications agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
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 know that she won’t remember this but when little Hazel, my granddaughter came to visit us in Crookhaven in West Cork at the end of this summer I took her by the hand and we went up the narrow little road that runs behind our house on a special mission.
I wanted to create a little memory, the start of an annual tradition that we could share, just the two of us.
On this peaceful little road we picked blackberries together and filled a little carton between us. In between the blackberry picking she was just as fascinated by the loose gravel on the road. She was carefully examining the different shapes and placing the more interesting ones in with the blackberries in the carton.
She is not quite two yet (that is in October), but she was clever enough to know the difference between the blackberries that were ripe enough to pick and those that should be left to ripen some more, and just like other children as many were consumed on the spot as were placed in the carton.
When I first heard that my granddaughter was born (we were sitting up front at a John Spillane gig at The White Horse Bar and Restaurant when the text came through), as well as being overjoyed I had these idyllic notions about seeing her every week and I would be an adored grandad !
However, with these busy lives that we all lead the get togethers have all been very hit and miss but I do think that this little tradition of picking blackberries might be the perfect thing for us to do together each year, or at least until she can remember them…
“Do you remember when we used to pick blackberries together in West Cork?” she might say to me some day….”I sure do“
After the blackberry picking, I picked up the carton with berries and gravel, and little Hazel with her face covered in purple juice took my hand and we strolled back to the house together.
We started a new tradition, but she hasn’t quite realised that yet!
Greg
Another one of these totally and utterly irrelevant cold “call” emails has cluttered my inbox.
They vary in style and content but the things they have in common are:
Here was today’s example..
Hi Greg,
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to connect yet.
I understand; life gets busy.
I hope you don’t take offense to my persistence since I would love to learn more about the prospecting & outreach process in your company and see if we have any points of potential synergy.
(Company name) could help you accelerate your outreach efforts by automating the tedious manual tasks and spending extra time hiring.
Let’s jump into the demo and we’ll discuss everything?
Best,
Anastasiia from (Company Name)
In a world where we are all so busy, how can any company justify employing people to blindly harass poorly researched prospects and in doing so, damage their own brand?
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion a Brand Communications agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
No I didn’t bump into my neighbour and great friend Brian as I was popping down to the local store to grab some lunch.
No I didn’t ask him if he wanted to join me and Dee for lunch.
No I didn’t ask him what he fancied for lunch and no he didn’t suggest that he fancied a nice baguette because he had spotted some guy cycling and he had a baguette.
No I didn’t get a fresh rustic baguette in the store, a selection of salads, marinated chicken breasts and some pastries.
No I didn’t come home, set a table in the garden for lunch in the sunshine.
No I didn’t text Brian to say lunch was ready and no he didn’t come over.
No I didn’t ask Brian and Dee if they wanted some white wine to go with this delicious lunch in the sunshine and while they said no first, no they didn’t change their minds….
No we didn’t have a great chat in the sunshine, we didn’t polish the bottle of wine and we didn’t have coffee and delicious pastries after.
No we didn’t have fun and no we didn’t spend too much time chatting to stop us from being back at our desks for work at 2pm.
No, I didn’t tell you the truth…
Sometimes you just have the embrace the moment because it just might not come again!
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing and PR agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
I was listening to a really popular Irish podcast and the podcast host had one of the countries foremost economists on the show.
As you would expect the economist was fielding various questions and giving his expert opinion on the Irish economy, fuel prices, the war in Ukraine, the ongoing stresses caused by Brexit and how these issues could affect various business sectors in the country.
It was an excellent review and for the listener they would definitely have come away with valuable insights.
Just as the show was about to wrap up, the podcast host asked the economist a simple question: “Is there anything else out there that we should be worried about?”
While it could be viewed as a great question and one designed to make sure that all bases were covered, I found myself getting angry with what I was hearing.
Let’s not look for “more” things to worry about – there is always something if you look hard enough.
Instead, look for the opposite ….how about asking about the great opportunities out there ?
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing and PR agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
A son, who I’m assuming wasn’t used to public speaking stood in front of a big crowd in church at one of the most emotionally difficult movements in his life and he told us about his mam.
We never got to meet Marks mum, and sadly that won’t happen now because she passed away last week.
We know from Mark how kind and caring she was by the way that he always spoke about her and how well he has been raised, such a prefect son-in-law to be. He and my daughter Ellen are engaged, a wedding sometime in the future that I know would have meant the world to his mum.
While we had an impression of Mark’s mum, it sadly took her funeral for us to get to know her better.
At the funeral mass and gathering afterwards we heard about this very special woman from friends, family and even the parish priest who used to visit her on one Friday every month.
For me the moment we really learnt the most about Mark’s mum was when his younger brother John stood at the altar and gave the eulogy, a very touching tribute to her that had us all in tears.
He started by reading from his notes, thanking friends and family for attending the funeral, thanking the funeral home staff and the hospital staff who had looked after her.
He put his notes down and then spoke from the heart telling us about his mam, and in between the tears he told us about the woman with the bright side of life temperament, the one who was the peacemaker in the family, the one who loved fun nights and karaoke, she used talk loudly on the phone to her friends for hours on end and she was the woman who despite being unwell always looked after them, no matter what was going on. “That was my mam” he said.
We got to know her just a little that day and I said to her husband John that it was his job to tell us so much more about her.
Ann Magee, you did a great job as a mum and as a wife and as a person and we thank you for the gift of our future son-in-law, Mark who is a treasure of a boy, a fine young man. You will be missed, but you will live on inside those lucky enough to have met you..
Rest in Peace..
Greg
Hazel, my granddaughter was one year old recently- where did that year fly to?!
I’ve carefully watched Brendan and Ayla looking after this little treasure and it definitely seems to be quite a different scenario for parents today compared to when I was a young dad.
With the nature of their work (and some COVID thrown into the bargain) both Brendan and Ayla have been able to spend equal time with Hazel, enjoying every little change in her, and why not ?!
If you ignore their particular set of circumstances and imagine life as a “normal” working couple, things would have been quite different.
Ayla would have taken her 26 weeks paid maternity leave and then had to make a decision to extend that by another 16 weeks and then possibly another few weeks. All in all she could spend a year at home with Hazel unless she decided to stop working for a while.
Watching Ayla, I can only imagine how hard it would be for any mother to return to work after spending all of that exclusive time with their baby.
As for Brendan, he would have been able to take his two weeks leave at the beginning and that would be that – his daddy time would be when he gets home from work and weekends.
I can see how he has treasured the last year with Hazel and how amazing is that, but in truth he was one of the very lucky dads.
If you bring “work” into the equation in that normal situation, there would have been huge career disruption for Ayla, and not so much for Brendan.
On one side of the coin there is precious time with the new baby, but with that comes career disruption and on the other side there is little baby bonding time and no career disruption.
What’s the alternative, is there a better way, or is this the only practical solution to bringing our precious children into this world of ours?
Watching Brendan and Ayla with Hazel I think it’s only fair that society creates an equal opportunity for both to be parents and for both to share that precious first year.
Except for the obvious “biological” leave at the beginning, there should be an equal / sharing of the leave, allowing both to enjoy parenting and maintain their careers at the same time
While this might seem like a radical idea to us in Ireland, it is the norm in the Scandinavian countries, and you can understand why.
So, for all the Brendan and Ayla’s out there, maybe some day it could be like that for new parents in Ireland!
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing and PR agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
“Welcome” I said and I reached out to hug her to make her feel welcome.
Suddenly I had an aggressive finger being pointed in my face and eyes of fire glaring back at me.
“I don’t do hugs” she said.
I stood there for a few seconds quite confused, thinking this was some kind of a joke, until I realised it wasn’t!!
I was totally taken aback as this is a person we knew and would have considered to have had a “good” relationship with before this interaction, and in fact there would have been routine goodbye hugs the last time we had met.
This incident happened many years ago and at the time it totally floored me. My nature is to be warm and friendly and a “signal” of this would have been a hug, one of my ways of conveying a genuine welcome.
Instead of reflecting on what I considered to be the positive aspects (at least I thought so) of my personality, I did the opposite and ever since greetings have been cautious and it has brought out a much more guarded Greg. And of course then we had Covid, which added an even bigger barrier between people and how we greeted each other.
Walking the dog with my headphones on just this weekend, I stumbled upon an episode of the wonderful podcast, ‘Heavyweight’ called “Cody” , which touched on the subject of hugs and I am so grateful for what I heard.
Basically, a kid who lost his mum suddenly received a random, huge hug from his football coach who he barely knew and he claims that it changed his life.
He was lost and hurting and this hug was exactly what he needed from someone, in fact anyone, and his coach delivered just that.
Neither of these men were “huggers” but they both realised at big moments in their lives, the power of a genuine hug, and since then it is part of their daily practice to be generous with warm hugs to their friends and colleagues and also, not to be afraid to say “I love you” when it’s appropriate.
To the producers of this podcast, thank you and to anyone I have had an encounter with since that very odd interaction, I sincerely apologize for being guarded and I hope you were still made to feel welcome by me.
It’s time to hug again ….
Greg
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing and PR agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
Am I the only one that has noticed the big temperature drop?
For the last week the house (yep, we are still home working!) has been absolutely freezing – after the dog walk first thing your body is still warm, but after a while you can feel the cold starting to creep into your bones.
While it is the easiest thing to fire on the heating in the house or turn on the electric rad in my room, instead I am reaching for a blanket, draping it over my legs and saying out loud..,
“F**k you Putin, you aren’t going to get any of our money!”
….and besides, why not wrap up and help to reduce our carbon emissions, which is something we should all be doing when we can?
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing and PR agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
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