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.
We are reading about the need for taking more care, not going back to the workplace, socialising less and the need for possible regular antigen tests to keep us safe. Fancy a stick up your nose three times a week?
We are reading about Covid sweeping through our schools with students and teachers alike falling with the disease.
We are reading about how the hospitals are under severe pressure with over half of the serious Covid cases being unvaccinated people who have fallen seriously ill and the other half being vaccinated people with underlying conditions. (92% of the adult population are vaccinated – the numbers are clear).
We know 100% that the hospitals are rammed with Covid patients and as a result normal procedures are being postponed and god love anyone who goes there with an emergency case.
We are also reading that the unvaccinated are a big part of the problem, allowing the disease to spread more and possibly mutate.
A restaurant or venue owner is obliged to ask customers for their Vaccine passport and proof of ID but they are not permitted to ask their own team members if they are vaccinated ..”invasion of privacy“.
Do we not have a duty of care towards our employees?
We are reading about huge protests in Rotterdam and Vienna as people are freaking out about the necessary restrictions that have been introduced – angry with the wrong people?
If more severe restrictions are introduced here, no doubt people and businesses will be freaking out and all of this will be aimed at NPHET and the government, who will only be doing this to keep people safe and our hospitals functioning.
Maybe it is time to stop pussyfooting around, enough of the “PC” stuff and if we want to get out of this Covid mess and keep our loved ones safe and our businesses open it is time to focus our messaging on those who have so far been unwilling to vaccinate.
Maybe not quite “boot in” but it is time to apply some real peer pressure because it is needed.
Instead of the various lobby groups pressurising the government, maybe it is time to start focusing on those members of the general public who are not playing ball and putting everyone at risk and our lives on hold and livelihoods at risk.
Instead of being angry at the government, maybe it is time for us to start talking to family, friends and colleagues and encourage them to keep us safe. (instead we are all dancing around them gently- it’s their right)
If the unvaccinated are the biggest part of the problem, let’s tackle this head on and stop trying to solve it by tinkering with other measures that won’t deliver a solution.
We’ve all seen the advert about wearing a seatbelt..
I was casually chatting with my daughter Ellen today and as part of our usual chit chat I asked her how her week was going.
“A bit sad dad, one of the kids in the school passed away this week” she said to me.
While this is a conversation that would floor any of us, in Ellen’s world it is sadly one that gets repeated with an unbearable frequency.
Ellen works as a special needs assistant in a school in Cork, whereby they look after very special kids with all sorts of disabilities.
A very sad fact of life is that often they suffer from poor health and they don’t get to enjoy the full life that all of our kids have and on occasion their lives come to an end when they are still in that school going age.
Ellen says this boy was a loveable rogue and quite the character and was well known and loved by everyone in the school.
They put up a tribute wall for him with photos of him since his time in the school and while it is heart breaking hopefully he can feel their love as he makes his way to his mum who passed away a number of years before. (Ellen tells me he always asked people about how their mum was)
Those lucky enough who are blessed with health and healthy children might stop for a moment and think about these special children, their families and the people who devote their hearts and careers to minding them.
Rest in peace, the honorary Garda Sean Tyrell and thoughts and prayers for his family, friends, teachers and carers.
And thank you my daughter for that huge kind heart of yours – the world needs more of you.
I used to look at those pictures of loved ones who had passed; Grandads, Grandmas, all sorts of old folk and some younger folk who went before their time, and we used look at them on that mantlepiece, and when we had a moment we would pause and think about them as we went about whatever business we were doing at the time.
They are always there, a gentle reminder that they were once alive and very real and I do remember when they were with us, laughing, joking, telling stories, full of life and as real as you and me, but not any more.
I remember when they passed and it was very painful and there were many tears and a sense of deep loss and emptiness, but with the passage of time we started to cope and a new life without them became the norm, but of course that photo on the mantlepiece is always there to remind us.
I touch that photo and say “hello” and say “I love you” and “I miss you” and then I walk away and get on with my day or whatever I was doing before I stopped and paused.
I look at that photo on that mantelpiece and see that it is me in the photo and I am confused.
Am I the young man full of life, going about my business and looking at the photo of people on the mantlepiece who have passed or has my time gone and is that me in the photo?
We get one chance at this thing called life and we can’t go back – make the most of it.
In the latest episode of my Win Happy podcast, number 203, I chatted with Neil McDonnell, CEO of ISME, the organisation that is dedicated to looking after SMEs in Ireland.
Neil has been had a fascinating life and career that brought him from the senior ranks of the Irish Defence Forces to leading an organisation that is critical to the Irish economy.
His unusual career as well as the important role he now holds sparked my curiosity, and I was delighted that he quickly came back to me after I had reached out to him for the podcast.
People never fail to amaze me and Neil was no different sharing his experiences about the Defence Forces, his terms of duty in Lebanon and how that life of discipline and hierarchy transfers to a career in our business world.
As well as speaking about his time in Lebanon, the terrible situation in Afghanistan, Covid, Brexit, and other big challenges for SMEs in Ireland he shared some other stories and how him being a “Sharp Shooter” led to an unexpected victory for the Irish!
A really big thanks to Neil for coming on my podcast, for his hard work flying the flag for the small guys and I hope you might take the time to tune in and give me your feedback!
To listen click here or go to your favourite podcast app or Spotify!
Yep…it’s another one of those jobs that we look down our noses at when we talk about careers as we push our young population towards “good” jobs in STEM and in the professions.
“My daughter is studying to be a….“
“You must be so proud ….“
We’ve all heard it!
And now we realise that we don’t have builders to build the houses we need, we don’t have painters, carpenters, electricians, we don’t have chefs to cook the food we enjoy in our restaurants and hotels, we don’t have bar staff to serve us drinks and now we clearly don’t have lorry drivers to move all sorts from A to B and in the same breath some break into a cold sweat about the amount of immigrants entering the country and people stuck in direct provision limbo.
If Covid has and continues to teach us anything, it is that many of those jobs that we don’t really value and the ones that we most rely on.
Let’s lose the job snobbery and encourage people to chose careers that suit them and show them the respect they deserve – we need you..
Don’t you just love those emails you get from organisations who you have never heard of who come promising you overnight success if you just buy into their “magic system” .
They seem to think that they have cracked some secret code to automating your success in some way.
Here is today’s example..
Do you want to learn how you can grow your business, keep your sales team motivated and back up your intuition with real data insights, hitting your revenue goals each and every quarter?
(Oh wow, I’m excited, I’d love to do all that !!)
Then join us at XXXXXXXX (with some respect to them I removed this – they are trying) on Tour! We will bring you the cutting edge in intelligent revenue management from experts in the field, so you can gain that key advantage to ensure your business reaches far beyond its revenue goals.
You will discover how:
To hit your number quarter after quarter
You can leave the frustration that comes with disconnected data in 2021
To accelerate your pipeline
The biggest gap in revenue operations is affecting your business processes
Oh dear … irrelevant and pointless humbo jumbo, humbo jumbo, humbo jumbo and if you fall for it then good luck to you.
The gas thing, and adding some insult to injury is that in this GDPR world of ours, the local chambers that we are members of in fear of the GDPR police can’t give me the contact details for members (isn’t that why we join??) where we might actually do some mutual business and we still get these unsolicited BS communications from places we have no connection with…
There is no silver bullet, no magic wand to success other than hard work and doing the right things.
That’s my second “rant” blog post in a row, I better break out of this sequence quick !
One thought was it’s awful in any way to be associated with such an awful scenario, bit another one was that I had a record of a “liar” in full flight and wondered could I learn anything by listening back to the recording?
While I was shocked to hear about the level of misappropriation and the length of time it was going on for, I had to reflect back on that conversation with him and something that was nagging me at the time about our chat.
It’s really easy to say now that I felt there was something that wasn’t quite right about our conversation, but quite genuinely there was something at the back of my mind that just wasn’t right, but nothing terribly obvious. I remember sending a link to the podcast when it was published to a friend of mine to ask him what did he think – he felt the same and agreed there was something that wasn’t just right about it.
Ironically it was that person who alerted me to the news about Dave Moloney.
During that session I remember feeling that Dave seemed very tired and possibly jaded from his work and I asked him that during the course of our conversation – I was thinking that maybe I caught him on a bad day and maybe this unusual small charity was choking under immense “over the top” governance in the sector as a result of the high profile bad behaviour of others?
You might have seen a hint of my thoughts at the time this in the blogpost I wrote about the podcast episode:
I asked him a bunch of questions that day to learn about his life and career, his route to becoming involved with Bothar as well as a number of things that I normally ask to get a sense of the person. He was asked to join the charity by his old boss, the farm manager Peter Ireton (who was also part of the misappropriation at Bothan).
Very specifically I asked him how the well publicised scandals in the charity sector had affected Bothar – he waxed lyrical about how terrible those actions were and how devastating they were to Bothar and all of the other hard working charities.
He painted a strong picture about how little some people had in the world when we were all “cosy in our beds” and these were the very people his charity were trying to help.
Furthermore, he also painted a vivid picture about where every euro went in the charity and this was one of the reasons why they could be trusted.
Dave Moloney was a very convincing cheat and not the only one in that organisation and he was well able to tell a convincing story, to convince so many people to part with their hard earned money.
A troubling question I have is how can we be lied to so easily and how do we know that this is happening to us?
I interviewed him for over an hour face to face, we chatted beforehand and we chatted after and I had been introduced to him by a good friend of mine who was also working for the charity.
Should I have known that he was lying, should I have picked it up in the body language or in the words? – As I said I did feel there was something “off” but not enough to doubt him.
To protect yourself should you obey that “instinct” about someone even if it is just a hint that something isn’t quite right?
You might listen for yourself and tell me if you could smell the lies?
The saddest thing of all is the damage to the charity and the people it could have helped – they are celebrating 30 years and the very ironic headline on their website reads:
“Celebrating 30 years of helping people to help themselves“
We were having the usual conversation except the only sticking point was that they wanted a full day session with their group and I was trying to discourage this.
I find that if you stay at training too long then people get tired and what they learn in the morning they end up forgetting in the afternoon. It’s best if they get a chance to slowly digest, process and try it out for themselves.
I normally suggest half day sessions, when everyone stays fresh and then allowing a week in between so that everyone can practice and then come back to progress further.
“It must be on the one day because we have the hotel booked” she said.
It was only then that the penny dropped and I understood why she wanted it on the same day.
This threw me as I hadn’t been faced with this in a long time and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it.
Ok, lets do it ..
As it turned out there was a mix up with the hotel booking on their end and the training was cancelled (after all that !!) and while I was disappointed a big part of me was delighted!
I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect and disruption of it.
Travelling and delivering training sessions in person was part and parcel of the last 10 years (pre Covid), but the truth of it is that I have been doing this from the comfort of my little home office (converted bedroom) for the last 16 months and it works really well.
It’s convenient for me and participants, I’ve tweaked my delivery for online and it works really well, it’s cost effective and it also means they get a fresh “Greg” who isn’t after driving for a few hours and all that goes with it.
The big conversation that I was having with myself was “how inconvenient and pointless” that travelling/in person/ hotel experience would be compared to the very convenient way that I have replaced it with, and with no negative impact on the learning experience.
However, I do love the face to face in person training and as a social creature I love the energy you get back from a “live” group and the special learning dynamic that can happen. This will always have it’s place but only when necessary.
I know my simple example of this in person training session will be replicated very soon with so many of those things we have all been doing in the course of our work while working from home.
People have had to take on board new work habits which are now deeply embedded and there are parts about these that are very convenient as well as being cost and life effective and they won’t want to give them up too easily.
We can all talk about hybrid but this could be a very slow and long road back to the office and we need to be really careful to preserve what is working because it is possible to get the job done and ….
