Hope - Day 31

Monday 31st December - New Year's Eve

31 is the most common number of days in the Western Calendar's months. The rhyme that many
people use as a reminder ("Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November; All the rest
have thirty-one, Excepting February alone, And that has twenty-eight days clear; And twenty-nine
in each leap year.") was first published in 1555, when it was copied into a manuscript. It is probably
the only 16th century poem that many ordinary people know by heart.
I hope the months ahead are happy and healthy ones for you and yours.

The end is nigh, in more ways than one. Today is the last day of 2018 and it is also the final guest post that I will curate and host as part of the Advent Blog series, well at least for the foreseeable future. There have been some brilliant pieces this year - huge thanks to all the contributors. It is New Year's Eve and for the first time for ages we are not going to a party, instead we are cooking a family meal at home. I am looking forward to spending some time with my sons. We have a big party on Saturday to celebrate Hamish's 21st. He has asked me to say a few words, so I need to give that some thought. It is a funny feeling seeing your children become adults. I'm sure I should feel older than I do.

The final guest post in this year's Advent Blog series is by start-up and individual and organisational growth specialist Christine Locher. With an academic grounding in Communication, Psychology and Intercultural studies in her native Germany (during which time she also worked as a journalist), Christine is a high achiever. Post university she commenced her career in consulting, working first for McKinsey and then Boston Consulting Group, undertaking a variety of client and internal development roles before focussing on the growth of consultants at all levels. She ran global leadership and learning for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu before a brief stint at Oliver Wyman and BTS. Christine has a passion for seeing others thrive and grow. In 2017 she decided to branch out on her own, founding her own leadership development business. She is an excellent coach (ICF standard with high level academic qualifications in thinking and change as well as communication and psychology) and tends to work with entrepreneurs and growing businesses, especially within the tech space. Although a global nomad, Christine is currently based in London, where she takes advantage of the breadth of experiences that the City offers. She is a voracious reader with an almost insatiable curiosity - quite capable of ensuring that the details are not missed when effecting the big picture plan. Christine is a keen and natural networker - I recommend your connecting with her on Twitter, her handle is @ChristineLocher. I like her post as it is full of hope and we all need a but of that.

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“Help me, Obiwan Kenobi, you are my only hope.” (Princess Leia, Star Wars. Sending this into a galactic void, hoping to get heard. She did, eventually.)

Hope is one of our most beautiful qualities as humans. No matter how deep the colossal mess is that we might find ourselves in, we manage to, at least in a good moment, lift our eyes off the chin-deep muck we are in and towards the horizon. We imagine a future that is better. Hope is what keeps a sacred space for that imagination, not as an escapist delusion, but as a vision that just hasn’t been implemented yet. Hope gives us energy when the struggle has taken it all. Hope is what keeps us alive. This time. Next time. All the time.

Hope doesn’t need to wear rainbow unicorns or come with an ethereal violin soundtrack to work. Hope can be an empty parking lot at 3am shouting obscenities at the big man in the sky in existential disagreement to then sleep off the hangover, make your first cup of coffee, take a good hard look at your life, to keep going for another day, this time better. It doesn’t need to be pretty. It doesn’t need to be instagrammed. It just needs to be there, however it looks and feels at the moment. Hope, at all times, is as real as you allow it to be. I’ll just say that again. Hope is as real as you allow it to be. 

We have of course no proof or confirmation any of our hopes will ever come true. But hope doesn’t need that (and neither do you, you hope-endowed human, and deep-down you know it). Hope knows that tomorrow is another day, that one decision or one conversation or one encounter can reset the path to a better future that you can’t even imagine yet. And that you just don’t know beforehand which one it is going to be this time. So you keep going.

You might have a vision, or you might have had one but lost touch with it, as your daily mess is too far away right now so you have a hard time seeing how you get from over here to over there. Hope hears you. Hope reminds you that you don’t need to see the whole path to be able to take a step. And then another one. Hope focuses you on the things that work, so you can start doing more of them. Making small changes, which then add up to the big change. It’s how most big changes or successes work anyway, despite what it looks like on social media. And hope knew that all along. You might be deep down the problem hole right now, but there is no point in wasting more of the energy you don’t have focusing on how deep and messy it is. 

Focus on how you get out. Hope here serves as the magical, ever-elusive “air hook”. You can tie a rope to it and start pulling, and, with hope, it actually works.

Hope also lets you build trust. Take that first step first, without having to wait for the other one to begin. Raise that topic. Have that conversation. Mention the thing you are afraid to mention. Take small risks, be mostly rewarded, and start being less alone in this. It is easier to be hopeful when you have a tribe of supporters. Hope invites participation and support from other humans (and some friendly ‘droids…). Hope is stronger when shared. This, in turn, paves the way for others so they can dare to keep going as well. Hope lifts everyone.

You'll Never Walk Alone

Gerry and the Pacemakers

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark

At the end of a storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll…

Losses, Arrivals and Appreciations - Day 29

29th December 2018 

29 a Sickle is 29 Knuts make a Sickle in the fictional wizard currency in JK Rowling's
Hary Potter books. 1 Galleon = 17 Sickles; 1 Sickle = 29 Knuts 1 Galleon = 493 Knuts.
Galleons are gold coins, Sickles are silver, and Knuts are copper. In the current turbulent
currency exchange markets, I am glad that we don't have to calculate in Knuts.

Welcome to the last weekend of 2018. I drove my mother-in-law home last night - she and I enjoyed a late supper at her local - it was such a treat to be treated. Thank you Kath. I will miss having her with us. I am planning on taking it quietly today, as the past few weeks have been quite demanding and I have not been able to spend as much time with my sons as I would have liked. Happy Saturday!

Today's post is by series veteran, Michael Moran, the Chief Executive and Founder of 10eighty, a business consultancy that helps people and organisations, particularly during times of transition and to grow employee engagement. Michael is an excellent coach. He commenced his career in Human Resources, having worked in the NHS and Financial Services sector. He has successfully run HR consultancies specialising in career management for the last 20 years.  Michael is a devoted husband and father (his daughter works as 10eighty's Busienss Development Executive and his son is in the British armed forces). Michael has a passion for sport and is a season ticket holder of Derby County (so clearly he is also an optimist). He is a published author, having written  “The Guide to Everlasting Employability”, and has also designed two career management apps to support career planning You can follow him on Twitter @mdmoran10Eighty. 

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It’s that time of year - time to reflect, looking back over 2018.

It’s all about taking the time to appreciate what you have and enjoying the moment.

As you get older you start to lose people who have been a constant feature in your life, it seems strange that they are no longer there (a bit of heartache).

At the same time, you see the arrival of the next generation, and the opportunity to shape their thinking and behaviours

(that includes supporting DCFC) (a bit of hope).

It’s important that you take the time to appreciate your achievements (the high-fives). Savour the moment. It is far too easy to be dismissive of things you once strived for as you move on to the next goal. Likewise, don’t beat yourself up about the things that didn’t work. Having blown £100k on marketing and business development that didn’t get the business to the next level, it is important to take the learnings, and seek out the positives. Business growth is not a straight line. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Resilience and determination are essential characteristics for the entrepreneur.

So looking forward, it’s time to set goals. It’s time to remind yourself of mission and purpose. My mission for all those clients with whom I work is to help them achieve job satisfaction and career success. I truly believe this is something that is attainable for all. My purpose is to create a self-sustaining business, built on repeatable and predictable revenues.

As both a career coach and a business leader I recognise that you need to push yourself, take risks and seek out new experiences. This year I experienced my first massage and mediation sessions; trust me when I say this is well outside my comfort zone. Whilst not something I would necessarily repeat, it is good to do things outside of your comfort zone. This serves to reinforce my belief in the importance of learning and, indeed, the need to seek out learning experiences. As a career coach I see too many people who have checked out of the learning habit. I remain absolutely convinced that the secret of everlasting employability (quick plug for the book) is self-investment.

This year my big self-investment has been podcasts. I have combined my love of walking (read the need for exercise) with listening to podcasts. My favourite work podcast has to be Jacob Morgan’s The Future of Work, with sports favourites Radio 5 Live The Football Daily and Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong guy. Please check them out.

So to conclude, as we come to the end of 2018 I urge you to appreciate those around you, your family, colleagues and friends. Take the time to reflect on what you’ve achieved in the last 12 months, but more importantly make a commitment to stretch yourself, seek out new experiences and go boldly into the New Year.

Happy Christmas (we are still within the 12 days). Wishing you all a very prosperous New Year.

Pause. Step back a moment. - Day 28

28th December 2018

28 is the curing time for concrete - curing concrete is the term used for stopping freshly
poured concrete from drying out too quickly. This is done because concrete, if left to dry out of
its own accord, will not develop the full bond between all of its ingredients. It will be weaker
and tend to crack. During curing hydration occurs, allowing calcium-silicate hydrate (C-S-H) to form.
Over 90% of a mix's final strength is typically reached within 28 days. Concrete is the most
used construction material in the world.

I'm back to work today. I have new clothes to wear, a few treats in my bag to cheer me during the day and the music from Hansel and Gretel as an earworm. 

I am in awe of the lady who wrote today's post - it is candid and well balanced, but it must have been hard putting her thoughts onto the page. I would like to thank her for her contribution (she is a regular writer for the series) and also for being such a valued member of the HR and L&D social media-linked community.

Today's post is by Rachel Burnham, a learning and development consultant, sketch-noter and designer based near Manchester. Rachel works with trainers, L&D professionals and HR teams to help them modernise their approaches and become more effective. Rachel, as you can surmise from the sketchnoting is highly creative. The photographs for today's piece are taken by Rachel herself. Rachel is a talented lady. She writes an excellent L&D focused blog - L & D Matters and is active on social media (you can follow her on Twitter via @BurnhamLandD). When not drawing, reading or helping others to learn, Rachel enjoys spending time with her nearest and dearest and has a passion for gardening (as you can tell from the below piece). She is also a keen jazz aficionado - a cultured lady. Reading between the lines you can see that 2018 has been a challenging year for Rachel but that she has found a way through. She is brave, resourceful, honest and resilient.

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Pause. Step back a moment.

In the spring of 2017, my son and I took a day trip from the island of Mykonos, to the nearby island of Delos.  This was our second trip to Greece – part of the big shake up in our family life.  Sam is a history nerd and so we spend these trips visiting museums and archeological sites – the only beaches I have visited in Greece have had nearby ruins and that’s fine with me – I am getting a great second-hand classical education and it is rather wonderful when an adult child chooses to have you as a holiday companion.

It was a hot day – deep clear blue sky and even early in the morning it was blazing hot.  The island of Delos is one huge archeological site – one fascinating ruin, statue, and pillar after another – far more than it is really possible to take in in a single day.  And on this April morning it was also full of wild flowers – self-seeded all through the walls and floors were vivid red poppies, purple mallow, chamomile, vetch - cousins of garden plants I know and love here in the UK, but smaller, more intensely coloured and billowing everywhere across this small island.  As the heat intensified, we explored the remains of villas, shops, streets, temples and a theatre.  Buildings once grand and lavish – though I was captivated by a drain from some indoor plumbing and the complex water tank system used to store water captured from the roof of the theatre.

Half-way up a hill, we turned in to the courtyard and colonnade of a villa, which seemed more sturdy and upright than many of the other parts of the site.  And in these rooms found the most wonderful, not-much damaged mosaic floors. 

We looked and looked at them.

I love mosaics.  As a child I remember seeing Roman mosaics found in the UK shown on television – probably Blue Peter.  I had a phase of cutting up magazines to create piles of colour-ordered roughly rectangle scraps of paper, which I then used to make mosaic pictures. Tesserae from paper. It took hours. I’m not sure I would ever have the patience now.

When you look closely at a mosaic you sometimes lose sight of the picture – of the images, pattern and story.  As you focus, you home in on the tesserae and pick out the mix of shades and colours – the individual tiny tiles that the artist used to create their picture with.   Sometimes as you focus in on an area representing the sea or sky you are able to distinguish the mix of hues – shades of blue, dark and stormy,cornflower, to the palest blue, and mixed in a stone or two of sea-green, or a speckle of white and cream or brightest of all a gleam of gold.

And that is what my year has been – a mosaic.  Some stormy blue days of heartache, many many days of the palest blue of work and home and the doing of life, a taste of sea-green and speckles of pure gold. 

Part of the heartache for me is that this is my first full year since I separated from my husband, after 33 years together – which has been a very sad thing, but through recognizing that things had gone wrong between us, also has led to new hopes and a new phase in our lives.  We continue to share a house and I am incredibly proud that we have both worked at finding a way to still be a family.  Somehow we are finding our way back to being good friends.

I have been learning how to manage holiday seasons when on my own – a bit of a mixed experience – I actually like time on my own – good for recharging, great for reading, which is one of my passions, it gives me time for drawing and is a necessary balance to the social busyness of my work and volunteering.  But I find it is a bit tricky to get the balance right and I have had one or two wobbly Saturday nights when I would really rather of had some company. 

I have had heartaches too in my professional life – real blue days.  Back in March, I had one of those horrible times that so many of us face of a total loss of confidence – when you are independent there can be times when you don’t win contracts, when you don’t just feel rejected, but are rejected and even when you have been freelance for 18 years as I have, it doesn’t make it any less challenging to deal with.  I had a very long and tearful phone call one wet Wednesday with my closest friend before I moved into a more sea-green state.

Towards the end of the year, I made a poor decision and ended up letting down a client.  Definitely a low and very blue moment.

And there have been other times of hope, fulfillment and great contentment – a great times introducing groups to Sketchnoting in both Manchester and London, reading student reflective blogs on their learning from a programme, hosting CakeCamp evenings, co-leading a session at NAP with Mike Shaw, lots and lots of fabulous live music – jazz of course, but also being swept away at a performance of Tosca, drawing a picture of my father that actually looks like him!  

When your life is busy, sometimes you don’t have a sense of the whole picture, what the pattern is.   It rushes by and all of a sudden it’s the near the end of the year and it seems a blur – all of a murkiness.
  

But when you pause.  When you step back.  When you seek out and sense the pattern, then you can see the whole picture.

And now that I have paused, I see that this year has been full of golden moments and days as well.  Sitting outside and eating our first meal in the garden in the sun – not realizing then that this year it would be the first of many.   Visiting Delphi with Sam – breathing in the scent of oregano on a sunny hillside.  Conversations in the course of a piece of research.   Working with Gem Dale and a whole team of folk to put on a conference on flexible working.   Trying out so many new things but particularly starting flamenco classes.  Cutting back a shrub on a very cold day in February and the beautiful blue hibiscus flowers that resulted in July.  Cricket on a super hot day with friends. And more.

(Blue hibiscus)

And what stands out is that it was the people who made this year – students, clients, volunteers, co-workers, new friends to draw with, family, my closest friend and Sam. The people who see you through the heartache, who you share hopes with and dream dreams with and celebrate every small win with.  It’s the people who make the year.  Thank you.

Rachel Burnham