Better things to come

Day 11 (Sunday 11th December 2016)

11 - the total number of medals won by Cuba in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

My advice would be not to pick a fight with a Cuban; almost all

the medals were for some form of combat sport - 5 Golds (3 for Boxing,

2 for Wrestling), 2 silver (one for Judo, one for Wrestling) and 4 Bronze

(3 for Boxing and the last for Athletics - the Women's Discus Throw)
Cuba had a big year in 2016 including USA lifting sanctions and 
the death of Fidel Castro.

Alex Moyle is the writer of our Sunday read.  He feels as though 2016 has been a year of hollows, however he is determined not to let things get the better of him. Alex founded his own businesses in 2014 and 2015 - one is a specialist consultancy, Selzig, which helps organisations enhance sales performance; and the other, Elevated Recruiting, takes Alex back into his arena of corporate expertise in which he worked prior to going independent, namely providing learning and development to recruitment firms, helping consultants enhance their skills. For over 17 years Alex worked for the globally renown recruitment firm Robert Half. After proving himself as a consultant he progressed to being the UK Staff Development Manager.

Alex lives near Bristol with his wife and family. He is an engaging speaker.  H is also an active voice on social media - a prolific blogger and a regular contributor to debate on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can follow Alex on Twitter (if you don't do so already), his handle is @Alex_Moyle.

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Better things to come

I can take or leave most of the things associated with Christmas.  But I do love  the way the Christmas period encourages everyone to let go of the past and hope for a better year to come.

From a personal perspective I am glad to wave goodbye to this year.

My old manager used to say "Alex, when you succeed you get paid in cash, when you fail you get paid in experience".  

Well if this is true 2016 has made me a millionaire!

2016 has challenged my purpose,  my confidence as a father, husband and a human being.    Despite all my aspirations and passion, most of the year has felt like I was fighting a losing battle against the cosmos.

I would love to be able to write this and tell you how every day I still leapt out of bed with 100% passion to defeat the foes. 

The reality is, that on a lot of days, I have struggled with direction, passion and desire to fix the problems fate has put in my way.

Paul McGee in his book "Sumo" talks about people succumbing to a victim mentality and how this is, in part, caused by a person playing the wrong records (thoughts) in their head on loop.

I have definitely had times where I would be a case study for Paul's views.   The weird thing being that whilst you play those negative records in your head there is another voice that's locked in prison cell in in your head shouting "stop playing those records", "Stop being a victim". 

For a moment it seemed like I might need to buy a Harley Davidson to cap things off!

It is fortunate that the other little voice  did not taken long to break out of his cell and put the "victim voice" in his place.

Whilst I would like to say that his escape was all my own work. The reality is that family, friends and random acts of kindness helped the good voice to rise to the fore once again.

But enough of the confessional, what am I going to do to stop it happening next year....

For 2017 my aim is to:

- Focus on doing less things, but executing each one better.

- Work harder to recognise the little victories that are often ignored

- Adapt my expectations in line with the circumstances that present themselves

So that is my confessional, what about you the reader?

I have no doubt that most people will have had their own challenges this year.

Art Deco Bronze "Sisyphus" by Ganu Gancheff

All I ask is that you think about how you can leave the bad things behind in 2016 and look forward to better things next year.

After all most of us will be feeling better about 2016 than David Cameron and Hillary Clinton……….

Who would have thought it….!

Eat, drink and enjoy being with your friends and family in the coming weeks.

A Christmas Dole by Joseph Clark, (1834 – 1926)

Views into Another World - Day 56

Day 56 (25th January 2015)

56 - the exact number of curls in Shirley Temple's hair when a child actress

Her mother, Gertrude, gave her ringlets similar to those of the silent movie star Mary Pickford 

Shirley Temple inadvertently caused Graham Greene to write "The Power and the Glory". 

He had been a film critic, but his comments on her performance in "Wee Willie Winkie": 

"Her admirers "“ middle-aged men and clergymen "“ respond to her dubious coquetry, 

to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with 

enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops 

between their intelligence and their desire", resulted in a libel action. 

Following this Greene resigned and left the UK to travel in Mexico, 

a trip which inspired his masterpiece.

Alex Moyle is the Managing Director of Selzig Consulting, based in Bristol (Selzig is word of Scandinavian origin meaning "to serve" - Alex is a specialist in sales and his business focuses on helping organisations to enhance revenue and growth through customer service and talent management - serving clients and employees). Prior to setting up his own business, Alex spent over 15 years with global recruitment experts, Robert Half, where, having proved himself an able senior consultant (he was a branch manager) he became a specialist in training and developing employees and was the UK Director of talent Development. Alex is married and lives with his family near Bristol. He is active on social media (his Twitter handle is @Alex_Moyle) and a regular blogger on LinkedIn.

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Everything we see, hear, smell and think is tainted by perspective. My favourite quote of all time is in Act 2 Scene 2, Lines 246 to 247 from Hamlet where Hamlet says to Rozencrantz:

"Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 

What I love about the quote is that it reminds you that, whatever situation you find yourself in, it is what you think that decides the perspective you see.

Marcus Aurelius has a similar opinion to that of Shakespeare

However a challenge for us all is that the decisions we make and the perspective we choose is more often than not a subconscious one.

Dali's painting: Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee
around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening
often cited as a depiction of the subconscious influencing thoughts

Worse still is that, if we are not consciously aware of the perspective from which we see situations, how are we to be conscious in seeing the perspectives of others as we live our lives?

No one wants to be the boss that is seen as uncaring or or self-centred, only concerned with our own view on the world.  Or, in the best case, wandering through life thinking everyone likes you, but mysteriously spending Christmas Day on your own.

So what are the conscious triggers that you can use to encourage you to see life from another perspective? 

• Try reading a different news paper or news website than usual and, rather than disagreeing with the view points you read, think “what is making them think like that?" If you read the Telegraph try the Guardian, etc...

The Sun vs.Daily Mirror - contrasting opinions
Headlines for Thursday 6th May 2010 UK election

• When your husband, wife or partner is frustrated with something you have done, rather than defend ask yourself “what are they seeing that I am not that is making them respond in this way?"

• When someone in your team is complaining about the company, rather than immediately defend the situation with the company line ask them “why is it you think that?"

• When your boss delivers change that you do not perceive as positive, think “what is the business trying to achieve from this change?”  This may seem strange but, in the main, companies do not set out to deliberately make their staff unhappy.

• When you are confronted by an unhappy customer whom you feel is being unreasonable, ask your self “how would I feel if I had this happen to me?"

More often that not once you start asking yourself these questions another world opens up that is different than the one you see today. 

Strange things may start happening to you.  You may find that you think a little longer before you respond, instead of defaulting to your pre-programmed way; you may be slightly less judgemental knowing the person annoying you may have good reason for behaving that way. You never know, you may even start reading a different paper, voting differently or switch your football team from the blues to the reds...

David Bowie - "Changes" from the album Hunky Dory, 1971

It would be great to get your ideas and suggestions on things you should ask yourself in situations where you probably could do with pausing and seeing things from a different perspective. 

Comments below please.