Loving Life - Day 30

Day 30 (Saturday 30th December 2017)

30 December 1986 was the day that the UK government finally ruled out the
use of canaries in coal mines to detect the presence of noxious gases. Canaries were
introduced into mines in 1911, due to their sensitivity to poison and in particular their
reaction to carbon monoxide. Mice were also used, but were less swift in their reactions.
There were 200 canaries still being relied upon by 12,000 miners British mines in 1986.
This is an early example of technology taking over a role - canaries were replaced by
hand-held gas detectors with digital readers.

This evening a small family group of us are going to visit Dennis Severs' House in Spitalfields, London. It is a time capsule - each room of the house depicts a period in the lives of a family of Huguenot silk-weavers from 1724 to the dawn of the 20th Century. I have been once before, but tonight will be even more magical - we will have a candlelit wander around - with the rooms to ourselves - before choosing a room to sit in with the curator, to ask questions about the museum and its artefacts, whilst sipping mulled wine and enjoying mince pies.

The post today is by a much-loved and regular contributor to the Advent Blogs series, Bina Briggs. It has become a tradition for Bina to fill us in on her year just gone, and this post will not disappoint. I'm sure Bina would love to hear from you- one of the easiest ways of contacting her is on Twitter, her handle is @PlainTalkingHR.  Bina runs her own business with the same name as she uses on Twitter, Plain Talking HR Ltd, which she took sole control of when her former business partner, Bronwen, retired on the 1st June. The business is just as described, and so is Bina's approach to HR. She is unfailingly polite and supportive, never the less, Bina is quite capable of getting her messages across and guiding people when necessary to change their ways. She is an excellent mentor and friend, probably because she is steered by her values. Her business provides advice and support to small to medium size businesses and the testimonials and the fact that she is a regular contributor to her local radio's business panel discussions give a flavour of how she is perceived. Judging by her social media comments, one might think that Bina spent most of the time travelling the globe - certainly she is a devoted supporter of her husband, who is a regular participant in cycling races around the world.

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So here I am, once again on a plane to Poland to visit my ‘Polish family’ and to deliver their Christmas presents. This has become a tradition and funny enough usually I travel across at the end of November when the writing of the advent blog takes place too. This year, my trip was delayed and so the post didn’t get written either and it's 1st December and I've just read the first Advent blog of 2017. I feel a bit like a naughty child, should have written my blog by now! 😊😊

Christmas is such a special time for most people, no matter what religion you follow or not as the case may be! The lights, the music, the festivities, being with the people we love and the presents! Each year, the months seem to go faster and we all get caught up in its fervour. Of course, we all say it every year that this year I’m not going to do as much, it’s so commercialised and that I’m not having any of it! Guess, what, come November, most of us get drawn into it once again and off we go! I just love it! But then there are so many of my friends and family who LOVE the festive season and counting the days when they can start getting ready for the BIG DAY without feeling weird about it.

I feel that I live in 2 worlds and I’m sure I’m not alone. There is that one world that is happening out there, it occupies news headlines in the media on an hourly, daily basis round the clock and then there is that world that is my own personal space.

The world out there at times seems to be getting darker and out of control, to the point that it’s surreal. When you think that you have seen everything and heard everything, surely, it cannot be happening, it cannot continue to happen, then, smack, a headline appears which is more bizarre than ever. Enough said about all that...

Last year was one of those years where we were moving on with life and travelling a lot and as I had said in my 2016 advent blog that hubby was looking forward to retiring which meant only one thing, more awesome cycling races.

Although 2017 started with a high, it was also a period of frustration, waiting for others to make up their minds, to action things that had direct impact on us and in general, trying out our patience. Isn't it amazing how some people make others'  lives so miserable by not doing what they are supposed to do, it's their job but they don't give a damn, or are incompetent or totally oblivious of the fall-out they are creating by their inactions!  For the first couple of months, it seemed as if we were in a retrograde motion.

For some of the earlier months, it has also been a dark year for some of our friends and family too, health wise and work wise. Their unhappiness of course affected us. It's natural when our loved ones suffer, we suffer too. In addition, I have lost a couple of my loved ones, nearby and in India. These losses are insurmountable, closing of chapters and just left with memories of wonderful, loving people, never to be in my life, in our lives again. Death is so final.

Hubby retired in February and hey presto, he found new lease of life. More bike races galore, he entered almost one a month in any part of the world he/we could travel to with ease! 

Last year was a pretty full year in travelling, however, I'm sure that once again we have set a new record this year!! There is a standing joke with my FB friends about our travelling. They often wonder if we ever spend any time at all at home. We love checking out new places and of course meeting new people, people who often become very much part of our lives.

The business also has grown wings this year and it's started to fly. People and the universe have been most kind and all in all, the year is ending on a very high for me, my family and friends. All is coming together by the grace of all those looking after us.

We can't wait for 2018 as we look forward to all the great things it's bringing to us.

So, here's wishing you all a very merry, peaceful and loving festive season.

Bina

Filling hollows

Day 30 (Friday 30th December 2016)

30 and 35 times the mass of the sun were the sizes of the two 

black holes that were observed merging in June 2016 (and making a 

feeble bird-like cheap when doing so, when the gravitational waves produced, 

as they spiralled ever closer and then combined, were converted into sound waves). 

This momentous discovery demonstrates Einstein's prediction that spacetime can ripple 

and verifies astrophysicists' calculations for how black holes can fuse). 

This has been hailed by many scientists as the greatest scientific finding of 2016.

I love the lull before the New Year - a chance to reflect and plan, even when you have to be back at work during the few days between festivities. Today's post by Mark Hendy might help you to reconsider your life and whether you have the right focus and priorities. Mark is an inspirational and proud proud Welshman. He lives in south east Wales in an area that for centuries has been famous for iron and coal. Mark is a respected HR professional - he started as in HR at Tata Steel before taking on various roles in a range of companies and industries, predominantly in the UK, but with stints in North America. He cares about HR and its role in enhancing individuals and organisations, which inspired him to found and now chair the South Wales HR Forum.

When not focussing on HR, leadership and change management (he is a strong advocate of Authentic Leadership and the value of Evidence-based HR/Evidence-based management), he can be found being a great dad to young Oscar, cheering on or ranting about Swansea FC, boxing or playing music. He is an accomplished guitar player and member of a band. He is quick witted (can be quite sharp) and a writes an interesting, HR focused blog - Hendys HR Blog, as well as being active on Twitter (his handle is @markSWHRF). I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.

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Filling hollows 

I’ve always anticipated a career being some sort of progressive, transcending elevation following the traditional routes, taking the anticipated hits of responsibility, occasional discomfort and situational stress with the obvious benefits of job satisfaction, excitement and salary enhancement. That’s how the last 15 years in HR has been for me and I’m extremely grateful and dare I say it, proud of what I’ve achieved.

I reflected this year on where I was at. Career-wise it was at ‘Head of HR’ level, managing a team of HR Managers, delivering strategic work and, I felt, making a real difference. That’s the ‘Heights’ elements of this. I felt I was “almost there” career-wise for where I aspired to be, but it was coming at a price and I didn’t like it. Things just didn’t feel right, and I guess that's the ‘hollow’. 

My role at the time, along with feedback from a CIPD membership upgrade had made me realise that I had some gaps, particularly in OD where I needed to strengthen my experience. I also missed the heavy industry environments that I had spent most of my career working in, more so than I thought I would when I stepped out of that world. I was no longer convinced that I could plug those professional gaps that I needed to in my role at the time, despite working for a great organisation with fantastic people. It was a huge and extremely difficult personal decision but I needed to move on, step out of that career path that had served me well for the last 15 years and find a role that was going to help me plug those gaps. And that new role, for the first time in my career, was not going to be an “upwards move” as I often heard people say in the corporate world.

But what was more important than this, was I wanted to be home more. My previous role had me all around the country with regular overnight stays in soulless hotels, with minimal interaction with anybody. Meanwhile at home, was my wife and my son. A 2 year old, growing up so quickly, often enquiring where I was (thank goodness for FaceTime by the way). When I wasn’t away from home, I worked in the capital, often getting home 30-60 minutes before my son’s bed time. 

When people asked me how old my son was, they often followed up with “make the most of those early years, they go so quickly, the children grow up so fast.” So far that seems factually (if not literally) correct. I knew things had to change. 

And so fast forward 6 months. I’ve found the job I needed. I’ve started to plug those gaps and It’s filling that hollow. 

I no longer work in the city and I get to spend a lot more time with my family (i’m not bragging, but I’m home by 2pm on a Friday!). 

A great reason to get home by 2.00pm

I needed the change, it was made possible, and I feel infinitely better because of it, despite my initial reservations about how it might affect my career progression. Professionally and personally, sometimes you just have to listen to your heart. The heights can wait.