Follow your heart

Day 5 (Monday 5th December 2016)

5th Nuclear weapon test undertaken by North Korea occurred on 

9th September 2016 (the date is the 68th anniversary of 

the founding of North Korea). The other 4 were 6th January 2016,

12th Feb 2013, 25th May 2009 and 9th October 2006.

I was both amazed and delighted when this post dropped into my inbox. I have known Michael Moran for years, but had no idea that he was a follower or fan of the Advent Blogs series.  Michael is the Chief Executive and Founder of 10Eighty - the specialist organisation that works with organisations to ensure that they achieve the best outcomes in relation to their people (80% of people in companies are the "bedrock" and results can be achieved by increasing their engagement, the remaining 20% can be split into two groups of 10 - the first are the talented star performers that any business needs to identify, attract, and retain the final 10% are in the process of leaving (for a multitude of reasons) - Michael and his team can help with each group, hence the corporate name). 

Michael cut his teeth in the National Health, working with unions and in "personnel" (as it was then) within the Health Service, before moving into The City in time for Big Bang. Michael developed his career within leading brokers and commodity specialists, focusing on organisational effectiveness and strategy. He ceased being an operations manager to establish and lead Penna's Financial Services arm. Michael believes in self-development and continuous learning. Whilst at Penna he found time to study, achieving an MBA from Warwick - when chatting with him it is hard not to be inspired by his quick wit and perceptive questioning). In the early Noughties Michael left to have greater autonomy in running a business, joining Fairplace. Throughout his career he has specialised in working with and supporting people. Michael is active on social Media, you can follow him on Twitter, his handle is @mdmoran10eighty.

As the title of his post perhaps suggests, his piece is full of hope and inspiration - simple, sage advice (just what Michael has provided for me at times, over the years, when we've met up for a chat).

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Follow your heart 

This piece was inspired by the news that after years of giving careers advice to readers of the Financial Times, the award-winning columnist Lucy Kellaway is changing career.

Kellaway believes that changing careers leads to richer lives, and that at the age of 57 she is excited by the challenge. Kellaway admits that it won’t be an option for those who can’t afford the smaller pay packet of a teacher’s starting salary but thinks there is a “demographic sweet spot” of those whose children have left home and who avoided the worst of the housing market.

Most of us are likely to be working into our sixties and seventies and career change may be a welcome option for many. Take a gap year, retrain, do an MBA, change direction. 

You can reinvent yourself or start afresh. Do you want to be a gallery owner, a landscape gardener, a football coach, a hypnotherapist?

Silvana de Soissons left a role in The City to become initially a food writer and cookery
teacher, before focusing on artisan food (she started her first food blog, The Foodie Bugle,
which, the following year, went on to win the Guild of Food Writers Media Award). In addition to The Foodie Bugle,
she now has a shop in Bath selling fresh local produce and beautiful but strictly useful objects for the house

Live your values

Many people fall into a career that suits but doesn’t inspire them. You don’t have to stay there forever, though. Don’t be constrained by goals you set in the past - there are so many ways to find a perfect career! Your story is unique and the possibilities are endless.

I advocate that over the holiday you spend some time on a rigorous self-evaluation and don’t compromise your values or stifle your ambition. Apply some mindfulness to your career plan and follow your intuition. You need to live by your values and convictions and if you can work with others who share your passion that helps. You have to be the change you want, trust yourself and do whatever it takes to make a difference and put your ideas about a fulfilling and sustainable career into practice.

It sounds simple but we live and work in a complex world and sometimes we have to negotiate and compromise but nobody is perfect and you don’t have all the answers but keep asking questions and chasing your dream.

Career activism

Becoming a successful career activist is about opening your mind to the possibilities around you. My advice:

• It's not a privilege to have a job you love, it is what you deserve.
• Making changes may be hard but you have the power to plan your life and change it.
• Use your network, connect with those who inspire you.
• Cultivate a focus on your career that will allow you to develop and thrive.
• Make a commitment to continuous self-improvement.
• Be ready and be flexible and courageous in considering your options, you have a wealth of experience, knowledge and perspectives, be creative about how you apply them.

If you think you need to make changes, next year, go for it!

Down in the Dirt

Day 16 (Wednesday 16th December 2015)

16 of this year's "Forbes Celebrity 100: The World's Highest-Paid Superstars of 2015" were women. 
The boxers, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, topped the list - Mayweather made $300 million 
(the highest annual amount ever earned by an athlete), 
$250 million of his earnings were winnings from his fight against Pacquiao in May. 
Katy Perry was #3, due to income related to her world tour.
According to the World Economic Forum the gender pay gap may take 
another 118 years to close.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Paul Clarke, the author of today's piece - given the time of year and prevalence of office parties, the publication is timely. Paul had a high flying career in management consulting (advising public sector organisations on their IT strategies), prior to seeing the light and following his passion to become, in the space of less than 5 years, one of the UK's most respected "real time image creation" and event photographers. In 2013 he was listed, by Professional Photographer magazine, as one of the Top 100 Photography Heroes; in 2014 he won the Professional category in the Event Photography Awards and judged the event this year. Paul is inspirational on many levels - perceptive, creative, fiercely bright (he studied Engineering, Economic and Management, Information Management at Oriel College, Oxford), aware of his own weaknesses and always prepared to question and challenge. I first met Paul via Twitter, and have subsequently become a client - he took some brilliant photos of family and friends at my eldest son's 21st - and he is also a friend. He introduced one of our new blogging voices via the Adnet Blogs series last year and I am delighted to have him with us in 2015. Chatting with Paul is always a pleasure, so long as you don't mind surprises and debate. He is a fine wordsmith - try out his photography blog - or else enjoy his company on Twitter (his handle is @paul_clarke).

NB Paul had no involvement in the photographs used to illustrate his post.

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It's just after midnight, on a train outside Purley. Not quite the last train – now that would be a special hell – but pretty rough all the same. It's mid-December; most of the people around me have been hitting it hard today. The signs are everywhere. 

The grey-haired guy in the camel coat slumped down over his bag, drool running from the corner of his mouth on to the crumpled Standard beneath. The pale, sweaty woman by the door, fingers playing nervously with her big handbag. The puker-to-be.

It's not overt violence that hangs in the air so much as sadness. Ten big lads have taken over First Class and are noisily stuffing down burgers and beers. Anyone mug enough even to approach the door will be washed back on a wave of Stella Bantois. A young woman is asleep in the space by the doors – everyone who passes her looks nervous, then guilty, as they're not sure whether to wake her and tell her which stop it is. But you know, these days, can't be too careful...

The office parties, the quick drink after work, the we-said-we-must-catch-up-and-it's-nearly-2016. The unwrapped Secret Santas, the soggy party-hat, the quarter-full bottle of Prosecco under the table. The champagne and the shame and the pain.

The train's been stopped for a while, and my thoughts travel back seven Christmases. That was me – guy slumped over the bag. Or sometimes the red-faced and shouty one. Or the one looking for cabs at Horley having slept right through my stop. Sad and sick. Drinking problem, you see. Call it what you will – call it alcoholism, call it wrong-life-wrong-job – the problem bit would always show up at that time of night in one particular way.

I could not – whatever had been happening earlier in the day or evening – I COULD NOT get past the Whistlestop at Victoria without dipping in for a quick bag of “travellers”. Four tins (at least) of the strongest beer they had. They didn't stock the super-strengths. (Pro-alkie-tip: neither do Waitrose, but they DO stock the Belgian Trippel stuff – it's pretty much the same, and the neighbours won't be shocked. Middle-Class-Special-Brew.)

So that was a drinking problem all right. The first would be empty by the time the train pulled out. The second not looking so healthy by Balham. And neither would I. Three was reserved for the delays around Selhurst, and four would be dispatched just before home. Wouldn't want to come in the door clutching booze, would I? Now how bad would THAT look?

I was down in the dirt. Covered in the grubby coal-dust of modern London life. Stuck down a mine of my own design. I remember one similar train journey, a few years ago, when someone had left a copy of The Sun on the table. The front page was some screaming headline about the Budget, and proposals for higher booze pricing. “CHANCELLOR TO PUT A TAX ON FUN” or something like that. Fun. All that fun. I've never seen that particular F-word in the same way since then, if I'm honest.

How could I cope without all that fun? I'd be ostracised, apart, ridiculed. “The Other” at all those parties. What if Secret Santa wasn't actually funny, sober? Imagine that. In time it turned out that none of those fears were real (apart from the Secret Santa one). But that's for another story.

Anyway, back to dust and dirt and darkness. Thing about even the most insignificant and blackest dust is that you can turn it around and see it in a new light, and it will show you glories unimagined.

Take the comet: thousands of years lost in space, dark, scared, alone – frankly a bit of a mess. If Carlsberg did alcoholic space objects… But put it in the right place, look at it in the right way, and that dust streams out into the most vivid and striking tail. All that darkness, let go, and reimagined. Even bright enough, I'm told, to be seen through the rain-streaked windows of a signal-limping commuter train in south London.

I was lucky. I found the sun, and set my face to it. The dust streams, and now I blaze.

Comet ISON, 2013

Good luck finding yours, wherever it may be hiding.

Comet Donati 1851

Selah, time to reflect - Day 38

Day 38 (7th January 2015)

38 - the number of plays credited to William Shakespeare

The Plays of William Shakespeare, oil painting c1849 by Sir John Gilbert

Depicting scenes and various characters

Picture on display in Dahesh Museum of Art.

Susan Popoola is a self-styled Human Value Optimisation Specialist, which is a good explanation of what she specialises in: leveraging the value of people in the world of work and in the wider world; she has a particular interest in supporting young people. In her post below Susan is modest about her achievements. As well as having established a successful business, she is an award winning writer (she was Women4Africa Author of the Year 2013). Susan and I became acquainted when we were regular bloggers for the Discuss HR site, the blog spot for the Human Resources UK group. As we live quite far apart (she is based in Milton Keynes), we tend to keep in touch via Twitter (Susan's handle is @SusanPopoola).

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It's interesting that Megan Peppin started day one of the Advent calendar on the subject of 'being'.  You see not too long ago, a few years back to be more precise; a friend would contact me and asked what I'm doing. "Just Being" I'd respond. I particularly remember someone I'd recently met contacting me and asking what I was doing that weekend. Not thinking of how it might come across to a stranger, I responded, ‘Just Being’. “What's that?” he asked, “it sounds rather spiritual.” He expanded.  “No, not really" I responded. I went on to explain that, it's just about not making any special plans, just going with the flow and seeing how the day unfolds without feeling the pressure to do anything in particular. 

Just Being!

The Bare Necessities from The Jungle Book

“Sounds interesting,” he said, “I must try it one day.” I doubt if he did though. As I've discovered over the years, that it would be alien to his nature. He's one of those people who is used to running up and down, juggling, trying to do several things all at once. The kind of person that I more or less became, until recently.

An adept juggler - The Cat in the Hat - from the book of the same name
 written and illustrated by Theodor Geisel under the pen name Dr. Seuss
and first published in 1957

You see I realised that I had a long list of visions and dreams - things I would like to achieve and I realised that I wasn’t getting any younger, so I became a bit more focused on planning and strategizing, creating list of objectives and goals. Putting out there the various things that I wanted to achieve.

I’m thankful to say that over the years I’ve achieved a fair bit. I’ve worked on a number of great HR projects that have had a great impact. Amongst other things, I’ve written a couple of books; travelled to and volunteered in New Orleans and Haiti; done some public speaking in the UK and abroad; and started a few initiatives, specifically with a focus on young adults.  If the truth be told, I’ve not achieved half of what I would have liked to achieve and sometimes I would say that I’ve actually failed. I can comfortably speak of failing, because even though failure hurts, I also recognise that it’s not final. It’s one of the lessons that I’ve learnt over recent years as I try to use my knowledge, gifts and capabilities to have a positive impact on the world that we live in.

A few other things that I have learnt:

Outward appearances can be deceptive and success is not always what you see.

People’s perception of you will often be different from what you believe or see. People often seem to believe that my carrot has shoots like those of the carrot on the left. In my mind and based on my visions and dreams, my carrot, as a whole, is more like the carrot on the right.

If like me, you are yet to achieve the half of what you hope to do, it is very easy to look at the outward appearance of other people’s carrots and get frustrated and upset. Don’t; just continue along your path. You don’t know the full story of others.

Striving will only get you so far even with the greatest strategy and plan. You do need to have a plan and to work hard or rather smart, but you also need to be flexible with your plan. Some things just have their own time and season as well so you need patience. I don't know whether she's a virtue or not, we've never really been friends, but I'm learning to get on with her.

Patience stained glass window, 1860
Auchendennan castle house, Loch Lomond, Scotland

You need friends, however, you may be surprised to find out who your friends and allies are. There are people that you may have thought would be friends for life who are unable to go on the full journey with you, not necessarily because they don’t care, but because it’s a path they cannot comprehend or go down. There will also be people that will surprise you, appearing from nowhere with a willingness to take your hand and journey with you, even through the darkest of places.

You must own your own definition of success and walk the path towards it, with a degree of knowledge of who you are so that unto your own self you can be true. In recent times, I’ve started taking time out once more to “just be”. But “Just Being” is a bit different for me now. It’s typically a bit more reflective, a time when I take time to put things into perspective; seek some balance about things that I don’t understand and pause to reflect on achievements and how failures will eventually be turned around and become distant memories.

pausing to reflect
(female Mallard)

Sometimes, I also take the time to pray in line with “The Prayer of Jabez”

"Oh, that you would bless me indeedAnd enlarge my territory,That your hand would be with me,And that you would keep me from evil,That I may not cause pain!"~1 Chronicles 4:10, The Bible

P.S. Many a time when people talk about the prayer of Jabez, they focus on the blessing part. I would like my path to be filled with blessings that I may have a positive impact on the world. I’m also mindful of the people that I will meet in various capacities along life’s road.  Selah.

Sometimes used as a musical notation,
Selah means to pause and reflect on what you have just read

A life lived well and true - Day 12

Day 12

12 months of the year, depicting rural tasks
in the Salzburg manuscript, early 800s
One of the oldest calendars of its kind
in Vienna's National Austrian Library
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I am honoured to count David Goddin as a good friend, as well as a highly effective professional expert whom I value and enjoy working with. He regularly blogs on business related matters (www.peopleperformancepotential.com) and actively uses Twitter (@ChangeContinuum) as well as other forms of social media. He has a quick, dry wit, a calm intelligence and a depth of compassion that combines with his genuine interest in others to make him stand out from the crowd. After a successful career, culminating as a COO, David founded his own business which helps others thrive, particularly during times of change. David is values driven and brave, as the following post demonstrates...

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It's funny. Trying to think about what I might write on the theme of "Paths & Perceptions" I realise just how far from "the path" I have wandered. It may not be perceptible to you or others but I see and feel it. Thinking back I see that my wandering means that I've been following many paths.

Our English Coasts, 1852 ("Strayed Sheep") - William Holman Hunt
image sourced from the Tate Gallery, London

That makes sense of the unsatisfied feeling I've had on and off. Being on many paths is clearly both stretching and unfulfilling...

Aerial view of Colarado River delta
Found on scienceclarified.com

I know that over the last year or so I've been consciously and deliberately shutting doors. Things I won't do, places I won't go, people I won't be with. It's been important and liberating. It's allowed me to focus more on being me. My perception though was that these doors were on a single path that I've been following. However, I realise that perception was not entirely true - some of those doors I had to shut weren't even on my path... bloody Twitter!

Closed Doors by Estonian artist Miraccoon

Don't get me wrong. This isn't an existential crisis. I know who I am. I know what I need. I know what I value. I know how I can create value. However, this tension can't be sustained anymore. It's ridiculous to even try. I just need to maintain a good perception of my own path.

Is that the challenge of a life lived well and true?

Leaving behind some of those other paths I sense that in liberation there is both a perception of danger and opportunity. A perception that it will test friendships and relationships. I could fail or fall... It's testing my faith and my confidence. There is no other way though is there?

Brave Steps
(bridge in Northern Pakistan)

So I'm saying goodbye and in some cases good riddance to the other paths. I'm sharing my path freely with those important to me, to help them have a truer perception of it and of me. I need their support. It's probably testing how others perceive me - that's good. It's certainly testing my own resolve - that's good too.

It's still a tense time but I know that uneasy tension will pass and change into something better. My path will change and evolve with the landscape of time. I think longer term that is perhaps what I'm looking forward to the most. I trust in it. Perhaps that's the truth of the matter?

A life lived well and true comes from knowing your own path, perceiving it well and trusting it to lead you into the unseen and the unknown.

Path through Happy Valley, Orkney
from www.allfivesenses.com