#MyStory - Day 37

Day 37 (Saturday 6th January 2018)

37% of London commuters say that their rail service has deteriorated in the past
year (and 8% say that it has improved). Rail fares have gone up by an average
of 3.4% this month, making the daily commute even more painful. Today is
the end of the line for Christmas (as officially the 12 Days of Christmas end
today with it being Epiphany, the day when the Three Wise Men arrive).
However, the Post-Advent blogs have a few more days to run.

It is my late grandmother's birthday today. I hope I can find a few snowdrops in the garden as a posy to commemorate her (although her favourite flowers were Lilies of the valley that flower a little later in the year). It's the first weekend of January - I hope you find some time for peace and contemplation after the chaos of the past few weeks. Today's excellent post deserves reflection - as you will understand once you have read it. Some of the most engaging and inspirational people that I have had the pleasure of working with are similar to today's author. I count myself as privileged for being able to spend time with them and we achieved some amazing things (and I learned a lot).

Today's post is a brave and guileless piece by Sara Duxbury; she wants to share her story in the hope that it will help others. She has also decided not to be anonymous. Sara is a business psychologist and highly capable coach, working for Carter Corson based in Wilmslow. I first got to know Sara via Twitter (her handle is @SaraJDux). She has a fabulous sense of humour and is highly intelligent and perspicacious - fiercely passionate, honest and commercial. She is genuinely a joy to spend time with and she will make you think. She describes herself as a "northern southerner". She commenced her career in retail and continues to demonstrate edge and flair with a genuine understanding of the importance of customer service.

Sara selected her own illustrations for her piece.

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What if there is only darkness and dawn? #mystory

When I saw this year’s Advent blog theme was darkness and dawn, and reading the other blogs so far talking about journeying between the two, it struck a chord with me. I am bipolar. So for me there is only darkness and dawn, black and white. I don’t understand what the grey middle looks like. I have no idea, because my brain literally doesn’t work like that.

I have actually never said it out loud before. I think it’s because I don’t want to be labelled as being bipolar, and really I think I didn’t want to label myself. But I think it’s time I came out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cArz_HxTYDw

I was always an emotional child. I remember one time after my cousin came to visit for the weekend, I told my mum I’d rather the whole weekend had never happened at all, than deal with the despair at seeing her go home. Any time I got really excited, a low and a stinking headache would follow. My teenage years were spent either being ecstatically happy in my friendships and relationships, or sitting alone in my bedroom, obsessing and crying to sad songs. Getting older I remember my bipolar really coming into its own after my boyfriend committed suicide when I was 20 years old, dealing with everything that came with that only cemented my view of the world as ‘black and white’. My ups and downs became more pronounced. Fast-forward and I remember my husband dreading coming home from work if I’d had a day off on my own, he wouldn’t know if the Sara he left in the morning would be on cloud-9, or in a raging depression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCBS5EtszYI

The medical definition of bipolar as according to the NHS is “Bipolar is a condition that affects your moods, which can swing from one extreme to another. People with bipolar disorder have periods or episodes of depression, feeling very low and lethargic, and mania, feeling very high and overactive.

For me, it plays out like this:

I am the life and soul. Drop me cold into a room of strangers and I will make friends for life. I will make you feel at ease, I will make you laugh and I will drag you up onto the dance floor first.

My enthusiasm and passion is infectious, I will inspire you to believe in me and what I do. You will admire my drive and my ability to make a difference, you will want me as a leader in your business.

I am hard to be friends with. I am intense. I will expect a lot from you, but then I’ll shut you out. You might even think that sometimes I love you. I’m sorry, it’s just how I am with people.

I will trust you, from the first time I meet you. I will tell you anything and everything about me, believing that you will never use it against me. And I am always surprised if you do.

I’m impulsive. I always look for the adventure, and if there are consequences I won’t consider them, even if It might hurt you.

I have been in debt my entire adult life. I have no concept of money, it’s embarrassing. If I want it, I buy it. Even if I don’t know why I’m buying it.

I have woken up in the morning and wondered how the hell I will leave the house. I try, sometimes it’s ok, sometimes I have considered driving my car into the central reservation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-ybpYfSDXg

So would I rather I was in the middle? No. I would rather be me than you (no offence). My dawns and darknesses make me, me, and I think I am a pretty awesome person. I love my life and my work and I might even change the world one day. Even though my brain fights me daily, I know that I bring joy to people who meet and know me, I know I make them smile, and I know I make a difference by what I do. If that means I have to battle forever in the darkness too, then I’ll take it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_TL02vGQaM

My biggest fear is that by sharing my story, you will judge my behaviour by that bipolar label. If you don’t like something I do, you can just blame the bipolar. You can put me in that tidy box. Well, you won’t have heard me do that in 33 years, so I am hoping you don’t start.

My biggest hope is that by sharing my story, you who are sitting there battling on both sides, or you managing someone with mental health struggles. Look at me and see you CAN be the best version of you, be DAMN good at what you do, and be a bit bat-shit crazy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOksZ8VogRw

These are not Hollow words

Day 32 (Sunday 1st January 2017)

32% of Fiji's GDP equates to $1.4 billion - which was the cost of the damage incurred by the
island as a result of Cyclone Winston that hit on 20th February 2016. Cyclone Winston is the
strongest recorded tropical storm in the Southern Hemisphere (with winds of 180mph).
Winston occurred just 4 months after the most powerful tropical cyclone was recorded in the
Northern Hemisphere, Hurricane Patricia, with winds of 215mph. Our climate is changing.

Happy New Year - may the next 12 months bring you joy, health, experiences that make you think and enable you to grow and memories that you can cherish. Today we have a short, impactful and wise post sent to me by Helen Amery; written while she was in hospital, accompanying her young daughter who had injured her arm. It is full of "heart" and acknowledges Life's highs and lows - hence it seems a perfect piece with which to start 2017.

Helen specialises in executive coaching and leadership development, via her own business, Wild Fig Solutions Limited. She is based in Leicester, but helps people and businesses across the UK. She writes an excellent blog - originally called People-ology but now hosted on her business Wild Fig site. After obtaining a good degree in Chemistry from Edinburgh, Helen commenced training as an accountant with PwC but then realised that she was better suited to HR. Before establishing her own consultancy, Helen worked for a number of years as a respected HR professional with Boots. She is active on social media and excellent at encouraging people to connect IRL (in real life) as well as online. Her twitter handle is @WildFigSoins.

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These are not Hollow words

The heights of laughing with my daughter to the hollow of her in surgery and the words from the surgeon of 'we lost a pulse' (thankfully not forever). Extreme swelling and breaking of my heart in the space of a day.

The extreme height of excitement of a new baby for the family. The bottomless hollow when he didn't make it, complications during pregnancy. Heart swells and wrenches for months and years.*

Sculpture by artist Martin Hudáček from Slovakia
 in memorial of unborn children who have passed away.

The daily muddle of mini heights and hollows when things go ok and then less well, good and then bad. Short-lived but each as real as the next and every one of them influencing how we feel from moment to moment. 

Emotional scale devised by Abraham Hicks

We're all different, and how we experience our heights and hollows is different. But we all experience them and too many hollows for too long can take their toll.

Pay attention to yours.  Get the help you need when you need it.  Someone is always there - someone you know. Or maybe someone you've not spoken to yet.  But they're there.

If you need them, the Samaritans are always there - 116 123.

*Our friends' experience this year. 

Heights, Hearts & Hollows

Day 22 (Thursday 22nd December 2016)

22% of cetaceans (as illustrated by 29 sperm whales stranded on shores around the North Sea in January
2016, all found to have plastic in their stomachs), 44% of all seabirds, all sea turtles and an
increasing list of fish species have been recorded as having plastic in or around their bodies. But Nature is beginning to fight back - Japanese scientists have discovered a bacterium that has evolved since
the 1940s, when plastics were invented, and can now break down PET (polyethylene terephthalate).

I am delighted to welcome you to today's blog, it's author, Ed Griffin, is the Head of HR for the Global Network of the British Council. I first met Ed when he was teaching people how to be HR professionals when he was an Associate at Roffey Park - if I have any admirable HR skills they are primarily down to Ed. He certainly inspired a group of us to think strategically and to consult before introducing change (he now practices what he preached and leads by example).

Ed is a truly delightful, highly intelligent man. He lives and works according to his values and is a devoted partner, father, friend (and dog owner). He cares about the world and, being highly principled, strives to make it a better place than as he has found it. He has a great sense of humour and enviable patience. Many people have commented to me that Ed inspires trust. He is recognised as being one of the world's leading experts in organisational development - he co-authored the acclaimed book on the subject: "A Field Guide for Organisation Development: Taking Theory into Practice". Ed loves the countryside and could be described as a natural field guide, as well as the creator of a book that guides businesses. Ed lives in East Sussex and work in London (although his current role demands considerable overseas travel. You can connect with him on Twitter, his handle is @EdjGriffin. 

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Heights, Hearts & Hollows

“We can't have the happiness of yesterday without the pain of today. That's the deal.”

Joy Gresham in Shadowlands, 1993

When the message came from Kate asking for contributors for this year’s Advent Blog series, I was keen to see what the theme was. When I first read it I wasn’t sure what to make of it and I struggled to think of what I could bring. Over the course of several days I kept coming back to the theme, and then I was reminded of a line from one of our favourite films, Shadowlands.  This was the dramatization of the story of C S Lewis’ tragically short relationship and marriage with Joy Gresham. For me the quote at the top of the page brought together the three elements of this year’s theme. Experience continues to reinforce for me the idea that to live life to the full I have to be prepared to accept that the heights, hearts and hollows are a job lot.

Just over 7 years ago we got Maibel, our much loved Springer Spaniel. I’d never had a dog before and we took the plunge of going for a full-on working dog. That meant a huge appetite for exercise and a need to train really well. We went through some ups and downs in the first few years as we struggled to get to grips with her energy levels. There were times when we worried we wouldn’t be able to cope. She then became my companion for cross-country running and there was an absolute joy for me of heading across fields and through woods with her setting the pace ahead of me. I realised early on that having a dog had the potential for being something more than just having an ordinary pet. It was also always clear that a dog has relatively short life.

As she’s got older, we’ve all become deeply attached to Maibel. This summer we had a real scare on holiday when she unexpectedly developed pneumonia and we thought we were going to lose her. We were all in pieces and it seemed a miracle that she survived. It really brought it home to us both how much we care and how tenuous the hold on life can be. I’ve had to give up running and now our time together may be crashed out on the sofa!



This post wasn’t meant to be in praise of dogs (although it does praise them!); it’s meant to be a general reflection on how you can’t really feel the heat of the flame without the possibility also of getting burnt. Logic may tell us that the hurt of loss or disappointment can be hard to get over, but without it life has no contrast and we risk living in a state of anodyne safety. I think that’s a denial of what it can really mean to be human.

What lets us know the heights is also knowing the hollows; it’s the contrast that lets us really know how good something is. Logic may tell us that to commit with our heart may lead to hurt, but without taking the plunge we may never know the potential heights.

The great thing about life is that we have the constant possibility of Heights and Hollows, and without both life would be pretty dull. Just remind yourself from time to time to give your heart. Whether, that’s at work, in relationships or other aspects of life as it what’s makes us really live and experience life to the full.

Raising a Glass

Day 25 (Christmas Day - Friday 25th December 2015)

25% of humans are dichromats according to Prof. Diana Derval. The colour nuances
we see depend on the number and distribution of cones (colour receptors) in our eyes.
Look at the above spectrum, if you see less than 20 colours you are a dichromat, like dogs,
which means you have 2 types of cone (and probably like wearing black, beige and blue).
If you see 20 - 32 nuances you are a trichromat with 3 cones (in purple/blue, green and red areas).
50% of us are trichromats. Seeing 33-39 colours makes you a tetrachromat, like bees. You have 4 cones
(in purple/blue, green, red and yellow areas. You are likely to find yellow irritating.
If you see more than 39 you are making things up - there are only 39 colours in the test
and your computer/smart phone probably only translated 35.

Like last year, in honour of her founding the Advent Blogs series back in 2011, the Christmas Day post is by Alison Chisnell. Alison is an inspiration to many of us - courageous, ethical, knowledgeable, compassionate and warm. She is an exceptional HR professional (in September she became the Head of HR for the Risk Consulting division of KPMG) and a devoted mother, a valued friend and an inspirational runner and trainee triathlete. She was one of the first to welcome me into the Twitter HR community (her handle is @AlisonChisnell) and I responded when she asked for contributors for the first Advent Blogs series. We are friends and I have huge professional and personal respect for her. She is an excellent, but sporadic, blogger - you can read her words on her blog - The HR Juggler.

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Can you see me? Can you see what I’ve done? My hands are dark with toil,

Coal miner's hands by HayNateHaywood

my brightness lights up the sky. 

Hale Bopp in 1997 - Credit Bob King

I persist, I endure, I inspire, I remember.

We are all authors of our own stories, we all choose how we want to remember our year. Comet tails and coal dust, beautifully juxtaposed, fleeting brilliance and relentlessly hard graft. Tangible progress others can see, incremental achievements visible only to ourselves. How human that we want to tell about them, to share, reflect and relate. This is me doing just that, knowing that they may only matter to me alone.

Time heals. If last year was dominated by redundancy, this has been the year of in-between, of embracing the not knowing what is coming next, of pushing some of my personal boundaries further than I thought I could. Ambiguity, uncertainty, discovery, adventure, pride.

This year I’ve had the gifts of time and of uncertainty. It’s been the only year I can remember where I have held three very different jobs and generous gaps between each, which have enabled me to reflect, savour, enjoy and grow. 

There has been coal dust, of course there has, moments both passing and persisting of self-doubt, apparently promising opportunities fading to grey and impatience for change to arrive.

What I choose to remember though, is this:

• Sitting in the morning sunshine of Sydney harbour, drinking coffee with my husband while my children play around me, savouring the sense of freedom and contentment, knowing that this moment has made the journey to that point entirely worthwhile. That without the personal upheaval and change, we wouldn’t have taken the leap of making the trip and that our horizons have grown as a result and that they will not shrink back.

• Running the London marathon in pretty much the form of my life, (almost!) effortlessly pacing 9.5 minute miles to well over 20 miles, the joy and excitement of crossing Tower Bridge with my good running friend, the enormity of crossing the finish line, knowing that I’d given it my all and achieved what I was capable of, the best version of my running self. It seemed impossible until it was done….and already, only a few months later, it starts to feel impossible to replicate!

• My first foray into triathlons, pushing myself out of my comfort zone, persevering with front crawl until I can finally now regularly swim well over a mile without stopping; plunging myself into a cold, slightly murky lake and discovering I love the freedom of open water swimming.

These are my comet tails, my marks in the sand, my experiences this year that remind me that I am capable of so much more than I think, that pushing boundaries holds its own rewards.

And yet, there have been quieter moments during the year that have changed me and my perceptions too. Those that don’t leave a trail of stars, but imprint their memory on my consciousness just the same. I struggle to articulate the power of the in-between, the glorious terror and freedom of declaring myself between roles, in transit, open to opportunities… the simultaneous sense of being rudderless and yet also liberated from being hemmed in by labels, restrictions, expectations. 

The power of choice, of self-control, of holding my nerve, of going with the flow, of trusting that things will work out, the understanding of what is within my control and the many things that are beyond it, the gradual emergence of a stronger, more resilient personal and professional confidence. Rather like the memory of the Sydney sunshine, that makes the journey fully worthwhile and one that, in hindsight, I would not change.

So, this Advent, may your comet tails shine brightly and illuminate your hopes for the year to come. May the coal dust shape our thinking and experiences, enabling us to find the diamond within that hard, dark, uncompromising rock, providing us with the energy and enthusiasm we need to move forward. May this Christmas time, this New Year be a happy, healthy, positive and prosperous one for you and your loved ones and let’s raise a glass to ourselves and each other. 

Merry Christmas!  

Not all those who wander are lost

Day 15 (Tuesday December 15th 2015)

15 miles per hour (c 25 kph) is the swimming speed of a Gentoo penguin.
Generally larger species swim faster than smaller ones. Penguins reach their top speeds
when they are porpoising through the water (i.e leaping in the air while swimming).
There are 18 species of penguin. The Emperor is the largest standing at 4 feet and weighing 90 pounds;
the smallest is the Little Blue, which is 10 inches tall and weighs 2.5 pounds.

Today's piece is written by Peter Cook, it looks at the highs and lows of his career and the year just gone. As he mentions below, he has been in business for 21 years (working in Pharmaceuticals, Academia and Consulting), but his life is and always has been inspired and interlaced with music - especially rock music. If you get the chance to spend and evening with Peter, ideally with his guitar and a group of friends, I would urge you to join him - you will leave with a beaming grin. Peter writes his "musings" in an engaging blog as well as writing for Virgin and he has been invited to write a book this by a leading business book publisher, having self-published some popular volumes himself. He is an active participant on social media (follow him on Twitter via @AcademyOfRock or catch one of his rock interviews).

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I always enjoy the process of downloading what I’ve learned through the year with a view to uploading changes for the next year, finding the process cathartic and renewing. It’s one of the processes I’ve used for 21 years in business, mostly with my wife Alison, who patiently listens to the highs and lows of running a business. 

Mrs Cook is NOT like this

I’m convinced that the art of reflection, learning and adaptation is one of the most important rituals that have contributed to my personal resilience and longevity in a world where the half-life of most businesses is in free-fall. 

In recent times, I’ve been able to give Alison some respite from this reflective practice by sharing my hopes, fears, fantasies and nightmares in the full glare of the world. 

The process of downloading and uploading is a cathartic ritual that helps build an adaptive organisation, whether you are a small business or a large one.

Strategic Improvisation

My background as a scientist instilled curiosity and the understanding that most of life is a series of experiments.  It has been very good for my life as a musician and even better now we live in an age of disruptive change. In a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) business environment, life in a business requires perpetual change and experimentation to find new focal points. This is a subtle but important difference than a “random walk” which can leads to fad surfing and a lack of consolidation of your value. I’ve probably been involved in what I call “strategic improvisation” for at least 10 years, through one of the deepest recessions for many decades and, at last, some of the results are beginning to show from what I did when there was not much to do in terms of paid activity during those times.

Joining the dots

People tell me that much of my longevity as a business comes down to collaborations and connecting the dots between people, passions and purposes. After winning a prize from Sir Richard Branson, for my work on leadership, last year, this has flourished, through some deliberation and a bit of luck, into writing for Virgin, gaining an interview with Richard for my new book with Bloomsbury and, more recently running events, which blend business excellence with music in Branson’s Virgin Money Lounges, giving me the good fortune to work alongside Class A rock stars and discover their insights into business, life and the universe. I have also forged a partnership with the awesome Ted Coiné (awesome is not a word that I am drawn to as a Brit), but he does deserve this tag with his exclusive network Open for Business.

Restarting the engines

This year has finally been one when a number of businesses have started again to use the services of external people after many years of simply treading water whilst people halted projects or suspended the use of outside people to contain costs.  We’ve been fortunate to deliver a range of projects from HR reviews, facilitated strategy summits to leadership and innovation conferences for companies as diverse as FujiFilm, Pfizer, Roche, University College London, Bentley and MSD in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Germany and Poland.

Private joys and public disappointments

I believe that we work best when we do what we love. In my case that means occasionally doing things that some people tell me are dream jobs. Amongst the private joys I’ve had in 2015, I’d mention these:

1. Taking Robert Peston to a P-Funk concert with George Clinton and subsequently writing him a song for his departure from the BBC in support of Cancer Research UK. Check “Pestonomics” out here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nlsSrerFJM

2. Interviewing John Mayall, the Godfather of the Blues, Prince’s sax player, Marcus Anderson and Prince’s first lady, Sheila E, about flow, improvisation, music and a range of other topics. I was delighted to find that Sheila had read one of my books “Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll” – just an incredible result from networking. Check Sheila’s interview out here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xie7CKsIeg&list=PLQjcrZYLffOZ148fG1rMZEbzP3iLv-JBz

3. Performing on stage at London’s Borderline with Bernie Tormé, Ozzy Osbourne and Ian Gillan’s guitarist. Bernie was extremely kind in crediting me for having helped him restart his career, a great honour and a privilege for someone who takes no prisoners.  Here’s the 3 minute rehearsal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U4oH1orxgE

4. The greatest love of all was recording four songs as a tribute to my good friend Bill Nelson, who has inspired the likes of Kate Bush, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Brian May. Bill has been a constant source of inspiration and wisdom for over 40 years of my life and remains to this day a permanent flame when the lights go out. Check out our song “Crying to the Sky” which was itself an homage to Jimi Hendrix and one of my earliest musical influences “Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape”, written about Bill’s home area. Recording these songs was not an idle adventure. It introduced me to Robert Craven, Virgin author and business speaker, also a Bill Nelson nut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUx-UpzjySQ&index=1&list=PLbZJMHvCba610gU9ET-D-tnx1WHUBQrXy

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiomazTrgaU&index=2&list=PLbZJMHvCba610gU9ET-D-tnx1WHUBQrXy

One big disappointment came via a small business owner who showed up in a Bentley to ask me for some friendly advice in transforming his career from a recruitment boss to a personal development speaker and author. After some analysis I told him that, whilst his transformation was not impossible, it would be a vertical climb from his current business and that he needed to operate from his existing expertise base as a recruitment business owner.

He said he was willing to do the work and I assisted with some mentoring to help him reach his goal. However, he had also approached a "branding and social media guru", who advised that there was a much easier way to achieve his transformation. She told him the answer lay in simply creating a website and a series of social media banners for his new enterprise. She also advised him to adopt the "spray and pray" approach to social media, buying Twitter followers, etc. He followed the “guru's advice” as it was easier but it didn’t work. Moreover shortly after his visit he told me that he had gone bankrupt and could not pay me for the work I’d done. Later on it turned out he was caught pimping his young girlfriend out at a hotel. I have never had a bad debt in 21 years, nor dealt with a man with a Bentley who turned out to be a charlatan. Well, we live and learn I guess!

Stranded Bentley

Hopes and fears

“I made it through the wilderness, yeah I made it through” – Madonna

Having come through the recession over 8 years, I come out of it having refined what I do, branded it, become much better networked and with a range of artefacts to show for my efforts, the most precious one of which is a major new book called “Leading Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise” for Bloomsbury.

Of course, I am 8 years older into the bargain and this occasionally worries me as young things can see such people as irrelevant in a workplace that values apps over application and wisdom. 

App-reciation

To survive in business in an adaptive environment requires improvisation, curiosity and the willingness to learn new things without becoming distracted by every shiny new thing that passes you by. As an improvising musician and scientist I feel up for the challenge. Tonight as I finish writing this I am off to the after party at the Assembly Halls in Tunbridge Wells with Mel C, Spike Edney from Queen, Graham Gouldman (10CC), Cheryl Baker (Bucks Fizz) and Madeleine Bell of Hot Chocolate, having just received a personal invite to the show from Patti Russo, Meatloaf’s singing partner. I was blessed to meet Patti on a pavement smoking a fag a year ago without having a clue who she was. She was kind enough to credit me as playing a part in her reinvention after Meatloaf gave up live performances. I guess this goes to show that being young at heart is what really counts and not all those that wander are lost …