I know pain - you can’t hurt me; I’ve seen defeat - you can’t stop me - Day 11

Tuesday 11th December 2018

11 was the number of the Apollo spaceflight that landed the first two people
on the moon on the 20th July 1969. To this day there are regular allegations
that the whole mission was/is a hoax with evidence such as a 'flapping flag'
and a star-free sky being used to substantiate these claims.

Today we have a very personal blog, written from the heart, by Gary Cookson. He is an HR, OD and L&D expert who runs a consultancy business, EPIC HR. Gary is a key member of the HR community and I am proud to call him my friend.

However, the most important thing in Gary's life is his family - his adored wife and four wonderful children. His eyes light up whenever he talks about them. 

Gary is a caring, brave and wonderful man. He took note of my plea for interested parties who might want to run the Advent Blog series to contact me. I really do believe that the series (and you the readers) would benefit from a fresh pair of eyes and a new focus. 

Let me tell you a bit more about Gary: his business, EPIC, helps people to Evolve, Perform, Improve and Compete. Gary himself is physically competitive - a keen sportsman, he is a regular participant in triathlons and has managed some representative sports teams. Prior to running his own business Gary worked in HR in various sectors including Housing, Education, Not-for-Profit and Public (for the DBS). Prior to HR he qualified as a secondary school teacher (teaching History). He has a way with words - he blogs on the EPIC site and you can also catch his wisdom on Twitter (his handle is @Gary_Cookson) as well as hearing him at various conferences and events throughout the year.

I a delighted that he has come forward, as I can think of few who would match him in running this series. I am quite looking forward to being a contributor...

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The theme for this year’s advent blog series is Heartaches, hopes and high fives. The announcement of the theme prompted some deep reflection on my part - as per usual, my year has contained all of these in good measure, and, as usual, my blog is a personal account of this.

I’ll take them in theme order even though as I’ve planned this blog I’ve thought about things in chronological order. The quote which makes up the title of this blog is one of my favourites and comes from the ex WWE wrestler Tazz, but somehow seems appropriate here.

Heartaches

I’ve had a few.

My mum, who last year I said was having treatment for cancer and who I was estranged from, went into remission for part of the year but the cancer returned and she has resumed treatment. Perhaps the only good thing to have come from this is that it has helped us begin to repair our relationship.

My brother's partner, only in her early 30s, is also undergoing similar treatment and it seems out of proportion to be affecting our family like this.

My youngest son, at the time only 5 months old, was rushed into hospital for 3 days with suspected meningitis and whilst we were glad it ended up not being, it was still a serious virus and a very worrying time for us. 

My eldest daughter, now 13, decided this year that she no longer wished to live with me half the week as she had done since aged 3, and has gone full time to her mum's. Neither she nor we have any real explanation for this, but it shows no sign of changing and I’m heartbroken that someone to whom I was so close, for whom I was her hero and prince, who I loved beyond measure, can suddenly decide everything has changed for no apparent reason. I barely see or speak to her now and it’s left a massive gap in my life and heart. Worse is the effect this has on her two younger siblings, one of whom cries every time the elder daughter comes and goes, and wants nothing more than to play with her, and the younger of whom is growing up not knowing his eldest sister.

And finally I’m reminded of my own physical weaknesses. The male members of my family have a history of heart disease that strikes in their 40s. Knowing this, I’ve kept myself more fit than any other family member for a decade and had thought I might buck the trend, but there have been signs in the last year that my body thinks differently and I’m having tests to check what is going on with my heart, which aches.

Hopes

I obviously remain hopeful that all the heartaches will resolve themselves but in addition to these I have the following specific hopes.

That my eldest son passes his driving test and does well in his mock A levels, giving him a clear path to University.

That my two youngest children make a successful transition into full time school and nursery respectively.

That my wife makes a successful return to work after her maternity leave ends. 

And I hope my business, EPIC, continues to grow and develop in its second year. Even though I’ve done well in year one, I would like to be able to secure more income streams and add more value to clients and be able to relax more. 

High fives

Thankfully there have been lots of these. In no particular order:

My business was set up and has exceeded my wildest dreams in terms of its success. I did it at the right time and for the right reason and that fuel has helped me do things I didn’t think possible.

My eldest son got some impressive GCSE results and even bettered my own tally. He also began to realise his potential in our main sport and began to surpass my own levels of achievement and ability (even though I had a great year myself).

I’ve seen my eldest daughter develop some real and unexpected artistic talent, previously no one in the family has possessed this.

And I’ve seen my fourth child born and grow so well, with the high five going to my wife who managed a home birth with no pain relief!

Conclusions

Apologies for the very personal blog but it seemed appropriate for the theme. Often this year I have focused on the heartaches as these tend to dominate one's thinking and emotions, but having a theme like this reminds me, and all of us, that life doles out heartaches, hopes and high fives in roughly equal measure, not necessarily equally in one given year but certainly across a lifetime.

One can dwell on any of these areas but remember - they’re all there and more will come in each category too.

If, like me, you’ve not had a perfect year, then maybe, like me you’ve had an average year.

And that’s neither good or bad. It’s a sign that you’re living your life.

Doing your best.

When things go well, celebrate the successes, but when things go wrong, learn from the fails and stresses.

You’re going to have more of both. Get used to it. It’s called living.

Gary

Life in Chiaroscuro - Day 52

Day 52 (Sunday 21st January 2018)

52 - the age at which Harry Houdini died - by this time he had amazed and baffled people
in much of Europe, Russia and the U.S.A. On 21st January 1903 he escaped Halvemaansteeg
police station in Amsterdam. 1903 was the year when Houdini really became an icon - he was
already known for being good at escaping handcuffs but he now began to make a name
for breaking out of jails. he also managed to break into a safe for a Moscow locksmith
(who had been trying to do so for 14 years) revealing a treasure trove of jewels and
earning Houdini $750 for 9 hours work (a significant sum at the time).

Today is my husband's birthday and we are going out for a family lunch. His mother is coming to celebrate with us. She is finding life without her husband very hard. Death is, in so many ways, so painful for those of us left behind.

The post you read today is by Jacqueline Davies. It is open, honest and at times a painful read (as well as being the second post in a row with a wonderful poem  written by the contributor). Jacqueline says much about herself below, so I will only say a few words... Some of you may remember Jacqueline's Call To Arms in the final post of last year's series. At the time of writing last year she was the Master of the Guild of Human Resource Professionals (@GuildHRprofs) and the first openly lesbian Master of any City of London Guild. She was also the HR Director for the FCA (the regulatory body for much of the Financial Services industry) - a huge and demanding role. In her post she made a statement of the role of HR that has resonated with me this year, we need to be:

"standard bearers for the best of what it means to be human. To hold ourselves and others to account and to be provocative when we see integrity or conduct threatened."

I genuinely believe that HR as a profession is in the best position I have ever known it to be in. Increasingly leaders, colleagues, clients and the communities in which we work are becoming aware of the importance of culture and conduct. That does not mean we should be complacent or smug - someone in HR clearly turned a blind eye to inappropriate behaviour in Miramax when Harvey Weinstein was at his most predatory. We need HR to be the moral compass (it is no coincidence that a compass is the symbol of the HR Guild here in the UK) and to ask the difficult questions. Since leaving the FCA Jacqueline has teamed up with Tania in their own business consultancy and I think you can tell from its name that she will not be shrinking from facing things head-on - Audacity Associates. In addition, she is an advisor to the Henley Business School, a Governor of Middlesex University and Chair of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services. You can connect with her on social media - her Twitter handle is @JacquelineLD.

The beautiful Chiaroscuro paintings and photographs used to illustrate this piece have all been selected by Jacqueline.

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The Italian’s use the term Chiaroscuro to describe scenes painted in ‘light-dark’, how tonal contrasts are created to provide shape, show character and tell stories.

Life in Chiaroscuro

Seven years ago my mother died. More precisely, I gave my consent for her life support to be switched off, then she died. This decision has weighed heavily with me, replaying while I wait for sleep and returning at dawn before I can crowd it out with plans for the day. This isn’t a post about grief, it’s a post about how we can re-mix the colours on our palette to make sense of living with both darkness and dawn. How I’ve learned that a ‘Chiaroscuro filter’ can distinguish the things that matter from the beautiful, daily distractions that fill our life’s canvas.

You see I lost my Mum some thirty years earlier. She disappeared inside a black cloak of depression. Up-to this point, she loved us unconditionally and taught us how to love back. As we progressed though high school, quite suddenly everything changed. She was unable to go out, unable to get up and when she did was so heavily medicated that when we looked into her eyes we couldn’t find her. This would mean returning from school never knowing if she would be in the kitchen or in bed or if the paracetamol packets would be empty. My father, a steelworker worked around the clock. My younger sister and I found coping strategies. I had wanted to be a painter, but being the oldest, I took charge and I followed my father’s lead; I dropped Art, working relentlessly until I could flee to university. I didn’t stop; travelling like a train through a tunnel, on and on while decades flashed by through the half-light.

The Young Singer by Georges de La Tour

Then, just before I turned 40, the same age Mum was when she became ill, I sat in the hospital, holding her hand and let her go. Just a year before, I had become a Mum and the wonder of holding a new life while letting another go, meant that even the most brilliant moments were outlined by loss.

I took a year out from paid work but I didn’t stop. We moved house, I also took on the Chair of a national charity and wrote a book. I then returned to work and ploughed on. Alongside this, becoming ‘THE BEST MUM I CAN POSSIBLY BE’ became my chief preoccupation. As any new parent will tell you, our radiant daughter brought a new type of light into our lives. It was initially, searing, so bright, I had to blink through the first year learning to adjust to the profound joy and then to the greying fear that arrived. Fear of loss, fear of repeated patterns, fear of not knowing what to do next. Learning how to live with this felt like picking glass splinters from my heart.

Madonna and Child with St Anne by Caravaggio (c1605-6)

Some seven years later, I sat still in a hospital bed watching the sun rise and fall through an oxygen mask. Pneumonia had pressed the pause button on my life. A close friend, shared a conversation with her husband that stopped me in my tracks; ‘your on the top of our list to go first because you’re living faster than anyone else’. In the year that has followed this I’ve stopped permanent work and started painting again. I’m learning to slow down, middle age is helping. I’m learning to look, to see darkness and dawn as an artist might. Noticing the line and shadow in the everyday and being able to distinguish what really matters and to teach this art to my daughter.

Photograph of an apple by Jimmy Wen

I wrote this poem to make sense of things.

Three Daughters

After you left us I waited,

Holding your hand until the silence

Holding my breath until

       the sun came up again and I could escape outside

Gulping the new morning air

And watching the circling gulls

       shrieking their songs of loss and longing, high above the hospital car park

I mostly remember your hands

How they put plasters on my grazes

Turned pages at bedtime

       stirred pots, brimming with love

These are my hands now

Life hardened palms

Stretching out to reach my daughter

       to teach her how to hold time

       and when to watch the sky.

Detail from "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" by Caravaggio (c1586)

The Mother Song, written and performed by Andrea Menard

Another step - Day 18

Day 18 (Monday 18th December 2017)

18% of British Police officers are expected to work on Christmas Day.

In other parts of the world there is a mixed response to police involvement

in the community. There is tension in Catalonia, ever since eleven days prior 
to the 1st October referendum, when the Civil Guard mounted Operation Anubis 
to raid the offices of government ministries and detain officials involved in the referendum, 
which resulted in large protests by independence supporters. The Civil Guard (the Spanish 
non-urban police) positioned 5,000 officers in a large ferry boat decorated with Looney Tunes' 
characters Sylvester , Wile E. Coyote and Tweety Pie. In Catalonia it has been a tradition since the late 
17th century for the nativity scene to include a "Caganer": a small model of a defecating figure 

(originally a peasant wearing the distinctive local hat and rustic clothing). Since the 1940s the model has

increasingly become a caricature of someone famous or a political figure. This year the most

popular figure is proving to be a defecating Tweety Pie, symbolising the Civil Guard/The Police.

For those who celebrate Christmas, you, like me, must feel that you are about to enter the home straight... although I must confess that I am far from prepared, I haven't even got enough wrapping paper.

Today's piece is written by Trevor Black. I had the pleasure of working with Trevor a few years ago - he is very bright and an inspiring and capable colleague. Mind you, he is inspiring and capable regardless of whether he is a colleague or not - gifted academically, with artistic flair and a constantly curious mindset. For two and a half years he stepped off the corporate career ladder (despite having excellent prospects), to spend time reading, engaging, thinking, learning and writing. He wrote a daily blog about his thoughts and experiences on his long-standing site, swartdonkey, (he still blogs now) and deliberately went out of his way to try new things and test his concepts. He remains interested in investment and concerned about the tensions between global and local, the issues of migration and land ownership/exploitation, Universal Basic Income (where he is at the bleeding edge of thinking and application) and community and empowerment. He has recently resumed investing to support his other ventures - some of which are linked to South Africa, where he was born and raised (he is back in South Africa at the moment visiting family and friends). You can find him on Twitter - @trevorblack or, if you are lucky, you might bump into him in the beautiful town of Burford in the Cotswolds, in the UK, where he lives. 

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Detachment isn't the same as not caring. It is the practice of separating who we are from what we are experiencing, but also recognising the part everything plays. Just a little distance. 

Darkness and dawn are not separate. 

Their contrast allows us to think and feel. We know things through their opposites. 

We exist in our opposites. 

Recognising and being aware that I am struggling isn't the same thing as being a weak person. 

Weakness and strength are not separate. They are both part of the same powerful force that pushes us on. That pushes us back. 

That is. 

We pulse with the stuff of life. 

Detachment is the awareness that dawn follows darkness, which follows dawn, which follows darkness. 

We can't be something temporary. We can't be the darkness. We can't be the dawn. 

That little twist to the story allows us to enjoy both. 

With a wry smile. 

With a pervading calm. 

With another step.

Lest we forget

Day 6 (Tuesday 6th December 2016)

6 number one hits - Bon Jovi proved their enduring ability to 

entertain when their latest album "This House Is Not For Sale"

(the Group's 13th studio album, released November 4th 2016) reached

top spot on the Billboard 200. The band were formed in 1983 and play 

Hard, Pop and Arena Rock and Glam Metal.

Today's piece is a sober read from Alan Gilmour, which touches on one of humanity's hollows. It puts many things in perspective and it certainly made me think. Alan's writing does that. Alan has a day job as Head of Acquisition and Retention for the Police Mutual, but since he last contributed to the Advent Series he has taken up a not-for-profit Non-executive Directorship with BCRS Business Loans - an organisation that provides money for SMEs who struggle to access funds through traditional banking channels. 

Alan is a delightful and broad thinker - he studied Chinese History at Glasgow, long before China had risen to its position of global prominence and has an MBA from Aston. I am one of many who enjoy Alan's company, debate and engaging/thought-provoking opinions. You can follow Alan on Twitter (his handle is @alan_gilmour) or read his (sporadic) personal blogging.

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Lest we forget  

So what moved me in 2016?

An interesting question for a dour Scot. As a race we are not easily moved. Life is easier that way.

But this year while idly gazing at a board which listed the Head Boys at a local school, I noticed something that achieved this rare feat.

For on the list was one K.R. Owen, Head Boy in 1913.

I know nothing of this individual or his family or his circumstances.

Maybe I should.

But what caught my eye was the next board. A list of all those who gave their lives in the Great War.

And there was the name, K.R.Owen, again. Killed in action in 1916.

In the space of 3 years this boy had grown into a man and become a memory.

Tragic.

A member of the Army Chaplains' Department (AChD) tending
a soldier's grave during the Battle of the Somme, July 1916. © IWM 

Every day I, like many others in business, spend time poring over numbers and spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks with statistics, charts and graphs.

Every day we obsess about sales, income, costs, FTEs, profit, capital, assets, liabilities, and many more numbers. These are the heartbeat of business.

School boys being taught about Zeppelins 1916

But as we say goodbye to 2016, a year that remembered that the 100^th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, here are the numbers that really matter.

Numbers that should give us a real sense of perspective.

141 days. 420,000 British casualties. 127,000 British dead, 19,000 on day one alone.

Plus many more hundreds of thousands German, French and British Commonwealth casualties.

And if we include the families, millions of people seriously impacted by the events of those 141 days on the Somme.

Like a ripple across a pond.

Numbers like these make you think. They bring it all home.

And should make us think when we obsess about the numbers that govern our daily business life.

For our numbers are not a matter of life and death.

They do not amount to a hill of beans.

We may think they are important but when stacked up against the numbers of 1916 and the lives of the many, many K.R. Owens, are they really?

For they come to nought when stacked up against the lives lost, lives ruined, by the events of 1916.

It is all too easy for the anonymised count of the slaughter to obliterate the human cost for war. Any war.

It did for me as a historian. I deal in facts and figures and dates. Not people.


Until I saw the name of K R Owen. Twice.

The numbers that I deal in are unlikely be remembered by the end of January 2017, never mind recorded and remembered and commemorated 100 years hence.

Unlike K. R. Owen and his ilk.

Who went from boy to man to a memory on a board in 3 years.

He may not even have been involved in the Somme.

But that doesn’t matter. That is not the point.

It was potential lost. Brilliance snuffed out. A tragic loss.

And that is my abiding memory of 2016.

A memory that has humbled me.

The lesson I have learnt.

Christmas 1916 on the Somme Front, painting W.B. Wollen

Our numbers may be good. They may be bad. Even indifferent.

They might please or disappoint our bosses.

But we still get to go home every night, limbs and minds intact.

Unlike K.R Owen.

Ensuring that I go into 2017 with a more acute sense of what matters and what doesn’t. More acute than ever before.

Thanks to K.R. Owen and the memories from the Somme.

Lest we forget.