Finding Philosophy in Unexpected places

Day 34 (Tuesday 3rd January 2017)

34% of women business owners say they have experienced gender discrimination in the
workplace. This was felt particularly in sectors that are traditionally male dominated -
such as construction, where over half (54%) had experienced discrimination according to the
report ‘Women in Enterprise: The Untapped Potential’ published on 21st April 2016.  Another
discouraging 34% figure relating to women is that 34% of women with a health problem
or disability had experienced violence by a partner in their lifetime, compared to
19% of women without a health problem of disability according to the results
of an EU survey, published in March 2016. NB cartoon is by Clay Bennett

I suspect today is the first day back to work for many of you (me included) - I hope 2017 proves an exceptionally good year in every way, both at work in in your broader life. I look forward to sharing moments of it with you. The holidays may be over, but the blog series continues and we have some excellent posts yet to come, today's is one of them...

Written by Angela Mortimer, the trailblazing doyenne of the recruitment industry and founder of Angela Mortimer plc, which she established forty years ago with a secretarial recruitment business based in London (in 1976). Angela is an extraordinary entrepreneur and a highly successful business woman. She grew her group during a time when most women were expected to be in lowly administrative roles and when there were very few senior women working in recruitment. Over the decades she has inspired, mentored and opened career opportunities for hundreds of thousands of women (and men). 

I am fortunate in that, over the years, I have become friends with Angela - she is delightful company, with a swift wit and a sharp intellect. A good person to bounce ideas off, as she is commercial, pragmatic, emotionally intelligent and fun. She writes excellent, entertaining blogs on LinkedIn and can be found on Twitter (her handle is @AngelaMortimer3). She has many interests outside work that provide some of the "heights" of her year (as you can tell from her below post); in addition to golf, she loves tennis, fine food and wine, skiing and being a great grandma. 

Being told she needed to improve at golf could have counted as a "hollow", but Angela has taken "heart" and gained much from the lesson.

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Finding Philosophy in Unexpected places

So there I was, hounding my way through last years Christmas card list to see who still qualified and adding new qualifiers.  Yesterday had been an mêlée of shopping, anxiety attached to each purchase – would they like it?  Then the food for the festivities, and feeling sick at the thought of a poor outcome from the recipes researched on Google.  When will the agony of possible anticipated failure end?  At least that is one certainty – not before 28th December.

To relive my tension, I visited my golf coach, Lucinda, to cash in springtime Birthday Treat from my girlfriends. My newly purchased driver was sending the ball for many yards but a puzzling 30 degrees wide of target.  She videoed my swing and came out with a diagnostic which was to prove apocryphal.

“You’ve got a weak grip,” she said.  She handed me a rubber mould that corrected my finger and thumb positions.  “That’s the correct grip and you've got to practice.  You’ve got to practice your grip”.

And that was it - as simple as that, my ah-ha moment.  My golf pro is unexpectedly a philosopher too.  What I learned at my golf lesson I must apply to the rest of my life and certainly my build up to Christmas.  I’ve got to get a grip, correct my grip and practice my grip, in preparation for the festive season. 

It’s the only way to enjoy and celebrate the good things, family and friends we are fortunate to have – and stop flipping worrying about the unimportant.

As this is being published early in 2017 - Happy New Year Everyone

High Five!
(Gecko foot has tiny hairs that exploit electrostatic attractive forces, called
van der Waals forces, for temporary adhesion. Scientists are proposing
using a similar approach to trap space debris.)

A Challenging Year

Day 27 (Sunday 27th December 2015)

27 lunar mansions or nakshatras in the Hindu, Vedic and ancient Indian astrology.
In the West people follow their solar horoscopes, in India the Moon is of greater importance
each mansion is based on the 27.3 day period it takes the Moon to traverse all 12 signs of the zodiac.
Each nakshatra is 13°20’ wide. The series begins at 0 with Aries and runs counterclockwise as above.
The nakshatras are each sub-divided into 4, making 108 sections that are used for divination
(e.g.if your Moon is at 6°. your influence is Saturn). The mansion containing your Moon and its
planet are believed to influence your future, combined with the stars for that period.

Today I am delighted to introduce Helen Green, a talented blogger who is making her first appearance in the Advent Blog series this year. Helen has a powerful background in sales and marketing, working with some of the world's leading brands, where she showed a flair for insight. She has a degree in psychology, a masters in organisational change and is an accredited executive and business coach. She is based in London and runs her own company, Orient8, which she founded in 2011. She is active on social media (you can follow her on Twitter, her handle is @orient8you). As you can guess from the title, Helen's year could be described as "coal dust" - hard found, dirty and difficult, but there is a twist. She has been brave enough to share with us some very personal moments and I am sure we can all learn from her words.

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It’s been a challenging year.

As I look back on 2015, the standout features are all bad ones.

I was out for dinner recently with good friends and recounted the story of my year to them. One of my friends seemed a bit exasperated with me. She reminded me that I have so much that is good in my life and to be thankful for, despite the challenges.

Of course she was absolutely right.

My brain is Velcro for the bad stuff and Teflon for the good.

Dr Rick Hanson, neuropsychologist and meditation teacher says in his book “Buddha’s Brain - The practical neuroscience of happiness, wisdom and love” –

“we evolved to pay great attention to unpleasant experiences. This negativity bias overlooks good news, highlights bad news, and creates anxiety and pessimism.”

Mmmmm – sounds familiar!

So the chances are your brain is just like mine and you’ve had a challenging year too.

Or have you?

Just in case, I have an insight I would like to share with you.

In July this year, as I said goodbye to my Mum just before she went into surgery, not knowing if it was for the last time, I kissed her forehead, stroked her hair and wondered what on earth I might say. Although my body was screaming at me with pain and fear, stroking her hair had a calming effect and the words started to flow.

“In the end Mum, all there is, is love. I love you.”

Twice recently I have shared this story.

The first time was with a young woman who was really struggling. She has moved half way round the world to be with her love and was trying to work out how she could pursue both of her passions – her relationship with him and the beautiful work which she feels called to do.

We were on a workshop together and I recounted my story as she listened. Tears filled my eyes as I spoke – it is still so raw and powerful - and when I took a little pause I looked at her to discover tears in her eyes too. We let the moment just be, words not necessary as we connected at some deeper level.

Soon it was time for her to tell her story whilst I listened. She told me she had been moved by my story and was starting to notice that what had felt like a tortuous either/or situation, was no longer that way. Love is everything and her love for her boyfriend and for her work mean that however hard it may be to reconcile the two, she knows she can and will do it.

The second time I recounted my story was with a friend who is going through a tricky time in his relationship. After listening to him talk for some time, I told him of my experience.

I said “in the end all there is, is love. Everything else is just stuff. You love each other - don’t let the love go.” 

I was crying again though more softly and in less pain than at my Mum’s bedside.

His response? A silence, followed by a rather breathless “wow, that’s a powerful insight. I just want to hug you.” This was not possible as we were talking on the phone at that moment, but I felt his love - that of a true friend - for me. I know too that he is in some small way changed by that conversation, that connection.

Mother Theresa said;

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

And as my favourite philosopher (!) Audrey Hepburn once said;

“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”

At this holiday time of year when we get to spend more time with our loved ones, let’s hold onto each other, love (and be loved) until it hurts.

After all, in the end, all there is, is LOVE.

I was mistaken – it’s been a wonderful year.

"All You Need is Love"played live at Buckingham Palace 

by Paul McCartney, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart, 2002

 

Colourful Coal

Day 20 (Sunday 20th December 2015)

20 standard bottles of wine are needed to fill a Nebuchadnezzar. This huge bottle, when full of Champagne, weighs, on average, 83.5 pounds. The above picture is a Nebuchadnezzar of an extraordinary sweet wine, Chateau Yquem, in a cradle to assist pouring. The name is derived from ancient history and The Bible - Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful of all Babylonian kings; he ruled from late in the 7th century to the middle of the 6th century BC. In The Bible he is renown for having his dreams interpreted by Daniel and for going mad, in response to his pride, until he converted; in history he is credited with being responsible for the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and for destroying the temples in Jerusalem.

Today's post is written by Annette Hill, and brings back a favourite character from last year's series, Wizard Oscar. Annette, having taken voluntary redundancy, now runs her own HR Consultancy called Acumen HR, based in the South West of England. She writes an interesting blog that focuses on learning and development called Net E-Learning (but I like its URL http://nettylearning.blogspot.co.uk). You can follow Annette on Twitter, her handle is @familyhrguru.

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I was struggling with this year’s theme, ‘coal dust and comet tails’. It sounded wonderful - full of metaphorical possibilities - in fact it had so much potential (for going really well or getting too tangled) that I decided to interview my mythical, mystical mentor and old friend, Wizard Oscar, to see if he could help. You may remember him from last year’s blog, and my dad’s bedtime stories. 

A picture of Annette's dad

Here’s the wizard's bio:

Wizard Oscar

HR Director

Education and background: Oscar joined the top team 6 months ago, following a successful career with Magic Circle Aggregates and other constructive industries. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Positive Demystification, Oscar is passionate about Diversity and Inclusion. When not busy writing his popular blog, Wizarding Wise Words, Oscar enjoys caving.

*Magical powers: A powerful, though forgetful wizard, even Oscar is sometimes surprised by what he is capable of.

Interview Extract:

Me: Hi Wizard Oscar. How are you?

WO: Still helping people to thrive, I think, trying not to have to rely on my magical powers. Not quite ready to move on to my next incarnation yet.

Me: Good. It’s great having you around in real life. And Wizard Willow Wand?

WO: He’s really well, in his element in fact, encouraging mindfulness.

Me:   Brilliant. Anyway, thanks for agreeing to have a chat about coal dust and comet tails.

WO: It’s a pleasure my dear. Now then, I’ll come back to coal dust, nasty, messy stuff. Comet tails however, well those fan tailed goldfish can be rather beautiful and very soothing to watch.

Me: I know, we used to have one, but I’m not sure we’ve been asked to be that literal…

WO: Of course, just encouraging calm thoughts and images, before we get too deep and meaningful. Remember, I have known you, and shared stories with you, since you were a little girl. It’s an intriguing theme I think, but why have you decided to chat with me about it?

Me: I suppose I’ve had quite a challenging year. When I first read what the theme was, I instantly thought of coal dust as negative, and comet tails as positive. That worried me because the image in my head was of an empty coal bucket, by an empty fire grate, with nothing but this dark powdery dust in the bottom… dirty dust as well that could be spread wide and make a terrible mess… hard to clean up. 

Whereas the comet tail was bright, illuminating and beautiful, but also rarely seen and short lived.

WO: OK… Those are quite powerful images. Would you like to say more?

Me: Well, I had to work quite hard to start to get those images out of my head and to think differently. The risk was that the negative image was empty, but not empty in a cleansed way. The powder left over, unwanted, but capable of staining and then hard to remove, could overwhelm the brightness of the gorgeous comet tail…

WO: Remember that I have known you your whole life. Remind me of that story you told me once about Comet Hale-Bopp?

Me: (Smiling) Oh yes, Belinda was nearly 3 when it was visible in the UK. We were so excited. I remember Mr H holding her at her bedroom window so she could see it against the night sky. She was so happy to see the Gromit in the sky, but we had some explaining to do about the whereabouts of Wallace…

WO: So how are you thinking about comet tails now?

Me: Hmmm. Well, the actual moment didn’t last long, but it gave us a lovely and amusing memory and, yes…. a wonderful insight to seeing things differently, with a fresh pair of eyes.

WO: I can visualise that too. Your positive memory and feelings about that are quite contagious.

Me: Thank you. But what about the coal dust?

WO: Well, in some worlds, coal dust can be compressed into diamonds…

Me: What? I had no idea.

WO: ‘Wizardpedia’ comes in quite handy sometimes.

Me: Hang on, I thought you were trying not to use magic these days…

WO: (Winking). Sometimes needs must. Let’s think about the qualities of diamonds.

Me: Shiny! Sparkly! A girl’s best friend…

WO: Yes…. But I’m thinking technical qualities.

Me: I thought we weren’t being too literal?

WO: (Looking stern) Stick with it if you can.

Me: Oh, you mean carat, cut, colour and clarity?

WO: Yes.

Me: I’m not sure I’m with you.

WO: We just talked about seeing things differently and fresh pairs of eyes. Let’s think about all of that coal dust…

Me: Yes, I suppose the challenges did take a lot of energy. They left behind more than a few empty coal buckets… I did my best not to contaminate other part of my life (my family and relationships) with the negative dust.

WO: Several empty coal buckets. That’s a lot of dust. Imagine it was compressed into a diamond. An insightful diamond full of learning. How many carats?

Me: Enough for it to go onto Elizabeth Taylor’s wish list.

WO: Excellent. What about the cut?

Me: Many facets. Very, very many.

WO: And the colour?

Me: It’s not dark anymore. In fact, it’s looking quite colourful and bright.

WO: Finally. Clarity?

Me: Now, do you really have to ask?