watch tHe skies

I was watching the X-Factor the other day and it, incredibly, got me thinking. Of all the thousands of people who applied for the show, most of whom sing worse than me, there have been some with real, genuine talent. Of the people who made the live show there are a few with amazing voices, and what is even more amazing is how they have gotten through their lives to this point without having made best use of that incredible talent.

And my thoughts strayed to other talents. I wonder how many people out there ever really get to grips with their strengths. To the point where they are making best use of their talents every single day? I genuinely believe that we all have talents, that we are all extraordinary in some way, and if the X-factor model is to be believed, then perhaps precious few of us are conscious of, and then able to make the most of the natural abilities that we have.

It seems amazing that people can live their whole lives without realising their potential, and making use of it, instead perhaps considering themselves to be unremarkable when indeed I certainly haven’t met anyone that I could possibly label in that way.

There are few things in this universe that are absolutely true. Cogito Ergo Sum I hear you say? However I could be imagining that along with everything else. I don’t know everything that is true. But I do know one thing.

Television is rubbish. And having spent far too much time in front of one this week, and watching England come second in every sport that I care about. I have come to the conclusion that the only thing worth watching is Ninja Warrior on Challenge TV. Sasuke, as it is known in Japan, is pretty much the most extreme challenge I’ve ever seen on TV. In it, 100 competitors attempt to complete a 4 stage obstacle course culminating in a gruelling rope climb to press a button high above the course within the time limit.

And this course is tough. I mean most of us wouldn’t last two minutes, and even those that are clearly super-fit, rarely get past the first stage. Since its inception in 1997 only two men have completed the course in the time available, and earnt the crown of Ninja Warrior.

So what is compelling about this programme? Firstly it is the battle of wills between the competitor and the course, which gets more difficult each season. In addition it is the amazing cameraderie between competitors, many of whom compete in every competition and come back time and time again to try and get further than before. It really is amazing to watch the dedication and effort of these athletes, working tirelessly towards their goal.

 Perhaps it’s the individual feats of athleticism I enjoy, or laughing at the muppets falling awkwardly in to muddy water, or perhaps its the way these guys “keep going” and “keep succeeding, one step at a time” that makes me tune in whenever I get a chance.

Ninja Warrior - Challenge TV 6pm weeknights.

Last night I caught Sarah Beeny’s latest show, “How Toxic Are You“, which shined a light on the scary world of beauty products and the violently dangerous chemicals that are shoehorned in to even the most “natural” products such as bubble bath and toothpaste.

During the show, they took two women whose incredible beautification routines must have taken up most of the day, detecting thousands of man made chemicals in their bodies, and put them on a toxin-free regime for a month.

In the meantime we discovered the frightening levels of man-made toxins that are put in to products labelled as “natural” or “simple”, many of which have suspected links to cancer. Frankly I was shocked by what I saw. But it was okay as I’m not in to all of that lip gloss and stuff, although afterwards I glanced at the ingredients on the label of my beloved bubble bath, and the aloe vera cream I use after shaving. Heck even my toothpaste is mostly plastic, and let’s not even get started on the deodorant.

And if I wasn’t worried enough, we then saw an analysis of breast milk, of course to find that most of this crap is being passed on to our infants.

So I wonder, would I trade all these toxins in for being a little bit smellier, and a little less clean? And by clean I mean not having all of my bodily oils stripped by the same chemical used to degrease engine blocks.

It seems that yesterday before I watched this programme, the world was a much nicer place and soap smelled like, well soap.

I watched the news with absolute amazement yesterday when they explained to me and countless others how cows and pigs are making global worse by virtue of the methane that they, er, trump in to the atmosphere with alarming regularity and volume.

So scientists are now experimenting with additives to cattle feed to reduce the amount of methane that these gentle creatures emit.

And I wonder how this train of thought ever began, because it seems to presume that cows are the problem, when in fact the process of developing and manufacturing the additives for cows across the planet will probably generate a far bigger carbon footprint than the cows themselves could ever possibly trump between birth and beef wellington.

And of course once tested and working on cattle, the next offender will be, that’s right, you and me. Before you know it, anti-fart additives companies are top of the FT100 and our god-given right to break wind and blame the dog will be replaced by a state-sponsored money making machine that has a carbon footprint bigger than the hole in the ozone layer.

It seems to me that us humans aren’t thinking holistically about this whole global warming thing… the trouble is, there’s money in them farting cows and screw the fact that the net carbon footprint grows, as long as someone can buy a nice new 4×4 as a result.

So I wonder what hair-brained eco moneymaker will next hit the headlines… dragonfly powered micro-windmills or the use of the human body as a battery to power a big virtual reality machine… they both rate the same level of craziness as addressing the farting cow problem.

So Jen and I finally settled down to watch the finale to the third season of Lost, since our mid-season apathy with the show, the producers have turned down the questions, switched answers to ‘11′ and had our hearts racing towards a pretty impressive finale, with lots of twisty turny things and ultimately, a satisfactory conclusion to the last six months’ viewing.

Leaving only a small cliffhanger, it would actually be possible to stop watching the show after that ending, however as Jenny says “the fact that you can stop watching now makes me want to watch it more”. Go figure.

A while back my faith was questioned and I admitted to losing interest in wierdly addictive TV show Lost. Sky+ had accumulated some 6 episodes and I asked the missus if we should delete them.

“Just one, more, give it one more chance”

And so we did, and the answers came. And more answers to questions we hadn’t asked, so much so that now we know what’s special about the island, where The Others come from, why they are there and, so, so much more.

And now we are hooked, more hooked than ever, as the TV execs have finally rewarded us with some information for our loyalty and endurance. Thank you Lost, it looks like this year’s finale is gearing up to be a good’un.

Apparently they have now confirmed that the show will finish after 5 seasons, so we will actually get answers to the rest of the questions, and find out what happens to all of those poor people, and whether Ben will finally get the comeuppance that we all hope for!

A guy I work with once said to me about a particularly awkward associate who is no longer with us “Why does everyone take an instant dislike to him… is it just to save time?” Aside from the gross generalisation and being very funny, that phrase has stuck with me for many years because it’s an extreme example of the old saying about first impressions usually being right.

This concept of first impressions took on more meaning for me when I began to learn the difference between the conscious and unconscious minds. The conscious mind is a relatively new development in our species, some say it’s only been around for the last 30,000 years or so. The unconscious mind has been around for millions, maybe tens of millions or so years and is so much more advanced. And it is the unconscious mind’s job to protect us - to keep us safe from predators by processing millions more bits of data at a time than our relatively feeble conscious minds could manage. The results of this unconscious processing is fed to our conscious minds in a form some describe as intuition - those feelings that we get. So when we meet someone and take an instant dislike (or like) to them, there is a lot more going on in that “instant” than you are consciously aware of, in fact a large proportion of that initial feeling about someone has been processed unconsciously by the part of you that is comparing the person to everybody you’ve ever met, reading micro-body language, tonality, facial expressions and much more in a fraction of a second, and converting that decision in to a set of analogue signals that you might consider intuition. (more…)

Since that muppet went on Dragons Den and wanted to run a Live Coaching website I’ve been assaulted with a hail of questions on my opinion of what was said by the Dragons.

Firstly, although she mentioned NLP she didn’t seem to practice it… where was the rapport? Or any other technique that might help in a sales presentation, remembering that these guys have probably been badly NLP’ed a million times by clunky salesmen who did a bit of persuasion on some course. Of course the rapport could have been edited out to make the pitch more dramatic.

The last thing that coaching needs is the Dragons criticising it. I do understand their concern though - there are a lot of people out there being very evangelical about it’s benefits because of the potential money involved… in reality I think that there is a lot less money in the marketplace for this service because the public in general don’t see the point. People “get” and accept hypnotists nowadays but it will be a long time before personal coaching is a reality for all but the wealthy.

The woman on Dragon’s Den did have a good idea though - that people could be helped with only 6 questions. Now I don’t know what 6 questions she was going to ask, but if I was asking six questions to coach someone on a problem they would be:

(after they have the problem in mind)

1) What do you want?
2) How will you know you have got it?
3) What is different from when you have got it from what you have now?
4) What is stopping you doing it now?
5) What are your options?
6) What are your actions?

I might cheat and add a 4a) which tends to yield good results…

4a) If that didn’t stop you, what would?

Now you could go away and use those questions on your own and perhaps get some good results. However you might not and if you don’t it’s because you are too close to the problem… having a face to face discussion allows the coach to read a bunch of non-verbal information to support what you are saying… in most cases the actual words that come out of your mouth reveal a tonne of information, and coupled with your non-verbal, give a good coach a very powerful representation of what is going on, including what you don’t actually say.

For example, look out for people shaking their head when they are answering a question, now that could mean incongruence (they don’t agree with their spoken words), it could also mean that they are weighing up options represented auditorily (is that a word?) in each ear, or it could mean something else which has a context related to other things that they are saying. Clearly the first two could have considerable impact on the information offered verbally, and all this stuff and more you miss when you’re not face to face.

So my view is really that coaching isn’t a commodity ready for the internet… there’s no formula for people’s problems, so no expert system can be programmed (although I bet Richard Bandler has thought about it). Lots of people get coached by friends, families and coworkers every day. There’s no need for a website to replace this. Let’s spend MORE time face to face than less, please.

So I am starting to get bored with Lost. It has become clear to me that they are just stringing us along now, and that quite frankly, I’m not sure that anyone really cares about what happens to the survivors of the ill-fated Oceanic 815. What began as a show shrouded in mystery and wonder is now the pass the parcel at the end of the party - the one you know has nothing of real interest or value hidden between each layer of wrapping paper.

So we now have 3 or 4 episodes on the Sky+ and neither Jenny or myself have shown any interest in catching up, we get more enjoyment from 5 minutes of 24 than from an entire episode of people mincing about a strange island. I wonder how much of the change in our view is related to the fact that being on Sky now, nobody we know talks about it any more….? Pity really considering how much Sky must have paid to show it, and that Ugly Betty is way more entertaining.

I was pleased to catch Top Gear last week to see Richard “The Hamster” Hammond return to our screens with Jeremy Clarkson and the other bloke. After gracing Hamster with a spectacular entrance, Clarkson checked to see if Hammond was now “a mental” before moving on to cover the normal stuff they cover - a bit of a moan about something or other, the three of them larking about, and Clarkson getting to test drive a really really fast car.

Eventually though, they finally showed the footage we had been waiting for - Hammond’s crash in a jet-powered dragster. And scary it was - Hammond suffering a blow out at a staggering 280 miles per hour. Frightening stuff, and it was interesting to watch Hammond’s reaction to the footage and the questions - it was clearly uncomfortable for him, although it would be interesting to know how much of it he actually remembers, because the blowout and crash took less than a second.

Anyhow it was great to see him back on the TV safe and sound and lets hope that Top Gear continues without further RIDDOR events!