watch tHe skies

I’ve been wondering and wandering what to do about this blog. After all I’m sure that you may have noticed that posts have been sparse recently. That is partially due to time, partially due to diverting my efforts in to a new site, and partially due to a concern over what to write here.

Coaching and personal development musings, which take up a lot of the site to date, are moving to the new site, which is a site designed to provide advice, suggestions and book recommendations for those looking to make changes in their lives. In addition it is the home for information about the coaching and changework services that I provide, which is over and above my day job. URL to follow soon once the site is ready to launch. I’ve got enough content on there now, I’m just considering the layout and graphics now. I’ve also produced some products to sell too, however I am still toying with how and why to sell them. And I am still thinking about the final purpose of the site, which has changed a little since initial inception. Originally it was going to be a general self-help site that I would use to sell my products. However now it has changed to an on-line credibility resource to support my face-to face selling of my services. Currently the idea is that someone gets my business card and as a result has a look at my website as a supporting buying decision to the face-to face explanation of what I do.

And since I started the plans for the site, my work role has changed; I’ve taken on a lot more responsibility and I’m enjoying it a lot. So the new site and the coaching work is effectively a paid hobby rather than an aspiring career change. It gives me practice, covers its costs and grows my confidence to deal with even more challenging people, situations and problems.

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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.

I’m hard at work with the new website project so no pearls of wisdom today. However I bought some instant coffee today that is “Irish Cream Flavoured”. “Cool” I thought. I made a cup and it does indeed smell of lovely irish coffee. Mmmm makes my office smell sooo good.

But it tastes just like normal coffee, and as I drink it my nose says Irish Cream and my tongue says coffee, so my brain interpolates and says “YUK!”

So from now on I am only drinking sensually congruent beverages. It’s my new rule.

Hmm it seems hard to concentrate today with all of the things going on. My job is very busy indeed and on top of that the work on my coaching diploma is building up. The coaching diploma work itself is really interesting - I love reading in and around the subject, and I LOVE coaching, I am learning so much about myself, about other people, about how good, successful people get to be that way, it’s all so fascinating. Trouble is, my day to day job gets in the way!

I can’t remember who it was who said “if you do a job that you love then you’ll never work another day”, and it doesn’t really matter because there are certain things I do at work, at home, where time has no meaning, and I love doing them so much I forget to eat, drink, or stop for a comfort break until the emergency “overlimit” switch on my bladder picks up the batphone and calls my brain.

It seems really disappointing to me that somewhere out there I can’t just get paid to learn. That is, to learn whatever I want, no master, no demands, just go out and pick up a book, learn something, go and practice it, find someone who is brilliant at it, and learn some more from them. Of course if a job like that was available then everyone would want it, right? Wrong. Fortunately not everyone is me and for that at least I am thankful. I suspect my wife is too, she doesn’t need anyone else in the world not putting handles on wardrobe doors.

The next step is starting to take shape. I’ve drafted out my thoughts and I’m sharing them with a few friends, and then at some point my plans for world domination will make their way on to this blog. Don’t hold your breath though, 1) because it might not be as good as you think and 2) i’m not imposing any time limits. Good ideas become great applications with considerable sweat, toil and testing. At least, that’s my belief and I’m happy to be limited by it at this point.

Ok I probably shouldn’t blog about some things but hey they are relatively harmless. I spend most tuesdays now in long, painful meetings on super-important stuff that I could tell you about but would then have to kill you. The result is, I have to keep myself amused for hours on end in really dull meetings. So here are a couple of my favourite mind games to keep those meetings interesting and perhaps keep them moving a little.

Shutting down a boring conversation. I’m sure you’ve heard about matching and mirroring - assuming body postures, tonality etc., to get in to rapport with someone. Well when you want them to go away or be quiet, mismatch everything, if they talk quietly, talk loud, if they sit cross legged, then open wide. Amplify this by rocking back and forth ever so slightly, and maybe even hum to yourself. Oh and the icing on the cake - in between eye to eye contact, stare at one particular point on the top of their ear. Anyone who can keep up a train of thought in such environment is probably playing mind games with you too, so bring it on!

Find a point on the ceiling, and whenever other conversations stray in to unwanted territory, subtly and regularly glance up at this point. When you get a chance to talk, be sure to glance up at that point regularly, and couple it with lots of negative words, ie, boring, pointless, dead-end etc. Most people won’t get this consciously but their unconscious minds will, and before you know it you have your own pavlovian experiment with an adverse reaction to subjects that you don’t like. Be sure to reward the doggies when they do good though.

And that’s the end of the mischief today. Have fun and remember, with great power comes great responsibility

Way back when, in a former life, I spent nearly a year of it living in Windsor. A very nice place by all accounts except that for that time I was working nightshift. So my days were nights and my nights days, and the only time I got to spend in Windsor was mid-afternoon, where I would go for a walk, grab something for “breakfast” and relax before I started my shift.

One sunny afternoon I noticed that my hair was looking a bit tatty (it was usually hidden under a safety helmet) so I headed to the town centre to look for a barber. No barber to be found with a free spot, I headed in to a posh salon on spec, and was surprised to find they could do me then and there. Even more to my surprise was my hairdresser, a six foot amazonian woman in what could only be described as a belt and boob tube. Marvellous, I thought, as being on nightshift my exposure to pretty woman was mostly limited to whatever papers the contractors had bought that day.

What followed was one of the best hours of my life, as I had my hair washed and head massaged by this lovely lady, who then cut my hair precisely whilst I gawped at her in the mirror. I don’t remember whether the hair cut was any good, though I do remember paying £40 for the priviledge and being satisfied that I did indeed get value for money.

Now that was more than ten years ago, and yet that experience still stays with me, and each and every time I go in to get my hair cut, I base the experience against that memory. Indeed as I walk in, I hope to see my amazonian waiting for me in boob tube and belt, and I’m then hopelessly disappointed when reality doesn’t live up to my ideal, despite the fact that my current hairdresser is indeed very pretty. And of course yesterday I grumbled at the £30 I spent on getting my hair trimmed. Sure the hairdresser was nice to talk to, and I did indeed get a very relaxing head massage, and yet I came away thinking that £30 was expensive. I wonder whether I am setting my sights too high, and indeed whether the story I told you ever really happened like that? Still one day I hope to find another amazonian hairdresser, if indeed there ever was one.

Nightshifts do funny things to reality, you know.

In my new role I’m starting to take over regular operational meetings from my boss. Many of these involve dealing with very senior managers, and of course they are mostly a lot older than me, which is always a challenge. In addition my boss’s management style is far more authoritarian than mine. I prefer to counsel ideas and then make best decision based on available information, hence getting people to do what I need them t do because they understand that it’s the logical thing to do. However my boss isn’t quite so searching for information and makes decisions quickly and expects people to follow his instructions.

So this meeting in particular, a high level financial review, started well, however I soon found myself working hard to prevent the session descending in to a bun fight. I managed to keep the meeting on course until a point where I had to leave it to the accountant because I had another meeting. Later the accountant recounted that the remainder of the meeting had been quite uncomfortable, and he likened it to when a class used to being managed by a very strict teacher had a substitute because the strict teacher was ill. All that was missing was paper aeroplanes and feet up on the table.

And yet these guys are all very senior and well respected managers, so it seems to me that this change in personnel is allowing them to vent some of the frustration that they didn’t and don’t feel comfortable with venting previously. The temptation for me is to react in future meetings with a harder style, and yet that isn’t the way I believe things should be done, so it’s interesting, it seems that these people are used to behaving in a certain way, and when the previously experienced force isn’t exerting, balance is restored by them acting like schoolchildren, resulting in me needing to behave like my boss, hence returning the status quo and allowing those frustrations to once again bubble under the surface. My challenge is hence one of staying true to the way I want to manage things long enough so that they begin to be more open and accepting of the new style, and eventually we start to see high performing, productive meetings.

And I guess I’ll be able to measure progress by how many paper aeroplanes I find on the floor after each meeting.

Who would have thought when I got up this morning, early, to avoid the rush hour traffic on the M6, M42, M5, M4 and M32, eager to test out my fancy satnav in my equally fancy new car, that I would cross paths with Noel Edmunds in his even more fancy car.

Well I certainly did. That’s the great thing about unpredictability, it makes today different to yesterday. Or perhaps that’s just my view of things, perhaps a glass half full kind of thing.

And this reminds me of the other day, I was interviewing for a position and this guy came in who had all of the qualifications and experience that I was looking for. He didn’t get the job because I just didn’t like him. Now, sure, lots of the things I’ve learnt in the last few years have probably made me more sensitive to things because I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t like him. And when I was discussing this person with my associate, I said something like “it’s really strange, I hardly ever meet someone that annoys me and I take a dislike to, so it seems incredible that he managed to do both in a few seconds.” My associate said “you’re lucky, I meet people I don’t like and who annoy me all of the time.” So I wonder whether I really am just lucky or whether it’s just my outlook on what different means. And today was different for lots of reasons, not least the fact that I got to wave at Noel Edmunds in his Aston Martin.

Another associate once asked me of a guy we hired who was subsequently carefully managed out of the business “why does everyone take an instant dislike to Barry*? Is it just to save time?” I wonder if Barry saw the boot coming when he woke up that morning. Deal or No Deal?

 *Names may have been changed to protect the innocent until proven guilty as charged. My apologies, 7 hours of driving today has clearly affected my word association football.

In preparation for tomorrow’s post, I read through my page “What is NLP” and decided that it was utter nonsense.

“No more than the rest of the site!” I hear you cry.

Here hear!

Anyhow I’ve completely rewritten the page, it is now shorter, more personal, and less rubbish. I hope you like.

Hmm I’m really getting in to facebook. It’s addictive - all of these little applications to play with, lots of linking to friends and encouraging you to pull your less IT savvy mates in to its sweaty grip.

I’m currently racking my brain to think of all of the countries I have visited so that the world doesn’t look quite so barren.

And who would have known that the reason I’m a bit tired today is because of the biorhythms, not the violent food poisoning that I got at the weekend from my next door neighbour’s BBQ!

So this evening i must have spent at least 90 minutes fiddling around with my profile, and I’m not entirely sure that I have anything at all to show for it.

At least with MMORPGs you pay for your addiction, when the addiction is free and involves no dwarf tossing at all, then it is surely just plain wrong…!