Tonight josh was “invested” at Beavers – part of the Scout troop. It is a great name to describe this process as I fully believe that joining Scouts is an investment. Anything that teaches you about leadership, team work and life skills and at the same time you consider to be fun is definately an investment.
I love watching my kids. I learn a lot from them especially those lessons that you forget as adults.
Zak is practicing his letters and the only route to success for him here is to practice and keep on practicing. This simple life lesson is so often overlooked. I want it now. Who cares about practicing?
D’oh!
I have one of those amazing jobs, where bring work home with you is a good thing.
The other day at our work team meeting, I told them that I expected to use the saunas in our new showroom. I know, I know – what bad boss am I. Telling the team to take an hour or two out of their day and spend it relaxing in a sauna.
The reason I did that – one word. Integrity.
The other day – a double-glazing sales guy came to see me. If they windows were as good as he was saying, then he would definately have them in his own house. That is if he believed in what he was saying. So I asked him.
He didn’t have them. He didn’t believe what he was telling me.
I do believe what I am saying. So – I believe that the team using them will be better for them (and me) as they begin to feel better. I use them. My family uses them. What a great job I have!
I wrote this almost 10 years ago. It is still as true today as it was when I wrote it:
To do the will of Him who sent me
Succeed at home first.
Be a man of total integrity – never to compromise on this
To love first, then walk on water
Be a hilarious, joyful and quick to do it giver.
To be a friend of God
To be response-able
Be a Friend
Seek counsel. Give counsel.
Put people before productivity
Quick to repent
Make the most of every opportunity
Be very proactive: plan tomorrow’s work today
Work as unto the Lord
To believe the best of God and people despite evidence to the contrary.
Today I came to flew in from Manchester to Stuttgart, Germany. Nothing unusual about this trip – I do it several times a year to see Klafs. For this trip, I will go to the Interbad show.
That aside, I was amused by the differences between our two countries.
I arrived at Manchester airport at 7.30 this morning and it is in chaos. The computer system for Thomas Cook was down, and the queues were extraordinary. I had to fight my way through to get to my check-in desk to drop off my luggage.
Being a man of modern technology, I checked in on line and dropped off my luggage at the “express-drop off point”.
My question was, why not get a member of staff with a laptop and check in the customers through their online check-in. Seemed a simple solution to me, but not one that was willing received that is for sure.
So, I carry on my journey.
My chance for breakfast was dashed when they called my gate. I (eventually) get to the gate through the maze of redevelopment work at the airport to find the whole place full of people who didn’t know what they were doing.
For 30 minutes I had to sit there, whilst they sorted it out. I could have got my breakfast after all. D’oh!
I get on the plane, and the two people sat next to me have all been allocated seats that have been allocated to other people too. This almost caused a fight as these seats had the best leg room. I was safe though, thank God.
So, there was a lot of drama. A lot of problems, and I still hadn’t had breakfast. I dig into the paper and forget the journey as I am absorbed by the tales of banking woe.
The plane lands. Everything changes.
We get to the very clean, designed terminal. Go through passport control within a matter of minutes. As soon as I am through, my luggage is coming through on the belt and I am away. The hotel is moments away, and they find me a room here at the Movenpick even though I am early. I settle down think about the differences, and laugh.
After all this though – I am glad that I am English. I guess I am used to it, because that is what being English is all about – flexible enough to cope with the odd set back, and chilled out enough to not need everything millimeter perfect.
I like Germany, I like it a lot. Everytime I am here – I enjoy seeing how they do things. Occassionally I will wish that we did it the same way (especially at airports). But being here does cause me to thank God that I am English!
Well – here goes. This is a simple publish test from my iPhone. If you can read then the question is answered!
Ps come on England
I finally got around to joining all the blogs that I had (more for my sanity than anything else). So here you have Rhemabytes, my photography and photoshop blog as well as my business blog and family one too!
One place for me now to keep everything just ticking over. Hopefully the menus will make it easy for you to find your way around and I hope you like the changes.
For those of you who don’t know my story – in the mid 90’s I went to work for a company called Severn Leisure which was run by Simon O’Shaughnessy. I wanted to be in business and I respected Simon as a business man – so I when the opportunity arose for me to work for him – I jumped at it as a few years being mentored would be great.
In 2001 Simon left the UK and went to live in New Zealand (as you do). So I had 5 years of working with him – which was a great experience, and we are still in touch and still great friends.
I went in to web site design, and Simon went to work at a TV network. Over the years, I returned to providing Klafs sauna and steam rooms to the UK and Simon has become a life and business coach. So, when the opportunity arose for me to have some life coaching with Simon – I again jumped at the chance.
The life coaching was great and can honestly recommend it. Even though Simon is in NZ – it still worked great for us and we made the time zones work. You learn a lot about yourself and achieve great success with personal goals.
Simon also spoke at the Business School I ran earlier this year and you can download this and listen to it on iTunes (search for anointed for business) or direct from the site by clicking here.
Now – Dan (my business partner) and I have Simon working with us both on executive business coaching – which is having a profound effect on us as a company, especially during this period of change and growth.
Simon has now greatly impacted my life and business for many years, and he is someone that I highly recommend to you – whether it be life coaching for 12 weeks or business coaching – it would be well worth getting in contact with him (you can do this through his website: carista.co.nz).
Simon has in the last few weeks, also launched his blog which can be subscribed to.
The last few weeks have been interesting for me, both on a personal level and on a business level. This month has seen my company "grow up", and take a leap forward from being a small business with a small business mentality to a more professional, grown up company (without being stifled or loosing the fun).
We have moved our office in to a new place with a showroom facility – and we have all been excited by the move – but in the midst of all the chaos of moving and building a showroom – some how the communication become a little chaotic too.
I was keen to join our new move with our new business philosophy – our new way of doing things. It was important to do this and do it right.
So we had an all staff meeting where we again looked at the vision, purpose and values of the company to make sure that we are all singing on the same hymn sheet. We looked at the strategy (or at least the time frame we have for building a new strategy for the company). I wanted to communicate passion and for the team to come away with a real sense of excitment for what the company is doing and where it is going.
Looking back – it was a good meeting, and I would do it again. The one thing that I would change though – being much clearer in communicating with the team what the meeting would be about before the meeting took place. They expected one type of meeting, and we delivered another. So – for the first part of the meeting (probably the most important part) – everyone has to re-programme their brains with new expectations.
So – lesson # 1 – be clear about the purpose of team meetings before they take place. Give them information they need at least 24 hours in advance so that they come to the meeting mentally prepared!
The annoying thing here is that Simon, our business mentor and coach, told us this – we just never listened.
So – lesson # 2 – listen to your business coach!
