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Gripped with fear

Its mental health awareness week. So, I thought I’d share this update, which might also help someone to keep fighting and never give up! May 2024 Its never happened to me before. I always had a huge sense of self belief and confidence. Despite having had a very chaotic, abusive and dysfunctional childhood I wanted something better. But I’ve been beaten before, I’m almost conditioned for it and its hard to show weakness. When your vulnerable it seems somewhat harder to speak up and seek help because let’s be honest, we can’t afford not to work and what would people think if they see weakness. At least this is how us men think.  I’ve always been good at acting positive and injecting myself with energy before walking into a room. Especially where this is a room of staff, a football dressing room, a football pitch or a room I’m presenting to for business. I’ve always been fearless. I’d gladly take risks and I’ve never got too down with setbacks, mistakes or failure. But, as I appro...
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The Magic Box

 Our former neighbour is 97 and my wife still pops round every week to bring her some shopping and for a chat. She is a fascinating and remarkable woman. Incredibly sharp and very determined and independent where possible. I guess this strength & resilience comes from living through war and experiences we can only imagine and watch in films. We were with her one day over Christmas and she mentioned needing to buy something, But the only way she could buy it was if she used “The Magic Box”. This comment fascinated me and got me thinking about living in this era. I know age doesn’t define your technical skills per se. Or willingness to except modernisation and change. I witnessed this in hospital over recent years. Another older lady, in her 90’s using WhatsApp video to video chat with her children and grand children was great to see. A clear example of that technology providing a benefit. But, of course for many and in particular the older generation that didn’t learn these sk...

Its not Personal, is it?

 "Its not personal" A phrase I have heard many times over the years. Especially when a manager or employer prepares to deliver you bad news. I always disagreed with that. Maybe its one of my weaknesses and I know for sure, sometimes people have to be let go. But, its always personal. Your job is where you spend most of your time and therefore if it makes you miserable then and at times it carries over into your personal life. Thats personal. Added to that, many people, maybe most, live hand to mouth. They are counting down the days to pay day in order to buy their food for the family. so when you lose your job, you cannot feed your family and start to struggle with bills, then its absolutely personal.  Those that know and have worked with me I hope would describe me as a happy go lucky person. But Ive had a lot of ups and downs. So much so that I became conditioned for bad news and bad luck. Ive of course left out the most graphic personal consequences but as an overview I fe...

Who are the most important people at work?

I have witnessed all types of behaviour over my years working in business and even within professional sport. I believe you can run a successful business treating every one with the same energy and respect. In sports I believe you can achieve the best outcome with a better approach to all people. Over the years teams have proven they can over achieve against expectation and always describe a great working environment off the pitch as a major factor. In business I think the benefits are huge also with over achievement when you create a great happy enjoyable environment. Here I tell you why along with some experiences along the way... I've always been fascinated by working personality. Seeing how people act and change amongst different people.  I've worked in companies that are small and also in huge enterprise businesses. I've also worked in a number of professional football clubs. Now I'm all for healthy respect for people in high ranking positions. Albeit, I feel they ...