In my long quest for productivity, I have downloaded an app called coach.me.
It lets you set goals and then track progress day by day. I set myself the goal of thirty days consecutive writing on this blog.
So far I am on day 9. I have started writing streaks before, and around about day 10 it feels like that Marilyn Monroe movie “The 7 year itch”. The excitement is gone and the grind is real. This app certainly helps, though.
This is nine, tomorrow is ten. And on we go.
Holiday was cut short by a military lockdown. Not your usual reason.
It’s nice to be home. I’m trying to be optimistic. This is a chance to live differently. Thank the Gods we are allowed to walk the dogs. This is good for both my dogs and my marriage!
21 days can sometimes fly by. My children are confused about the interruption but I think they’ll cope fine.
We have food, we have plenty of work to do on the house, and actual job work which is still coming in over this period though to a lesser extent.
We have entertainment, a garden with a pool. We have space in the house and we have shops down the road. We have every chance of side stepping this damned virus.
Here’s to healthy kids, dogs, marriages and national lockdowns.
An unexpected halt to an idea will cause heartbreak. Heartbreak is inevitable and yet we spend most our lives trying to avoid it. How to live with heartbreak?
Like most of the world, South Africa is shutting down in response to the corona virus. It is heartbreaking. Heartbreaking for my kids who have had their holiday cut short. Heartbreaking for my wife and I to forget all the plans we had made. Our ideas around freedom, health, community are all being challenged. This too is a heartbreak. How to live with heartbreak? I’m finding this quote from David Whyte helpful:
If heartbreak is inevitable and inescapable, it might be asking us to look for it and make friends with it, to see it as our constant and instructive companion, and perhaps, in the depth of its impact as well as in its hindsight, and even, its own reward. Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is an introduction to what we love and have loved, an inescapable and often beautiful question, something and someone that has been with us all along, asking us to be ready for the ultimate letting go.
The quote suggests that there is a use to this feeling of loss and damage. We must be ready to let go. We must all get ready to die. Not just in times of crisis but every day. Use the time you’re given as if you will have to let it all go one day. As if your time will come to an end. Because it will.
Here’s an interesting quote:
We banish the misaligned when we align with what we are called to, we become visible and real when we give our gift and stop waiting for the gift to be given to us.
I am ruminating on this like a cow with cud.
There is some clarity that comes with the dread of an impending pandemic. When times get tough it’s a lot easier to prioritise your life.
Some silly examples; I now know for sure that I can’t buy anything fancy. I can’t go on any big trips. The house will not get expanded this year. I won’t visit my family overseas. This is before I even think about plans we may have had at work for our company. So many cancelled plans. All because of uncertainty around Corona virus.
In more normal, predictable times I would toy with all the exciting ideas I could think of. Weigh them up. Choose one over the other. Now I can put all these haunting wishes to sleep.
When this thing passes I will stretch myself again. Until then it’s a period of contraction, consolidation, concentration on the task at hand. Just a period. Nothing more and nothing less.
Not exciting, but necessary for long term planning and resilience.
There are many methods to create new habits. If you create and persist with these new habits, you alter your longer term behavior.
At first these changes in behavior are hard to keep up. They feel wrong, and difficult and like hard work. But over time, if you persist, then they become second nature. What was difficult becomes manageable.
In this time of pandemic, panic, pandemonium – it makes sense to me that you could find yourself a method to create some new habits. Persist with the new habits even as you hit a trough of disillusionment. Even as you are tempted to take the easy route. Once you pass through the dip, you will find the new behavior easier to manage. It will normalize.
Disruption comes in different shapes and sizes. Often it is spoken of positively, especially recently, referring to technology that impacts our lives. But the most disruptive thing to happen in my life lately, and I suspect to anyone reading this, is the corona virus.
Pandemic. What a word that is.
Today is my mother’s and my wife’s birthday (Different people, same birthday). It’s a milestone birthday and we had big plans. However those plans have gone out the window and we are isolating to avoid exposure to a global pandemic which seems to be only just getting started.
If we wanted to do something worthwhile – and it almost doesn’t matter what it is – we would likely find it easier to do with someone else as a guide, a teacher, or just as company.
There’s always an opportunity for creating a welcoming venue for birds of a feather to come together and practice, discuss, create, define what they want to get good at.
The best websites do this. Podcasts too.
The best restaurants, clubs, churches, offices, parks, homes and companies do this too.
When I was 11 years old, I changed my handwriting in an effort to be cool. I wanted to be more like my friend. He wrote with far more flair than I did. His pages had words that stood out at you. They were all in in neat rows, but they looked artistic and full of purpose. His paragraphs were all in joined up writing and each word was at an angle. His pages looked like they came from someone interesting. Mine just looked like they came from a bog standard 11 year old kid.
I remember clearly deciding to write an assignment in this new style – with my new found flair. The words were all at a painful angle across the page. It took me ages to finish because I was more interested in how it looked than what was written. I put my name on it and handed it in. I felt satisfied and liberated. My new, cooler, more angular identity was emerging.
When the teacher handed our marked papers back, he stopped when he reached me. I got a poor mark. He was disappointed with me, he said. And what on earth was wrong my handwriting? He could barely read it.
I couldn’t hide my blushes as I mumbled some sort of response. I reverted back to myself the very next class.
Happy Sunday chimps. To thine own self be true!
In this internet age, access to information and data is not necessarily a competitive advantage. Everyone has google. Everyone has more data than they know what to do with. This includes your clients.
The trick then when dealing with clients and data is to package it properly. Package it into something as specific as possible.
If the target client needs scientific proof to make a decision, send them scientific papers.
If they are driven by money, send them as many financial statements and ratios as possible to back up your sale.
If they identify with emotion and passion, possibly you need to package your information in the form of a romantic story.
It is a matter of speaking the right language to achieve your goal with a client.
We all have a language we like to speak and will pay money and attention for. What is yours?
Chimpwithcans 