Do As I Do

OR DO AS I SAY

People like to go their own way. They may seem to be taking valuable advice, but still not heed it. They don't want to do things my or your way. They would sooner do it their own way - even if it's wrong. They can't trust the fact that we may have had a beneficial learning experience and therefore in a better position to pass that knowledge on. But this is nothing unusual. Trust is a valuable commodity that has to be earned and the art of convincing takes time to learn.

Youngsters, it seems, are know-it-alls by 25. They have little focus and constantly flit around. This is because they can. They're young. They have the luxury of having time on their side to learn from mistakes. But being older doesn't necessarily mean being any the wiser either. Many older people are holding on to the errors made in their earlier years and have become stuck in their ways - stubborn and inflexible to change. They stick to what they know even when it's clearly not paying dividends.

Generally, I'm a lone wolf rather than a team player. I don't blindly take other people's advice, but I do try to find the best way of accomplishing things by following another's advice. I tend to go with what I know best, but ultimately, it's my way or the high way a lot of the time. So it follows that for a lot of the time, I'm alone on my highway. This is a shame, because I believe I've made some marked success in what I do. But it's not always the easy or the conformed way of doing things, so many prefer to take their own conventional route rather than risk relying on me. And it's this questioning of my competence, ability and expertise that I find frustrating. It wears me down and hence why I'm often doing things my own way. There's only so much effort we can put in to convince others to join our way of thinking. But, because I'd really like to give something back to the human race, I'm going to require some patience in order to learn how to best convince others.

Conviction At Work

It takes a multitude of communications skills to win people over. Without these skills, we can fail to convince others of our wants, desires and needs. It's something I've only had a small amount of success with in the past and often been a struggle for me working in the studio as a designer. I will put my best efforts creating something I'm happy with, only to find someone heavily opinionated (not necessarily talented or right), making changes for no real significant gain, possibly compromising the design/idea and/or taking the credit/shirking the blame in the process. They essentially are masters of communication, confidence and conviction. Creative work is always subjective and everyone considers themselves to be a qualified designer or creative on some level. Being a designer, photographer or a writer - the same applies for these professions too. Until you get the credibility, you'll always have to battle to get your opinions heard. We'll never escape the critics and disbelievers - nobody ever does, but through learning the skills of communication to convince others - we'll be heard more of the time.

Training someone for fitness is also just as hard, as people really don't want to listen to the dietary advice or commit to the sessions. The results aren't immediate enough for them and they are quick to give up following our advice. Hence, this is another role where I've become coarse talking on deaf ears. But, at the end of the day, it's because we all think we know best.

Remember The Mentors

There are always going to be others with more experience and skill than us. We need to know who these people are and when to listen to them. I have spent almost a year investigating better ways to improve myself. These newfound ideas are not my own, I have learned them from others. They are easy to discover on your own, but why not look at someone who has discovered them already? My skills for convincing you to believe in me are currently lacking. I will write a book in 2016. I'll give it my best shot and pour my heart & soul into it. I've never written a book before and it might not be any good. But without my powers of communication and confidence, how will my discovered and shared ideas be followed and appreciated?

Humility & Confidence
So it pays to take advice from someone who really knows what they are doing. But we don't like information being force fed to us. Without having some humility - the art of being humble - we could be seen as too arrogant or self-obsessed. Being able to recognise the value, opinions and guidance from a teacher/elder & wiser person - that's the only time when I do as others say. So, we all need to better learn how to give the time, respect, to listen & learn from others, in order to learn how we can make these improvements in ourselves for passing on our own teachings.

Experience Rules

LEADERSHIP

It takes a certain type of person to be a good leader. Experience is one major factor but confidence in one's ability to lead others in a positive way - in order to bring out the best in less experienced others - that's the mark of being a truly great leader.

No Love Lost
Staying at certain venues over the last week, it was clear where leadership was either the gel in making a successful establishment or absence the failure. Junior, inexperienced staff, left to manage the best they could on their own, with no experienced mentor helping to steer these mostly nice but ineffective youngsters along, meant that I had to give my second review (as positively as I could) on an establishment that promised so much and yet failed to deliver. Not that this had a really negative effect on our stay - it was just a bit disappointing on our 11 year anniversary to have stayed somewhere with love in it's name - that ironically, felt so unloved.

Coming Of Age

GROWING PAINS

Today I'm reminded of how difficult the transition from being a boy to becoming a man really is. The teen years are some of the toughest moments in our life. As it's when we make the decisions that shape us into the adults we then become and being a mentor to a young boy or girl to help them make the transition is a position of great responsibility which can be very rewarding when it goes well. 

Playing The Game
There's a lot of conflict with our teachers, parents and peers as some of the bad decisions being made steer us towards dangerous or illegal and stupid acts. It's at these times that we learn how to deal with conflict, take responsibility for our actions and earn the respect of adults for making the tough move from being a protected child to a self-sufficient adult.

We're all still the child inside and although it may seem like a long way off, we are all still capable of being in that same child state, making the same stupid decisions and getting into trouble. Becoming an adult is all about learning how to play the game of life for our advantage without hurting others or getting into trouble. Some never learn how to do this.

We forget that there's only a few key life skills separating us from being that 13 year old kid so when we're confronted with someone going through that same tricky transition we've already passed through successfully, we may be a little forgetful of how tricky and sometimes painful it was and just need to be aware that it's not actually much of a difference between us man and boy. We have to try and remember that we made mistakes too - a lot of mistakes.

I don't ever recall being told that the teenage years are a tricky period that I've got to work out for myself - I just remember the chiding when I got it wrong. Dealing with young adults at this hormone-rich and growth spurt period can be really tough - so it pays to get some tips on how best to deal with these changelings so it doesn't end up being a shouting match between two raging adolescents.

Alignment To Success

MOVING IN CIRCLES

Being able to associate in and with successful circles lies at the core of personal success. Having positive and influential people in our lives can help us to realise our own potential. Being mis-aligned in and with groups that ultimately want to see failure from us - in order to keep aligned with their own failures and missed opportunities for success, will keep us from ever reaching our goals.

The connections we can make through social media - commenting/contributing to debate and also reaching out to the extended circles in the group plus attending seminars/talks from these visionaries, to further immerse ourselves, will ensure we are closer-aligned with other great, inspirational thinkers. This will help propel us into the limelight, where we become part of the zeitgeist where our life purpose has the potential to be recognised in ourselves and by others as it takes significant form.

Teaching

LEARNING TO ENJOY LEARNING

When I think back to my early school days (many moons ago now), I can remember enjoying the act of learning new things. I liked going to school and being taught new things. As a consequence, I excelled at art, was good at maths, ahead in reading and imaginative with writing stories. My pictures were on display, I read out my stories in front of class and often helped others with their sums/spelling. There were rewards for learning. Gold stars and ticks along the way. The teachers would smile and say how clever or creative I'd been. And, whether what I'd created was any good or not, I still have the memory of being acknowledged as someone who was capable or greatness. 

As the years roll by, I'm still left holding fond memories of my teachers and my time at junior school. I have a sense of confidence instilled in me. And, even though I was a bit of a handful at times, being given a lot of positive encouragement to learn more, has helped motivate me in life. 

Encouraging greatness

While I can't pertain to be a head of state, a modern day Leonardo Da Vinci or even a self made man in business - I feel lucky to have had such great teachers. I have confidence to learn, apply what I've learned and the right mindset to get on in life. Yet, I could have so easily become a different person. I put a lot of this fact down to being shown the right way to act from a young age and encouragement from great teachers. Thankfully, there's people out there that understand the importance of good teachers and are willing to take on this role. A lot of people aren't as fortunate to have had such great influences in their lives and without such an encouraging start - particularly from that very young and impressionable age, they struggle to get on.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart - Ms Grealy and Mrs Sellick.

Giving Back

KIDS NEED MENTORS

It was a long time ago when I was at school and I asked what I wanted to do for a job. Teachers were all around us - but I can't say any of them really inspired me to become like them. My dad had never really talked properly about his job and I hadn't really bothered to enquire about mate's dads jobs. Where were the mentors in my day? There was no internet and I don't recall anyone giving me a list of possible jobs and their benefits for me to consider. There was a Careers Advisor and I kinda recall sitting with him and my mum discussing what I was interested in. The conversation likely went something like this:

CA: "Does he like maths?
Mum: "He's good at maths but not sure he really likes it?"
CA: "Are there any hobbies?"
Mum: "He's a good drawer"
CA: "Maybe he'd like to be a commercial artist then"
Mum: "Well, his dad is a graphic designer"

And that was it. My career sorted. Luckily, my dad got me a junior role at his old firm and because of my generation's ability to use computers - I moved up the ladder really quickly and have been in employment ever since.

Back then, there didn't seem to be many options open to the kids at my school. You were either good at sums (banker), good with hands (carpenter, plumber, mechanic, builder) or some arty type....
It seemed the school were out of touch with the real world - there was no cross-over - no connection with the people and jobs that were out there for the students to see/experience and discover what they liked - at least I can't remember any. We just had to 'get lucky' as I did, that my dad knew someone (all about who you know) and that good timing in the evolution of graphic design meant someone already used to playing with computers would be so beneficial to a company trying to keep up with the new changes in the industry.

These days, it seems there's far more options open to the kids - maybe a little too much choice though - so more difficult to choose one. Because, being 16 and told to 'pick a job' is a really tough place to be in. I didn't know what I wanted to do. But if someone had told me: This job will give you multiple options for work within the design industry, enable you to travel, be expressive, creative and you can wear what you want and make a fairly decent income above and beyond what a lot of the other jobs do. I'd have been a bit more receptive to it....

So today I'm going in to a school to talk about how great it is to work within the media business. This is the second time I've stood up in front of 50 kids. I got a real kick out of it last time - seeing a few bright young stars contemplate their position in the world - and maybe feeding off my (reminder to myself!) enthusiasm for graphic design and media. It's good to give back!