Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Confidence, Culture, Dad, Daddyhood, Education, England, Family, Happiness, Innocence, Insight, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, Otis, Parents, Relevance, Resonance, Standards, Unexpected Relevance
As I’ve written before, I didn’t go to University. I knew pretty early on that I didn’t want to continue my formal education.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t/don’t like to learn, it just means I find it far more powerful when it’s not in an academic environment.
I still remember telling my parents my decision and being slightly scared.
They desperately wanted me to go so I was worried they would see this as a slight on them – which is absolutely not what it was meant to be.
They asked for my reasons and when I told them, they said that they would support my decision as long as I applied in case I changed my mind.
So I did.
And I got accepted.
But I was still sure not going was the right thing for me, so my parents – while obviously disappointed – supported my decision and never brought it up again.
Looking back now, I feel that must have been very hard for them.
At that point, going to university was the fast track to a career and yet – as another act of their love and confidence in me – they pushed me to follow the things that genuinely interested and excited me and hoped it would all work out.
I’d say it did.
But now I’m a dad and while Otis is only 3, the thought of education looms large.
Would I do the same thing as him?
Of course I want to help equip my son in the best way possible for the life he wants to lead and one of those ways is to provide him with a good education. But the fact is I’m vehemently opposed to private education and while general access schools can be very good, the reality is private tends to offer better opportunities simply because of the funding and the facilities … which leads to an interesting conflict.
What’s best for my son versus what’s true to me?
Given Otis is so young right now, the decision will ultimately be mine and his Mum’s, but once he’s older, what do I do if he chooses a path I feel is not in his best interests.
Sure, it worked out for me, but the World was different back then and then I saw the ‘god’ instagram above – a sentiment that was absolutely reinforced by our recent America In The Raw research – and realised that by the time he has to make some choices, he will be far more aware of what he needs to do to increase his odds of success than his Mum or me.
But then I realised something else …
It’s not just about acknowledging their view of their World will be better than yours, it’s also backing your parenting.
When my Mum and Dad supported my decision, they were ultimately supporting how they raised me.
They believed the values and smarts they’d instilled in me were the right ones to enable me to make the right choices … and while I know they would have been there if it all fell down, that sense of confidence and belief probably enabled me to go to places I might otherwise not have done. Places I might not otherwise have felt I deserved to be.
And that’s why backing your team is everything.
Of course you have to instill values and standards into them, but once that’s done, you have to back them including what they think is right – even if you don’t – because if that doesn’t happen, you’re literally stopping their potential rather than liberating it.
Thank you Mum and Dad. Again.
It’s a national holiday today in America.
Apparently it’s ‘Presidents Day’.
Which means it’s a day to celebrate Donald Trump.
Personally the idea of that horrifies me, but hey – a day off is a day off – so as a law-abiding US resident, I will show my respect to the President we are ‘celebrating’ by leaving you with this video of his humbleness, respectfulness and consideration for others.
You’re welcome.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Deutsch, Donn, Friendship, Insight, Planners, Planning
When you start a new adventure – be it a new country or company – it can be daunting.
Of course no one starts a new adventure without there being a reason for it, but that still doesn’t mean you don’t find yourself being pulled into looking at what you are losing rather than what you could gain.
But good things can – and do – happen, of which one of them is meeting new people who make your new adventure more fulfilling and exciting.
One of those people is a guy called Donn Rohn.
I never knew Donn before I started at Deutsch. In fact on my first day at work, when I saw him, I thought he looked a bit of a dick, despite the fact a guy who used to work with him told me he was good.
But once I got talking to him, I realised almost immediately that it was only his walk that made him look an asshole [I’m serious, his walk is a cross between Dirty Harry and John Wayne] because the truth is, he’s as honourable a man as I have ever met in my life.
Smart.
Defender of his team.
A leader not a manager.
Committed to doing the right thing.
Empathetic, passionate, a dry sense of humour that drives brilliantly evil turns of phrase … he’s just a great human being and that’s before I mention how great a colleague, friend, husband and father he is.
I say all this because he leaves us today.
As sad as that is – and it really is – he’s off to do something that will change the path of his life so I’m genuinely happy and excited for him and his family because they deserve nothing but good things.
While I would have loved our time together to be longer, I’m grateful I met him and even more that I get to call him a mate so while he leaves a huge hole behind – especially in his ability to rock ‘grandpa sweaters’ that take no prisoners [his leaving present is the picture accompanying this post] – he also leaves a legacy of how to be a good human in a business that often tries its best to destroy that in all of us.
Thank you for everything Donn, never change.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Culture, Differentiation
So at Christmas I did that ancestory.com thing.
After spitting what seemed like half a bucket of saliva into a test tube, I sent off my results and waited.
A few weeks later, I received this …
Now either I’m the most Worldly man that ever lived [bottom image, where I apparently have roots in 150 nationalities] or there has been a mistake with my results because according to them, I’m 27% Italian but don’t register significantly as British at all [1%].
In fact I’m more Syrian than British.
And Polish.
And Ukrainian.
And German.
In fact I’m apparently mainly European Jewish.
Now I know I have a nose for it but my Dad’s family was longterm English and my surname is that well known European Jewish name, Campbell so I’m really not sure what’s going on.
What’s weirder is my wife – who, let’s not forget, is a bloody Australian/Canadian – took the test and she is 60% British.
SIXTY PERCENT.
Now I know England owns Australia and Canada, but how the hell can she be more British than me … someone who has a British father, British grandparents, British great grandparents and spent the first 25 of his life there?
The only positive is that I can now pretend I’m an International Man Of Mystery … or I can until I take the test again [because I’m convinced I ate some peanuts that somehow screwed with the results] and find out I’m 100% idiot.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Creativity, Culture, Emotion, Equality, Innovation, Insight, Marketing Fail, Perspective
Originally this was going to be a post about patience.
We live at a time where the urge to rush to judgement seems omnipresent, however we often forget that each of us is going through personal situations that can affect how we behave and so what we experience may not be who the other party really is.
There’s this quote that says something like, “if we knew the troubles that weighed on the minds of the people we talk to, we might react to what they say in a very different way”.
And that quote is right, however in our rush-rush, myopic state-of-mind, we rarely stop to even consider that – let alone explore it – so the results we get might never be as positive as they could be if we had just stopped for a beat and thought of the other person.
That’s what this post was going to be about but then something happened.
You see recently I discovered someone betrayed my trust.
The irony is what they told another party was incorrect.
But that doesn’t make it any better.
And then I remembered that quote that says, “the worst thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies” and they’re right.
I liked this person.
I still do.
But for some reason they thought it was right to do something that was wrong.
And right there, things got damaged because trust is everything in a relationship … whether that’s with a loved one, a colleague or a client.
Trust means you can disagree without any lasting damage.
Trust means you can let people explore things you don’t understand.
Trust means you can let teams go to the wire before they reveal their work.
Because trust is about believing the other person has your back … that their standards, goals and expectations match yours.
That doesn’t mean you’ll always like what they’ve done, but it does mean you can be honest about it and they’ll listen to you and you’ll listen to them. Not because you want to necessarily have a ‘compromise’ on the outcome, but because you want to make sure what you’re doing is the work the person best placed to make that call wants to make.
The work that excites them … or makes them laugh or simply shit-their-pants.
And while it would be nice to think trust happens simply by spending time together, it doesn’t.
The reality is trust comes slowly.
It tests you.
It see’s what you’re made of at the most vulnerable times.
But when you have it, it’s the most amazing feeling you can have.
It liberates you.
It lets you literally get to places bigger that you could ever get to on your own.
And that’s why I am always willing to let someone I trust make mistakes, but never when it’s to save their own neck.
Which is why trust is so hard to earn and so quick to lose.
Because as they say, united we stand divided we fall.