Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Childhood, Confidence, Culture, Cunning, Dad, Daddyhood, Embarrassing Moments, Empathy, EvilGenius, Family, Fatherhood, Jill, Love, Nike, Otis, Parents, Resonance, Social Commentary
So I’ve been doing this advertising job thing for 30 years.
THIRTY.
And in that time, I've had the huge honour and privilege to work with amazing people around the world and do work that has achieved a certain level of fame and notoriety.
Because of that, I have been invited to speak at conferences all around the World … rubbing shoulders that frankly, I should have no right to.
The point of all this is that I've done quite a lot and achieved quite a lot.
Believe it or not, this is not a humble brag, in fact it's about to be a public humiliation.
You see a few weeks ago, while working from home, I was on video conference with a very senior member of NIKE's global team.
They were talking about some stuff, and realising I didn't have a notepad, I nipped downstairs to get a notepad.
When I came back, my client told me Otis had came in, done an impromptu naked bum dance at the screen, then ran out giggling.
To top it off, they said, “… and your son is still more professional than you”
Fortunately this client has known Otis since he was born so he found it funny – as would anyone really – and the meeting carried on as before.
Anyway, as I found this amusing, I put it on Twitter and LinkedIn as ‘the perils from working from home with a 5 year old’.
Within 3 days … THREE … it had achieved more views and shares than literally any conference, presentation, talk, blog post or tweet I’ve ever written.
In fact, it probably comes second to all of them combined.
ALL. OF. THEM.
Doesn’t matter if a talk of mine had been online for 10 years.
Beaten.
Didn’t matter if I’d written an occasionally topical blog post or tweet.
Beaten.
In 3 days, my sons naked bum dance had trounced all of them.
As of the time of writing, on LinkedIn alone, that single post has been read over 190,000 times, been shared 347 times, had over 3000 people approve it, had 100 comments and ignited over 220 different people – from big CEO/CMO’s to law firms – to ask to join my ‘network’.
Yes, my sons naked bum encouraged people to want to connect to me.
What sort of weird bastards are they?
[Of course I said yes, beggars can’t be choosers]
And while I can use this story at every birthday or celebration that Otis has for the next 30 years, nothing has highlighted how utterly futile my career has been than this.
Parents are said to always want their kids to go further than they have achieved.
Well he’s done it already.
At age 5.
Good job I love you with all my heart Otis.
Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Dad, Daddyhood, Embarrassing Moments, Family, Jill, Otis, Parents
A while back it was ‘Book Day’ at Otis’ school.
I’d never heard of it before … but apparently it’s a day where the kids dress up as a character from their favourite book.
Of course, what it really is, is the commercialisation of yet another event … a chance for companies to get even more money out of people, but as it’s for books and for kids – all parents nod and hand over their cash.
For the record, Otis went from the dinosaur from ‘Dinosaurs Don’t Eat Tacos’.
Anyway, in an apparent prestigious move, Jill was invited to go and read a book to the class … so wanting to get in the spirit she looked for a book character outfit to wear.
Below proves the evil geniuses of the internet …
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Comment, Dad, Daddyhood, Family, Fatherhood, Jill, Love, Otis, Parents
OK, so now we have got over the fun and frolics of yesterdays April Fool post, I want to bring it back to something serious.
Recently we decided we would have a day where Otis could make all the decisions.
He immediately went for it big time by asking to go to a local builders cafe for breakfast, where he ordered chips, drank a Coke Zero and watched Paw Patrol on his iPad.
You can see him in the photo at the top of this post.
Living the dream.
Anyway, I mentioned this on Facebook when someone I’ve not met but vaguely know wrote:
“We practice ‘good choices’ day, you should try it”.
Now while I was sure it had come out more condescending than intended – this person does have form in being judgemental from their self-appointed pedestal – and Jill decided to inform him of this.
She replied:
“You don’t know me or my son.
Your comment comes across as judgmental and condescending and makes me uncomfortable because it implies my son was making ‘bad’ decisions.
Perhaps if you did know us you would understand our parenting style more and that we aim not to use words like ‘good’ or ‘bad’ because of their unfortunate side effect of creating shame.
Decisions are just decisions, and I believe that kids need space to make a whole variety… nobody makes ‘good’ decisions all the time and I want him to grow up knowing that that’s ok, normal and part of life.
Perhaps your comment really was just about sharing what you see as a fun idea, but your way of expressing it missed the mark…”
As I am sure you will all agree, that was a pretty awesome response.
But more importantly, it highlights how we are attempting to bring up Otis.
Coming back to England has been wonderful, but the one thing that has surprised us is the pretty draconian approach to instilling certain qualities into our kids.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it’s being done for good reason, but the overt shame/reward approach bothers us. A lot.
There are many reasons for it – and of course, each to their own – but this poster sums up the one we fear the most.
This situation applies to all.
Not just kids … but family members, friends and colleagues.
What’s worse is this tends to stick with people.
It is one of the elements that has driven so many of the Corporate Gaslighting stories.
I get situations can make us angry.
I get people can do stupid things.
But when your approach to correction is shame, you’re trying to improve the outcome of one thing through the destruction of another.
You might not mean it.
You might not want it.
But you are doing it.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand, Business, Culture, Daddyhood, England, Family, Fatherhood, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Otis, Parents
I know it’s ridiculous to feel sad about a store closing … especially a store I hardly ever went in and when I did, it was obviously catered for women rather than men, but the news Mothercare has closed has made me sad.
I don’t know how many times I entered that store.
I definitely remember walking in the one in Victoria Centre, Nottingham, with my Mum when I was a very small kid … but I probably never entered another store until 40 odd years later when I was going to be a dad.
Ironically that was in Nottingham as well, even though we were living in Shanghai at the time.
But there’s a significant reason why this store means so much to me, because that’s where I found out I was going to be having a baby boy.
We were in the UK on holiday and my kind, wonderful wife wanted my Mum to feel part of the journey. Her idea to do that was to have a scan that would tell us the sex of the baby and have the doctor write it down, put it in an envelope and let my Mum tell us over a nice lunch.
That morning, before the scan, we were having breakfast and trying to come up with names. We were finding it much, much harder than we had anticipated and were pretty happy that if it was a girl, she was going to be named Eden, Edi for short.
Excited, we went off to a non-descript industrial park where Mothercare was. Inside the store was another company that could scan pregnant women and tell them the babies gender.
It was there my Mum saw her grandson for the first time. She was transfixed by what she saw on the screen. Not just because of who it was but because she had never seen a scan like that in her life. When she had me, it was all “find out when they come out” but here she was, sitting in a room with her son and daughter in law, watching her grandchild move around while still inside their Mum’s tum.
It was an incredibly moving moment for all of us and I will always love my wife for having that idea and always treasure that day.
And it’s for this reason I’m sorry to see Mothercare go.
I know there are a ton of reasons for its failure – but it’s also where I got to share a moment with my Mum that I’d never had before and will never have again. A moment that, were she alive, she would remember as clear as day.
A pivotal moment.
A moment where she got to witness the evolving of her family in front of her eyes.
A moment where the legacy of her and dad would forever continue.
But for me it’s something even more than all that. Because while we didn’t know it at the time, it was a moment where my Mum met Otis for the first time. The only time.
And for that, I’ll always be grateful to Mothercare and sad to see it go.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Anniversary, Attitude & Aptitude, Birthday, Childhood, China, Comment, Confidence, Context, Culture, Dad, Daddyhood, Death, Emotion, Empathy, Family, Fatherhood, Football, Goodbye America, Goodbye China, Grand announcements, Health, Home, Hope, Innocence, Italy, Jill, LaLaLand, Love, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Parents, Sentimentality, Shanghai, Shelly, WeigelCampbell
So today is June 1.
In 11 days, I wave goodbye to my forties and enter a decade that seems impossible for me to fathom.
50.
FIFTY.
Seriously, how did this happen?
I still remember sitting on the hill outside Erica’s newsagent with my best mate Paul around 1978, when we worked out that in the year 2000, we would be turning 30.
But here we are, 11 days from 50.
[Though it’s 15 days for Paul, who will LOVE those 4 days where he can bang on about how he is a decade younger than me … though he will also moan that my present for him isn’t like the full page newspaper ad I got him when he was 40, but a Forest shirt signed by all the members of the 1980 European Cup team. Asshole. He knows about this present as I bought it for him years ago so I’m not ruining anything for him. But I still have a surprise for him. Oh yes.]
Turning 30 bothered me a bit.
I was totally fine with becoming 40.
But 50!
I’m both bricking it and utterly casual about it.
And while there are some practical reasons for the shitting myself part – health, work, life in general – the fact of the matter is the older I get, the better my life has become.
I totally get the privilege of that statement, I don’t take it for granted at all, but it is definitely true.
Personally, professionally, emotionally …
Sure there have been some bumps along the way – some terribly hard and emotionally destructive ones – but looking at the big picture, the reality is my life has generally been on an upward trajectory.
Now even I know that it can’t keep going like that forever … but it doesn’t mean I have to stop trying.
The fact is, the older you get, the more you discover …
From what you like, what you don’t … to what you didn’t know and what you want to know.
And what makes it even more amazing – and annoying – is that every step you take, in whatever direction, reveals a whole host of other possibilities you would like to explore and investigate.
The problem is time is now officially, not on your side … so there’s a point where you have to accept you won’t get to try, play, experiment with all you want to do, so while that might put some people off, it kind of makes me want to try and pack more in.
And I am … because on top of work, Metallica, the school with Martin, I’ve already agreed to do a couple more projects that are intriguing and – frankly – ridiculous.
But there’s another reason for this attitude and it’s because my Dad died at 60.
Death is something I’ve talked a lot about over the years – mainly due to both my parents passing away.
I’ve talked a lot about the importance of taking about it, but I must admit, I’m scared of it.
I’m in generally good health, but fifty is still 50 and my Dad still died just 10 years on from this age.
Now of course it doesn’t mean I will … and I’ve come to this completely unscientific view that I should live till I’m at least 71 because if you take away my Dad’s age of dying [60]from my Mum’s [83] … that leave 23 years. Halve that … add it to Dad’s age … and voila, I will live till at least 71.
But then that means I only have 21 years left.
TWENTY ONE.
That’s nowhere near enough.
My wonderful little boy is only 5 for fucks sake. 26 is way too young to lose your Dad … hell, that’s even younger than I was when I lost mine.
Years ago, an old boss I looked upto said that if you can’t feasibly double your age, that is when you know you are – at best – middle aged or – at worst – the last stage of your life.
Well I suppose I can still feasibly double my age – even if it’s against the average age of death for a man in the UK [79.2] – but the reality is where I’m going is shorter than where I’ve been.
But shorter doesn’t mean less interesting.
And arguably, I have more exciting things in my life now – both personally and professionally – than I have ever had.
It also helps I am insanely immature with a desire for mischief, experimentation, creativity and adventure.
And I intend to fill it up with even more.
Fortunately I get that from a number of sources.
My wife.
My son.
My job.
My other jobs.
My friends.
My mind.
A while back, Pete said something I found pretty profound.
He said the narrative of strategy tended to focus on the importance of curiosity when discovery is far more valuable for driving the standard of the work you create and the adventure you go on.
Now I’ve written a lot about how I hate when planners talk about curiosity – as if they’re the only people who have it – but I really, really like that idea of the hunger for discovery.
I absolutely have that.
I owe so much of what I have to that.
The countries I’ve lived in. The people I’ve worked with. And most importantly, the family I am fortunate to have.
So while I enter a new decade, I will continue to live like it’s the old one.
Not in terms of dressing like I’m younger than I am – mainly because I have always dressed like I live in 1986 – but with the hunger, ambition and desire I’ve always had.
I genuinely believe my best work is still ahead of me.
Truly believe that.
And the goal of this decade is to achieve some of that while discovering new things that make me believe even better work can still lie in my future.