Category: Blog

“That’s the thing about lessons, you always learn them when you don’t expect them or want them” – Cecelia Ahern

It was my son Riley’s 1st birthday yesterday and I began pondering on the life lessons I’ve had in his first 12 months. So much has happened for him and me, I thought I’d share my own 5 most pertinent.

1. Love doesn’t get divided, it multiplies.

A famous quote “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” James Keller describes this lesson aptly. In order to give yourself you don’t have to lose part or all of yourself. When Mack our first son was born, I learned and experienced unconditional love for the first time. It’s an incredible feeling, knowing that no matter what I’ll always love him.

Having a second child made me wonder how we could make room for more love. How can you love an extra child without reducing some for the first?

What I’ve learned? I now know you divide time not love. Love actually multiples, and if parenting style demonstrates this both children feel unconditionally loved, an important factor for a fulfilling adulthood.

2. Life is as complicated as your thoughts.

In the last year I’ve done more thinking about my life than at any other time. It’s been intense and I’ve questioned many decisions, ones I’ve taken action on and ones I’ve decided not to. Have I chosen the right things? How will my decisions affect my future? Who am I affecting with my decisions? Am I creating good? All this led my life to become complicated for a while, that is until I began thinking more purposefully again.

I returned to mindfulness, thinking about what I’m doing in the moment, rather than being elsewhere. I’m also still working on the self talk, where I beat myself up at times. Rather than beat myself I look at how I could have been better, not how ineffective I may have been.

What I’ve learned? You really are what you think.

“We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.” – Santosh Kalwar

3. Employing people for one skill limits impact.

4 months after Riley was born I chose to change the company I worked for. This was a huge risk to our family setup, one that has impacted our financial situation as well as our lifestyle. It’s also been a culture shock joining a company in its infancy, something very different to a large company such as Satya Nadella’s Microsoft, a company now working for world change in many areas and no longer just its shareholders.

What I’ve learned? Xbox at Microsoft set me up to become a fully functional person. Someone excellent at one thing (Quality) and very good at a few other things (business, finance, IT, leadership). This enabled me to have a much greater impact than a person hired and used for only one skill or vocation.

Many companies believe in focusing employees only in specialism, where they hire a person for one thing, like programming. Although companies need specialism and the separate teams that support it, they also benefit from their people understanding and being very good at other things. Having people in a company like this increases effectiveness and the likelihood of real growth.

What I’ve learned? If people are only interested in being employed for the one thing they are specialist at, and a company allows for it, then as a business grows it will struggle to reach its full potential.

4. Consumerism is deeply ingrained (life is affected by big business).

Living in Denmark for the last 2 months has really highlighted consumerism in our lives. I didn’t realise how much of a consumerist I had become (and I don’t consume that much). Be it media like TV, clothing or accessories, the average Brit consumes massively. The whole of the UK is basically setup around business, big and small. In Denmark they still buy a product and expect it to last, in the UK you buy something relatively cheap and replace it in a few years.

What I’ve learned? Life in the UK is heavily driven by big business. Be it big pharma, big media or big food production. The British population trusts the advice and advertising they are surrounded by each day, living around it instead of letting it into their lives on their terms.

5. Rhythms, process and systems lead to success.

Life without rhythm and business without process generates waste. Moving from a role establishing and managing systems to one where systems are more scarce continues to be a personal challenge.

With systems you can reliably recreate success and improve the way you or your company works. Systems allow you to track performance and take into account the things that can really make a difference. Without systems and processes, you’re leaving it to memory and chance. Not only that, you’re making it difficult for others to take over the roles you have or fill the roles your create.

Tim Ferriss has made a living out of showing people that having rhythms and systems in their lives makes them more successful. Michael Gerber did this for business in his best selling book E-Myth Revisited, so it’s still amazing to me there are people who do not embrace systems and processes in their lives and workplace.

What I’ve learned? Systems and rhythms really are the key to success, not just with growing the impact of a business on its customers, they’re critical for personal success too. For me it’s especially pertinent now I have a growing family and less time for myself.

Lastly, I believe in life long learning and the last 12 months has shown me we never stop learning from the choices we make and what life throws at us. I do wonder what Riley would put as his top 5 and so I’ve taken a guess below:

1. I can poo in my pants and get new ones
2. Mummy and Daddy can carry me when I’m tired
3. I can walk on 2 legs!
4. I can throw food off my table, and it sticks to walls!
5. The TV remote turns the TV on

In my mid twenties I returned from a long stay in the USA. Before that I’d qualified and worked as a mechanical engineer, then realised it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Although it wasn’t the career for me, I constantly look back,  grateful for the foundational skills and capabilities I gained from that time. Like any choice made, even if you fail or change your mind there is always some good that comes from it.

On returning to the UK I had nowhere of my own to live or any money left in my savings. So I did what any twenty something in the 1990’s would do in that scenario, I bunked down in my mums spare room.

It was in my mums spare room that I put a PC together and started to learn about software hacks and vulnerabilities, as well as use the internet for finding like minded people. I’ve always been into computers, and with my recent move to Denmark I found the book I used to teach myself programming back in the 1980’s (see below). I’ll never willingly give it up, as this book (along with To Kill a Mocking Bird) changed my way of thinking early on in life.

Back to my mid twenties..During that time at my mums I worked as a barman in a local pub so I could have some money. After a few weeks my mum received a phone call asking if I was free to talk about a job. It turned out I had built a reputation as a local engineer who was worth employing. That same week another company called and wanted me to talk with them too. It also turned out good mechanical engineers weren’t easy to come by, I was a person in demand.

I had mixed feelings about working full time in manufacturing again, I also didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, so I mulled it over for a while. It would pay for more computer stuff as well as help me save towards not having to work. Plus it was better than the bar job, as it would leave my evenings free for participation in hacking communities.

So I talked to both places and chose a small startup a couple of miles down the lane from my mums house. My choice was mainly based around the fact I could mountain bike through fields to get to and from work, not on the potential for my growth and happiness (at that time I’d become used to spending up to 4 hours a day mountain biking in the woodland, and that was more important than anything else).

As with any choice based on the wrong reasons, I became unhappy. I didn’t want to be in a small manufacturing company where its impact on the world and people was minimal. With my online network growing by the day via IRC and Usenet, and seeing how I could be a part of something bigger and more exciting (dubious in legality on reflection) I decided to dump my engineering day job.

After a while, even the internet and computer work I was doing was making me unhappy. Legislation and law was changing in line with new internet activities. Distributing software cracks and testing software hacks with others, all under an internet handle only a handful of people knew was me, was becoming more risky by the day. Also my mum wasn’t keen on the telephone line being in use all evening and night while I rinsed her connection via my 56k modem.

So I looked at how I could turn over a new leaf, make a dent in the universe and satisfy my thirst for experiencing hardship before returning to do something meaningful for the rest of my life.

That’s where Nigeria came in (see an older post here for that )

Choices. We have to make them consciously and unconsciously every minute of the day. I’ve made good and bad and all have led me to who I am at this moment, including my view of the world and how I live. When I chose not to work at the small company near my mums, it felt like a small, insignificant choice. What that choice actually did was set me on a path, one that led me around the world, tested my limits and put me into the field of technology professionally, in a way that is unlikely to be achievable today.

As a society with globalised impact of business, technology and politics, our choices can sometimes be bigger than we realise and have a lasting impact around the world. It’s good to remember what can feel small can actually have long and lasting impact on us and many others. Think Trump and Brexit, neither is all bad, neither is all good.

So no matter what choices we make, big or small, they have a lasting impact, not just on ourselves, but on others too. With this,  I’m starting to reflect more  about current and future choices I may have.  People, things, work & politics, all of them are connected in some way. For guidance and inspiration I’m using the below quote more often than not. It helps remind me of the lasting impact many of my choices may have on myself and those around me.

“I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From the sermon “But, If Not” delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.

When you make a choice, whether it’s a political vote, someone you might hire for a job, or a person to love. Remember you can live a long life and not be alive. Avoiding not feeling alive is helping drive many of my choices, maybe it could help with yours too?

The thing about emotion is it can make or break you. I didn’t understand this until my 30’s, where I realised I’d spent so many years beating myself up in my head, I began to see to myself as a failure.

I’d failed at relationships, failed at generating wealth, failed at having a meaningful life and failed at doing what I enjoyed most – making a living out of writing.

I’d made so many bad decisions in my life I could no longer see the good ones. A couple of years on from that time, with my recent move to Microsoft I was experiencing such a culture shock I was suffering from stress, while at the same time a mountain bike accident had hurt my neck so bad I needed surgery. Life was difficult and I was responding in the wrong way, by beating myself up with negative self talk.

While all this was going on I met someone who changed everything for me, her name was Mandie and we’re now married, living in Denmark, raising our 2 boys while enjoying what life throws our way.

What Mandie reminded me of is the thoughts in my head turn me into who I am.

She practised yoga everyday, lived her life based on the principles of Buddhism and lit up any room she entered. There was no way I was going screw this up, I had met the person I wanted to marry (before Mandie I didn’t even believe in marriage).

So I invested everything in changing for the better and making sure Mandie didn’t go away. I showed her the real me, not the person I told myself I was through self talk, or the person I faked being in order to try and be interesting.

It wasn’t easy, as I’d been like a Jekyl and Hyde for most of my life. The cliché gemini, where I would easily adapt to any environment and person I was with. I would fake being extroverted, fake being empathic, fake being concerned, fake being in love and fake enjoying things I didn’t really enjoy. My life was stressful and I needed to be at one with who I really was and not care so much about fitting in.

On our first date I remember choosing to be me, so through conversation I told her I collected comics, played and worked in video games, liked watching cartoons and didn’t go out partying anymore as preferred to read books and play with my guitars.

Usually I hid this stuff as figured no attractive woman would find any of those qualities interesting. Luckily I was wrong and the leap of faith I took all those years ago was worth it.

Loving comics, reading books and not liking clubbing does not make me boring, it makes me original and Mandie saw something interesting in me, something genuine. I was being genuine and it actually added to her attraction towards me. So we saw each other again and again and now have 2 amazing children we’re raising together (with those same Buddhist principles she taught me when we began dating).

So what about emotion? Emotion has a beginning and an end. It breaks you when you don’t understand this. When I feel an emotion now, I purposefully remind myself of this, and that this time shall pass. I also remind myself daily about the absence of emotion i.e. when I’m not feeling angry, hurt or overjoyed. Recognising the absence of an emotion reminds me that change is constant and we are not fixed. I’m not happy all the time and that’s ok, I’m not angry all the time and that’s good.

Emotion is a rollercoaster, it’s messy, contradictory and true. Without it we don’t learn, progress or connect. It took me 30+ years to understand this, and I’m grateful I discovered it when I did.

change /Chānj/

verb: make or become different

noun: the act or instance of making or becoming different.

At a philosophical level, we’re experiencing constant change every second of the day. From the basics such as taking a breath to each thought that comes and goes. Each one involves change, as they are each technically different from the last.

So why do so many of us dislike or fear change? Especially as we’re going through it all the time.. I know my default can be to seek out comfort and stability, and change often disrupts that. At work I’ve enjoyed the benefits of routine, where I know my commute, have the same desk, the same familiar work colleagues and the same types of meetings throughout the day. It’s helped me feel safe while at the same time enabled me to not have to think about them, as they don’t change (similar to Steve Jobs always wearing the same clothing. He did this to free up his time having to think about what to wear each day).

“You must welcome change as the rule but not your ruler” ~Denis Waitley

The same can be said outside of work. The familiar home, suppers, TV shows and weekend chores / walks, all add up to safety and the ability to go through a day almost on autopilot (a term and feature in itself used for safety). Add all of this together and you can see that change can be disruptive and upsetting.

I fell into a life of little change a few years ago. I didn’t intend to, it just happened. I had a comfortable job, lived in a nice area, worked and socialised with lovely familiar people. The only real daily change that happened was each breath I’d take and the thoughts I’d have. Life was no longer as challenging as it was meant to be, with lessons to learn, failures to reflect on and uncomfortable experiences to cherish.

So last year, with the help and support of the special people in my life, I turned it all upside down and began to focus on experience over everything else. The questions I asked my self were:

1. What should I be learning?
2. Am I making the most of my time here?
3. How can I be more grateful?

Since then I’ve focused my gratitude journaling for change, become a father for the second time, blogged every week on this site, changed jobs, moved countries and at times experienced a more uncomfortable state than at any other time in my adult life.

Change is shaping me again and I’m more challenged (and ultimately fulfilled) than I have been in years. Without embracing change, I would have missed out on the new wonderful people and experiences I now have in my life. I’m grateful for that.

Change is wonderful.

“Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations