Who can resist a list? Part III.

 

10 Ways to make working remotely Fun (and Effective).

 

·            Make sure you have great tech and great tech disciplines (screens, phones, headphones with a mute button).

·            Design a functional, personalised, inspirational work space – with a comfy chair and great lighting.

·            Create work triggers for your brain – start and finish at the same time every day, start the day with a daily to-do list, structure your day to resemble a work day, don’t do non-work activities during the day.

·            Spell out protocols (expected response time to emails/texts, contactable hours, procedures for emergency contact, reduce distractions (no-go hours).

·            Beware the forces of darkness (the fridge, social media, the TV, the sofa and your private phone line).

·            Get outside every day and bring the outside in.

·            Figure out what time you’re at your best and plan to do the important (not the urgent) stuff then.

·            Don’t look at your phone or your screen until you’ve had coffee, done some exercise and got dressed!

·            Eat healthy – sit down in a different room – away from your screen, phone and desk.

·            Pretend you’re not home.

 

KR

Who can resist a list? Part II.

 

10 Ways for you and your teams to get Match-Fit.

 

·            Start with You.

·            Live Life Slow (Exercise all Five Senses, Treasure three Magic Moments every day, Sleep – 8 hours!).

·            Make Happy Choices.

·            Tune in to what’s good in your world.

·            Put BMW’s (Bitchers, Moaners, Whiners) into the freezer.

·            Control the Controllables.

·            Stock up on Compassion, Kindness, Forgiveness and Empathy.

·            Help yourself by helping others.

·            Keep on Keeping On.

·            Master your Mobile.  (Don’t look at your screens between 8pm and 8am – except for Netflix.)

 

KR

The Game They Play in Heaven (reimagined by Moffo)

 

When I was on the Board of the New Zealand Rugby Union in the 90’s, I was privileged to work with our CEO David Moffett – ex CEO of NRL in Australia, future CEO of Wales Rugby and an all-round top man.

 

He’s combining Past, Present and Future and reimagining our great game – into Rugby Rules – and it sounds like fast, free-flowing fun.  Check it out at: (https://www.rugbyrules.world).

 

KR

Travels with Trudy – and some of her friends.

 

Reading travel magazines allows my imagination to wander to places I have been or would like to experience in the coming years.  The pandemic won’t last forever and having a destination to look forward to allows me the joy of daydreaming.  It seems my list of places to visit in 2021 is growing by the moment.  The great thing about daydreaming is that not all the dreams have to come to true – but some will.  For example, I read an article about the Lythian Way hiking trail in Turkey that I would love to visit.  The 335 mile hiking trail – even if you choose to walk only part of it - seems easier travelled through books. 

 

One of the first places outside the US I will be visiting in 2021 will be my favourite city – Rome.  This is the city where I will bring Kendall for a one-on-one holiday in a couple of years.

 

My first visit to this inspirational city holds so many wonderful memories.  Every turn revealed another spectacular sight.  Every restaurant filled my senses with the aroma of a feast.  Walking amongst the ruins provided an escape to another time.  And most importantly, spending time with our dear friends.  I so look forward to being there again.

Leslie C. Berson, Washington D.C.

 

2020 was to be, for us, the year for travel, with a milestone birthday as the perfect excuse.

 

It began with a ski trip to Colorado for New Years, followed by a week in the Caribbean.  COVID 19 was just beginning to make headlines.  By mid-March, the world began to shut down and we saw our travel dreams vanish: a girls’ trip to Kiawah, family visits to Austin, the Cotswolds in May, to be followed in June by a wedding of dear friends on the Amalfi Coast, and then an Alaskan Cruise in July.

 

So where do I hope to travel in 2021?  Colorado, Austin, Kiawah, England, Italy, and Alaska!  The dates may have changed (and may change yet again), but I will not let Covid ruin my dreams.  I will, however, accept a delay.

 

 

Marline Dyke, Victoria, BC, Canada

 

With the hopes of a vaccine or wonder drug to protect us from Covid19, our 2021 travel plans are a return to our two most favourite destinations ... Croatia and Maui.  Here’s why.

 

Croatia – for cycling the rugged beauty of its azure Dalmatian Coast and islands, its people and their aloof yet unmistakable pride in land, sea and family, their abundant hospitality and their Klapa, a cappella harmonies, topped off with homemade wine and rakija.

 

Maui – the romantic valley isle for its aloha spirit and vastness of green and blue, the rainbows and the konas, the morning stillness, the daily routine of wake, read, write, walk, sun, swim, happy hour, sunset, repeat.  For over 40 years now, Maui No Ka Oi.

 

 

Joanne Ficaro, Lake Gaston in Littleton, NC

 

Just last year at this time five friends and I were inspired to plan a trip to New Orleans for a week beginning April 19, 2020.  Friends were coming from California, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina and some had never met.  All were looking forward to meeting after our months of planning together by e-mail.  Airline flights were booked, the hotel was reserved, and we were excited discussing the group tours we wanted to take, with a few reservations already made.

 

And then the pandemic.  When we finally all cancelled we were determined to think of it as just a postponement.  We still talk and e-mail about our plans, and look forward to one day checking New Orleans off our bucket list.

 

 

Trudy

Who can resist a list? Part I.

 

10 Learnings from March 15 to August 15.

 

·            Forget the new normal.  Welcome to the New Abnormal.

·            There will be no going back to work.  We have to find a New Way Forward.  (Progressive not Disruptive; we’ve had enough disruption lately!)

·            We must not waste the crisis.  We must reinvent work/life integration.

·            We are SURVIVING.  It is time to REVIVE and THRIVE.

·            We must re-invent the office.

·            Delivering more with less will be fundamental to REVIVING.

·            Connecting, Collaborating and Communicating will become critical Leadership skills.

·            Inspiring our people to Perform at Peak will be challenging in a hybrid world.

·            We must create a new way of leading which is both CARING and DEMANDING.

·            The New Way Forward will begin with a total commitment to knowing what to do (live our Purpose), followed by inventing new approaches on how to do it.

 

KR

Taylor Swift in The Lakes

 

Two weeks ago Taylor Swift dropped her new album Folklore on the world – and what an album.  Straight to number one – selling more than the other 49 top Billboard albums combined.

 

And – what a surprise.  On the physical Folklore album released on August 7^th was a bonus track – The Lakes.  The surprise?  It’s based on my hometown Lake – Windermere in the English Lake District.

 

“Take me to The Lakes, where all the poets went to die

I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you

Those Windermere peaks look like a perfect place to cry

I’m setting off, but not without my muse”

 

Take me back there soon.

 

KR

Throwback Thursday – The Lone Ranger’s Creed

 

I posted this twice – on January 1 2013 and February 6 2018.  At that time I closed the post with “The political leaders of our world today would do well to hang this in their offices – and to act on it”.

 

If only they had listened!!  (Especially to numbers 4, 6, 7 and 9.)

 

1)        I believe that to have a friend, a man must be one.

2)        That all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.

3)        That God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.

4)        In being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.

5)        That a man should make the most of what equipment he has.

6)        That “this government, of the people, by the people, and for the people,” shall live always.

7)        That men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.

8)        That sooner or later . . . somewhere . . . somehow . . . we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.

9)        That all things change, but the truth, and the truth alone lives on forever.

10)     I believe in my Creator, my country, my fellow man.

 

KR

The Penalty of Leadership

 

Setting Standards – something alarmingly missing from the US and UK Governments today.  Our (so-called) political leaders should read this ad – an ad?  Yes – an ad written in 1915, which ran once and only once in the Saturday Evening Post.

 

It was written by Theodore F. MacManus (now there’s a punchy name) – a newspaper reporter/copywriter for Cadillac.  Competition was shaking up Cadillac’s number one status and this ad was Cadillac’s response.  It worked.  And it never mentioned Cadillac, cars or its functional attributes.

 

It was all about Standards.

 

The World needs Purpose-driven leaders to steer us through these VUCA times.

 

So read this ad from 105 years ago, and let’s all of us Stand Up and Fight for what’s good and right.

 

KR

 

“In every field of human endeavour, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone – if he achieves a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountback, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy – but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions – envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains – the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live – lives.”