People Matter ∴ Do Good

Lead a vivid life that does good

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232 |365 Food that connects us.

13 May 2010 /

woodfired pizza“Come around an get your feet under the table,” Jack would say. What my mentor from 20 years ago meant by that was, ‘come around, sit at our table, enjoy Grace’s home cooking, and lets talk or chew the fat together’.

Long meals, great food & drink, laughter, discussion, debate, hospitality, genuineness, caring and love. That’s what getting your feed under the table means.
 
At our place getting our feet under the table is a priority. Eating my wife’s incredible cooking and discussing everyone’s day connects us, it forces us to ask and teaches us to listen.
 
It strengthens us, and our kids really enjoy it.

[232|365 Food that connects us – Went in search of story on the way home and found Mizzoni selling woodfired pizza. It looks good, and they do lunch at Maui St on Wed/Thu]

231 |365 I have a question on my mind

12 May 2010 /

Day231.jpgIs this train leaving or arriving?
 
It’s a question, and there is incredible power in questions. With great questions come amazing answers and stories. Because of questions, problems are solved and ideas are formed.
 
Yesterday, at a client who uses other companies, I asked, “What do our competitors do really well?” It’s an amazing question because you don’t get some canned answer of what they would like, rather you get a real answer about the service they enjoy. It also gives permission to ask, “What could they do better?”
 

Questions are the key to listening. They really are!
 
From time to time you will find people who have a different view to you (shock horror). You can either spend all your time trying to explain your view, OR you can spend all your time trying to understand their view by asking questions.
 
Talkers do the first. Listeners do the second.
 
Sometimes asking questions is really hard for both of you. But after you have listened and understood, you are almost always invited to share your opinion, to input into the conversation, to contribute.
 

AND
 
You will almost always say something wiser and more relevant.
 
All because you asked great questions.

230 |365 Measuring Time

11 May 2010 /

230 Measuring TimeMoses once wrote ‘Teach us to number our days so that we may present to you a heart of wisdom’.
 
It’s almost as if he is saying we need to measure our time. Nowadays we measure almost everything, our bank balance, our speed, our weight, or our kids performance.
 
Yet we don’t measure our time to see if we are using it well. We rarely look back and make sure we are making the most of time.
 
At the moment, indirectly through 365, I am measuring time. It has been around 60% of the year since I began the 365 project. That’s 230 days or close to 20 million seconds.
 
Seeing how fast time is going, seeing pictures from 2 months ago, that feel like yesterday is really scary.

And a good reminder!

224 |365 Intuitive (Mac OSX vs Windows)

9 May 2010 /

Day224_2.jpgPeople who have grown up with Apple computers think they are intuitive, easy to use and everything makes sense. People who have grown up with Windows computers think the same.
 
Intuitive is a word that describes learned actions. It is really hard for something that someone has never used to be intuitive.
 
My Macbook, as a Windows user is counter-intuitive. It does some cool things in really difficult ways, that take all of the fun out of them.
 
Windows = Alt-Print Screen
Mac OSX = Control-Command-Shift-4
 
The Windows version is easier to remember. The Mac version is harder to use not intuitive at all, but is way cooler.
 
A reminder that when we create processes or web or tools, we need to make them both cool and intuitive.

222 |365 Green Peas

9 May 2010 /

Day222.jpg

I would not like them here or there,
I would not like them anywhere,
I would not like them cold or hot,
I would not like them from this pot,
I do not like green peas
I do not like them Sam, now let me be

219 |365 Our first Good Trust party

8 May 2010 /

Day219.jpgAmongst the friends and conversation and laughter and music we raised over $1500 for our first good.well project.  
 
April 30th at Café Agora was the celebration of my 40th birthday. With all honesty it was really just a great opportunity to raise money and awareness for the Good Trust, and to raised funds to build clean water wells for a communities off shore.
 
Thanks heaps to everyone who came and donated.
 
Thanks to the team at Café Agora.
 
Finally and a huge thanks to  Luke and Linden (pictured) and Alice Cunninghame.

218 |365 Murkiness

8 May 2010 /

Day218.jpgIt seemed that the sun rose late, and was cloaked behind the fog that had lowered amongst the autumn leaves.

As it lifted later that morning, it unveiled an amazing autumn day.

Sometimes in life, amazing things, beautiful things are cloaked by the murkiness of life.

220 |365 HRFC Mustangs Supporters Club

8 May 2010 /

Day220.jpgA miniature field, a smaller ball, tiny goals and two groups of four boys bunched around the ball. That’s 4 to 5 year old soccer.

It was our first cold, rainy day of the soccer season. The grass fields combine with the rain to create mud and havoc for the boys as the trip over every third time they touch the ball.

There is actually quite a contrast between being a parent at soccer and a parent at hockey. Hockey is played on aquaturf, it's clean and there is shelter and food available. There are seats to sit on and railings to lean against. At soccer you stand in the elements with minimal facilities.  

My family were over and supported Kyla’s hockey and Jayden’s soccer. They got wet and cold. I’m sure for my parents it was a trip down memory lane.

They were their biggest supporters for the day, and I am reminded that they are some of my biggest supporters as well!

217 |365 A messy desk causes stress

8 May 2010 /

Day218.jpgI can still remember Sharon a colleague at New Zealand Couriers walking into my office, seeing the paper and piles everywhere and boldly proclaiming she had no idea how I could find anything or how I got anything done.
 
It was my first office, and on reflection, to call it organised chaos was gross misuse of the term. It was anything but organised.
 
I took this photo of my desk one evening after four days of unexpected and intensive investigation into deep dark hole of bad stuff. In amongst the crisis, things started to pile up and I reverted to my naturally messy state of operation.
 
I have learnt over the years that messy is very unproductive.

  • A messy desk leads to a cluttered mind.
  • A cluttered mind leads to heaps of ‘open-loops’. Things that are not captured in a place I trust.
  • Open-loops lead to a greater feeling of stress and pressure, as I am subconsciously aware of all the commitments I am missing.
  • Stress and pressure, burn energy at triple speed and make me unproductive.

It has taken me a full 10 days to get my systems back on track with my GTD system. Inboxes empty, tasks captured, notes reviewed.
 
The difference in the clarity of my mind is undefinable.

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