Most people wish many things on their death beds but wishing they spent more time at work will probably not be one of them. If we are destined to spend most of our waking hours on earth at work or working then we might as well do work that we enjoy and find meaningful. Life is too short to spend most of your life doing work that you don’t find satisfying.
I want you to think about the TV shows that you enjoy. Have you ever wondered why you love them? Why do you connect with some shows and others fail to engage you? I will argue that it is the quality of the storytelling that is responsible for your loyal devotion to any particular TV show. I have been asking myself these questions and more about storytelling on TV. I am trying to figure out what I can learn from the TV shows which I enjoy to see what I can appropriate for my own storytelling repertoire.
Most notebooks have margins like the one in the image above. The essence of a margin in a notebook is to prevent the writer from straying beyond a certain point on a page. It is the breathing space in a notebook. Just as a notebook requires a margin, you also require margins in your life.
Success is usually measured in terms of quantity. More is believed to be better. We like things to be quantifiable as this is how we can measure or count them. The quantitative is also great for comparison, because it provides a way to measure our progress against peers or competitors e.g. how much money we have compared to others, how many kids, how many cars, degrees, houses etc. A lot of people find this comparative and quantifiable measure very motivating. This however does encourage the ‘keeping with the Joneses’ syndrome where you are driven to succeed for the wrong reasons.
Today marks the start of the second half of 2013. The last 6 months went by in a flash and this is my report card. I made the public announcement in a March blog post that I was going to publish a blog post every Monday from April 1st. I published 7 blog posts between September 2012 – March 2013 (7 month period) which I considered unacceptable, but since my announcement I have published 13 blog posts between April – June 2013 (3 month period). I have almost doubled 7 previous months output in 3 months. What is responsible for this?
All leaders are in sales whether they know it or not. Some are better at it than others. But it’s not only leaders who are salesmen and women. It is all of us – you and I, included. Selling isn’t just the act of getting someone to part with his or her money for a product or service. The selling I am talking about is what Dan Pink refers to as ‘non-sales’ selling.
Charles Handy is a British management guru whose social philosophy ideas have influenced the management of British organisations. His book, Myself and other more important matters, is an autobiographical account of his life in which he discusses how his life journey from a small vicarage in the Irish countryside to the top of the management consulting world shaped his life.
He shares the insights he has gained from these life experiences; principles which were learnt through maturity and reflection. Each chapter in the book is filled with many gems of wisdom. I have listed some of my favourite ones below and I hope you too are able to benefit from some of these practical and useful ideas from Charles Handy.
I talked about becoming a better storyteller in my last post and the desire to add visual elements to my storytelling repertoire. I spent time over the last few days recording video footage and editing it with Sony Vegas Movie Studio software. It has been a lot of fun as well as a lot of hard work. Thank God for Youtube tutorials. I would have given up without them. These are early days for me as I attempt to master visual storytelling techniques. I read once that the best time to plant an oak tree is 20 years ago and the second best time to do so is now. My visual storytelling development starts now.
I attended a storytelling conference at Brighton last week. I was there to present a paper as well as to learn more about storytelling. I believe we are all in the storytelling business irrespective of what we do for a living. We learn best via stories. We organise our sense of the world through stories. They help us process complicated facts. Stories also help us empathise with other human beings and this is what separates us from animals. I used my iPhone 4S at Brighton to capture all the images in the picture frame above. I would like to share with you some of the things I plan to develop over the next few months.
I am a big fan of Lifehacker’s weekly “How I work” series. I have decided to use and answer the series’ question template as the basis for today’s blog post . I would recommend you check out the series on Lifehacker.
Current gig: Researcher, blogger, speaker,
Location: Slaithwaite, Huddersfield, England
Current mobile device: iPhone 4s
Current computer: Samsung X520
One word that best describes how you work: Slowly