Some Random Life & Business Thoughts
(work in progress!)
(Some thoughts appear in both parts A. and B. and certain of the other thoughts apply equally in life as in business/employment.)
A. Some Random Life Thoughts
• Establish the facts
– Always, always, establish the facts … then worry and not the other way round – in other words, until you properly know what you’re dealing with, you can’t apply analysis to solving the problem
• By the age of 30, or earlier, decide who you are as a person and don’t pretend to be someone/something you’re not
• Take responsibility for yourself – you can’t really blame anyone else for who you are as an adult
• Be comfortable in your own skin - with who you are, your tastes, etc
• Don’t die with the music in you
– In other words, do the creative stuff that you keep meaning to do!
Do everything as well as you can (that includes things like washing up, making a bed, cutting the grass, writing a report, visiting a place, researching a trip) – this achieves small successes that spiral into bigger ones (the reverse being a downward spiral of things done badly)
The way you do anything is the way you do everything, ie well!
• If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well
• Keep your own counsel – be guarded and discreet
• Be careful in whom you trust
• Outwardly conforming, inwardly free – this quote from Montaigne emphasises that your own thoughts are paramount – what can other people do to you if you keep this in mind?
• ‘I’m very good at keeping secrets, it’s the people I tell them to that aren’t.’
– This (reputedly) Oscar Wilde quote tells you never to confide in others, or at least be very wary of doing so
• ‘When I think of all the good times that I wasted having good times.’ The Animals
– Be sure you know what a good time is rather than the illusory ones
• ‘People strive for what is not worth having.’ Vanity Fair
• ‘Spending money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create an impression that won’t last, on people we don’t care about.’ Prof Tim Jackson
• You’re lucky if you get through life with a few good friends at the end of it
• Never write anything in a letter or email that you wouldn’t want to have read back to you in a court of law
• Test an action by considering if you’d like to have to account for it on your deathbed
• ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.’ John Lennon
• It’s never what you think is going to happen that actually happens
• Only start any job (DIY, writing a report etc) when you have:
– All the right equipment
– The ‘instructions’
– Adequate time to do it and manage it if it goes wrong (eg no job of DIY to be started on a Sunday evening when time is short, the shops are closed for supplies if things go wrong, and you’re tired and preoccupied with the week in prospect, etc)
(This insight came from what I read in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig but it applies to most tasks)
• Partners/relationships – goals and values must be the same but you can have different views and tastes on everything else
• Temperament – opposites attract which is a good thing, as being too similar can be tedious
• ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.’ Joni Mitchell
–This line points to you appreciating events, relationships, and each day
• ‘We never know when we are happy, only when we were.’ Gore Vidal
– Try and see that you’re happy, NOW
• Aim to be a hero in your own household
– You can be the best person you can be at home – wider success or fame is an illusion
• Use 4am to your advantage
– By seeing it as extra bonus thinking time
– If you’re tired the next day, think you’ve been to an all-night party!
• On the other hand, remember that middle-of-the-night worries will look very different in the cold light of day
• First impressions are important, even if not always totally correct, and are not to be discounted. Remember, first impressions of you, as well as of others, is taking place when you first meet people
• You never get a second chance to make a first impression
• Gut instinct – not always correct, but not to be ignored
• Loyalty and trust – two hugely important virtues not only to have but to seek in others
• Don’t be a cushion, wearing the imprint of the last person who sat on you
– Which I take to mean, don’t just copy what other people say or do or be too easily swayed to their view of things or people
• Always stand up to bullying and find a way to do so by all possible means
• There isn’t anything that isn’t made better by a walk, any mood sad or happy. For the former, a walk can lift a spell of the ‘blues’, for the latter a walk will confirm all’s right with the world.
• ‘When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.’ Winston Churchill (in his multi-volume history of the Second World War)
• ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be; / for loan oft loses both itself and friend, /And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry’
– A favourite quote (Polonius’s advice to his son, Laertes, in Hamlet) of my grandfather and father – and its extension is that you should only lend money to a friend/work colleague/relative if you are prepared to never get it back. If you always borrow money you can’t really afford to keep up a lifestyle/appearances/buy flashy stuff etc, you can easily become very unstuck (and lose your sense of values in the process)
• ‘To thine own self be true’
– From the same speech, again used by my father and grandfather and it means variously:
* Do the best you should or could do
* Be honest in your ways and relationships
* Try and always do the right thing
* Think of your own benefit
* Refrain from keeping bad company
* Trust in yourself and be true to yourself
• ‘All men are cremated equal.’ Spike Milligan
–You are the equal of anyone and they of you. You have no betters or inferiors. You should not look up to, or down at, anyone. In the end, we find that out
• ‘We all have to find our own salvation’ was a favourite quote of my mother’s father (Rev Stephen Phillips)
– We have to work out life for ourselves, which is a constant process
• The road to self-improvement is constantly under construction
• ‘Good, better, best, never let it rest, ‘til your good is better, and your better, best.’
– My mother’s mother’s oft repeated quote
• ‘Better to be a slug and leave a mark upon the wall than to be a sluggard and leave no mark at all.’
– Another of my mother’s mother’s favourite sayings, to encourage us in our schoolwork
• People are like water, they find their own level
– My father used to say this (but not sure where it came from or if it was original to him)
• ‘Hell is other people.’ Sartre
• ‘Walk tall, walk straight and look the world right in the eye.’
– A Val Doonican (!) song my father used to quote to encourage me to be fearless in facing up to the world
• Better to be born lucky than rich
– One of my father’s mother’s sayings
• Playing a sport – dress the part, learn the techniques, practise, read about it, take lessons and remember ANTICIPATION and CONCENTRATION
– My father’s invaluable tips for any sport
• ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’
- Biblical quote (Luke) which underlines the way you should treat other people
• Don’t expect the best from other people – that way you’ll be pleasantly surprised every so often. (The reverse is that if you always expect the best from people, you’re doomed to a life of disappointment.)
• I LIKE myself – say that to yourself every so often
• Have goals, commit to them and don’t give up – review them from time to time (see Appendix III)
• Simple pleasures are the best
• People are either radiators or drains
• The answer to the question ‘Where do you live?’ is (whilst tapping your forehead), ‘in here …’
• You can’t change other people’s behaviour, but you can change how you respond to it
• ‘The three grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to.’ Alexander Chambers
• Be particular, in every choice you make
• Confronting your fears/worries is the only way to overcome them and deciding on a course of action – and doing it – will help curb anxiety
• ‘The Thomases have never bred a jibber.’
– My father would say this when facing a setback. In other words, you don’t balk at doing something and, remember, we’re from a long line of ancestors who survived adversity, difficulty and struggle, by not refusing to face up to the challenge and giving up
• Don’t take it personally – if someone ends a relationship with you, don’t necessarily assume there is anything wrong with you
• When encountering the downs, ‘Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again.’ Fred Astaire singing the Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields song, Pick Yourself Up
• Once someone has committed a gross breach of your trust and isn’t honest about it – dump them, because it will happen again as ‘a leopard never changes its spots’
• Never throw yourself out of your own home!
• Everything that happens to you up to the age of 50 is character building. Everything that happens to you after that is a test of the character you have built
• You can admire people for their qualities or you can decry them for their shortcomings, but you don’t need to look up to or down at anyone – that’s where equality starts and finishes – have confidence in who you are and in yourself
• Find out about the person you’re talking to or dealing with even if they aren’t interested in you
• The If poem by Kipling has some clear philosophical principles, but the ending, ‘You’ll be a Man, my son’ is worded as such because it is addressed to a son and equally applies to sons and daughters! (see Appendix II)
• ‘I don’t know how to succeed, but I know how to fail: try and please everybody, that’ll make you fail.’ Buddy Holly to Dion
• We have to accept that we will live with the consequences of our decisions – so, think them through, act, and take responsibility for what then happens
• It’s people that matter, not things (which you can replace)
• Remember, always, to count your blessings
• Try, always, to act with dignity
• Nothing lasts for ever
– The joys/sorrows, the good times/bad times, the ups/downs, emotional highs/lows, love/hate and any stage of life for yourself/loved ones
– The other meaning of this is, of course, that it is only nothing, itself, which lasts for ever
B. Some Random Business Thoughts
• Establish the facts
– Always, always, establish the facts … then worry and not the other way round – in other words, until you properly know what you’re dealing with, you can’t apply analysis to solving the problem
• Stay close to the till
– Know what the finances are
– Safeguard against fraud/theft
– Know what your cash position is
• If your business bank balance is increasing, you’re doing something right and the business is going in the right direction
• The focus of strategy is survival
• Don’t dwell too much on your competitors and what they’re doing (and when they’re doing it) otherwise they end up, in effect, running your business
• Behave like a thistle and you won’t get sat on
• It’s never what you think is going to happen that actually happens
• ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.’ Mike Tyson
• Be creative in everything: products, marketing, structure, responses to competition, reaction to threats
• Perseverance – to complete things, see them through is of crucial importance and a winning attribute in yourself and others
• Sometimes not doing something is the right thing to do
• All requests for capital expenditure – unless immediately beneficial – make someone request them more than once (to test the need)
• Be very, very careful at giving away/selling shares in a business – keep control if at all possible
• ‘Courage is going from one mistake to the next.’ Churchill
• ‘Intelligence is knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do.’ Anon
• Always look a gift horse in the mouth – if something looks too good to be true, it is
• If you think something (eg opinion of someone or something), others will be thinking it too
• Common sense is the main attribute to have and to look for in others
• Roll up your sleeves – have a ‘can do’ attitude and make sure those who work with you/for you have it too
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
• Accept that some people are too stupid to know how stupid they are
• The management problem that dare not speak its name: sometimes a female boss can treat her women/men staff as badly, if not worse than the most sexist male boss. Fact!
• Brand and own name – you are your own best asset, so give yourself a regular MOT and make adjustments/refinements – polish the product!
• Try and do one thing every day that will impact on turnover or costs AND profit
• Regularly appraise the business by asking
– How can we boost income?
– How can we control costs?
– How can we improve profits?
– How can the working lives of all in the company be improved?
• Don’t undervalue yourself
• Lateral thinking is a useful concept – the solving of problems by an indirect and creative approach, typically through viewing the problem in a new and unusual light, now often referred to as thinking outside the box
• Same old same old – avoid doing this on repeat in products, services, style, etc
• Doing the right thing, not doing things right – don’t waste time on perfection, when it’s not even the right thing to be doing
• Understand the concept of ‘enough’ – it is important not to be greedy, not only in your personal life, but also for the business
• Be very careful about borrowing money for expansion for debt is a cruel master and is risky when outside forces can affect the business
• Try and own any premises you trade from, rather than rent
• Be careful who you trust within a business as much as without it
• Question everything, don’t assume, especially when it comes to figures in computations and forecasts that other people give you
• Heed the warning bell – if something doesn’t look right, dig to look for the reasons
• Go to sleep on a problem and let the unconscious mind help you solve it
• Middle of the night alarums can make a problem seem worse, so tell yourself at 4am to worry after 8am, to ‘worry after eight’ (WAE), because things always look different in the cold light of day
• Everything takes on a new perspective in the morning
• Be creative with contracts/letters of agreement to protect your interests and ensure there is a way out as well as a way in to any deal/agreement
• Diversify so that you’re not reliant on one product or one market
• Watch over-dependence on staff you aren’t totally convinced are loyal
• The customer is not always right
– One or two out of ten people have mental health issues/are on some kind of spectrum – you may have one of these in front of you
• Look at CVs very carefully – to expose the potentially difficult people as well as those with the most potential
• Don’t expect staff who don’t own the business to care about it as much as you do – their own job/career is their priority (and rightly so)
• Starting a business is easy, exiting it is not so easy
• Running a business you own is a 24/7 existence, don’t expect it to be otherwise
• Always have an escape plan
• What are you actually working for when you do a particular task – ie, what will what you’re doing achieve?
• Act as if you don’t need the job (variation on treat ‘em mean to keep ‘em keen)
• ‘Outwardly conforming, inwardly free.’ Montaigne
– Enables you to think what you do about a boss/colleague/customer, to think your own thoughts and grin and bear it whilst you have to
• Management mumbo jumbo – don’t get bamboozled by it. It all boils down to common sense and basic principles: is it profitable, is it sustainable? (Have fun – for yourself – playing buzzword bingo in any meeting to see how often those who don’t really understand the basics hide behind the mumbo jumbo of IRRs, KPIs etc etc)
• ‘I don’t know how to succeed, but I know how to fail: try and please everybody, that’ll make you fail.’ Buddy Holly to Dion
• Look carefully at risks; assess the worst thing that can happen and if you can accept that actually happening as a price you are prepared to pay, then go ahead
• failing to plan, is planning to fail
• Seven Ps – used by the SAS, supposedly
– Proper Planning & Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance
• There comes a point where you have to act, so avoid over-thinking everything, or paralysis by analysis
• Nearly everyone you come across in business will be making it up as they go along. Be confident in yourself. You’re more than likely better than they are, especially if you apply common sense
Appendix I
Polonius’s advice to his son Laertes, Hamlet
Having used the two quotes from this speech in the Life Thoughts, I went back to the original and this is what the full speech means in modern day English:
And just try to remember a few rules of life. Don’t say what you’re thinking, and don’t be too quick to act on what you think. Be friendly to people but don’t overdo it. Once you’ve tested out your friends and found them trustworthy, hold onto them. But don’t waste your time shaking hands with every new guy you meet. Don’t be quick to pick a fight, but once you’re in one, hold your own. Listen to many people, but talk to few. Hear everyone’s opinion, but reserve your judgment. Spend all you can afford on clothes, but make sure they’re quality, not flashy, since clothes make the man—which is doubly true in France. Don’t borrow money and don’t lend it, since when you lend to a friend, you often lose the friendship as well as the money, and borrowing turns a person into a spendthrift. And, above all, be true to yourself. Then you won’t be false to anybody else. Good-bye, son. I hope my blessing will help you absorb what I’ve said.
Appendix II
If
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Appendix III
Annual goals
I usually start the first few days off every New Year thinking and jotting down some thoughts, or goals, about what I’d like to achieve in the forthcoming year.
I use the headings below to assemble my thoughts. What I then write under those headings are not resolutions, more like targets, aims, or, perhaps, goals that I resolve to try and meet.
I start off with the easiest one to compile, a list of things/jobs/plans for the house, and then go on to the others, which need more careful consideration.
Property –
Inside
Outside
Family and Friends –
Family
Friends
Birthdays/Special Occasions
Holidays
Business and Finance –
Business
Personal Finance
Car
Self-trading
Business Property leases
Self –
Health
Music
Writing
Reading
Decluttering
And I usually put one or maybe a couple of thoughts/quotes on the front. Recent ones have included:
First, establish the facts … then worry, ie try a calm response to everything
WAE = Worry after 8 am – ie tell yourself this, repeating WAE, WAE, WAE when you wake at 4am worrying!
What have I done today to make me feel proud? (Heather Small)
There are three sides to every story – yours, mine, and the truth. And no one is lying (Robert Evans)
Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going?
The journey is the reward (Steve Jobs) – that sums up life, doesn’t it?