Things to do differently

Originally published in Rebootology


At the start of this year, not as a New Years Resolution but as an awareness "Ha Ha"' I made a few decisions to do things differently - I will share a few and the outcomes

To be less angry

I had previously been convinced that being "angry" got a better result with organisations like Telstra but it didn't work so well in other situations, so I made a consciousness decision to be less angry.

How did it work out - Often I don't catch myself and I have an angry reaction and nearly universally the result is worse than it could have been. When I am purposely NICE, the result nearly always turns out better - even with organisation like Telstra. However, when I am deep in thought and somebody interrupts me my default [ which I have had for 60+ years ] of REACTING has never served me well. So, I am a work in progress on being "less angry"

Take things less personally

I have been accused [probably correctly ] of existing in my own bubble. Others have said to me "You don't need anybody else" or "you seem happier with your own company than with others". For an example, every morning I am up and walking before most people have even gotten out of bed.

In the last few presentations of our Management Seminars, I have been criticised on a number of accounts and I admit it has affected me personally. Where it was, over the previous 25 years, rare to get any negative feed back I was now getting letters to my boss [ me ] about how Wayne Mansfield was an old cranky sexist loud mouth. and I seriously considered giving the sessions away.

Why not??

On two recent occasions people said to me that my sessions were " a breath of fresh air" and one lady actually commented that she had been to dozens of professional development sessions and was dreading another BUT "You had me in the first 5 secs.."

Now taking things personally I would get a swelled head but by actually taking my advice, I have decided to put more work into the content and not take any issue with how it is delivered. Some people will like the material or not... some people will like the presenter or not... and that is OK. My position is that I should continually work on the material to make it relevant. And discuss things like #metoo, transgender at work, and the iPhone and how they affect the work place and how you should react to it.

I take responsibilty for outcomes

This is really hard. Whilst there are circumstance that occur and many influences on the outcome, the outcome is always a result of my decisions on what I have perceived the situation to be. If the outcome is less than optimum then I had the greatest influence on it and I can't blame anyone else even if it appears they "caused" it. It has been totally of my doing.

So there are three things I am trying to do differently

I want to know what obvious-in-hindsight changes you’ve made in your life in the past year or two. What did you try that made you wish you’d done it years ago? Say so in the comments. It doesn’t have to be big — it could just be a better way of grocery shopping.

All that matters is that it’s so much better than your old way that you wish you’d always done it.


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