A new project is coming to fruition: I'll be leading Scotland's first Life Club on Tuesday evening. This is something I've been working on for a few weeks. Life Clubs are the brain child of Co-Active coach and writer for the Daily Telegraph Nina Grunfeld - check out the website here . I love the idea of them - they're weekly workshops, each self-contained so you can come as often as you like. I'm away for the weekend training with Nina - honing my workshop skills and getting ready to host the club. I've got what has to be the ideal venue too - a meeting room in a nice quiet corner of one of my favourite pubs, the Cumberland Bar . Nice debriefing facilities then...
It's on every Tuesday evening (though not over Christmas) at 7pm. In December I've got a special 'try it for a fiver' offer - it's only £5 for your first time. Bring your pals and give it a shot!
Thursday, 30 November 2006
Sunday, 26 November 2006
Hero spotting
A couple of weks ago I saw my good friend Jeremy, who lives in Highgate in London.
'Remember when we got chatting with that guy in the pub, and he used to be in the music business?' he said.
I thought back a few months. Jeremy and I both have pasts on the fringes - the very fringes - of the music business, so we felt fairly self-congratulatory about spotting a fellow musician in his local pub. Like we'd identified one of our own kind with our muso-dars. We felt compadre-ship with him, and had no doubt he shared this. Here's a couple of chaps who understand me, he must have thought.
'Oh yeah,' I said.
'Know who it was?'
'No - should I?'
'It was Ray Davis.'
One dumbstruck pause later I burst into hysterical laughter. We'd exchanged banter with the frontman of the Kinks, Sixties icon, super-fine songwriter, general legend and arguably the man who invented heavy rock. And that exchange had essentially been: 'Hey, you look like you're a musician.' 'Yeah, I used to be in the biz.'
Ray Davis isn't the only hero who's come into my life unrecognised though. Michael Lister, the man who raised me, falls into that category too. I've been doing something about getting closer to him recently, revising my views of him and his role in my childhood. One thing strikes me though. I've never thought of him as my hero, and it hasn't occured to me to ask myself - what if he is? What sort of hero is he? What has he inspired in me?
Let's be clear - I didn't speak to him for 13 years, there's plenty of re-bonding to do. It seems like these might be useful questions to look at as we do it. But it strikes me that even if we'd never fallen out of communication, if that rift had never happened, I could very well have still never noticed that hero on my doorstep.
'Remember when we got chatting with that guy in the pub, and he used to be in the music business?' he said.
I thought back a few months. Jeremy and I both have pasts on the fringes - the very fringes - of the music business, so we felt fairly self-congratulatory about spotting a fellow musician in his local pub. Like we'd identified one of our own kind with our muso-dars. We felt compadre-ship with him, and had no doubt he shared this. Here's a couple of chaps who understand me, he must have thought.
'Oh yeah,' I said.
'Know who it was?'
'No - should I?'
'It was Ray Davis.'
One dumbstruck pause later I burst into hysterical laughter. We'd exchanged banter with the frontman of the Kinks, Sixties icon, super-fine songwriter, general legend and arguably the man who invented heavy rock. And that exchange had essentially been: 'Hey, you look like you're a musician.' 'Yeah, I used to be in the biz.'
Ray Davis isn't the only hero who's come into my life unrecognised though. Michael Lister, the man who raised me, falls into that category too. I've been doing something about getting closer to him recently, revising my views of him and his role in my childhood. One thing strikes me though. I've never thought of him as my hero, and it hasn't occured to me to ask myself - what if he is? What sort of hero is he? What has he inspired in me?
Let's be clear - I didn't speak to him for 13 years, there's plenty of re-bonding to do. It seems like these might be useful questions to look at as we do it. But it strikes me that even if we'd never fallen out of communication, if that rift had never happened, I could very well have still never noticed that hero on my doorstep.
Friday, 24 November 2006
Carrot or stick? Or what?
A while ago I frequented internet dating sites. (I'm glad I did by the way, because that's how I met the love of my life!) Filling in my profile on one site, I had to tick a whole series of little questions designed to shed light on my personality. I was breezing through them, as you do, when one brought me to an unexpected stop - 'Carrot or stick?'
It pulled me up because I couldn't answer. Well, except to say neither. The thing is, they're the same. What's the difference between rewarding my son's good behaviour with, say, more time in front of the TV, and punishing bad behaviour by taking it away? (I'd love to say extra vegetables rather than TV here, but I really would be misleading you about what I've succeeded in instilling in him in the way of healthy values.) Either way, it's about coercing children to do what we say; calling it rewarding doesn't make any difference.
It's a big problem for us parents in today's world though - how to motivate kids. If our children know what they want to do with the rest of their lives we can say, 'Want to be a doctor? Well, you'll need to work hard and do well at sciences and things like that.' If they've got a future to live into, a source of ambition and drive, that's very effective. In fact that's something I find myself exploring with coaching clients sometimes - identifying something exciting to place in the future to live towards.
However, when we say 'So what do you want to be when you grow up?' to a kid, we're asking them 'So where do you see yourself in 15 years time?' That's a pretty big one. A friend of mine decided at the age of 7 he wanted to be a top graphic designer - and now he is. But I didn't have any sort of answer to that till I was about 38.
What does amaze me about kids though is how much vision they often DO have, despite everything the adult world flings at them in terms of immediate gratification. Our mission is perhaps less to instil it, more to nurture it. I suspect that has more to do with a child's own talents and passions than those of his or her parents. How many times have we said something that essentially says 'All I want is for you to be happy. Here's how to be happy'?
So, carrot or stick? Fertiliser, please.
It pulled me up because I couldn't answer. Well, except to say neither. The thing is, they're the same. What's the difference between rewarding my son's good behaviour with, say, more time in front of the TV, and punishing bad behaviour by taking it away? (I'd love to say extra vegetables rather than TV here, but I really would be misleading you about what I've succeeded in instilling in him in the way of healthy values.) Either way, it's about coercing children to do what we say; calling it rewarding doesn't make any difference.
It's a big problem for us parents in today's world though - how to motivate kids. If our children know what they want to do with the rest of their lives we can say, 'Want to be a doctor? Well, you'll need to work hard and do well at sciences and things like that.' If they've got a future to live into, a source of ambition and drive, that's very effective. In fact that's something I find myself exploring with coaching clients sometimes - identifying something exciting to place in the future to live towards.
However, when we say 'So what do you want to be when you grow up?' to a kid, we're asking them 'So where do you see yourself in 15 years time?' That's a pretty big one. A friend of mine decided at the age of 7 he wanted to be a top graphic designer - and now he is. But I didn't have any sort of answer to that till I was about 38.
What does amaze me about kids though is how much vision they often DO have, despite everything the adult world flings at them in terms of immediate gratification. Our mission is perhaps less to instil it, more to nurture it. I suspect that has more to do with a child's own talents and passions than those of his or her parents. How many times have we said something that essentially says 'All I want is for you to be happy. Here's how to be happy'?
So, carrot or stick? Fertiliser, please.
Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Clingy dad!
I saw this article linked to from my old chum Andy Armstrong's website. In Holland, it seems, there's this idea going about that it might be a good thing to take away the traffic lights and have motorists take on responsibility for themselves. They've been trying it in one town for seven years, and for that whole period the road fatalities figure has dropped to zero. Admittedly the previous rate was one death in three years, but that's still pretty good news for whoever's number would otherwise have been up. And the traffic flow is apparently much smoother and more efficient too. Trusting people to be responsible for themselves! Cool! If you want people to look after themselves, LET them look after themselves. Counter-intuitive maybe, but apparently true.
Which reminded me that trusting my son to be more responsible for himself as he gets older is a bit of a sore point at the moment. It's not that he's untrustworthy - it's just that I'm a VERY CLINGY DAD. Riding bikes together recently, he had his first short blasts on the road. Other recent innovations include him walking back home from school, and going to the local park while I'm at some nearby shop or cafe. He's ten years old, yet my heart is displaying a disturbing fondness for taking up (hopefully temporary) residence in my throat.
I'd ask 'When does this stop?' but I've coached people on exactly this issue - except their kids are at the leaving-home-to-go-to-university stage. So I know it's likely to continue. Thinking about it, I know enough people of my own age whose parents are still wrestling with it.
So I guess I'd better give up waiting for it to stop. Time to let go of my resistance to letting go. Maybe it's one of those things I could remove from my inner desk.
Which reminded me that trusting my son to be more responsible for himself as he gets older is a bit of a sore point at the moment. It's not that he's untrustworthy - it's just that I'm a VERY CLINGY DAD. Riding bikes together recently, he had his first short blasts on the road. Other recent innovations include him walking back home from school, and going to the local park while I'm at some nearby shop or cafe. He's ten years old, yet my heart is displaying a disturbing fondness for taking up (hopefully temporary) residence in my throat.
I'd ask 'When does this stop?' but I've coached people on exactly this issue - except their kids are at the leaving-home-to-go-to-university stage. So I know it's likely to continue. Thinking about it, I know enough people of my own age whose parents are still wrestling with it.
So I guess I'd better give up waiting for it to stop. Time to let go of my resistance to letting go. Maybe it's one of those things I could remove from my inner desk.
Monday, 20 November 2006
Mark the builder
There's a quotation I can't quite remember which I think is from Picasso. It's about every act of creation beginning as an act of destruction. In recent months I've been creating a lot of new stuff around specialising in coaching for dads. My friend and coach Carol today handed me my cue to consider - what am I destroying?
I do have considerable previous form as a pack-rat, so I suspect there's a bunch of stuff that I could chuck in life's bonfire here. Just looking at my desk, there's a fair bit there that, if destroyed, would clear some space for creating. Beyond that? I guess this is where I have to pull the office chair of my mind up to my inner desk and get decluttering. Those mental executive toys have to go for a start...
I do have considerable previous form as a pack-rat, so I suspect there's a bunch of stuff that I could chuck in life's bonfire here. Just looking at my desk, there's a fair bit there that, if destroyed, would clear some space for creating. Beyond that? I guess this is where I have to pull the office chair of my mind up to my inner desk and get decluttering. Those mental executive toys have to go for a start...
Sunday, 19 November 2006
R 'n' B vs. Rock: Who da manly?
I saw an interview with George Michael the other day, in which something he said caught my ear. Basically, he made a distinction between two opposing elements within popular music - the music of sexual prowess, and the music of sexual frustration. Interestingly he tagged rock as being based on frustration, while soul and R'n'B are expressions of carnal knowledgeability.
Obviously this is no hard and fast rule, but it's an interesting idea to kick around. Which bands are which? And which sort predominate in your music collection? Is this a new criterion to add to the indexing information on MP3 downloads? Plainly Prince wants us to know he's the king of the horizontal bossa nova, while the Smiths are telling us they're far from convinced they'll ever get laid. And what of other genres?
This has also woken me up to a long-held assumption I didn't realise I had. It always seemed to me that rock was about as manly as music got. No judgements there - I love all sorts of music - but somehow Marvin Gaye was never as macho as Motorhead. All that rock-god posturing and amps turned up to 11 - could it really mean that we've come to equate manhood with sexual frustration?
Obviously this is no hard and fast rule, but it's an interesting idea to kick around. Which bands are which? And which sort predominate in your music collection? Is this a new criterion to add to the indexing information on MP3 downloads? Plainly Prince wants us to know he's the king of the horizontal bossa nova, while the Smiths are telling us they're far from convinced they'll ever get laid. And what of other genres?
This has also woken me up to a long-held assumption I didn't realise I had. It always seemed to me that rock was about as manly as music got. No judgements there - I love all sorts of music - but somehow Marvin Gaye was never as macho as Motorhead. All that rock-god posturing and amps turned up to 11 - could it really mean that we've come to equate manhood with sexual frustration?
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