Dance like no-one is watching

Making choices to do new things

This graphic is a simple illustration of why some things never see the light of day.

The return to my blog while not “new” is a new beginning. It is a true reflection of the tension illustrated here.

We can spend much of time answering questions that haven’t been asked or answered other than inside of our own heads:

Why do this?  Will anybody follow or benefit?

…and the answer to almost all of these types of questions – is that other than yourself

“Who cares?”

• If you’re not doing it, nothing is happening.
• If it’s not out there, nobody is judging you, nobody is looking.
• If you’re not speaking with an independent voice, then how are you relevant?

To paraphrase Seth Godin – don’t keep waiting for the perfect horse on the carousel – just get on they are all going to the same place.

So here I am.

I’ll be reflecting on many things, and hopefully doing it in a way that reflects an attitude of dancing like nobody is watching.

I will be dipping into:

• How and why we change
• What we say and how we say it
• How we respond and how we react
• What blindsides us and what truly motivates us
• Assumptions we make
• Things we fail to challenge, and those that we do
• Challenges we fail to take and those that we choose to pursue

I beleive:

• That we care more deeply about each other than most of us care to or know how to express.
• That community is at the core of humanity.
• That we all wish for a better world – the world that we share, but at present not so well.

I hope to bring something to that discussion

My primary motivation is that this blog may change somebody’s life for the better – bring more clarity, more insight, and more reflection at a time when they need it, now or in the future. I also hope people will use this to look back and reflect on their own experiences and take the learning forward.

Being a father of 2 wonderful daughters this also serves as a capsule for them to understand me and perhaps even themselves better in years to come when I can’t be around to explain myself.

I’m on this blog knowing that it makes me more real, more vulnerable, more reflective and considerate.

Thank you for giving me your time.

Richard

The Emperor’s new clothes

This post is about my blog. Specifically what I love about blogging.

I’ve had a blog before and it didn’t work for anyone, least of all me.

Then I chanced on Dan’s excellent blog and I realised where I had gone wrong and also what I was scared of.

Where I went wrong?

My posts were too long.

What’s the point he’s trying to make? Is there something in this for me today? Why should I return? If I wanted a chapter I’d buy a book?

I’m sure these are the sort of thoughts in readers’ minds.

I didn’t get that. Now I do.

• I’m practicing making my point obvious and preferably up for dialogue.
• I aim to have ‘something for most’ every post.
• Return, because I’ll just keep getting better!
• I’m not writing a chapter, I’m targeting 300 words ±

What I was scared of?

That everyone would judge me.

And then I got it…

That is what I love about blogging, ‘everyone’ will judge me – and I’ll learn and hopefully my readers will too; judge away.

I’m completely naked. What I say won’t be genius but I will have said it.

You can’t blog if you wait for everyone else to have their say first.

Blogging forces you to not be right, to be vulnerable, to get your thoughts together, to put yourself out there and encourage dialogue.

So what can you expect?

• Well I’m going to look very much like the Emperor if I stop blogging, so I won’t be doing that.
• I’ll be mixing it up, the good and the bad but trying to keep things in a positive context.
• I’ll be begging for comments, until you start feeling it is worth the effort and comment freely.
• And I’ll be marching down a crowded internet media street with everything on show and damn proud of it.

What can you do today to illustrate your leadership values?