12 years ago I was sat on the side of my bed with my head in my hands struggling to choose a shirt to wear. No amount of reasoning would have helped me rationalise my behaviour. I had started putting on a significant amount of weight, but I was working out in the gym regularly and doing plenty of cardio. It felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I hadn’t known Gail long, but long enough for her to want to help me identify the problem. Doctors were unable to help, they checked for diabetes and thyroid, but there was nothing clinically wrong. Yet I was struggling to function. I was getting unnecessarily stressed and the not knowing what was wrong was compounding… Read the Rest »
I have just spent 2 weeks in my homeland at the foothills of the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. It’s a magical place. It’s the land that time forgot and long may it stay this way. Anyone who knows me, knows just how important my time there is. Considering the hectic duties of our Manchester business UKFast, a place which is aptly named, I can’t remember a moment where we have ever come up for air. Yet, inspite of craving the intensity and fast paced business life, I never tire of the Welsh countryside and there’s not a more beautiful time of year. Time out is so important and the bigger UKFast gets the more I realise I need the complete switch off. I… Read the Rest »
Someone recently asked my advice on Planning and would I blog about my thoughts on the matter. It’s a great subject and there are many ways to approach planning. It wont surprise you that I probably start in the completely opposite place to most and miss out the bit that everyone else considers important. My “planning” is almost non-existant. All my work done is long before any planning would normally take place, at the “dreaming” stage. It’s a side that is drilled out of us at an early age, usually in school and by our elders. Yet the dreaming stage is the most fun and its where the magic happens. I have my own theories on planning, however they are all inspired by others and… Read the Rest »
I was out for dinner at an event this week and I was lucky enough to sit by someone who is a real inspiration. I always ask him about his climbing pursuits. It’s a common interest, but one I confess not to have set aside enough time over the last 20 years to explore properly. My friend on the other hand is a prolific walker and recently climbed Kilamjaro. His next summit is Mont Blanc in the coming months, so I have a great deal to learn from his experiences. Sat talking, he summed up the shortness of time, by describing the decade between the age of 60 and 70 as just “10 summers.” It was a sledgehammer moment. I take time more seriously than… Read the Rest »
I have just returned from a week in Castell Cidwm our Training Centre and second home in the Snowdonia National Park. No email, no internet, power cuts, sideways rain and no mobile phone access. Brilliant! Castell Cidwm is an inspiring place, a real hive of activity. This week we had various groups down doing different activities. A few of the directors were giving the UKFast Management Training Program a final polish, whilst I had the arduous task of taking a team of apprehensive colleagues through the hills above Beddgelert. I don’t need much of an excuse to get my walking boots on. I get a great deal more done in the peace and quiet of the mountains as opposed to being back in the office. I… Read the Rest »
Driving into work at 5.30am dressed in gym gear I pulled over to get petrol. A chap dressed in shorts too got out to fill up his car, he acknowledged me with a small but firm nod and as I left, I thought to myself, he looks like a good bloke. I always wonder who are these early morning “driven” people? Where are they going? I have a theory, have you ever noticed how people seem to get more irate the nearer it gets to 9.00am when driving into work? Obviously it’s not everyone, there just seem to be more people stressed as 9 o’clock approaches. What I need are these other people, the dynamic ones who want to squeeze every last drop out of… Read the Rest »
To say my life was in tatters is an understatement, I lay in a foreign hospital bed hooked up to a machine with a drip in each arm with a headache that I have yet to find words to describe the pain. I was very much alone. I was disorientated beyond imagination. Am I alive or am I dead? This was the question that filled every waking moment and consumed me for the weeks and months that followed and to this day I occasionally question what happened that day. I remember dying. I remember every second of it with the clarity of high definition slow motion. So where am I now? I remember being woken up, is this real or is this just the next… Read the Rest »
I got the call I’d been half expecting, for a number of months. “I am disappointed,” I said, “but not surprised.” Its the end of an era. “It is being made official in the morning and there is an embargo on the story until 10am tomorrow. Charlie Hodgson is resigning in the morning.” I was leaving for Verbier in the morning, for a few days skiing and boarding with the family and friends from work. Charlie is someone who I’d consider one of the most underrated fly-halves in todays game. Underrated or not, you have to treat people nicely who work for you, and if you want incredible results my advice is you need to go overboard on the “lavishing praise” aspect of management. The lavishing… Read the Rest »
As someone who is fixated on growing and motivating my team to be the best at what we do, I am always trying to understand what are the key driving points that make some people incredibly successful. I was about to start blogging about the fact that when you have a wife and children, suddenly you seem to become more successful. I first came accross this theory when Vernon Lord a then finance director at Granada jokingly commented that he disliked me, there is always a little truth in the jest. He said, “you have no wife, kids, loan repayments, school fees, ex-wives. You have nothing that ensures you have to perform.” I reminded him that I’d never missed my target and that I was… Read the Rest »
“It hurts doesn’t it.” “What’s that?” I replied. “That feeling inside of you now…. it hurts doesn’t it.” It certainly did and although I smiled, I thought, I am not giving him the pleasure of saying that again. I realised why he is such a great motivator. That’s all he had to say, a simple observation, making me focus on the pain I was feeling and boy it hurt all the more. I had been warned that this is Richard Branson’s game. We were the last to leave the beach, all the others had gone back up the hill to the Great House. It was after midnight and Richard said, “Right, who’s for a game of Perudo?” If you were like me and had no… Read the Rest »
