Category: Personal Reflections

Preposition aside, this is one of those phrases that invoked a flood of thoughts in a direction VERY different from the original context. I heard this one on True Detective, the phenomenal HBO series, when Matthew McConaughey used the phrase to explain his own rather dark abilities. Wayyyyyyy different from anything I could, or would, want to write about, but inspiration is rarely linear.

Also not a new phrase obviously (it’s based on Gabrielle Hamilton’s quote), but one I was hearing for the first time, and it instantly struck a chord with me. My whole life I have tried to put myself into a position where I can negate the …ummm, less-than-optimal things about myself that I cannot seem to change. And if I’m honest, I don’t want to change some of them. We all have these character ‘flaws’, but that’s no reason they should either define us, or get in the way of our careers.

I don’t work on my weaknesses, I avoid them by focusing on my strengths.

The lucky few, the ones who knew from a very early age what they were going to be, will find the subject quote amusing or irrelevant, but for way too many us it hits close to the mark. Can you truly say that you are doing what you had intended all along, and are absolutely doing what you are on this Earth to do? No, neither can I.

A while back I postulated a theory that it’s actually OK not to have a passion in life, a true calling (nurse, fireman, teacher and so on), as long as you enjoy the things you ARE doing. These things are generally what I would call your talents. Skills can be learned, but you will only ever be REALLY good at something you have natural affinity toward. Nine times out of ten you will also enjoy doing the things at which you’re best, and avoid those you don’t do well.

Unfortunately, we rarely have the opportunity at work to completely ignore the things we don’t like, and may even end up being very good at something because a combination of our OTHER talents gives us an advantage.

For example, no-one who’s ever met me would accuse me of being a people-person, but my combined talents for simplification and strategic planning make me a very good consultant. Luckily I actually enjoy consulting, but even if I didn’t, I could very easily end up doing nothing BUT consulting for the rest my life because it provides an excellent living. Would I KEEP doing what I’m doing if I didn’t actually like it?

Probably, and that’s the point of this blog.

Now be honest with yourself, are you a) doing something you really, I mean REALLY enjoy, or are you b) doing something you found yourself fairly good at? If the answer is a), you’re in the second highest group of people in terms of living a good life. The only group slightly better off in my opinion are those making a living from their life-long passion. If the answer was b), and you only find your job tolerable, what makes you good at it? Do you know?

These are pretty much the only options open to you if you have to work, and this has nothing to do with how much/little you earn;

  • Your work is your passion
  • You make a living doing what you enjoy
  • You make a living doing what you’re good at
  • You make a living, don’t hate your job, but don’t enjoy it much either
  • You make a living and hate your job

As a complete guess, I would say that 90% of us are in the last 2, and probably because we assumed early on in our lives that without a passion there’s no point in trying. A total cop-out in my opinion, as doing what you enjoy AND what you are good at, is a VERY close second. This does not even involve a title, or a field of expertise, and you are not looking for a job as a something, you are looking for a job that entails the use of as many of your talents / skills as possible, regardless of what field you end up in.

I ended up in security, not because I have any particular interest in security itself (I don’t), but security just happens to provide the perfect environment for me to fully explore the things at which I excel (relatively :).

Anyone can do this, you just have to know what you’re good at. Like ending sentences on prepositions for example.

By the time you reach your 40’s, there’s a very good chance that you have lost a job or two (or four, [cough]), either by redundancy, pressure to quit, or being out-and-out fired.

If it happens once, you can chalk it up to being one of those things. If it happens again for the same reason, then you really need to start taking note. A third time, and you are clearly in a pattern of your own making. Yes, your making, and it does not matter for what reason you lost your job.

This does not necessarily mean that you are a bad person, or a screw-up, and perhaps you were actually in the right when you were ‘let go’, but the fact remains that you are the one out of a job. Unfortunately most of us keep going back to the same pattern, and I can assure you, you will eventually run out of decent options.

Hopefully if you find yourself in the above scenario, you are now prepared for a little self reflection. WHY do you keep imploding at work? What is it that YOU keep doing that makes your unique talents and skills so easily replaceable? There are basically two negative extremes here:

  1. You are completely deluded as to what your strengths / talents actually are; and
    o
  2. You are actually a jerk.

If you’re a nice person in a position to do what you do best every day, would you really have been ‘laid off’ from an organisation that’s still in business?

The issue is that most of us are not always nice, and for more reasons that anyone would ever care to know about, we are probably also not doing what we love to do. Quite frankly, most of us are not even doing the things we’re good at, let alone love. For every kid who knows at the age of six that they want to be a doctor, there’s a hundred kids with no clue.  That cluelessness can last a lifetime, but life goes on and you have to do something.

What happens to most of us is that we bounce from one thing to the next, and by more luck than judgement, we find something tolerable. But instead of using the steady income as a springboard to what’s next, we hold out for the perfect job, the perfect title, or a passion. The perfect role does not exist, not if it comes with a title. No job description I’ve ever seen is based on my skill-set or talents, it’s based on what the company I work for thinks they need.

Fair enough you might say, they’re the one’s paying you a wage, but it’s completely self defeating in my opinion. It puts us in a position where we have to balance the good with the bad, which can only ever be frustrating to the point where we start to focus on the bad. Once on this downward spiral it is very difficult to stop, and we may find ourselves in a position where our job is at risk. Whether we know it at the time or not.

We have always had a choice, this scenario has always been of OUR making, but hindsight is not going to help here unless it’s in the form of self reflection, and lessons learned. So what DO we do now? Leave for another company before we get fired and start the same pattern all over again? Start your own business because we’re basically unemployable?

Or, are you going to do what you should have done years ago?; take a long hard look at yourself. Wherever you are in your career, you MUST ask yourself every day whether or not you are doing something sustainable. If you are going home exhausted from frustration each night, or are constantly complaining about something, there’s a very good chance you are in the wrong place and will wind up having to make a difficult decision.

Or that decision is made for you.

Forget the company you work for (unless you hate their ethics / values), and forget your title (it’s limiting), are you mostly doing what you are best at and maybe even enjoy? If the answer is yes, then by all means defend your job if threatened, if the answer is no, you should probably see it as a wake-up call.

[If you liked this article, please share! Want more like it, subscribe!]

How much food do you throw away each year because it’s past the expiration date, or worse, you find it in the back of your fridge supporting a new furry ecosystem?

In my ever extending string of blogs based entirely on speculation, I would say that I throw away in the region of £400 – £600 worth per year. And I’m not saying it’s my wife’s fault (certainly not to her face anyway), although she does all the grocery shopping and cooking (don’t worry, it’s not like that, I do pretty much all the cleaning and jar opening). 🙂

There’s actually no blame here, it’s just that way WE are. We are not planners when it comes to our weekly meals, which would alleviate much of this issue. But, like everyone else in our brave new it’s-not-my-fault,-someone-else-should-do-something-about-it society, I want to have this take care of itself, automatically.

We can, and I believe we are not that far off, it just needs to be put together.

First, the actual growers of the produce need to take the first step by ensuring that their shipments are labelled with enough information to begin the countdown process. i.e. from ripe to rotten, we should by now have a pretty good idea how long a lettuce (for example) is going to last. I don’t care if it’s organic (which will clearly reduce its life cycle), with refrigeration, preservatives, and whatever else happens to our food without our knowledge, from farm, to supermarket shelf, to your fridge, to your plate, the lettuce has only x days to live (plus or minus).

Let’s say this is done with a QR tag, and each step in the logistics is added to the embedded information, by the time you scan the code in the supermarket you will have at your fingertips all the information you need to make an informed decision related to your purchase. These lettuces in this box are 2 days newer than those ones, but the older ones are half price and so on. Instant coupons is a given.

I won’t go into the payment method, I’ve written enough on the future of payments, but you will not only have an instant receipt, you have automatically added these items to a database of all the food in your house, along with its weight / quantity, expiration date, and so on.

Now everything edible in your house, from canned goods, to herbs & spices, to meats, to vegetables are all tracked in your database. All you need do now is set your alerts so that ANYTHING that is about to expire becomes an item in your next meal. Of course, you will need to tell this database whether or not you put something in the freezer, the fridge, to left it on the counter, but the smart-fridges or smart-cupboards of the very near future will be able to track this for you by scanning your groceries as you put them away. This will in turn be added to the database so you need never spend half an hour hunting for your Fingers of Fudge.

Not only that, because you have a complete record of everything, you can get immediate help on what to do with it. Every chef in the world will want to sign up to a service whereby they can apply their recipes to what you have available, or more importantly, what is about to expire. Yes, both the chefs and the providers of this service will try to get you to buy additional items to make an amazing meal, but you will always have a choice.

Also, if you DO choose a fancy menu, this can immediately alert your preferred supermarket who can tell you whether to not the items are available, then maybe even deliver them to you.

And we’re still not done. Beyond the immediate benefits of saving a butt-load of money, these are other advantages for every player in the cycle (in no particular order);

  1. You can have your weekly menus designed for you based on your preferences in terms of likes/dislikes, calorific intake, budget and so on.
  2. Growers will eventually be able to track global trends on food purchase, and possibly be able to adjust their supply to the demand.
  3. Supermarkets can automatically alert their customers to deals on soon-to-expire produce a hopefully reduce their waste. Maybe provide free delivery if you purchase enough of these items.
  4. You’ll learn to cook far more meals than you could have ever conceived yourself.
  5. You’ll be able to track your calorie intake if you follow the menus explicitly. Good for dieters, and excellent for diabetics.
  6. By having the ingredients of everything you buy available to you, you can ensure you never buy anything, or accept a recipe for meals that contain something, to which you or a loved one are allergic.
  7. You will undoubtedly stop buying things that sit in your cupboards for years on end, like that can of string beans that seemed like a good idea at the time.
  8. You can make your food database available to your friends so that you can create a meal together without having to buy everything yourself. Dinner party anyone?

I could go on all day, and I’m sure that if you have read this far you have had several ideas of your own.

All we need now is the supermarket chains to buy in …and the growers …and the name brand goods ….and …

 

OK, so money isn’t irrelevant …yet, but it will be. Like so many things that are in existence, they are only still used because they have either achieved global ubiquity, or there is nothing better to replace them, or both.

Money, in all its forms, is probably the definitive example of this, but I can actually see a time in the not too distant future when it will be replaced with what it has always represented; Value.

Let me take a step back here and say that this subject is wayyy too complex for me to do true justice, and I have no intention of reading any books on economics to ensure it’s factually accurate, but by its very nature, money is limiting to the continuation of globalisation. Like it or not, the world is getting smaller and less unique across traditional borders both physical and political. People are starting to want the same things, and while not all of things they want are good, the common ground between them is once again driven by value.

Money simply cannot keep up with the changes, and the massive complexity of producing cash, providing debit and credit services, exchange rates, inflation, and a plethora of other things I have made it my goal to never understand, will eventually drive a requirement for something new;

I’m calling it ‘Digital Identity and Virtual Value Management’.

Errr, what?

Another step back; In the past, if you were a wheat farmer and needed meat, you would exchange wheat for meat at a ratio you agreed directly with the person standing right in front of you. You would then each go on your way happy that you have received fair value for your goods. However, if you wanted dairy products, carpentry skills, metal working skills or a whole host of services, you had to repeat this process, and of course, the representative values would always change depending on your immediate needs.

Now, in a massively over-simplification of history and probably fact, it was decided in the year [mumble-mumble] that it would make sense to replace the bartering system with a universally agreed (i.e. by the ‘government’) meaningless object (money), which would represent the VALUE of every commodity so that the holder of this meaningless object was owed the value of it in any commodity they chose.

Great, so now instead of carrying around huge quantities of wheat, our farmer can now walk up to any provider of goods and exchange their meaningless objects for whatever they want.

Eventually these meaningless objects became paper-based, then plastic, and now it’s digital, but it’s still meaningless. Only the VALUE of what it represents means anything, and you SHOULD be able to spend that any time, any place, anywhere, without the need for a meaningless object.

Your identity should replace the meaningless object, and your value should replace money in all it’s forms.

But who sets your value? Who is to say that the services of a lawyer are more valuable than those of a plumber?

You do.

Currently, if you accept £50,000 / year for your employment, YOU are the one who set that value, not your employer. If you think you’re worth more, go somewhere else, or, what you should do is increase your value by improving yourself in some way (education, experience, work harder, you name it). And herein lies one of the biggest mistakes people make their whole lives; focussing on money when what they SHOULD be focusing on is improving their own worth, their VALUE to others.

So, what is Digital Identity? It’s the unequivocal ability for you to prove that you are you, to anyone, anywhere. If everyone in the world KNEW that you were you, then you would not need money, passports, or any physical form of identity. Whether this is effected by biometrics and knowledge verification or [more likely] a combination of these and other yet-to-be invented factors is unclear, but the digitalisation of everything will continue until this form of Identity Management is commonplace.

And Virtual Value? This you can see happening already with Bitcoin and its brethren. What’s missing is the input of non-monetary value, or in other words, I have no way of entering my self-determined worth into a virtual environment, then have others validate it for my actual work in a way that I can spend on something else. But this is coming too, it almost has to.

I can imagine a time when I perform a piece of work for someone, immediately be ‘credited’ with the agreed virtual value, then be able to walk into a store, pick up what I want and walk out again without performing any manual payment transaction whatsoever. My Digital Identity will be confirmed the second I walk into the store, the value of the goods will be automatically calculated based on my choices, and the value of those good will be deducted from my virtual net-worth (or Internet-worth! :)) as soon as I step back out into the street.

Seems rather ridiculous that we still use credit cards, doesn’t it?

Q: What do you do?

A: I’m a consultant.

9 times out of ten the asker of the question enquires no deeper, because they were either just making polite conversation, or they just don’t care. Or both.

The title of ‘consultant’ can hide all manner of sins, as it can be used to enhance the reputation of the unworthy, leading others to believe that their level of expertise goes as deep as the up-front appearances. It is, however, far preferable to ‘expert’, which is bandied around far too often and usually by the very people least equipped to do so.

The old cliche; “An expert is someone who knows 1% more than those around him.” is as true now as it’s always been. And if I’m honest with myself, so is “An expert is just somebody from out of town with slides.”, but that’s a little too close to the mark.

Luckily, you don’t need to be an expert in anything to be a great consultant, you just need to know people who are experts, and when to apply them. For example, there are thousands of people who do every individual thing that I do, and do it many time better, but few can apply their overall knowledge, experience, and skill-set to a client’s maximum long-term benefit.

What are the 4 consultant types?

  1. The ‘Auditor’: Auditors are extremely detail oriented, and can (and do) write massively detailed reports on exactly what you’re doing wrong. While this can be very useful in some scenarios, if you were looking for someone to tell you anything other than what is broken you have the wrong person. There will be little to no out-of-the-box thinking with an auditor, if you aren’t doing exactly what is written, you will fail the test. You will also receive very little in the way of of help actually fixing the problems, so will probably end up paying someone else to finish the piece of work;
    o
  2. The ‘Assessor‘: Assessors are still very tied to the written instructions, but are better able to read the intent of the situation, and are subsequently better able to tell you why a things is not right, as well provide some limited guidance on how to fix it. As with the Auditor, you will likely require additional help to reach your goals, but if you are looking for a sanity check or [cringe] tick-in-the-box compliance with a standard like PCI, then Assessors are a reasonable choice. Mostly because they are cheaper;
    o
  3. The ‘Consultant’: I reserve this title for people who are able to not only explain simply what you are doing wrong, but 1) why it’s wrong, 2) what you should be doing, and 3) provide several options on how to fix what’s wrong. The Consultant’s experience will be such that they have seen close to your specific scenario many times, and can provide all the guidance you need to choose the right solution(s) as well as implement them appropriately. You might be thinking this is the ultimate, but it isn’t, there is a critical aspect missing from the Consultants’ portfolio, which is filled by;
    o
  4. The ‘Teacher’: Teachers approach every gig with a single goal in mind; to never have to repeat anything they do. These rare folks are able to enormously simplify the challenge at hand, and TEACH the client to fix it themselves. And not just once, whatever the solution was, the Teacher will show the client how to maintain the fix, and how to implement a cycle of continual improvement in line with business goals. Above all, the Teacher will help you to always ask the right questions, which is half the battle.

In the PCI space for example, I can count the number of Teachers I have seen on one hand, and even Consultants are thin on the ground. I don’t blame the consulting companies for this, it’s the clients who are continually bitching about price and settling for the lowest bidders.

In consulting, more than in almost any other profession, you get what you pay for, and Consultants/Teachers are always cheaper in the long run.

Also, you will eventually get the type of consultant equivalent to the level of effort you put in finding one. If you end up with an idiot, it’s because you’re lazy.

Don’t know where to start? Ask.

[If you liked this article, please share! Want more like it, subscribe!]