Never Pre-Judge

Those who know me, know why the subject matter of this video is important.

Amazing that a Christmas Advert can get a message across like this. Even better that it's helping a great charity do good work.

Go buy some chocolate, maybe share it with someone who you pre-judged?

Alles, was in der Welt erreicht wurde, wurde aus Hoffnung getan. - Martin Luther

Another Door Opens

I'm back in my hotel for another 4 nights, with limited mobile signal, expensive internet and this time, they're charging me £10 per night for the use of the fridge! I'd be tempted to drown my sorrows, but as I can't open the mini-bar (don't ask!) that's not an option either...

This is NOT how I want to live my life.

I can't wait to get home and spend more time on my business, so if for no other reason, this time away is a success. It's amazing how enforced isolation can help you focus on what's important.

Plus, I get to see my new front door - something that could not have happened a year ago. Sometimes the little things are the really big markers in our lives.

All in all, it's a good day.

It's Tough. I Get It.

I'm sat here tonight in a hotel room, 127 miles away from home. I had a wasted day on the client's site, as the entire IT team sat in a meeting for the entire afternoon. I wasn't invited.

This client likes meetings. I'd like their meetings more if they had a pre-distributed agenda, and then stuck to it.

I'm here for two weeks. I get to go home at weekends. My partner returns from his overseas contract halfway through my two week stint. The hotel thinks a reasonable price for a burger is £13.50.

My Kleeneze business is on the back burner again. I have to pay for hotel wifi. There's no mobile signal so I can't tether my smartphone. For somebody hooked into a 21st century way of working, that's difficult to deal with.

You know what? It doesn't bother me. Tonight I get to catch up on sleep after getting up at 5am to get to this client 4.5 hours later. I have a decent book with me. I've made my phone calls (58 days to go to build that habit). I avoided the premiuim burger and got sushi and a salad for half the price outside the hotel.

It's all in the perspective. For once, I'm at peace enough to accept that.

Tomorrow is another excellent day.

Passion? Craftmanship? Why Not Both?

Some say, "Follow Your Passion" - the thought being that to be truly excellent at something, you should focus your life's work on what you love.

Some say, "Be the Best at What You Do" - meaning, take the job you're already in, master it and keep on learning, thus focusing your life's work on loving what you excel at.

But what if that Either-Or choice is just 20th century thinking?

What if, in this 21st century world of increasing part-time work opportunities, where full-time jobs are getting rarer, you can have a life that combines both passion and craftmanship?

Would that be the best of all worlds?

Why Do We Do This?

Why do we strive for more? Why do we juggle all the aspects of our existence? Why do we bother?

We do it "because". Because it's our dream, not because it pays the bills; because we know it's what we should do. And best of all, because it matters.

Maybe it matters just to us; enough so that we keep a tiny flame alight in the deepest recesses of our hearts, sheltered from the persistence of those who can't see what we can see. Maybe our best and beloved spot the reflection of that light when we talk, just for a few moments, with the suppressed passion that only comes from the strength of what makes us, us.

When you can articulate the answer to this, nothing will stop you. As long as you give your self a chance to get there. Because that's what matters.

Walking with the Black Dog

I've lived with depression for a long time, not just my own, comparatively mild version, but that of my eldest son, my partner and a number of friends.

Trying to support others through their depression when you are being taken for a walk by your own black dog is an interesting experience, and leaves little emotional or physical energy for anything except basic existence.

I always know when I've become overwhelmed because I stop wanting to be around others. Times like those, I could do with a desert island. You don't get many of those in Warwickshire.

Learning to cope is different for all of us and I cherish the Aha! moments, particularly when they come from my fellow dog-walkers.

My eldest son has coped with severe depression since he was 10 and was taking medication through his early teens. Watching his journey towards inner equilibrium is not easy, but I will always be there to help and support him through it. He has wonderful friends who are there with the nests when he needs them, too.

My partner's life has been so eventful with depression triggers that I sometimes wonder if he upset an Ancient Chinese sage in a previous life. His is not an easy path to walk and his black dog is large and scary, but he knows I am here for him, always and forever.

All three of us find exercise helps, at least for a few hours. My eldest son is now singing in the showers again for the first time in a few months, thanks to a friend who is insisting on 3 gym sessions a week together.

So I've started back on my own exercise program and for the first time in weeks I'm feeling energised past lunch time. If I can keep this up this time, I may find I'm taking my black dog for a jog...

What Do They REALLY Think?

You can tell when there's a British election in the offing. People with a vested interest in getting others to agree with them get very prolific on social media.

It got really obvious during the Scottish Independence campaign, where the Yes team got positively nasty, long before the No team warmed up. Of course, as soon as the No campaign started to gather pace, then the gloves really came off. Now the anti-government campaign is gearing up with clever ad-hominem attacks on coalition Cabinet ministers and the newspapers that support a particular viewpoint.

Over the pond, US election campaigns have been run like this for decades. I don't see that as a plus for democracy.

What I see is a generation being turned away from politics. They see their parents being put off from discussing election matters because of the vitriolic ad-hominem attacks from all sides. They decide that "they're all the same", because the type of message is the same.

If you don't think like us, you are worthless. You are evil. You deserve to be removed from our society. You must conform to our thinking or suffer the consequences.

No collaboration. No empathy. No team players, not even on the same team. No point.

The lesson I take away is this: If I want to be sure that I am being listened to, then I need to listen to others. I need to hear what they're not saying, as well as what they are. And I need to show that I understand, or I'll never build the trust that leads to a successful team.

The Road to What If ...?

It's typical. One minute I'm mapping out the next few weeks' worth of business building, the next minute my boss calls and I'm expected to be at the other end of the country for 2 weeks. In a hotel, Monday - Friday.

The hotel will be the cheapest possible, which means there won't be a gym, and my food allowance probably won't cover the cost of 3 meals a day where there's limited choice of places to eat. I'll be isolated, in an area where there's no supermarkets or local corner shops, where it won't be safe to go for a walk as a substitute for the lack of gym in the cheap hotel.

In one phone call, I could see my health, wealth and family goals disappear over the horizon. I was not happy.

Then I stopped, and thought, "What if ...?"

What if ... I just rearranged my business targets for those two weeks, rather than give up completely?

What if ... I took some basic exercise equipment with me?

What if ... I made arrangements in advance so I could continue to eat healthily?

What if ... I set up a way of keeping in touch with my family, including arranging visits to my mum in her nursing home?

Whereas previously I would have thought, "That's it, I'm obviously not meant to be doing this much", I'm now thinking, "What if ..."

Looks like the personal development habit is kicking in. This is going to be an interesting journey.

What was your "What if ...?" moment?

Walking with Wolves

Sometimes it takes a life-shattering event to make you reconsider why you do certain things. Sometimes it's not even your own event.

My mum's slow journey back from two strokes has allowed me to take stock of behaviour embedded since my childhood. Behaviour that was never going to help me succeed at the level I know I'm capable of.

I've been given a rare opportunity, to examine and reject not only my ingrained behaviour but also the ongoing triggers. Now I need to create new patterns and new paths for myself.

I'm starting with walking with my own Wolves, one at a time, until I've got the whole pack heading in my direction.

Which Wolf would you choose to tame first?

Lies, Bias and the Regional Press

It's not often that I'm pushed to anger by a regional newspaper, especially one that I rarely read. But I'll make an exception in the case of the Northampton Chronicle. In fact, based on their moderation of one particular article, I am actively advising that people think very carefully before wasting their money on this particular blot on the journalist's escutcheon.

I keep track of Kleeneze's news appearances; it's an old habit made easier by the advent of Google Alerts. So, when I discovered a nice little story about Peter and Jillian Griffiths and their fund-raising efforts, I was delighted.

That is, until I read the vitriolic and incoherent comment posted by an individual calling themselves "CitizenNorthampton". Amongst other bile, he accused them of profiteering, greed, dishonesty and scamming their customers. He also claimed that Kleeneze is seen as a scam by others.

Intrigued, I went through the weird signup process and posted a response. I'd love to cut and paste that response here, but I can't. The reason I can't is that it was removed by a moderator. A moderator who is happy to have the Northampton Chronicle's website peppered with potentially libellous comments from a disgruntled obsessive.

My deleted comment pointed out that Kleeneze distributors are self-employed and that Kleeneze is a legitimate business. I pointed out that, after overheads, petrol, carrier bags, replacement catalogues and postage are taken away from the retail profit figures that he quoted, an extra 10% cash donation to charity is a very nice gesture and not something deserving of vilification. I questioned the original post's figures. I also congratulated Peter and Gillian for their efforts. No reason to delete that, you would think. I wasn't promoting Kleeneze per se, I didn't link to a business website; I merely tried to redress the balance. Unfortunately, that wasn't good enough for the moderator, or the anonymous CitizenNorthampton.

Because CitizenNorthampton responded to me, not once, but twice. I had suggested he might be bitter about Kleeneze (a reasonable point given the nastiness of his original post) and that he might be an ex-distributor. He claims to be an ex-customer of "one of the unnamed people in the picture" and denies having been a distributor. He claims to have a new distributor who "explain[ed] ... in great detail how this business works".

Let's stop there for a minute. How many of us distributors have explained "in great detail" how the Kleeneze bonus structure works to a customer? How many customers have asked us to explain? Am I the only one who doesn't believe this guy's explanation and justification for his vitriolic comments?

Because they are vitriolic; yet again he claims Kleeneze is a scam, that Peter and Jillian are profiteering and he threatens them with reporting them to the charities commission. His final comment, posted at 15:39 on Saturday (at a time when my original comment was still there) still claims that Kleeneze is a scam.

And the moderator, and presumably the Northampton Chronicle management, are happy to let their bias show and let those lies stand. I think Peter and Jillian have enough grounds for a letter before action, asking for those comments to be removed.

I certainly won't be advertising in that paper and I wouldn't advise my team to do so either.

Change Your Focus - Change Your Life

Isn't it amazing how a change in focus can trigger all sorts of changes to your personality and your lifestyle?

Yesterday, I collected a grand total of 93 of the 108 catalogues I'd put out on Monday. All these catalogues went out to people who had either ordered or looked at my Kleeneze catalogues before, so I knew they would be welcome.

Despite the usual 5% of catalogues that weren't looked at this time, plus having to gingerly remove a set of catalogues from a bag that looked as though it had been targeted by an incontinent duck, I got 17 orders, totalling just over £250.00. That's an average of £2.69 per collected catalogue, or an average order value of £14.71. Not bad for 3 hours work.

Today, I got head-hunted by a recruitment agency, wanting to put me forward for a job in Coventry. Normally I don't bother to answer agency calls; they're typically the ones that don't display a number or display a generic 0844 code. But this one displayed a Stratford number - so I answered it. Why?

Because I thought it might be somebody interested in building their own Kleeneze business!

I am truly focussed on making my Kleeneze business work. The reason I've survived everything life has thrown at me is - I never quit. I may limit myself in some areas so that I can take care of other priorities first, but I never, ever quit.

I am going to succeed with my Kleeneze business. My mind is focussed on it. I wouldn't call myself the Kleeneze Lady if I wasn't in it for the long haul. See you at the top!

I Need to Quit My Day Job!

There just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything - I'm not complaining, just stating a fact.

As shown in a previous post, I juggle being a single mum with running a Kleeneze business, a two-hour round trip commute five times a week, and working full time.

This week, my eldest son, despite being dependent on public transport, has been sent by his company on a fork-lift training course in Burton Latimer, just south of Kettering. That's an hour away from Rugby by car, and a minimum of three hours away from Rugby by train.

In fact, to get there by train for 7 a.m. means he needs to leave Rugby at 11 p.m. and wait overnight in a railway station for the first connecting train to Kettering, followed by a taxi ride to the industrial estate.

After prompting from me, he raised this issue with the personnel manager, who has arranged a lift for my son and a colleague for 4 out of the 5 days of the course. I may have to take Friday off to get him there so he can finish his course.

I really do wonder what planet some managers live on.

If I could run my Kleeneze business full time, this wouldn't be an issue. What an incentive to work harder at building my business.

The Secret to Spotting Hidden Opportunities

"That is one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often comes disguised in the form of misfortune or temporary defeat." Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich

Want to pounce on the next opportunity, but keep missing them until you spot them with 20/20 hindsight? The solution is simple.

Stop looking at life the way you always have done. Change your perspective, change your view of the world and the opportunities will show up.

Take a basic example. You decide to buy a new car. You spend some time considering your options, number of seats, capacity, estate/saloon/mpv/sports model. You even think of a preferred colour. You make your choice, go out and buy it. All of a sudden, you find similar models to yours everywhere, when previously there were none to be seen.

Take another example - moving house. As soon as you privately decide to change where you live, you will be inundated with To Let and For Sale notices, even before you've let an estate agent know your requirements.

Now apply that to your future. Make a decision that you want a better life, and opportunities for advancement will appear. They just may not be in the form you expect them.

I've proven this to myself over the past few months. I applied for two jobs where I work, both promotions. In one case, I made it as far as the first part of the selection process. In the second case, I'm still waiting to be told "Thanks, but no thanks", let alone invited to interview. In both cases, there were two common factors - the internal recruitment process is skewed towards whoever the management see as the "obvious" candidate and the HR administration process is flawed. I'm still waiting for the feedback I requested over 3 months ago for the first interview, for example.

Now, I could bitch and moan about bias, sexism (I was the only female applicant in both cases) and blinkered corporate thinking. That wouldn't get me anywhere.

Instead, I took a good long look at what I wanted out of my life and realised that, if I want to steadily build up my own business until my business income can replace my salary, I'm actually in the best position to do so. If I got promoted, my day job workload would increase and I would be expected to put more hours in. Staying at my current level frees me to do more after work and allows me to organise my day so I can do more in my breaks.

I found my hidden opportunity, right in front of me.

What hidden opportunities are waiting for you?