The Blog | Warwick Merry CSP CVP

How is Your Underlying Structure or Strategy?

After 8 years of talking about it, we are finally getting a deck!

One of the key things about it is making sure we get the structure right. Granted, we want it to look good but if the support is not there or the layout isn’t in the right direction, it won’t get the results we are after. It won’t meet the purpose we need it for.

A concept I learnt from Paul McCarthy and Brad Tonini is the concept of “For What Purpose?”

The simple act of asking what is the purpose of this action, this idea, this building, this online course, this book – help dictates the strategy. Too often people believe the rubbish perpetuated by Hollywood Movies, “If you build it, they will come” (Spoiler – THEY WON’T!)

How is your strategy?

Does you have a well thought out plan of:

What you are trying to achieve
Who you are trying to achieve it for
Where you will be working on it
How you will achieve it
How you will celebrate when you achieve it

You have to get the strategy right for the results to follow. Let me know if you need any help.

What Is Success?

Recently I took part in the 10 Tips in 10 Days challenge. That’s where I had to create 10 short videos to be published once a day. Each video had to give some kind of tip or advice on an area in which I had expertise.

In a coming post I will like to all 10 tips for you, but today is all about the first tip. That tip is to understand for you What is Success.

As host of the Get More Success show, I have asked almost 100 people how they define success. Everyone has a different definition but a recurring theme is that of Freedom. Click on the image above to see the short video about it.

Famously, Ralph Waldo Emerson had this to say about success:

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To give of one’s self;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived

This is to have succeeded.

So as you consider your future, how do you define success for you?

It could be in money, it could be in experiences, it may even be how you related to those in your life. The key thing is to know that there is NO wrong answer, and no answer to be embarrassed about as long you have something you are aiming for.

It is interesting that many people have no idea what success it. They still work hard and and continue moving forward but don’t know what they are aiming for.

So Dear Reader, what are you aiming for? How will you define success? What is it that you focus your energy toward?

Only by knowing what Success is will you know where to best focus your attention.

It’s 2019 (Financially)

Yet again, time has ticked over and here in Australia it is now the start of the new 2019 financial year.

So where are you?

I have spoken to some of my friends on colleagues who talk about “getting ahead”, “putting some money away” or “trying to get some leverage”. A recent post on LinkedIn talked about property prices in Sydney 20 years ago and the majority of the commenters were along the lines of “If only I knew”, “I wish I had a time machine” or “I shouldn’t have sold when I moved”.

I love the Chinese saying, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today.”

Whether that is an actual tree, a money tree or a family tree, the saying is true. The image above is where my gorgeous wife and I will be planting approximately 60 fruit trees. You can see the divots (and if you squint you may be able to see the pink X’s) where we are getting the local bloke with a digger to dig the holes for the trees.

We will be planting another 20 or so Golden Ash at another place on the farm and, all going to plan, next year we will be putting in quite a few slow growing trees like Oak and Maple as well as another 20 Claret Ash.

To be quite blunt, we will be dead before some of these trees reach their maturity and magnificence. The fruit trees alone will take five years to get to a stage they will bear fruit. I suspect some trees may die as we fine tune irrigation, try and keep the kangaroos and other animals at bay.

But the second best time to plant is today.

Will you be in the same financial position this time next financial year?
What will you do to “Plant your tree”?
What financial plans do you have to put in place?
Who do you need to speak to to get the facts and make it happen?

Let 2019 be the year that you trees and financial future flourish.

Let me know if I can help at all.

Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Photo: Andre Elhay

Saturday night was an absolute hoot! In fact, so was Saturday afternoon. We played games, won prizes, ate food, chatted and enjoyed the night all for a great cause.

My buddy Leanne was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease about 12 months ago. It is a shit disease. No known cause, no known cure and no real treatment. For a few statistics, check the MND Australia website.

The reality of this is that there is minimal support out there for those with MND. The medical industry’s approach is, “You have about two years left, go and enjoy what you can.” The insurance company’s approach is, “We are good at taking your money but not at paying it back. Your symptoms don’t meet our criteria.”

Due to the rapid onset of this disease, it means you need loads of new equipment quickly. Wheel chairs, cycles, home adjustments and so on. It also means your partner can’t work as they need to look after you (and don’t even ask about how hectic the night time is what with cramping, minimal muscle control so have to be turned, and then needing to go to the toilet.)

This is where Leanne’s friends came in. Over 350 people got together for her FUNdraising. People generously gave their time, money, goods to help raise fund for her. I was privileged to be able to host the event. At the end of the evening, we had raised well over $30k for Leanne.

In her speech, Leanne remarked how important it was to hug your friends and those you love because life is fragile and when you are unable to do so, even when they are standing in front of you, it is tragic. Take time to appreciate what you have because when it is taken from you, you will miss it.

We humans think we are invincible yet life truly is very fragile!

But as the Beatles, Joe Cocker and even The Ice Haloes (ok you got me, it’s my singing quartet) tell you, you can get by with a little help from your friends.

What do your friends need today? How can you help them get by?

You Are Leaving Signs

On the way to my personal trainer this morning (yes I have a personal trainer and he hurts me!) I saw this number plate on a courier truck.

Thaaaaat’s not a good sign.

I mean, would you hire a courier who hates their job? Can you imagine how they may throw delicate packages around? How much care do you think they would have with what they are doing?

I am most likely jumping to conclusions. Maybe they bought this number plate thinking it was a good joke. Maybe they don’t work and this is a truck they drive around in their retirement. Maybe they have a long term contract and don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks. There are any number of reasons to explain this number plate.

What is important is that they have left a sign. A sign that will influence how they are perceived.

You do the same thing every day. How you dress, how you interact with others, how you treat the barista at the coffee shop, comments you make to your friends on the phone that other people overhear, the jokes you tell and even how you treat animals.

You leave signs that people will use to assess whether they want to deal with you or not.

I am not saying that you have to be perfect, it is way too hard. But I am saying that it is worth considering what signs you are leaving and what signs you want to leave and adjusting your actions accordingly.

So Dear Reader, what signs are you leaving?

Put Your Poo in the Post

Image: ShutterStock

Bowel Cancer is the second deadliest cancer in Australia. Approximately 80 people a week die from it.

That is shitty to say the least!

June is Bowel Cancer Awareness month and Bowel Cancer Australia are doing great things to help for the early detection and treatment of bowel cancer.

The great news is that bowel cancer is one of the most treatable cancers if detected early. The even better news is that when you turn 50, the Australian Government sends you a free kit for Bowel Cancer Screening. In theory, it shouldn’t be an issue.

That’s where people come in!

One study shows that less than 46% of people returned the kit (less than 44% for men!) A more recent study has that down to just 41% (39% for men – what is it with us men!)

Here is my theory, the first kit arrives when you turn 50. No one likes to be reminded they are getting older. A female friend of mine had her kit arrive on her actual 50th birthday. She was annoyed so put the kit in the cupboard – out of sight, out of mind.

Also, people don’t like talking about poo. It is ok if you are travelling as you can go on endlessly about the different toilets, plumbing set ups and the gastro which meant you were not getting off the toilet for a few days. But people don’t want to talk about their own poo, whether they call it poo, poop, shit, faeces or doody.

So you know who is the best person to encourage the poo conversation? A five year old!

They will play with it, bathe with it, run with it, show it to you, take pictures of it … you name it, they will do it.

So let me be serious for a second, if you are older than 50 or know someone that it, can I encourage you to Put Your Poo in the Post?

Get a test kit from Bowel Cancer Australia, go to the toilet, channel your inner 5 year old, poke your poo with a stick, and then put your poo in the post. You could very well save your own life.

Dear reader, you are too important to those around you to postpone this because you are too embarrassed, too busy (it takes less time than it takes to make a coffee) or too scared to poke your poo with a stick. Check the video below for a bit more information.

At the very least you get to send your poo to someone. Haven’t you always wanted to Put Your Poo in the Post?

Dance to My Tune

This is the background of the Salon at the Melbourne Recital Centre. I was fortunate enough to attend a performance by the Ensemble Gombert there this week.

Now I must confess, it is not the kind of performance I would usually attend but one of my fellow members of the Ice Haloes performs with them so I thought it would be a good opportunity to see what the sophisticated people do.

Oh my lawks a lordy! It was stunning. While the entire performance was in German, it didn’t matter. The harmonies and the emotion of the music jumped out and grabbed you. I had the translation of the piece but I just listened and enjoyed it without trying to work out what it meant at the time.

They performed two pieces. Hugo Distler’s Totentanz and Bach’s Jesu, meine Freude.

While the Bach was great, the Distler was a production of it’s own. It is a Motet, which Wikipedia defines as a mainly vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from the late medieval era to the present.

They had kindly provided an English translation of the piece, which was about when Death comes to us all, how will we be seen. The first dialogue from Death was very powerful.

To the dance, line up for the dance:
emperor, bishop, burgher, farmer,
poor and rich, great and small,
come to me! Mourning will not help.
Lucky is the one who mindfully
did good things during his life,
thereby detaching himself from sin –
Today I say: Dance to my tune!

The motet showed how different people meet death. Life has shown us that no-one is spared death. Yet many live as if Death will never come.

I am so grateful to my friend Vic for introducing me to this piece. Listening to how Distler felt people would meet death reinforced that life is to be lived and to be lived well.

To try new experiences, treat all people well, to give what you can, to not be blinded by ambition or be arrogant with any authority we may hold. We will all Dance to Death’s Tune one day so let’s make today as good as possible for those around us. By doing so we will make life, and death, good for ourselves.

Yes, this piece is old. It is based on text written in the 17th and 19th centuries. But the message still holds true.

So dear reader, if I may be a bit dark and somber, before you need to Dance to Death’s Tune, how will you live so that you may die well?

PS You can listen to an unrelated but lovely piece by Ensemble Gombert here
PPS Vic is fourth from the left

The Most Talked About Element at An Event

When it comes to events, there is one element that is the topic of discussion above all else.

If you get it wrong, Lord help you. You will be trashed talked on social media and there will be an undercurrent of dissatisfaction throughout the event. But if you get it right, while it won’t give you rock star status, it will reflect positively and will give you some peace and quiet.

Naturally, I am talking about the catering!

While it is not the reason you went to the event, it is the most talked about element. With todays large number of Special Diet Requirements, it makes it even harder to get right.

I have heard comments like, “The sessions were ok but how good was the food. The food alone makes it worth it” or “The sessions were good but that food was rubbish. I am not coming back if that is all they can do.”

While it seems crazy, it does have an impact. So make this potential problem disappear. Make sure the catering is great and that you NEVER run out of food.

Oh if you are after a winner, for afternoon tea serve fresh scones with jam and cream. I have seen loads of “gluten free” people line up for them! They are the perennial favourite.

Then when you do get the catering right, make sure you reinforce it. Here is something I did for the 2017 Professional Conference Organisers Conference.

As I say, while the positive impact is not huge when you get it right, you don’t ever want to get it wrong.

The Power of “Yes and”

For over 10 years I have been studying, training and performing with Impro Melbourne. They are an amazingly talented bunch of people.

What they don’t know is that I have been using the principles of Impro with my coaching clients and in my consulting.

You see the underlying tenet of Impro is the concept of “Yes and”. What that means is that you treat the idea that your fellow performers have as the perfect idea for the moment – that is the Yes. Then you build on and add to that idea – which is of course, the And.

Even if your personally think the idea is rubbish, you hate it, oh my goodness why did they say/do that, you just go with it. You treat it like the perfect idea. Time and time again, what happens is that it evolves on the fly and becomes a fabulous scene.

As a manager, obviously sometimes your team are wrong. But when you point that out to them, you are shutting them down. Once they are shut down, they are less likely to make a suggestion or give a thought next time. Using “Yes, and” allows you to build on what they are saying and divert it away to are more valuable response AND they still feel like they contributed.

For example, if you are coming up with ideas on how to cut costs and one of your team says, “We could close the store earlier to save on staff costs.” Rather than saying, “No we can’t do that” you may respond, “I like what you are saying on saving staff costs. How about we focus on re-stocking during the early shift so we don’t need as many staff for the late shift?”

The person has given an idea, you have validated them and then tweaked it to come up with a workable possibility.

“Yes and” takes lots of practice to become a comfortable part of how you operate but the effort is so worth it.

Dear Reader, how will you use “Yes And” today?

PS Impro Melbourne have a great range of shows and training happening. Check them out here or check out your local Impro troop to fast track your “Yes And” skills.

Do You Get Distracted?

I get sidetracked really easily when I am trying to focus. In particular, social media calls to me to come and waste time!!

To help me stay focussed, I created the poster above. I have it printed out and stuck to the wall next to my desk.

It has been a great little tool to help me stay focussed on the things that count within my business.

Granted there are times when I need to do other essential items like my BAS statements but the majority of my time needs to be focusses on these three items.

Do you lose focus at time? Do bright shiny objects call to you?

You are more than welcome to use this poster. Click on the image above or on this link and you will be taken to the PDF that you can print out.

I hope it helps you as much as it helps me.

Celebrating 50

It has finally happened. I turned 50 last week.

I am a firm believer in celebrating success and that if you make celebrating success a habit, you will make success a habit. So naturally I celebrated.

We had a huge party at a fabulous venue (The Riversdale Golf Club who were just fantastic) and I had family and friends from across the spectrum of my life come and help celebrate.

It has often been said that it takes a village to raise a child, so I had my village come and celebrate with me. Naturally the chief of that village, my gorgeous wife, was a key driver behind the celebration but that is as it should be.

You dear reader are also part of that village. Your regular feedback, requests for information and sharing of your life successes continue to help shape me and my business.

So as a small gift for you, please enjoy the performance of the choir I belong to, Mood Swing. They were there and did a few songs, this being the finale.

I am half way to my Happy Healthy Hundred and I wanted to thank you for your company and support on my journey.

Closing Ceremony Focus

You know you have stuffed up on an event when the national broadcast of the event tells you at the end of the event how bad you did.

No doubt Channel 7 Executives knew that they were going to cop some abuse for many of the issues of the closing ceremony so they allowed their commentators to explain how it wasn’t Channel 7’s fault and then really tell the organisers how wrong they got it. See the footage above for Johanna Griggs and Basil Zempalas explaining how disappointed they were.

While Johanna and Basil listed many issues that the organisers got wrong, there was one main thing. The big issue was the focus of the Closing Ceremony.

After days of events and competitions it felt like the closing ceremony was used to make a political statement when it should have been a celebration for the athletes. A celebration of so much hard work in getting to these games, let alone securing any medals.

Event Professionals know that successful events are not about the corporations that run them, they are all about the delegate. They are about the people who have turned up to connect with others, compete with others, celebrate with others. When you take the focus off the delegates, they have no reason to stay and as we saw at the closing ceremony, an event without an audience has no soul.

For your next event, granted it may not be the size of the Commonwealth Games, where will your focus be?

It may be as simple as a dinner party, a birthday party or an event for your work group. The principle still applies. Where is the focus?

Time Is Money

It is commonly said that Time is Money. Well this month, I get to be $50!

I have strong memories of looking at statues of explorers like Burke and Wills and calculating that they died when they were 40 and 27 respectively. At the time I remember thinking, “wow, they weren’t that old.” Now I am definitely thinking they were very young!

Time changes things.

It is not just the passing of time that changes things, it is what you do with that time.

Even though I am turning 50 this month, I really don’t think I have started to mature yet. In talking with 70 year olds, they still feel 18 on the inside.

Time is money, and while it is good to save money, that is not what it is for. Money is to invest, to spend and to share. The same is to be said for time.

Time is to be invested in acquiring new skills. It is to be spent doing fun, foolish or even worthwhile things. It is to be shared with those who need it, who you love or simply who you want to.

My personal mantra is Happy Healthy Hundred, so this means that this month I am half way. I am ready to spend more time with people I love and doing things that I love.

If your time is money, how are you spending it? How are you investing it and how are you sharing it?

Image: Shutterstock

Who’s a Good Boy?

I spent a bit of time over Easter installing some new redgum sleepers and creating a new garden bed in the front garden. (The plan is for a rosemary hedge so we have a little more privacy AND tasty goodness for when we cook lamb.)

Can I tell you how much physical work was involved? Plus, those sleepers are 3 metres long and very heavy to throw around, level out, concrete in and all the other fun stuff!

Here are a few more pics.

You know what I like the most about this kind of project? It is having my gorgeous wife admire the work done and show her appreciation. Basically, I am a big fluffy puppy wanting her to tell me what a good boy I am and what a good job I have done!

It is funny how one of the key things in the work place that gives great joy and reward to a person is Acknowledgement and Words of Praise, yet they are both incredibly rare. I have heard managers say, “I don’t need to tell them they do a good job, they get paid. That is enough. It is my responsibility to tell them when they have done a bad job, that’s when I give them feedback.”

Culturally when we give some one a compliment, they struggle to accept it.

Responses like “Don’t mention it”, “No worries”, “it’s all good”, “This old thing”, “I bought it at the op shop”, “it was nothing” are part of our every day vernacular.

Can I ask you to mention it?

Can I ask you to pay attention and praise those around you for doing what they would do anyway?

Can I ask you to acknowledge the effort of others?

Most people have a hidden sign saying, “Have I done a good job?”

It costs nothing but a small amount of time to give a compliment and acknowledge others and the payback is massive. Your team will feel closer, feel prouder and pay more attention to team goals.

So dear reader, in your life, who’s been a good boy or a good girl?

A Message to Cricket Australia

Image: Shutterstock.com

For those of you that know me, you will know that sport has no place in my life.

But even for someone who is not interested in sport, you cannot hide from that fact that Australia recently got caught cheating in a test cricket match. As someone who is not interested, informed or in the slightest way affected by this, I feel that it puts me in the ideal place to give a message to Cricket Australia.

Dear Cricket Australia, YOU IDIOTS!

While this is quite clearly the fault of the individual who cheated, the captain who let him and the coaches who allowed this to happen, it has to be asked, what kind of culture do you have that allows this idea to be entertained, let alone acted upon?

The sport itself is synonymous with fair and professional behaviour. If something is off kilter, it is commonly said, “Well that’s just not cricket.” We aren’t talking about underarm bowling or aiming the ball at the body of the player, we are talking about sanding the cricket ball down in front of at least 10 TV cameras. How stupid do you have to be to do this in front of that many cameras and use fluro yellow paper to do it?

Is the pressure to win that great? Is your need for money that huge? Are your ratings dropping that much?

How long do you think it will take to recover from this? Our New Zealand friends STILL talk about bowling underarm.

I suspect someone will end up as a scape goat, the media will over analyse what happened to them growing up, it will be declared a one off, aberrant occurrence and it will get swept under the carpet.

But you have to ask yourself, as an organisation, what signals have we sent that would in any shape, manner or form indicate that this would be ok? What can Cricket Australia do to ensure this doesn’t happen again?

If I was a sponsor of Cricket Australia or any of the independent players, I would seriously be considering my investments at this time. (Can I humbly suggest you consider investing in the arts?)

And you, dear reader, what about how you and your business operate? What is your culture like? No-one is perfect but it is important to remember that we reap what we sow.

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