Richard Maun

Author: moderncareers

  • How To Have A Happy Birthday

    Action Man ...in his birthday jump suit! Who says orange isn't styish?
    Action Man …in his birthday jump suit! Who says orange isn't styish?

    I love birthdays and despite mine often clashing with a Wimbledon final, causing me to be hoofed out into the garden as a kid to give the adults a bit of peace for the tennis, I do like 5th July very much. However, a side effect of that date is I’ve always resented Wimbledon’s looming presence and would confess that I find bouncing a hairy little ball over a net rather dull.

    I mean when you have Action Man battles to be fought who would possibly trade that to watch McEnroe beating Borg?

    This week I had a birthday and polled many good wishes from all sorts of lovely people. The joy of Twitter and Facebook is that people will stop and say hi, so many thanks for all the kind words folks.

    And I had a great day, which comprised:

    1. Picnic breakfast
    2. Running the r/c boats with the kids before school.
    3. Zoo trip with the Twins and their nursery class. (This included spending time with the Mingos and asking Oz to take his hand out of the fish tank, as he couldn’t read the ‘these fish will bite’ sign).
    4. Lounging on my new sun lounger. (Not at the zoo, I hasten to add).
    5. Reading a bit.
    6. Playing bass guitar for a while.
    7. Paddling in the sea.
    8. Swimming in the sea with all the kids.
    9. Sherry.
    10. A tasty tea with cake and candles.
    11. More sherry.
    12. Bit of telly, then happy birthday sleeps.

    Now that is a cool birthday. I had some presents as well which I ate, drank, listened to and played with (a tin toy of flying aeroplanes, for example).

    So, I am properly birthdayed-out for another year.

    Now, if you’re thinking that I’m being a bit self indulgent here – that’s the point! We’re all special lovely people and our birthday is our special day. I’ve not always been able to have the day off work, so this year was better than many, but I always find some things to do that make me smile.

    Sadly, I’ve met many people who let their birthday slide by unnoticed, which is a real shame – we all need big birthday strokes.

    Therefore, when planning your next birthday, please follow my A-B-C of birthday happiness:

    A) Book the day off work.
    B) Plan to do at least three things that day that make you smile (they don’t have to be expensive).
    C) Look forward to accepting birthday strokes.

    I’m 43 now and next year will be just as good, so I can’t wait to be 44! Getting older just means I need a bigger cake to handle the candles! A win! I love cake!

    …Oh and Mingos are what Oz calls Flamingos. And a ‘stroke’ is a unit of recognition and we all thrive on these – they’re like soul food.

    Happy Birthday to you all!

  • What Can You Do?

    If toucan, I can, we can, you can!
    If toucan, I can, we can, you can!

    I remember being asked this by a TA Supervisor, during a conversation about being stuck and wanting to make progress. She looked at me and said: ‘What can you do?’

    An easy question to ask and often an easy question to answer, because it’s not inviting us to change the world; instead we can look around us and find a simple step to take.

    For example, I went up to London recently to see my publisher about the launch of How To Keep Your Job and before our meeting I went to The Guardian offices to have tea with a journalist friend.

    Lacking a copy of the new book to take with me, when packing my bag, I looked round the office and spied a row of My Boss is a B@$T@*D parked on the shelf. Instead of saying to myself ‘I can’t take anything as I don’t have a copy of my new book’ I had a think and realised ‘I can take my first book’ …so I stuck a copy in my bag to hand over as a gift.

    Last week my journalist chum emailed and asked for some PR copy as there’s a new film coming out called Horrible Bosses, which she wanted to use as a peg to write about dealing with poor managers. And in doing so give a large mention for my book.

    How happy am I?

    By asking myself the question ‘What can I do?’ I was able to do something positive (in taking an older book) that has generated some useful PR for me.

    The article is due out on July 23rd in the Secrets Of… column.

    And this week, if you’re grumbling, or getting stuck with something… stop complaining and instead ask:

    ‘What can I do?’