Richard Maun

Author: moderncareers

  • Spring. Sprung.

    You know you want one..!!
    You know you want one..!!

    Take a look at the photo…it’s a Fiery Dragon S032 gyro stabilised helicopter. Stable and ‘easy’ to control you can fly it around your living room and land it on a book, with a bit of practice. Or you can take it outside and with no practice whatsoever attempt to land it on the roof, when you whack up the power too fast and forget there’s no ceiling in the garden. Oops. All great fun and not as expensive as you might think. Oh and you can clip a Lego man to the skids when you need to play mountain rescue, but that’s probably too much detail for now.

    I thought I would show it to you in case you needed a little nudge to go and get your reward after last week’s post. Of course you can choose your own reward for working hard; some people have already told me that they prefer new shoes, or a quiet latte, for example.

    Being outside earlier reminded me that the gently stretching days and warmer weather means that Spring has arrived, although I’m sure this really means that snow can only be a hop and a skip away. Spring is a great time to shrug off the dark winter blues and think about the year ahead, particularly as the financial year is ending and a new one is beginning.

    However, as we plan our next sales drive, or budget for some marketing work (or even an ILM Coaching programme from Primary People) spare a thought for the people who are important to us in our work, or indeed in our private lives.

    So… who is coming on the journey with us? Who do we need to invest time in?

    If we did ‘somethings’ last week, then perhaps now is the time to do ‘someones’.

    Think about who is going to be important to you this year, either in work or at play and say thank you for the good times ahead…rather than just saying thank you for times past.

    Send them a thoughtful email perhaps, or find a way to let them know they’re special to you, or that you appreciate their hard work.

    I think I may take Crow shoe shopping. He’s that kind of bird really and as he finds remote control units too fiddly for his beak and caffeine just sends him loopy, he’ll prefer that experience. I think he mentioned liking basketball boots. We will have to see.

    Well that’s my idea: What will you be doing and with whom?

  • Toy Time!

    Helicopters are cool...get one!
    Helicopters are cool…get one!

    I’m coming to the end of a long process because my fourth book is almost finished; the deadline being 1st March for the manuscript to be delivered, in order to meet a publication date of June/July 2011.

    The title of this book is: HOW TO KEEP YOUR JOB

    Catchy huh! …And the subtitle is: Brilliant ways to improve productivity, stay employed and keep the money rolling in.

    Writing books is a long process because you have three main production stages before you get to the selling and marketing work. They are:

    – Planning
    – Writing
    – Editing

    There is also a fourth stage that tends to creep in and that’s called faffing. This is an essential part of the creative process and involves drinking extra cups of tea, tweeting instead of writing and generally gazing into space. However, by chewing a pencil at the same time it is possible to look lost in deep thought, instead of merely vacant (which is pretty much what is going on behind the curtains).

    The other ingredient is stamina. Marathon runners only have to jog along for three or four hours and then the race is over. Writers have to keep going for hundreds of hours in order to get the words down on paper and then rearrange them so that they make some kind of sense.

    There are no shortcuts if you want to write a book; you have to put in the time and keep pushing forwards.

    As for me, this weekend I will notch up 30+ hours of editing and polishing, on top of the 60 hours or so I worked during the last 7 days. The end result will be worth it though, as the book is full of practical tips and useful models and, because it has my name on the cover, I need to make sure it’s a book to be proud of.

    I know that you too will have worked hard this last week and therefore my point here is for us all to consider:

    When I email the manuscript across to Marshall Cavendish my next task will be to click the ‘place your order’ button on Amazon and release into my clutches a nifty little remote control helicopter, as a well done to me for working so hard.

    The book will take several weeks to line edit, type set and print, but the helicopter will be mine next week and it will be a top toy to keep my Child Ego State amused and repay him for missing his weekends in the sun.

    Children need fun and playtime and just because we’re big hairy grown ups, doesn’t mean that we can ignore the little child inside us, who still needs to play and enjoy doing something just for the pleasure of it.

    So, this week it’s toy time!

    What will you be choosing for the small child inside you?