Category: Uncategorized

  • Welcome to 2012

    Avoid the Catch-22 with us!
    Avoid the Catch-22 with us!

    Well hello again and I hope that Crow did a good job of keeping my seat warm. He grumbles about getting a sore beak whenever I ask him to write the blog, but he likes it really and makes me wrestle the keyboard off him in the end. Birds eh!? They’re like children, except without the hopeful possibility that one day they will be fully house trained…

    …But don’t tell him I said that, or he will get embarrassed.

    So onwards!

    The title up there isn’t a mis-print and here’s why:

    Instead of looking forwards to 2011, we’re going to zoom ahead a whole 12 months and look back at our success and enjoy that feeling of having won through. It was easier than we thought too. Here we go…

    Sit back and imagine it’s now January 2012 and that 2011 was a really successful year for us. Perhaps we found a great job, won lots of new customers, wooed the love of our life, or passed a tricky exam? We faced up to a challenge and we succeeded.

    Now what was your challenge for 2011 and what was one thing that you did really well to make that success happen?

    What did you have to do differently, or let go of, or bring into your world to make a big difference and act as a catalyst for success?

    My challenge for 2011 was to find four new customers for the Outplacement side of Primary People. What I had to change was keeping this separate from my ILM Coaching Qualification so that people who were looking for work were able get a formal qualification at the same time. (This is a great way to build a strong CV and build confidence at interviews). And what I did was told people that they could have this as a package.

    And then what I did was to find a finance mechanism which meant that people could get the skills they needed now, without having to spend their redundancy money, or savings, in one big gulp. This meant they could get round the Catch-22 of needing support to get a job and of not being able to afford it until they had a job. Been there! Got that t-shirt!

    So that’s three things I did differently and I secured four new customers and laid the foundations for a great year.

    I liked 2011, it went well.

    What did you do to make it a success for you?

  • Crow Does… Recycling

    I gave myself permission to play! What about you?
    I gave myself permission to play! What about you?

    Well hello and caw! Hope you had a fun Christmas?! We had fun, out in the field watching the silly pigeons trying to pull crackers and scaring themselves to death each time one went *Bang!* …Hilarious! You had to be there!

    By the way, I meant the crackers going *bang* and not the pigeons! Caw!

    So this is my last blog post for a while as Richard is insisting that he’s coming back next week. I think he’s going to be talking about mince pies…they’re his favourite subject at the moment!

    And thinking of food, these days after the Big Bash are all about leftovers aren’t they? Lots of bits of this and portions of that being reheated and enjoyed in all sorts of odd combinations.

    So in the spirit of post-Christmas recycling I thought I’d choose two of my favourite posts from the site. It’s what that lazy, mince-pie-munching ‘thinker of great thoughts’ Richard would approve of. Caw! They’re great little posts, but don’t tell Richard, or he’ll get all puffed up!

    Here they are:

    Why Twitter Works

    …Which is all about why Twitter works. I like Twitter, but it’s not for all birds. Pigeons just don’t have the personality for it.

    You Have Permission

    …Which is all about giving yourself the chance to get on with life. It’s an interesting list that you can choose from. Caw! I chose them all! Which one did you like?

    Well that’s me all done for a bit now. I’m off to annoy some pigeons, but I may come back again.

    As this is the last post of 2010, Richard would like me to say Happy New Year to you. We both wish you a permission filled 2011…!!

    Caw caw! Thanks for being with us this year! Bye!