andrewnicol.net

157 | 365: Friends

One of the hardest parts of being a parent is watching from a distance as your children develop friendships. We know that true friendship can craft our children, develop and enhance them. But we also know the wrong friends could have a long-term negative influence on them.
 
We would like to determine who our kids are friends with, but we know that they must learn those lessons themselves.
 
So we watch and coach. We listen as they describe hurts and share their joy as they discover true friends.
 
This is a picture of some of Kyla’s friends. We headed to Rotorua, for gondola and luge rides to celebrate her upcoming 10th birthday. Kyla and her friends were incredibly well behaved, had heaps of fun and enjoyed the day.
 
I am proud of Kyla. I am proud of the friends she is choosing. I am proud of how she connected with each of them yesterday.
 
So far so good. Long may it continue as we head towards her teenage years.

156 | 365 - Running

“So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadow boxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what I should.” – Today I ran 5 km’s. It’s been a while and it was hard work. I had to keep setting small targets. I’ll run to this corner, and then I’ll run to these shops. All the while I had the end goal of completing the run in mind.
 
As I was running I was thinking about how hard work life can be. Paul talked metaphorically about running with purpose in every step. Sometimes the goals we are called to, seem so unattainable and so distant.
 
It is easier to give up.
 
To stop running.
 
It reminds me that I have to set small obtainable targets and run with purpose to each one. Then move to the next target with purpose.
 
This is how improvement comes, how perseverance comes.
 
Then we complete.
 
We finish.
 
We win!

155 | 365 - Uniquely talented slightly crazy person needed for this desk.

Here is my problem…
 
I have three roles I need to fill. ‘Customer super star’. ‘Administrative genius’ and ‘Executive assistant’
 
Role A: Customer super star.
This role will be to take external calls. It will wow our customers, provide them a stunning service and generally win them over. We are looking for someone who has a vibrant personality and who loves connecting with people.

Role B: Administrative genius
This role will handle a variety of administrative functions within our company. It will be responsible for billing to training clients, supporting our trainers and assisting in payroll and countless other functions. We are looking for someone who has a high attention to detail, loves getting things right first time and enjoys admin work.
 
Role C: Executive assistant
This role will support the Management Team through and will co-ordinate and develop many of our internal processes like Health and Safety and our Quality Management System. We are looking for some who can document new simple processes from scratch and be able to keep the somewhat crazy members of our management on task.
 
Role D: All of the above.
In all roles you will need a fun upbeat personality, be flexible in the hours you work, a great self manager and have good to advanced PC skills.
 
 
Here is my solution…
No actually, you tell me.
 
I am happy to consider any person, young or old, man or woman, slightly crazy or slightly sane, for one or more of the roles. Each of the roles above (a-c) are, in reality, part-time positions. But combined (d) the roles would make a full time position.
 
The key is I really want passionate people working for me. People who have strengths that actually align to the work they are doing. People who enjoy doing the work they are doing.
 
If you are interested in one of these roles part-time, then apply for just that role (A, B or C). If believe you have the unique talents to be able to do all three roles then apply for D.
 
 
More information
Roles B and C (and therefore D) would need to be based at our national support office in Te Rapa, Hamilton. A picture of the view from your desk is attached.
 
Role A could be based in either our Auckland or Hamilton office.
 
Agoge is a young, innovative, nationwide company that specialises in providing ingenious services predominately to the transport, logistics and supply chain industries.
 
You can find out more about Agoge by visiting our website http://www.agoge.co.nz/working-for-agoge or give Andrew Nicol a call.
 
 
Apply
So let us know what you think and send a cover letter and your CV to crazyteam@agoge.net.nz

Dress Up

Remember as a kid if you wanted to be doctor, you simply dress up as doctor and you're good to go. That simple. In real life training to be a doctor is a lot more complicated.
 
As I flew to Christchurch this morning, the Head Steward on the Jetstar flight was in training. The trainer was providing practical insights, small tips, and cautions to the trainee throughout the flight. Apart from the announcement about Australian quarantine laws on a New Zealand domestic flight, it really was real-time experiential training.
 
In Christchurch I did some one-on-one training with one of my team. Not in real-time, but still practical, small tips and cautions to help him in his role.
 
Sometimes when we think of training, we behave like we are training doctors. But training should just be simple, experiential and primarily one-on-one.
 
 
154 | 365 – Dress Up – Jayden IS a doctor, checking up on Talia.

153 | 365 - It is Good

Did a lot of thinking about the word ‘good’ today. Good is such a generic and possibly overused word. In some circumstances it is a powerful word (He was a good man), in other situations it is somewhat non-descript (I’m good thanks).

 
It can be a virtuous word, a respectable word, an excellent and moral word.
 
I was at the beach enjoying a good coffee with Jim today and several guys came up the rocks where they had been diving. They had a good catch of Mussels and Kina. This is a good shot of the mussels arranged on the boardwalk. They are a good size and I’m sure they will taste good. As we walked away a fisheries officer turned up. He did a good job of connecting with the divers. I hope the divers were good and hadn’t exceeded the quota.
 
Good is an interesting word indeed.

153 | 365 - It is Good

152 | 365 - A new day

E. B. White once wrote, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
 
How often that describes me. I want to make a difference, to change, to improve the world and the lives of the people in it.
 
And yet.
 
I want to enjoy life, have fun, and to be honest park myself somewhere obscure and do nothing but wax lyrical about making a change without actually doing anything.
 
Planning when I have both desires is difficult indeed.
 
Today I took this photo of the Agoge Support Office just before our management meeting. It’s the start of another week. A week in which I plan to make a change.
 
We will see what happens…

151 | 365 - Ubuntu

 “Ubuntu is a concept that we have in our Bantu languages at home. Ubuntu is the essence of being a person. It means that we are people through other people. We cannot be fully human alone. We are made for interdependence, we are made for family. When you have ubuntu, you embrace others. You are generous, compassionate. If the world had more ubuntu, we would not have war. We would not have this huge gap between the rich and the poor. You are rich so that you can make up what is lacking for others. You are powerful so that you can help the weak, just as a mother or father helps their children. This is God's dream.” - Desmond Tutu

This is a photo of Cheree at CBC. Her and hubby own the VW van. We were talking about how I felt I owned a bit of their van. He talked about community, and I took this pic and it reminded me of Ubuntu.

150 | 365 ­ ŒDIY Technology

One of the things I love about the Internet is the opinion it offers. If you have a problem with just about anything, someone somewhere has experienced the same problem.
 
Today I pulled by DVD/HDD recorder to bits again. It’s a Phillips and it’s had 2 or 3 things go wrong with it since the warranty ended. Now it is not recording correctly and I tried replacing the hard drive with a newer larger hard drive. It didn’t work so I put the old one back in.
 
I searched the internet last night again, and have some other things to try today.
 
I would say also, that one of the things I dislike about the Internet is the opinion it offers. So often the “solutions” are not solutions at all and are advertising gimmicks to lead you to a certain website.
 
It takes a while to troll through them all to find real knowledge. But I have access to knowledge that I wouldn’t have just 5 – 10 years ago.
 
[150 | 365 – ‘DYI Technology’ – Inside an unreliable, practically useless Phillips DVDR3455H DVD/HDD recorder – I wont buy Phillips again]

149 | 365 'Clean Water'

Water.

Where I live it’s free, but we buy it. It’s clean, but we filter it. It’s readily available, but we take it for granted.
 
Water is a significant part of the poverty cycle. It takes hours out of a persons day. Imagine waking up today and having to go and find water to survive before you do anything else.
 
1 in 8 people in the world lack clean water. Will you make a difference?
 
 
 
[149 | 365 – ‘Clean Water’ – This is a shot of Kyla, my eldest daughter, drinking fresh, clean tap water.]

148 | 365 - 'Roundabout of Life'

A roundabout. Have you ever been a passenger in car when they decide to just keep going around and around a roundabout? You fly past exit after exit and just end up in the same place. With each rotation you feel both fun and sickness.

A roundabout. That’s what life feels like sometimes. It feels like you work exceedingly hard on this one big project or problem and then end up right back where you started. Doing the same thing again and again.

And again.

There are exits for sure, opportunities to succeed, to love, to step out. Opportunities bring risk and danger, so most of the time we just stay on the roundabout of life, with this strange fun, sick feeling.

I’ve thought a lot about Carpe Diem in the last few weeks. ‘Seize the Day”. I’ve been trying to make something of relevance, of importance, happen every single day. It doesn’t matter how small it is, I make a change for the better. It’s hard, but it helps me feel like I am moving forward, not being stuck on the roundabout.

When we do something small each day, soon big things happen. And we look back on our days and see progress, not just more of the same.

I took this picture on my way home from a meeting at 10:30pm. I hadn’t taken a photo yet. But at least the day was NOT a roundabout day. It was a day of small steps.

147 | 365 - 'Home time'

Rode part of the way home with Naomz today. That’s a first riding home with a colleague.

146 | 365 - 'Sweet Tooth'

I was talking with friends about the things we hunger and thirst for. Clearly they hunger for these sweets as there are none left at the end of the night.

145 | 365 - 'Jealous?'

145 | 365 - 'Jealous?' - Friends of mine Simon and Cheree brought this VW. I want to escape in one of these, tour the country and write a book.

144 | 365 - 'Humidity'

144 | 365 - 'Humidity' - Heat Clouds soaking up the heat and water when we went for a walk as a family last night with humidity in high 90%. Last night was our warmest night this summer 20.7c.

143 | 365 - 'Beautiful' - Karina and the girls watch one of the original chick flicks, Pollyanna on DVD.

143 | 365 - 'Beautiful' - Karina and the girls watch one of the original chick flicks, Pollyanna on DVD.

142 | 365 - 'Agora Goes Live'

142 | 365 - 'Agora Goes Live'



Headed off to Agora Goes Live last night and took this photo of Campbell leaving the stage.

141 | 365 - 'Kindy Catch-Up'

141 | 365 - 'Kindy Catch-Up'



A fun end to an awesome day. The kids took turns lying in the hammock and chatting about their dad with me.

140 | 365 - 'Flight Path'

140 | 365 - 'Flight Path'



Took this time exposure of the stars just as a light plane headed over the house to Hamilton airport. You can see the beacons alternating from one side of the plane to the next.

139 | 365 - 'Symbolic'

139 | 365 - 'Symbolic'



A Person. Religion. Freedom. Grace. Movements. War. Faith. It is amazing how a cross is symbolic of so many things, some right and some wrong.

138 | 365 - 'Before sunrise'

138 | 365 - 'Before sunrise'



These two likely lads humour me and we meet at 6:30 every Monday morning. A great kick start to the week. You guys are remarkable!

137 | 365 - Tauranga Airshow

137 | 365 - 'Tauranga Airshow' - Sun, food, fast planes, what more could

a guy want. Headed over to Tauranga today with Brent and Richard to see the

airshow. Heaps better than expected.



Sun, food, fast planes, what more could a guy want. Headed over to

Tauranga today with Brent and Richard to see the airshow. Heaps better than

expected.

136 | 365 - 'Climbing Trees'

136 | 365 - 'Climbing Trees'



Kyla and Aimee climb a naturally custom-made climbing tree at the gardens in Te Awamutu after entertaining time at the Aquatic Centre, with Megan and the kids.

135 | 365 - 'Switch' - Finished reading this book yesterday. Wrote a brief review today. The tags say it all. Great book.

135 | 365 - 'Switch' - Finished reading this book yesterday. Wrote a brief review today. The tags say it all. Great book.

Book Review: Switch

An elephant, a rider, and a path are the analogy of choice for the Heath brothers latest book, ‘Switch : How to change things, when change is hard.’
 
At first, the introduction of the elephant to describe the way that humans react emotionally and intelligently to change is somewhat of a stretch. But as the book pours through countless counter-intuitive examples of change, radical change, so too the elephant analogy takes hold.
 
It’s a book that provides real life examples of how to instigate change in your organisation. Even within yourself.
 
There are stories of Doctors who make the wrong decision because they 3 choices instead of 2. Teachers who radically change a pupil’s behaviour by putting a couch in the classroom. And loyalty cards with 2 free initial stamps on a 10 stamp card, verses no stamps on a 8 stamp card, and the 2 free stamps increase the return of the customer by 15%.
 
The picture of how tagged my book is says it all. I have heaps of notes to make and I will read it again within the next year or so.
 
If you’re a teacher, CEO, project manager, administrator, pastor, or a leader of any kind. Buy it, reflect on it, read it apply it!

134 | 365 - The Boat Shed

134 | 365 - 'The Boat Shed' - Went for a pre-dawn stroll around Wellington waterfront to escape the stuffy hotel air-conditioning. Took this picture of the rowing club and the rowers setting up for the morning.

133 | 365 - 'Boarding Time' - Flew to Christchurch from Hamilton on an ATR. Took this photo as I walked across the tarmac in Hamilton.

133 | 365 - 'Boarding Time' - Flew to Christchurch from Hamilton on an ATR. Took this photo as I walked across the tarmac in Hamilton.

132 | 365 - 'Life Group' - Time exposure from home as Jo leaves and heads down the hill behind the trees.

132 | 365 - 'Life Group' - Time exposure from home as Jo leaves and heads down the hill behind the trees.

131 | 365 - 'My Camera' - Running out of time and inspiration so used a mirror to take this shot of the trustee Sony Cybershot camera I use for my pics.

131 | 365 - 'My Camera' - Running out of time and inspiration so used a mirror to take this shot of the trustee Sony Cybershot camera I use for my pics.