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209|365 Leaving my mark

My signatures are funny things. For instance I have four scribbles I call a signature. I have my initials scribble, my ‘Andrew’ scribble, my general letter scribble and my bank scribble. The picture scribble is none of the above, but they are all different, all unreadable, but all my mark.
 
The use of signatures date back thousands of years. They are my mark, a thing that identifies me. In the flick of a pen I acknowledge my agreement, my commitment, my obligation.
 
Today, I was thinking as I signed a new large contract we won recently, how most people sign very few things. Signing letters has been replaced with email, or txt, or verbal. Signing cheques replaced with pin numbers and credit cards.
 
Personally, when I sign a document, I make sure I am comfortable with my obligations and commitment, because it is ‘in writing’.
 
Yet my verbal commitment should always be just as strong as my signed commitment. My word should carry the same weight as my mark.

208|365 Monday #5

Leaves, all gone, in 4 weeks. I don’t remember it happening that quickly in the past. But then I have never photographed it every week either.
 
Getting darker each week as well.
 
You can see the season change at http://www.andrewnicol.net/mondays

207|365 Fanatical I am not

I’m not a fanatical motor racing fan. No I’m not. Kilowatts, horsepower and torque are all terms that make my eyes glaze over.
 
Hence the reason that I have absolutely no idea why you would race a Ute. It is the street racing equivalent of flying Cessna 172’s, reliable work horses that they are, and racing them around the Red Bull Air race circuit.
 
Yawn…

206|365 Sports Star

A bunch of fans crowd behind the tent of the Castrol Edge race team. Amongst them, this fan, with a poster at the ready, eagerly awaits for the autograph of Greg Murphy, an iconic New Zealand sportsman.
 
Greg is a New Zealand V8 supercar sports star. He is a star because drives really fast cars. He is a star because he bets Australians. He is a star because handles the public and media really well. He is a star because he wins.
 
Gregs stardom came purely through hard work, focus, practice, lots of losses and a few wins (comparatively).
 
We can all be stars, maybe not iconic ones, but certainly in the life of people around us.
 
We also become stars through hard work, focus, practice, lots of losses and a few wins.

About Me

My mantra is “leading and living vividly”. I love the word vivid, it means “strikingly bright, full, fresh and distinct” and thats the kind of life I want to live. I love life and people. I am one of those people who enjoy learning about people, reading people, sitting in café’s and just watching people. I also long to make a difference in other peoples life’s through leadership and evocative thinking. My core strengths are futuristic, strategic, teaching, public speaking and leadership.  My passions are God, poverty activism, business, social enterprise, photography, family, flying, reading and leadership. I long to have a positive impact on the people with whom I share planet earth with. I want to ‘be’.

Name: Andrew Nicol Location: Hamilton, NZ Purpose:  Leading and Living Vividly   Key Responsiblities Founder CEO | Agoge www.agoge.co.nz Co-founder | Good Trust www.good.org.nz Trustee | Agora Trust www.agora.net.nz Trustee | City Bible Church www.cbc.net.nz Trustee | Word of Life www.wol.org.nz

Additional Blurb...

Social Entrepreneur

For most of the last 200 years enterprise, really capitialism has been about making money to line the pockets of the rich. It has been about the individual, not about the greater good.

Social Entrepreneurs make a difference in the world by using business to implement social change for good. I believe that the charitable model is changing, from a donation based model, to a business lead model, where profit’s, ideas, people and resource is invested into social change.

Social enterprise is an emerging field that has a lot of buzz to it, and not a lot of action. I am it’s student.

Spirituality

I believe in God!  Believing in God for me answers “why?” Why can I see beautiful colours and inhale hideous smells? Why can I reason and think? Why do I have feelings of immense pleasure, and intense pain? You see I could believe that we evolved from monkeys, but for some reason that doesn’t do it for me. We are too complex and well thought out, too intelligent, too well made, and too unique.

I also believe in this guy Jesus. I mean he isn’t a folk tale; he actually walked on this planet and did incredible things. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of these religious zealots that think they are more important than others, tell everyone what is wrong but do beggar all to fix it and live outwardly by a set of rules that they think should be forced on someone else. Jesus spoke out against people like this in his day. He basically said that we need to focus on “Justice, Mercy and Faithfulness”. If believing in God answers the “why?” believing in Jesus answers the “how?” How should I live my life!

Agoge

I have the privilege of running a small company called Agoge Limited. We provide services to the logistics industry, but what really gets me going is what we are becoming as a company. Agoge means ‘being’. Many years ago a guy Paul while on his deathbed wrote a letter to his young apprentice Timothy and said, “You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose and faith”. The term ‘my way of life’ is the old Greek word Agoge. Paul knew it was more than just teaching, or having purpose or having faith. Paul knew he had lived all these things through his way of life. Through being! www.agoge.co.nz

Good Trust

Jim Grafas and I have founded the Good Trust. The good.trust is a charitable trust and social enterprise that aims to raise awareness for people in poverty, and to provide simple, practical ways to make a difference. The good.trust gives 100% of the money it receives away. This means that 100% of money given to the trust goes directly to projects. All of our administrative costs are covered by voluntary work or gifts in kind, or our social enterprises.

The good.trust is a collaborative organisation and relies on many people, doing a small part to make a huge difference. www.good.org.nz

205 | 365 Good Communication

It was 11:30am, and with my entourage in tow, we stepped into a meeting with one of our largest clients only to be told we were expected at 10:00am. I explained that we were on time and I had checked his email the day before. But he was adamant we were late.
 
So a choice, prove I was right or apologise?
 
I apologised for being late.
 
Why? Because the relationship is far more important than being right.
 
On the way home I saw this cell-tower and I thought about communication. Communication is more than listening and talking. Good communication requires give and take, empathy and forgiveness, honesty and discretion.
 
When we communicate well, we realise the relationships are our highest priority.

204 | 365 Community

People greeting, food eating.

Parents talking, kids squawking.
 
Life sharing, friends caring.

Community.

203|365 Intellectually Inquisitive

One of the problems with being intellectually inquisitive, is one can tend to over think or even over discuss things that have absolutely no impact on ones life.

Take as an example Countdown, the new brand for Woolworths, Foodtown, the old Countdown and Price Chooper. The first time I saw the new brand with the new logo was in Greenlane in Auckland, where the colours were green and orange. Next was Rototuna (pictured here), where the colours are black, white and green.
 
So I started trying to work out what they were doing with their brand. Getting rid of multiple brand names seemed to be a great idea, but to two different colour sets? Strange. I discussed it with a number of people and came up a whole myriad of explanations. We wondered if they were trying to make some stores appear more budget, and others more classy, while bringing value back to the core brand. We wondered if they would have different pricing points.
 
We over wondered and over talked given that it is not our brand (although it was mainly travel time).
 
A lot of thought about something that has no effect on me.
 
But then that is the point of inquisitive. By thinking and discussing and even waxing lyrical, one refines thinking for real life situations in the future.

[203 | 365 Took this photo while getting milk. Originally titled it 'Intellectual Curiosity' but then changed curiosity to 'inquisitive' because that is a family value and my girls occasionally read my blog.]

202 | 365 Bachelor

Our house became progressively emptier over the last week. One of the kids headed to the grandparents last Wednesday, then the other two on Friday. On Monday Karina headed over to Tauranga for the night.
 
As the house emptied, the life of the house left. It was as though I had become a bachelor again. The life of the house is family. A family like most others, with conversation and laughter and arguments and squabbles and noise and homeliness.
 
As it emptied the home just became a house. A shelter. A place to rest.
 
Silence.
 
Late last night, everyone arrived home. Noise, buzz, stories, laughter and love.
 
Its home again!
 
 
 
[202 | 365 – ‘Bachelor’ - Being the bachelor that I now was, last night I cooked up a storm]

201 | 365 Monday #4

Wow! It’s actually quiet amazing to see how different this tree over a period of 4 weeks.

This tree is a kerbside tree and all down the street is the same kind of tree. Yet each one drops its leaves at a different pace. Some are still covered in leaves, others completely bare.
 
Each tree is unquie. No two the same.
 
Just like humans.
 


[201|365 – Monday #4 – Decided to take the photo at sun rise, a full 12 hours early]
You can see the season change at http://www.andrewnicol.net/mondays

200 | 365 Doing Good

On Sunday we heard first hand about incredible work of Rahab ministries in Thailand, and got to support them through the pink pigs. In Thailand young women, really young women are sold by their families to prostitution, often under false circumstances and with the lure of a better life, but sold nonetheless.
 
I can’t imagine ever getting so desperate, that I would even remotely consider selling my daughter. It would never happen!
 
Imagine the outcry, the laws I would break and the news coverage.
 
It would shock our nation.
 
I’m reminded that my world is not the world. Every day young women are sold. There is no outcry, no laws broken, no news coverage.
 
My world, is not the world.

199 | 365 - Without Kids

It was amazing, crisp and beautiful morning. With no less than 8 balloons graciously floating overhead our house, Karina and I set out for a kid free stroll around the neighbourhood.
 
Breakfast without kids. Shopping without kids. Lunch and afternoon without kids!
And a stunning dinner at Pumice without kids.
 
Karina and I enjoyed every minute of the day without kids, yet we are continually aware that our house and lives are emptier without them here. We miss them and look forward to their return from Grandmas.
 
At which point we will love them and long for time together alone.
 
[199 | 365 – ‘Without Kids’ – Karina and I have a couple of days kids free]

198 | 365 Behind these doors

Behind these doors are warmth and shelter

Behind these doors are comfort and empathy

Behind these doors are amusement and joy

Behind these doors is home

Behind these doors is love

197 | 365 BMZ X1 Launch

We had a BMW X1 launch in the vacant lot across from us, and they set up a huge tent and Pumice catered it.
 
The next morning I wandered over and looked at the new car. It reminded me about needs and wants. I neither need nor want a BMW X1. Some people will even think they NEED an X1.
 
It’s interesting how our needs change the more money we have. A person living without clean water, probably sits in the 92% of the world that don’t have a car at all, let alone need one. Their needs are a lot more basic.
 
A solo mum in NZ, needs a cheap but reliable car. A businessman like me who travels a lot needs a safe comfortable car. A richer person with cash to spare needs a BMW X1 to enable their status.
 
What I NEED is more what I want, and is not a need at all.
 
Need is a word we use often.
 
A word we over use.
 
‘I need this’ usually means ‘I want this’. Not the other way round.

196 | 365 Home Baking

‘Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial’ – Apostle Paul
 
Enough said :)

195 | 365 Monday # 3

The season is changing, autumn has set in, the leaves are falling from the trees and the light is changing, particularly given daylight saving has ended.
 
You can see the changes at http://www.andrewnicol.net/mondays

[195|365 – Monday 3 - Because it was Easter, Tuesday became my Monday this week]

194 | 365 Changing Conditions

On Sunday, conditions at the beach were gentle. It was low tide, with a light swell and small waves. There was plenty of room to make sand castles and bury kids in holes.
 
The next day it was high tide with a sizeable swell and the waves were crashing hard and sliding all the way up the beach to the sand dunes. There was no room to play or anywhere to relax.
 
I pondered how life can be like this. One day its gentle, plenty of room to play and relax, then suddenly, overnight it can change and things feel like that are crashing down around us, with no room for movement.
 
What surprises me the most, is when I have calm periods I forget that they don’t last forever, or when I have heavy crashing periods I forget calmer times will come.
 
Yesterdays conditions, like the surf , may be a completely different from today.
 
[194 | 365 – Changing Conditions – The family wade in the water as surfies watch the impact of the large swell and high tide]

193|365 Chest Deep

Take some spades; dig a really deep hole in the sand, then stand two 5 year boys up in the hole and have the granddads’ fill it up with sand.
 
Now, tell the boys to dig their way out. J

[193 | 365 – ‘Chest Deep’ – Jayden is buried, standing, chest deep in sand and starting to try and dig himself out]

192 | 365 Waikino Kilns

Two mammoth reminders from our visit to the mining battery ruins of at Waikino with the kids.
 
#1 ‘At school I don’t like history and feel like falling asleep’. Our kids really got a kick out of the personalised guided tour by a couple of retired volunteers. They enjoyed seeing and touching and experiencing. The learning that comes from seeing can be immeasurable compared to reading a book or watching a DVD.
 
#2 100 years ago, at the height of the mining, they were felling 1 hectare of native forest a day all so they could refine more gold. Mankind is destructive and we were and are bad stewards of the world we live in.
 
[192 | 365 – ‘Waikino Kilns’ – The kids emerge from exploring the Waikino Kilns. Awesome knowledgeable volunteers gave us a great tour of the museum, kilns and tramaway ride.]

191 | 365 Complete Bliss

Bach + beach + white sand + surf + salt air + afternoon walk + family = complete bliss!

[191 | 365 - ‘Complete Bliss’ - Talia enjoys wading through the surf on a beautiful Good Friday at Bowentown]

190 | 365 Stranger things have happened

Sometimes strange things just need a mention. These guys rock up in their truck and put the tailgate down and with a guy on it and then drag it across the vacant lot across from us.
 
The only thing I can think they were doing was trying to straighten the tailgate after buckling it somewhere.
 
Amusing to watch for a couple of minutes, and the only photo I took on this day.

189 | 365 In Awe

For as far as the eye could see low bulbous cloud covered the country and out beyond the sea to the horizon. The sun creeps up to the skyline as the earths revolution enables the break of a new day. The darkness of the night sky fades to blue then to burning bright yellows that reflect over the cloud.
 
From 18000 ft, the curve of the earth is apparent, and I am in AWE of the work of God’s hand. The depth, perspective, colour, cloud, light and darkness are amazing. Such beauty that the camera did not and will never fully capture.
 
Then I am reminded how honoured I am to enjoy it. Less than 100 years ago, few men had ever seen such sights, and even today, very few people around the earth will see such things.

[189 | 365 – In Awe – An amazing sunrise as I flew to Christchurch]

188 | 365 - Pink Pig

CBC are raising funds for Rahab Ministries in Thailand. There are pink pigs at members homes all over the city, courtesy of BNZ. On Sunday the 11th everyone will bring their coin laden pigs back.
 
[188 | 365 – Pink Pig - This is a picture of the pink pig at our house, late at night, after a very busy Tuesday]

187 | 365 Monday Two

Another week, another Monday, another week of a changing season. This is the second of six shots I will be taking on a Monday, and the last of daylight savings. I have created a category for the six Monday shots for comparison. http://www.andrewnicol.net/mondays

186 | 365 Kids Play

Not many parents slide down slides or swing on swings or spin on spinny things at the park.
 
Most parents behave like old people. Most of the time we do as well. But when we swing or slide or spin with the kids, they get a kick while all the people we don’t know smile and wish they could do the same.
 
[186 | 365 – Kids play – Karina has a slide with Talia]