andrewnicol.net

250 |365 - Agoge's Story

Agoge means conduct, although I use the word ‘being’. It’s a word that is meant to connect our way of business (day to day) with our purpose (people matter, leaders, ingenious, lucrative) to bring a common story. It means to ‘be’ day to day the things we have said we want to be.
 
Unfortunately too often in the last 18 months we have struggled to connect our actions to our purpose.
 
While we have had some great stories, we have had some really bad stories as well.
 
 All this goes to show that as the leader of Agoge I have a lot to learn.

249 |365 Baby Golf

Golf is one of many things in which I have a little bit of knowledge that I find impossible to apply to myself.
 
When I top a ball, or push a ball, or hook a ball, I can explain why it is happening. I can even give pointers to other people. But do you think that helps me?
 
Not at all. Not one bit.
 
[249 |365 – Baby Golf – Brad launches the ball to the top right at Rototuna Pitch and putt]

248 |365 Birthday Party

Love the look on Elijah’s face as he smacks the home-made piñata and it spew's forth a few of it’s prized possessions.

A very very noise 5th birthday party yesterday. Once again Karina was amazingly creative with her soccer ball cake and pinata.

247 |365 Happy Birthday J

Their school bags always look so massive when they first head off to school. It’s amazing how a few short years later and the same bags look to small.

Happy 5th Birthday Jayden.

246 |365 Strength based schooling

I can’t remember my first day at school, but my dad can. He was told off for eating his lunch at morning-tea time. Told off as in 1940’s told off.
 
Schools have changed significantly over the years. They are more creative, more interactive, with better teaching and more opportunities. They have also made huge in-roads into catering for various learning styles.
 
I think the next big leap for schooling is focusing on strengths. Our national program still seems to focus on creating students who are all OK at everything. They still struggle to deal with a kid who excels in Math, but has work to do in reading.
 
The focus goes on reading, which reduces the enjoyment of the child and therefore effects math.
 
Took this photo as I was wondering how Jayden’s first day of school would go. All 3 of our children have hit school at 3 very different strengths.
 
I wonder what his strengths will be?

245 |365 My last day of Kindy

I took Jayden to kindy for his second to last day as I was travelling on his last day. Realised that this is it, Kindy is over for me. :(

Maybe one day I will get to go to grandparents day at kindy, but for now it is done.

244 | 365 Social Enterprise

A Social Enterprise is a business that makes profit to effect social change by giving its profits to a charity or cause. It has been touted as the way increase funding for charities beyond donors.
 
At first glance it seems easy. Set-up a business, make money, give the profits away.
 
The reality is a lot harder. As a business you still need capital, profit and cash. Did I mention cash!
 
Added to that is the complexity of trying to tell an honest story about what you do (do, as in actually do, not plan to do). There is also inherent social and brand responsibilities to actually deliver profit to the cause, as many of your customers purchase from you because of your story. Finally social enterprise is generally driven by the conviction of founder, which makes failure so much hard.
 
For the record I consider myself a social entrepreneur. I love business and long to make social change through it. Social enterprises are not impossible, just significantly harder.
 
A couple of cool social enterprises are Café Agora (www.agora.net.nz, where this picture was taken) who sell Wurld Water (www.wurld.org.nz) check them out.
 

243 |365 Just in Case

Was thinking the other day about things we own just in case we need them. A fire extinguisher is an extreme example. They hang around looking all red and waiting for its big moment that we hope will never come.
 
But that’s at the office surely we don’t have ‘just in case’ things at home. Like appliances packed at the back of the cardboard, just in case. Or clothes we never wear but keep, just in case. Or exercise equipment we will never use but keep, just in case.
 
I wonder how much money I have spent or misused or wasted, just in case.
 
A significant amount I would expect.

242 |365 Tomorrows Weather

A study was conducted that reviewed all the weather forecasts in the US to see which one was the most accurate. They discovered that the most accurate weather forecast is this.

“The weather tomorrow will be the same as today”

It’s true. Its not completely accurate by any means, but it is more accurate than what you see on the news. If the weather is changing the news will be more likely right.

The weather in Hamilton was raining today. The long term weather forecast on the news says it will rain for the next week. But then so does the short forecast above.

In life, this also reminds me that tomorrow will be by and large the same as today. Same things, same routines, same people. They change from time to time. But forecast is generally “tomorrow will be the same as today”.

241 |365 Steamy Windows

Took this shot out our front window on a crisp clear autumn morning. I liked the way that the tree shadowed onto the condensation on the window.

240 |365 Storyboard to 'The Prequel'

Star Wars, X-men and soon even Lord of the Rings will all share one thing in common; Prequel’s. Prequels are the story before the central story, the journey of characters and lives that connected and ultimately lead to the finale.
 
This shot is of the basic storyboard for ‘Jesus: The Prequel’, coming to a theatre near you. Well maybe not, but spent some time with Campbell and Dean mapping out the themes and stories and characters and nation that lead to Jesus. By understanding what went on before we learn so much more about God and the context into which Jesus came.
 
So that got me thinking about the prequel to my life, about the themes and stories and characters that went on before me that indirectly shaped whom I am. I realised that I know very little about their stories and I have very little knowledge or heritage to pass onto my kids.
 
Thinking ‘prequel’ could shape conversation at the dinner table of our parents moving forward.

239 |365 One great reason to fly Jetstar.

The old adage “you get what you pay” is true. I fly with Jetstar because they are really really cheap. There is simply no other good reason.
 
Case in point. I arrived at the airport 40 minutes before the flight to see it was delayed by 50 mins. The next time I look it’s a 1:20 delay. Then 20 mins later it’s a 1:50 delay.
 
Fearing I wouldn’t get to Christchurch in time for my flight home, I went to Air NZ website booked a flight that left in 40 mins and landed on-time in Christchurch 90 minutes after my planned time.
 
I looked later and the Jetstar flight I was booked on arrived 3 ½ hours late.
 
Service – Nil
Communication – Nil
Reliability – Nil
 
The lesson, if you are looking for one. When flying on Jetstar always book on the first flight of the day. They generally manage to get their planes back to the right places over night.
 
Will I fly Jetstar again? YES
 
My next flight to Christchurch is in two weeks. I booked a few months ago for $4 each way. We just booked Jim on the same flights for $35 dollars one way. The same flight to Christchurch on Air NZ, at the same time, $399 one way.

238 | 365 The worlds greatest boss?

I have a strange abnormal admiration for the window cleaner guy. Not only does he charge significant coin but now he seems to have an employee to do the dirty work.
 
Make no mistake he has provided the valued staff member with a waterproof jacket. Which is handy given that the boss hoses down the windows directly over, around and through, the employee as he scrubs the windows with a brush.
 
Definitely a nominee for ‘the worlds greatest boss’ awards.

237 |365 Fog #1

As evening approaches the mist rises slowly from the ground. By daybreak it will be thick heavy fog that will blanket the Waikato for most of the morning.
 
I understand what causes fog, but I don’t understand why fog exists. Maybe fog’s purpose is to reduce our view, to dim the sun, to close airports and make us feel gloomy.
 
Maybe fog’s purpose is to enhance our enjoyment of the sun and beauty and the use of airports more once it clears. Once it is lifted. Once things return to normal.

NB: There are life lessons I’m sure from fog, just not sure what they are yet. As fog season has arrived I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity to think of some before my next fog picture.
 

236 |365 Smile

I took this photo while I was exasperating daughter. While the shot is random and not normal and partially blurry due to the light, I like the colours and effect.
 
Above all I love her smile and think its beautiful.
 
Pete Murray’s song, Smile, says

‘I have seen days
When your smile goes on forever
You light up the room
In the deepest darkest weather’         

That is true of smiles. It is true of my daughter.

235 | 365 Play the Movie

Today, Talia decided to make a movie. A movie in which she was the writer, the director and the only star.
 
If your life were a movie, what would be the story line? How would the movie end? Would it be an epic story that people remember? Would your movie be an adventure, a love story, or a tale of overcoming the impossible?
 
Like me, your life isn’t likely to become a movie.
 
But we are still the writer, director and star of our movie, of our life. As individuals we choose to live a memorable story of adventure, love and triumph.
 
Or not.

234 |365 Partial Reflections

Our lives are all partial reflections of others.
 
We all in someway reflect the people and events that have had an impression on us.
 
In some cases, repulsive and negative things done may be reflected in us. Things we would rather forget and wish they had never happened.
 
For the most part we reflect the good people in our lives. They may be parents or teachers or colleagues or friends or Jesus, and regardless of how independent we think we are, we are all small reflections of them.
 
So if my life is a partial reflection of others, how will I ensure that their reflection of me is a blessing, vivid and good?

233 |365 A lucky roll

You may believe that rolling two dice all is chance. That guessing the combined number is luck. And to a certain extent you are right.
 
However adding two dice to equal 7 is six times more likely than a rolling double 6. (1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2, 6+1 compared to 6+6)
 
You may also believe that being successful is luck. And to a certain extent you are right. However add knowledge to the randomness of life, and you are 6 times more likely to succeed (I just made that up).
 
The point is this: Just as two dice can appear to the uneducated to be just luck, so also success can appear to be just luck.

232 |365 Food that connects us.

“Come around an get your feet under the table,” Jack would say. What my mentor from 20 years ago meant by that was, ‘come around, sit at our table, enjoy Grace’s home cooking, and lets talk or chew the fat together’.

Long meals, great food & drink, laughter, discussion, debate, hospitality, genuineness, caring and love. That’s what getting your feed under the table means.
 
At our place getting our feet under the table is a priority. Eating my wife’s incredible cooking and discussing everyone’s day connects us, it forces us to ask and teaches us to listen.
 
It strengthens us, and our kids really enjoy it.

[232|365 Food that connects us – Went in search of story on the way home and found Mizzoni selling woodfired pizza. It looks good, and they do lunch at Maui St on Wed/Thu]

231 |365 I have a question on my mind

Is this train leaving or arriving?
 
It’s a question, and there is incredible power in questions. With great questions come amazing answers and stories. Because of questions, problems are solved and ideas are formed.
 
Yesterday, at a client who uses other companies, I asked, “What do our competitors do really well?” It’s an amazing question because you don’t get some canned answer of what they would like, rather you get a real answer about the service they enjoy. It also gives permission to ask, “What could they do better?”
 
Questions are the key to listening. They really are!
 
From time to time you will find people who have a different view to you (shock horror). You can either spend all your time trying to explain your view, OR you can spend all your time trying to understand their view by asking questions.
 
Talkers do the first. Listeners do the second.
 
Sometimes asking questions is really hard for both of you. But after you have listened and understood, you are almost always invited to share your opinion, to input into the conversation, to contribute.
 
AND
 
You will almost always say something wiser and more relevant.
 
All because you asked great questions.

230 |365 Measuring Time

Moses once wrote ‘Teach us to number our days so that we may present to you a heart of wisdom’.
 
It’s almost as if he is saying we need to measure our time. Nowadays we measure almost everything, our bank balance, our speed, our weight, or our kids performance.
 
Yet we don’t measure our time to see if we are using it well. We rarely look back and make sure we are making the most of time.
 
At the moment, indirectly through 365, I am measuring time. It has been around 60% of the year since I began the 365 project. That’s 230 days or close to 20 million seconds.
 
Seeing how fast time is going, seeing pictures from 2 months ago, that feel like yesterday is really scary.

And a good reminder!

229 |365 Long Drive

Tonight I took the long way home. When it’s busy it still takes 2 – 3 minutes longer, but the drive is relaxing, the traffic is generally light and my competitive nature doesn’t have to come out.

When I take the short way at peak times, the traffic is bumper to bumper. 2-3 minutes shorter and not at all relaxing.

Tonight, taking the long way, I stopped and took this photo of the sun setting across the farm land. I wouldn’t have stopped in heavy traffic. I would have missed the moment, and I actually got a small kick out of seeing the sun set and know the day was ending.

I remind myself, that sometimes in my rush and competitiveness I miss small things.

Beautiful things.

One of a kind things.

All for the sake of a couple of minutes.

228 |365 Mothers Day Dinner

Firstly a disclaimer. I did cook a roast the night before.

Secondly a disclaimer, the three eldest in our family had Noodle canteen from across the road. The youngest two had McDonalds.

Finally a disclaimer, McDonalds is not a health food option. Do not try this at home.

227 |365 Competition

A shot of my four year old, Jayden, chasing the ball ahead of the red players.

He is very competitive. I’m not sure where he gets that from. :-)

226 |365 Cadbury Chocolate

In Feb 2008, I blogged about how Cadbury where the most trusted brand.

I suspect that they aren’t anymore. They have dropped the size of the chocolate and added larger packaging to make it look the same. They moved to oil and back again. They claim to be environmentally and fair trade friendly, but aren’t really it’s just PR. They have moved heaps of manufacturing offshore.

Everybody knows this and some people I am sure have moved brands.

But spending habits are hard to break. Even for me, who emotionally thinks about these things, when face with a choice I still brought Cadbury for my wife.

225 |365 Slow Drive

Its all one-way traffic on the way over the Wairere bridgesfrom Te Rapa to the suburbs.

Decided to head up onto the overbridge to take this shot before heading down into the stop go traffic.

224 |365 Intuitive (Mac OSX vs Windows)

People who have grown up with Apple computers think they are intuitive, easy to use and everything makes sense. People who have grown up with Windows computers think the same.
 
Intuitive is a word that describes learned actions. It is really hard for something that someone has never used to be intuitive.
 
My Macbook, as a Windows user is counter-intuitive. It does some cool things in really difficult ways, that take all of the fun out of them.
 
Windows = Alt-Print Screen
Mac OSX = Control-Command-Shift-4
 
The Windows version is easier to remember. The Mac version is harder to use not intuitive at all, but is way cooler.
 
A reminder that when we create processes or web or tools, we need to make them both cool and intuitive.

223 | 365 Little People

A long hard day at work and then home to look after little people and a sick wife.

In desperation took this photo of Russian dolls that a good friend of mine brought back from Russia a few years ago. They are hand painted and the smallest is about 4mm high with the largest is around 110mm high. As I open them, even now I am amazed as they get smaller and smaller – 10 in total.

222 |365 Green Peas

I would not like them here or there,
I would not like them anywhere,
I would not like them cold or hot,
I would not like them from this pot,
I do not like green peas
I do not like them Sam, now let me be

221 |365 Head First

This is not the worlds must technically correct forward roll.

But when you are having fun and you throw yourself headfirst into adventure, being technically correct is completely irrelevant!

219 |365 Our first Good Trust party

Amongst the friends and conversation and laughter and music we raised over $1500 for our first good.well project.  
 
April 30th at Café Agora was the celebration of my 40th birthday. With all honesty it was really just a great opportunity to raise money and awareness for the Good Trust, and to raised funds to build clean water wells for a communities off shore.
 
Thanks heaps to everyone who came and donated.
 
Thanks to the team at Café Agora.
 
Finally and a huge thanks to  Luke and Linden (pictured) and Alice Cunninghame.

218 |365 Murkiness

It seemed that the sun rose late, and was cloaked behind the fog that had lowered amongst the autumn leaves.

As it lifted later that morning, it unveiled an amazing autumn day.

Sometimes in life, amazing things, beautiful things are cloaked by the murkiness of life.

220 |365 HRFC Mustangs Supporters Club

A miniature field, a smaller ball, tiny goals and two groups of four boys bunched around the ball. That’s 4 to 5 year old soccer.

It was our first cold, rainy day of the soccer season. The grass fields combine with the rain to create mud and havoc for the boys as the trip over every third time they touch the ball.

There is actually quite a contrast between being a parent at soccer and a parent at hockey. Hockey is played on aquaturf, it's clean and there is shelter and food available. There are seats to sit on and railings to lean against. At soccer you stand in the elements with minimal facilities.  

My family were over and supported Kyla’s hockey and Jayden’s soccer. They got wet and cold. I’m sure for my parents it was a trip down memory lane.

They were their biggest supporters for the day, and I am reminded that they are some of my biggest supporters as well!

217 |365 A messy desk causes stress

I can still remember Sharon a colleague at New Zealand Couriers walking into my office, seeing the paper and piles everywhere and boldly proclaiming she had no idea how I could find anything or how I got anything done.
 
It was my first office, and on reflection, to call it organised chaos was gross misuse of the term. It was anything but organised.
 
I took this photo of my desk one evening after four days of unexpected and intensive investigation into deep dark hole of bad stuff. In amongst the crisis, things started to pile up and I reverted to my naturally messy state of operation.
 
I have learnt over the years that messy is very unproductive.

• A messy desk leads to a cluttered mind.
• A cluttered mind leads to heaps of ‘open-loops’. Things that are not captured in a place I trust.
• Open-loops lead to a greater feeling of stress and pressure, as I am subconsciously aware of all the commitments I am missing.
• Stress and pressure, burn energy at triple speed and make me unproductive.

It has taken me a full 10 days to get my systems back on track with my GTD system. Inboxes empty, tasks captured, notes reviewed.
 
The difference in the clarity of my mind is undefinable.

216|365 On the road again

Had to make my 2nd unplanned trip to Auckland in as many days.

All the things I thought I was going to do, and all my planning are out the window.

And I thought I had problems

So Job is hanging out at home and a messenger arrives. ‘The Sabeans have raided and killed all your oxen are gone.’

The next messenger arrives. ‘Fire has come down from heaven and killed all your sheep.’

The next messenger brings news of all his Camels and servants being taken or killed.

Finally news comes that the walls have collapsed and killed all of his children.

Job’s response? He praised God.

 

215|365 Monday #6

The final in my Monday series showing the change of seasons.

Huge change in our tree outside over six weeks, along with a huge change in the light.

See all 6 at http://www.andrewnicol.net/mondays/

214|365 My 40th

An awesome 40th birthday with my wife and kids.

Up at 5am for the ANZAC day dawn parade. It was a still misty poignant setting and a reminder that “freedom is never free”. Someone must always pay the price for freedom.

In the evening we headed out to Raglan to watch the sun set on the west coast of NZ, and eat fish and chips. A beautiful evening.

A fantastic day. (Even if I am now in my mid life)

213|365 Streetworks

213|365 Streetworks

One of many many photos taken at Streetworks.

This is a shot of kids getting a huge kick out of playing with a parachute at the Fairfield family fun day.

www.streetworks.org.nz

212|365 Peaceful

It is true.

All is forgiven and love is strengthen when you see your children sleeping

211|365 Late night

A late night at work, with 3 of the team.

Not a good reason for a late night either.

210|365 Leaders are readers

All leaders are readers!

In some way shape or form they are. Even in this information age of podcasts and audiobooks and youtube, leaders are readers.

This is a shot of my work bookshelf. My books are available to borrow. Take them, learn from them, stretch your thinking.

Read.