Love the ones that you are with……

What is our relationship to the rest of the world? here are some more insights to being a positive presence person.

The highest honor a French chef can attain is to have his retaurant listed as a three star restaurant in the Michelin Guid to fine eating. According to one newspaper, the 1995 guide added a twentieth resturant to its three star listing: the Auberge de Eridan in Annecy, France.

The owner and self taught chef, Marc Veyrat, is a culinary maverick. His unorthodox ideas got him kicked outof three hotel culinary schols, and local hotels would not even take him on as an apprentice in the kitchen.

Veyrat is from the French Alps. Alpine herbs, such as caraway, cumin, wild thyme, and chenopodium, are key ingredients in his recipies. Once a week at dawn Veyrat ventures into the mountains to pick the herbs.

I know I’m not a traditional chef,says Veyrat.I’m a student of nature, because before you love the cuisine you have to love the ingredients.

To be a positive presence person (PPP) you have to really love other people before you can appreciate what they do. To do this means that we value them for who they are and refuse to view others as a commodity. It is about loving the ingredients that come together to make each person that we meet a precious encounter.

Try it and you will find that the way that they respond to you will be different. Sure there will still be the users. Learn to recognise them quickly and limit the access they have to your core being. Seek out other PPP’s and allow them to see those special attributes that belong to you.

Web wanders on a Sunday afternoon

I went for a wander this afternoon and traveled around the web. Here is where I ended up. Remember when we used to surf the web for fun?

Start here at homeworking.com

This site is for anyone wanting to work at home and anyone already working at home. You will find lots to get you started, help you find work at home and avoid scams.

I went first to the case studies because I like stories.

Jason is 27 and married to Stel. They have lots of furry creatures and the Cat Spedie! Case Study written in 2000 and not updated

mmm.. not updated not a good sign. So I quickly click around. The home employment agency looks interesting. So I click there

Samantha is in her 30′s and lives with her partner and 3 children aged 6 and under.
Sam runs the Home Employment Agency and talks here about being self-employed and the part it has played in her life.

Don’t click on her site. It takes you to a place of pop ups. I begin to wonder about the value of this site. So I go to Yaro the Entrepreneur to share in his journey.

Lots of links here. I go to the young go getter. Thankfully there is a back button. Nothing wrong with the site it doesn’t interest me at all.

For any eager beavers if you are ready to join as a client of Rich Schefren’s coaching program you can do so here – StrategicProfits.com/coaching/

but they are full. back to the back button again.

Next link is to Simpleology:

Here’s What You’ll Learn in the FREE Simpleology 101:The one simple “brain hack” known by the world’s richest 1% that allows you to get 300% more done in the same amount of time. (This one is so obvious that you’ll be amazed the whole planet doesn’t know it. And yes, this is why it seems the more these jet-setters lounge around the pool, the more money they make. It’s disgusting.)

But as I go through the sign on process they want more and more information so I get out of here. I am out of time almost an hour later and really none the wiser.

I am generally a happy person so I wonder what this article says about me? Why Intelligent People Tend to be Unhappy

Western society is not set up to nurture intelligent children and adults, the way it dotes over athletes and sports figures, especially the outstanding ones. While we have the odd notable personality such as Albert Einstein, we also have many extremely intelligent people working in occupations that are considered among the lowliest, as may be attested by a review of the membership lists of Mensa (the club for the top two percent on intelligence scales).

Finally I found something that interested me.

Is education a cure for the ills of globalisation?

Summary

The concept of a global village encompassing the whole world seemed to become a reality in recent decades with the rapid advances in technology, the web, changing industrial practice and the shift towards the information economy. However the web (the primary communications medium of globalization) has also effectively communicated the differences that are increasingly obvious in our world. Globalization has ushered in a new information economy. The web was once hailed as the means by which the massification of education would occur with many seeing opportunities to capture new markets made accessible by the internet. Yet globalization has not resulted in the world that many hoped for. The question is will education provide the way for creating a better world or will it be the tool to further divide our world?

Globalization Definition

Today Globalisation is a term used to describe a number of paradigm shifts that have or are occurring in our world. It describes a borderless community in which the traditional nation state boundaries are redefined in light of economic partnerships that transcend these established boundaries. McWorld and Coca-colonisation of the world are global brands that are often viewed as symbols a new form of imperialism that is sometimes termed the Americanisation of the world. It is also used to describe the convergence of culture often to the detriment of local communities and values.

The web began as a medium by which academics could communicate to each other so that they could exchange information and ideas. It emerged in the early 1990′s from being a communication medium for a few elite academics to linking the world electronically. It very quickly was seen as a means to create income. For many the idea of communicating to the whole world also brought ideas of massive new markets to be tapped. At first no one was really sure how this would occur. The dot com emerged and during the 1990′s and generated huge amounts of investment capital based on little income and none of the traditional tangible assets. The mantra was if it was new technology it was good.

The bubble burst. The dot com collapse and resulting losses incurred devastated many people’s confidence in internet. Much of the early hype was based on a lack of understanding of how the web works as a communication’s medium. The halcyon days of the 90′s are now behind us but the web is still growing at a phenomenal rate. It is a medium that provides instant access to billions of searchable pages of information. Google currently the worlds leading search engine handles 200 million such searches per day. Millions of people everyday send emails, engage in virtual discussions in chatroom or instant messages and post views and opinions on discussion boards. It connects our world instantly in a way never before possible.

A second great influence is the shift in our world from being an industrial economy to an information economy. Alvin Toffler in the Third Wave describes the ramifications of such a shift. Production of goods is based on cost savings such as cheap labour and is not dependent on national boundaries. Once exporting was about the movement of raw materials to the next stage of manufacturing. The transnational corporation functions as its own entity moving production and finances outside the restrictions of the traditional nation state that has dominated world political systems for the past few centuries.

Out of these great changes the nation state are seeking to redefine their place in our global village. For many developing nations globalization is seen as a synonymous with Americanisation. There is a strong resistance to the homogenization of culture within a world of global brands dominated by American economic and cultural imperialism. The so called economic equal playing field strongly favours western nations who demand access to developing nation’s markets but are still able to impose tariffs to protect their local more expensive producers.

Globalisation has not been the cure all for the ills of the world. After the collapse of the communism late last century capitalism and its accompanying democracy is seen as the only viable financial and governing model. But it has also failed to realize solutions to many of the issues that plague society. World Bank initiatives to bail out some of the Asian tiger economies after their meltdown during the 90′s have imposed unfair impositions on nations that had little to do with the lending of money. For example the condition of receiving money is to open markets. These conditions have often exacerbated the receiving nation’s problems and this is evident in the growing divide between the world’s have’s and the have nots. During the recent Iraqi war the United Nations was largely ineffectual in staving off the United States dogged commitment to replace Saddam Hussein. Its resolutions and weapons reports were treated disdainfully by George Bush who chose to ignore it and go to the war on the premise of Iraq‘s possession of arms of mass destruction.

Education has long been seen as the means by which disadvantaged groups can modernize and achieve economic equality. This is even truer in an information economy where wealth is evaluated by one’s access to information. As one becomes better educated they gain higher incomes, they move up through society’s pecking order and they are better able to serve the community. Because of this the whole community is considered better off.

A concern is that education is now seen as another economic commodity. This tension is felt acutely in higher education institutions where courses are now closely linked to industry expectations. Once a University’s role was clearly defined, it accumulated information through research and disseminated that information by teaching. To a large extent this occurred outside the market influences, was largely government subsidized and was regarded as a community service. Today education institutions face increased pressures to do more with less and meet the demands of industry. With the burgeoning student population professors are under more pressure to meet increasing demands from their clients.

Within the education paradigm many viewed technological advances with an eye for cost saving and mass production and dissemination of education. Two thirds of the world lives within 800 miles of Bangkok and so far is largely untapped market. It was envisioned that there was a huge market for secondary education for these emerging economies. Many thought that transmissive models of learning would allow cheap mass produced education. This is reflected in terminology such as learning materials to describe a course of instruction.

Online learning opportunities may not be the educational panacea that everyone hoped for. It is not cheap. Instead quality online learning may be more expensive than or at least as expensive as traditional face to face educational models. One of the strengths of online learning is its ability to construct learning communities through computer mediated conferencing (CMC). Most suggest that a student ratio of one teacher to 25 or so students is the optimal ratio for effective learning to occur.

At the recent G8 conference in Evian, Jaques Chirac, France‘s Prime Minister suggested that unless there is an investment in infrastructure that globalization is doomed to failure. The evaluation in 2002 of the primary commitments of the G8 countries at Kananaskis of the Genoa summit in 2001 suggests that there is little interest or political will by the G8 countries to invest in the resources that are required to supply a primary education for many disadvantaged people.

Therefore rather than the liberator that it has been in the past if used wrongly it may become another tool that results in further oppression of disadvantaged groups. Current World Bank policies are orientated to an economistic development of human capital model of education. Education policies are designed to increase the efficiency of the way it is administered with an emphasis on the outcomes. They have created a global model that has little understanding or place for local needs, culture or communities. Instead of being in the hands of local teachers it comes under the realm of global economic rationalism.

Any global education initiatives will need to be able to identify with local needs if they are to be effective. The African continent is today facing an Aids epidemic that will infect one third of its population and will create a huge drain on its resources in the coming decade. Israelis and Palestinians continue to blow each other up on an almost daily basis. SARS recently erupted in flashpoints around the world carried at an unprecedented rate in a borderless world. Within a decade many baby boomers will begin drawing on their superannuation and many analysts are certain that this will result in an economic downturn as less funds are available for investment.

The possibilities offered to our world by technology and education are enormous. Online learning is poised to contribute to an emerging post colonial; post industrial world with its values of access and equity to all.  Is online learning the panacea to the ills of globalization? It could contribute to the growing world divide by furthering the gap between the information have’s and have nots. This scenario only serves the haves and enables them to be better off. However, with the right infrastructure it could provide access to learning opportunities without limitations of time or space or race or culture. This could serve to bring together co-operatively the strengths of our global community and create a win/win situation.

Readings

Barboza, D, When Golden Arches Are Too Red, White and Blue, www.nyt.com accessed 10.06.03.

Coxon, E, From Patronage to Profiteering, New Zealand’s relationship with the small states of Oceania, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2002., accessed 10.06.03

Heath, G, Introduction to Symposium on Globalisation, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2002., accessed 10.06.03

Barry M. Leiner, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, Stephen Wolff, A Brief History of the Internet, http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml accessed 10.06.3

LEONHARD, D,  Globalization Hits a Political Speed Bump, www.nyt.com accessed 10.06.03.

Mayes, T. 2000, ‘The technology of learning in a social world.’ Paper for Lifelong Learning Forum, Glasgow Caledonian University, pp.1-11.

Peters, M., Roberts, P., Universities, Futurology and Gloablisation, Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, Vol.21, No.2., 2000., Accessed 10.06.03

Tapsall, S., All aboard the Borderless Education Bandwagon, Open Learning, Vol. 16, No.1, 2001 accessed 10.06.03

ABC’s of Fatherhood – O

O is for openness. I want to be very open with my children. One of the common experiences of children of my generation is that they never really got to know their fathers. That is they knew about them but they never really got to share some of the more intimate aspects of their life. I try to be very open with my kids. In many ways that's easy because of my personality. With people that I know and trust I can be very open. I tend to be more reserved with new acquaintances and unfamiliar circumstances. My children need to see in me the full range of emotions. Not just when I am irritable or enforcing discipline or even frustration because someone has drawn over the covers of our newly covered lounge. They also need to see the other emotions, sadness, disappointment and happiness in a range of situations. Too often we can be guilty of not having enough time to sit with our kids and explain in their terms what is really going on. So we end up just having closed relationships that only deal with externals. The other day my daughter was talking on the phone to a friend. And she told this friend a whopping story because she thought that no one could hear here. But, I did. That day I took the time to talk to her about why she told the story. I tried to go beyond just dealing with the obvious lie. I had an opportunity to open up to her and say that I love her for who she is not for who she would like to be. I said that she didn't need to tell stories for people to be her friend and that if they really wanted to be her friend they would like her just the way that she is. We talked about it. We were open. I was open to her about the fact that she was so very special just the way that she was. In the busyness of life it can be easy to just deal with problems quickly. Openess required the committment of time and effort into the relationship to ensure that we are able to talk about the stuff that does and doesn't matter. Because it all matters in some way.

Changing my world – becoming a PPP

Today I experienced the power of somone who was a positive presence person (PPP). PPP(people) are able to bring people to almost immediately into a positive state of mind.

I walked into a corner store to by a can of pepsi. The young person behind the counter was dressed in a singlet and shorts, was covered in tatoos and had a number of piercings on various appendages. My immediate expectation was that I could expect only a very basic level of customer service. And at worst I could experience a certain amount of contempt.

I was wrong. Completely, totally and utterly wrong.

It started when he served the lady in front of me. He was helpful and smiled and wished here a nice day. I found that my expectation of service was beginning to change. But, she was far more attractive than me and I am a not overly attractive middle aged man.

I was wrong.

It was even better than I thought. Somehow this young man made my purchase of a can of pepsi into one the highlights of my morning. It wasn’t just what he said or how he served me. It wasn’t what he did in the end that made a mundane task into something special.

It was his attitude to life that changed everything. He was a prime example of a PPP. He is an influencer, a leader who is able to change his world.

PPP’s do some of the following things regularly:

• They change their world, they are not limited by their present context.
• They change other people’s world – they are a positive influence and are able to change the attitudes of people around them.
• They don’t worry about their present circumstances – they know that they are not the permanent thing in their life. Attitudes remain with us far longer.
• They are not lmited by their present circumstances. Hope is a key element of being a PPP. It is a key component of being a whole person, living without hope is living a half life in which we survive with a part of our humanity missing.

 

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you always got” Tony from NCIS

What sort of worker are you?

• Thrill seekers – Do you find challenges in the everyday. Are you able to create an sense of excitement even in the everyday experiences of life.

• Fear avoiders – These are the workers who want the world to stay the same for ever. And, they resent anyone who wants to upset the status quo. (seth godin)

You will find both of these people in the workplace. The longer that I work the more I realise that there are certain constants that come with work. You will find these personalities and the issues that come with them regularly.

Here are some other constants that I have been thinking about lately:

1. Conflict – this is the main one that we all will struggle with from time to time.
2. Relationships – Working with others is a core competency.
3. Skills – we all need to develop skills that will allow us to perform competently.
4. Routine – get used to it and be prepared to do the same things regularly even if you have a great job it will require some routine.

There are probably more that I will add to later………

Thanks Adam Walker

By the way I should thank the appropriate people for the template. Thanks Adam even though I don’t know you for this design. The credit is at the bottom of the page and his site is here.

This template works really well I haven’t found any glitches yet. I still have a bit of tidying up to do but life has been busy in recent days.

Boundaries – what not to do with your children

Cloud and Townsend (Boundaries) identify four typical ways that people will blur boundaries:

1. Compliancy
   1. They are afraid of hurting someone by saying no.
   2. Their boundaries are so indistinct anyone is able to cross them and this opens the person up to abuse.
   3. They don’t like to rock the boat and will often give into a child’s demands rather than follow through with consequences
2. Controlling
   1. This person doesn’t respect others boundaries and will often look for opportunities to intrude in other people’s lives.
      
   2. Controllers will rarely believe that they have done the wrong thing because they are so consumed with their own needs.
   3. As a parent they will have little understanding of their child’s needs or temperament instead they will enforce their standards or expectations on the child.
   4. Controllers are not really in control, rather they are controlled by their own insecurities and impulses. (For example they will become extremely angry when something doesn’t go their way)
3. Non- responsives
   1. They are not able to hear the needs of others or see things from another’s perspective.
   2. They often will appear distant from their children. This wall is put up to protect them from further hurt
4. Avoidants
   1. These people find it hard to accept good things from others Cloud and Townsend say that this is common in men who demonstrate it by finding it hard to accept help or advice.

A Prayer

Almighty . . .
Forgive
My doubt,
My anger
My pride.
By Thy mercy
Abase me,
By Thy strictness
Raise me up.

Have mercy
Upon us.
Have mercy
Upon our efforts,
That we
Before Thee,
In love and in faith,
Righteousness und humility,
May follow Thee,
With self-denial, steadfastness, and courage,
And meet Thee
In the silence.

Give us
A pure heart
That we may see Thee,
A humble heart
That we may hear Thee,
A heart of love
That we may serve Thee,
A heart of faith
That we may live Thee.

Thou
Whom I do not know
But Whose I am.

Thou
Whom I do not comprehend
But Who hast dedicated me
To my fate.
Thou

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