Colin Myles's Blog, page 17

7 Haiku

Over the past weekend, I finished the first draft of my second collection of haiku poems. In the meantime, here are seven ongoing haiku from 2019.


1.
iron graveyard gate
flecks of rust peeling away
narrow road to sea

2.
soft Atlantic rain
sweeping in along the coast
magpie's hide in nest

3.
the waves wash ashore
sea-radish sprouts by seawall
wounded cat limps on

4.
lunch time walk about
speedwell's and red clovers bloom
a formica desk

5.
a macchiato
cafe plays avant-garde jazz
potted cactus plant

6.
summer evening
cross breeze through the windows
Coltrane's love supreme

7.
sitting in the shade
cool southerly breeze wafts by
keeping me awake

Colin Myles Haiku Poet

P.S.
Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry"
Muriel Rukeyser

Free Book

To celebrate Easter, I have made my first collection of haiku poems free on Amazon kindle.

Haiku 50

thunderous big waves
smash onto outlying rocks
car park shelters crow

Free download here

Colin Myles Author

P.S.
To help other haiku readers find this book, don't forget to leave a review after reading.

OYAKUDACHI

I am currently reading " How the World Thinks " by Julian Baggini. Oyakudachi appeared in a quote by Hiroshi Hanada, former CEO of Rioch company, who said this word was the heart of the company.

Oyakudachi is a Japanese word meaning ; helping others, mutual assistance and doing what is useful for others. From a business perspective, mutual assistance is the term we will look at today. We can take this a step further with the word mutualism, which means an association between two organisms of different species in which each member benefits.

In business people buy your product/service to solve a problem or point of pain. When your product/service provides the benefit of solving their problem, you gain the benefit of a sale, money into your bank account.

Mutualism [ in business ] and its two species are the provider of a product/service and the buyer of your product/service.

When someone buys your product or service and it does not benefit them, only the provider gains, not the consumer. Most likely outcome is that they will not recommend your product or service. For a business to sustain itself, it must think in terms of mutual assistance. The more your product or service is geared  towards mutualism, where both the provider and consumer gain, then both of you win.

Your business wins a loyal customer and the consumer wins by having their problem solved or pain point reduced.

Now is the time to look at your product/service and determine if they pass the mutual assistance code . . . OYAKUDACHI

Colin Myles Author

P.S.
The beating heart of [any] business needs loyal customers to pump revenue into it. When the revenue stops, your business dies.

Credibility . . . The Bridge

Credibility is the bridge to respect.
Credibility is defined as ; the quality of being trusted and believed in.

Some synonyms associated with credibility are, trustworthiness, reliability, dependability, integrity, character. Last year in another blog post, I touched on the three steps to respect,
Lately while chatting with various friends, in a roundabout way, credible and credibility has come up in conversation. Whether it has been someone looking to purchase a service or dealing with a particular person.

Lets look at it in terms of leadership and workplace culture. Both will always be lacking when the gap between what one says and what one does is so large, you could drive a fleet of doubledecker buses through it.

You will struggle with leadership, if you can't be trusted and believed. In the case of culture, it will increase the use of gallows humour to help people get through the day, because they don't trust and believe what they are been told from the top.

Without trust and your words and actions being believed, you will struggle to cross the bridge into the land of respect. You will be forever stumbling, never attaining your desires.

People will doubt your ideas, actions and collaborations. The seed of distrust can only be extinguished by the quality of how believable you are. The quality of trust you achieve, leads to credibility.

Do people view you/your company as trustworthy ?
Do people view you/your company as reliable ?
Do people view you/your company as dependable ?
Do people view you/your company as having integrity ?
Do people view you/your company as being of good character ?

How you answer these questions will determine your ability to bridge the gap from trust to credibility on to respect.

Colin Myles Author

P.S.
My latest book Haiku Moments is now available from Barnes & Noble

The Silver Rule of Leadership

Over the holiday period, I bumped into some old friends. Some live and work abroad and some in a different part of the country. But one item cropped up in different ways, recruiting and keeping talent.

Most of you will have heard the Golden Rule, " do unto others as you would like done onto you ". The Silver Rule I first heard expressed by Nassim Taleb in his book Skin in the Game, is I believe more relevant than ever.
The Silver Rule
" don't do unto others that which you would not like done unto you ".

In today's social media world, it doesn't take long for a story to spread, true or fake. And stories about your workplace, culture and leadership, true or fake, are out there waiting for people to find and read before they decide to join or reject you.

Everybody is somebody's somebody. How you treat those people gets retold back out into the wide open world. So in this coming year of a tight labour market and companies scrambling for the next generation of talent, remember the silver rule.

To assist you in sticking to the silver rule, allow me to share with you, something that was shared with me a number of years ago. When it comes to making decisions that will affect your employees and direct charges, ask yourself this question first . . .

Is this how I would like my spouse/partner treated in their place of work ?
If the answer is no . . don't do it

Is this how I would like my parents treated in their place of work ?
If the answer is no . .  don't do it

Is this how I would like my children treated in their place of work ?
If the answer is no . .  don't do it

The silver rule is like a pebble dropped into a lake, the ripple effect keeps expanding outwards.

" Don't do unto others that which you would not like to be done unto you "

Colin Myles Author/Poet

P.S.
My latest book Haiku Moments is now available to purchase in paperback

New Book of Haiku Poems Published

Over the weekend I published my first collection of Haiku poems. Over one hundred and eighty one haiku written between March 2017 and June 2018. Today I would like to share three of them with you. I hope you enjoy them.


55
the auburn fern leaf
decaying atop the grass
buttercup smiles on

114
the silver key fob
dances a jangled spiral
along traffic jam

153
tiny ladybird
scuttles among weeds and rocks
wait for funeral

This is a small selection of haiku from the book. I hope you enjoyed them.

Colin Myles Author


P.S.
Now available on Amazon . . . Buy Here

Free Book

My book " 5 Keys to doing Business with the Right People is now available for free on Amazon Kindle for the next four days. Offer ends midnight 25th November 2018.

Claim your free copy now http://a.co/d/03rHpNr

Stop Grading Yourself

But more importantly, discover your talents that cannot be graded. This comes from a small passage in the book " The things you can see only when you slow down ".

From a young age competition and competing are hardwired into us. It pervades people's thoughts and they become more worried about appearances and one upmanship.

Concern for pleasing their parents and how their friends view them, becomes normal. As they enter adulthood and the workplace, it becomes a self negating mantra. We all have come across people who have to be right, have the last word and finished first to earn perceived bragging and brownie points.

Then it becomes a competition about driving the right car, wearing the right designer label and correct address. All to show they are ahead in the competition with their peers. Even their hobbies become a competition with other hobbyists.

To break through this destructive cycle is simple. Discover a hidden talent within yourself. One where you do not grade yourself against anyone or anything. This can range from, flower arranging, calligraphy or as simple as growing a herb garden.

The most important aspect is to become free from competition and gain enjoyment from your self discovery of your new talent. Your time off becomes freedom, instead of been trapped in a competition with your friends, family and work peers about who had the best, biggest and most expensive or exclusive weekend off compared to others.

I urge you to stop grading and start living.

Colin Myles Author

One Thought

" the man who chases two rabbits, catches neither." Confucius

A strange thing about us humans and concentration, is that we can only hold thought in our mind at anyone time.

Because of this we struggle to think through life's conundrums, who we are, what can you do, how can you serve and many other questions. It means, if we are to look through history at great new ideas and inventions, you will find it was the person who stayed with an idea from inception to completion, who are remembered. They are the ones who get books written about them.

So if you want to be the one who comes up with groundbreaking ideas and solutions, it may be time to learn how to hold on to one thought and see it through till it's conclusion.

It is going to take practice to stop your mind wandering off. Because if you think you can make major breakthrough's while thinking about an  idea and your shopping list/sports results at the same time, not going to happen. Doing so, you divide your thinking and concentration by half. Half thinking leads to half ass solutions.

Who wants to be known as the half ass solution person ?

Colin Myles Author

P.S.
I just had two Haiku poems published in the Bonsai Journal
They are on page 25. Click here to read

Haiku Published

Just had two haiku published in the Bonsai journal today.
You will find them on page 25.

https://the13alphabet.files.wordpress...


Colin Myles