Autumn hues

Autumn 2019

Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn. ~Leo Tolstoy

It seems somewhat frightening that we are hurtling towards the last quarter of 2019. Barely a year ago I was wrapping up my working life and getting ready for the big moment- stopping my working career. The time has gone quickly, the memories not at all.

This week has been really grey and apart from a brief flurry of sun this afternoon (Friday) it has been rather gloomy. The consolation is despite the weather our resident squirrel made himself visible in the tree again. I guess he is preparing for …do I dare say it…Winter!

This week we also saw a really healthy hedgehog running around in the back yard…I say we when I mean I…Jake was asleep in his bed already. I managed to put some cat pellets down and hedgie polished them all off. I could hear the crunching from my bedroom window (above the Pug snores).

There has been a lot of activity in our village this week.

”Both” streets of our village/hamlet will be getting glass fiber internet connection…hopefully from 10Mb to 250Mb…I don’t know if I’m ready for this 😊. For now Jake is fascinated by the little excavator digging up the road ….

No major changes to the health situation, hopefully October will see the trial of the “new” treatment that could improve walking ability. It’s been better…last night I say someone on a motorised bed walking their dog around 10pm …in the rain. I have nothing to complain about.

I came across this comment from one of the MS forums I am connected to. I’m trying.

There’s a difference in pain and suffering. Pain is in the body. Suffering is in the mind and it feels infinite. So maybe the key is to feel your pain and learn from it…and some day your suffering might disappear.

I have been churning out my memories, at least to the electronic brain of my laptop and have three chapters so far, Early days, Military and Military officers training…many more to come hopefully and I have also managed to reconnect with several characters from the last few decades.

This has become the daily routine this week, feed fur babies, espresso, music on, type type type. I’m getting entrenched in the routine but am already worried …what do you do when you are “finished” …better to leave the last chapter a Living one !

Spurred by some fb comments earlier today I am absorbing the lyrics of Fish and Marillion. Got to be one of my best bands, yes Rolling Stones too, Depeche Mode absolutely but Marillion…genius.

I couldn’t help but notice that Globally our world is in a mess…Brexit woes and a little to be concerned about in the USA…Global warming and Ocean Pollution all sorted , almost nothing left to be concerned about !

I guess its just the way you spin it 😊, great lead in for something that caught my eye this week.

You might have a marketing problem

Democracy is a marketing problem.

Health is a marketing problem.

Climate change is a marketing problem.

Growing your organization, spreading the word, doing work you’re proud of–these aren’t engineering problems or economics problems. They’re marketing problems.

That’s because humans make choices. If we live in a culture where people are free to choose, we’ve offered control over our future to others.

When humans make choices–that’s marketing. Marketing is the difficult work of telling a story that resonates, of bringing a consistent set of promises to people who want to hear them.

If you want to change things, it helps to understand how humans make choices. And if you’ve got a change in mind, I hope you’ll spend the time and effort it takes to get better at bringing your story to the people who need to hear it.

Marketing isn’t about shortcuts, hustle or deception.

Marketing is the art (and the science) of serving the people you seek to serve, to do better work by finding and satisfying needs. Marketing is the practice of making things better by making better things.

Thank you Seth (again)

Of course there is a flipside , there always is unfortunately.

People don’t change

(Unless they want to)

Humans are unique in their ability to willingly change. We can change our attitude, our appearance and our skillset.But only when we want to.The hard part, then, isn’t the changing it.It’s the wanting it.