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New Government… New Leadership

Firstly, congratulations to the Labour part for winning the recent UK election. They won a majority and have formed a new government.

It looks like they have not wasted any time in starting some of the work they said they would do. And this is great. Sometimes, change is good. Many of the new MP’s seem eager to get going and make the changes needed for the country.

I’ve blogged previously about leadership – and how change can be necessary, or knowing when to step down. Remember Julius Caeser?

New leaders will have a point to prove.

New leaders will want to show what they can actually do.

New leaders will have the opportunity to showcase their talents.

I’m not just referring to the new Prime Minister. But the leaders of the various departments across the government.

So as the new leaders start actioning on their plans and what they’re going to do, I’m reading this morning stories how one minister, spent the weekend preparing a speech to cut red-tape and encourage more homes to be built. This has sent the share price of house builders up. All of a sudden, the energy is increased – the hope for a better future starts to be built. And will be soon, literally.

As you know, I’ve studied and looked at many leaders… from political background to sports, to many other types. And there’s a few principles which really matter. I won’t share them all here – but one key one, is having the attribute of believe.

Not going all Ted Lasso, but honestly – if you look at leaders, the good ones, the best ones, they have a believe they can improve the situation. Build for success and really enjoy the gains. It might not be all smooth sailing but the returns will come.

If you’re a leader, would love to hear what makes you so good?

Is it your skills to manage to manage a team?

Is it more numbers related?

Are you someone who always has positive energy?

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Bal’s Friday Thought…

Whatever comes easy, goes easy.

You need to work hard to make life sustainable.

Whichever path you are on, keep going beacuse once you stop, you give up. And that is failure. If the path is difficult now, that means your purpose is big. Bigger than you thought.

From my last friday thought, have some Grit and keep going…

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Bal’s Friday Thought…

Recently, I finished reading a book that was recommended to me, called Grit.

Really good book! For obvious reasons I won’t go into much detail – as I recommend you should read it, but it really dives into what makes some characters that excel have that grit to succeed.

There’s alot you can take away from it – but one thing, which I will share, that the book talks about is passion.

I’ve spoken about this before. Asking you, what is your passion?

My passion? I have a few – football, cars… both which I’ve loved since a very young age. Passion on both kind of dwindled but then came back. But could I choose one out of the two? Probably. Am I really passionate about which one I choose? – wouldn’t use the word ‘really’ but have a strong interest. I also like cooking. I also like volunteering. I also like helping others and mentoring.

How do you focus in on your passion?

Well, I try different things. And if there is something I enjoy, I continue. If there isn’t something that I enjoy, I’ll see it out – or do it for a particular duration, then halt it. Which is ok. Because what’s the reason in continuing with something you don’t enjoy?

You’re probably thinking, Bal… why haven’t you mentioned technology and blogging.

Great question! I love all things tech related. And blogging… well, I’ve been doing it on and off (sorry for the off parts) for a while. Must be three, four years… and it’s brought me some success in the form of, me being invited to BBC Radio to talk about the latest tech. Whilst I’ll continue with my blog and talk about technology, leadership and motivation… can my passions be combined? Football and technology – for example? (Let’s not talk about VAR). I’ve already talked about cars and technology – and how advanced our main. mode of transportation has become more tech than anything else.

Whilst I combine, look and continue with some of passions, what are you doing with your passion?

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Apple

Apple Intelligence

This blog post is for those out there that use Apple products (iPhones, iPads, etc…) and those interested to see what Apple are doing.

Last night… was Apple WWDC 2024. (WWDC = Worldwide Developers Conference). And alot was announced!

Here’s my Top 5…

  1. iPhone and Mac will now come equipped with ChatGPT for free. This is huge. Before you would’ve had to go into ChatGPT to do your tasks, now… access it from Siri for questions, share photos with it for suggestions and create images and texts within documents with ChatGPT.
  2. AI powered Siri. There’ll be a new glowing light that when you speak to Siri, lights up and you can talk naturally to it and it’ll understand everything. If you’re like me – I have on occasions been frustrated with Siri in the past but this looks alot promising. It will understand deeper meanings like you, your, your son, your office location, etc..
  3. Auto-fill Forms. We’re just getting lazy now, right? Yes we are. There’ll be a feature that, if a form needs filling out, you can just ask siri to find a personal document of yours, like a passport and auto fill the details for you directly into the form.
  4. AI editing on the Mac. If you’re a mac user, you can generate new text, proof read and edit, but most importantly (I think, which will be brilliant) change the tone (toneGen). This is all done in any text you type – email, doc, etc…
  5. AI powered call transcripts. Let’s be honest, there’s been times I’d wish, whilst on a call I had a pen and paper handy or something to quickly take notes. Not any more… transcribe your calls, turn them into summaries and share them across apps and emails.
AI Powered call transcripts

There were some other announcements which, frankly, didn’t really impress me – such as, you can now have a calculator on the iPad. What really impressed me is the way Apple have shared how they’re going to use AI… but more importantly, how we can use AI.

You can watch a summary video of it below, from our friends at Verge.

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Show me the numbers

Not sure if you knew, but I help out at a local charity where we cook food on a weekly basis and serve it to vulnerable folk who need it. There was a company that got in touch, and said – if we could provide some information, about what we do, they’d like to donate some money. So one of the volunteers wrote a few paragraphs.

When asked to review it, I wanted to ensure we tell the right story but with numbers.

You see, numbers can add alot of context to a story.

Once upon a time, there was a king.

This is how most stories start… and you may notice, there was ‘a’ in there to clearly identify, one…. king. Not several kings. Not some kings. Just one king.

Once upon a time, there was a king. His kingdom had alot of people.

‘Alot of people’… Doesn’t really say much. You can’t put it into context. Was it a big place. Was it a small place. How can we compare it to other regions and kingdoms?

Once upon a time, there was a king. His kingdom encopassed over 10,000 residents and was one of the largest kingdoms in the land.

Now we’re talking! We got a number… 10,000…. and then we got some context, because we found out it’s one of the largest in the land!

Numbers can do so much. Yet, when telling a story or update, we tend to omit them for feelings. Why can’t we do both? use numbers and have feelings? Build the story to the context.

Now the whole ‘once upon a time’ was an example. But think of something you’ve done recently that you’d talked about – how many numbers did you include?

I look at advertisements, I look at talks, I listen to podcasts… there are so many people out there vying for our attention… how can they get our attention?

Oh, you’re probably wondering more about the charity I volunteer at? Well, we cook over 60 hot portions of food every Monday and Thursday which is then served to the homeless and vulnerable – no questions asked.

Recently, a brilliant advert was shared with me to highlight how awesome it was in telling a story with numbers. And I wanted to share it with you…

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Bal's Friday Thought

Bal’s Friday Thought

What do you enjoy doing?

Watching football?

Playing games?

Eating food?

Whatever you enjoy doing… do it! (And there can be monetisable opportunities). But do it with some passion also. I’ll explore in another blog post of mine about a book I recently finished called, Tuesday’s with Morrie. Great book.

But for today’s Friday Thought… it’s from Gary V, and he puts it quite simply…

Screenshot
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Bal’s Friday Thought…

When embarking on a new task, there’s always some doubt… because it’s new, because we haven’t done it before, because there is a sense of nervousness…

However, the best thing to do in this situation… is just to do it.

Like Nike, Just Do It.

Remove the doubt. Give it a go. Does not matter if you make mistakes. That’s how you learn.

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Bal's Friday Thought

Bal’s Friday Thought…

My Friday Thought is based around value.

Do you know your worth and value?

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Bal's Friday Thought

Bal’s Friday Thought…

So the book continues and fair play to Arnold… it’s a decent read!

A relatively short chapter but nevertheless, a very important one. As you can guess, it was all about selling. Not selling yourself as such – but there is an element of that, but selling what you represent, what you stand for and included in that, your vision.

So the story Arnold tells is about body building. Again, you’ll have to read the book to learn about his story.

For me… what I took away was the element that people may or may not fully understand your vision. Understand what you stand for. Understand clearly where you want to get to.

This is where the sell, sell, sell part comes in.

Depending on what you’re doing. How you’re doing it. And the amount of success you’re having, you have to sell yourself, your trade, your work… whatever it is that you do. And sell it in a way that people want more!

I remember when I was at Kodak, and I wanted to become a chartered engineer. So I had to fill in forms, do lots of work etc… but I wasn’t selling myself. And I remember clearly my mentor at the time saying… ‘Bal, you have to write I did… not we’. That’s stuck with me since. I’m very clear and intentional that if I do something.. then I did it. Not just to get the applauds but if it goes wrong, then the buck stops with me… and my team is not to blame. Yes there’s times where it’s a team effort so it’s a ‘we’.

Have a look at your vision… work through the chapters and now, tell me honestly, are you able to sell it?

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Bal's Friday Thought

Bal’s Friday Thought…

Chapter 3 People!

And this was a really good one…

Now… it’s not rocket science.

If you want to make it in life – you’ve got to work hard.

What comes easy…. goes easy. But when you work super hard for something, you know it’s going to stay with you.

Before I joined the graduate programme for Kodak – I received some really good advice. It was…’make as many mistakes as you can when you’re young because a) people will forgive you and b) you’ll learn. When you’re older… people aren’t as forgiving’.

Awesome advice.

And I made a fair few mistakes – but most importantly, learnt from them. But you’ll only make those mistakes if you’re working. In the book, Arnold talks about working your ass off.

How many of us can seriously say we work super hard on particular topics and subjects?

I remember… when I was at Coca-Cola, I did a Kaizen activity (if you don’t know what that is – I’ll let you google it). It was a week long event, we had people fly in from all over Europe, USA, etc… The preperation was intense, the Kaizen week was even more intense… and then post event, there were so many actions. I remember leaving home super early to get to the office that week and then coming home really late every day. Everyone used to work from home on Friday – but there I was, with one or two others, and the cleaners late Friday typing up notes and sorting out the flipcharts and post-it notes. I worked my ass off for that Kaizen event… and it paid dividends. The senior leadership noticed, It was in the newsletter… but more importantly, we saved something like 80 hours of processing time, halved the number of process errors, etc… It was a huge win!

It really is about working your ass off to be the best. To be really good at what you enjoy. What you do and more importantly, when you are working your ass off on something you enjoy – it’s fun! That late Friday in the office, I was enjoying it! Myself along with the other two folk (and the cleaners) had some music going in the office, and we were enjoying it!

In the book… Arnold talks about 24 hours. I use this alot also when people ask me, how do you find the time to do everything.

You have 24 hours in a day

Let’s say you work for 8. And then, you may sleep for 8. That leaves you with 8 hours.

Now, for example… you’ve got to commute to work, you may spend time with family, eating etc… (Arnold breaks this alot better in the book than what I have in this blog)… so let’s say, all that takes about 4 hours.

You’re left with 4 hours free a day. Let’s put 2 hours aside for catching up on things, traffic perhaps, and other stuff which you may not account for.

In a day – you can easily have, around 2 hours free. What are you doing with those 2 hours?

Most are mindlessly scrolling through social media. Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. Check your screen time on your phone. How much time in a day or week do you spend doing that.

Be more productive.

So today’s thought is… work your ass off. Seriously, work hard and achieve something special. Those 2 hours a day, you could easily start going to the gym and improve your health. You could even just walk for an hour a day – imagine the health benefits of that. You could start a new hobby… Anything. Just pick something, for which you have passion for and work your ass off.