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The Story of the Greatest Lumberjack in the Land

I had to introduce a workshop last week with a bunch of folk who were trying to take on the “big guys”.  I opened the workshop with a story which, for me,  gives great hope to the small guys who are toiling away to take on the big guys.

Some say the big guys have gotten the world into the mess that it is currently in.  So here’s a story to cheer those up who are ploughing their furrow as a “small guy”!

There is an old Celtic legend, a story of two lumberjacks. 

Both men were skilled woodsmen although the first, called Angus, was much bigger, welding a powerful axe.  He was so strong that he didn’t have to be as accurate for he still produced due to his sheer size.  He was known far and wide for his ability to produce great quantities of raw material. Many hired him just because he was bigger.  After all, his customers reasoned, everyone knows that bigger is always better!

angus

In spite of his size, the fame of the second woodsman’s (who was called Hamish) was spreading for his skill was in his accuracy.  There was very little waste in his efforts so his customers ended up with a better product for their money.  Soon the word spread that Hamish’s work was even better than his larger competitor, Angus.

Upon hearing this, Angus became concerned.  He wondered, “How could this be?  I am so much bigger that I MUST be better!”  He proposed that the two compete with a full day of chopping trees to see who was more productive.  The winner would be declared ”The Greatest Lumberjack in all the land.”  Hamish agreed and the date for the bout was set.

The townsfolk began talking.  They placed their bets.  Angus was the favorite to win with a 20 to 1 advantage.  After all, bigger is better!  The evening before the bout, both men sharpened their blades.  Hamish strategized to win the bout.  He knew he would never win because of his size. He needed a competitive advantage. Each man went to bed confident that he would be declared the winner.

Morning broke with the entire town showing up to cheer on the lumberjacks.  The competition started with a the judge’s shout, “GO!”   Angus, strong and broad, leaped into action.  He chopped vigorously and continuously, without stopping, knowing that every tree he felled brought him closer to his coveted title.

Hamish

Hamish, wasting no time, jumped into action as well, attacking his trees with every intention of winning the distinguished title.  But unlike his larger competitor, he stopped every forty five minutes to rest and sharpen his blade.

This worried the onlooking townspeople greatly.  They murmured among themselves.  Surely, he could never win if he didn’t work longer and harder than his competitor.  His friends pleaded with him to increase his speed, to work harder – but to no avail.  This pattern continued throughout the day when both men heard the judge yell “TIME!”, signaling the end of the match.

Angus stood, winded and exhausted, yet also proud by his pile of trees knowing he had given his best having chopped almost continuously since the start of the match.  Surely, he was the winner!  

Hamish also stood by his pile of trees – though, unlike his competitor, he was still fresh, ready to continue if necessary.  He also stood confident in knowing that he had also given of his best and that his tactics would pay off.

When all the trees were counted, it was announced that Hamish had, indeed, felled more trees than Angus and he was granted title of “The Greatest Lumberjack in all the Land!”.  He happily shook the judge’s hand and gripped his newly won axe made of the finest steel in the land.  Angus (and most of the townspeople) stood in stunned silence at the announcement – for he was far greater reputation, was far stronger and had a much heavier axe!

But Hamish was not that surprised by the result.  For he knew that, in order to win against his larger competitor, his instrument had to be continually sharpened.  His axe was smaller and therefore each swing must be more accurate in order to produce the better product.  By stopping the sharpen his instrument, he had proven, once and for all, that he was the better man for the job.  He also knew that, with regular rests, he would be able to endure his technique far longer.

Frame of story and pictures from: http://www.capstonemedia.com/sharpen-the-saw/

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The Story of the Broken Pot (of Honey)

The older I get, the more I believe in coincidences.  And one of the strange coincidences that I have recently discovered is that there are a set of stories that are told in slightly different forms all around the world – as if they all had their roots in one story told many thousands of years ago.  A fine example is the Story of the Broken Pot:

Once upon a time there lived a woman called Truhana.  Not being very rich, she had to go yearly to the market to sell honey, the precious product of her hive.

iStock_000009374542XSmall

Along the road she went, carrying the jar of honey upon her head, calculating as she walked the money she would get for the honey.  “First”, she thought, “I will sell it, and buy eggs.  The eggs I shall set under my fat brown hens, and in time there will be plenty of little chicks.  These, in turn, will become chickens, and from the sale of these, lambs could be bought.”

Truhana then began to imagine how she could become richer than her neighbors, and look forward to marrying well her sons and daughters.

Trudging along, in the hot sun, she could see her fine sons and daughters-in-law, and how the people would say that it was remarkable how rich she had become, who was once so poverty-stricken.

Under the influence of these pleasurable thoughts, she began to laugh heartily, and preen herself, when, suddenly, striking the jar with her hand, it fell from her head, and smashed on the ground.  The honey became a sticky mess upon the ground.

Seeing this, she was cast down as she had been excited, on seeing all her dreams lost for illusion.

Idres Shah in his book “World Tales” (which is where this story came from) notes:

“The tale is called a number of things like – “The Girl and the Pitcher of Milk”.  Professor Max muller remarks how the tale has survived the rise and fall of empires and the change of languages, and the perishing of works of art.  He stresses the attraction whereby “this simple children’s tale should have lived on and maintained its place of honor and its undisputed sway in every schoolroom of the East and every nursery of the West.”

“In the Eastern versions, it is always a man who is the fantasist and whose hopes come to grief: in the West it is almost always a woman.  The man generally imagines that he will marry and have a son, while the woman tends to think of riches and marriage.”

A collection of stories similar to this one was compiled as a set off folktales by Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1430 entitled “Air Castles” – about daydreams of wealth and fame.  The theme is so strong and spans all cultures and societies.  Just one of the many coincidental stories that have been recognised across space and time.

And so it was, last week, I was visiting Telefonica’s incubator (which they call an Academy) in London.  There are 19 startups (or eggs) being hatched – each into what will hopefully be new chickens.  However, given the statistic that over 65% of companies fail in their first two years, I could not but think the question as to which ones might be successful, and which ones not.  Which ones would hatch and which ones would be eaten before hatching?  Talking to the head guy there, he said that it was surprising that some of the start-ups that showed no hope four months ago are now doing really well – and others that showed great potential have somehow stumbled.  Each of the eggs will be moved out from the Academy at the end of March – and I wish them all the best of luck in moving from the egg stage to the chicken stage!

Oh, and just to round off this Thursday Thought, I visited my own beehives on Monday to give them some sugar cake food.  All was well – each of the six hives had bees!  I just hope they will all survive through February and March.  No honey in the pot yet, but I still dream that their stories will make me rich and famous one day!

I am going to be exploring the power coincidence in a lot more detail in the coming months.  If you are on Twitter you can read the regular tweets and observations on coincidence and business by following my new Tweet stream  @coinmark.

—–

Story from: “World Tales” collected by Idries Shah published by the Octagon Press 1991 – page 27

Picture – Copyright iStockPhoto – I bought it and if you want to use it you should buy it too!

More bee stories at my other blog: www.beelore.com

 

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A Time to Re-solve

A very happy New Year!

It’s that time of the year again where we set goals and objectives and personal New Year’s Resolutions.  Sure, there are the normal ones about losing weight or taking more exercise or spending more time with loved ones.  Yet I have been digging a bit deeper this year about the whole process.

It stems from my two previous New Year’s Resolutions Resolutions and Revolutions in 2011 and On Sustaining the Gains (and Losses) in 2012.

Both were concerned with my personal weight.  Each year I have lost a decent amount of weight between January to March (between 7-13 pounds).  Each year I have put that weight on by the following New Year’s Day.  As I identified last year, it is not just about losing weight (I reckon I can do that now).  It’s about keeping it off.  That is the problem.

LM Weight Chart

It is not just my personal resolution of attempted weight-loss that this pattern can be seen.  As the Guardian so cuttingly put it earlier in the year:

“Failed plans fall into three categories. There are good plans that are poorly executed, as in the blueprint drawn up by Count Alfred von Schlieffen for the invasion of France in 1914. There are strategically bad plans that are well executed, as in Napoleon’s Russian campaign of 1812. And then there’s the coalition government’s deficit reduction plan.”

 It got me thinking about the whole word “RESOLUTION“.  Made from the base word “RESOLVE” – or “RE-SOLVE” or “RE-SOLUITION“.  The idea that we are solving something again (not for the first time).  That somehow we need to re-solve the problem because the first solution did not work fully the first time around.  Or we need to re-dissolve the solution, as it were, because the solution was too saturated with whatever it was we were trying to dissolve.

Yet it is so much more difficult to withdraw than to re-draw.  Much more difficult to cut-back than keep the status-quo.  It reminded me of an old military saying:

“Of all operations of war, a withdrawal under heavy enemy pressure is probably the most difficult and perilous.”

On this theme, it is recorded of the great Helmuthe von Moltke the Younger, that when he was being praised for his generalship in the Franco-Prussian War, and was told by an admirer that his reputation would rank with such great captains as Napoleon, Frederick, or Turenne, he answered: “No, for I have never conducted a retreat.”

So as we see the US apparently fall off the fiscal cliff and the UK economy continuing to groan on with its deficit, the need to resolve to re-solve the problem becomes even greater.  The solution is in the re-solution.  That we need to re-think our way through the problem is clear.  Yet it is unfortunate that the political cycles and systems in the West seem to get in the way of a sensible resolution, a sensible re-solution, a sensible re-think.  Democracy is stuck.

So, this year, I resolve to lose weight and find new solutions for keeping the weight off.  I’m not obese – but I am overweight.  And being normal weight is where I want to be.

So here goes for the third year.  I resolve to be in a different (better) place this time next Year and hit 2014 at 13st 7 lbs.  No, really!

 

 

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How Long Does it Take for Us to Forget?

This week’s cease-fire in Gaza probably passed most people by – except for quick glimpses of rockets being fired back-and-forth and the commentary from safe television studios by those who try to collapse a whole history lesson into a few minutes of short, sharp sentences.  I am sure we were all relieved that the war was halted by an equally abrupt ceasefire.

However, the news reminded me of a time when I was much smaller and of the 6 Day War of 1967 – and more particularly my father’s reaction to it.  He had strong opinions about this part of the world having been posted to Palestine at the end of the Second World War.  By luck, he was minutes away from the King David Hotel (1) when it blew up on 22 July 1946.

The bomb killed 91 and injured 46.  The Irgun planted a bomb in the basement of the main building of the hotel, under the wing which housed the Mandate Secretariat and a few offices of the British Military headquarters.  If my father had arrived a few minutes earlier, I would not have been born.  Nor would my brother nor sister.  A sobering thought (for my siblings and me, at least).

My father therefore had a very different perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict – and would merely say “remember what happened to the Palestinians.”  This did not have anything like the meaning for me as it did for him.  And for my children, it is probably just  another history lesson in a country that they have not yet visited somewhere in the Middle East.  In reaching a bit deeper into the subject, I came across a quote (2) by David Ben-Gurion (the first Prime Minister of Israel):

“I don’t understand your optimism,” Ben-Gurion declared. “Why should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations’ time, but for the moment there is no chance. So, it’s simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out.”

What struck me by this quote was not so much that the Prime Minister of Israel was admitting to the fact that the Israelis had stolen “their” country from the Arabs, but more the idea that it takes one or two generations to accept; one or two generations to forgive; one or two generations to forget.

It reminded me of some research I did a few years ago on the famous Russian economist, Nikolai Kondratiev (3).  Kondratiev came up with the theory of the long-wave economic cycle which takes about 50-60 years from peak to peak.  Kontradiev’s views were so controversial in his country at the time that he was sent to the gulag and was executed in 1938 at the age of 46. It was Joseph Schumpeter who named the wave in Kondratiev’s name in 1939.  I remember reading about long wave economic cycles about 20 years ago and wondered what might cause  these types of patterns in history.  I can’t remember exactly where I heard the theory at the time – but I remember hearing the idea that the 50-60 year cycle is natural because “it takes two generations to forget”.  Given that a significant number of children are born to women between 25-30 (from(4) – see chart below), this is somehow quite an interesting idea.

If you take the theory and apply it to the cycle from the Wall Street Crash in 1929 (and the Great Depression of the 1930s) to the financial crisis of 2008 and our current post-crash turmoil, then 1929 to 2008 is about 80 years.  Some of you might point out that the time between is not 50 or 60 years, so the theory does not hold.  But perhaps this is due to the fact that we are now all living a bit longer?  In any case, the underlying pattern of loosening financial controls within the international financial system seems clear – as is the pattern of forgetting the lessons learnt from the previous generation’s Grandparents.  I’m not a qualified economist – but as an inquisitive observer, the theory somehow makes sense – even if it is not numerically accurate.

So we have wars, we have waves and we have history repeating itself and it got me thinking about the recent flooding that is currently taking place (again) across many parts of the UK.   Over 5 million people in England and Wales live and work in properties that are at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea. (5)  Yet there seems to be considerable political pressure on encouraging the building industry to “get building” so that we can kick-start the economy.  In Kent, where I live, many of the new houses have been built on the flood plains around Ashford – and there is the famous story of the Vodfaone Headquarters building in Newbury being built on the old racecourse that was well-known for flooding.

And so it was that I came across a story (6) about the tsunami that struck Japan last year.  Many people living by the sea lost their lives, but there was one village, apparently, in Aneyoshi that has a stone which reads:

“High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants.

Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. 

Do not build any homes below this point.”  

Those who headed the warning (like the residents in Aneyoshi) were spared from the destruction of the recent tsunami. Other towns did not. Yuto Kimura, aged 12, from Aneyoshi said they studied about the markers in school, and when the tsunami came, his mother got him from school and the entire village climbed to higher ground.

And so it is.  Maybe we are all cursed with the fact that it takes two generations to forget.  But for the wise ones who read the markers that have been laid down from previous generations, it is worth teaching the next generation about the deeper lessons from history.  It is worth encouraging them to take less time to accept, less time to forgive and more time to forget the important things in life.

Then again, we are all creatures of habit, so I expect the addage that “it takes two generations to forget” will last for many more generations to come!

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

(2) http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion

(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Kondratiev

(4) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2051374/Average-age-women-having-baby-climbs-29-start-family-later.html

(5) http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/default.aspx

(6) http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/969855–japan-nuclear-plant-plugs-highly-radioactive-leak

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Lagom är bäst

I am always intrigued when I find a word in a foreign language that has no direct equivalent in the English language.  When I come across one, I feel that I have somehow found a new way of looking at the world that most people who just speak English cannot see.

And so it was, in doing some research for a client earlier this week, I had a single idea – and I was looking for a word or a phrase in the English language to describe it.  The phrase might describe the sort of contentment that a Zen Bhuddist Priest might have about life – all the time.  Not seeking or being exploited.  Just absorbing and giving back to the world sufficient energy, food, water, conversation that is appropriate in the moment.

On delving into Wikipedia the best phrase I could find was one from Swedish: “Lagom”.  Roughly translated, it means “just the right amount”.  No more.  No less.  There is a Swedish proverb: “Lagom är bäst” which translates as “the right amount is best”.  AhHa!  I thought.  This is it!  This is the word I have been looking for.

The word “lagom” (also spelled “lugum” or “lugom”) also exists in Norwegian. The connotations in Norwegian, however, are somewhat different from Swedish.  In Norwegian the word has synonyms as “fitting, suitable, comfortable, nice, decent, well built/proportioned”.  While some synonyms are somewhat similar in meaning (e.g. “suitable” and “reasonable”, “fitting” and “in balance”), many present in Swedish don’t exist in Norwegian and vice versa. The Norwegian words “passelig” and the more common “passe” are very similar, translating roughly as “fitting, adequate, suitable” in English. “Passe” can be used in every context where the Swedish “lagom” is used, e.g. “passe varm” (right temperature/adequately warm), “passe stor” (right size), etc.

The concept of ‘lagom’ is similar to Russian expression ‘normal’no’ (нормально, literally normally), which indicates a sufficient and sustainable state, for example of one’s livelihood. In Russian, the word is often used as answer to the question “how are you”. Comparable terms are found in some south Slavic languages, for example Serbian and Croatian umereno or umjereno.

Ιn ancient Greek, there was the infamous phrase of Cleobulus, ‘Métron áriston’ (μέτρον ἄριστον) i.e.: “Moderation is best”

Wikipedia further cites the origin of the term “Lagom” as “an archaic dative plural form of lag (“law”), in this case referring not necessarily to judicial law but common sense law. A translation of this could be “according to common sense”. A popular folk etymology claims that it is a contraction of “laget om” (“around the team”), a phrase used in Viking times to specify how much mead one should drink from the horn as it was passed around in order for everyone to receive a fair share.” 

What a rich idea!  What a joyous thought!  Passing mead around the team to ensure everyone gets their fair share.  It does not surprise me that the Scandanavian countries have enriched their language with this single word – when the rest of the English speaking world has no such idea in common parlance.  It somehow goes with their culture.

Furthermore, as the English language has been manipulated by marketeers and journalists into visions and scripts designed to stimulate through  sensational exaggerations, the idea of having just the right amount is no longer tolerated.  Even the world “sustainable” now comes loaded with connotations and political nuance.  The idea of having just the right amount is counter to the way the current consumerist (Western) economy works.  If people stopped consuming, then the economy would come to a halt, surely?

So the tensions in the current world continue to need one thing and promote another.  We have those who need to manipulate the public into buying more; into consuming more; into projecting a sense of needing and wanting more; grabbing attention in a world that is producing an ever-increasing amount of information.  IBM recently published an astonishing piece of data: that “90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone”.

And yet we know the world needs something else.  The thought that whatever you have is somehow just right requires a new way of thinking – perhaps triggered by a new word in the English Language.  Perhaps Lagom is just the right word for what we need!

Not “sustainable” – just Lagom.

Sources:

Wikpedia entry on Lagom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom

Picture: Viking Royal Meadhorn Design from Beowulf Blog: http://www.joshviers4.blogspot.co.uk

IBM Quote: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/bigdata/

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The Answer Lies in the Space Between

We are in recess.  In the gap between:

  • The wet weather and what’s to come
  • July and September
  • The Olympics and the Paralympics
  • The Euro Crisis and its eventual resolution
  • Taking off the honey and extracting it
  • Writing an action on the “to-do” list and doing the things you need to do so you can cross it off
  • Birth and Death
  • …X…. and ….Y….

Yet with all the tensions in life and all the things that we are somehow in the middle of completing, I find it more and more interesting to search the space between.  And to settle, for a moment, here and now, into a state of  stillness.  A state of mild contemplation of what the gap looks like between these different tensions.

If you have had your holidays, I hope they were good!  If you are not going on holiday, hope you have a future one to look forward to!  And if, like me, you are still to go away, then enjoy the experience and the space between going away and coming back!

The answer, after all, lies in the space between!

 

Image Copyright iStockPhoto: Illustration 000019183913

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Anticipation on the Start Line

It has been an unusually busy and hot week for this time of the year.  I was in London today and noted a calmness and lack of buzz which is, perhaps due to the fact that many have started their holidays.  Yet the over-shadowing anticipation of the start of the Olympic Games tomorrow is plastered-in-pink across the underground and railway stations.  And Boris’ announcement to “get ahead of the games dot com” has become as familiar as the announcement about the sequence of train stations down the line from London Bridge to Ramsgate.

I was therefore struck by a poster from BA which I noticed first today and it got me thinking:

I am proud to be a Brit.  I was very excited by the Games being held in London.  Yet I do not find I am overly-excited by the fact that the games are now on the starting line.  This might be partly due to the fact that I applied for several hundred pounds worth of tickets and received none.  It might also be due to the fact that the disruption in London over the next six weeks is going to affect my business (quite by how much I am not sure).  However, the poster above somehow hit a nerve.  I am going on holiday in France (driving) – so am not flying anywhere.  Yet even if I wanted to sing the anthem, no one in TEAM GB would be listening.  I don’t feel part of the Games.  If anything, I feel they are a virus taking over the city that is where I work and sometimes play.

That, in itself, got me thinking about “The Game”.  You are either a player, a spectator or somewhere else altogether – neither playing nor watching the game.  In so many things we do (and play at), we are spectators.  Yet we often forget that there are many who are not interested in watching what we watch – and are most definitely not interested in watching us play our particular game.  As the world becomes more populated, it is interesting how the Olympics has such reach – and will have so many spectators.  Whatever sport interests you, perhaps the greatest spectator event will be tomorrow night’s opening ceremony.  The anticipation of the flame being lit.  The anticipation of a well-rehearsed once-in-a-lifetime show of Britishness.  Let’s hope it does not rain.  And that there are enough Brits in the audience to sing the National Anthem!  Good luck TeamGB – even if I won’t get a chance to see you in the flesh.

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Inward Investment, Magic and Love

As the world becomes more and more global and the European national political and economic frameworks remain stressed, each city is left to its own devices to attract inward investment and keep and grow talent.

In researching this area for a number of UK cities, a friend in the US sent me the link to this video.  It is so clever on so many levels you have to watch it more than once:

Enjoy!

Oh, and anyone thinking of moving into a new career of iPad magic shows, please let me know!  I would love to learn how to do this kind of magic!  Brilliant!

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Inventories, Unread Books and Generation Why

Last week there were no Thursday Thoughts.  I was in Edinburgh and thinking far too much to write about it.  Today I had to go up to London and got writer’s block until a chance Skype conversation with Malcolm about random stuff.  It got my right brain going and I am now back in the flow.

In much of the work I do, I am drawn to creating order from chaos by documenting the present situation.  One very useful tool is to take an inventory of what is.  A version of the truth that is accurate enough to be good enough.  It is like the difference between German and British accounting: German accounting is always exactly wrong: British accounting is almost roughly right!

So it was I was chatting to Malcolm on Skype who was listening to Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time – a discussion on James Joyce’s Ulysses.  At the start of the talk, Bragg points out that it is one of the most famous books of the last century – and one that few have read cover-to-cover – myself included.

It got me thinking about the fact that 95% of books are never read.  Mine included……

So I thought, what about an inventory of all the books I have – and then work out how many I have actually read?  More than 1,000 books – and less than 5% read?   I suppose that the types of books I collect are not novels.  They are more like factoid books, text books, “how to” books.  Bee books, personal development books.  I don’t read novels.  My father used to say “Life has enough drama in it that I don’t need to go to the theatre”.  I think the same about reading books.

So the inventory, used with the mirror, forces to look at yourself, your behaviour, your reality.  But the Skype conversation I was (and still am) having with Malcolm on this touched on another interesting thread.  The fact that I am of a generation where physical books represents learning, knowledge and intelligence.  But for my children, the world is very different.  An Amazon Kindle could contain the same number of books as on my bookshelves and many more besides.  For generation Y (which I call Generation Why – because they always seem to be asking the question Why?)  the value of owning physical books is almost diametrically opposite to mine.  To take an inventory of Apps on my MacBook (which I also collect) takes less than 5 seconds.  The software can be updated across the internet when new versions arrive.  Information is more transient.  More connected, near-free to produce.

So what?  Well it is time for me to start to clear the clutter of my bookshelves.  To stop ordering physical books on Amazon.  To change my behaviour.  One of the most difficult things to do.  But the inventory and the mirror are perhaps the most powerful tools to help change behaviour.  Question is whether I can  reduce my inventory without being distracted by workload, the bees, the dogs, the children – oh and that urge to go onto Amazon to buy another book on my Wish List!

Time for an inventory.  Time to put the mirror up!  It works with clients – but is so much harder to do to oneself!

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