Monthly Archives: March 2010

Business Brands, Life Experiences, Values

Tigers are on the prowl – The TRUE champions !

Tigers!
Farewell Balmain Tigers

After 52 years in Rozelle, Balmain Tigers is now officially closed for redevelopment.  The Club has in the mean time, opened two smaller sites at Flemington Markets and Five Dock.  With this closure came the redundancy of 30 or so staff.  It is a tough decision when a Club has to inform its often, long term and loyal staff of their future redundancy.  Some of the staff that had been made redundant had been with Tigers for over 20 years.  Sunday 28th March 2010 was a sad day – the closing of Tigers, mixed with the feeling of a positive future with a new and exciting redevelopment already started. 

White Now were honoured to have been called in to assist with the Outplacement Program for a number of redundant staff.  With this Program was the offer of interview training, resume and career direction training, skills audits and ongoing mentoring.  Our wonderful Toby delivered a fantastic session to a group of soon-to-be redundant staff on preparing a powerful resume and winning at interview.  Through this experience, the White Now team saw a bunch of dedicated, positive and enthusiastic people who looked at their redundancy as a chance to do great things, look at their lives as a whole and actually CREATE their own futures.  There were people who wanted to change direction totally, some wanted to find exactly the same role in another club, others wanted to search overseas for a role and some wanted to follow their dream of working part time.  What WAS refreshing though was that everyone was positive.  It is a credit to each and every person at Tigers for adopting the right attitude and being positive.  Thanks to you all for simply being great !

It was an absolute pleasure for White Now to be involved in the Outplacement and Redeployment of the Tigers team and we wish those CHAMPIONS all the best with the next stage of their lives.  – Think like a champion and you will become a champion !

Life Experiences

The Road to Recovery

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I received a phone call over 2 weeks from a mate that I have known for over 20 years, in fact he was the first person that I made friends with at my footy club when we moved over to Australia!  He called me to confirm that I would be attending his 4oth birthday on the weekend of 27th March and we agreed that we would spend the day with one eye on the tv watching the Formula 1 highlights and the other chatting to various people!  We laughed about it and that was that.

Then, Wednesday last week he rang me back.  There was the usual banter and a brief chat about the first round of the F1.  This was then followed up with “Hey mate, you know how my party was locked in for the 27th?”.  “Yes”.  “Well, we are going to have to postpone it for a later date”.  “Oh!  Ok.  Is everything alright?”.

What followed was him informing me that he had been feeling a bit crook in the last week and so he had been to the Doc’s on the Monday and after a couple of tests that day, then a HEAP of tests on the Tuesday, they had decided to rush him in for an emergency procedure to remove a cancerous tumour from his right kidney.  They would need to break a couple of ribs to do so, make an incision about 30cm+ long and he would be under for 4 hours or so!

He was (as always) pretty philosophical about the whole thing and said that it was great that they had found it and that the surgery was the cure and that in 95% of cases, that is the end of it!

So, last week he went in to hospital and had the operation and I spoke with his wife on the Thursday and then with him on the Sunday.  He said that he was in massive pain, but that the op had gone really well and that they were talking about releasing him “soon”.  The VERY NEXT day, I got a text from him to say that he was in the car on his way home!  I was shocked, but told him that I would be over to visit the next day (yesterday)!

I was even more shocked when I saw the state of him yesterday when I got to his place!  He could hardly move he was in so much pain and the poor bloke looked a lot older than his (almost) 40 years!  I said to him, “What the hell are you doing back at home in this state?” (the terminology has been cleaned up for the purposes of the blog)!!!  His response was along the lines of the hospital needed the bed and they offered to give him some strong medication to handle the pain and as he was ‘young and fit’ (young – defintely.  fit – not so sure!!!) he should recover well .

Now, I am obviously NOT a Doctor, but there is no way my  mate should have been let out of the hospital.  I won’t go in to the gory details, but let me just say that he had not even cleared his system since the operation so they should have at least have kept him until that milestone had been successfully achieved!  It should also be noted that he was released against the protestations of both his wife and sister AND that he was paying TOP DOLLAR in a private hostpital with a VERY good name!!!

I am gob-smacked that anyone would be released after such major surgery!  And to let someone go home where there was not going to be any care for the first two days that he was back there is beyond me and quite frankly bordering on culpable in my limited opinion!!!

However, from all of this there have been some real positives:

  • Primarily that my friend is better and should be fine from here!
  • It has woken him up to his unhealthy lifestyle
  • And has woken myself and a couple of our other close friends up to theirs (unhealthy lifestyles).  We have all agreed to getting a bit fitter and being healthier and to making some wiser decisions when it comes to our lifestyles (work vs play vs late nights vs parties vs etc, etc)!

Life is so precious, particularly when we all have kids involved!  We should therefore hold on tight to it and take the time to look at what is important us and make the decisions required to ensure that we are around and about to enjoy each and every moment that we have to spend with those that we love and cherish as ultimately we are all mortal, which for (relatively) young Australian blokes to admit is a MAJOR milestone!!!  🙂

Life Experiences, Uncategorized

Two ways to find an extra hour a week to bank for later !

Like all good business owners, I’ve been working on our businesses, planning, strategising and generally creating great things for the future. The problem that I kept finding is that there is simply not enough hours in the day ! I think that I have been saying that there is not enough time since I was first able to read a clock ! I then read an inspirational quote that got me thinking;

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Well that quote just slapped me in the face and shook me up. I knew that I really needed more hours, but of course, 24 is 24 and you can’t just add time to a day, but hey, you can save time, bank it and use it for more useful reasons can’t you ? I went on a journey to try and simplify things in my life that really didn’t add any value to the essence of who I am and certainly were not assisting in achieving any meaningful goals. Everyone has heard about ideas such as only checking your emails once a day – but let’s face it, we run an online business and our White Now customers expect great response times so that strategy is just plain crazy for us. The brain started ticking. I know that the business is pretty efficient so I need to find some time in my personal life. Like all working mums, we spend far too much time on things like ironing, folding washing and the like. So how could I save time here ?

I called on my friend Mr You Tube, you know him, the guy that sucks you into his website and makes you watch ridiculous videos of kids on pushbikes running into walls and video clips of bands that had lead singers that you had a crush on when you were 16. I was this time going to abuse Mr You Tube for my own benefit. I searched on ‘Folding Clothes’ and all of a sudden my prayers were answered. Check out these two videos and you can see how I have gained an hour a week to bank and spend on improving our businesses ! I bet that you will use these technique too and buy yourself an extra hour a week !

ENJOY !

How to fold a T Shirt in 2 Seconds

Peeling Eggs with Speed (OK, I don’t really use this one but it’s pretty funny !)

Life Experiences, Uncategorized, Values

What Goes Around Comes Around – It’s a Generational Thing !

 

Emilys Card
Emily's Card to Jordan

Way back I blogged about meeting Emily, the volunteer who came to the Children’s Sleep Disorder Clinic at Hospital 5 nights a week after work, to help settle the children – one of which was my 3 year old son hooked up to dozens of wires.  Emily’s main job was as a preschool teacher.  She wanted to give some of her skills back to those in need and chose the hospital to do so.  (If you want to recap the story, then click here to read about AMAZING Emily). 

You may recall that my son and I made a special card and sent it to Emily and we slipped in a small store voucher to thank her.  In my view, there is not much that is more rewarding than thanking others for something that they have done.  We knew that we would never see or hear from Emily ever again.  

WELL……. TODAY something wonderful happened to my son Jordan.  We brought the mail in and there was a card for him.  It was a card with a puppy dog holding a flower in his mouth.  It just so happens that Jordan L O V E S puppy dogs and has an innate connection with the beauty of flowers and the meaning of giving to others.  Jordan never fails to pick a flower for me EVERY day after day care. He always brings it home and greets me as I walk in with the hand picked flower and an “I love you Mummy”.  Every single day this happens and every single day I smile.  If I ever doubt the wonder of a child, I can simply reflect on these moments and be humbled at his grace and love. 

Jordan opened the envelope  (well he actually ripped it open with hands  shaking with excitement) and I then read it to him.  It was from Emily.  Jordan remembered Emily as clear as daylight ……. and he only met her for no more than 15 minutes, months before and in an anxious situation (yes, she touches lives !).  The card read “Dear Jordan …… I’m not sure if you remember me but it’s Emily from ……..  Sorry it’s taken so long to write to you, but I was getting ready for my overseas trip.  I am in Holland now.  I absolutely LOVED your card. It was so thoughtful and …. I even have it with me in Europe to keep me safe….. “.

Jordan turned to me and said “I miss Emily”. 

Emily touched our lives and we thanked her.  Little did we know that we touched her life as well. All we did was thank someone for being great.  Do you think that every time that Emily looks at that card she will remember that she is a great person ? ABSOLUTELY.  Do you think that she will keep that card somewhere forever ? FOR SURE.  The lesson to learn is to thank people for doing great things.  Thank people that aren’t used to being thanked.  Notice people that aren’t used to being noticed. The more people that believe they are great, the greater they become.  The best thing that YOU can do is pass this lesson onto the next generation !

Safe travels Emily !