1 day agoFirst Nations Languages“There were a lot of Aboriginal dialects, weren’t there?” “No, there wasn’t”, is the answer. “There were a lot of Aboriginal languages.” When Capt Cook first arrived there were around 250 Australian Indigenous languages, as different to each other as Spanish is to English, as Hindi is to Mandarin. Different…1 min read1 min read
2 days agoBeing a Tigger, Not An EeyoreThere was a hushed moment in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band’s first concert of their 2023 world tour the other night. He told the story about becoming the last surviving member of his first band ‘The Castilles’. This story introduced the next song in the concert — ‘The Last Man…1 min read1 min read
3 days agoAll The Fun of The FairEach year the circus would come to town. I’m not sure why they came to visit us. They weren’t really a circus. They were more a sideshow, than a circus. Bumper cars, shooting galleries, knock-em-downs, and other amusement rides. I couldn’t work out why a convoy of 10-plus trucks would…1 min read1 min read
4 days agoFred Hollows Knew How To Show Not TellFred Hollows was a legend in so many ways. He did good work. He came to our remote desert Aboriginal community a couple of times to do his good work looking after the eye health of community members. Trachoma was rampant in those remote communities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander…1 min read1 min read
5 days agoWhere My Big Ideas Come FromIt was the mid-90’s and schools were starting to use Education Software in the classroom. The CD’s were shiny, the graphics mesmerising and motivating. So I set up a business — ‘InterActive Books’ it was called — and went from school to school selling the software. The technology was still…1 min read1 min read
6 days agoClear Your Space, Clear Your MindLook, I’m sure I don’t display any OCD characteristics …. ….. and it wouldn’t matter if I did. My workflow needs to look 100% organised. It may go out of shape later in the day, but my last job is always to put it back into shape. I probably first…1 min read1 min read
Jan 29The Passionate Ones are Short-Lived.Follow your passion is probably just about the worst career advice I’ve ever received. Find your passion is the second worst. None of us are born with a passion for anything. As adults, if we’re mid-boring-career and drop everything to follow whatever passion we think we’ve identified, it usually peters…1 min read1 min read
Jan 27How Good Are You?When I first started in retail, I worked really hard at proving how good I was. In fact, I gave the impression that I was better than the job I was doing. After all, I had post-graduate degrees and here I was packing shelves. I made it known that I…1 min read1 min read
Jan 25Check Your Own Backyard FirstMy Swiss neighbour was recently widowed. His departed wife was a close friend of the family, particularly of my wife. Our two families grew together over the last 30 years and we’ve helped each other with two-man jobs around the house, errands and child-minding. Burial and bereavement completed, we all…1 min read1 min read
Jan 24Everything Catches Up With You, EventuallyWe’ve all taken a pizza delivery job at some stage, haven’t we? Just an in-between job, to earn some extra cash? Yes? Well, I did, many, many years ago. It was for the local pizza joint and I was on call 3–4 nights a week. A bit of cash, a…1 min read1 min read
