When our daughter, Butterfly, died in June this year, we realise we had to take action in spite of our grief.
Funds donated to us in Butterfly’s memory were used to co-create a children’s play area in Northern Botswana from scratch.
Now, some vulnerable children, many with life limiting conditions, have a safe space to come together and simply enjoy being children.
This Sunday we’re sharing a private video we made of our formal opening of the play area last week:
One of Stephen’s favourite quotes comes from a devotional he read one sunrise whilst serving in Africa as a teenager:
“As we meet and touch each day
The many travellers on life’s way
Let every such brief contact be
An encouraging helpful ministry.”
For him, it confirmed his sense that we are all travellers on a journey, and that no matter how brief our contact with another, we can encourage and help someone take their next step on life’s journey through a simple brief word or silent act of encouragement.
In the week ahead who do you need to come alongside to encourage on life’s journey?
YOU KNOW, GETTING MOTIVATED IS ONE THING, BUT STAYING MOTIVATED FOR THE LONG TERM IS ANOTHER THING, BUT IT CAN BE DONE.
IT CAN BE DONE BECAUSE STAYING MOTIVATED IS ABOUT TAKING ONE STEP AT A TIME ON A JOURNEY OF UPS AND DOWNS.
REMEMBER, THE RACE IS NOT FOR THE SWIFT OR STRONG BUT TO THOSE WHO ENDURE TO THE END…
Staying motivated for the long term is about taking one step at a time on a journey of ups and downs
While we’re all in different places career wise, family wise, and health wise, we’re all in the same place when it comes to motivation. What we mean by that is; it’s within all our gifting to simply take one, not 10 or 20, but just ‘one’ more step in the ‘right’ direction on our personal journeys, and that’s all we need to do to keep motivating ourselves; take that next small step.
Imagine you are playing a game of tennis against a child. It’s a really fun thing doing that and we do it a lot our kids, but if you try to play a serious game against a six year old, you will quickly become demotivated and bored. The match is too easy.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you try to play a serious match against a professional tennis player like Roger Federer or Simona Halep, you will soon find yourself demotivated for a different reason. The match is too difficult.
But, compare these experiences to playing tennis against someone who is your peer, your equal. As the game progresses, you lose a few points and you win a few points. The match could go either way, but you actually have a chance of winning the match against your equal, but only if you really try to make that difference.
In this environment, suddenly you become more focussed, distractions fade away, and you find yourself fully engaged in the activity at hand.
The challenge you are facing is “achievable”, and while victory is not guaranteed, it is possible. Activities like these are the most likely to keep us motivated in the long term.
We all rise to challenges, but only if they are within our personal unique zone of difficulty. Activities that are significantly below our current abilities are boring. Activities that are significantly beyond your current abilities are discouraging. But activities that are right on the border of failure and success are incredibly motivating to us. We want nothing more than to master a skill just beyond our current horizon.
If like us, you’re looking at maintaining motivation for the long term in every aspect of your life, then we need to keep our momentum going by engaging in those activities where we feel challenged, but capable.
And remember, wherever you are in your personal journey at this time, if you’re losing motivation, we just want to encourage you to take YOUR next step on YOUR journey, because it’s within all our gifting to take one small step.
You CAN stay motivated for the long term by taking one step at a time!
On returning home with some groceries this weekend, Ruth shared with me how she bumped into to some acquaintances in the high street who were obviously starting to get stressed with the unnecessary baggage that goes with the run up to Christmas.
This tension often comes from a sense of wanting to fulfil other people’s expectations, so that we feel we have to be more than we are; be more financially, be more as an organiser, or even be more as a cook!
Anyway, Sunday is a good time to reflect on the week that’s past and the week that lies ahead so I wanted to share a thought with you in the run up to Christmas, and all the unnecessary baggage that comes with it, that was taught me one Christmas as a teenager in a foreign land…
The country in question had seen much civil unrest and had just stopped short of civil war, though armed violence was still rife.
It was a nation of extreme wealth and extreme poverty and seeing the two extremes coexist so close together blew my mind.
It was my first Christmas away from home. A home where we all came together for Christmas, but this time I was spending it with people who had been through so much trauma, and were enduring so much material poverty, yet at the same time, by the way they lived their lives in the face of oppression, these were some of the most richest people I had ever met. It was my first Christmas through different eyes.
The exposure caused me to struggle with the very real issues of justice/injustice, and of my own financial ‘wealth’ in a guilty way, as a comparative millionaire in the presence of so much material poverty.
I shared this struggle with one of the Community’s Elders, Abe.
I’ve never forgotten Abe’s counsel in response after opening up to him:
“Stephen, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, what matters is…do you own your money, or does your money own you?”
If you own your money, you control it, you hold it, and you can give it away. If your money owns you, it controls you, it holds you and you can’t give it away.”
It was wise words to a young man setting out in life; it’s not how much or how little money I had, but rather my attitude toward it that ultimately mattered.
And this principle of control, and of being able to release/let go, or conversely of being held/controlled, doesn’t doesn’t just apply to money either.
So this weekend, as we take take to reflect, maybe we can all stop and ask ourselves, what are the things controlling us that we need to retake control of, things that maybe we need to give away or simply let go of?
This week I was tasked with giving a presentation to a University panel on the following topic:
“The Engineer of the future: What are the challenges in developing ‘industry ready’ graduate engineers, and how would I address these?”
Click here or on the image below to see a short 3 min video I shared with the panel on the future world of work as part of the presentation:
What struck the panel after watching the video was the absence of humans in the workplace, and that is noteworthy, because it’s humanity not technology, where true and lasting value is created.
So what are the challenges I saw in developing ‘industry ready’ graduate engineers?
Well I kept it to my top 4 which are: 1. Reduction in traditional roles 2. Increase in speed of change 3. Increased competition from a diminishing resource pool 4. Absence of human empathy in global teams
1. Reduction in traditional roles
There’ll be fewer jobs in the traditional economy with Artificial Intelligence & Robotic Automation becoming more prevalent even in highly technical professions. One of our daughters had heart surgery last week. The surgeon anticipated that AI would replace him in performing that kind of surgery within 5 years. The world of work is a lot less structured now with less predictive career paths. So from a Supply & Demand perspective, the scope of the demand is changing. Which leads us onto,
2. Increase in speed of change
The speed of change is exponential. That means that those institutions who are shaping an individual for industry on a conventional 3yr Bachelor degree need to be aware that what is taught in the 1st year may well be obsolete by the time the student graduates. Of course the fundamentals of Math & Science don’t change, however, their real world application do. So, providers of entry level Bachelor certifications could well be challenged in how they refresh course content and obtain re-accreditation (which takes roughly 1 year) in a timely manner.
3. Increased competition from a diminishing resource pool
There are more females in UK than men, yet females only make up 10% of the Engineering profession, yet at its core, Engineering is about problem solving in teams, something that females excel in. Add to this the appeal of other disciplines, and predicted decline in population, obtaining new recruits/resource will be a challenge.
4. Absence of human empathy in global teams.
Connectivity is a two edged sword. How often even at a local team has ‘technology’ disrupted human relationships?
At the break out areas where people once chatted and socialised and asked how people were as they got their their refreshments, how many people are now just sitting in silence gazing into an iPhone?
Without spending time with and getting to know one another, how can we build up trust?
Without trust, there’s no honest dialogue, without honest dialogue problem solving falls apart. This I see as a challenge for teams as individual members become remotely located and isolated, despite the ability to email or video conference in different time zones.
I think it’s worth pointing out that the first two points fall under the theme of Change Control, and the second two points fall under the theme of Mindset, so to conclude the topic ‘How would I address these (challenges)?’ I offer the following:
Change Control
While I believe there’ll be fewer traditional jobs in the future economy I also believe that anything that cannot be digitised or automated will become extremely valuable. What do I mean by that, well things that make us distinctly human; creativity, imagination, intuition, emotion, ethics. I believe the future is about holistic business models with ‘just in time’ learning as opposed to ‘just in case’ learning. So we need systems in place to monitor and evaluate rapidly changing scope requirements. It won’t be about training a worker for a specific job, rather, building a thinker who can continue to learn. It will be about enabling life skills with the aim of preparing future engineers for unpredictable careers. And that leads us onto;
Mindset
How do we make engineering more appealing in the first place, especially to females?
One thing we can do here in the UK is encourage real world application of Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) subjects at a much earlier age than we do currently, rather than provide abstract classroom lectures. The evidence from the Chamber of British Industry is that we should start targeting those students aged 8, rather than than the historic intervention at around age 14 with engaging activities when students are considering exam subject options, which is too late.
We also need to encourage life skills which create high trust environments.
What do I mean by high trust?
It’s the blend of technical competence and human character so that you’re not afraid that your new idea will be laughed at, so you DO share it. It’s where even ‘failure’ is understood as a learning step to success, and as such we encourage one another to fail forwards. It’s where, if you put your hand up to say ‘I need help’ you’ll be respected not judged.
Why?
Because you trust your colleagues, and your colleagues trust you, and as such everyone is watching out for everyone else.
I left the panel with my thought on the engineer of the future should look like:
“The Engineer of the future is one who has transitioned through a responsive holistic curriculum that incorporates human value alongside technical prowess to build an agile emotionally intelligent professional.”
I believe Engineers have done so much to enhance our world, but as the latest gadget comes out, let us never forget, humanity is where true and lasting value is created.
