1. It will mean working with lots of inspirational women! What is it about the NFP sector that attracts women? Cynically I could argue that they’ll put up with the lower pay scales more readily than men! However, they also work very hard and put the cause right out in front as a beacon of hope and energy. I love the women working in our sector, they are so inspirational! Some of the women board directors I’ve met are absolutely driven and fantastic mentors.
2. It won’t be easy! A few hopeful but misguided souls consider a move to a nonprofit organisation will mean that life won’t be as stressful or busy as working for a commercial business. (I recall the job candidates who when asked why they’re considering a job in the NFP world answer “I’m looking to slow down a bit!” Not likely!) It might actually be a bit more stressful! You may have fewer resources including staff and money and you may be working on issues that create emotional stresses – like considering the needs of children living in poverty or those dealing with cancer or depression.
3. It will be more rewarding! Almost certainly if you choose an organisation that follows a cause not led by the balance sheet, you will find it rewarding. How much more rewarding depends on how much you put into it and how much the cause matters to you.
4. It will mean coming face to face with your own values! What matters to you? What gets you up in the morning? What drives you and makes you angry/motivated and ready to take on the world? Find the organisation that meets your values and you’ll have found your cause.
5. It will mean asking others for money! If you are unsure if you are ready to ask others to financially support your cause, you may not want to work in the sector. Government funding is always limited and donor funding is often fickle so no matter what your role from scientist to receptionist, you will one day be asked to help out with fundraising. It’s not hard but it can appear to be confrontational. You’ll learn that by encouraging others to give, it’s a great way of connecting them with their values. A worthy cause indeed.

I am rather taken with birdwatching at the moment and as such I have turned into a ‘twitcher’. The Oxford Dictionary defines a ‘twitcher’ as …. well, ‘someone who twitches’ (not that helpful I would have thought if you went to the dictionary to find out what the word ‘twitch’ meant!) I didn’t really understand why that moniker was used for bird-watchers until I became one and started to ‘twitch’ my head in the general direction of any movement in a bush or shrub that might turn out to be a species of bird that I havent seen before. Hence the Oxford Dictionary’s second definition: ‘British informal: a birdwatcher whose main aim is to collect sightings of rare birds.’ That’s me.
Of course, becoming a bird watcher is a relatively simple thing as there are birds around us all the time. Most are very common and not particularly exciting to view such as Indian Miners or pigeons. But others are so glorious that I want to tell everyone I meet after I’ve had such an encounter about what they missed by not being with me at the time. This does not normally have the expected effect. In fact, mostly once people realise that the ‘rare sighting’ I am describing does not involve the latest celebrity or at the very least some random footballer, their eyes glaze over and they mutter the words ‘twitcher’ (or at least I think that’s what they’re say, it could of course be ‘twit’. but I choose the former).
Australian birds are fascinating. I particularly like the raucous calls of wattlebirds outside my window in the morning. Add to that they are aeronautical wonders able to catch their prey (moths, flies, butterflies) on the wing with some amazing manuevers. I have two regular visitors to my garden. A red wattlebird (red wattles under his chin and a yellowish lower breast) and a little wattlebird and sometimes they’re out there at the same time.
Magpies warbling are a joy to listen to. I really wonder what they are saying to each other.
Honeyeaters of all kinds enthrall me and seeing a spinebill honeyeater or a new holland honeyeater, makes my day.
Of course, becoming a bird watcher inevitably turns you into something else. An amateur photographer. Because no-one believes you’ve seen your wonder unless you can show them a picture. Sad but true. The wild albino fairy wren at Werribee Open Range Zoo is like a mystical creamy coloured fairy that NO-ONE but those who have seen it believe in. I have seen it and my blobby, blurred photo proved nothing (the average fairy wren is only about 3″ high and I was photographing it from about 15 metres without a tripod… and with my shaky hands (excitement!) no chance!) So in order to gain greater pleasure from my hobby I must collect proof. Not in the way of actual birds or eggs or even feathers: but photos. So I’m an amateur photographer and birdo. Add that to keeping my blog up to date and having a social life, one wonders when I have time to work….? I’m wondering about that too

It’s usual for me to have a theme that carries through all of the books that I have on the go…sometimes deliberately, other times serendipitously. I usually prefer to read non-fiction over fiction (except in my early teens where I had an obsession with horror and science fiction writing and Stephen King was my master).

So the theme at the moment is ‘How to get out of your own way’ and do the things you really want to do. Not because your mother thinks it’s a good idea, and not because it’s a great way to pay the bills and not because it will look good on your resume. Just because you want to do it and it is, as one author put it ‘your silent scream’. The thing or things you want to do more than anything else in the world if only you could get out of your own way long enough to start doing it.

So I started with “When work doesn’t work anymore, Women, Work and Identity” by Elizabeth Perle McKenna. Rather an academic book but with some very good insights (while not offering too much in the way of guidance) which should have been a best seller when it came out in 1997 as it turned out to be an excellent prophecy of what the future would hold not just for women but for all worker bees. That money, power and world domination aren’t the measures of success that are driving us any more. And in particular, have proved pretty unhealthy for women and men alike.

Push forward to 2006* and the audio/book “Success Built to Last” by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery and Mark Thompson and the theme continues except they are using more high-profile examples of success and everyone’s got the same idea that ‘money aint enough’ and you need to love what you do and do what you love to have real lasting success. (Just quietly, I think if “When Work doesn’t work anymore” had used more well-known people as case studies, it might have been more successful however it was published in a time when we didn’t light candles to celebrities but I digress). I really enjoyed ‘Success built to Last’ and recommend it. One idea struck me as useful (amongst others) that if you want to really spend your time on the things that matter most to you then figure out the things you should do more of and the things you should do less of. I liked this and set about making a list. We should all do more lists

In one of my charity shop excursions I picked up “there are only two times in life – Now and Too late” by Terry Hawkins. It looked like it might prove helpful in that ‘moving out of your own path’ way of thinking I was developing but in all honesty, the structure of the book was such that I lost interest after the first two chapters. It didn’t seem to have much direction. So I agreed with the title and decided now was a good time to stop reading it.

Another excellent audio book (yes, i spend a bit of time in the car and i cant bear commercial radio so I’m an audio book-o-phile) is ‘Buy-in: Saving your good idea from being shot down’ by John P Kotter and Lorne A Whitehead*. I really enjoyed this. Great strategies for getting your opponents to open up about their objections to your brilliant idea so that you can overcome them by calm discussion and get on with your project in peace having gained 70%+ support for it. This book has help me in my working life negotiations and would recommend their ideas.

So now. The sun is setting and I turn away from my business books, pick up my rose wine spritzer, stroke one of my cats who is sitting on the table guarding me against flies and other intruders and pick up my next book: ‘The French’, it was written by an Englishman, Theodore Zeldin, in 1983. My husband is French, so perhaps I’ll gain some new insights and maybe a new theme will develop… I wonder where this one will take me…..

*released on www.audible.com

I’ve witnessed several businesses with great potential that would have grown more successfully if the owner/manager could have imagined that business being implemented by someone else.

Where a business owner has had the insight to recognise that they can’t do everything themselves (and shouldnt try), then the business started to progress. Not to say its easier or less work to involve others I’ve seen the benefits of sharing the load. In addition when they’ve started to think about how they would structure/operate their business with a view to someone else operating it, a change takes place that opens up a number of opportunities.
Here are a couple:
1. If you have others working in your business you can share ideas and problems with them – you are not trying to work out everything yourself.
2. If someone else is working IN the business – driving sales, delivery customer solutions – you can be working ON the business, driving strategy and leadership skills, developing new ideas.
3. If you are the business how do you sell your business if you decide you want to move on? By building a business model that is transferable, that can be owned by someone else is what makes a business, in my opinion, a real business and not a one person consultancy. To test this, think of how a business named after the owner which has no other staff could possibly sell that business to someone else unless they have a repeatable business model that does not rely exclusively on the skills of the current owner.

4 Which brings us to the old chestnut of business plan – which should be considered with the future of the business in mind – not just today, but in 5 or 10 years. Dont you want everything you’ve worked for to continue after you’ve found new interests? (even if those interests involve mostly a pina colada and a beach). So building a business plan that allows the business to be owned and successfully operated by someone else is a must unless you’re happy to shut your door when you take down your shingle.
5. Release the Equity in your business: capitalise on all the work you’ve put into the business to date. This is your business equity. If your business were a house which you’d owned for a number of years in a rising market, when you were ready to move on, you’d sell it on to a new owner for a profit. You can set yourself up to do this with your business to release the accumulated equity if you build it with the future in mind. All that sweat and effort could turn itself in to a future profit. Isnt that something for which it’s worth sharing your vision?
Write and tell me what your vision is for your business. And for more info on planning and building a better business visit Alignments Australia and consider reading The E-Myth by Michael Gerber.

While the Year of the Rabbit was characterized by calm and tranquility, the Year of the Dragon will be marked by excitement, unpredictability, exhilaration and intensity. The Rabbit imbues people with a sense of cautious optimism, but people respond to the spirit of the Dragon with energy, vitality and unbridled enthusiasm, often throwing all caution to the wind – which can be an unwise move: The Dragon is all about drama but if you take unnecessary risks, you may find yourself starring in your own personal tragedy.

Dragon years are lucky for anyone thinking of starting a business or initiating a new project of any sort because money is easier to come by for everyone, whether it’s earned, borrowed or received as a gift. Consequently we can expect the economic downturn to ease up a bit in the coming year. Fortunes can be made but they can also be lost: Keep in mind like all good things, the Year of the Dragon will come to an end and you will be held accountable for unreasonable extravagances.

Dragons do well in professions that give them the ability to function somewhat autonomously. They make excellent sales people, publicists, political campaigners, lawyers, real estate brokers, actors and politicians. For more info go to: www.chinesenewyear2012.net

Last year I was months into planning my own celebratory year… just 100 years less! It was a party to remember with my very best friends and family, a 50′s theme, lots of wasp waists, eyeliner and pencil skirts! Everyone looked fabulous. We had the perfect night with 28 degrees at 6pm, champagne on the trimmed lawn, a jazz band followed by dinner and more music. Perfecto!

This year to celebrate one of Melbourne’s most loved cultural icons, there will be just as much music, even more food, champagne on occasion, and lots and lots of fundraising events! January is planning month and a little breathing time before the fun and madness takes off. Then… it all begins.

So 280 days to go… here’s to a fabulous 2012 to you all (whoever you are). And if I see you at a celebratory event… say ‘hello’.

It’s nearly Christmas…
How is that possible? Only 4 weeks or so til another year comes to a close and we think about new year resolutions made and long forgotten and set about making new ones.
I look back at my resolutions… one of which was to keep my blog up to date…hmmm didnt do too well on that. But instead of chastising myself on my failings, I will indulge myself a little by looking to my successes.
I have tried to help motivate my sister just a little bit with her fabulous business www.madamefrufru.com.au (very little really, she did 99.9% very much on her own); I helped my husband find the courage to look for a new job which he did successfully, gaining along the way the recognition he deserved for his talents; I worked hard to motivate and lead my team to a fabulous year of fundraising and constituency engagement and built their own talents at the same time. I got out there and gave two ‘Create the working life you love’ workshops… it was supposed to be more like 6 or 7 but hey, 2 was a good start I spent a lovely two weeks with my mother on holiday in France (which she had only ever visited for 1 day and she lives just across the channel in England!) spending gentle quiet time together, sitting by a softly gurgling river, joined by butterflies and kingfishers.
Yes, i gained more pounds than i intended, only on my waist rather than my bank account, of course! And as for finishing my book… well that will have to wait another year I fear.
All in all, not a bad year… and they were just a few of the milestones. It’s good to look up from thinking about the future or the past and realise, right here in the present, you are happy with where you are.

In fact, I try to make every day Mothers’ day for her as we only see each other every couple of years. I live in Melbourne, she in England so when we’re together, we avoid controversial issues that might cause us to quarrel and stick with playing cards, playing scrabble, visit neighbouring towns to wonder at the cost of the coffee or the badly made tea and the strange obsession with selling all things cheap and Chinese in every shop we go into. What has happened to local artisans? (that’s a whole other post!)
It does mean that we don’t always talk about what’s on our minds or what’s making us sad or even what’s really joyful. It’s a careful kind of company that we keep. It’s keeping the peace.
So today I would have liked to tell her that though she’s in a later stage of life, she should still get out there and enjoy as much of it as possible and not worry what anyone thinks, or says, or doesn’t say. I think of her easy access to the wonders of Europe and the beauty of England on early summer days and hope and wish she gets out into the countryside and enjoys a walk at Stonehenge, or on the Downs in Dunstable, or through the craziness of Oxford St in London where a 25 degree day equates to a heat wave and you can’t buy an ice-cold drink for love nor money.
She could walk through Hyde Park and wonder at the amazing cheekiness of the squirrels who virtually mug you for edible tidbits. Or she could just sit at a cafe overlooking the pebbly beach at Brighton, with a cup of tea in hand and wonder at the way things change but still stay the same.
She could visit my aunt and uncle (her brother and sister-in-law) in Dublin where she’s from and have a laugh and a joke over an always filled up cup of strong as tar Irish tea. She could take a walk on the Ha’penny bridge in Dublin that crosses the Liffey and think about where’s she’s from and how far she’s come and how well she’s done to bring up three crazy but happy daughters who are living equally amazing and happy lives, for all their complaining.

As a non-mother on Mothers’ Day I sit a little wistfully and wonder at what all those women would have done with their lives if they hadn’t had children. I likewise wonder what else they could be doing with their lives now they HAVE had children. My mother gave us a great start to life and continues to help us grow and prosper. I wish i could encourage her that her life still goes on and that having children was just one of the amazing things she was and is able to do. Thanks Mum for all you’ve done for me and my sisters. Now. Go out and get something else for yourself. So many beautiful places and adventures are still waiting for you. Happy Mothers’ Day.