Letter to Marlis Jun-Jul-Aug 2018 (I visited in between)

Hi Marlis,

Spring is finally here again and we’re looking to get our very first 24 degree day on Tuesday, good times indeed. 😊 Lots of things have happened over the past 2-3 months, so here we go!

Happy birthday!!

I hope this letter still arrives on time for your 48^th birthday (84, 24, who really knows, right?! 😊). I thought to put in this gift card, I am sure you’ll find a good use for it. I hope you have many healthy and joyful years ahead of you. Upwards and onwards to 100!

Litter Picking

This litter picking hobby of mine is getting a bit more serious every day. From January to end of July this year, I picked up about 100 collecting bags (about 250kgs), took pictures and made a big collage, wrote a piece for my professional network and merrily started on bag 101. Over the month of August, I picked up another 50+ (!) bags and the way this is going, I’ll reach the next 100 by the end of September. I am really starting to see a difference, but at the same time I realise that I can only do as much as one very energised and motivated person can do. I’ve also found that littering has many different causes, it’s not just smokers, fast food eaters and people with not enough braincells. It’s also bins not closing properly, wind gusts, overstuffed bins, leaflets and many, many, many tissues. I’ve written to the council and might even start an Altona chapter of Love Our Streets (not the greatest name, but the cause is okay). That’s like the Beach Patrol people, but not on the beach. I’ll have to see how that evolves but can totally see myself and Yumi do it. It’s not very costly, just re-use plastic bags or buy a roll of biodegradable ones, maybe a litter grabber for a few dollars and off you go! I’ve found some pretty weird things, lots of clothing items, some questionable DVDs, a phone, keys, money (no suitcase unfortunately, just coins 😊) but most of it is really cans, cups, bottles, plastic bags, wrappers and like I said, lots and lots of tissues. It’s nice to do something for the environment while I am out there walking anyway, and it’s great to be outside now that winter is over. I even got a response back from someone on social media saying that her friend in Canada was also planning to start picking litter with her walking group, renamed to Waste Warrior Walkers, haha. This weekend Yumi and I will take part in Spring Clean the City, about 300+ litter pickers making Melbourne that much cleaner, should be fun. I’ve learned so much about litter and the various initiatives that I’ve now written to the council to see if I can help them with their new Litter and Waste Management plan. When I walk around I got an app on my phone that allows me to send pictures of really big issues I find for the council then to follow up on. So I got a call last week and they thanked me for my effort of finding 200-300 dumped plastics pots in a nature reserve but they’ll wait a few months because it’s crawling with tiger snakes at the moment, yikes!! I’ll not walk there for a bit then 😊.

ACT visits

I so love coming back to the ACT. Not just because I got to visit you, even though that was very cool and welcome, it’s also because it’s familiar and Yumi and I had such good times there. I think it will always have a place in my heart. And everything is close, the air smells cleaner and there is virtually no traffic. I was there last week for 3 days, but this was really just work, work, work, with a few after work drinks and on Wednesday I got to entertain myself by going to the cinema and exploring the new and improved Canberra Centre. They really did do a good job in sprucing it up a bit. It’s much nicer than many of the Melbourne ones we have and I am always amazed by how big it is for such a small place. I also drove or walked by some of the places I used to visit frequently and even managed to get a Dobinson’s chocolate chip cookie, which was an unexpected bonus! Yumi and I will be back again next week, just working, working, working again and maybe visit some Dutch friends who just had their second baby boy. And we might go to eat at our favourite Indian restaurant. I mean, as long as we’re there and it will probably be my last trip to the ACT for a while, let’s make the most of it!  

SES

I’ve now taken on the financial role and apparently this means I part of the management team. We’ll see about that, because I really don’t like that idea. It gets in the way of me doing fun stuff, so I’ll see how I can get away from that! I did manage to get them into the 21st century with internet banking. Will you believe that we were still handing out cheques to our members for their expenses, how 1924…The books are all up to date now and we’ve got some better processes moving forward. I am also planning to make our team aware of how much money we actually have, no one seems to know really. I also went on my very first police assistance search in the area. I’ll spare you the details of the crime (a murder), but we were looking for knives, clothes and a bicycle, so obviously the Dutch guy needed to be there, with my bike spotting skills. Well, we found 2 stolen license plates, lots of litter and absolutely nothing else. And still we had fun and it’s a good thing to do, the police detective was also very appreciative, especially because it rained for most part. This weekend I volunteered at a community engagement thing at Bunnings, which was mostly just chatting to people and hanging around near our boat, trying to entertain kids. The weather was nice and we got some donations, so not too bad a way to spend a Saturday. A week or two ago I also got to pick up our lighting trailer, which is always popular with other emergency services because when you turn on its 10,000 volts of lights, it’s literally like you are working in daylight. I just had to pick it up after it got some work done, but it was my first time driving with a trailer in a long time (you need a license for that in the Netherlands). I am sure you saw the big fire near Altona/Melbourne on the news, another one of my SES mates actually dropped off the trailer there, the pictures looked like a war zone. Happy I did not have to go there with goodness knows what still floating around in the air…

Parents’ house

As mentioned when I visited last time, my parents have managed to sell the house and are now living in a holiday home for 6 weeks until they move into their rental place. The past few months have been full of change for them once more. Having to throw out a lot of stuff they would not be able to fit in the new house and stuff from even my childhood (get rid of it, haven’t missed it), thinking about selling the old and buying new furniture and packing up all the boxes, it was a big job and while they are not quite ‘old’ it’s no walk in the park. Fortunately, a few of my very good friends were willing to help them move most of the stuff into storage and will help them again on 12 October when they move into the rental place. One of those times when friends really are better than family 😊.

Motorcycle license and car accident

Now that I have time and money on my hands, I am once again thinking of getting my motorcycle license. I don’t have to explain the appeal to you, just wished I had done it earlier so we could talk motorcycles too! I’ll do the theory and test first in the next few weeks, just to see if I have the personality for it. I can’t see myself owning a motorcycle just yet, but maybe I’ll do the tests first and see how I go. I am equal parts excited and scared. Excited to try new things, scared because I don’t want to fall or get into an accident, but apparently the statistics tell me that this is unlikely. However, when you do get into an accident, it’s better to be in a car I reckon. On that topic, I got rear-ended last Friday! Not my fault, but still felt bad for the other guy as he had just had his car out of the shop for 3 days after he got rear-ended himself! We were very friendly and polite about it and it wasn’t a big bang (no airbags were hurt during this accident 😊) and it gives us an opportunity to get a small scrape and the other mirror repainted. We lost the right mirror cover a while back in a super market parking lot and got a new one, but it costs like $90 and doesn’t even come in the right colour. Anyhow, I get to pick it up from the shop on Thursday after dropping it off today. It will look like new-ish, I hope 😊 

CMI

My volunteering for the Change Management Institute is drawing to a close by the end of this month and while I am happy it will be over, I do recognise that I’ve made many friends and got access to things that might otherwise not have happened. At the same time, there’s always this amount of drama and clashes of personalities caused by miscommunication that I found too hard to deal with after a while. People are very appreciative of the things I made happen, but I want to see ACTION and people getting involved and while I have not completely fulfilled my promise of a full year (I did 9 months), they all seem to agree that I did the work of 2 years in those 9 months, so I guess everyone wins and they get to have a great leader in my friend Anna, who will be so much better at dealing with all the stupid posturing than I will ever be. Again, no patience for that 😊.

NDS work

I’ve had great fun touring the regional parts of Victoria in early August with the National Disabilities Services crew. It’s not every day I get to go to Sale, Shepparton or Mildura and talk to people about change and how they can do better. These were all board members and executives, so you’d think they got this all sorted and done right? Well, not quite as it turns out. I hope they got something out of it. There’s always a few people who tell me afterwards they found it very helpful and I guess that’s enough for me, but I hope I inspire them to take action too. Either way, I learned a lot, got to positively change my mind about the big NDIA Government agency running the NDIS scheme (lots of hate from participants and I will admit I am also not a fan of how they are doing things). And then there’s Yumi’s boss and colleagues I got to work with and they are all just such lovely and hardworking people. I just love how I get paid to travel, see the country and do some good. It’s almost enough to keep me in the change job, almost.

Failed projects

It really stinks when I have to admit defeat, especially when it happens twice in a few weeks, but sometimes I just can’t seem to make my ideas work. I had this idea to collect Australian Success stories and share them with the community. Did my research, asked 25 friends in Change and they all thought it was a great idea, set myself some goals and then it took me 8 months to get 3 stories and 2 promises of a story. I think in the end I might even have ended up causing people to feel bad for not getting involved, not at all what I intended. So, I shut down the Small Poppy Project last month and decided that even if I did not succeed, I had a few really good conversations and learned a lot more about how these sort of things work. Another idea I had and carried around so long even I lost the plot was to make a toolkit for my fellow Rebels. There are heaps of books written on corporate rebellion, some so good that they hardly need my help with anything else. I thought I would make a simple overview of about 15-20 things to do and act upon, but in the end it just became too hard and my passion for Change Management is all but gone so I did not have enough in the tank to keep me going. What really ended it was a great book I finished this week, about tempered radicals (a different name for Rebels). It made a lot of sense and had a lot of good examples. Guess when it was written? First edition…2001. So here I was, thinking I was doing something new and exciting, not only was it already done, but it was done 15+ years ago! I did find out that I am really not that tempered, but it must make a lot of people feel good that even small acts of defiance can have big consequences if you keep at it long enough. Yep, that would work for me if I had more patience. Which I don’t. Oh well, moving on!

Social volunteering

A while back I posted that article on social media about my litter picking 100 bags project. Out of the blue someone from NSW contacted me and we got talking about his business with a purpose, focused on something else than money. Justin runs a travel agency and a business that changes how companies purchase their materials and he thought that I might be interested to learn more about a project his friends (Ian and Ian) runs in the city of Mindanao in the Philippines. They are both Australians, but have a long history with the country that I won’t bore you with. Long story short, they’ve been building a business (Noble Endeavours) on goat’s milk. Yes, that’s right, goat’s milk. Yuck. And it’s been so successful they want to expand, need some help and I think I’ll give it a go. I am flying up to Port Macquarie in two weeks from now and if it all feels right and I can see a role for myself, I’ll join one of the Ian’s in November when he goes there for all sorts of business meetings. I’ll probably end up being the doer of many things, but this is a business idea I can get behind and maybe even insert some of my own values in. It will make whole communities prosper and hopefully be scalable across the region and country at some point. I think it’s funny and ironic that the son of a milkman, who hates milk, is now again involved in a milk business. But this time we’re making ice cream!! Which I happen to love! There’s another part to the business, called Ethical Harvest, which is fully for profit and all about finding products that the market wants and then create crops that are better than anything they’ve seen before. Did I ever mention I hate gardening?!   I am sure they can find a blind, deaf and disabled person who will be better at it than I would be, so my organisational, promotional and logistics skills are probably more what they’d be interested in. Right now, I am just taking it one step at a time, but it’s funny how when I said I am going to quit Change, something else found me through my weird litter picking hobby. 😊

Holiday plans

It’s looking like we’ll have little time to work in the next year or so. Going to the NT in October for my birthday, then it’s Philippines in November to check out the goats and the crops, Airlie Beach and Whitsunday’s for some much-needed diving in December, New Zealand in February when Yumi turns 20 for the second time and Canada in July when our friends Hester and Aschwin get married. I simply won’t have time to work, I need to plan all these trips! I look forward to all of them. The NT is going to be great because it will have nature and starry skies and jungle and crocodiles and big kangaroos and lots of empty nothing. Don’t know what to expect of the Philippines, but it will be an adventure. Airlie Beach is a return visit, we were there in 2010, but so was Cyclone Ului, we decided to stay on shore and not die. No regrets, haha. But now we’re going back and do a 3-day live-aboard and maybe some extra dives at ridiculous prices to see new fish and other marine life. I might do some litter picking… New Zealand will be super awesome too, we’ve not yet decided if we’ll go one or both of the islands, but either way we’ll see nice things. I know a few people there, might stop by to say hi too. Canada will be a whole new level of adventure. I wanted to spend a few days there and then drift down into the USA along the West Coast, but Yumi convinced me that we should really stay in the area and see the sights and national parks. When I say convince, I mean she showed me one picture with lots of cool stuff and I was like: “Okay, we can do California and Nevada next time 😊”.

Yumi’s job

Yumi’s work is still crazy busy. Just take the last month. She’s been to Bundaberg, Brisbane, Hobart, Sydney and the ACT (x3) and that’s not counting the Victorian work trips. I am immensely proud of what she’s doing and accomplishing, but at the same time I am worried that she doesn’t seem to be able to switch off anymore. I think she’s not had a real day off (without work) for the past 6-9 months. Then again, I can hardly complain as I used to be the same, but I also know how tiring it can be and she (nor anyone else that I know) simply doesn’t have the energy levels I have, so most nights she falls asleep on the sofa until it’s work again the next day. I am really hoping that once the ACT project is off her back, she’ll have more time to just calm down a bit and use that big brain of hers to work smarter and not harder, but I am thinking it will stay the same or get worse. I know where that leads and it’s frustrating to be as smart as I am and not be able to find the words to convince her (one of the few downsides of marrying a very smart woman) to take it slow. Time will tell, I hope the NT holiday can be a bit of a break and reset.

Small stuff

·       I haven’t spent as much time reading as I normally would, but I am very excited about a book I just started and plan to spend the rest of the week with. It’s by this guy I wrote about earlier, Yuval Harari, who also wrote Sapiens and Homo Deus, his latest book, 21 lessons came out this week and I’ll surely tell you more about next time. I’ve also got some books on social entrepreneuring I want to get into, should prove useful if and when I become a goat farmer.

·       Exercising wasn’t a top priority the past few months, but now I’ve gotten a bit more serious and the weights don’t feel so heavy anymore and I bought one of those things that let you turn your bike into a home trainer. I watch TV while ‘cycling’, once the weather improves I’ll probably hit the road again, for now, the garage and tv is just fine.

·       I did my 20^th blood donation today and it looks like my blood pressure is slightly creeping upwards. Another signal I need to get a bit more active and serious about my diet and salt intake I reckon. Nothing alarming just yet, but I used to be super stable at 140 over 80, it’s now 150 over 90. Let’s not let that get to 160 over 100!

·       I am about to start a new volunteer role for Big Brother Big Sister, which seems like a worthwhile thing to do... It’s all over the Internet, where I talk to a young person aged 8-17 in a closed off ‘chat room’ for one hour a week to just chat and see how their week has been and what’s keeping them busy. Like with you, but without the living room and cake 😊

Well, that’s most of me done for now, I hope you have a lovely birthday and you’ll hear from me in November again.

Be well and stay safe, Gilbert

Letter to Marlis April-May 2018

Hi Marlis,

Another 2 months down, time to share the best parts of it once more. I hope you are well and healthy as winter is about to come knocking on the door. I saw that there were already some cold nights out in the ACT. Melbournians are hilarious, one night of 3 degrees and a mild panic envelops the city…J

Work

I am back AGAIN with Deakin University (6^th project…), but this time in the Records Management Department, helping deliver a project that is supposed to make people more aware of good practices so we stop breaking the law when it comes to data management. Most people would find it boring, so of course I wanted to do it and we have some pretty cool videos and documents now. It’s still as boring a topic as watching paint dry, but I’ve also learned that there’s some real benefits, that I will not bore you with J. The project itself is very challenging, in a non-fun way, with very limited resources and extremely high expectations and scrutiny. I am working with a very talented guy, but there’s only so much he can do, so we’re working well together on making the organisation very uncomfortable. I think his boss and the big boss-lady are really frustrated with my lack of willingness to just say yes to their range of platitudes and ‘just make it work’ statements, but as long as they don’t tell me to go away, I’ll keep showing up and make sure they’ll have some semblance of success. Sjeesh, for smart people, they do some pretty dumb things... I liked that 3 day a week job well enough, but then another team mentioned that they could use my help and now I am also helping out with a project that is very simple, but got really complicated with the help of a change manager who I thought was pretty good at first, but she really stuffed this up. It’s just the closing down of two video software programs for recording classroom lectures and the release of a new video tool. Out with the old, in with the new, 6 months, no sweat. Well, lots of sweat apparently! I’ve spent my first two days on it now and have already said that we’re going to do things a bit differently from now on. As in, 95% of the weird planned things, we’re not doing that anymore. They had said yes to 150 hours of change management… Any team that needs that much change, is better of being let go and starting anew. Anyway, I am now 5 days a week there and by end of July, I will have done good things, and put aside enough to not have to work the rest of the year J. I’ve also picked up some work with the National Disability Services people (Yumi’s work) once again and will get to do some workshops for their 2019 strategy and then I am also going to regional Victoria In early August (Sale, Shepparton and Mildura), which is a whole different kind of fun. I never thought about what it would be like to have 4 different projects going on at the same time, thinking I’d never have that experience. Well, so far, so good!

Yumi’s big trip

Yumi is currently traveling in the Netherlands until Friday 15 June. She’s going there for a training in a particular work thing that doesn’t exist (yet) in Australia. She’s left last Tuesday and will be back next week Sunday, but the training is only 3 days, so the rest of the time she’s visiting family and friends. It was on and off for such a long time that I lost all interest and accepted a new assignment and then it was on again and too late for me to get involved. In all fairness, I don’t miss the Netherlands that much and speak to or see (on the computer) most people quite regularly anyway. She’s having a good time so far, visiting her parents, the Amsterdam crowd, my parents and sister with kids and then some friends. She’s also getting her new passport. Last time she had to travel to Bangkok to get it, this seemed a more cost effective way, haha. And as far as souvenirs go…an egg slicer, some liquorice, markers (very specific brand), toothpaste and some clothing. Living the high life of luxury now as you can probably tell. I work from early to late, or I am volunteering, so this week has flown by and next week will be no different for sure. I always miss her as soon as she’s out the door, but as long as I keep busy, it’s not too bad and I just count the days until I pick her up again. When she gets back it’s full on again with her work too. She’s making good progress with the consulting side of things and will be travelling to Brisbane with her stories and skills in a few weeks, making the sector better in so many ways. Very proud of her!!

My parents sold the house

It was all very exciting a few weeks back and now it’s finally happened, my parents managed to sell the house!!! At a reasonable price even! It was a typical deal only my dad could make, but after a few days of negotiating, they both got what they wanted and now it’s clean up and move time. It must be very strange for them to now have to consider a new place to live and maybe even renting after having been home owners for 30+ years. With everything that happened I think they are just really relieved that this burden has finally been lifted from their shoulders. They agreed to a 1 September delivery date, so there’s still some time to consider options and sort through all the stuff that they’ve held onto for so long and will now no longer have the space for, like some furniture and lots of things from me and my sister. Well, I didn’t miss it for 20 years, into the bin or to charity it goes. But apparently my mom is starting her own internet business online selling off all their unwanted items and I wouldn’t be surprised if she manages to get good deals too J.

Convergence conference and change management

Late April I finally had my moment in the sun to do my presentation on Fake Change and I think all in all people enjoyed it. I had pictured it very different and spent so much more time on it than I should. In the end I was just really happy it was over and done with. Slowly but steadily I am finding that I really like being the person in the background a lot more than everyone else seems to think, so I’ve started extracting myself from any of that spotlight stuff, it’s just not working for me. I did really enjoy seeing a lot of the change friends I’ve made over time all in one place, they are a fun and friendly bunch and it made me realise I have made some real friends all across Australia. I am also continuing to find myself falling out of love with change management, or at least the current way of change being managed. Everyone is just so confused! We’re fighting each other on words and models, instead of doing what needs to be done. But instead of going through yet another existential crisis, maybe I’ll just reinvent myself again in a few months’ time and take Yumi’s advice. She thinks there’s a job for me in integrity and reputation management. Well, I do have lots of opinions on doing the right thing and do get a lot of positive comments on me being all about the truth of matters and honesty, so she’s probably not wrong J.

I want to complete one more thing, the Change Rebel Toolkit and then I’ll probably just shut things down, which will be an interesting experience I think.

Change Management Institute (CMI)

Despite my change of heart on change (sorry for the bad pun), I am enjoying the teamwork I am doing with the CMI in my state. The team has cleaned up a bit, with people not participating stepping away and 2 others really stepping up. We’ve done a few well-appreciated events on various topics now and have more ideas than we can realistically do, so we’re once again ‘hiring’ volunteers for our team. It’s not too hard to find people wanting to step up, but it’s often more work than they expected, even if we clearly state the requirements and then they sort of fade away. Oh well, I’ve had some really good opportunities and free tickets because of it and people mostly appreciate what we do. I’ll complete my year as promised, put a plan together for 2019 and then either step down or leave it all together. We’ll see J. Working with the national team is much less fun, lots of big words and ideas, but the same challenges. I’ve offered about 5-6 ideas now, still waiting for one to be picked up, which has completely put me off suggesting anything else, it’s simply not worth the effort of me writing up plans and such, to then not hear anything for months. I’ve had a bit of a falling out with the National lead as well, which almost made me resign, but I decided to be a grown-up for a change and concluded he was just a bit stressed and busy, but it did nothing for my enthusiasm and involvement. He says that he appreciated my feedback, but then when I really do provide my opinion and it went against what he wanted to do, he threw a bit of a fit. Okay, he gets to do that tooJ. I am just not going to keep criticizing and offer plans for improvement (that I will happily work on too), no point if we’re not on the same team trying to improve matters. Did I mention that I do the most work compared to everyone, by far? I choose to do that, so there’s no issue, but if I then find that we’re actually NOT working together, that just takes all the fun out. Too much drama! Moving on….

Litter picking fun

I am still enjoying the picking up of litter all around town. I must look like such a weirdo to some people, walking around with my plastic bags, all of a sudden ducking to the ground, into a shrub or onto the road. It’s a bit like a treasure hunt I guess. However, I am thinking that over the past 6 months, I’ve collected about 40-50 bags of junk, which is close to 100kgs of plastic, bottles of all kinds, lots of tennis balls, coconuts (no idea!), tin cans, flip flops, items of clothing and lots and lots and lots of tissues. I’ll admit I always feel a bit self-conscious, but perhaps that’s the point, it keeps you humble and once I throw it all in the bin, I do feel like I’ve accomplished something. Especially when I was not working and walking every day it makes walking around town a bit more meaningful and people do really appreciate it, so maybe I am inspiring a few more litter pickers around town too, who knows! I am planning to work with my video producing friend Peter to launch a video for the Beach Patrol team once spring and summer come around. I hope that a fun 2-minute video about what they can do to help (or not make matters worse) will make a positive contribution somehow. I’ll include a print of the poster once it’s done! Yumi and I are also still volunteering an hour a month with about 30-40 others to clean up the beach and surrounding areas, which always turns up about 40-60 kgs of muck, so by 2019 Altona is much cleaner and tidier J

SES

After about 4 months with the unit I am starting to feel like I fit in. I’ve taken on the cleaning up of the unit and mucking out 35 years of archiving. I am sure you’re seeing the pattern here, haha. Seriously, I found a manual on what to do in the case of a nuclear event…Not sure what’s going on this side of the bay, but I haven’t seen a lot of nuclear bombs lately…It is very rewarding to just throw all that old stuff out and once I started, other team members gleefully jumped in too! I was cleaning out the fridge and found ‘cheese’ that was fresh and well…in 2015. Soda that was ‘only’ 18 months past the due date and mustard that had somehow solidified... Wow! I’ve managed to get some archive boxes for free (another good part about working with the archives team at Deakin) and my next job is to sort all that stuff out. Our unit boss had to go away for a few weeks on med leave, so we took the opportunity to clean out his whole office, he loved it! Should have taken a before and after picture, but it’s safe to say that many files were dumped in the bin. I’ve also been out on a few jobs over the past 2 months. One was fun for the technical side, but it was in a yard where two dogs do their business and there was dog poo EVERYWHERE. Ugh, we could not get the smell out of our noses for hours. But I got to use the chainsaw and pole saw, so I wasn’t about to start complaining. We also did a state-wide exercise, which was sort of cool and weird at the same time. We mobilised for a simulated terrorist attack on the zoo (poor animals!) with 22 casualties and virtually no extra info. So we all mobilised, which took about 2 hours start to finish (because we knew it wasn’t real), so you end up with about 200 people in orange and 50-100 vehicles, going absolutely nowhere because there’s no emergency. It was impressive to see it all work together so well though. I guess that if something really does go pear shaped, at least we’re ready to go. In a few weeks from now I’ll take on the finance role for our unit too, just so I keep busy if there are no trees falling over J. It seems like an interesting job and would allow me to see what goes into managing the finances for a unit like ours. I am sure I’ll learn a few new tricks, even if it seems fairly straight forward.

Short notes

·       Living in Altona is still very enjoyable. It’s not quite the ACT, but close enough for it to not matter. The house is working out well, we recently had some friends over for dinner and we’ve got everything close enough to be comfortable. I really love being able to take a short walk and see the bay/ocean, it’s an instant thought calmer and never fails to calm my racing brain.

·       We’re planning to take a short holiday in October (the 9^th is my birthday and our 21 year togetherness anniversary) and do a bit of travel in January too, probably somewhere tropical with diving for the short break and then to New Zealand for the bigger break, good things to look forward too

·       On June 30^th we’ll be married for 11 years, I can sense a dinner date coming J!

·       I’ve joined a mentoring program where I share my experience and support with someone who can use some professional development support. I got matched with Julie from New Zealand and we get along quite well. I am ‘meeting’ her tomorrow over video link, where she’ll tell me all about her new job and how she’s been doing in the first 3 days.

·       Next week I’ll start getting involved with another volunteer thing, which is altogether different from change, litter or professional coaching, this is about helping a young person 8-18, probably a boy, with their social skills by spending about an hour a week chatting to them online. I actually signed up for a similar program as what we did when I visited with you, the difference being the age and circumstances, but that program only ran in Ballarat, which is about 100km away and not so practical J.

·       Friends and family are all well enough I guess. My friend Just is travelling all across Europe for his ICT job and now he’s even gone to Kenya, so very cool! He’s working with the ministry of foreign affairs and they have a software change he’s helping with. I always knew he was going places, but now he’s actually going places, hahaha.

Well, that’s me done once more. I hope you stay warm and safe during the cold months coming and look forward to catching up in a few months again to see where things are at by then.

Gilbert

Letter to Marlis Feb-Mar 2018

Hi Marlis,

Another 2 months gone by and that makes it almost exactly 2 years since we said our goodbyes. Facebook told me yesterday, so it must be true 😊! Just a few more weeks for the Anzac cold snap to settle over the ACT, so I hope you’re ready and warm for winter. Like almost every time I write, lots have happened, so I’ll dive straight into it.

Perth

Late February I travelled with Yumi to Perth, so we finally got to see the first part of beautiful Western Australia. And beautiful it was! We arrived early on Saturday and travelled to Margaret River in the southern part of the state and enjoyed the coastline, a really, really long pier and beautiful weather. Then on Sunday we drove back another way to Perth and just enjoyed the scenery. Yumi had to work and I did not, but as it happens I know a few people around town and they were very gracious hosts, inviting me to coffee and lunches so I ended up entertaining myself as much or even more than Yumi, who had to sit in meeting rooms and talk to people while I was out exploring the city in beautiful weather. I think I walked about 30 kilometres in 2 days, but it gave me a real feel for the city.

The weird thing was that the people I spoke to consider Perth small, almost like Canberra and not very attractive. Well, I can’t say I agree. There’s heaps happening, lots of  things being built and I would not consider a 2 million people city to resemble Canberra in any way. It actually feels like Adelaide, navigates like Brisbane, has Melbournian appeal and the proximity of the ACT. It’s a city of cities. Sydney does not come into it though, although the waterfront has some very nice architecture. I wouldn’t mind ending up there at some point, seeing the sun set in the ocean again. It was only when Yumi’s colleagues took us to diner to see a sunset that we realised that we actually never see it set in the sea. Apparently, we were not missing it too much. 😊 On the Wednesday I travelled solo up to the Pinnacle desert 200km north of Perth and I am not sure what caused it but it was a very emotional trip somehow. This is the Australia I wanted to see, that I had been looking for, finally found it after 4 years! The sky was so big, so wide and so blue, I could have driven on forever! The Pinnacle Desert was very much worth it, a very strange landscape of sand an 1-2 meter high pillars made of dead sea creature shells. Adding to the fun were the oblivious tourists just looking around at all that weirdness. The drive back and forth is not even that spectacular according to people who live there but it was to me. I just made it in time to pick up Yumi from her last meeting, kept stopping to take in more of the sights 😊.

After Yumi was done working we spent a day travelling to Rothnest Island which was very nice. We rented bikes and managed to get around the whole island in a few hours with some very steep hills, but our Dutch years of training kicked in and we zoomed up and down like nothing else. There’s so many beautiful bays that I stopped taking pictures at some point and just enjoyed the waves crashing and the blueness of the water in other places. We saw a few quokkas traipsing around and took selfies with them (it’s a thing on social media, never mind) and we even went snorkelling! The water was a bit chilly but still okay on the surface. On my very first exploratory swim I encountered a massive bull ray just cruising right underneath me, so very cool! That was the most exciting wild life in the water all day, but such good luck. Yumi missed it, waiting on shore to see if there were sharks trying to eat me 😊. Our last day was spent in Fremantle, just walking around a bit, finding a lot of Dutch heritage and some shipwrecks in a museum. I made the unfortunate decision to have a chat with one of the volunteers and he enjoyed his job so much that we stood there for 45 minutes (could have been 50) listening. Wow, that guy had some stories and more, and more, and more…At some point we managed to escape both him and the museum, both very lovely but there’s only so much you can know about ship wrecks!

Drawing

Since a few months I’ve been practicing my drawing skills to help facilitate some of the work that I do in change management, but I am mostly just really enjoying it. I never thought I would have so much fun with it, but I feel super creative, in my very own limited way. There’s no risk of my ever making my day job out of it, but I use it to draw my own images if an article that I am writing needs some clarification or if I cannot find the right image that I am looking for. I’ve got me very own sketchbooks, markers, crayons and whatnot to make it all happen, it’s like being back in kindy! I also write reviews of books I read and then try to capture the essence in one drawing, using words and images. Maybe when I get a bit more skilled I’ll send you a few examples, right now I am mostly practicing a lot! (and boy do I need it, hahaha.)

Walking + Litter picking

I’ve stopped cycling almost completely since we moved to Altona, maybe it’s one of those phases I sometimes go through but even though I miss it, it’s just not very appealing right now. Not that I had that many more options in Brunswick, but somehow, it’s not happening and my bike seems happy to take a break for a bit. Instead, I walk. A lot. Because I am not working I am now part of the group of pensioners and other random people you can see around Altona at all hours of the day. Just walking. Minding their own business. Nothing to see here 😊. We’ve joined a group called Beach Patrol and once a month we pick litter from the beach and surrounding streets and that’s now a new habit for when I go walking too. Not every day, but very often I just take two or three plastic bags with me and within the space of an hour collect all sorts of rubbish, just lying around. It’s rewarding and useful at the same time and I am walking there anyway, might as well make the most of it, right?! Aside from frequent plastic and glass bottles, cans and soooo many tissues, I find the strangest things varying from items of clothing and headphones to many pairs of thongs and shoes (often just one) to reels of garden hose and the occasional baby diaper being thrown out. I stay away from the dead animals and poop bags but it generally takes less than 30 minutes until my bags are full, averaging to 2-3 kilos for each. I take pictures and at the end of the year will make myself a nice collage to see how much junk I kept from getting into the water and environment. I always get positive feedback from other people and sometimes see other litter pickers walking around (we keep to ourselves 😊). It gives me a whole new appreciation for nature and also made me understand that the wind, birds and the way garbage is collected have to do with litter happening. It’s always worse on collection days as the technique of some drivers is not as perfect as others, sometimes spraying litter everywhere but they clearly don’t care, just keep driving. The part that I don’t get is the people who pick up their dog’s poo, wrap it in a bag and then toss that bag to the side or into the bushes. You might as well have left it where it was then, right?! Oh well, people never cease to amaze and amuse me.

Change Rebellion

Fed up with some of the truly evil practices in Change management I’ve started the Change Rebellion. A leaderless revolution based on a few simple and honest principles that anyone in change management should be able to follow. It’s been very popular and now I am working on a toolkit to help fellow rebels create some positive change and it’s proving quite the challenge, despite the fact that all of a sudden, I am seeing rebels, ninjas, disruptors and more of that stuff all over the place. The upside of that is that I don’t feel so alone and unique (the wrong and misunderstood kind) anymore, the downside is that there’s a real challenge to bring something new and attractive. At the same time, I will make it available for free, so I don’t have to worry about making money of it. It might just happen that once I am done with that, I am stepping away from the change profession all together. It’s all just so unexciting, everybody uses the same words, talks the same talk and at the end of the day, not a lot of people are doing anything really, just expressing their support for an idea. That’s great and nice of them, but hardly how we’ll make some real change happen. I am a bit confused, disappointed and drifting myself right now and you’d probably say that I shouldn’t rush things and think carefully, so that’s what I plan to do 😊. I’ve got the framework (and even made myself a t-shirt that says ‘join the change rebellion’, yep, it’s that serious 😊) and also set myself a time frame of four weeks to do my best work on the tool kit as there’s two conferences and a few meetings that might give me new ideas, inspiration and a bit of fire in my gut again, or so I hope.

Books I’ve been reading

In my quest to understand myself and the world around me to a degree that I can actually make sense of things, I’ve been reading like never before. As I often do, I get a bit obsessive, but the good kind of obsessive because I’ve learned so much and love the sense of excitement I get when starting a new book and finding new insights. To give you an idea:

• Switch, about how change is hard work (I agree!)
• Hit Refresh, about a different way of running business (yes, please)
• This will make you smarter (ehm, I guess)
• The denial of death (that was a toughie, written in the 70’s)
• What we should be worried about (now I have more worries 😊)
• Seeing what others don’t (about shifting perspectives)
• How are we to live, on philosophy for life (very smart)
• The art of thinking clearly, about how our minds work (brilliant)
• Originals (how to be comfortably unique, very good)
• Selfie, about how we became so self-obsessed as a species
• Business bullshit (well, the title says it all)
• Rebels at work, the inspiration for my change rebellion!
• Focus, the most unfocussed book about focus ever (still fun)

I left out the really boring business books I needed to read for research and ‘work’, but after about 15 books I’m starting to see all sorts of connections and slowly but steadily a picture is starting to emerge. It’s fuzzy and I have no idea if it’s an elephant or a toaster (a big one!) but I’ll get there. I read all my books on my e-book (like a tablet) now, so I always carry around about 250 of them. It’s more practical of course, but it still doesn’t feel the same as having a paper book in your hands, flipping through the pages. I’ve got three more waiting for me (ethics, altruism and a book on technology of the future. Right now, I am reading a book on Quantum Gravity. It’s beautifully written, but very hard to understand completely as most scientist agree that no-one really understands it anyway. I just love how it makes my brain feel like it’s getting a good stretch and work out 😊.

Yumi’s job

Yumi’s busy as always, flying everywhere, doing good things for the disability and care sector. She got a new computer recently, which is pretty cool because she used to have a really old one that was about 4kgs, now it’s a very small one that only weighs about 1kg. That’s a lot better if you have to/want to carry it back and forth to work every day! There was a ridiculous thing going on with some managers in the people department wanting to make things more efficient by only celebrating birthdays on one day in a month, which caused such an uproar and flurry of activity to calm things down that it will take a lot of efficiency to earn back all that time lost, hahaha. We just laughed really hard and moved on. I am a bit worried at the signals I keep hearing from her about the organisation. They seem completely at a loss on how to stay with the times and innovate, making very poor long-term decisions to avoid looking bad on the short term. I guess you would say that not much has changed since your working days, haha. My worry is more that Yumi has all these great ideas and works really hard to make them happen with help of her colleagues, but the senior management team is really out of touch, not seeing opportunities right in front of them and not supporting her while she has the real solutions that would get them out of trouble and safe for the next 20 years. On the one hand I hope she keeps doing what she does, on the other I hope she’ll do it somewhere else! Well, as long as she’s happy to do it, I can only support her, so I’ll do that 😊

SES

I’ve settled in a bit more at Altona SES and have been on a few jobs, cutting up trees and making the world safe from fallen branches and blocked roads. Just this week I went to a situation where an older ladies’ cat had managed to wedge himself stuck between a shed and a fence. He was a bit chubby, but the fence was really leaning in and her spraying him with water and poking him with a stick didn’t help much 😊. There wasn’t much else I could do by myself (it was 2pm, normal people were working), next door neighbours weren’t there to allow me into their yard, he was in the shade, not in pain or hurt. He did look embarrassed! My SES mates returned at 7pm that night to set him free. All’s good with the world again! There’s a big exercise coming up, it’s all very ‘secret squirrel’ but it should be fun this weekend. I’ve also found the vacuum and have appointed myself as the office cleaner, no-one wants to do it and I don’t want to sit in grime and dirt, so everybody wins. I also helped out with the Good Friday appeal, which was good fun. The CFA in the nearby town of Laverton had organised a big event and I just got to stand at an intersection with a few dressed up actors (Snow White, Mickey, Minnie, a Turtle and Bat girl, kids and a few adults loved it!) shaking tins at passing cars near the lights. Lots of laughs, appreciation and team spirit and about $36,000 raised from all combined efforts. Not bad for a days’ work from about 60 volunteers!

Being busy while not working

It’s a strange experience to be very busy while not working for an income. And I am not talking about gaming! I’ve built a new website, travelled, read lots of books, wrote a lot of blogs, applied for a few jobs (didn’t get them, thank goodness, they were horrible, but I felt that I needed to). Over the past two months I met with so many interesting and inspiring people, been to some events and had so many coffee dates at one place that staff there started to recognise me. It feels like every time I am between jobs I get busier, but also more focused and connected. Perhaps that’s what networking looks like, not sure if I am doing it right, but at least I have many interesting conversations and get to go to different places.

In two weeks from now I will be presenting at a conference which is a bit exciting. I’ll be explaining about my ideas on Fake Change and how we can do better. It will probably upset a few people, but that’s okay, it’s what I came to do. I feel a bit ambiguous about doing it. I want to say my piece, but at the same time really feel that they should have gotten it already. I almost cancelled 2x in the past few weeks, but I made myself stick with it because maybe this is the last time I will be on a stage for change management, might as well go out with a bang. And if I can inspire just one person, I think that’s a win.

Change Management Institute (CMI)

As I mentioned last time, I back with CMI and it’s every bit as fun and frustrating as I remember. The team I work with are great but at the organisation level everything moves very slow or not at all. Everybody has really big brains for thinking, but very tiny hands when it comes to doing and when they do, it’s rushed because they didn’t plan or left it too long ☹. Anyway, I feel that I need to make the effort for at least 12 months in order to really and truly declare it a loss. I’ve managed to get a real star back on the team and provided some structure and now we just get to do stuff with cool people. I really hope I can now stop writing all those emails, pfff, nobody wants to do or read that!

Deakin work and speaking

I am back again at Deakin University for the third time and just as much fun. I think I was right last time to leave when I did. 2 months down the track and they are still figuring stuff out, overthinking it and not really talking to each other outside of teams and departments. I get to do the cool stuff of doing some workshops with my favourite team and another 15 teams across the business and maybe even some coaching of a very good manager who feels she wants to be a leader (I think she is, but she allows herself to be distracted by safe little projects) It’s all going in the right direction, but my ‘boss’ Lucy is exactly like me, loves working with me because I get and share her impatience and she feels I see the world from her point of view while not being  in charge. I just like that I get to be the nice guy who can be understanding but still get staff to hurry up a bit and start owning their jobs. Just a few days of work, but I get paid very handsomely so I don’t need much😊. I also had the privilege of being a guest speaker for 90 minutes to a group of 20 students in organisational psychology two weeks ago. I could have stayed there for hours and think I had even more fun than they did, what a great group of people! If they end up in change, that would be great for the profession, some fresh ideas and perspectives. I gave them my (very unconventional) views on what it takes in today’s business to be a change manager and they really appreciated that it felt ‘real’ and not like a tv commercial for the job. I am already looking forward to the next time.

Well, that’s me nearly done, aside from the short mentions:

·       Haven’t been gaming much, despite my very cool and futuristic virtual reality headset I bought (makes it look like you are in the game). Gaming is still my best hobby, but other things were even more exciting, I’ll get to use it soon I hope

·       We’ve got a new oven! Seems a bit meh, but I love to bake and make oven dishes so when the old one got a bit dodgy and not helpful, the owner of our rental home was just great and changed it while we were in Perth. I’ve already made lasagnes, 2 apple pies and there’s plans for a carrot cake, yum!

·       I’ve bought sneakers in Australia for the first time in 4 years. You know how I have a shoe thing and they have to be just so. Well, I used to love Puma shoes and couldn’t find them anywhere. By accident we passed a store, I wasn’t looking to buy anything but then I saw them and they were on sale, so now I have 4 new pairs of shoes, including red ones! I also bought very pretty black leather business shoes at my favourite Melbourne Shoe store (McClouds). They were more expensive than the other 4 combined, but hey, they  will last me more than 5 years, so it’s a good ‘investment’, right? 😊

·       Family and friends are all as well as can be expected, kids growing and getting smarter every day, jobs going well for most, no scary health issues, so there’s lots to be grateful for.

·       We appear to have a possum living near our house. It goes on mid-nightly jogs over our corrugated roof panels, making it sound like an angry horde of barbarians is about to storm the house. but this is Altona (love it more every day) so it’s unlikely it’s actual barbarians 😊. I was up and about one early morning (3.45 am) and went outside quickly to see it just jump into the tree next to the house. It sat there looking at me like “What?!” and then went on its merry possum way. It’s like having a pet, but without the vet bills, haha.

That’s me done for now, I’ll write again in a few months, I am sure lots will have happened before Winter truly starts.

All the best, stay warm and safe,

Gilbert

Letter to Marlis Dec 2017- Jan 2018

Hi Marlis,

Another two months gone in a flash! Happy new year and all the best for 2018 😊. Thank you for the card and handwritten note, I really appreciated how you enlisted your daughter to help. A lot has happened in just two months, never a dull moment with us, that’s for sure. It’s a big one this time, so let’s get started

Trip to Queensland

The week before Christmas we went on holiday to Far North Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), finally. Cairns was where our Australia adventure started when we visited first in 2010 and we fell in love with Australia (took a few days longer for Yumi), so we were happy to be back. The town sure has grown thanks to tourism from Asia and it is busy, but in a nice sort of way. I think the town centre has doubled in size and there are so many more restaurants, shops activities and facilities than when we last visited. Most of it touristy stuff, but still good to see the town prosper. We stayed at two B&B’s because we also went on a 3-day diving trip to the GBR and made a day trip to Port Douglas to do some more diving, visited the rainforest and went on a crocodile tour. The diving in Port Douglas was more to get our gear wet and see if we still knew how to do things and get used to being on a boat. It was ridiculously expensive, but we got to see lot of fun things and overall had a good experience, including seeing heaps of kangaroos along the way and seeing the sugar cane country side. Soon after, our trip to the GBR was good fun. We sorted the logistics of handing in the car the day before and then departed the B&B at 5.30am!) and dropping off our luggage at the dive shop. The reef is very badly bleached in places, but still spectacular in others and a great place to have dived. Over the three days we managed to squeeze in 11 dives, 50km out on the reefs. We saw a few sharks, turtles, big groupers, barracudas, many different types of smaller fish and other animals. We also did two night dives which was a good but slightly disorienting experience as we couldn’t see a lot more than the light of torches and the reflection of the eyes of sharks on the hunt. There were 32 people on the boat and it was remarkably well-behaved and friendly, be it a bit cramped and the crew seemed a bit disinterested. I am not sure we’ll do it again in this way, perhaps next time we’ll go on a boat with less novices, so it’s just the diving and not a lot of people figuring stuff out. We thought we’d be a bit rusty, me not having dived in almost 3 years but it’s like riding a bike, once you know how, it’s hard to forget. We also went on a crocodile tour and until that time I hadn’t realised the real danger of these magnificent animals just being in rivers and minding their own business, very much like big sharks, who then get hunted because they eat people who get in their territory. We saw two big ones and a tiny one, learned about birds, snakes and the forest, lots of fun. The day in the rainforest was also worthwhile. We went up by cable cart and got spectacular views of the forest on one end and the ocean on the other as we climbed. There’s also a village up in the rainforest, which is a massive tourist trap, but we just focused on the nature walks and sights to see, leaving the stores and gift shops to the real tourists. Yumi did take the opportunity to eat a bratwurst in a very German café (including schlager music) run by a German lady and her daughter and we ran into a German couple who we’d also spent time with on the dive boat, small world. The trip back down we did by train (historic railroad they said, it would be fun they said) and that was a mistake in 30+ Queensland heat at 5km/hour down a mountain through 15 (I counted) tunnels. Took forever and even Yumi lost her patience. We were very happy to be back in town, but some of the views were very much worth it.  Finally we visited the botanical gardens of Cairns and they are still very beautiful and worth a visit. They really made good use of the space and with the tropical climate, there’s not a lot they cannot grow so the plant variety was amazing. As you can see, we had a holiday, but were very busy. On the way back home, Yumi caught food poisoning from some bad sushi (normally that would be me) and spent the whole flight sick as a dog ☹. We arrived back home in the early hours of 25 December, but didn’t do much for the

Next few days as Yumi was still unwell and we needed to rest from the holiday activities, haha.

Holidays in Altona

The Christmas break gave us a good opportunity to ground ourselves in the area and get to know our surroundings. The neighbourhood is very quiet, the train passes by every 20 minutes or so but it’s really not that annoying, our windows are double glazed on that end and it lasts all of 20 seconds anyway. No horrible or loud and drunk neighbours, actually, NO neighbours. Our gardener (yes, we have a gardener, he came with the lease and drops by for odd jobs and garden maintenance) tells us the neighbours only use the house as a holiday home and some car storage, good for them and good for us 😊. It’s great to be able to walk to the beach every day and see the ocean (well, the bay…) every day. Sun, clouds or rain, it’s a sight I never grow tired of and it always clears my head and the few worries I have. We’ve started getting our groceries delivered again because I am a Woolies person and we only have a Coles, Foodworks and IGA and it’ just not working for me. I go to Coles, but the store makes me sad just walking there and I ain’t no beauty myself but the people are just so ugly and grumpy! I know that’s terrible to say but they really are. I guess I just miss the Brunswick Woolies. And that’s about the only thing I miss from Brunswick, some of the shops and the good restaurants, not much else!

Back in with CMI

I think I mentioned last time that I was looking to get back into the Change Management Institute (CMI) and would have been happy to be the idea-person, but as it often goes, I ended up being in charge, but just locally,  of the Victorian committee. It was one of those strange situations where I wasn’t looking to be in the lead, but the lady in charge was looking to step down and I had been there before and had some useful ideas last year, so it kind of made sense. We had a vote and now I am the boss, go figure! There’s some networking to be done and a bit of team structure to provide, but everything else seems to work fine, I just have to hold down the fort and recruit a few new volunteers. I’ve started reaching out to some people I know and there appears to be some interest. The agenda for the year is basically full, so it’s really up to us how crazy we want it to be, keeping in mind that we’re all volunteers.

Starting at SES
Coming Monday I’ll be joining the Hobson Bay SES team for the first time. Summer is a slow period for that sort of thing and they generally shut down until after Australia Day. I could have started last week, but I had another event going on, so this Monday it is. I look forward to it, after the initial awkwardness of meeting all these new people has passed I am sure it will be fun again. Especially now my training is done, I don’t have to be there all the time every time, so that’s more relaxed. Once autumn kicks off we’ll be seeing some more branches and a flood or two, good fun! 😊

Small Poppy Project

I started this book project last year and left it for a while near the end of the year because I wasn’t very organised around it, but two weeks ago I started getting back into it and this week I did my first 2-hour interview and I ended up giving this director some advice on his succession planning and how to go about it, how funny is that?! I have a few more interview options lined up and think I will learn a lot about positive change initiatives across Australia and New Zealand. I will also make many new valuable connections for the future, but it’s mostly about the stories. Once I have 25 I will launch a website and then grow it until have 100. I am aiming for end of this year, but if it takes longer, that’s okay, I am not getting paid anyway, but it’s a great feeling to create something with others that might inspire many of my change colleagues.

Design course

This week I did a 2-day visual facilitation course, it’s basically learning to draw to make meetings/trainings/workshops and that sort of thin more entertaining for the audience and myself. I always wanted to learn how to draw better and it’s quite amazing how much you can accomplish in just a few days. There’s a whole science to it of course, I won’t bore you with the details, but at some point, I might send you some of my art (priceless, no doubt 100 years from now) to show what I have learnt, for now I am practicing in my sketch book and that is great fun already. My hope is that if a picture can say 1,000 words and I use 40,000 words a day (or so it seems), I can draw more, speak less and listen more to what people are saying. Sometimes I get so tired of listening to myself talk, there seems to be no end to the ideas in my mind, but it can be exhausting to just keep talking, talking and talking and never run out of words. The deliberate method behind this drawing method will hopefully calm my mind and let the hamster of the wheel for a while 😊.

I’ve got my starter kit and will see if I can find some icons, the company that came up with it is called Bi-Ka-Blo and you guessed it, it’s German and means Bild-Karte-Block. They’ve teamed up with a writing utensil manufacturer called Neuland and they make really cool stuff. Anyway, once my skill has improved, I might just start illustrating these letters 😊

Perth

Yumi has to be in Perth for a while at the end of February and I am not working right now, so I am going along, and we’ll make it into a mini-holiday, traveling to the south-end of the West Coast and maybe also to the North. I’ll be by myself during the day for 3 of the 8 days we’re there, but I am meeting some change management people, a friend from a training last year and perhaps some people for the book and CMI events, I’ll keep myself occupied and out of trouble for sure. It’s my first time on the West Coast, getting a little excited already.

Beach cleaning

Yumi found this great initiative called beach patrol, where once a month, a group of volunteers gathers to clean up their local beach and surrounding area. We don’t have uniforms or get to write tickets (probably good with my authority complex) but we get to feel morally superior while we’re walking around with our fancy bags, picking up cigarette butts and all sorts of cans, bottles, bags and whatnot. We did our first run on Australia day and a group of 25 people collected 50kg of rubbish and 2,000 cigarette butts. That’s a pretty good haul if you ask me. Obviously, I would get it much more organised than they are now, but there’s something very relaxing about just doing the work and making people aware that what they throw on the ground actually ends up somewhere on the beach or in the water. Most are just lazy/unaware, some just don’t care.  A side initiative, I started bringing plastic bags with me when I go on walks around a lake nearby. The council does clean up in the area, but on most walks, I get 1-2 plastic shopping bags of rubbish and tissues, lots of tissues for some reason. I am under no illusion that it will make a ground-breaking difference but for me it’s more about doing something instead of just walking past it every time and complain.  This morning I collected 3 bags and was followed by some bird for 500 meters. First, I thought he/she was defending its territory, but it probably just wanted something to snack on from me 😊. I’ve got the next area scoped already, it’ at the back end of a sports field where there’s probably two bin bags worth of rubbish along a fence line. Something to look forward to, haha.

Books

Because I had so much time on my hands I started to read ‘smart’ books once more and gained so much new insights. Read a great book on Everyday ethics, that really made me think about choices I make and how I am pretty much on the right track so far. Also read “God is not great” (I think you’ll understand the author is not a fan of religion) to understand more about the problems people have with religion and not only was it a lot of fun because the author, it was also incredibly smart and gave a much better understanding of why religion is potentially the worst things we ever did to ourselves. Then I read “Switch” a classic on Change Management and that book reminded me of all the good professional lessons I had learned in the past 5 years. Followed by another change management book that is called Hacking for Agile change. I’ll not bore you with the details, it was smart and practical and written by someone I meet with and will do an online presentation (web-seminar) with in March. Still not done I read the Feminist Fight Club, which is exactly what it sounds like, a very funny and at the same time totally disturbing book about casual discrimination of women in society and the workplace. I care about inequality in any sense and felt I needed to understand this whole concept of modern feminism a lot better and now I do. I needed to go to Sydney to get my passport done, not much to say about that, it’s Sydney and I am still not a fan, but I read “what is a Googly” a book about cricket on the flight in, which means that now I have at least a basic understanding of the game and don’t have to look on in bemused confusion at what’s happening. Not that I will watch it, it’s almost as boring as tennis! Just yesterday I finished a book called ‘Seeing what others don’t” which is about how to get insights and be better at picking up cues from people and the environment. Another great read that explains the science between how we make sense of things.  Now that that’s done, I can get back to Homo Deus, a brilliant book about the future of humanity by a writer I read another book (Sapiens) from that really changed my perspective on how society has evolved over time since the last ice age, it’s so beautifully written I felt sad when I finished it.

VR-goggles

VR stands for Virtual Reality and it’s basically a really big pair of glasses with tv screens in them that you wear like a helmet and makes you experience games as if you are inside them. The technology is quite new still but much advanced from what it was 5 years ago. It takes a while to get used to it, sometimes you get a little vertigo on the side but even Yumi had great fun pretending to be a dragon, bonking things with ‘her’ head while I was the other player running for my life as she chased me through a cartoon city. She got so into it that she kicked the table and broke her nail (ouch!) and almost headbutted the table a few times. It was hilarious and terrifying to watch at the same time. I haven’t put much time in it yet, but will give it a few months, perhaps it’s not for me, but I just wanted to try the new technology. If nothing else, we can use it as a second TV because one can watch a tv series or movie via the game console, while the other can watch TV, not that we had much issues about that, but now I can game and Yumi can watch what she wants on TV too, so that’s very convenient as well. I’ve got a racing game and some trial games, will probably buy a few games to test what works and what doesn’t. It’s very exciting technology and I predict that in 5-10 years from now it will have found it’s way to mainstream business and we’ll all be using them.

Family and friends

Not much going on as far as we know. My parents are the same, Yumi’s parents got their first iPhone, so that’s very exciting for them and very funny to us to see how they make sense of this new technology. All our friends are doing family and life things as they would while their kids grow up and life takes its course. Yumi’s friend Hester is doing a reno on her house, quite curious to see how that will end up, the pictures look pretty good. My friend Alex is thinking of coming our way with the whole family this time, but that depends somewhat on if we will go to the Netherlands ourselves mid-2018. Yumi had this brilliant plan that would really benefit the disability sector but her organisation (NDS) just lacks the vision and courage to go that way and Yumi is not confident she can make it work with the Dutch organisation in Australia. I think it can really work and also think she needs to start looking for a new challenge, but she just signed a contract until June 2019, so we’ll see how that goes. There are some life events going on in the Netherlands with my  father turning 65, Yumi’s mom turning 70 and me turning 40 and probably some other stuff that I forget, so we could go, I am just not that keen, because 69 and 39 and 64 were equally special to me, it’s probably just my contrary nature and dislike of convention so I’ll take my cues from Yumi on this (as I do in most things anyway). We’ll see.

Work and jobs

Since the last letter I started a project at Deakin University and finished it too, for now. I made really good money and when I did a bit of an overview of the past three years we found that we had made very stable incomes and that the money had been very good each year. I might get back once again at Deakin, there’s still 40% of the budget left, but I was not going to sit there and cost money to make them feel confident and safe and after a fashion they appreciated that. I greatly enjoy working with them, they are all so smart and good at what they do and I can fully support the idea that a great education is the best way to have a better chance at the life you want. I have started looking for jobs, but it ever gets easier and most job adds are just so soul-crushing bad it makes me not want to apply. You’d think that organisations would get better at it but nothing is further from the truth. My network is getting stronger and I am building the start of a reputation but for now I will just have to be patient and see who wants to work with a weirdo like me.

Social media change

I’ve decided to be much less active on social media, you know, that thing you are totally not on, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? I felt much better already after a week and now I just check it once every few days and if there’s something really worthwhile I post it, but otherwise I just leave it. I use LinkedIn (Facebook for business) for work and am trying not to focus on like or reaching as many people as possible but instead writing what I want to write. It’s just so weird sometimes. I pour my heart and soul and hours of writing into a 2-page article about change management, get 120 views (pretty good and great feedback). I post a picture of my bad drawing skills and training certificate, gets 1,200 views! How does that even work?! I’ve decided that I will just do what I want, that the technology is there for me, to help me and not the other way around. I do see the benefits though, just this week I made new connections in New York, France, India, Hong Kong and Perth, they are not friends, but people who like what I do and perhaps somewhere down the line we can help each other out, who knows?

Also, sometimes it’s a great way to be found. In April I will be speaking about Fake Change at what’s looking to be a very cool Conference here in Melbourne, thanks to social media. I’ve also gotten involved in some volunteering with year 9 students for their professional development (no joke, it’s what they want nowadays) and will be guest lecturing at Deakin in March, also thanks to social media. It has its good and bad sides, I  guess.

This Tuesday Yumi and I celebrated 4 years in Australia and I made the below overview for friend and family on my blog earlier this week:

Living the good life for four years today

Today is a special day. I thought about this day for four years. What it would be like, where we would be, what we’d be doing and how special it would be to finally become eligible to be an Australian citizen. And now we can. But we probably won’t just yet because I would lose my Dutch citizenship and while I don’t care that much for a country that still hasn’t decided to evacuate and carpet bomb 020 (Amsterdam) and then make it into a parking lot for Rotterdam (the REAL capital), there are some implications to consider. So we’ll wait and probably have Yumi go first (ain’t nobody got no beef with Luxembourg) and then by marriage to an Australian, I will become a dual citizen of Australia, but not the Netherlands. Ha, take that you bunch of bureaucrats!

Anyway, it’s still a special day and something to celebrate and a great opportunity to reflect back on the good, the bad and the ‘meh’. We always knew we were going to have a great time, but ‘blue sky, blue sea’ has turned into something a bit more detailed now.

In no particular order, here’s what we feel we gained:

Diving

We wanted to dive more when we moved here and at first that happened, we got our Rescue Diver ticket (I will never drag Yumi back up a beach in full gear ever again. Ever!) then we lost interest for a bit and now we’re back at it. Having seen the Great Barrier Reef, gotten our nitrox badges and having dived parts of the East and South Coast too by now, it’s about as good as you imagine. Yes, the GBR is not what it used to be and yes, the bay of Melbourne can be a bit ‘refreshing’ but there’s still so much life and things to see, totally worth it.

Beautiful and extreme nature

From the ‘mountains’ to the rainforest to the flatlands and everything in between, this country is so diverse and every new twist and turn has a view worth stopping for to take it all in, unless you  live in Brunswick, then you can keep driving…I think our most used phrase (probably mine as I do most of the talking) is “Wat leven we toch in een mooi land!” (How beautiful is this country?!). Tasmania is probably still my favourite place to visit, but everything else are close seconds and thirds

Work and non-work friends

Australians are great people (when they are not driving a car) and we have met so many friendly lovely people and got to call some of them friend. Either through work, volunteering or just shared interests forced us to go out there and meet new folks and if you HAVE to make new friends, there’s really not much better than the fun loving and good natured Aussies.

Tax haven

It’s quite amazing how much more money we get to keep after taxes. Income wise it’s been a really good choice to move to Australia. We get to help others, live the life we want, buy what we want and still have money left for booze and drugs for the whole street! Well, it’s mostly Dan and Ethel, they party like it’s 1899 and they would know as they were alive back then.

Work experience (all cool jobs)

Yumi’s been kicking goals for years now with NDS and has no plans to go anywhere until she’s officially crowned Miss Sector Innovation 2019 and I could not be prouder of her dedication to a sector and organisation that needs all the help it can ask but is either too busy, distracted or confused to make real progress work. Good things she has some very good co-workers. Funny thing is that of the two of us, she is the real change manager, I am the Magpie (bird) that gets distracted by shiny new stuff and starts causing trouble when it gets bored. But the places I’ve been and the people I’ve worked with are nothing short of amazing and while I generally don’t stick around long enough to get a meeting room named after me, I like to believe that people are not lying when they tell me I made difference for the better.

Travel options

There’s so many places you can go and just see. In the Netherlands we wouldn’t go to a cemetery, shopping mall or farm to just SEE, but here we do and we shamelessly behave like tourists where Yumi has the most endearing quirk of pointing completely obvious things out to me as novelties. It’s a left-over thing from her Tour guide Barbie days where she would plan all our trips and I would just tag along as a simple-minded oaf. Now I actually make an effort to inform myself, so she can enjoy things a bit more. If you know our sightseeing schedules or ever been subjected to one, you know the pressure, so we’re both happy to not do that and enjoy thing a bit more (Look at that tree, Gil!). We still have to go to the NT and the real desert of WA, but according to a lot of nationals we meet, we’ve seen more of their country than they have, which is kind of cool.

Cultural insights

It’s one thing to read about living abroad, it’s another thing to do it and experience it for yourself with so many other cultures. It’s not the same as living in your home country and welcoming foreigners in, here, we are the foreigners even though we look the same (well, I do, but Yumi’s Asian appearance isn’t exactly a shocker in Pacific ASIA (!). We’ve gained so much perspective on what it means to really be part of a culture and slowly but steadily you feel yourself becoming more Australian than Dutch, it’s not something we pursue, it just happens gradually, and we welcome it as there’s worse things to turn into.

Education and training

This one only worked for me, as Yumi already is too smart for my own good, I have to keep training and educating myself. It’s great to live in a city so big that there’s always something going on or to involved with, or you hop on a plane/train and go and do it somewhere else. I got my change certification, then got another, then started improving on myself (I know, it’s work in progress) and I am doing a change visualisation facilitation workshop this week which hopefully improves my drawing skills considerably.

Kendo

We’re still a bit sad that it didn’t work out because most of the people were lovely and we might still be doing it if we had stayed in the ACT, but that next level sh*t of Kenshikan was just not for us. A pity as we have all the gear, but we might come back to it at some point, it’s a skill you can’t unlearn, just get better at once you know the basics, or so we tell ourselves

Left side of everything living

It seems that the more I understand about where to be on the road, pathways, escalators and hallways, the more people start messing with me. How hard can it really be? Cars on the left, people on the left. So not cars sort of on the left, people everywhere else, in my way, middle of the road, standing around in door opening. For goodness sake, some situational awareness would be great.

Appreciation for shorts

After 3 years and a winter I finally succumbed and bought new shorts. And actually wear them outside. It still feels wrong, but jeans get a bit uncomfortable in 35 degrees plus heat. I must be getting old. Still not wearing them to the workplace though, not that integrated just yet perhaps.

Fan of sunscreen

Living in this beautiful sun-drenched country (outside of Melbourne) you develop a healthy appreciation for sunscreen, the more SPF, the better. The sun here is not the sun in Europe and it is not your friend. Ever. You can easily tell why, looking at all the lobster red people (white tourists) moving around the city and beaches. See a covered person on the beach? Not a tourist. See a person waiting in the shade? Not a tourist. People eating inside in summer? Not tourists. Walking around in 40 degrees with a silly hat (yeah, that’s me).

State Emergency Services

Even without the chain sawing and breaking stuff it’s by far the most rewarding volunteering I can think of. People have a problem, you fix problem, people happy. Trees getting feisty, bring out chainsaw, tree calms down. A few hours a week to keep the skills going, meet people from all walks of life. Love it! Did I mention the chainsaw?

Passion for homelessness

It’s not often I stay with a cause or anything all that long but the more people I see living on the streets, the angrier I get. It’s not an out-of-control sort of anger that makes you want to break (or chainsaw) stuff, it’s a deep and slow burning anger that I feel will stay with me until I find a way to make a dent in the number of people living rough in Victoria and then the country. It’s a problem with a solution, we just need to find enough people to give a damn.

Living near the beach

Four years ago if you’d asked if could see myself living near the beach, I’d probably laughed and thought it would be Queensland or Perth, surely not Melbourne and definitely not Altona. I didn’t even know it existed. But here we are and we’re loving it!

Of course there’s also things that we lost along the way:

Some of my hair and a lot of skin

Not much we can do about getting older, well, of course there are options, but most of those are irreversible, so we’ll probably not go for those just yet. Yumi gets the occasional white hair, I just turned nearly completely grey and got more lines in my face, Yumi’s Asian vampire genes are kicking in and she basically looks like she did 5 years ago. Not sure how that’s fair, as she also has the looks and the smarts of the two of us, but I had plastic surgery and have abs, so that’s something.

Spike and Pluis

We came here with our two weapons of mass deconstruction and knew they were getting on in age but had a few years in them. Overall, they had a really good run to the finish line and got to see more of the world then just Rotterdam (enough for most cats). They got to board an aeroplane twice and eat all sorts of foreign bugs, sleep in the garden forever and never be cold. Also, together they financed at least two $10,000 holidays for our vets in Casey and Brunswick, I think there’s still a picture of them on the ‘our main benefactors’ wall of fame somewhere.

Dreams (fulfilled)

The dreams we had did not go away or get lost, they got fulfilled. A very first world problem to have is that we now have to keep coming up with new goals in life as this country and all its opportunities just keep helping us achieve them. Perhaps it’s time to come up with some really crazy stuff and see how far Australia will go to help us out.

Trying to find what I don't like about Oz, it's been 4 years…

This one is simple, if I can’t find it after looking for it for 4 years it probably just doesn’t exist. Sorted!

Life moments of friends and families

This is probably the biggest concern we had when moving here. It’s still quite amazing how a few Skype dates a month and social media keep us connected much more than we had anticipated. Of course, the visits of family and friends definitely made a big difference and we don’t know what we don’t know, but overall it worked much better than expected.