New Year is a time to reflect and take stock of what worked well last year and what is needed to happen differently for the year ahead.
I always take out an A4 page after Christmas and physically write down my objectives. I hate the term New Year’s resolution perhaps because I always feel resolutions are hard to keep and objective are something to be attained.
Yesterday I sat in my office and began to write. I lay out my objectives to gain more market share for our range of products, to add one more product to that range, to improve fish yield by 1 % and so on. I then talked about digitizing and streamlining everything possible to reduce the time, expense, and waste, continuing to foster and build a more robust company culture encouraging personal development among staff. I suggested concentrating my energy into fewer things and I even committed to continuing the family forum sessions we begum after Christmas as a result of something I read in Orla Carmody’ s new book “Perform as a Leader “.
I was then kicked back into reality when I received a beautiful text reply from my fellow Kilkenny businessman and friend Bobby Kerr. It stopped me in my tracks as I was engrossed in my plans.
Bobby, as you probably all know by now, was diagnosed with head and neck cancer a number of months ago. He came out quite publically to tell the nation of his plight, but a plight that befalls approximately 35,000 people in Ireland every year so he is not alone. The fact that Bobby is a much loved public figure meant that his honesty and openness just may have helped many people, especially men in Ireland, to take action and look after themselves better, something that men seem to be very reluctant to do for some reason .
So I do not want to take this opportunity to detail my objectives for the business, but to talk about what is truly important, something that has hit home for Bobby as a result of the harrowing times he has experienced over the last three months.
Bobby Kerr’s lessons in life:
- Life goes on without you.
- People are fundamentally decent.
- Life is short and for living.
- Only three things in life matter health, family, and good friends…
“So get out there, get yourself checked, Love and be loved and enjoy life to the fullest because none of us know how long we have left on this wonderful planet.”
And besides…
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