it’s about me,
– which it shouldn’t be. If you are employing someone, better do so for what they can do for you, not what they tell you about themselves.
However, having said that; now you’re here, I’m not about to hide anything.
Extracts from reviews posted on Linked in
I live with my wife Ania and our twin teenage kids. We spend most of the summer months in the Polish Beskid Mountains and our winters housesitting – usually somewhere warmer. We homeschool the twins who share our love of world-exploring.
I have been building websites for myself and others since 2018. It’s fun because it stretches my creative boundaries in the fascinating environments of marketing and grahic design. I also enjoy the challenge of wrestling with the often-intransigent technology.
I qualified as a certified transformational coach with Coaching Minds following completion of their 165 hour Accredited Practitioner Level 5 Programme in 2023. I love exploring the power that our internal narratives give us over our own mindsets.
In 2018, I moved from a four-decade international career as an architect and senior manager in the design and procurement of major construction projects, to concentrate on my lifetime loves of illustration graphic design and travel. I also realised that with decades of experience in a complex contractual profession I had developed strong interpersonal skills – not just for construction but about the whole trick of enjoying being productive.
My interests beyond illustration, writing, and family – are food, travel, music, film, recreational maths, science/philosophy, and visual design.
I love all kinds of beautiful things; abstract and physical; natural and manufactured.
My Motto
Enjoy what you do, and do lots of it.
My Values and Reflections
Health and Happiness – for the individual, those are the only two things that matter. Happiness embodies both the joy of the moment and a longer term self-esteem born from delivering whatever contribution we want to make. The right balance for me is more towards the longterm, but I wouldn’t put a percentage on it.
Contentment is a great friend. It lives in the things we do, not the things we have.
Anger and fear are interesting emotions, acceptance and self reflection on those feelings can be the most telling exercises on the path to emotional maturity.
Violence and threats of violence, whether at a personal level or a tribal/national level are either failures of diplomacy, or failures of character.
I have discovered that the only things I can change are the things that I do. I’m not a successful persuader, and it’s a waste of time to complain about the behaviour of others.
My only regrets are actions I have taken under intimidation. I know my values; my meta-value is to be true to them.
I have been a good leader and mentor, but only in the last quarter of my career.
In the global age: Open-minded is good. Tribalism (aka ‘identity-based thinking’) is bad. History and news are both negative influences and carry a risk of entrenching tribal prejudices. I take them both in small doses with a big supplement of scepticism.
Money is a unit of exchange. That’s it. If I have more, that doesn’t make me better or worse than you. I find it interesting (and rather sad) that so many people choose to put their own self evaluation under the contol of this metric. Money has enormous power, but only because so many people buy into the story of its value. Some are committed to the belief that they wield that power, but it’s the money that has the power, not the people holding it. For the rest of us, that ‘buy-in‘ is a choice.
In the analysis of options, and when searching for strategies, scepticism is wiser than faith, but when we find something or somebody we trust, a bit of faith is a wonderful thing.
There is no Planet B. The most inhospitable environment on Earth is far cosier than the most comfortable spot on the best exoplanet.
My Visions and Aspirations
I aspire to a culture of creativity, growth, diversity, inclusivity and appreciation.
A positive future for this world. Enjoyable, enriching, broadminded and encouraging.
Embrace creative, exploratory, curiosity-driven inclusive endeavour, both artistic and scientific.
Within the boundary of truth to my values, I aspire to live in the moment, enjoying whatever I find myself involved in – doing it well – rather than living in frustration, wishing I could be doing something else.
Better to do simple things with excellent style than draw a mediocre result from magnificent intentions.
My Mission
To lead from the front; by example.
To spend the majority of my time practicing what I enjoy and what I’m good at. To spend the balance growing, learning, and exploring to expand that range of skills.
Search for creative angles on life that aren’t obvious – speak at different levels, and from different aspects. The sensual child, the intellectual geek and the contextual explorer.
Keep active; achieving small milestones on a path of creative, productive progress.
To add value to my own and to humanity’s stories by the enrichment of life, fun, and character.
To share what joy I find in life. This isn’t a zero sum game; the more we share the more we get.
To pay forward; to enable others to develop within themselves positive values that I have spent a lifetime learning.
