My “50 Facts About Me” (Q1 2022 edition)

This was my response to the Working Out Loud circle exercise in Week 5 of my current circle in mid-February 2022.

This version is broadly the same as my prior edition (Q2, 2021) with public videos related to each of the facts about me. In this version, I updated video links that were no longer resolving, merged 2 education facts into one and added a new fact to do with "One Word". I also updated some of my video selections.

1. I was born in 1962 in Nottingham, UK, and am half-Scottish (late mother from Aberdeen Scotland) and half-English (late father from Manchester, England). I am prouder of my Scottish half.

2. I have always lived in the UK, in Shepshed, Loughborough (these 2 places between 1962 and 1985), Stirling, Bridge of Allan (these 2 places while I was at university between 1980 and 1985), Leeds (from 1985 to 1992) and, currently, live in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK (since 1992).

3. I am a Christian, a disciple of Jesus since 1980. I am a member of the leadership team of a church set on a large housing estate in Bradford.

4. U2 have been my favourite band since 1980. Seeing them perform live in 1981 at my home town university for £1 is one of my life highlights.

5. I listen to all genres of music with music playing most of the time when I am on my own including when I am working or reading. Spotify is my music player of choice.

6. I have had a fascination for leadership in all walks of life since I was very young. I have held or hold various leadership positions throughout my life in all my life roles. I continue to be a student of all things leadership in all areas of society and continue to evolve my personal best practice, I am on a quest to be a level 5 leader (per John Maxwell).

7. I set myself One Word for a year that I use to govern my life. This is instead of New Year's Resolutions. I have done this since 2017. Words to date have been Focus (2017), Discipline (2018), Apply (2019), Mojo (2020), Capability (2021) and my word for 2022 is "Assert". The dictionary definition of "assert" is:

"state a fact or belief confidently and forcefully; cause others to recognize (one's authority or a right) by confident and forceful behaviour; behave or speak in a confident and forceful manner." The word "forceful" for me means speaking and acting fearlessy and seeking to make my spoken and written words powerful.

8. All my formal education ("O" Levels, "A" Levels, undergraduate degree and postgraduate degree) was done before the internet existed. I am a two-time business graduate from the University of Stirling (Business Studies and Management Science, First Class) and Strathclyde Graduate Business School, Glasgow (MBA) – both in Scotland.

9. I had a Harrington Rod inserted along my spine for scoliosis in the summer of 1981.

Info sheet

10. I am a business/IT professional in my employed life performing multiple roles including business consultant, project manager, service manager, account manager, workshop/session facilitator.

11. I am a currently a project manager and business consultant at my core. I am deeply motivated by understanding organisational probems and opportunites and then generating solutions to those problems on my own and with others and then doing and managing the work to see those solutions implemented.

12. The annual Spring Harvest Christian all-ages family teaching event in the UK each Easter has had the deepest impact on my spiritual life and how I live my life. This has included how to prepare, lead and run events of any size and complexity – the event’s tagline is “Equipping The Church For Action”. I have attended the event every year since 1988 including the virtual events in 2020 and 2021 (virtual due to Covid.

13. I was married in 1992.

14. I am a father of 3 children (daughters 18 and 20, son 23).

15. I have an occasional stammer and hesitation in my speech which is significantly better now than earlier in my life.

16. I love watching powerful real-life films and TV drama series including foreign language ones with English sub-titles. Examples include The West Wing, NYPD Blue, The Newsroom, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Bridge, The Killing, Line of Duty, Spooks.

17. I love food from all round the world, especially Thai, Indian, Pakistani, Italian, Chinese.

18. I love drink from all round the world including beers, lagers, weissbier, wine, spirits, mango lassi, coffee (e.g. Caramel Latte), tea (e.g. Lapsang Souchong) etc.

19. I love the company of family and friends with food and drink in homes, cafes and restaurants or al fresco.

20. I am a reader of non-fiction books on my own and in book groups who seeks to apply all that I read via setting questions after each chapter and then answering them as I go through each book, often posting my questions and answers in more public spaces to start a dialogue with others.

21. I prefer fewer deeper rather than more superficial relationships with people in all my life roles and contexts.

22. Between 2017 and 2022, I recruited and facilitated 10 "free" Working Out Loud (WOL) learning group circles and was a member of 1 of the pilot WOL Self-Care Circles. All the circles were global and virtual using Zoom for the video calls. The vast majority of the people I have done circles with were new-to-me when we started each circle and most were women. The latter was not my intention and I accepted members into each circle on a first-come, first-served basis.

23. I am on a continual quest, when appropriate. to make how we live and work more efficient and preferably more effective in my own life and in the groups, teams and communities that I lead, facilitate or a member of.

24. I am a content consumer, creator, curator and sharer both in real life and virtually via personal knowledge management, sharing my “work” and working out loud.

25. I lead or facilitate a number of groups/communities that meet in real life and/or virtually including Bible study home groups, church prayer meetings, a film club at church, WOL circles, book groups, project teams, work teams and learning groups.

26. I have a strong service ethos in all that I do including ensuring continuity when I am absent as well as making it as friction-less as possible to work or relate in any way with me.

27. I have a coaching mentality to enable people that I relate to in any of my life roles to develop and learn new things and ways of doing things.

28. I have a facilitation mentality in planning, leading and facilitating then reviewing meetings, sessions, workshops etc to achieve agreed goals both in real life and virtually.

29. I read fiction books for relaxation as well as taking a break from all my non-fiction book reading.

30. Some might categorise me as a “digital immigrant” but I would say that I am more of a “digital native” given my use of technology in all areas of my life in service to all my life roles. I have been blogging since November 2003 and was one of the first users of Twitter in December 2006.

31. My view via personal experience is that virtual relationships can be as deep and sometimes deeper than real-life ones.

32. My favourite place to unwind, relax and recreate is the Isle of Skye off the north west coast of Scotland. Specifically, Achnacloich, overlooking the Cuillin mountain range across the sea. We keep going back. I first went in 1972.

33. Although I do not speak any other languages apart from English, I love the sound of Gaelic in speech but especially when set to music.

34. I often get electric shocks surging through my body listening to music but listening to Combined Pipes (bagpipes) and Drums bands stirs my blood and emotions like nothing else.

35. I am in awe of God’s creation especially mountains and sea. This is one of the main reasons why my Christian faith is so central in my life.

36. I am a Microsoft Office 2019 user. All the organisations I have worked for and in have all been Microsoft Office users.

37. My standout strengths (via Marcus Buckingham) are Advisor and Teacher.

38. I use Trello for keeping track of books to read and my personal to-do lists.

39. I am a content consumer including films, TV, books, podcasts, music, radio, events in real life, MOOCs, webinars, online training events etc.

40. I am a content creator including blog posts, collaboration platform posts, videos of me talking to my mobile phone, LinkedIn articles and posts, comments and replies to others etc. Many of these are per working out loud and sharing your work principles.

41. I use Evernote for the bulk of my content creation.

42. I am a content sharer primarily on LinkedIn and Twitter. This is primarily due to me being a “Giver” and not a “Taker” or a “Matcher” per Adam Grant’s classification of how people operate.

43. I am a “Distributed Individual” learner (according to Harvard’s Mode Of Learning and Leader of Learners profiling tool) with an increasing fascination and curiosity about lots of subjects.

44. I use Zoom as my video conferencing platform of choice. I have been using it since 2016.

45. I am a regular participant, contributor, host (occasional) and curator (using Wakelet) of a number of Twitter Chats including #LDInsight (learning and development / organisational development), #ESNChat (enterprise social networks) and #TalkLeadership. The 2 latter ones have now stopped.

46. I was given a free licence to use Workplace from Facebook in November 2017 when two of the most senior Facebook executives, in London and Paris, saw my two tweets in real-time in an enterprise social network Twitter Chat asking if anyone could help me get access to Workplace to run WOL Circles on. By the time my licence-type was sunset-ed in December 2020, my Workplace community comprised 300 learners from all around the world learning in various confgurations of groups including All Users, Sub-groups of users and 1:1 groups.,

47. I am an extensive user of Twitter and LinkedIn and a lesser user of Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. Whilst a majority of people categorise these as “social media platforms” or “enterprise social networks”, I prefer the terms “collaboration platforms" and "communities where real work gets done". My platform of choice would be Workplace from Meta if I was to ever get access again.

48. I am a life designer and have worked through “Designing Your Life” and “Designing Your Work Life” by Bill Burnett and Dave Evas and “Reinvention Roadmap” by Liz Ryan. I continue to apply these approaches to my own life and to help others’ apply it to theirs.

49. The habits and daily questions material from James Clear and Marshall Goldsmith respectively has impacted me the deepest of any content most recently and I am continuing to apply that in my home and work lives.

50. I am getting significantly better at living my life as a peach (an integrated whole around a core (stone)) and not as an orange (different and separate segments with different compartments for each of my different life roles and contexts). This means that wherever I am I want to show up as the person with all these 50 Facts ready to be "deployed" as appropriate.