👋🏾 Welcome back to my blog. Firstly thanks for all of your messages of support and for all the visits from around the world – I truly feel overwhelmed with the response.
The theme for this blog is ‘Be more meerkat…’, but what does that actually mean? As a tester I decided to ask my biggest fan… yes it is my mother! The response to me asking this exact question was: ‘Is it because you look like a Meerkat?’. My first reaction was to laugh, though on reflection I thought, could this be so as I’m a bit on the hairy side? Though the nicer explanation as clarified by my mother was that I look cute (as any mother would say of their big child 😂).
You will be pleased to know that I put a little more thought into the theme and statement for the site than this – Meerkats are not only beautiful creatures, they are special in their ability to work as a team. A small subset of their skills includes being able to communicate proficiently with 30 distinct calls to alert their peers of dangers; putting great care into training their seedlings 🌱; they share tasks between their team mates and they are extremely curious.
Looking at all of the best teams that I have been in, it has stood out to me that all these ‘Meerkat’ like characteristics were key to a fruitful outcome.
Throughout my years of growing up, my parents have taken the time to train me and my siblings and have imparted their wisdom upon us. Female leads have been a key pillar of guidance and strength in my journey to becoming what I am right now – be it my grandma’s, wife, mothers, sisters to name a few, I have been lucky enough to be able to learn from their strength and knowledge. 🏋🏽♀️
Taking on different jobs and playing to our strengths has meant that we can all learn from each other. Together we have all been more ‘Meerkat’. ❤️
Although sharing tasks in a team is key – one task which I’ve never really been exemplary at is that of cooking food – a lowlight from my younger years was when I made sweetcorn pasta and gave food poisoning to my sister. 🤢 The key lesson learned, if it’s a struggle to open the can it certainly is not safe to eat. In this case I probably should have been given another task.
Back to Meerkats – the key skill that stood out for me was being curious. Being curious is a skill which all great teams showcase and we should all aim to be learning as much as we can and ensure we are seeing others points of view.
I was once told by a wise mentor that it’s important to learn 1 new skill a day – now that may mean that you find a skill is not for you, but the greater learning is that you will find what you actually enjoy and are ultimately great at.
From learning there certainly is a fine line between thinking you are good at something and being an expert, though this is all part of the learning. Take my wedding engagement – it really is not a great look for your in-laws to see you at this key event with a partial black eye and swollen nose. So what caused this I hear you ask… well to be clear I was not behaving like a passionate fan at Villa park. Rather I played cricket with my family and my Dad took his life chance to bowl his fastest ball (in my head I had images of me hitting a six out of the park and then being carried home as a hero 🏏), but infact it hit me in the nose – though to my advantage my nose has never been straighter (thanks Dad!) 🤕
Luckily my wife did not take the passionate football fan look into account and we have lived happily ever after… 🦄
To summarise – what can we all do to ‘be more Meerkat’:
- In life and work, mentor others and train those who are less experienced.
- Take on roles not for what they are, but more so for how they can shape you in future.
- Be curious…
Thanks again for sticking with me for this blog – you are all awesome ⭐️.
Feel free to contact me directly on what you would like me to cover in future blogs. Stay safe and stay happy. ✌🏾