Teamwork - an essential skill

Hi All,

An excuse to talk about the fact I play a trombone and am looking forward to the Autumn Programme with Djanogly Community Orchestra based in Nottingham.

I mentioned this in my last tipsletter (newsletter) - you could sign up for this by clicking on the link to the right either to my website http://www.integritusltd.co.uk/ or to my archived tipsletters.

An orchestra is clearly a group of people who come together (in our case voluntarily, the main and virtually only criteria being that we all play at grade 5 or above) to make music. This requires us to work together to combine our expertise and make (hopefully) a combined sound which is worth listening to.

The skills and attributes we all need, apart from being able to play an instrument, are:

• being able to take direction
• listening to each other
• time awareness (most important)
• time management
• being able to work in a smaller groups as part of the larger group
• planning
• having a goal
• self-discipline
• a willingness to support each other
• making our contributions to the benefit of the whole group appropriately
• asking when we need help

I guess I could find more to add but these are enough to make the point. Whether in business or leisure, we will all, at some stage need to work as part of a team. The items in the list above are applicable to any team situation whether working or playing.

These things need your attention and a positive attitude from each of us. Can you add anything else to this list? Share when you find something......

Life is a Bowl of Cherries?

Hi Folks - an article from my Free Monthly Tipsletter

Life is a Bowl of Cherries

It's always a mixture?

Another fruity contribution after my banana view of setting goals!
My inspiration for this title is, in actual fact, a piece of music I play (or at least would like to be able to play better). Did you know I play Bass trombone in Burton Big Band. This piece has a lovely bass solo which, at the moment, I cannot do justice to. Belive me though - I will! I will succeed! Hah!
As is my wont, I began thinking about the words and thought, 'is life really like a bowl of cherries?'
My conclusion is that yes, it is! Here's why.

Looks good and full of promise. A bowl clean shiny luscious cherries is really attractive. Life is like that - full of attractive looking opportunities and you can choose any one, or even more than one at a time to enjoy.
Cherries are not always the same size, they come in different textures, tastes, colours and flavours. I think life is like that too - things you tackle are never the same, some are sweeter than others. Some don't look so good and are disappointing, others that don't look so good turn out to taste fantastic and so-on.
When you eat them there is always the real fruity part which you enjoy and there is always the pip which you need to throw away but which if planted will grow. In life everything you experience has both good and bad sides. Like with a cherry though, you can choose to enjoy the good parts and opt to throw away the hard bits or learn and grow from them. Those hard bits can be valuable though, because you learn from them and grow as a result from them. the choice is up to you!
This is really the whole point of this article. You can choose to get value from all aspects of life. Some of life is easier to enjoy than other, but the there is always value to be gained from every situation.
Choose to take the best from life!