H&A Agency

I’m a child of the 80’s, and like everyone else my age, we know what ‘Just Say No’ was all about. Nancy Reagan supposedly came up with the slogan – if she didn’t, she certainly championed it. We are offered so many things, and everything is so fantastic, so shiny, will improve your life, boost your income, make you a profit, and worst of all – your competitors might get in there and you’ve missed a trick. It seems simple enough, but when you are caught up in the whirl of an offer from a persuasive salesperson who is telling you that you’d be mad not to buy-in, it can be hard to step back and ask who is really going to benefit from this deal?

On the day he died my niece was born, leading me, as I do every year, to celebrate new life and old life. Yes, I might meet new and interesting people. Can you imagine a world without a computer, a credit card, a fridge, a telephone, a camera, the latest iPhone or the internet? So, I’m going to keep on trying – personally and professionally – with the aim of making a difference and having a bit of fun along the way.

Conventional wisdom (and probably your job description) tells you not to poke the bear. The bear doesn’t want to be poked. And if someone doesn’t, weeks, months, or even years of your precious time will be wasted on projects, that deep down, you know are pointless. So if I had the choice of who I’d want on my team – the professional who is prepared to poke the bear (and risk a short-term mauling for long-term gain), or one who would prefer to toe the line, I know which one I’d choose.

We know it, because we’ve all experienced it – solving one problem isn’t the end of the story. Solving one problem normally opens the doors to a multitude of new ones we didn’t even know existed. Good people, businesses or ideas start to look like they might fit the bill. We convince ourselves – or worse still, others, that we’ve found the answer.