Christmas is fast approaching and I think most of us are looking forward to some quality time with family and friends.  We’ll be in Desert Dream as usual with various kids and grandkids joining us for the festivities.

2025 promises to be challenging on every front almost everywhere you look.  But we live for moments like this.  We are in our Farm (finally!) and Trudy is supervising the unloading and unpacking of a 40 foot container full of our possessions from New Zealand into the finally finished Farm in New Jersey.  (I couldn’t help but reflect on just how much fun you can have when the world is changing so fast.  From New Zealand to New Jersey.)

And my day today was full of fun – and variety which, as you know, is the spice of life.

The day started with two interviews for the Head of Sales position for the start-up I coach – Quench.AI.  Both candidates were terrific and we made an offer to our first choice this afternoon.  Following that I was on the receiving end of a presentation from a creative agency in Madrid on Sogrape Spain’s LAN Rioja Wine project (talk about back to the future – I felt like a Pepsi Marketing VP all over again).  From Spain, we ‘Zoomed’ to the UK for two leadership sessions with founder members of The Spartans – Oli Smith, the founder of the Smith Design Branding agency in Huddersfield and Micky Mellon, the Manager of Oldham Athletic Football Club.  ‘Back in the UK’ continued with a meeting reviewing 2024 and finalising the schedule for 2025 with Herdy founders Spencer and Diane Hannah.

(All these calls took place thanks to the miracle of Zoom, which I had never heard of prior to Covid.)

The afternoon was spent in the Morristown, NJ head office of Isdin USA (yes, a session in an actual, real, physical place with real people really present!!!!) with Steph and Alain, their Global and US Marketing chiefs, working through a plan for a major new product launch next year.

So just another VUCA day, ranging through AI, wine, design, football, sheep (!) and skin care, and roaming through creativity, marketing, and leadership … all based on one thing – Positivity.

All these sessions were happy choices, and all of them were with inspirational, optimistic, imaginative leaders.  All playing to win!

No way, will we be letting the Old man in!