We as women……

The strong women in my life (plus mother in law)

This I write as a request from one of my beautiful daughters, Tara.

Firstly, I should give you some understanding as to my statement. I should inform you up front that writing or speaking correctly the English language is not my forte. In fact, I would probably be seen as the arch enemy of the English language. However, what I do say, I say with conviction and with much passion and belief. I have been known to be very creative, when one word won’t suffice to my needs, I will create a new word possibly by combining parts of two words. Also, I am a strong believer in saying your point with the minimum of words; this may require on your part a guessing game as to the meaning of my statement, due to the lack of words. So my statement We as women…summed up exactly what I wanted to say.

Secondly, I should give you some background of myself, so you can better understand where I am coming from. I was reared by a very strong and determined mother. In many ways, in growing up she left me to my own resources. She was like a mother from another planet compared to the over protective mothers of modern day. I said at her funeral ” She was no normal mother” to the concern of the congregation who knew her, but to their relief I added “She was more a life coach than a mother.” Due to her I believe, I became a very independent boy, strong within myself with no need or desire to be part of the Mens Club.

I married very young compared to today’s standards as I was only 21 years old. I married because I needed a close relationship with someone, a mate you may say. Probably, not the best of reasons to get married. But worse still, I went into the marriage with the typical Brisbane boy mentality, of Male Superiority. I was boss, I made the decisions and of course they were always correct. I was very emotional, no good for the wife getting into an emotional argument with me, I would out do her on all fronts, until she gave in. After 10 years, she decided to leave which was probably the best decision for her and I (not that I would have said that at the time), but it was a real pity for my two boys, who I loved dearly. Family split up is never ideal. But we made certain the split occurred on the best basis as possible, and even though I gave my boys up to her, I was still very much involved in their lives.

Then my life took a change in more ways than I could imagine. Here I am at the age of 32, alone and with nothing to lose. I resigned from my secure government job, started up a new risky business needing a lot of capital which I didn’t really have, and tried to have a social life of some sort, when all I really wanted to do was cry over the loss of my boys. I poured myself into my business, but I could not stop the feeling that I needed a woman and badly. But fortunately going through a divorce, I was very weary of marriage. Things would have to be different; it is amazing how change develops out of adversity.

After much socialising I became attached to a wonderful lady who I did know from the government department where I had worked. It so happened that she also had gone through a break up and was in the process of divorcing. So when we got together, it was all about forgetting about the past and living for today, and letting tomorrow happen the way it falls. Neither of us thought that there was necessarily a long term future. So here I am forming a relationship more on friendship and with time there was the development of respect for each other. This in time grew into trust and I found that I surely had a friend who I could rely on to give me an honest opinion on various issues that confronted me. I knew she would not necessarily agree with my point of view but would use her own intelligence to make a decisive opinion on whether what I was saying made sense or was totally incorrect. I even bought a house with her and went into business with her as a partner. We came up with a clear demarcation of areas of responsibilities and we had an understanding as to whom had the final decision in matters. Either party could have opinions on all matters, but the one responsible for that area, made the final decision and the other party would go along with it totally. This system worked and well and still does today.

I would be lying if I said there were no times that we would have an argument over issues and also I would go into my old emotional ways. But to her credit, she would refuse to argue and not add fuel to the emotional state, just simply walk away from me as she made a statement. I was left with no one to argue but even better I was left with a statement to think on. So often she was right because she was using her brain and not her emotion. So out of all this, I started to really respect the capability of the female mind. Even more, I saw the benefit of the Scorpio lady that would tell you directly what she thought. I started hiring more Scorpio ladies in my business with great success.

After 30 years, I have come to be a great advocate of women, being an equal partner with man in the future of mankind. In fact, I strongly believe that the world’s future would be much better off by getting more women in leading our businesses and our governments. But it has to be under their unique terms, not under the terms of the male dominated world. I despise the way that too often Boards and even Political parties operate, where it is simply a Men’s Club that gangs up against anyone whether male or female who dares to not conform to the group ideals. They only want to maintain the status quo.

I can just imagine my partner (wife for over 25 years) saying now, “get to the point”. So now that you can understand the back ground, you maybe able to understand my logic, when something was stated on the TV news, and I raised my head and said, “We as women….”.I cannot even remember what was said on TV, but it was something that was denigrating the rights of women in my mind, and I was calling to action, my family(including myself) and all women, to stand up against such things. Well, I had my wife and daughters in a fit of laughter, but at the time could not understand what they were laughing at, I was just confirming that I was with them in their battle.

Especially now, the world has much to do if we are going to get over some of the massive obstacles in our way. There has to be many changes and I am a strong believer that if women came more to the fore front in the decision making, the world would be a better place. Australia has a female leader, but just look at it, there is a boy’s club behind the scenes pulling the strings. I want to see strong female leaders in their own right coming to the forefront and maybe we will see the changes that are needed to get the world working properly. Just imagine, if we had politicians elected and standing for the issues that affect their electorate and not being more concerned about the political party they represent and why have three tiers of government, when two could still do the job.

So we as women, let’s not sit back and accept the old attitudes, let’s start bringing the necessary changes and make a better world.

Waterwheel Economics by a Business Vet

The Waterwheel of Old

It can be a very strange development in life, when you can be trained in one vocation and then end up in a totally different area with no relevance to each other. Well that is what everyone thinks. But life is a box of chocolates, I have heard that somewhere before “LOL”. I wanted to own a farm and I wanted the scientific knowledge that would allow me to rear animals better than the average farmer. I achieved my degree, and achieved my farm soon after. But being bonded to the Meat Industry gave me an introduction into business and I wanted to do more.

I have often thought that my training did give me some real skills that have helped me in business. As you would appreciate, being an animal doctor trains you to OBSERVE. Our patients can’t tell us what is wrong except by their behaviour. I think OBSERVATION is one of the biggest undervalued skills in business. However, in business I can listen to the discussion and appreciate what is not said in the body language or any other non verbal actions.

But getting to the point of this discussion, I have been through a number of economic down-turns through my 30 odd years in business. However, this one is totally different from all the rest, in that it does not want to come to an end. Then you start to observe as to what maybe involved here. In Australia, for the last 5 years or so (definitely prior to the GFC) that we were being told as a nation of consumers we were really high in indebtedness, which was not good. Then we have the GFC which scares the living hell out of everyone and still does and guess what, everyone stops spending and starts paying off debt. The scenario is so predictable, business suffers.

I have seen this for many years in the small rural towns. People don’t support the innovative businesses that come to town to the level required  and slowly but surely those businesses go out of business. Businesses universally survive on cash which is very much like the water that pushes the water wheel. The cash (water) stops to flow at the level it should and the wheel won’t turn to the degree to turn the gears for productive business.

The issue involved is really two fold here, which are:

1. Our indebtedness has gone from one extreme to another. From being too much in debt, to being as little in debt as possible. But you only achieve that from not spending. We all have to realise that if spending doesn’t occur, businesses go to the wall and more people lose their jobs which creates less spending (no option) and even more businesses go to the wall. A vicious circle that does not stop from enlarging. Maybe there is a more happy medium of some indebtedness and some spending that will stimulate business.
2. Too often we look at the powers above us to come up with the solution to our problems. These are the leaders who have been in our parliaments when the real problems were created to bring on the GFC. Surely, one would think they are not capable. We do not have Leaders any longer we have Pleasers who try to make as many people happy as possible, no matter how minor a group they are. This is an impossibility.

So what do we do. As I have found in my businesses, we can only ever rely upon ourselves. The recovery has to be driven from the bottom upwards, not sit and wait for something to happen. It won’t. Who employs most people and is the real driver of the economy? It is small business and they are the ones which we can support by our spending power to ensure they can stay open.

Just keep saying to yourself, it is up to us.

Why do I not look up at the night sky in the city?

Recently I spent some time at my farm in the Northern Rivers Area of NSW. It is my wife’s and my desire to always walk to the front fence after dinner which is a few hundred yards away. The first thing we always do is look up into the sky and see the magical array of stars in the sky. This particular night also had on display the Monster Moon and the evening was such a special night, one you would not forget. This led me to think that at this moment I could be in the city and I would not be seeing this special night. Why is that? Further more, what else we are missing out on?

I think that is because in the city you live in the street light cocoon and you don’t see above the lights. It is like the futuristic movies with cities living under a protective shield in a totally protected environment. Inside not really like what it is in the outside real world. During my life, I have straddled these two worlds living in the city as well at the farm, my heaven on earth. However, my better half does not see it that way as it can be a very lonely existence. But with the animals I am never lonely. But I do understand her point of view.

But this led me to another point which led me to another point. I think somewhere fairly recently that I read an article about MAN losing his own identity. To add fuel to this point I have thought for a long time, that sooner or later that WOMAN would eventually rule the world and possibly do a better than the ego driven males who are lead by being seen as the expert in all areas even if they haven’t earned it necessarily. Just take a look at our so called leaders of today, then you can understand why we are in such a mess. We want rational thinkers, listeners, doers, and multi tasking individuals who have a certain honesty about them and care for people in general. Sounds like what women have been doing for centuries. What we don’t need any longer is self centred type individuals who are only interested in self and greed.

I think I am off the point. Males have to find their own position in life in this modern world. Firstly, the smart people have realised that we are equal individuals, male/female or should I say female/male (f first in alphabet). Yes we may be better at different things due to our make up but that is the same as in a job, it does not necessarily depend on the sex of the individual. So males have to find what their real roles are. I found when I was at the farm, I did so much more of fixing whatever happened around the farm house, because of the simple reason that no one else was available. In the city I would pay the tradesman to fix whatever it was and some things are so easily fixed except the city guy has never had to do it. We have to remember that the two individuals in the partnership have very important roles and they should be discussed and be respected. You are dependent on each other. We have seen how this deteriorates badly when the responsibility is left to one person. Take a look at the delinquent children that are coming out of the one parent families. Both role models are critical.

That is the point I am making. The farm life was so important in making the male role and female role so very different but also so relevant to each other and to the family as a whole.

Excuse the photos, one is off the internet and the other of the moon was from my iPad, it does not like night shots, looks more like a comet. But it sure was a beautiful night, I wish you could have seen it.

Barry Osborne

Written at the beginning of the GFC for my Clients

NOT AGAIN