Financial Fractals.

Now, I don’t know much about fractals. I remember they are like an ever repeating pattern – no matter what size, always the same. Like a fern frond. Which I remember vividly from my wonderful childhood and liberty allowing Mom (by that I mean, I could do whatever I wanted as a child – as long as no one got hurt. I’ll be ever thankful for that).

It just struck me last week that one of the crazy things about employment, the search for, the intent for promotion and most importantly the responses, requirements and questions from recruiters (with whom I’ve been dealing with for a project right now) is the questions they ask – one one in particular…

And that is, the question they all seem to ask of people who’ve run agencies, which is ‘what’s the revenue, how big was the business you managed’. Now, if you’re going for an account handling role – and you want to demonstrate the scale of work you can undertake, or the amount of clients you can ‘liaise’ with on a daily basis (although in most of my experiences running an agency the world liaise normally means ‘I left a message on his/her voicemail’) then maybe it is relevant, although I don’t really believe it.

Was Obama discriminated against because he’d never held a nation’s budget before? Did Tony Blair get asked ‘well do you have experience of a multi-billion pound defence budget’. The answer is no. It’s about fractals – scale, if you can manage 100 dollars effectively then maybe you could manage 100′000 as well? The fundamentals, the rules of economics (and I’m learning more about THOSE every day) stay the same. The numbers change, but not the formulas.

Good leadership isn’t the volume or value of your business, it’s the quality, wisdom, decisiveness and passion of your leadership. The former is only a by-product of the latter.

An homage to Ross.

Ross Weinstein (a very clever friend of mine who works at News Force, an organisation that invited me to be on its advisory board) is prone to photographing his meals. 

So I have today.

I’ve been under the ‘asian spell’ recently and culinary wise that’s come through in my cuisine. Today was seared tuna with Ponzu and Wasabi, grilled scallop with fresh lime served with carrot, sesame and vinegar and salad with ginger dressing.

I’ve really Asian’d the fuck out of this one. And it was completely delicious. Contact me for the recipe (although there’s not much more to it that than). Ponzu is worth finding – we had to go to 3 stores to find it and got the last one in WholeFoods at Columbus Circle, possibly the busiest supermarket in the solar system.

Farewell, Fire Island.

So today was the day I took myself and my very intelligent shadow out to Fire Island to clear out what’s left (what’s mine) and make sure we’d made good. Ben had been out a couple of weeks ago and had clearly had a really good tidy up – which was really helpful and much appreciated.

Up at 6.30 to catch the train to Bayshore, and a lovely journey out in bright blue skies – a little sad thinking of the recent memories, you know, the seperation and all – but I felt like I had real emotional support all around me.

You simply can’t be sad on Fire Island, well – I’m sure come January the year-rounders (Nancy and co) will want to shoot themselves right in the head (as my little sister and I love saying) but for the casual day-tripper; hang on, why ‘the casual day-tripper’ is there such a thing as a ‘formal day-tripper?’. It’s like when people say ‘practicing homosexual’ – actually I stopped practicing years ago.

The house was the same as it was when I was last there, although it felt happier – and an hour later, all packed and fast asleep. Awoken to the owner turning up to check out our checking out – and he wasn’t best pleased to find the place inhabited. In fact he was a bit rude – which, much like the garlic risotto that I’d consumed having failed to find anything breakfast like – left a bad taste in my mouth.

However, soon recovered – back to the ferry and home.

Fire Island is so special to me. It was the place I came to when I knew no-one in the city and Nancy was my only friend in the world (or so it felt – Manhattan can be a very lonely place). It was where we went to switch-off, escape the city (and although that sounds so contrived, you try relaxing in the city when it’s close to 100 degrees F and the place stinks)….

It was the place where we discovered that you could live without television (not much) and you could eat from a freezer through winter and still feel like it was gourmet food.

It was the place where my mom and I had the most horrible moment, which was immediately devastating and for which I may never forgive myself – but we’re closer for it.

It was the place where I got my body confidence back and learned to take my shirt off on the beach.

It was the place where there was no judgement, no anger, no politic and no problems.

And it was the place where I said goodbye to a powerful, life changing relationship to protect an as powerful friendship.

A part of me thinks it will never be the same again, and moreover that it may have to be a long time before I can go back. Most of me feels that today closed a chapter and my mind, soul and body will be better for it. All of me will never forget its magic, its beauty and its nature.

Experiencing student life (well nearly).

So kitten is here, downstairs seeing to the apartment. She turned up, as usual a little late and a little tired, always a good opener for your cleaner. She’s clearly toiling away, waving the broom in front of the floor and pretending to clean the bath. Oh life is good. The real use of a cleaner is the way they seem to motivate you to clean your apartment before they turn up, which is precisely what I have done today.

Here’s the view from where I’m sitting at this moment.

…and that’where’ is on the 29th floor of my building where there is a recreation room. They do breakfast in the morning, offer free wi-fi and cable news throughout the day – so I’m sold.

However, so is most of the obviously growing student population in this building. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad, but one this is clear – it’s noisy. Now, I was never the biggest fan of studying, I should have gone to the Institute of Easily Distracted Youth to be honest, but I do understand the need for an environment that enables thought and process to flourish.

Therefore, as I sit here with very bright Cornell student and watch him work on formulas that look like someone nail bombed a can of Alphabetti Spaghetti I’m increasingly angry at the phlegm of students sat  at the other end of the room.

The noise is incredible, and it is so to type. Talk about girls, drinking, open bars etc. All completed over a Starbucks they probably bought last week and some empty crisp packets.

Never mind that their books look like you could still take them back to Borders, or that their laptops seem to be permantly fixed to Facebook; these chunks of meat really are solid muscle from the neck up.