Moments of Truth

Edition 135 Monday 16th April 2012

Hi, ‘they’ say life is a series of ‘moments of truth’ and that it is our reaction to these moments that defines us as people. ‘They’ also say these moments act as a catalyst for deciding what path we will take in life and at what point in our lives we will take those paths. All I can say is whoever ‘they’ are ‘they’ certainly seem to know what ‘they’ are talking about.

Our latest ‘moment of truth’ is bigger than Ben Hur, Texas, sliced bread and the All Black Rugby World Cup victories of 1987 and 2011 combined!!!,you see,we are going to be truly blessed with the birth of a wonderful little boy. Our brand new son will be a brother for Matthew (24) and Mark (29) and whilst it has been more than a long time between nappies, sleepless nights, breast feeding and celebratory drinks we are thrilled and both cant wait to get cracking!

Yes this is taking ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ to a whole new level but we don’t want to regret not doing it, or die wondering if we should have done it, so …..we we are doing it !

Never in our wildest dreams did we think there would be a chance to be parents all over again. We consider ourselves extremely lucky to have this opportunity and by crikey we are going to seize our ‘moment of truth’ with both hands as we head off again down the parent path of life. As you can imagine the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of pre baby stuff like scans, tests, amazed relatives and friends so as a result we have been swept along in a surreal vortex of emotions..Crikey!

Anyway that is far too deep for now I agree, lets talk sport……what about those Breakers?!!! jeez I loved the ‘over time’ game#1 of the final last week…….good luck in Perth next week guys.

We had a cool weekend, the highlight for me being a record breaking 8 golfball find dog walk(previous record 5),second hand ball business is good at the course !. I hope you had a fun weekend with your family and friends, have an awesome week ahead and take care,Cheers Jonesey. 

Harry and the Hendersons will take a bit of getting used to the ‘new kid’ on the block’!

Poor old Oscar Henderson was rushed to after hours for stitches…boys will be boys !!

“Assumption is the mother of a screw up”. Angelo Donghia

Crikey…there I was with my memory stick containing my presentation all ready to rock and roll. The seminar was being attended by 50 senior managers and they were a merciless, humourless lot Nothing short of a well prepared professional presentation was going to cut it today.

I felt confident , I had some good slides and I knew my stuff…..I sat at the back as another presenter finished off with some Q&A. Then it was time to get the techo guy to hook me up, I passed the memory stick and headed to the front of the room full of confidence as the audience hummed with anticipation,then it happened!,a presenters worst nightmare! apparently my memory stick was blank for some reason there was no slides, no presentation, no life boat, no security blanket arrrggghhhhh.

I would be lying if I said the thought of running out of the room didn’t occur to me because it did along with a number of other exit, pull the plug, C.Y.A (cover you’re a….) type solutions….BUT NO!!

In true Toastmasters fashion I stood up to the plate without my trusty bat determined to be the first one to hit a home run anyway ! What followed was nothing short of sheer brilliance as I imagined my slides in my mind and brought them to life with words, body language and tone of voice as I put on one hell of a dog and pony show up there. Instead of my audience smelling my blood in the water and tearing me to shreds they interacted with me, laughed and genuinely became part of a presentation that for once lived and breathed rather than being read to them from a screen! Yes against all odds I will forever be remembered as the’Green Gorilla guy’ , the fact that none of attendees will recall anything I said is minor. So ladies and gentlemen, my message this week is….1)never assume anything and 2)always be prepared to step up to the plate just in case.

“Have the daring to see yourself as a bundle of possibilities” Harry Emerson Fosdick