TESTIMONIAL
 
It’s hard to read the label
when you’re inside the bottle….
I need someone outside the bottle
to tell me what they see
 
That is one of the things you do for me.
And for all those you work with.
You help those like me who are
stuck inside their bottle.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  If you could get out of your bottle what would you see written on the label?
​2.  As your own mentor, what would you say to yourself?
3.  What then would you recommend as an action plan?

UPSIDE-DOWN TRIANGLE 
 
The logical extension
of our upside-down triangle
is that everybody in the world
is part of our personal community.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  Who in the world would you like to help or support or work with?
​2.  How can you build an upside network of connections to reach up and make this happen?
3.  What does your community look like now – and this time next year?

GROWN UP
 
The young tree sways
gently in the breeze.
Behind it the wooden fence
stands solid and secure,
protecting the little tree.
We all have a role to play
when we grow up.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  Who are you looking after today?
​2.  Who else might need your help, support, or advice at the moment?

POINTS OF COMPLETION
 
Life is not one continuous process.
It is a series of overlapping phases
that map out all that we do.
Each of these phases are marked
by a point of completion,
a realisation that we have
now gone beyond this.
That was a different time.
That was a different me.
 
Where are the points of
completion in your life?
Of course, nothing is ever
finished until it’s really over,
but there are stages
or steps or points
that we all pass through
that mark the completion
of that earlier time.
 
And sometimes it is only
when we go back there,
when we revisit,
when something happens,
that brings the past to life again,
It is then we realise that this
was a point of completion.
That phase is over.
We are now in a different place.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. What are the main points of completion in your life?
​2. When do you think the next one will be?

Day 572 of Des McCabe's Personal Development Exercises
​

VOCATION
 
It is beyond your work and all you do.
It is behind who you are.
For before you were born,
you were chosen
for everlasting life.
 
For now is your work and all you do.
To be who you truly are.
You can see you were born,
and you were chosen
for everlasting life.
 
This changes your work and all you do.
So, search for who you are.
You know you were born,
and you were chosen,
for everlasting life.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. What is your life’s work?
​2. At a deeply personal level, what do you know about yourself?
3. Why have you been chosen?
 

BACK AND FORWARD
 
There are two movements required
to sharpen our saw.
Pulling back and doing less
of what we shouldn’t do,
and pushing forward with more
of what we should do.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  What do you need to do less of?
​2.  What do you need to do more of?
3.  What are you making with your saw?

RESERVED SEATS
 
It was packed on our 10am train this
morning. I ended up at a table seat.
The final place was politely requested
by a scruffy looking guy who clearly was
a bit the worse for wear. He was too chatty
for the middle class group he joined.
 
When he took out a can of beer,
you could hear the comments in
people’s heads. ‘I’m going to a mate’s
funeral so it’s going to be a tough day.
You don’t mind?’ he gently asked.
I’m not sure the voices believed him.
 
The train stopped at the next station and as
more people got on, he offered his seat to
a little girl who was sitting on the floor beside
her Mum. The mother ignored his offer.
My man took a call on his phone to confirm
what time he would be at the funeral.
 
He opened another can as we pulled
into the next station. He offered his seat to a
dad with kids who said ‘I’m getting off at
the next stop. Thank you though. Top man!’
My man rolled a cigarette from a packet that
stated that ‘smoking can cause throat cancer’.
 
A young woman and her friend arrived and
claimed their reserved seats opposite me.
My man graciously packed up his battered laptop
and left without a farewell. The ‘two husbands’
then arrived. They insisted that I stay in my
seat. Then all four of them opened their cans.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  What’s they key message in this story for you?
​2.  Why must we give up our seat?

ENOUGH SAID 
 
I have been given
more than enough,
more than I could expect.
 
If no more comes,
I already have had more
than I could ever hope for.
 
I have been given
what is unimaginable,
and yet real.
 
I have been given
more than enough.
Thank you.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  What is enough for you?
2.  Have you been given enough?
3.  What do you still need?
 

DOG BLANKET
 
The dogs run to their blanket
and settle down
after their walk.
 
They will always go to sit
on the blanket, wherever it is
in the house.
 
They have learned
that this is their place,
where they belong.
 
And so, they ignore
all else around them,
and stay on their blanket.
 
We too live on our blanket
and miss all
that is around us.
 
But unlike the dogs,
there is no-one
to tell us to sit, but ourselves.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.
2.
3.

LIGHT SWITCH 
 
The world tells us that
we are powerless
to change anything,
to make an impact or
to shift things for the better.
For we are just one
trapped in the darkness.
 
And yet, we have
all the power and
resources that we need,
to make things better and
make right what is wrong.
For we are the one
who can switch on the light.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  What change would you like to see in our world?
​2.  Where is your light switch (your starting point)?
3.  What will you see when you decide to switch on the light?

HONOUR THY MOTHER AND FATHER
 
I want to say thank you
to you both this morning.
Your love, guidance and
sacrifices made this moment.
I come here and honour you.
For without you
none of this would be possible.
 
And you would love
all that is happening now,
with your grandchildren
and your great grandchildren.
And with me.
For without you
none of this would be unfolding.
 
And I ask you
for help once again,
like I have always done.
So that we can finish
this piece that you started.
For without you
I cannot be complete.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. What do you thank your parents for?
2. What is it that you are trying to complete?
​3. What advice would your parents give you, right now?
 

BEST JOB​
 
When I was in altar boy
I would light the candles
on the altar before mass.
And then,
blow them out afterwards.
This was one of the best jobs!
 
Now that I’m older
I light the candle
on the table each morning.
And then,
blow it out before bed.
This is still the best job.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. What is the best job that you have each day?
​2. How do you start and end each day that you are given?

SKILLS SHORTAGES
 
‘There’s was a druggie in MacDonalds
who had thrown up over himself.
He was totally out of it. Really disgusting.
Police should have come and locked him up.’
This was the greeting from Andy who had arrived
early, to finish off a plastering job in my kitchen.
He could see from my lack of response
that I didn’t necessarily agree.
 
‘What if we created an environment
where we could help people to recover?
Punishment only makes us feel better.
It doesn’t necessarily change the behaviour
or help people to build a different future.
I think that we, as a society need to create
a different way forward.’ I suggested.
‘Like what, give me an alternative.’ said Andy.
 
‘Look after the person. Take away the drugs.
Find out what they are good at. Help them
to find meaningful work and to see a
different way forward. Enable them
to help others. The cost / benefit analysis in
financial terms is better than building and
staffing more prisons.’ Andy laughed
‘Makes sense, we need more plasterers.’

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. How do you think we should address the drugs problem?
2. How do you personally respond when you meet someone who is struggling?

OLD AGE
 
We’ve had a small decorative
ceramic clock in our kitchen for years.
Well, it’s actually a clock face
set into a kitchen scene with
the range, dresser and all
the bits and pieces of a
family kitchen, surrounding it.
 
It’s a joyful and colourful
little piece and we’ve
become very attached
to seeing it in its place.
It’s literally part of the furniture
wherever we have moved to.
 
Recently however,
during our house move,
the minute hand on the
little clock face got broken.
A clock with one hand
isn’t much use really.
 
But we didn’t throw it out.
It’s still sits in our kitchen
as it has always done.
Only now we see
the old guy differently,
for his hour hand tells us
all we need to know.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  What is your main disability / shortcoming?
2.  How do others see you now that you are older?

NO TIP 
 
Can you put your cases
in the boot?
said my Uber driver,
when he pulled up in his taxi.
 
Some of these guys
are so lazy I thought.
He’s just wrecked
any chance of a good tip.
 
I chatted as I always do
to taxi drivers.
I’m keen to get their story
and why they do this job.
 
I’m originally from
Cambodia, he said.
I lost my left leg when a landline
went off. I was seven.
 
This country has been
very kind to me.
And this is a great job
for someone with one leg!

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  When was the last time you made a wrong assumption or jumped to the wrong conclusion about someone?
​2.  Do you describe you work as a ‘great job’?
3.  How can you become a worker for peace?

EXIT INTERVIEW (FOR JENNIFER) 
 
When someone leaves
the business, we all seem
to play a blame game.
 
The aim seems to be
to justify the fact that
the person has gone.
This leaves only negativity.
 
What we so often fail to do,
is to be grateful for the times
of learning and joy,
that the person brought,
 
for their personality,
for their willingness
to be part of our lives and
to contribute in their own way.
 
Of course, none
of us is perfect.
But the real challenge of leaving
is to remember that the person
is still here in our world and
will always be a part of our lives,
as we are of theirs.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  Who have you worked with in the past and failed to say a proper goodbye to?
​2.  How does your organization respond when people leave?
3.  How should we respond to the two aspects of work ending - the role/task on the one hand and the person/relationship on the other?

THE LETTER 
 
A letter arrives
as a brutal reminder
of a time you
thought was well gone.
 
It seeks to bring
you back there,
to get you back to
where are you once were.
 
But you have
moved on and
what was then,
is now long gone.
 
The only way to truly
move ourselves forward
is to leave
ourselves behind.
 
For it is only then
we can see
where we really are,
and where we are going.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. What still haunts you from your past?
2. Can you imagine your life without this burden?
3. What might you do to begin to leave your old self behind?

THERE COMES THIS TIME 
 
There comes this time
in your life
when the mist clears,
and you can see all around you.
 
There comes this time
in your life
when the fog lifts,
and everything makes sense
 
There comes this time
when fog and mist do not exist.
And you see everything
in a different way.
 
There comes this time
in your life
when you will see
what so few understand.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  What is the mist and fog in your life?
​2.  What needs to happen for you to see everything in a different way?
3.  What understanding are you seeking?

MELT DOWN
 
It is only when
all crashes in on us,
in that moment of despair,
that we see what truly matters.
Then we have the freedom
and the gift,
to reshape ourselves,
as we are meant to be.
 
For we cannot reimagine
ourselves from inside
when we are we are frozen
like blocks of ice.
It is only when
all crashes in on us,
when we melt,
that we are free to be.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. What does it take for you to melt, to be free to be what you can be?
​2.  What do you need to overcome to allow you?

PERSONAL MANAGEMENT
 
There is who I am now
and who I will become.
There is, what I do now
and what is yet to be done.
 
There are tasks for today
and yet nothing to do.
For all sits as one and
all rests in you.
 
So, my priority for today
and my whole life plan
is not just activity, but
to make real who I am.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. How will you make real all that you are?
2. What aspects of your real self, have yet to find their true voice?

SELF HELP
 
I reached out to my therapist a few weeks ago.
I told her it was urgent. I needed help.
She said ‘I can talk to you in eight or nine days.
That's my next availability’.
 
Now, what that did was create a vacuum
that I had to fill. I was basically in therapy
with her, every day for eight days.
I knew I had to be ready for our session.
 
When we met, I wanted to pay
my therapist immediately. I said that we didn’t
need the hour, because I'd been working
every hour since we scheduled the session.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1. How can you apply distance learning therapy to the colleagues you work with?
2. How can you apply distance learning therapy to a situation you are trying to figure out? 

THE GATHERING 

It’s the gathering up,
before leaving behind forever
that person or place.

We’re taking forward memories
which will gradually
fade over time.

We are left with only a feeling
about the place or the person
now long gone.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.
​2.
3.

LOVE
 
Your role is to share
the love that God is,
especially to those
who do not understand,
that God is love.
That is all.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  If we see God as love how does this change the way that we see and talk about God?

OUR QUIET SELF
 
I sat for two and a half hours in
Costa yesterday, in the city centre,
beside Waterstones bookshop.
 
After all the drama and busyness
of Christmas and the New Year
I just needed to sit.
 
Sheffield Cathedral and Saint Marie’s
had both closed early
for the bank holiday.
 
But God is in Costa coffee shops
and Churches,
someone once wrote.
 
Indeed, God is with us
wherever we are, for God is in us.
God is part of who we are.
 
We just need to sit and
listen to our quiet self,
wherever we are.

​PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONS
1.  When will you take a few minutes today to sit and listen to your quiet self?
2.  Where will you be?

UNBELIEF
 
Do not fall into the trap
of rejecting love,
because others tell you
to call it God or
wrap it up as religion.
Ignore their beliefs in
Gods and religions.
For there is only Love.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT EXERCIS
1. How can you express all that you believe in terms of love?