All Aboard the Kin Ship

Being a Sputnik Kid born in 1957 I didn’t grow up with television let alone computers. The best we could do in Kalgoorlie was the valve wireless that sat on our lounge room shelf and got turned on so Grandma could listen to the old radio series Blue Hills.

But maybe because I am a Sputnik Kid I’ve always enjoyed being a bit of an early adopter of new technology. I was early onto Apple Mac computers, bought one of the earliest Data Projectors (cost me $8000 AUS) and have a collection of ipods, iphones and iaps. (Maybe because ilearn,iadopt, igrow, ithink…)

Yet for all my technology I am not a fan of throwing out babies and bathwater together. I like the mix of the new and the old. Let my folks’ old valve radio rest on the shelf next to the new digital radio set. Let us all maintain an honouring of the road travelled as we embrace the super highway ahead.

This is why I like many of the aspects of the new social networking technology and will probably embrace the ones around the bend. Today I got a message on Facebook saying Johnny Dunlop wanted to connect with me. The Dunny lived across the road from me in Doubleview when I was a teen. He played half-back-flank, I played Centre Half Back and in Under 12s we celebrated a premiership together. From side by side in footy to side by side in cyber space, now that’s magic.

Kicking a footy together for a number of years develops a kinship – a sharing of common characteristics, a depth of unity, a mixture of blood spilled and lemon barley cordial drunk.

I’m a lover of kinship.

Recently I saw a documentary about the great Japanese born and Australian based chef Tetsuya and how he grew from being a dishwasher to one of the finest, most loved chefs on the planet. Each person interviewed in the Documentary acclaimed Tets as a top chef, top person and top buddy. Tetsuya is a member of the Top Ten Chef’s of the World; a group united with a kinship based on love of food, love of eating and love of cooking.

But more than this, Tetsuya and the other Top Ten members had a kinship – a shared characteristic – around a love of learning and continually helping themselves and each other get better at their art and craft. That’s a nifty kinship.

When you are part of a true kinship group you respect each other’s talents and inspire each other to keep learning and growing.

My wife Lindy has a background in film and television direction and production. When she looks back at the many years she spend in that field her best memories are of talented people working on exciting projects. She had her A-Team, a group she would compile for the most challenging and exciting shoots. An audio, visual feast of a team mixing Creative, Analytical, Practical and Emotional Smarts – talented folk who loved their work and respected each other for the differences they brought to the team.

The best teams, the best clubs, the best marriages are linked by diverse talents coming together in teamwork and united by the bond of respect – the foundation of kinship.

Which brings me to Stools or more precisely to The Stools. (We have a piano at home and every time I walk by I pass a stool!)

In 2006 the National Speaking Association of Australia (the Industry of Professional Speakers) instigated an award for the Educator of the Year. This award acknowledges the professional speaker who is, in my terms, a ‘Ruck Rover’ someone who can play a variety of positions and do them all with the highest quality. This means awardees can deliver Keynote speeches, Workshops, One to One Coaching, small group work, Leadership Programs, Youth Courses… in short they present to a variety of groups in a variety of ways and instil deep learning and a passion for learning in each and every presentation.

In 2010 the award winners presented on stage together as a team at the National Speakers Conference on the Gold Coast. The idea was to look at one element of Presentation Methodology in depth and to share the variety of insights from the five 2006 – 2010 winners (Glenn Capelli, Colin James, David Penglase, Allan Parker and Terry Hawkins). The act went down so well, that each year now the Awardees design and deliver a team presentation looking at one aspect of Presentation Methodology. So, you may be wondering, why the Stools?

As we prepared for the 2010 presentation I sent an email to the group saying:

Hi Team

Looking forward to our on-stage adventure. We are on Sunday 8.30 – 10.15am.

The Abbott & Costello of it all.... Who’s on first? The Design is rough, open and be on your toes.

Thinking of having some chairs Centre Stage.

Cap

To which David Penglase innocently responded:

All good from my perspective – could we have comfortable stools and not chairs please?

Regards, David

With a further response from me:

Team

Stools On Stage – could be the name for our act.

Followed by Colin James chipping in with:

Also: 4 bottles Evian water, 300mls, sealed, cool not cold.
My stool needs to be reupholstered before use & destroyed after I have used it. On stage I can be referred to as Colin but off stage it is either Sir or Mr. James. None of the logistics people are allowed to look at me... eye contact will not be tolerated. Thank you gifts are to be of no lesser value than $1000.00. Gold is appreciated. In any signage or visual representation my name needs to at the top, in a larger font than anything else and have a drop shadow. I will need two attendants on call for the duration of my time.
Aged between 24 and 28. Over 5'6 tall. Female. Proven track record in modeling and logistics. Please forward resume's and photos. After the event I will need a white limo to transport me to the airport. Driver must be female and will not be allowed to talk. I think that's it. Just the basics.

Colin ' sTool' James

Thus the Kin Ship was sailing! As people who had known each other’s work for years (sometimes decades) we had a healthy mutual respect but by designing a presentation together we cemented that respect with the powerful wind for a Kin Ship – humour.

The best Kin Ships run on mutual respect and a healthy dose of laughter. Kin Ships have an ability to help each member lift their game and continually stretch their talents whilst revelling in the thorough joy and privilege of working together. Kin Ships come together through a team basis of values and then help each individual stretch the depth and breadth of their unique talent. All this whilst keeping each other’s feet firmly on the ground. (Yet still reaching for the stars.)

Find, grow and sail your kinship. Be it a group within a large Company, an A Team for Key Projects, a Half Back line in a Footy team or simply a Collective of Stools.

Thinking Caps book in bookshops now or available from www.glenncapelli.com

Thinking Caps Article

Journalist Jono Turle had this to say about the Thinking Caps book in The Post newspaper:

Thinking Caps is part memoir, part song. part poetry, part humor, part inspiration and full of wisdom. It is a book anyone can read and get something out of. It stimulates conversations, thought, laughter and helps develop new patterns of thinking. It is not often a book makes you laugh out loud, disturb your partner in bed and keeps you chuckling long after you have put it down. Thinking Caps is that kind of book as well as being reflective, imaginative and inspiring.

Lovely words. Thinking Caps is in Australasian book shops and available from www.glenncapelli.com

Bluey

Piece Number 1 from Thinking Caps book. In stores now or available at www.glenncapelli.com

Neoteny

Be as active as possible, to be as healthy as possible, to be as happy as possible for as long as possible. Bring things to your life that bring things to life - experience and learning.

Neoteny is Piece 3 in the Thinking Caps book. In Australasian stores and at www.glenncapelli.com

Top Concerts

Sometimes a concert can lift you for days, months and provide a memory for a lifetime. My top concerts so far:

1. Leonard Cohen - Sandalford Winery 2009 Perth. Simply magic even though Leonard didn't do Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye. Supported acts Paul Kelly and Augie March.

2. Carole King & James Taylor - Melbourne 2010. Had seen James at Margaret River and it was superb but when combined with the energy, style and catalogue of Carole King - simply brilliant.

3. Slade/Lindisfarne & Status Quo - Subiaco Oval. Geez early or mid 70s. My first concert. Went with my mate Bill Pusey. We stood on the seats and stomped. Can't hear a Slade number without being back in the exact moment.

4. Jimmy Webb - Octagon Theatre. The man who wrote By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Witchita Lineman, Up, Up and Away... he sat a metre from Lindy and I and played, talked and sung. A real tunesmith.

5. Three Dog Night - Miami Zoo Florida. What can I say - Jeremiah really was a bullfrog and a very good friend of mine.

Many, many others... Music is a part of how I think and write.
Thinking Caps book out now.

Age Shall Not Weary Them - Life Long Learning

Theme:

How old is old and when do you stop learning? Glenn Capelli explores his Learning Heroes, people who have developed a lifelong passion for learning and continue to enjoy life right up to a ripe old age. Today we explore old dogs, new tricks and honouring lifelong talents.

If I were to mention the word Jordan what comes to mind? Perhaps you might think of a beautiful though often troubled place in the world, or the magical ex-basketball player Michael Jordan or even you may conjure a picture of a youngish British woman with very large appendages going by the name of Jordan (the woman and the appendages I believe). But for me, the name Jordan represents a different kind of sheila – Sheila Jordan.

Chances are if this name means anything to you, you are a jazz fan.

In 2008 Sheila Jordan recorded a CD titled Winter Sunshine her 21st album release in her 80th year on the planet. In her 81st year I heard her being interviewed on New York radio, she was asked how she felt after completing two sets of music at a jazz club late the night before. She said she felt brilliant and that singing kept her young and alive.

You gotta love that.

In a recent survey from the UK people were asked to ‘name the age at which you become old aged’ and the majority of people answered 70. It may be true for some, that 70 marks old age, but for others 70 is just when they are starting to hit their straps.

I love folk who set the example of life long learning; the Learning Heroes who continue to dedicate themselves to the art, science and fun of their craft. Sociologist Ashley Montagu made it to 95 and was active to the last moment. George Burns was cracking jokes in his late 90s. Gough Whitlam’s 90 year’s plus old tongue remained as sharp as his mind. Philanthropist and Matriarch Dame Elisabeth Murdoch hit a sprightly 100 in 2009.

I know that many folk believed the live fast, die young and have a nice looking corpse adage but no corpse is as good looking as one that has lived a long life full of inspired learning. Young corpses are just sad.

The founder of the Servant-Leadership movement Robert Greenleaf said that ‘your first sixty years on the planet are just to find out what you really want to do and then to spend the rest of your life doing it’. He retired from his first job in his sixties and spent the next twenty years travelling the planet teaching his concept of leadership as a form of service to others.

And consider these:

• Conrad Ferdinand Meyer had never written a poem in his life till he reached 51 and then went onto become the national poet of Switzerland
• Jean Auel had never published and was in her 40s when she got the idea for a short story that eventually became the novel Clan of the Cave Bear the start of her Earth’s Children series that has sold over 34 million copies worldwide to date
• Celebrated Western Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley first published aged 51

I once spoke at an American Conference about the concept of taking a lifetime to develop your talents and discovering new talents later in life. A chap came up to me afterwards and handed me a little badge that had ‘It is never too late to have a happy childhood’ stamped on it. He then told me how he had overcome some of his early lack of esteem and a particularly harsh childhood and later in life had taken to painting, writing and learning a new language.

I far prefer his badge to the adage ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’. New and deeper learning is where the challenge and excitement of life is. It’s never too late to tackle some new challenge, never too late to explore and never too late to put some sparkle in your eyes even if the eyes don’t see quite as sharply as before.

At 81 Sheila Jordan can still jazz with the best of them. Like a lot of musicians she had her years when alcohol and substances threatened to end her career and even her life. She said that one day in her thirties whilst in a drug haze she heard a voice that said to her ‘Sheila, I have given you your voice as a gift. If you don’t honour it, I will take it away and give it to someone else’. The voice slapped her back into positive action.

I love this message. Whether we are eighteen or eighty our talents are a gift and it is our duty to discover them, believe in them, develop them and use them well.

I hope at 80 or 90 to be tackling a Masters Thesis in the Karma Sutra or at least to be learning the clarinet, perhaps even doing both at the same time.

Learning Heroes keep on keeping on.

Where to from here:

• At what age do we become old aged?
• Do you know any learning heroes? Folks who just keep learning and enjoying life
• Are you learning anything new late in life? An instrument, a language, a new hobby, a deeper wisdom in life?
• Interview the wonderful folk from University of the Third Age

Thinking Caps book by Glenn Capelli now in Book Stores or from www.glenncapelli.com

The Naked Chefs – Master Teaching

There will be some who will doubt me, and others who will boo and hiss, but I need to get something off my chest: let me write it out loud, I prefer Jamie Oliver to Nigella Lawson! Nigella may be the Domestic Cooking Goddess but Chef Jamie is my Kitchen Commando. Nigella may have breasts to die for but Jamie sears chicken breasts to live for.

There are many reasons to love Jamie:

• He is a bash and belt kind of chef who cooks in handfuls
• Every recipe of Jamie’s that I’ve cooked has come up trumps
• He helped transform 15 (and then many more) down and out young folk with his 15 Restaurant concept
• He took on unhealthy English School Dinners and won
• He took on regional Italian cooks broadening their taste buds and lost
• He is tackling unhealthy USA school lunches and it may kill him
• He is the pin up boy for Kinaesthetic Learners – people who love to learn by moving, bashing, belting, doing and getting their hands dirty

Now, I am well aware that a lot of my reasons for loving Jamie will be the same reasons why others do not like him. One person’ s puree is another person’s pure pain in the ‘A’.

In fact, the second favourite on my list of the top 10,000 Celebrity Chefs on the Planet is someone who is a virtual opposite to Jamie – Delia Smith. Where as Jamie is ‘a handful of this and a splash of that’ kind of cook, Delia is all precision and perfection. Jamie’s favourite subjects at school probably would have been Playtime, Home Time and Home Economics. Where as Delia most likely excelled at Mathematics and Chemistry. Yet, these are the very reasons why I love her too:

• Her recipes are exact
• She doesn’t talk down to you when describing how to boil an egg
• What you see is what you get

Compare that with British Celebrity Chef Gary Rhodes. Gary is magic to watch. His creations are more architectural delights than plates of food. His desserts emerge as Arc De Triumphs or Eiffel Towers and they are beautiful. Yet what I see with Gary is not what I get when I attempt his recipes. Suddenly the Arc De Triumph is the Fart De Triumph and the Eiffel Tower of Caramel is a Woeful Brown Lump. Maybe the mistake is that I do not have the light, cool hands of Celeb Chef Rhodes or maybe it is because of my hair. You see; Gary Rhodes has a haircut that resembles his desserts; all lacquer, spike and gelatine. I am sure he practices the styling on his head before transferring it to the plate; where as the hair I have left is a buzz cut, need I say more?

Before Gary Rhodes hair, prior to Gordon Ramsey’s vocabulary, pre Masterchef Television, before Jamie Oliver, or predating even my Grandmother’s cooking, the most famous cookery writer in British History was Mrs Beeton. Mrs Beetons’s Book of Household Management is often referred to as ‘Mrs Beeton’s Cookbook’ given that 900 of its 1,112 pages contained recipes.

These days Mrs Beeton’s legacy lives on and has become a Celebrity Brand. Most people who have heard of Mrs Beeton probably picture her as a Grand Motherly Type woman. However the sad truth is that Isabella Mary Beeton died in 1865 aged 26 after the birth of her fourth child. Yet, her celebrity brand lives on.

If there was a cooking style for Mrs Beeton it may have been:

• Practical
• Loving
• Scone like

If there was a cooking style for Gary Rhodes it could be:

• Visual splendour
• Elaborate
• Crockenbush like

For Delia Smith:

• Precise
• Perfect
• The ideal poached egg

For Jamie Oliver:

• Hands On
• General
• Everything all in one bowl

Now, with all that diversity, imagine yourself teaching a class of these Celebrity Chefs:

• Two Fat Ladies in the front row
• An affable Bill Granger next to them
• A foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsey in the back corner (trying to crack onto Nigella)
• Peter Gordon in the middle mixing everything together
• Peta Mathias wanting you to be far quirkier and
• Young Kylie Kwong preferring more spice

Meanwhile, class comedian Jamie can’t respond to anything in print and needs every lesson to have Hands–On learning as the major component.

Just as every chef has a unique style, unique preference for flavours and individual processes of cooking, so does every student have unique preferences for how they learn any content, especially content is a NAC Task - New and Challenging.

To teach well is to reach well. We as Teachers need to have diverse strategies that engage learners through their strengths. Then we need to have each learner use their strengths as a starting point to develop some of the areas that are holding them back.

You can reach a Jamie like student through using a Hands-On physical modality of learning and then utilise this mode to help him approach some of the things he doesn’t like – his reading and writing. (Jamie Oliver has often stated that his dyslexia makes him a virtual non-reader. If I had a young Jamie in my class I would grab exciting bits of cooking magazines and help him learn the print by mastering the recipe, then guiding him to stories about chefs and cooking. Think BIG and build small – one kaizen at a time.)

Personally I would have loved teaching a young Jamie. My first ever Principal when teaching, Glyn Watkins, told me to ‘fall in love with the tigers’ and explained that a Tiger was student who would stretch you as a teacher and get you to find other ways of engaging learning. Jamie was a Tiger.

And I love Jamie Oliver now, not just because he wants us all to share a love of good, natural, healthy tucker and not just because Jamie teaches us that we can be celebrities in our own kitchens. I love him because my wife Lindy was fortunate enough to go on stage with Jamie as part of his Happy Days Live Tours in Australia and she vouches for his natural ways. Personally I think he was a champion in not feeling threatened when sharing the stage with one of the greatest cooks on Earth – my wife Lindy.

So, there it is; Learning Styles emphasise that we have different strokes for different folks, different starting styles for different apprentices; different leanings for different tastes.

Teaching really is the work of the Master Chef.

Glenn Capelli new book Thinking Caps is available in Australian and NZ stores and on-line at www.glenncapelli.com