Peter Cobley

A friend has encouraged me to write about myself, showing all the positives I have. Well here goes.

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Marrying Claire in Kingussie in 2017.

I’m 53, and today - Friday 18th October - marks my moving permanently to Tobermory, Isle of Mull, to be with Claire my wife, who now teaches there. All very exciting. And she’s on route via Loch Lomond as I type.

Me as a Person

A really nice chap who takes pleasure in helping people wherever he can. A firm proponent of the so called Golden Rule, the premise of which is simply to treat people as you’d want to be treated yourself.

I’m spiritual and believe strongly that all humans have a shared association and form part of nature, and ultimately the Universe. That life is about trying to do what is right, whilst accepting and forgiving the flaws we all have.

I’m well educated and well read, gulp, and keep on learning.

I volunteer where I can to give back, and after a number of enhanced DBS checks have worked with:

OCD Action

Change Grow Live (CGL) Tameside

ANEW

Give what has been freely given to you!

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Costa Coffee Oban.

I have my business found us that I have worked hard at for over 10 years.

• I have good ethics and am used by leading people and companies in the Regions - Microsoft, Dentsu, Channel 4 to name drop.

• Half the business is head hunting/search and selection at senior level for the advertising, media, marketing industries.

• Why? If you read my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see that I’ve held senior roles in advertising businesses, both offline and online.

• I therefore have a black book of contacts to die for, and closely understand how to set an advertising business up, and run it successfully.

• I have, always had, a knack for working with people and commanding their trust.

• The other half of found us is Consultancy, Commercial, Sales and Marketing, or plain Non-Exec’ Director support, which I have good experience in, and deliver results.

• This ties into the close work I carry out with the Management School at Lancaster University.

Look me up and ask me to help your business, yourself, your career. I’d be delighted to!

www.foundus.co.uk

http://linkedin.com/in/petercobley

I’ve achieved bloody good results for people, businesses, non-profit organisations, and I am keen to emulate this from the Isle of Mull.

And you know what? I am proud to shout about it from Oban, where I’m sat now.

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Day 1 of the Saunders.

My passion, as is my wife’s, is fell running. With outdoor swimming (way before it came fashionable) and cycling, though we prefer touring.

Look me up on Flickr. I’ve taken some smashing photos over the years of the GR20 across to ultra fell races.

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In repose at the half way camp.

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Day 2 Start of the Saunders.

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Penultimate check point.

Sunday. People. Thoughts. The Web. Social Media.

Claire’s photo taken today around 8am on Sunday 13th October - from the bedroom of our house in Tobermory, looking out to the Sound of Mull.

View from the house into the Sound of Mull.

It’s Sunday, scrubbed and showered and up early. Dark outside in a quiet Lochgilphead. I’m thinking about people after picking the phone up and drifting through LinkedIn and Facebook.

People are funny things. I post on LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter predominately, with a smattering of AV on YouTube or TikTok. I try to share useful or thoughtful posts on these platforms, interspersed with Letters to the Viz Editor for amusement.

For me the phone and Social Media are to be avoided nowadays.

But it has made me think of people, and of how the pen is mightier than the sword.

The specific wording that "the pen is mightier than the sword" was first used by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839.

An illustration of Cardinal Richelieu holding a sword, by H. A. Ogden, 1892, from The Works of Edward Bulwer Lytton.

I bemoan the addiction to digital and the loss of reading books or writing letters that seems to have encompassed Society at present. For f**ks sake I wish people would pick up books and read and discuss them in coffee shops across one of those circular tables. Actually talking to each other.

People think writing and discussion is to post on Social Media. That sound bites represent conversation.

It is clear from research that we are lowering our attention and concentration spans due to technology and this is disastrous!

We must be the most connected we have ever been as a species, yet the most unconnected.

On trawling through LinkedIn all I could see was ego, vanity, and trite posts about how well we/I are doing. Also writing such posts does not involve regurgitating what someone else has written. And it is certainly not being original in thought. And this new found inability to question the veracity of a post, to fact check what is written, crucially undermines the gift of the Web. It as though we are children given a magical toy on Christmas Day only to be bored with it and breaking it by New Year’s Eve, almost like having a puppy for Christmas whilst forgetting it is a living and breathing entity. In one sense The Web is a living and breathing cyber entity that we strangle with voluminous amounts of trite content and commentary.

Here’s something to note. Pay attention please.

The 55/38/7 Formula

The 90% figure wasn’t plucked out of thin air. It was Albert Mehrabian, a researcher of body language, who first broke down the components of a face-to-face conversation. He found that communication is 55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and 7% words only.

So we as a species are not actually communicating via the Web. In fact we are shouting into a wildness. After all, do people really read the posts on Facebook or LinkedIn?

Are you in fact wasting your precious time?

In fact is anyone reading this? Am I not being hypocritical, paradoxically criticising the use of the Web, when harnessing it now?!?!

I suppose the Web can be welcomed as a means of communication BUT not to the extent we are relying on it.

Like the child with the toy at Christmas we are gorging on our new found fun to the exclusion of life and all about us, mere white noise. But I suppose in time this will change as the Web beds in, people become fed up with it, and life with mankind typically goes full circle, which if history is anything to go by will happen, ie boredom of and sensible Web usage. Getting outdoors for a walk and chat for example.

55% of communication is NON-VERBAL

Please make note of this. I have.

This is what I’m doing.

• I actively now call people on the phone each day.

• Ideally I sit down with another person and engage in conversation. This grounds me.

• Conversation attacks loneliness. Or even worse living in one’s head with my thoughts.

• I make time for Claire my wife. I love her. She’s all I really have.

• I avoid iPhone usage.

• I avoid Social Medua usage.

• I’ve come to the conclusion that most Social Media posts are a) not worthy of reading, b) driven by ego and narcissism, c) are possibly written by people I would run a mile from.

• I’ve had a Facebook cull. Who in life are my friends, my buddies, those I share my life with?

• I’ll soon have a LinkedIn cull.

• A lot of posts that are written are complete shite and not written for the greater good. More about self and allowing people to indulge in and encourages voyerism, with writer and reader not looking at self.

• We now see a detachment from self and from others. Painful content or thought provoking content is reduced to the banal. This cannot be right. How can we grow as a species if we cannot differentiate between serious and non-serious, important, non-important, tragic, beautiful.

All of this reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, which are the words of Sylvia Plath.

I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.

Are you being limited by technology? Is it blocking you from all the shades, colours, emotions, feelings you could ever want to experience and share one to one with other human beings?

Are alive or trapped in a cycle of awake-phone-work-home-phone-bed-repeat?

It’s frightening isn’t it?

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Woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up. —Ecclesiastes

If we are stepping through this life, indifferent to those around us and thus separate from our fellow human beings, it is by conscious choice. It may be hard to reach out to someone close, but there will always be a willing hand to receive our own. Each of us has been created to offer others our unique gifts. When we choose a posture of indifference, we are denying to the universe what we have to give.

There is magic in the realization that our acquaintances, our co-workers and neighbors, are presented to us by design. We are here to learn lessons and we play teacher to each other. When we have stepped away from the circle of people calling to us, we are denying them the opportunities for growth they may need and preventing it in ourselves as well. We need one another, and being helped by someone else fulfills more needs than our own.

We are in one another’s world by design. I will enjoy the magic of that meaning, today.

October 11th - The Promise of a New Day - Hazelden

Finding a Balance.

What actually is balance? Life has me thinking on this, especially as we are all taught to have a healthy work/life balance. I’d like to crack open this misnomer as I’d call it.

A couple of photos of the Crinan Canal by Lochgilphead from a walk earlier today.

Where does your journey start?

I believe in life as one holistic existence and there is no private or public life. Just life and of how we live it. We need to really know ourselves (see further) in order to understand, live, and change our lives; so displacing the modern society model or artifice of private life and work as separate entities. This is social conditioning that dictates we live life on society’s, other’s terms, and that work, on average, takes more then 50% of one’s life.

We ought in fact to live life fully and not dissect it or split it and thus ourselves, willingly giving more to work as though it is a separate life to our own real one.

So how do I deconstruct thework/life structure that so many of us live by.

Happiness!

I believe in happiness and that one should pursue what makes us happy. All will fall into place after that. So one should think of what makes us happy. Because surely this is a more sound pursuit. And this then becomes the realm of dreams!

Which so often is conditioned out of us from childhood. You must get a job, a house, a career, get married….. if you can please read the familiar book Walkabout by James Vance. And failing that watch the film staring a young Jenny Agutter.

For dreams read:

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/a-scottish-adventure-dreams-fulfilled-what-is-your-dream

We need to be aware of nature and nurture, of us and our place in our environment, of whether we want to be subject to others and what they say. Have you really thought of whether your values and beliefs are those of others instilled in you from young? Work/life balance - where did you learn this and why?

Have you thought, really thought what you actually stand for, believe in, are? This can be quite difficult but worthwhile. Why two diametrically opposed parts to life in the form of work and non-work?!? Can you say to yourself and describe, “my life is… and I live my life to live my dream of….”

Let’s get one thing clear. We have just one life. Not a ‘work’ life and ‘personal’ life, just one.

(From There is no ‘Work-Life Balance’ — there’s just Life by Ant Murphy.

The article I quote one makes for good reading and nails key points I wish to make, and of how my views have changed. I don’t necessarily agree with all Mr Murphy says, but I certainly agree with his last paragraph.

We just have ‘life’ and we get to choose how we spend it. Life’s too short to have anything less.

Know thyself" is a philosophical maxim that means to fully understand oneself, including one's emotions, desires, and abilities.

It is best known from being inscribed on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, Greece.

Could your life be a wobbly Jenga tower? Work and non work life in cosmic conflict as one never pleases the other. Do you have that constant feeling of chasing your tail? Of never quite achieving? That’s how I was. It was hard, but I collapsed my old tower and rebuilt. But I rebuilt no tower to rival other towers. I live and breathe and am Me, and being Me is an exposition of my dreams. I am authentic to others and myself. True to myself as to where I can be, and for that matter want to be. I am beholden to none.

You need to know yourself first, understand what you really believe in and want. On doing this you can seek your happiness, and life will fit into place for you. Work and other elements come under your control to deliver upon the dream, versus you being under their control.

Happiness rubs off on people as they see a liberation from worldly woes we thought we suffered from.

You have choice and many of us forget this. We let life (environment) make choices for us, including what we believe in.

And with choice we can live life knowing ourselves, look for and give happiness, and achieve dreams in one or many actions. We are not spread thin or in conflict for example by trying to live two very different lives - that of work and private life, or of parent, child, brother, sister etc. We can live as us and be free to chose. We can choose our role in life.

We have choice. We have action.

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Making Wise Decisions

“Questions are never indiscreet; answers sometimes are.”

—Oscar Wilde

Over and over again, we circle the same thoughts in our minds, certain that if we keep chewing on them, we’ll be better able to make important decisions. Should we commit ourselves to a new relationship? Is it time to take a new job? Do we need to stand up for a principle?

The harder we try to make that “perfect decision,” the tighter and more obsessed we become. It starts to feel like the most important decision of our lives. The very process of decision making becomes a problem.

Instead of recycling the same thoughts, let us ask, “What’s the worst thing that can happen if we choose a given path today?” “Is this decision in sync with ourselves and our recovery?” “Will it work for today?” When we answer these questions, our choices are clear. And when we make positive, healthy decisions, the cycle of worry can stop. Our lives are more serene, more productive, and more calm.

Today help me to keep my perspective. No decision is without risk—but few are irreversible.

This inspiration is from

Body, Mind, and Spirit: Daily Meditations.

© 1990 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved.

Quoted from the app Inspirations.

A Scottish Sojourn.

Deep in the forest above Lochgilphead.

Sojourn means temporary stay. And I find myself for a month in Lochgilphead (look at a map) prior to Oban, and then Tobermory.

It’s a lovely little place next to Loch Gilp and the entrance to the Crinan Canal. A place of happiness and epiphany for me, but that’s another story.

I’m soon to catch up for a couple of hours with my wife Claire as she’s leaves Loch Tay where she’s been with family to Oban, then onto Mull. She’s in good spirits and that makes me fuzzy warm.

I can now say that I have finally physically, mentally, and emotionally departed England. Mind you I will need to get down there to retrieve possessions that are spread between Denton, Macclesfield, and Coatbridge. So much for being organised. Special thanks to the esteemed Lee Wyatt for watering my plants.

I, my life, found us my business, plus wifey embark on a new chapter with fun adventures ahead. That is both exiting and to the met with trepidation. What will happen? Who knows! But I feel alive again, like I have not felt alive for years.

I’ve learnt a lot since July, faced challenges, and learnt to be grateful for what I have, and those who care for me. And I realise I am rich. Very rich.

A selfie of Loch Gilp.

Jealous, but not really....

I am jealous, but not really. In fact excited. So what’s this all about a cow (coo in Scotland.)

A coo.

The Wifey, She who must be Obeyed, The Boss, Teach, Run for the Hills, Mrs Cobley, Mrs C, Yeah Baby, and a variety of other names went out for a walk last night after school. Above Tobermory is a track into the countryside where there is a radio mast. She drove up there, parked, and walked, and what photos she sent, what photos.

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I was jealous because I was not there with Claire, who I miss a lot, whilst bathed in miserable weather in Dukinfield, and suffering from this infernal cold and cough. But after a great sleep having taken a Lemsip I feel more sprightly this morning and have not hacked a cough out and fingers crossed. So jealously pivoted to excitement at knowing that my new home is not that far away.

This last photo really sums up living on Mull and Claire must have been very near Ardmore Bay to the north of Tobermory looking across the sea to Ardnamurchan Peninsular on the mainland. Just stunning, with plenty of hills (Munros) to explore.

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Today is a mixed one with two hours volunteering over lunchtime with OCD Action as I help facilitate a general OCD support group. Then after that I’m working on myself with some CBT for my own OCD via Silvercloud, and will soon also receive some one to one sessions via Oldham Talking Therapies, for which I am grateful. And I am certainly grateful for the NHS and always have been for what it does and continues to do. So it is with sadness that I see it creak and groan to the extent that it does with such damage riven through it by the failed private policies of the Conservatives. I am not saying Labour will have the solutions, but we can only hope.

And I will be one of the lucky ones who has been able to pay for private health needs, has received work medical insurance, and benefited from NHS services. And will receive just as much and more in a more sparsely populated area and probably better funded service in Argyll and Bute.