by Martin | Feb 13, 2015 | Uncategorized
When : Saturday 21st February 2015 Where : 11 Crofters Way, East Whitburn, EH47 8ES So thrilled to be able to invite you to this special event! Christine is a beautiful Being, and an amazing artist, and it was our pleasure to see her perform recently. Here’s what you need to know:> You are invited to a house concert by Scottish Celtic acoustic recording artist, Christine Sparks, at our home on Saturday 21st February as part of her 2015 nationwide house concert tour promoting the release of her new album The Robert Burns Collection, Vol 1. >>>This is an RSVP event 🙂 Please make sure to reply so we can organise seats & nibbles, thank you!<<< On the night, please arrive at around 7pm for a pre-concert mingle and a chance to meet and speak to Christine. The concert will start promptly at 8pm Renowned Scottish folk singer/guru and World Champion Motivational Speaker, Watt Nicoll, said this of Christine’s voice: “Christine has the quality of voice that Burns’ words deserve. Both are masters of exposing raw, natural emotion, creating timeless masterpieces. I have shared her voice with a number of people who are aware of perfection in the human voice and all agree that Christine is as good as it gets.” Her album was Celtic Music Radio’s album of the week and during Celtic Connections, Christine was recently broadcast live from Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall. The Scotsman newspaper declared Christine – “A Must See at The Fringe”, so don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to experience a Christine Sparks performance in such an intimate and connective environment. ...
by martingibbons | Feb 11, 2012 | Uncategorized
Just been listening to a health care worker and a cancer survivor being interviewed. The survivor was big on mental attitude, having learned that there are three legs to the cancer survivors stool; Mind Body and Spirit The hospital takes care of the body but mind and spirit are up to the patient. The health professional kept going on about “being realistic”. The survivor had a much more interesting message, as he had beat odds of 410,000,000 to 1. There is a lot I could say on this subject but I am going to restrict it to “being realistic”. There are a number of flaws in the health professionals approach. Firstly there is an assumption that they have all the facts correct. There is an assumption that all things, including the cancer patient, are the same. The truth is that everything is subjective. Nothing so complex is measurable or predictable. What I see as being real and what you see as being real are not the same. So the health professional was taking a stance that her perception, her view of the world was more accurate than anyone else’s. But this is how we all feel. We all believe our own paradigm is the true paradigm. The cancer survivor had a very different paradigm and all the health care worker could do was relegate his paradigm to hers. She called this “being realistic”. If the cancer patient had listened to the people advising him to be realistic, he would have been dead, as the odds were against him. Expecting to survive was unrealistic for him. Thankfully he didn’t and...
by martingibbons | Jan 27, 2012 | Uncategorized
I’ve got a new client who is very cool and a pleasure to work with. Together we are going to do some very cool...
by martingibbons | Jan 12, 2012 | Uncategorized
I am sitting in the hospital watching the people around me. It’s a long day of waiting. Most of the people here are outpatients awaiting treatment. They come from all backgrounds, are of all ages and diverse social backgrounds. Illness doesn’t discriminate. I people watch. Not because i’m nosey but because I genuinely find people interesting. These days I also have a professional interest. I’m sitting thinking about how our personality affects our health. If you consider the very word “patient” you can already see that some people are more suited to illness than others. Patience is not something that comes naturally to me. Its a personality thing. Waiting isn’t good for me. And everyone around me is waiting. Waiting for treatment. Waiting for news. Waiting for results. I’m aware that my personality is not exactly helpful when it comes to sicknesses, therefore, I began to find out about herbs here and learned how good some herbs can be to prevent certain diseases. For all those people who share my personality trait, making them wait is positively cruel. It’s stressful. It induces stress. Now other personality types are ok with waiting. They are naturally furnished with patience. Patience however, is not a virtue, it’s a personality thing. The amount of patience you have is determined by your personality type. It’s ok to be impatient. Simply knowing this and accepting it will help. Is it not impatient people who try new ideas? If it weren’t for an impatient person would we have bothered to invent transport that moved faster than walking speed? Impatience isn’t always a bad thing. Perhaps instead...
by martingibbons | Jul 13, 2011 | Uncategorized
I wrote a wee post about this over at Martin Gibbons Headhunters Workshop but I wanted to say something else about it here. You may be wondering why I am doing a workshop, when I am a champion of remote, online working. I believe the world will be a better place if we all spent more time at home and less time commuting. After all this is how it used to be. In human history it’s a relatively recent thing to split up families all day. For the largest period of our history we worked and lived close to our families, often side by side with them each day. with the exception of war, it was only the industrial revolution that created what we now consider normal; where husbands and wives and children are all split  up, going their separate ways each day, only coming together late in the evening. I spend most days with my wife and son. A least we all float about the same house. And in this day and age, this is very unusual. However I think this is something that should be encouraged. It is how we existed for thousands of years. Up until someone decided it was more profitable to do otherwise. So we sent the men off to work 12 hours a day in a factory. We sent the kids of to school and we then sent the wives out to work too. Call me crazy but do you think this may have something to do with the general breakdown of our society? But I digress. The reason I am doing a...
by martingibbons | Jun 18, 2011 | Uncategorized
It was an exciting week. Isabel lisardi was in edinburgh as part of her book tour and stayed with us for a couple of days. This is someone who really suffers for her art and for her readers. She puts herself through experiences that most of us would run a mile from. I’ve enjoyed the book and been inspired by it’s author. If you think there are things you cannot attempt, things that are beyond you, then Isabel will make you think...
