It's probably a sign of the times, but increasingly people I coach are concerned about making sure they are match fit to compete in the jobs market. High on the list of the skills they want to sharpen is networking. Here's an exercise I devised to build and maintain a powerful personal network.

What networks do you already use? Make lists of people already in networks you have. Divide them in to the following categories - some people may be in more than one:

I have recently rediscovered the my passion for the art of dance, after an absence of about ten years. Other things became a priority and I lost my desire to dance. A desire that several years ago, almost saw me turn professional. Strange I have come to realise that the passion I had, is not that far away. I took to the dance floor a couple of nights ago at a friends birthday party and felt as if I had come home. The beats were a mixture of old school RnB and contemporary soul, enough to get my feet tapping and my arms waving. 

I have always been intrigued about how music and dance influence culture(s) and how the development of dances reflects culture and vice-versa.

I'd love to hear about how dance affects and influences your culture.

There was an interesting discussion in the office today. It began with one of my colleagues making a statement about not being able to believe in the presence or existence of god. This comment drew some gasps and the odd stare from three of our respective colleagues. Somewhat unsurprisingly there followed a discussion within the group that centred around theology and atheism.

Two of our number including the lady in question identified themselves as atheists whereas the remainder chose to identify themselves as being either religious or of a religious persuasion. 

Predictably the question was then asked of me 'Do you believe in god'? To which I responded; Yes, I do. Realising my answer was incomplete, I added, I believe that there is in existence a universal celestial being who is both omnipotent and divine. The name of who, depending on one's faith, translates, crudely or perfectly to the word god (Old English). I also made the point that although not overtly religious I am by choice more spiritual in nature. When asked why, I made the observation that although religion has and continues to be criticised as the route-cause of many wars. It is in fact man's inability to manage the concept of religion that perpetuates conflict. "Guns do not kill people, people kill people". Religion merely exists, we have the option to use it as an excuse to destroy in the name of an almighty power, condoning such actions using selected passages of a holy book, or like some of our more enlightened brothers and sisters, seek to promote peace and harmony through interfaith partnership and open dialogue. Which would you choose? 

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Recently, I met up with a friend who I had not seen in some time, although physically she seemed to be the same person, psychologically, she was different. Previously she had been seeking an alternative path to the one chosen. Her search was hindered by confusion and a measure of self-doubt. In spite of that, it was apparent that once these two elements had been removed, she would more than likely begin the journey she had wanted to embark upon for so long.

Seeing this change in her was impactive, she demonstrated a depth of personal knowledge and self-expression that had previously eluded her.  Now, the lights are on and there is definitely someone home. It was a privilege to witness this renaissance first hand. 

Later that evening I attended a brass band function and was introduced to several people. Amongst them two people who within a very short space of time have reinforced a very valuable lessons. The young lady in question had a personality the size of a playing field, not through being loud, brash or obtuse.  But by just being, she was able to engage on a level that I have rarely seen before, so much so that any attempt by me to put it into words would do her a disservice and confuse the very essence of what was.   

Her farther, on the other hand was a rather tall and apparently gentle man who demonstrated great knowledge and a passion for growth through new and rewarding experiences. Listening to him talk about the bands, his musical abilities and his experience of becoming the conductor of an orchestra and how he had used what he had learned from this process to examine and improve his awareness and leadership skill, was really quite powerful. Here was a man, at the height of his professional career that is just as enthusiastic about the potential for growth, change and self-exploration as someone that I had spoken with just a few hours before who had embarked upon her own very different, but equally rewarding journey.

For me the message was a simple one. As long as we are alive, life never stops, even though at times we may feel stuck or unclear. We only remain in stasis until we have the temerity to reclaim what is rightfully ours. I’m not saying that there won’t be hurdles to overcome, nor am I saying that it will be easy, but then, when was anything easy really worth having? 

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I have a confession. Although I am predominantly an acoustic music fan these days, there was a time when I could have gone either way. Let me explain. Thirty years ago (when I was five years old) I had long hair and an Afghan coat. My musical time, as far as I can remember, was spent listening to Gong, Here and Now, and Steve Hillage.

Listening to Alan Steward I remembered why I loved that embryonic trippy-electronica of the seventies and eighties, and why I left it behind. I could never find that same brain-expanding quality in the likes of Jean Michelle Jarre, or Mike Oldfield (and it was the music not any chemical enhancement – the farthest I've strayed in that direction is a gallon of real ale).

Alan's music could, by an unkind ear, be classified as 'mood music' but that is to be dismissive of a whole tapestry of sounds, beautifully woven into a deep... Crofty stop before you drift off on some middle eastern carpet metaphor here, just tell us what you think for goodness sake!

OK, enough of that semi-literate prosy stuff. Here are reasons to like Alan's music:

1. It weaves (steady, on the cloth stuff agin Crofty) many multicultural themes around a fabulously rhythmic foundation and leaves you both satisfied and, at the same time, curious to hear more of the snippets from across the world.

2. Summertime demands music like this to ease you through the sweaty days

3. You need music to work to, and this music gets in your head the same way Bach's does but whereas you know what you are getting with the Brandenburg Concertos, for example, Alan's music veers off and forces you to explore something new at every turn, without go so far off the track as to be off-putting.

4. Sitting playing with yourself in your bedroom is easy. Sorry, I mean with your guitar, you have a limited range of notes and sounds to work with. I have massive admiration for someone who has the discipline to craft tunes like Alan's with a palette the size of the whole world of music – how do you do that?

To review this album specifically is difficult, I could tell you my favourite tracks – I love Buddah Bar Fly, Rising from the East, and King of the Chill, but to be honest the whole album's cool, and will probably become a summer staple for the car (particularly at the end of the day for the drive home).

I see Alan's joined Experience My Culture, and there is more than enough to whet your appetite so don't take do an interview with Alan, I'd love to know more about his sources and his work.

We've all experienced it. How often have you found yourself sliding into the accent of those around you? Spend a month in New Orleans and even a London girl sounds different. Spend a week in Liverpool and even a native Yorkshire man starts screeching his speech. How often have you found yourself laughing, dressing even walking like your closest friend? Has someone ever observed that you and a close friend had similar mannerisms i.e. sound the same on the phone?

Associate closely with a nervous, anxious person and you would most likely end up mimicking the anxiety and nervousness. Sit yourself in a room full of angry people and feel the smile drop right off your face. Listen to people complaining endlessly about work, and you'll find yourself starting to do the same. How many of us have been shocked to suddenly realize that we've spent the last half-hour gossiping, despite our strong aversion to gossip? The behaviour and etiquette of others we're around is nearly irresistible, including the dark sinister behaviour of bullying others.

In and out of cultures worldwide there is the search for inclusion for all. I have found that it isn't necessarily inclusion for all, but an acceptance of an individuals characteristics and respect for different personal boundaries. The video below outlines such practices.

Resources and tools for bullying in school, at home and at work | Bullies to Buddies

The stark reality of being a victim of bullying. On several occasions having been picked on both in and out of school I had felt like the animated kid in the video below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q81bsGI-JcY

It's funny how bullies sometimes don't even realise that they are bullying, even when they have ducked someones head under the water until they've passed out or when they have thrown rocks into their victims faces causing bleeding. I have been the victim of all these and then some. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNeO3dCV8y4

Don't become a victim.

Lets flip the script and become a hero.

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After writing about a wedding in my last post I went to a funeral last week. It was the funeral of a colleague little older than me, and it was interesting that it genuinely reflected his quirky personality - if i tell you he was a member of the Magic Circle, and at one time a champion Worm Charmer, you sort of get the idea. Add to that his choice of music as the velvet curtains drew around his coffin ready for cremation – 'A Kind Of Magic' by Queen – and you get the idea that if the curtains had drawn back to find Adrian sat there on top of the coffin, few of us would have been (that) surprised.

Death is one of the big events that, whatever your culture, demands ritual and ceremony, so I was intrigued to read a blog post from one of EMC's Twitter friends this week about death in the age of Facebook. The development of social media requires a whole new etiquette when someone dies – after all, when is the right time to delete a loved one's Twitter account, or does it remain in memorium like the totem's of flowers that increasingly grow by the roadside of the latest tragic death, with council workers drawing lots for who should eventually have to remove the pile of rotting vegetation.

But before we get too carried away with stressing about the problems that social media bring us, let's take a look at the good too. As Nancy French points out in her blog post, these things have a way of working themselves out – the social medium becomes the tool to be used and falls naturally into place as a way for friends who communicate in that way to show their respect. Don't forget we haven't always had marble angel-topped edifices to mark our passing, it was the Victorians who introduced the trend, yes trend, for monumental stonemasonry.

Where do you think modern social trends will adapt and flex to meet your culture's traditions and customs around death?

A question occurred to me the other day, I can't pretend that this is the first time that I have considered it, nor can I pretend that I do not expect that there are those among us, from many different: faiths, cultures or philosophical belief systems that are deeply concerned about how those connected to them, through faith, family or religion etc will act upon their feelings.

The question is: What is the colour, cast, race or religion of love?

As a species some of us have become preoccupied by the notion of cross cultural (to choose but one phrase) and interfaith relationships. Relationships that are more or less likely to result in children being born to a couple who are ostensibly quite different, whether it be skin colour, the globally accepted, psychological construct of race or something as simple as religion, but of course, religion is not a simple or straight forward because we choose to make it dependent upon interpretation and there are as many interpretations as there are people, unless like Quakerism there is an acceptance that we seek to make sense of our own world based upon our own perception of it, whilst accepting the presence and existence of god.

So, if there are those amongst us that are highly conscious of how a potential partner for either ourselves or indeed friends or relatives should look, or the religion they should follow, usually for the sake of the children (we tell ourselves), after all, it is important that they grow up to know who they are, which they could not possibly do if they had more than one primary cultural influence, or could they? Then it is logical to consider what people who have no such concerns and allow love to unfold in an organic fashion with scant regard to the usual pigeonholes and labels that make many of feel so much safer (the need to categorise). Are they selfish, do they hate themselves, are they trying to make some kind of culturally naive statement to the rest of society? I wonder, could it simply be that they have managed to achieve something that those who would question them have either forgotten or never even knew? 

It is not, nor has it ever been the case that people who have managed to find true love have not been bruised by the love they have found, the reasons for this are many and varied, but do not necessarily spell the end for any couple. Love ignores boundaries because it has little or no use for unnecessary obstacles that interfere with the natural order of things. In western culture, there is a saying 'Love is blind' in fact she is not, she has evolved to such a state where she acknowledges the things that are truly important and saves her energy for the true tests in life and spends the rest of her time sharing her awesome majesty with those who have chosen to accept her beautiful bounty.

I readily accept that there are those among us who would argue against the need for love and highlight a great many things as being much more important; Money, Status, The union of two important families in order to facilitate stability and growth, the list is endless, but with each of these reasons there is one important addition. Self-sacrifice, the sacrifice an individual must make to undertake such duty, a sacrifice which will rarely (if ever) be spoken of, a sacrifice from which the sole rarely heals.  

We went to a wedding yesterday. My Grandma used to say 'you can't beat a good wedding'; what she meant was that there was a series of things that made a wedding a good one - things that rooted a wedding in her culture and made all things right.

I laughed yesterday remembering the things that made for a good wedding, and checked them off on a mental list: young children full of sugar and fizzy pop? Check. Hard of hearing older relative oblivious to the volume of her comments during the ceremony? Check. Tears at the bride's father's speech? Check. Dinky pies on the buffet? Err, no. There the cultural similarities end - I wonder how many of you know what a Dinky pie is? This wedding was a cut above the church hall, curly-edged sandwich affair my grandma was familiar with but in all other aspects the essentials were there.

The wedding venue yesterday was a beautiful lakeside setting, and my gran might not have liked the fact it wasn't a chapel wedding, but the ceremony was as full of love and warmth as any church wedding I've been to.

Last year a colleague of mine went to a series of Indian weddings and described many of the essential elements that made them good weddings (or not!).

What makes a good one for you?

And just for the record - ours was a good one, and I seem to remember we had Dinky pies just for my gran!