Author Paul - The Wry Eye Guy

Sales, Marketing, Diet, & Civility

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy

This is a different kind of post for me, so please stick with it if you come across an unusual comment along the way. It’ll come clear by the end, I hope.

Montréal Fast Food

Montréal Fast Food

I’m heading home from Montréal last Friday & it’s Montréal in December, so I’m at the airport early in case there are any weather challenges in getting there. My phone needed to be charged & , once at the gate, I sat at one side of those little tables with the power outlets & charging ports at the back. At the other side of the table was another traveller, doing the same thing. While my sales regalia is often chinos & a company-logoed polo shirt, this guy was dressed in a really sharp suit, with a nice tight Windsor-knotted tie. In my defense, I have to climb inside working machinery sometimes. And yes, I can do a nice Windsor knot too! His shoes, unlike mine, were polished to a high shine. How’d he do that with Montréal’s salted & slushy streets? While I love to chat, other than a nod & a quick smile, I tend not to bother other travellers, as many want to be left alone. Having the earphones in is the clue to that!

After a few minutes, he unplugged, & started to chat. OMG, was this a gay guy hitting on me? I was used to a lifetime of women swooning at my feet, wouldn’t it be natural for a gay guy to feel the same way? Turned out he was, shocker this, in sales & marketing. With a focus on social media & the digital universe.

I was immediately engaged & the conversation took off, with both of us fighting for airtime. This guy had a very different outlook to mine. Over the course of my career, I’ve greatly enjoyed the company of the people I have had the pleasure of working with. Sure, I’ve met a few doorknobs along the way but, for the most part, I have enjoyed the company of colleagues, suppliers & customers alike. And I’ve made some really good friends along the way. His response to this was pretty blunt …

“Are you in business to make friends? Or to make money?”

Can’t you do both?

Not according to my fellow flier! His approach is to isolate & attack, hard, his target audience. In part, by denigrating the “others”, other suppliers & other customers. His philosophy is like some maniacal abuse of the Pareto principle … Forget the 80%, they don’t matter. Instead, focus on the 20% with the highest potential return. And milk them dry. Any way you can. For as much as you can.

But what about longer term relationships? And repeat business?

All garbage, according to this philosophy. The immediate kill is where it’s at. There is no long term view. Other than just doing more of the same with new prospects.

This went against everything I believe. I was gobsmacked, time & again, listening to his gospel. But he was relentless. He took a look at my blog on his phone & ridiculed that. Brutally. And, given the weight-loss bias of the blog, he laughed out loud as he rolled his eyes, while nodding towards my waistline, and passing a very sarcastic comment. One I’m too embarrassed to repeat here. Then he told me, guaranteed me, that I’ll do better with my diet after hearing his message. I’ll come back to that point below.

Montréal is a great town to eat in. I often think that spending my early years in Canada, in Montréal, contributed to my circumferential challenges. I had just enjoyed a week of dietary debauchery in this great city. I had had lunches & dinners with suppliers & customers. Though he ripped me apart for my choices of dining companions too. The bottom line was that I knew the scale would echo his condemnation when I got home.

Despite the scars, I held my calm demeanour, even if only on the outside at times. I wondered how it might have gone in my younger, more volatile, years. That gave me pause for an occasional smile, & that seemed to throw him off stride every now & again!

Before leaving, this wasn’t his gate, he gave me some blogging advice. Most of which was far too callous than I think I could ever use. But he did relent & give me a couple of milquetoast (his description!) things to try. They’re in this post, did you spot them? Send me a message & let me know. I’m curious to see if he’s as good as he thinks he is.

Despite it being a great conversation, I still think there is more to be said for just being a little more caring & civil towards each other. Sales is all about taking away a customer’s pain, not inflicting more. I want my customers to come back to me. Again & again.

Oh yes! The rat was right about one thing, my diet is going better since I returned. In fact he was right about two things, he also told me that I wouldn’t have the balls to do the post without explaining it, or putting a warning label on it. I guess my warning label was the opening paragraph. Go figure!

Stocking Stuffer & Christmas Gifts

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment

Christmas is coming, pick up a copy of my absolutely amazingly hilarious collection of Irish short stories as a stocking stuffer for yourself. Or as a gift for a friend. You can tell them you know the author!

For a Man or a Dog is available at your local Amazon site, in paperback & Kindle versions.

Okay, guilt is forcing me to back off the sales pitch a bit … being honest, I think that maybe one third of the stories are great, another third are decent & …

okay, let’s leave it at that! 😜😁

Click the Preview button below & skip through the Introduction to read the first story.

PS … Aside from the Irish shenanigans, you’ll get some interesting insights into where my dietary challenges might have originated too!

Current of Kindness

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy

Spread Some Love Today

A little busy at the moment (& my diet is going sooo well too … NOT!) but I just feel compelled to reach out to the void sometimes so here’s a quick scribble. Not at all related to weight loss.

I’ve just discovered that going down for a cup of coffee & a cigarette is not a cure for insomnia. Going down for a second round just means you’re up & at it early today.

Woohoo! 😭😜😁

Here are few things I’ve learned, or relearned, this week, mainly about myself, but see if you can relate …

If you want me to say nice things about you behind your back, then try being nicer to me when we’re face to face. Of course, if I’m just saying things behind your back, you’ll never know, so who cares, right? Next time I see you, I’ll tell you what I really think of you, right to your face. I really think a lot of you, however, so you’ll probably regret not being nicer to me. Sorry!

I’m sometimes inclined to feel sad about things & I’ll think of someone else’s even bigger misfortune by way of leveraging comparitive positivity. Then I’ll feel guilty for doing that & wind up feeling even worse. Today, I think I’ll punish myself by putting a coffee & a sandwich in a coffee shop till for someone who needs it. And then I can spend the rest of the day wondering if that’s just more of the same!?!

Civilisation is but a fragile veneer, easily scratched. It’s sometimes little more than a slender facade covering what lies beneath. Its polish, thankfully, is nothing more than kindness. It only takes a positive bias towards kindness to steer us towards being a little more civil, being a little nicer to each other. I think we probably all have the responsibility to spread a little niceness around every day. I really don’t feel up to it today, however, so I’m hoping you can take on my burden, for me, just for today. Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Good grief, I can hardly believe this but I think I am going to have another coffee!

Is it Friday yet?

Have a good day, all.

And yes, I really mean it!

PS … Sometimes I write drivel & I pause a while before posting. When I reread the above, it sounded like so much drivel that I went down for another coffee & cigarette. Outside, I met a young lad who came down from Canada’s far north for medical treatment. He has broken bones & one eye is black & blue, swollen to the size of a baseball. He is soft spoken, pleasant, & he just feels like a nice human being. He was minding his own business, walking along the street, when he was set upon by two guys with hockey sticks.

I’ve changed my mind & will take back my responsibility for spreading some good today. If enough of us drop kindness pebbles in the pond, maybe we can can create a little current of kindness that will help overcome some of our more terrible inclinations. If you do anything nice today, please let me know. I would like to be re-reminded to keep it up.

Results … Month #17

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment
Results Month #17

Down 4.2 lbs for November! Woohoo!

Now this isn’t so much the result of me dedicating myself to a highly focused dietary plan, it just kinda, sorta, maybe happened because I occasionally paid attention to what was passing my lips! I still ate cookies, cakes & candy during the past month, just not with the same degree of carelessness that I had been doing. Believe me, this past month was a big improvement on the three months prior!

What happened this past month is that I started trying to figure things out, again. How did I abandon something that was working reasonably well, while allowing me to eat really well at the same time? I’ve come up with a couple of suspects that might be contributing to the derailment. One is the lack of a gallbladder. I seem to be avoiding the fatty cuts of meat that were once a staple of my weigh loss efforts. I’m just not as in love with bacon & pork belly as I once was. I even trimmed the band of fat from a rib steak one night … what is wrong with me!?! Funny enough, while I’m avoiding all the fatty meat, the lack of a gallbladder is not stopping me heaping heavy cream over some decadent brownie dessert!

OMG … Am I turning vegetarian or something!?!

The other suspect is my routine, or rather the lack of one. I am a creature of habit & I like a good solid routine to help me get things done. I’ve made a few changes to what was a well-developed routine & I’ve had some other changes imposed on my schedule. I haven’t quite adapted to the new arrangement yet & I need to take a look at how to get that new routine bedded in properly. On top of that, I quit smoking about three or four dozen times over recent months. I’m not kidding, I’d quit for a day or two here & there, and then go back to smoking again. Another major routine disruptor. It’s important to disrupt bad patterns in order to lose weight, but I need to replace them with good, repetitive, habituated patterns to make the alternatives stick. Despite how I like to think of myself as this free-spirited & adventurous being, I still need to get stuff done, and routine, habits, & consistency are important for getting things done. Including weight loss!

I’m sorry, I went on a bit there. But that’s all really more a pep talk for myself, as I head into December … drooling about Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, that turkey & ham dinner, bubble & squeak afterwards, turkey sandwiches, chocolates, whipped cream with an infusion of Irish cream liqueur, & on it goes!

I know the January 1st weigh-in is going to be fun! Wish me luck!

And just in case my new routine doesn’t embrace another post between now & January, I’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, may whatever light that lights your way, shine more brightly for you as we close out the old year & look forward to a new one. Peace, love, happiness & all that nice mushy stuff to you & all those you hold dear!

Hit Reset?

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment

We like to play with our thoughts, don’t we? By way of advice, to ourselves & others, we toss out trite little soundbites like … Hit Reset … Start fresh … Today is the Day! And so on. As though a few words might be the anchoring point for a whole new life. Some gurus tell us to dive headlong into huge endeavours, to explode our way through to a new existence. Perhaps we need to grab the bull by the horns, meet the challenge head-on, or jump in at the deep end. Less audacious leaders might suggest that we tackle things in a more serene fashion. They might recommend moving the mountain one pebble at a time, or beginning that thousand mile journey with a single step.

It’s all a crock! Isn’t it?

But then what do we do? Wallow in our own ineptitude? Feel sorry for ourselves? Learn from the past? Look forward to the future? Sometimes, we are told that we just need to kick our own ass. Or grab ourselves by the scruff of the neck. I’ve been down all those roads before. And here I am … celebrating another period of failure. Maybe I should see that as a “learning phase”? Hah!

I really enjoyed my pre-dawn coffee this morning. It was hot, thickened with heavy cream, & I can still taste the frothy crema on my lip. It was 18°C, with the gusty warm wind giving me a good excuse for sporting bedhead hair on the front porch! Of course I had three cigarettes with my coffee. Each puff a poke at my inability to stay the course on quitting smoking. Another reminder of my ability to excel at failure.

It’s fair to say that, from dietary & health perspectives anyway, I failed miserably over the past three months or so. Does that really matter? Does it really matter if it matters? Or not? So here I sit today, wondering what my next month’s result might be.

Mmmmm!?! I really do wonder what next month’s result will be? I think I’ll grab another coffee & hit the porch to mull that one over some more! Maybe, this time, I’ll come up with a strategy that works.

Fingers crossed! 🙂

By the way … this month’s result is up 16 lbs from when I last “officially” registered a weigh-in, on July 1st. Let me rephrase that … I am up 16 lbs from when I last “officially” registered a weigh-in, on July 1st.