Tag: women

Beauty in the Bricks…

As the heavens open up and bathe the earth once again we thought it was about time we hit you with a dose of the best distraction pill available on the market. That’s right the doctor has spoken and prescribed you with a dose of A Mind of its Own to aile your woes. It’s been a couple of weeks since we last graced your screens with our rather unique brand of blogging, straight from some of the strangest minds in all of Australasia. Our off kilter approach to the worlds issues has the health authorities wondering whether they should have us all thrown in the loony bin.

For the first time in a while the team here stopped and took a look at the world around them. The ins and outs of what was happening in the world and the human beings ability to continue to adapt and overcome. There are plenty of unanswered questions about the world, particularly those about our purpose and how we came to be at the top of the evolutionary food chain. But all those can wait for another time and another place. If you wanted to read about that you’d have logged on to National Geographic or the Discovery channel website.

What do the people want to actually read about? You know it’s funny as human beings one would think we wanted to hear about nice things happening in the world but as the marketers say there are only two things that sell news papers. Sex and things that no one wants to hear about like murder, robbery and anything of the ill elk. Well sex isn’t really our forte and we promise you’ll never get a 50 shades of grey from us.The things no one wants to hear about, well they are rather depressing. Hence why the team here tend to have no idea what’s happening in the world. The news is never on and the papers are rarely bought and if they are it’s only to help start the fire at the manor.

So what does this weeks blog have install for the faithful A Mind of its Own followers, good damn question. With so much happening around the world and so much happening around us there should be a million and one things for the talented team here to write about but it seems like a case of writer’s block has infected the whole team. Without a dose of antiblocktics lying around we’ve had to tough it out and pull together something that will hopefully make sense and allow you to enjoy yet again another blog from our stellar team.

We’ve had some great feedback over the past couple of months from our followers ranging from great content to it’s an enjoyable read while i’m on the toilet. The last one was a little strange and disturbing but at least we now know that we are making toilet breaks around the world a little easier on the minds of those reading along while they void their bowels of their last meals waste. Sounds pretty shit it if you ask us, pun intended! So besides being a toilet break filler for those that need one, we tend to try and be educational, funny and a little on the crazy side when we can.

Speaking of the crazy side, the team has been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2 as of late on the Xbox. An escape from reality as some of the wives continue to point out but never the less a distraction from the troubles in the world around us. The Rockstar games western themed second installment of the Red Dead series got us thinking about when times were a lot simpler. Simpler, yet harder in some aspects. Riding around America in the early 1800’s on a trusty steed with a pistol strapped to your thigh, the wind running past your face as you gallop through plains and meadows chasing your next dollar by robbing a stagecoach or train that’s if you wish to be an outlaw. You could be part of a posse chasing down those outlaws and bringing them to justice. Each to their own we say.

Oh how the world has changed since the days of the wild west, no longer is it socially acceptable to-day drink, well it is as long as you are at a function and it’s in a licensed venue or in the comfort of your own home. Office settings are not an acceptable place to drink or start a brawl when someone offends you and you need to defend your honor. You can no longer sit in the main straight swigging from a whiskey bottle, saying howdy and tipping your hat to every man, woman and child that walks past unless it’s concealed in a brown paper bag even then it tends draws a lot of attention.

A lot has changed since the days of outlaw gangs and cowboys. People no longer ride horses in gangs and have swapped the graceful beasts for the metal version on two wheels. They still tend to draw the outlaw tag and often are stereotyped into being part of a gang whether they ride for recreation or they truly are outlaws who run drugs, guns, prostitution and rob people or places in order to make a living. When we referenced that it was an easier time we were referring to the fact that towns or cities were small and miles in between, you could disappear for weeks on end and live off the land if you had to. Taxes were something you generally avoided and wearing chaps as a male was acceptable in all places aside from a strip club.

There were many other things the team came across that we noticed were different from back then till now. Hygiene wasn’t really high on the priority list with bathing happening every so often in some cases they took better care of their trusty mounts then they did themselves. You could camp where and when you pleased without the need of a permit and payment for use of the ground. Hunting just happened and tended to be your source of food while living off the land and there was no such thing as a balanced meal.

In fact everything that is now considered bad for you was considered to be good for from smoking through to sucking out the poison from someones snake bite and drinking heavily while operating firearms from a horse. Ok so maybe we’ve painted a picture that all cowboys were drunks that’s not the case but they did tend to drink quite heavily. Saloon brawls were a common occurrence and duels were an actual thing. Yeah fastest draw wins literally, their life and their honor back. Pace it out ten steps and fastest to draw their weapon and fire, it was as simple as that and it was done for money and for pride on a regular occurence with most of the town watching on..

We don’t think you could challenge the new graduate who mouths off around the water cooler to a duel, gun him down and walk away a hero these days. Firstly murder is not ok, secondly the workplace is not the place for firearms unless you work at a gun shop and thirdly today we are told to use our words. One thing that has changed overtime is chivalry, it is no longer deemed chivalrous to pay for everything and be a gentleman. People are just as likely to go on dates these days and the lady pays. Call us old-fashioned but some traditions shouldn’t change and good manners cost you nothing.

A lot of things may have changed for the better however there are a few things that make us turn around these days and think toughen the beep up. Where as in the old days you would be pushed in the mud and taught that it was not ok to not be tough. Hence the place we are in today where it is not ok for men to show weakness, compassion and anything that would not be deemed manly, it definitely was not ok to talk about your feelings as a man in the wild west. You would be labelled a yellow belly or a coward. But at least kids weren’t soft and got trophies for participating even if they finish last. As Ricky Bobby said “If you ain’t first, you’re last”.

So what have learnt from playing a game that is a lot like a my little pony simulator for men, teaching you to tend and care for your mighty steed? Other than being drunk in the 1800’s was a mandatory requirement each day. Being an outlaw was somewhat cool despite having to hurt and often murder people just so you could earn a living. After all you were your own boss, grifting from town to town, gang to gang. Stealing was a common occurrence and if you were good at it you tended to have your own gang. The law often appointed themselves and were just as corrupt as they still are today. The tobacco industry was in its infancy of becoming a world power, the church was its usual god fearing, preaching self and railway tycoons were the one true power throughout the land.

Much like today if you had money you had power, if you had power it often went to your head and you only wanted more of both. Whilst being a cowboy looks somewhat cool it would have been a hard life both mentally and physically. For now we are just happy that we were born in this century and have the luxuries that allow us to live quite comfortable lives. Oh and the fact that when we run out of ideas as to what to write about we can turn to an alternative source of inspiration. Virtual reality or augmented reality, well in this case video games that got us thinking about how life has changed and how we have a little more respect for ourselves and each other. We said a little…

One slow and we say slow because it’s still dragging its heels through the mud like a lame mare, change that has definitely changed is the way women were treated. We aren’t saying its in a good place now but it is certainly a lot better than back then. Like a caveman belting a prospective wife over the head with his club and dragging a woman into his cave. The wild west was not short of its share of violence against women. So the team are glad that has changed and there are no more damsels in distress requiring a cowboy to come along and defend their honor. These days there are a lot of women who would kick your arse at the mere suggestion. You go girls! As some of the younger generation are pointing out they can do anything including the things you thought only men can.

From the often confused and wonderful minds here it’s time for us to say farewell for another week, tip our hats, spit out our tobacco, slap our horses on the rump and ride blissfully into the sunset. We hope besides learning that day drinking was a thing and cowboys now ride motorcycles the message from this weeks post is that violence of any sort if not ok, especially against women. Until next week partners we hope you enjoyed another foray into A Mind of Its Own. Stay tuned for a double dose this week as we come at you with another post about god knows what but it is sure to keep you distracted somehow.

Home in your Head…

In a surprise move that shocked the blogosphere the team at a Mind of Its Own took a second week off to relax, unwind and reboot the system. From the Chief right down to the mailman who happens to be one of two lazy office dogs who are more concerned with bringing in gifts of the dead bird variety than actually doing the jobs they were employed for in the office otherwise known as the madhouse.

There is something to be said for reboot the system every now and then. Getting away from the daily grind and just shutting down. Clearing your mind and recharging the batteries that push us through the weeks, months and years in our nine to five world of jobs that on average 67% of people are unhappy doing. So why stay doing something that most of the time isn’t satisfying or enjoyable? Money?, Stability?, Laziness?, Fear?, whatever people’s reasoning for not doing something about improving their happiness, as long as they don’t look back and regret it than all book in our book.

We pondered a topic for this week’s instalment, do we write about world events? Do we become like the thousands of travel and body image bloggers already flooding the internet with their health tips, travel stories and often unwarranted advice on how you too can get a Kardashian bum by never skipping glute day. Whilst we often take the Mickey out them we do so in jest as we respect the efforts and hard work they go through each week including the mental strain of wondering whether their audience will appreciate their writing. But that doesn’t help us come up with a topic.

So rather than settle on one topic we thought why not just follow our namesake and let this week’s instalment truly take a mind of its own. That being said we thought we’d start with the fallout from Australia’s favourite reality love show, yep the Bachelor, finally someone has done the right thing by them and picked no one! Did he waste the public’s time and the time of those girls? Ah who cares its reality TV remember! Looking for love in all the wrong places should be the title of the TV series. Good on the honey badger for having a set on him to do right by him plus it made of entertaining TV.

On a side note are we all that bored of our own lives that we become outraged by a reality TV show where someone goes against the grain? Come on people we are better than that. It’s not real and no doubt there was a lot of scripting going on behind the scenes on what he could and could not say in the finale. It’s like telling people who survivor Australia is filmed on some tropical island and not in the lush rainforest behind our office in Northern New South Wales or Queensland. Come on Australia wake up and smell the roses pretty please.

Speaking of waking up, do yourselves a favour and don’t read the news first thing in the morning unless you are happy to see the idiotic acts of a race that is meant to be highly intelligent. At this point we are waiting for the dolphins to walk from the water and flipper slap us for being so stupid. In what must be a slow news day we had everything from Channing Tatum’s new girlfriend some little know Uk Pop Star by the name of Jessie J to our fluro clad tradies duking it out over a road rage incident. Heck even old mate Mel Gibson got slot for losing 14 kilograms. At least he wasn’t throwing phones at people, that’s a plus.

Surely there are some worthwhile things happening around the world that deserve someone to report on. And why is it that you rarely hear of nice things in the news. A professor once said after bollocking his students about being naive to the world that no one wants to read fluffy nice pieces. Disaster, chaos and the dark side of life will sell more papers and nice piece about humanitarian efforts in some far off land. But does that mean that these nice pieces should be pushed to the bottom of the page and give less acknowledgement than a politicians affair or love child? Hmm makes you wonder doesn’t it?

In a world where everything is open to comment and interpretation by any and everyone with smart device it makes us wonder whether people prefer to worry about what’s going on around them, rather than having to deal with their own issues and problems in their lives. We’d be remiss to say that at times throughout all our lives we haven’t dug out problem not of our own so that we didn’t have to deal with things going on in our lives. The only problem with that is the more you sweep under the rug the bigger the pile gets before it starts spilling out from under said rug.

Once your rubbish reaches out and begins to touch you that dirty feeling that creeps in where you should have done something earlier to sort it out. Taps you on the shoulder as if to say ‘Told you so’. Then comes the feeling of regret and shame for being too weak to do something about it. Do we really want to be those people?

It’s no wonder people create and build safe places in their minds, a place where no one and nothing can harm them. A home in their own head if you will, somewhere to retreat when they need a break from the world around them. We’ve read several articles on kidnap victims, child abuse, domestic abuse where the victims had created their own safe place in their minds where there tormentors can’t reach them. In some cases it’s the only thing that has kept them alive. In other cases it has been the world in which they have given their lives to escape to.

The mind is an incredible place and the saying it’s all mind over matter is often true in some cases where people have mentally focused all their energy into achieving something that they were told was beyond their reach. The mind can do some amazing things when aligned with the heart and soul of an individual. It is in our opinion the most beautiful part of someone. It can be creative, destructive, nurturing, caring and loving or it can be the complete opposite but it is still the most amazing part of anyone you will meet.

As the sun dips over the horizon on yet another episode of A Mind of Its Own, we are reminded we are all human and in the words of The Beautiful Girls ‘We’ve all got to learn ourselves before we can judge someone else’. So until next week, work on you and ensure you have some fun! You only live once so make the most of it! Be safe and don’t do anything we wouldn’t do! Peace be the journey…

All Excess…

Firstly before you go down this rabbit hole we’ll give you one of those disclaimers that the physicians should have given you if they already haven’t. Reader discretion is advised this blog contains arguments for and against a topic that will no doubt cause fights in households around the nation between couples. With that said it’s on to this weeks blog…

After a week in hiatus we are back baby, bigger than ever, the team took some time out to unwind, sit back relax and let the good times belly flop in the shallow end of the piss filled kiddie pool. But now we are once again feeling refreshed and ready to tackle some of the more taboo topics of the year. We decided to listen into the heated debates raging around the water coolers of the nation and take a crack at once and for all settling them with some clear and concise answers from Wikipedia.

Just kidding we’ll try our best to get some solid, factual answers and if all else fails we’ll post a link or two from google allowing you to make up your own damn minds. So with that being said the team decided they’d launch right in this week and tackle one of the most heated debates to the face the nation, no the world and possibly the entire universe. Folding versus scrunching, which one is better for your bum and the economy? Well actually they decided that could be a topic for another day and this week we’d tackle whether to vaccinate or not to vaccinate that is the question!

It’s a question that many parents ask themselves each year, whether you are expecting your first or it’s time to give little Sarah or Johnny another sibling. Do you take the plunge into the unknown and get your kid the jab? What’s in the jab? And how have vaccines changed in the last 20 years? Well the team will do their utmost best to give you the answers from both sides of the story. The facts can speak for themselves and as always you, the public can decide whether or not vaccination is good or whether it is the evil brainchild of the big pharmaceuticals that conspiracy theorists make it out to be. We will try to be unbiased in our approach however we can’t make any promises.

Ok so like any good debate it needs to start with a single question and we can only guess the question that is asked the majority of the time would be whether to vaccinate or not? So where to start, well the first place to start is with yourself. Were you vaccinated? Did you turn out ok? Aside from the little things you do that annoy your husband or wife, those are traits and we don’t believe they’ve created a vaccine against them as of yet. Although Netflix is a strong candidate. So what are the benefits if any of being vaccinated?

According to the Australian Governments Department of Health website the single greatest benefit of vaccines is that it works with the body’s immune system to become stronger allowing you to fight bacteria and viruses quicker. Ok so that seems like a no brainer, why wouldn’t you want to get vaccinated after hearing that? Some of the other benefits of immunisation are that you protect and pass on a natural immunity to newborns and make it easier to control diseases in the community. Those are the main benefits so why are the anti-vaxxers so against creating immunity against diseases that the human body has struggled to fight for centuries.

Vaccination has eradicated smallpox and is well on the way to wiping the polio virus off the map throughout the world. Other diseases such as measles are also on the eradication map with vaccinations now preventing over 60% of deaths from the disease. Vaccines have brought a total of seven diseases under some degree of control. Smallpox (Eradicated), Diphtheria, Tetanus, Yellow Fever, Whooping Cough, Polio and Measles. These facts and figures came from the UNICEF website after a quick google search on ‘what diseases have been eradicated through vaccination’. You wanted facts and we’ve given you a small dose of what’s to come. Pun intended!

Vaccination has been heralded as one of mankind’s greatest inventions. The ability to help the body develop an immunity and stave off infections has become invaluable. Through vaccination the world has managed to protect people of all ages against diseases that would have previously decimated the population. With all the good that vaccines do, why are there so many people now turning against vaccinations in general. The anti-vaccine movement and it’s followers known as anti-vaxxers are heavily opposed to vaccinations and believe to have linked vaccines to increases in autism around the world as well as SIDs, paralysation, decreased brain function and worst case scenario death. According to medical journals this has now been debunked along with a lot of other theories that have been put forward.

We promised we’d give you both sides of the coin, so to the other side of the coin we go, to look at things from the anti-vaxxer point of view. All parents whether they are for or against vaccination only want the best of their children. So it is understandable when you begin to hear and read the anti-vaxxers side of the story as to why they are not in favour of vaccination. There are hundreds of stories of children who have had either passed away or had adverse reactions after being vaccinated.

So what are the concerns or arguments that the anti-vaccination movement brings to the table? The arguments against vaccination have changed very little over time. Many of the arguments focus on a growing distrust in medical science advancing the notion that vaccines are unavoidably dangerous because a nebulous of toxins are being introduced into the body via vaccination. Through our research we did find that small amounts of aluminium is present in vaccinations acting as an Adjuvant (Adjuvants help strengthen the immune system’s response to the antigens in vaccines. In some cases this means fewer needles are needed for a child to be fully protected against a disease.) however the amount per vaccination is less than a baby would receive through breastfeeding in a period of 6 months.

There is also the argument that children are purposely ‘Poisoned’ through vaccines because it benefits the bottom line of Big Pharmaceuticals and the physicians they work with. Other arguments stem from the claim that vaccines overwhelm the immune system and that natural immunity is better than immunity introduced by vaccines. The list goes on for arguments against vaccination. Several papers have been written linking vaccination to autism and as previously stated worst case death.

So to vaccinate or not to vaccinate that is the question, but it is a question that should only be answered by you and your significant other. Before making your decision you should ask as many questions as you can, research as much as you can so you are as informed as possible to make your decision. We are living in a world where we have information available to us at the push of a button. Vaccination is one of the most researched medicines around the globe, more and more studies are done each year on the ongoing effects and the effects of current vaccinations.

From the team at A Mind of Its Own, whatever your decision we salute you and support you but remember it’s your choice and your choice alone. Until next week we hope we’ve cracked the lid on another topic that causes waves.

Are you still having fun…

With Thursday the 13th of September being R U Ok? Day, we asked our editor and chief if he’d sit in his seat and discuss anxiety and depression with our readers along with telling us how much talking and writing about it has helped him over the past couple of years. As they say a single conversation could make someone’s day, their week or their year. It’s ok to talk and more men and women need to be educated that is ok. SO over to you chief fire away and don’t bore the readers too much please…

Well with that introduction I’d better ensure to make this an easy, breezy read for the folks at home. If you had of asked me to write about this a year or two ago the answers would have varied from Aww hell no to a few expletives followed by a staunch no. The fact that I am now able to sit here and talk about it is a testament that if you can find that one person and start opening up, the more you do it the more you become comfortable doing. In saying that I still struggle to speak with people about my anxiety and depression that I don’t really know or that I am not comfortable with. Even writing this now has a me a little anxious as to what people may or may not think.

Like thousands of men and women across Australia and around the globe I suffer from anxiety and depression. I have my good days and yes I certainly have my bad days, my wife will be happy to attest to that. The good news is they are coming few and far between, I won’t lie and say it was easy to get to this point but I will say that it took a lot of hard work and honesty. Firstly being honest with myself and secondly being honest with those that I care about and love. Being honest and admitting to myself that there was something wrong and I needed help was probably one of the hardest things I have had to do in my life.

No one likes asking for help especially when they often can’t put their finger on exactly what the problem is or why they are feeling that way. So when people used to ask me what was wrong or why i was being quiet I would often just say nothing and try to disappear into the background. I tried changing the topic and more often than not I would ask questions and listen so I didn’t have to deal with my own thoughts and feelings. We all have days when we are feeling a little blue so I put a lot of what I was thinking and feeling down to that. At the time I was living in Brisbane, a long way away from my family and close. Yeah I had some good mates around me but none that I was comfortable talking to at the time.

It wasn’t until I started to display physical symptoms that I knew I had to do something, I had to see someone. I remember one day sitting on the floor of the bathroom feeling nauseous, there was a tightness across my chest and I was actually physically sick and I couldn’t control my thoughts. It was something I had never experienced before but it was something that would happen to me more and more over the following months until I saw someone. Now I would love to say that I plucked up the courage and went of my own volitions however I didn’t. I was given an ultimatum but it was the one that I needed and deep down I knew it was for my own good.

With my decision made I then struggled for some time as to who do I go and see, do I get medical help, do I go straight to the psychologist or psychiatrist, do I talk to friends, family. What do I do? It was daunting, I searched online, I read articles but at the end of the day it was a conversation with my father in law that changed it all. You see we don’t often get to see what goes on behind closed doors. We don’t ask questions that are personal and as men we just choose not to talk about our feelings. Its ingrained and beat into us from birth, strong men don’t talk about their feelings.

This one conversation though set me on the right path, through opening up I learnt that I wasn’t alone, I wasn’t the only person to go through this and there is nothing wrong with asking for help and knowing that it is ok to talk. Now my journey to seek the help i need may be different to a lot of people. I had a Skype call with one of the nation’s top professors of Psychiatry who then pointed me in the right direction and made recommendations. From there I saw my physician and on that back of that we setup a mental health plan that suited me.

My next hurdle along the way was having to take medication, it got me down and made me even more anxious that I needed to take a tablet each day to ensure my highs and lows were kept in balance. It honestly made me feel miserable but what it did do was allow my brain to slow down and process things a lot better. The more I researched what I was taking the more comfortable I became. I would talk about it in my session with my psychologist and together we began forming a plan to put in place the strategies and techniques to allow me to cope with my anxiety and depression if I ever came off the medication.

Over time my dosage has been adjusted, slowly becoming less and less as I become more and more comfortable with my own thoughts and feelings. How I manage and process them has gone from one of confusion and often being overwhelmed to now being ok with them and letting the thoughts and feelings come and go as they please. I’ve also learnt that talking about my anxiety and depression or writing about it has helped me a great deal. Being ok and realising that it is not a weakness but a strength, a strength that shines through in the day-to-day battle with my mind and thoughts.

The uneducated will make comments like what have you got to be sad about or are you suicidal. A lot them won’t even attempt to understand and will shy away from people with mental health issues. The truth is that mental health issues affect everyone differently, yes it does overwhelm some people to the point they want to the pain to stop that’s the sad truth but they are often the people who need our help the most. They are the people who just having a conversation with them could make their day. It could save their life, the problem is a lot of people still feel the shame and stigma that comes with mental health.

Conversations have helped me over the past couple of years, just having them has opened up my eyes to the world and to the fact I am not alone in my struggle. It has helped me understand my mind, understand my anxiety, understand my depression and most importantly understand that it’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to talk, its ok to ask for help. It’s ok to put yourself out there and be vulnerable. Take a leaf from the young females of the world they put themselves out there on social media on a daily basis with there blogging and fashion posts but they are allowing themselves to be vulnerable often for a good cause.

I’ve been humbled this week by several people reaching out to me and sharing their stories and asking for help. Whether they were inspired by me finding my voice and asking for help or not is irrelevant the fact they were able to speak up and say there were struggling made me both proud and humbled at the same time. They were taking the steps to find their feet once again and work on themselves. Most importantly they were learning to love themselves once more. The biggest part of any healing process is accepting that you are going to be ok and who you are.

So it is to all those who are struggling in the world, you are not alone, there is a good chance the person sitting next to you right now is going through the same thing or has already been through. Do yourself a favour and ask people are you ok? What you give you shall receive tenfold as the old saying goes. Pay it forward, look after yourself and take care of those around you. It’s ok to talk, its ok not to be ok, and most importantly it is ok to ask for help. From myself and the team here at A Mind of Its Own, R U Ok? Start the conversation even if it isn’t for you.

Here Comes the Boom…

It’s another week of doubles as we attempt to make up for your lack of exciting reads in the past week due to being led around the country by our ties like a greyhound ready to chase that bunny around the track. In this instance the track like greyhound racing could be related to the business arena in which the bunny would be the client and we the dog are the dollar signs for the big corporate who see the cash flowing as we cross the line first in a mad sprint to secure new or existing business.

As we sat back in the airport, no not in the lounge that would cost the company further money they aren’t willing to spend to ensure the people bring in the big bucks would be comfortable while they waited for yet another flight in what had already been a long week a recurring thought popped into our head. You aren’t valued, you are just another body to them who is replaceable. Whilst right about now most of you are starting to think oh great another person who is going to write a woe is me peice and fill the airwaves and internet with their sob story about how they are undervalued in the workplace.

Well a part of you would be right but that’s not necessarily where we are going with this blog. What we wanted to explore was the change in culture and when did it all change from employees being valued to being just another number that helps the company continue to bring in the money, money, money. Small businesses whilst yes being small still manage to value their employees, recognising and rewarding them for doing a good job or when they go above and beyond to ensure the success of the company and yet looking at the mid to large-scale organisation there is no shortage of disenchanted people slaving away day in day out.

We spend over ninety percent of our lives working. We work to ensure we have food, shelter and are able to support our families. There are those that do it tough slaving away in blue-collar jobs while the white-collar workers continue to live comfortable lifestyles and often get richer all the while the poorer get poorer. So spending ninety percent of our lives at work, most people want to do something that they are passionate about and inspired to do, day in day out. But what happens when that passion and inspiration is overshadowed by corporate greed and the management’s own concerns for themselves and not the worker bees doing all the work to ensure the company continues to tick over?.

What happens is you have a workforce who very much feel like the work they do isn’t valued. You could be a top performer bringing in millions of dollars of revenue for a company and yet your input, value and knowledge are always overlooked when it comes to decision-making. Your level within the organisation isn’t one of influence and yet you treat everyone as an equal despite their role within the organisation. Everyone has something to add from the people who clean the workspace to guy sitting at the top but if you don’t value each individual for the skills, knowledge and experience they bring, before you know it they will start to feel like they aren’t valued or appreciated.

Just hearing the words ‘thank you’ or ‘great job’ can often make someone’s day but unfortunately in today’s workplace it often gets overlooked by management whose only concern is to report up that they are doing a great job watching over you all the while offering little to no support when it is needed the most. As long as their million dollar bonus comes in then there is no issues for them. So this is where it leaves the team at A Mind of It’s Own begin to question whether we have become a society of self-absorbed arseholes? Sorry for the swearing but their seems to be a common thread that shit flows downhill and we have little to no concern for those below us on the totem pole.

Here’s where all the positive people pop up and start saying if you don’t like it change it, unfortunately your average joe’s influence over what doesn’t and doesn’t happen in the organisation they work for is limited to the sphere of influence they have around them. Yes they can go and look for another role but their in line another conundrum in the fact the glass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side either. Most of the time what they want isn’t something that will cost the company money and therefore eating into their profit margin.

If you were to ask most people though what they wanted out of their job, what would give them career satisfaction most of them would say the following. Most people want to feel valued for the work they do, they want to be respected, every now and they’d like to be recognised and perhaps rewarded for the work they put in. Give them opportunities and a career path with the tools to help get them there and you are doing more than a lot of managers and bosses are already doing. Continue to support and develop them and what you’ll get is loyalty and support from that person. They’ll pass it on to the next person in the chain and that knock on effect will see your company thrive.

At some point in the last Thirty years we have transitioned from being connected with our staff to almost treating them like just another number on the balance sheet. Perhaps technology is to blame, perhaps it’s globalisation but at some point we have started to lose touch with humanity and what its like to be a human being and treat everyone equally. Woman across the globe are slowly and I say slowly being given the opportunities they deserve in the workplace, equal rights again are slowly drifting in but we still often lack the basics when it come to treating everyone equal and like human beings.

To all people managers out there no matter what level you are within an organisation take heed of the following for your sake and that of your staff. EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO ADD and EVERYONE LIKES TO FEEL VALUED. Stop treating your staff like dollar signs and go back to treating them like the people they are, valuable employees who have something to add to your organisation. If they didn’t they wouldn’t have been hired in the first place. Men and Women around the world in workforces are there because they choose to be that doesn’t mean they should be treated without respect. A little empathy goes a long way in life.

From the team at A Mind of Its Own, we hope that you’ve found some value in this blog. Remember you need to be happy in your job and you should always feel valued. If you are doing a great job and it feels like your contribution is always overlooked there is something wrong. Work should never be something you despise and hate going to. It should be a place you are inspired to go to and driven to succeed in, after all you spend the majority of your life doing it so happiness should be a key condition of all those in the workforce. Until next week, we hope work is fun this week and feel free to flick the link to your boss…

Raspberry Beret…

Well for once in our lives we’ve decided to agree with the 1985 hit song from Prince and embrace our inner fashionista. Welcome to this week’s instalment of the nation’s fastest rising blog. Like a slow bake cake we’ll rise when the temperature is right and the world is ready for our antics. Sit back, relax and let the good times roll as we take you on yet another journey into the wonderful world around us. The inspiration for this weeks post came to us in an alcohol fuelled rendition of Billy Joel’s ‘We didn’t start the fire’.

Like all things a mind of its own this one pretty much wrote itself in the Sunday morning hangover drive through line of your closest McDonald’s. As the fog of one too many beers began to clear a beautiful post manifested itself in the writing department of our minds. As we stated this one wrote itself on the back of quiet night in with a few friends. If you are an inquisitive person you are probably asking yourself what Prince, Fashion and Billy Joel could have inspired? We certainly were as the boffins went to work pumping this one out.

When you think fashion what do you think? Catwalks? Overly skinny girls modeling the summer or winters latest designs around the globe? Men strutting their stuff or really, really good looking people aka Derek Zoolander? Well one piece of clothing that often gets overlooked, underrated and not given enough credit or airtime on the catwalks of Milan, Paris and other old world fashion capitals around the globe. What is it you ask? As far as being cryptic goes you wear it, it can cover even the most ugliest of people and fix things like no other.

We are talking about head coverings, hats, beanies, headdresses, yamakas, if it goes on your head there is a fair chance you won’t see it being displayed at fashion week. Classed as accessories they’ve been the best of friends to premature balding men the world over, worn the wrong way by redbull fueled extreme athletes and kept the warmth in people’s heads in the harshest of environments. We would have like to have spent the time doing some research into hats, beanies and the like but that would have been to painful on a Sunday afternoon as the rest of the team nap around us.

The most popular of head clothes is by far the cap, worn by all to shade our faces, reduce the risk of sun damage, cover our balding heads or bad haircuts, stop surveillance cameras getting a clear shot of our face, hide hangovers and most of the time as an alternative to having to do our hair. While cowboys and farmers prefer the wide brim, hipsters have adopted the fedora, kids and young adults wanting to maintain their youthfulness have chosen the flat brim. The Jewish community have there own little hat although it only really covers the bald spot at the back of their heads.

Hats come in all different shapes and sizes, they have various functions and are made from many different fabrics.But we don’t need to tell you our readers as we knew you are all a bunch of smart eggs. What we do need to tell you is that this blog was inspired by a particular piece of head clothing. For generations men and women have been wearing it and yet in everyday life it has seemed to dwindle away. Those that have one may have to dig into the back of their closest to find it but we here at A Mind of Its Own are telling you to do it and predicting they’ll make a come back. Unlike the thousands of fashion bloggers out there we won’t be including any photos of us in front of the mirror modelling anything.

What happened to the Beret, well besides militaries around the globe adopting it as headwear of choice for some of their regiments. Back in the mid eighties Prince made them popular particularly Raspberry ones. Speaking from experience we can safely say they are the most underrated in the hat family. Yes they look good on military men and woman standing at attention on the parade ground but they are also comfortable, warm and can be worn a variety of different ways. We did our homework on them to ensure all myths around this amazing style of hat were debunked. Trying on a few was like putting heaven on the head, the beret is truly a modular piece of headwear that can dressed up or down. It’s both smart and casual at the same time.

So back to those beers that were being had while a thirty something male danced around the living room singing Billy Joel. This suave and sophisticated cat was rocking none other than a beret. Looking part military, part hipster he reminded us that the Beret had been forgotten in the world of fashion and is a hat that more people should consider when they step into their local hat shop. We are assuming there are still stores that are dedicated to selling the globes finest head clothes? If not there is always the Internet that brings us so many wonderful things! Like this blog for instance! There’s nothing wrong with a shameless plug.

From A Mind of Its Own to you, if you take anything from this blog or any of our blogs do yourself a favour and think twice about which advice you take from us but for now. If you own one get it out if you don’t go and get yourself one. Support the Beret! We certainly will be, for this week anyways. If we were a military body it would be our head clothes of choice. Many a charismatic character has worn the beret proudly, generally in the cinematic universe but hey if John Wayne can wear one why can’t we all and who knows maybe the French will get back into the spirit this year at Fashion week in Paris. If not we can always ask for another revolutionary like Che Guevara to make them popular again.

As the sun hits the horizon and starts to disappear from view, our hearts let out a sigh signalling the weekend is yet again almost over and tomorrow we head back to the real world. Argh work, perhaps we’ll start a petition for 4 day work weeks in which everyone does 10 hours a day. Long weekends every week, or at least a siesta like our Spanish friends. Who doesn’t love a nap in the middle of the day. From the team here, thank you once again and enjoy your week working for the man. The Europeans are on to something with their work/life balance. Power to the people! Peace out.

The Quiet Things that no one knows…

It’s another double week here at A Mind of Its Own headquarters, double martini’s, double espresso, double trouble and for our adoring fans that means you get double the awesomeness to get you through the weekend. We’ve searched high and low for another stellar topic to follow-up on the pampered pooches soft piece earlier in the week. It didn’t take the boffins down in the lab long to pull out a topic that I am sure strikes a chord with many of our female fans and one that this writer’s wife has voiced her opinion quite strongly about on several occasions.

We live in a world that is interconnected, we have mobile devices, instant message, video chat, you name it and it’s probably already there. We are still hanging out for a true hoverboard though like Marty McFly but give it a couple a years and we are sure we’ll be yelling at kids to slow down as the gravitate past at speed. So with all this technology you think we (Men) would be happy getting on a conference call and gossiping like a bunch of school kids behind the toilets at lunch while puffing on some stolen menthol cigarettes as we just aren’t quite prepared to go the full leaded option just yet.

Being male we can safely say that we are happy to chat but prefer to be doing something while we are chatting. Playing around of golf, some poker, shearing sheep, pretending to work at desk, sitting at your local watering hole, are just some of the examples of guys getting together and having a chat about life. So what do you do if you have a group of mates who want to catch up regularly but are all in different locations and have varying reasons as to why catching up face to face isn’t always possible. Distance being number one. Unlike our female counterparts who can sit on a call for hours, upon hours filling in friends on their week and how many cute guys or girls they saw at the gym while eating a whole tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream on their own, Men just can’t focus on the conversation for that amount of time.

We’ll give you an example, you promise your other half that you will take out the rubbish on your way to work one morning, however in your rush to get ready you spend way to long in the mirror trimming your wayward nasal hairs and forget. So upon your return after a hard days work at the office where you’ve stood around the water cooler filling your day talking to anyone who will listen so you don’t actually have to sit there and look at spreadsheets, you walk in the door and immediately get chewed out. What you will see is the nodding and agreeing coupled with an apology. What you don’t see is that we’ve gone on autopilot and are already wondering what is for dinner or to watch on TV, are there any beers left in the fridge?

The example is not that we aren’t listening, we are! We hear it all, it’s that we are already thinking about the next thing. This is what a conversation between males is like, we flit in an out of the conversation not always present. Hence this week’s topic is something that keeps us all focused. Allows us to catch up and spend our time wisely doing two things at once. We know shock horror! Men can do two things at once! When we really want to yes we can do multiple things at once without even thinking about it.

The late 80’s and early 90’s saw the beginning of trend that would dominate the home entertainment industry for years to come. No longer did you have to go to the Arcade to play your favourite machines they were now all available to play on your own console hooked up to the television in the safety of your own living room. It was around this time that obesity and the links to discovering the colonels eleven secret herbs and spices started to also began to grow. The video game console had emerged and those lucky enough to be able to afford one would slowly become fans of some of the biggest cult heroes of our generation.

As technology advanced so did consoles and along with these advancements over time came the ability to interact with people all around the globe. You could be racing cars with John from Delaware, or in the trenches of Normandy with Raj from India. It is just another way of connecting people around the world. For a group of 30 something males it made it possible to jump online and play video games while catching on what has transpired through the week or month. The wonder of it all is that you can be stretched across the globe but for that hour of two as you battle your way through Mordor or reenact the landing on Omaha beach you are all in the one location.

So what is it about this that automatically makes it Geeky and frustrates wives, partners, husbands etc? That’s a question we have asked on several occasion and like comics and anything that people don’t understand or want to understand it’s all make-believe and not reality. Correct and no one is deluding themselves that it is. Ok there are a few who live in fairyland but like all things in life there is always going to be those one or two people who take things too far. Yes video games and gamers used to be associated with the geeks however more and more these days you will find what used to be nerdy, geeky and weird is becoming more and more mainstream.

In a world full of stereotypes many people have always associated gaming as something that only the loner, disenfranchised, nerds, geeks or children do. It is however a multi-million dollar industry and is attracting people from all walks of life for various different reasons to various different games. With games now becoming more and more like chapters of books people often finish a game and play it over and over again to see what they have missed whilst they wait for the next installment.

It’s not an escape from reality it’s merely a virtual interaction between people across continents, around the globe and maybe one day out into the far reaches of the galaxy. A way in which to interact and often work together in teams to complete a common goal. Some companies have even gone as far to go online and find future employees who exhibit online the qualities they are looking for in their staff. So escape from reality or a way of interacting and doing something with friends near and far? You be the judge but for the team here at A Mind of Its Own we advocate interact with friends and family via video games just as long as it doesn’t take over your real live. We don’t need hermits there is already enough cranky people in this world.

For another week it’s over and out from the team. We hope you’ve enjoyed the double dose this week and we look forward to gracing your inbox, iPad or desktop some point next week. Peace out hombres!