Last Thursday something happened that brought a lot of joy to some of my friends and clients.

Liverpool became the champions of England’s Premier League soccer competition for the first time in 30 years.

For them it has been the longest of waits.

Twenty years ago I was a young executive working with a large multi-national and I was keen to make an impression. At one point I was given responsibility to bring new robotic technology into an aspect of the business. It was exciting but also challenging as there were multiple challenges to making a success of the project.

“You mean I’m doing it to myself?, the leader said.

We were in the middle of an advisory/coaching session and my client had been telling me repeatedly about the difficult situation they found themselves in – and the challenging people they had to deal with.

Yet this was a re-curring theme over the months we had worked together i.e. there was always something or someone annoying them…

“There’s a few reasons why I don’t see it happening”

These were the words spoken by a smart woman I was working with a few years ago, in response to me asking if she thought she could ever be a CEO.

She was very convincing in her argument as to why she couldn’t get to the top spot.

But it turned out that despite her comments she actually had a huge desire to get to the role.

With everything going on, it feels strange to say I took a few days off… but I did.

It was a bank holiday in Ireland, so I bolted on some extra time and enjoyed the incredible sunshine. And it was a complete switch off – so much so, I even gave myself permission not to send an email on Monday! 🙂

But not to let me completely off the hook this week, here’s something a little different.

What many people don’t realise is that optimism can be learned. And now is the time to step into it. (See ‘Learned Optimism’ by Martin Seligman)

What if you believed a much better future was coming? And that you could help create it?

We need to be in touch with reality. But we also need to be positive shapers of the future.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve most likely heard of ‘Normal People’, the Irish drama based on Sally Rooney’s best-selling novel.

The BBC series of the book has become a smash hit around the world, breaking all sorts of records. For example, the new series received 16.2 million views in it’s first week on the BBC streaming service. The opening week record was previously held by the first season of Killing Eve, which received 10.8 million total requests in its first week.

I wasn’t going to watch it until a friend of mine I wouldn’t have expected to like it, said he really did. So I was curious.

I’ve written before about our family dog, Sparky, who had anxiety separation whenever he lost sight of my wife, Judy.

Unfortunately for us, he came to the end of his journey on this planet last Friday. It was clear he was really struggling and he took a bad turn in the early hours of Friday morning.

So we made the decision as a family to send him to sleep.

If you’ve ever had a dog you really loved, I’m sure you know how tough that is.

May the 4th has been taken over by Star Wars as it’s official day globally, in a playful riff on the phrase ‘May the force be with you’.

In our home it’s an important date for different reasons, as it’s my daughter Jane’s birthday – and she became a teenager.

Because of the unusual situation we’re in globally, we did our best to try and make her day special.

With every day that passes, industry associations are coming out with recovery plan proposals to influence policy makers and help re-activate economies more quickly around the world.

It’s the right thing to do as no-one person in any government will have the answers and it’s critical that we can collaborate to create the best plans.

But it made me think about us as leaders and people interested in creating better lives, organisations and communities.

What is your plan for yourself and your team/family over the coming weeks/months?