by Jack: Business Lessons From Life, Life Lessons From Business on Monday, 23 May 2011 at 13:56 ·

Journalist Michael Freeman wrote a review of Blaise Brosnan’s speech to businessmen and women in the Ferrycarrig hotel. 

Blaise Brosnan,  ceo of  the Management Resource Institute was talking at the Ferrycarrig Hotel in Wexford at a breakfast meeting organised by the Wexford County Enterprise Board  and Wexford Owner Manager’s Network this week where they launched his new book ‘You are the Limiting Factor – Unlocking your true business potential’. The book is published by Outside the Box publishers, Naas, Co. Kildare. 

Blaise explained the recession and recovery in metaphorical agricultural terms in a rich native Kerry accent to the sophisticates with the modulated accents present from the leading businesses and banks who would hardly know the difference between a bull and cow. He now advises many of them how to turn around their businesses. 

Sheep

He asked his audience: “What will sheep do if they face a gap and one goes through the gap?”. One intellectual shouted up “All the rest will follow”. “Exactly”, said Blaise. “The early adopters, or the leader sheep, have already gone through the gap,” he reasoned,” and they are going to gain on the upturn in the economic cycle, which I predict will be faster than the economists think as statistics are usually up to six months out of date. To move the sheep, you’ve got to get one to move first. But then when the entire herd ( or should that be ‘flock’) arrives, it’ll be too late”. 

Wall of Money

“There’s a wall of money out there and it’s going to move.” 

Business

“We all should mind our own patch and ask what can I do enhance my output so that I can write an invoice for that.” 

Cowboys and the Recession

“One good thing about this recession is that cowboys need to suffer. We have all acquired a lot of fat and this recession is going to get rid of a lot of the cowboys.” 

Cattle

But the metaphor that caused those present to ponder reflectively was his reference to ketosis , a disease in cattle. “If you look into a cattle shed and if there’s a sweet smell during the feeding season the cattle have lost a lot of body weight as their diet was poor. In other words they were living off their body fat.  There’s been a sweet smell in lots of businesses over the last 18 months or so. Any business that came into this recession with some fat built up is burned off at this stage.” 

His book is littered with similar metaphors:

Cows

“The successful people that we see out there are not sweating; they are working their heads. We are all creatures of habit, just like the cows coming into the milking parlour one at a time in the same rotation.”

Bacon and Egg

“There is a link between the bacon and egg and the concept of commitment. The pig is more committed since he must die to give the bacon. The hen just naturally drops the egg, moving on to new pastures.” 

Rabbits

“If you went out at night into a field hunting rabbits how would you bag the largest number possible? Snare them? Lamp them? Shoot them? It is important to remember that you have one lamp, a field full of rabbits and you want to come home with great number of them. The correct answer is to hunt just one at a time. This will give the most beneficial results. If you go out with your lamp all over the place, trying to catch them all, the rabbits will scatter and you won’t catch any. However, if you go out and focus in on one, kill it, focus in, kill, you will come back with a bag full. Act like a sniper.” 

Horses

“It is a physical impossibility for a jockey to ride two horses at the one time. Imagine the pain if they start to run in non parallel lines. “ 

Cattle Fairs and Tanglers

 “For those of you who have never been to a cattle fair and stood behind a bullock to sell him, you are missing something. Everything you wanted to know about business you could learn at one of these fairs. The very same games are used when you are buying or selling your business. You have a buyer on one hand and a seller on the other side and tangler in between. Nowadays the tangler comes with a collar and tie and a brief case. In the old days, the tangler was the guy who moved around in the shadow sensing where the weakness might be and then moved in to bring the parties together and negotiate the deal. The deal was confirmed by the spit on the hand and the ‘luck penny’. There was no signing of papers. It was all finalised over pints in the local pub later, with the tangler getting his cut – often from both parties to the deal.” 

The Farmer and the Bank manager

“Paddy… the farmer asked the bank manager if he was worried about his account. The bank manager was worried. Paddy went over and shook the manager’s hand. “There’s no point in two of us worrying”, he said, and he walked out. 

Denis Brosnan, former ceo of Kerry Group, Philip Lynch, ceo, One Fifty One plc have given testimonials on the cover of Blaise Brosnan’s book “You are the Limiting Factor”  extolling  its advice in glowing terms. They must know. Their agricultural backgrounds have taught them how to run successful businesses and make money even in a recession. Every entrepreneur , would-be entrepreneur and MBA student could learn from this book. Blaise Brosnan is former regional chairman of the IMI and is a board member of Wexford Festival Opera.

WaterfordNews and Star. 

Business lessons from a novel character

ENTREPRENEUR, trainer and business commentator Blaise Brosnan’s new business book, ‘Jack – Business Lessons from Life, Life Lessons from Business’ was launched in the Book Centre, John Roberts Square, last Friday.
The book is a ‘factional’ memoir of a person named Jack, who Blaise said is the composite life story of many different people he has met in the 40 years he has been in business. Jack represents the experiences, the emotions and coping mechanisms that most people have.
Through the life of Jack, the author outlines the influences that made Jack who he is, and, in turn, how his influences helped or hindered others he met along the way.
Mr Brosnan said that everyone would identify with Jack in some way. “Whether you are an employee, a manager, a chief executive, an entrepreneur, a manager, a parent or a student, I earnest-ly wish you to gain insights, techniques, consolation, empathy, understanding, inspiration, hope and direction from the life of Jack,” he said. 

The author said he wrote Jack over a two-year period because of the great demand he found from his students when he taught his Owner Manager Development Programme. The book is about empathizing with business managers and with entrepreneurs about the joys, thrills and downsides of business life.
At the launch Blaise, who has a Masters in Management fromTrinityCollege, spoke on the prospects for business in a talk called ‘Tough times – Great Times’. Mr Brosnan is well-known to owner-managers and to executives in major corporates and SMEs in theWaterford and Wexford region. He has up to 40 years of practical business experience inIreland,Russia andUSA, including as a CEO. 

Blaise Brosnan, business mentor and trainer, has facilitated more than 2000 business people to stand back from the fuss of their day-to-day activity and decide how best to drive their business forward and achieve their objectives. In this, his 2nd book, he uses the life story of Jack and surrounding influences on him to give concrete advice that will benefit anyone in business. 

Interactions is lucky enough to have benefited from Blaise’s mentoring and training and was delighted to be at the launch. 

Minister Howlin concluded by saying: ‘Blaise Brosnan is a wise man. In his readable, clear and incisive book he shares his wisdom with us. We are better for the experience – if we choose to be.’ 

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the book! 

The book is available from bookshops, Amazon and on Kindle.

Wexford author gives life lessons in new book

A BOOK about business and life lessons by a Wexford author was launched by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin at a function to be attended by business leaders from around Ireland at Whites Hotel Wexford on Friday.

Well-known entrepreneur, trainer and business commentator Blaise Brosnan’s new business book Jack – Business Lessons from Life, Life Lessons from Business, has been described as a hugely authentic ‘factional’ memoir.

At the launch on Friday, Min. Howlin said: “Blaise Brosnan is an amazing man. That’s not an introduction I frequently give. In fact I don’t recall saying it about any other individual. But I doubt if there is anyone gathered here who knows – truly knows – Blaise, who wouldn’t agree with me.”

Speaking of the author’s compelling wisdom, Min. Howlin said Brosnan imbues the title character of his book Jack with this quality.

He said Jack grew up and shaped his essence in an Ireland of barter and conformity.

“In this readable, clear and incisive book he shares his wisdom with us. We are better for the experience – if we choose to be.”

The book begins at a time when children were seen but not heard, when fathers said little and internalised their feelings and mothers managed everything from scarce resources to the thoughts of their children. Brosnan, uses the life story of Jack his influencers and his influences to give concrete advice that will benefit anyone working their way from the ground up.

He sees into Jack’s mind and reflects his thoughts, revealing how he coped with life’s problems. Jack pays a price.

A former CEO of Wexford Farmers Co-operative, Brosnan holds a Masters in Management from Trinity College Dublin and is a Certified Member of the Irish Management Institute (IMI).

He moved here to wexford some 30 years ago from his native Kerry and has up to 40 years of practical business experience in Ireland, Russia and USA, 21 of them as CEO of a major multi-million euro dynamic business, and 18 years as an independent management consultant and trainer.

He has through his business consultancy and his Owner Manager Development Programme (OMDP) facilitated more than 2,000 business people to stand back from the ‘fuss’ of their day to day activity and decide how best to drive their businesses forward and achieve their objectives.

Brosnan said that he wrote Jack over a two year period because of the great demand by people he met, giving courses and in business consultations, for role models for their life.

He said: “Most people, if they read Jack, may empathise with business mangers and with entrepreneurs about the joys, the thrills and the awful woes and tragedies of business life. We need a new understanding of what it takes to get ahead and survive in business whether you are a sole trader working from home or the chief executive of an SME exporting to the far side of the globe.”

Entrepreneurs are the key to recovery

Never mind the Government, we can always go out and make our own jobs and better life, suggests Blaise Brosnan

A Kerryman has a lot to do with the way the world is today. Richard Cantillon ofBallyheigueCastlecame up with the concept of entrepreneurialism about 300 years ago. He lived in north Kerry at the turn of the 17th Century and from a young age he roamed between there and his uncle’s home inParis. His uncle was a banker. Cantillon would slip out of Ballyheigue harbour and sail back and forth toFrance, studying economics.

Cantillon’s theory of economics supposedly came from watching the farmers and the tanglers. He came up with the theory of the circular flow of money that is described in his famous book Essays on the Nature of Trade. At that time, the economy was dependent mostly on agriculture. Money flowed from farmers to property owners, to builders and to the woman of the house and out again to create the circular flow.

In the middle of the circular flow, he saw that a particular group used to make things happen. He called them entrepreneurs.

Today, entrepreneurs are creating jobs irrespective of obstacles. Many of them have already failed, got up again and are making profit despite their setback.

Remember that 1,800,000 people still have jobs — a huge proportion in the SME sector.

No longer is a job a certainty for life. A lifetime in one job stifles people’s creativity. Jobs should be adaptable to markets — not vice versa. As this economy slowly builds up again, entrepreneurs will create more jobs. This economy will be back on track in a few years, and in less than 30 years, regardless of the application of the thoughts of Keynes or Friedman or Krugman, we will have another bubble and another crash. That’s nature.

One of the effects of recession is that people are forced to become resourceful. There is now an avalanche of ideas about new products and services for a global market.

This is great.Irelandis at last becoming a nation of entrepreneurs, similar to the entrepreneurs that Cantillon, the real founder of modern economics, discovered about in his time.

Irelandhas woken up to the fact that it is entrepreneurs who create jobs.

It is they, and not governments, who create business and jobs and provide the money that creates wages and salaries and quality of life. We have also become aware that we are better equipped than in many other parts of the world to turn an idea into reality.

There is a lot of mythology in the minds of people and of politicians. One of the myths is that there must be a readymade market for a service. We are now in a global community and my contention is this: first do general market research, find out roughly the opportunities and then get started. Don’t delay. A website, an email, a mobile phone and cheap flights bring many markets closer, faster even than 10 years ago. The market will fit around your product or service as you develop it.

Contrary to what many economists are saying, we are now three years into an economic cycle that has lasted longer than others. But it’s still an economic cycle just like the natural cycle of the growth; of living and dying like trees and plants.

Never mind the IMF, the EU and the ECB. Leave that to the politicians, who will eventually have to listen to the markets.

We should now be getting ready for the beginning of the upward curve. One of the ways to do this is to get busy seeing what opportunities are ahead without suffering paralysis by analysis and just going and doing it.

If you are willing to pay the price again and again, you can do it. Use every possible facility, such as county enterprise boards,EnterpriseIrelandand other agencies that we taxpayers have paid for.

There is an opportunity cost of staying as you are instead of moving ahead. Ignore the negatives, be prepared to fail and learn and then get up and get going.

So you have a business idea. I suggest that if you don’t have a mentor or some experienced business entrepreneur, go along to your county enterprise board. Persevere with them. Positivity, persistence and patience are three necessary Ps of business.

There is more of a market in other countries than there is here. Let’s go take it.

Blaise Brosnan is managing director of the Management Resource Institute and author of ‘JACK — Business Lessons from Life, Life Lessons from Business’.

Nobody can persuade you to change. The gates of change can be opened only from the inside. 

It is not enough to change your initial behaviour; you must change your thinking, your attitude and your follow through actions. Then you must measure the impact of these actions. 

What gets measured tends to gets done. The opposite side of this coin is—what is not measured tends not to get done.—–(Please share these thoughts with your friends and let them benefit as well).

 Don’t waste your time wishing you were starting from a different point. Know where you are and  where you are going.  

Clarity of purpose is the secret to your future success.

1. 

2.

3. 

4.

Then organise your MIS from this base. This will eliminate many layers of communication. 

The owner-manager is the conductor, with the performance of the critical issues being reported directly to him / her. 

All must be performing the same conductors score (Mission Statement).

• What is the message here for you? What one change could you make today that will cause your output to be different?
• Are you really committed to making this change and sticking to it until your desired output is achieved? 

                                       If it’s to be, it’s up to you.