Julian’s Business Tips: Is your glass half-full or half-empty?
This may be the month we finally get to raise a glass with some friends (outside of course), but how full will it be?
Are you the optimist who thinks it is half-full, or the pessimist who knows its half-empty? You may think those are the only two answers – however, I remember an engineering recruitment advert from years ago that offered a third answer; ‘the engineer will tell you that the glass was made twice as big as it needed to be.’
Here are a few more alternative answers to amuse you all:
• Eeyore says (to Winnie-the- Pooh), ‘Well, at least you have a glass…!
• The actor says, ‘It’s whatever the director wants it to be – or not to be…’
• The physicist says that the glass is not empty at all – it is half-filled with water and half-filled with air – hence, fully filled!
• The call-centre operator asks if you’d mind holding while he finds out for you (your glass is important to them…)
• The IT support person asks, ‘have you tried emptying the glass and then refilling it again?’
• The home schooling mum says, ‘well, the volume of a circular cone cut off by a plane parallel to its base can be whatever you want it to be, as long as it has wine in it.’
• Boris Johnson says, ‘Let me be very clear on this – our worldbeating glass is doing an amazing job in difficult circumstances, and if the great British public continues to avoid overly robust consumption, we hope it will remain in tier 2.’
And while this is going on, the pragmatist takes the glass and drinks it, because in business, actions speak louder than words, and opportunities are there to be grasped!
