Last week I excitedly phoned and cancelled my other commitments because I had been the lucky recipient of a ticket to the 9th Annual Caribbean Hall of Fame Awards for Excellence. I had seen the ads before but was not planning to go, but with ticket in hand I raced home from work to get all dolled up.

Arriving at the Pegasus I was a little confused when told the event was on the 17th floor - seemed like a smallish venue for what should be a huge event. After all they were presenting awards to 25 persons who had made great contributions in the fields of arts, culture, music and sports.

We were greeted at the entrance to the room by an unassuming red carpet. Due to some miscommunication I had arrived a little early for cocktails but even so someone actually had to send to ask whether people could start serving themselves as it neared seven. The 7 p.m. function finally began at 7:35 p.m. with a fanfare from the Jamaica Constabulary Force Band who had been playing a variety of songs during the cocktail period.

The entertainment pieces sprinkled throughout the programme were well received. The drummers heralded what was sure to be an evening filled with pride in culture. The young children who sang included a JCDC Gospel competition winner - their performances were lauded as a sign of good things to come for the Caribbean.

The biggest disappointment of the evening had to be the printed programme. It was riddled with errors of all kinds - grammatical, spelling, structural, formatting. From a confused order of items to the omission of the names of this year’s awardees, the programme did not present a positive image of the committee behind these awards.

The guest speaker for the night was Kwame Boafo, Director of UNESCO, who spent quite a while (as promised) talking about similarities between Ghana and the Caribbean among other things. The list of 17 awardees (somewhat short of the promised 25) included names such as Judy Mowatt, Asafa Powell, and Ernie Smith.

The night closed with a mini-concert from Carol Gonzales, Richie Stephens, and AJ Brown, all of whom performed tremendously. Particular note must be made of AJ Brown who sang ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ in its original language and with all its classical intonations. Rumour has it that he has been doing voice training among other things during his hiatus from the local scene.

The concept of a Caribbean Hall of Fame is admirable but is still under-developed, especially in terms of non-Jamaican representation in the list of awardees. Hopefully a regular schedule can be developed for these awards (the 8th annual was some years ago) and ways of getting the support from the Caribbean cultural community can be identified. The importance of recognizing our ’stars’ cannot be denied.

Success leaves clues.

Everyone wonders at some point how they can be successful. The truth is that people can be successful doing just about anything. Look at the world around you and you will see people who have become successful doing all sorts of strange things. So how can you do it?

Maybe the secret is to do whatever it is they are doing. They made billions setting up an online shop a la Amazon, so you set one up. They dominate the world because of a software program, so you need to write one too. Hmm, if it were that simple, we would probably have a lot more successful people in the world.

So what is the difference between those that make it and those that don’t? The difference lies in the how, not the what. Take a look at someone you think is successful, a real deep look into how they got where they are and you will find some tips on how to do it yourself. Don’t focus so much on what they achieved, but look at how they achieved it. How did they identify what business to go into, how did they decide what products or services to offer, how did they enter that market, how did they grow their business? These are questions that can provide real insight into success.

We live in a society that thrives on copying the wrong things. And unfortunately, the copying can lead to short-term success but for real ideas we need to look a little deeper and emulate rather than copy.

The news over the last week has been filled with stories of policemen being killed. The latest one was apparently shot in his (marked police) car, and his body dragged out and left in the gutter. The Superintendent who was commenting seemed extremely disturbed by this blatant lack of respect for law and order. He actually started to say that the officer was left in the street like an ordinary… I suppose the next word might have been citizen but he thought better of it.

While I can understand the distress of the police force, they need to acknowledge the part they have played in the disintegration of respect for them. While I have no doubt that there are decent honest police in the force, the overwhelming perception of the public is of a generally corrupt system. And sadly enough, a lot of the seeming corruption stems from mere laziness on the part of the force members.

Laziness? Yeah, that’s what I call it when police ignore stuff they see going on but know is wrong because they can’t bother. It starts with the little things that police know there are laws against, like littering, continues up the spectrum with the road code violations and then unfortunately spreads into the more extreme crimes.

I think the police need to accept that change needs to happen from within their ranks because it is difficult to expect citizens to respect the law and the law-keepers when those same enforcers show little respect for the laws.

Tigers rule the world, not hens.

Ok, gotta say this one sounds a little strange. What is it with people and animals? Finance had bulls and bears (was asked about that recently), we talk about cats and dogs (raining like or fighting like), etc. This time it’s tigers and hens. Hmm, if nothing else this was a new one to me.

The little blurb that accompanied this rule enlightened somewhat. The reasoning behind this is that hens scratch around looking for rice in the ground whereas tigers identify their prey, then plan, research and commit to the hunt, seizing the perfect opportunity to strike. Hmm, not being super-familiar with the hunting habits of tigers, I can’t swear for this one but I can appreciate the intended lesson.

So many people are basically chicken-like in their behaviour. They know what they want but sit contentedly and timidly sifting though the dirt and grime to find the tiny morsels that someone has tossed out for them. The tigers among us, know that what they want will require them to go after it. They know it is not sitting waiting for them to find it, and in fact will actively try to stay out of their reach if they don’t move quickly enough. They identify ways to get what they want and then strike at the right time.

So which are you? A tiger or a hen?

Commit yourself to looking at new ideas once, with your full attention, and you will become a master decision-maker.

This is a staple of many time-management and organizational systems. People have a tendency to leave things where they will see them in order to deal with them later. Some classic examples include email inboxes, voicemail boxes (though beware of automatic deletion), desk surfaces.

These same people constantly worry about the number of things in their space but every time they get a new piece of information/email/letter etc. they look at it, read through it, and then leave it for later, even if it is something they don’t want.

The “touch once” principle says that as soon as you receive something you make a decision on what to do with it. If it can be used immediately, then do it. If it is junk to be tossed, then trash it at once. If it needs someone else’s attention then send it to them. This way your attention can focus on the things that need it.

Though some things may require more than one look, for example if you have limited time now, then you need to make sure that you have made a conscious decision to look at it again later. Think of the time you could save if you didn’t re-read all that junk email.

Work in a way that shows results at the end of the day, for then you can be sure you are making progress.

You should always ensure that you can look back and identify what you have accomplished. Imagine the difference between being able to say “I did X, Y and Z” and “I kinda worked on A”. The first becomes quantifiable instead of remaining vague and subjective.

This is more or less the principle behind tools like to-do lists. In theory, when you then have a list of items you have ‘crossed out’, you can definitively say what you have done. Of course, in a vacuum it becomes an onerous list of things to be done. Some context is needed so that you are working towards something other than just knocking things off the list.

But there is a some good sense in breaking things down into manageable pieces. Instead of trying to chip away a huge boulder of a project you can then work step by step on the smaller pieces. Try doing that with your life goals and see the progress pile up.