A morning in the life of an ex-fintech pioneer or something

Today I woke up to the sound of the gibbons across the river, their whooping calls are my default jungle alarm clock and more reliable than the iPhone recently. I take in the morning swirl of mist and a thousand shades of green that pours off the rainforest mountain. I feel better today, less stiff and tired. Yesterday I spent 6 hours flying from my homebase, Perth, and 3 hours in a car to arrive at the very edge of the 8000 sq/km Gunung Leuser national park, I was shattered, must be getting old! But its good to be home at Hotel Orangutan, one of my favorite places in the world.

NOTE: Insert some guff about older leaders performing better than younger ones, just make up a graph and say its from McKinsey

The monkeys arrived in force, at least 10 adults and babies turn up for their usual inspection of the balcony, I decided to wait before I walk down the hill to the restaurant for breakfast. I am on good terms with the head of the troop, the monkey king, or Cedrick, as I like to call him (you can see him in action below). When he isn’t around though, the older females try to bully me so I do have to show some caution.

NOTE: Ask ChatGPT to generate some nonsense about dealing with workplace conflict

My usual breakfast of three eggs and fruit was accompanied by a conversation with our guests, a friendly German mother and her 7-year-old boy. They were so pleased to see the Orangutans yesterday in the jungle and were off to see the elephants for two days before heading to Bali. The boy and I agreed to disagree over what the best car was, German or British but felt I had the stronger argument.

NOTE: Copy and paste someone else’s work on dealing with generation Alpha

We have guests coming later, so I checked the rooms, a must do job when I visit one of my hotels. I was pretty impressed, only found a leaky tap, a requirement for a few more lightbulbs and a broken, metal mosquito net that keeps the monkeys out from the bathroom. This is a priority as the monkeys return roughly at 3pm and can really mess up a room!

NOTE: Can I weave an AI message into this?

Then we ran out of water, the 200 meters of pipe that snakes up the mountain to the local waterfall had become dislodged, compounded with the leaky tap means our forthcoming guests can’t have a shower, hopefully they are back packers and wouldn’t want one anyway. Off goes the “intern”, Anto, a new hire village boy, recruited to do the more physically involved tasks ?? Seems a good kid and hope he stays around, will have to organise some English lessons for him if he does.

NOTE: Regurgitate some tripe about working within constraints and limited resources

Finally, I have some time to catch-up on emails and finish off an innovation assignment for Westpac’s growth labs. They are one of my favourite clients - a joy to work with combined with a high level of ambition, the perfect customer for me! Heavens knows why they need a grumpy old CIO to help them out but am not complaining. I respect a lot of Claire Calmejane work and her innovation catalogue she delivered at Lloyds has sparked me into designing a service catalogue model, to help the key stakeholders understand what innovation services can be utilised based on the problem to solve. This helps standardise innovation across the bank but also bring tech and business closer together.

NOTE: Must show that I am important because I have an actual real client

Just now I had a bright idea, why don’t I write a post, but not one of those wanky ones where I take a photo of a daily event and try and force fit that into a trite leadership lesson, more of a fly on the wall of a normal morning in the life of an ex-fintech pioneer or something.

NOTE: How the f**k do I explain what I do for a living

And now it’s time for lunch, let me know if you found this helpful and want more, or even less ??