Personal ethos

Hawk eye'd readers will note that this site was published for some time with no text published under this page. The reason is described below in an excerpt from a page on my business blog.

Ethos – A Defining Moment

From Dave Nicol's Business Blog
Posted 19th March 2009

A few sharp eyed readers have now spotted and, quite rightly, commented upon my rather bare looking personal ethos page.

"Is it that I have no ethos?", "Am I devoid of morals and substance?" they ask. I can think of some that might (quite wrongly) agree!

Well the reason (dear reader) I've not yet published the page is not for lack of effort. In fact I've written and rewritten this page more times than I expected. The problem is that ethos is such a nebulous, ethereal thing to try and define. And it's also something I think changes a little each day as well. It evolves slowly but significantly as my experiences and horizons expand.

I have fleeting moments of clarity and think "yep, I've got it" and start writing, but just like waking up from a dream, the clarity fades as I write. ‘It’ seems to shroud itself in the mists of my mind.

I know the words I would use but I’m struck by paralysing dyslexia and they don’t seem to fit. My definition doesn’t do it justice, so I stop.

This morning however a break through, walking to the tube station a thought struck me. Perhaps the reason I’m struggling with the concept is that ethos is something better defined by actions than words. In fact even considering writing a page about it may have been a dumb decision in the first place. After all, my ethos defines me - not the other way round.

If ethos is about actions then I'm more than a little tempted to leave the page unfinished; a testament to the near, yet far nature of ethos. Instead I’ll let my actions speak for themselves.

And that, in a nutshell, is it. It's not what you do that always matters the most but how you do it. I could at this point choose to trot out all manner of over used expressions "self motivated", "utmost integrity", but frankly I'm tired of reading such cliches and I bet you are too.

Instead, I'll simply let my actions do the talking. But if you need a reference for my work I'm happy to oblige. Or you can check out my Linked In Profile for more information here.

Best regards,

Dave Nicol