My fabulous and usually tolerant wife Mary has declared ‘no more hats’.  She is referring to my proclivity to wearing, and therefore acquiring, hats. I just love hats.  I believe it is time men reclaimed the hat as a personal statement of masculine fashion.  I am talking about proper hats – trilbies, fedoras, snappy brims, wide brims, stingy brim jazz hats, even pork pie and cloth caps.  Pretty much anything except baseball type hats.

Anyway, Mary has suggested (wife speak for ‘this is really important, pay attention and no one will be harmed’) I purchase no further hats until I have another hat rack to accommodate them.  Yes, another hat rack.  I have filled the first one.  Fair enough, I thought, these hats deserve their own position and care. So no more hats unless I retire one. 

We blokes wear a lot of hats.  Not necessarily the actual hats of which I speak, but the many ‘hats’ associated with our many roles.  Husband, son, uncle, father, sports coach, employee, boss and so on.  The idea of ‘putting on a hat’ in regards of assuming a particular role to play.  The way you conduct yourself changes according to the hat you are wearing at the time.  Your Dad hat makes you a different bloke to your Sports Coach hat, or your boss hat.  Same person, different role to play.

I wonder if Mary was hinting in a cunning subliminal female way that I had too many of these other hats.  Too many roles in my life that may be diluting my effectiveness in all of them.  I have my Dad and wife hats of course, but also my professional speaking hat, my author hat, my chamber of commerce board member hat, my business coaching hat and quite a few others.  Perhaps she was suggesting (see above) that I should not take on any further roles, tasks, jobs or projects until I have cleared some space on my ‘hat rack’. 

It is very easy to add stuff to your life, to find corners of time and enthusiasm to tackle a new project or activity.  Obviously the time must come from somewhere else and your current hat collection may suffer.  Pretty good advice, really. 

So when a new opportunity to get busy, to take on a new project or activity appears or is thrust upon you – before putting on the new hat take a good hard look at the hats you already have on the rack decide if there is space on the rack.  If not, retire one hat before you put on the new one.  Then all your hats will get a chance to be worn with style and success.