Insights
People are my library, my writing inspired by what I learn: ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and sometimes some eclectic whimsy for good measure, all centred around #OpenLeadership. At the heart of all of this is that I write to share learnings and to discover my thoughts. Over the years i have written (mostly) daily, over 2000 posts and 1,000,000 words (that last part blows my mind, tbh!). Enjoy browsing.
Make it crazy to choose anything else
Yes, two days of Rory Sutherland tips in a row. At Kilkenomics, Rory did both apologise in advance for saying he’d tell one or two stories that many would have heard him tell before, but also joked that not telling some of them would be like The Eagles not playing...
Make it crazy to choose anything else
What would we need to do to make it crazy to choose any alternative to going by train?
What happens to a dream deferred?
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then...
Balancing Tradition and Innovation
This week I had the privilege to be given a tour of the production facility of a third-generation family business by one of the current generation. One of many resonant moments was when they proudly showed me a piece of equipment their grandparent had installed so...
Recovery is part of training
I recall when my two oldest sons were competing at swimming at a high level. They trained over well over 20 hours a week, then had university studies to do. Aside from that they mostly ate and slept. I learned from them that this was not aimless, it was planned out....
Thinking is really silent talking
“To look at life without words is not to lose the ability to form words- to think, remember, and plan. To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, it is only through silence that one can discover something new to talk about. One who talked incessantly,...
If Covid never goes away, what does that mean?
The #OpenLeadership Model On September 10th, in "Listening for Context", I talked about how I had observed in many meetings in my time in Cayman what was NOT being said. Specifically that nobody was ready to talk about what it would mean to re-open the borders. I...
What does this visual make you feel?
Chart of the Week from Section 4 This week Roland Harwood asked this question on LinkedIn: What (or who) have you changed your mind about recently?I heard this question the other day which got me thinking and I found it very hard to come up with an answer, which I...
Writing as a way to access one’s own mind
Joan Didion My profession is as a Sounding Board, to support them on their journey from Good to Great to Elite. A key part of my role is in a coaching space, to help them sound out their thoughts and gain clarity on what their message is and what they need to focus...
Connection is the feeling of landing in the present tense
Kae Tempest Around three years ago on this blog, I wrote: "the longest writing. can be one line", itself a line from poet Nayyirah Waheed, and containing multiple powerful single-line texts. This week Roland Harwood of WeAreLiminal shared this with me: Connection is...
Can you get your message down to one or two words?
Smart people seem to love complexity, often feeling that the more complex they make things, the more they can find an answer that others can't. The image above is from a scene in The Big Short, set in 2005, where one of the lead characters realise just how much a time...
Be Abundant
While I was away in Cayman, I had a painter come to my house in London and do a pretty significant job both patching up a poor job done by the last painter and also prepare and paint a few areas that hadn't yet been done. We had agreed on a price and also he said that...
Generalist vs Specialist
By my mid to late 30s I used to say "I'm a Specialist Generalist", as my role was to grow the assets of a family-owned business holding company and we invested in widely diverse business sectors, countries, sizes of businesses. The common theme was our focus on...
Write something, post, repeat
Today I fly out of Cayman after a wonderful 17 days. A lot of my regular readers live here and I've had a number of people marvel at how I write daily and ask me my secrets. Well, in over 600,000 words and well over 1,400 daily posts, I've actually written about this...