Today marks the launch of the new podcast series: "Elevating Leaders". As the page on the site notes in the intro: This short series of interviews aspires to inspire women leaders of today and tomorrow as you seek to elevate your own leadership.My name is Tom...
This weekend I met my new tiny wee nephew. There is nothing like when a wee baby smiles up at you, nothing at all. The purity of a tiny child is something to behold. It makes me think of love, and fear. Babies cry, sure, but for only three reasons. Cold, wet, hungry....
In 1955, Jonas Salk unveiled a vaccine for poliomyelitis, an infectious disease that can cause paralysis. He did not patent the vaccine, he gave it to the world. When asked by the renowned journalist Edward R. Murrow about the idea of patenting a vaccine, Salk...
"The quality of our decisions depends on the quality of the conversations we have"Bruce Lloyd, in our recent WhatComesNextLive conversation As I note on the page for our conversation (linked above): "Dr. Bruce Lloyd is Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management at...
Highlighting the importance of setting up a Digital Will and a few tips on how to do this. I've lost my contacts!" The iPhone became widely used about ten years ago, a few years after Facebook. For several years after that, I can think of one particular friend who...
I used to read voraciously, devouring at least a book a week. However, in recent years, particularly since I started posting every day nearly four years ago, I get into the rhythm of reading books far less often. In this, I have had a tendency to judge myself for not...
There is no growth without stretching, so if we play it safe all the time, we remain the same, we don't grow. The same applies to our impact on others. Do we want to always play it safe, to have comfortable conversations? Or, on occasion at least, do we want to move...
The key to storytelling to not only make a point but make a difference is all in telling the right story in the right way to make the right point to be truly in service of the person with whom you are sharing it. As I have written around multiple times (and yes, by...
Do you prefer all your M&Ms the same colour? or love the variety? Do you prefer repetition or variety? Yesterday I took the same Sunday ride route, tracking my heart rate and performance against the previous week to assess how my performance had changed. Of...
This weekend I've spent literally hours preparing for an upcoming trip to Cayman. Yes, the amount of paperwork and tests now needed to travel in the age of Covid has added to this, but it occurred to me this morning that I've forgotten how to travel. A few short years...
Yesterday I was on a group call around the theme of "the Power of Pausing". As I listened to the esteemed panellists, I recognised that their themes were all around pausing as individuals. It occurred to me that we can also choose to pause, together. I then thought of...
"What do you have a burning desire to change in the world?" This was a question posed last week in a workshop I participated in. What came to me was: If you want to change the world, start with yourself.Gandhi Whatever we seek to change external to ourselves is and...
The four core attributes for #OpenLeadership The graphic illustrates the four core attributes or values of a leader who wishes to choose #OpenLeadership. Now let us look at how these create a healthy tension by taking them into two sets of two BRAVE and HUNGRY...
In working with leaders, I often refer to the "Three Tenets of Leadership" of: Set and Hold the ContextManage the EnergyCoach, Don't Play For more on what I mean by these three tenets, read the earlier post: "Managing Energy – learning from comedians" So much of...
Today's (Tuesday 10th August) post has been written while part of Writer's Hour from 8 to 9am on Monday 9th. After this hour I then moved on to an hour of "Silent Co-Working", in which I listened back to some of the interviews done last week of four amazing women...
Coffee and bacon rolls at Nat's Kitchen by Banstead Woods. Glorious! I have written repeatedly around what I call "Proactive Resilience", otherwise known as "Drink before you are Thirsty" or "You can't pour from an empty cup". Variations on this theme are also my...
I took this photo two days ago, when a friend came out from London to "fill their cup" (see this recent post "are you tired or are you depleted?") by taking a walk in the country. Over the summer, this area has had much cooler and wetter conditions than normal, which...
Self-awareness and self-responsibility are at the core of self-leadership, which is at the very foundation of being a leader, as how we show up makes all the difference. Today then, a story linked to this. This week I attended an evening workshop (zoom, naturally)...
"You can't drink from an empty cup" This adage around self-care seems simple enough, but in these continuing ambiguous and volatile times we live in, today I'd like to ask you to consider whether you are tired, depleted, or perhaps both, and to be able to distinguish...
Definition of HONEhone/həʊn verb: hone; 3rd person present: hones; past tense: honed; past participle: honed; gerund or present participle: honingsharpen (a blade)."he was carefully honing the bladerefine or perfect (something)...
What are the perceived benefits of the NHS? UK residents benefit from access to the NHS (National Health Service), through which all received universal health care "for free". In short, people don't pay for medical care (although clearly it is funded by taxation)....
Grand Cayman (c) Courtney Platt February 27th 2020. My third visit in three months to Cayman, but that was the last day I was in Cayman. As I flew back to London I could already sense that the pandemic would be upon us and that would be my last time visiting...
Last Saturday I had a "cloudy day". I learned this term later on in the weekend by reading a series of tweets from Carl Richards that I'm sharing today as I feel they are perfect in expressing how I too felt. From the start of the day on Saturday, I felt really down....
What time do you see on that clock? Take your time, then say it out loud. What time did you say? If you are from the USA, Cayman (and the English-speaking Caribbean), more often than not you will have said "3 pm". However, anyone from non-US-centric countries, will be...
Katie Ledecky after her incredible anchor leg swim in the 200Free Relay in Tokyo To me, Katie Ledecky is simply the #GOAT, the greatest swimmer of all time. I've written on this blog several times in the past about Katie to seek to understand a little about her and...
Moisture Festival 2010, photo by Michelle Bates One of the positives for me of the way we are now meeting and connecting is that a vibrant group has come together under the banner of "Caymanians Overseas", which (for Caymanians Overseas OR in Cayman, meets weekly on...
This week's WhatComesNextLive conversation was with Alasdair McGill. As he spoke about building his business, he talked about how, at a certain growth stage, they made a conscious choice to pause their growth. During this pause period, they took time to relax,...
Arches are beautiful and date back millennia in architecture. However, structurally they depend on a Keystone in the centre at the top for them to fulfil their function in creating a door or entryway. We need to build a foundation in any structure, then to lift up the...
Verse 56 of the Tao te Ching translates to: Those who know it do not speak about it. Those who speak about it do not know it. Anna Kiesenhofer winning the 2021 Olympic Road Race My Twitter profile reads: Sounding Board, Dad, FINA Referee (not in that order). Measure...
When all of your actions are, in some way, on the "front page", negative impressions are bound to happen unless you choose to live an innocuous life. Another gem from sketchplanations This gem of an image from Sketchplanations really resonates with me, as I've been...
Last week, the Milwaukee Bucks won their first NBA title in 50 years, led by the stunning talent of 26-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo. Now, watch this post-match interview for the full impact of such wisdom in one so young, which I capture in these anchors he shared:...
How could you flex your day to work with nature? I started my day yesterday with an early morning bike ride Two days ago, as it has been for nearly a week, the temperature where I live crept up to nearly 30c (88f), with not a breath of wind and very high humidity. Ok,...
Operating Principles of the Santa Fé Institute - written by Comac McCarthy In a step by step methodology to build valuation in a company, I use an established model to raise the benchmark multiple for companies that is a seven-step process. This works best, fastest,...
In November 2019, I attended an event outside London called BaseCamp. At this event, attended by around 100 people from a number of countries, we each selected a group to work within where we would focus on a particular global issue. I chose to be part of the group...
What I thought would make me productive: hard work. What actually does: exercise, healthy eating, sleep, time off and hard work. Yesterday I wrote: "Working with (your) nature", talking about adapting to nature and the seasons, as well as being aware of and working...
In addition to working with nature, I also recommend we each individually look at working with our own nature. This weekend in London it is HOT, likely around 30c peak temperatures. Hey, I love it, and it is important to work with it in this country with little or no...