"we risk being deafened by the negativity all around us here in London" Part of a message I received from a friend in London as I am in Baja at Modern Elder Academy. Later that morning, as I sat on the terrace with the Pacific in the background, I had a call with...
An English language idiom is: "don't play with fire, you might get burned" Let's flip that today, inspired by this quote from Steven Kotler: "As children, we are taught not to play with fire, not how to play with fire." I saw this quote out of the blue the other day...
Interior of Sagrada Familia I love cathedrals and other major centres of worship, such as Sagrada Familia, Hagia Sophia, Durham Cathedral and many others. A key aspect of such buildings is that almost all of those who were part of their construction knew that they...
This weekend the annual Kilkenomics economics and comedy festival in the gorgeous tiny city of Kilkenny. I write this on a Sunday morning musing on diversity of thought and "how much is too much?". We learned that Andy Haldane (Chief Economist of the Bank of England)...
Quite the view, isn't it? I recently spent a week back in Cayman, where I had upwards of thirty meetings, talking with well over sixty people, including leading a four-hour session for a team of twenty-two. I worked out that in all that time I had less than two hours...
I had lunch recently with an investor who expressed frustration about founders of startups and scale-ups. They are not a fund partner, nor VC or from the Private Equity world. No, they actually built a business of value and lived it for the whole journey through to an...
Today I’m inspired by Eliud Kipchoge, who on September 17, 2018 utterly obliterated the marathon world record, so have come back to the theme of Smashing…
I love the power of language, and of well-chosen words. A little over a month ago, I wrote a post bringing together a number of the words and short phrases I've mused on over time on this site with links to those posts. That post is called "Beautiful words bring...
Thanks to Monique Valcour for sharing this, with the tagline: Recharge yourself with nature The thing is, here in the Northern Hemisphere, there is a real "back to school" energy which means that for those who were able to slow down over the summer and recharge...
CEOs are responsible for the performance (and, one would hope they recognise) and the wellbeing of all the people in their team. Often, though, they…
In yesterday's post, I wrote around the phrase: How you do anything is how you do everything The post asked of each of us the question: "what do your actions say about your Leadership?", considering that everything we do is indicative of who we are, our values mirror...
Petrichor - the smell after rain hits dry ground From the Greek, Petros, meaning stone, and Ichor, meaning “the fluid that flows from the veins of the gods” Today my mind goes to this beautiful word, and, inspired by the word, also to how I felt after the rain came...
Today I woke up to see this story of a 21 year old Swedish woman taking a stand against deportation of an Afghan from her country by standing up to prevent her flight from departing. Her name is Elin Errson, and she literally took a stand for what she believed to be...
I write often about presence, about flow, about stretching out of our comfort zone. I fully embrace that I am a romanticist, an idealist, I look for the best in people and situations, I see people deeply, their ability and opportunity to live their life to their full...
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” ~ Steve Jobs Yesterday I wrote about "Commitment, Boldness and Magic" from a log cabin under majestic...
"Between Stimulus and Response There Is a Space. In That Space Is Our Power To Choose Our Response" That quote is attributed to Viktor Frankl, author of "Man's Search for Meaning", the most personally impactful book I've ever read. Two recent meetings have had me...
Yes. You. Can. Sharing inspiration from a Para Swimming event.
This too shall pass. The fable of King Solomon, handed down as a timeless tool for resilience
Whit’s Fur Ye’ll No Go By Ye – a resilience tool from Scottish grannies. Please share your simple tools for resilience in support of others
On April 26th, I was at Gleneagles for a truly inspirational and world-class day at the Entrepreneurial Scotland annual conference, themed "Global Mindset, Scottish Heart”. The conference was opened by my friend, the truly inspirational Mark Beaumont, who just over a...
Leaders manage their energy so as to be at their best for others.
Leap and the net will appear. What are you waiting for ? Sharing a success story to show you don’t need to know what the…
#OpenLeadership starts with self-leadership. The Big Leap focusses on a powerful tool for leading self and others, the “Upper Limit Problem”. My experiences and top…
Another favourite book. One I read several times each year. Living the agreements is not the same as intellectually grasping them
Two of my favourites, Coelho capturing the wisdom of Frankl (then linking to the Stoics)
The stoic who changed the course of 20th century history.
This week’s post featuring the wonderful novel by Matt Haig and a powerful quote from Montaigne.
This week a twist, three powerful commencement speeches to share
Today a book recommendation and another Emotional Equation (see my first article on the idea of Emotional Equations, as coined by Chip Conley), "Grit" by Angela Duckworth. My Emotional Equation derived from this is : Grit = Passion x Perseverance I also just watched...
What if we bring a beginner’s mind to business leadership?
Please share the Emotional Equation that means the most to you. Inspired by @chipconley
"We have to be really ready to fail, the failure... to be part of the journey" "To me, going to the unknown is absolutely rule number one" “in order to create something new human beings need to go into the unknown” Marina Abramovic, interviewed in the documentary...
Give abundantly, and also set boundaries and be resilient. Find the balance