"Sleep is a natural performance enhancing drug. Tragic how many people think they can get by on 7 hours or less." @DHH My two oldest sons were elite swimmers. As teenagers then university students, it may have seemed to outside observers that they were...
David Epstein's "Range" shows how a generalist can triumph in a world full of specialists. Succeed in any field by developing broad interests and skills. Summer is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, so many will be looking for books to read. So, I just found out...
So this past weekend a friend had asked me to join him for a charity ride in the countryside. "140km", he said, "it'll be no problem", he said, "not too many hills", he said. The longest ride I'd done in several years was less than 45km, but hey, I go to spin class...
Managing your energy is as important as managing your time and money. So, I sit here at 7pm on Thursday to write the daily blog for Friday at 8am, feeling quite tired after a really active day full of a variety of meetings. As I am about to write, I get an email reply...
How much is too much? Musings on Florence and the Machine "Too Much is Never Enough" as applies to businesses and wealth. So recently I met a highly successful businessperson in their late 40s. As they told their story as an entrepreneur, they had earned amazing...
Travel has the power to shift our context, causing us to look at things in different ways. A one hour flight, thirty-five minutes drive, a converted shipping container on a farm overlooking a view for miles and miles...
Establishing your business and personal identity can be a complicated process. Who are you? Simple question, but identity can have many elements. Imagine you lead a business where lack of collaboration and trust is a constant struggle. "Who are you?" is a great...
Remember to take time to recharge and rest during your busy life. Swans and cygnets in a London park this weekend The last two weeks have been pretty intense for me, both with lots of work and also with the death of someone close then their funeral. I thought this...
The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours. ~ Amos Tversky Michael Lewis, author of such books as Moneyball, Liar's Poker, The Big Short and more, wrote "The Undoing Project" about the...
Today reflecting and sharing from a client coaching call this week where a combination emerged of building on strengths to then stretch to new growth and learning iteratively. I hope this method is of value to some...
Collaborative Leadership: "the process of engaging collective intelligence to deliver results across organisational boundaries when ordinary mechanisms of control are absent" Oxford Leadership - Collaborative Leadership White Paper, 2011 The other day a dear friend of...
I recently learned a powerful lesson from someone close to me who has a disease that they are choosing how to address. They shared with me that they learned from their doctor that this was not something you "fight", as to approach it from a "fight" mindset means that...
Again and again, I work with leaders seeking to find the perfect way to address a challenge, take advantage of an opportunity. All too often leaders feel they have to choose one solution and discard another, what I would call an "Either, Or" choice. Now, more often...
What might you find hidden under your nose? Bioluminescence and learnings for leaders.
picture credit Sloww.co Today I am reminded of the difficulty of seeing ourselves how others see us and the power of critical thinking both for that and to truly see and understand others. These are universal challenges for each of us. For those who lead others, the...
Only one part of my current "pile of books" to read Do you have a "pile of books?" Mine never seems to get anywhere near "manageable", as I simply keep buying more and more to read. This pile is only the ones that are loosely to do with business and leadership, there...
To lead or to follow? I recently took a week out at a workshop in Baja, Mexico to focus on my own professional development. I've spent most of my career identifying leaders who would benefit from my support, solidifying that in the work I do now as a sounding board to...
What do you see in this picture? Two black men in hoodies, yes? What is the first impression that makes on you? Today I'm going to talk about biases around gender and race. Sure, everyone reading this will say, I'm aware of bias and I'm not biased. Well, sorry, but we...
A few days ago I wrote "Presence and asking the right questions" and used this same image of rock balancing. Today the post title is a riff on a phrase Chip Conley uses in his book Wisdom at Work in encouraging us to listen more and talk less: "Knowledge talks, Wisdom...
I love what I do and have found, over time and practice, that I have developed a level of mastery at being a sounding board, with the key to that having little to do with knowledge and experience around leadership and business, it is far more to do with the ability to...
My writing is around leadership and is often focussed on how business leaders can "be more". Perhaps some may find this post title a little "woo woo" for them, but hey, to model the title, those aren't the audience I'm seeking. The people I want to meet, to reach, to...
Just over a month ago I wrote first about Steph Curry and his actions to empower girls. Today I find myself sharing another example of leadership off the court from this athlete, and again from an article he wrote in The Players Tribune, a quite remarkable publication...
As a Leader, should you be patient or impatient? Patient or impatient - with the speed your people and your business are moving at? Patient or impatient - with yourself, your family, your friends? Patient or impatient - with the speed of life and work in general? It...
Risk. Understanding Risk is core to Leadership Today some simple thoughts around what Risk means to us individually rather than as leaders of organisations. Specifically, around what it feels like to be "at risk" and how that impacts our ability and willingness to...
First of all, welcome to 2019 as today is the 1st of January! Over the last two weeks or so I've mused on a process for first a) reflecting on the last year, then b) being present to where you are right now, then finally c) setting a focus for 2019. Now, you may well...
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...
Reflections. Where are you today? Learnings on how to reflect at year end, inspired by the great Alan Watts
"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet" Robert Nesta Marley So tonight I was walking through London from one meeting to another, and as I saw these arches, this particular quote from the inestimable and incomparable Bob Marley came to mind. A cold and crisp...
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...
"It's simple, but not easy" Yesterday I wrote "To be truly radical is to make hope possible", and closed that post by saying today I'd write a little about what it takes for radical change. I love radical change, transformative and brave. Incremental change is...
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)...
Not my circus, not my monkey. A mantra to avoid the Drama Triangle
This week I brought you wisdom for Leadership from the sagest of sage bears (apologies to Paddington, who comes a close second), Winnie the Pooh. Today, I bring you the legend that is Eric Cantona, who I also wrote about...
"Our world seems like a heap of fragments and it is hard to see how they cohere. Wisdom has been replaced by knowledge and knowledge has been replaced by information. Pieces of data. Chunks of data." Iain McGilchrist, author of "The Divided Mind", speaking in the...
Today let me put it to you that, in many years and thousands upon thousands of hours as a coach, the single most powerful tool for coaching is Context. Today I'll talk specifically about the power for an individual of setting a personal context and three focal areas...
So, to that beautiful quote, but first, to “repetition, repetition, repetition”. I work with leaders around the world and often around communicating and engaging their…