Today a story about self-awareness, the value of slowing down, and walking the dog.
Self-Knowledge
Lukewarm is no good
This week was "Roald Dahl day", celebrating and honouring his unique genius. This quote circulated and moved me. On the #BeMoreYou page on this site, I give an expression of what I offer to clients, to #BeMoreYou, and express that as: Be Hungry Be Humble Be Brave Be...
When will you next recharge…yourself?
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...
How would you cross the muddy pond?
A story today around one of my favourite leadership phrases: A leader is someone other choose to follow The picture above is of quite the unattractive muddy pond, huh? Now imagine you are a squad of young soldiers on army training. It is cold, wet, you've been out in...
Ichi-Go Ichi-E : No ordinary moments
Quite a view, isn't it? In my life, I've travelled to around 70 countries, but still, my favourite city is Edinburgh. This week I was up there from London for an overnight business visit with a friend and collaborator and stayed the night before the meeting with him...
Be the CEO of your own Time and Energy
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…
What if you could never fire anyone?
Now, what if you could never fire anybody in your organisation, every, under any circumstances? What would you do differently? This is more than a thought experiment, I am seriously asking you to consider this question. More and more organisations are fully or at...
What do your actions say about your Leadership?
Fergus Conolly is the author of "Game Changer" and someone I follow closely around his learnings on elite performance across multiple sports. He recently shared an article from The Observer about Marcelo Bielsa, a legendary coach now leading the once great Leeds...
What is your original idea today?
In my role as an experienced coach supporting leaders to reach their peak, I'm highly focussed on limiting beliefs, choice of words, and also where language is phrased negatively rather than positively. It is a little absurd then, that I have often used a certain...
Beautiful words bring dimensions of meaning
At the heart of my writing is a passion to elevate Leadership, and so much of that comes from understanding of self and others. Words of such richness of meaning can also facilitate awareness and understanding of other areas, fields, dimensions. I frequently say “a...
Ignore the noise of Metrics – tune in to what truly matters
Seth Godin writes daily and has over 1,000,000 followers on his email list. I write daily and have around 1,000 email followers. Metrics. For many years a part of my work was engaged with digital marketing. So much of that was about building traffic to websites,...
Petrichor – How our environment can impact us
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...
Patience – “Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye”
Some Scots for you in the title today. “Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye” Translation: What's for you will not go by you. My Scots grandmother or, in more recent times, a dear friend (also Scots, naturally!) would use this to remind me to have patience, to relax, to be...
Open Leadership – Being Human
This is a repost and update of one of my earliest posts on this site, "Presence…and Vulnerability". Why a repost? My current musing is on Romance, Beauty and business. Yesterday's post, inspired by the "Business Romantic", Tim Leberecht, had me think about being human...
Leadership – Being alone with our thoughts
Musing on silence. Do find time to rest and recharge and find silence at this time of year
Leadership – Take action, even put yourself at risk
Bravery in leadership can often mean acting rather than waiting for others. It also has matters of degree in whether or not leadership puts yourself at risk. Two quotes I have always looked to are : “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do...
Writing I Love – Self-Awareness and Rumi
Up until about a month ago, once a week I posted "Writing I Love", then chose to stop setting a regular schedule for it and simply to allow #Flow, with that last post being one I wrote the day Anthony Bourdain died. More recently I wrote "Leadership – The impact of...
Leadership – on Patience
A dear friend recently counselled me: "Patience, my friend, is when nothing happens and you are ok with it." I loved this. That friend also noted to me that in so many areas of life (including in my roles with clients as a sounding board, coach etc) I am patience...
Why procrastinate today? Put it off until tomorrow!
Today I was in a great conversation about procrastination. I've written before on this topic several times, so feel free to click the link for several minutes of excellent procrastination time! Today a simple thought to ponder. If you are actually really feeling busy...
People are my Index Cards
Socrates distilled wisdom encourages us to "Know Thyself", and I am on a constant journey of self-knowledge. I know I don't have all the answers at any stage in life, I'm constantly curious and like to think I have a "beginner's mind" and, in most areas, a Growth...
Commitment, Boldness and Magic
I write this at 7am in a log cabin under two majestic tall pines in the redwood forests of northern California. I came here from London this weekend to attend the wedding of one of our Modern Elder Academy cohort that came together and bonded tightly during our week...
Move your “NO” to “HELL YEAH!”
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Will Durant An absorbing, energising and inspiring conversation recently has me musing on the process and the act of writing and what it can bring to us. In that conversation, I was nudged...
Choice and the Power of the Pause
"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...
Are you a Serendipity or a Zemblanity person?
“Zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries by design.” ~ William Safire, The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time One could call this an Unpleasant Non-Surprise. Thanks to my friend Bruce...
We are the sum total of our experiences
We are the sum total of our experiences. Yesterday's post talked about the power of belief, starting with self-belief. A core to #OpenLeadership is, then, self-knowledge, and recent conversations remind me of this quote : "We are the sum total of our experiences....
Writing I Love – Enjoy the Present
Presence, Seneca, Emotional Equations, The Happiness Equation.
Do you have a Growth Mindset?
Regular readers know that each Saturday I write a "Writing I Love" article, and last week I wrote about Mindset by Carol Dweck. I'd also reference the language and ask you to take a look at it and consider in the context of yesterday's post: "Language shapes the way...
Writing I Love – Mindset by Carol Dweck
Having and stimulating your Growth mindset is key for leaders, and so investing time to read widely as well as deeply is one way to give focus to this. With that in mind, each Saturday I post "Writing I Love". Sometimes a business book, sometimes a leadership quote,...
Ikigai and Bacon Rolls
In the middle of October last year I went for my last bike ride of the season around Richmond Park and after that, I was inspired to write about Ikigai and Bacon rolls. I'm going to simply repeat the core of that post below. Please scroll down and read that first,...
Writing I Love – If – Rudyard Kipling
Having and stimulating your Growth mindset is key for leaders, and so investing time to read widely as well as deeply is one way to give focus to this. With that in mind, each Saturday I post "Writing I Love". Sometimes a business book, sometimes a leadership quote,...
Curiosity, a key to Leadership
Yesterday I wrote "Are you an Old or New Paradigm Leader?", encouraging you to look at whether you are aware of the goldfish bowl you are swimming in, and to look at new ways of leading. However, I also reflected on how difficult it is to see ourselves (and yes, trust...
Are you an Old or New Paradigm Leader?
Leadership is the overarching theme of my writing on this site. As part of this, I write every Friday an article on "Smashing Paradigms", looking to challenge my own thinking and to be of support to you in the same way. First, for clarity on the word Paradigm,...
Writing I Love – Malcolm Gladwell – Outliers
Malcolm Gladwell – Outliers – what is an Outlier and what did he mean by the 10,000 hour rule ?
Michael Jordan: I failed, that is why I succeed
I love this quote from Michael Jordan, as it speaks to "Deliberate Practice", a topic I wrote about yesterday, focusing on golf and Ben Hogan, as well as looking to prompt readers to consider where they are deliberate in what they do, whether it be in their personal...
What is your 80 days?
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...
Writing I Love – Eclectic Lines
Having and stimulating your Growth mindset is key for leaders, and so investing time to read widely as well as deeply is one way to give focus to this. With that in mind, each Tuesday I post "Writing I Love". Sometimes a business book, sometimes a leadership quote,...