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...
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)....
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...
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:...
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...
Whilst I froze my Facebook account in 2016, I do still visit occasionally to keep up to date with the goings-on of friends and family, particularly back in Cayman, where it still seems widely used. The other day it popped up a "memory" for me of a post from a client...
Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: the potential for greatness lives within each of us. - Wilma Rudolph One of my frequently used phrases is: A leader is someone others choose to follow...
Valuation model (c) ShirlawsGroup I've been working with a client for about a year now on building their business ready for "What's Next", ie for succession. As part of that, key to the process is developing a Valuation strategy to lift both their profits and their...
Today a reminder to myself as a coach. No matter how much expertise and experience I have, the highest value I can give is to suspend ego and listen deeply to understand another person. From that place the deeper shifts and insights are possible for them.
A few weeks ago I had one of those Forrest Gump moments. I stopped, paused, then thought to myself, instead of stopping: “yes, I’ll keep…
I write to share what I learn, and at the same time, I have another reason, as I noted in: “Write to discover your thoughts”.
I am not for sale, neither is the respect and attention of my audience. I wanted the thousands of regular readers to know that.
Leaders have a responsibility to be understanding and lenient with those who work for and with you, and to behave well despite the temptations of…
In these pandemic days that we live in, sometimes I feel a surrealness to life, particularly when I am at home for a day or two then venture out and then remember these extraordinary times we live in as I walk into a store and don my face covering. These are, indeed,...
The "Insights" page that hosts all my daily posts begins: People are my library, my daily writing practice inspired by what I learn: ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and sometimes some eclectic whimsy for good measure, all centred around #OpenLeadership I write to learn...
My thoughts around Leadership often circle around and around some core themes and look at them differently (or even simply repetitively) as I turn my focus to one or another. At the moment one such theme is around how we may be fully present and listen actively and...
We are all informed by our influences, so our originality is increasingly in our connected world about our "unique prism" on how we view those influences. As you can see from my website tommccallum.com, I work with clients who are already successful yet hungry and...
Let me begin by sharing with you how I am feeling these days. I'm frustrated. "Ok, you may say, about what?"I'm frustrated at not being able to travel. "yes, we all are, I can identify".I'm frustrated at not being able to travel as I am nearly 5,000 miles from home....
Seven Leadership Archetypes (graphic representation (cc by) Tom McCallum) Chip Conley and I have both have in common that we have shifted our roles from being entrepreneurs and CEOs to supporting CEOs as leaders. I love the way Chip thinks, so today sharing a recent...
Friendship Pyramid I loved a recent tweet from Taariq Ismail, which I've cut and paste here. He begins: In Arabic, there are 12 levels of friendship. Most of our 'friends' are level 5 or below, and many of us don't have a single level 12 friend Here are the levels:...
From an earlier post: 6 Components of Wisdom Love this from Chip Conley (past guest on WhatComeNextLive here) on his Wisdom Well blog ..let me introduce you to the Miami Heat who recently got knocked out of the NBA playoffs. At 40 years old, Udonis Haslem makes $2.5...
From the movie "Catch me if you can", story of world class "con man" Frank Abagnale, who then became a world-renowned expert on forgery. I am sure he ticked all five boxes in these questions! Loved a post on LI this week from Justin Megawarne who posed the question:...
Coaches listen, am sure you know that is part of the role, but how clear are you (are all of us!) on what it really…
Nearly three years ago, in "Learning from The Beatles – “Mixing” your Leadership", I wrote: In supporting leaders over many years, I love to distil to simplicity, to allow them to focus on their priorities, their message, their context. As Da Vinci said: “Simplicity...