Following on from yesterday's article: "Beautiful Leadership - Shining Eyes", after writing that article I found myself listening to some movie soundtrack pieces and then the end title from Cloud Atlas came on. Today I'll take the final thought from the TED talk by...
You can see from the front pages of this site that I look to work with visionary leaders to see beyond their vision, to "work with them to bring out their unique gifts." Benjamin Zander is a legendary classical music conductor, he sees his role as "to awaken...
Is being a parent Profitable? No. Is being a parent Difficult? Sometimes, sure. Is being a parent Important? Absolutely. To me, it is the most important and valuable work I've ever or will ever do. As I write this post the last of my three sons has headed out of...
What can Don Quixote teach us about leadership? Reflecting that you don’t climb Everest in one go. You have staging camps to acclimatise, assess the conditions before moving on. Same in business. — Sacha Romanovitch (@romanovsun) September 13, 2018 Today I saw this...
This week I went to the cinema in the UK with my oldest son. During the previews, there was one for the new movie "Bohemian Rhapsody", a biopic about the amazing Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen. As a teenager I saw Queen live twice, then along with basically the...
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...
image credit itsquiz Recently I was on a coaching call with a client in a senior leadership role. On our last call, they told me of two questions they ask whenever they check in with one of their team. Simple, yet brilliant in that simplicity and how they support the...
{I love the generational symbolism of this image. Thanks Chip !} Today, for the third day in a row, I find myself sharing guest posts. Coming off the summer, the "back to school" energy sees collaborative energy flowing all around me, is it the same for you? I have a...
Image credit : Lewis Howes - Leadership Compass Today a guest post from my friend Jeff Raker of Level Up Leadership. Jeff is a wonderful guy and a top swimming official in the USA. We met a number of years ago through world of international swim officials. When not...
**Guest posts welcome at any time, I love to collaborate and to share learnings!** Today a guest post from friend and past colleague, Alan Wick. Alan is a great coach, passionate about empowering entrepreneurs. He listens and talks softly, and at the same time...
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...
The view from the Eurostar area at Gare du Nord, and beyond those trains is the Thalys fast train and about 15 more platforms and then 8 mentor lines underground. Loved most of my life in the Americas, European rail infrastructure so different. Impressive....
Ed Percival. Yoda, Obi-Wan, #BeMoreYou, Shaman, Discordian Pope. Last week Chip Conley posed a question to our Modern Elder group of: "What are the best qualities of a mentor and who's been your best mentor in life so far?" The second part of that question is easy for...
Such a fun meme that went viral a while back, and now my post on this theme is by far the most viewed on this daily blog on leadership. Hmm, so now let me try this out, using the example of introducing myself to someone I am being referred to by an existing client,...
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...
Over the last year, as part of the English-based school curriculum in his school in the Cayman Islands, my 14-year-old son has been studying WW2 history, and specifically the D-Day landings. Last week I took him and his brothers there to learn more. I chose a tour...
This photo of and quote from the great Eddy Merckx hangs in a frame behind the spinning instructor's bike at Revolutions in the Cayman Islands. As I sit writing on a wet Sunday morning nursing a sore Achilles tendon, I'm missing my regular Sunday morning ride and...
"Only enough Structure to allow Flow" This is a personal mantra for me now and is the reason why the two photos above could happen. I used to be known to plan life with great detail, packing the diary days, weeks,...
This image was embedded in the award given to each member of a seminal Leadership Growth Programme. More in this article. Business can be Beautiful. Today I share an excerpt from a post from Alan Moore of beautiful.business, featured recently in "Is yours, could yours...
“You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means” ~ Inigo Montoya, swordsman and revenge obsessive, from The…
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…
Is yours a Beautiful Business? If not, could yours be a Beautiful Business? If the question intrigues you read on, and if you connect to it at the end of this piece, let's talk. Soon. Recently I was introduced to Alan Moore, founder of Beautiful.Business and writer of...
image from a SlideShare deck from OneFish TwoFish called "How to communicate values without telling people to 'live the values' " So, yesterday I wrote: "Be rid of Brilliant Jerks". I didn't say "Fire your Brilliant Jerks". So, how can you be rid of brilliant jerks...
"Do not tolerate brilliant jerks. The cost to teamwork is too high." ~ Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix The Netflix "Culture Deck", updated in 2018 and hosted on their site prominently here , is full of gems of great clarity around the Netflix culture, including this one...
The other day, I felt inspired to write by my friend Morgan DaCosta coining the phrase: "Coaching by Walking Around" This was a "level up" from the idea of Management by Walking Around, part of the essence of which is to walk randomly around and be present to those...
"Live in the now to provide for the future" Exquisite. I love distilled beauty in writing, and gosh how much I love anything that can relate to leadership and business. This hits the mark on all levels for me! People are my library, and today I am most thankful for...
Taken after a photo shoot, looking over the Thames to Temple. London is such a city of both tradition and permanence as well as dynamism and growth. Yesterday I had a wonderful experience with a highly creative photographer, Simon Edwards, as we walked around London...
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...
Today a reflection of preparing in advance so that we can discard what we prepared. I then share similar learnings from an interview with the director and writer of the latest Mission Impossible movie. I love movies and recently watched this movie. It was terrific,...
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...
Continuing a theme from this week's post "Beautiful words bring dimensions of meaning", today considering the Japanese art of Kintsukuroi and lessons that leaders can learn from it. So many entrenched organisational paradigms look to avoid breakdowns, mistakes, even...
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...
So, the last two articles I wrote here have mused on romance, idealism, romanticism and magical reality. Leadership: Romance, Life in Full Colour and Magical Reality Life in Full Colour - Cry, Heart, But Never Break In (so far) nearly 300 daily articles on this site,...
In the last year, I've had the opportunity to talk to several thought leaders, speakers, writers who I have very much admired and respected for many years. Two of those people are Nilofer Merchant and Chip Conley. Nilofer I just talked to for the first time recently,...
Are you or your business lucky ? do you benefit or suffer from coincidences? I don't believe in luck, I believe in serendipity. Serendipity is not luck, it is not coincidence. Serendipity is something you can choose to create for yourself and in the way you lead and...