A 60 year old man came up at the end of a  presentation.  I had been talking about one of the markers of resilient leaders being their  ability to go beyond comfort.  Expecting a conversation about his  leadership, I was surprised when he began by confessing, "I have never learnt ...
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Entering any new role there is an acknowledged transition period: a time when it is OK to say 'I don't know'.  For a hotel receptionist that period may be days, for senior executives it has become commonplace to talk of the first 100 days.  A report by McKinseys based on ...
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We all know we should exercise, eat healthily, get enough sleep and take regular breaks from the pc. And yet . . . the things we know we should do are the very things we don’t do when we are feeling pressured. The thing that goes first for many of ...
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Neuroscience and gene mapping have confirmed what many of us have suspected – some people are hardwired to be resilient, and some people are hardwired to experience the same situation as more stressful than others.  However, it is also confirming that genetics only explains 30% of our variability , the ...
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You feel tired, you can’t wait for the pressure to reduce but are you really burnt out, or just in need of a break. The distinction is important because burn-out is recognised by psychologists as a very particular condition, which is the result of the toxic combination of individuals who ...
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Hearing of Maya Angelou’s death reminded me of a trip to Chicago 20 years ago. As I wandered along a main street, I saw a queue of people outside a bookshop. There was a sense of excitement about the crowd that drew me in. I squeezed through the mass, curious ...
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The response to the death of Stephen Sutton has been profound.  The inspirational 19 year old, who with a diagnosis of terminal cancer, decided to use every day he had left to him to live to his mantra of “it’s not how long you live, it’s the experiences you have” ...
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Recently I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert on TED talks.  Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love a book which gave her phenomenal success and which spawned a film of the same name. In the talk she spoke about the impact of the book on her life.  She had known ...
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As a 9 year old I walked to school past a house where a large boxer dog stood outside on guard. It barked loudly as I walked towards it, and when I crossed the road to escape  it would follow me. I came to be petrified of the dog, and ...
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