What if you know mindfulness is good for you, but you still find reasons why it can’t be fitted into your day.   What if you have studied innumerable raisins close up in the service of mindful attention but you still don’t like raisins.  What if your mind is always full ...
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Images of exhausted refugees determined to succeed  in their quest to reach Europe in the hope of safety, have shown us people with admirable grit.  They have refused to give in or be deflected by danger, cold or hunger.  They meet difficulty  with a determination that challenges us to ask ...
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Today is a special day.  Through the post arrived copies of my new book Resilience: A Practical Guide for Coaches (McGraw Hill).  The title makes  clear what it is about and who it is written for.  I obviously hope it will help coaches do good work with their clients, but ...
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Recently  I sat in a presentation by a major supermarket. The audience of business leaders listened with sceptical curiosity as the speaker claimed resilience as  a core organisational skill, and explained how they had introduced resilience training to thousands of  employees, many of whom work at checkouts . The question ...
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In the 'old days' it was obvious what you wanted a mentor for - to help you up the corporate ladder.  Being associated with a more powerful person who could open doors, drop your name into conversations and position you for opportunities was a key element in many stories of ...
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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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