Blog

I was recently introduced to the current affairs magazine, Positive News, which reports on the good things that are happening in the world rather than the bad. For example, the latest issue features rewilding in Sussex, a Canadian doctor prescribing money to low-income patients and people who are creating solutions for challenges facing UK society, such as racial and religious intolerance and young people in need.

When I’m working 1-1 with professionals, particularly professional women, I often discover a Missing Conversation. For example, there was the finance manager who wanted to know her prospects for promotion yet was afraid to have the conversation with her manager because they might think she was being “pushy”.

Sitting in a traffic jam in town the other day, I saw a friend walking past on the pavement close by. I called out to him several times, but he was lost in thought, walking along head down, seemingly unaware of the world around him.

I’ve been meditating almost daily for over 6 years. Now let me qualify that : I assume the position on the sofa first thing every morning then set InsightTimer for 20 minutes – it marks the start and end of my session and every 5 minutes inbetween with a rather lovely singing-bowl sound.

Last week, a technical issue resulted in me losing almost all registrations for my upcoming webinar series twice in 24 hours. It was bad enough asking people to re-register the first time it happened, but when I needed to ask people to re-register a second time, as well as postponing the webinars by a week, I was incredibly embarrassed.

Recently, I co-facilitated a leadership programme that I hadn’t delivered before. The programme had already been designed so, after the other facilitator and I had agreed what sessions we were going to lead, it was just a matter of familiarising myself with them so I could bring them to life for the participants.

A road sweeper is one of the individuals recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Thomas Ardle, a 61-year-old street cleaner, is receiving his British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to Liverpool, where he is known for his “great sense of humour and positive outlook”, for being “polite, courteous and hard-working” and regularly going above his duties, often picking up litter and cleaning graffiti in his spare time.

Do you have a voice in your head? A rather unpleasant one that tells you things like you’re not good enough, or you could have done something (presentation, meeting, report – fill in the blank) so much better?

News emerged last week that the Mona Lisa, painted by Da Vinci in the 16th century, has been rated the most disappointing sight in Europe by British tourists who regard it as a “let-down”.

When I was a little girl, my eldest brother used to borrow from my piggy bank to help fund a night out. As a 7 or 8 year-old where my parents provided everything I needed, I didn’t have much of a case to put up to my twenty-something brother that he couldn’t borrow my money.