Thoughts

Where my driveway ends at the footpath, there are two high walls on either side. So, when I drive my car out, I can’t see who might be walking along, or maybe flying past on their skateboard. So I deliberately slow down and gently nudge the front of my car out beyond the walls, so […]

The late novelist David Foster Wallace tells a wonderful story about ‘incuriosity’ in his commencement speech This Is Water: There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish […]

People often say to me “you’re so lucky, you’re always on holidays!” Well, it’s probably true that I do take more time out than most people. But it has nothing to do with luck. It’s by design. If you’re like a lot of people, you can get to the end of the year and wonder, […]

  I’ve recently returned from my annual windsurfing trip to Gnaraloo, in the North West of Western Australia. Eventful as always, this year provided something extra special… I was sailing out to sea at high speed, about 500m from shore, and was looking for the next swell to ride back to the reef. It was […]

You know and I know that training courses aren’t where we do most of our learning. But how deliberate are we about ‘doing our learning’ the rest of the time? Yesterday I wrapped up a leadership development programme that I’d been running over the past six months. Inevitably, participants want to know “how do we […]

  What’s better: when good stuff happens to you, or bad? Mull on that for a bit as you read on. I’ve just spent three days on an emotional rollercoaster. I was attending a workshop with Thought Leaders Business School to help me sharpen my thinking for how I run my business. Hugely beneficial. But […]

  I recently wrote about the idea that when you stop striving, you maximise performance and enjoyment. If you missed that post, I was training for a mountain bike race (done now, loved it) and I’d been tracking my times. I noticed that when I relaxed more, my times got better. Since then, I diligently […]

  Lately I’ve noticed a little trap that people can fall into. One they set themselves up for. Like so many barriers to our own success, it comes down to a choice of words. That choice is between ‘confidence’ and ‘courage’. Example: A client says she needs to build up the confidence to put a […]

Here are five simple questions to keep you on track over the next twelve months:  How do I want to spend my time?  What do I want to learn?  What do I want to achieve?  How do I want to be?  What’s my theme for the year? This last one is powerful. In many ways […]

Do you ever feel like the way to get better results is to try harder? Here’s a story that might give you reason to rethink that approach. I’m training for a mountain bike race right now, putting in the time on the bike, using an app (Strava) to track my times. Last week, I went for […]