Thoughts

I just watched Seven Years in Tibet. Brad Pitt stars as a headstrong mountaineer who becomes a prisoner-of-war in 1930’s Tibet. After multiple solo attempts, he escapes by teaming up with his fellow prisoners. When he’s out, he says “I’m going it alone” and runs off into the wilderness. Yet another movie upholding individual heroism. […]

When he was three years old, he was stung by a bee. His mother said “what a naughty bee!” And he replied “Mum, it’s OK. I think the bee thought I was a flower.” When she was 39 years old, she got a note from the tax department saying that she was due for a […]

You may know that I’ve been learning Wing Foiling lately. It’s kind of like being on those America’s Cup boats but on a smaller scale. You’re riding a kind of surfboard with a hydrofoil attached underneath, flying above the water powered by a ‘wing’, or sail. It’s exhilarating, and the learning curve comes with lots […]

I remember being at school – I think I must have been about six years old – when a friend, David, suggested we follow a line of ants on the ground to see where they led to. So we started off. I picked one ant and followed it as it slowly wended its way across […]

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing that at some level you want to create positive change in 2021. Maybe it’s for your industry. Maybe for your organisation or team. Maybe it’s just for you. How set up are you to do that successfully? Here are some ideas that I reckon help a huge amount. Commitment […]

Towards the end of 2020, I worked with one of New Zealand’s highest profile public sector executive teams. In the year that was, the CEO and the organisation had been under the pump and was in the media spotlight for most of the year. They were keen to reflect and review how they’d led during […]

  How’s your 2020 been?   I’ve been reflecting on my own journey through 2020. January seems such a long time ago. Back then, I was snowboarding in Japan with my family. Covid19 was just beginning to make headlines over the water in China. As we landed back in New Zealand, we were aware of […]

“If you care about what they care about, they’ll care about what you care about.” Anonymous.   I watched The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix the other day. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth the watch. It’s a dramatisation of the 1968 indictment and trial of seven protestors charged with intent […]

My coach asked me a good question the other day: “What’s your aspiration?” I recoiled from the question. “Why the reaction?” she asked. “It’s that word: aspiration. It speaks of striving, of a gap to be filled.” I realised in that moment that I’m over filling gaps. It’s exhausting. And I’m not sure it serves […]

  I’ve been trawling the archives of the past eight years of my blog posts, and I came across this little piece that I think is just as relevant today as when I first wrote it back in 2013. So I’m sharing it again now in the hope that its message gets you thinking about […]