Category: life
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On getting older
‘Ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.’ This quote from David Bowie has long been my favourite way of thinking about getting older. His description of it as an extraordinary process seems about right. […]
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Use the difficulty
I love this from Michael Caine – the philosophy by which he has lived his life: ‘Use the difficulty’ is such a good, pithy way of articulating the benefits of learning from setbacks and challenges. We all have tricky times in our […]
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On becoming ‘the only’
Kevin Kelly has a great provocation, taken from his book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier, about not always striving to be the best but instead aiming to become ‘the only’. What he means by this is the […]
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On Self-Renewal
This speech on the topic of self-renewal, delivered by John W Gardner to McKinsey & Company in November 1990, is outstanding (thanks to Zoe Scaman for the link). Gardner, who was the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for President Lyndon Johnson, […]
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Shoshin, and the Beginner’s Mind
Falling down an internet rabbit hole I ended up on this post, part of an anthology of submissions from the University of Sydney on the topic of ‘simple pleasures’. The author uses Mozart as an exemplar of having a childlike approach to […]
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Shipped in 2023
Wow. This is my tenth year of doing an end of year retrospective taking a look at the shape of the work which I’ve done over the past 12 months (previous years: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021). I find it a helpful thing to […]
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Perception vs Perspective
What’s the difference between perception and perspective? Why does this matter? It may be a subtle distinction but understanding this difference can really help us to improve or change something. Perception is how we translate the world around us (often through sensory […]
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Leadership, Teams and Bids
Psychologist Dr John Gottman (along with his wife Dr Julie Gottman) is renowned for his work on marital stability, relationships and predicting divorce in couples. In his research he has famously predicted with a 94% accuracy which marriages will end in divorce. […]
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Learning from Oaks
Anyone who has seen me speak will know that I'm a fan of metaphors. A couple of months back I learned something about Oak Trees (via a friend) that I found myself reflecting on on this, the first day of a new […]
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Shipped in 2022
This is now my ninth year of doing an annual retrospective of my work year. It is (as I’ve said before in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021) something that I find personally useful to reflect on the pattern of work across the year and […]