Wise Wednesdays

Whether you’re thinking of writing a book, creating a new recipe or radically overhauling your career, life or leadership style, the principles of creativity are the same. And we get tripped up mostly in the same way. It’s the quiet phase of incubation that we don’t like.  During the incubation phase, we don’t get to do as much with our intellect or hands, so we feel we’re wasting time or we’re inadequate in some way. And that can lead to a lot of anxiety and doubt. Doubts like “who am I to do this?” “what’s the point?” “it’s already been done”, etc. come to fill in the gap between the initial creative idea and the finished, external product.  Personally, I hit a bump last month in my writing process for the book (meant to bring together the Wise Wednesdays that have helped people the most and the coaching process I use). It’s been in incubation for a year and I felt a surge of creativity towards the end of the summer. I had the book idea, the plan,...

============================ This week, it’s a simple invitation: to use the time you’d normally spend on reading Wise Wednesdays to sit quietly and breathe. Just breathe. Notice how your breath moves your body - nothing more and nothing less. This isn’t fluffy relaxation to numb yourself and go back to the frontline. This is what’s required to decolonise the mind; free it of any negative thinking patterns and influences that drain your energy and blur your focus. This is to rewire your brain to function optimally and liberate your highest capabilities in work and life. “Meditate for one hour a day. If you don’t have time, meditate for two hours.” Zen proverb. Two minutes to just breathe. Two minutes to settle the fog and brighten your mind. Two minutes to drop into a deeper way of seeing things. Two minutes to change your world by tuning into and remembering who you really are. Here’s a short video from a previous Wise Wednesdays with a on...

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it” Chinese proverb A few weeks ago, a friend who works in global health policy mentioned that she’d taken the plunge and applied for her dream job. Needless to say, I was very excited about this. Her research and policy advocacy at national and international level focus on creating global systems that enhance humanity rather than prioritising profits to the detriment of people’s health.  What struck me was that one of her mentors had been a little less encouraging than expected when she announced her intention to apply for the dream job. The mentors’ view was that it was a job for more senior and accomplished professor level academics and that she shouldn’t be disappointed if she didn’t get it. This pushed a hot button for me for various reasons captured in a phrase I once heard from a corporate leader: “men apply for jobs two years early and women apply two years late” . B...