Wise Wednesdays

This question came up on the last webinar as well as on a leadership training I did for a group of bright dentists specialising in population health with Health Education England.  The question of “getting more qualifications” also comes up quite often in one form or another in initial coaching conversations. It’s part of the High Achiever Paradox. You might like an extra qualification (because you’re good at those or it’s just nice and tangible) but you still won’t feel qualified for what you need to do next. That’s because a qualification isn’t what you really need. As people start to sense a new possibility for their lives and careers they also sense uncertainty (which is a natural part of change). The passage is uncertain. So they start to look for things to hold on to. It’s as if they were saying: if I pass an extra test will that guarantee safe passage?   It’s quite natural to hope for this since the educational system is built on the idea that qualifi...

I’ve never been inspired by the idea of work-life balance. It sounds like a false dichotomy and an arbitrary one. It’s the product of a culture where we work too much, no? Personally, I don’t separate between the personal and the professional. I prefer to talk about the vocational. Not in the religious or technical sense but as living from a sense of purpose and showing up in alignment with who I really am no matter what the situation – living my own inner-voice. Vocation (n.) From the Latin vocationem literally "a calling, a being called". Most of us, at least in the second half of life, are called to live with more integrity and authenticity, shedding external expectations and living from our own inner-voice. It can entail a radical career shift or showing up differently in the job and relationships you already have. I had a conversation with a bright young lawyer last week who wants to shift into finance and was unsure about how to exp...

November 1st, 1954 – Northern Algeria: Midnight: A gunshot is heard, followed by a series of attacks on military barracks. The Algerian war of independence has begun. Shortly after, a growing number of French civilians are conscripted into the army to “maintain order” in the French territory of Algeria. Eventually, they total over 400,000 men barely over 20. A recent documentary portrayed how these teachers, priests, poets, carpenters, with no military training whatsoever, were put in the most horrific moral dilemmas - required to pacify civilians with education and healthcare on the one hand while brutalising them for any disobedience on the other. The young soldiers sense the unjust war but can’t desert. With the escalation of violence over the 7 years that followed, they’re asked to turn a blind eye to torture, rape and murder in order to survive. While the horrors of war are difficult to acknowledge, they mustn’t be forgotten. They can teach us about the origins and eradication o...