Wise Wednesdays

  A client asked me recently about what she could do to feel healthier and fitter. Working together a few months she feels much more clarity and direction in her career, has stepped up in her leadership and now wants to turn her attention to her health and wellbeing.   As someone with a PhD exploring obesity, it’s tempting for me to respond with obvious health advice, particularly when it comes to weight. I can say with some certainty that the magic formula for a healthy weight is two things that you know already:   Eat less Exercise more   However, this isn’t what helps my clients recover a sense of vitality and shed pounds in parallel to transforming their careers and leadership impact.   You see, I’m in the root causes business and operate at the level of common denominators.     Root causes and common denominators   So what do happy careers, effective leadership and (sustained) weight loss have in common? A healthy, flexible self-image nurture...

Someone asked me this the other day. I was taken aback because I didn’t feel like I’m doing that much. I wondered whether this was a version of imposter syndrome and thought I’d sit down and take stock. The main things I’m doing at the moment: 1. Running a business 2. Sharing a message by writing regularly 3. Coaching one-to-one and groups  4. Teaching an online course  5. Publishing a book 6. Spending time with family and friends  7. Exercising twice a day 8. Meditating, self-reflecting and doing my inner-work every day 9. Looking after my home and basic needs OK, so I am doing a few things… I realised that to me it felt like I’m only doing one thing. It’s the one thing that most people I know who seem to get a lot done from the outside tend to focus on. It reminded me of some of my industrious and prolific clients.  Legends in the making: When we started working together, Dr V was stuck after going from being a star doctor clinically to working on national health p...

It always pains me when a client tells me they’ve been subjected to bullying.   Particularly as I know how hard they work and how caring they are. They were often just unlucky in coming across a leader or colleague who has sociopathic tendencies or is acting out for unclear reasons.   I’ve experienced harassment and it shook me to my core.   Bullying pushes you into a defensive and eventually a helpless state. You start to doubt yourself and your sense of reality. The NHS includes the following as bullying:   ·        arguments and rudeness, but also more subtle behaviours like: ·        excluding and ignoring people and their contribution ·        overloading people with work ·        spreading malicious rumours ·        unfair treatment ·        picking on or regularly undermining someone...