Wise Wednesdays

  I was on a call a couple of months ago with a group of friends who are super successful coaches and consultants. We went around for introductions and everyone shared how overwhelmed they felt. When it was my turn I noticed the pull to echo the sentiment of overwhelm. But also noticed that it would be a lie… Because the truth was I didn’t feel overwhelmed.   In fact, this call was the main non-coaching call that day and I was fully present and enjoying the connection. I didn’t have tons of things to do, people to see and places to go’, as they say. You could say my life is ‘boring’.   But it’s not an accident. I design my schedule that way. Sometimes, it may feel like we don't have a choice but it's usually temporary. And sometimes it's really hard feeling the guilt of saying 'no' and the sinking feeling of FOMO. But my quality of life has improved since making my life more 'boring' and I don't think it's a coincidence. Even clients who have...

Every year since 2014, I’ve given an interactive lecture for Master’s students at UCL on the obesity pandemic, social inequality and economic transition. The US is the epicentre but populations are affected worldwide including in low- and middle-income countries.   The students seem to enjoy the lecture because we explore the complex global mechanics behind an everyday phenomenon but also the practical element – the application of statistics and epidemiology to the real world. Having been among the students at one time, I know they aspire to good exam results and a qualification from one of the world’s top universities. But that they also want to make a positive difference in the world. Otherwise, they could go into the private sector and make a mouth-watering salary. And while they’ll be expected to show world class scientific thinking and synthesis skills in academic and policy environments - by articulating their thoughts and putting forward persuasive arguments - being a ‘thoug...

  We can get so hung up on titles and what they mean but no one ever asks what ‘transformation’ as in ‘transformational coach’ means.  There’s an intuitive sense of what it means. Things, people, and we ‘transform’ – from one ‘form’ to another – over a lifetime. The pandemic has certainly transformed how we work, raise children and relate to each other. It’s forcing us to reconsider our place in the world and how to be in it. Change and transformation are not the same. Here are a few distinctions to bear in mind as we navigate uncertain situations: Change can be linear but transformation is usually more significant. Change is an extrapolation of the past, transformation usually breaks with the past Change is inevitable and stressful, transformation can be intentional and fulfilling  Change is a trigger or by-product of evolution. Transformation IS evolution. Ground-breaking science philosopher Thomas Kuhn described this type of significant, non-linear, major change as a ...

  Being nobody, going nowhere: a vaccine against toxic work culture [Wise Wednesdays] Happy Now Here 2021, *|FNAME|*! Wise Wednesdays is back :) A few thoughts on challenging work culture and the antidotes as we enter a new phase of the pandemic. Work culture is unhealthy when it keeps us caged while benefitting from our efforts. That’s called slavery in fact - of the psychological kind. One of the ways this psychological cage is built is by playing on the fear that perhaps who we are and where we find ourselves in life isn’t OK.   The urgency of having to be busy or become someone different is hyped up in toxic work culture mythology. Of course, it’s fine to be active and make things happen in the world. But it needn’t come from a place of fear. The problem is when you’re transformed into a hamster on a wheel chasing an imaginary carrot. It’s exhausting. It’s confusing. It’s unsatisfying. The threat is that if you stop you’ll fall into some abyss, lose everything and nev...