Wise Wednesdays

  London, 2010. I found myself at the Oxford and Cambridge club facilitating a conversation between a neuroscientist and an entrepreneur. Both were concerned that our attention spans were dropping because of smartphones and social media (which was pretty much just Facebook back then). Last week, a brilliant doctor, one of the brightest of her generation, told me that she was concerned about what would happen if she took a step back from the hamster wheel and put some attention on the bigger picture of her career. She was worried about the implications…Would she have to abandon everything and start from scratch if she faced the truth?...Perhaps it was best to just stay on the hamster wheel ?... Yesterday, I had a conversation with an ex-intelligence advisor to the military in Afghanistan. He left that role and went on to lead one of the largest conservation initiatives in the world. He lamented that decision makers simply didn’t understand the complexities of conservation. Their at...

  Setting goals is a healthy part of translating your dreams into reality. But in today's world, there are so many "shoulds," deadlines, and other expectations weighing down on us. The resulting stress and anxiety can get in the way of our ability to succeed authentically and grow. So how do we minimize stress and anxiety? Simple: we make space for the unknown. This doesn't mean that you should enter a situation without preparation or planning; it simply means that you shouldn't feel pressured to know every last detail before you begin. This approach frees you from the pressure to meet weighty expectations—giving you the space to be yourself, try new things, and ultimately discover more about yourself in the process. Over the years, I’ve evolved my own approach and learned from wise leaders but mostly from trial and error. Here are 3 strategies on how to approach goals to serve you rather than weigh you down. Sifting and sorting through ...

My eyes widened in expectation. The vibrant director of operations speaking with me paused and asked hesitantly: ‘Do you think I’m in a career crisis?’ I couldn’t help but notice the heaviness in her expression ‘career crisis’. It implies…well…crisis (‘a time of intense difficulty or danger’). I decided to do what I know best. I helped her shift the language and see things in her situation that she hadn’t before. First and foremost: there is nothing wrong with her life - not in the way society makes you think. ‘Career crisis’ and its cousin ‘midlife crisis’ have their origins in the 60s. But the word ‘crisis’ comes from the Greek krinein which means ‘decide’. SO A TIME OF ‘CAREER CRISIS’ BECOMES A TIME OF ‘CAREER DECISION’: - You decide to make more conscious choices about how to use your energy rather than sleepwalk or drift through your career - You decide to open up to new possibilities beyond your conditioned beliefs - You decide to act on your intuitions (rather...

If you’ve been on the planet for long enough, you’ve likely experienced ‘trauma’. Trauma is the Greek word for ‘wound’. Psychologically, trauma is what you experience when your sense of safety is threatened at a physical, interpersonal level or environmental level. With everything going on in the world, you could argue that trauma is the default experience on the planet right now. But let’s keep things in perspective. Life isn’t meant to be all positive emotion and easy living. We’d never grow or evolve. So we need a few definitions. THE TRAUMA OF TOXIC WORK CULTURE There are 3 types of trauma (or wound): acute (one off), chronic (repetitive) or complex (a mixture with extensive ramification over a lifetime). If you look into trauma (e.g. through Dr Gabor Mate’s work including his latest – The Myth of Normal – Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture), you start to see the link with what so many experience in unhealthy organisations. This is not ground for feeling victimised, how...