Wise Wednesdays

 One of the first  Wise Wednesdays  in 2016 was called  The High Achiever’s Secret Dream . It explored the hidden drives behind achievement a few months after a big career leap. This is an update sharing insights from the years that followed... The Achiever’s Path Over the past decade, working with ambitious yet contemplative High Achievers and changemakers, I’ve noticed three approaches to achievement: Survival-Driven Achievement : Conventional success—pursued at any cost, prioritising societal expectations like wealth, status, and career. Escape-Driven Achievement : Unconventional success—rejecting societal norms to seek peace in alternative communities or monasteries. Vision-Based Achievement : Post-success—where achievement is a natural byproduct of alignment with an inner vision, detached from external validation, leading to fulfilment. As people grow, they often transition from conventional success to post-success, with a phase of escape in between. This s...

 My coach once gave a challenge to practise saying: I’m a gracious ‘no’. It was inspired by the words of Warren Buffett: The difference between successful people and really successful people is that they say ‘no’ to almost everything. In the past few years, awareness of boundaries and the power of saying ‘no’ appears to have grown. No to extra working hours, another project, or coming into the office… But what do you do about more subtle boundary breaches that are hard to put into words? How do you handle the unspoken power dynamics in your relationships? Perhaps you’re sitting at the dinner table with relatives or friends and a subtle anger surfaces after a joke. Perhaps you’re in a work meeting and a colleague starts talking about your project, leaving you feeling uneasy. Perhaps scrolling through entertaining social media has you feeling inexplicably irritable or sad. But you’re unsure why. Micro-boundary breaches In January 2021, I started feeling resentful and irritable about ...

The Success Trap is when your past success gets in the way of your future success. The Survival Trap is quite similar. What do I mean? The Survival Trap The Survival Trap is when your past survival strategies hinder your ability to thrive. In the modern world, this can look like having many markers of conventional success but still feeling unfulfilled inside.   As the most famous Transformational Coach in the world puts it: “Success without fulfilment is the ultimate failure.” Harsh but true, right? Understanding Survivor's Guilt During my recent visit to Algeria, I realised that Survivor’s Guilt plays a part in this issue. Many of the people I’ve worked with have had to overcome significant challenges to achieve their goals, such as: Historical odds: Overcoming war, colonialism, famine, or disasters. Socio-economic odds: Navigating wealth and education inequalities. Cultural odds: Adapting to new cultures after displacement or migration. Familial odds: Growing up quickly to suppor...