Wise Wednesdays

 In a world where it’s easy to outsource thinking - via social media, news, politics - many meetings drift without depth. Why? Because people aren’t fully present. Their body is in the room but not their awareness. Their attention is fragmented by external inputs and daily stress. As a result, meetings default to information reports, conflict, or stagnation. Creativity vanishes. Energy drops. Progress halts. After a recent guest lecture to doctors and healthcare professionals, it was clear: people long for realness - real contact, real thought, real feeling, real conversation. Not funny posts. Not productivity theatre. But alive presence. 1. Begin in Silence Let people sit quietly for a minute. This cuts false urgency and social chatter. It invites arrival. It recalibrates nervous systems. Resist filling the space. [ Research shows that even a brief moment of silence at the start of a meeting can reduce stress and improve focus (Mindfulness Interventions, Creswell, 2017).] 2. Ask: ...

  Ever said to yourself: I’ll do X, when I have Y (e.g. I’ll do that thing that’s important to me when I have more time/money/qualifications? Well, you’re not alone. Most people are trained to think: Have -> Do -> Be "When I have more time, I’ll do it, and then I’ll be happy." And then we have an epidemic of burnout and people who think they need to be more ‘productive’. The problem isn’t the action. It’s the underlying reasons. If you’ve been programmed to want certain things - a stable job, money, status, luxury, without ever being asked what you really want — of course you'll keep running. But if you're reading this, some deeper part of you is starting to question the whole show. Transformational coaching flips the relationship on its head: Be -> Do -> Have You don’t even need to know what you want (which can be elusive if you’ve never had the chance to connect with what you want) to live this way. You simply have to know what kin...

 I was starting to doubt my decision and think it might be wiser to give up. That morning, it seemed like a great idea to walk the 20km or so between the Montserrat mountain in Catalunya and the Manresa Cave where St Ignatius spent a year in retreat, battling his demons and eventually attaining deep peace and clarity of vision. Many pilgrims had walked that route before. Or had they…? I thought I was walking a well-trodden pilgrim path, but later discovered it was my imagination. The actual Camino de San Ignacio was a few kilometres West… The funny thing is, I didn’t know it at the time. So I just kept walking. I had no phone signal, and the map kept disappearing. But the next step revealed itself as I went along, with many strangers helping generously when I was lost or unsure. SENSING DANGER... The biggest challenge was the busy motorways. At first, I didn’t mind winding between nature trails and occasional motorway segments. But when it looked increasingly dangerous and long, do...