Author T.H. White on learning as a cure for sadness: “The best thing for being sad… is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you … Read more
What matters most in the gym? The hours you spend or the reps on the weights? In the areas where you must be highly competent to succeed in your role: are you accumulating hours or reps? Do you just do your job or do you spend time practicing the important skills that make you effective? … Read more
Life is too short to figure everything out on your own. Humans spend the years from birth to 12 learning how to survive. Our parents have a vested interest in helping us develop the Stop there: we merely survive. We live in a highly complex society. There is intense competition for status in whatever hierarchy … Read more
“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.” Eleanor Roosevelt The day you lose your curiosity, you have lost the best of our human capacities. You have lost the capacity to see things as they could … Read more
This video is about paying attention in the process of learning, and trusting the process. The Art of Learning: Attention without Judgement. If I am judging everything, I am judging from today’s level of mastery… and blocking my progress. It is so difficult to remember that I don’t see more than what I am capable … Read more
When I run seminars on leadership, I often share the lessons learnt from the work Kouzes and Posner did to create their book “The Leadership Challenge”. They identified the 4 most important characteristics of a leader that gets the greatest discretionary effort out of the people around them. Number 2 on this list is “Competence”. … Read more
I’ve published two videos this week. Both of these videos were inspired by Jeff Bezos’ letter to shareholders from last week. (The text of the letter is available below). 2 Jeff Bezos Inspired Videos The first: why do we fail to achieve our goals? The second: how do we create high standards? if you are … Read more
I share a tool that I have used to become mindful of my daily activities. This video is from the IESE EMBA Intensive week and I share an exercise that I have been doing for the last few months – that has shown me that “feeling in a rush” is one of the big detractors … Read more
The Path to Mastery The path to mastery is steady, small, incremental improvements repeated over and over again. There is no shortcut to mastery. There is a mode of operating that allows mastery. This mode is the 1% improvement mode. Do you focus on the 1% improvements? What small change will you make today? Please … Read more
As I grow ever older, staying fit requires ever greater intention. I sometimes wish to myself that it might be a little easier, but then quickly realise that this is my inner saboteur distracting me. If you are going uphill then you are going towards success. I so often want writing to become easier. I … Read more