Principles are not rules – they are useful pieces of advice. If you apply them to your thinking – repeatedly – they help quieten the chatter of your mind and guide you to become more focused and more present. Much of my work is...
All of my work is based on a core framework of beliefs and processes. I call this framework Self-With-Others. Whatever area I am working in, this framework guides how I structure learning, mentorship, consultancy, practical research, and creative process. This is an outline of...
The Past is a Foreign Country. Learning to come home. Reconciling yourself to pain from the past involves self-acceptance in the present. It’s not an easy journey. Artwork by John Britton ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’‘ The Go-Between’,...
Coming Home: Surviving the crash-landing. A childhood dream of constant flight became a way of life. Pandemic ended that. Who am I if I am not in motion? NASA on Unsplash “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” James Baldwin...
Light is Stronger than Dark. A single candle can illuminate the world. It’s the oldest human story of all. Photo by Ehteshamul Haque Adit on Unsplash “Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness” Anne Frank It’s deep winter. Snow’s been lying...
8 Things That Improve When You Train Your Presence People know ‘presence’ is a ‘good thing’. It’s useful. Like a nice smile. Or a spare hair-clip. They’re not so convinced you can train it — that investing time or money in ‘enhancing presence’ is a smart...
Get Real! What is Authenticity? Authentic. Behave authentically. Respond authentically. Make an authentic offer. Be who you really are. What does this mean? ‘I am large, I contain multitudes.’ (Walt Whitman) I interact in multiple ways with my world. As environments and contexts change,...
Are you Suffering or are you Safe? ‘Isolated’ and ‘Insulated’ – in English – share the same origin: the Latin word ‘Insula’ (island). Essentially they are the same word. One suggests excluding an individual from their surroundings.The other suggests protecting an individual from threat.One...
One of the things that most bothers me when I mentor or coach people, is when they say: ‘I’m not confident — never have been, never will be.’ It’s like they think they lack some ‘gene’ for confidence. It bothers me because if you...
Why Presence?
Why Presence? You learn through experience. In fact, the only way you learn is through experience. Your brain – that amazing complex mess of neurons and ganglia and grey matter and synapses and hemispheres and all of that stuff – sits in the darkened...