The Archives: 2021

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The Archives

2021

  • A Framework for the Year to Come
    So often in these opening weeks of 2021, we've heard the Groundhog Day sentiment: it feels like nothing's changed. But our reality is ours to create. In this article: a fraemwork to help you create change in the year to come. #BrainBasedCoaching
  • Track Your Averages
    One of thing things I've always admired in top athletes is that, when asked about their winning streak: they're so level-headed.....
  • Beyond Time Management: 5 Thinking Secrets to Getting More Done
    The world doesn't need another time management system. It needs a shift in the thinking. 5 thoughts to inspire a different view, reduce the overwhelm, and leave us feeling good, getting things done.
  • Amplify Performance with PROCESS
    Mostly, we define performance in terms of measurement. Outputs. Results. Outcomes. Our internal dialogue might be: "We performed at the top of our game. And we know that because of these top results." ......
  • How Are You Doing The Thinking?
    "What do you mean, how am I doing the thinking? I don't do thinking. It just kinda happens!" And therein lies the problem. So often, we’re on autopilot and our results are far from optimal....
  • An Underperformer? Or just Uncertain?
    One of the many coaching points I teach in my philosophy of Brain-Based Leadership is to see anyone who you would otherwise label as an underperformer as simply: UNCERTAIN. Try it now......
  • Manage Tasks. Lead People
    "Manage tasks. Lead people." An obvious thing to say. But an important distinction to hold keenly in mind.
  • The Art of the Question: How to Open-up Thinking
    Questions are not only how we gain insight into another person's thinking; they are also how that other person gains insight into their own thinking. If we ask the right questions.
  • Busy Work = Not Enough Meaningful Projects!
    When business descends into a holding pattern, it's easy for busy work to take hold. We're used to filling our working days with … work. And in the absence of anything else, we'd rather be working on busy (non?) work than idling.
  • You’re Not Good at 20 Things
    Well, you probably are good at 20 things. But if I challenge you to tell me what you're *really* good at and where you need to spend the vast majority (+80%) of your time on, the list isn't 20 things. It'll be more like 3 things.
  • Be patient for results. But impatient for action.
    Be patient for process and results, for sure. But be impatient for action.
  • Want more flow time?
    An hour of uninterrupted time is not only worth 3 or 4 hours of constantly disrupted and distracted time. It's also the only opportunity for your best insights to take hold and become something. Else, that gateway is closed to you.
  • Supercharge Your Brain, Supercharge Your Productivity
    Productivity is about the efficient achievement of outcomes. And to do more of that, more of the time, a different approach is required. A brain-based approach.
  • STOP STOPPING!
    Voltaire said: "No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking." I enjoy that thought. And just as much, I enjoy the sister-thought: No opportunity can withstand the progress of sustained action.
  • Time Spent!
    If you have a project that's not progressing or an obstacle you're stuck on, start here: take an honest look at the time you're spending working on it.
  • How to Silence Your Inner Critic
    The brain has strong narrative circuitry. We get "lost in thought". Our whole conscious thinking process is little more than a Q&A session with ourselves!
  • “I Tend To” is the Past!
    "I tend to …" is a non-specific observation about the past that need not dictate my choices and behaviours in this moment.
  • What Team Resistance Might Be Saying About Your Leadership Style
    Resistance is, to me, one of the most interesting and useful topics to work with and tune into. It tells us so much about what's really going on for us (and others) - and where the solution lies.
  • 7 Steps to Effective Feedback that Transforms Performance
    Effective leaders transform performance with well-delivered feedback. Here are 7 steps from the coach's playbook so you too can give feedback that transforms performance.
  • You can’t solve the problem When you’re IN the problem
    When we're IN a problem, we can never solve it as creatively, elegantly or efficiently as when we're not. We're just too heavily associated with the problem … and the thinking that created it.
  • Schedule Inspiration!
    I remember giving a talk a whole back on productivity and focus. And one of the corporate team asked that, given the amount of structure and discipline I was espousing, what did I do to keep INSPIRATION alive? Because surely inspiration would be stifled by so much structure?!)
  • Try Meditative Planning
    The benefits of meditation to the brain, the mind (two different things!), wellbeing and performance are well-researched, well-understood and well-evidenced. For those that have (or have ever had) a practice, you know what I'm talking about. Clarity. Focus. Direction.
  • What Future Self Are You Consigning Yourself To?
    It's a useful thought to consider the Future Self you'd love to live into. But that desired future self is not who we’ll become, unless we get conscious and intentional about it - something we rarely do.
  • What Future Self Are You Inspiring Your Team To?
    You might have seen my previous post, just yesterday: "What Future Self Are You Consigning Yourself To?" An interesting thought to consider, noticing how the way we operate throughout the day SIGNALS to ourselves who we are and are becoming.
  • 12 Simple Practices to make you a Better Coaching Leader
    The coaching leadership style is one of the most effective in the long term. Improve your coaching leadership style with these 12 simple practices.
  • Mastering Your Level of Leadership Engagement
    The nature and quality of engagement comes down to one-to-one interactions between an employee and their manager/leader. What leadership level are you engaging at? #BrainBasedCoaching
  • Judge Your Thoughts. Not Your Actions.
    This sounds like we have it backwards. Surely we judge on what we actually do, not just what we think and say we will?
  • Will It Make The Boat Go Faster?
    As the 2020/2021 Olympics kicks off in earnest, I love to take the opportunity to grab a little extra inspiration, motivation and peak-performance-learning from watching the best in the world excel at their sport.
  • Creating Your Edge with A+ Work
    "Perfectionism" is a problem, if and when implemented in one or a combination of two ways.
  • 3 Leadership Strategies for Peak State Decision Making
    Leadership Mastery Series: Decision-making is a leader's superpower - or kryptonite: an especially apposite thought in the current climate. The decision-maker's best defence? To engineer as many peak state experiences and in-flow moments as possible. Here's how. #BrainBasedCoaching
  • Wanting to Change vs. Wanting the Change
    Wanting to change is not yet committed. Wanting the change is.
  • Over-Thinking? Or Under-Acting?
    Overthinking is a common issue. How often have you caught yourself going round and round an issue, or back and forth on a decision?
  • 3 Essential Recovery Rituals to Optimise Team Performance
    All leaders want sustainable development, growth and success for their team. To combat the damaging cycles created by the demands of work, inspire your team with these rituals essential for optimum recovery. #BrainBasedCoaching
  • Extreme Ownership
    Ownership is about more than just responsibility. Ownership is about AGENCY. Ownership is about SELF-LEADERSHIP. Ownership is about CREATING, in place of reacting.
  • Magnetise Yourself
    We all know people, in both our personal and professional lives, whom others just gravitate towards. People whom others want to be around. People whom others want to invite into their world and projects. People we ourselves want to be around.
  • Improve Your Decisions By Doing This
    The more space you can introduce into your decisions, the better the decision.
  • What’s The Most Valuable Hour Of Your Month?
    Quick question: What's been the most valuable hour of your month?
  • The Goals That Are Costing Your Team Efficacy and Focus
    As business needs and priorities change, so do goals. And without the intervention of a conscious leadership, previously highly-prized goals are now a liability to team efficacy and achievement. Here are the goals that are costing you and your team. #BrainBasedCoaching
  • Your Commitments Are Lived
    Your level of commitment shows up in LIFE. Take a look at your calendar. Take a look at your emails. Notice who you're talking to and the kinds of conversations you're having.
  • The Problem With Problems You Already Know How To Solve
    Here’s the problem with problems you already know how to solve: they keep you from the ones you don't.
  • What’s Your New Performance Normal?
    What's normal for you now that was not normal 3 months ago?
  • Positive Momentum
    Start your day with positive momentum.
  • What We Appreciate Appreciates
    Appreciate has two meanings. Recognising the full worth of something or someone. And an increase in the full worth of something (or someone).
  • Win The Second Half
    If I had choose, I would always want to win the second half. That's the team that has the momentum. That's the team that goes on to win.
  • The Empathetic Leader: A Coaching Approach
    Complaints about a lack of empathy in team leaders and middle managers puts empathetic leadership high on the wanted skills list. A coaching approach allows us to strike the right balance of empathy with rational compassion.
  • What you judge in another you strengthen in yourself
    One of the many truths that have played out to me over the client-coaching years is that what we judge in another person, we deepen and strengthen in ourselves.
  • Don’t BE your thoughts
    A useful question to ask oneself is: "How spacious a relationship do I have with my own thoughts?" It's not a question many people would comprehend, let alone (think to!) ask. Because the first thought is: there is NO SEPARATION between me and my thoughts. And that's exactly the point.
  • Disorganisation = Self-Sabotage!
    Organisation is one of my core values. And I'll just say it: I like my sh!t to be organised.
  • The Difference Between Your Rut and Your Grave is Just a Few Feet
    "The difference between a rut and a grave is just a few feet!" This is a saying of a favourite coach of mine, Steve Chandler. And it's been with me for the longest time, really helping me over the years to notice any time I've slipped into something of a rut - and the absolute importance of yanking myself out of it, at the very soonest opportunity!