The "Who Are You" Podcast

  A CIPD report on 24th April 2018 said that its survey of 6000 British employees shows that regarding Work-life balance, “The average employee works five hours per week more than they would like to” and that “Nearly two-thirds (63%) would like to reduce their hours.” In its article on Work-Life Balance, the Australian Institute…

Brain’s ‘internal compass’ found By Smitha Mundasad, Health reporter, BBC News, 19 December 2014.  This refers to a compass located in a specific part of the brain, which guides us in the physical world. I’m convinced that there is also a compass for use in navigating the mental world or the world in our minds, with…

A writer in “The Weekend” said the joker in the Batman movies is his favourite character because you didn’t know his past but you knew his plans.  As you watched him, I felt I only knew his present and could only guess at his plans. For most of us, our past is dominant in our…

“A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose” – Tom Wilson. “Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present” – Jim Rohn. “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will…

Are you feeling the squeeze from opposing sides, opposing demands, opposing desires?  Are you tempted to play it safe and avoid taking a position?  Is there a place and time for compromise and flexibility, and how could one recognise it? Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature…Avoiding danger is no safer in…

Four quotes, one message for when you feel self-conscious.  “People are crying up the rich and variegated plumage of the peacock, and he is himself blushing at the sight of his ugly feet.”  ― Saadi “Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what…

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while” – Steve Jobs. Creativity is not just artistic. Creativity is much more, so the next time someone asks…

Getting the success you want, is often considered to be a result of pure effort, luck, providence, intelligence, relationships or a combination of these factors. The quote by film producer, Samuel Goldwyn “the harder I work, the luckier I get”, suggests a confluence of factors.  Some of these are outside an individual’s control, are they…

Excellence comes from within and is the outcome of choice plus consistency of action.  It is consistent high quality.  Sporadic high quality is unreliable but excellence can be counted on. Many organisations promise excellence but few deliver.  So, what does it take to give excellent service? The suggestion is that it requires a service giver to connect their…

Energy is personal. Sometimes we have high energy levels, at other times the levels are low and there are times when we are just in-between levels, “ticking over”.  We are powered by this energy which we have limited understanding of.  Energy which fluctuates during the day and with each day. It is affected by several…

The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity. – Leonard Ravenhill. Procrastination is an opportunity’s assassin. – Victor Kiam When does “sensible consideration before action”, “waiting for the right moment”, or even “busy doing something urgent” become Procrastination – the art of not getting on with what we ought…

Inspiration is all around us. What inspires you to act? How do you inspire others? “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light” – Aristotle Onassis. The power of lift in those words gives life to my interest in the subject of Inspiration. You are about to listen to…

In our increasingly noisy world, it’s easy to accept being distracted and that a short attention span is the norm. Successful individuals would however have learnt to focus and pay attention to what is most important. Focus is both a choice and an action. It is ‘directed attention’ which takes place even in the presence…

“She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can’t seem to shake the sense that it is only…

A clear way that the uniquely human spirit shows itself is in the creation of a vision of the future and its realisation. Most of our major achievements exist first in our minds as a picture or desire, a vision. These visions can be realised without concerted conscious effort but through making them explicit, then…

Personal values are principles, ideals, beliefs of what is most important to us. They are not just words or aspirations but actually show up in our lives when we are being our best. It would also be difficult to be our best without them. Rationality, purpose, spirituality, prosperity, love, fidelity, family, justice, power, adventure, tolerance,…

Movement of our bodies is much more than exercise, just as health is much more than fitness. It is a crucial part of well-being, that concept of wholeness that is increasingly recognised as worthy of our attention in a fast-paced world. This episode explores how physical movement can be a metaphor for mental movement and…

We compare ourselves to other people, despite knowing our uniqueness and that of others that we compare ourselves to. It is all too easy to forget how unique we are. We compare our insides to other people’s outsides! What we are thinking, feeling and doing to what we can see of them. The confident-looking performer,…

We all benefit from having networks, but only some of us value these networks and relatively few of us nurture these networks as resources to help us achieve our goals. Despite experience which shows that more business and jobs are secured through one’s own network than through any other means, why then don’t we all…

Public speaking, for many people, tops a scale of fears in both professional and social environments – public speaking. Many people enjoy it and come alive at the chance to connect with a group of people. Many others will do it because they have to and many dread and will avoid it. Some are good…