Feeling ‘very busy’​ is a changeable state – no matter our workload

Photo by Alex Block on Unsplash

Over the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time working with people with increasing workloads. I can probably hear the word ‘busy’ being used at least 10 times each week.

This week I read something that really struck me this week – that being busy isn’t actually linked to how much work you are doing. Instead, it’s a state of mind.

Now I’ll be honest – such statements can get people’s backs up – ‘how dare you say I’m not busy, after all look how many tasks I have to do over the next 3 days?!’

I am not looking to deny people’s reality, nor annoy people with my babble around mindset. However, the idea about being busy can quickly become self-fulfilling when we use it to constantly describe ourselves. The more we say we are busy, the more we feel stressed and under pressure. So seeing this statement gave me a moment to reflect.

What if you didn’t have to feel busy right now, no matter how much you’re doing?

Let’s take a step back. In our lives, we have approximately 70,000-100,000 thoughts each day. According to different sources, we take 35,000 decisions each day. If we were to count all of these things, or put these all down on a to-do-list, unsurprisingly we would find our days incredibly hectic. But most of us do these things without even thinking, so actually despite taking this many decisions, we do not actually find they make us busy.

Let me take you through my morning – I get up, pick clothes to wear, brush my teeth, take a shower, maybe put on some contact lenses (maybe not) use the different hygiene products. I then go downstairs, see what I have in the fridge, choose what I’ll have for breakfast (or whether I will eat anything), choose where I’m going to sit. Within that, that’s at least 10-20 decisions, and they have all come before I’ve even started my day.

Now, I don’t say I am busy because I have taken all these actions. They are automatic (supposedly around 98% of our decisions are taken without us thinking). So despite taking probably so many decisions, I feel like I have taken none at all.

However, if I started my day with a giant to-do-list, it would feel differently:

  • wake up
  • turn off alarm
  • take shower
  • choose clothes
  • get dressed
  • brush teeth
  • use moisturizer
  • choose whether to put on contact lenses
  • [if I choose to put on contacts] put on contact lenses
  • go downstairs
  • check mail
  • choose breakfast

and so on…

Suddenly, these tasks take a lot of conscious effort because I am making them into a process where I have to activate my mind and follow instructions.

So when I say that being busy is not about actions, what I’m really saying that it’s about how many actions we are trying to juggle into our conscious minds. This is as opposed to letting our unconscious mind complete them without thinking.

We can do lots of things to minimise the amount of mental energy we spend on tasks. The great news is that everyone knows how to, because we already are doing it. I don’t know anyone who walks around with a mental memory of all their calendar appointments – most have it on their online calendar (some even in a physical one). It means we don’t have to worry about what we are doing in three saturday’s time off the top of our heads. Without having to worry about that, we can move on with life.

Likewise, we can do many things to optimise the amount of mental energy we put on tasks. One of the greatest efficiency tactics I have is keeping a pretty much always clear inbox. I respond to emails when I get them, or archive. That way it is done. Often, people read an email and don’t know what to do. So they leave it there, only to return to it and re-read the contents a second or third time. This is draining you of your mental energy and is one of the reasons you are feeling fatigued. This is on top of the sense of overwhelm having an inbox filled with thousands of messages gives you.

The more we can ‘automate’ our lives the more we can simply glide through it doing a whole bunch of really cool things without thinking. I book my yoga classes so that when I know it’s time to go, I go. I’ve changed my relationship with commitments so when I said I will do something I generally do it, avoiding the uhmming and ahhhing around it or whether I should flake.

There are countless other examples that we can do which make our lives simpler and easier. the beautiful thing is that the more we do this, the more space we have to enjoy life and create what we want from it. The creative energy of freedom is one of the greatest things we can create for ourselves.

I understand that not all of us can simply eradicate certain responsibilities – work expectations, childcare arrangements or needing to respond to things as they come. And yet, I see so many people not look into this direction of how they can make their lives easier.

When I work with clients during my coaching, we often spend time exploring these patterns. This is often in workplaces, but also in their private life. By creating a space to reflect, it usually becomes pretty evident that there are ways to make life a lot simpler. For example, the way we can shift hte relationship with our colleagues at work so that we set expectations early, or how we can schedule date nights with our partners to not have the burden of needing to carve time away for them. Many of us don’t take the space to reflect on how we are doing things, and the coaching space is an excellent place to do that.

So if you are finding yourself in this space of feeling constantly busy, it may be a sign that you are running the treadmill of life without stopping to reflect how things can be different or optimised.

My offering to you is that you book yourself some time to reflect on how you can do things differently.

In fact, If you’ve found this article useful and you want to explore this further, drop me a message and I am happy to book that time to talk with you at how we can optimise your life. It will leave you feeling freer and happier.

Our anxiety is stopping us from making positive change

Photo by Matt Hardy on Unsplash

Through my professional and personal life, I’ve come across many extraordinary, driven individuals who want to make a positive impact in the world.

When I worked in government, the majority of the people I worked with were driven by the idea of serving the public. Working in the civil service attracted them as they saw it as a way to make tangible change whilst pursuing their personal interests.

Now I work around people driven to tackle sustainability and climate issues. I’ve come across a wider set of organisations – NGOs, think tanks and sustainability professionals in business. It’s a real pleasure to see people genuinely striving to tackle the biggest challenges we face today.

Unfortunately, what I also see is a lot of stress, anxiety and overwhelm. There is an increase in the amount of burnout which is negatively affecting people’s personal sense of wellbeing. This is sad in of itself – everyone deserves to live a happy, fulfilling life.

But also, when we are stressed or burnt out, we are also becoming far less effective in making the change we want to see in the world. This means the positive change is severely limited.

Many who are driven to make a change can be very focussed on the external. Whilst it is good to be conscientious about the wider world, it also means many in this space neglect taking care of themselves.

Worse still, the ongoing connection with work and media leads to the constant flow of negative news. I learnt a new word this week – ‘polycrisis’, which is meant to encapsulate all the crises happening right now.

I don’t judge people getting stressed over these things – after all, I was one of them. I used to come home from work after working on Brexit without the ability to disconnect. Unsurprisingly this was the period I was unhappy – I gained weight, was regularly stressed and had poor sleep.

But the great news is that we can change our outlook. One of the big revelations for me was recognising that the barrier to my own performance was the way I treated myself. Once I realised that feeling constantly on edge was making me far less effective, it meant I could no longer conveniently ignore my ‘personal life’ in favour of focussing the ‘work life’.

One of the reasons I love the coaching space is because I can see the tangible impact it can make on people’s lives, which subsequently helps them perform better in all facets of their life. A lot of the work I do with clients is shifting this view of negativity by highlighting the fact that this view this is actually a choice, rather than a determined fact.

You may be thinking ‘how can this view be a choice – isn’t it a fact there are wars going on, a massive climate crisis etc.?’

Yes, bad things are happening in the world. I am not looking to deny reality. But what is also happening is amazing, great things – advancements of technology, increasing freedoms, better healthcare, tangible progress to societal and climate challenges. We see whatever we choose to look at. If we want to find bad things happening, we will find many. But if we want to see good things, we can also find plenty too.

One of the biggest differences I could see in successful leaders people wanted to be around compared to those who seemed stuck in a rut was their demeanour. In government, I saw some leaders under intense pressure handling things with a smile and calming manner. I saw other managers seemingly on a constant treadmill of stress and tiredness. The positive people tended to do very well, the less positive people did less so.

The big difference was mindset. We can choose to see things positively, and we will feel happier and do better in our jobs. Or we can let ourselves fall into negativity and find ourselves less happy and less effective. When it’s set out like this, the answer is a no-brainer. Unfortunately many people do not realise this is a choice.

So how do we choose to see things positively? Well firstly, we prioritise ourselves and our own wellbeing. When we are fit and healthy, we are in a position to tackle any challenge. This means taking holiday, sick leave and breaks. It also means connecting with friends and prioritising hobbies. People who have hobbies tend to do better in their jobs because their sense of self-worth is not solely based upon their day at the office.

We are the summation of the people and things we surround ourselves with. If we are spending a lot of time with negative people, it makes it trickier to feel positive. Be ruthless with your life, you only have one of them. Help where you can, but cut people out if you need to. There’s nearly 8 billion people in the world, if you don’t have the friends you want, there’s plenty out there. But remember, this is far easier when you have done the work on yourself – if you bring positive energy through your being then you will attract positive energy to you.

Likewise, if you are constantly consuming negative media, you will probably feel worse. If you are getting alerts to your phone about how terrible things are happening across the world, learn to take control of your media consumption. The media cycle works by selling fear. We do not need to know every single latest piece of news as soon as it happens. When you look at it honestly, once a day usually suffices fine.

The world needs you as the talented, driven person you are. But it also needs you to be happy and healthy to be able to share your gifts with the world.

P.S. if you would like to understand how you can make these shifts better, drop me a message. I’m happy to have a conversation with you to help.

The Life and Times of an ‘Author’​

One of life’s great achievements is to write a book. But what happens when you achieve it?

I started my book, Make Diversity Matter to You in 2020. After the events of Black Lives Matter, I wanted to do more to make a positive change in the world. I had previously worked in Diversity and Inclusion in the UK government. My experience demonstrated that the way in which diversity was polarised made it inaccessible to many people who would care.

In my role, I actually had access to far more senior leaders. For them, they didn’t know how to actually address diversity issues. They found the topic frustrating. But I learnt that spending time with them and helping them understand it for themselves led to magnificent shifts. One senior leader went from being very reticent to speak about the subject to one of the biggest champions when Black Lives Matter happened.

With a flurry of ideas, I wrote 20,000 words within the space of a month. It was great, until I didn’t know what else to say. So, I shelved the project and focussed on other areas of my life.

2022 was a year of exponential growth for me as a person. I have done lots of work around shifting my relationship with my thoughts. I’ve experienced some real dramatic changes in how I see and act in the world. This gave me the information I wanted to take the book to the deeper level that I wanted to go.

So writing a book, what an amazing achievement right!? In fact, when I told people they frequently told me how I should be extremely proud.

Except, I wasn’t.

Now that I had a book out in the world, the next step was to tell people I had written a book. This was a new level of fear. What would people think? How comfortable am I to share my message? It would be easier just to let the book sit on a webpage for nobody to see. Now I am doing that, and I’ve grown to stand by the power that this book has – I will say to you right now that if you read this book and apply the insights you gain from it you will experience a powerful change.

But more fundamentally, writing a book was just not that big a deal for me. One of the reasons I wanted to finish this book was because I wanted to start another one.

The thing that brought me greater satisfaction is who I’ve become through this whole process. I know that I can commit myself to do something and make an impact. I’m also hopeful that I can make real change in the world through my words.

You see, when we see the individual task as the great achievement, accomplishing the task itself is rather anticlimactic. I’ve published a book, now what?

We can see this in all sorts of things – a new job, house or relationship. If the goal is just to ‘get’ these things, it doesn’t really give us the deeper satisfaction that we think it would.

The achievement is me. But the achievement is also you. You have done so many magnificent, impressive things in your life, but you may not have thought about it till now.

So if my tale imparts anything, let it be this. You have already achieved incredible things in your life which have led you to the point of where you are right now. It’s not been the individual achievements, but the amazing and powerful person you have become.

You can choose to live into your greatness. It is your choice. I have chosen to live in mine, and I can see wondrous shifts in my life. The power is in your hands.

P.S. If you’re intrigued and want to know what ‘living into your greatness’ means, we can explore that together. Drop me a message and we can chat about it. To be clear there is absolutely zero obligation to commit to anything or secret sales trap awaiting. I want to do what I can to serve you.

I thought 2022 would be less remarkable than 2020-21. I was wrong.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

I’ve found this holiday period a good moment to slow down and reflect on the year – and what better day to do a reflective article than on 31 December?

I’ve firstly noticed how much residual fatigue I’ve been building up, particularly in the last few months. I got hit by an illness for the first two weeks of December, and since then I’ve felt myself battling to return to my previous routines of productivity. Of course, this isn’t a real battle, instead it’s one being waged within my mind.

I inadvertently put a whole lot of commitments for myself over this Xmas period, to the point where it just wasn’t really feasible. I wanted to record an audio version of my book, read the Ultimate Coach in Spanish, tidy my house, do some recreational reading, take some time for myself all whilst taking minimum annual leave from my job. I also wanted to keep up with my yoga and intermittent fasting through December as well.

At first, I found the fact I was hit by illness a nuisance. But when I reframed this as my body giving me the signals of needing to slow down, it started making far more sense. All these deadlines I had set on myself didn’t actually have any real life consequences. It taught me the importance of overcommitment and not getting too caught up in the doing.

Looking further back through 2022, I thought this year would be a period of stability and foundation-level building. After 2020 and 2021, years which felt like a period of survival (and physical upheaval for me moving to Belgium) I was hoping for something a little more solid but a bit less remarkable.

Spoiler alert – 2022 felt very different to what I thought it would – it certainly was more remarkable than I expected. This year I invested far deeper into my own personal development than I ever had done. I looked at myself in ways that were deeper than I ever have. Some of this was about reframing the way I think – spending less time lingering on my thoughts and more in genuinely living life.

But some of this was taking a more uncomfortable, deeper look at myself. How am I showing up with my friends and family – am I really being the person I say I am being? I’ve had some painful realisations around how I can fall into people pleasing tendencies, how I could shut off from family and how I could disconnect myself from my body and emotions by bunkering myself into my mind.

The person I was at the beginning of the year was very different to the person I am now. For some people, this has strained relationships, some of which have been long-standing ones. Some people have not really accepted or approved of the changes I’ve gone through. They might not understand this spiritual mumbo-jumbo I write about. Others have simply drifted away from my life as my priorities have changed.

But for all the discomfort, the rewards are that I am showing up in my life more fully and freely than ever before. I have made some really deep connections with new people over the last year, and I’ve really enjoyed rekindling dormant friendships too. I probably am more sociable than I ever was in the past.

The way I’m showing up is a more loving, kind person in my life. I’m clearer on the person I want to be, and I’m more committed to acting in that way on a day to day basis. I’ve had this remarkable shift where people want to spend far more time with me than they would previously, and I’ve had more friends reaching out to catch-up than I’ve had before. I’ve also started noticing the small pleasures more – the autumn leaves falling and enjoying being with nature. I feel more grateful for life than I did before.

The changes that I’ve had internally have also reflected in my achievements. This year, I moved to a bigger apartment, which has given me the physical space for a more expansive way of living. At work, I chaired an event in the European Parliament, with an MEP and a European Commission official either side of me, as well as a whole host of other speakers. The report we launched ended up being one of the most successful we’ve had.

I’ve also been dedicating myself more to my own endeavours – I’ve been taking a deeper dedication to my coaching clients, and have been growing my business in a healthy and sustainable way. I’ve learnt so much about the way I work and about business.

My social media presence has grown – both in reach but more importantly in my own confidence and vulnerability. I hit the 100th article I’ve written on these newsletters, and it’s really gratifying to see the improvement in my writing ability compared to my earlier articles.

In November, I published my book, Make Diversity Matter to You. I’ve been working on the book for the last two years, and it’s satisfying to get it off my hard drive and into the world. I see this as a positive achievement, but not a particularly big one. This surprises quite a lot of people – after all, isn’t writing a book meant to be a massive moment?

For me, I see it as part of this bigger picture in the sifts of the person I’ve become, and how I’ve learnt to commit myself to the goals I make for myself. The book is nice, but honestly, it’ll probably be one of perhaps a dozen I’ll end up writing in my lifetime anyway.

Considering how different 2022 was to what I thought it might be, I’m cautious about getting too caught up in my expectations on 2023. What I do know is that I’m on the right path with my own development, so my focus is to stay on the path.

I think some wonderful and exciting things will happen for me in 2023, but I cannot say what they will be.

But if I knew, where would be the fun in that?

How much have you been overcommitting?

Photo by Waranont (Joe) on Unsplash

As we head towards the end of 2022, I found myself in a race against time to complete the commitments I had made myself – I wanted to finish a number of things before the end of the month.

But who am I really racing?

I’ve been hit by a cough doing the rounds, meaning I’ve generally felt more tired and lethargic. I’ve really noticed the difference between my flow state of doing a whole bunch of different things effortlessly compared to one where I’m feeling like everything is draining my limited energy.

Without realising it, I had committed myself to a whole bunch of smaller things which were not really realistic when put together as a whole. I had done this without really thinking, so here is my list: I wanted to start recording an audio version of my book, Make Diversity Matter to You. I wanted to sell 100 copies (I’ve sold around 70). I wanted to read the book, The Ultimate Coach in Spanish. I wanted to continue my yoga practice and intermittent fasting through the holiday period. I thought it would also be a good opportunity to start creating a video version of the book through an online course, as well as put together the building blocks for an online programme for 2023.

Somewhere within all these self-imposed commitments I had also forgotten that I wanted to use this time to do some tidying and refurnishing of my apartment, catch up on some broader reading, and at some point rest. It’s also worth saying that I’m not actually taking any annual leave this year around this period either, so most days I will also be working. It’s now 23rd December and I don’t think I’m going to get these things done!

I notice that I have a habit of creating smaller commitments for myself that when put together with all the other things I want to do become a gargantuan task. It’s also interesting at how I put a very short deadline. On the one hand these smaller goals feel more targeted than ones in the distant future. Yet they also give little flexibility – most of these commitments I had made to myself in the last few weeks, essentially giving myself little space to take a break. In hindsight, I gave myself little room for manoeuvre in case life hit (for example, with me getting ill).

Commitments are incredibly powerful. I had a clear commitment to finish my book by 20 November, so I did. But this commitment gave me a space of around half a year, which gave me more space to be flexible to the flow of life. There’s a middle ground between making commitments that feel like a noncommital pledge in the distant future, and those that are incredibly tight and stressful. Somewhere in the middle there is a sweet spot around having a fun challenge which gives a sufficient amount of time which also gives space for breaks. It’s this timeframe where the real magic happens.

Perhaps drunk on the power of commitment, I’ve set myself too many, and given myself too short a deadline for them. This has made me feel like I’m fighting against the passage of time. Implicitly, I am getting frustrated at my body for not ‘hurrying up’, and I’m also feeling stressed at not meeting the things I wanted to do.

The irony is that I don’t really care so much for new year’s resolutions. Dates don’t really mean a whole lot – they are social constructs. The world doesn’t suddenly change when the clock strikes midnight and we are in 2023. Despite this, I have fell into the trap of getting things ‘done’ by the end of the year. All the things I’ve listed that I wanted to do could wait till January. Hell, they could wait till January 2024 if I really wanted to.

The moment I realised that the pressure of these commitments was my own creation was the moment I realised I could let them go. I can chalk this up as a learning experience – I had overbalanced on wanting to do too many things, too soon. And that’s okay, this is part of my own learning.

I share my own experience because I recognise I am not the only one in this predicament. There are a whole lot of people feeling the pressure of Christmas shopping, final deadlines and things they wanted to do by the end of the year. My experience is that the additional stress we are putting on ourselves are not helping us. The world will go on even if we don’t do everything we wanted. Better yet, we can use this as a learning experience on how we make our commitments in future in a more kind and flexible way for ourselves.

My other observation is how little time we give ourselves to rest. I seemingly have given myself no time to do that this year, even though my body is crying out for it. The moment I pushed back my commitments was the moment I could finally breathe. I actually started feeling better almost immediately – the tension lifted.

Life is our own marathon, and we get to set the pace. We can choose to spend our time sprinting around in a state of exhaustion, or we can set ourselves a healthy pace with regular breaks. We don’t need to beat ourselves up if we overdo it, we can just learn from the experience and do it all a bit better next time.

Welcoming our unpleasant feelings as friends

Photo by Jay Castor on Unsplash

In the quest for the nice feelings, we implicitly learn that the unpleasant feelings are bad. So we look to avoid the pain and sadness, after all, why feel those feelings when we can feel happy?

Many of us spend a lot of time avoiding things that make us uncomfortable, or look to distract ourselves when we are sad. Even when we are finally forced to face these feelings, we bare through it with gritted teeth.

We can spend time feeling sorry for ourselves, or being angry at the situation – why do I have to experience all this unpleasant stuff? Why can’t I just be happy like everyone else – do I not deserve it?

Alas, many of us lose sight in the beauty that comes with pain and suffering. Without the unpleasant emotions, there would be no balance to the pleasant ones. What joy can we truly have when we have not experienced some level of hardship to get there?

I have been reflecting on this theme as I have battled through a biting cough and severe sore throat over the last few days. In the past, this would be the cue for me to be frustrated at my body, and look at how inconvenient this all was.

But this time, I took time to appreciate what my body was telling me. It was time for me to slow down and heal. It was also my body’s cry for attention – it gives so much to me, and yet I take 99% of its active bodily functions for granted without even sparing a thought about them. I don’t even know how my digestive tract works, and the only reason I ever would is if I had a problem with it.

In the past, I would look to soldier through the illness. A supposedly urgent deadline would mean that I simply couldn’t indulge in a sick day. Unsurprisingly I ended up being more ill and needing more time to recover afterwards.

When I would get ill, I would fill myself with existential dread – why was I getting ill? Could it mean something really bad? Will I ever recover? The constant search for answers would drive me more sick as I could not properly rest.

This time, I had the most efficient recovery I ever had, and I only had two days out of work. It’s actually one I chalk up quite highly in my achievements over the last few months. I’m still not 100%, but I am moving towards there.

What helped me enormously was understanding the vital role of unpleasant feelings. My body is meant to hurt. It’s my body’s way of signalling something to me. And this is not just about physical pain, it is also about emotional pain too. I’m meant to feel sad. It’s my body’s way to regulate emotions and properly process loss or grief.

A friend remarked to me yesterday that my eyes looked different. I thought she meant because they were tired and worn down. But actually, she clarified to me that they looked better than they have done before. I checked for myself in the mirror and it was true – they look fresher than I ever remember them looking (even if accompanied by some tired bags!).

I remarked at an intensive 6 weeks ago that I didn’t seem to cry much because I had dry eyes. I thought that crying was just something I naturally didn’t do much of. But this was my own misconception. In reality it was the other way around – I had dry eyes because I had not been crying enough. Seemingly, at some point I learnt to ‘not cry’ as I went into adulthood.

As the days pass, I find the expression of sorrow come more natural to me, to the point that I welcome it as a friend. After all, it’s an important part of living the human experience. I’ve found myself getting teary more regularly as a natural part of this.

It’s been a release for my body – my eyes feel sharper and my body feels lighter. But better yet, by being comfortable with the unpleasant feelings, it enhances my gratitude for the pleasant ones. Suddenly the crisp air and the colourful leaves on the ground look ever more beautiful. Life seems simpler, and I feel more content.

So my invitation to you is looking at how you are dealing with your unpleasant feelings. Are you rejecting them as an unwelcome pest, or are you greeting them as friends?

When we learn to embrace our full range of emotions, we learn to truly live.

How are you responding to your unpleasant feelings?

Take a stand for the power of your work

‘It’s not too bad’

‘I could have worked on it more’

‘Hopefully it will help’.

These are all phrases I’ve used when talking about my book, Make Diversity Matter to You. But what am I saying about myself if I am not really willing to believe in what I am creating?

I know that this experience is not unique to me. In the fear of being seen as arrogant, many of us shyly meander around when talking about our own creations. It feels much more comfortable to avoid the idea that what we have created might be good. After all, who are we to be special?

When we create something, we pour our heart’s and souls into it. We dedicate ourselves to our craft. We may labour for hundreds of hours. We often deeply want others to give a positive assessment of our work. But despite wanting this, we massively downplay people’s expectations. The irony is that by underplaying our work, we are undercutting it’s value. Who would want to look at a painting that the painter doesn’t think is nice to look at?

I’ve received a powerful message over the last few weeks about the importance of taking a stand for my own work. If I don’t tell people about the transformative effect reading my book can have, then less people are likely to read it. And even if they do, no one will read it with the idea that it can be so valuable.

I wrote my book because I wanted to positively change the way people understand and think about diversity. Many people feel too tentative to address the issue, or simply do not get it. By bringing a coaching approach, my book will help people understand their own perspectives and be active champions. This mindset shift will change the world.

But I will change nothing if nobody bothers to read the book because I don’t tell anyone I wrote it. Nor will my book make a shift in society if people buy a copy out of pity, simply to sit on their shelves as a nice souvenir.

‘I know the guy who wrote that book. I liked the cover, but I haven’t read it yet.’

My book will make a change by the way I enrol people into reading it. When I demonstrate the power it can have, I can gain the commitment of people to use the information and apply it to their lives, that’s where the real magic lies. What you do not lack is a source of information. But this is about transformation.

It’s not been particularly comfortable writing about my book in such a way. My sense of self-consciousness blares out at me like a foghorn. Yet for you it probably doesn’t feel out of place at all. Here is how our mind can play against our own potential.

The good news is that this becomes easier the more I do it. The more I speak about the transformational effect of my work, the more I embody it. The more I embody it, the more it happens.

So my invitation for you is simple. Be bold. Take a stand for your work.

You are powerful. What you create can make magic. But this will usually only happen when you truly believe in it for yourself. This is not arrogance. This is assurance.

I share my story to help others. And I also share my book as an example of how I embody what I talk about here. This is to create the change I want in the world.

If you would like to check out the book, here are the links below:

Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon Fr (ships to Belgium) – https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon DE (ships to Belgium) – https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon AU – https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Life lesson 101: the more you give, the more you receive

This is article no. 101. So I thought I would share a life lesson 101: the more you give, the more you receive.

Giving is so powerful, yet we often get caught up in worrying about what is in it for us. Even when we want to be generous people, this falls away when we are stressed or lose sight of the bigger picture. When we get in the mindset of thinking about what we are taking, we lose sight of the reciprocal nature of humanity.

How often have we experienced that friend who only reaches out to us when they need something? We can label these people as the ‘takers’ – we learn their patterns, and quickly become suspicious whenever they sporadically contact us. ‘What do they want this time?’. Whether it’s money or one-way emotional support, the conversation is about them and their problems.

How strongly does that contrast to those incredibly valuable people who support us no matter what? These are the ‘givers’, and we know they are there for us when we need them. We value their friendship and counsel. They make time for us, even when they have issues themselves. They are people we would trust to honour their word.

We know who we prefer, and we also know who we would prefer to be as well. But how often do we truly commit to being the ‘givers’ versus the ‘takers’?

Many of us see ourselves as givers. Perhaps we are generous with our family, and we see ourselves as providers because we earn the money that pays the bills. This may be true, yet I also observe that many of us have blind spots depending on the different areas of our life.

For example, despite seeing ourselves as ‘nice’, we can be emotional takers when we are stressed. In a business setting, we may see it as ‘professional’ to be purely transactional, not realising that this is a form of taking rather than giving. Our conversations with people may be short and to the point.

My life has dramatically shifted once I realised this distinction of ‘giving’ and ‘taking’ and applying this across the whole of my life. Whilst I would work in jobs where I would ‘give’ a lot to help others, many of my relationships with friends and family were me ‘taking’.

I would put little effort in to fostering those relationships , and would often only reach out when prompted to, or when I needed something. I would bemoan not having people I could reach out to when I had a problem, yet I spent little time doing that for others.

Now, I spend far more time seeing how I can be helpful and generous to people. I’ve seen through the logical fallacies of expecting others to be warm and kind to me when I am not doing that for them. I also recognise that I can make the change I want in my life, rather than waiting for someone else to do it for me.

I wrote a post earlier this week about how I’ve given out over 30 copies of my book, Make Diversity Matter to You for free. Economically, this does not make sense. I’ve already spent more money giving out this book then I have earnt from sales.

But I recognise the universal law that the more I give, the more I receive. A book gifted means much more to the person receiving it than many other things I could do for them.

This isn’t a PR stunt either. The condition I give for people to take a copy is that they read it and apply it to their own life. I don’t ask them to publicise this book to friends or leave me 5 star reviews in return for a free copy. If they want to do that of their own volition, great. But that’s not really the point, and if I came with that expextation I would simply be ‘taking’ in a more creative way.

Writing my book has been a labour of love. I don’t know how long it really took me to write it, but I started in November 2020. It’s been a real learning journey. I got overwhelmed and stopped writing it for about a year. But in 2022 I was driven to complete it to make a positive impact in the world. This is a far more powerful motivator than the theorised ‘fame’ or ‘credibility’ I get from having a book with my name on the front.

I’m not pretending to be a selfless person. If anything, what I am doing is actually selfish. The reason I give more is that I know the benefits will come back to me eventually. Yet I’m also aware that the temptation can be to do what is easy, or what will benefit me in the short term. So I am choosing to be a ‘giver’ rather than a ‘taker’.

Some people inevitably want to buy the book even when I offer it for free, and I provide the option for them to do so. If you’d like a copy, I will share the links to the places where you can buy it. But I want this to be impactful. I believe the book will be incredibly powerful for you if you apply it to your life.

So when people have asked me if they can buy a copy to ‘support’ without the intention of reading it, I tell them not to bother. I don’t know anyone who needs another book sitting there left unread. That’s not helping anyone, and I don’t want to take their money for the sake of it.

So I’d invite you to examine your life and the different areas of it. Look at where you are giving, and celebrate it. See how powerful it is, and how much contentment and fulfilment this feeling gives you. Now look at where you are taking. Be honest with yourself. Where could you put more effort? Is it with your boss, partner, friends, family?

If you genuinely shift the areas where you are taking to ones where you are giving, the transformation in your life will be incredible.

Here are the links for the book. The book is available on Amazon from different storefronts depending on countries, link below:

Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon Fr (ships to Belgium) – https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon DE (ships to Belgium) – https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon AU – https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Putting yourself out there is scary. But it is also incredibly rewarding

According to LinkedIn, this is my 100th article.

I had no idea I would do this many. Yet when writing becomes a habitual moment of joy, everything else just flows. If I had spent too much time focussing on writing 100 articles, rather than just enjoying writing, I doubt I would have made it to this many. Let’s see if I make it to 1000 articles!

The theme around ‘putting myself out there’ feels very appropriate. My first article back in August 2020 was a nervous foray to sharing my thoughts to a public audience. I am so glad I made the step to do it. It started a new source of contentment and a new identity for me as a writer.

Now I have this newsletter with over 1000 subscribers. It’s incredibly rewarding (as well as humbling) to hear from people every now and then about how they’ve been reading my articles each week. The funny thing is I have no idea that anyone reads them until they tell me!

This week has also been a new, nerve-wracking adventure. On Saturday, I published my book, Make Diversity Matter to You.

There isn’t anything quite as exposing as putting a piece of work out there with your name on it. I still feel free around whether the content is of a good enough quality, or whether I’m charging too much for the book. Despite knowing that people enjoy my writing, that early feedback of pre-release versions was positive and that I’m happy with the content, I still feel nervous.

But nervousness is not a reason to not do something. If anything, the feeling of nerves or fear is actually often a sign that it will be the best thing you can do for yourself. When we can tackle our fears head on, we experience exponential growth.

Even after I finished the book, part of me wanted to release the book without really promoting it. That way, if it wasn’t good enough, it wouldn’t matter. But this would be self-sabotaging. This book has been a two year side project for me that I wrote with care and attention. Deep down, I know this will really help people.

In the past I would hide away, only posting my personal reflections on LinkedIn as a ‘professional’ platform, and avoid telling friends and family about the things I would be doing. This was my own fear. I’m now being more public about my own creations than I ever have been. I’ve posted excerpts, which include honest, personal accounts of my experience taken from the book. I’ve shared this with people I’ve met in real life, as well as other ‘personal’ social media platforms.

The funny thing about fear is that once you face up to it, the things you’re scared about can melt away pretty quickly. I’ve been humbled by the amount of well wishes I’ve received from people. I didn’t really think people would care so much. Perhaps by making a genuine commitment to make things better in the world, I’ve inspired others. I’ve already had several conversations with people who by finishing my book I’ve now inspired them to get on with their books!

I’m not the first person to write a book, neither will I be the last. Even if the book is terrible, it doesn’t really matter that much anyway. And I don’t mean that in a nihilistic sense. I mean that I have the freedom to create whatever I want.

Once I take away my own doubts and fears, I can do some really cool things in my life. Cool things, like writing a book.

If you would like to see more about the book, check out the links to Amazon below (I’ve included different Amazon storefront for my international friends)

Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon Fr – https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon DE – https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Amazon AU – https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BMK13Q6C

Birthing the creation of a book – Make Diversity Matter To You

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

The events of the killing of George Floyd shocked the world, and triggered a renewed and profound focus around the Black Lives Matter movement. Although the events took place in the USA, it was clear that this was the tip of the iceberg on a long-awaited discussion about race issues across the world.

I was locked up during the pandemic when the events took place. But like many people, I was keen to do something. Also, like many people, I wasn’t really sure what I could really do to make a change.

Ironically, I was probably as well equipped as anyone. At least in terms of knowledge anyway. At the time, I was still working in the UK government. I had been chairing the departmental race and faith network for two years. I was successful with it – we were recognised for our excellent work and gained awards.

I had also shifted into a new role, where half of my time was working on diversity and inclusion for my group of 600 people. This was about promoting diversity and inclusion more broadly amongst numerous different teams and directorates. I was good at it as well. So the issue was not experience.

Within the department, there was a flurry of internal activity, including numerous discussions around race with a concrete action plan coming out of it. It was genuinely inspiring – our department had already done a lot around race. So rather than being a knee-jerk reaction to an external event, this was an emotionally-sensitive, considerate approach which was respectful but also action-oriented.

I also recognised that there was more I could do outside of my formal workplace. I was in the midst of qualifying as a transformational coach, and starting to be far more active on social media. I found a creative side of me through the writing of these articles, and slowly but surely I was unveiling the mask of ‘corporate worker’ to someone who was willing to speak in public spaces around these issues.

I woke up one morning and reflected about what built my success around diversity and inclusion. I used to have direct one-to-one conversations with my director-general. I learnt that rather than looking to constantly push the agenda at them, it was really important to understand the person in front of me and help them see why this was important, and what role they can play. No doubt qualifying for a coach was all a part of this.

This was an approach that I didn’t see many diversity and inclusion practitioners taking. Whilst many are extremely passionate, I saw them trying to push ever-harder at the door. This often led to resistance from the organisation, and burnout for the practitioners. From my experience, I found open and collaborative conversations to be an extremely powerful way to shift hearts and minds. Senior leaders are humans too, after all.

Then, in November 2020 I had an idea to write a book. I even posted about it in a blog back then, with the rather ambitious goal to write it in one month. I had a spurt of inspiration one morning about creating the ‘CUBE’ model: looking at people’s Culture, Upbringing, Biases and (Lived) Experiences. The idea of the model was to give some basic prompts (what culture do you come from? how important is this for you?) to help people understand the importance of diversity for themselves. I’ve since run this in workshops and found it worked really well.

And so I started with plenty of enthusiasm. I got pretty far too. But then I ran out of things to say. Once I got past the section of my experiences and the CUBE model, I didn’t know how to take the book deeper to something more transformational for the reader. For the book to be truly life-changing, I wanted it to be a deeply shifting experience.

This year, I found what I wanted to say. I am experiencing a profound shift in the way I am living my life. A big part of this was reading the book, The Ultimate Coach. This details the life of Steve Hardison and how we can live into Being who we want to be each and every day. It sounds simple enough, but it is about how we live our lives when nobody is watching, and how we want to create the people we are being.

The prompt to reading this book was that I attended the London Ultimate Event in April 2022, where Steve Hardison was speaking. It was filled with hundreds of incredible, open people, many of whom were coaches.

It was actually there that I spoke to a friend. He was handing me a copy of his book, on the promise I read it. It is there that I spoke to him about the fact I had this half written-book.

We have a recording where he asked me whether I was willing to commit to finishing it. After some deliberation, I said yes. During the recording, he wanted to commit me deeply. And so, he asked me when I wanted to complete it by. After some deliberation, I said I thought I could complete it by March 2023.

He said, okay, but can you do it in half the time? I was taken aback but thought about it – yes that seemed possible. I said potentially – he said we do not do ‘potentially’.

After a bit of back and forth, he asked whether I could have it written by 20th November – his birthday. So in the end, I agreed. As a man of commitment, my book is now finished and is available to preorder on Amazon currently, with a release date on Kindle for 19th November.

It makes for a fun story, but this is also about committing to action. I committed to finishing a version of the book by 20th November. Whilst I could have made excuses or delayed the deadline, I decided not to. It was important for me to uphold my commitments. For myself, rather than anyone else.

The book itself is a manifestation of my commitment to love and serve others. I wrote it with the genuine will to help people understand the topic of diversity and inclusion for themselves. I truly believe that the book will be a powerful tool to help anyone who picks it up to understand themselves better and be an actor for change.

So if you’re interested in knowing more about it, feel free to drop me a message.

You can check out the site page on Amazon where I’ll be self-publishing. The Kindle edition is currently available to pre-order, but there will be a paperback version on the site shortly.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BKTPPY1K?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420