Blog – Page 13 – Tahmid Chowdhury

Starting Fresh – how to handle starting a new job

It’s officially September. Summer is over. For some of us, that also means a fresh start in a new job.

A new job can be a daunting process. We are entering into a new role with a new team, new area of work, as well as potentially a new organisation and location. A year ago I experienced these changes when I left the UK to come to Belgium for a new role in a different sector.

Understandably, getting off on the right foot brings a lot of anxiety to people. Often, people want to make sure they make a good impression and are keen to demonstrate their competence as early as possible.

But do new jobs really need to be that stressful?

I’ve previously started new jobs where I’ve spent an incredible amount of mental energy in trying to understand as much as possible. I wanted to make sure I put my best step forward and learn the cultural norms as soon as possible. By the end of it, I was exhausted, and within three weeks I felt my energy levels drop. The amount of effort I put in trying to plan my first few weeks meant that I felt exhausted within a month. It also ate into my personal life. I would often go home and crash, clearing out my diary of recreational activities because all my focus was on my job.

In hindsight, this is probably not the best thing to do. It’s when we first start our job that we get an opportunity to set how we want to work, and give the impression of how we want to work. If we give the impression that we are want to people-please from the beginning, that will probably be the lasting impression you will give for the first six to twelve months. This isn’t the worst thing, but you may suddenly find yourself having a harder time getting your points across, or being given more menial tasks if you’re viewed in that way.

Furthermore, if I didn’t illustrate the point enough, it’s also very tiring to start a job being on edge across a whole work day, let alone doing that for several weeks. Whilst in the short term you may find you get more out of yourself, if you start with unsustainable behaviours you will likely inevitably crash. This will affect your performance longer term.

So instead, I recommend seeing a role as a new opportunity. Each day is a chance to learn something new and speak to different people. The best starters I saw came with an enthusiasm and open curiosity for the job. Rather than being so keen to impress, they take the time to learn the ropes by talking to different people and learning what they need to do, whilst also getting the lay of the land through private conversations. For more senior hires, this is particularly critical. I can recall several times in Government how I had a new manager who was so keen to impress on their first day that they wanted to change everything. It was a nightmare for me and my team, and actually led to difficult relations with them for at least six months. It was difficult to point out that they basically didn’t understand their job yet without looking like I was just trying to frustrate their wishes of change.

Personally, I believe a lot of this behaviour comes from a sense of inadequacy. Having gone through an intense interview process, it can feel like we are still under trial when we start. Indeed, in the UK we have probation periods and in certain team environments new hires can be pushed into contributing rather quickly.

But it’s important to recognise that once you have gotten a job offer, you are now officially a member. It’s therefore an opportunity for you to bring your knowledge and experience as a value-add, and you don’t need to wait 6 months before sharing ideas. A lot of the time, the pressure comes from ourselves – this inadequacy (often from imposter syndrome) keeps us in a state of perpetual stress. You don’t need me to tell you that being in perpetual stress is not a recipe for excelling in a role.

Naturally there is a fear that we just aren’t up to the job we are hired into. And yes, that sometimes is the case. People can be mis-hired or poorly managed, which certainly does happen. To be honest with you though, if you’re in a situation where this is happening, it may just be a toxic environment where people often join and leave with high frequency. If that’s the case, there’s probably not a lot you can do. That said, if you are in this situation, you’ll probably see the warning signs quite quickly. If a job isn’t meant to work out, it’s not meant to work out. So relax – the chances are you were hired and can do the job. Now it’s for you to manage the situation to do the best you can.

So I would recommend that you give yourself plenty of space to engage with work. Coming in fresh with enthusiasm, but also not getting too caught up in impressing on your first week. It’s okay to ask questions. Take the time to speak to people and learn what they do. A new role is a great time to build relationships that you would otherwise forego with work colleagues. Likewise, feeling overwhelmed with new information can be a normal part of the process. It’s okay if you don’t get thigns in the first go. You have time to settle into your role, so there’s no need to put yourself under additional pressure.

Finally, remember that you’re in this job probably because you want to be. So you may as well enjoy it. Many of us forget that once we get our dream jobs that the point of it is to enjoy actually working there. Instead, we fall into a cycle of stress and unhappiness as we feel like this is how we are meant to react. You get to choose how you want your relationship with work.

So if you’re starting a new job, I hope this article helps you. I’d love to hear what you get out of it or any additional tips you would give to someone else.

Balancing between mastery and being a jack-of-all-trades

I was in a conversation this week with someone who talked about having many different interests. It prompted me to think about my own experience and the guidance I got – on the one hand, people talk about it being good to have lots of different skills. On the other hand, am I meant to be ‘settling down’ on one thing and becoming the best at that?

Like most things in life, the answer depends. It depends on you, and what you want to do.

I’ve had coaching conversations in the past of people regretting the fact they hadn’t focussed on one subject – they saw their peers progressing in the field that they had devoted most of their time into, whereas this person didn’t have a clear direction as they did a mix of writing, politics and other hobbies. It was only when I pointed out to them that they were not like their peers that the lightbulb kicked in: they wanted to be good at lots of stuff, so they would not have been satisfied with the idea of a one-track-career anyway.

Traditionally, the general mantra is that you should pick a career and dedicate your life towards building mastery. The theory is that you’ll only become the best athlete, manager or salesperson by buckling down and dedicating your life to constantly improving in that area.

I’ve seen plenty of happy people who broadly follow this mantra. They often find a pursuit that they really enjoy, even if at first they only fall into it by chance. The are then happy to buckle down and work to improve at it, slowly progressing the career ranks too. If you feel like this category fits for you, then great.

It is important to push yourself to continue learning, even if you’ve been in a job for decades. Time in a job does not equal being better at it, and many people stagnate. If you really want to get to the top of your game, keep on striving to learn more. Also, just because you are striving to be the best in one field, it does not mean that you cannot learn about other things, or pick up hobbies you care about. You’ll probably find that this will give you new perspectives and enhance your work. It will also make you a more rounded and interesting character.

What about people who don’t want to be type-cast into one box? You may feel that the system inherently dissuades us from doing different things – when it comes to job applications, it’s hard to show a dedicated interest in one field when you are doing several different activities. It can also be unclear as to what you really want to do, which is not necessarily the best when being interrogated about your future by family and friends.

The good thing is that if you want to do lots of different things, you are likely a curious person who is open to experimenting with a mix of ideas. You can benefit from learning from multiple different fields and pick up quite a variety of skills. Whilst it may take a while to settle on where you start, if you ever wanted to change it makes it a lot easier as you may have spent more time dabbling with other things to learn what really makes you tick. The people that have multiple pursuits can be some of the most interesting, and they are also willing to challenge the status quo as they have a wider set of experiences from different fields.

If you see yourself as a jack-of-all-trades, it can be tempting to constantly want to try new things. There is always some new cool career or hobby that people talk about. If not kept in balance it can mean constantly pursuing something new. If you find yourself in this space, you may find you get bored quickly with what you are doing, and are constantly looking for the next thing to conquer. This means that you might not actually be dedicating enough time to one thing to actually get good enough at it to qualify for you in a career. It’s like learning 5 languages at a basic level versus getting conversational fluency in two or three (with mastery being full fluency in one). You can’t do much with a basic level of understanding, no matter how many languages you start, but you can do quite a lot with an intermediate understanding.

I personally like doing lots of different things. I work in public policy, but I also write and coach. I started a podcast too, and have a few other whacky projects in the background, including my book which is hovering around 40,000 words. However, I found that if I wanted any of my projects to actually have meaning and impact, I had to focus. I’ve put a pause on the podcast for now, as I found myself stretching myself too thin. I also found that I needed to dedicate more time to my coaching if I wanted to get to a proficient level with it to genuinely help people. So for me that meant dedicating more time to honing my trade over the last six months, whilst also pushing back some of the other things I wanted to do.

Whatever way you see yourself, the important thing is to understand what you want. People are different, so one path might inherently appeal more to you than the other. There is no heirarchy – we need both types of people in the world. So don’t feel guilty if you want to become the best at a niche field in a family of entrepreneurs, nor if you want to start a few different projects in a family of specialist doctors.

Ultimately, the best thing you can do for yourself and the world is to realise what you want to do. Then, it’s about being as good as you can be in the path you’ve chosen.

Which path are you on, one towards mastery, or a jack-of-all-trades? Comment in the messages below!

How to be more social on Social Media

I’ve been more active on social media in the last year than I have been since my time at University. In between these years I slowly regressed into a social media hermit that would rarely interact with others and only respond when someone reached out to me. It had similarities on how my own social life dwindled at the time.

Social media is a tool. I see it as something that is neither inherently good, nor bad. It can help connect us to people we would never speak to otherwise and help us keep in touch with people we’ve known for a long time but no longer see on a daily basis. It also has a darker side, which can lead us to addiction, and constantly comparing ourselves to idealised versions of others.

If we see social media as a tool, it makes it easier to understand that we can use it in a way that makes us take advantages of it rather than suffer the negatives. However, this requires a level of intention in how we use it, rather than falling into a negative pattern that I believe many of us do.

So how did I make using social media a lot more fun?

I. Start having more conversations with people.

Many of us move into lurker mode. It is the same as sitting at the side of the party, quietly listening to everyone else have a conversation. We don’t interact with people unless they interact with us, but considering we never say anything, there is no reason that they would speak to us anyway. Instead, we end up spending a long time just following other people and seeing what they’re talking about. This experience actually makes us feel more lonely than social.

To break this cycle, you can simply reply to more people’s posts, and put out more posts yourself. You can perhaps reach out to people in messenger if you want to start a conversation. It might feel a bit scary, but it’s no different to approaching someone in real life for the first time. Sometimes it won’t work, but many times it will. If you feel like you don’t have many people to speak to, this could be the way to have more.

II. Curate your own social media feed

Social media feeds can quickly get out of control. When we don’t interact with anyone or anything, the algorithm guesses what we might like or not like. This means we get a weird assortment of things on our news feed which we don’t really want to see. But we can be a lot more active. If we don’t like the content of someone or something, we can simply unfollow them. The more we comment on the things we do like, the more we will see them. As such, if you’re commenting on something you don’t actually want to see more of to be polite, you’re telling the algorithm to show you more of it. So instead, be really clear of what sort of content you want to see. If you’re tired of influencer-style posts or want to see more dogs on instagram, change the accounts you follow and you will get more of the content you’d like. It made a real difference once I did a curation of my news feed, now I get a much more interesting, mix of posts.

III. Be clear on what you want to use social media for

It’s important to be clear as to why you’re using social media. If you spend hours ambling around because you’re bored, you’re not likely to get a whole lot out of the platform. If you want to use LinkedIn to connect with more people in your profession, that makes it a lot clearer of what you want to do. So you can act accordingly – reaching out to find people who might be similar to you. If you want to simply meet more people, you can start a conversation with them. If you’re deliberate in what you’re using the platform for, you’ll find you’ll enjoy it much more

IV. Don’t worry about the likes and other vanity metrics

We are no longer at school trying to win a popularity contest. If you’re looking to have meaningful interactions with people, then it doesn’t actually matter if you get no likes or one thousand. Often the posts that have deeper meaning or a more subtle message are less popular, but lead to people thinking more deeply. I find that it’s the ones that react to these posts who you can have a really interesting conversation with. There’s certainly a space for wider-appeal posts that attract more people to interact with you, but if you only focus on the numbers rather than the genuine relationship you’re building, it can become a very joyless game. The numbers ultimately odn’t matter that much. People don’t count how many friends they have in real life.

V. Put healthy limits around how you’re using social media

Like anything, social media is best used in moderation. One of the big downside of social media is that it can be addictive. As such, it can quickly be a place to fill a void of boredom or loneliness. How often do you check your phone when an ad is playing? I had to deliberately move my phone away from me to stop me checking my phone so many times in the day. It can also be something we turn to when we’re feeling low, which can inevitably lead us to comparing ourselves to those who are doing much better through the lens of social media. It’s no wonder that this can lead to a lot of mental health issues. You’ll usually know you’re overdoing it if you feel tired or anxious, so if that’s the case, it may be time for a detox.

So that’s how I’ve shifted my use of social media. How about you? What did you take from this article, I’d love to hear from you, drop me a comment below!

What game are you playing in life?

I’m in Italy this week. We’ve spent the last few days going into different towns in Puglia. It’s been refreshing getting out of my own comfort zone and awakening to a different culture I hadn’t properly seen before.

Yesterday, we played a few rounds of a card game called Scopa. Each player gets three cards, and the aim is to collect cards by either matching a card with the same value, or collecting several which add up to the card value you have. For example, if you have an eight, if there is an eight on the table you can capture the card. If there is no eight, but there is a five and three, you can capture both these cards instead. These go into your collection and the totals are counted at the end of each round.

The scoring system is based upon several different criteria. You score a point based on each of the individual criteria: who has captured the most cards; who has the most sevens; who has the ‘sette bello’ – the seven gold coin card; and who has the most sevens. During a game, if you also capture all the cards remaining on the deck this is ‘scopa’ which means you also score a point.

Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t particularly good at this game when I first played. Some of the faces of the cards can be confusing as to what number they correspond to, and I didn’t really get the rhythm of the game either. I often took a few cards off the table, leaving only one or two left, allowing the next player to clear the table and get a point through ‘scopa’.

I did wonder whether this was a game of luck. After all, it’s based upon a shuffled deck, and each player gets three random cards. The cards at the centre are also random. Yet I learnt that there are some people who get very good at this game. A bit like poker, the trick is to memorise what cards have been played, that way you can understand the odds of different combinations work.

I found playing a new game a really interesting analogy of trying new things in life. Firstly, I wasn’t particularly good at it (aside from a round of beginner’s luck). Secondly, the rules sounded completely alien when explained, and it was only by playing that I got the hang of it. Thirdly, it was fun to play, which is what made us continue. The picture above is us playing it at the beach.

The funny thing is that life works in a remarkably similar way. We get to choose what we game play in life, and how we want to play it. Like any game, it has some general rules. We are all players, and although some of us may start luckier than others, and we are broadly confined under the same metaphysical boundaries. But the way we want to play the game is up to us. We can be reckless or cautious. We can be bold, or timid. We can be inquisitive or uninterested. It’s really up to us, even if it does not always feel like it.

Like scopa, it can take a while to get the hang of this game of life. It can take a while to figure out what even the point of it is, but the more I play it as a game, the better I get at understanding how it all works. Whilst I could also read a thousand text books on the art of living life, ultimately I just have to live it to understand how things work. By playing it as a game, rather than a very serious, pressurised obligation, it also can be fun. For me, that’s what keeps life enjoyable.

But there are more games we can play. In fact, we can create a game for pretty much anything. There may be the game of chess, but there is also a game of becoming a chess grandmaster. For that, we go and understand out the broader rules to become a ‘grandmaster’, and what this means in practice. For example, what someone has to do to become a grandmaster. We then figure out how we make this happen, which is a mixture of playing a lot of chess games mixed in with a lot of practice. By making it a game rather than somethign we merely pursue, we can make it fun. This then shifts the labour of practice from being boring to one that’s actually rather enjoyable.

Maybe you don’t want to be a chess grandmaster. Maybe you want to be the best singer, manager, salesperson, spouse or any other thing. So instead, you can play the game of becoming that thing you want to do. You’re probably already doing it – I play the game of coaching, and if you have a job you’re playing that game too.

Looking at our jobs as games can make them a far more enjoyable experience. Games in of their nature are structured and can be repeated. Practicing to become something beyond ‘average’ (like me as a Scopa player) is also rather repetitive and requires a level of dedication and commitment. But if we can make a game out it, suddenly it becomes a lot more fun. Athletes and professionals in sport often rise to the top through a love of the sport they play, and so they generally enjoy going to training every day. It’s no wonder that they rise above their peers, because to them it’s just fun. And if you find something fun, you’re

much more likely to get up at 6am to do it.

Games can be incredibly powerful. It’s just a choice for you to decide which one you want to play. So if you don’t feel like you’re currently consciously playing one within your life, you may consider doing so. It will make things far lighter and more enjoyable, whilst also keeping you on track to meet the goals you’re aiming for.

What game are you playing?

If you got anything from this article, I’d love to hear from you. Drop a message below or feel free to send a message to me direct on LinkedIn or via email.

What does working with a coach look like in practice?

You may have come across the idea of a ‘coach’. You’ve certainly seen sports coaches too. But what does it actually look like to work with a coach on personal development?

People use coaches for all sorts of reasons – common themes include wanting help to improve a skill or get support with finding a new job or pursuing a promotion. It might also be that someone is struggling with a particular area of their life such as anxiety, confidence or imposter syndrome.

Coaching gives time and space to go deeper into conversations around subjects which you otherwise wouldn’t. For example, I’ve had conversations around how the issue of confidence has really held back a client in speaking up in their team meetings. This has had a subsequent negative effect on their career trajectory, further knocking their confidence.

When we explored the idea of confidence, this came from the idea of not belonging in where they worked, which actually came from their personal life and how they had felt left out when younger. After we had spent time reframing the issue, speaking up in meetings wasn’t so nerve wracking anymore. The effect also had a wider positive impact on their life outside of meetings too. So it can really help, and it’s common to explore multiple subjects with a coach over different sessions.

Different coaches have different styles. It’s why it’s important to find someone that you feel will genuinely help you. Like any profession, unfortunately there are coaches which give it a bad name. It doesn’t take long to find get-rich-quick schemes or people who get their sales by pressuring people into paying for something that isn’t right for them.

I take the time to speak with people several times before even looking at the idea of a client relationship. Coaching is a personal, transformative experience, and you would only want to do that with someone you can genuinely trust and you think can genuinely help you. If I believe I’m not that person for you, I’d much prefer you find someone else who will fit what you’re looking for.

My style goes into the inner depths around mindset and our perceptions of the world. I do this because I believe this has the biggest transformative effect. If we shift the way we see our own existence, suddenly possibilities appear that we never noticed before. This can be incredibly powerful, and can really change people’s lives. It then has the desired knock-on effect of greater career pursuits or simply a happier, more fulfilled life.

My approach isn’t for everyone. After all, this style of coaching requires a larger commitment – it’s not a quick fix to a problem. Some people would much prefer more targeted coaching around a skill, or one that is more focussed around getting to a certain goal as quickly as possible. That’s fine, there are plenty of coaches that do that. It’s just not my personal style.

Coaches regularly meet with their clients to talk about particular issues that the client wants to talk about. It gives an open space to co-create a session that really helps, rather than a pre-set seminar to ‘teach’ people what to do. For example, I’ve had clients who were thinking about wanting to talk about a specific skill such as public speaking, but then arrived on the day overwhelmed with their life. We ended up speaking about how they were feeling and working it through, which had a much greater impact as we could explore some of the root causes of the feelings.

I tend to work with clients on a longer term relationship, spanning several months. This allows for a continued conversation and keeps an ongoing commitment towards making that personal shift. The basis of the coaching itself is via regular sessions: 60-75 minute sessions every two to four weeks depending on the pace the client wants to go on.

Outside of the sessions, I keep an open line of dialogue throughout the time we work together. I often send resources such as books, articles and videos as additional material between sessions, as well as have space within our work for impromptu conversations in case the person I work with really just needs to speak about something at short notice.

That’s how I like to work as it keeps a sense of continuity for the client. Other coaches can work very differently. Some only speak during sessions. Some have unlimited access. It’s worth exploring this with whoever you talk to.

Coaching can be an incredibly powerful thing. It’s why so many people hire them. That said, it’s not for everyone, nor is it a necessity. When it does work, it does bring great changes at a far greater pace than going it alone. So if you’re open to the idea that coaching might help you, it might be worth exploring.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about coaching. If you’re interested in knowing more about what I do, drop me a message

Why a £2000 cheque doesn’t make you as happy as you think it would

Yesterday, I was running around a little frantically between meetings. I take my lunch breaks seriously, but I also try and cook a proper lunch within them when I can.

I saw an ominous letter on the table. It was from HMRC, the UK’s tax authority. It had been redirected from my old flat in London. Cue internal fear as to whether I had broken the law in some way, or owed a lot of money to someone, despite not having even seen the letter contents.

The reality was the opposite – I had overpayed tax in the UK over the last year. As I had left my job mid-year, the amount I was taxed was higher than it ought to have been.

in my lap sat a cool cheque for a £2000 tax rebate. Happy days. I looked at my bank and thought about how nice the numbers would be in the account (it would take away a few minuses anyway!). I then mused whether this was karma for all my good deeds, or I had manifested some money coming into my life. Either way, I created some level of fantasy to tell myself I deserved this break.

After lunch, I went back to my daily work. I had a bunch of calls and a few reporting documents to write. These can be a bit tedious, and the calls turned out to be a little tense. Truthfully, It didn’t take me long to completely forget about the happy moment of receiving the money.

I had a late call which meant I needed to rush to the cinema to get there on time. I managed to catch the bus by jogging to the stop. So as I sat down on the seat somewhat out of breath, I had a moment to reflect on my day.

Remarkably, I spent a lot of time thinking about the calls I had and the work I was doing. I had basically forgotten about this magical sum of money that had appeared on my lap. Wow – that didn’t take long.

I moved on from the positives of receiving money very quickly, instead the small negative niggles were the first thing that came to my mind. Remarkable how our mind works?

A technique I could use would be to return to my gratitude around the situation I found myself in, and relativise the negative feelings I had about the meetings – after all I had a broadly ‘good’ day of work where I got a lot done. And this would help. It would give me perspective.

Yet the fundamental point is that by relying on my day to be dictated by the events within it, I was holding myself hostage to my happiness being set by the events of the day. As demonstrated here, the human mind has a tendency to move on from the positives rather quickly, instead focusing on the negatives more intensely.

So instead of basing my sense of contentment that happened during the day of whether I got some money, or whether I had a good (or bad) day, I can reframe this to understand that I can choose to be happy either way. By shifting my mindset to see that I can be happy no matter what life throws at me, it leaves me feeling lighter and happier.

This means, when I get something like a nice cheque of £2000, it’s an added bonus, rather than relying on that to make my day. Likewise, a bad meeting or an unproductive day at work doesn’t really have to make me feel worse, because ultimately my work doesn’t derive my happiness – I do.

Happiness is something that is in our natural state of being. When we stop all the other things – the planning, the stress and the worries – we can return to it. We don’t need to do anything to ‘become’ happy, rather it’s about dropping the things that are drawing our mind away from our natural state of wellbeing. From my experience, the stillness of the mind results in a general feeling of satisfaction and happiness.

So I’d invite you to reflect on when you last felt stillness. If you’d like, I’d love if you could share when it was, and what the situation was as well. You can either drop a comment below, or message me directly if you want to learn more about the natural state of happiness.

Life lessons from my neighbour’s cat

Post author By tahmidchowdhury
Post date July 22, 2022
Categories In Personal Development, Satire

I’ve never had the pleasure of owning a cat. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) I now have my neighbour’s cat, Sugar in my life. Sugar, seeing the weakness in my heart now knows she can wonder into our house as if she owns the place.

The last few days have been incredibly hot, so we’ve tended to keep the backdoor open, allowing easy entry. It usually doesn’t take long for Sugar to stroll in and start curling up in different places around the house, watching the day go by.

I once walked into my own office to find her sitting there at 8am on my sofa. She stared at me as if to say ‘what the hell are you doing here?’. Another day I turned around at the end of the work day after a couple of Teams calls to find her just sitting there, and probably had been for a few hours. I hadn’t even noticed her presence.

Sugar can be rather demanding when she wants strokes. yesterday she wondered in and started pushing against my hand when she wanted to be petted. It wasn’t particularly ideal as I was holding a Playstation controller on a game without a pause button. But chops to her, she knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to ask for it. Repeatedly.

There is something around the way that animals live that is far more straightforward to our lives. They are willing to just do the things that they want to. Cats especially. When Sugar is bored, she’ll start brushing up against humans for attention. When she wants space, she will wonder into another room to claim her new spot. She also sometimes just decides to scratch things (to the point where we wondered whether it’s worth getting a scratch pad, though we’re not particularly sure of the ethics of getting toys for someone else’s cat).

There is a directness and shamelessness of her actions that is honestly rather impressive. In a world where we send emails filled with fluff and formalities which take an age to get to the point, a cat will just go do what it wants, damned be what other people think.

The funny thing is that the sheer persistence is what gets them what they want. I used to be cautious in how long we let Sugar in the house, but the amount of meowing when we leave the backdoor closed that we would hear meant that now I’ve given up. I let her in without questioning it anymore. When we didn’t let her stay inside during the evenings she would meow outside the door for over an hour. It was relentless. We realised she wonders out when it gets dark anyway, so no harm done.

The simplistic way that a cat lives can be incredibly insightful in how we can live our lives. Sometimes we overcomplicate how to get something done or do something we want. We learn that we need to be polite, and so spend so much time tip-toeing around a subject that people have lost what we’re even trying to say. How many of us have sat in front of a desk carefully crafting an email, to the point we’ve taken an age to write what was in reality a pretty simple request?

By making our lives simpler by cutting out a lot of the noise and self-consciousness of how to request things, the more time we have for everything else. The amount of time we spend agonising around what to do isn’t helping anyone.

Persistence is also key. We often ask for something once and expect it to magically happen. When we get the answer we don’t want, the polite response is to accept that at face value then go off and pout about it, or complain to our friends at the injustice of it all. Now Sugar doesn’t take no for an answer. If she wants to be pet, she will make it happen. Even if that means getting hair all over your sofa to get your attention.

Most of our achievements have a level of persistence behind them. If we stopped after our first failure, we wouldn’t get very far with anything. But we lose this message when we become very sensitive to people’s opinions or our own self-consciousness. We learn to start doubting ourselves, which ultimately hinders us.

Lots of the things we learn through societal standards and our upbringing takes us away from a simplicity in our lives. If you feel like your life is very complicated, that might just be the amount of noise that surrounds your life and the decisions you make. For me, I found the moment I stripped back a lot of the things like expectation, rationalisations and over-thinking was the moment my life became a lot simpler.

With a simpler life, it is much easier to be happier. I do more of the things I want, and less of the things I don’t want. I spend less time worrying what other people think, or whether a decision is the ‘right’ one. Instead I trust my instinct in the moment.

How could you make your life more simple?

Why people use personal coaches for development

Who uses a ‘coach’, and what are they exactly?

The word ‘coach’ comes from the idea of an old coach carriage, which could take you from one place to another. A coach does the same thing, only rather on a development journey rather than a physical one.

I first got into coaching as I wanted to expand my repertoire as a manager. Whilst I found that I enjoyed learning more about leadership, I was curious on how a less-directive approach could be another way to motivate people. In the world of work where our success is based upon our people, I figured it would be a helpful skill to have.

Yet coaching can be far more than a simple motivational tool. It can help genuinely develop people in a way that courses and books cannot as it takes a far more individual approach to personal development. When I received coaching, I never realised how much certain implicit beliefs I had built up were holding me back. For example, I had this subconscious view that to be successful in my career I had to be unhappy. My logic was that being happy was for those who wanted the easy life, whereas me as an ambitious person was doomed to take greater responsibility and suffer for it.

But it took a coach to examine this misguided notion of masochism to pull it apart. I no longer believe this story I told myself. In fact, I now believe the opposite – the happier I am, the more I achieve the things I want to do. I find myself rarely using words like ‘ambition’ and ‘motivation’ either, instead pursuing things because I want to.

Without this weight on my shoulders, it’s been far easier to live a more fulfilled life. In my personal life, I have kindled more friendships and gotten into hobbies such as yoga and language learning. In my professional life, I had a dynamic career in the UK Government moving up the ranks fairly rapidly, which more recently has shifted to living a dream where I’ve moved abroad to Brussels to work on influencing EU sustainability policy.

So I understand the transformative effect coaching can have, particularly when we reexamine how we are living our lives. When I hold coaching conversations with others, I enjoy delving into these areas. This goes deep – questioning fundamental assumptions that people have about life and the world. I do this because I can see the transformative effect it can have on people, which can then lead them to have far happier lives whilst also getting much further in the career path or new venture they want to take.

A recent conversation I’ve had is around the idea of anxiety. I’ve spoken to a lot of different people who believe that their worries are what make them successful – the stress and panic is what keeps them from failing at their job. Without the worry, they believe that they would have nothing to spur them on to do the things they need to.

However, this can be reframed to realising that people can do the things they want to without needing anxiety. From this position, people can let go of this negative shroud, which allows them to go on and enjoy life. And the funny thing about life is that from this place of stillness, we are at our most creative and do our best work. What often follows is an increase in traditional metrics like ‘productivity’ because people are no longer spending so much time dreading failure.

Another area I like to examine with people is how much we make things seem incredibly important, which only serves to put pressure on ourselves. This week I chaired an event in the European Parliament sitting next to an MEP. On the one hand it was a milestone for our whole project which could define our project’s success. On the other, it was one of thousands of events happening that very same day, of which I would probably not even remember on my death bed. I figured that even if it didn’t go particularly well, the world would go on and there would be other opportunities to do something well later. From this space, I was calm and collected, which allowed me to do the things to make the event go well. In the end it went incredibly well.

Nonetheless, this transformation is not a simple task that happens magically without any effort put in. The real power in coaching is that ultimately you are the one doing the work. Nobody is telling you how to live your life, it is for you to go out and make the changes. A coach can serve to push, encourage, challenge and guide you. They’ve probably gone through a related journey themselves. It will enable you to get where you want to go much faster than what you would have done otherwise.

So coaching can be incredibly powerful. There is a great power in examining these fundamental views that we hold. It can lead to incredible personal change which enhances both professional and personal satisfaction.

If you’re curious to understand more about these conversations, you can drop me a message.

What experiences have you had around coaching?

What’s in a birthday anyway?

How much does a birthday really matter?

I had my birthday this week. I was visiting the UK and in the end stayed for a bunch of work meetings for the day, including for a conference on concrete – which is a slightly different thing to do, but unique nonetheless.

I’ve had a bit of cake and a few nice cards from colleagues and family. I’ve also had people wishing me well. I’m rather behind responding to messages, but I’ll get around to it. Apologies!

I actually spent the day staying at my parents house. My mother bought a giant cake, then realised it would be too much of a faff to open it when I was about to travel. So instead I packed a Sainsbury’s chocolate cake and took it to Brussels the next day. Supplemented with my annual tradition of buying a Colin the Caterpillar cake (a British institution for my international friends), I am in no lack of sickly chocolate cake for the next three weeks.

It’s quite funny looking at the relaxed way I spent my birthday. These days I see things very differently to how I saw something like a birthday compared to before. I used to get quite wound up about the fact my birthday was during my summer, and that I couldn’t have some big party.

I would look enviously at others who could have a moment for themselves to celebrate, and wondered why it didn’t really happen when it was my turn. It got to the point that I’d count how many people wished me happy birthday on my Facebook wall vs other people. This was my way of quantifying how much I was appreciated compared to other people.

It’s a little crazy to look back at it. It used to be a day filled with dread as I had expectations which weren’t met, leaving me feel worse than other days. But birthdays, like New Years is just a day in the calendar. If we didn’t live our lives based upon a calendar which governs our days I wouldn’t even realise that the day was any different to another.

Wouldn’t it be a novel way to see things if we didn’t base our lives on the calendar? We wouldn’t know the difference between a Monday and a Saturday, nor craving the holiday months in July quite in the same way as we do. Perhaps life would be a bit freer.

This is the way I’ve started thinking. It’s actually pretty liberating. I enjoy what I want to, living life as I would want to anyway – enjoying each day as it comes, and making it as fulfilling as possible. Anything further I receive like the cake, cards and well wishes are a bonus. I don’t need people to say happy birthday to feel happy. But it’s a nice opportunity to reconnect with people all the same. From a place of no expectations, life is a lot more fun.

The moment we shift our relationship with the comparison of others, or ‘important’ dates which actually are man-made, the moment we release ourselves from needing anything from anyone. From there, we can just enjoy what we receive, no matter the amount.

I’m not saying to not do parties or anything exciting. Quite the contrary – it’s the idea that we can do things like parties, but not putting undue expectations on it, nor relying on it to demonstrate how many people love us. The more pressure on it, the less enjoyable it is.

So I’d love to hear your reflections on what I’ve said. I’ve found that we can get very caught up on how we expect celebrations of things like birthdays, which ultimately tends to make us more unhappy.

How do you celebrate your birthday?

The importance of cultivating a healthy network around you

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?

If a worker does an amazing piece of work, but sits in a siloed team where nobody talks to each other, did they really do an amazing piece of work?

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Since the world has opened up post-pandemic, I’ve been a lot more intentional in reaching out to others. Rather than seeing friendships and connections as a by-product of the rest of my life, I’ve looked at is as something that needs love and attention to foster. I’ve become a lot more conscious about what I’ve been doing, particularly as I’ve been reading the book ‘Never Eat Alone’ by Keith Ferrazzi, which I’d certainly recommend.

I’ve been making more of an effort to go out and speak to people. Sometimes these are people I’ve never met before – attending events or starting new hobbies and striking up conversations (sites like Meetup are great for this). But more often it’s been about connecting with people I’ve known for a long time but haven’t spoken to. Dropping a message on the fly or arranging a coffee chat or call. It doesn’t need to be anything particularly complicated. I’m off to London this weekend and have arranged quite a few meet-ups with different people. (which by teh way if you happen to be around I’d be happy to meet up – though my diary is a little tight at the moment!)

I do understand it’s quite easy to fall into the trap of becoming passive in relationships. After all, it’s what I was doing. Having gone to university, ways to meet people were practically served to me on a plate – university societies, house parties and a range of different classes each term. Going out to the ‘real world’ though, there are far less prompts to connect with others without making an extra effort.

So I assumed I would passively meet people and connect with them over time. However, fast forward a few years, I found myself being in a cycle of connecting with people once every few months and being late replying to texts to anyone I knew. Once I’d hit a rough patch, I’d then want to speak to someone to have a moan, only to then go into a cycle of panic that I didn’t have friends, not realising that I’d put little effort in keeping the relationship alive. I didn’t necessarily stop to think that having a friendship with someone who doesn’t reply and only comes when things are going badly is probably not the most friendship to have.

When we often need something, like help with a job application or career advice, one of the most crucial sources of wisdom is our network. We may know someone who can help us with whatever it is we need, and be kind enough to give some time to impart key advice.

Yet often what we do is wait until we need something before we reach out to people. How many of us have experienced the feeling that people only contact us because they want something? Well inadvertently that’s what we might be doing ourselves.

It’s only in recent times that I’ve realised the importance of going out in the world to cultivate relationships, which in turn creates a stronger network around me. I realised that nobody was waiting for me, nor was anyone going to suddenly recognise my brilliance and shoot me into some sort of stardom where people were crawling at my feet to speak to me.

In the book, Keith Ferrazzi highlights the importance of building healthy, authentic relationships without necessarily ‘needing’ something from the other person. Maybe one day they might be able to help you, but that’s not the outright goal. Likewise, maybe you can help them. Everyone benefits.

And aside from all the corporate speak about networking (business development targets, career success or social media vanity metrics), connecting with people can be extremely fun. I find it enriching to learn from other people about what they do, and it expands my horizons about the possibilities in the world. It’s why travel can be so great – to see and hear how other people do things differently to us. But the people next door can also have incredibly interesting stories, or just be very nice people to spend time with.

So if you want to be happier and more successful – whatever your definition of success might be – it would likely pay to cultivate stronger relationships with people. In our modern age, we have the choice of whether we want to connect virtually, physically or a mixture of both – what a blessing!

If you’d like to take an action, look at how you might be able to speak with someone new this week. Also think about dropping a message to one or two people you’ve not talked to recently and restart the conversation. You may find it’s rather nice to speak!

In fact, if you’re looking for a first step to start a conversation with someone, just drop me a message about how you found this article. I’d love to hear from you.