Remember being eleven? In 2022, are your year 7 classmates happy and content or burnt out and overwhelmed?

Here’s a thing - think about the kids who were in top set, who were striving for scholarships, crazy competitive on the sports fields – the ones fighting for success, obsessed with achievements, studying like ninjas

Do you know any of them now? Maybe it’s you? How did it work out?

Take a look around and you may see that a lot of the big themes we see around us – the burnout, the great resignation, the overwhelm - are themes often driven by feelings of deep insecurity, a striving for perfection and a lack of understanding of how to build real mental strength. Feelings and behaviour which started in year 7 (or even before)

Scratch our shiny surface and underneath, many of us, even if we are so-called successful, are in truth attacked by deep insecurity - a wicked imposter syndrome which started when we were small, often alongside a lack of tools to build mental strength. Indeed,...

It’s the time of year when it is normal for a lot of us to feel a bit disillusioned, a bit lost and a bit stuck 

It’s a tough feeling

We are stuck in the gap between the deep understanding and New Year’s optimism of our own and life’s potential and the hard drudge of the first months of the year

We know we are capable of more. More fun, more achievements, living life more the way we want to live it – hence why we so confidently and purposefully made our New Year’s resolutions

Yet, once the fresh sparkle of hope and optimism of the first few weeks has worn off and the harder slog of embedding our new habits kicks in, we notice procrastination also sneaking in. We are starting to put things off, stay a bit longer in bed rather than go for that run, we are breaking our promises to ourselves and so we feel disillusioned and stuck. What’s worse, we are then beating ourselves up, seeing this as evidence that we are not worth the effort improvement takes

A quick glance through news and s...

Just before Christmas I met a guy at a party in Brighton

A super smart MD of a sizeable company headquartered in the city of London. We soon got on to the hot topic of employee Wellbeing. "The thing is," he said, "today we all need tools to navigate the chaos in our world - at work and at home. I have even got 4 super talented employees on suicide watch. I have advice from not only my own HR department, but also brilliant external psychologists and consultants, yet nothing, no MBA out there - prepares you for that," he said, with tears in his eyes – yup, MD’s have feelings of overwhelm too…

"Honestly, I am not sure a lot of the solutions we have are working", he continued. "We need Wellbeing solutions which work on an everyday basis and help prevent people getting to the stage where they want to quit their jobs, let alone the most desperate of situations"

He is certainly not alone in his dilemma and frustration to do the right thing to support employee Wellbeing

According to Harvar...

Very few people start their new role with a meaningful, insightful plan, structure or tools, to guide their success – all are essential to accelerate and move forward in their new roles

Even the highest performers don’t have an actionable plan to ensure they are successful after their first 100 days 

Buck the trend and experience our radical masterclass - New role? New first-rate you! All for only £50

We guide you through the ups & downs, zigs & zags of the 100 day adventure so you can smash it! 

• Pre-recorded video and audio (private podcast) content, divided into bite-sized chunks

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• Purposeful self-reflection exercises for you to focus your energy & effort 

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• On-going access to all materials on any device so you can continuously be full of...

If Roald Dahl hung out with Charles Darwin, what advice would they give us today?

They would say that sometimes, when the going gets tough, the best thing we can do is lighten up and play a little!

I don't know about you, but it's still all a bit much isn't it?  This time of year is always a bit tricky, often with cold, flat grey mornings, the festivities over, New Years resolutions less of an exciting new start to a new you and now either in the bin or proving a bit more of a grind than most of us optimistically signed up to on the 1st of January - and don't let's get started on 'the Covid' as the postman refers to the unrepentant global disruptor which seems to ruthlessly bring heartbreaking tragedy on one hand or a mild cough on the other. For some of us, it's hard to find a chink of light when we gaze uncertainly out of our windows each morning

What both Roald Dahl and Charles Darwin would recommend is, the ultimate rebellion; the real disruptive solution when faced with so much...

We can't change the past, but if we do something now, we can change our future

Have you ever wondered, what is one of the biggest things you can do now to change your future?

When we think about "choosing to do something today that our future self will thank us for", as actor Sean Patrick Flanery encourages - typically we think of improving our health, sorting out a pension, gaining a qualification. We very rarely think of leaning in, living more fully in the moment, and letting go of our baggage

The truth is, one of the biggest ways we can improve our futures, is by dealing with the rubbish that a lot of us carry around in our heads today

We spend our entire lives in our minds, yet very few of us ensure they are a great place to be by carrying out a regular practice of tidying up, chucking out and organising what is in there

This means most of us spend our lives with messy, complex, unfounded lies which we tell ourselves about who we are, what we are capable of and even what we s...

Ever wondered why a lot of us give up on New Year's Resolutions, year after year going round and round in circles, coming back to the same New Year's Resolution a year later?

One of the most profound and important things to take on board when we decide we want to switch it up and make some big changes in our lives - and goodness knows that is definitely what a lot of us are going for at this time of year - is that whilst we are all potential of achieving so much more in our lives, we are in fact already enough, just as we are

It's tricky this, because on the one hand, real change is created by newfound determination, new routines, new beliefs, behaviours, and mind-sets - and above all new motivation (the dictionary definition of 'new motivation' being a reason to act or behave in a particular new way)

Yet unless we start from a position of really, truly accepting where we are starting from - who we are and why we are the way we are - we are not able to deal with the root cause of th...

Illustration: @ljmlondon2014

For some of us, this year has definitely been overwhelming - a lot of us are now looking towards 2022 not quite sure how and where we will find the positive energy to relish the ride which is no doubt still ahead

Wrung out and bone dry, exhausted with the constant uncertainty of what we can and can't do, what is and isn't dangerous for our friends and family, the blurring of lines between home and work, the loneliness and boredom of self-isolation, the mind-bending juggling of zoom calls with stressed colleagues and squabbling children  

Stuck clinging on a pendulum, swinging wildly between overwhelm and scrabbling desperately for a 'secure new normal' - neither trusting authority (the parties were the final straw of hypocrisy) nor secure and confident in our ever changing daily routines

We are overwhelmed and burnt out because we feel so completely out of control of our lives

So for many of us, our way to take some of the control back - has been to qu...

Illustration: @ljmlondon2014

Shut your eyes and imagine what you really, really want for Christmas …

For most of us, when we really think about this, we move from more obvious choices of the latest gizmo from Apple, a massage gun or a designer hoody - to wanting to feel happy - confident and secure about our futures, knowing we have our own purpose, meaning and sense of who we are and the direction we are headed in

Look around and you can see that most of us are feeling pretty intrepid as we head into the holiday season, because actually after all the overwhelming drama of 2021, what we really want is to be able to relax and enjoy life. For at least the second year  in a row, this seems almost impossible with all the volatility in the world right now

And yet…

What if we could receive a gift which actually does make a difference to our lives? Something which unlocks our potential and helps us progress in ways we never thought possible? Now that truly would be a great gift

So what ...

Goodness it's hard to be upbeat sometimes isn't it? The news - seriously - it's tough!

The thing is, if you are anything like me - you will thrive, your energy and your ability to get more done - will often be linked to feeling upbeat and positive. Am I right?

This is where I am lucky working with Jo  - what I love about working with Jo (who is incidentally a super humble hermit and despite regular attempts to get her onto the global stage - she happily remains quietly incognito) - is that she does not only have the most determined strength of mind and intellectual horsepower I have ever come across - crammed into what is, let's face it, quite a small body - but she is also great fun - she has an infectious giggle and an ability to see the light side in almost any situation - so because she has taught me a few tips and tools - despite external pressures and having busy lives - we get a lot done! 

In fact, positive feedback for Jo over 25 years has consistently highlighted two seemi...