I ask my clients questions and their responses, what they unearth and how they can then unlock their ability, progress and performance is more powerful than Mistress Polly McPowerful (and she is really blinking powerful).

Coaching is product development where you are the product. Coaching provides individuals with the best investment they will ever make because it focuses focusses on the systems and processes that allows the existing product to move seamlessly through quality control and onto the best buy lists.

How do you make the weather?

Imagine if you told your team not to give their all, not to do their best.

Imagine if you just told them to give you 85%.

Human capital may not help you get that next mortgage or pay for your retirement on that yacht but that doesn’t mean it’s not an intrinsic component to your net worth. In fact, science shows that your human capital is a critical component of your success today and in the future. And a crucial success factor in the business growth (no great shock there).

A little story about a fabulous woman.

And then there was Mary. Bloody marvellous 92 year old Mary.

I bloody loved Mary. She shared with me her life story whilst interspersing the story often with:

"I'm 92 and I haven't had a bad old life; I've had some fun; I've made the best of it".

Mary grew up in the highlands of Scotland on a farm and her Scottish accent still lilts through every syllable today.

Do you know you can’t hum while holding your nose?

Who now wants to try it? Who is currently trying to hum while holding your nose whilst looking around you to see if anyone is secretly filming you?

Who can think of nothing else other than humming and holding your nose?

Which brings me neatly (and maybe somewhat tenuously) onto the subject of being distracted as a leader in business.

Everyone is so scared of failing. What if this happens…what if that happens…what if I run out of jaffa cakes when writing a newsletter series?

What if no-one reads this, what if no-one laughs.

The fear of failure can paralyse us. It can stop us from moving forward because things might not go to plan, they might not work out, it might all go a bit wrong.

This is the biggest lesson ever learnt in the history of lessons. And why it is not taught at school is beyond me.

The simple fact is ….. it is down to us and if we are not looking after ourselves then nothing can work properly.

Introducing the Agency Support System

Employee wellbeing is low. People are struggling. Struggling with the working from home, the work/life balance and they are missing the support and camaraderie of the office. In this new world order we need to put our people first.

It’s World Mental Health Day tomorrow and more than ever the conversation around wellbeing needs to be normalised. So let’s use this awareness day for good. Let’s stop talking about self-care as if it’s a something we can choose whether we invest in - and let’s talk about looking after ourselves properly.

It’s time to care - and by that I mean care for yourself a bit better. Give a bit of time back to you.

We spend so much time running around like lunatics we so often forget to check in with ourselves. Wellbeing is becoming that word that everyone mentions, everyone knows we need to do more of (especially in these bonkers times) and yet we don’t do it. I still think that sometimes we are all a bit TOO British to turn the care on ourselves.

Many many moons ago when fax machines still roamed the comms room and we all spent days waiting for the contact sheet to be delivered to the agency to crowd round a lightbox before choosing the best image, I was given the nickname Cartman who apparently is the big sweary one in Southpark. It was not a compliment.