I recently coached a young NGO leader on developing a conference for fresh graduates and master students, called "Heading for the Future". It's not the first time this conference was held, and I appreciated the idea even the first time I heard about it. But by working with Cristina, and wondering how we could better ...
1 year of Life Toolkit! Best posts & Coaching challenge
So one year of blogging passed away, quite fast. What happened during this time? Looking back... - I started blogging like crazy, read all I could on SEO and social network promoting, then decided I should just let my readers unfold as they come. And that's how I got to this steady, smallish base of you ...
Leadership – moving from chaos to trust
I know, ashes on my head, I haven't written in a while. But it was for good reasons - I've been on an management training. Perfect weather, chilly, windy and rainy; great people, who didn't speak much to each other for the first two days, after which they/we danced frantically in a pub until ...
Finding inspiration
We mostly stride through the day in large steps, looking straight, rarely to the side. We don't much stop to smell the flowers, or look - consciously - for inspiration. I found that inspiration easily comes when I create the setting for it. Sometimes the elements of my day converge to form a certain state - ...
Transition to a new job Phase 3 – getting up to speed
Did you read "The first 90 days"? It's the best book ever written about the transition process of a newly appointed person, whether it's a new leadership role, a new job, or a new team. The principle there is that you have 90 days to prove. They should have entitled it "The first 30 days". I've ...
The first steps of a transition
Since ages, I've loved transitions. The first days of falling in love; the changes of seasons; moving to a new place to live (ok, without the packing and unpacking); going back to school in autumn; and changing the job. Transitions spice up life. Without them, we would be caught in a neverending slumber. The only thing ...
The Ireland Road Trip or how to really enjoy your vacation
"Time doesn't stand still here - it just lingers." This was an inscription on "Joyce's craft shop", above, in Connemara; and it stands true for all Irish countryside. Time is, ultimately, how we perceive it, and that's one thing I experimented through my 12 days - 2000 km - country-tour-coastal route of Ireland. We started off ...
The Happiness Map
Some time ago I wrote a post about gratitude. It was inspired by a quick coaching talk I had with a peer student, who was unable to move forward in a creative process. He was frustrated and could move forward. When I asked what about the creative process he was grateful for, his tone changed, ...
Careers – and passions – are dangerous
"If you work diligently eight hours per day, you might get yourself promoted and become a manager, to work twelve hours per day." (Robert Frost, quoted in "The Four Hour Work Week") This post is inspired by the idea of looking for the perfect career, and also by most everything that Ash writes at the middlefingerproject.org ...
Dialogue
My life has become hectic in the past weeks, which brings me to the point of almost zero personal time. So I was wondering, what could I write, that would add value to you? Who are YOU, dear reader? I know there's some of you who drop by daily to read this little blog, and I'm thinking... - ...
Idea of the week – The Last Lecture
I'm putting a whole book as Idea of the Week here, because the book is absolutely overwhelming. I heard about Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" a few months ago. His story is simple: Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon who delivered a sum of his life's learnings in an hour's speech and a book called "The ...
Do you want to shoot him now or wait till you get home?
Don't worry, this post is not about shooting rabbits. Although Daffy would really want that. In this very funny classic cartoon, Bugs Bunny asks Elmer Fudd: "Would you like to shoot me now or wait till you get home?" while Daffy Duck yells: "Shoot'im NOW! Shoot'im NOW!" Unfortunately Daffy always ends up being shot himself. This post is about ...
How to Internalize Learning
A friend sends me often inspiring videos or books. He asked me yesterday "But how do you stay with that mindset? How do you keep the inner drive that a good speech or good training gives you?" The simple answer is this. You don't. One of the biggest challenges the training industry faces at the moment is ...
