Eclectic Change

Stay in Touch – Literally – Read the Paper

For the past few years, I tend to skim the headlines online every few days.  I usually feel rushed and unfocused.  However, for the past three weeks, I have had the greatest luxury (privilege?) to be able to sit down in the morning and read two newspapers from the previous day. My partner has been bringing them home from work for me.  With most people coming back to work in a few days and my own demands, I am not sure that this opportunity will last. I had forgotten how satisfying ...

Becoming a Confident Speaker: Overcoming the fear of public speaking

Over the years, like my guest author, I have helped coach individuals improve their public speaking.  So when I saw this simple exercise, I was intrigued.  I immediately asked Noel if I could reprint the short article.  Noel kindly agreed and asked me to add a link after his name "if you can fit that in".  Well in my view one link isn't enough.  Noel is a great coach and has lots of wonderful resources. Check out the sites listed below and be sure to sign up for his newsletter for the latest upd...

The Personality Potion

Image via Wikipedia While I was sitting at breakfast this morning, I noticed the book title that my 7 yr old was reading, TreeTops Stage 13 "The Personality Potion" (If you know the scholastic series, you will know that I am boasting because Stage 13 is for 9 to 10 year old.) It was evident to me that here was a blog post if I ever saw one.  So after every one had left for school and work, I sat down to read this delightful book by Alan MacDonald. The story is about a young boy Dann...

Fancy Hands or Fancy Pants? Not sure.

Life is full of chores and too many little things to do .  There is a new service in town that I read about in Fact Company and I am on my second month of giving them a go.  In principle - this is a fantastic concept and service.  Fancy Hands call themselves personal assistants in the clouds and describe themselves as: Every day there are things you need to get done, but they're not necessarily things that you need to do. Just email us and we'll take care of it. Sounds even better than a vir...

Sometimes you really need peanut butter in the house.

My mother used to say:  "If you make your bed, then you have to lie in it."  As a result of this upbringing, I am a bit of a product of "Calvinism". I tend to think that good things won't last and I always wait for the other shoe to drop.   Friends would say I am a glass half empty kind of person.  (Am I using to many metaphors?) My great fortune in life is that my better half lives life with such optimism and positivity it is almost sickening.  (OK, enough with the metaphors except fo...

Favourite Quotes

Have you noticed that each week I post a new quote?  You can find it in the upper right hand column.  I also record the old quotes under the "Quote" tab above if you are interested. I am also looking for short quotes related to the theme of this blog.  Please feel free to add them below.

Rethinking Leadership

The first follower is an underestimated leader. To be a leader - you may have to be the first follower. The populous believes that you can't be a leader without having followers.  I hate this premise - even if I don't have a good argument to dismiss it. While watching people trying to figure out how to get home in spite of all the airplanes not flying due to volcanic ash, it was clear there was no leader of the pack. Nor was it any individual frenzy.  Everyone took personal responsibility f...

Are your a futurist?

I was very fortunate to be be able to attend the Lift10 Conference for the past three days.   Lift is a series of events built around a community of pioneers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social implications of new technologies. Each conference is a chance to turn innovation into opportunities by anticipating the major shifts ahead, and meet the people who drive them. It was extremely eclectic in topic choices and workshops.  What was exciting for me was not to listen...

Rethinking Collaboration

What happens when the objective is clear but the resources and time frames keep shifting?  That is exactly what many of us experienced when we ended up in one location and due to the volcanic ash hovering over most of Europe, we could not travel home or to our next meeting. The news kept reporting how calm everyone was.  I know this to be true.  When I first arrived at the airport early Thursday morning - it was so eerie how quiet it was.  Everyone stood at the departure sign expecting the ca...

Rethinking The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Being in Prague and unable to get home for four days provided me with two wonderful opportunities: a chance to visit the city and take an unexpected mini vacation time to reflect on life, business, priorities and blessings I plan to write about some of my observations over the next couple of weeks. Some of the topics will be: rethinking teams rethinking engagement rethinking collaboration rethinking leadership Today, I want to share with you what I discovered about what is ...