The 5 Gifts of Detachment
As I prepare to launch Lead From Within, I caught myself tying my joy to the outcome. Here are five gifts that come from letting go.
Why you sabotage the good moments
Have you ever been enjoying a moment of success, or bring present with your family, when a thought comes in forcing you back into worry or panic? Or you close a deal at work and then come home and pick a fight with your partner? Or you string together a great week of eating well and training consistently, and by Sunday evening you have undone all of it, almost as if your body needed to return to what it knows? It’s as if your mind feels bad about having a certain level of success, peace, joy…
Who am I to lead?
This was a question someone asked me this week, and I suspect it’s one many of us ask ourselves. For many of us, the word “leader” implies some sort of hierarchy, and if you don’t see yourself at the “top”, telling people what to do, it can feel as though leadership belongs to someone else. I certainly remember feeling like this many times in my life: As a young analyst in management consulting, thinking I was too junior and inexperienced to take the lead. When I first stepped into the world…
Back from a retreat and my mind sped up
I got back from a retreat in Tuscany in the early hours of Tuesday morning this week. A busy and hectic few days followed, and I found my mind getting busy with everything there was to do. school drop offs book launch prep meetings fitting in workouts client calls house chores, etc. Yesterday morning, as I set the intention to return to a mind that slows down on purpose, I was reminded of three particular benefits. If you’re new here, welcome to a topic I write about often, and a practice I…
The Lens You Listen From
If you were to wear a pair of glasses with a red lens, what colour would the sky look to you? What about if it were a green lens? So, what dictates the colour of the sky? Multiple factors, of course. The physicists amongst us could get technical and talk about the atmospheric gases, white light being refracted, and so on. But from a subjective view in this case, it would be the colour lens we wear. Someone not wearing glasses would see a blue sky. Someone next to you who is wearing red…
How to Slow Down to Speed Up – Interview
What if the qualities that made you successful are now the qualities holding you back?For almost a decade, Nitesh Agarwal has helped build and lead Urban Company’s Middle East business.He had recently been promoted.The company had gone public.Everything on the outside was going well.But inside, there was conflict.The drive, intensity and attention to detail that had helped him succeed were making it difficult to switch off, let go and be fully present.He was thinking about work at…
The gift of the dark night
In modern use, the term ‘the dark night of the soul’ describes a profound period of inner crisis, loss of meaning, or emotional and spiritual darkness that we move through before emerging into greater clarity or transformation. It’s the times when: our business may be suffering and we doubt everything we’ve been working on we don’t get the promotion, we’re told we’ve got a long way to go, and we start questioning our capabilities a relationship is on the rocks rounds of IVF have failed and we…
90% of Surfing
I was in Cornwall a couple of weeks ago. One morning, sitting on a bench high up a cliff overlooking Fistral Beach in Newquay, I watched a group of surfers at 7:30am and saw something I’d never noticed before. Whenever I’ve pictured surfing, it’s the Instagram reel version: someone carving a perfect wave like an absolute champion. But that morning, watching for real, I saw that surfing is mostly waiting. Floating. Bobbing up and down on the board. Reading the water. Ninety percent of the…
1 distinction that changes all relationships
Many relationships, both personal and professional, break down for the same reason: mismatch of expectations. Professionally, it might look like this: you assumed your co-founder would handle the investor update without being asked, and when the deck lands a day late before the board call, you’re both frustrated, one of you for a boundary you never voiced, the other for being blindsided by a standard they never agreed to. Personally, it’s your partner assuming you’ll notice when they’re…
What is here when there is nothing wrong?
It was Friday night and way past bedtime. The room was warm and my daughter still full of energy when I needed her asleep. I had somewhere to be but she had other plans. I noticed myself tensing, rushing her towards sleep in my mind, wanting the moment to be over so the next one could begin. Then I caught it, and I asked myself the question I keep coming back to whenever I feel this way. What is here when there is nothing wrong? The story dropped, and there was nothing left to fix, nothing…