New website

Posted in Transformation, inspiration, Possibility by

frontpage

After weeks of learning and tweaking and fiddling, and being bamboozled by API codes, PHP files, plugins, MailChimp and a hundred other things non-coders were never meant to know, I’m finally letting my new business website out for air. This is it: Business Writing Coach.

The signup feature works, so if you feel inclined do please sign up as a subscriber. I plan to send out twice-monthly blog posts (when I can domesticate the obstreperous Chimp).

A big acknowledgement to the design team of Theme Fusion, founded by Luke Beck and Muhammad Haris, makers of the Avada theme on which my new site is based. They were endlessly patient and polite with my questions, day after day, and their theme is elegant and beautifully-made.

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Postscript: Another person who was a huge help when I was developing the new website is Tyler Moore. Tyler makes brilliant YouTube videos on creating WordPress websites. He’s an exceptional teacher with just the best sense of pace I’ve come across. If you too want to set up a new website using WordPress.org, I highly recommend his video, How to make a WordPress website.

Our delicious future

Posted in How to live, Philosophy and culture, Transformation, inspiration by

old-man-smiling

Once upon a time, there was a university professor researching the proposition that people’s happiness depends on the amount of sex they have. He gathered his subjects in a room and asked:

Hands up who has sex five times a week.

A group of people put up their hands, and they were smiling and looking pretty damn pleased with themselves. The professor went on.

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The Unsaid

Posted in How to live, Real conversation, Transformation, inspiration by

Rilke_and_Klossowska_at_Chateau_Muzot_1923

If I don’t manage to fly, someone else will.
The spirit wants only that there be flying.
As for who happens to do it,
In that he has only a passing interest.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The greatest source of misery in our relationships with others is the Unsaid, that which is there to say and which we have withheld. “They won’t be able to handle the truth”, we tell ourselves, creating others as small, fragile and uncommitted to the truth. Or, “They already know”, we say. Take it as read: they don’t.

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Ode to Friday: Eliot

Posted in Ode to Friday by

stlouis1914

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

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Love in the time of anxiety

Posted in How to live, Philosophy and culture, Transformation, inspiration by

les-attaches-pantofole

We embody values and practices that offer us meaningful lives now. We let go of needing to impact the future.*

We were speaking, the other day, of the illusions under which human beings labour including the illusion we have a fixed character which is more or less authentic.

Another illusion is our relation to the past and future. We think our lives are given by our past: our family, education, socio-economic group, country, cohort, experiences and so on. Yet, it is the future that is giving us our lives.

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Authenticity in quotation marks

Posted in Art and exhibitions, How to live, Philosophy and culture, Women and authenticity by

connoisseur

“Authenticity” is the word du jour. It is used in a wide variety of contexts to mean “honest” or “non-artificial”, or something like  “eschewing glamour”, “homely” or “rustic”.

I use it here on this blog too, and particularly in relation to women. When I’m using it, I mean something very different to “honest” or any of the other popular meanings.

I mean something that doesn’t exist.

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The courage to face ingratitude*

Posted in Real conversation, The Leaders Project, Transformation, inspiration by

Cerise-Doucède-2-Design-Crush

It’s not often discussed the phenomenon of ingratitude, and yet it’s a common experience.

Every parent knows it intimately, and several of the leaders I interviewed last year spoke of the shock and bewilderment of experiencing it. Here were people giving everything they had to some cause – selling their assets, going without salaries, pouring in hour after hour of their time – only to have one or more people levy some accusation such as manipulation, dishonesty or hypocrisy Continue reading →

Reasons to blog

Posted in Great blogs, How to live, Transformation, inspiration by

excerpt

Dedicated to A

Every blogger knows this blogging business is not as straightforward as it looks. We’re often writing into our fears and concerns. And unlike writing something that will be published “someday” if we’re lucky, like a book or article, our potential audience when blogging is just an hour or so away.

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Ode to Friday: Basho and Issa

Posted in Ode to Friday by

photo(36)

The wren
Earns his living
Noiselessly.

- Issa

An old silent pond…
A frog jumps into the pond,
splash! Silence again.

- Bashō

No one travels
Along this way but I,
This autumn evening.

- Bashō

~ Selection of haiku by Matsuo Bashō (Japanese, 1644-1694) and Kobayashi Issa (Japanese, 1763-1827)

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Image: photo of Clinamen, a work by Celeste Boursier-Mougenot, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

Great moments in conversation

Posted in Real conversation, Transformation, inspiration by

croissantcouple

I’ve been working on the transcript of a leader in an interview talking about the real levers of communication. The topic that struck me from the transcript is her discussion of the phenomenon of empathy, and the distinction between empathy and sympathy.

It had me recall one of the truly great conversations I’ve experienced which was all about empathy.

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