Archive | Personal Development

Hopthings_child_being_ignored_by_parent_digital_art_40cb6fa5-d5ef-4373-a6d4-19aac9806c3a

Good people can be bad parents.

As an entrepreneur and lifelong learner, my curiosity often leads me to explore various aspects of human behavior and the patterns that shape our lives. In this piece, I’d like to share a personal story that touches on an often-overlooked issue of childhood emotional neglect (CEN) and the lasting impact it can have on our […]

Continue Reading
Hopthings_man_in_business_suit_meditating_zoomed_out_to_whole_p_677b4854-e7ad-43a6-8e24-bd96ce45b74b

Meditation without all the nonsense

“What colour do you see?  I see blue” This was a question someone asked me once when I was introduced at a party as someone who meditates. And this is part of the problem with meditation and with encouraging more people to try it. Meditation should not be synonymous with spirituality. It is a technique […]

Continue Reading
Hopthings_kung_fu_5123b01e-b6b9-4190-9fb7-874bc052084a

Response flexibility

I am trying to improve my response flexibility. I came across this phrase last year and it has really stuck in my mind. Response flexibility is about creating a gap between a trigger and the response to that trigger – allowing you to make a conscious decision about who you respond. “Between stimulus and response […]

Continue Reading
mindfulness and meditation

On mindfulness and meditation

Despite existing for 2500 years or so, mindfulness has been gaining popularity in recent years. One of the reasons for this is the large body of evidence – both anecdotally and scientifically – of the benefits that practicing mindfulness can bring (the key word here is “practicing” by the way). I only discovered mindfulness about […]

Continue Reading
Hopthings_fairground_carousel_2c45b5c5-7695-4326-9094-071ca1c657ec

Status quo bias

I am fascinated by cognitive biases and heuristics which are part of the growing field of behavioral econonomics. I’ve written about a cognitive bias known as “The Dunning-Krueger effect” before, but today I’d like to discuss one that I see quite often at work – the “status quo bias”. The status quo bias occurs when […]

Continue Reading
Hopthings_athlete_competing_running_883f311c-c3fa-408d-b8b2-8c10b703c7d0

Find progress in practice

We live in an instant gratification world. Many of the millennials that I know expect to have all the same “trappings of life” that their parents spent several decades to acquire.. now. We are bombarded with images of success, talent, and athleticism. We see musicians with no more natural ability than ourselves playing in front […]

Continue Reading
mastery

Mastery is Progress

A couple of my employees were invited to speak at the local university recently to discuss their jobs and their career choices with students. They asked me if I had any advice for them that they could share; they may have regretted that question after 45 minutes of my response. You see, there seems to […]

Continue Reading
wpid-Photo-21-Apr-2013-2002.jpg

Meanwhile – how to use it for action

“Meanwhile” is a great word for helping you (and others) focus on action. Use it as a reminder that although one path may be blocked, there's usually something else that you can be accomplished. It also reminds you that not everything stops while you are waiting, or procrastinating with or without good reason. For example: […]

Continue Reading
drag-racer

A Sense of Urgency

A well-documented, common trait of highly successful people is a strong “sense of urgency”.  An atmosphere of urgency creates an atmosphere of achievement – as they say. This is not the same as being stressed out and hectic.  A sense of urgency is about respect – respect for your own time, respect for the time […]

Continue Reading