Cocktails and Coaching

Recently I phoned a colleague to ask one small question... And before I knew it we were on the phone for 90 minutes! It's amazing how powerful it can be to just ask someone (if really care about the answer) "How are you?" …. One thing that came out of this conversation (and many others I've had over the years), is how much time and effort we tend to put into work and how we want to be thought of as a high performer, but there are also so many other elements in our lives that we perhaps don't focus on… If you put all your effort into just one aspect of your life and something outside of your control massively impacts it then you could be left feeling empty. Is it better therefore to invest your time into a number of different areas of your life, so that if one element is impacted, it's not the end of the world as you have other areas to prop you up? So what are the different areas? The way I look at it is through these 8 areas, the first 5 are quit...

I was on my first panel at an event recently and I was asked "What advice would you give your younger self?"   It really made me think… At first I interpreted it as - what do I wish I'd done differently . But I am a firm believer about not having regrets and I have the positive mindset that everything happens for a reason.   So I then switched the question in my head to "What advice was I once given that I really listened to"   I often seek advice from other people and I soak up lots of different perspectives on how to do things… But the one piece of advice I was given many years ago that I love was "Only follow advice that is true to you, and feels right to you"   The reason I loved this advice is because I'm quite an open person, so it's really important to me that people don't question whether they can trust me or if I'm genuine or not. So if I follow other people's advice it's really important that it's a...

Imagine you had a problem that you wanted to solve , change or focus on, and I told you that after answering just 5 or 6 questions you could walk away with a clear action plan having committed to what you would do today, to make a difference!   Well, today I wanted to bring to life the GROW model which does exactly that… Unfortunately I can't claim it as my own! But I do use it all the time… It's a great tool to help shape the conversations that you have with your team or mentees. Or you can use it to help figure stuff out for yourself…   One of my team saw these questioned and joked that it forms the basis of every conversation they have with me! (You're welcome!!!!) But I love the idea that you can go from being really unclear about something, and by just answering a few questions suddenly you're really clear about what you need to do and how to do it!   So, step one, is think of something you're not happy with or want to change or solve… This co...

Have you ever wanted to make a  difference  and  change  something? But just found it incredibly hard? Often, we think that we just need to build  awareness  and that will do the trick, but is awareness really enough? I'm the Chair of the Women's Network at O2 and I want to play my part in making O2 a more inclusive place, where people's talents and contribution are recognised and celebrated, regardless of gender. Enabling people to progress and succeed at work. Until now, much of my approach has focused on raising awareness of the challenges facing women in the workplace – in the hope that by highlighting the issues, we’d get closer to achieving real change. But then I heard an analogy from Toby Mildon at the BBC recently about how to make real change happen – either on a personal level or more broadly and it got me thinking…   Sometimes you can be  aware  that you are overweight. You...

If you want to develop yourself, all you need to do is follow these RULES .   R eceptive U nderstand L earn E nd game S teps   Receptive - If you believe you're perfect, it's really hard to listen to advice and you'll have no motivation to develop yourself. You need to be receptive and open to other peoples opinions and advice and the concept of improving yourself.   Understand - Having self awareness and the ability to understand where you need to grow and develop is key. Only if you understand your strengths and weaknesses can you grow as an individual.   Learn - Once you understand what area you want to develop, you can then learn about that area. Learning can take many guises… From formal classroom courses, being mentored and coached, to reading books and blogs and more…   End Game - What differences do you actually want to see in both the short term and long term? What would you like to see in a week? And what's y...

How often do you really put yourself out there? Take a risk? Step outside your comfort zone?   A lot of us are quite happy with doing what we always do and not really challenging ourselves, because one of the strongest emotions that drives us is fear …   You can think of your comfort zone as 3 circles each within each other…   The first, inner circle is your comfort zone , just outside that is your stretch zone and outside of that you have your panic zone .   ' They say ' that the fear of public speaking is a fear greater than death for most people, so'll I'll use that as an example…   Comfort Zone When having a one to one conversation most of us are sat quite comfortably in the inner circle, being our comfort zone.   Stretch Zone If we then have to lead a discussion in, say, a team meeting with a wider audience then for some, this pushes us slightly into the next circle being our stretch zone.   Panic Zone And finall...

Have you ever stopped and thought about all the things you want to do, will do, could do but for some reason you just don't do it today… You think ' I'll do it next week, next year, one day '… Especially if you're thinking about how you want to develop , what you want to achieve in life or how you want to make a difference …   Last week I was lucky enough to hear from Nancie Shackleton. She spoke for about 45 minutes and is one of the most inspiring people I've ever seen… She's Assistant Chief Officer for Lincolnshire Police and she shared her personal journey and gave loads of tips and advice…  One that absolutely stuck with me was the concept of laying your life out in decades and thinking of it as a week …   ie When you're aged 0-10 that's Monday 10-20 is Tuesday 20-30 is Wednesday 30-40 is Thursday 40-50 is Friday 50-60 is Saturday And 60-70 is Sunday..   My grandma lived until she was 104 so potentially I coul...