Personal Development Author

Here’s a situation which occurs mostly when travelling by train. You’ve booked a ticket and reserved a seat for your journey. You board the train and find that someone who got on at an earlier stop is occupying your place.

Now for some of you this hardly rates as a ‘situation’. You pleasantly point out that you have reserved this specific seat, maybe wafting a ticket or gesturing to the electronic status display. As far as lively journey anecdotes go, it doesn’t even touch the sides.

But for others, the question ‘would you say something?’ presents an social and ethical dilemma up there with should you tell your friend their partner is cheating on them, and leads to just as much wine-fuelled argument around dinner tables.

Read more »

We all have our own definition of failure. For some of us, it’s not getting the job or promotion, or not getting the exam grades, or not managing to stick to the diet or exercise regime.

Failure can be the cake that doesn’t rise, the film script that nobody buys, the performance or presentation that falls flat.

We have what we call failed relationships. We have failures in communication. The possibilities for things to go wrong and for our hopes and expectations to be dashed are so vast that we might feel amazed that anything ever goes right.

Read more »

Understanding how body language works is essential for effective communication.

Managing your non-verbal signals and reading other people’s is an integral part of the give and take of exchanging information.

At the same time, rigidly sticking to all the ‘rules’ about body language can be counter-productive.

Read more »

The number of young people ringing the counselling service ChildLine for help with exam stress has risen by 200%.

That’s an awful lot of YPs buckling under the strain of coping with exams. Some of their anxieties can be eased by practical means, and there is loads of information available about planning and revising and the importance of taking breaks and exercising and having a healthy diet.

But with many students, the fear of failure, of not being good enough, of letting people down is a constant nagging at the back of their mind, a pressure, it seems, that all your care and concern can do nothing to ease.

Read more »

The first thing is to hold back with the labels. Too much pondering whether your colleague is an introvert, or shy, or a highly sensitive person, or a mix of them all, or maybe just quieter than you, is not that helpful.

But good bosses and leaders are aware of people’s patterns and preferences, and are sensitive to their needs and responses. Understanding what makes someone tick is a key to bringing out the best in them.

Through playing to their strengths, and respecting and accommodating their different working styles, you enable people to flourish.

Read more »

Robert Frost’s moving and thought-provoking poem The Death Of The Hired Man brings up the question of what is true friendship.

In the poem, we see a farmer and his wife talking about what to do with their former handyman, who has shown up again after walking out on them some time before.

Read more »