If you’ve read the opening chapter of my book, you may remember me describing an incident where I was inadequately, and some might say unnecessarily, defending myself in a boardroom. This wasn’t the first time I embarrassed myself with that kind of behaviour, and it wasn’t the last. It took me a while to discover the underlying drivers for the behaviour, but once I did, I was able to make the changes which have helped me become more like the person I want to be. (more…)

There is a famous quote from the bible, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31) and while it sounds like a good idea, I don’t recommend it. I might be bringing upon myself the wrath of Christians everywhere but that’s not my intent. I understand the intention behind the statement and, in the perfect world…with the perfect person, it would be great advice. But it’s not a perfect world and I haven’t yet met the perfect person. Why I don’t recommend treating your neighbour as you would yourself (more…)

A very close friend of mine, Pádraig, was celebrating the christening of his daughter. Louise, my then-girlfriend and now long-suffering wife, and I were invited back to his place to continue the celebrations. Pádraig and I first became friends when we met as fitness instructors at a gym in Dublin. I left the industry, but Pádraig went on to become one of the foremost fitness experts in Ireland, lecturing in Trinity College and having a starring role in a long-running and successful television programme (more…)

I was fortunate enough to be able to travel back to Ireland for a holiday over Christmas. Rather than going directly there we took in a couple of countries along the way to break things up. What a perfect opportunity to get through the backlog of books I’ve been building up over the year, I thought. All those hours of travel…what else would I be doing? Well, it turned out that I was out cold or bleary eyed for most of the travel time and hardly got through any of my books at all! That little experience reminded me (more…)

When I first arrived in New Zealand my boss was a relatively heavy smoker. It wasn’t unusual to find him outside dragging on a cigarette before coming back into the office to get back into his work. I often found myself joining him as we engaged in some conversation about an existing challenge we were facing into and although I never smoked, just the change of environment helped move the discussion along. After that brief five minutes outside we often came up with a solution or at least steps (more…)

When I finished my schooling I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. I was always interested in sports and fitness so I naturally gravitated toward being a fitness instructor. After a few years I had a yearning to get into computers and so went back to university to study computer science at night. It was a tough four years, working and studying, but eventually it paid off and I got my BSc in Computer Science but I wasn’t satisfied yet. I signed up for a diploma in commercial management which was another year (more…)

What if I was to tell you that you are not really who you think you are? It sounds like a line straight out of The Matrix, but for the majority of us, it’s true. It’s like a big secret that we carry around about ourselves and we think we’re the only one who knows it. The truth is, we all carry the same secret and we hope that no one else will ever discover it; it’s like a little game that everyone is playing, the person with the best poker face wins…or is the ultimate loser. You see, as human beings, we all share the same (more…)

Coaching is one of the fastest growing industries in the world! According to Forbes, eighty percent of directors would welcome coaching and, while not every CEO has a coach, one hundred percent of their bosses wish they had. While coaching in the US, the UK, and Australia is already a very well established practice, it is taking a little longer to become the “performance development tool” of choice here in New Zealand. Having said that, coaching is (more…)

I caught up with a good friend of mine, Jen, after work one evening and I was surprised to see she was on crutches. She rolled her ankle pretty badly during a netball game, which put her out for the season. This didn’t get her down though. Jen is always upbeat and looks for the good in every situation. She said that since she started using crutches everybody has been so helpful. “A guy literally ran across the road to help me get out of a taxi. Then he held the door to the entrance open and made sure I got through alright. With a quick (more…)

Erwin Schrodinger was an Austrian Physicist and he devised the paradox known as Schrodinger’s Cat in 1935. Schrodinger said that if you put a cat in a box with a poison that might kill it, at the end of an hour the cat has a 50% chance of being alive, and a 50% chance of being dead. According to quantum mechanics, since we can’t see in the box to know if the cat is alive or dead, the cat is both alive and dead. Of course, we know that this is not possible; nothing can be alive and dead at the same time. However, I disagree. (more…)