It’s ironic that the era of the alleged time famine coincides with more-or-less-continuous increases in average life expectancy. In these terms we have more time available to us (about 20 years extra since 1960, globally). And our grandparents would think we are, relative to them, very time affluent. But they might also note how much […]
Here’s two things you might say on the very same day: ‘My life is flying by. ‘I thought it would never end’. These contrasting expressions give a sense of our experience of time as fluid, complex, even contradictory. For example, how much time we experience is in part determined by how pleasant an experience is. […]
How does one practice self-compassion? There are many ways and a search on the internet will yield a growing wealth of resources and methods. In this talk I’ll focus on the basics and suggest ways that anyone can start straight away. An excellent place to start is with Kristin Neff’s formulation of self-compassion practice. She […]
In a podcast series and blog called Unimproving we examined a universal problem in living well: the problem of self-esteem and the feeling we are not good enough. In other words that we need improving. This is arguably our biggest barrier to a meaningful happiness. We saw that focusing too much on self actually makes […]
This is a series exploring the many benefits of being Self-Less. In part one we saw that being compassionate does not fatigue us, but in fact it rejuvenates us, even when we are feeling low. In this second part of this series, we’ll explore a number of ways we can build this capacity for compassion. […]
This is a series that will explore the many benefits of being Self-Less. The first here examines the ways in which being compassionate is good for us.If you feel you are burning out, practice compassion. When you are low, feeling tired and burdened by negative emotion, you might do yourself the kindness of being compassionate […]
I hate uncertainty, and it turns out I’m not alone! In a talk I once gave on the psychology of creativity I asked a large audience of television creative workers to raise their hands if they liked being confused. I asked this because being stuck and facing contradiction are an essential part of the creative […]
In Part 1 of Creating Psychological Safety in Teams we saw that teamwork is perhaps the defining feature of our species and that leveraging it is the pathway to sustainable high performance. We also saw that emotional fortitude is created by teams facing meaningful challenges together in an atmosphere of mutual trust, respect and autonomy […]
Our topic is high performance in teams that is enabled by a special kind of emotional fortitude. The kind of fortitude that is required in response to sustained, very high challenges. It turns out that this is inseparable from creating a climate of psychological safety in which we feel we are in the trenches together. […]
We are a worrisome species. Our genetic code predisposes us to be pretty hypervigilant. An elderly Mark Twain once observed: “I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” So why we do worry so much? Evolutionary psychologists believe this negativity bias gives us a survival advantage. We overestimate danger […]
