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A teensy weensy bit jealous, but mainly inspired to improve something about myself. Context: last week my colleague Michelle Rushton ran our Smiling Ox Paradox® program with a group of educators and at the end of the session received dozens of handwritten notes explaining the impact of the session on them. Hand-written thank you notes […]

In 1984 Robert Cialdini wrote the enduring classic Influence, one of the bestselling books of all time on the topic. This 30-year-old book still sells copies today. In the book Cialdini, Professor of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University isolates six principles he calls ‘weapons of influence’. For example, one principle called social proof […]

Have you ever met a person who seemed to have influence wherever they went and with whomever they met?  Someone universally admired, respected and with that rare power to get others to effortlessly follow their lead? This is the sort of person who can be described as having the Midas touch. King Midas of ancient […]

Your calendar is filling up, your inbox is filling up, your to do list is growing and so is your heart rate. When the pressure builds at work, the default response for many of us is to think, “I’ll just have to take some of this home with me.” We take that pressure and put […]

I have a love/hate relationship with a lot of ‘entrepreneurial literature’. Or really any entrepreneurial content. It’s usually written by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. It’s usually aimed at getting you fired up and motivated about having your own business and making it wildly successful.  That’s all fabulous. I drink it up. Until they start to talk […]

In the last week, working from home has shifted overnight from being a ‘sometimes food’ to an ‘everyday food,’ many industries have been changed unrecognisably and indefinitely and the rest of us have developed an obsession with grocery shopping and budgeting. While we are moving through the 7 Stages of Grieving our ‘Old Normal’ life […]

I blame it on Aerobics Oz Style. I think I was about 15 when I started. At 6.30 or 7am (whatever time it aired on Channel Ten in the mid-nineties) I would get up and try to start the day right, by exercising before school. It was my first attempt at a ‘morning routine.’ I’d […]

What’s the secret? Hint: the answer is in the title. I wonder how often you have been in an audience where you and the entire group around you felt a spontaneous need to stand and enthusiastically applaud a presentation you just heard. How often does this happen? And how often have you been the one […]

As I put pen to paper I realise just how passionate I am about this topic: about people having amazing careers. Perhaps it is because I spent my twenties bouncing between semi-satisfying jobs wondering if my desire to ‘find my passion’ was just a little bit silly. Was I the only one I wondered? Sometimes […]