Category Archives: Books, links and stuff
The Enneagram in Autobiography
Take a look at these covers of different autobiographies and see how the nine personality styles of the Enneagram allow insight into their famous authors. Of course, these are guesses into these authors’ Enneagram styles, but they are guesses that … Continue reading
Coaching and art
I am frequently asked to describe what coaching is. It can be summed up by a line from Leonard Cohen’s well known song, Dance me to the End of Love: “Show me slowly what I only know the limits of.” … Continue reading
Death and dying
How do you view your own death? I was impressed by this delivery on the subject of death by Steven Jenkinson, ceremonialist and author of the book “Die Wise” (2015). He talks about how as a culture there is death … Continue reading
Educated by Tara Westover
This quotation sums up the book for me. It is about the choice and the cost of following our own truth: “I will offer, one final time, to give you a blessing,” he said. The blessing was a mercy. He … Continue reading
Deep work by Cal Newport
Adapted from a post in Smarter Living on the New York Times on 14 January 2019 Deep work is the activity of focusing without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It describes, in other words, when you’re really locked into … Continue reading
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying
Marie Kondo says that we should hold each item in our home and allow it to speak to us, we should ask ourselves the question: “Does this spark joy?” If not we should acknowledge and appreciate the purpose of that … Continue reading
Resilience
In December the New York Times Magazine published an essay called “The Profound Emptiness of ‘Resilience.’ “ It pointed out that the word is now used everywhere, often in ways that drain it of meaning and link it to vague concepts … Continue reading
The Dance of Intimacy
“Most of us have a need to exercise some control over how close we allow others to get to us at any given time. Often this is not even done consciously. We don’t plan to have a fight with our … Continue reading
We’ll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass
Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” Trilogy features other worlds where our protagonists have “daemons” — essentially a part of themselves expressed in animal form. Inhabitants of these worlds have long observed the phenomenon that when they die, their daemons simply … Continue reading
Develop social capital as part of leadership programmes
Developing social capital amongst South Africa’s youth is key to them finding jobs and developing themselves as people. Good ways to develop social capital are through civic action and volunteerism. The gap in youth leadership programmes Interrogating Youth Leadership Development in … Continue reading