Nicholas Bate

I want security....

One of the biggest blockers to people grasping the change they want: new job, own business, part-time working is 'not letting go of security'.

But security is often not understood. For many of us security is simply the familiar. But the familiar is not necessarily more robust nor longer-lasting than the less familiar. So it's not a valid criterion.

Where does real security come from?

Firstly mindset: realising that you have over-come many challenges in your Life and you can overcome plenty more. That you want to do something about which you feel passionate. AND

Secondly skill-base: that you constantly invest in yourself.

The only true security is that which you create for yourself.

TTD (Things To Do): to reduce house-hold expenditure

You may well have noticed that when your earnings go up, your expenses go up: disproportionately. To get a grip: 1. Start a log. You must know what comes in and what goes out. Simply tracking will ensure a new level of control. 2. Set some budgets and stick to them. Don't rationalise and say 'we deserve this as we have had a hard week'. Stick to the budget. 3. Use internet filter sites for finding best prices for insurance and other necessary spends. 4. Make a list before shopping. 5. Start saving with some specific goals. 6. Become more financially literate. Sites such as this can help tremendously. 7. Start.

The Weekly Tutorial: How to Become a Great Leader

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Create your 100 day plan. 100 days of tiny but powerful changes as a result of your thinking, your reading and interviews and your feed-back sessions.

Keep the plan visible to you. Now work that plan.

A to Z of Great Parenting: bonus

If there is one question I can guarantee on my workshops it's: why isn't this stuff taught in schools? Here someone looks at that in more detail. And if you are parent, why not start addressing it?

A to Z of Great Parenting

P is Passion

Encourage your children to do things with enthusiasm and passion. To persue a career about which they have some passion. Why? Passion brings fun, enjoyment and sheer vitality. Passion is a marketable skill.

The Weekly Tutorial: How to Become a Great Leader

3 of 4 Now go to your team and ask for feed-back. Do this 1-to-1 , give plenty of notice and agree that you will report back to the team what you have learnt and what you will do to improve. Allow 15mins/person. Listen, don't rationalise nor defend. Take notes.

Canteen Conversation

The good news about so many 'staff canteens/restaurants' is the food is very good and it is normallly incredible value. And often so very convenient: get in a little earlier and beat the traffic and then have a bowl of porridge.

The bad news is that it is often a hive of gossip and complaining. A little bit of 'letting off steam' is good therapy for any of us. But a whole lunch-break of vitriolic complaining about the company or one's team leader helps no one and simply makes the situation seem even worse.

for your own health and sanity, make a personal agreement:
-not to get involved in such negative conversations
-to actually suggest sometimes that 'we either do something practical about it or we move on'
-to eat with a variety of people and/or
-when the weather is good to take food outside for a different environment.

You can't necessarily change the environment, but you can change you.

The Weekly Tutorial: How to Become a Great Leader

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Now identify great leaders in your mind: from your personal life, from history, from your current organisation, from your college days. What were the charactersistics you admired? Which can you adopt? Go interview some of them if possible or read their biographies.

Model excellence: adopt a leadership strategy that works.

All change at Burberry?

The Guardian has the details. And refreshingly, more details than usual. Here.

The Man who Mistook his Laptop for his Life

For the story so far

Allan awoke. Oh. This feels different: sort of calm but also deep down very un-well.

It was quiet. Hospital. Private hospital. He had sort of known he was heading here; he had heard about people being on self-destruct paths before and never thought it would be him.

The lighting was discrete, subdued. Equipment was humming somewhere, but nothing seemed to be connected to him which was a big relief. What time was it? He wasn't wearing his watch. First test: did he have enough energy to find it? He went to push up on his elbows but it simply didn't work. Mmm. Clearly he wasn't well, but pumped full of drugs so he couldn't feel anything. It would be good to know what was happening; there's probabaly a bell I can push. Ahh, just think and it happens: the door opened.

Morning Allan. I'm Jo, the Head Nurse here. Do you feel well enough to talk? Good. As you no doubt remember you collapsed onTuesday morning. You were rushed here by ambulance; it's now Wednesday morning and you have had about 24h sleep, aided by some sleeping tablets. There's plenty of good news and a bit of bad: that latter is manageable, we believe.

Need some fresh thinking on worklife balance. Try Get a Life.