Posted on Tuesday, May 23, 2023

On Mission!

Get your life and work back on track

Transitions can be amazingly satisfying or remarkably murky to navigate. As we build our coaching practice, my wife and I oscillate through a range of experiences and emotions.

There are times we feel like soaring eagles… with beautiful vistas as far as the eye can see. Our calendars are comfortably full with client engagements. The challenge comes during the in-between periods when there is a lull in our work. If not checked, these depressed moments can easily unravel our plans.

Posted on Tuesday, March 21, 2023

How committed are you?

Why simple goals just make sense!

Since 2018, my personal and professional life is committed to deliberate goal-setting. Before that, I would create a detailed matrix that quickly overwhelmed me due to its complexity.

The overwhelm became apparent at the end of every year. About half of my intended activities were not done! In trying to look smart, I had over-complicated things for myself.

That is why I decided to shift to a one-page goal template in 2018. I narrowed my goals down to four critical categories: Spiritual, Work, Health and Community. In total, I am committed to a maximum of twenty goals for the year.

Posted on Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Chance encounters?

Connecting is a choice!

In our ‘rush’ to live, an effort to pause and reflect goes out of the window. In our breathless existence, we often miss out on our essence of being human.

I did not feel like being anywhere near my bike that day. My legs felt stiff and a lethargic haze hang over me. Then, a small voice, from deep within said, “Just go, even if for a short ride. You will still chip away at your weekly goal.”

Posted on Monday, June 7, 2021

Want to build more resilience?

Stay agile with these 6 practical habits

One opportunity the COVID-19 pandemic has granted me is a heightened urgency to for deep reflection. I deliberately find time and space to introspect on life and work in a more meaningful manner.

Out of this introspection, the word ‘resilience’ has consistently popped up. I took this as a sign to codify how my resilience look like for me. Resilience is a measure of how much I want something and how much I am willing, and able, to overcome obstacles to get to it.

Psychology Today describes it this way: “Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.”

Posted on Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Coaches need coaching too!

Questions lead to deeper meaning

I contemplated on this during a conversation with myself on the day the International Coaching Week 2021 kicked off. With a deep focus on supporting my coaching clients, it can be easy to forget that coaching works for me too!

Cycling has become my channel to care for my mental, spiritual and physical health. Occasionally, my body becomes ‘non-compliant’ as lethargy births lame excuses of how I can ride another day. It does not take much to slide back into my lowest form. A place where laziness wafts in like the cold fingers of a cold night; where I just exist.

Posted on Monday, April 12, 2021

The masks we wear

Dealing with uncomfortable situations

“You look familiar!” In 2020, this became the silent message I read in people’s eyes when I was out and about. Considering the look in their eyes, I seemed to convey a similar message back to them. Then it clicked!

Since the COVID-19 broad-sided us, facial masks took over our faces. Our smiles are obscured, voices muffled and frowns protected. I had to add more meaning to words to verbalize what my facial expressions couldn’t communicate.

As I strive to protect myself from the deadly virus, this experience has helped me uncover another virus affecting me.

Posted on Saturday, April 3, 2021

Heart to mind

Mind the gap!

Someone said the greatest distance a person can travel is between their heart and mind. I believe it is time that we ‘Mind that gap’ with more intention.

Our minds are but the Colosseum of our existence.
There we celebrate our reality or stand in pretense.

Posted on Saturday, September 19, 2020

The proving ground

Trudged the wilderness, measured by life

If only I had known! It is difficult to admit it. But this fleeting thought crosses my mind every so often.

Getting an idea off the ground is a daunting task. Especially a business idea. Starting something as you emerge from the dark is even harder. This is the summary of my last five years. All I had was an urge to help transform lives and a will to make it work. No money, no connections and ignorant of the market (there, I said it).

Only now is my hike through the wilderness beginning to make sense. Many initiatives have failed. But they have helped to refine my focus on what matters most. Where I sought perfection before stepping out, I now start scrappy with a small test-group to probe my hypothesis. Depending on the results, I shelve the idea or progress it to the next level. In both instances, I look out for lessons and quickly learn from them.

Posted on Saturday, July 11, 2020

Leading through moral courage

Are you a leader worth following?

Today, many of us are anxious, worried and overwhelmed by all that is happening around us. The one thing we need more than anything else is empathy.

Unfortunately, this dose of humanity is increasingly deficient in leadership. From my observation of tens of people, they feel isolated from their leaders. This gap widens more in crisis or periods of uncertainty. And it does not discriminate between personal or professional realms of their lives.

When crisis strikes, the culture of a firm matters more and becomes more visible. Granted, there is a sprinkling of hope here and there. Crisis exposes the underlying gluttonous pursuit of more power and control over others. It hinges on greed and poor self-esteem. The true character of those in the higher echelons of an organization begins to show.

Posted on Saturday, June 13, 2020

Towards re-kindling moral courage

Getting back on track in a broken world

A deaf heart has invaded us. This deafness so numbing that we can hear each other no more. Its cold grip blurs right from wrong that it becomes difficult to differentiate one from the other.

Where common sense comes along with an aura of shame. A shame that has become a roadblock for us to stop, listen to and understand each other.

There was a season where our moral compass remained strong and steady guiding us to our destination. Now we rely on compromised moral GPS screaming of modernity but dead to the reality of humanity. Our world filled with hate, aching in pain and ravaged by disease.

Where did we go wrong? It has been overwhelmingly difficult to process all that is going on around me at the moment. The COVID-19 isolation and worldwide uproar of racial tension has pushed me into deep reflection.