notes

Each person must feel valued. From the personal assistant to the VP. When they understand that they are contributing members of the team and that their role has value, then the magic is possible. In my soccer coaching days I shook things up with not having a starter and substitute culture culture but ‘A ONE… Read more

I am doing a number of courses with an architect urban sketcher called Liz Steel. She has a mantra for her courses and I love what it says, I wanted to share here as an example of how we can all think about all learning, enjoy: We share but don’t compare We have confidence in… Read more

Your time is your own. You know how to make the most of it. It might feel like life is a tumult of obligations but for most you that read this the pressure is a privilege. Life is a gift, full of mystery and beauty. Make your Saturday a masterpiece. I drew this sketch sitting… Read more

Quick post today as I am in the garden enjoying the sun. In England you must take your moments when you can. I found a passage in Sherlock Holmes, a scandal in Bohemia which captures my point perfectly between seeing and observing. Enjoy: Watson: “When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “the thing… Read more

I have been up at 4:30am most mornings this week. I am not sure if its the warmer weather or the fact that I am drawing now and a creative part of brain is more awake. Whatever the reason I am awake again and pottering round the house, reading, writing, drawing. I read all the… Read more

Coming out of the pandemic in the UK makes me think of distance and time. Distance in the most literal sense with social distancing which is becoming less and less observed. Also distance as it relates to time, and in particular time gone by, people now gone and those that are missed. Where did you… Read more

I am going to start with an assumption, as a child you loved drawing and painting. Most children love to draw and paint, before we wrote a word we scribbled and sketched. We created things without fear of being judged and looked happy while we did it. . They are mindful and focussed on making… Read more

The right poem, read at the right time alone to yourself. That will stick to your insides like no other medium of art. Poetry is the most holiest of art forms and I treasure it so much I rarely write or talk about it. I am happy to discuss and debate prose all day. Let… Read more

When Tatsuo Horiuchi retired, he decided to try his hand at art. But instead of spending money on paints and brushes, Horiuchi used what he already had pre-installed on his computer: Microsoft Excel. The 77-year-old artist is creating remarkably intricate digital masterpieces of the Japanese landscape, all on the free graphing software. He designs beautiful… Read more

Author’s note: The photo above is my Mother’s memorial bench my brothers and I had put in her favourite sea view. She worked her whole life and had dreams of her retirement. She dreamed of walking these shores and finally relaxing. Today I write about assumptions of tomorrow. When we are young we will live… Read more

The grass is always greener my Mother used to tell me. She was always wary of my ambition. Not because she wanted to stymie me but she wanted to make sure my happiness was sustainable. She was concerned about what I later learned is called destination addiction: The idea that happiness is in the next… Read more

I was running a mentoring session this evening. We happened to talk about my last post. I mentioned that when you read you can learn from lessons before you have to experience them. They challenged me with a question, “What lessons have you learned that I can avoid?” This is why I love mentoring, sometimes… Read more

Happy Saturday all, I hope you are investing your weekend time well. That can be keeping grinding on your work, it can be spending time with your family, it can be relaxing doing nothing, You decide, no one can judge the returns on that investment except you. Whatever you do invest it wisely. Time is… Read more

Yesterday I wrote about newspapers and old papers. Today I continue that train of thought on old and new things. The older I get the more I am certain I don’t now anything at all. All I do know that life need not add up or make sense. The world is an inconsistent collection of… Read more

I was not sure if I really needed to read newspapers or consume daily news any more. It felt like I was not getting the value out of the time spent. So I did an experiment: I read the newspaper a week later, so today I would read last Wednesday’s news and or watch recorded… Read more

I read a helpful blog post by a young writer last week, it was on decision making (here). It was just lovely to see a young person writing a helpful post that clearly described her thinking on a topic, it showed a deliberate intention to cover in two minutes a topic. As important however, I… Read more