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I’ve been invited by Thames Valley chambers of commerce to give a presentation at one of their business breakfasts. 24 April 2014 . 7:30 am Newbury Racecourse, Newbury, Berks, RG14 7NZ At their request, I’ll be talking on two classic issues that can typically affect a... Read More

The IT industry is fond of arguing that children should be taught computer programming as a way of improving the country’s economic chances. But, the idea that children have to learn coding so that—to give the example provided by an interviewee on Radio 4 Today (4 February... Read More

A correspondent writes: Why do you think we not like great creators of mathematics, literature, art or music, such as Schubert, Dante and Poincaré? But they are not even like each other, so it isn’t surprising that other people aren’t like them as well. People are... Read More

Coaches often fret about how they will respond if a prospect or client asks them how they measure the success of their work.  They’re always looking in LinkedIn discussion forums for ‘tools’ and ‘techniques’ to help them prove they have had an effect... Read More

If I see a hungry lion racing for me, aiming for my throat, I feel fear. It’s a visceral reaction out of my conscious control.  It is an instinct. If I am walking down a road in England, perpetually scared that a lion might attack me, that isn’t fear, although it is commonly... Read More

In my youth, I was fascinated by words and the derivations. I remember discovering that helicopter comes from two Greek words. Not ‘heli’ and ‘copter’, as you might think, but ‘helico’ (as in helical, or helix, ie a spiral) and ‘pter’ (a wing, as in a word known to all small... Read More

A recent LinkedIn thread set up this assertion for comment: “After failure, shame is harmful, guilt is productive”. There appears to be a degree of blurring of the definitions of guilt and shame, both in common parlance and amongst those who ought to know better. So, for the... Read More

Some recent blogs by others have illustrated a surprisingly oldfashioned approach to engaging with prospects and clients. In a nutshell they illustrate the belief that you have to be something other than you are, someone other than you are, if you are going to be successful. I... Read More

“In 2008 Warren Buffett became the richest person in the world, with a total net worth estimated at $62 billion by Forbes and at $58 billion by Yahoo” (Wikipedia).  Apparently, at his peak, he possessed $64,000,000,000 and was the 25th richest person in the world since the... Read More

After a year or so’s membership of the Professional Speaking Association, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two sorts of speaker, just as there are two sorts of pianist (well, there are more but arguably there are clearly two preeminent types of pianist). One type of... Read More