Blogs
For high-performing leaders, teams and organisations.
Finding My Purpose
I left school at 15 years old, eager to begin building a future for myself. Raised with a strong work ethic from my Italian heritage, I threw myself into plumbing, believing it would provide the stability and security I needed. By the time I was in my mid-twenties, I had become highly skilled in the … Read more
Building Emotional Strength in Business
Emotional Strength is a different way of perceiving yourself in the world in which you live. Emotional Strength is defined as “the ability to respond in an open and vulnerable way in the face of intense emotional experience, feeling ones way deeper into the emotion which allows access to implicit functional processes driving action” (Faye … Read more
The Benefits of Feeling Emotion
For many people, it is hard to make sense of the world. Children often fail or underperform in mainstream education systems. Teachers burn out, parents become frustrated and eventually want a diagnosis. It is understandable that both teachers and parents push for something to explain their children’s poor performance. Unfortunately, the diagnosis is often a … Read more
Emotion Body Connection
The “Father of American Psychology”, William James (1884, p. 189) once wrote: “It is a real intellectual delight to get a problem solved, and a real intellectual torment to have to leave it unfinished”. Maybe that is how James felt about the question that remained unanswered before his death and this same question remains unanswered … Read more
The Concept of Positive and Negative Emotion
Typically, people believe that emotions are good and bad. Are they really? It can be argued that seeing the world through good/bad, right/wrong, either/or, and black/white perspective is very limited. Sure, these types of dichotomous thinking save us time, they are short cuts to decision making and help to simplify our complex world. Although there … Read more
The Myth of Negative Emotion
Olympic champion Djokovic says, “I believe that one of life’s greatest lessons is learning to be comfortable with discomfort”. That is how it is with ‘negative’ emotion. What if there is no such thing as ‘negative’ emotion? What if ‘negative’ emotions such as anxiety, sadness and anger are just judgements? What if feeling is not … Read more
An Introduction to Emotional Strength
Emotional Strength is a philosophy and a way of living that promotes a different way of responding to all emotion, particularly those labelled ‘negative’ emotion. We are taught that happiness is the only acceptable emotion. There are songs written about ‘Don’t worry, be happy’. Children are taught that if they have a sad expression on … Read more
Marathon Running
Running a marathon is similar to running a small business. Running the distance challenges every part of me. Every day I discover new ways of underestimating my capabilities. When I think I have reached my limit, I discover I have got more in me and I take the next step. To run long distance, I … Read more