Use the power of a pause to speed up your creativity
When you're stuck, the instinct is to push harder. You think, “If I just work a little longer, maybe I’ll crack the code.” But here's the thing: the answer is often found in the pause, not in the grind. The pause—an intentional break—creates space for breakthrough thinking. Find out how Einstein, Nietzsche and J.K. Rowling used the power of pause to accelerate their creativity.
When the best way to give advice, is not to give advice
Narrative sharing is an alternative way of giving advice. Instead of offering direct solutions, the advice giver uses personal stories to address challenges or problems. It’s a subtle shift in how you deliver advice but has a much more impactful result. This article shows you how to use it.
How Dolly Parton stays focused and productive
Dolly Parton has written over 3,000 songs throughout her career, which spans more than six decades. She has three practices she’s internalised that enable her to stay in her creative zone and focused for longer.
How to stay motivated for longer
Dopamine is the brain's reward system, driving us to start and persevere with challenges and feel satisfied when we finish them. But here's the catch: it naturally decreases as we age—unless we take action. Here’s three ways to boost dopamine and stay motivated for longer.
Two factors that lead to high performance
Brendan Burchard’s book, High Performance Habits, is a #1 New York Times best seller. Brendan and his team conducted research with 30,000 people from 195 countries to arrive at two key factors that determine high performance over the long term. Click to see what they are.
How to become less scared of failure
Failure comes in three flavours says Amy Edmonson in her new book Right Kind of Wrong, basic failures, complex failures and intelligent failures. We are meant to make mistakes she argues. Learning about each of these types of failures will help you become less scared of them.
How US music producer Rick Rubin overcomes mental blocks
US music producer Rick Rubin shares a simple hack that has worked to help overcome mental blocks for himself and the musicians he’s worked with.
How dyslexia is a creative superpower
One in five people globally have dyslexia and most hide it from their employers out of fear of prejudice. Rather than a learning disorder, dyslexia can be a problem solving super power. Inside are three ways people with dyslexia can excel at solving complex problems and why you need them on your team.
Psychological safety in teams - why we need it and how to build it.
Google studied 180 teams to figure out what makes them click. Spoiler: It’s not about who’s on the team—it’s about how they work together. The secret? Psychological safety. This article shares three simple ways to build it.
How to choose the right solution
Sometimes, life throws us a choice: stick to your values and face short-term pain or take the easy way out and compromise what you stand for. The latter is tempting—it’s quick, convenient, and feels like a win in the moment. But the real reward comes when you choose the harder path.
How AI, loneliness and a declining attention span are shaping the future of work and what do about it
This week my first work appointment was to jump on a webinar hosted by Smiley Poswolsky. He’s a workplace belonging expert who helps organisations create a culture of human connection. He shared three realities shaping the future of work and together we’ve come up with what do about them.
How to amplify creativity and problem solving with Chat GPT
It’s easy to ask Chat GPT direct questions and get an answer. However its true power lies in unleashing its iterative conversational powers in a process called exploration driven enquiry.
The awesome power of checklists
Atul Gawande is a US surgeon and best-selling author of The Checklist. In his book, Gawande demonstrates how, in an increasingly complex world, the humble checklist serves as a practical tool for managing and overcoming challenging situations. Inside are tips on when to use them, when not to and best practices for developing your own.
Rethink the path to living a good life
Mark Manson is a New York Times best-selling author, podcaster and educator. In his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, he lays out the key to living a better life is by caring about fewer things and not giving a f*ck about the rest. It’s a cracking read.
How changing your story can change your life
We are all unreliable narrators of our lives at times, which can keep us prisoner within our own minds says American psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb. To break free, what we need to do is change the story we tell ourselves, about ourselves.
How the inventor of software CAPTCHA solved two wildly different problems with this one solution
Luis von Ahn invented the software CAPTCHA as a PhD student, who used it to solve two wildly different problems. He then went on to develop Duolingo, a language learning app that’s valued at over US$9 billion after using it solve one of these problems.