Last week, I was at a concert put on by a number of community choirs for charity. Great music, great performances, and for a good cause.

As we left the concert, we were talking about how wonderful it was to spend an afternoon with people who were truly passionate about and committed to what they do. There is this awesome energy of creation, of togetherness, of being that is …

I had a nice day today – mostly spent lying in bed, reading (a novel), and dozing off in between chapters. Only slightly thinking about work… It’s the whole “we must have this done by Christmas” workload . Not that I am complaining!

In the afternoon, I got up and started a new painting. It has been a while. The canvases were piling up accusatively.

After …

I have been thinking and talking to friends and associates a bit recently about the in-between.

We are very good at compartmentalisation in our world today. Most things/concepts/services/people lie in their very own special boxes. Our job descriptions pigeonhole us neatly into what we do (and not a thing more).

There exists huge opportunities for those who can thrive in the in-between. The classic role is the …

How many times do you really face a choice in life? …

Make them count. They will define you. …

every time I am about to follow my heart, I am offered enormous temptation. …

I’ve found that a lot of people have the same stigma about the question of what to do with their life, the geography of their career. They fear it’s not a serious question, because it’s mostly …

“History has demanded … that intelligent beings choose between order and anarchy, between creation and destruction, between reason and unreason.” Autifon Deliamber in Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg.

“Can’t beat a skybox! All the excitement of being in the sky, with the security of being in a box!” Marge Simpson.

Many of us dream of flying high. And yet, time and time again we retreat to the safety of boxes. Boxes created by our collective, societal expectations.

We have more choices than ever before to live the live we want. We are wealthier than 90% of the planet’s …

David Dale’s blog post on the Sydney Morning Herald provides food (and stats) for thought.

My 10 minute take on what the patterns are:

Important reference books (Guinness World Records:2007) which makes great gifts for just about anyone, even if you don’t remember their last names.
The twins of food and diet - Get fat with Jamie (just look at him drowning everything in yummy oil), then lose weight …

From The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff (ISBN 0-416-19526-1), this story illustrating the Taoist principle of Effortless Action or Wu Wei ??:

The Old Master and the Horse

A horse was tied outside a shop in a narrow Chinese village street. Whenever anyone would try to walk by, the horse would kick him. Before long, a small crowd of villages had gathered near the …

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the originator of TQM (Total Quality Management), put forth 14 points of organisation behaviour change towards better performance.

Stilgherrian’s post on being real on the web brought to mind Deming’s eighth point: Drive out fear.

Point 8: Fear is a barrier to improvement so drive out fear by encouraging effective two-way communication and other mechanisms that will enable everybody to be …

Nick Smith’s post “The joy of wallowing in a perfect mess” was a timely opportunity for me to gather together all the stray thoughts in my head.

I realised all too many “shoulds”, too many “can’ts”, have silently crept in over the recent years, especially during the final year at Vermillion. Success made it easy to succumb to the “we are consultants now, we should …