My perfect ink-stained new bag

My new handbag is perfect. The bling-gold complements everything in my wardrobe. It’s large enough to hold my Macbook Air (non-negotiable for all new handbags). The straps are long enough to fit easily under my arm, but not too long that the bag drags on the ground when held in my hands. There are pockets for make-up, cell phone, pens …. Pens.

Organising to Procrastinate

I am an inveterate procrastinator, perennially last minute about most things. When I heard about “just-in-time” management some years ago, I did a huge fist-bump and a “YES”. My approach to work and life had finally been validated. Yet I continued to struggle with procrastination. Because procrastination is painted in a negative light, invariably, it […]

Letting go does not mean giving up

Perennially last minute, I rushed around that afternoon two months ago deciding on the menu, cleaning the house, shopping for groceries and wine and preparing the meal. With not much time before my dinner guest arrived, I bounded upstairs to get dressed. As I dragged the sweater over my head, I felt the absence of […]

Stop your own press and wait for an explanation

“Where’s Romeo” I wondered at 1.15 p.m. on Monday confident that we had confirmed our call for 1.00 p.m. I dropped him an e-mail and let the thought go as I always have a backlog of work to catch up on (I once read research that showed that the average executive has over 230 hours […]

Feelings are always genuine

“Feelings are always genuine” stated Michel, a participant in one of the Transformational Coaching workshop I facilitated last week. We were discussing the issue of giving feedback to people with the intention of “enhancing their effectiveness in a way that they feel helped” (our working definition of coaching with heart). With this simple statement, Michel reminded us that […]

Resistance is your teacher

When I first read about Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In”, I felt shackles rise and great resistance to what I understood she was saying. I even wrote a rather accusatory blog about it – Why Can’t A Woman Be More Like a Man? click here to view article Interested in my resistance, I decided to […]

Life is about knowing which button to press

Three mornings last week I noticed that I woke up way after my alarm had gone off. I figured that maybe I was just so tired that I slept through it. Could I really be that tired though? Or age was really catching up with me and my hearing going? But then I noticed that […]

Ask ….. it WILL be given – 3 lessons

  Two Sundays ago, as my family and I headed home after a glorious day at the beach, I joyously and animatedly said to my brother-in-law “Arsenio – next year we are going camping!”   Well, wouldn’t you know that the Universe didn’t hear the “next year” part – all it heard was “We are […]

Diversity of Olympian proportions

  I am loving the diversity in the Olympics – almost-40 year old gymnasts (grey hair and all); 15 year old female gold medalists swimming faster then men; a blind archer; a sprinter without legs; an African American gold medal gymnast; a white Jamaican Olympian (equestrian), women competing for the first time for their Islamic […]

Who am I? Who are you?

While completing an application for membership at Costco, the young attendant asked me what my occupation was. I responded that I was a professor at Ryerson who taught business management. He blurted out “But you don’t LOOK like a business professor”. I laughingly asked him what a business professor looked like. “An old, gray man” […]

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