Changing People - this is really where I started,
inevitably, because of course I knew and learnt
about people long before I knew business.
I like people, I like us.
There is nothing better than
the study of us, and I learnt quite early on to engage
in that study.
At first, back when I was still at school there were
times when I found
I could help my friends fix
problems to which they couldn't see a solution.
Often they were quite simple things really: how to
understand some part of work at school; how to
approach a relationship that had gone awry; and
as we grew, how to reset the equilibrium between
passionate friends. Then I noticed that even people
I'd never spoken with before would ask
me to help
them, perhaps intercede on their behalf, show them
how to mediate or they asked me just to listen to
their problems.
It helped them feel better...and it made me feel good
too. Perhaps, feeling that utterly distinct pleasure at
another's success, even as young as seven years
old I decided that here was where my future lay.
A heady and absorbing education later, with some
enviable life experience under my belt, I applied
that same personal approach to commerce.
A spell
at INSEAD (The European Business School
in Fontainebleau) confirmed that the principles I'd
applied for so long instinctively were underpinned
by theory.
But no business school could have given me the
insight I have through raising my autistic son. Sadly
real life doesn't come with an instruction manual,
and
if it did, autism would doubtless play havoc with
the page order. I had to learn more,
and fast.
One thing is abundantly clear to me. 'BEING' skills are
far more important than 'DOING' skills. And no-one is
formally training folk in 'being' skills.
Maybe, just maybe, I can do something about that.
I work one to one, challenging my clients' views not just
about the world in which they live and the people with
whom they interact, but of themselves. Because so
much of what limits us is self-imposed, or at the very
least fed on our uncertainties by our environment.
There is another reason I've been called a life
gardener: it's about my ability to coax, not just life,
but verve and beauty from a garden that has been
left to simply exist; a fitting metaphor.
Coming Soon! A place where
I'll allow my effervescent mind
a little freedom to expound on whatever subject is clamouring most forcefully for attention at
the time; you may find snippets
of useful advice and information, or you may read the verbal creaking of my mind collapsing
in on itself - only time will tell -
but please do subscribe if the fancy takes you.
