Love Your Self For No Reason

Psychologist - Fresnaye Cape Town

Don’t Abandon Your Self-Esteem.

Great Leadership Is To Undo Your Belt And Look For Trouble!

“Leaders are there to help us to discover the greatness within us.”

Mark Peter Kahn

I’ve been a management consultant for 20 years and I’ve been coaching executives and middle managers for the last 10.

I believe that the most useful thing learned by the people I have worked with, is their shift in attitude from tense, stressed, impatient and anxious and resistant to ‘trouble’, to still and calm and modulated.

A movement away from, “I’m not good enough for this job,” to “I’m ok, I don’t have to be perfect, I can get criticized and attacked and face problems everyday and that’s ok!”

Michael hammer, the Godfather of the re-engineering process says that two most important skills necessary for success in business are attitude and creativity.

I agree with him. [Read more…] about Great Leadership Is To Undo Your Belt And Look For Trouble!

The Parental Lecture Or Strategic Questions?

I see kids from 11 years and upwards for psychotherapy.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s about studying for exams, or tidying one’s room, or putting out the garbage, staying up too late, watching too much TV, whatever the issue, parents so often default to the lecture.

The first session is usually with the parents or at least the mother. We start to discuss the problem and then at some point, the parents turn to the kid and say, in this very authoritarian, dictatorial tone, “How many times have we told you that you’re not thinking about your future?!”

What does the kid do?

They roll their eyes upwards and dissociate – meaning they leave the room – and the words of the parent bounce off them like bullets from an invisible space ship shield in a Star Wars movie.

The parents see this response but continue as though they haven’t and the energy and tone of the self-righteous lecture continues.

They blunder on with this blitzkrieg of knowing advice, helpless in the face of having no other options in their communication armoury. [Read more…] about The Parental Lecture Or Strategic Questions?

“Don’t Leave Me – I’m The Most Beautiful Woman In The World.”

It’s winter around 2006. It’s a cold Tuesday morning and I’m sick in bed with the flu.

I’m scrolling aimlessly through the TV channels and I come across the Tyra Banks show.

There is a very attractive woman in the studio. She is being dressed to look like a witch from hell. Ugly wig and clothes that make her body look like a washing bag with legs.

They put her on the street and video her from some distance.

She goes up to strangers and asks them for parking meter money. Only one in about 15 people want to help her. Many of them skirt around her as though she has the plague.

They then put her back on the same street looking really fabulous, great legs in a miniskirt, beautiful face, body and hairdo.

Again she’s asking for parking meter money.

14 out of 15 people help her, eagerly, happily. One guy even goes into a store to get change so he can give her some money.

The difference is spellbinding. [Read more…] about “Don’t Leave Me – I’m The Most Beautiful Woman In The World.”

How To Stop Fearing Failure.

Our culture is obsessed with success.

The Guinness book of records is the third highest selling book in history.

Our culture is addicted to #1’s!

If you’re a parent then you are either obsessed with the success of your children or you live in fear of their failure. These two concepts are inseparable.

If you’re thinking about your own life just notice how much of the time you are wondering if today’s meeting is going to go well or how your latest project is going to pan out?

You get into a new relationship and you’re anxious about your capacity to make it work because you’ve had one or two, or many failures. [Read more…] about How To Stop Fearing Failure.