Learning

What’s the secret of successful study?

Who doesn’t want to know the secret of successful study? With school and university exams coming round year after year, it got me thinking about our relationship with learning… Isn’t it interesting that we’ll moan about having to revise for exams, and yet, left to our own devices, truly enjoy learning! [...]

Learning

Do you have an effective study schedule?

“What is a study schedule?”, I hear you ask! A study schedule is a plan of attack to maximise the effectiveness of the time you’ve set aside to revise. Why do you need it? Have you got time to waste? Are you studying for the sheer fun of it? Or [...]

Learning

Learning is fun! Or is it?

Remember when learning was fun? Building castles in the sand pit, sloshing water from one container to another in the water tray, messing about with paints? Learning by doing; learning from others; sharing discoveries and sharing information… And all that means learning is fun, of course. But then something happens [...]

Emotional intelligence, Learning

Fixed mindset -v- growth mindset

Are you fixed? Why do toddlers happily fail to walk, and when they fall over, simply get up and have another go? Exactly when do adults start believing that it’s not OK to fail or not be very good at something and therefore don’t even try? What do you know [...]

Brain, General, Learning

The problem with the yoof of today

Cor, lummy, I don’t half feel old when I start talking about the younger generation! Yes, yes. There’s a good reason for that! Please don’t write in! As I was saying, the problem with the yoof of today, is that they’ve grown up in a culture that seems to judge [...]

Emotional intelligence, Learning

Increase your ability to delay gratification

So what can you do to increase your ability to delay gratification? And why would you want to? Perhaps because if you want to be successful in life, you need to develop your determination and resilience muscles. Most successful people are good at: Delaying gratification. Resisting temptation. Not letting fear [...]

Emotional intelligence, General, Learning

How keeping going keeps you going

… towards your goal. And what it costs to get you there… I think we’ve inadvertently done our kids a disservice. I also think, perhaps as a backlash against the stricter parenting we grew up with, we’ve attempted to be less demanding of our children, and to protect them from the [...]

General, Learning

Guess who’s coming to dinner? Boris Johnson, that’s who!

Do you by any chance remember the interview given by the leader of one of the RAF Black Buck missions to protect the Falkland Islands during the conflict with Argentina in 1982? The question put to him was something along the lines of, “How do you feel about your old [...]

General, Learning

Informal Learning

Years ago, at a networking event, run by Refer On and John Welburn, I connected with Dexter Moscow, who helped make QVC the enormous success it is today. We’ve kept in touch over the years and back in the spring he introduced me to Paul Matthews, a thought-leader in the [...]

General, Learning

Connecting the dots

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” Steve Jobs Found myself sitting next to Michael Pitfield at the Chamber of Commerce Tech Forum event. What a coincidence, since he [...]