If you've volunteered to be a listener through the NHS Scheme or locally through a Mutual Aid group, this video should might help you collect some tips up your sleeve for the more challenging calls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=006KdNQrKog
Continuing in my series on how to talk to difficult people, especially those who insist you are the difficult one: In the previous post I talked about the benefits of asking the difficult person how they’re feeling and the importance of listening to the answer; how to check and demonstrate you’ve understood them, and if you haven’t, to listen again until they know they’ve really been heard. All this time, though, you haven’t had a look in. Now it’s your turn. You can’t wait to launch in with your much [...]
Loads of us are finding ourselves stuck indoors with difficult people who are (most unreasonably) accusing us of being the difficult one. This could go on for a long time, so over the next week or two I'm going to blog on ways to turn arguments into constructive communication and the difficult person into someone you can manage and even enjoy to be locked down with for as long as this process takes. Step one: asking how someone is feeling and listening to the answer: 1 Before you get [...]
When I was a kid I wanted to be a long distance lorry driver. I hadn’t thought about motorways or transport cafés, fatigue, the health impact of sitting down for ages, deadlines, queues at borders etc. My fantasy was about being all by myself, in a snug little cabin, all day. I’m reminded of it now. I have been noticing how friends and clients have been responding to this voluntary lockdown. Some seem to be glowing with it, secretly (or openly) relishing the prohibition on crowds, travel, social contact. [...]
It's wet and windy all over the country and no less so than down here in Brighton. The sea chucks pebbles onto the promenade and the council (presumably) sends a guy down with a digger to push them back onto the beach. The sea chucks them back again in the next storm and out the digger comes again. In some ways it seems like a bit of a waste of resources, especially bearing in mind the forecast. There is a lot of work that is like this: cleaning the house, [...]
I did my accounts yesterday. It's a job made not only bearable but actually enjoyable by the addition of Spotify. I shuffled through a playlist called Classic Covers. Halfway into November’s expenses I found myself listening to something I couldn't at first place - deeply familiar and at the same time completely new. It took me a moment to recognise a ponderous version of Let's Dance, a slow voice accompanied by an acoustic guitar, a hesitant harmonica between verses. The tempo was different and the rhythm was new too. I [...]
One of the things I love about this time of year (aside from having got Christmas and my birthday out the way) is how the evenings get noticeably lighter as do the mornings. What a boring thing to say, I hear you mutter. Obvious, dull, doh. It is, and that’s the thing. I must have found myself in at least five conversations already this year about lighter mornings and longer evenings (none, I hasten to add, started by me). Which leads me to observe that even though we know it’s [...]
My best selling coaching package is a six pack. This is why it works: 1 Compost Never underestimate the benefit of composting – yes the vegetable kind which worms and bacteria turn into dark crumbling nourishment and also the emotional and intellectual version. When I’m writing, I often need to let a first, second, third draft settle, before its true meaning comes out. In coaching, it’s critical to give time for an idea, a question, a revelation to hang around so you can feel into it and get a sense [...]
I’ve moved house (I might have said that before). Three small words, one massive upheaval. Replete with metaphors. I have an old chest of drawers, made of mahogany. I bought it from Austen’s of Peckham which in the mid 80's was the best secondhand furniture shop in the world. It was arranged in layers, the higher you went up the more exotic and expensive the goods. The top floor could have been a museum. I used to shop on the ground floor, rummaging in the ordinary and cheap. I picked [...]
I know it’s blokes who are supposed to be unable to see the pint of milk on the second shelf of the fridge (it’s because they have the eye on the big picture, isn’t it – checking out the lion on the horizon the while we women worry about grubs and corn on the ground?). Let's be honest, it’s not just blokes. I made myself a stir fry yesterday and I knew I had half an onion. I was pretty sure it was in the fridge and certain I hadn’t [...]
