Sadly,

“I feel it in my fingers,

I feel it in my toes,

Conflict is all around me,

And so the feeling grows…”

Usually, conflict leads to separation, sides. You want to scream at each other, fight against each other, you have a headache and you do not want to talk with the person who you are in conflict with anymore. It is a situation where at least one of the sides loses…

Are all conflicts bad though? In

When was the last time you received feedback and it really felt like a gift to you? Did you actually ask for it and/or recognise it? Did it help?

Many people struggle in the workplace with giving or also receiving feedback. I even noticed a lot of beliefs that in some countries, it is more difficult than in others to give feedback and I am partially agreeing that culture and environment also plays a hand. At the same time, I do believe that giving and receiving feedback is a skill that can grow in any climate if nurtured.

There are lots of different models out there that can help you give feedback:

I went to a Networking event recently and we had a wonderful conversation with one of the lovely ladies there. We were sharing what we are doing in our professional lives, one topic led to another and we started talking about Personality types. I shared to her how passionate I was as a leadership development and team coach about the different models existing out there, about all this research and work available. And then, I also recalled one of the reactions I have received on one of my first personality type workshops I facilitated for a team many years ago: “I am not just a personality type. I refuse to be put in a box, I am so much more”...

When I am thinking about this instance and this person, I am full of compassion with regards to what she expressed and to some extent, I agree with her point of view. A person is full of surprises, there are so many factors that

I love working with teams and groups of people. The human being is already such a complex system, a beautiful combination of so many thoughts, previous experiences, backgrounds, values, beliefs and when teams come together all this complexity is multiplied as every team member has their own different thoughts, previous experiences, backgrounds, beliefs etc. I find all this variety very exciting and from my years of professional and life experience in different countries and environments, I am pleased to share that I have actually spotted more similarities than differences in people's behaviours. People have more things in common than they have initially thought regardless of race, gender, background, nationality, religion etc. As a facilitator and a team coach, it gives me absolute pleasure to be the connector between people and actually surprise them when they figure out the power of similarities and at the same time, the power of their differences.

One similarity and a key ingredient amongst all the brilliant teams I have worked with is the universal need of Trust and Safety. Two brilliant works out there support my statement: 

Authentic leadership - a lot has been said, written, talked about it. I remember the first time I heard these two words in combination and thought: what does this even mean? I find it much more relatable if I use other simpler and more commonly used synonyms when it comes to leadership: words like real, genuine.

Being real, genuine, honest, staying true to oneself is easy, right?! Every child expresses freely, shares genuinely what they think, shares at school how things are at home etc. I am sure that at least once in your life, children's authenticity has put a smile on your face. They don't have filters, right? And then, as we grow up under cultural conditioning and other people's opinions , we start caring how we are perceived, we quickly realise that we are better off not saying some things in order to fit in, to belong to a certain group, to avoid rejection…We avoid to say something because it

Some of you may have discovered a pattern in the last four articles of the past week. They all refer to the four steps of Nonviolent Communication (NVC): 

1. Observations

2. Feelings

3. Needs

4. Requests

What is NVC?

I do not mean to provide you with a definition. I will leave this to the experts. Feel free to google or go to https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/learn-nonviolent-communication/ to know more. I would rather share with you what NVC is for me. It is an extremely easy model on how to communicate with others in an emphatic way that takes, though, a lifetime to master. As soon as this concept was presented to me a few years back, it did not take long for me to start learning and practising. What I did not expect as a new learner were two things:

“Do as you are told!” Have you heard that combination of words before?!

Honesty, on the few occasions I have heard those words directly addressed to me or someone else, I felt furious, livid, it felt as if I had air plane ears and could not hear anything, the air was dense and I could not think. My throat was dry and I could not speak…

Those words are deprived of any freedom to think, to act or to speak…

I bet if you are still reading this, you most likely have the consciousness enough not to use such words in this combination and I hope that you do not hear them often in your personal or professional life either.

However, how many times in the past week have you indirectly asked someone to do something and had a very fixed idea of what you would like to happen?

I can't say “no” to Paul. He asked me to help him with his school/ work report. I have so much to do myself but sure, I will squeeze this in as well. And before you know it, you are stressed and exhausted. You react to the smallest of things and can't recognise yourself anymore. You are a ball of nerves and are burning out.

Now, your story does not have to be so polarised and I am not implying that you should tell Paul by all means that you won`t help him with his report. With today's article, I would like to challenge a very common belief of ours that prioritising what we need is bad and would like to provide you with a different perspective, a perspective in which you will regard allowing yourself to put yourself first as an absolute necessity.

“Don`t cry!” - said mum to 5 year old George. “Everyone will laugh at you! You are a little man, you are supposed to be strong!”

“Don`t be angry with your brother! - said mum to George`s sister Amy. “Be nice to him. He just wanted to play with you”

Both George and Amy grew up very strong and nice indeed. 🙂

The only thing was they also developed a habit of ignoring how they felt for the sake of fitting in.

George and Amy`s mum is a

I never judge people, judging people is bad! These were beliefs that I had in the past nurtured by my own “ego” and what I perceived as good or bad…

Have you been through the exact same situation with someone else and your perception of it is totally different from the other person? Why despite the similarity, there are two different versions of the same situation, two representations of the truth?

We create in a split of a second an image and we make a decision: I like this or

Whether you are satisfied with your current job or not, if you are like most people, you may have the tendency to go with the flow. You are constantly busy and at some point you stop and think: “I really need to build this and that skill but when?! There is no time. I can't do this. Most of the time, you subscribe to some kind of training which makes you feel better…temporarily, as maybe you have learned some new stuff but you have not embodied that skill yet.

The key to own your personal & professional development is:

having the belief that…

Adults often ask children what they want to do/ who they want to become when they grow up and I always find the response to this question fascinating: an astronaut, a vet, a Formula 1 pilot, a hairdresser, a cook, a teacher etc. The response tends to be aligned with something deeply rooted inside us. Rarely children would think what kind of constraints they may or may not have to become who they want to become, rarely they associate their response with money and status.

Only few people persevere with that childhood dream of theirs and…

Did it ever happen to you that someone gave you a lovely compliment and you did not actually believe it? You were not ready to accept it and you thought deep inside you that you did not deserve this because of xyz?

Or maybe worse, someone told you, even if it was not with those exact words that you were not good enough and even though you were really frustrated about it you ended up believing it was true.

In both situations, you end up doubting yourself and trusting less and less your capabilities which is tragic. A lot of people refer to this as impostor syndrome, a concept that

“You can not see your reflection in boiling water. Similarly, you can not see the truth in a state of anger. When the waters calm, clarity comes!“- Unknown

Have you ever experienced a situation when you want to do one thing or to behave/ communicate in a particular way, aligned to your values and instead, the conversation goes exactly the opposite way? Maybe you aspire to be kind and want to be genuinely supportive. However, sometimes, you end up frustrated and either blaming yourself or the other person for what happened?

Well, you are not alone. This happens

Everyone knows the definition of “Purpose”, right? It is the reason for which anything is done, created or exists.

At a macro level, it is also something that we hardly spoke about in communities or the workplace a few years ago which started changing more and more, especially during and post-pandemic.

At a micro level, as per my observation, it is something that people tend to forget in their busy lives going with the flow from one thing to another. However, when something happens: e.g. sickness or loss of a loved one or another big difficulty, they really start asking themselves existential questions: what is the purpose of life? What is the real meaning? And they start doing the things that really give them meaning for a while until the busyness of life takes over again, sweeping under the carpet so many emotions that they have not processed yet.

As a person, I tend to …

The holiday season for a lot of people who celebrate Christmas is behind us. A lot of the excitement and holidays are over and there is one entire year ahead of us. Normally this should be another great reason to get excited and at the same time, usually what happens to me is that I experience a dip. Who amongst the readers recognises the difficulty to get back to the routine, to work, to school? On top of that comes the pressure of the New Year! Whatever, I was not able to achieve or do is in the past. This year will be my year! I will lose weight, I will get that promotion, I will finally…New year, new me…

For a couple of years now…

For a lot of people amongst us, it is the season where we are used to giving and receiving gifts in one shape or form.

I have always enjoyed giving presents, not expensive ones but the ones that I believe someone really needs. The simple act of giving can be so powerful and fulfilling. It is a pure act of care.

This leads me to some further reflection around giving beyond Christmas time.

“Never give up without a try” is a childhood message that I was constantly hearing from my mum.

“You can do anything, it just depends how hard you want it.” - I still remember when I was a teen, having a conversation with an aspiring actor who was telling me his story about how he kept applying to acting school and despite the rejection, he kept going. Guess what? He is not aspiring anymore. He is an actor and is doing what he is truly passionate about.

I suppose for those and other reasons, I am a strong believer in growth mindset.

I would like to share a flash back that came ‘uninvited’ in my head recently that provoked a beautiful realisation.

My math teacher at school was perceived as a rather provocative, extremely clever and unpredictable person. He was always giving for our exams those crazy problems that only ‘Einstein’ brains would be able to solve.

As a believer of growth mindset, I had the tendency to put quite some effort in what I did, trusting I could learn anything.

Dear friend,

I have been looking around lately and what I see on regular basis is the same thing happening from centuries in the way we parent and we have been educated, in the marital relations, at the workplace and worldwide: binary thinking, opposites, sides...Why not, we have so many words for it: right or wrong, black or white, good or bad, guilty or innocent, rich or poor, tolerant or intolerant, clever or stupid, + or -, like or dislike...

However, when you express yourself in your language there are so many other words, when you walk around the streets you can see so many different colours...