Weekly Tips To Challenge Ordinary

If you’re a parent, or you’ve been through school, you’ve inevitably had to deliver a speech or two (or twelve) about what you want to be when you grow up. As a child, I vividly remember doing this multiple times. I was one of those kids who, from a very young age, had a fixed idea of what I wanted to be. I was convinced I wanted to become a marine biologist, and that’s exactly what I spoke about every time. Imagine my parents’ surprise when I became a psychologist instead.

My oldest daughter is in Grade 1 and has to give a speech on the same topic. Like me, she has a very clear idea of what she wants to become. My youngest, however, responded differently. When I asked her what she would like to be one day, she said: “I don’t know. I’m small. How should I know?”

How would you rate your level of luck?

Have you ever won anything? Or survive an incident that could have gone very wrong? Are you the type of person who attracts lucky breaks, or does good fortune seem to avoid you like the plague?

Just this week, I was standing in my driveway and out of seemingly nowhere, a lightning bolt cracked right above my head! I felt pretty lucky to walk away alive and with clean pants, let me tell you.

I’m the type of person who puts things back “where they belong”. The result of this is that I spend very little time, if any, looking for anything. I can walk straight to where I last put the thing, use it and put it back.

No problem, in theory.

The caveat being, I have a teenage son. He is not a “put things back where they belong” type of person. His room functions like an interstellar black hole: once something enters it, the chances of it returning are close to zero. Every so often, I find myself wading in there, looking for something that is not where I left it, not by choice but out of necessity. Most times, I don’t find what I’m looking for, but rather end up leaving with a bunch of things I didn’t realise were missing.

A question we use in many of our coaching sessions is “What is your number today?”

When you ask it the first time, clients tend to look at you like you’ve lost it. We then explain that it’s an invitation to self-reflect: On a scale from 0-10, how are you doing holistically? That provides a useful starting point for understanding which aspects of life might be adding to or subtracting from their overall life satisfaction at the moment, so they can make adjustments where needed.

Over the last month or so, I’ve had interactions and conversations with a handful of people that have made me go “Shô!” – in the best possible way. To say that they impressed me would be an understatement.

With winter fast approaching, we are entering flu season. I’ve noticed that people who catch the sniffles these days tend to stay sick for quite a while. Nobody enjoys being ill – and if you’re anything like me, you turn into a real buzzkill. I’ll do just about anything to avoid getting sick.

Every once in a while we get to do something together that isn’t directly work related – this was one of them. Read about how we experienced the Two Oceans half marathon.

This past weekend, I attended my first ever Hyrox event – not as a participant, but to support a team of ladies. It’s an impressive event, involving thousands of supporters, judges and athletes, and hundreds of pieces of equipment, housed inside an enormous venue. The entire thing was very well organized and a lot of fun (the outfits alone are worth the prize of admission).

Pick up the coins along the wayPick up the coins along the way This week, I once again noticed my...

For the last while, I have had a very strong urge to visit a friend of mine who is going through seriously tough stuff. She stays far away, and the visit required me to board a flight to spend time with her and her family. The urge went into action when I read the following quote:

Imagine a book and you cannot turn the page. That is life.

At the end of January, we hosted a teambuilding event for one of our clients. We’ve done many of these over the years, and I always look forward to them. But I was not looking forward to this one. When Shinell told me about her plan for this event sometime during November, the first thing I said was, “I can’t make it, I’m going to be sick on that day.” Her suggestion shook me to my core: We are going to dance…

What is your favourite brand?

My son likes Mercedes-Benz. He only turns 15 next week and can’t drive yet, but he has decided that he wants a Merc for his first car. He plans to buy it himself (using savings he doesn’t have) and sends me links to Autotrader offers more than once a week. As far as he is concerned, no other car is a worthy option.

I support the Blue Bulls and have done so my entire life. The Bulls were the best team in the world 15-20 years ago, but nowadays they are not, and just seem to make me mad. Still, I cannot see myself going out and buying a Stormers jersey. It just feels wrong.

How Will They Know You Were Here?How will they know you were here? My husband and I attended a...

For the past 1,139 days, I’ve tracked my daily mood on an app on my phone. Every night at 20:00, it asks, “How are you?” and I choose between five emoji faces ranging from a bright green “rad” face to a dark grey “awful” face. More than mood, I use it to track my overall life satisfaction from day to day, out of curiosity.

And just like that, it’s February, the month of love. All 93 days of January have come and gone, and the year is cracking along at full pace.

A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch in Paarl on a Friday afternoon. What stood out most about this beautiful town was not the searing heat, but how friendly the people are. Walking around, at least four people said hello to me first, adding a sincere smile to boot. I loved it.