Posts Tagged ‘meaningful work’
Walking As Yourself
The legendary British actress, Helen Mirren, says the hardest thing you can do is walk as yourself. She may have been speaking about acting when she said this, but I think her words carry wisdom we can use beyond the stage. Society conditions us to fit in from a young age. The way to fit…
Read MoreStronger Together
It’s the day before Melbourne cafes close again under reinstated lockdown restrictions. The owner of the Italian restaurant that opened in January is heart sore. We get chatting as I’m paying the bill. He explains that due to then pandemic they’ve been able to have patrons dine in for only nine of the twenty-four weeks…
Read MoreA Good Job
George is in his seventies. His hearing has deteriorated over the years, but he’s reluctant to wear a hearing aid. He hates missing out on parts of conversations and often feels isolated because he can’t hear what’s going on. He’s embarrassed about his disability. But he feels self-conscious about wearing a clunky, visible hearing aid…
Read MoreThe Power Of The Unexpected
Last Monday I got a handwritten letter in the mail. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find a note from a contractor who had unsuccessfully quoted for a small renovation project on our home. In his letter, he said he was sorry things hadn’t worked out this time around but that he hoped…
Read MoreLeveraging Our Mistakes
Each day we overlook some opportunity to see or to serve. We fail to challenge our assumptions and hold fast to our opinions. The result is that we sometimes miss the opportunity to do better. This feels like bad news. But it doesn’t have to be. What if instead of saying; ‘I could kick myself…
Read MoreOn Ambition
Before I went to high school, everyone in our year sat an aptitude test. We were eleven years old, and the assessment took place over three hours one morning early in summer. The goal was to identify each student’s potential and stream girls into year groups based on their IQ. The theory being that matching…
Read MoreThe Human Advantage
Consider the things we value in our interactions with others—kindness, honesty, patience and empathy, for starters. Now, think about how often you experience them. How many opportunities will you have today to amplify these qualities in your everyday interactions? How many will you take advantage of? We get to shape the future we want to…
Read MoreThe Unremarkable
Lately, we have come to recognise the remarkable contribution of the people many considered unremarkable. The people who stack our food on the supermarket shelves through the night. The truck drivers who get behind the wheel every day ensuring deliveries reach us. Those who wake early to clean our hospital wards. The workers who once…
Read MoreLessons From A Low-Touch World
Technology presents opportunities for efficiency and scale. And for the last century, conventional wisdom equated progress with efficiency—doing more with less friction. We’ve worked hard to build systems that scale. Frictionless innovations for a low-touch world. Now, we’re beginning to realise that what we value most are the irreplaceable high-touch interactions that don’t scale. It’s…
Read MoreThe Efficiency Paradox
The young woman got off the tram, carried along amid the throng on their way to the various law firms along Collins Street. She walked briskly, heels clacking, her big Beats headphones clamped over her ears. Two bags were slung across her body. One leather contained her laptop, the other made of cloth held a…
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