My Recent Blog Posts
Throwback : The 50 things nobody tells you before you become a Dad
I wrote this article 7 years ago when my kids were 5, 4, 3 and 1 year old, and all of it is still absolutely
The 5 reasons not to take unsubscribes from your mailing list personally.
There was a time when I would send an email newsletter out, and then for the next few hours, obsessively monitor the report and pore
Words have power: the stigma of labelling mental illness
Labelling mental health and mental illness, and applying those labels to people living with mental health conditions – or even people who are just experiencing
The psychology of conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories are as old as time, but it’s only in more recent years that psychologists have begun to unravel the belief that some people
Beating depression with magic mushrooms
It’s kind of amazing that something that must have been a terrifying discovery back a long time ago when someone accidentally ate the wrong kind of mushroom
Smacking a child may affect their brain development
You just know that smacking children is going to get a response. Everyone has an opinion on this, and because of the nature of it,
Nobody is more resilient than anyone else.
At least, nobody is naturally more resilient than anyone else. Resilience can be built and fostered, when needed, and the more resilient we are, the more resilient
There is no such thing as an addictive personality.
Do you know someone who has an ‘addictive personality’? Or have you ever said that you have an addictive personality? Maybe they (or you) just can’t seem
Events and Conferences in 2020
2020 has seen a big change in how people run events, how people like me speak at events, and how everybody else attends events. We’ve
Magical thinking
Magical thinking is one of the many kinds of unhelpful thinking that can bring us undone and stop our growth and progression towards being the
Motivational Speaking: What I’ve learned from the last 11 years
This week marks 11 years since I started as a motivational speaker, delivering keynote addresses at, and MC’ing, professional and corporate events and conferences. Motivational
Decision Fatigue: Why I wear the same $10 shirt every day
Having to make complex (or even simple) decisions every day can be really draining and lead to decision fatigue and impaired mental health. Here are
Finding Strength
Finding strength is hard at the best of times, but in THESE time, when leaders and leadership seem missing, how do we find our own
How to find the best ZOOM motivational speaker for your event or conference
Post Covid-19, the conference and events space is going to look a lot different. It already does, of course, but where at the moment pretty
Is it feedback? Or is it criticism?
I do a lot of public speaking at conferences and events both in Australia and internationally. The audiences who hear me speak are usually a
Motivational Speakers, Inspirational Speakers, Keynote Speakers, Event Speakers … which is the right one for your conference or event?
I have been a professional motivational speaker now for over almost 15 years. In that time, I have delivered hundreds of presentations to an audience
Let go of fear and doubt
Fear is a very motivating thing. And, particularly for people who are co-dependent or don’t feel like they should be at the top of their
Healthy Shame or Toxic Shame?
Shame. Even the word sucks. I want you to think about something that you have felt shame about, either recently or long term. And, in
What CAN we do?
One of the funny things about being human is that, for a lot of us, our default position has become something less than positive. Sometimes,
How has the 2020 Pandemic changed business forever?
There’s no denying all of our lives have changed. Maybe not forever, but certainly in the midst of the COVID-19 Coronavirus crisis, everyone’s world is
People are good.
Humans are funny old things.
On the one hand, we are pretty non-compliant. We tend to, largely, not really go along with what we are asked to do, and we are even less likely to do what we are told to do. If that weren’t true, there would be no need for police, or even laws for that matter.
How you can go ahead with your event or conference if it’s under threat from Coronavirus
By now, you would probably have had to have been living under a rock – or at least have a very strong boundary set for yourself and how you interact with news and social media – to not at least have heard about a virus that is moving relatively quickly between countries on the planet, carried by unsuspecting human carriers, called COVID-19 or Coronavirus.
How to make space for growth
I talk a lot about growth, for one very good reason: I think a lot about growth. Whether it’s personal growth or business growth, I think that it is such an important aim for all of us to keep growing, keep changing and, hopefully, keep improving ourselves.
The Ultimate Step By Step Guide to Planning and Hosting a Conference
My daughter is 10 right now. She is already a capable and confident person, and I can’t wait to see what kind of adult she becomes. These are the things that I want her to know, now as an 10 year old, but also for her whole life. I’m her Dad, and it’s my proudest job title.
What are the 3 things that stop us being the best version of ourselves?
And throughout my recovery, I have realised (finally) that there are 3 things that will also stop my growth, and always send me backwards to where I don’t want to be any more.
Meeting My Inner Child
Part of my treatment in rehab included a 5-day intensive workshop that was designed to root out the cause of my dysfunctional behaviour as an adult, by starting to heal the damage to my inner child.
What’s more important? The rupture or the repair?
Dan Siegel is a parenting and brain development expert. His insights into how children and adults sometimes resort to activating the most primitive parts of our brain because a situation becomes so emotional or so many other things are going on for us that we can’t clearly reason, problem solve and find a resolution.
The 33 things I want my daughter to always know.
My daughter is 10 right now. She is already a capable and confident person, and I can’t wait to see what kind of adult she becomes. These are the things that I want her to know, now as an 10 year old, but also for her whole life. I’m her Dad, and it’s my proudest job title.
The best sentence to ask someone if you want an honest answer.
We ask each other a lot of meaningless and trivial questions throughout every day: “How are you?” “How was your night?” “How’s the family?” Nothing sinister, sure, but how many times do we ask those questions because we are
I am doing my best (and so are you).
At any given moment, no matter how much I have hurt someone, hurt myself, misrepresented myself in the past, lied, cheated, used, gave in to my addictions, or been lying in bed anxious or depressed or both, I was, and am, still doing the very best I can do at that time.We all are. I think that every one of us is
How 4 clever Aussie businesses are utilising business growth coaching and personal growth coaching to win in 2020.
Small business and startup has been part of my life for a long time now. And in my 20 years of experience working in small
The 11 people to rid your life of (and never be)
Humans are fine. I mean, really, most of them are amazing. Humans can show me love and empathy and kindness and generosity and humility and
The 20 Best Motivational or Inspirational Conference Professional Speakers in Australia in 2020
If you are planning an event or conference in 2020, and you want to have some speakers that will be engaging, inspirational and motivational, where
Motivational Speakers: The ultimate guide for how to find the best one for your conference.
My daughter is 10 right now. She is already a capable and confident person, and I can’t wait to see what kind of adult she becomes. These are the things that I want her to know, now as an 10 year old, but also for her whole life. I’m her Dad, and it’s my proudest job title.
I am a motivational speaker because ALL speakers are motivational speakers.
When I first started speaking on stage at conferences and events as a keynote speaker, I was loathe to describe myself as a motivational speaker,
Meditation For Kids.
I love meditation.
It could have helped me a lot during times in my life before I was introduced to it.
One of the most interesting things about meditation, for me, is its uniqueness. There is no right or wrong way to meditate, no required duration, posture, location.
It is what it is to everyone who is doing it in that moment.
There are many different types of meditation today. Harvard University’s Dr. Anne Fabiny talks about how meditation can be done in many forms and for many reasons.
Big Minds vs Small Minds
There is a storm on Jupiter that is the same size as Earth. In fact, Jupiter can hold about 1,300 Earths inside it. The Sun is about 10 times bigger than Jupiter, and about 109 times bigger than our planet. But, even in our galaxy, there are stars that are HUNDREDS of times bigger than our Sun. And our Sun, which is the centre of so much of our thinking, and is difficult to think there is much more to space than just it, is just one of more than 100 BILLION stars in our Milky Way galaxy.
Fear In Business.
Fear is the single greatest motivator for people who run their own startup or small business. We live in fear of a lot of things. Fear of not being able to pay wages. Fear of not being interesting or needed. Fear of charging too much. Fear of not charging enough. Fear of nobody liking us or our product/service/business. Fear of cashflow. Fear of growth.
Language matters.
Language matters, and words have power. They have the power to encourage and praise and make someone feel really good, and they also certainly have the power to hurt and harm, and make someone feel less-than. Often, it’s the words that we use to describe ourselves which is most hurtful.
How we speak to ourselves matters.
I see and hear this everyday from my therapy clients, some of whom are very ‘successful’ entrepreneurs and business owners: ‘I am not enough’. ‘I
