As a sovereign professional, you spend an inordinate amount of time entering unfamiliar rooms, full of strangers. It’s unavoidable. You need to meet new clients and potential clients. You need to attend conferences, training and those semi-social-semi-business occasions. You may even feel that life is a little too long, so you burn some surplus life-energy […]

“The clear presentation of an idea is not to be underestimated.“ More sage advice from Michael Wade. This advice, for a meeting, reminds me of the Classic Prose style for writing, as per Thomas and Turner: “…the sentence crystallises the writer’s experience into a timeless and absolute sequence, as if it were a geometric proof. […]

June 16th is Adam Smith’s birthday. His namesake organisation, the Adam Smith Institute summarises his influence: “Smith’s ideas were highly influential. The great free-trade era they ushered in, and the enormous rise in wealth it created—particularly for the poor—did indeed amaze the world.” A great overview and a reminder for those tempted by populist, drawbridge […]

Another in Nicholas Bate’s series of the Basic 7s. This one is interesting. Working independently as a freelancer, portfolio worker, sovereign professional or even as an individual contributor within a large organisation, it’s easy to have lapses in confidence. Here are seven basic steps to follow: “2. Read about those who inspire you and copy their […]

Kurt’s Cultural Offering has an inspiring quote for Friday and the weekend: “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

Some interesting insights from Deepak Chopra, interviewed on Entrepreneur.com. I’m not a huge fan of his work, but I enjoyed the tips for productivity. Fun and joy are vital.  

I read somewhere (now lost) that the Victorian writer and critic Matthew Arnold was responsible for bringing Marcus Aurelius to a broader, modern audience. Here’s Arnold’s essay, originally published in The Victoria Magazine in 1863, and here republished by the University of Adelaide. For the impatient, the real discussion starts at paragraph 9: “[Aurelius] is perhaps […]

A timely (for the UK) post from Steven Pressfield: “Candidates for office in all lands and in every century make the same promise to the voters they hope to attract: ‘I will get you what you want and it will cost you nothing.’” But, it’s more important than simply a political health warning. That thinking […]

Two more essential sets of basics from Nicholas Bate: Simple Meditation 7 A time to be not just do. … Sit somewhere quiet. Be quiet. Creativity 7 7. … practise the skill of creativity daily. Related? Quite possibly.

Insight and a pointer from Execupundit. At the risk of spoiling the surprise, I’ll say that I hadn’t before encountered Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven. A world of cultural allusion has just opened up for me.