Month: August 2022

Metaphors for life: instead of Oprah’s running, let’s try farming!

Wayne WoodmanLeave a comment

Robby Robin's Journey

“Life is just a bowl of cherries” proclaims one song. And that’s just one example of a metaphor for life. You can find plenty of other suggestions, from a box of chocolates to running (especially that it’s a marathon, not a sprint) to a blank canvas. When I wrote about the suggestion of running as a metaphor for life, as suggested by Oprah Winfrey, a number of people replied with alternative ideas for metaphors for life, all providing challenges to be met and overcome, requiring perseverance and self-belief. Novel writing and other physical (and mental) challenges as dissimilar as mountain climbing and ballet dancing were among the several thoughts.

Given the huge variety of offerings, clearly it boils down to whatever happens to resonate with you. One of the commenters pointed out that for him running is just running. He loves it, appreciates the fact that he can still…

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Embrace your natural grey, unless of course you’re a female newscaster or politician

Wayne WoodmanLeave a comment

It is amazing that we can still have dinosaurs like this man in positions of power.

Robby Robin's Journey

Ask hair stylists anywhere and they’ll confirm it: during the pandemic, many, many – many – women made the brave decision to let their hair assume its natural colour.  Finding themselves without access to their hair stylists for months at the beginning of the pandemic, they looked in the mirror as their hair grew and their dye jobs retreated, and decided that maybe going grey wasn’t so bad after all. It didn’t look as bad as they had feared, in fact, it didn’t look so bad at all. And going natural – going grey – brought a surprising sense of freedom.  No more worrying about roots showing.  No more touch-up appointments every few weeks. Embrace your grey.

But it comes with certain risks, as we’ve discovered in Canada this past week. At least if you’re a woman reporting to a man who’s embraced his newly expanded sense of power. Compared…

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Unholy Cow

Wayne Woodman2 Comments

The world’s most damaging farm products? Organic pasture-fed beef and lamb. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 16th August 2022 Perhaps the most important of all environmental issues is land use. Every hectare of land we use for extractive industries is a hectare that can’t support wild forests, savannahs, wetlands, natural grasslands and other…

Source: Unholy Cow

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At this inflection point in history, compassion has to stand its ground

Wayne WoodmanLeave a comment

Put your thinking cap on for this!

Robby Robin's Journey

A recent opinion piece by Eileen Chadnick in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper caught my eye: Humanity, connection, and compassion – the keys to bringing staff back to the office successfully.  It reminded the reader of what we already know – that everyone, staff and supervisors, are burned out from the isolation and stress caused by working remotely during the pandemic and that there are reasons why people are reluctant to return to the office. The article argued for the need to focus on providing work environments that proactively encourage connectedness among employees (a friendly workplace) and prioritize compassion as an important ingredient of a successful office culture. In other words, people-centred leadership has never been more important.  Everyone needs to feel valued; everyone needs to feel that they are part of a work environment that makes them feel part of a team, of a community. Bottom line: if…

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