Green Gorilla UK - coaching

The iceberg model of thinking

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Automation is your friend: taking notes

Somehow connected to the previous bit, I know how people in the sustainability/regeneration industry feel incredibly overwhelmed and overworked - especially if you are neuro-divergent, this can be a real issue.

Who has time for activism?

Now, this is not going to change your life but it might save you a few precious hours during the week, especially if you attend a lot of meetings and have to take lots of notes and transcribe them.

How can you automate note-taking?

(Thanks to my client Carrie - hi Carrie! - who asked me this question this week.)

Online meetings

  • If they are online meetings on Teams you can use the automated tool in Teams to transcribe (this is how).
  • With Zoom, you could use the new Summary AI tool (but it's not accurate and might miss some key things), or the transcript function (this is how).
  • Otter.ai also connects with Zoom and transcribes. Not so accurately I found, but better than nothing.

Face-to-face meetings

  • You could record the meeting on your phone. The Google Recorder app has a transcript option in it, which you can send to yourself at the end of the meeting.
  • You can activate the voice typing function on Google Docs from your laptop (this is how) and let it type out for you during the meeting.
  • You can try Google Lenson your phone to autodetect your handwritten notes then copy and paste the content into a Google Doc. I tried it and it works - in spite of my messy handwriting!

Not to be underestimated, try to focus on the most important things and actions to be remembered (not every single detail) and just take a few important notes.

Have I forgotten some tech that can help with this task? 

Let me know if so and I'll share that in a future newsletter!

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Ch-ch-ch-changeees...

 

Connections

 Since I talked about co-creation, I invite you to do a creative self-reflective exercise this week.

Create a mind-map (or even a list) of meaningful connections that energise, motivate and inspire you. What can you notice at the end of this exercise?

Anything/anyone that surprises you? 

What's next?

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Do you suffer from solastalgia?

Solastalgia is a relatively new concept, coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2005 to indicate the grief felt when the physical world as you know it, changes.

As sustainability professionals, it's hard not to feel anxious, angry, and overwhelmed by the news of yet another devastating flood and wildfire.

So what can you do to overcome or at least manage solastalgia?

Here are a few suggestions:

  • From grief and anger to action. How can you contribute to a better world? Is there something practical that you can do to support the causes you believe in and channel the energy contained in your anger into something positive?
  • If you recognise you suffer from solastalgia and that it prevents you from functioning normally, seek professional help.
  • If it affects you, but you can still have fun and enjoy your life, try journalling and talking to people who feel like you. Getting together and brainstorming ideas to do something about it can be a great way to channel your emotions into something positive.
  • Do not read the news every day. Yes, it feels a bit like putting your head in the sand, but feeling depressed and helpless does not help the planet.
  • In fact, if you want to change the world and inspire others to do the same, you have to keep "active hope", working towards a better future together with other like-minded people. That means taking care of your physical and mental health focusing on what you can control, and letting go of anything you can't.

Do you have any other suggestions for managing solastalgia? 

I'd love to hear them. 

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Feel strong like Popeye!

 

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Five easy steps towards highly productive meetings

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Forest Coaching Walks

With this 2023 series of guided walks in London and Hertfordshire, we want to stimulate some deep thinking and feeling about our unique role in the climate crisis, reflecting on a different theme each month, inspired by the season, in a natural setting that will reconnect you with our precious planet.

We will use coaching tools and techniques, and creativity to gently guide you through the day, reconnect and focus on how you can make a real difference in the world.

The walks will start at 10 am promptly and finish at 1 pm.

When Where Theme of the month Info on the walk
23/02/2023 Hampstead Heath Connection https://www.alltrails.com/trail/england/london/hampstead-heath-circular-walk
23/03/2023 Battersea Park Renewal https://www.alltrails.com/trail/england/london/battersea-park-and-river-thames-circular
20/04/2023 Six Woods Circular, Denham Action https://www.alltrails.com/trail/england/london/six-woods-circular
25/05/2023 Epping Forest, Loughton, Essex Change https://www.alltrails.com/trail/england/london/epping-forest-circular
22/06/2022 Chess Valley from Rickmansworth Joy https://www.alltrails.com/trail/england/london/chess-valley-from-rickmansworth

 

What to expect from each walk?

An easy-to-moderate walk in various natural locations in London and Hertfordshire; group coaching inspired by nature and by the theme of the month; journaling and creative activities; networking.

Feel free to bring a camera or use your phone for a creative photography session.

Prior to the day, you'll receive some materials and suggestions to start your reflection, so that you can make the most out of our day together.

How do you decide what to work on every week?

When planning for the week in the Productive Gorilla system, I suggest members that they should use the Eisenhower Matrix.

This is a simple, yet powerful way, to decide what to work on every week, by focusing your immediate efforts only on urgent and important  tasks.

Anything else can be delegated, moved to a future date or scrapped altogether.

 

How does your brain work?

 

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

How interconnected are you with nature?

How interconnected are you with nature?

August is a month I never really liked that much. When I was a child, we would go on holidays in July, so August meant boredom lined with unpredictable summer thunderstorm weather.

Now, it means summer is nearly over and I need to brace myself for jumpers and a runny nose (not my favourite). 

But this year I am trying to give August another meaning, besides "the month that precedes autumn".

I'm making an effort to work only in the mornings and dedicate time to exploring the local natural reserves in my area with my youngest son, soaking up the last rays of sunshine, greenery and birdsongs.

Truth is, I'm not always feeling "one" with nature. 

Even as an environmentalist, it's hard not to feel like a separate entity from Mother Nature - given that I spend 90% of my time away from it.

This made me reflect upon this model, called Inclusion of Nature in Self. 

We *know* the advantages of immersing ourselves in and feeling part of nature: it makes us feel good and happier, it helps us love it and protect it more, it regenerates us and gives us fresh ideas... 

and yet, we don't do it enough.

Take a good look at the model and ask yourself: 

  • How interconnected are you with nature? 
  • How interconnected with nature would you like to be? 
  • What will you do to achieve this?

 

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

How to develop resilience


 Image credit: bearfotos

 This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Hugh's marathon

If you are a bit like me, you try and fill your time to the brim and use all your energies on the projects you care about.

There is always something you can do to move your projects forward, even those 15-minute waiting times at the doctor's. You could check your emails, reply to a work message, post something on LinkedIn.

You feel you have to be at your absolute best 100% of the time.

This week I read an article in which actor Hugh Jackman advocates for putting 85% of effort into your endeavours.

"What?! Only that?? And what do I do with the other 15%??

What a slacker!" you might say.

But actually, Hugh has a point (not only a pretty face, eh!).

If you manage to slow down and put just enough effort into achieving your priority goals, without spending every drop of your energy juices, you'll be able to maintain the momentum for longer.

It's like the difference between a sprint and a marathon, literally. 

You put 100% of your power in a 100-metre run, or you pace yourself for a 42 km one. 

You can go much further. And spend some of your leftover energies on your friends, family, hobbies... stuff that can make you happy.

So, a little bit of self-awareness here. 

Are you pushing yourself like you are in a sprint run (but still want to cover a marathon length), or are you pacing yourself?

What do you need to do to change that?

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Ikigai-ing your way towards career fulfilment

Left Brain Right Brain

 

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

Live with purpose. Live by priority. Live for productivity.

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

my own feet

My Slow 2022

If you have been following me for a while, you might remember that I posted a couple of times in the last year or so about feelings of burnout.

Of course, being locked in at home with two kids to homeschool, not seeing family and all the trimmings that COVID has kindly cooked for us, surely didn’t help.

But I also realized that I have spent an enormous amount of time in the social media rabbit hole, desperately trying to pacify and feed my dissatisfied self. I also know that I overloaded my plate with lots of wonderful ideas and an impossible ideal of what a true entrepreneur should be: someone who is dedicated 100% to work while juggling family life and a shadow of social life.

At times of stress and lack of routine, what I needed was quite the opposite. I needed to prioritise. To stop and take an inventory of what was worth keeping and what wasn’t. To say “no” more often. You know the drill. I can just hear all my coachees shouting in unison: “Are you kidding me? You are not doing what you preach?!”

Sadly true. Often, in the last couple of years, I haven’t prioritized my own wellbeing, and I think my work has at times suffered as a consequence.

Why? Because I have taken the easy route.

I recently read 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, however, and I was prompted to reflect upon where in my life I was pursuing comfort when what’s called for was a little discomfort.

Growing, expanding, doing things differently (that includes striving for a more sustainable life) is painful. It takes courage and cannot be done on autopilot.

Scrolling on social media is easy. Posting pretty pictures on Instagram is easy and a good substitute for not looking in-depth at your life and pretending everything is shiny. Watching YouTube videos on how to do the splits is easier than doing the splits, or writing the book I have in mind.

Now that I also have a day job lecturing, I need to make some tough choices.

My number one choice this year is to take it slow.

Yesterday I read an article by Cal Newport talking about slow productivity, and it resonated immensely.

We are constantly distracted, trying to work longer hours, and most crucially, cramming more tasks on our plate every day as if we have an infinite amount of time available. We don’t.

No wonder most knowledge workers (and I’ll put myself in that category) feel burnout most of the time – recent McKinsey research found.

Coincidentally, I’ve been reading Deep Work, also by Cal Newport, and it seems pretty obvious that the best work in terms of quality but also quantity is produced not when we multitask and interrupt our flow with endless pings and social media/email interferences, but when we dive deep into a single task for a decent, uninterrupted period of time.

In the last few months, I also came across a wonderful initiative, Flown, which confirmed for me this theory: imagine sitting in your university library to finish an assignment. Other people around you are doing the same. Nobody dares talk unless it’s for an emergency. Flown is a virtual Zoom room with lots of people doing their own work uninterrupted together to get the same, deep work results; a simple and powerful way to concentrate for good chunks of time and do your best work.

My deeper motivation to change came also from a vague feeling of discontent with my work, a feeling that I was never at the top of my game or my tasks.

Then I read 4000 Weeks, and the deep motivation I needed to make a change popped all of a sudden in front of my eyes (spoiler alert: we only have an average of 4000 weeks to live. Shocking right?! I’m well beyond halfway through… do I still want to watch people breaking watermelons with their heads on Facebook?!).

So, this is what I’ve done in my personal life:

  • I started doing yoga every single morning. Sounds cliche, right?! I’m not a yogi, but gentle breathing and exercise combined put me in a frame of mind of calmness and presence that I haven’t experienced quite so deeply before – in fact, I think I’m a better person to have around since starting this habit in mid-November;
  • I am writing three ‘morning pages’ every morning: getting out on paper all the crap my mind likes to entertain and making space for the important stuff is the best – and cheapest – form of therapy ever. In fact, this is part of “the Artist Way” course by Julia Cameron. Not just for artists – highly recommended.
  • I’m making space for fun “just because” activities: drawing, taking photos that I don’t post anywhere, cooking, baking, dancing to cheesy 1990 disco music.
  • I am unsubscribing from ALL newsletters – apologies if I have unsubscribed from yours too. In time, I will resubscribe to the ones that I have time to read and that give me real value.
  • I’m taking a step back from social media. I’ll just keep an active – albeit scaled back - LinkedIn and YouTube presence. Quality over quantity.
  • I’m embarking on a year of buying nothing new (inspired by Jen Gale).

Now to the work changes:

In 2022 I’m focusing mainly on my university work – I want to give it a really good shot and expand my sustainability impact that way.

I’m not abandoning Green Gorilla at all. But I’m focusing my work on a few, selected activities:

  • I decided to revamp our newsletter and send one high-value, free newsletter on a specific sustainability / soft skill / behavioural change theme every month to my mailing list, with some quality content – sometimes written, sometimes audio, sometimes video. I want to have fun with it and research it and deliver it properly, not providing a half-baked thing. Interested? Here is the link to sign up: bit.ly/gorillanews ;
  • Coaching only a few people a month (up to 6 – no more, as it is fairly intense work which I love, and want to do well and be fully present for). If you are interested, I still have some capacity for the next six months. You can book a free chat to discuss whether this is something for you here;
  • I will host only one “boot camp” for sustainability professionals possibly in June or July, possibly on how to sell and communicate sustainability – details to follow - this might inform the book I want to write on this specific subject;
  • I will host only one “boot camp” for graduates possibly in October on how to start a career in sustainability and increase your chances to get a job in this field – details to follow;
  • I will still accept keynote speaking, and bespoke training and coaching corporate engagements, if I have the capacity for them. I can deliver a few “lunch and learns” for companies: here is the link to more info;
  • I will deliver a couple of Empower Sustainability Team programmes – if interested, get in touch;
  • You can still buy all the wonderful Green Gorilla eLearning courses, which you can take in your own time on demand, on our learn.thegreengorilla.co.uk platform, or a copy of SustainABLE if you wish.

 And that’s it.

The only new year resolution for me is to follow Oliver Burkeman’s and Cal Newport’s suggestions to “serialise” my tasks, i.e., concentrate on one thing at the time, and move to the next when I’m finished with that, making sure I deliver it to the highest standard by focusing on it 100%.

In the process, I’ll decide in advance what I’ll fail at while focusing on the important things – say, keeping up with the Kardashians?!

So, are you joining me for a slower, more intentional 2022?

The 12-Week Year

You know I'm always looking for the next productivity hack... and I am surprised I recently found one I didn't come across before.

The book The 12-Week Year teaches you how to be more productive in 12 weeks than others are in 12 months.

It's a deceptively simple mind-shift to go from hairy yearly goals to achievable and predictable 12-week goals. 

Yearly goals are usually not actioned until the bottom end of a year, or just started but never finished because the roadmap is too long and vague.

But if you think of every week as a month, you know every single day counts. 

So you pick the must-do major actions and tactics that can get you to amazing results to reach your goals and focus on those each week.

It takes a bit of planning, but once that's done, there is no more guesswork. 

You are a rocket fuelled by motivation and quick results.

Try it and see where that takes you!

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/

The Circle of Control

This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/