A Blog by Tim Wade

When did you realise that you're the bottleneck to your own progress? For me, it was when I realised I was buying lots of apps, software and courses to help me progress, but I wasn’t using them. I’d start using them, then ... I’d stop. I knew I needed to write more, create more, produce more, but I wasn’t doing it. And it frustrated me. Notice that your procrastination makes you frustrated You know how you just get busy? You just have to do that other thing. And it's an important other thing. It might be a business thing, a proposal, a team meeting, a review of some of your team’s work so they can move on. You don't want to be the bottleneck.  Who is your bottleneck? For the value I needed to create, I noticed that my bottleneck was me. And when I realised it, it frustrated me. Sometimes it's a simmering frustration, and sometimes the odd burst of anger comes out at something like a spilt coffee. And I have realised that most of the time, I'm ann...

Tweet Image Not happy about something? Decide to change it or influence it to change. Posting it on social media won't change anything except other peoples' good opinions of you. Instead take some positive action right now. Make an appointment, send an email, book a thing, make a call, write a letter, join a movement, walk over to a desk, whatever. Just do it. Warning: choose your words and your approach wisely. If you're not happy with a person, for example, don't go all volcanic eruption all over them with pent up molten lava. Think about how to tell them in a way that will deliver a solution for them and for you. Like, "Hey, I've noticed you become like a condescending Facebook troll for the majority of my posts or comments. It seems weird that you seem to publicly put-down-to-one-up me yet be nice to every one else. What's really going on here?" Initiate a solution. Work to make it happen. Don't be a vocal complacenary. Be a vocation...

This morning I began reading a book I bought over a decade and a half ago. When I bought it, I thought it would be beneficial, but I didn't take the action to realise the benefits. I hadn't made the time. Until now. Why does intention to action sometimes take over 15 years to happen? How can we shrink that time delay to benefit far more immediately from the wisdom we're presented with? The book is titled  50 Self-Help Classics a by Tom Butler-Bowden, 2001. Ah, the irony. Butler-Bowden writes, self-help is "the refusal to accept 'common unhappiness' or 'quiet desperation' as the lot of humankind." He continues, "To make the most of life, we need things like vision, emotional intelligence, ethics, an awareness of history and a thirst for knowledge and ideas. These qualities can't be force-fed by education, family or religion, or even provided by your firm. We live in a time in which institutions may be able to protect us from hunger,...

Life is made up of choices. We choose to do things every day. And what we choose to do, when we choose to do it, and how we choose to do it tends to craft the quality of our life. That quality might be swiss-watch-like quality, or it might be two-dollar store quality. It all depends on our choices and how we respond to the consequences of those choices. Consider the Duck and the Spectacle. A duck is a funny, cute, awkward and awesome creature that seems to add value in everything it does and is. A duck is also an action you take to get out of the way of something hurtling towards you. So maybe it's time to get out of our own way. A duck is also one of very few creatures that can swim, walk and fly. It can live happily on the water, on the land and in the air. Maybe it's time to recognise that our funny awkwardness has an awesome uniqueness that makes us, in this life, truly special. A spectacle is both something amazing to see and something to see amazingly through. If ...