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February 14, 2024
What does love want you to know?

What does love want you to know? Seven years ago I developed a coaching toolkit which was a series of postcards from individual soft skills sent to you whilst on their holidays. It read like a series of love letters from aspects of yourself each asking to be understood better including, for example, postcards from […]

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December 13, 2020
Are your assumptions correct?

I remember very clearly a series of conversations with clients and colleagues where I had been told that the strategy they were suggesting we use was what the client/ stakeholder/ team member needed - ie it was tailored to suit the other person's preferences. The interesting thing, to me anyway, was that often different people […]

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December 3, 2020
Soft skills toolkit

Dear Human Being, The solutions to many of the challenges you face are just like the iceberg in the above postcard - underneath the surface. They're hidden in your subconscious, not yet known but wanting and waiting to be seen and understood. To help enable you to bring the very solutions you're searching for into […]

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December 3, 2020
Speaking with confidence

One of the major contributors to lack of confidence when speaking is what's going on in your head. That is, the internal picture you're seeing, or story you're telling yourself, as you prepare to speak and then attempt to speak.  Imagine for a moment the following landscape (or another that you personally don't like): Imagine you're […]

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November 5, 2020
Don't keep doing the same thing and expecting different results

Warning: Please turn the sound down a little before pressing go. Do get in touch if you'd like support to ensure your team doesn't keep doing the same things.

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November 2, 2020
Building Resilience

I certainly had to dig deep on my resilience when attempting to swim from South to North Queensferry here in Scotland a few years ago. It didn't end as I would have liked but I certainly tested my reserves of resilience. As I took off my neoprene gloves after the recue boat dropped me off […]

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October 21, 2020
5 (or 28) day mindset challenge

Is your mindset supporting or hindering you from making progress? That was the question I asked on my last 5 day mindset challenge. Whilst developed as a procurement mindset challenge the daily tasks are still as relevant to non procurement teams, and so I share them here in case they may provide insight to what […]

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September 25, 2020
Why do you ignore experts?

Post from the 2017 archives: Someone asked on LinkedIn "why are managers reluctant to ditch their bullet heavy dull slides." ie why do they ignore best practice? Why do people think they can do something better by themselves, and not need the support of those with expertise. As a PowerPoint surgeon and presentation coach the […]

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September 24, 2020
7 barriers to optimal performance

I often get asked about the return on investment for coaching, or any soft skills learning and development interventions I deliver. It's not a question I have a ready made answer for, as it very much depends where the individual is starting from. That said, there are some common outcomes that I explore in this […]

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September 17, 2020
10 things to remember when communicating

Post from the 2017 archives. I turned up at the garden centre yesterday to realise we hadn't agreed whereabouts in the garden centre we'd meet. I'd not met the person before, and whilst we both did have a LinkedIn profile picture to refer to, in a busy garden centre that wasn't going to be of […]

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© Alison Smith
VAT Registration: 224 5001 58
Registered in Scotland, Registration Number: SC457105
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