Can sequins, bright colours, feathers and loud pulsating Caribbean music teach you significant, thought-provoking lessons about maximising your career development efforts? No?An understandable assumption, but you’re wrong… and I’ll tell you why. Do ever feel exhausted when you think about your work week ahead? Wonder how you managed to make it through another weekend without getting enough rest or switching off and having enough fun? My recent annual pilgrimage to the streets of West London – to ‘play mas’ (participate) in the Notting Hill Carnival reminded me of a few things: Actively participating in an activity / hobby you love is so good for you… it’s incredibly ‘freeing’ Hanging out with a group of friends that you – generally speaking – don’t see nearly often enough is food for the soul Switching off from work for a few days (whether to dance down the road with a drink in your hand or go out of town to get away from it all) gives a fresh and creative perspective on day to day life – including your career. So… incredibly energised and inspired by my weekend of carnival celebrations, I decided to have some fun pulling together some career development lessons that we can glean from some of the most popular soca tracks from 2013. Get ready to jump and wave your way closer to your career goals: 1. Track 1: Float: – (Arguably?) The world’s premier soca artist, Trinidadian Machel Montano has had thousands upon thousands of revellers at carnivals worldwide singing along to his catchy hook… “We not staying down… we getting off the ground!” #SocaCareerDevelopmentMessage1: Float...
Have you ever felt disconnected from something that you would like to be more connected to? In my experience, today’s fast paced world where the months and years fly by (I cannot believe it has been approx 6 months since I have posted here!) – sometimes you need to slow down to reconnect the dots – enabling you to re-engage with something important which has begun to take second (third, fourth or even last) place. Have you ever felt that way? I know I have on a number of levels… I write this post on a day when I am so appreciative to have reconnected with a school friend who I had not seen for 15 years. That’s right… 15 years, and yet, as it always is with true friends, we caught up on half a lifetime without skipping a beat. This felt like reconnecting the dots… and it made me wonder how many aspects of our life sometimes feel like they re temporarily disconnected… and wonder whether we take active steps to re connect. I know how it is… we get busy; we have way too many things to do; the days, weeks and years rush by; we feel exhausted; and other things tend to get in the way. However, as I emerge from the high of having reconnected some friendship dots in my life, I feel compelled to encourage you to: Call your mum, dad, sibling, friend living across the Atlantic, university buddy – whoever it is that you have been meaning to catch up with for awhile Spend a day with your phone switched off so...
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