Most viewed this week, 4th May 2021

A Simple Framework for Reducing Anxiety and Bringing Calm to Your Day

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You can focus your career on becoming really good at something narrow and specific like employment law or tax accounting — and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that if it makes you happy.

Or you can throw yourself with enthusiasm at whatever next takes your fancy. Then spend the first year of each new job feeling like a complete imposter, until you feel reasonably competent, get itchy feet, and try something else.

That’s me.

I’ve been a scientist finding cures for cancer. I’ve been a bid manager working on winning multi-million dollar contracts with large global corporates. I’ve found innovative…

If you want to be happy then you need to stop being so selfish. You may like to think you are a generous person. But when was the last time you did something to help someone else, without expectation of receiving anything in return?

Western societies have become sadly inward-looking as we have become more secular and consumerist.

Call me cheesy if you want to, but I have the words of the late great George Michael in my head.

“The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we’ll take our chances
’Cause God’s stopped…

We all love a good moan. I certainly do. And there’s been a lot to complain about lately.

Moaning is easy.

Optimism is hard.

I admire people who can get on with life without whining about how tough everything is. My mother was that kind of person.

She had a tough life with a ton of crap thrown at her. She had every right to gripe. My father’s sudden death at age 54. Giving birth to several stillborn children before me. Living most of her life on welfare despite being fiercely intelligent.

But she rarely complained.

I want to be…

When I think about the image of a successful entrepreneur, it’s the Silicon Valley or Shoreditch type that springs to mind. This betrays my bias, based on what I see in the media and the podcasts I listen to.

The poster child of the start-up community is white, male, and between the ages of 21 and 35.

Any older and you’re past it. No way can you build a successful business if you’re in your 40s. And you have no chance if you’re female or from any ethnic minority.

Who do you picture in your mind when you think ‘entrepreneur…

If you are at college reading this you will have a clear idea of why you are studying the course you’ve chosen. And chances are that you have chosen your particular course due to the jobs you hope that will open up for you when you graduate.

With the average US student leaving university with a debt of $37,000 in 2020 young people don’t have the luxury of studying simply for academic pursuit. The picture is similar in the UK with average student debt at £40,000 for those leaving English universities in 2019.

The pressure is on to make sure…

If there is one thing I would go back to my 20-year old self and change it would be to stop focussing on saving so much in cash and instead invest in the stock market.

I didn’t have much to spare each month back then but what I lacked in funds would have been more than compensated for by the miracle that is compound interest.

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it.” — Albert Einstein.

Putting all your spare cash under the mattress is for fools. Storing…

I don’t think that I suffer from anxiety. But I do often feel anxious at the start of a working day.

I recently started a new job within the company that I’ve been working at for many years. It’s an exciting opportunity. It is a bit too exciting. It’s the sort of job that I don’t feel ready or able to do — which is exactly why I should be grabbing the opportunity with both hands.

But not feeling ready or able makes my imposter syndrome scream at me every day unless I make an effort to silence it.

I…