My writing over recent months has been sporadic at best, and I now start my blogs with some kind of apology about why it has been so long between blogs. No apology today, I have had nothing to say for a bit. I could bang on about how much I weigh this week, which I might, as it is connected to the title of todays blog.

After writing my blog last week I was amazed how many people read and responded to it. I normally get 5 or 6 people reading my blogs. But I suppose it resonated for people. Why am I writing another blog so soon about my weight loss journey? Not much could have changed in just a week. A couple of pounds I suppose, and t-shirt that showed every ripple of fat a few months ago now fits me, and even hangs quite loose.

Today I thought I would write about me and my weight. During the summer I decided to start a diet so I downloaded a calorie counting app and started counting my calories all was going well, I was starting to lose weight, but what I found was the progress was slow and my motivation was waining, the desire to eat chocolate and crisps and drink beer was strong.

I have been contemplating writing a blog for a few weeks now. Normally the idea to write again comes to me just as I am going to sleep. I have some brilliant ideas to write about, then I fall asleep and lose them all. There are quite a few things I would like to talk about. Being middle aged, leadership, connections and disconnection.

Podcast · Matthew Smith · A guide for navigating our way through life, not completely unscathed, but all the more wiser and compassionate because of the scars we have picked up along the way.

Whenever I scroll through LinkedIn always see those posts about being a leader, you know the ones 7 ways to be a more emotionally intelligent leaders, 5 things to do to create psychological safety. You get the gist. To be fair I have written a couple of blogs along the same lines. But these posts got me reflecting on recent conversations I have been having with colleagues about leadership in the NHS and the relentless challenges operational leaders face.

If you know me you no how soppy I can be, and I will often talk about love in a work setting. If you don't know me you are probably wandering what the hell I am going on about. Am I encouraging workplace romances? No I am not, that is another blog entirely. Before I start, lets make a distinction between romantic love and relational love.

Slowing our thinking As I mentioned in the previously the neocortex is never going to act faster than the reptilian and mammalian brains. They are designed to react to keep us safe. The problem is they are rather blunt and indiscriminate. Professor Steve Peters bundled them together into the Chimp to describe how they both work to protect us from physical threats and threats to our position in the group.

Here is my third and last instalment this week from my Connected Living project. This chapter encourages you to consider your persona and where you preferences lay. This chapter helps us appreciate that we are never binary (one thing or another) but a complicated and often situational. There is not a better way of being, we are all a complex wonderful mixture, and the key to success to knowing and understanding where our strengths lay in that mix.

As I promised yesterday here is the second instalment of the latest iteration of my Connected Living Project. I touched on shame and vulnerability last week in relation to me writing this blog. We see shame everyday at work, showing up in defensive and divisive behaviours, every time we look at the media we see shame being role modelled. To navigate the challenging world we live it is important to understand what our story of shame and vulnerability is and give more space to vulnerability and self-compassion.

The past few weeks have tough. I cannot put my finger on one thing, there is just a lot of noise in the system at work and outside of work that is conspiring to narrow my bandwidth. Talking to people over the past few weeks it is not just me that is feeling this way at the moment. I was talking to someone yesterday about using mindfulness manage all those thoughts and feelings that can affect our mood.

For me writing a blog was always a way to work through my thoughts and feelings. It has always been a way to manage my well-being. It has however always been a two edged sword. One side is helpful, and helps me make sense of my thoughts and feelings. The other less helpful edge creates a vulnerability that is quite unsettling and exposing.

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As you have probably guessed, I am a bit of a leadership and coaching nerd. I am a sucker for a good book on leadership, coaching or well-being. So I thought The other week we were talking about books we have and I suggested we all list what books we have so we can share the books we love. This morning I have just been through the books I have at home and on my Kindle (I have quite a few books in the office that I need to add) .

I woke up this morning feeling run down and out of energy, it was the same yesterday. We were supposed to go see Space (a indie pop band from the 90s). Most of yesterday though I felt nauseas, had a headache and was so tired. We did not end up going, Lisa was not up for it, as she has work today, so we decided to do what we do most Saturdays and plonked ourselves in front of the TV.

For some reason today I have felt in a reflective mood. Previously I have been reflective on my shortcomings as a human being. Today I decided to reflect on my professional life in a positive sense to reflect on what I have achieved and have to offer. So here is a short history of my 39 year people career. Started as a volunteer on a medical elderly ward in the City Hospital, Chester in 1987 as a 16 year old school boy, At the time I was undecided what I wanted to do as a career.After the first day on the ward, my mind was made up.

I cannot believe the first month of 2025 is nearly over, then again I can never believe how time fast is going. My youngest pointed out to me that time inevitably feels like it is going faster when you get older. The longer time you spend alive the shorter the perception of what time is. When you are 20 years old a decade is half of your life.

There is a lot of focus on poor behaviours from all angles (colleagues, customers, patients, general public). It feels especially a problem since the pandemic. Wherever you look there is divisiveness..."you are either on our side or against us" attitude appears to prevail. We all blame different groups for these behaviours, the right wing, the left wing, baby boomers, gen x, millennials, gen z, immigrants, the list is endless.

You might be at the beginning of your working life, or already on a career path and wondering what is next for you, there are always points in our life when we start to consider our choices on wher…