aPhDinprogress

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt” William Shakespeare,  Measure for Measure I’m lucky.  It is not often that I find myself daunted at work nowadays – it used to happen all the time.  Last week, however, there was a noisy return by the voice of self-doubt. If you have read any of the other blog posts here you will be getting the message that I genuinely love working with values. I also love sharing the things I learn and the insights I have gained along the way. So naturally when an invitation to speak at the 8 th biennial Mont-Blanc meetings arrived earlier this year I was eager indeed. The invitation was not for me personally but rather extended to the Minessence International Cooperative, for which at the time I served as a founder director: that provided the open door for self doubt to return through and a substantial plank for it to stand upon. Next there was th...

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”   Leonardo da Vinci Informing my parents I intended to forsake the perceived security of a regular job (for the second time) to embark upon a freelance career was greeted with two responses. Dad said “ok – how’s that going to work then?” Mum said “I don’t understand this”. Thinking that these two responses were essentially the same concern I offered a single reply. “As a member of staff I am a core cost and in the charity sector that makes the work I do difficult to fund. As a freelancer I become an on-cost to a project for a defined task or activity and in that way I am easier to fund and get to do different things with different projects and organisations.” Dad, with his experience of cost centres and balancing competing demands upon resources, got it. Mum, however, continued to shake her head. “I understand all of that” she said “but why would anyone pay you?” Not for the first time in my life she had zeroed in...