April’s Be, Do, Have mental gym
April 27, 2021

It’s almost summer 😊 and who would have thought this time last year that we would still be living with Covid and the knowing that it’s likely this will remain the case.

Be Do

So, keeping our mind as positive as we can in these ‘different’ and challenging circumstances is the aim of my mind gym. This month I was reminded by one of my team about two books that really resonate with one of our core values at MiM – Always Be Learning.

1 thing – BE (Our thoughts, beliefs, purpose, vision, values, perception, attitudes and emotions) 

There is such creativity in diverse thinking.

I’ve appreciated different conversations with far more people across more channels, communities, organisations, locations that ever before. The virtual world has challenges but also gives us HUGE opportunities. To be more connected to more people more of the time – and of course there is a balance to be had. The insanity of back to back Zooms, Teams etc has to stop! That only leads one way and it’s not good. So, if you are trapped in that, choose a different way ASAP. Stop it!

REBEL IDEAS by Matthew Syed is a stimulating book about the power of diverse thinking that challenges hierarchies and encourages constructive dissent to build more effective teams.

Here’s a short 6 minute clip from Matthew Syed about why cognitive diversity is vital

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf53Rf_qbv8

1 thing – DO (Our choices, decisions, behaviours, skills, and actions) 

One of the big topics I’m hearing a lot about is up-skilling and re-skilling. All of a sudden reskilling or upskilling seems to be in vogue as a reaction to the challenges of 2020 and to prepare us for the future. It was probably required anyway – but the pandemic has catalysed it, along with many other critical issues the world faces.

Paul Trickett, MiM consultant and ex Royal Marine, reminded me that there’s a few things that come before learning new skills: Grit, Drive, Mental Acuity, Leadership, & Teamability. Taken together they are what he calls, Attributes.

Skills are what we learn to deal with a known situation which is based on past experiences. Attributes are what we need to deal with the unknown and as we have all learnt in the last year no one had any skills to deal with Covid-19 as it was unknown, instead we have all had to lean on our attributes to navigate through.

Check out this book, THE ATTRIBUTES by Rich Diviney, for a fresh perspective on attributes.

1 thing – HAVE (Our outcomes, growth and change) 

One of the great things we love to hear about is how people power through adversity, and the The Human Library on BBC Radio 4 is a great resource for seeing the world from a whole new perspective.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v1pg

Each person has chosen to have a positive experience instead of being at the effect of their circumstances. All three are great examples of changing their ‘thinking’, so they can have a more positive experience.