Home Away From Home

I have been listening to the Bizchix podcast a lot. The latest and trigger for driving this letter was Episode 310 . It was na On Air Coaching call with Amber Hawley, an inspired woman with multiple ideas and clearly out of breath in talking about what she wants to do. It resonated with me - outside the intense family life, the charity - working on vs in the business, the startups, the coaching, the teaching, the writing, the board seat and oh, the day job, my current career. So different but yet so similar, especially in that I don't own a business but then I really do. I run 2 charities with 6 figure turnovers. The reason it appealed to me, is that Natalie was a star about putting the anxiety of ‘oh my god what will I do next’ in perspective. There are at least another 40 years of career ahead of me. I don't need to do all my ideas in the next 5 years. Or 10 even. As new ideas will certainly emerge and take the place of the not so good ones. But there is always ...

I have a dream, a dream that I can do something else.  I dream that I can create something powerful. I dream that I can be part of something meaningful. I dream that I can help people. And in my head, this dream can be one and many streams together.  When I was a kid, I wanted to be "the owner of dad's company". Somewhere there, it was always clear I would end up working for myself, even when I did not know what that meant. Today, I know what it means, and I still have not changed my mind.  For the first five year years of my career, I helped companies execute on their transactions, achieve their desired deals, evaluate opportunities to grow. Yes, I was an investment banker. And I still say this proudly. I built the discipline and systematic analytics to dig deep, think big and execute. In HBS, this all made sense as each day I got to know three new companies that I could learn about, investigate, analyse, strategize. It was this desire for critical challenge that...

The fires are back. Climate change seems very real in Portugal. For those thinking we had time to recover from the Pedrogao disaster and take time to (yet again) plan, the 30 degrees temperatures allowing people to enjoy beach summer days in October mean the fires are also aligned with August. Or shall we say worse. Yesterday was registered as the worse day of the year for fires, and the number of casualties piled up again. It used to be that we got upset when 1-2 people were caught in the fires every year. Now we are just wishing it is not as bad as 62. In 24 hours alone we have surpassed 35 and numbers are still work on progress. People got trapped in beaches and even petrol stations (of all places). People want to avoid the roads, afraid they become another number in another yet to be named road of death.  There was public consternation after Pedrogao. But the PM found its way out with a sort of game that was only too expected from someone who was 2nd most voted but still we...

I sometimes miss travelling. Though in a way feels like we never stopped. As we make our way trough Gatwick Friday afternoon and into Roma Fiumicino, I realize I do not even know where we are going. I am so used to being familiar with the places that we go to that I assume we will just as easily know in Rome.  It was painful for me to leave the kids behind, especially as I had a rough week at work and barely spent time with them. But I also knew it to be good for our mental and couple sanity to enjoy this weekend, so rather than leaving on the first late morning flight on Sunday as we usually do, we decided to spend the day in Rome.  Rome was more beautiful than I remember it. The sun and its warmth greeted us and facilitated us going around kilometres bumping into Roman empire columns or 'new' renascentista buildings. The Coliseum remains its impressive self, the Pantheons impressive construction is even more of a mistery, and I clearly acknowledge that I did ...

For #worldmentalhealthday I thought I would put it out there. Not that I hide it from people that want or need to know, but it is true that I don't put it out there as much as I could, and that does not help other people like me. I may not go as far as facebook today, but it is a start. In 2015, I entered an emotional roller coaster  that looked like a spiral trending only in one direction. I was constantly sad, tired and disappointed at the world. I lost interest in many things, I did not want to be in large social gatherings,  I lost my bubbly personality. I cried a lot. It did not show at work, but it did everywhere else. Did something life changing happened to do this? I can't justify it by a single event but there were a series of individual events that were more negative than in any other year. Life was just playing tricks rather than treats that year. The week before I turned 34 was when I knew. My birthday was always something I celebrated with joy surrounded wi...

I see signs saying we are not afraid. Londoners are tough and endured the bombings of WWII. But those Londoners are hardly the same as the ones here today. Yes people in general are resilient, more than we think we can be when looking outside out. That is anywhere in the world, not just in London. And truth be said there is merit in not letting fear control our lives and terrorism win.  Well I just walked into the district line, 5 stations away from Parsons Green and I am afraid. I am not shaking, crying or running away. But I am afraid mostly because it is all so natural. Life must go on I said, as I decided I was not going to cancel my lunch and avoid the tube. But that is what makes it scary. Life goes on and in an effort to not be afraid we recklessly do not change our habits and rely on the stats that more people die on the road then on terrorist attacks. Reality is, the law of probability does not matter because terrorist events are binary.  So I think about my frie...

Back to domino stage. Wake up, commute, first glimpse at work, breakfast at desk, meetings, work, thinking, work, meetings and more meetings, watch out for the clock. Missed the first deadline for school pick-up, missed the second deadline to arrive home at 6, it is past 6 and I still don't have my jacket on. Commute, home, hugs. Too late for smiles, it is tantrum time. Bath, dinner, bedtime (short story) bitter sweet taste of having time for myself. They are asleep, I am awake. This is the domino, it is back and haunts me. Nothing can break, or the pieces will fall.  I am breaking the schedule now by writing, it is charity time, or admin time, not time to write. That comes off the script. I gave that up a long time ago. I carry with me the beginning of the different books, I write down the ideas for the different blogs in notepads, even the blogger application is against me as I can no longer blog on my phone. I want to write. Write about this. Write about my passion in busine...