Margie’s Insights & Interviews
Welcome to Margie’s blog where she shares personal stories, interviews, tools and more for living bravely.
Do you have a Risk-Ready or Risk-Averse Mindset?
When we’re willing to step outside our emotional comfort zone, and become vulnerable to what we fear, we discover that most our fears are either exaggerated or unfounded, and that we are far braver than we thought ourselves to be. Not only that, whole new worlds up opportunity open up in the process.
My Message to Women on International Women’s Day: Don’t Wait For Courage!
Tomorrow morning I am speaking at an International Women's Day breakfast hosted by a leading Australian bank. As I start to prepare my notes I can't help but still feel dismayed at the state of play for women globally here in the 21st Century. Whatever data you look...
Parmenides Fallacy: Are you downplaying the cost of inaction?
By not taking a risk in our job or career – whether making a change or proactively trying to adapt to those going on around us – we run the bigger risk of being left behind. Professor Philip Bobbit from the University of Texas has even given a name to the human tendency to assume the present situation will remain the same. He called it Parmenides fallacy after the Greek philosopher who argued that the world was static and that all change was an illusion. So don’t kid yourself that choosing to do nothing isn’t a choice and doesn’t have consequences. As I wrote in Stop Playing Safe, “Usually things that aren’t working well only get worse.”
Life outside my comfort zone. Often scary. Always rewarding.
Having stepped out of my comfort zone so many times since growing up on my parents small farm, is that the more we act with courage, the more courageous we become. While something may initially be terrifying for us to even contemplate, as we try new things, we build our ‘muscles for life’ and equip ourselves with the psychological strength, resilience and self-confidence to take on bigger goals, and engage in braver conversations – with ourself and others – in the future.
Seven Strategies for Highly Effective New Year’s Resolutions
(Reprinted from original CourageWorks column in Forbes Magazine) We've all been there: Brimming with resolve on December 31st as we boldly declare the goals and changes we plan to make in the year ahead, and by January 31st that resolve has evaporated into the...
Ita Buttrose: Lessons on Courage from the Australian of the Year
While writing my new book Stop Playing Safe, I approached numerous people who have been really courageous throughout their career and working lives. In between my fair share of “Thank you, but no thank you” responses (which were wonderful opportunities for building...
Lance Armstrong: A Human Lesson from a Fallen Hero
(Reprinted from my CourageWorks column in Forbes magazine) None of us are immune to the same temptations that Armstrong succumbed to. As self-serving, deceitful and cowardly as his behaviour has been, it’s also very human. The discovery of Lance Armstrong’s drug...
Finding joy amidst sadness this festive season
Yet as I know you will have experienced yourself, it’s through those times when we cannot rest on what we have known, and have to dig deep and press on, despite the challenges each day can bring, that we discover in ourselves strengths we didn’t know we had. Sometimes we just have to dig a bit deeper than others.
“The right to bear arms.” Yes, but at what cost?
I talk a lot about living with courage. Let me just say, when it comes to the obsession millions of Americans have about guns, and more so, their right to carry one, it scares the hell out of me.
Sometimes just ‘showing up’ is enough (particularly at 6am)
After a month of pressing my alarms snooze button, I finally hauled my weary self out of bed today to a 6am exercise class. As I yawned my way through the various exercises I had to remind myself that sometimes just showing up is more important than anything else.
Navigate your uncertain future – less the anxiety!
It’s impossible to chart a certain path through uncertain waters. You can only adjust your sails as you move along – with greater flexibility, more resourcefulness, deeper faith and a heightened appreciation of the mysterious nature of life.
Know What to Fear: Where are misplacing your fear?
The reality is our fears are often not reasonable, rational or well-grounded. In fact numerous clinical scientific studies have found that our brains are wired to over-estimate some risks in life and underestimate our ability to handle them. This fear drives us not to take chances and make changes in our life when, what we should be more afraid of is what our lives will look like if we don’t make any. Fear is one potent and indispensable emotion. It can save your life but it can also stifle it. Profoundly. Know what to fear… and not what risks to embrace.
Could you be misdiagnosing your problems? (Hint: If they keep recurring,you probably are!)
You can’t treat a problem properly unless you’ve diagnosed it properly. What lies at the heart of so many of the big problems we are facing around the world, and the smaller (though no less significant ones) we face in our own lives is our insistence that we are right and others are wrong. We are so busy insisting that we have the answer, we fail to accurately diagnose the root cause of what’s wrong, prescribe the wrong treatment, and then only perpetuate the problem.
Over-committed? Three questions to ask before saying yes.
Make sure that what you commit to aligns with what you are most committed too. When it does, then balance naturally sorts itself out.
Only when you are really clear about what it is that you most want to fit into your life, will you be able to find the clarity, confidence and guilt-free courage to say no to the many requests, invitations and opportunities that come your way.
Does your life bring you energy… or drain you of it?
Does your life brings you energy, or drain it from you? Helen Keller once said, “Life is a daring adventure or nothing.” One day I’m going to die. So will you. Now is the perfect time to make a fresh commitment to living a life that inspires you, so that one day, when you look back on your life that was, you can feel really good that you lived it to the full, and filled your days and years with things that brought you life and love.
Motivation Running Low? Maintaining it for the long haul climb toward your goals.
The difference between those who succeed and those who don’t isn’t their talent or brilliance, luck or lack thereof. It’s their ability to stay in action when the going gets tough, motivation wanes and the path of least resistance grows more and more alluring. Successful people do things others don’t. Will you? Here are six keys to keeping your motivation when the option of throwing in the towel seems increasingly attractive.
Disappointment: Why you should never let one go to waste.
Sometimes disappointment can hit with an intensity that can knock us down hard. When it does, we have to take the time to look for the gift our disappointment holds, and to be sure we unwrap it. Doing so sets us up to succeed in the game of life that much more.
“Faster, Higher, Stronger!” The Olympics challenge us all to raise the bar.
“Faster – Higher – Stronger.” As you sit back in your living room marvelling at the athletic brilliance of those in London in the days ahead, take a moment to think about what it is that you are willing to work toward that will inspire you to dig deeper, work harder, and excel. Not for a Gold Medal, for glory or wealth. But simply because it is a goal worth pursuing; a goal that honours the best of what you have to bring to the world, regardless of how fast you can run, how high you can jump, or how strong you can lift.
What do your judgments say about you? What a week in Borneo taught me.
When we judge others we are saying a lot more about ourselves than we are about them. Of course we need to be discerning and make judgments in order to be effective, but we can all benefit from being more mindful about what insecurities, unmet needs and fears may also be driving judgment. We should reflect on what our judgments saying about us and our need to judge. How are your judgements limiting your ability to connect, engage and build bridges rather than barriers?
We human beings are far more alike than we are different. I learnt that during my days in the West Bank. I learnt that living in Papua New Guinea. I learnt that living in America’s Bible Belt. And I was reminded of that again last week in Borneo. Sure, notice what makes you different to others. Notice what makes others different to you. But also notice the threads that link you – the insecurities, the dreams, the love of family, the anxieties, the things that you care about most deeply and the things that which makes you laugh most loudly. When we focus on the common ground, when we focus on our shared humanity, that’s when we can communicate, connect and create profound change both in our experience of life, and in the collective experience of humanity here on earth.
Trusting gut instinct. Does fear cloud your better judgement?
What gets in the way of benefiting from our intuition with people is our fear of what will happen if we listen to it. Sometimes we have so much invested in the status quo we avoid anything that threatens it, giving people the benefit of the doubt far too long. We fear the reaction of others if we question their integrity – whether it be causing them offence or an outright confrontation. More often, we fear how our own life will be impacted if our suspicions are proven correct. Tuning in to our intuition takes courage because it requires that we risk losing something we want and facing a reality we don’t. Humiliation. Being alone. Legal action. Ugly press. Others judgments. Social ostracism. Loss of money, of face, of friendship, and of the identity we had of ourselves and whoever violated our trust.
