The Heart of Leadership

Our heart is at the centre of our relationships with others; this is the heart of leadership, well, it should be and sometimes it isn’t!

Much has been written about leadership qualities over the years, as managers and executives want to understand how to be a better leader. In short, that description, ‘want to understand’ tells us a lot about where they are leading themselves from. Leadership isn’t a definition; it’s a process called leading.  It is what we feel, what we instinctively understand and what we know, when we are doing the right thing.

Nebulous, you may say and almost deliberately so, for we are conditioned to focus on using our head brains to solve problems, to become inventive and creative in designing, building and marketing new ideas, concepts and products. And for what purpose? What is the right thing?  What number one driving purpose? I am going to suggest that, since Victorian times, the driving purpose has been to generate money. After all, that’s what every business is there for…right? The creation of wealth.

Well, that is the first assumption that sets us off on a path that has it’s own pitfalls and long term consequences for humanity. If the sole purpose (the one that is measured and rewarded) is to make money; all thinking and behaviours align to that goal. We become focused on productivity, market share, growing and expanding continuously and it’s what the investor expects; return on investment, making money. The consequence is an ever-increasing pace of life, pressure, fear of not succeeding, not measuring-up and the concomitant increase in stress, anxiety and burnout.

And what is wealth? There are many definitions, not limited to financial security

  1. an abundance of valuable things or money
  2. a plentiful supply of a particular desirable thing

Many years ago, a friend of mine said, if you could bottle contentment, you would have a queue around the block wanting to buy some and that queue would never end.

With increasing evidence, it is becoming more visible that, if done in an uncontrolled way, wealth-creation is unsustainable from a financial perspective. I will cite the recent collapse of Thomas Cook as an example of out-of-balance decision-making by the board of directors; making decisions that increase a debt burden well beyond what could be managed, impairing investment and adaptability.  Ultimately, this led to loss of jobs (both directly and indirectly), customer dissatisfaction and loss, whilst directors took millions in reward payments and salary before the collapse into administration. A new development?  Sadly not; just another example in an ever-growing list of corporate collapses following periods of sustained head- and gut-led leadership.

Let me explain; the multiple brains we have (those defined by science as brains), have different functions. They have been known about for millennia, honoured and used wisely by ancient civilisations. However, as we became more and more focused on the use of our head brains and came to believe it was the most important asset of human sapiens…the very thing that differentiated us from all other species on earth, we became trapped in our own man-made creation. These other brains are the Heart and the Gut brains. You can read far more on the underpinning science in the book by Grant Soosalu & Marvin Oka ‘mBraining: Using Your Multiple Brains To Do Cool Stuff’, which you can buy here

Our current leadership is a product of that skewed creation. The expression ‘what gets measured gets done’ explains this; leading to the double-bind situation and belief, ‘if you don’t make the money expected by your investors, your investors desert you and your business goes South’. As managers, the organisation expects that you will maintain productivity and increasing performance, but the leadership here is pseudo leadership.  It is driven by unbridled creativity; to find continuously better and cheaper ways of delivering the product or service, and the courage to push on, regardless of feedback…the ‘no-pain-no-gain’ mentality and wrapped up in the message of fear, ‘if we don’t adapt and get better, someone else will take the business’.  This is largely what leads to corporate takeovers, removing the competition, establishing dominance, snuffing out small start-ups that are disrupters by buying them.

So in the short term, the wheel keeps spinning and there is a human cost to all of that. There is a migration to the few in power and holding the financial wealth.  Business gets bigger and bigger, potentially dwarfing the economies of countries and governments. There is disproportionate global population growth, and resources are used in short periods of time, that takes Nature many thousands of years to restock, if ever. Such leadership self-sustaining power base is amplified out of fear and protection of what has been ‘earned’. And all of this is unsustainable, both for the planet and the human species.

In the meantime, more people experience increasing anxiety, depression and stress-related health issues – the World Health Organisation predicts that mental health illness will be the single biggest cause of death in the world by 2025! Why? Because we are not living in balance or harmony with Self, others and Nature.

What is your Purpose? This used to be a question that predominantly popped up in later life, after finding a job, finding a partner, getting married, buying a house, having children, getting promotions to increase your salary, supporting your children’s education until they start their own new cycle of life. Well that is no longer the case.  This Life Question is being asked by many a lot earlier in life. I suspect the time of change in how we are currently living, is going to be more abrupt and quicker than even the biggest of corporations are willing to admit. I suspect the Heart of Leadership is about to announce it’s presence on the world.

Truly successful companies will be those whose DNA is bigger than making a profit. Their owners and employees will then truly be freed to make a difference in peoples lives, not just to say that they do! This is the heart of leadership


The heart brain’s prime functions are, Feeling, Valuing and Connecting


Just in the last week, I have had discussions with people who are experiencing Gen Z’s and Millennials in the workplace saying ‘no, I am not doing that, is not right, because it goes against my values and what important to me’. So leadership must adapt and businesses can become more sustainable where the focus is on careering, on connecting deeply with what their prospective customer wants and not what suits them to make a profit, on involving their people, acknowledging their needs and desires, on measuring the quality of the relationships, rather than merely the number of relationships, or the £ returned by each account etc.

The Heart of Leadership is at all levels in society; politicians, big business, small business, local government, educational institutions, voluntary organisations and above all else, at leading Self, being in balance with Self, so that you are able to make decisions that are sustainable and where thinking becomes wider than just look after number one. In order for that to happen, people need to feel safe and secure; humans do not thrive while under threat or in fear, they hunker down and survive. Creating a positive, wholesome environment is the role of government and can only be delivered when decisions are made, not for the short term patting of ego or the growth of interest and investments first, but with the heart leading creating a better future for all.



“A society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they know they shall never sit”. An ancient Greek proverb. One of the oldest civilizations in the world.



The heart of leading is using your multiple intelligences in an aligned way, so that each prime function of each intelligence is utilised.  In doing so, we have access to emergent wisdoming, the synergistic combination of intelligences, the alchemy and fusion of sensing. Then, we make decisions not based out of fear or because we can; we make decisions happy that the outcomes leave a lasting legacy, from which others will also benefit. That what is built, is strong and stable and acts as a marker, an unwritten lesson to future generations.  Generosity, kindness and respect for balance endure…this is the heart of leadership

Pseudo leading results in the majority surviving a trail of ruin and turmoil, disaster and unhappiness.  Pseudo leaders who have little connection to their heart intelligence and hence the reason they demonstrate little personal reflection or remorse for their actions; preferring instead to lay blame at the feet of others.

I read the obituary T Boone Pickens in the Times newspaper yesterday “an oil magnate, whose ruthlessness earned him many enemies”.  His life was littered with many multimillion dollar deals; I will allow you to read about his personal life for yourself; hasten to say, money does not bring you happiness.

There is more to life than surviving; each and every one of us has within us the power to decide what is the right thing to do.  So choose wisely and be aware of the consequences of not engaging all your multiple intelligences.

I wish you a joyous and happy life, in harmony with Self, others and Nature. This is the heart of true leadership.


GROW Your People

Without people everything becomes transactional, an organisations biggest asset is its people, but many businesses could invest more wisely to grow their people at little extra cost.

I am experiencing customer fatigue with all the automation I face, cost is not everything, experience is becoming more important as choice is ever increasing.

Experience not just from a customers perspective but also in the B2B sector is important, it encompasses trust, openness, partnership a willingness to go the extra mile. These are all behavioural traits that come from our beliefs & values as well as being conditioned by the way we lead and managed and by the way we are rewarded or discouraged!



What is evident is that if the focus is on cost, efficiency & productivity the level of human interaction drops, it becomes less necessary, or does it?

What we see are organisations that have many subject experts, high in knowledge and experience but lacking the fundamental skills of leading themselves and others in a caring compassionate way.

By developing coaching as a leadership style, where managers are proactively looking to grow their people as opposed to solely managing the workload, people thrive, they feel cared for, appreciated, and valued, as a consequence their discretionary effort increases. Now every manager and leader would say yes to a bit of that.

Promoting coaching and the importance of growing people both individually and as a team can have a massive impact on the success of an organisation, they become more agile, innovative and tuned into what their customer wants and needs.

What ever business your in your in the people business, introduce tools and resources that address the basic skills, build better interpersonal skills throughout the organisation, support peoples growth not just professionally but personally. The most knowledgeable experienced person on the job does not necessarily make the best leader, nor may they want a job for which they have received little training!

NLP and personal development as a leader

Undertaking 2 NLP  courses has been instrumental in my development as a leader.

Having been on many courses throughout my career it was an off the cuff remark by a third party that changed my life forever.

I think you would benefit from going on an NLP course, they said. NLP what is all that about was my response at the time. Let’s just say that it may give you the insight into how you do being you! Wow I was intrigued, and at the time life seemed to be doing to me rather than me creating what I wanted the future to be, that’s if I even had a clue what that was!

NLP Pocket Book

NLP Pocket Book

NLP or it’s official title Neuro Linguistic Programming isn’t the most appealing titles and may even conjure up some scientism, that’s fine for now. The interesting thing is there is no user manual for us and most people are blissfully unaware, how we, at an unconscious level direct the outcomes in our lives. Interesting eh. Especially when your leading people and don’t know how you are leading yourself!

My journey started with an practitioner course, where my awareness of internal and external sensory acuity was increased, my noticing of the language patterns I was and others were using and how I could have more influence over outcomes not just for myself but for others and mutually beneficial ones at that. I relished at discovering the limiting beliefs that I had, and prior to the course were not even aware of. Of course there were many, many more learnings and experiences that were hugely beneficial and continue to be so to this day.

The NLP pocket book is available here

So if your managing, leading a team, looking after people and what to even more effective in what you do, I strongly advice accelerating your personal growth with an Practitioner course. After all when we grow as a person we grow as a leader.

More information on Practitioner training can be found here

Details of the NLP Conference in London can be found here

Reb Veale Master Trainer

How is your emotional intelligence in difficult situations

This weeks blog is about emotional intelligence and arises from some personal learning, difficult learning! And I am going to describe it as work in progress.

You see emotional intelligence is tested more in challenging and difficult situations that when we are merely cruising along, we may be under the impression that we have got this emotional intelligence stuff all sorted and then, the situation just does not pan out as we had hoped.

Self-reflection is much talked about, many would also say, yes I am good at it, but it is after these unexpected troublesome situations when you need to  go deep and work out, how was I not  as flexible as I could have been, what is going on for me and why did it lead to a less than compassionate response.

It is through developing our self-awareness we that we see and maybe hear things we would rather not be recalling about ourselves, this is the start of another journey. Demonstrating emotional intelligence, is about awareness, regulation and desire to get a better outcome. If what you are doing is not working, do something different, yet it is easy in the midst of the situation to repeatedly follow the same strategy and become more entangled in not getting the desired outcome.

So here I am, reflecting on what for me has been an emotional roller-coaster, set off with the best of intentions, worked hard to find a solutions to the problem, got hooked on an unexpected response, tried to recover it, lost the plot and blamed everyone other than myself.

So I sat down with a set of our own Developing Emotional Intelligence cards to do some self-coaching. The first card I turned over “What unhelpful emotion / limiting belief can you let go of?” oh boy, call in serendipity, in that moment the unhelpful belief just flashed up, straight out of my unconscious.

A belief is something we know to be true! It does not actually have to be true at all, it is a construct in our heads, something we have chosen to treat as a fact, change what we believe and the whole situation takes on a different meaning. We may get a better understanding of the other persons position, motivation, desired outcome, all of which we have quite possibly missed because of our map of the situation.

“The proof of the pudding is in the eating” as the old saying goes, its one thing to cognitively get it, it’s another to embody that understanding into behaviour.


The toughest of learnings are our biggest opportunity for growth.

You can take a look at the Developing Emotional Intelligence cards by following this link

mBraining & MBIT trainings

mBraining & mBIT trainings in 2018 kept us so busy that we didn’t do much blogging, so here is a post just to keep you up to speed with what happened. And to point you to the couse schedules for 2019

March 2018 saw us in Egypt, this was the first mBIT Coach Certification Training in the country and we were very grateful to Minoush Moyeldin for hosting us at Club Liko in  Cairo. 13 wonderful coaches gained their certificates after 4 beautiful days of training. This year we will be back again 17th -20th March 2019

At the end of May and the beginning of June we were once again fortunate to able to review the mBIT trainers training and mBIT master coach training building our knowledge further. Reb co delivered the mNLP course, the first in the northern hemesphere with Wilbert Mollinar and Suzanne Henwood.

By this point in the year we were getting more and more enquiries about mBraining, people wanting to book on to trainings in the countries we were going to be delivering in later in the year, from learning and development managers, corporate trainers and organisations wanting to find out more on how mBraining could support their managers in the VUCA world.

June 2018 we ran our only mBraining UK training it was the only time we could fit one in!! welcome to the 5 wonderful souls who all qualified and enjoyed the practice sessions outside in a surprisingly hot sunny 4 days in Gloucester.

July 2018 found us in Maynooth just outside Dublin hosted by Bernie Rogers from The NLP Training Institute where a superb group of 12 exceptional individuals participated in a great mBIT Coach Certification training that culminated in them be awarded their certificates. Well done to all. This year Bernie leads the training with Mark Deacon from Reveal Solutions assisting, the course will run from the 21st – 24th February 2019 contact bernie

September 2018 and we were in Vancouver, Bristich Columbia. Hosted by Karen Bowen of we had 5 formidable gorgeous participants 2 of which came in from the US we had a magical 4 days where all participants, having been awarded their Certificates are now proudly allowed to call themselves mBIT coaches. No dates are as yet arranged for 2019 but we hope to announce them soon

October 2018 we were in Israel again with Ronit Goldburg from Matarot NLP this was our second time of training in Kafar Saba and we yet again had a wonderful group of 14, of course they as with our first group in 2017 they were both eager and challenging to know more. I was a delight to certify this group and we look forward to extending our partnership with Ronit & Yaron in 2019

November 2018 and we are back in South Africa with the beautiful Kim Ikel of  what a pleasure to be with a beautiful gathering of 18 eager and hungry to learn wonderful human beings. Proad to have met and worked with all of you.and what a certification photo, we needed the whole of the steps outside the venue to fit you all in the photo

We finished off 2018 in December back in Athens with Nick & Vassia of here for the 4th year, its always a pleasure to work with our dear friends and colleagues and lovely to be back at 4 wonderful and committed coaches 1 of which came in from Italy we had an awesome time and were delighted to give them all their certificate qualifying them as mBIT coaches, they join a growing group of some 24 certified mBIT coaches in Greece

In summay we trained 71 coaches in 8 countries, several of which are off to Alicante in June 2019 to continue their mBraining and mBIT qualifications, some as master coaches and others as Trainers once qualified.

The field of mBraining is growing and growing rather spectacularly, we look forward to another busy year in 2019

How is your personal resilience?

How is your personal resilience?

It’s a funny old thing, this is the time of year post all the Christmas festivities and New Year celebrations that we either face returning to work too soon, or experience the anti-climax and the bump down to reality and the daily routines we forgot about for the last week or so.

Now is also the time when we hear others talking about New Year Resolutions, but do we really need a big change in the calendar year to do something different? Isn’t a lot of life in our control?

The answer is yes it is, we are the making of our own destiny, we have the power and the choice, just sometimes we lose sight of that.

So here are a few tips:

Facing a challenge

If you are facing a challenge, consider who do you know who may have been through something similar and overcome it? Building and maintaining a network of people in your life means your not alone, talking over things can be very releasing, “a problem shared is a problem halved” as the old expression goes. Why do you have to re-invent the wheel, talking it through with someone who has been there before may just provide you with different options, give you  confidence to take the action you thought may help overcome the obstacle in the first place.

How well do you stay focused and undistracted?

Practice staying with something at the exclusion of everything else; set yourself a deadline to complete, break the task down into manageable steps. Encourage yourself to carry on, marking milestones on the way. Celebrate finishing and feel what success feels like to you.

Change your physical state and your mental state changes too!

Mild exercise in the form of walking and cycling helps get us out into the outside world, helps fitness levels and increases our output of endorphins and dopamine: the happiness hormone. Activities also provide a framework for persistence, improvement and recognition.

Managing your energy

Just like a computer, power management is a key feature when running on batteries. Humans do not have an endless source of energy; we need to be able to regulate, conserve, increase output on demand, according to the situation and environment. So become aware of your energy levels, fuel up regularly, identify when and when not to burn energy, prioritise its use.


These and many more come from our  Building Personal Resilience Coaching Cards available from the shop

How will I benefit from learning mBraining


mBraining using multiple intelligences. We all make decisions many times a day throughout our lives, and we make those with the best intentions, but what if we are making them not using our multiple intelligences, but using one to override the others, or neglecting one altogether, or making decisions with the wrong brain!

The chances are you, like virtually everyone in the world, will have been doing that or have done that and probably not realised it. We probably have witnessed the consequences though, that the outcome was not the best it could have been or we didn’t get what we thought or felt we wanted.

So do we really have as much control over the quality of the decisions that we make as is being suggested? Can we really make better decisions for ourselves and for humanity? Yes.

We have known in the past how to do it, and now in the present, some people are continuing to do it. Interestingly, it’s those very people who the majority identify as being wise, being compassionate, being creative & being courageous. They are the people frequently admired and highlighted as those who make a lasting difference in the world.

mBraining is where we receive the communications our multiple intelligences give to us, integrate that information into our decision making to achieve better outcomes.

 And we all want better outcomes, right?

We all have multiple intelligences, neuroscience confirms their existence, in fact neuroscience describes them as brains; complex, flexible and adaptive neural networks capable of taking in information, storing it and using it to inform and make decisions.

How fantastic, it could sound a little far fetched for some people, but the awareness of these other intelligences, ‘brains’ has been known about for hundreds of years and as such, humans have been using them unconsciously since we have been on the planet. What has changed though, is life itself. We are living in a world created not just by nature, but by the product of our own inventiveness.

As we, human beings, have developed technologies, the way we live our life has changed, our educational systems have focused on development of the head brain and on the whole, we measure and reward our children on their academic achievements.

The foods that we eat and they way that we consume them has changed, the pace at which we live our lives and the expectations we place not only on ourselves, but on others also has increased.

The developments in artificial intelligence will bring further changes to both what can be achieved and also what we no longer need to direct our attention towards.

Technology brings many benefits however with benefits come drawbacks and consequences. Balance and equilibrium are at the heart in nature and when things get out of balance, the consequences become clearer and more dramatic.

So what? You may be saying to yourself, how can I make a difference? It will all be alright in the end! Or will it?

Mankind has some choices to make and based upon previous performance, we are not always that good at making them for the long term; focusing mainly on what are the benefits to me individually first and foremost and maybe for others but not being willing to think about sustainability beyond our own lifetime so much. As the old anonymous Greek proverb states “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

Here are just a few things that you may be aware of in your life but don’t currently know how to improve the results.

Health issues, like anxiety and stress.

Medical issues around weight and eating, gut issues like tummy pains, inflammation and allergies.

Relationship matters with loved ones and work colleagues.

Actions that you may be taking in your life to achieve certain feelings that are not in the long term beneficial to you or serving you well.

So in summary

Science knows we have multiple intelligences We know each brain’s prime function (what it does best) And we know we enjoy a better quality of life, when we use them effectively to generate emergent wisdom for ourselves. You have come this far, make the next positive step by booking onto an mBIT certification training.


Change Management Involving Our Multiple Intelligences


We have been looking at a range of approaches to change management and at the time of writing have catalogued over 40 change-related models. The fact that there are so many models suggests that change is a challenge and our approach to managing change has itself been changing for some time.

We’re not looking to develop a new “silver bullet” solution for change – we think 40+ is enough for now.

However, having spent 18+ years working on a range of change projects with various challenges and degrees of success, we are really curious about what can help people to navigate change in a more effective and more considerate way.

Given that people are the key component in change we thought we would start with people in mind, rather than change or change methods.

The head, heart and gut have been talked about in many cultures for thousands of years. References to three souls or intelligences is made in Taoism, Sufi wisdom, Jewish Kabbalah, Shamanism, Native American Sioux, Inuit Eskimos, Chinese Aborigines to name a few.

However since the time of the Enlightenment, Western culture has increasingly valued the wisdom of the head-brain and conscious thought1. As a consequence, the value of our other resources has been somewhat neglected, until very recently.

Grant Soosalu & Marvin Oka have taken the latest findings in Neuroscience that show we have three functioning brains in our head, heart and gut respectively. Using these findings as the basis for further behavioural modelling research, they unpacked some of the unconscious processes we use with our head, heart and gut.


Heart brain prime functions

1. Emoting– emotional processing (e.g. anger, grief, hatred, joy, happiness etc.)


3. Relational affect – your felt connection with others (e.g. feelings of love, hate, indifference, compassion, uncaring, like, dislike, etc.)

Gut brain primary functions

1. Core Identity – a deep and visceral sense of core self, and determining at the deepest levels what is ‘self’ versus ‘not-self’

2. Self-preservation – protection of self, safety, boundaries, hungers and aversions

3. Mobilisation – motility, impulse for action, gutsy courage and the will to act

Head brain primary functions

1. Cognitive Perception – cognition, perception, pattern recognition, etc.

2. Thinking – reasoning, abstraction, analysis, synthesis,    meta cognition       etc.

3. Making Meaning – semantic      processing, language, narrative, metaphor, etc.


Making and applying meaning

Now this isn’t to say that the heart and gut brain are standalone, indeed the body as a whole is both complex and integrated – a neural network.

What is important is that when the brains are not integrated or aligned we get problems – decision making, commitment, resistance, fear and not just emotions, we can also experience a number of physical reactions3.

There is a clear link between our brains and how decisions are made, for example emotions often characterised as “irrational”, “clouding judgment” and “distorting reasoning”4 whereas neurobiological studies have established that emotion is indispensable in rational decision making5.

In a practical and business sense, particularly where change is involved we often hear the term “people are change resistant”, before assuming the problem lies with the resistor it may be an issue of communicating at the wrong level.

For example, in bringing in change we may be challenging individuals thining, but just as importantly, their:

1. values and beliefs; 2. identity and/or status; 3. feeling of safety.

Plus many other aspects.

Taking a logical, head based approach is not effective when addressing issues, concerns, questions of the heart and gut.

When the brains are aligned we can operate in a choiceful, authentic, healthy and accountable way – both personally and professionally. In a change context this can mean moving through a change cycle in a more meaningful and conscious way.


References 1. Brock, V. (2014) The Triad How are our three brains impacted by coaching? Available at: (Accessed: 4 November 2016). 2. Oka, M. and Soosalu, G. (2012a) MBraining: ‘Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff’. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace. 3. Brown, H. (2005) The Other Brain Also Deals With Many Woes [ONLINE] Available at: [Accessed 08 November 2016]. 4. Barnes, A. and Thagard P., (1996). Emotional.Decisions. [ONLINE] Available at: [Accessed 08 November 2016]. 5. Damasio, A.R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: Grosset/Putnam Book. Cited by Barnes, A and Thagard P (1996)

Thanks to Clare Taylor  for her skill and creativity in painting

Many thanks to Mark Simpson  Head of Consultancy at Armour Risk Management for writing this article on the challenges faced by humans in the development, management and delivery of change

Mark can be contacted at


T  +44 7931 942 794 / +44 207 382 2061


Let Me Introduce You To mBraining?


Have you ever been torn between what you think, feel and do? If the answer to this is yes, then like most of us, you have experienced some form of internal conflict. When our thoughts, feelings and actions are not aligned, we are missing out on accessing the innate wisdom of our multiple brains. Recent neuro-scientific research confirms that we have complex, adaptive and fully functional neural networks in both our heart and gut….the scientific definition of a ‘brain’. The new field of mBraining (multiple Braining) describes how our multiple intelligences are each designed to work differently and how integrating them allows us to make sustainable decisions with which we’re happier. After all, ‘wisdom comes from multiple perspectives’.

If you’ve ever felt that your ‘heart’s just not in it’ , or felt ‘gutted; then you’ll already be aware of how these two intelligences show up in our everyday language. We know from various studies that metaphor and meaning are deeply embodied now mBraining allows you to unlock the process of embodiment at a neurological level. Some people hear about emotional intelligence and try to ‘get their head around it’, but the clue is in the title and emotions are generated below the neck. Similarly, there has been much talk on the internet about intuitive intelligence, but until now; no field has provided the fundamental how to develop and use it. mBIT is a cutting edge field capturing attention in wellbeing, in coaching, health, education and more, that unlocks the core competencies of your multiple brains with powerful, simple and gentle techniques to quickly align your brains via their highest expressions and generate more wisdom and success in your life. At last, neuroscience comes together with ancient wisdom practices to give us the simple and practical way to a happier, healthier us! Reb Veale mBIT Trainer & Master Coach

To find out more or book onto one of our mBraining courses email


Are we at the end of consumerism?

I doubt it, but we are starting to see a shift in how people are spending their money and their levels of resilience.

If we look at the time period 1950 to present day, then much has changed.  A generation that experienced rationing during the war are mostly in their later years, they may well be in receipt of both company and state pension, but are unlikely to be spending large amounts of money on household goods, clothes.

The next generation, now predominately in their 50s, may well have seen their children purchase their first house, have grandchildren and find themselves knocking about in a house that is comfortably-furnished, probably a little on the larger side than truly required, have the mortgage paid off and with the shed, garage, attic and even possibly the back bedroom crammed with stuff.

A visit into any of the above, often ends up being a trip down memory lane, remember the Kodak disc camera, or the tapes that used to go into the early video cameras, then there will be the album upon album of 6×4 photographs; all no longer held by the dried-out-sticky-plastic over-sleeve.

The generation after this starts to become very interesting; now in their 30s, they have no recollection of houses without colour TV’s, computers, central heating, and any number of gaming devices, kitchen gadgets to make life easier, whilst preparing dishes whose origins are from far and wide. Put simply, this is the first generation whose reference structure from childhood is likely to be one of if we want it we can have it.

But what are people turning to, if it’s not getting the latest thing? There are reports and evidence in the slowdown of sales for the latest smartphone models when released, retailers are and have been for some time turning to innovation to keep potential customers engaged, but people are realising that the innovation is for innovation’s sake. Has our appetite for the latest thing passed? Well evidence is showing increasing interest in buying ‘experiences’ .

Time is a precious commodity when it’s gone, it’s gone, I was sitting for 15 minutes the other night, waiting to get off a motorway junction.  Yes that’s right, 15 minutes in a queue half a mile long on the hard shoulder!

People now want more for their time, they are indulging their hard-earned money on having an experience.  Out is the latest lawnmower; in comes paying someone to come round once a month to cut and treat the lawn, in the time saved; we go out, pay to stay a night in a tent ‘glamping’ so we can see the shooting stars at night, listen to the wind and be greeted by a cow mooing over the fence in the morning. Yes I am buying the experience, without all the stuff needed to do it. I have de-cluttered… or at least, not added any more clutter to my hoard. I am free to move onto the next thing, because, ladies and gentlemen, here is another facet of modern life. I don’t want to stick with any one thing for long, my attention span is short, I want variety, choice, indulgence but what about resilience? The ability to resolve things that don’t quite go right first time,  ot to expect instant results or to get more understanding and become part of the community engaged in the effort. Don’t worry about all that I will just move on, I am here for the experience, to say I’ve done it, to fill my boots with experience.  I have the selfie to prove it.  Without all the stuff.