Arts

Tom McShane’s “The Ural Winter”: A Story of Creative Risk, Collaboration and Mojo Recovered

August 11, 2012
Photo of Tom in the Oh Yeah Centre, laughing

On January 16th, 2010, I held the first ever Soul Ambition Sofa Sessions in my home in south Belfast. With a backdrop of art by local artist Tommy Ball, I had paired visiting musician Chris Farmer, who was then playing mostly in Nice-based post-punk noise

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Five on Friday (#5onFri) – April 20th 2012

April 20, 2012
Post-it showing heart around '5 on Fri'

Happy Friday, people! You may know from my blog post on using Twitter effectively that I don’t really do #FollowFriday, though I appreciate the thought when people take the time to do so! There are so many people I could mention in an #FF tweet,

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Before I die…

March 23, 2012
Photo of man dressed as pirate writing on a public wall that invites people to finish the sentence "Before I die..."

Today I stumbled upon a marvellous thing on one of my favourite websites, www.lostateminor.com – a public wall where people could share their “bucket list“; the things they want to do before they die. Last year, I came across and shared this blog post by

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Shorter snippets: Soul Ambition elsewhere on the web

March 10, 2012
YouTube logo

Most of my posts on here are pretty lengthy – detailed ‘how-to’ posts, descriptive travel stories and so on. But since you don’t always have time to read long posts, and I don’t have loads of time between clients and workshops to write lots of

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Anam Mara, Part 2: Seaside

September 1, 2011
View of Trá Na Rossan beach from Atlantic Drive

In my last post, I blogged about Part 1 of my escape to a friend’s cottage in Donegal; a trip that was meant to be a time of writing and creating but came to be more about reading and gestating. This is the second post of

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Anam Mara, Part 1: Fireside

June 18, 2011
Anam Mara cottage, Donegal

In my last post, I blogged about my imminent escape to a cottage in Donegal, for a self-imposed creative retreat. There is a tv in the cottage, but I wasn’t going to be using it; and there’s no internet access. My plan was to bring

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Low on Money, Rich in Time? Consider Skill Swapping

February 22, 2011
Time & Money: Photo of a pocketwatch on a wallet

So you’re trying to improve your career prospects with some new training, but you’ve no spare funds to invest in it. Or maybe you’re out of work and struggling to pay for necessary (and not-so-necessary) services. You’ve got little money, but a lot of time.

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Knowledge Is Confidence

October 25, 2010
Tech Support Cheat Sheet Image

When I do my confidence-building courses and coaching, I ask people what their biggest confidence saboteurs are. And one of the most common, in people’s business or personal lives, is a lack of knowledge. People are often scared of looking stupid, or ignorant, and dread

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Make Your Own Luck (With Help From Other People)

October 22, 2010
Five-Leaf Clover by Mikko Luntiala, on Flickr

If you believe you are lucky, you are more likely to be lucky. Research shows that optimists achieve more, live longer and enjoy better relationships with people. So whilst there are times when it pays to be pessimistic – when the consequences of an action

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Social Media – Why Bother?

June 11, 2010

So much buzz about social media – but why bother? Well, whether you’re trying to raise your own profile – as a job-seeker perhaps, or a sole trader, or that of your business, a cause or a charity, you ignore the benefits of social media at your peril. Here are 12 reasons why you should engage in social media, with examples of how people are doing it well.

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