I have happy memories from the living room floor on a Sunday morning surrounded by family. We’d have three different newspapers - typically The Times, The Observer, and a different tabloid each week chosen by whoever had nipped over to the Post Office to get the papers.

The papers would be spread out over the table, sofa, and floor. We’d gravitate to our preferred sections, be that sport, business, travel, current affairs, cartoons, quizzes, the glossy magazine, personal finance, the advice section, and so on.

It was messy. It was noisy.

Getting unstuck.

When something isn’t working, all too often, we just try harder doing the same thing.

We put more strain on the same rope and keep pulling.

We try harder.

Think harder.

Push more energy into the same approach.

Usually, the issue is not due to lack of effort.

The best fix can be a change in perspective. 

Pause + Reflection = Progress

How was 2025 for you?

Have you had time to catch breath yet and to reflect on the year just gone? 

A lot of people I know they were running on empty by the time Christmas arrived and were looking forward to switching off.

Here’s a question I’ve been discussing at home this week “What were your three best decisions of 2025?”

I’ll share mine shortly, but here’s why I think this is such a simple and powerful reflection moment.

Martin Lewis, The UK’s most trusted ‘money man’ has to put out videos disavowing social media ad scams as a fake AI-generated video is arguably found to be more believable than the real Martin Lewis.

If that doesn’t unsettle you, I don’t know what does.

I think the most unsettling part is not the scams or the technology.

It’s a quiet realisation that cues we’ve relied on for years, like a trusted face and a familiar voice are no longer reliable signals of truth.

In the 1980s, Athens was battling crippling pollution. Smog sat over the city and congestion was spiralling. 

Officials introduced what seemed like a perfectly sensible solution:

Cars with odd-numbered licence plates could drive on odd-numbered days, and even-numbered plates on even-numbered days.

For a short while, it worked. Traffic fell. Pollution dipped. Job done. Until it wasn’t.

Taking Ownership

Maybe it’s just my filter on the world, but have you noticed how so much of the public conversation slips into blame?

“It’s their fault”

“They should have fixed it”

“Poor decision making”

“Someone else is the problem”

Politics, Business, Culture….all seem to me to have the same echo, the same finger-pointing, frustration, outrage….

“God, I wish they’d show a bit more humility and just admit when they’ve got it wrong.”

Ever caught yourself saying that about someone?

Perhaps you’ve also said this about someone else:

“You have to admire their confidence, they really back themselves.”

What’s the tension between these two statements?

What do you think is the most important quality we need to face change and uncertainty?

Might it be our speed of learning and adaptation, perhaps resilience or maybe greater levels of curiousity and experimentation?

Those are all of course very good contenders to be the most important quality.

I think though, there’s something important that sits just befopre that.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time at events than at my desk.

Rooms packed to the rafters with energy, ideas, and stories. The buzz, the mental stimulation, the ideas, the connection with other humans.

It reminded me of something that I think is rather important.

Everywhere you look right now, it’s all about AI. Automation. Streamlining process. More efficiencies. From the Government to the Private Sector to the Third Sector. The world is about speed. Quicker answers. Quicker results. The pressure to move, to react, to get to the next thing.

I fear that in our rush to go faster, we often forget the one thing that allows us to go further.

Thinking.

Anthropic has launched Keep Thinking, its first major brand campaign for Claude.