Happy New Year, and let’s hope that 2025 is a year filled with joy, peace and happiness. Well, that’s my hope, at least. Here is my round-up of the first month as a coach, writer, and human being.
Intentions for 2025
You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.
― William Faulkner.
My intention for 2025 is to consider how I might shake things up and release some energy, creativity, and excitement. After a somewhat heavy 2024—it has felt at times like wading through treacle—I find I want to bring more playfulness into my life. I want to experiment more to see what happens, worry less about outcomes, and go where the process takes me.
I am a creature of habit, and once I’ve established a routine, I feel safe and more in control. But now and again, I need to remind myself that it is worth reviewing your routines and checking to see if they are still serving you. Some may now be holding you back. So, what are your intentions for 2025? And will your current patterns and routines support that endeavour?
The wonderful Wicked
Happy New Year, and I hope you all enjoyed a peaceful and restorative holiday. I am so glad I took the rest I needed and the time away from LinkedIn. I am now fully recharged and raring to go 😊.
So much so that I wrote my first blog for 2025; it is about our trip on Christmas Eve to see the wonderful Wicked. It blew me away, especially after seeing the live show three times; I was sceptical about the film and what it would add to the story.
I was so wrong, and to read why, click here.
Nineteen years on LinkedIn
According to LinkedIn, I have been on the platform for nineteen years. Where on earth has that time gone, and what has changed?
In the early days, I spent most of my time hiding behind my business rather than fronting up as Janice Taylor. It was largely Blue Sky this, Blue Sky that. It somehow felt more ‘professional’ and in keeping with the LinkedIn platform and the people on it.
I still can’t pinpoint when this started to change, possibly when I decided to remove my LinkedIn business page – I couldn’t at the time see what value it was adding. I grew tired of the bogus employees claiming to work for me, and I could never remove them.
I cannot even remember my first post – though it was most likely in one of the groups I joined. It was very much about the groups then, as I was an active member of quite a few. However, I had posts withheld and occasionally ended up in LinkedIn jail. To this day, I still don’t understand why.
It took me well over a year to get to my first hundred connections, and it might well have stayed like that if it hadn’t occurred to me to take the initiative and start inviting people to connect. I spent a long time waiting for invitations to flow in.
However, with or without a business page, my posts were still predominantly about my work; I did not share much about Janice Taylor, the individual. Again, I can’t pinpoint when this changed, not just for me but for others too. I started to feel braver about what I could share on LinkedIn and realised it takes far less energy to show (within reason) who you are.
I barely bother with the groups today, preferring to engage with people via my timeline. It is far more about engagement, and I am pleased to see a broader range of posts. I am deeply thankful to those who share their stories and what makes them tick rather than the dry – corporate-laden posts that give no sense of the people behind them.
So, what’s your LinkedIn story? How have you changed on LinkedIn?
Here’s to another nineteen years 😉.
The genie is out of the bottle –
Is it just me, or is it beginning to feel like we could almost ask generative AI to grant us three wishes?
And if that is the case, perhaps we need to be careful what we wish for as there is very little chance of stuffing the genie back in.
Recently, I came across two intriguing articles – one a LinkedIn post by @KatalinaMayorga describing how someone they knew used ChatGPT to help them navigate an argument with their partner as they couldn’t access their therapist. And in answer to the question, would they do it again, there was a resounding yes, and I quote:
“Honestly, it asked the exact questions our therapist often asks us in session. No, it wasn’t as good, but it was better than good enough.”
This one sentence blew my mind.
I found the second article via Medium – this time, Linda Caroll, a writer, asked ChatGPT to compose a couple of stories and one poem using some rather detailed prompts. I have to say that the results I saw, especially the poem, knocked me sideways. I always assumed that I would easily be able to spot a piece of creative writing by AI, but judging by the pieces shown in this article, that is not necessarily the case, and I’m not alone either. You’ll see what I mean in the article:
It seems people are finding increasingly more creative and ingenious ways to prompt, question or work with generative AI, which is a real skill. As a coach, I’m all about the questions, and it seems generative AI is too 😉.
More seriously, it all sounds exciting and exhilarating, but what are the dangers? What are the ethical and moral implications? How far might people go?
I have no answers as I veer between cheering on the ingenuity people are showing and holding my head in my hands as to what might be coming down the road.
But given that generative AI is here to stay – how might we help people to engage with it responsibly, ethically and safely?
Until next time.