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Take a bite…
Take ten minutes today to audit congruence.
List the values, products, services, or behaviours you publicly promote at work or in your business.
Now look at your actual daily behaviour — at home, online, and in how you spend your money.
Ask yourself honestly:
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Episode lands 8am Monday 2nd February.
You don’t lose credibility because people disagree with you.
You lose it when you don’t use what you promote.
In this week’s ThinkWORKS podcast, I unpack why walking the talk isn’t a cliché — it’s the foundation of trust, identity, and leadership.
If your actions don’t match your message, people feel it.
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Take a look at some deeply held beliefs about your company or division, team or small business. Assess how long those beliefs have been in situ and then ask the question: do these beliefs empower me and/or my employees or team with the belief that they can get the job done, or do they restrict the process? If the latter, plan to replace those beliefs as soon as possible.
You can also ask this question in your personal life. What beliefs that I have lived by no longer serve me? Remember, the same level of thinking that got anyone anywhere will not be enough to continue to make progress.
(Often unconsciously, often “just how things are”)
“People need to be closely managed or they’ll slack off.”→ Breeds micromanagement, kills ownership.
“Only senior people can be trusted with big decisions.”→ Bottlenecks everything and disempowers talent.
“If we give people too much freedom, standards will drop.”→ Confuses control with quality.
“Some people are just not leadership material.”→ Freezes growth and locks people into labels.
“Busy means productive.”→ Rewards activity over outcomes and burns people out.
“We don’t have time to stop and think.”→ Guarantees repeated mistakes.
“Mistakes must be avoided at all costs.”→ Creates fear cultures and risk aversion.
“This is how it’s always been done.”→ Institutionalises stagnation.
“Decisions must go up the chain.”→ Slows response and disempowers those closest to the work.
“Our department’s success matters more than the whole system.”→ Creates silos and internal competition.
“Rules exist to prevent failure, not enable success.”→ Turns governance into obstruction.
“Change is disruptive and risky.”→ Treats adaptation as a threat instead of a necessity.
“Innovation is something other teams do.”→ Outsources thinking and accountability.
“We’ll deal with that when it becomes a real problem.”→ Ensures problems become crises.
“It’s not safe to say what you really think.”→ Silences insight and breeds compliance, not commitment.
“Disagreement is a sign of disloyalty.”→ Replaces truth with politeness.
“Senior leaders already know the answer.”→ Stops learning dead.
“We can’t do that with the people we have.”→ Blocks development and creative problem-solving.
“Training is a cost, not an investment.”→ Ensures skills decay over time.
“If someone is good at their job, don’t move them.”→ Punishes competence.
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Episode lands from 8am Monday 26th January.
Most people don’t fail because they lack motivation — they fail because they’re waiting to feel ready.
In this week's episode of ThinkWORKS, I introduce the idea of the Actionaut: someone who treats action as exploration, not urgency. We explore why small, deliberate action improves wellbeing, restores agency, and creates clarity — even before results show up.
If you’ve been stuck between thinking and doing, this one’s for you.
Comment below on the exercise in the episode!
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The exercise from Chapter 6 of 'You 2.0' is:
As manager, ask yourself these questions: do I support my staff or tell them what to do? Do I deserve or expect respect? Do I trust them to do the job or harass them every step of the way? Be honest with yourself. If you answered in the negative way for any of these, you need to consciously take control of your behaviour and engender change within yourself.
It took me a long time to learn the lesson that 99% of staff will always work better when they feel two things: 1. Trusted to do the job. 2. Supported when they need it.
That's it- no profound statements to bamboozle the mind, just two simple feelings to create with your staff (or family, or community group etc).
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Most leadership failure doesn’t come from incompetence — it comes from fear.
Fear of losing control. Fear of empowering others. Fear dressed up as authority.
In this episode of ThinkWORKS, I explore why the best leaders lead from the back, why macho management quietly destroys organisations, and how a single question — “How can I help?” — can transform teams, cultures, and results.
We look at why “busy” isn’t productive, how empowerment actually increases accountability, and why trust is the missing ingredient in modern leadership.
If you manage people, work in a team, or want to build something that lasts — this episode is for you. Join in the discussion below.
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You'll need to either have read the book or read this summary of Page 48 & 49:
Here are clean, concise summaries of each point, keeping the numbering, written in You 2.0:
This is the big picture.The strategic concept explains why you’re doing this at all. It’s your vision, your direction of travel, and the lens through which all decisions should be made. If you don’t define this clearly, everything that follows risks becoming busy work instead of meaningful progress.
Rebuilding and migrating darreninform.com and the ThinkWORKS community to the Mastermind platform (Q1 focus).
Why am I doing this?
To create a calm, coherent digital home that brings together my thinking, writing, podcasting, and community — and supports sustainable work rather than constant firefighting.
This is not about having a “better website”.It’s about reducing fragmentation, improving focus, and making it easier for the right people to engage with my work.
What does the journey look like?
Start Point (A):A fragmented WIX site, broken community tools, scattered content, and rising friction.
End Goal (Z):A stable, human-centred site and forum where content, conversation, and direction all live together.
Milestones along the way:
Core site pages rebuilt
Community rooms recreated
Priority content migrated
Weekly content rhythm stabilised
These milestones mark progress — but on their own, they don’t explain how they’ll be achieved.
How do I actually reach each step?
For example:
Milestone: Core site pages rebuilt
Strategy: Build structure first, polish later
Action: Draft Home, Start Here, ThinkWORKS Hub, Books, Contact using consistent messaging
Review: Does the site feel coherent, even if imperfect?
Milestone: Community rebuilt
Strategy: Fewer rooms, clearer purpose
Action: Create Welcome post, room descriptions, Take A Bite template
Review: Can a new visitor understand what to do in under 2 minutes?
Each milestone has:
a strategy
a set of actions
a review point
and space to adjust
What if I fall behind or lose momentum?
Planned remedies include:
Reducing scope (migrate less content, not more)
Pausing non-essential pages
Protecting the weekly podcast as the non-negotiable
Shifting timelines without abandoning the vision
The goal is not perfection — it’s course correction without self-judgement.
Planning isn’t about control. It’s about thinking ahead so that when things wobble, you don’t.
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Episode lands Monday 12th January
Most New Year resolutions don’t fail because people lack motivation — they fail because intent never becomes structure.
In this episode of ThinkWORKS, I explore how to make resolutions that actually stick by starting with vision, defining where you want to be by year’s end, and then working backwards into realistic steps and milestones. We look at why planning isn’t about rigidity or control, but about clarity, momentum, and choice — and why writing things down still matters more than most people realise.
If you want this year to feel different because you thought differently, this episode is for you.
Join in the discussion below.
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Take a bite...
If you have a plan, take an honest look at it and rate your goals against SMART. Are the specific in nature? What is the date you’ve set for completion? Are they achievable (e.g. do you have enough resources to do them)? Can they realistically be done? How will you measure what you have achieved should an objective be completed? This last one (the M) is the one that most people forget about- but it’s the one that lets you know how well you’re doing outside the wider objective, and gives you the juice to move on to the next goal or phase etc. If you haven’t got a plan, start now!!!
As promised. See, a plan does not need to be complex. I have one overarching plan, with several modular plans include 30 and 90 Day Sprints, and other goal plans.
I promote progress over perfection, collegiate working practices, life long learning and curiosity.
I also promote effective time management, goal setting and goal management.
I'm pretty good with my alignment across the board except I don't give myself enough sleep time, which has an impact by the end of the week. I'd say a 9 or 10 on everything except that, and for that I give myself a 5. And whilst I manage everything else effectively, I still don't exercise enough (I am in pain a lot so I have a ready made excuse which I sometimes hide behind). The poor sleeping patterns and the lack of exercise are areas I must improve in as this does affect my health overall.
A realistic first step is to go to sleep on average 1 hour a night per week rather than force myself to change my patterns immediately. Currently I am not typically settling down till 2am so for the rest of this week I will set a reminder to go to bed at 1am, and settle down no later than 130am. Next week, from Monday, I will settle down no later than 1am, which means bed no later than 1230am.