Roy Stannard's Blog

When you think you know it all, ask the next question

auto-response psychology

  • Are we God’s weakness?

    It’s liberating not to be an expert. Great to admit that there’s a million things that I simply don’t know. All I’m sure about is that I’m still curious. For example, I don’t know for sure if the Earth is warming up or that the Poles are thawing at a faster rate than the oceans Read more

  • Stalemate. Who made the rules for your life?

      We often get to a place of stasis or resignation in our lives. Stalemate is the endgame in Chess where the King is safe, but is cornered and trapped by his opponent’s pieces. It’s his turn to move but he is not permitted to move into a place of danger. When neither player is Read more

  • Quitting the Fear Factory

    My colleague Andrew Sercombe and I had a great conversation over lunch last Tuesday about people’s fear of stepping out and following their heart in pursuit of their true passion. I came up with the title of the blog – Quitting the Fear Factory – that seemed to encapsulate that feeling of petrified stasis. Andrew Read more

  • Why diets could be feeding you failure..

    The average woman in the UK spends 31 years of her life on a diet and six months of each year counting calories; whilst men spend 28 years of their life slimming. Over a tenth of the UK population is currently dieting and the average diet duration is 5 1/2 weeks with 50% of slimmers Read more

  • What body shape do you have in mind?

      Gain a new body shape. Why weight any longer? By 2050 nine out of ten people are expected to be overweight or obese. (YouGov study on behalf of the British Society of Gastroenterology 23.11.09). Diets such as Atkins have proliferated – as have weight reduction services such as Weight Watchers and Lighter Life – and yet Read more

  • Work Life Balance. Debunked.

      For years now I have been driven into by well-meaning NLP practitioners behind their Life Balance Wheel, determined to get me to score every aspect of my life in a harmonic way. The point of this exercise is to throw into sharp relief elements of my everyday existence out of kilter with the rest. The metaphor being Read more

  • Writing a letter of application using Auto-Response Psychology

    A young friend of mine called Mark asked me to look over a letter of application he is writing for a Grad job in the City. It was a good letter, full of earnest expressions of enthusiasm for the job he was applying for, direct and honest about his achievements to date. Anyone reading it Read more

  • Who’s to blame?

    We live in a blame culture. If we fail our exams, it’s the fault of the teacher – or it could be the environment we grew up in, or the school. If we trip over a jutting flagstone, then it’s the fault of the Council and we reach for the solicitor’s telephone number. If we Read more

  • The Woman who stopped burning inside by Roy Stannard (Secret psychology Pt 2)

    Here is a story to help you give up. One day, a long time ago when this beautiful young girl was a teenager and everyone around her seemed so much more grown up and sophisticated than her, she decided that she needed an adult magic wand – something to help her fit in with the Read more

  • The Occasional Treat by Roy Stannard (Psychology in writing Pt 1)

      Blue was an undergraduate in her second year at University. She believed that being pale was an interesting image and that people who were rather loud were to be discouraged. In accordance with this belief, Blue wore clothes that blended with her surroundings, whether Seminar walls, bus seats or long grey corridors. She adopted Read more