Breathe Personal and Organisational Development

03/06/2026

One of the first decisions about walking the John Muir Trail, is whether to go solo or in a group. I went solo.

There are pros and cons to each.

Just as there are with co-facilitation of a session or lesson. And again, it needs to be decided early on what the approach is going to be - or else the person 'added' later is always playing catch up.

This is vlog 6 of 9 short vlogs. If you missed the first or want to race ahead, the links to the other vlogs are in each of the 'Descriptions'.

This is the sixth of nine short videos covering how to plan and cre...

03/06/2026

Knowing where you should be at certain points during a session is so important, which is why you have a plan.

Are you ahead? Are you behind where you should be? If so, how are you going to adapt?

Things happen that you don't expect, just as they did for me on the John Muir Trail. And I had to adapt so that I could complete my walk as planned, on time.

This is vlog 5 of 9 short vlogs. If you missed the first or want to race ahead, the links to the other vlogs are in each of the 'Descriptions'.

This is the fifth of nine short videos covering how to plan and cre...

01/06/2026

What do you intend to achieve?

I see so many session or learning outcomes that are not measurable.

If they are not measurable, how can the trainer, the delegates, the client, the evaluator know that they have been achieved?

They can't.

And if they are not measurable, how can they show they will improve performance?

They can't.

So they are fundamental to planning - and they were fundamental to my success in hiking John Muir Trail.

This is vlog 4 of 9 short vlogs. If you missed the first or want to race ahead, the links to the other vlogs are in each of the 'Descriptions'.

This is the fourth of nine short videos covering how to plan and create a training session or lesson plan. Setting the level of your learning or session outc...

30/05/2026

What goes in your bear cannister?

Once you have researched your session subject, you'll probably not be able to fit in all you might want to. So what are your 'Musts', 'Shoulds' and 'Coulds'?

I had the same issue with what food I could take on the John Muir Trail as I could only re-stock every 10 days.

The 'Musts' were so important as I needed to get sufficient calorie and protein intake to sustain me.

And a trainer needs to prioritise what the delegates must know.

This is vlog 3 of 9 short vlogs. If you missed the first or want to race ahead, the links to the other vlogs are in each of the 'Descriptions'.

You can only get so much into a time-limited session. So how do you...

27/05/2026

Research your topic!

Fundamental to lesson or session planning whether you think you know your subject or not - law, policy, views of society change and it's easy to quickly become outdated.

But absolutely essential if you are going to disappear into the wilderness for 3 weeks never having done anything like it in your life before, as I did hiking the John Muir Trail (and if I was going to prove wrong those who said I couldn't or shouldn't do it).

And by heck, did I research. And just like I would for developing a lesson or session plan.

This is vlog 2 of 9 short vlogs. If you missed the first or want to race ahead, the links to the other vlogs are in each of the 'Descriptions'.

https://youtu.be/D0PVsWM0CKk?si=P5ZnmG9fiJ55OC_e

09/05/2026

When I was planning to walk the John Muir Trail last year, several people advised me against it as I had never backpacked before and so I would be taking too much of a risk. I thought there were very few risks, if my planning was thorough.

I did plan thoroughly, and I leant on my approach to lesson planning - which got me thinking ... why not create some vlogs on how to lesson plan using my John Muir Trail experience. So that's what I did.

I have made 9 short videos / vlogs (28 minutes in total), recorded while I was on the trail, describing how to plan a lesson or session, and added them to my YouTube channel.

If you are interested in seeing them, the link to the next vlog / episode can be found in the description field of any you are watching. Here is the first:

This is the first of nine short videos covering how to plan and create a training session or lesson plan, using my experience of planning for and completing ...

29/07/2020

"I Googled for John Heron's 6CIA the other day, and you came top of the listings!", so a friend recently told me. Surprised, so checked it, and it is true! Very happy with that, as I see it as one of the most helpful coaching models around. Mildly disappointed that as I travel the world making my vlogs, the only one I have made at home gets 64% of all my views. Fascinated that 160 people in New Zealand watched it on 20 & 21 May (when it normally gets 5-10 views a day across the world). Amused that someone has linked it to an information page on a 15th century financier called John Heron .... ah, the internet ...

John Heron's 6CIA model is, arguably, the best guide to the most fundamental foundation stone of coaching and developing performance in individuals - effecti...

21/07/2019

Just less than two years ago, I travelled to the site of the Battle of First Manassas, one of the early battles of the American Civil War. I went there to create a vlog on how language can be so powerful in promoting prejudice and discrimination. After some of the events of the past 7 days it seems even more relevant now than it was then

How relevant is Gordon Allport's model to America today? This short vlog, recorded from Manassas National Battlefield, scene of the first battle of the Ameri...

24/03/2019

I found this Disney Pixar video Short recently. I was interested in the comments on LinkedIn about it - some people thinking it is great, others that it is juvenile. Interestingly, I thought, those who thought it juvenile predominantly see it as about gender equality … but I think it's far more than that … it's about being different … size, shape, hair colour, clothes, mug you drink out of … everything. I used it on a diversity and inclusion course a couple of weeks ago and it generated some great discussion. What do you think about it?

Purl, directed by Kristen Lester and produced by Gillian Libbert-Duncan, features an earnest ball of yarn named Purl who gets a job in a fast-paced, high ene...

14/02/2019

"Seven in 10 (70 per cent) L&D professionals said they felt pressure from their organisations to measure the business impact of learning. The researchers said that represented a 38 per cent increase on last year." And so they should do! The real story is that 30% aren't under any pressure to measure their impact - what exactly are they contributing to their organisations?

CIPD calls for ‘step-change’ in how learning leaders use data, as survey suggests competing priorities hold them back