Advice on cultivating resilience in challenging times from my experience as Chief Joy Officer at Makers Resilience is the ability to stay strong through challenges — advancing despite adversity. I’ve heard many times that Makers is simultaneously one of the most engaging, fun, and challenging experiences our learners have gone…

It’s great to be a source of positivity and upliftment to others but remember these things: 🎯YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S FEELINGS — THEY ARE. 🎯NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR FEELINGS — ONLY YOU ARE. When you make yourself responsible for other people’s happiness you: 👉🏽 over-function and drain your own energy trying to control the uncontrollable 👉🏽 set yourself up for a…

Insights on managing your energy and staying grounded from my experiences as Chief Joy Officer at Makers — I love people. I’m a huge fan of exploring what makes us human, working with humans, understanding what makes us tick, building connection, and sharing joy! As Chief Joy Officer, my role is to oversee and deliver the wellbeing offering at Makers. Whether it’s training our learners and staff in…

Last week, our daily meditation sessions were dedicated to (MHAW) — learn more below about our mental health sessions — Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) takes place from 18–24 May 2020. The theme is kindness. At Makers, mental health is a subject we don’t shy away from. …

Insights on common blockers devs face on the course (and advice on overcoming them) based on my experiences as Chief Joy Officer at Makers — Makers is a once-in-a-lifetime and transformative experience. I know this because I witness it every day from the developers in our amazing community. Every month we welcome a new cohort into the 12 week course. While the course is wonderfully positive and life-changing, it’s also very intense.

Insights on dealing with nerves when in the spotlight from my experiences as Chief Joy Officer at Makers — Whether it’s introducing yourself on Day 1 at Makers, Karaoke night, feedback sessions, code reviews, project presentation or job interviews, being in the spotlight can be daunting for many of us. Performance anxiety is essentially stress about your performance in front of people. It’s very common for people to feel…

Insights from some of the Makers Coaching Team on thriving through attitudinal practices — Jon Kabat-Zinn, father of mindfulness in the western world defines mindfulness as “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.” Mindfulness meditation has science-backed benefits such as improving focus; improving stress management; and enhancing emotional intelligence. …

Insights on claiming your personal power based on my experiences as Chief Joy Officer at Makers — Leaving your comfort zone is part of the bootcamp experience. Each week brings all kinds of challenges: from the technical (learning to pair and work in software teams), to the personal (balancing life with training). Here at Makers, we speak a lot about having a growth mindset to help you…

Insights on how to skilfully give and receive feedback from my experiences as Chief Joy Officer at Makers — In my recent blog about “How to Thrive in a Team”, I covered how Makers are guided on their coding adventures through XP (Extreme Programming) values: communication, simplicity, respect, courage and feedback. Today I’m diving deeper on the topic of exchanging feedback as each day I see how vital this…