Category Archives: Personal development

Humankindness

Posted on December 19, 2025 by Jamie Jauncey

I’ve been listening to the 2025 BBC Reith Lectures, given by Rutger Bregman, the young Dutch historian who became an international sensation in 2019 after standing up at the Davos World Economic Forum and berating a room full of billionaires for … Continue reading →

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Back in the water

Posted on October 8, 2025 by Jamie Jauncey

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I’m back in a place I love. I haven’t been here for eight years and my first impression on arrival was how beautiful it is. I had forgotten. An hour north of Seville, tucked into the side of a wooded … Continue reading →

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Making sense

Posted on January 7, 2020 by Jamie Jauncey

You can now listen to each new post, including this one, as a podcast. I am also gradually adding selected posts from the archive. Click here. If we look for milestones to prompt reflection and personal stocktaking, few come better … Continue reading →

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Child leaders

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Jamie Jauncey

A friend recently sent me the link to a Guardian article published in 2014 under the title: Why boarding schools produce bad leaders. I hadn’t seen the article, but I was familiar with its author. Nick Duffell was a contemporary … Continue reading →

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Perfect lives

Posted on June 15, 2018 by Jamie Jauncey

For the final day of our recent The Stories We Tell course at Cortijo Romero, in Spain, we invited people to write or tell a personal story that had not previously been told. The only rules were that it should … Continue reading →

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Come to the edge

Posted on November 3, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

Eighteen months ago I chaired an event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival with a novelist I know well, someone whose work I admire and whom I like very much as a person. Halfway through the event, in front of … Continue reading →

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The stories we tell

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

In the past month I’ve spent a week in Spain with a group of eight people on a The Stories We Tell course, and a week in the Northwest Highlands with a friend I’ve known for 45 years. At the … Continue reading →

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Born storytellers

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

“We’re a narrative species,” said the scientist on Radio 4 the other day. “We understand the world in terms of stories.” He was talking about the MMR vaccine and how the stories of danger that have grown up around it … Continue reading →

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Other hearts

Posted on March 3, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

I was brought up in the Scottish countryside. Home was a house with a field and a wood, an old stables building and a walled garden. It was a late 18th century manse, elegant though not grand. In earlier times, … Continue reading →

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Peaks and troughs

Posted on January 6, 2017 by Jamie Jauncey

Six months ago I decided to take a break from A Few Kind Words. It was a spur of the moment decision, though one that had been brewing for a while. One Thursday afternoon I sat down at the usual … Continue reading →

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