Justin’s Monthly Hot Topic

In the past several years, Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck’s “growth mindset” research has swept Australian education by storm. And for good reason: it’s simple, intuitive, and evidence-based. Dweck’s TED talk has been viewed more than 10 million times. Except… It seems that the excitement about growth mindset and its application in education grew much faster than […]

For the past decade, Positive Education has swept across the Australian education landscape. Based on the science of positive psychology, Pos Ed is all about marrying the science of wellbeing with the skills of achievement. In short, it’s about helping kids feel well so that they learn well. Intuitively this approach makes sense. And with catchy commercialised […]

Today I had a chat with Deborah Knight and mum Sarah Stewart on the TODAY show about if it is ever ok to discipline someone else’s child. What do you think? Check out the video here.

When you hire a speaker, you usually find yourself paying pretty good money to someone you may not know very well. The process becomes an act of faith and trust. You have to trust that the speaker will show up and deliver. You may be worried about what they’re going to say. Will it be […]

Why do you work? If you’re a leader in your organisation, why do your team members work? Is work a means to an end; a push for advancement and status; or is work valued by you and your team for its own sake? This was an area that I investigated deeply as I conducted my […]

“Paul* wants to talk to you. Can you see him now?” My manager’s executive assistant was not really asking me about my availability. The boss wanted to see me. I knew why. My performance was on the slide. I was demotivated. I was struggling. It wasn’t just that I had plateaued. I had gone backwards. […]

There are dozens of people out there calling themselves wellbeing ‘experts’. Sadly, too many of them lack real ‘expertise’ in the area. Writing a book (or e-book), or even being a ‘life coach’ does not make a person a wellbeing ‘expert’. In fact, some recent best-selling books on happiness, positivity, and wellbeing have been written […]

There are dozens of people out there calling themselves parenting ‘experts’. Sadly, too many of them lack real ‘expertise’ in the area. Writing a book (or e-book), or raising your own children does not make a person an ‘expert’! In fact, some recent best-selling books on parenting have been written by people with no relevant […]

I recently conducted a parenting night at Trinity Grammar School in Kew, Melbourne about Boys and Gaming. More than 450 parents turned up to find answers to the challenge of getting their boys off their devices. The night was a terrific success, and because there was so much interest, I thought I might share some […]

“Justin, we need a new strategy. What we’re doing isn’t working.” The company director I was speaking with was desperate. Staff were disengaged. Productivity was down. Customers were complaining. The conversation was almost identical to something a school principal had said to me about two weeks earlier: “We have to change what we are doing. […]