They say that children laugh on average 150 times a day. How about you, how often do you really laugh? And that’s not counting those polite laughs we do when we know it’s what’s expected of us.

My given names are Katherine Joy. Nothing extraordinary, I thought, just typical of my generation. Katherine means pure. Joy, means, well, joy. And then I realised: my name means Pure Joy!

Hands up who’s never procrastinated?

Thought so.

We’ve all done it at sometime: starting that proposal, replying to an email that’s been in your inbox for days, or working on that great idea you’ve been hatching for months. Whatever it may be, we’ve all been there: stuck in frozen mode, waiting for the perfect moment.

But what if the solution was just three simple words?

The World Economic Forum’s estimate that we won’t achieve full gender parity globally for another 134 years, until 2158, and the United Nations’ report, “Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2022”, which says that full gender equality may not be realised for nearly 300 years!

That could mean that we women won’t get equality for at least 10 generations. That’s sobering!

And this is the problem: when we are feeling anxious, we display behaviours with our hands that can be interpreted as untrustworthy. A listener will pick up on the nervous signals as our brains are wired to pick up on hand gestures through mirror neurons.

We’ve all experienced what happens when we lose our rootedness; we’ve seen it in others around us who are reactive, anxious, or overly emotional when under pressure. We recognise the signs because, chances are, we’ve felt them ourselves.

Whether our focus is on the past, present or future, if it’s negatively fixed and convergent then we are less likely to see different perspectives and this will limit our decision-making, and our level of influence.

Have you noticed how if you go out on a day when you’re feeling confident and positive, everyone seems to reflect your mood? It’ll be smiles and after you’s, all round. Equally if you’re feeling foul, the whole world will seem to be set against you.

How do we know if we’re breathing incorrectly? Our throat will tell us. Think of those nights out in crowded venues when we’ve had to raise our voice, or when we’ve been to a concert or sports fixture and been singing and shouting. The next day we may feel it as irritation in our throats, or maybe we’ll lose our voice altogether.

This is one of the principles that I try and live by. It’s not easy, but it encourages us to treat others with the same respect, consideration and kindness that we would like to receive. This is the foundational tenet for effective leadership and teams as from this we can foster healthy, positive relationships.

The problem is we all lose our natural way of breathing at about the age of six when we go to school. We’re then told to sit still in class for long periods of time, which affects our breathing meaning we start to breathe more shallowly.

Some might misconstrue the word with arrogance or recklessness, but through my lens, audacity is the boldness and confidence to express ourselves with clarity, conviction and purpose.

The dilemma is, we all want to be seen as real and genuine, but sometimes life pulls us out of our selves and self-doubt whispers that we are not enough and need to become someone else entirely.

You may have noticed our tag line: “creatively quirky and rooted in science”. Maybe it’s why you’re here, or maybe you just want to learn a bit more about how we do things. 

The Vermillion approach is all about learning that sticks. We’ve studied the science behind communication and successful learning to develop an approach that works time after time. 

We’re living through a time of monumental change in how we communicate. Forget writing a letter, now we want quick exchanges via email or a messaging service, increasingly using AI to create them. Face to face interactions seem more scary and challenging as we’re used to hiding behind this digital communication ‘wall’. I

How many of us prepare before we present? And I don’t mean sitting at your computer scanning over what you’ve written.

Because that’s the sum of what most people will do. They’ll maybe read through what they’ve written a couple of times - but in their heads - and they won’t physicalise it.