Selina Secret Garden

There is a common misconception that confidence is an inborn personality trait – that we are either born confident or not. But on the contrary, we strongly believe that confidence is a skill which can be learned and practiced.

The fastest route to confidence is to realise that all of us struggle with feelings of shame and with a sense of being an impostor; that all of us are deeply foolish and constantly anxious - and that therefore many of our worries, far from being grounds for giving up on ourselves, confirm that we are entirely normal, and as worthy of success as anyone else.

How to Be Confident teaches us:

• How to overcome the Impostor Syndrome.
  
• How to understand and overcome shyness.
  
• How to conduct personal and private negotiations with confidence and poise.
  
• To have courage and confidence in our own agency – that is, the ability to make important changes in our lives.
  

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The modern world places immense pressure on us to succeed, leading us to tell ourselves that we have to constantly strive, overcome huge obstacles and win in all areas of our lives. The unrealistic expectations we place on ourselves seldom allow us to realise that we will - of course - fail in some areas of our lives, particularly in our careers - and that failing well is therefore a skill we need to learn above most others. Many of us know how to prepare for success but we very rarely endeavour to confront failure as we should: with dignity, understanding, wisdom – and perhaps on occasion, a touch of humour.

How to Fail teaches us:

• How to understand the sickness of ‘perfectionism’: , where it comes from and how we might best respond to it.
  
• Our parents: what they wanted and how we fear disappointing them.
  
• What lies at the heart of the dread of failing, especially as it relates to a loss of status and dignity.
  
• What it means to fail ‘well’ – accepting our limitations without becoming bitter.
  
• The real statistics of success; and how good we are at denying them.
  
• The Ancient Greek idea of noble failure and the Zen Buddhist notion of good imperfection.
  
• And the media’s influence on our understanding of failure and success.

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We all long to have sincere, intimate, warm-hearted and interesting meetings with friends and strangers - but too often, we fail to connect as we would like to. We will learn how to escape unfruitful and loneliness-inducing small talk and how elegantly to start to have properly enriching connections with others. We are not only shown where we are going wrong, we’re given practical guidance - and group rehearsals - in winning strategies. Not least, we will laugh together as we learn.

What will I learn?

How to Be Sociable teaches:

• What true friendship is really about
• What it means to charm someone and how we can do so
• How one can overcome shyness
• What makes a good conversationalist
• What makes a good listener

We are often so aware of what is missing from our lives that we fail to pause and notice what has already gone right or not yet gone wrong. We see so much every day without properly noticing it; we are so good at letting our ambitions for the future rob us of the joys of the present.

Become better at discovering and drawing value from the wonders that are already to hand. Learn how properly to live rather than simply going through the motions. Along the way, we learn to connect, to take joy in the sky, to feel less guilty about enjoying the good times - and to remember what we can legitimately smile about, even in the most challenging of eras.

What will I learn?

How to Enjoy Life teaches us:

• The skills of appreciation and gratitude.
• How little we sometimes notice what is around us.
• How to awaken ourselves to the beauty and value of the objects, people and ideas around us.
• How to properly absorb what is already precious in our lives.
• The art of sampling happiness without being sentimental or deluded - a skill we term ‘cheerful despair’.

1/3 of your life will be spent at work. That's 90,000 hours over the course of a lifetime - that's a lot of time potentially wasted on something boring and meaningless.

We strongly believe fulfilling your potential in the working wold is a vital part of living life with purpose and meaning. Whether you have ambitions to run your own company, teach, help and care for others or use your creative skills to change the world, we believe everybody has the responsibility to achieve their full potential, adding a valuable contribution to the world.

Together we will look at what drives us; our ambitions, commitments, passions and talents, identifying what may be holding back our ambition to change.

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We live in a culture that talks a lot about finding love - but far less about the next part of the puzzle, making the love we have last. This workshop will provide a toolkit of skills for ensuring the health and vibrancy of a relationship over the long term.

We will learn together about Communication, Compassion, Listening, Playfulness and Diplomacy. Most of all, we will understand that it isn’t a sign of failure that we have ended up here; it’s a proof of commitment. We will learn that love is not simply an emotion to be felt, it is a skill to be learnt.

What will I learn?

How to Make Love Last teaches us:

• How to communicate, teach and learn.
• How not to sulk.
• How to allow others to get close to us despite our fears.
• How to understand and explain the distinctive way in which we want to be loved.
• How to forgive and be forgiven.
• How to navigate conflict through humour.
• How to deal with sexual differences and awkward desires.