“Listen to the guy on the ground.” Pete Blaber

“First seek to understand” Frank Covey

“Get to the beat.” Donella Meadows

When you realise how important context is to create change and how worthless information is without it. A part of you begins to wonder if there might be a better way to get away from the family, work, or the boss than conferences and events.

Asking the question. How did we get here? Is an excellent remedy.

As I loosed off the headset my youngest kept the front wheel of her bike straight by holding it between her knees. It’s simple enough to get the handlebars and the front wheel of your bike aligned when you know how. Only as I moved so did my daughter.

You get the idea.

Busy in problem-solver mode it’s easy to feel frustrated and take over.

The alternative is to switch roles. Take on a new perspective. See what the other has to do to make it work. Be more kind, playful, and approachable.

Focus entirely on the problem. The difficult bit. The part that got your attention and it’s likely that you miss the whole.

I recently created an event and choose 20 as a reasonable number of attendees. The temptation was to spend all my time chasing potential attendees, making promises, and hustling to get the numbers up. After all, the number of bums on seats is easy to measure and a marker for success.

But what if you placed your focus instead of being able to do it again? No bridges burned. Or creating delight in the ones that do turn up?

When we focus on the whole system, not just the tricky bit, we do it for the good of the whole.

It is tempting to think we get back what we put in. No pain no gain. The more you put in the more you get back out. It’s how we sell exercise.

But is it really linear?

Of course not. How can it be? We are complex human beings not a line on a graph.

But when we admit it’s not linear we no longer appear to have all the answers. And we get paid to know the answers. Right?

Now that we have gone full circle.

Why not join me on the 30th Nov for a non-linear chat about breathwork?

I don’t know all the answers but I do know some of the questions.

So let’s take it now. Turn a blind eye. Focus on the opportunity.

After all, who wants to be the one pushing away the desert trolley on the titanic?

But each day we don’t push it away it gets a little easier to do it one more time. Who knows it might not come along again.

And so here we are, having taken one too many deserts, playing football in the land of plenty.

It’s never what we condemn. It’s what we condone with our silence.

The more you see the less you know.

The less you know the more you see.

You can’t do much about the first one. It might come as a bit of a blow. But, should no longer be a shock.

The second one, you can use to your advantage and learn to ask better questions.

For those curious enough, l will be hosting an online breathwork event on Nov 30th.

Thanks, Tom.

Elon Musk announced this week that workers at Twitter need to get back to long hours at high intensity in the office.

Rocketman, the man seemingly single-handly shaping our future was telling us our future was going to be a slog. Time and space constraints are back. And so, it seems is the notion that we can sustain high-intensity efforts for sustained periods of time.

Futurists concern themselves with the “three P’s and a W” i.e possible, probable, and preferable plus wildcards.

When someone speaks of the future it’s worth asking which one of the three P’s and W they think they are referring to. My guess is Rocketman was talking about what was preferable not about his desire to rewrite the science of bioenergetics.