What happens when you helicopter-drop a couple of people on the top of a mountain in the Dolomites?

You turns beautiful scenery into a mission: to descend in two days, ending with an almost sheer 500 feet descent to negotiate.  Although it’s high Summer, drop a couple of feet of snow and you have a daring-do adventure.

The two people are Bear Grylls and Stephen Fry and you can check out the trailer here.

Why mention this?

It’s an illustration of how Humans creatively frame their experiences and understandings of the world(s) in which we live.  Humans are able to create significance which isn’t really there, but, it’s astonishing to see the results.  There’s no other creature or species on the planet able to do this.

Which brings us to the 1st January, 2014 – a date we make significant, though it’s no different to any other day ( even a day is a way Humans frame what is).

Humans have to keep moving, have to progress – not the latest Hotpoint-washing-machine kind of progress, but we’re not using dolly tubs any more, and we’re not going down to the local stream to beat our favourite Next shirt on the rocks.*   It seems that when we lose this need to progress and to achieve, something dies in us.

Bear says to camera that he wants to take Stephen out of his comfort zone, and he certainly does. Stephen remarks how this is the most frightening experience of his life, but he feels the most alive when he accomplishes the deep dive.

Why not deep dive in 2014?

You don’t go into a new year unready.  Whilst Bear wanted to take Stephen out of his comfort zone, truth be told, the programme is littered with the kind of quick humour that is Stephen Fry.  There are two things you need to know: 1) who you are is enough – you’ve got yourself here, and there’s more to you than you know; and, 2) you are not alone – just as Stephen had Bear with him all the way, we have a crowd of people making the same journey – we just need to connect.

Here’s something practical you can do.  Instead of making new year resolutions (even the one to not make new year resolutions), why not just observe things for a while: the things which energise you and the things which de-energise you.

Keep a couple of lists.  One list begins, “I loved it when …” – in this list record all the things which energise you (I mean, really energise you).   The second list begins “I loathed it when …” – this list will contain all the things which really de-energise you.

Halfway through January, you’ll have some really important information to help frame what will be an incredible 2014 for you.  And keep checking in.

(*The world catches up on these developments quicker than we think.)

I don’t mean the perfume or socks or iPod.

It’s probably more hidden or subtle a gift than these, but it’ll be there.

It may be something you feel inside as  result of a terrible news story, or a moment of inspiration from something seen or read which the time of year has framed more sharply, or some faith-revelation.   These are the real gifts because, unlike all the other presents which promise to change our lives,  these really will.

And when our lives change so do the lives of others.

It doesn’t have to be perfect at this moment, it just has to be felt deeply.

So, what did you get for Christmas – hidden there in the darkness behind the Christmas tree?

(I’m writing this early on Christmas morning.  No one is up and no presents have been opened, but I’m excited by what I’ve already unwrapped.)

I was once asked, what does it mean to be Human.

Someone else in my group had a great answer to offer straight away: “I am not Human,” he said, “WE are Human!” – gesticulating we were all included.

There are probably as many great answers as there are people, but, eventually, I came back with mine: To be Human is to live with Creativity, Enjoyment, and Generosity.

We are creative beings, we want to generously do things for others, and the amazing-boom is that we get to enjoy ourselves along the way.

Have a great holiday, and, however you spend it, do something creative, be generous, and being Human.

I read this and I thought of you.

I found myself in a conversation recently about giving customers what they want – rather than letting them try out new things.  The thing is, customers don’t know what they want.

Nobody knew they wanted a steam engine before George Stephenson created his Rocket.  They were happy transporting goods in trucks pulled by horses and people in painful carriages.

Nobody knew they wanted a vacuum cleaner before Hubert Cecil Booth turned up with one.

Nobody knew they wanted to organise their worlds so much with a personal computer until … well, I’ll let you decide which of a cadre of visionaries saw, and wanted, the possibility – Steve Jobs is in there very early.

And no one knows they want the amazing thing you have to offer until you bring it.

So don’t wait for people to ask for your genius, just bring it – whenever you can and wherever you can.

I know, I know, I keep talking about how amazing people are, about all the amazing things you can do.  You want to ask how’s this possible?  Or, tell me to get real, to live in the real world.  Life is busy, there are things to do, bills to be paid.

I guess I’m trying to offer a bigger picture for where you are, right now.  How everyday you have the opportunity to get up and live an adventure.  After all, we get one life with which to do this, and then it’s gone.

Think back to when you were young.  What did you want to be?  A footballer?  A singer?  A chef?  An astronaut?  A writer?  An artist?  (A train driver?)

You used to have dreams which were big and bright and shiny.  How come?  Who told you that you had to do this?  You imagined something and then you played at it?

What happened as you got older?  Did the the hopes change?  Now you want to become a hairdresser – I really did (and got an apprenticeship that lasted for three months – I was rubbish).  Or maybe a bank clerk or a shop assistant or lawyer (or train driver).  There’s nothing wrong with any of these jobs, unless the lawyer wants to be a bus driver, and hairdresser wants to be a life-coach, and the excitement of getting a new job and securing income wears off into a routine that robs you of your dreams and hopes.

Humans want things.  From an early age they dream about becoming* someone, doing something.  We push ourselves, stretch, practice, learn, skill-up, try and try again, fail, innovate.

It’s still there, isn’t it.  Maybe deeper, covered by a load of good, bad, and indifferent stuff?  It can be uncovered, this dream of yours.  It may transform your job, or it may be something the income from your job finances.  There may or may not be an external reward.  The internal reward, the one which comes to you every day you get out of bed, is the satisfaction of of living your adventure.

* Sadly, for too many children in our world, dreaming and imagination is stolen at a very early age.  In his book Too Small To Ignore, Compassion‘s director Wess Stafford tells of his encounters with children in Haiti:

If you asked them to do the simplest thing, they would
respond, “M’pa kapab” (“I can’t” or “I’m not capable”).
… Another common phrase was “M’pa gagne” (“I don’t
have,” meaning “I don’t have anything you need or 
would want.”).

(Cartoon inspired by Hugh MacLeod)

Whenever you’re reading this in the day, have you had any time to reflect and be silent?

Did you hit the bedroom floor running, radio on, check emails and mobile, rush for the bus, scrape the ice off the car.

Has it stopped yet?

Are you still running?

I’m encouraging more reflection towards greater responsiveness whenever I get the chance.  Your emerging future depends on finding time to reflect, but I can’t tell you when or where or for how long.  That’s your adventure.  And it is an adventure; you wake up to it every day.

Maybe, just maybe, when you find that space and time, your days will begin to look different and you’ll wow us with your art, because you are identifying what you MUST do with the rest of your life, bringing more beauty into the world.

Do you read blogs which reinforce what you believe and do?

Or do you read blogs which are inspiring?

Maybe you read posts which encourage you to move?  Change your mind?  Read a book?  Join an action group?  Start something?  Deliver something?

I think most people want to do something meaningful for others with their lives.  Some wait for opportunities to come to them – some call it luck, others fortune.

Others know stuff the rest of us don’t appear to.  That is, to put in effort changes the game.  They realise with hard work and lots of practice, more “luck” or “fortune” or “opportunities” turn up.

And there’s another benefit.  If you wait for a break to come your way, the chances are you won’t recognise it or be able to grab it.   For those who work for the opportunities, there’s been loads of stuff which hasn’t worked – but they get better at seeing the opportunities – and, in the last year, though lots of things have failed, there’s been plenty that has worked – which means they’ve grabbed the opportunities.

I’d made myself a note to write a post about castors, after reading about d.school‘s practice of attaching castors to all their furniture, making it possible for them to move everything in their creative spaces (I read this in Make Space – a book I’m enjoying much).

It got me thinking about what would happen if we could add castors to our lives, making everything movable – the things we know, how we do things, where we go.

What would these castors be?  Reading something new (or old, sometimes, as Nassim Taleb encourages us), watching TED videos, getting together with others in conversations with purpose (check out the local Meetup possibilities), even getting up a little earlier in the day to get more done – all these and more are ways of adding wheels to our lives.

What do you think?

Skimming through the years –
Life is big and bright and bold
Deep down – beyond me

The design and innovation company Ideo asks the question Why? five times when it’s working on something.  They go deep.

When I was a volunteer assessor for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, I’d ask the driver to share a driving commentary with me.  The commentary allowed me to know how far ahead the driver was seeing, their readings of the instruments, and what they knew to be behind us.  The IAM takes drivers deeper.

What about your life?  If you’re always in a rush, are you  skimming, rather than going deep.

The problem is, life isn’t fulfilling when we skim.

The world’s problems aren’t solved when we skim.

Otto Scharmer (Theory U) suggests this way of living carries the mantra, I-in-me.  Me in my little world.  But I can stop skimming, suspending how I see and understand, becoming more curious, and then I find I can go deeper.

Now my living bears the mantra, I-in-it.  There’s a bigger world out there.  I’ve mentioned before how author Umberto Eco possesses a library of 30,000 books, most of which he hasn’t read, but they remind himself of how much he doesn’t know.  If I enter into the world of what I am observing, then I can go deeper still: to see and understand it from within.

Now my living mantra is I-in-you.   I begin to see something as you see it, how you comprehend it,and how it feels to you.  My world grows bigger still, and I begin to see emerging possibilities for how we can act, how I can act, which I couldn’t see before … and I go deeper still.

Now my living mantra is I-in-now.  I see how I can act and think and do.  I get to try things out (prototyping), and then produce what is meaningful and generous and hopeful.

So, going deep isn’t to get stuck in complexity but to find freedom.

Of course, it’s difficult and sometimes scary and the temptation is to keep on skimming, but to really live before we die, we have to go deep.

(Inspired by Hugh MacLeod’s Start Up)

Loanees of energy
Every day to shape – form
Play, skip, try, fail – boom

What are you going to do today that’ll be amazing?

You don’t have to wait until you have everything you think you need.  You have enough, right now.

You have something you’re passionate about.  It’s there, in your head and in your heart, every day.

It doesn’t have to be something big.  In fact small is good, very good.  It’s about movement.  When you’re moving, others will begin to move too.

David Kelley of IDEO charges us to ‘Fail often to succeed sooner.’

So, when you start something today, even if you fail, you’ll know more at the end of the day than you know right now.  To know this means you’re closer to succeeding at something that will take our breath away.  And, who knows, it might happen first time.

If you want the technical stuff to this, read on, and let me know what you think.

THE TECHNICAL STUFF, OR, THE ART OF PROTOTYPING

The stuff I do – dreamwhispering – is about listening for the things people’s lives are saying to them, but perhaps they can’t here.  It’s being curious about life, including, how there’s more to you than meets the eye, what you understand, and what you do.

I’ve mentioned Umberto Eco’s library of 30,000 books before; he hasn’t read them all, but they are a constant reminder to him of how much he doesn’t know.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi warns, ‘The rebirth of curiosity doesn’t last long, unless we enjoy being curious’ (Creativity).  Hence, my opening question is about what you’ll do today.

The universe is all about energy (from protons and electrons to Higgs bosons).  We are loaned some of this energy – being made up of the same “stuff” as everything else in the universe –  for seventy or maybe eighty years.  For a limited period only,  we have an incredible opportunity to shape and direct our energy into a life that matters, before we die and it loses this intelligent form, becoming part of the universe’s energy-store, or something more or different.

It makes so much sense to me, to speak of our Strengths as the things which energise us, and our Weaknesses as those things which de-energise.  So, what if there’s the possibility of living this one life with more energy?   And, what if this life will make a difference to others?  What kind of effect might a more energised life have on conflict and disease and illiteracy and hunger and all manner of needs in the world.

I know I’m on a journey to deeper seeing, understanding, and doing, meaning, to be more present to the world in which we live, to others, and to myself.  So often, I rush, I skim the surface more often than not.  As I seek to be more present, I see and understand there are more possibilities for life, what Otto Scharmer (Theory U) refers to as the emerging future, a future we get to shape with “foresight, intention, and love” (Alex McManus).  I think of this as the adjacent possibility (in truth, there are many), the realisation we can live everything we are right now, in a different direction.

Through this journey or process of presencing, we become clearer about the thing we MUST do.  The world will be changed by the people who realise there is something they MUST do.  But we mustn’t hold back until we feel ourselves read, we must begin experimenting, which returns us to the opening question, “What are you going to do today that’ll be amazing?”

We’re going to prototype.

Otto Scharmer suggests to us, ‘Prototyping is the first step in exploring the future by doing and experimenting’ (Theory U).

Principle 0.8 comes before version 1.0, because not everything’s ready or in place – but we have enough.

Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft describe how to shape creative space in their book Make Space, but they describe all prototyping:

Starting with what you have encourages you to start small,
move quickly, invest less, be visible to others, and build
momentum.’ (Make Space)

You don’t have to know everything.  Bob Goff introduced me to a sailing concept called “dead reckoning” which gives an approximate position: ‘The idea is a simple one. … It involves using your compass to take a bearing off a couple of fixed points and then drawing from each one to you in order to determine where you are’ (Love Does).  This provides a position within a 60 mile diameter, but to get started, this is enough.

Scharmer asked his friend Joseph Jaworski how we can remain connected to the emerging future, so whether we call this Principle 0.8 or prototyping, here are three things we can do.

First of all, Jaworski says, “you need to do it on an daily basis.  As a matter of fact, it’s the first thing you do when you get up in the morning.”  Figure out some way in your beginning of the day habits to reconnect with your passion, what you MUST do.

“The second thing you focus on is staying true and connected with that deeper intention all the time, throughout the whole day or week or year or even longer.”  Have ways and means of bringing this to mind throughout your day, and you’ll find it becomes first nature, fully integrated into who you are.

Thirdly, Jaworski counsels, we must “sense and seize opportunities as they arise.  When they arise, it usually is not exactly where you expect it to happen.  So you have to be totally attentive.”

(All of these quotes are from Theory U.)

I leave the final thoughts to the two Scotts, understanding our lives are the spaces they are describing:

Keep your space active by using it.  Visible signs of use
can encourage others to participate.  These traces of
excitement also signal new ideas.  Stagnant areas, piles
of unused materials, and unattended corners and closets
drag down the mood of a space. (Make Space)

In his book The Business of Belief, Tom Asacker tells of some studies relating to teachers’ perception of their students, how when the teachers  were led to believe their students were bright, it led to the students performing better.

Interesting.

It’s a story about believing.  Firstly, the believing of the teachers, and then the believing of their students.

You could say, the students had been learning underperformance.  But now the world is different.

Our growing understanding of what it means to be Human highlights a paradigm shift has taken place.

Yes, leaders have to believe in those they’re responsible for, but every one of us has the opportunity to encourage another to greater performance, and we simply don’t know how far people can improve.

If we don’t see this and believe this, then all we’re doing is encouraging underperformance.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more,
learn more, do more and become more, you
are a leader.”  (John Quincy Adams; The Business
of Belief)