The letting go

September 12, 2025September 16, 2025 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ Leave a comment

My two sons were both born in London. Ben was born just after midnight on a Tuesday in the middle of April, 2010, at St Thomas’ Hospital, right by the River Thames. As my wife and I cradled the chubby, spiky haired little human we’d created, we gazed out of the window and watched the sun come up over the Houses of Parliament on the other side of the dirty old river. I’ll never forget that morning.

As any of you who’ve had more than one child will appreciate, it’s a bit more hazy with the second one. I know Jack was born in Kings Hospital in South East London, at around 11ish, and I think it might have been a Wednesday but don’t quote me on it.

One thing I do remember is texting my dad to say we’d had a another boy [for both children we decided not to find out the sex in advance, simply because there aren’t many times in your life that you get a true, total, life-changing surprise, and we figured finding out if it’s a boy or a girl is one of them] and him texting back to say he already had three grandsons and had ordered a girl and could we take it back and get a refund?

I also remember three-and-a-half-year-old Ben meeting Jack for the very first time, holding him carefully in his lap and then quietly starting to cry. When we asked him what was wrong, he looked up from his little brother and, smiling through the tears, said

“I just love him so much”

Cue additional tears from all the surrounding parents and grandparents. And, I can tell you, cue his old dad reaching for a tissue as he writes this nearly 12 years later, with the sound of those two boys bickering about who’s turn it is on the Playstation just next door to where I’m sitting.

But anyway, this isn’t really about their respective births, believe it or not [although it was a nice excuse to dig out those pictures and show them to you, I’m sure you’ll agree]. It’s not even really about the fact that they were born in London and brought up in London for the first few years of their lives, but we’ll hover here for a bit if you don’t mind? [And even if you do mind, we’re going to need to do it anyway because it’s part of the narrative and so it’s kind of important. Not like this bit. Oh no, this is just a waste of time really – a deliberate detour designed to disrupt. Good bit of alliteration eh? I love the allure of alliteration, don’t you? Anyway this really is getting silly now: I’d skip to the next bit if I were you.]

I don’t know if you’ve ever driven around London, or been driven around London, but it’s pretty hectic. Not Bangkok tuk-tuk hectic, or Paris aggressively maniacal hectic, but hectic nonetheless.

I’m pretty good on a bike but at the time my wife would probably have been considered more of a ‘provisional’ bicycle rider, getting one of those big ‘P’ signs that nervous parents put on the cars of their all-too-confident new drivers in the UK.

Put those together and “family bike ride” was never going to be on the agenda really. So [feeling very guilty about it of course, because guilt and parenthood are such happy bedfellows] we didn’t get round to teaching them how to ride a bike until we moved out into the countryside,

[Isn’t it funny how riding a bike is one of those things that literally everyone is expected to learn how to do? Cycling and swimming, What exalted company bike-riding has been keeping! Not knowing how to swim could result in a tragic death by drowning headline in a local newspaper. Not knowing how to ride a bike could result in… having to walk for a bit? Maybe catching a bus? Yet if I met someone who couldn’t ride a bike, before I could stop myself I’d blurt out “you can’t ride a bike??” in an incredulous and slightly high-pitched voice like they’d told me they’d never learnt to tie their shoelaces or use a knife and fork.]

Do you remember learning how to ride a bike? I do. I remember being on the path at the back of our house with my dad [two mentions in one blog eh Dad? You’ll be feeling all spoilt!] doing that funny bent-over run, holding on to the back of the saddle until I’d picked up speed and then… has he let go?… I think he’s let go… I’m riding a bike!!

And then, of course, I’d probably got for a bit, wobble, then fall off and graze the skin of my knee on the hard gravel of the path.

But with our own boys we never quite got round to it. Always something easier and more relevant to do in old London town, of course. So it wasn’t until we’d got out of the “Big Smoke™️” that we started to think about getting it sorted.

And when we eventually did, bikes and padding and helmets all gleaming in the summer sunshine, I got to experience something I’d not experienced before:

“The letting go”.

Letting go of the back of the saddle with the knowledge [not the “fear”, please note Dear Reader, but the absolute certain knowledge] that whatever son I was holding onto would go for a bit, wobble, then fall off and graze the skin off their knee on the hard ground of the village cricket pitch which we’re fortunate to have just through the little gate at the end of our garden.

And with that, the knowledge our younger son – the same one you remember in the arms of his elder brother all those years ago – will go absolutely ape-shit and say he doesn’t want to ride a stupid bike anyway.

And the knowledge that you’re going to do it again, and again, and again, until he stops the wobble and fall off bit. Might not happen today, but eventually it will.

Cut to the present., and really the actual point of this particular ramble through the brambles on memory lane.

A good few months back now, I was talking to a senior copywriter at work [he’s left now but there’s a chance he might read this so “hello Andy mate!” just in case!], and we were sharing thoughts on the responsibility of managing people, and delegating, and getting the balance right between pushing forward and holding back; between freedom and support.

[Yeah yeah, I know, you’re way ahead of me here. I would expect nothing less from such an astute reader as your good self.]

And of course we ended up talking about parenting in general, and then specifically about that moment: the letting go.

Managing people is really all about that moment, or series of moments. Knowing when to give someone the extra space to work on a project or try something different or do the first draft of a piece of work with the knowledge that what you get back could be totally perfect first time, but the chances are it’ll need a little polishing here and there.

The most important part of this is what happens next, of course.

Let me ask you: what would have happened if, when one of the boys had fallen off, under the guise of protecting them but probably also just thinking it would be a lot quicker and easier, I’d just taken the bike and ridden it myself? I end up with a bad back from riding a bike too small for me, and they end up still unable to ride a bike [and, horror of horrors, having to walk instead. Anyway we’ve covered that haven’t we?].

Managing and delegation aren’t the same thing, but they’re interconnected. If you can’t delegate – really delegate, letting go again and again as people learn – then really you’re not managing. At best you’re stifling. At worst you’re doing what was once described to me as “seagull management”, where you fly around over the top of things and occasionally come down and shit all over everything [and presumably also steal some chips from a chubby kid in a pushchair, but I fear I may be following this particular analogy too far down the road]..

I’ve seen brilliant people who couldn’t get their heads around delegating properly, either out of a “I don’t have the time to explain it to someone else” lack of appreciation of time management, or a “I’ll do it myself because I’ll do it better anyway” lack of understanding of their responsibility in this situation. What happened to them, do you think? That’s right, they got stuck. If you can’t delegate, you can’t progress because you’re the do-er, not the person who gets the doing done.

I may, on occasion, have done this myself over the years. I know it sounds unlikely – I can hardly believe it myself to be honest – but I’ve even got myself stuck in the “I don’t have time to explain it all and only I know what’s going on and honestly it’s just easier if I just crack on and get things done myself” rut in the not-too-distant past. I’ve even managed to convince myself that it’s an act of service for other people, when it’s actually more like an act of performative martyrdom.

And we’ve all seen plenty of those, right?

“No honestly it’s fine. I’ll do it. You don’t need the hassle” etc etc.

So there are a number of things to take from all this, I guess. [Probably three in total, because things tend to end up in threes in these situations, don’t you find? I’ll start with the first and go from there, and we can see at the end if it was three in total after all. Exciting eh?!]

The letting go is a crucial part of learning. Whether we like it or not, failure is always the best way to learn. Retracing your steps till you know. Have no fear, your wounds will heal. [If you’re sitting there thinking “that sounds strangely familiar”, then a) well done you, and b) yes I have just accidentally on purpose drifted into the lyrics of the song “Failure” by the Norwegian folk-pop duo Kings of Convenience off their 2001 album “Quiet Is The New Loud”. If you haven’t you definitely should – Spotify link here. You are, as ever, most welcome.]
If you don’t give people the space for that learning and growth, they will never learn and grow. And you, my friend, will be stuck doing the stuff that they would have learnt to do, if you had let go. Which means you can’t do the other stuff that you want to do so you too can learn and grow.
No matter how experienced you are, the letting go never gets more comfortable, nor less important. In fact, the letting go actually protects you, by allowing perfectly capable others to support you. [It did end being three. I kind of knew it would be, didn’t you?]

That’s what I’ve rediscovered in recent months, like a comfy old jumper that’s fallen to the back of the palatial walk-in wardrobe in the East wing of your country retreat [I’m guessing here, but pretty confident that because you have the foresight and insight to be reading this you’re almost certainly one of the leading lights in your line of work. Or bloody should be, am I right?], that super soft woollen number which of course you haven’t worn for a while, but when you find it you know how comfy it’s going to feel as soon as you pull if over your head and ease your arms through the arm holes [is that the phrase for that part of a jumper? Doesn’t sound quite right, does it?] and so simultaneously you’re a bit annoyed you’d forgotten about it, but more than that you’re excited about its rediscovery and the familiar warmth to come [Sleeves! Of course, knew it’d come back to me eventually].

Funny how the fact that, despite knowing the right way to do all this stuff, you can so easily slip back into old, bad habits you know didn’t help last time.

Funny how you need to remember it all and sometimes learn it all again.

Funny how no matter how many times you’ve done it, it never gets much easier.

[Exactly not like riding a bike, come to think of it…]

And then… when you get it right… wow doesn’t it just feel great? Helping someone else to learn and grow has to be whole point of getting all the experience if you ask me. Passing on your knowledge and [dare I say it?] wisdom [yes I bloody dare!] and then getting to the point where you know and they know the time is now…

And once you’re there, you realise the letting go isn’t the end of the story; it’s the prologue for everything to come.

In celebration of silliness

August 30, 2025September 3, 2025 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ 2 Comments

I love being silly. LOVE IT. Always have. I got told off for being silly when I was little, then got told off for it when I got a bit older, which turned into getting into a decent amount of trouble for it when I was in my teens, and then, as I wandered into adulthood like a young gazelle wandering innocently into the open savannah without a care for the pride of lions on the near horizon, I found that my silliness was both a curse and a blessing.

A curse because, yes, it got me into some sticky spots, and made me seem less serious and more childish which, let’s be honest, some people find really, really annoying.

And a blessing because I found that my silliness connected me to other innately silly people in the world, a number of whom became friends for life; connected forever by the ability to lighten the mood by doing or saying something ridiculous. One of them I ended up married to: potentially the silliest decision she ever made.

It’s easy to see where that came from for me. My family was a family of jokes and teasing and fun and silliness, from top to bottom. There was always a joke to be had; a tease to be teased; a daft tale to be told. We didn’t necessarily always get on brilliantly all the time any more than any family do, but there’s no question we laughed, a lot, at things that were daft.

When I was young, whenever someone said “must admit”, we would shout “Pepper Paws”. Because… you know… “Mustard Mitt”… therefore “Pepper Paws”. I know, silly, right? I only found out that this wasn’t something that all families did when I was about 6 or 7 and my teacher said “I must admit” in class and I confidently shouted out “Pepper Paws” at the top of my voice and was sent to sit on the naughty chair for being “silly”

When my big sister [hey Sal!] and I were little we would go and stay with our grandparents (on my Mum’s side) in Richmond (SW London for those not acquainted with our capital’s leafy suburbs) for a couple of weeks in the summer holidays, and Grandpa would pretend to be a tiger and chase us around the house, up and down the stairs, for what felt like hours, with my sister and I screaming with a mixture of delirious joy, uncontrollable excitement and abject terror until Grannie would demand he stopped because it was nearly bedtime and it was all getting very “silly”

One day when I was maybe 10 or so, my mum came home with a cast on her arm, and told us all she’d slipped on some ice outside the hospital where she worked and broken it. All evening we made sure she was comfy and got her cups of tea and looked after her, and at one point I saw tears running down her face. “Don’t worry,” Dad said quietly to me, “she’s just in shock”. A few minutes later she pulled the fake cast off her arm and revealed they were tears of laughter which of course we all agreed was just “silly”.

And then I discovered silliness on the telly, and felt the connection which has continued to this day

Despite what the ever expanding wrinkles and white bits in the hair and beard might suggest, I’m much too young to remember Monty Python’s Flying Circus first time round, but it seemed to be on constant repeat when I was a kid. Popping up here and there is a character called The Colonel, a classic, stuffy British Army officer-type played by Graham Chapman, who would interrupt a sketch if it got “silly”.

My personal favourite appearance was a sketch about gangs of old ladies – Hell’s Grannies – “attacking fit, defenceless young men”. Obviously completely daft from the beginning, it brings in other, ever more “silly” ideas (a group of men dressed as babies kidnapping a 48-year-old man from outside a shop; vicious gangs of ‘keep left’ signs attacking a vicar) until The Colonel feels the need to step in.

Right! Stop that, it’s silly. Very silly indeed. Started off as a nice little idea about old ladies attacking young men, but now it’s just got silly!
The Colonel – Hell’s Grannies sketch by Monty Python

It was the silliness that made Monty Python, of course. You never really had a clue what would happen next, and the anticipation that creates makes the whole thing exciting. The folks from Monty Python didn’t invent silliness, but they took inspiration from radio shows like The Goon Show in the early 1950s [which, lest we forget, was an extremely sensible time in a post-war Britain run by people born when Queen Victoria was on the throne, and still reeling from the costs of the war on society and the economy] and broadcast it into every living rooms of the 70s and 80s. giving life to the surrealism of Vic Reeves & Bob Mortimer in the 90s and beyond to the likes of The Mighty Boosh.

[BTW, if you want to see something really, really silly, check out Vic and Bob as Donald and Davey Stott interviewing Sting via the link here – yeah that’s right: tantric, The Police, “Shape Of My Heart” Sting. It’s totally ridiculous]

Over the last couple of years I’ve re-discovered the original radio series of The Mighty Boosh set in a zoo called Bob Fossil’s Funworld and it’s as box fresh streamed today on Spotify [other streaming services were still available at time of writing] as it was when it came out two decades back. It doesn’t age because it always was completely mad.

The Mighty Boosh: Howard, Bollo the talking gorilla, and Vince.

Which is why kids today would still love Monty Python. Because a load of old grannies beating up young people will always be silly. Silly, silly, silly. It’s why my kids love The Mighty Boosh.

It’s all silly. Childish at times. Pointless and annoying to those who don’t like it, I’m sure. But I love it. LOVE IT.

My English teacher told me when I was 11 that “humour is incongruity”: when the thing you least expect happens and you can’t help but be surprised by the “what the hell was that?!” and then be delighted when you ‘get it’. Quite a lot for an 11-year-old but it’s stuck with me, and the idea that humour is incongruity is every joke, every punchline, every laugh you’ve ever had, right there.

Add in a sprinkle of silliness and you get a much deeper flavour to your humour.

Most “jokes” are formulaic really. And the vast majority of stand-up comedy is just a series of observations dressed up in a fairly predictable, never-actually-happened anecdote. It’s obvious. It’s conventional. Yet silliness [you can call it surrealism or absurdity if you want to go a bit more highbrow] is deliberate freedom from any convention; from expectations. There are no rules – apart from incongruity, perhaps.

Which is why silliness has such a strong connection to childhood. You can imagine someone being called a ‘silly boy’ but never a ‘silly man’ (or if they are, there’s a suggestion of childishness, immaturity, a lack of common sense) and that’s because despite there being plenty of rules about what to do when you’re a kid (bedtime, homework) there’s also so much more freedom in how you think.

Kids love being silly, and love it even more when adults are silly with them. You tell a 7-year-old you once jumped up so high you hit your head on the moon and came down with cheese in your hair and you’re in an absurd conversation that will last as long as you both want it to.

My younger son had his last day at primary school a couple of weeks back [I know, I can’t believe it either; another reminder of my ever-increasing age], and as tends to happen towards the end of term towards the end of primary school, it all got a bit loosely goosey in the last few weeks. The learning was all done, and things just became about making sure the kids had a good experience in their final days in the safe, loving bubble of being the oldest in the school before they were sent off to be the youngest in a much bigger, much less structured and much more scary school environment.

It was in one of these final weeks that I dropped him off, and as they were all lined up to go inside their teacher came out and they all started chatting with her and joking and you could tell how much they all really liked her. As I walked out of the playground, another parent and I were talking about that and came to the agreement that it was because whilst she was strict and stern when she needed to be, she also allowed them to be silly sometimes, and did that by being silly herself sometimes too. Allowing herself to play the fool enabled her to connect with the kids on their level, in a way that not all teachers do. In fact, in a way that some of his previous teachers definitely would not do, ever. So much so that you couldn’t really imagine them ever being anything other than strict and stern.

And I was left wondering – why do some adults keep hold of that silliness when others don’t? Why do some people put it away in a box in the attic along with their old school memorabilia, whereas some people just refuse to ever let it be out of arm’s reach?

I’m silly at least once a day I reckon. Just for the hell of it, more often than not. I might tell my wife that my legs are broken so unfortunately unable get the milk out of the fridge, for example. I might tell my kids that I’ve run out of “Cuddle Power”, which they know means I am totally paralysed until they come and give me a hug. If I believe I have been slighted whilst in public by one of my family, I may well stop totally still, put my head down to my chest and say “meh, meh, meh” in a sad voice over and over again until everyone is nice to me. It’s incredibly effective. And yes, you’re right, incredibly silly. Just this morning, as my wife was lying in bed, I stood at the end of the bed, pretended I was an Olympic high diver, went through all the prep and breathing and hands up in the air and then dived onto the bed and her.

A few years ago on a road trip through California I made up a character called Jerry who’s an old guy who used to be in the movies and is still in love with his former wife, Margie (or Marsha – it varies), but also has a crush on my actual wife. To this day, my younger son, Jack, will ask me if he can speak to Jerry, and now and then Jerry will pop out to say hello to the family. Jack once told me that of all the people in the world he knows, Jerry holds the joint gold medal position alongside me, his mum and his big brother. There was a point where Jerry was coming out on top.

Being silly with kids is a joy, because they immediately, instinctively ‘get it’. And with some kids you can find yourself in an impromptu improvisation where the only rule is you have just to build on whatever the last person said, no matter how silly: “yes, and…”

And I love being silly with fellow “grown-ups” too. Sometimes it’s slightly surprising but the incongruity of it – particularly in lives bound by so many societal and social conventions – brings back a childishness and suddenly we’re all kids again. Thinking about it, all my strongest relationships have a foundation of silliness; the comforting certainty that we can be as deliberately idiotic as we like, without judgement or boundaries.

Funnily enough, I find that elderly people enjoy silliness too. Perhaps it’s because, like children, they are more free – from the pressures of work, the worries of looking after their own children. Watch a grandfather (or, if you’re lucky, a great-grandfather) with his young (great-) grandkids and it’s like there’s no adult there at all.

Gramps back on the see-saw for the first time in 60 years

Yet we all know so many “grown-ups” who eschew silliness in all its forms. Hell, I even knew a lot of kids growing up who would sneer at something being “just silly”, without ever getting that was the whole point. People who are always serious and ‘businesslike’ [like business doesn’t actually need freedom to think and humour to raise the spirits?!] and for whom silliness is just… well… silly.

And trust me: I have not a single doubt in my tiny mind that all the above will not only sound “silly” to some people, but actually really annoying. Unbearable, actually. I’ve met some of them over the years. People who find me really, really childish and irritating. That’s okay: I’m aware that I’m not for everyone. But even if I wanted to change to be less silly to keep those people on the Bartlett Train, I’m really not sure I’d be able to. And, as you might have gathered, I don’t want to. I love being silly. LOVE IT.

I believe that people choose to leave silliness behind because they don’t think there’s a place for it in the adult world. But I also believe it’s still in there somewhere, waiting to be found again like that old band t-shirt/stripy dress/straw hat/banana costume [delete as appropriate] you used to wear all the time but had been shoved behind the sham and drudgery of broken dreams in your second drawer down.

It’s still in there because the child you once were is still part of you. In fact, there are even a couple of bits of you that haven’t even grown since you were born – the cornea of the eye and part of the inner ear. So you see and hear with the same exact bits as that kid you used to be. You can be them again, with a little bit of silliness now and then.

So go on, give it a try. You don’t have to start big. Maybe just try out a silly walk, on your own. Pull a silly face in the mirror. Hey, you can just think something silly when you’re in a “grown-up” conversation, and you’re in it.

And you’ll find that silliness is a unique combination of freedom from convention and the incongruity that creates humour.

A generous helping of liberty with a side order of laughter? Tell me you don’t fancy some of that, and I’ll tell you not to be so silly.

Sorry (again)

November 23, 2024September 3, 2025 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ Leave a comment

A little while ago I wrote some words around the idea of saying sorry; or more specifically the incredible power that the word “sorry” has to take the wind out of the sails of indignation, and deflate the balloon of conflict. Used judiciously it can be the one and only perfect word right at the best possible time. Over the years I’ve learnt the fact that actually saying “I’m sorry” (whether verbally or in writing) can be all that’s needed. It’s a chance to move on.

But I’ve got some bad news for you, I’m afraid. I haven’t been judicious with my use of this most valuable of words. No, I’ve been scattering sweet sorry around like popcorn in a cinema, not minding if it drops on the floor or hits the mark or just sticks to my jumper like a limpet on an old boat, waiting to be spotted as I walk out into the brighter light of the foyer, and only then being popped into my mouth as though nothing more normal could have happened.

[Is popcorn the only food you happily eat off your own clothing? I reckon it is. If you can think of anything else please send me a postcard about it…]

Sometimes a week at work can sound like an endless stream of apology, regret and self-flaggelation.

Sorry.

Sorry I don’t understand.

Sorry I have to jump to my next meeting.

Sorry I’m late, my last meeting ran over.

Sorry I didn’t see your message.

Sorry I didn’t reply to your message.

Sorry I didn’t have a chance to reply to your message sooner.

Sorry I can’t make that time, I’ve got a conflict.

Sorry I don’t have that information.

I am so utterly and completely sorry I’m not sure I deserve the gracious response you’re going to give. I have let you down, and I have let myself down. I am bereft.

A couple of weeks ago I caught myself saying sorry for not having been able to watch the recording of a meeting that I’d already said sorry for not having been able to make because I was already in another meeting.

[Who decided this was okay, by the way? “Can’t make a meeting because you’re too busy? Don’t worry, you can catch up with everything (without being able to input, of course) by watching the video of the meeting in your own time”. Time, remember, that you didn’t have to attend in the first place. A meeting, remember, for which you were deemed relevant enough to be asked, but not so relevant that the meeting gets rescheduled to get your input. I guess if the meeting can go on without your input… you actually weren’t really all that needed in the first place? Anyway, I digress. Sorry]

My excuse for such horror? Such abject degradation? Why, pray tell, had I failed so completey?

Because I had taken a couple of days off to spend time with my family over school holidays. At the time at which the meeting had been scheduled, I was probably on a beach in West Wales, hand-in-hand with my beloved wife, lazily kicking a football back to one of my incredible sons, throwing sticks into the surf for the amazing Ruby [Ruby is a dog, in case you’re wondering].

And yet I’m sorry. Really?

In the midst of a busy life within, let’s be honest, a pretty busy world right now, it’s not just my working week which is awash with woe: it’s my personal life too.

Sorry I missed your call.

Sorry I haven’t got back to you.

Sorry I can’t do that date.

Sorry I can’t make the gym tomorrow.

Sorry for the radio silence.

Sorry I’ve not been a bit grumpy recently.

Sorry.

Ring any bells?

I wonder how many times a day you say sorry? I bet if you counted it you’d be shocked.

And the most shocking thing about all of these?

Very few of the times we say sorry is there anything we could possibly have done to avoid the situation. Saying sorry, time and again, for things that aren’t actually our fault,

I get that some of this is politeness and manners. We’re showing that someone else might, in some way, have been inconvenienced, or worse for those who love us and whom we love, might have been concerned in some ways: for our wellbeing, or even worse for the health of the relationship.

And, of course there’s the added social anxiety of simply being British: us Brits already say sorry if someone bumps into us, for crying out loud; now we’re sorry for not having had a chance to read the pre-read before the prep meeting before the actual meeting…

So yes, there’s an element of awareness of the situation and potential impact it may have had on others.

But I wonder, in vast majority of these situations does anyone actually need a full blown “sorry“?

As I’ve mentioned before in these pages, on a Friday morning before work I try to go for a walk in the woods just over the road from my front door, accompanied by my good friend Joe from down the road [Hello Dr B!] and the aforementioned Ruby.

We try [a broad brushstroke of a word, with wide-reaching edges from active to passive, insincere to heartfelt] to do this every week, but we’re both busy boys and so it doesn’t happen as often as we’d both like it to. And for a couple of months this year, it dropped off completely. Every time, one or other of us would say sorry we couldn’t make it for some reason or other.

When next we met, we set off on one of the many routes we can take, and started to talk as we usually do.

And as we walked and talked, we both found ourselves apologising for not having done this sooner.

Which caught my friend’s attention. He pointed out that the things that had meant we couldn’t go on a walk together – something we both enjoy and look forward to – weren’t actually our fault at all. It had been because of the demands of working life, or the responsibilities of home life, or actually because one of us had been ill. Apologising on behalf of a bloody virus. Sorry but that’s ridiculous isn’t it? [See what I did there? Another pernicious little sorry, this time with the magic “but” which actually means you’re not sorry at all, yet still it pops out almost as a reflex…]

So we pledged that we wouldn’t say sorry to each other for not being able to walk together any more. Neither of us were to blame, and we both recognised it.

That communal commitment has stuck with me, And damn it if it hasn’t actually made it from a theoretical “that would be a good thing to do” into the more intentional, and more definite “I am doing this.”

[That’s actually quite an important shift; particularly, perhaps, for someone with a brain like mine. Someone like me. Me, basically. Part of the discipline I’m trying to bring into my life is acting on my ideas and instinct and ideology, and training myself to actually do what I say. So instead of “I’m thinking of writing a book about how someone can hack ADHD to fulfill their leadership potential”, I’ve switched to saying “I’m writing a book on Hacking ADHD for Leadership”. True story, Bit scary to make that shift, but it’s almost like that itself is a little hack. Oh, I’m writing a book am I? Best crack on with it. Don’t worry I’ll make sure you get a mention in the acknowledgements.]

And so I’ve stopped saying sorry as a default, for things that aren’t my fault. To to bring sorry back from the brink of being totally meaningless.

Sorry needs to mean something, or it means nothing.

And most of the time we say “sorry”, we’re actually not sorry at all really.

I read something recently that suggested replacing “sorry” with “thank you” in the work instances…

Thanks for waiting.

Thank you for your patience.

Thanks for the reminder.

I reckon those would do nicely for a whole load of those times when you overuse “sorry” in work, right? Not a massive shift in politeness, but a shift in energy for sure.

Okay, it might not be as as appropriate with friends you’ve not been in touch with [“thanks for your patience, I would now like to go for that aforementioned coffee”], but if you just tell them the reason you dropped off the radar a bit is because you’ve been been totally overwhelmed recently so the idea of making contact hasn’t managed to move from a vague idea to something more active, despite the fact that speaking to them might have been the best possible thing [true story], I’m pretty sure they’ll get it. They don’t need a “sorry” from you.

Why don’t you try to do the same? Reserve “sorry”, with all its truth and power, for the moments when you need its truth and power? For when it was your fault, and you want to make amends?

Because when it’s not your fault, it’s not really your place to be sorry, and it’s so desperately draining to be sorry all the time, right? Politeness be damned: a world of contrition is no place to live.

For what it’s worth, I think you’re actually doing bloody well under the circumstances, with that deadline and that target and those responsibilities and that tricky relationship and those thoughts you have sometimes and these difficult times and that bloody orange bloke back again.

You’re showing up as you need to, and being who you need to be for whomever’s in front of you.

You’re making the right decisions based on the information you have at the time, as you always have.

You’ve given the love you can to the people who deserve it.

So please, don’t go around being sorry for the little things that weren’t your fault. Be proud of the important little things you’re doing, every day,

And as I leave you here, I will simply say sorry that this was perhaps a little long, and sorry I didn’t finish writing it last week when I planned to, and sorry that I didn’t put my clothes away before I had to leave to take Jack to his football match this morning like I promised I would.

This last one is really only relevant for one specific reader to be honest, and I’m not sure she always reads this. Sorry to have wasted your time reading it.

Until next time. Thanks for your patience.

Eating last and the oxygen mask

September 23, 2024September 30, 2024 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ 2 Comments

Imagine the scene: after a misspent youth of considerable privilege, you’ve made the dubious decision to set off on a treacherous trek to walk across Antarctica. You’ve done this because that’s what intrepid gentlemen like you (with too much money and not enough people telling them to maybe just go for a walk in the woods or play the piano or do something which might improve the world rather than just improve the stories you can regale people with at the gentlemen’s club in bustling London town) tend to do at this particular point in history.

Yes that’s right, it’s the start of the 20th century, and people are doing quite a lot of stuff like this, putting flags in places a very long way away from where they (or indeed the flags) are from.

And wouldn’t you know it: because you’ve ignored the very sensible advice (given to you by people who know more about this than you do) that you really shouldn’t go at this time of year, instead going with the arrogance of aristocracy and the impetuosity of youth, as it turns out you haven’t even got anywhere near where you’re meant to be going to start the trek… and you’re already stuck in the ice.

Oh, and it’s not just you, either. It’s you and a bloody big boat and a crew of around 80 men. Men who are all, like you, going to die here unless you do something about it.

The more historically aware of you will have gathered here that this is the start of one of the great stories of leadership, as it happens,

It’s a story I knew vaguely but got to know in more detail on the back of the teaching of the inimitable Nancy Koehn, a Harvard professor who I had my own privilege of learning from over a number of years of a leadership programme I was on; the story of Earnest Shackleton, and his ill-fated trip in the winter of 1912 which ultimately got him famous anyway, just not for any of the reasons he was thinking.

As you may have deduced from my slightly sarcastic and mocking tone, I have a sense that I would have found Mr Shackleton something of a “dick”, Over-indulged, overbearing and hugely over-confident in his own overwhelming brilliance.

Yet when the shit hit the proverbial fan [not sure which proverb if I’m honest, but you get the idea] I can’t deny he did step up. He and a small group of his closest crew made the decision to take a boat about the length of a full size snooker table and travel across one of the most treacherous straights of water in the world.

Shackleton and his chums setting off on the boat to find help

Of course, on a small boat they could only take a small amount of food, because they didn’t know how long it would take and anywhere there was next to nothing left for the others. So along the way, they almost starved.

And in this maelstrom, this crucible of leadership, the self-important, even self-obsessed Shackleton turned into the archetypal servant leader. To the extent that when they did eat, he waited till everyone else had eaten, and had a little bit of what was left over.

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “leaders eat last”, there’s a good chance that this is where that originally came from.

It’s since been taken up by “thought-leaders” and wrapped up into the concept of the ‘servant leader’, and championed in an effort to leave behind (at very long last) the old, outdated idea of leader who ate first, took most of what was available, and left the little people the scraps.

In my view, that’s a “good thing”. We’ve all worked for the old style of leader in our time: a leader who has believed their own hype and has somehow managed to get to a position where they are responsible for the working lives of a load of people… whilst not actually giving a single fuck about people. I’ve never quite understood how people like this get to positions of leadership, when for me leadership has always been less about the leading and more about understanding and inspiring the people whom you’re hoping will follow (in one sense or another).

I once had a boss who would say “don’t stay too late” as they swanned out of the office on time, every day, leaving me and my fellow menial workers looking down the barrel of another evening of emails and amends.

I once had a boss who started a big meeting with “I know we say that this is a people-first business… but we all know that the money really comes first, am I right?”

I once had a boss who would tell people how loyalty was their biggest weakness, but never hesitated to throw people under the proverbial bus [again, no actual proverb I’m aware of] to protect their reputation or cover up their crackpot ideas that hadn’t worked.

Perhaps I’ve inadvertently landed on something here… these were the “boss” rather than a leader. People didn’t follow them through any sense of shared values or direction. People worked for them because they were the boss.

Bosses eat first. Leaders eat last.

And yet…

I’m sitting on another plane as I write this bit. Another trip over from our little island to a much bigger expanse of land, which takes next to no time and yet takes me to a place where people speak a different language and use different money and drive on the wrong side of the road.

And just like every other time, right before we took off the flight attendant people stood in the middle of the aisle in their flight attendant costumes and did the little flight attendant synchronised routine with the exits [could be behind you, remember] and the lights on the floor bit and the life vest and that bit about the oxygen mask…

“Always put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.”

Here’s hoping we never have to remember how to do it for real

We’ve all heard it so many times that it almost ceases to have true meaning and just becomes a phrase that we hear but done engage with, like “always read the label” or “see terms and conditions for details”. Yet at the same time we all understand the sense of it. If you don’t put your oxygen mask on, you might not have the oxygen you need to breathe, and then you won’t be helping anyone at all. Including yourself.

So how do we pull these obviously disparate, seemingly credible, yet mutually exclusive ideas together? Where do you find the happy medium between eating last and the oxygen mask?

Perhaps it’s to do with understanding the difference between food and oxygen, in these two metaphorical instances.

Without oxygen, you won’t make it to mealtime. It doesn’t matter who’s eating what if haven’t put in the basic step of “breathing” in place in order to be in a position to manage the fact that there might be a food shortage.

So whilst the ‘eating last’ is about others, the ‘oxygen mask’ is about your relationship with yourself, or indeed your ‘self’ [see what I did there?].

I’ve not always been good at my own oxygen. On occasion I’ve been too busy thinking about other people’s oxygen, or food, or whatever, to breathe or eat myself. It’s left me burnt out and shattered more than once. I’ve had to work really hard to learn about where my oxygen comes from, and I’ve had to be really disciplined to make sure I get enough of it. Because I know that it’s all very well making sure people are fed and watered but I’m not going to be any use to anyone if I’m lying on the floor with my lips turning blue.

I get oxygen from spending time with my wife, making each other laugh or just catching each other’s gaze at the right moment. I get oxygen from hanging out with one or other of my sons, sharing ideas and jokes and stories as they grow bigger and brighter every day.

I get oxygen from seeing live music, from walking in the woods with my dog, from going to my yoga therapy or to the gym, from laughing foolishly with my friends. I get oxygen from playing the piano (badly) and even from writing this blog every now and then.

And I know now that I have to get enough of these things, in whatever combination they may come up, before I go off into the world to be the leader who eats last.

So let me ask you this:

Do you know what your oxygen is?

Do you know the things that feed your soul, and give you the emotional and psychological energy to face whatever needs facing?

I think you probably do, if you think about it. I think you could probably put together a list that covers a bunch of them without much thought, actually.

Maybe it’s gardening, or building things. Maybe it’s making marmalade. Maybe it’s walking quietly by a body of water.

I’ll tell you what it isn’t though: it’s not scrolling through social media, or watching mindless TV programmes. As much as you may like it, it’s not even binge-watching the latest mini-series. These are the defaults, and whilst they might be low-energy-enjoyable, the things that really fill your soul aren’t the default things in life. They’re the things you know you get a lot from but perhaps don’t do as much as you could because you’re in default mode, going day to day with a million things to think about and a million other things waiting in the wings.

And here I find myself in the position where I’m a little conflicted. Because as much as I feel genuinely honoured by the fact that anyone reads this stuff [let alone someone as amazing as you] I also know that this isn’t really your oxygen, either.

So do me a favour. When you get to the end of this bit, close this link. Put down your phone or tablet or computer or whatever you’re reading this on, and take a moment to think about your oxygen, and what one thing you’re going to do tomorrow to get the big, deep, satisfying breath that you didn’t know you needed until you’ve done it.

I’ll do the same, actually. We can compare notes next time we talk.

All together now…

B R E A T H E

[p.s. First off, I thought I just suggested you should go off for oxygen, not stick around here to read a pointless post-script? But hey, if you’re ignoring that advise until you’re goddam good and ready (and I celebrate that stubborn refusal to do as you’re told, you little rebel you), let me bring you into a little secret.
When writing these pieces I usually add the title last, as often I’m not really 100% sure exactly what I’m going to write about until it comes out of my brain box, down some internal wiring and into my fingers, onto the keyboard and then through some more wires onto the screen, and then (and I think I’m right here) into some magic and then a cloud and then onto your screen, into your eyes and right up to your brain box. I get the sense that this isn’t exactly shocking to any of my regular readers as, let’s be honest, it always comes across as less of a planned piece of journalism and more like a stream of consciousness from someone with ADHD. Which, of course, it is.
But anyway, writing the title to this little piece, I was really quite pleased with the not-quite-rhyme of it, and I’m thinking that if I ever get round to releasing an album of music so original, so genre-defying, that it completely changes the whole trajectory of music as we know it, I might use this as the title of that debut album. You heard it here first. Please don’t let anyone else know if they will definitely nick the idea and I’ll know it was you. Don’t worry, i promise I’ll let you know when you can pre-order.
Right, now I mean it – off you go. Oxygen time.]

The Oak Tree

May 24, 2024May 24, 2024 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ 1 Comment

I planted an oak tree a couple of weeks ago. I’ll come on to why I had an oak tree to plant in a bit, but I was surprised how interesting the planting turned out to be. Because quite unexpectedly, the very act of kneeling down out at the front of my house on the edge of a little village in the South East corner of our little country and planting a little 6-inch tree in the soil attracted more attention than usual from the usual stream of passers-by.

To give you a bit of context, I live right on the edge of a big forest, and the path into said forest is right over the road from my front door, and on a sunny Sunday like we had that particular weekend, there are always a fair few people who park up in the village to wander into the woods, perhaps walking their dog, perhaps walking their kids [we all know that kids need the energy running out of them just as much as any dog], or perhaps just walking themselves with their friends, and they all go past the front of my house.

And so when I’m out there of a weekend doing classic middle-aged man things like tidying the hedge or putting stuff in the back of the car to take to the tip [our British word for the local recycling centre, and a mainstay of classic weekend activity for those of you who aren’t Brits and are wondering what I’m on about] or taking Jack [10-year old human male] to football training or Ben [14-year-old human male] to rugby training or Ruby [3-year-old canine female] for a walk [yes, this is the rock-n-roll lifestyle I lead] I often end up in a lot of smalltalk chitchat “lovely weather we’re having” conversations with strangers.

More than I’d ideally like, if I’m honest, because in my heart of hearts I’m not really quite as outgoing and gregarious and social as I might seem. [I’ve discovered over the years that I’m what can be described as an “extroverted introvert”, in that I’ll happily talk to anyone and everyone but I’ll also resent the fact that I have to and will be exhausted from the energy the interaction requires. But that feels like another blog…]

This time, though, it was different.

For a start, virtually everyone who came past felt the urge to point out to me what I was doing, mostly with a mixture of surprise and delight in their voice:

Oh, you’re planting an oak tree!

[Which actually doesn’t happen that often, when you think about it. It’s not often complete strangers totally succumb to the urge to tell you what you’re doing at the time. Imagine how odd the world would be if they did. “You’re walking down the street”. “You’re sitting on a train”. It would end up feeling like you were in some weird kids’ TV show where adults dressed in primary colours point out the blindingly obvious to an audience of tiny, no-nothing humans.]

And then, as a follow-up, virtually everyone would say something about how long it would take to grow, often with a bit of low level comedy in there:

I’ll have to come back in 30 years to see how it’s going.

That’ll look lovely in 100 years!

Quite a few people talked about their own mortality…

I won’t be around to see that fully grown…

Or indeed, about mine:

That’ll be one for your grandchildren to enjoy!

When the first person stopped and pointed out that I was, indeed, planting an oak tree and that yes, it would be a long time until it was fully grown, I said something along the lines of…

“They say that the best time to plant an oak tree is 100 years ago, and the second best time is today!”

…which got a great reaction, and so I basically recycled versions of that same line over and over with everyone who came past, honing my delivery each time, every new set of people blissfully unaware that they had unknowingly wandered into my perfectly curated and planned out set-piece interaction where I knew what they would say and what I would say before anyone said anything, all people playing their parts perfectly, my supporting actors never knowing that they weren’t the first to point out what I was doing, or experience the seemingly off-the-cuff remembering of an old quotation.

I knew I’d picked that line up from somewhere, but because I couldn’t remember where and because the people I was talking to probably wouldn’t know either, by the end I was making out it was a famous quotation which I knew and making up who had said it. Thomas Jefferson sounded realistic, as did Benjamin Franklin [not sure why the American forefathers leapt to mind, but I vaguely remember something about one of them chopping down a tree and then lying about it… or not lying about it… or some such thing; if you’re from that side of the ocean perhaps you can enlighten me!], and Lord Byron, for some reason, and then of course you can always drop in Churchill because all quotations sound like they come from him.

[As it happens, having put an appropriate amount of effort into researching this, it turns out it’s none of them: it’s actually (as far as I can ascertain, anyway) from an old Chinese proverb, and it’s not about an oak tree specifically, it’s about trees in general, and it’s not 100 years, it’s 30 or 20, depending on where you look. But as Mark Twain/Ernest Hemingway/Jonathan Swift/etc might or might not have once said: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story”.]

And so, as the sky started to bruise and late afternoon made its lazy way towards early evening, I kept myself occupied with making up new attributions for this “quotation” and had a bunch of very small, but very enjoyable and (for me, at least) playful little interactions, all ending with an “enjoy your walk” from me and a variation on “enjoy your tree!” from them.

[I tell a lie: there was one more negative exception which proved the rule: a very prim and proper woman who took the time to point out that because of where I’d planted it, in 50 years time “that tree” would be getting in the way of the electricity and telephone wires criss-crossing above and I should perhaps plant it somewhere else. Knowing me as you do, dear reader, you will be most proud and a little surprised to hear that I didn’t simply say “oh sod off you grumpy old bag”, but instead said that in 50 years the tech would have moved on and there probably wouldn’t be wires above and anyway I’d be long dead by then and it wouldn’t be my problem to worry about. Which, considering she was maybe 25 years older than me, probably gave her a little jolting reminder of her own mortality and, perhaps, made her consider whether being such a naysayer was really how she wanted to spend her Autumn years. But we didn’t get into that next conversation because by that point it was clear we weren’t going to be friends anyway.]

And as I stood back, brushing the soil from my hands and admiring my handiwork – this funny little baby tree in the middle of a patch of grass, containing every piece of genetic information it needed to become a huge oak towering over the house – I had quite a deep feeling of accomplishment, and even a little pride.

I’m someone who plants an oak tree, with the knowledge that I won’t be here to see its majesty. It felt like a pure act of altruism, of outward-looking connection to the future. To people I’d never know, who would never know that I planted this tree, all those years ago.

Perhaps, in 60 or 70 years’ time, my own sons might visit the village in which they grew up, perhaps bringing their own grandchildren, or great-grandchildren even, and say “I remember when my dad planted that tree”. And they could all point out that as it turned out it had really got in the way of all the electricity cables and made a right mess of things, and remember how the great power cut of 2078 that had all been traced back to me planting that very tree back in 2024…

Last Sunday, I have to say, they were both pretty underwhelmed. But they could see I was chuffed to bits with it so they kept their lack of enthusiasm to grunts of “it’s not very big” and “is that it?” and we left it at that.

So why, I hear you cry? Why was I planting an oak tree, of all things?

Good question. Well done you. There are a few reasons, and they probably make the most sense if I explain them in reverse order…

This little oak tree had actually been living in my house for a few weeks by the time it eventually got to experience the wild wonders of the world, but had arrived just before the twentieth day of the third month of this year which I’m sure you will have spotted is indeed my birthday.

If you’re also wondering why it took so long to plant it, well that’s symbolic of how my brain works – an often constant cycle between “I must do that important thing” followed by a gap, followed by a reminder and “shit I forgot to do that important thing” and then a gap and then repeat. A cycle between frustration and guilt and self flaggelation which is only broken by actually just doing the important thing which often doesn’t even take that long once I get down to it.

This is how it was with our oak tree. When it arrived it was just a little twig with roots in a bit of soil in a little plastic bag within a little hessian draw-string bag, and it sat on the windowsill in the kitchen [you know, the one behind the kitchen sink, by the window]. Every time I noticed it again, perhaps once a week or maybe a little more often, I’d go through the cycle of self flagelation above and give it a little drink from the kitchen tap, and think “definitely this weekend”. Then I’d forget all about it until the next time.

But this is an oak tree, remember? These things last for hundreds of years, and a few weeks being forgotten about by some bloke with a fuzzy brain wasn’t going to stand in the way of that.

So it grew leaves anyway. Beautiful, perfect little oak tree leaves like the ones you’d get if you googled “oak tree leaves”. Leaves of life, and determination. Leaves that demonstrated that this was a living thing, demanding to be planted so the roots living in a hessian draw-string bag could dive down deep into the earth to find their own water source.

Putting together all this information, and if you’re not only observant but also somewhat sleuth-like, you may well have worked out that this little oak tree friend of ours was indeed a birthday present.

The next question your inquisitive mind might ask could be “why on earth would someone buy you an oak tree sapling as a birthday present?”

Well, this particular oak tree was a surprise present from the person who’s been coaching me for the last couple of years, another Sarah in my life [alongside my wife and my big sis], who lives on the the other side of the world in Australia. And when she sent me an oak tree, she knew that I would know the meaning behind that gift.

Which takes me right back to the chronological start of this (surprisingly long) tale.

If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that I’ve had my struggles with mental health over the years, and you’ll also know that I’m now thinking that some of those struggles could well be connected to undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, which I had diagnosed and then treated from last year.

So over the years I’ve occasionally found myself right in the middle of the deep dark forest [you can jump into the Ted Lasso story around that idea here if you feel the need], where everything seems tough and scary and you don’t know which way to turn. You know how that feels too, I’m sure. I hope you’re not in there right now.

But as Coach Lasso pointed out, fairy tales do not begin, nor do they end, in the deep dark forest. “That son-of-a-gun always shows up smack-dab in the middle of a story”. Things do get better, and things do work out.

What I’ve found is that it’s not until you start to find your way out, coming out into the open air, seeing the sky and the clouds and the sunlight, that things start to get some context.

I’ve also found that there is a huge temptation, at that point of being able to look back, to curse the forest for all its darkness and danger and discomfort.

And that’s where the oak tree changed things for me, and why it’s become such a theme for me, and why Sarah gave me an oak tree for my birthday, and why planting it meant more to me than it would have if I had planted a beech, or ash, or horse chestnut.

Because the oak tree doesn’t represent the forest. The oak tree isn’t the forest, or part of the forest. The Oak Tree is a poem.

[Listen, if you’re sitting there reading this and thinking “oh for crying out loud, what is he banging on about”, or possibly words with the same meaning but with more expletives, then I get it. I wouldn’t blame you if you decided that you’ve had enough of this story which started with some amateur horticulture and has ended up here, talking poetry. It’s been quite a journey to this point, I grant you. But going through the forest often means you need to take some strange turns along the way, right? So stick with me. It’s worth it, I promise.]

It’s a poem that my yoga teacher, Lucy, read out during one of our yoga therapy sessions just as I was coming out of a deep dark forest of my own. It’s called, simply, The Oak Tree, and it goes like this:

The Oak Tree

A mighty wind blew night and day
It stole the oak tree’s leaves away
Then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark
Until the oak was tired and stark

But still the oak tree held its ground
While other trees fell all around
The weary wind gave up and spoke,
“How can you still be standing Oak?”

The oak tree said, “I know that you
Can break each branch of mine in two,
Carry every leaf away,
Shake my limbs, and make me sway.”

But I have roots stretched in the earth
Growing stronger since my birth
You’ll never touch them, for you see
They are the deepest part of me.

Until today, I wasn’t sure
Of just how much I could endure
But now I have found, with thanks to you
I’m stronger than I ever knew.”

It’s that last verse that got me. The idea that I could look back not with horror of what I’d come through, but with gratitude for what it showed me about myself, was brand new to me.

I’m sure that you, like me, have the tendency to look back at difficult times and revile them. Perhaps you’ve even put a whole calendar year in a box marked “CRAP” and now you talk about it like it something real and evil rather than just the social construct that it was. 2023 sucked, right?

Whatever the situation you experienced [the one you’re thinking about right now, for example], whether it was a difficult friendship, or a toxic work environment, or a bereavement, or a break-up, or just the end of an era, the urge is there to put it in a neat little box and then burn that box in the eternal fires of Hades because the wind was battering you and your branches were breaking and your leaves got carried away and you were swaying all over the place and you just want to forget about it.

But here you are. You made it from then, which seemed so huge and impassable and desperate, to now. And like it or not, you learnt something along the way.

About your values.

About your friends.

About what’s really important to you.

About yourself, and what you can endure.

It feels a bit unfair perhaps, but you don’t get to learn those things when you’re wandering carefree through the meadows. You only get to learn those things when you’re being tested. So whilst you may not feel like it now, perhaps one day you might even look back with a kind of gratitude, for showing you those things.

For showing you just how deep your roots go.

I’m not saying that’s an easy shift. But once made, it’s a shift that can release some of the tension you’ve built up around those more difficult times. It certainly allowed me to shift the way I look at the bad things that happen. Bad things will always happen. Of that there can, I’m sorry to say, be no doubt. But how you look back on them? That, dear reader, is always up to you. You didn’t get to decide what happened. But you do get to decide what place these things occupy in your mind, and what energy you give them. You do have choices now.

Me? I chose to plant an oak tree, to symbolise all these things. Time moving inexorably on from a made-up, one-sided story we tell ourselves about the past, through the reality of right now, towards another fantasy which we call the future. My own mortality within that. Friendship and support. Trials and tribulations. Resilience, and choices. My own roots. Stronger than I ever knew.

Not bad for a 6-inch high twig with a dozen or so leaves.

What got you here won’t get you there

March 22, 2024March 19, 2024 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ Leave a comment

I started a new job recently. First time in the best part of a decade that I’ve been the ‘new kid on the block’, and this time, I’m far from being a kid, too. The “new middle-aged man with white in his beard that makes him look like one of his parents was a badger… on the block” might be closer to the mark. If a little less punchy, and almost infinitely less likely to be used as the basis of a boy band name as a result…

A long time ago, I stumbled across a book called “What got you here won’t get you there”. The idea of this [or at least my recollection of it in the dusty corner of my feeble memory] is that whenever you move into a new job, or new role, or any new situation in life really, you have to let go of some of the specific things that actually got you into that new job or new role or new situation. An interesting thought, and one that I’ve kept with me since. So every time my job has changed, I’ve been quite deliberate in considering what were the things that got me that move, and what of those might be things I need to actively decide to leave behind rather than bring with me.

Sometimes that can be really hard. Over the years I’ve seen a number of people really struggle when they move from being the person who knows everything to being the person who can’t possibly know everything any more but has a team of people who do. That reassessment of what an individual has come to think of as their “value” can be jarring, and scary, and bloody difficult. I’ve seen people who never quite made that leap of faith, and ended up lost in the middle, never taking the half step away, and ending up in a limbo world of micro-management which limited them and frustrated the team around them.

But sometimes it’s gloriously easy because really you know that what go you here actually included some behaviours or habits that weren’t actually that good for you…

[If you’re sitting there reading this thinking “hang on a minute… he’s talking about himself, isn’t he?” then, Dear Reader, you are right again, you insightful delightful sprite you. Give yourself a high five…which is really just you clapping, I guess, but I only realised that once I’d written it and I can’t go back and delete it now or we’ll never get to the end of this little distraction now will we?]

Some of the things that got me here, also got me into some hot water along the way too.

I’m happy talking about this stuff because I’ve been almost evangelically open about my issues with anxiety through the last few years, in these pages and in person, and I’ve also talked here about my ADHD too, and how it’s now becoming clear to me that the former was the result of not understanding and accepting and learning to live with the latter. I subscribe to the idea that more people talk about this stuff the more people feel they can talk about this stuff: “it’s okay to not be okay”.

So with that in mind, it’s pretty obvious to me now, looking back with the clarity that only time and space can give, that the way I managed myself, and my “self” was almost a recipe for disaster. Give someone with a brain like mine – overthinking every possible outcome, empathetic to the point of paralysis, needing to love and be loved – responsibility for the hopes and dreams of a bunch of really nice, really bright people and I’ll pull myself apart trying to keep everything together.

I’ve also said before in these pages that I really think lockdown heightened everything for the empathetic leader, Suddenly we really were “all in this together” in way that the brands and politicians who spouted all that stuff could never comprehend. We were each others extended families through that, and I know I’m not alone in having felt the need to step up as the head of a frightened, often dysfunctional, understandably needy group of people. People whose careers I always felt “responsible” for in some way or other, but whose mental health and wellbeing and hope I suddenly felt were my responsibility too…

So much of that never changed back to “how it was”, of course – practically perhaps more than any other way. The idea of travelling into the middle of London to sit in an office every single day of the working week – and the fact that I did this for 20 years without question, seems faintly absurd to me now; like a dream I once had. [Someone asked if I wanted to meet for lunch in London on a Friday a couple of weeks ago and I honestly thought they had completely lost their mind.]

But beyond where I worked, how I worked had changed too. The feeling of being needed was intoxicating, and became way too personal. When anything needed fixing, even with a capable and committed crew around me I felt the responsibility myself to fix it, and I became so frantic trying to put out fires, small and large, that I didn’t realise I was burning up myself.

Yeah, I know. Not healthy, right?

It wasn’t all burns, of course. I had a lot of fun too, and made some relationships that will endure across time and despite a little more distance, and we did some bloody good work too. But I didn’t need to give all of myself so willingly to the whims of a wild working world. [Yes, I am quite pleased with that little stream of alliteration, you’re right.]

And so, as I sit here on a plane flying to Copenhagen for the second time in a week, next to a nice young lady who has to keep nudging me every time the flight attendant wants to ask me if I want a tiny pack of mixed nuts or the smallest bottle of water I’ve ever seen [international business travel isn’t what it used to be] because I’m too busy writing this for you to realise I’m being spoken to, I’m very conscious of the opportunity that comes with a new start. The opportunity to remember that some of what got me here, won’t get me there

It’s not as simple as changing the logo at the bottom of the PowerPoint document and uploading the new brand typeface [although God knows I do love a typeface] and just carrying on.

You can’t just shift one one place to another and expect that to be the change you need, because whether you like it or not there’s an inescapable fact that wherever you go, and whatever the new start is…

You take yourself with you

[Thanks to my coach for that memorable phrase – nice one Sarah!]

If you’re not deliberate about what you bring, you’ll bring the lot. Like that box in the attic from the last time you moved which never actually got opened because it just said “ODDS AND ENDS” on it in hastily scrawled marker pen.

You take yourself with you, with all the good and all the bad. Put another way: if we don’t learn from the past, we’re destined to repeat it.

Don’t get me wrong, there are massive parts of what got me here that will get me there, wherever “there” is. I’m always going to be ‘all in’. I’m always going to look for connections with people and try to build trust quickly. I’m always going to want to change things that I think need changing. I’m always going to be true to my values. I’m always, always, going to look for the chance to raise a smile and make this work thing we all spend so much time doing actually fun, because if it’s not fun then why the fuck am I doing it anyway?

Yeah, there’s a lot I’m bringing with me. Just not all of it.

So here’s where you come in. You didn’t think this was all about me, did you??

Take a moment. Ask yourself: what are you bringing with you that perhaps you should be leaving behind?

A belief about your ‘value’ that doesn’t actually help you transform, rather than transition?

A way of connecting that leaves you too open? Or too closed?

A story you keep telling yourself about your triumphs or (more likely) your failings?

Well here’s the magic about a new start. About “what got you here won’t get you there”…

Here is just wherever you are, right now.

There is whatever’s next.

You get to decide now, right now, about what you leave behind here, so you can get there.

And if you fuck it up and take it all with you again, the good and the bad?

Well I’ve got yet more magic for you right here, because you get to decide again. And again. You can always start again, whenever you decide to.

You get to choose.

And that choice, Dear Reader, that choice is a freedom that you carry with you everywhere you go, every single day of your life.

You got here. Now, what is going to get you there?