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.

Every day is school day

September 6, 2024September 11, 2024 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ Leave a comment

Ah, the joys of a good old British summer. A chance to talk about the weather, complain about the weather, and wonder aloud about whether we might actually get more than three days of sunshine in a row, ever again. I’ve seen the mysterious ball of fire in the sky a couple of times in recent weeks and I quite liked it. I look forward to feeling its warm embrace perhaps a couple more times before the nights close in…

And as Summer starts to drift towards Autumn [for my trans-Atlantic cousins, “Autumn” (or the translation thereof) is what the entire rest of the world calls what you have decided to call “Fall”. You’re welcome 😉], the sky beginning to bruise earlier and earlier day by day, we all find ourselves in “BACK TO SCHOOL” mode.

Whether you have kids or not, it’s the same feeling: summer is kind of finished, your holiday is in the rear view mirror, and it’s back to the ‘real world’. Kids go back to school with new rulers and pencil cases and shiny shoes, whilst the workers of the world get back into full work mode, without the updated stationery but perhaps with a bit more battery life after something of a break over the summer months.

Whilst I’ve been thinking about thinking about this “Back To School” time, waiting with fevered anticipation for the deluge of ‘First day of school’ pics of wide-eyed, excited kids from friends and family to swarm over my socials, I’ve been considering that, actually, whilst we hard-working folks may have had a couple of weeks off somewhere nice, we certainly didn’t have the big break that we used to have back in our school days. No giddy high of “school’s out for summer”; none of the drifting days of those seemingly never-ending summers picking daisies and looking for animals in the clouds.

No, we take a week or two and then crack on. In practical terms, pretty much every day is a school day. And with that simple phrase, we open up another train of thought…

You’ve probably heard the saying “every day is a school day”: the idea that, no matter what stage of life in which you may find yourself, there’s always something new to experience, learn or understand. For some people that might be empowering but more often than not it’s a phrase that’s used when someone has been forced into learning something that really they could have done without; an eye-roll of a comment etched with resignation at one of the realities of life.

And a reality it is. Because whether you like it or not, in that sense school never actually ends.

Part of that deserves an eye-roll, right? The idea that I have to learn, all the time, even though I haven’t been in formal education since the year that Radiohead released OK Computer/Clinton started his second term as US president/Princess Diana died/the UK last won the Eurovision Song Contest/Labour last came to power in the UK [please choose your cultural reference as appropriate]. Surely there’s a point where I’ve done all the learning and can just apply it all?

And yet here I am, nearly 3 decades on from the last time I walked into an exam hall of empty desks and full brains, and I’ve probably learnt more in the last few months than I have in the previous few years. Exciting and exhausting in equal measure.

As regular readers may have picked up, I started a new job at the beginning of the year. Every single day since has indeed been a school day. Not simply because of what I’ve had to learn to be a part of a new agency within a larger organisation of nearly three-quarters of a million people* around the world, but also what I’ve had to un-learn too.

[*That number of people really is quite unfathomably huge, isn’t it? A quick internet search tells me that around 85,000 people could fit, side-by-side and standing upright, on a football pitch. I can kind of visualise that. But nearly 10 times that number? I’m kind of lost. Apparently the original Woodstock festival had between 400,000 and 500,000 people and that looked like this:

So 50% more than that huge, never ending crowd of human flesh is how many colleagues I now have. No wonder I don’t know everyone’s name yet. Anyway sorry I’ve gone off on a tangent haven’t I – where was I? Oh yes, that’s right…]

What I’ve discovered is that the learning bit is a relatively straightforward and familiar process. You don’t know something… someone tells you or you find out yourself… you remember it. Done.

But the un-learning bit is more complicated. Because that means shifting entrenched beliefs and behaviours, some of which have been part of my working life for as long as I can remember. And because it’s new to me. I’m not sure that I’ve had to un-learn to such a degree before.

Un-learning is about challenging my own preconceptions. Questioning my own well-established wisdom about the working world through which I wind my winsome way.

It’s a funny feeling, actually. Personally I really like the idea of starting with a blank sheet of paper: the freedom that everything is possible; everything up for grabs. It’s part of how my funny old brain works. It’s always exciting to me: never daunting.

But… really? Like, everything is up for grabs? If there are things that I’ve always thought are bullshit, I don’t have to bring them with me? No one is going to say “but this is how we’ve always done things”? We get to say what we actually think about our work and our industry, all the time… as long as we can back it up and write something new on that blank sheet of paper?

Woah. That’s different. That demands a different kind of me to go with it. At least a different way of approaching things, that’s for sure.

For me, it means dialling up the conviction. Dropping some of the very British, very deferential, very hierarchy-conscious, very “polite” language that’s been part of my working world since day dot.

No more: “I feel like maybe it might be worth thinking about whether there might be another way of how we could approach things…”

More “There’s a better way of doing this. We need to change things.”

There’s freedom to that too: freedom to say what you think, rather than having to think first about what you think other people might think about what you think [feel free to read that sentence back a couple of times to work through it if you need to – I certainly did]. Over the years I’ve often found myself tied up in knots with that meta-cognition of thinking too much about my thoughts, and the anxiety of worrying too much about what other people think about my thoughts, and it’s exhausting and really, really not good for me. The idea that I can let some of that go? That’s good for me, in loads of ways.

But if you’re going to have a point of view, you better be able to back it up. Feel free to challenge the status quo, as long as you can replace it with an idea that you can explain, and champion, and bring other people into.

That’s a different kind of pressure, of course. But it’s something I can influence. All I need to do is “trust my own wisdom”. Trust that there are some things I do know enough about, after all this time, that I’m allowed to have a point of view on. [Such funny language – being “allowed” to have a point of view. Who ever really stopped any of us having a point of view, except ourselves and our worries about how other people might take that point of view?]

I know, without any doubt in my mind, that there’s something in your life – work or otherwise – that you think is total bullshit. A process. A habit. A hangover from a previous life. A way of doing something that never really made sense to you but you do it because that’s what you do and that’s what we do and that’s what they do and it’s always been like that.

And if you think about it, I bet there are also things that you’ve learnt along the way about “how things are” or “how things work” or “how it’s done” that are so ingrained that they’ve almost part of you. Less about what you know and more about what you’ve come to believe. Some of these things even drift over into articles of faith: so strong and so solid that they become walls that close us in and keep out any possibility of challenge.

Perhaps there’s a process that’s been around for ever and ever and is just there, despite the fact that people know it’s not really fit for purpose (or was then, but might not be now or for the future). Perhaps it’s a structure that made sense when the team was all in one office all the time, but now you’re more digital and dynamic and dispersed than any workers in the history of work it just doesn’t… well… work. Perhaps it’s as simple as the kind of work that you do and the way that you do it versus the how you might need to adapt in a changing world? [No points for guessing what I’m talking about here, so if you missed my cautiously optimistic musings on AI you can catch up via this handy link. Don’t mention it!]

Perhaps it’s about the person you’re expected to be. At work or at home. And how that fits, or doesn’t fit, actually, with the person you want to be. Or the person you know, deep down, you truly are.

So who, actually, is stopping you from questioning some of these things? Maybe, just maybe, the answer to that question is the most uncomfortable one…

I’ll let you answer for yourself. But I know for me, it’s opening up to the idea of un-learning that is firing my imagination.

So I offer you this, dear reader: perhaps the first thing you might want to consider un-learning is the notion that nothing can change… or that you aren’t the one to do it.

If not you, who?

And if not now… when?

Wait, did you hear that? Yeah, the school bell just rang.

Have a good day, and happy un-learning.

The Four Agreements

October 11, 2023January 20, 2025 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ 1 Comment

I don’t know about you, but whenever I give someone a book, particularly one very specific to them, I write a little note in the front along with the date. I do it partly because I really appreciate it when someone does it for me, and also perhaps partly because I like the idea of marking the moment in time so that in the future it’ll pop up again.

Perhaps it’ll be read by the person to whom I gave the book, a single tear of reminiscence rolling involuntarily down their face as they recall the thoughtful gesture and how lovely I was. Or perhaps it’ll be read by someone decades from now who’s picked up the book for next to nothing at a charity shop and will never know how lovely I was except to know I’m the kind of person who writes a note in the front of a book. And maybe, just maybe, they will decide that is something they will do from that point on… thereby making the world a slightly better place, forever and ever into the future.

Yes, I do overthink things sometimes, I’ll give you that.

Anyway, it just so happens that in the middle of last year, right in the middle of a very challenging time for me personally (which, if you’re interested in such things, you can read about here), someone I didn’t really know very well came up to me holding a book, and then handed me that book. Their personal copy of a book they carried with them at all times, a book wherein they had highlighted passages, and made the odd note. Handed over now to me, for me toread and to keep.

And yes, they had written inside:

Underneath, they’d written their name, and their personal contact details

First off, it struck me then and still does today as an incredibly kind, thoughtful, open gesture. Let me give you something that’s helped me, in the hope that it may help you too.

But just as much as that, I was fascinated as to what the book might be. What is the kind of book that someone carries with them, at all times, and highlights passages and makes little notes in pencil in the margin, and is then moved to inscribe and hand to someone else? It must be a book with such wisdom, such guidance, to drive someone to feel they simply must pass on to someone else in their time of need.

What book holds that kind of potential impact?

The book in question is called The Four Agreements, written by a chap by the name of Don Miguel Ruiz. I’ll be honest, the first time I started into it I liked the thinking but struggled a little with the way it’s written. That’s because Don Miguel Ruiz is a shamanic teacher and healer, and he writes in a very unconventional, conversational style about teachings from the ancient Toltec culture in central Mexico. It’s not written like a classic business or “self-help*” book because it’s not written by a classic business or “self-help” author, and as you can see below it’s not either of those things anyway, it’s a much more than that: a Practical Guide To Personal Freedom. So you have to get into the way it’s written, or you have to get past the way it’s written. But you can’t ignore the way it’s written.

[I hate that I feel the need to put “self-help” in “” but I do so because it’s been hijacked to be used pejoratively by people who think that “self-help” is the sort of thing that those awful woke snowflake Remoaner lefties need and which any hard-working normal person knows is a load of bloody nonsense and anyway who needs introspection when you can just judge other people from a position of blithe, dismissive self-ignorance? From being a positive, it’s become a negative, despite the fact that every single thing I’ve read with the intention of helping myself has, in some way, actually helped my actual self. But anyway, it’s in “” so we can leave it there and crack on…]

Whether you get into or get past, the idea of a Practical Guide to Personal Freedom is immediately something that appeals, right?. I mean, who doesn’t want Personal Freedom, and what better than a Practical Guide to get there? I’ve been following the Massively Impractical Guide to Personal Angst in my own brain for years and that’s been a bit of a chore at times, to say the least.

And once you’re in, the simplicity of The Four Agreements sing out as a sort of rulebook for a life which doesn’t fall into all the pitfalls we all fall into, all the bloody time. So simple that it’s a bit annoying no one mentioned them before, really.

So to avoid you having to find all this stuff out yourself, I’ll outline them here, with my take on what they’re all about, and you can save yourself a lot of future angst. Sounds like a plan, right? Great, let’s roll.

This is the front cover. You can’t miss it.

1) Be impeccable with your word

Don’t talk shit, basically. Don’t lie, don’t make stuff up, don’t brag, gossip, don’t collude, don’t say unkind things, don’t talk about people behind their backs. Actually, don’t say any of that shit to yourself either. Tell the truth to yourself and to others. As good ole’ Brené Brown would say “Clear is kind, unclear is unkind”.

Am I good at this? Only in parts. I’m not one for collusion and I don’t brag, but I do gossip sometimes and on a bad day I can be quite cutting about people, particularly when I feel I’ve been “wronged” in some way. I can also talk shit about myself, to myself. So this is one I have to come back to, and remind myself of, to keep it fresh and real. This much I do know: nothing good comes of speaking ill.

2) Don’t take anything personally.

Self-explanatory this one. But damn – how can you not take things personally when you are about you? If something happens to you, or someone does something to you, it’s you, right? It’s personal to me because it’s happening to me!

Except, of course, it really isn’t. This is one I’ve kept really close to me since I first read it – the idea that whatever someone does or says, howsoever it may affect you… it’s not about you. It’s about them.

It’s about how they see the world, and themselves in the world; about the pressures they have put on them and the pressures they put on themselves. It may affect you in horrible ways, but even then, it’s not personal. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

If someone treats you badly, it’s because in their mind they are under pressure or under attack somehow. If someone puts you down, it’s because of how they experience themselves when they are with you. If they really, really seem to just hate you for no reason you can work out, then don’t bother trying to work it out because the answer to “what have I done?” is quite possibly “nothing”. Because they don’t actually hate you – the you that you know and know to be fundementally good – they have negative feelings towards the “you” they have created in their mind because of their own issues. It really isn’t about you.

I know this is difficult. Believe me when I say that even with this agreement not to take anything personally sitting happily in your head in all its logical, sensible splendour, it’s still really, really difficult. I’m not saying you should just brush it off or, even worse, get thick-skinned to protect yourself. Those people who claim not to give a fuck about anything people say or do to them are lying to you and to themselves. I’m not saying you can’t be upset. Be upset. Just don’t take it personally. Because it’s not about you, it’s about them.

Oh and by the way, unfortunately, it works both ways. So it’s also true that If someone talks you up or lauds your every minute action and deed, it’s really not about you, it’s about what they think or hope for or need in the relationship. I know you’re brilliant, but just don’t take it personally.

Trust me: this one is a keeper. Don’t take anything personally. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

3) Don’t make assumptions

You know what they say: “Assume” makes an ass out of u and me. That trite little saying doesn’t stop us from doing it though, does it?

We make assumptions because we’re trying to make sense of the world without all the information to hand. Our brains don’t like stories without an ending. We seek reasons and endings, and so without a reason or an ending we just go and make up our own.

Assumptions are the basis of pretty much every conflict you’ve ever had – the story you’ve made up in your head about what someone else is thinking, which you then judge them for without them even knowing. They become the loser in a game they didn’t know they were playing. And let’s be honest, we don’t often cast ourselves as the villains in the piece.

Assumptions leave you wide open to be disappointed, or surprised, or shocked and appalled when things don’t turn out as we guessed they would. Assume it’s in the bag and you’ll find that someone who assumed otherwise put in more effort than you and walked away with the prize. Assume they won’t want to talk to you and you’ll never know what might have been. Assume there’s no point in applying for that job, and I promise you that you 100% will not get that job.

This is my biggest Achilles Heel. I love a good story, and I can’t help telling myself all the stories I’ve created about my assumptions. I know that this is how my brain works, though, so I’m trying to be disciplined in checking those stories as I go and removing the assumptions that may be driving action, inaction, or reaction.

4) Always do your best.

I love this. So simple. The kind of thing we were told as kids and now tell our kids because that’s what you tell kids… without really listening to what we’re saying and taking our own instruction.

If you always, always simply do your very, very best, you can end the day knowing that you couldn’t have done anything more. It’s the drive to get up in the morning and the solace to sleep soundly through the night. Just do your best. Personal to you, and only you know what your best is. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. Don’t cut corners.

And be okay with the idea that your best varies, too. Your best when you’ve had the elusive straight eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and woken to the birdsong and the sun is coming up and the day ahead looks challenging but manageable isn’t the same as your best when you’ve been awake through the night with your mind racing because you know you’ve got that difficult conversation you have to have later and there’s no milk for your morning cuppa and the dog just slobbered on your black jeans so it looks like you’ve had a giant snail crawling. up your leg. But just do your best, no more and no less, every time, in everything, and you simply cannot go far wrong. It’s actually quite freeing.

So there you have it. The Four Agreements, which I was given by a very kind man who felt I needed them at a difficult time in my life. Again, what a lovely gesture.

And what simple agreements they are. I can’t tell you that I stick to them all the time, but I can tell you that whenever I lose my way, it’s because I’ve not done one or more of these.

Maybe just make a note of them somewhere and consider in all honesty, where you’re strongest. on these and where you’re not. Perhaps consider that difficult thing that’s on your mind at the moment and see if there’s a chance that one of these agreements might have avoided it – or might even get you out of it. Be impeccable with your word. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t make assumptions.

And whatever you do today, just do your best. No more, no less. I reckon that’ll be more than enough for whatever today has in store for you,

[If you’re interested in getting a copy of said book for yourself, then you can find it here or at all good remaining physical book shops. I’d give you mine but I’m not quite ready to give it up yet.]

On Incompetence

January 12, 2021January 12, 2021 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ 1 Comment

There I was, all ready with an uplifting, Happy New Year, “things can only get better” post- something to clear away the cobwebs of 2020 and look forward into 2021 with renewed hope and excitement, eyes wide with the freshness of opportunity that only a brand, shiny new year can bring.

Then, like a young faun stumbling into a forest clearing and for the first time seeing the unlimited expanse of the sky above, suddenly I didn’t feel excited and fresh with anticipation; I felt overwhelmed, stunned into inaction by the vastness of the world, by things I couldn’t comprehend much less control, the sudden realisation of my own helplessness weighing heavy. The weight of another national lockdown on my shoulders, shoulders that slumped still further as I sat wondering if I was watching the beginning of the end of Western “civilisation” on 24-hour news from across the pond.

Gill Scott Heron was wrong, it appears – the revolution will be televised. It’ll even be selfied and streamed live on the social media channel of your choice. Who knew it would involve such a lot of milling around?

I’m not going to get into the politics of all this, you’ll be pleased to hear. You’re probably about as interested in my political views as I am in yours, so let’s keep those to ourselves.

But you won’t be amazed to hear that I find myself sitting and considering the idea of ego, self-assuredness, entitlement and narcissism, and how these can so often quite happily co-exist alongside such rank incompetence.

Incompetence on it’s own isn’t the worst thing in the world, and I’m not against it per se – in fact I’m very comfortable with it. We all have it, to some degree or other, in some areas. Either you’re good at something or you’re okay at it or you’re a bit rubbish at it.

The key is knowing which. That’s the really, really important bit. Having the self-awareness and humility to admit to yourself, and to others, when you really don’t know what you’re doing.

If you know you’re crap at something, that’s conscious incompetence, and that’s okay. I happily accept the idea that I’m consciously incompetent at some things. I know what I’m not good at, and I do one of three things about it…

The first (and let’s admit the least mature) is I deride it as being “crap anyway”. Things that fall into this category include golf (can’t play, don’t want to anyway because it’s crap anyway, crap clothers), ice skating (can’t do it, bloody cold, potentially dangerous, crap anyway), DIY generally (waste of time, total crap), and ballroom dancing (I love to dance but I don’t follow steps as I refuse to wear the chains of conformity on any dancefloor. And it’s crap anyway).

The second is a lot more grown up than that, but it also takes a bit more time and effort and energy. Because the next thing I do if I’m not good at something – or not as good as I think I could or should or want to be – is that I work on it, bit by bit, moment by moment, day by day.

In this bucket goes things like being a better human being. Being the best dad or husband I can be. Being a good friend, a good neighbour. Being a good leader, a kind and thoughtful boss. I sometimes ask myself a simple question which gets to the heart of this.., thinking about all the people in my life, in every facet, and asking simply:

If they could choose someone, would they choose you?

Big question, right? But a challenge to get a bit better, every day.

The third thing I do to overcome my conscious incompetence in an area is perhaps the most sensible, and there’s no coincidence that it’s the one that’s proved itself time and time and time again. If I can’t do something, or can’t do it as well as it needs to be done, then I’ll find someone who can.

That sounds obvious with something like DIY – I’m much better getting someone to fix something than mess it up myself first and then pay someone to fix that whilst openly judging me for the horrible mess I’ve made as I make them a cup of incredibly sweet tea.

Perhaps it’s less obvious when we’re talking work stuff. I mean, who wants to openly admit – to themselves, let alone anyone else – that they’re a bit crap at something?

Well, me, actually.

By admitting that to myself and to others I can surround myself with people who can do stuff I can’t do – or who can do it better than I could – and then let them get on with it. In fact my role then becomes very simple. I’m there to make sure they can do their best work. To remove any barriers that might make things harder for them. To make sure they feel valued, and trusted, and supported to do the thing that they’re so good at doing. It’s become maybe the most important thing I can do.

But to do any of these things – perhaps apart from the first – you have to first admit to yourself that you don’t know what you’re doing. And that takes self-awareness and humility in equal measure.

And if you’ve got the opposite – someone with a refusal or inability to know or admit that they don’t know what they’re doing, coupled with self-assuredness, rampant ego, unconstrained entitlement, misplaced confidence… well then we’re in trouble my friend. Especially if they surround themselves with other people like that too.

Not that anyone like that would ever get in charge anywhere. I mean, imagine a situation where your country were run by people like that?! Imagine how poor the decision making would be?

*[Sorry I did say I wouldn’t get into the politics didn’t I? Whoops]*

Imagine where it could end up.

Happy lockdown to my UK friends, with the hope of an end on the distant horizon.

Love and peace to my US friends, with the knowledge that your wonderful country will come back even stronger.

Happy New Year folks. It’s been quite a trip so far, right?

From Lockdown to Learning

September 7, 2020September 7, 2020 ~ Phil Bartlett ~ Leave a comment

My two young boys went back to school today. For the first time since March, I am in my home without the noise of one or other of them going about their day. It’s been very quiet, and may take a little getting used to. But they’re off, happy to be amongst friends again. Happy to be back to a place they can learn.

And soon enough, other parts of life may well start to change, as we begin to emerge from our self-isolated work cocoons and converge on the physical space that once seemed so crucial to our lives. “THE OFFICE” had such a gravitational pull for so many reasons and held such importance and such reverence as “the place where we work”. But will that place still have the same pull now some of our old certainties about how and where we work have been unlearned?

For some, release from the horror of the daily commute from the suburbs to the epicentre of our biggest cities has been financially and emotionally liberating. For others, time to work and think without the distractions of an open plan battery farm of desks has meant a more productive, more focussed working day. And for others, more time at home has allowed them to experience a greater connection into family life than ever.

And then…

For some, the need for social stimulus coupled with the ubiquitous but still unnatural video calls has meant that working days are both lonely and tiring at the same time. For others, the lack of ad hoc interactions has actually made work more difficult, more complex, and more formalised than it would ideally be. And for others, a lack of suitable structured workspace in shared accommodation has blurred the line between work and non-work way too much.

All of these are real for those who experience them. Just as you and I have experienced some of them in the last few months.

Before I go on, I’ve talked about being conscious of my privilege on these pages before. And so I realise very keenly that my experience of all this is privileged too, because of where I am in my life, my career and my home situation.

For this next bit you can delete as appropriate…

Like many in their early/mid/late-40s, my wife/husband/life partner/pets and I decided to give up the hustle and bustle of South-East/South-West/South/West/North/East London/other major conurbation a few/couple of years back and move out to Kent/Hertfordshire/Surrey/Other home counties/Scotland. As a result we got a slightly/quite a bit/much bigger house with the space to make working from home quite pleasant/bearable/a magical Nirvana.

Don’t get me wrong, lockdown has been super weird for me, as it has for you. But I’ve not been doing video calls from my bedroom in a shared house. I have some space to think, and to divide between work-life and home-life. I can even wander into my garden on a call. And quite apart from the practicalities of space, I’m also very aware of the more intangible things that I’m not missing out on, which others might be…

Imagine, if you will, a much younger man than the one I am today. Less beard, smaller clothes sizes. New to office life. Keen, confident; with potential but very raw. Someone in need of guidance; of people who believe in him to unlock that potential and pull him up on things when needed.

Would young Mr B [you guessed right, that young man was indeed me] have prospered working from home, from his messy bedroom in a shared house one the edge of Brixton? On video calls (which, let’s be honest, would have seemed like sci-fi back in 2000) which offer an odd kind of pseudo-contact followed by sudden quiet isolation?

Honestly, I don’t think so.

At the earliest time, I was very fortunate to have some amazing people around me from whom I absorbed ideas, attitudes and skills. Seeing how people like Mike Walker approached a problem; how Melissa de Lusignan helped to solve it. How Elise Shepherd handled herself in a crisis; how Tara Page handled the clients. From that point on I’ve been surrounded by remarkable creative talent, passionate culture building, enlightened strategic thinking, and dedicated client management.

The person I was 20 years ago when I started in the world of advertising agencies needed to experience all of these things to learn. Hell, I still do, and have continued to learn from people right through – at all levels of seniority.

None if it is formal training or coaching, but informal watching, listening, questioning. Logging silently that next time I should maybe not do this but do that instead. Picking up a turn of phrase; a tone of voice.

Incidental coaching. Accidental learning. Essential education.

The office isn’t important. We’ve shown over the last 6 months that human connection between us can survive a lack of human contact. It’s not about the physical space we occupy, but more about the place we hold in each other’s minds, and yes, even hearts. I’ve long believed that the strongest organisations are those that really aim to build genuine, authentic, honest, human connections and this year has, I believe, continued to prove that belief to be true.

But for those early in their careers, the office is a place of learning that cannot be underestimated or effectively recreated in a virtual world.

And so as I look at the weeks and months to come, I must consider not only my own needs, based on my new experience of work, but also the needs of the younger me. As a leader, I have a responsibility to ensure whatever working world we create is one in which our young talent – the future of our agency and industry – have the opportunity to absorb, to learn, and to thrive, just as I did.

As I do, I have a feeling I’ll probably learn a few new things for myself, too.