We like things that end cleanly, right? A launch, a decision. a delivery. Something we can point at and say, “that’s done”. Clean endings give us a sense of control. They make the effort feel justified. They let us compress weeks or months of work into a sentence or two, maybe starting with “well, what we did was…”
But most of the time, that’s not where we actually spend the vast majority of our time. Most of the time, we’re somewhere else entirely: right slap bang in the middle. And as I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, the middle is where things stop behaving
Where the brief seemed pretty clear at first but as soon as you start to pull it apart it disintegrates, like a cartoon character pulling at a thread on their adversary’s jumper and leaving them standing there just in their nik naks.
Where the plan that looked optimistic now looks, with the benefit of lived experience and a deadline hurtling down the tracks towards you, really quite spectacularly so.
It’s the phase where you’re not sure whether the discomfort you’re feeling is creative tension doing its job, or something quietly going wrong.
[Annoyingly, it can be a bit of both. In fact, it’s usually a bit of both.]
The middle is emotionally untidy. Where you feel deeply confident on Monday morning and quietly less so by Thursday. Where you oscillate wildly between “this is coming together nicely” and “I have ruined everything I have ever touched”. Sometimes before lunch.
It’s also the bit we’re least likely to talk about.
Because the middle doesn’t come with a neat story. It doesn’t make for a good Instagram post, let alone a LinkedIn pic of the happy team. It doesn’t reduce easily to a lesson or a takeaway. It’s unresolved, slightly awkward, and often still in motion.
And sometimes it never resolves at all.
The project doesn’t land. The idea gets diluted into something nobody quite owns. The conversation you built up to in your head doesn’t change anything in the way you hoped it would.
[The imagined conversation is always better than the real one, don’t you find? The other person is always calm, and receptive, and says just what you want them to say…]
When things don’t land, there’s a temptation to treat the whole experience as disposable; to tidy it away so there’s no evidence, and move on [all too] quickly. To tell ourselves, “Well, you win some, you lose some.”
Which is true. But also incomplete.
Because even when there isn’t a visible outcome, something has still been happening, right?
The middle leaves an indelible mark on those who were there. The shared crucible of the middle shapes relationships. How it went defines how it goes: with a human bond of endeavour and vulnerability and trust… or not.
If people spoke up and got shut down, guess what will happen next time. The inevitable disagreement that you need to get to alignment either felt safe or they felt combative (or both of those. How did decisions actually get made when there wasn’t a clear right answer?
None of that shows up on a project plan. None of it gets its own slide. But it accumulates anyway, quietly influencing what becomes possible down the line.
A team that has spent time in genuine uncertainty together is not the same team that walked in at the start… even if the project itself never sees daylight. And neither is the person who led the way when they didn’t really know the way.
We tend to judge leadership at the moment of delivery. Who stood up. Who signed it off. Who got the credit. Leadership is much easier when things are going well. The harder test comes earlier, when the path isn’t obvious and the pressure is rising and there’s no guarantee waiting at the end to justify the effort.
What do you do then? Do you project certainty you don’t feel, because uncertainty feels like weakness? Do you shut down disagreement to keep things moving? Do you prioritise speed because slowness feels uncomfortable?
Or do you name what you don’t yet know, invite better thinking than your own, and stay present when it would be far easier to retreat into control?
[For what it’s worth, I’ve covered all of those approaches in my time. Sometimes in quick succession. I try my best to land on the last one nowadays but, like you, I slip up still too.]
I’ve noticed something about myself over time: I’m often better when things are unclear than when they’re polished. When the shape isn’t obvious yet, and the work still needs holding rather than presenting, I tend to be able to work out what to do when I don’t know what to do.
Which is helpful, because that turns out to be most of the job.
One reason I think we struggle to value the middle properly is that it’s hard to measure. Outcomes have metrics. The middle has judgement, learning, and capability, all frustratingly qualitative.
Another reason is that it exposes us. The middle shows doubt and missteps. Endings let us pretend it was all intentional.
There’s also a quieter fear: that talking about the messiness of the middle sounds like making excuses. As if acknowledging the work that happened without a clean result somehow lowers the bar.
Personally I think it raises it.
Because instead of only asking “Did this succeed?” we start asking better questions. Things like:
What did this show us about how we work together? What would we now do differently, having lived through it? What did this strengthen, even if it didn’t stick?
Those aren’t consolation prizes: sometimes they’re the real trophy. But you only get the glory of those insights if you’re willing to look back honestly, without rewriting history to protect your ego.
Of course, this isn’t just about work. Much of life is process-heavy and outcome-light. You can do everything right and still not get the ending you hoped for. We’ve all been there, right?
That doesn’t mean nothing happened. It means you were right there in it.
I’m not suggesting we stop caring about results. Results matter. They keep things moving. They justify the investment and if there were no results at all I think we’d probably need to challenge the “unlucky this time” story and sweat the technique a little. [Additional brownie points to anyone who gets the reference there. If you know, you know.]
But perhaps we could play with the idea that delivery isn’t the only proof that something was worthwhile?
Maybe we get better at noticing what’s being built while we’re waiting for something to finish. Or talk more openly about the messy middle, rather than only sharing the “humbled and proud to announce…” highlight reel.
Maybe we stop wiping the slate spotlessly and antibacterially clean every time something doesn’t deliver, as if the time spent there somehow didn’t count.
And if you’re in the middle of something right now that may never quite land, it might be worth asking yourself a new question:
What is this shaping in you, or in the people around you, while it’s still unfinished?
Good question. There is an argument that, in a world created by men and for men, a world where men hold most of the power, every day is “Men’s Day”. We all know there are more male CEOs than female, but to put that into context the latest data tells us there are more men called John running FTSE 250 companies than there are women. Not women called John, in case you’re wondering. Women. In total. And we all know there are more male heads of government than female, but to follow through and put that into context, just 19 of the 193 member states of the United Nations currently have female head of state. More than two thirds have never had a female head of state in their entire history.
And some of those male heads of state we are subjected to now really are some of the most caricatured examples of toxic masculinity you could ever hope to avoid, building their palaces and breeding their bullshit authoritarianism as a shield to protect their eggshell thin egos. Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Orban, Jong Un, Milei. And many more like them, or hoping to be. I’m not sure what the question is for this bunch of bullies but the answer is “unresolved childhood trauma”. I can’t make up with my father/mother/teacher/first girlfriend so I’ll build up an armour made up of sycophants and wealth and as much power as I can possibly hold in my little hands.
When I took my first steps into my work on diversity, equity and inclusion, there was a shared belief that things were getting better, particularly around gender equality. The dictionary definition of feminism is the belief that women should have the same rights, opportunity and, yes, “power” as men, and that seemed to be shifting, albeit very slowly. But thanks to this lot, and their acolytes, we’ve taken a few big steps backwards over the last couple of years.
[Yeah, I did drop it in there, didn’t I? The dreaded curse of DEI which is now put forward as the reason why society is a so fractious and divided, conveniently and maliciously ignoring the fact that it all stems from wealth inequality which started with ideological free market economics, wandered through the failed experiment of privatisation, jogged past the systematic deindustrialisation of swathes of countries and communities wearing nothing but a flimsy coat of consumerism, skipped into a garden of easy access to credit and slammed right into the greed-fuelled banking bubble of the 2008 financial crisis. People have been sold the story that the problem is “woke”, forgetting that they were actually there and saw it happen. Don’t you remember? It was the banks! Billions of your taxes went to bail out a bunch of (overwhelmingly male) bankers that had become gorged on greed. You must remember that? It wasn’t giving more opportunity to those who didn’t have as much in an effort to level the playing field. It was the fucking banks! You were there! REMEMBER? Hmm, this might be a separate blog now I come to think of it. Where was I? Oh yeah “power”]
It’s not just “power” of course. Data from the World Economic Forum tell us that whilst there has been change in the gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity (money, basically) since 2006, if we keep going at the current rate it will take 169 years to close the gender gap completely. [Yeah, I know, that’s such a long time that it almost seems silly counting it doesn’t it?]. A big part of that is because women still do around 60% more unpaid work – cooking, cleaning, childcare, caring – than men, none of which is recognised in the economy but all of which impacts on time and, by extension, the need for more flexible working to fit it all in.
So yeah, it’s a man’s world. Then why on Earth do we need International Men’s Day?
Well, because the day is less about celebrating men in general, and more about recognising the need for positive conversations around manhood and masculinity. And about stripping back some of the baggage, too.
And there is baggage that comes with being a man. I mentioned in these pages a while back a book I’d read called The Mask of Masculinity (you can find it here if you’re interested, it’s very good) by a nice chap called Lewis Howes. In this the empathetic and erudite Mr Howes [no I’m not sure why I’ve suddenly gone all formal and pseudo posh either] explains that there are a whole bunch of masks that men ‘wear’ to function in society.
The Know-It-All Mask where you pretend to know stuff you don’t know because admitting you don’t know shows weakness. Best example of this is me looking at the engine in a car, pretending to understand when the roadside repair man arrives at my broken down vehicle and tells me there’s something wrong with the “crank shaft” or “big end” or something else which, because I’m quite childish sometimes, sounds slightly risqué in a very Carry On film kind of way. The Joker Mask, which makes light of everything things – particularly things that might be emotionally difficult – to avoid having to deal with them properly. Yeah, I’ve known that one a fair bit. The Material Mask, where showing off an expensive watch or an expensive car or about an expensive holiday is a demonstration of how successful you are. Money can’t buy me love but it can help me pretend I’m happy and powerful. I’m very fortunate that I’ve never really put this one on. I don’t really care about watches or cars or designer clothes and the idea of ‘conspicuous consumption’ seems kind of pathetic to me. But The Alpha Mask where you never back down or admit fault, doubling down when challenged and becoming even more Alpha. Think all of those dickhead “leaders” mentioned above. Especially Trump, The Stoic Mask, where you pretend everything is okay when it’s really not. Hmm, yeah. That one fits me like an old pair of slippers, perfectly moulded from years of use.
There are others, of course. But it all conflates into one big theme…
Pretending.
Pretending things don’t hurt. Pretending you care about stuff that you don’t care about. Pretending you don’t have emotions. Pretending everything is okay when it’s really, really not.
Boys don’t cry, remember?
When I was a young man we never talked about negative emotions. Ever.
Trouble at home? Worried about school? Disappointed about not getting into the sports team? Heartbroken because the girl you liked and who you thought liked you too has started hanging around with a lad from the year above? Grieving over the death of a beloved pet?
Bury it. Deep.
Don’t show weakness or it will be ruthlessly exploited by your own very best friends, not because they want to hurt you but because that’s what boys do because “it’s just a bit of banter, lads”. No need to take it personally mate. Can’t take a joke?
So if you’re the one on the receiving end, you have precisely two choices: suck it up, or give as good as you get. Stoicism or alpha? Your choice.
That’s what we’re conditioned with, and that’s how a lot of men’s relationships with other men stay for ever. Never really get to anything deep. Pretend everything is going great. Give as good as you get.
Suck it up. Man up. Grow a pair.
Let’s leave all that emotional stuff to the ladies, eh lads arf arf wink wink?
Just because men don’t talk about emotions with each other, doesn’t mean they don’t have the emotions of course. It just means they can’t talk about them, or process them, or get advice, or support, or just plain old filial love. An arm round the shoulder.
And the absence of these necessities is killing us.
Suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the UK. Men make up over three quarters of suicides. There are lots of reasons for this, but many will come back to the way men hide their emotions. From each other, and often from their partners too.
That’s one bloody good reason why International Mens Day is an important time to stop and talk. A moment in a busy year to talk about what modern masculinity should be all about, talking about the expectations society puts on men (and men put on themselves) which can lead to anxiety and depression, and worse. It’s not a celebration. It’s a time to reflect.
I know about this stuff because I’ve been there myself. I’ve not handled all the expectations brilliantly over the years. I’ve worn a lot of the masks mentioned above, some for so long I almost forgot I was wearing them, and thought they were the real me. And I’ve found that constantly pretending to be something you’re not is fucking exhausting, and confusing, and can leave you wracked with anxiety and down from there into depression.
I’m one of the lucky ones, because I’ve never really gone to the darkest of places, but I’ve been close enough that I can have at least a sense of it. Slowly slipping down a muddy bank, scrabbling for a foothold yet picking up speed, then tumbling and clawing and snatching at brambles and branches and bracken that cut the hands to ribbons. A thousand cuts, each of them minor, irrelevant, laughable, as the sky falls away above. Unable to shout for help for the fear that no one will come.
I can’t quite imagine the place that ends up in. Not really. But I know two men who took their own lives in the last couple of years.
One I only knew in passing, but always seemed cheerful and chatty and generally a ‘good bloke’. He’d struggled since leaving the armed forces, as so many do. His wife had no idea he was struggling. Neither did his kids.
The other one I’d known since I was 8 years old, and was one of my best friends for a big chunk of my life. His difficulties were more well known to us all, and horribly complex in a bunch of ways. But in the end he made a decision all on his own.
Most men of my age will know someone who’s gone the same way.
Again, I’m lucky, because along my journey I’ve grown into someone who is a talker. Perhaps that’s because I found my soulmate when I was 20 and she was 19, and so I’ve always had a partner alongside me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve picked up some friends along the way whom I love like family, and who love me too.
As I’ve got older and experienced more of the world and made a million mistakes, I’ve also grown into someone who doesn’t conform to the more “traditional” tropes of masculinity. I’m really open about my emotions and I make a point of talking to my friends, and colleagues [some of whom span those categories, I’m happy to say] and even to relative strangers about my vulnerabilities and struggles, partly because I’m not ashamed of any of it and partly because I want to show that being in a conversation with me is a “safe space” for them. And I’ve found that the more I open up, the more others open up to me. And we all know by now that vulnerability builds trust, right? So my relationships have become much more real and much richer than they would be if I kept my emotions to myself.
So, what’s my message for International Men’s Day? Well, there are a couple.
First, if you’re not a man, please be assured that this isn’t about men just saying how ace men are. It’s much more nuanced than that. In a lot of ways it’s about showing how gender inequality damages everyone, men and women, and that breaking down societal expectations around gender would be good for everyone, too.
It is also a time for empathy, rather than antipathy or even (as sometimes can happen) indignance. Whilst I have no question in my mind that [in a sweepingly simplistic and borderline flippant generalisation] men have it easier than women in a society that was largely created by men, for men, I also know that with all the innumerable pressures and stereotypes and masks and pretending and bottling up, it’s often far from easy being a man in this messy world too.
And if you are a man, then it’s really, really simple. Partly it’s about taking off whatever mask you happen to habitually reach for of course. And then from there I’ll borrow from one of my comic heroes, if I may?
I saw a clip of an interview with Adrian Edmonson (star of The Young Ones, Comic Strip and Bottom) a while back, where he said that whilst he and co-writer and co-star Rik Mayall had showed their love for each other in loads of ways, “the thing we never did was tell each other than we loved each other, and it’s a huge regret”. Regret he can’t do anything about now, as Rik died in 2014 at the tender age of 56. The expressive and eloquent Mr Edmondson [there I go again] then went on to say the following:
“If you’re a man… and you’ve got a best friend: just tell him you love him.”
That’s as good a “call to action” as I’m going to get I think.
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.
Very silly
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]
Donald & Davey Stott
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.
Cheesy moon, courtesy of AI
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.
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week this week, and so it feels like the right time to come back to a post I started a good few weeks back but didn’t finish. At the time I had a hell of a lot on and ended up focussing more on not letting all the stress become anxiety become overwhelm become… well, something altogether much more difficult… and whilst writing things down is cathartic for me, and helps me organise my thoughts, it’s at times when things are most stressful that I tend to drop the things that I know deep down might actually be important to carry on doing. Knowing what’s good for me and doing that are two different things, unfortunately. To know is one thing… but then what?
There’s a conundrum in there somewhere. On the whole, I’m much more aware of where my head is at these days, having gone as close to “the edge” as I really ever plan on going in the past. Anyone would tell you that’s a “good thing”. It means I can catch myself before I fall into a hole, move back from the edge of said hole, even plan for the upcoming hole/edge of hole situation; all that good stuff. If you know there’s a hole in the road just up ahead, you slow down, right?
The fact that this is the example given here is also not lost on me. The universe has a funny way of giving you a nudge sometimes, doesn’t it?
Well yes, of course that’s right. If you’re in charge of how fast things are moving, that is.
But what if you’re not? What if you’re not in charge of how fast things move and you just have to handle the feeling of going faster than you want to go, knowing that there might be a hole in the road up ahead, but not being able to hit the brake because you’re not the one in the driving seat.
You remember that feeling, just as I do, That night when you were younger and less responsible, with less responsibilities to make you need to be responsible, and you all piled into your friend’s car to make your way from here where you were to over there where everyone was going to be. And it was all fun and laughter, but at a certain point you realised you’d taken that corner too quickly, and even though everything was fine, for a moment everything slowed down and the air between you changed and everyone stopped laughing and for a moment there it was all suddenly very, very real. And no one said anything, but everyone knew.
[My cousin Tanya reminded me of her moment like that when I saw her a while back, and wouldn’t you know, it had been me driving that time. An old car, a back lane, a truck or tractor of some kind round a bend, a skid and several hearts stopping for a few beats. I didn’t remember it clearly, because it wasn’t my moment. But for her, it was like it happened yesterday rather than in the late summer of 1994]
Fast forward back to the here and the now and that feeling can still take your breath away. A tightness in the breath because you know you’re not able to just take your foot off the accelerator a little. Because it’s not your foot on the accelerator, actually, So you’re stuck.
Being stuck doesn’t feel good at all. Any animal is most dangerous when it’s hungry or when it’s cornered, and [as I’ve pointed out before in these pages] you don’t have to decide what animal you would be if you were to be an animal because you are already an animal: a strategically-shaved monkey sharing around 98.7% of your DNA with your nearest monkey cousin, no less. So whilst we may not be starving as such, I think we’re all hungry for something in life. Something of meaning and import; something to believe in. And there’s no question we can find ourselves cornered by a world we’re not designed for in evolutionary terms; constantly in flight or fight mode every day and yet unable to fight because it’s work and that’s really not appropriate [unless you work in a boxing gym, I guess] yet flight is out of the question because it’s work and there are demands and deadlines and damnable duty [ugh duty really is a suck isn’t it – feeling you have to do something you don’t want to do because you’ve decided you should do it. Annoyed with your own brain for forcing you to do things, like you and your brain aren’t actually aligned on really quite a surprising amount of really quite important topics. Did I mention that we’re just not made for the world we’ve created?]
So you carry on. Doesn’t matter if you’re leading the whole organisation or just working on a project. You carry on because you have to carry on
The car keeps going, at the speed the car goes.
Towards the hole that you think might be up ahead.
And so, to our conundrum.
Is it better to know about the hole in the road, or better to bowl along in belligerent yet beautiful blindness ?
Probably best to know about this one?
If you don’t know it’s there, you might fall in it, sure. But you might glide past it, never really knowing how close you were to disaster. There’s something really appealing about that: the “it’ll be fine” attitude. Even if it’s not actually fine in the end, isn’t it better to think that it’s going to be fine and go about your day feeling fine about things right up until the point that it’s not fine? You can just deal with it then, right? Instead of worrying all the way along?
[As it happens that’s one of the pillars Stoicism, a school of philosophy that originated in Ancient Greece and Rome with dudes like Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus and Seneca, considered one of the most sublime philosophies in Western history, which teaches that worrying about the future is unnecessary and can be harmful to the present moment because the future is uncertain and that we can’t control it, so it’s best to focus on what’s happening right now. Which is easy to say when the hardest decision you had to make was which toga to wear or whether you could be arsed to go and watch the lions rip apart some more Christians at the amphitheatre. They never had to put together a detailed proposal for a bunch of senior people to explain the need for additional headcount in the middle of a hiring freeze, did they? No they bloody well did not. Just sat there getting made into marble statues, with massive beards, eating lark’s tongues or whatever. Anyway sorry where was i?]
Gen AI Marcus Aurelius demands “MORE LARK’S TONGUES!”
The thing is, if you know it’s there, you’re thinking about it from way back; maybe miles before it actually becomes relevant or something to think about. Worrying about whether it’s there or not, or if it’s actually a different road you’re on and you’re just getting a bit confused in all this excitement. Wondering if other people can see that you’re worrying about it. Worrying that they might be judging you for it.
Whilst there is part of me that of course craves the bliss of ignorance, or at least the clarity of thought which comes with knowing and not dramatising [I’m actually quite into some of the Stoic thinking at the moment and was just being deliberately disparaging for dramatic effect] there’s no question that actually you’re much, much more likely to hit that hole if you don’t know it’s there.
Just sitting and worrying about it doesn’t actually make anything better. I know that, our Stoic chums knew it, and I reckon you probably do too.
There are a million different possible outcomes from where you are right now. Of all of those possible outcomes, only one is actually going to happen. And the chances of you being able to guess which of those is going to be the one is really pretty low. If you were any good at predicting the future you wouldn’t be sitting here reading this, you’d be making millions on the stock market betting on the price of frozen concentrated orange juice based on your knowledge of this year’s orange harvest, [Yes, all of my knowledge of the stock market does come from the 80’s film Trading Places – well spotted]
So what can we do?
One thing is dead simple: you can talk about it.
We’re not good about talking about mental health, or stress, or insecurity. We’re hard-wired to seek out connection and we fear awkwardness almost more than anything because if it’s all got awkward then people won’t want to connect and we think it’s super awkward to actually get into things rather than give the “yeah, fine thanks” that shuts down the conversation but yes, also shuts down the potential for connection. And on top of that, societal stigma (or our perception of it) means that we think mental health or stress or insecurity all sounds like weakness and, particularly for people in positions of leadership, that’s not something that feels at all comfortable. No one wants a “weak leader”, right?
Except, of course, you know as well as I do that there’s actually nothing stronger than being authentic, and vulnerable, and honest, and open, and compassionate, and thoughtful. That letting people in is how we connect, and it’s those connections that makes us stronger still: less likely to simply suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; more likely to rely on each other and work together and perhaps even enjoy the ride.
I’ll be very honest here – I’ve had a tough few months. I’ve “had quite a lot on” [as my mum might have said in her typical understated way] and it’s been… well… “a lot”. I’ve been overusing my ADHD ability to have all possible tabs open all the time, and just opening one more and one more again when something else comes along, and it’s left me stretched pretty thin. I’m thinking about everything, all the time. From the macro of war and famine and societal division to the big picture of work strategy and operations to the micro of a leak in the roof and an upcoming deadline and where the fuck I’ve left my keys for the third time in a day [and everything in between, of course: it’s the otherwise inconsequential in between things that can wear us down, just like a drip drip drip of water will, in time, wear away the rock beneath] the lines can become a little blurred between what I’m handling and what I’m pretending (to myself, as much as anyone) that I’m handling.
But rather than shutting my eyes and pretending the hole wasn’t up ahead, I’ve recognised the potential for hole-based opened up and talked like I’ve not done before. My awareness of the hole ahead means I’ve I’ve told people I’m struggling. I’ve explained that I’ve been overusing my ADHD; using the ability I have to keep all the mental tabs open, all the time, just to get things done and that it’s leaving me exhausted. I’ve acknowledge that it’s not sustainable for me.
I’ve asked for help.
And do you know what? People have listened, people have made an effort to understand, and people have helped.
[I don’t know why but it’s always slightly shocking when that happens, don’t you think? That people will even go out of their way to help out when they see the need? And yet you would do the same, I’m sure. Perhaps we’re just never as sure about our own worth as we are about other people’s?]
That’s what knowing has given me: a moment to get my people around me. Friends, colleagues. Some who cross that unnecessary linguistic divide. People who care. For different reasons perhaps, but all with the same end in mind. Perhaps even the same mind in mind. My mind.
Mental Health Awareness Week will come and go. But for all of us, the challenges of managing a mental load that is greater than any group of people in the history of the world goes on every day.
And it’s in that context that I’ll encourage you to do two things:
First, be kind to yourself. You’ve had a long day and worked hard and actually done bloody well under the circumstances and the last thing you need is your own brain not being kind to your own self. Give yourself a break. You honestly deserve it, and if you’re not going to give yourself a break, who is?
And second, if you’re struggling then I implore you, please, ask for help. You’ll find that “happy to help” isn’t just a throwaway phrase, it’s real. People around you will actually be happy if they are able to help you. It makes them feel good, and it’s good for you. It’s how we connect.
Thanks for reading, I appreciate it more than you can imagine. Take care. Speak soon I hope.
Right now, with the world as it is, and as it seems to be becoming, day by day by day, that really is the question, isn’t it? When the hits just keep on coming, do you unflinchingly absorb them all without complaint or word of dissent? Or do you step forward, perhaps exposing yourself a little, and be?
So this isn’t a time for being resolute, if you ask me. This is a time to stand up and be counted. Being calm in a messed up situation never made much sense to me ever since I read this line in a book long time ago:
If you can keep your head while others are losing theirs, perhaps you have misjudged the situation
Right now it feels like the world it’s losing its head.
I don’t feel I can really do anything about Gaza, or Ukraine, or Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Congo. War and Death riding around all over the place with their good friend Famine following dutifully behind. I can be outraged, and saddened,. I can speak to people about the rights and wrongs. I can talk to my kids about it so they understand that things aren’t all Playstation and football clips on YouTube. I can make the decision to continue to watch and read about these because shutting off from them because “it’s all too much” is one privilege I can decide to do without. But I can’t affect change in any meaningful way.
But there’s another one of that horse-riding frat party, isn’t there? Pestilence. Kind of the forgotten guy, Pestilence hangs around without anyone really knowing what he does or really what he means. But he knows he’s just as dangerous, and potentially more pernicious, than the others. Actually, he sets up the whole thing.
Four horsemen as frat party, imagined by AI. No, I can’t see AI replacing creativity any time soon either.
Pestilence is broadly understood to mean a plague or disease of some kind. Bubonic, Spanish Flu, Covid; they all fit the bill nicely. But the plague doesn’t have to just be a bacteria, or a virus. An idea, or set of ideas, can be as viral, and as invasive, as any biological threat..
There is a pestilence today that I can stand up to. That I can reject, and fight against with renewed vigour. That is the idea that equality or equity for a group has been under-represented, or oppressed, or otherwise not been given the opportunities that others have had, is somehow discriminatory to the majority. What self-serving, narrow-minded, deliberately reductive bullshit.
And it’s spreading.
More and more over recent years, and months, and now weeks and days, I’ve heard the idea that “DE&I has gone too far”. We’ve basically done the job on gender, right? In fact, you could say women’s rights have gone way too far – I mean, ” “International Women’s Day”?? When is International Men’s Day, eh?? [It’s November 19th. Or, if you ask a lot of women, it’s every single other day of the year too].. The whole LGBTQI+ stuff – every time I look they’ve added another letter haven’t they? Race too – I mean, we’ve had a black President and a brown Prime Minister, right? And everyone has one of these neuro-diversity labels nowadays, don’t they? And most of them are made up, or self-diagnosed anyway. “You can’t get promoted round here unless you’re a black one-legged lesbian”. I put that in quotes because I’ve heard of someone saying those exact words. Just banter though, yeah?
How far are we prepared to let this go? To be, or not to be?
A colleague and friend of mine who lives in LA told me that recently she (who is from Spain) and her husband (who is from Mexico) and their children who are born and bred in the USA had someone shout at them in the street to “go back to where you came from”. In their faces. In the faces of children. In California, of all places – supposedly the nerve centre of the “woke agenda” that tries to suppress the rights of people who want to be racist, or sexist, or xenophobic, or homophobic, just like they used to be able to.
And that was before the tsunami of executive orders, fired off with vindictive, revengeful, smug delight with the certainty that the world would bow down and comply in fear of retribution from them and their faithful followers. Personal, aggressive, arrogant retribution, meted out by billionaires who, despite the incredible power that money has given them, time and time again show themselves to have egos just as egg-shell thin as you would expect from a school bully, all powerful until someone stands up to them and sits them down in the playground with a fat lip.
Except no one is standing up to them, are they? Some are positively falling over themselves to show their obedience.
Is anyone surprised that the man who originally created Facebook so that privileged young men at Harvard could objectify their female counterparts was falling over himself to show his allegiance to the old bigotry that couldn’t be spoken of for ages but has suddenly become okay again? Watching him say that there’s been too much “female energy” in companies, smirking as he did so, was sickening. The delight that he could, finally, say what he’s always thought. The misogynistic computer kid going back to where it all started, showing us that a leopard really never does change his spots, and sucking up to the bullies as a bonus.
I can’t really get my head around the fact that the second most powerful person [or possibly the most powerful – I’m really not sure and not sure I really care to work it out] in the most powerful country in the world can throw out Nazi salutes knowing he can get away with it.
How far are we prepared to let this go? To be, or not to be?
I wish it were just the US, I really do. As much as I love that country in so many ways, and for so many reasons, it is being taken down a dangerous path by some dangerous people. But of course the old adege holds here: “when America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold”. And this time, I’m sad to say, America has a virus that is already affecting the rest of the world.
Pepsi, General Motors, Google, Disney, GE, Intel, and PayPal have all removed references to diversity in their Annual Reports. [Disney, for crying out loud. DISNEY! You know, wonderfully diverse, sometimes camp, “we love everything and everyone” Disney? If they don’t think diversity is important then who the hell will?] Last year Pepsi said in their Annual Report that DEI was a “competitive advantage”. Presumably not as much a competitive advantage as dropping all that stuff and trying to get in the vending machines in the White House. [I’ve got news for you Pepsi – Trump prefers Coke]
And then only last week, the company I now work for followed suit, “sunsetting” DEI goals globally. [Lovely word to choose, right? I mean, who doesn’t love a sunset? So much more attractive and natural than just “cancelling”, or “giving up on” isn’t it?]. Word on the street is that my former employer are doing the same. More will come, without doubt.
It may not be on your doorstep yet, but it’s coming. It’s already here in some of the political language we’ve heard in our supposedly progressive and multicultural society in recent weeks: language that would have resulted in immediate denouncement and disgrace at any point in the last 40 or 50 years, but now somehow is just “saying it how it is”.
For various reasons I’ve talked about in these pages, I made a decision a long time ago to be active as an ally in areas relating to diversity, equity and inclusivity. Part of that was because I have loads of privilege myself, and felt I should use that to speak for others who didn’t. Partly it’s because despite all those privileges I’ve always personally felt like I didn’t quite “fit in” [something my ADHD diagnosis gave a reason for a couple of years back]. To be honest there’s also a part which looks back on me as a younger, less thoughtful and considered man and wishes I had done better back then. Stepped up. Occasionally stepped back I guess, too.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that this has become part of me now. So when the question is whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them, then I know where I stand.
I’m reminded of a quote [largely misattributed to Edmund Burke but he never actually said but let’s not worry about that right now] which says:
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing
So whatever you decide to do about this virus… this pestilence… don’t do nothing.
You can do something under-the-radar which in a small way will send a small message – a drop in the ocean, sure, but still part of the ocean. Cancel your Twitter account [sorry, it’s “X” isn’t it now? How cool!]. Cancel your Facebook account – or at the very least, “sunset” it for the time being. Decide against buying a Tesla, or sell the one you bought before the whole fascism thing.
Or you can do something more. Get involved in DE&I wherever you work. Make it explicitly clear that you are part of the cure for this world of ours, not part of the pestilence. I dunno: maybe just wear a bloody t-shirt or a badge or post something somewhere so people know where you stand. But do something. This isn’t a time for calm, it’s a time for the fire in your belly to drive you. Get angry. Get involved. Step up.
Whatever you decide to do, just don’t do nothing. To be, or not to be, remember?
I know it’s scary to step forward. It’s really hard to decide to stand up and make it clear to the world that you will fight for what you believe to be right, to fight for your rights and for the rights of others. But for the sake of whatever gods you may believe in, or for the people you love, now is the time to take a stand. You can’t stand and watch.
As JFK said in a 1962 speech [about going to the moon, I know, but this fight feels just as big a challenge at the moment:
We choose to… do [these] things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win…
Yes it’s hard. Yes it might be difficult to know what to do, or how to respond, or where, or when. But work it out because that is a challenge you are willing to accept, unwilling to postpone, and intend to win.
If you’ve read this far then I know you’re with me on this. Find your space to make your mark. I’ll do the same, I promise.
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.
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.]
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.
Even I can spot that one
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.
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.
And there he is!
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.
When I was a kid, I often received a kind of “holding pattern” answer to the inevitable requests that come from the little humans my patents had created: humans without self-control or judgement or knowledge of nutrition or of money, or of their own limitations, or the incredible responsibility a parent feels for the physical and psychological and moral safety of their progeny…
“Can I have an ice cream?”
“Can I go on the big slide?”
“Can I go to the sweet shop with my sister?”
“Can I have those rugby boots?”
“Can I stay at Caroline’s house on Friday night?” [Hey Caz!]
The answer I would get would be meaningless and, for a young human, incredibly frustrating, but something that I now know was just a “please hold, caller” to give my Mum or my Dad the time to consider, or confer, or simply come back to when they had the brain space to do so in their busy lives. But on a fairly regular basis, without the insight that comes with a few more decades around the sun and a couple of sons along the way, I was left with the frustrating:
“We’ll see.”
My sister and I would joke that when Mum said “we’ll see” you were more likely to get a “yes okay” down the line, whereas with Dad it was basically a delayed “no” which delayed the (also inevitable) conflict that response would bring.
I get it now, of course. I don’t use “we’ll see” with my boys not because of any rejection of the phrase from a place of “unresolved childhood trauma” [though let’s be honest, we all have plenty of that knocking around] but because I’m more likely to say something like “I’ll need to talk to your mum about it” or “I haven’t got time to think about that right now, let’s talk about it later”. Still buying myself time, but will at least attempt to give some kind of reason for the delay.
When I (or we) get to the decision I’m also more likely to explain the decision-making process too, all with the intention of being respectful to my boys’ questions but probably having the effect (in the moment at least) of being sanctimonious rather than sympathetic…
If the truth be known, I’m much more likely to bring in the “holding pattern” response if my initial response to it is a fairly obvious “No”. If it’s a fairly obvious “Yes” then I’ll crack on and get the little buzz of being able to give my little human what they wanted. They’re happy, I’m happy.
Happiness is messy
And who doesn’t like making people happy, right?
Yes will do that for you. Yes is, by its very nature, positive. It’s easy. It’s calming. Saying yes protects relationships and, in effect, ends the conversation; or at least that part of it. The tense part where someone asks for something and you have the decision to make. Do I say yes, and make them “happy”, or say no, and make them “unhappy”.
We do it in every part of our lives, in every relationship. Home, friends, work. Everywhere we have demands on our time, our energy, our brain power, and everywhere, every single day, we have to make the decision of whether we say yes or no.
And, let’s be honest, we all shy away from a no, now and then, right?
That’s because no is uncomfortable.
No is complex,
No needs explanation, or resolution,
No could result in conflict.
And no usually needs another conversation.
So we avoid it. Either we put it off – another problem for another day but crucially not now – or we say yes to things we don’t want to do, or don’t think we can do, or aren’t sure about, to avoid having to say NO.
Demands on our time. Social engagements. Work events. Meetings. Projects. Deadlines. Commitments.
Relationships, sometimes. Other people’s problems.
Hell, sometimes we even say yes to things that we know will mean other people have to do things they don’t have time, or won’t want, to do. Saying yes on behalf of other people because we don’t want to say no ourselves.
Since the turn of the century [such a grand way of saying “for over 20 years”!] I’ve worked in advertising: a service industry where we answer to clients who have needs and demands and timelines and deadlines and pressures. There’s an old adage that every client wants everything now, perfect, and free… or as close as possible to each of those, all the time. The pressure so say yes to the people who, effectively, pay your wages and the wages of everyone around you is pretty overwhelming. Nobody likes to hear no, so nobody likes to say no.
And guess what? Pretty much every major issue I’ve ever experienced in work over the years – of my making or the making of others – comes from a point somewhere along the line where someone should have said NO, but instead they said YES.
I started a new job recently and, like anyone in this situation, I find myself wanting to ingratiate myself into my new social group.
The temptation to be agreeable, to fit in, to say yes… that’s something that I have deep, deep inside me, as a social animal who genetically has not moved on one bit from the time where if I didn’t fit in, I might not survive the winter. Like my ancestors thousands of years ago, I’m trying to get closer to the campfire, hoping to get some of that delicious elk that was trapped last week. [No, I’ve no idea if elk is delicious either. But I have feeling my great200 grandparents might have enjoyed a bite or two]
But there’s a phrase for someone who just does that, isn’t there: a “Yes Man”. Someone who just goes along with things for an easy life, whether they agree or not. Someone without conviction, or ideas, or anything to add.
I can be accused of many things, I’m sure, but being a “Yes Man” isn’t one of them.
We are all here, surely, to have a point of view on things, and challenge where there needs to be challenge, and make the point that should be made when it needs to be made? We’re here to question, and grow, and progress, and push things forward.
I think it’s time to reframe how we think about NO.
NO is not negative. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.
NO is powerful. It denotes that there are boundaries. It shows that there has been thoughtfulness and consideration.
NO is constructive. It’s not the endpoint of a discussion, but the start of a new one which is perhaps more balanced.
NO is courageous. It renounces the path of least resistance and chooses the path that is right for you.
Saying NO is self-care, sometimes. Giving yourself space.
That’s true in all our parts of life.
You know when it’s a NO… so do you say it?
I know it’s not easy but I also know that it’s really, really important.
In fact, I could probably say that some of the most important moments in my life are when I’ve decided to say no. To trust my instincts and say no and accept the personal angst and turmoil that comes with that because I know that’s how I stick close to my values and I know that the outcome will be better if I do so as a result.
To have values. To have boundaries. To have the strength and the fortitude and the courage to say no, when the answer needs to be no. With the knowledge that no doesn’t stop the conversation, but actually opens up another one.
No isn’t negative.
What we choose not to do matters
Our ability to say NO is our ability to take charge of our own destiny: an expression of our self-worth and intellectual honesty.
I’m not saying you should start saying no to everything. You’d very quickly find yourself a good distance away from the campfire if you did, nibbling forlornly on some bits of bark that you’ve found which someone told you were nutritious but taste grim.
I’m also not advising being too British about it, because as you probably know if there were a World championships for beating around the bush rather than saying what you actually mean we would come second because we’d be too busy beating around the bush to be first…
…all in some strange mix of politeness and awkwardness that is, I’m sure, incredibly frustrating for most other people, particularly our straight-talking cousins from “across the pond” who quite rightly think that when we say “hmm, that’s an idea” that we think it’s an idea worth considering rather than the most offensive apology for an idea that we’ve heard since teatime.
All I’m saying is give it a shot. Practice a bit, even. The next time you know the answer isn’t a yes, then please, gracefully and politely, and with an embracing of the conversation to come…
Say no. Or a version of it, at least.
You owe it to yourself, personally and professionally.
Hey, if you want to borrow “we’ll see” from my parents, then you go right ahead. You can have that one courtesy of my childhood.
The Bartlett Bubble 