“Sound when stretched is music.
Movement when stretched is dance.
Mind when stretched is meditation.
Life when stretched is celebration.”
– Shri Ravishankar Jee
In my mid-twenties, I found myself in challenging mental waters and was lucky enough to have been connected with a skilful counsellor.
At one of our regular Friday sessions, he asked me this question:
“When do you learn most Shane? When things are good or when things are challenging?”
In my naivety, I answered “When things are good because mentally you’re calm and can take things in.”
My counsellor smiled and replied
“I think you’re confusing real learning with school learning.”
“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude;
be kind, but not weak;
be bold, but not bully;
be thoughtful, but not lazy;
be humble, but not timid;
be proud, but not arrogant;
have humour, but without folly.”
Jim Rohn
Quotes don’t always stop me in my tracks.
But this one did.
“If you hear a voice within you say
‘you cannot paint’, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
– Vincent Van Gogh
Sometimes when I use sporting analogies, people who are not into sport don’t like it.
Fair enough – but I AM into sport… 🙂
My own experience has shown me that you can glean insights from any field even if you’re not into them. I’m guessing that’s why I’m very interested in ‘performance’ in general – be it business, sport, music, sales, cooking, writing, tiddlywinks…. 🙂
In my podcast this week, the title is Learning From Golf (Even If You Don’t Like It). In it I share some insights from my own work in that area with top players. The insights are directly relevant to anyone interested in bringing more clarity, success and flow into their lives.
“The best way to predict the future is to design it”
– Buckmister Fuller
This time last week I was in the middle of hosting annual retreat for leaders, which was all the more special because of the prolonged delay with the pandemic.
23 unsuspecting victims, I mean clients…,joined me for 3 days in the beautiful village of Carlingford. We hiked, talked, reflected, laughed, listened and learned.
While there is a structure to this retreat I’ve found that there is always an emergent property to the event – themes or ideas will emerge in the moment as the group deepens it’s connection. One of the recurring themes this year was around ‘including yourself in your success’ more.
“Can’t talk. I am recharging”
– Anonymous Introvert
One morning last week I was taking a walk by the sea and when I returned to my car and was about to move away, there was a knock on my window.
A guy in a beanie hat was staring me straight in the face and when I opened the door, he asked politely if I had jump cables because his car wasn’t starting.
So I moved my car and we tried to inject new life into his engine, but it didn’t work. He thought the starter was the problem, so he had to go to plan C and call his family for help.
Electricity or charge always amazes me. Indeed it still mystifies some of the smartest minds on the planet.
Here are some things that struck me:
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb
“I’m too far down the road to change now. It’s just the way I am”
So said the smart, ambitious leader to me.
They were referring to why they thought it was impossible for them to change some of their behaviour and habits – especially mental ones.
On one level, at least they were honest in saying what they were thinking.
“The last mile is never crowded and that’s the way it does feel sometimes.
The difference is to be able to hold on in there, to keep it going.”
– Kellie Harrington
Over the weekend, the Olympics came to a close but not before a certain Dubliner, Kellie Harrington won a gold medal in the lightweight division of women’s boxing.
Kellie has worked tirelessly for years, with the singular ambition of getting to the top of her sport – and with scant resources when compared with many of the other athletes at the games.
Indeed I must admit to being turned off some of the better known international athletes when their reactions to not winning gold indicated a sense of entitlement and poor sportsmanship.
Over the last 2 weeks a few people who read this weekly post told me they hadn’t realised I have a podcast.
So this note is to let you know I have one… :)…. plus to give you a challenge.
It started as an experiment in February this year and has evolved into a weekly podcast that ranges in time from 8-15 minutes usually. (Details and link to the podcast are below)
So far it’s been an enjoyable learning curve and I really like the format.
The quote above is one I think is important as you get older. The greatest workshop of all is your life. Experimentation is key to ensuring vitality and aliveness, yet it’s so easy to fall into a non-experimentation way of living.
I’ve started taking a slight interest in gardening recently and I am finding it surprisingly therapeutic and ‘grounding’. (words I never thought I would ever write or say…)
It was triggered by a problem that had emerged when myself and TLJ* had put down new grass in an area of our garden. Surprisingly for Ireland, there has been very little rain over the last month (that issue has been solved as of today as it’s pouring outside!) and that, combined with a lot of sun in this area of the garden meant that the grass was dying.
So we took to regularly watering this area and the grass is recovering, bringing with it a lovely green sheen and vibrancy.
If you’re a fan of sport you will have heard all about the saga of the ‘Super League’ but even if you’re not, you most likely will have heard about it as it made headlines globally for all of last week.
In essence, 12 of the biggest soccer teams in Europe made it public that they were creating a new league that they would control, could never be relegated from and would depart the premier competition in Europe, The Champions League.
Within 2 days of that announcement it was dead in the water.
Why?
