Ian…
CWH is the most exciting project I’ve been involved in for years because, for the first time, I’m doing something for the pure joy of it.
If you’d told me three years ago that I would soon be implementing a range of new, life-enhancing practices, I would have scoffed at you! You see, I was a scoffer. I had my act together. I thought the whole self-help world was for people with too much time on their hands and charlatans too lazy to do a proper job. Then I hit a wall… and I’m really grateful that I did.
I’m a lawyer. By training and, to some extent, by nature. That says more about me than I’d like, but it’s the truth because doing something for 30 years inevitably shapes you. It’s hard, sometimes, for people, particularly men I think, to escape having defined themselves by their careers.
I’m a problem solver. That’s what I do. A few years ago I discovered, out of the blue, that I had a big problem. Once you know you’ve got a problem, you have to solve it. Right? Well, yes, of course, but what if you don’t know how?
CWH is for everyone, but I want to particularly engage with men because, as a broad generalisation, we are bloody terrible at this stuff. And women are not off the hook on this either because you are often complicit in how men are to the same extent that men are complicit in how women see themselves; so we need to have a meaningful conversation about this. Men and women. We have a lot of lovely things to learn from each other.
“Conversations Worth Having is the organised continuation of the process of solving my problem. If you suspect that your life could be better than it is, I really want you to join our conversation.”
The great news is that I have identified simple methods for reversing my malaise and in 2017 I had an existential crisis. I was working alone in New York feeling pretty isolated and stressed, when I was laid low in a depressing hotel room by a kidney stone. I had no idea what was happening and, for a miserable hour, genuinely thought I was dying – it was a turning point in my life.
I realised that, if I had died, I would not have been found for days. No-one knew precisely where I was – not my wife, my friends, colleagues… I would have been missed by conference organisers, but, after a chasing WhatsApp or email, they would quickly have moved on to other priorities and cursed me for letting them down.
I had no close friends and, truth be told, found no deep solace in any of my relationships, including, to my shame, my long marriage. I had failed to communicate honestly or often enough and I felt like a stranger to myself and my wife.
I did reach out to one colleague in desperation, but she did not want to know and walked away from our conversation and I gave up hope of engaging with anyone else on something so personal and that was a huge set-back. I wish I’d persevered with someone else, but I didn’t and, instead, retreated into myself.
“In a society that wants everything at the touch of a button, we forget the natural laws of nature and deny ourselves the journey in favour of the destination.”
I started reading, but, in my confusion, I also started a bunch of other destructive, numbing and masking behaviours too. I found myself rudderless, but desperately wanting direction.
Eventually, I came, very reluctantly at first, to self-empowerment teaching from a place of deep skepticism and cynicism, but my intolerable dis-ease overrode my resistance.
From the start of this exploration I rejected appealing to a higher power. I don’t believe in interventionist forces and wholly distrust religion. I find doctrine and dogma ridiculous. I needed practical practices and methods, not faith in the whims of any god.
Something finally struck a chord with a chance viewing of a segment of a Brenē Brown TED talk on YouTube. It was my first “Hell yes!” moment – some clarity at last. I mentioned this to Kezra on a flight and she lit up and bombarded me with Brenē’s books and talks. This was so serendipitous.
Kezra didn’t know the extent of what I was going through – we were relatively new colleagues and I was her boss and it would have felt inappropriate to get too personal with her, but we got on well and the conversations took off and continue to this day.
Getting insights into her world view and practices as we interacted and I read deeper was life changing. It was these conversations that ultimately led to my, initially slow, adoption of self-empowerment practices that, over the last two years, have transformed my life and continue to do so daily.
I have learned that I need help and I’ve worked out where to find it both externally and internally and I want to engage in a conversation with you about that so we can continue transforming our lives for the better.
I don’t have the definitive answers for you, but I do know that good conversation respectfully conducted with an open mind, will uncover answers that work for you.
The conversation may be, like mine, with an unexpected counterpart whose outlook you didn’t previously respect or it may be with your best friend of many years.
I’m no guru - I’m on my journey and you are on yours and we can learn from each other like I‘ve learned from Kezra and others and they‘ve learned from me. A beautiful byproduct of these conversations too, has been deepened connections and friendships that continue to grow. What a discovery!
I believe that some of the practices I’ve learned will chime with you. You’ll like some and not others. Feel at home with some and not others. Any one of them, though, practiced diligently and incorporated into your daily life, will probably help you feel more wholehearted and just plain better.
Isn’t that what it’s really all about? Not magic bullets, but incremental changes that mean today is a little better than yesterday and tomorrow is a little better than today.
For context, it probably helps to know some biographical stuff. I was born in Durban, South Africa, and got my law degree at the University of Natal (now KZN) before emigrating to the UK in 1989. I have 20 year old twin sons who are the most important people in my world. When not travelling for work, I live a quiet life alone on a boat deep in the Surrey countryside and I run when I need to stop thinking.
I am at the beginning of a journey of discovering who I really am; what makes me happy, what brings me joy and what makes me content. I am learning every day and I’m bedding in practices that have improved my life immeasurably and continue to do so as I trust the process more and more.
I have ups and downs, but the ups are higher and the downs far easier and quicker to ride out with understanding and self-compassion. I’m a far nicer person than I used to be.
