Category Archives: Goals and Motivation

Simply Solitude

Posted on by Simpletom
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Like many a seeker I found, lost, found and ultimately lost myself in Dharmasala.

I remember thinking that if I was to get a tattoo at that time, as a 19 year-old is want to, it would have been of a traveller with a cane over his shoulder, with all his worldy possessions tied into a handkerchief.

Fortunately I didn’t. It would have been a shit tattoo.

No, I wouldn’t have actually got this one, but you get the picture.

The reason – I was musing on self-sufficiency. I had been reading a load of the requisite ‘eastern’ literature. I’d realised, as so many had before me, that to be in control of one’s own emotions enabled freedom. To have that type of control enables one to deal with any situation, anywhere, with anyone.

For years during my youf, I never liked to be alone and chased company. Today, I love solitude – albeit it in moderation. Or at least I prefer no company to bad company.

Yet a while back I posted about not starting a business with partners.

My opinion has changed. I was wrong. Again.

I’ve spent the last 9 months working alone and achieved many things. Yet in the last few months as my business pivots, I’ve realized I need a partner, partners even. And as I begin to work with people, I remember the benefit they bring.

It’s possible to be effective alone, but as a social being, I believe that partnerships actually bring out the best. They help you to monitor your own mad thoughts, they create expectations and they keep one from disappearing into another rabbit hole of thinking.

The same could be said of my love life. Fiercely independent, I’ve preferred to remain alone rather than compromise. Yet I wonder if a relationships is, in fact, a more powerful place from which to grow. Scrap that, it almost certainly is. It’s easy to be alone – it prevents contradiction and challenges to one’s ‘way’. Yet, I’ve watched my friends become better people through the rounding that a relationship brings.

That’s the easy bit – realisation – now to find the balance, day-to-day.

A great friend enjoying a moment alone...

Starting to Finish

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One of the tricks of meditation is to gently bring one’s mind back from the various thoughts that seem to spring eternal, as if from some internal thought fountain, each time they wander. The goal (if tricks and goals can be applied to meditation) is attentiveness. To be fully conscious of the moment – without letting thoughts break that attention… such as what you’re going to eat later, or if that’s your car alarm going off, or whether you’ve managed not to think about anything for longer than ten seconds.

Meditation is about focusing and developing that initial desire – it is about calming the mind. It is about bringing yourself back to that simple starting point whenever you stray.

We should remember why we began…

I often look up an important article on the web then see an interesting link, which reminds me to share something on Twitter, then Facebook and before I know it, I’ve entered into a half-hour loop, which has taken me further and further from the initial intention. Many sites, advertisements, applications and so on are designed exactly with that in mind – to capture your attention. It is no wonder we find it so hard to focus and concentrate when billions of dollars are spent to try to seize morsels of our consciousness at every turn.

It’s not just the micro-pieces, but also the macro. Sometimes we forget why we started dating someone, or why we left a job to begin a new business. We can be so caught up in an argument with a partner, or the desire to reach the next level of our business targets, that we even forget the reason for our being there.

To a CEO trying to buy another billion-dollar business to be the CEO of an even bigger business to achieve even greater profits and even greater cost reduction – you have to ask, “Why?” Why did this character first get into business? Like our friends in the book Barbarians at the Gate, have these titans of business, or ‘big swinging dicks’ become so lost that they’ve forgotten that they started in business to earn a fair wage, or change the world for the better?

In the tech start-up world, valuations have created billion-dollar companies within a few years – yet how often do the creators of remarkable programming languages, or social media platforms stop to wonder about the why? Why did we start inventing things? The fastest growing company in the world EVER was Groupon, a company that helps sell things you never knew you needed more quickly. Is that important? Surely, a company discovering a cure for tuberculosis, or a social enterprise should have been a quicker hit? Sadly not.

When you get on a plane and you wander through business class into the rabble at the back, past the overweight people trying not to feel self-conscious in business class, you have to wonder if they are there because it’s important that they’re there, or because they’ve become gently accustomed to the luxury, like the proverbial boiling frog.

As my new venture takes shape, please come and twock me round the head if I start talking about wanting to be the ‘biggest’ if I cannot substantiate the statement with a rationale that make sense from a world-improving, spiritually-conscious point of view. I want to make a difference to people’s lives, my own included. Yet I hope I never lose sight of why I begin / began, because:

  • I love building things (but I’d make a crap architect)
  • It’s wonderful to conceive of something that can change the way things work and actually create it and see it grow to be bigger than any human part
  • A ‘good’ business has more potential to make an impact than a ‘good’ charity (in my view)
  • It pays the bills and it’s fun. Bonza. My first business, was begun because we’d been enjoying doing it free and wanted to do it for longer
  • I like to break bad rules / traditions
  • It’s good to hire people better than yourself
  • You can be free to set your own direction
  • It’s hugely challenging

So take some time to focus, harness that attention. Set your direction then continue to realign it so you’re not distracted by the news, your peers or marketeers. Rather than hit targets, realise your intention. Unless of course you started to beat others and get rich, in which case start again.

One of the most amazing things ever finished on the misty morning I saw it... The beginnings of a black marble Taj sit the other side of the river which was never finished. Still - good job!

Bettering

Posted on by Simpletom
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I remember sitting by a pool in Bali (the struggles) on my gap year and writing in my diary that I wanted to become ‘a better person’. I had read the requisite amount of Dostoevsky, Hesse, Eliot and Somerset Maugham to know that my previous aspirations – to become rich, successful and renowned – would likely lead to discontent.

I was traveling on my own – to see and experience the world solo. I had dreams of returning tattooed, wise and rich with confidence and tales. Alas, I wasn’t ready. Still painfully shy or at least awash with self-doubt, I found it hard to wander up to strangers and forge new relationships. A lot of time was spent ‘trying’ to overcome these insecurities, or passing time alone, without much of a sense of direction. Certainly, there were moments of joy and discovery – trance parties on the beach, tropical hangovers and characters met – but I was overly-aware of the difference between my own abilities in seizing the day, and those of others who seemed just bigger, more confident and charismatic than I. So ‘becoming better’ became my focus.

There were a number of ways that I realised I might ‘become better’. Through studying, reading, discipline, awareness, compassion, hard work and the rest. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at these either. And so time passed, as it’s want to. My gap year wandered on. Then university and ‘real life’.

14 years on, I still have aspirations of becoming a better person. If I remove the improvements gained by time, experience and wisdom, I wonder whether, in fact, I’ve become any better at all. Perhaps I’ve even gone backwards. Certainly, I’m not too bad. I’ve done a bit of work that has had lasting impacts, here and there. But I’m still driven, or is that haunted, by the idea that there is so much more that can and could have been done to ‘improve’ – my aspirations, fueled by those ‘big’ people met, and literary characters witnessed, seem bigger than my abilities.

Despite all these years of trying, I seem to get no closer.

This morning, after reading a couple of chapters of Kane and Able – (people forget that Jeffrey Archer, despite being bit of a dubious fellow – or perhaps because he is one – can spin a gripping yarn) I went for my morning swim in the lagoon in front of my house, determined once again to make this a ‘bettering day’. How much can I fit in? Is there time to write a blog post (yes), write a bit more of a new song on the piano, to do some work, learn some swahili and do some exercise. Can I fit it all in and do it well? Can I leave myself an iota better at the end of today and turn that corner that I’ve been trying to turn for 14+ years.

Or, as it occurred to me as I swam – given the 14 years and lack of progress to change my fundamental being, should I come to terms with my deficiencies, know myself, and embrace what I have rather than what I believe I should have. Surely that is more Simpletomian. Why is it, after all these years of high-expectation, have I not learned the truth? I’m always optimistic about what could be achieved, that what usually is.

Which brought me back to some of the fundamental tennents of my Simple journey – not to be lazy and give into sloth – but instead to embrace natural inclinations. To be gentle with oneself, whilst at the same time making considered improvments, being mindful of patterns and trends and implementing some discipline. Rather than waking up frustrated by a previous lack of progress and expecting that energy to propel toward a new lease of life – to gently accept the way things are and work with them to improve the self, just that little iota needed. With compound interest, those iotas may indeed add up.

Most of us have an inherent ability to improve ourselves that doesn’t need to be forced or cajoled through guilt or self-lamentation. The happiest times in my life have not been when I’ve had a Franklin-esque day, but instead when I’ve cast aside concerns and just been. I still get things done.

I need to trust myself – to be confident that the process will unravel, rather than force the issues. The frustration, rather than compel me to be better, instead initiates guilt, which is deconstructive.

I’m still mostly a nice person. Plus I actually tend to be better when I’m not trying than when I am – without the pressure, or stress, of self-flagellation, I tend to think and worry less and do more.

Not ‘To Do’ List

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I like the concept of a not-to-do list. Not just because it adheres to my flippant, rebellious nature, but also because life is as much about what we choose not to do as we choose to do.  Simplification, after all, is as much about removing things as adding them – peeling the layers to find the true self, rather than adding further complications.

“Our lives are frittered away by detail; simplify, simplify.” — Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862).

By not doing things, it’s possible to find the time for those things that we feel we don’t have enough time for, like family, friends, learning and instrument, exercise, laziness and general sloth.

Here is my current not-to-do list:

1)    Not check my e-mail or go online before 10 am, or after 7 pm (including iPads, iPhones and other pocket protrusions).

This prevents dipping your head straight back into the fire-hose of information and getting caught up in the chaos of ‘insta-replies’ in the morning. The latter cutoff prevents e-mails drifting into your dreams. You know the one – you’re trying to run but the e-mails are closing in on you.

Rather easy in my current house with no power, but this is a longer-lasting not-to.

2)    Answer all correspondence. Sometimes I don’t reply. It’s the only way.

3)    Read newspapers or magazines.

4)    Use Facebook or Twitter or check messages on either. It gives me more time to do the important things, like see friends, read a book, write and so on.

5)    Buy new products, unless necessary.

6)    Listen to marketers. They lie – pure and simple. Even with the might of the advertising standards bodies, they create unnecessary wants and unhappiness. Ignore them. When an advertisement comes on, see it purely as an attempt to get you to do something, rather than because their intentions are straight and true. Read Affluenza by Oliver James for more information on this.

7)    Feel guilty about taking time off or not working. 

8)    Answer the telephone when I’m busy.

9)    Finishing books just because I’ve started them. According to Google, who seem fairly up on information nowadays, there are 129,864,880 books that have been published in the world today. If each takes a day to read (24 hours of non-stop reading), that’s a mere 5.4 m days, or 14,800 years of continuous reading. I’ve also given up maths, just in case my calculations don’t add up. My rule is that if I’m not enjoying a book within the first 10 to 50 pages, I chuck it. No matter whether it’s Shakespeare or Mills & Boon.

10) Biting off more than I can chew. I try to say ‘no’ more often. Yes, I suffer from that irritating individual habit of being eager to please.

11) Worrying about money. If you’ve got it, then, as long as you’re not a ‘shopaholic’, you’re unlikely to go bust imminently. Be frugal and fret not.

12) Thinking about the future or the past too much – something that came to a head for me in my Vipassana course.

13) Being too concerned about what people think about me. We have to realise that we’re not always going to please everyone.

14) Eating on the fly – “please sir, there’s a soup on the fly”

15) Writing lists. Feck.

Here are some successful people not doing things too:

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Looking To The Future (Then Trying To Ignore It)

Posted on by Simpletom
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All good things must end. So with a month left on the clock here in Kenya, I am reminded that the ‘next stage’ of life looms.

At the end of 2009 I took a break from the day-in day-out drive of running a business – partly because I was burnt out, and partly because the market had also burnt itself out. Running a recruitment business in the largest recession in living history is just not that simple, or fun.

The year 2010, however, was a revelation. Despite a slow market, I managed to win some first-rate executive searches that kept me financially alive.

However, the true discovery was that when free of the ‘timetable’ of working life, the pressure of managing people, and the expectation that comes with running a business, I could do a much better job for my clients and I started enjoying myself again.

I love running these searches and I am extremely good at it, if I might be so bold. Last year, I helped a large foundation find a key campaigner, who achieved one of the biggest environmental success stories of the last decade. That feels good. That makes all the naysayers fade into the background.

It is not about the fees, or beating the competition to win these searches, but about meeting fascinating people, finding the right person for the right job, and the results of that elusive combination. For me, there is a joy when a candidate I have placed in a role comes back two or three years later and tells me their life changed because of our interaction. In the case of the search above – if only Mother Nature could talk, I think she would’ve sent me a Christmas card.

But recruitment can be a disheartening and cruel business, hence my reticence to leap back in. Other recruiters have dragged the sector into a money-centric realm with a poor reputation. Tell someone on the board of a company that you are a recruiter and they often make their excuses and leave, desperate to avoid the hard sell. People look down their noses at you and lump you into category. ‘Why would you, Tom, want to do that?’. You’re bright, they state – surely you can find better things to do?

Don’t worry. My rebellious nature would have me running off to do something else if it didn’t feel right.

So the question now, about the return, is how to balance my discovered simplicity with my working world? How can I retain the joy of interacting with outstanding people and helping companies find exciting and rewarding people without it dragging me into complexity? Can I retain the lightness that a lack of concern with materialism brings, while working in a cut-throat industry, where the hungriest fight hard and dirty?

I think I can.

But I need to be mindful of all I have learned and how happy I feel.

I must set myself some guidelines – some mnemonics – to prevent materialism, competition and ego dominating my drive. Instead, I want drive that is propelled by flow, simplicity and a desire to do good.

This plays out to a bigger question. How does the desire for simplicity interplay with the competitive capitalist world? How do we find the ideal balance?

1)            One of the key points is remembering that when people are in ‘flow’ and happy, they often work more diligently and efficiently.

Therefore, there must be a trust. Trust that with passion will follow reward, rather than the other way around.

By retaining and focusing on the areas that feel right, things often come right.

2)            In my case, recruitment often involves networking and getting one’s name out there. This means hard work and a degree of pushiness. How to ensure that this remains healthy?

The key, I believe, is to remember the power of people. By helping the right organisation find the right people, I can help make a small difference. Driven by this force – the force of good – I can stomach a few rejections by people who do not have the time to realise that I am a different type of recruiter.

3)            In the pursuit of money, or success, people often abandon their integrity and their authenticity. When a salesperson sells something he would not buy, or an investment banker sells toxic assets, or a lawyer suggests a complicated solution to a simple problem (which in my eyes seems the norm) – each is compromising their values.

Instead, I must remain true to myself. This means choosing the right pieces of business, for the right type of client. It is hard when someone wafts a large cheque in front of you, but in fact, it is often less rewarding in the end when all the other factors are combined.

4)            Take breaks. Work in a way that is right.

One of the reasons that I burned out was that I worked in the way I was expected to. Anyone who has read about starting a business can feel that the only way to succeed is through working like a slave to get things started. Tales of people sleeping beneath their desks and years of struggle are all too common. As such, I found myself working sixty- or seventy-hour weeks believing that it was the only way to succeed.

Yet this just was not effective for me. Perhaps it works for some to have this discipline but I found myself enslaved. That meant I did not enjoy it so my work suffered, as well as my life.

Instead, I will try to work efficiently, rather than ‘putting in the hours’. I also need a change of scene now and again, out of the office. That makes employing people more difficult.

Instead, I will try to work alone, with support from Odesk or Elance to help lighten the burden, rather than rushing to employ people and scale up.

I will also set up alone, rather than with partners, as I mentioned in my previous post. It sounds lonely, but it enables freedom, simplicity and focus – it also prevents someone else compromising your direction.

Although the politicians of the world will lament my poor contribution to their employment figures – I want to build an organisation that is efficient and simple, rather than large and complex.

For me, a company that has a turnover of £250 thousand per year with one employee and the freedom that brings would be preferable to a £25 million business with a hundred people. Especially as the manager at the top might end up with a similar pay packet, if that is his / her motivation.

I may miss the fellowship of ‘company’ (is that why they’re called companies?), but for now I can offset this with the freedom this brings.

5)            Maintaining routines and not getting swept away with work is critical.

My current routine and desire to write could easily be compromised with the cut and thrust of business.

Instead, I promise to continue to wake without an alarm clock, wherever and whenever possible (I am a few years away from having children, at best, so this isn’t just a cunning claim in the knowledge that I have exterior forces that will awaken me). I promise to spend the first thirty minutes reading in bed, before getting up. Not a book on management techniques, but a novel, or a book of personal interest. Then, I will start by writing in the morning, until I have written a few pages, before I start to think about work.

When I do get ‘back to business’ I will make sure that my first action is not checking my emails, but going over my list of things to do and working on the important first, preferably offline.

During the day, I will take several breaks to wander in the garden or even, as I did when I was working last summer, to spend an hour or two going to the swimming ponds on Hampstead Heath in the mid-afternoon.

All this might sound too pleasurable and easy to achieve. Not waking with an alarm clock, I hear you say, ‘I’d bloody well do that if I could’. Well, believe you me – maintaining the kind of calm morning routine I have mentioned is surprisingly difficult when faced with an onslaught of ‘things to do’. You’d be surprised how difficult it is to maintain this kind of routine when you’re barraged by emails.

Within one’s working day, I believe (to paraphrase Antoine de Saint Exupéry) perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but nothing left to take away.

6)            Finally… although there are many more pieces to the puzzle that I am sure will rear themselves, I must remember not to attach too much importance to all that I do.

By reminding ourselves of our insignificance, and impermanence, the desperate desire to achieve, succeed and win fade away. When we remember these things, business fails to retain its lustre and the pleasures of simplicity, wonders of balance and desire to retain one’s life appear, as if they’d been there all along.

Here's me, last night, next to my new house, trying to prevent the days from ending so quickly...

Moguls, Success, Money and the Elephant Man

Posted on by Simpletom
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For years I wanted to be a business mogul. You know the type – a Thomas Crown mixed with a Richard Branson – overladen with opportunity, events, praise and, of course, generous dollops of money.

I wanted my rich double-cream chocolate gateaux with cherries, and boy, was I going to eat it.

I tried, at a ferocious pace – starting seven businesses in three separate countries over the course of a decade, with some modest success.

But my dreams were grand and unhealthy. The materialism never materialised.

Why? Because my dreams were fundamentally unrealistic as they contained, neatly packaged within, several core contradictions.

For example –

  • I wanted wealth as well as finding meaning in my life.
  • I wanted to be hugely successful, yet I did not want to work punishing hours or to miss holidays with friends.
  • I wanted to be liked by all my employees and business partners, which if you are trying to run a successful business just does not work. In fact, as I learned to my peril, trying to be liked can often result in a completely opposite reaction.
  • I wanted my companies to grow, but I hated the hard sell.

Dreaming is a wonderful thing. However, in my case my dreams are often conflicting and contain specific flaws.

I am too quick to imagine how I might be in a specific situation, or what I would like to be, rather than recognising who I am.

Watching a film like the Motorcycle Diaries (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318462/) has me mentally travelling across South America, although actually I would prefer settling in one place, I do not speak Spanish and have deliberately avoided any attempt to learn to ride a motorbike (primarily for health and safety reasons as this Simpletom has a not-so-simple-but-hard-to-banish love of speed and vehicles).

Into the Wild (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0758758/) has me living in isolation in some faraway place in complete happiness, until I realise that I like people, dislike sleeping in uncomfortable places and would make a hopeless forager.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132620/) has me hacking into people’s bank accounts, becoming the next Julian Assange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange) and writing incredible exposés (and drinking about fifty cups of coffee a day), until I realise that I have not got an investigative nature, the patience to figure out how to programme a DVD machine, nor a photographic memory (or even much of a memory at all).

Even people provide an incredible palette of potential things that we could be… and the media helps to fuel this furnace.

One minute I meet an author who spent seven years on a single novel and I want to dedicate myself wholeheartedly to writing ‘the’ book of the year. The next minute a concert pianist – then an explorer.

None of which, if I am going to exercise an iota of realism, I am capable of unless I give up almost everything else. The complete picture of all the traits, characters, careers and desires I have would make me look look, if these emotions could be seen, like the elephant man crossed with Maasai warrior. i.e. not pretty!

Sitting in a therapist’s chair, which I did for a few years in my early twenties to precociously try to ‘figure it out’, found me regularly marvelling at the chasm between the desired me and the actual me.

To become all the things I wanted would have resulted in a few lifetimes, a couple of fundamental character transplants, zero sleep and a healthy dose of schizophrenia (I wonder if both of us would have been comfortable with each other!).

Then I noticed something rather simple.

If I tried to become more me, I achieved more than if I tried to be more the way I wanted to be. Those dreams did not have to vanish – instead, I became realistic. I tried to understand how dreams connected and interplayed with one another. Most important, I was reminded that no one – (let me repeat that) not one person in the history of the world – has achieved all that I wanted to achieve. Therefore I should just give myself a pat on the back for how far I had come and what I had achieved, rather than what I had not, or had yet to.

The realisation of the impossible was rather liberating. Instead, I tried to be more supportive of the self. My internal dialogue (between my almost schizophrenic self!) shifted from ‘I wish I was a…’ to ‘I am a…’

Realism is just so rewarding. Realism helps you discard all of the faux-hopes and dreams, and separate them from the actual. Realism helps you become presently (or should that be pleasantly) surprised, rather than over-expecting. To paraphrase the Dalai Lama, ‘do what you can with what you have and forget the rest’.

I want to be a realist.

I want to be more real.

Know thyself, and all that… and then you will not be so surprised when you do find yourself up at 5 am, again, having broken your ‘I’ll only have two beers rule’. Instead, revel in the ‘this is me, being me’ moment. All those with serious harmful addictions, please ignore that last piece of advice.

And the benefits of being realistic is that you suddenly become able to provide yourself with sensible targets and thoughtful plans that incorporate you and your character, rather than that of someone else.

I received this extract of an interview from a friend the other day, which pertinently reminded me of this madness:

It seems to me that most of the stuff in my own life and in my friends’ life that’s interesting and true involves double binds or setups where you’re given two alternatives which are mutually exclusive and the sacrifices involved in either seem unacceptable. I mean … [aspirates in rapid staccato "tch-tch-tch-tch..."] I mean, one of the big ones is, the culture places a huge premium on achievement. I mean, I went to like this real hoity-toity college and, as you know, and everybody’s like now a millionaire on Wall Street. Anyway — how both to work hard enough and invest enough of yourself really to achieve something and yet retain the sort of integrity so that you’ve got a self apart from your achievement. I mean, even something as banal as, you know, The modern woman can have it all: she can have a family and a deep fulfilling relationship with her children while being, you know, a CEO of a successful company. I mean, it’s as if the culture is some Zen teacher, you know, whacking us no matter what we do. It’s very interesting. I’m not really quite sure why we set it up that way.

(http://web.archive.org/web/20040606041906/www.andbutso.com/~mark/bookworm96/)

So my simpletom guide for realism is:

  • Use a realistic dose of the past to determine whether a dream is possible, fanciful or even destructive.
  • Go gentle on oneself.
  • Remind yourself there is only so much you can do in one day – do not get swamped by tomorrow’s tasks or dreams.
  • If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans… or yourself if you’re neatly squared off in your atheism.
  • Be proud of yourself, regardless.
  • Do not listen to the self-helpers who persist in telling you that you can be thinner, brighter, better, more efficient, tidier, a better lover, kinder, more zen-like, richer, more successful, happier. If anything, the first step toward achieving all of these things is to banish the desire for them, then they might, if you’re lucky, start to happen of their own accord.

Angling for Simplicity

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We’re programmed to do things:

Get up early. Read a book. Don’t slouch in front of the telly. Be productive. Get going. Time is money. Life’s too short.

Bollocks to that.

I read a delightful interview with Chris Yates the other day – which can be found here. Not only did I love the picture the interviewer paints of this man described in his wiki page as, among other things, a ‘tea connoisseur’ (he also reminded me of the fantastic Roger Deakin), but it stirred something in me from a distant past.

Yep, I’ll come clean – between the ages of 5-15, I used to be obsessed with fishing. Fishing by scrubby ponds in the depths of London’s wellington boots and condoms, rather than alongside the majestic lochs and streams of Scotland and beyond. I loved it. In fact, I’d like to do more fishing today. Just sitting relaxed by a body of water, enjoying nature.

Chris is famous for holding the Record for the largest carp caught in British waters. However, the interesting thing is not his record, but the fact that before he spent 7 or 8 weeks every summer for seven years, not because he wanted to catch the biggest fish, but because he loved it there. Here’s a passage from the article:

PARR: And that would be your priority? You wouldn’t let a work deadline encroach your fishing time?

(At the time Chris Yates was a photographer of some note – the majority of his work designing album and book covers)

YATES: (Slightly shocked) No. No. No. I would phone people up, a new client maybe, and they would come around and really love my work, and I would have to say to them – “Before we talk about jobs, there is something you should know – I am a photographer, but before that and above that, I am a fisherman, that comes first.” Some of them would look aghast, and say, “we can’t do business then – we’re wasting one another’s time,” and off they’d go. But the good one’s would say, “That’s great – you can come and tell me some fishing stories between jobs.”

But I’d always say that – first I’m a fisherman – then I’m a photographer.

And then I’d be offered a new job and clients would say, “Look, you’ve got a three week deadline on this.”

And I’d say, “Well I’m off to Redmire tomorrow.”
“Redmire? Ahhhh…”

There was no argument. They would just say, “Will you have time when you come back – to read the novel and do the cover?”

“Yes… there’s bound to be time…”

So, yes, Redmire did become my second home – actually my first home, the one with bricks was my second home. And I think I got to know it better than anyone else, I just loved being there.

For fear of repeating myself, this was before he was a record-breaker. In fact, the record only came as a result of his not conforming to normal ambitions and spending time off, rather than time on.

Follow your passions. If you love it somewhere, stay – regardless of whether it conforms to other peoples’ view of what you should be doing, or how it fits into your plan for global domination.

“In most work, success is measured by income, and whilst our capitalistic society continues, this is inevitable. It is only where the best work is concerned that this measure ceases to be the natural one to apply.” – Bertrand Russell in The Conquest of Happiness.

As ever, if you liked this post – please share…

The Simple House

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A few people have asked me what I’m doing posting simple thoughts from Kenya, rather than from within a yurt near Glastonbury, or in Marin. Which, given my skin’s disposition to redden at the slightest hint of sun, or hypocrisy, is a fair question.

I realise I’ve neglected to mention what I’m up to. Shame on me and my inability to post about all the wiggles of the Simpletom life.

I’m building a house with one of my best friends, architect Tim.

Yep, a house – in Kenya.

Which is pretty stupid, as I don’t have a house, a flat or even a shed in London or San Francisco – the two places I’ve made my home over the last 4 or so years. Plus, building a house 5000 miles from my birthplace doesn’t quite fit with the simplicity theme. Does it?

Those who read my posts more closely will have realised that simplicity doesn’t mean that you have to abandon all material possessions – at least not for me. I know that I’d be deeply unhappy living the life of a monk. It would sit in conflict with my upbringing, my interests and my loved ones.

There are certain things in life which I love that perhaps don’t fall into the ‘classical’ simple persons’s bracket. As I mentioned recently, I’m nowhere near as simple as I can be. My journey is about balance, rather than extremes. It’s about finding a simplicity that works, rather than one that screams from the rooftops of piousness. It’s about finding time for the things I love and reminding myself to stay away from the rat races pull.

Egyptian cotton sheets, beer, kitesurfing, movies, airplanes and parties are all in. Yoga, veganism, basket-weaving and trilobite-hunting are, for the moment, out. Watch this space.

As for Kenya and the house – I’ve been here for seven months already and things are going rather well, if slowly. Which is good, because life here is near perfect.

My intention was to build a green house and keep it simple. Both of these ambitions have been significantly challenged. My Swiss Family Robinson treehouse dream hasn’t quite remained untouched, especially as I watch another lorry full of cement arrive.

Yet it’s been one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever undertaken and in future posts I will examine the ups and downs of this scheme and analyse the adventure from a simple and green perspective. For now, here’s a photo and a post I wrote for a blog that we’re keeping about the house building – A Walk on the Wild Site.

 

The view from the top of a palm of my plot

There seem to be two conflicting reactions to the claim that one is going to build a house in Kenya, thousands of miles from home.

Continue reading →

Girls Gone Mild – The Power of The Ordinary

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The great lesson … is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s back yard … – Abraham Maslow

I’ve read T.S Eliot’s The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock a few hundred times. Each time I read it I find something new. Perhaps that’s because I’m so distractible that I miss so much.

You know the scene – you start reading and before you know it your eyes are scanning the sentences but you’re wondering how belly-button fluff actually gets there. God knows it’s one of life’s extravagant mysteries.

Or is it because in Eliot’s poem there’s so much to be taken in? Maybe each mood of mine uncovers a different meaning? Or is it a mixture of all of these?

It reminds me that you don’t always need something new to find the best. Sometimes something repeated can be even more beautiful. An old recipe is almost always better in my kitchen (and stomach) than the new.

We long for holidays, deserted white-sand beaches and pina-coladas; or dancing to tribal beats in deserted quarries on a cocktail of substances at the weekends; or new films, books and games. We love the new, the latest, the up-to-date, the shiniest.

But Prufrock is a reminder that I have everything I need. If one looks more closely, you can always find more. It is possible never to be bored, even with the most mundane of surroundings. Great things can come from ordinary places. A few that spring to mind:

  • Einstein came up with perhaps the most important theories of all time whilst working as a patent clerk.
  • A Vipassana course can result in the most remarkable discoveries with zero outside stimulus.
  • The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the story of a man paralyzed who is able to recount wonderful pieces of his life.
  • Kant’s daily schedule, which enabled him to have extraordinary thoughts in an ordinary life. “It is often held that Kant lived a very strict and predictable life, leading to the oft-repeated story that neighbors would set their clocks by his daily walks” – Wikipedia reference.
  • Bill Bryson writes hilariously about things that most of us would find annoying, reminding us that perspective is everything.
  • Darwin made his biggest discoveries whilst living in his house in England, rather than on his travels.
  • J.K Rowling created a whole new magical world while sitting in a back street cafe in Edinburgh.

“Altogether it will be found that a quiet life is characteristic of great men” says Bertrand Russell, and also from the same book The Conquest of Happiness, “Think of the different things that may be noticed in the course of a country walk. One man in the geology, yet another in the agriculture, and so on. Any one of these things is interesting if it interests you, and, other things being equal, then man who is interested in any one of them is better adapted to the world than the man who is not interested.”

RELATED READING:

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time”

– T. S. Eliot (Four Quartets)

Fulfilling Resolutions – A Year In Review

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One of the highlights of the year - Dolphins next to our boat, Costa Rica

At the beginning of last year, I made a promise to live simply, within my means and to focus on working towards some of my personal goals, rather than my professional. I summed it up in the New Years resolution, ‘to enjoy myself as much as possible and end the year with the same amount of money in the bank as I started it with’. Perhaps a little selfish, but by enjoyment I don’t mean parties and frills – but enjoyment of a deeper, soulful kind.

Things went well. I’ve not necessarily kept my movements simple with travel across the globe. Highlights include:

  • Sailing along the coast of Costa Rica with my best friend and family.
  • Taking a trip driving in my van along the length of Highway 1 in California on my own, bumping into a friend from the UK en route.
  • A two week skiing trip with another friend in the Sierra Nevada with almost perfect snow
  • Working with a huge NGO to help hire some of their most senior conservationists
  • Working as an interim Executive Director of the Maybach Foundation
  • Living in San Francisco for the first half of the year – I still love the city as much as ever
  • Heading to Latitude and Hop Farm festivals and two weddings in the UK
  • Spending the latter part of this year living in Watamu, Kenya and receiving a host of visitors
  • Learning to kitesurf
  • Finishing the first two chapters of my book

In addition to these adventures, I have taken a hard look at my life, my work and made significant changes. Here are 3 of the key changes that have resulted in one of the best years of my life:

1) The first, I’ve not worked a 9-5, nor maintained a steady work schedule. In fact, I’ve hardly set an alarm all year, nor kept specific hours in a specific place. (Which perhaps explains why I’ve no qualms that I’m writing this post propped up in bed on a Sunday at 10pm).

How – I’ve worked remotely, set up calls to forward to my computer and refined communication methods. I’ve automated many areas that were taking up time and removed bits of business that were a time-suck but didn’t guarantee income. I’ve stopped trying to respond to all emails. I’ve deliberately taken on less. Work has become something that is done when needed, rather than because I’m in an office.

The result – I feel like my work-life balance has been really healthy this year. Perhaps more life-oriented, but that’s great. Plus, I’ve earned more this year than I have any other year in my life. Part of this has been due to the overflow from previous years. Part has been due to trusting that things would work and having the confidence to make bold decisions. I’ve felt less encumbered by the day-to-day and focused instead on key areas of revenue resulting in a healthy me and a healthy bank balance.

2) Secondly, I’ve reduced my possessions dramatically.

How – I packed everything I posses in the UK into one filing cabinet, aside from a few pictures and clothes and threw the rest away or have given things to charity. In the US, I have two or three boxes which contain everything as I’ve hardly acquired stuff in my two years there. I’ve bought little new. More importantly, I’ve lived for long enough without possessions that previously would have upset me to loose to know that they are nice to have, but that I’m as happy without them. I know when I return to the UK and the US, I can probably cut my possessions in half again.

The result – I can move between places more freely and have begun to enjoy what I have, rather than what I haven’t. I’ve been able to travel lightly and even after 4 months of living in a small town, needed nothing when I arrived in a large supermarket for the first time. I want for nothing.

3) Thirdly, I’ve simplified my finances.

How – I’ve gone paperless with all of my statements. All of my important mail is now forwarded on to my accountant without my looking at it. I’ve transferred money into one account in the US and two accounts in the UK, a savings and a checking account. I’ve got credit cards that direct-debit from my checking account, one with Amex that gives me points, the other that offers cheap money when abroad from the post office. Rather than spend time and effort managing my portfolio, I’ve transferred the lot into an account that is managed in its entirety by someone else.

The result – I don’t have to check my mail, managing everything from the internet. I’m accumulating points. I haven’t once had to check my accounts, trusting in alerts that will let me know if something goes wrong – perhaps I’ll check over at the end of the year. In a difficult year in terms of the markets, I’ve still managed a modest return on my assets, with zero effort.

In conclusion, the somewhat mild experiment I set out on this year is working. Simplifying has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve taken on – so much so that I want to keep at it.

Thanks for all your support, I’ve been touched by comments both on and off this blog. The comments and my own successes have convinced me that this path is worth continuing with renewed effort. Whether or not people read, writing helps refine ideas and thoughts. It’s enough, even if I’m just talking to myself. If I can help, amuse or give someone else pause for thought, that’s a wonderful bonus.

Onwards. Oh, and a Happy New Year to you. May next year be simpler than the last.

Another highlight - Early morning along Highway 1

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Here are a couple of this year’s posts: