And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm

— from Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

In October 2001 Debra Searle entered in the Ward Evans Atlantic Rowing Challenge with her then-husband Andrew Veal. A few days into the race, as they hit open water, Debra found Andrew below deck in the fetal position suffering acute agoraphobia. The pair had done all their training on the Thames and hadn’t anticipated his reaction to the wide sea. He couldn’t go on. They phoned the rescue boat and while they waited the few days for it to arrive she told him that she was going to continue: she was going to row the entire Atlantic by herself.

Spoiler alert: she did it.

What took the rest of the teams some 6 weeks to complete she did in 3 months. Continuing on by herself meant that she disqualified herself from competition. She was doing it for herself. Debra Searle came in last and encountered every dark moment imaginable: tankers, sharks, huge waves and her own mind. The biggest learning from this time was that any endeavour is 15% skill and 85% mindset. Indeed, every morning on her boat Debra would decide what kind of mindset the day demanded of her be it patient, hard-nosed, or determined.

In my work over the last few years I’ve always had the sense that my Row Across The Atlantic moment was coming. I had imagined it as some hugely challenging, juicy, satisfying piece of work which would play out over 6–12 months and require every ounce of my leadership, skill and consistent practice.

So this row my friends, this row may well be the ideal metaphor for our time: each of us in our individual 23-foot hulls, making for some distant shore alone. Of course, unlike Debra, we haven’t chosen this journey for ourselves.

There is another difference too. I was speaking to my friend Tony Clement about this metaphor and he asked a very good question:
“What is the other shore?”

Debra Searle knew that Tenerife was her final destination and always knew how far away she was from it and which direction to go in.

We don’t know our destination and we may find it hard to know how we decide to navigate this time.

Extending the metaphor a little, I said to Tony: “I think we’re like explorers from the 1700s: heading for the hope of a new land.”

Does this metaphor land for you? Imagine yourself as a kind of Magellan without the need to colonise: curious what coast you land on next. What becomes important is how the you are on your ship. What’s the morale, what rituals ensure the ship stays clean and well-run, what mindset does this day require, how do you ration supplies so that you’re guaranteed to make the next port?

What many of us may lack is any deliberate training for this voyage. For me, all the practices that were built for another time are taking on a difference resonance. Daily writing gives me clarity on my confused thoughts. Looking for gratitude helps me realise that I have everything I need. Sitting in silence helps me tune in time and again (and again) to my internal compass. Without that, I’d be lost. The faith I have, the importance of love, the acts of creation that I do — these are all tiny light-buoys that illuminate and guide stretches of water.

This how I stay a captain: often a very uncertain captain, a scared captain, a captain who is constantly letting go of the idea of the land I want — navigating instead towards and accepting the land I end up at. I get a little lost at times and then I find a way of plotting the next bit of the course by some new star that just rose.

Go well on your voyages. I believe that there are rich and fertile lands ahead of us. They might not look like the lands we come from and the journey there may be dark at times but we will get there.

You can sign up to my weekly letter The Letting Go . Read past letters here.

Listen to Rob Bell’s conversation about the voyage called Debra Searle Did What?!?

For me, the act of coaching is being your companion into your inner world. In that world I am fully in service to something that is really important to you. Before we’ve gone adventuring you and I make an agreement on what is important to you so that I know I’m looking for, what I’m accountable for in helping you find.

This can be anything from transitioning jobs, growing in a leadership position, get through a grieving process, working out what to do next, build any kind of practice, etc.

And I’m biased in my coaching. Here are my biases:

1. I believe it is important to question your view of a creator
From what I have experienced the concept of creator, the parent and your attitude to making things are all interrelated.

This is true whether you are atheist, Christian, Buddhist or Muslim.

I will ask you how you conceive of the creator and their nature. We will actively explore how the patterns show up in your creativity.

I have a stated goal of bringing everyone closer to their creator as my belief is this is wellspring of life for every individual.

2. I believe it is important to use the whole of your body
The default for coaching is sitting and talking which is a great start and can provide so much value. However if the rest of your body is being ignored then you’re only getting part of the story.

I will ask you to stand up, run around, breath, lie in silence and be curious about what your body tells you.

3. I believe it is important to use the whole of your life
I am not a career coach, I am not an art coach, I am not a leadership coach. Although all these things interest me greatly and may, at times, be the focus of our coaching.

I will ask you what’s happening in your life and we will work on the thing that is the top of your agenda. Everything that you’re going through in one area of your life will show up in every other part. If you’re unhappy at home there will be manifestations of that at work. If you feel blocked creatively you will blocked emotionally.

4. I believe it is important to feel all of your emotions, especially ones that have been parked for a while
Though often ignored, there is so much rich information in how we’re feeling.

I will ask you how you’re feeling and to feel it strong and to name it and find metaphors for it and embody it and shout and scream and cry and swear and laugh. And we will connect that to how you an be more confident, be a better leader or whatever your agenda is.

5. It’s important to create experiences outside of the coaching sessions to metabolise what was discovered in the session

The cliché is that the majority of coaching happens outside of the session. I don’t want this to be an accidental discovery for us.

In between our sessions I will ask you to be active in what you do next. We will find agreement for courageous creative actions that metabolise and move forward what has come up for you.

And you’re not going to like it.

The neurologist Donald Calne said:

The essential difference between emotion and reason is that reason leads to conclusions, while emotion leads to action.

Every day we are get broadcasts telling us how the earth is dying. I know that buying that bottle of water means that bottle is probably going to end up in landfill; further choking an already asthmatic planet. I know that every flight I go on, every bite of a beef burger that I take is driving not just our race to extinction but is accelerating a course of events that is already irreversible. I know that if it doesn’t fall on my sons Finn and Tommy it will be their sons and daughters that bear the brunt of the ignorance and ego of this and previous generations.

I know all this. In my head.

But.

I don’t feel it.

My contention is this: if I felt how the earth was feeling. If I could feel the heat, the feeling of being choked, the feeling of losing vital nutrients from the earth. If me, Rob Grundel, woke up tomorrow with this worldfeel then I would instantly change how I act. Knowing is important but, as Calne lays out in the quote above, this is not enough to change our behaviour; we need to feel.

Wherever you are right now, take a moment and sit in that.

Take a breath.

Consider yourself as a speck on this planet. As a part of the ecology. Think of yourself as a nerve cell of this planet. Get a sense of that worldfeel.

If you find this hard, here’s a starting point: learn to feel your own pain.

In the last year I’ve gone on a journey of learning to sit with emotions that I find difficult. I’ve long avoided accepting love from people (for the last 25 years) believing that I don’t deserve it; in fact, my belief has been that all I deserve is to martyr myself for others. That I have to give, support, take on the load, but never the other way. The origins of why this is we’ll leave for another day but I’m sure you could place some solid bets.

So why go through this process? Because, for me, all that I want to achieve in this world can only be achieved through relationships. I want to go into deep meaningful partnerships with courageous people to create our future; in education, in arts, in how we live. I can’t do that by always feeling that I need to shoulder the load. I need to be able to accept love.

Let me tell you, from my perspective, what accepting love feels like. The other day someone did something for me. Something that I really wanted but didn’t believe that I deserved. Someone asked me to step into a recording booth and record my voice. This is someone who I’ve given a lot to support their artistry. And now this person was turning the tables. “You go, your voice is worth hearing”. It was 10pm at night in a East London studio and we’d laid down all the main parts and we were getting to the vocals. She said “step into the booth”. And I was SO angry. How DARE she do that to me! And at the same time it was exactly what what I wanted to be given. That booth was the only place I wanted to be. It was humbling. To accept. To let go. To just say thank you.

This has happened a few times since then: people giving love and me, for perhaps for the first time in a long time, just saying “thank you”.

And your pain might be different to mine. Mine is around accepting love. Yours might be around releasing an anger that you didn’t believe your were allowed to have. It might be a grief that you’ve been told you should have got over a long time ago. It might be accepting that, despite what your parents said, you might just be an artist.

And it hurts. It’s like a torn muscle. Every time it happens it stretches, the scar tissue remoulds around the deep wound. It sucks. I’d much rather avoid it — deflect, turn to my phone, dive into a Netflix series, create a mountain of work for myself to bury myself again in my martyrdom which is so much more comfortable but, like our and the earth’s death, in the long term will be so much more painful.

Here’s what happens when I sit in that pain. I think about the years I’ve wasted. I feel the embarrassment of how I’ve rejected the love of my family. I feel the loss of the depths I could have had built with my wife by now. I think of all the loads I’ve carried where people around me have said “when’s he going to ask for help?”. Even now as I write this I get mad. It sucks. It’s a deep pain. And I promise you; that if you sit in it. If you sit in it for long enough something will shift. Through that loss, that grief, that embarrassment a glint emerges. That glint is called grace. And, believe me, I don’t want to see the glint; I try and avoid it almost more than I avoid the pain. Because it asks me to be courageous and act from the place of pain; to build a new muscle that is more enlightened, one more connected with the present, one that truly serves myself and others.

How can we feel the world’s pain if we can’t feel our own? From this place we can connect with others and start feeling a larger pain that is in our communities, in our organisations, in our teams, in our families, in our churches. Connected from that place, feeling together we have a chance and the motivation to act. In doing that we sit with the culpability of the actions we’ve done to each other and to our planet. From there we get a sense of the greater thing that we’re connected to. How wide can that feeling expand? I think it can encompass the entire planet: worldfeel.

Will you then, with me, be courageous and learn to sit with your own pain? Sit with the thing that you find the most difficult?

It isn’t fun.

But it’s so important.

1. Listen like a mofo

Listen. Listen to what people are saying. Listen with your entire body. Listen with your eyes. Listen and shut up. Listen and don’t think about what you’re going to say next to make yourself look smart. Even when you think they’ve stopped speaking; wait. They often have more to say. You’re going to learn so much: about that person, about the world, about yourself.

2. Don’t worry about whether someone “could get me somewhere”

The other night I was at a party and got into a lengthy conversation with someone who challenged the legitimacy of rap music. I offered to make him a mix CD that I guaranteed he’d enjoy. He accepted my offer. The next day at 11 I get a phone call. It’s him: would I like an introduction to the VP of transformation at a big international company? He didn’t have to do that. I didn’t need him to do that. I was grateful that he did. I’ve since met said VP. These rules apply to him as well. When I met him I wasn’t worried whether he could “get me somewhere”. We may decide that it would be nice to work together.

3. Share openly

One of the values that we articulated at a recent Somekind strategy day was that of “open change”. A behaviour that embodies that for me is talking openly about where I’m at: what I know, what I don’t know, what I curious about. It’s also sharing what I have: frameworks, ideas, insights without worrying whether I’m “giving away my IP”. I think we’re at a time in the world where we’ve got no time to hide things that can make the world a better place for us and our children. It’s too urgent. If I can give you something that’s going to make a positive impact to you and your community then why wouldn’t I do that?

I’m enjoying this three-month experiment so far. It might extend beyond March.

Eyebrows go up. “What’s that?”. And fair enough — I don’t think it’s immediately clear either. But here’s how I’ve got to this point.

I have a sense that storytelling has been lost at large. When the storytellers gathered around a campfire to tell a tale they were in no doubt who their audience was. These days, when the time between start and release of a product can be weeks or months, the audience can be easy to ignore. In the same way that somebody would fall asleep if a tale wasn’t compelling, customers will be lost (or gained) proportional to how much respect and attention they are given.

The stories we tell nowadays are so varied. News and advertising are two examples in which storytelling is alive. Gaming is another. And websites tell stories through their interaction, the problems they solve and the way they communicate information.

I’ve helped to develop a lot of websites in the last 16 years. I think only about 30% of them I’ve written added value to anyone — some products were never released, budgets were pulled, sometimes we released but the audience didn’t care. That was the start of the journey for me.

Trying to find the answer to: “how can I add more value to people with what I do?” for which the business proposition is “how can I add value to a organization so that they can add more value to what they’re doing?”

If our storyteller was to answer he’d probably say “are you listening to your audience?”
Around the campfire he listens as he talks responding seamlessly to changes in the environment: including a bird cry in the narrative, sensing hints of boredom, broadening the story where there’s interest, exploring an emotion or character that seems to have resonance that evening.

So what do I do? I help to show organisations that there is a campfire around which their audience is still gathered and to facilitate how they shape that story. And after the analysis comes the hard work — which is my favorite part — the crafting of the resulting story which may involve customer interviews, community engagement, producing a video, writing copy, changing strategy, reviewing processes.

The work is sticky notes, brainstorming sessions, user interaction testing, visions, values, budgets, movement, play, writing, editing, presentations.

Why should the organization do this hard work? Economics. And only ever economics. And maybe survival. There’s a theory that the stories that Homer wrote are the evolutionary winners from the prior eons of the oral tradition. The strongest stories were those which compelled the audience more. What are the companies which tell the best stories? Nike. Apple. Converse.

Finally, here’s a list of qualities I think organizations (or people) need to be master storytellers. Or maybe these are just my values:

Listening — look around the campfire. Who’s there? What are their needs? What story are you about to tell? You begin, are they bought in? Do they feel included?

Vulnerability—one must bring themselves into their story. I’ve seen so many ads, campaigns, actors tell stories that felt empty. When Johnny Cash recorded the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt, he first sang it over a 100 times. He made the raw material his own.

Adaptability— to change the story as the audience changes, as the environment changes, as the storyteller’s understanding of the world changes.

Empathy — to be sensitive to other’s needs (read: customers, community).

Craft — to create a good story takes work. If a story has been easy to produce then it’s probably too thin. The first draft is always going to be terrible. Keep working at it. Test it; see how the audience responds to it. Never be convinced of your own genius.

A friend and I went to lunch. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time. He is more experienced than I am and I always value his view on the world. He asked me how I was and I replied I was frustrated with my job and unsure of where to go next.
He pulled out a piece of paper and drew the following matrix on it.

Then we began.

“What would your father say about money?”

I answered and we filled it in.

“What would your mother say about money?”

So on.

“What would your grandmother on your mother’s side say about family?”

And as we went on a picture started to form. Of who? Of me.

And certain things that I saw on that page I didn’t believe or want to be active in my life. But they were because that was the story I had always heard and then I continued to tell.

When we had completed the matrix my friend then got a red pen and put a big X through our hard work.

“Now you know where that comes from you can choose not to be that anymore.”

That began an unlocking in me. Since that point I’ve started making decisions which are against what I’ve always done, against type.

How can one transform themselves through story? If it is true that we encode what we believe about the world and ourselves through story then, if the story we tell changes, the world changes — if only just for us.

How does one unpick their own stories? Some are held so deeply, either by constant repetition by yourself or by those around you, that it becomes a personal dogma. Without ownership of your own stories they will continue to be active to you rather than your being active with and growing through them.

I’ve needed friends, coaches and spiritual practices to help me reflect on these things and I’ll need this support for the rest of my life. I think that a desire to change or to reinvent, to create new stories for oneself is a necessity to get the most out of this short life. But it takes a lot of work to tell a new story — ask any novelist.

One new story that occurred is that I quit being a full-time employed contract programmer to start my own story telling consultancy — something I had been trying to get off the ground for 2 years prior. The story I had always told myself was that my family needed the money and that my wife (and 2 children) needed that security. It was a story that I had held on to from my past but was a convenient blocker for doing one of the things I had wanted to do but had been afraid of.

If all this is true for an individual is it also true for a tribe? What stories do we tell each other in our work, in our families, in our countries that keep us doing what we’ve always done rather than challenging them and creating something new?

I am more goosebump ratio to non-goosebump ratio than I’ve ever been when playing music. Dean has a kid. I have two. If we’re going to be away from them then when we walk off stage there won’t be any of us left after every show. Now I just want to give you the creeps. I want you to feel some kind of special moment. I want to push for it.

Having a son myself, with another one on the way, there are two aspects to this quote that speak to me.

One is that I have a band that I love playing with. We want to play more, of course — to reach more people and to collaborate with more like-minded artists. But the measure of the gig, from now on, is whether or not we can put our all into it. Leave nothing of us afterward — to give it all.

Security is the other aspect. Do I want my sons to look at me in 20 years time and see their father as someone who played it safe with his choices because he was fearful of failure or was their father someone who did what he was passionate about and set an example to his sons?