Kevin McCloud
Goodness, he’s good isn’t he?
And I think its more than just being a nice guy.
His entire orientation on Grand Designs is one of awe and possibility.
He meets people in the very moment of potential- the moment before the birth of their building.
The word ‘build’ captures what he does perfectly. He’s all about building; building people up, building excitement, pleasure in architecture and building a connection between us watching at home and the brave souls on the journey to create their home.
Long live Kev!
Simple plan beats no plan
Is ‘winging it’ a real thing?
I don’t think that winging it is having no plan- your plan is to wing it.
AKA- your plan is to be pristinely present, playful and to rely on and trust your inherent abilities.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of having no plan. What do you want to achieve? How do you want to approach this?
Even a simple plan will do: I will focus on X. I will do Y.
A plan doesn’t haven’t to be a multi step opus. It can be an outcome, an orientation or a focus.
It can be simple.
And in the competition between a simple plan and no plan- you know who wins.
Make a little plan. It won’t take long.
Room improvers
I’m workshopping a new musical this week with a group of wonderful people.
Have you ever noticed that there is always one person in a group who is the electric charge of the group? A person that elevates the room?
Imagine you’re one of 10 actors reading a play and Jim Carrey walks in to join in.
In my mind, the moment he enters it elevates everything.
He’s what I’d call a room improver.
Got the picture?
Yeah, this musical workshop is a room full of room improvers.
It’s great
How do you want it to go?
When theres something coming up soon that you want to do a great job at, you have some options about how to think about it…
You can try and ignore it.
You can picture yourself doing a bad job at it.
You can picture yourself absolutely nailing it (and having fun in the process).
It seems a bit of a no brainer, right?
But how many times do you find yourself picturing the thing not working out?
For me, it’s a regular internal conversation; I picture the thing and it’s a version that I kind of dread.
I have to change it on purpose.
What would it look like if it wen’t really well? What would it look like if it were easy? What would it look like if it were actually a lot of fun?
It’s easy to forget, but we can change the pictures we make in our head to match what we want.
Words don’t describe, they create
The things that happen to us are meaningless.
It’s only once we put words to it that we create a meaning.
“That destroyed me when he said that”
Vs.
“I was intrigued by how he came to that when he said that”
This isn’t just optimism or a good spin on things.
Your words have the power to create or destroy.
To lift you up or make you feel helpless.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your words describe your reality.
Realise that you create your reality with your words.
Optimism is not optional
There is always a choice as to how full we see the glass.
But it’s not really a choice.
Why? Because if there’s a choice between a world of generosity, possibility and excitement… and a world of scarcity, pessimism and negativity- is there actually a choice?
No.
Optimism isn’t optional.
It’s a must.
How you think about it
We all know what we need to do to get what we want, more or less.
The trouble isn’t the recipe, it’s the implimentation.
Our focus then shouldn’t be on finding more recipes, but how to get ourselves to use that ones we have.
The trick is how you think about the thing you need to do.
You want to get fit, you know you need to get more daily steps in, but when you think about walking you think about dying trying to get up a steep hill.
If you can take the thing you want to do and think about it in a way that makes you excited to do it, that’s when life starts getting interesting.
Books are insane value
Think of all of the time an author puts into writing a book.
And think about the years of practice, research and revisions they’ve gone through to know what they know.
And think about how specific book topics often are.
A book holds the detailed instructions of how to get a specific result. You get to adopt the beliefs, experiences and recipes of the greatest minds in any field you want.
By opening a book you open a potential world where you too can do what the writer has a done.
All of this for 20 bucks.
But of course every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So yes the book is cheap, but it doesn’t give you the result on a silver platter.
It gives you everything you need, but it’s up to you to implement that.
A shelf of books could be collectively worth a few hundred dollars.
But the potential that lies in those same pages is in the millions or perhaps it’s even priceless.
Books are a bargain, but only if you take action on them.
If you don’t, well you’re ripping yourself off.
You get to choose
Is the planning you have to do for your lesson a joy or a drag?
Is the research phase the boring bit or the juicy bit?
Is delaying gratification a necessary pain or an adventurous pleasure?
It may look like our experiences decide what they’ll be on our behalf. But the truth is, we get to choose what anything means.
Is this the end or the beginning?
Is this a breakdown or a breakthough?
Choose wisely.
Name the thing
Interactions with strangers can be magic.
You both have the opportunity to connect, though few people take the chance.
When you meet a stranger there is always a ‘thing’ you can connect about (and I’m not talking about the weather)
There’s something you both notice that neither of you acknowledge.
Something that suddenly pops into your head.
Or maybe they remind you of something you’ve heard recently.
So often the ‘thing’ occurs to us… but we aren’t brave enough to name it.
But the coolest secret of life is to name the thing. You’ll mostly get a blank look and you might even feel a bit embarrassed sometimes.
That’s the risk you run, of course. But with great risk comes great reward.
If you name the thing, you might connect. You might find a sparkle between two strangers. You might find the ‘meaning of life’.
And I think that’s worth the risk.