I am so grateful to all 428 of you that have stuck with me over the past months as I have meandered, researched, got lost, envisioned, re-imagined and now stopped my Change Is An Inside Job book project.
Letting go
I shared this post on LinkedIn recently as the art of letting go is quickly becoming one of the most important, freeing, emerging spaces that I have experienced life to date.
I have let go of the Value through Vulnerability podcast
I have let go of hosting the EMEA HumansFirst call (but I am still active in supporting Mike Vacanti)
Now I am letting go of the book project
What are you not letting go of today that could create some mental space for you?
I fully believe and continue to experience that change is indeed an inside job, but my energy and ambition to write the book just isn’t there.
It is not just procrastination. I have experienced that before.
This is something else.
I sit in a liminal space; a space where I am shedding my day job work identity, my future self identity that is wrapped up in the book, and sitting in a space of emergence for whatever may come next.
Does this make any sense to you? It does not always make sense to me, but having read Otto Scharmer’s Theory U, I feel deeply grounded at the bottom of the U in presencing.
What I am confident of, however, is that whatever emerges will be more aligned to the difference I want to make in the world and to my core non-negotiable values of connection and growth.
I know this as both of my values have been significantly tested over the past 14 fays in my day job and I am using them as my basis for decision making, TBC.
Mind shifts
Two major factors have influenced the decision that I have made to stop writing the book:
1) Nilofer Merchant blog
Nilofer recently shared this blog on her @Work substack where she spoke directly to me around the ‘whats the point’ topic.
I have been IN that question for the past few weeks and Nilofer’s blog really helped clarify some thinking for me.
Do follow and subscribe to Nilofer’s subtack it is excellent.
2) Equine facilitation
One major piece of clarity emerged recently when I invested in myself to have a 1-1 day of equine facilitated learning with my coach Jo Menon.
You can see below that at the start of the day my thinking was quite literally all over the place when Jo was guiding me on my intentions for the day.
By the end of the day, I intuitively was much more centred around 3 key focus areas which I feel will be the foundation of my life’s work going forward:
1) Vulnerability
2) Inclusion
3) Whole-person relationships
What was most profound for me was that I was able to move this lovely horse above, Robin, who is 3 X my weight and has no reason to do what I request, yet by using just my intention and energy, Robin moved to my request along approx 1km of track.
Look how loose I was holding the reigns. I did not pull Robin at any point.
The metaphor and relevance for our personal and work lives is clear to see.
The illusion of control is futile.
Staying conscious of our energy / intentions rather than managing time and other human beings makes far more sense.
Whats next?
I am not sure and I am OK not knowing, but what I intend is to no longer hide behind the fear of apparent job security, the fear of comparison and the fear of ‘who am I’ or whats the point.
I hope that you are well and I look forward to us staying in contact by whatever means best suits you.
My contacts details are as below, lets connect on LinkedIn and/or follow one another on Twitter if we are not already connected that way and I look forward to hearing how you are getting on as you feel moved.
Do you feel that Change Is An Inside Job?
Do vulnerability, inclusion or whole person relationships matter to you?
Take care and never hesitate to get in contact if you feel I can support you in any way.
Garry
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/garryinterpersonalcatalyst/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/GarryIPCatalyst