Welcome to Freedom Fridays with me, your host, Pete Clark, The Whispers Guy. It's been an interesting week, and some pretty stark contrasts. And so this Friday, it's a very full day actually, which makes me makes me feel pretty good in the fact that I'm busy, I can sometimes be a little bit annoying to myself if things are a little bit quiet, and then quieting the mind is something I'm continuing to practice. So very full day 50% of which is predominantly work. And again, those of you who would challenge me and say, I thought you were taking Friday's off. It is work that I enjoy, and I love doing. And partly this 'choosing to' versus 'being forced to' get with a particular client that I really enjoy working with. To say, "well, no, I'm not doing that today because I'm not working", seems a little bit selfish and counter productive to what I'm trying to achieve. So very full day 50% of of work and 50% of the play in terms of some important life admin, some growth and development for me, and adding a little bit of life to the day for myself something for me, which is good, that feels like food, like a really good balance. Maybe subconsciously, in my mind, because on Monday, the following Monday, I'm part of a charity, a charity function. And so because I'm doing that, that feels like a really significant addition to the concept of 'choosing to'. And I'm wondering if I'm cheating. I'm wondering if I've allowed myself to, to use that Monday as a bit of an excuse to do the work I want to do on Friday. And so, you know, even just that contrast, it's telling me that there's so much conflict and anxiety about control in all of this. And so whether it was Freedom Fridays or something else. It's interesting how stepping into the experiment has caused me to think about many, many things in such a contrast. So that's the first thing I want to share with you.
The second thing is, I got some anecdotal feedback from two or three people that they've been really enjoying, there's only been five or six episodes, really enjoying the conversations and the way I've been speaking about it. And what's really fascinating is immediately in my head, I start to increase the pressure to make it more valuable. So the feedback was, I found it really valuable and my interpretation, the meaning I make from that is, oh, I need to make it more valuable. I need to make it more constructive. And I wonder how many of us feel like that? That when we know someone is watching, as opposed to they could be watching it, but we don't know. We know someone is observing our actions and our performance and we take that on board as a judgement and then usually a negative judgement. I wonder how we do perform when someone's watching? Because I know feel I was doing this really, as an experiment without expecting anyone really to listen. And you know, two or three people have said I've listened and I've enjoyed suddenly not from them at all, they're not seeing or could you add a little bit more value? Could you give me a little bit more structure a bit more insight. There's none of that. It's purely my own interpretation. And it comes back to something I shared previously about this drive to be better and is in somewhat in some way a blessing and in some ways a bit of a curse. Because what I was already doing was apparently, for some, adding some value. Now that's not the whole cohort. That's not everyone who's ever listened saying it's fantastic. I know it isn't. But it's interesting, my interpretation of that anecdotal feedback takes me to a very different place, not of acceptance or thank you, that's great. I'm glad you're enjoying it. But more Oh, now the pressures on, now I have to make it even more valuable. So I found that really interesting. As far as a reflection this week.
The third thing I'll share with you is a bit of a combination. It's funny how apparently there is a part of our brain called the reticular activating system that focuses on things that are important to us or in our attention. We all would have experienced this when you perhaps have bought a new car and that's the only car that you see on the road. Or you have a grandson or a grandchild, or you've got a daughter that's having kids or you're having kids yourself or whatever it is. And then suddenly you start seeing more of that thing that's important to you on the streets. Well, this whole aspect of Freedom Fridays, I came across a book called, 'I don't want Fridays', which I hadn't heard of before. And so as part of my exploration this week, I'll be diving into that, to see what insights I perhaps get from that.
And the other thing is, some of you may be aware of this new platform called Clubhouse. I don't really understand it and I'm not really a techie or a geek to really get into it. But I joined. And it was an early session one day. It was a colleague of mine in the UK who invited me on as a contributor. And you get an alert to say, join as a contributor. And what I noticed was, if I'm in front of the room, and if I'm hosting, and I'm the appartenty of control is with me, I feel fine, I could speak to 1000s of people, it wouldn't really be an issue. Whereas when I'm contributing as a member of the audience, it was fascinating. I paused for a moment in thought, oh, there was kind of a sharp intake of breath. I don't know if I can. And of course I can. But the feeling of being out of control and I'm not the host was fascinating for me. And yeah, having done it, and then it was a two minute contribution. It wasn't anything special. There's a minute with some interesting things I hadn't even thought about seeing or sharing that came out as a consequence of the questions I was asked. So just getting through and over, that internal sharp intake of breath revealed something that was has been sitting in my head and was perhaps previously unconnected, but it was interesting how just taking that leap crossing that line 'oh, I don't know what's going to happen here'. Into a space and something really good, something special, maybe something normal and boring happen, but but it happened that I wasn't aware of.
So that's been some of my insights this week. Hope you've enjoyed some of those ramblings and I look forward to speaking to you next week. Cheers.
