Welcome to Freedom Fridays. With me, Pete Clark, your host, The Whispers Guy. Well, here we are in episode number five, which is five more than I ever thought I'd have. But here we are. And so good news to start with the two data points I have for having a win week, some sort of definition of description, predominantly task driven, about what would I define as a great week, so far has worked, it's kept me focused, it's kept me a little bit urgent were required to get stuff done, which is my simple raison d'etre for the year of 2021, to get more stuff done. Albiet imperfect, which is to get it done. So it's helping with that, look at it two or three times a day. And if I've got spare 10 minutes, spare half an hour, you know, some of them are a little bit procrastinating over, I can take those things off. So that's a big win, actually, for me, given trying to use the infinite resource, the finite resource of time. With Parkinson's Law, well, work expands the time you give it. If I can squeeze the really important vital stuff into a short space of time, it gives me more time to add life to my years, which was the whole point of freedom Fridays anyway, and I can choose how I invest that time. So that's a bit of a win, the win week.
Secondly, I was chatting to an old buddy, And again, one of those things, that it's taken a pandemic, for us to be back in touch. But it's It's so lovely to reconnect with people from your past that, you know, you've connected with and touched in ways that you don't really know and you've separated for a while and come back. And he had already been, through partly career and partly health reasons, working a limited hours week or 4 day week. And he said he loved it. And what's interesting, he said, you know, at the time, I was looking for open doors, you know, other doors, other opportunities, but they weren't appearing, they weren't materialising. Until I created this space, until he actually went to four days and committed to shut that door on five days. The doors that he was hoping for, he didn't know what they were, weren't opening until he until he did that. So one of the exciting things for me about Freedom Fridays, is that it's creating some space. Hopefully, for some grace, I don't know what that is. And as I said in a previous episode, it doesn't have to necessarily have an outcome. But creating the space will allow different sort of energies, different set of opportunities to appear. I'm conscious that in my own definition, one of the reasons I've my own definition, again, being successful is because I forced things to happen. As some of you who know me know I am very driven. And so I'll make things happen. Make life happen by me. And the interesting thing, if that's my only way forward, then when I try and force stuff, sometimes it doesn't work out and there's you know, frustration, failure and overwhelm and pessimism creeps in. And so I've been able to navigate the difference between force on allow. Creating Freedom Fridays has allowed me to create the space for things to pop in, for things to appear. People, opportunities, tasks, anything that could be life affirming, it could add life to my years. And so that's been one of the benefits of just forcing myself to create that space. In my in my diary, and I'm conscious of the the old phrase, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And I think that's, that's quite true in some senses. There's also another example of where a Zen Master or Buddha, whoever it was, doesn't really matter, was asked to teach somebody something about something and they were having a discussion over a cup of tea. And the Zen Master continued to pour the tea in the cup. And of course, the student said, 'That's not going to work. It's already full'. The Master returns the conversation, 'Well, that's what you are, if you're coming into this conversation already full, then there's nothing I can teach you'. So we have to begin with beginner's mind and you have to arrive empty. And so I wonder if that, just the fact that I'm creating that space is opening up that possibility? Perhaps by creating the space when the space is ready, perhaps the opportunity one will appear.
The third thing that's been on my mind this week is our discomfort is unique. But it's not necessarily unique to us. And so the pain and the trauma and the discomfort and the things that we carry, because everyone is unique, no one has experienced my life other than me. Even the people that are closest to me have very different upbringings and backgrounds and things that happen. So, we are unique. And the way that we carry that pain or discomfort, or challenges, or issues, or fears or anxieties is unique to us. But everyone carries it. And that's certainly what I've discovered, I didn't really appreciate what this would do for me. And it's part of all sorts of fears, hopes, dreams, and concerns. And they're unique to me. When I chat to other people, they're like, 'Why do you worry about that?'. And of course, then they would tell me something they're worried about or anxious about and it's like, 'Why would you worry about that?'. So our discomfort or our challenges are unique to us. But challenges aren't unique to us. And what that's reaffirmed for me is, is the need to just be conscious of everyone's carrying something, some issues, some story, some thing from the past, that's probably helping in some ways, it's probably there to protect. But in some ways it might be blocking, blocking some progress. So just that thought our discomfort is unique to us. But discomfort isn't unique to us.
A fourth thing is, some of you may not. Prior to COVID, I was in the middle of writing a book. It was the book I had to write so I could write the book I want to write. I might explain that in another episode. And what's interesting is I only picked it up again on Friday. So I used some of the space I had on Friday to pick up again, it's been a year since I picked it up. And I'm always reminded of Alain de Botton's phrase "If you're not embarrassed by what you were learning and knew a year ago, then you're not learning fast enough". And so as I read some of the words, and it was a draft, to be fair to me. I was a little bit embarrassed. So that's going to be potentially one of the ways in which I invest some of my space into completing my first book. I'm also conscious that some of the time that I've been using was very much positioned as filling my own cup. Being selfish to be selfless. And I have done that. What I've also found is, as I mentioned in the last podcast two specific opportunities, that I'll tell you more about next time, about using that time to invest in helping others. We know that you know, all the studies show that our happiness, if it came down to one thing, it's the relationships and how we help others that feeds our own happiness. It gets us out of our own head, into other people's heads. And by doing that we feel better, we feel happier. So that's something that I'll be reporting on in a few weeks.
And maybe the final thing is just navigating some of the paradoxes that have I've come across and you know, in my business, in consulting and training and leadership, there is definitely our feast and a very big famine, often. And you know, like late buses, you'll have nothing for ages and then all of a sudden three buses turn up at the same time. And so to be able to navigate the peaks and the troughs, the feast and the famine, has had been quite challenging. And one of the other paradoxes that I found challenging is switching on and switching off. And so I'm pretty good at getting switched on. Pretty good at getting focused, pretty good at getting stuff done. But I do struggle quite often at switching off. I've got a very active mind. I think and I probably overthink sometimes, about things I'm always thinking through time, not necessarily in time. But that navigation of that paradox, you know, knowing how to switch on and also switch off so what my emotions, my physicality, my psychology can actually decompress and recover. So I'm exploring that a little bit in terms of how I invest some of the time and space that I'm creating. But navigating that that paradox of switching on and switching off and, you know, feast and famine has been a great lesson for me.
And the final thing I'll say is, you may or may not know that 21 Whispers is five years old next week on March the eighth. And so I'll be putting out some posts on LinkedIn, I'll probably include them in the Weekly Whispers so you can see some of the lessons that I've learnt. And in fact, I'm going to change it because I continue to learn the lesson Which means I'm not really learning it. So it's lessons that I continue to relearn again and again and again.
So that's it for Episode Five. I'll see you next week. Cheers.
