Small Steps and Broken Stones

Having taken a look at the concept of sanctuary, it’s now time to get cracking with the second of my three ‘mini-projects’, which was also inspired by reading ‘The Mentor’s Book’ by Mike Pegg. I want to take a closer look at the following idea:

Creating a compelling picture of perfection.

This is a technique that I encountered throughout the time I was studying for my coaching diploma, that the individual is much more likely to achieve their goal if they take the time to transform that goal from a simple statement into a fully-formed and fleshed out vision for success. That may sound a bit corny, but it’s something I’ve seen work in practice, both in myself and when working with people I’ve coached. It’s not a complex process, it requires nothing more than exercising your imagination in a way that is fun and rewarding. I’m tempted here to launch into a detailed definition of this process, as I see it, but instead I’ll hold back from that and let my thoughts develop, allowing myself be influenced by others as I build a much fuller understanding of what the phrase above means to me.

I do however, have a clearer idea of how I’m going to go about building that understanding. To begin with, I’ll shoot a short video, where I will attempt to explain why I find this conecept so interesting. Then, I will attempt to use social media to collect some input from others. Rather than opening it too wide, I’m going to see if I can target a few people whose thoughts I’m really interested in and see if I can co-erce them into making a short video for me. I’ll ask them three core questions:

1. What tools do you use to create a compelling picture of perfection?
2. What process do you follow?
3. How have you used the pictures that you’ve created?

Next step would be to see if I can take what I’ve learned from these people and see if I can improve the way I create my own pictures of prefection. I’m also toying with the idea of drawing some of these pictures and asking a wider selection of people for their own examples, but I’ll see about that when I get to it.

I feel quite excited about this one, as I’m hoping that I will get a lot out of it. We. Shall. See.

My deadline for the first of my three ‘mini-projects’ is the end of August, so true to form, I’m pulling this all together on the last day of the month. There’s nothing like a bit of self-imposed pressure to get the juices flowing again is there? Truth be told though, this isn’t at all feeling like a chore. Instead it feels like one last chance to have a paddle in all the thoughts and ideas generated by my original question:

Where do you find sanctuary?

Eleven people sent me an answer, using a variety of methods, and this is what I feel that I learnt from them about where people find sanctuary.

Place

This was the answer that I was most expecting, as from the outset the link between sanctuary and place was foremost in my mind. Still though, it was very enjoyable to see the variety of places where people might find sanctuary, from offices to gardens to the seaside. Some clear themes emerged, the most prominent being the importance of re-connecting with nature and the sense of calm and privacy that can be found in your own home. It was interesting how two people both mentioned how being outdoors gave them a sense of perspective:

“By the sea. At the top of a hill. Anywhere that I can get some perspective.”

“Out walking and especially on top of a hill, mountain, fell etc somewhere where I can see for miles.”

It is nice to be reminded that a view of the larger natural world opening up in front of you can quickly place your own troubles and concerns in perspective and perhaps not so insurmountable.

Three of the respondents told me about how they had decorated their places of sanctuary to suit their needs, using either soothing blues, bold colours or references to a zombie apocalypse to create the bolthole of their dreams. This got me thinking about how you might design your own sanctuary, which is a concept I’m going to return to later.

Two last fleeting thoughts about place. Firstly, the word ‘journey’ popped up a lot in the responses, which made me wonder if for some, travelling to your place of sanctuary, undressing yourself of your everyday trials and tribulations along the way, is just as important as getting there? Secondly, I really need to go and visit Oxwich Bay.

Being

My preoccupation with the link between sanctuary and place was soon shattered through the introduction of a range of ways in which the respondents found their own version of sanctuary. We had activities (walking, rowing and reading), emotions (humour) and just interacting with the people you love. There was a strong emphasis on family here, as well as sharing time with people with similar passions or ideals.

I was now thinking that sanctuary was not solely dependent on your physical environment, but could just as easily be found through spending your time with the people who mean the most to you, or doing the activities that mean the most to you. Sanctuary was not just about seeing, it was about touching, hearing and most importantly, feeling.

A thought just popped into my head. I read ‘Playing The Enemy’ recently, within which John Carlin explores the links between Nelson Mandela capturing the hearts and minds of white South Africa and the Rugby World Cup of 1995 and I remember reading about how Mandela’s most cherished texts within prison were the Greek classics and the works of Shakespeare. So this man was trapped within a physical environment designed to break him down, but his ability to read, an activity which kept his mind alive, was absolutely his sanctuary.

All in the mind

The next idea that I was reminded of was that sanctuary is something that can be totally removed from the physical realm, as it is a place that you can travel to in your own mind.

Jackie spoke of finding sanctuary in her own imagination, a place where she has the space and time to reflect and create. Mike talked of a specific mind-set, an attitude which helps him guard against complacency and Ken and Karyn relate how they find sanctuary in their own minds, Karyn through prayer and Ken through a process he feels is akin to meditation.

So again, I’m now thinking that you don’t have to BE somewhere to find sanctuary, you don’t even have to be DOING anything in particular, you just have to be ready to travel there in your own mind.

The design and discipline of sanctuary

By now, having absorbed the answers I’d received and played around with them a little on paper, I was coming to some conclusions. What really struck me was that the people who had got back to me were not finding their own places of sanctuary by happy accident. Instead, they were exercising both design and discipline in creating a sanctuary that really worked for them, be it a place, an activity or a state of mind.

They were crafting their own sanctuaries and creating the design of their choice, either physically (decorating the office space or family room) or mentally (Ken visits the Arctic when he’s stuck on a sweltering tube carriage). These individuals had made the choice to be the architects of their own sanctuary.

And they were exercising discipline in making sure that they were able to reach their states of sanctuary. They had recognised where they were, how to get to them and that they could recognise when they needed to access them. I had a real sense that they were willing to work to ensure that their sanctuary gave them the most positive impact possible.

What I’m wondering now is, of the people who saw my original question, did some of them look at it, draw a blank and move on because they’d never thought enough about where they find their sanctuary? Perhaps not enough of us have exercised that design and discipline in identifying our sanctuary? Which would mean we would find it harder to get there and thus take longer to recover from setbacks or the problems that have been plaguing us.

I would guess that highly effective people, whatever field they might work in, have a very good handle on where their sanctuary is and can access it pretty swiftly. From a coaching angle, I think that I would enjoy working with people to help them identify their own sanctuary and recognise how they might access it when they need it.

Methods

Finally, a word on the methods I used for the first of these mini-projects. Basically, I really like using these social media tools. People could answer my question in a short sharp tweet, expand a little in a comment on my first post, or go hell for leather and write a blog post of their own, using pictures or video to add colour and insight. It’s powerful stuff and I’m keen to continue to play with it. If I’m going to get better at it though, I need to continue to build a meaningful network based on two-way communication. Twitter is based around the concept of the more you give, the more you get, which means that if I expect more people to respond when I throw out a question, I need to make sure I answer some more of their questions.

Thanks very much to all those who got back to me – much appreciated.

Thanks to those lovely people who have got back to me so far. I have received tweets from @Heather_Waring and @VandyMassey, a blog comment from @jackiecameron1, responses on their own blogs from @sizemore and @karynromeis and this video mssage from @virtualleader. It’s a nice start, but I contacted 60+ people through twitter and I’m aiming for a higher response rate. I’m not surprised though, as I’m aware that I don’t do enough of the ‘twit-chat’ that @documentally told me is so essential to building a meaningful network through Twitter. I only swap small-talk with a minority of the people that I follow, so it’s natural that the majority of my connections don’t rush to respond when they receive a direct message from out of the blue.

Perhaps a direct appeal will help garner some more responses?

Tell me where you find sanctuary from Alex Dawson on Vimeo.

This is the second video I’ve made of myself talking and once again the ‘title screen’ has captured me gurning horrifically. I’m sure there’s more to come.

This is a lightweight tune perhaps but it’s nice enough, and more importantly, it served as an important purpose for me when I saw it playing at the gym on Saturday. It reminded me that one of the actions I committed to at the end of my coaching qualification was to carry out a mini research project. I would take three subjects, related to my coaching practice, and collect ideas and thoughts from other people around them, as well as reflecting upon them myself. Given that I’ve developed my interest in social media tools over the last six months, I felt that this would be a good opportunity to play around with some of those tools and see if I might use them to enhance my own thinking and understanding of the three topics I’m going to address.

Speaking of which, they are as follows:

Sanctuary
Creating a compelling picture of perfection
Modelling class acts

Sanctuary first then. I’m going to use Twitter to collect ideas around this topic from other people, with the question I’m going to ask them being as follows:

Where do you find sanctuary?

I expect that most of any replies that I get will be in text form, but I’m hoping that some might reply pictures or video. I’ll also ask myself the same question and document all the answers I receive on this blog.

Let’s get cracking then.

To the Whitechapel Gallery, in order to celebrate my mum’s birthday.

The birthday girl had expressed a wish to explore the Whitechapel area, one that she wasn’t too familiar with, so I picked the minds of a few friends and London experts. Mum and I had already agreed that Jack the Ripper was off the menu, so I was thinking of basing the walk around some places that I already knew (Christ Church, Brick Lane, Spitalfields Market, the Royal London Hospital) and some that I didn’t (Dennis Severs House, the Roman Wall at Aldgate).

I was halfway to constructing my own route when I found a ready-made option at Visit East London. I toyed with their Spitalfields map, but then spotted the ‘Exploring the Vanishing Jewish East End’ walk, which fitted the bill perfectly. I had already seen the ‘Whitechapel Boys’ exhibition at the Whitechapel Galley at one of its re-opening events, but here was a chance to try and put the lives of these Jewish artists in some kind of context and see if we could build a picture in our minds of the East End that they would have grown up in.

The day was a good one. A great walk in some lovely weather, some fine eating at the Gallery’s new restaurant and a new perspective on an area of London which I thought I new inside out.

Some pictures and video follow. Apologies for the awful camerawork and editing on the video, still getting to grips with the Flip.

to whitechapel from Alex Dawson on Vimeo.

So what did I learn?

Where to find the last Jewish bakery in East London is.

What happened at the siege of Sidney Street.

That those lovely red-brick buildings I used go past every day on my walk to and from the flat in Senrab Street were built as part of the Rothschilds ‘4% scheme’.