How are you at being shit?

Maybe I'm lazy.

Maybe I should man up.

Maybe I should just commit.

Maybe I'm a chicken.

Maybe I should maximise my potential.

Maybe I should retire.

Maybe I should build.

Maybe I should earn more.

Maybe I should leave more for the kids.

There are many stories we tell ourselves. Most of them harsh.

Previously I pointed to a few ideas I return to over and over. Or as over and over as I remember. The first a question: what are you cultivating?

Sitting here writing this today, the gardens outside are humming with summer. Alive. Potent. Buzzing.

The lily grows taller and taller.

In a pond. Not soil. But growth nonetheless.

That there's growth at all is of course seasonal but is also all about the quality of the soil.

Healthy soil makes for healthy, vibrant life.

For the plants, the hidden stuff below the surface.

For you, the atmosphere of your mind.

The stories we tell.
The mood we breathe into.
The beliefs we're stuck to.

Back in 2016 I went to a conference here in Brighton. The Meaning Conference. Clue in the title. Maff Potts was talking. He the founder of a pioneering social experiment, the living living room, pop ups on street corners, in hospitals, all places to sit, meet, talk. Softening the edges between us. His work and mission borne of a powerful and painful personal need - to remain connected to others, to feel better about himself.

He kept coming back to a subtle realisation.

I'm a bit shit sometimes.

And it's ok.

Oh.

I grew up with the story work was hard, that how much I stuff into the machine determines what comes out the other side. True for sausage making. Maybe less so for the qualities of the mind, for knowledge working. This a story I held onto hard for the entire Act I of my work. It shaped how I ran the company. How I led. The standards I held myself too. Some goodness in there. And a lot of pain.

Another story inherited from school and culture: that it's good to know things. You're clever, they said.

This gifts a fragile confidence, brittle, stoking behaviours which, in time, grow ugly heads. Like don't be wrong. Don't be not very good at something.

Don't be a bit shit some of the time.

We might call this don't be a normal functioning human.

In Maff's line a powerful seed landed for me.

Worry less about the plants of work. Care more for the soil, for qualities of my mind and the work will shape itself.

Care for qualities like appreciation.

Appreciating your laziness...
Appreciating the man you already are.
Appreciating being scared...
Appreciating all that you've built.
Appreciating all you've given and gifted your children, your friends, your family.

The soil of your mind is all about the ideas, stories and habits you cultivate.

Pay good attention.

Be kind.

And remember...

I'm a bit shit sometimes.

And that's just fine.