Gatherings. Conversation. Energy. GSD. Realisations. Repeat. 🔄
Conversations with Georgie #32
👋 Hello Friends,
Happy July! Excited to share my monthly-ish honest reflections about being human, creating meaningful connections and how to live a more intentional life. Everytime I sit down to write this letter, I need to first take a moment to look through my calendar and notes to see what happened over the last month. I am increasingly surprised by how much happens in life and yet when noting down the main moments, they clearly fit into a few key themes which keep reoccurring: gatherings, conversation, health and energy, getting stuff done (GSD) & spiritual-esque realisations. I wonder if your themes are similar? I invite you to find a delicious drink ☕, pause working and give yourself a full 5-8 ish minutes to read this. Curious if it sparks anything in you - thoughts, feels, resonance. Would love to hear them in the comments below ✍️ or email me 📥.
Sending (Virtual) Hugs, Love & A Warm Smile,
Georgie 🤗💜
1. Gatherings. Conversation. Energy. GSD. Realisations. Repeat. 🔄
a. 🥰 Gatherings and Human Connection
This last month has been full of in-person gatherings across a variety of groups I am connected to. I notice I feel more alive, more joy and creativity because of these opportunities. I participated in a 3-day wedding in the beautiful Lake Como (Italy), 2 gatherings with different groups at Imperial College, a festival on the soul (Realisation Festival), a Dream Dinner Club bringing together strangers for exquisite food and a gathering with interesting folk at Kairos to explore History for Tomorrow with Roman Krznaric (who is an excellent speaker). I co-facilitated another successful alumni event at UCL School of Management, organised a couple of picnics in the park with visiting friends to watch the sunset (on the only real summer days 🌞 we have had so far) and after what has felt like a long time, decided it was time to honour my own strengths as a host in my own network through hosting a couple of themed dinners and drinks. Surprisingly, there was a lot of procrastination involved in setting these up; it took me weeks to decide on dates and send invites. When I examined what was behind this I found a lack of clarity around how much design to bring to these experiences to ensure they were meaningful but not overly engineered. Connected to this was a fear that I wouldn’t meet mine and others’ high expectations for my facilitation skills. I’ve noticed that this keeps coming back; the more I design and facilitate highly-rated experiences, the more I fear not being able to meet that standard again. How did I get round this in the end? Taking action without feeling ready + treating them all like an experiment and naming this.
My most proud moment was bringing together a table-full of expert researchers and practitioners in the conversation and human connection space to connect, including a couple from outside of London. I felt quite emotional as I opened up the evening, realising that my somewhat lonely ‘conversation-world explorer’ 25 year self would feel so surprised and proud that I had managed to not only find and bring together a community of conversation professionals that I respect and admire, but also to call them all friends.
💡A few of learnings from these human connection experiences:
❓How do you engineer meaningful conversations in a simple way? Design good questions for the introductions that allow individuals to share meaningful, non-scripted things about themselves. This tends to open up enough surface area of interesting things to explore. If you have a theme, link to this. For instance, for more curated gatherings bringing together people interested in the same things ‘what is your why behind your interest in X'?’. For the theme of work/play, I went back to the etymology of the words and invited everyone to share ‘something that they rejoice in’ (play) and ‘something useful they want to accomplish’ (work). If you want to go further, ask the group what questions arise for them on the theme that they are living (or are just curious about) and explore these in smaller or a whole group.
💒 Weddings should be 3 days long. Given how far everyone tends to travel to be there, and the great potential possible for connecting a highly curated group of interesting folk, I have always wondered why celebrations are squeezed into 1 day. I loved how my friends made it a three-day event, with water-based activities, BBQ, drinks, meals and more scheduled for the day before and after the wedding. This created the space for a huge number of really meaningful 1-1 conversations and many micro-moments of connection with most of the 60 people attending, which just could not have happened in 1 rushed day.
🎩 My connector and facilitator hat is a form of leadership that wants to be unlocked. I miss the old days of running monthly+ deep meaningful conversation gatherings for strangers with Trigger Conversations deeply (although perhaps not the immense amount of work event production is!). I also recognise that I have cultivated a large number of relationships in the human connectivity and conversations spaces, and see great potential in building this build through well-designed gatherings. A old idea from 2017 to design a festival or conference has started to re-emerge in my consciousness along with a lot of new excited energy. So I have started to take this idea more seriously and am looking for ways to fund this (e.g. trust grants, sponsorship etc).
👉 Grateful for any suggestions you might have on funding front.
b. 💬 Conversation
This month I’ve had the opportunity not to teach difficult conversations, but to learn and practice through my own embodied lived experienced of these. I always think that being a student of your expertise is a great way to bring more empathy, humility and understanding to one’s own teaching. Here are some of my takeaways:
💰Money conversations are hard because they come laden with our own stories about what money means that go way beyond the figures e.g. money as control, freedom, generosity, scarcity, opportunity, fairness. Revealing more about our stories really helps others understand and empathise with where we are coming from.
🤗 It helps to separate conflict conversations into two parts. One part where you just meet another’s present-based emotional needs to feel seen, heard and validated through holding space, reflecting back what you have heard and bringing empathy and curiosity. A second part where you actually strategise about how to meet those practical needs in a creative way. A lot of the time conflict occurs or accelerates because there isn’t space for us to feel heard and seen in our pain or tension. This dissolves when we see that someone else has positive regard for us and wants to listen and care for our needs.
😩Check your physical and psychological capacity for difficult conversations before you dive in. So much of the time conversations break down because don’t have the capacity for presence and care because we are hungry, angry, lonely or tired (HALT). Recognising our internal state, naming this and finding a time to talk when we are resourced makes a huge difference.
👩💻 Just as important is the medium of conversation. Stay away from async conversations on email or whatsapp if you can. It is so much harder to convey care through text, and async doesn’t give the opportunity for collaboration (checking for clarity, sharing impact etc.) that helps everyone feel seen and cared for.
c.🪫Health and Energy
It’s been an unexpected month of health explorations. I’ve been ill twice with a lingering cold virus (maybe covid) which has slowed me down considerably. However, it created the space for me to rethink my relationship to energy and how the biggest challenge I consistently note down in my weekly reflections ritual 🤔 relates to energy. So, inspired by a couple of friends, I decided to finally quit drinking coffee ☕️ . I was becoming too dependent on it for functioning (the benefits only really returned me to my baseline). I decided that afternoon, evening and weekend energy slumps were too high a sacrifice for a few golden hours of focus, creativity and optimism each morning. As you can imagine, the withdrawal headaches, tiredness and mood dips weren’t fun but as I was unwell already, I decided to just give myself some lights days of reading and typing practice.
The newfound energy I have gotten back along with lowered anxiety and a feeling of groundedness has been incredible. Plus, better sleep! And I have realised I can still be focused and creative without it. I’ve allowed myself to drink tea (chai and green) so I’m still drinking some (smaller amounts of) caffeine. I am allowing myself a cup of coffee about once a week as a treat, but am careful not to fall back on it as I did after quitting in 2017. So, a work in progress! But I definitely feel proud to have stopped what has been an addition for at least a few years.
👉 I’m curious, what is your relationship to drinking coffee? ☕️ If you have quite before, what benefits have you experienced from taking time away from?
d. ✅ Getting Stuff Done (GSD)
Having written a large chunk about avoidance and procrastination in last month’s letter, I feel reasonably happy with my efforts to break through some of this resistance.
Some of the areas I have GSD: Creating an alumni offering for Transformational Conversations students, delegating landing page updates to my website (which should be live at the end of July), touch-typing practice (getting closer to av. 45 WPM!), increasing offering prices, setting up a coaching exchange, exploring London life and hosting experiences for my community, and creating fun experiences to deepen strong tie friendships.
Still to GSD: physiotherapy habits, book proposal, podcast, consistent PhD writing, file admin.
A friend messaged me after reading last month’s letter to share his desire to hear the answer to one the questions I shared:
What feeling am I avoiding by not making a decision/acting? (Stuckness is often a sign of resisting a feeling that feels uncomfortable to face) 🥹
I enjoyed this invitation and am happy to share. When I feel into some of the tasks right now what feels most alive is a fear / sadness that I won’t do a good job, and I may disappoint myself or others (and this links to my identity), a fear of stuckness around not knowing what to do next and a fear I will be rushing to get these tasks done which will fuel anxiety, stress and ill-health. 😨 An interesting inquiry…
👉 I wonder what feelings you are avoiding by not making a decision/acting on specific tasks or projects?
e. ✨Spiritual-esque Realisations
I’ve noticed a shift in me from seeking understanding to instead being open to what is here, which I think relates to an acceptance of how little we can actually control and a feeling of increased safety and security around the unknown. Instead of coming to a recent experience with a stack of questions to explore, I came with the intention of openness to what might arise. This opened up a lot of space, and in that space I noticed my attention move to the joy I was experiencing in my heart whilst listening to music. I asked ‘Is my heart interested in this moment?’ and got back a resounding yes! Then I was hit with the realisation that my and ours heart is always interested in feeling this moment - regardless of what feelings the moment brings. I could feel a real sense of aliveness, of care and of expansive love arising and an intimacy with the universe that isn’t always to connect with.
👉 I encourage you to ask yourself this question ‘Is my heart interested in this moment?’ in your next meditation and stay close to the felt response.
2. Catch me Live 🏃♀️
Let’s connect online or in-person…
✨ Transformational Conversations Programme - Autumn Edition 🍂
👩💻Online Transformational Conversations Programme: A Taster Workshop (How to Navigate Small Talk): 17th July, 7th Aug, 6th Sep, 17th Sep
🇬🇧 In person: 18th - 20th & 23rd Oct - 13th of Nov
👩💻 6-Week Virtual Programme: 8th Oct - 12th Nov
🔥 Transform Conflict into Connection Programme - Autumn Edition 🍂
👩💻Online Taster Workshop: Wed 14th August
🇬🇧 Hybrid Programme: 2 Days In Person (21-22 Sept) + 4 weeks online (25 Sept - 9 Oct )
👩💻Online Programme: 4 Sept -9 Oct
🎪 UK Festivals. I’m hoping to go to two - email me if you’re likely to be there too.
Buddhafields Festival: 17th-22nd July
Edinburgh Fringe Festival: 23rd-26th Aug
3. Consumable Delights 😋
💡 i. Talk - Sebastian Deterding Keynote: ‘I wonder…? Designing for Curiosity’
Sebastian is one of the professors at Imperial College, where I’m doing my PhD. I recently discovered how relevant his work is for my research interests which makes me feel super excited. He’s interested in deconstructing the ingredients for curiosity, being playful and playing games. Here’s one of his easily digestible talks on what you need to include to design for curiosity: psychological safety, relevance, solvable, unpredictability.
📕 ii. Article - The days are long but the decades are short
‘Life is not a dress rehearsal—this is probably it. Make it count. Time is extremely limited and goes by fast. Do what makes you happy and fulfilled—few people get remembered hundreds of years after they die anyway. Don’t do stuff that doesn’t make you happy (this happens most often when other people want you to do something). Don’t spend time trying to maintain relationships with people you don’t like, and cut negative people out of your life. Negativity is really bad. Don’t let yourself make excuses for not doing the things you want to do.’
I really enjoy reading other people’s reflections and learnings at various points in their life (which is probably why I enjoy writing them so much too - eg. my 30 lists of 30 to celebrate my 30th birthday!). These 36 are from Sam Altman, who recently turned 30.
🎭 iii. Fun-stuff - Showstoppers The Improvised Musical
I’ve been really fortunate to experience a lot of improv musical theatre this month including a whole musical, created in the moment. This requires amazing skills in listening, humour, creativity and teamwork that leaves me in awe. Similar to a great conversation, I love to see how Improvisers weave in new ideas and callbacks to what was previously shared. I recommend Improv to all my conversation training clients and include it in my programmes.
4. A Parting Quote 📝
Leadership is the capacity to make a compelling invitation.
-Rich Bartlett (found in this article ‘Leadership as Hospitality’)