Happy Tuesday afternoon during this now beautiful summer 🌞. I hope you’re able to get outside and enjoy nature🌳⛰️🌊 at its best! This letter takes 5-8 minutes to read in full, or you can choose a section if you’re tight on time. I recommend using it as an opportunity to pause on your to-do list, grab your favourite drink (mine is definitely ☕) and peruse my thoughts. I hope they inspire you to also reflect on your life and to celebrate yourself. I would love to hear - I love replies! 📧
👋 Hello Friends,
In contrast to last month’s letter about Plodding Along Consistently, I am writing this letter at the end of a probably too busy month; full of travel, events, gatherings and delivering workshops. And probably not enough PhD research, real rest, dancing and quality time with my closest friends and family.
Quality time with close friends and family - they are a safe-haven of security and love. And often something I often sacrifice for the adventures of shiny diverse opportunities to learn, connect and explore. I know I am not alone with shiny object syndrome (yep, there is even a Forbes articles on it)
Momentary feelings of homesickness, sadness and regret this month gave me an indication that something was off in my decision-making about how to spend time and the design of my everyday environment.
How do we balance who we spend our time with? How do we design our everyday to meet our specific connection needs?
I suspect I am not alone in living these questions, which I have written about in greater depth in Section 1 below. I’d love to hear your perspectives on this and anything else that pulls you in.
Feel free to scroll down to whatever you’re most called to.
1. Relationships: Designing for our Connection Needs 🤗
2. What I am Celebrating 🙌
i.🎁 Feedback about Feedback ii. ✍️ My Work Featured Online iii. 🌎 Happy Global Clients
3. Infallible Processes & Human Dignity 🫶
4. Consumable Delights 😋
i. ✍️ Book - The 100-Year Life ii. 🎵 Music - Toy by Netta iii. 🤖 AI Tools
5. A Parting Thought📝
Here is the good news: You can always begin again…. by Jeff Foster
Thanks, as always, for reading (and responding!). 🙏
Sending (Virtual) Hugs, Love & A Warm Smile,
Georgie 🤗💜
1. Relationships: Designing for our Connection Needs 🤗
Sitting on a plane last month, feeling FOMO and in regret, I became painfully aware of a pattern I tend to have of sacrificing my “everyday” relationships and work for the new shiny opportunities, like connecting with ‘weak tie’ relationships (those on the periphery of our network).
I decided to leave a 9-day co-work (and play!) retreat in beautiful nature 3.5 days early to spend time with a group of mostly new friends - community-builders that I thought present and future Georgie would value connecting with personally and professionally.
Don’t get me wrong, I had an awesome time with them all and think I made the right decision to go, but I can’t help notice a pattern I follow that sometimes leads to uncomfortable feelings.
I sacrifice time with my strong ties relationships (a small group of family and friends closest to me) to adventure into the world of new or less known people and experiences.
Children crave both security and independent adventure (according to attachment theory). The more secure support and love they feel at home, the easier it is to venture out into the wider world. When you feel loved and held at home, you can take on more risks and tolerate challenges more. I don’t think adults are that different - we are living out the attachment styles from our childhood.
I’ve realised that quality time with my strong ties has somewhat weakened, in part due to factors outside of my control - some are incredibly busy with work, some have moved away from London / UK - and it’s therefore harder to have consistent micro-moments of connections or solid quality time. Proximity, a huge factor in creating the conditions for human connection, is not there. We don’t live next door so connecting is less likely to be spontaneous, or in person.
I rediscovered that I thrive in community, where there are both strong and weak tie relationships. Attending a 3-day (plus a few extra days in town) Sandbox regional summit recently, I noticed I felt high on life! I knew 95% of the 70ish attendees and massively enjoyed spending time together connecting, having fun and learning. I felt stimulated, belonging, aliveness… all the best ingredients for a peak experience that helped me be the best version of myself.
The challenge came when I returned home, and I was no longer surrounded by friends on a daily basis. Back to my small-ish flat in one corner of London. Back to scheduled meetups a few times a week. Goodbye random spontaneous interactions in the kitchen that lighten up my day, giving me feel good endorphins, expanding my sense of what the world is about and stimulating new ideas. I hit a low.
My everyday life setup isn’t currently designed to meet my connection needs and desires. Whilst I connect with a lot of people for my work, which I enjoy, I want to have greater physical access to human beings who feel like family.
How do we balance who we spend our time with? How do we design our everyday to meet our specific connection needs?
I know I am not alone in this desire - perhaps you too are living this question. Cities like London are becoming lonely places and I believe it’s in part down to bad design. Both creating the space for community spirit to flourish and for positive relational social norms around interacting to exist.
This problem isn’t going away - and I imagine that in the next stage of life (having families etc.) it may be harder to make big changes, and ever more important to have this kind of community support.
So in the spirit of taking action on my challenges and ideas, I’m playing with the idea of co-living. What would it look and feel like to live amongst a select group of friends with shared values? How many people is optimal? Could we tolerate living together? How much would we actually want to be around each other? For how long?
All questions that need to be answered - not all ideas are desirable in reality. So my plan would be to design a co-living experiment with an end date, to get real data on the above questions. What would 1-3 months look and feel like of co-living? I feel excited about the potential of this and would love to hear any suggestions, resources or the like to get this idea moving!
2. What I am Celebrating 🙌
This section is an experimental way for me to practice the challenge of self-celebration, feel into the experience of pride and gratitude for good things happening in life. Hopefully, it will encourage you too to outwardly celebrate achievements in your own life!
i. Feedback about Feedback 🎁
I couldn’t run a workshop on feedback without staying true to my principles and getting feedback on the delivery and impact of the workshop.
I recently spent the day with MBA candidates at UCL School of Management - all global leaders in their diverse fields - teaching them the toolkit to give great feedback including some key elements that often get forgotten:
- Pre-frames are important. Is this the right context, how is this relevant to their goals, and do I have consent so people take ownership of the process?
- Leave the feedback sandwich behind - it undermines the conversation
- Get specific and objective - what behaviours did you notice (see and hear) and what impact did they have on the individual, team or organisation?
- Being assertive is important but don't forget the value of curiosity and humility - you only ever have access to a tiny part of someone's world
It was an absolute joy to hear that attendees found the workshop both insightful and practical, and to hear later how some of the attendees were already implementing some of the tools in their organisations. I’m excited to run the next version of this workshop for another organisation this summer.
ii. My Work Featured Online 📰
The Guardian - I’ve struggled to make friends since moving abroad – and it’s making me lonely
iii. Happy Global Clients 🌎
I’m beginning to realise how awesome it is when people travel all the way from Brazil, Germany, France, Amsterdam as well as the UK, to take my programme Transformational Conversations and say how much it changed their lives.
I often have challenges explaining how important I think the work of having better conversations is - and how it is not just about tools, but more about changing our beliefs about who we are, how we perceive others and what is possible in the world.
I loved what one participant, in particular, shared about the course that captures this beautifully:
''It is more than a conversation about conversation. It is about humanity, what makes you unique and connected at the same time.''
3. Infallible Processes & Human Dignity 🫶
This month, I’ve been thinking a lot about processes and how easy it is for humans to fall into the gaps, in the name of fairness. And how important empathy is to create dignity for the human going through the process.
I'm currently responsible for running a recruitment process and am feeling acutely aware that in its current format, it creates fairness among the majority of applicants but not the minority. Some people, especially neurodivergent types, don’t present the best version of themselves on paper compared to how they show up in person. Some people are unable, due to life circumstances, to meet the deadlines. Not everyone gets granted exceptional circumstances, but I am a believer in listening to find out.
I struggle to follow or enforce black and white rules. In my opinion, all processes are imperfectly designed and almost always worthy of a small number of exceptions. When designing something, there will always be circumstances we can’t imagine at the time that might affect how individuals show up in that process; you just don’t know what is in people’s lives.
And as well as seeing this from the viewpoint of others, I have also gotten to experience what it is like to be caught up in such a process myself. One of my growth areas is to speak out when things feel difficult, before they get really bad. I got caught out recently in a situation involving tight timings, money, pride and shame (such a juicy combination!). And the current result (which might hopefully change now I have addressed it) means I am currently excluded from something that is very important to me. This result triggered a lot of emotion in me, no doubt because of childhood experiences of being excluded and not been valued. 🥹
I do feel responsible for my lack of action - if I had spoken up (which I had the agency to) and been more transparent about challenges I wouldn’t be here - and at the same time, I acknowledge it was hard for me to do this. I spent weeks sitting on it.
Personal empowerment and responsibility is important, yes, and sometimes we mess up. Sometimes we need someone to notice that something seems not right, and to nudge or check-in with us.
One of the most helpful parts of this experience was how it helped me realise just how important my values for inclusion and empathy are. I care about ensuring that people feel seen and appreciated for. I care that we keep critically assessing our processes to understand if they really are wholly inclusive. I care that people don’t get left behind. 🫶
3. Consumable Delights 😋
✍️ i. Book - ‘The 100-Year Life’ - I’ve had this book on my bookshelf for a few years now, and was drawn back to read it recently when I started thinking about all the different careers I want to live (e.g. I’ve always wanted to design my own house, and also design a school). It’s a great book, full of useful statistics (e.g. 50% of children born in the UK in 2007 will likely live to 103) highlighting how we won’t be able to fund our retirement in the conventional system. It rips apart the 3-stage working life (learn, work, retire), presenting a more innovative multi-stage models for living that includes sabbaticals and re-skilling periods. I particularly appreciated the articulation of a foray of assets we need to think about. Not just tangible assets like property and money but also the intangible assets (e.g. skills, knowledge, relationships, good health and self-knowledge) that are often considered secondary. I’m realising that the very human skills I teach and the work I do is a big part of making us ‘future-proof’.
🎵 ii. Music - Toy by Netta. Listening to this transformed a tired Georgie into one that wanted to get up and dance in the kitchen. Thanks Dimi for sharing this on OneSong (Beta) [A new song every Saturday]
🤖 iii. AI Tools - I’ve now attended a bunch of peer-run workshops on AI about how to get the most out of the emerging technologies, and am excited to share a few tools (of many!) that are super useful.
ChatGPT-4 - The new upgraded ChatGPT is way more powerful and accurate then 3.5. In my view, worth the $20/month.
There is an AI for that - As it says on the tin - it helps you find any AI tool you need. Updated daily because of the insane growth of AI.
Nolej - Automatically convert documents (Text, Video, Audio) into a dynamic learning experience (e.g. with flashcards, quizzes). Amazing for curriculum instructors & designers.
GPTZero - Detects if copy has been written by an AI or not. I’ve found it super useful whilst reviewing membership applications this month!
Scite.ai - Find sources for claims back by research, finds out if research is supported or contrasted by others and more.
Midjourney - Can create unbelievably good artwork and images in seconds. e.g. we inputted an image of us workshopping AI learnings at a recent ‘Optimisers’ retreat and asked Midjourney to convert it into Marvel movies style. 👇
4. A Parting Thought📝
Here is the good news: You can always begin again. No matter what happened, you can begin again. Your canvas is Here and Now and nowhere else. You can take the next tiny step, make your next tiny choice, speak the words you dared not speak, let an old self die, let a new self begin. Break out of your comfort zone, offend a few people. Make amends if you must. But return to the present. You must come back to the present, breathe in the present, feel what you feel in the present, weep and laugh in the present, kneel to the present and devote the rest of your life to it. The past is dead, so you are in the perfect place to begin.”
- Jeff Foster