Restore - Stefan’s Week-notes 29/09/2024
Inspired by the weeknotes of friends and coachees including John Fitzgerald, Steve Messer and Nour Sidawi - I thought I'd give it a go.
Inspired by the weeknotes of friends and coachees including John Fitzgerald, Steve Messer and Nour Sidawi - I thought I'd give it a go.
Here's a dive in to the happenings of the past week. I start with what i’ve been up to, to frame the week and then the successes.
It's easy to look into the dark rather than the light; isn't it?
Hope you enjoy it; comments, observations and thoughts welcome.
What have I been up to?
(Question inspired by @James_ Arthur_Cattell week notes). It's been a busy week.
Training - 272.6KM this week in 4 rides, 2 yoga sessions and a strength and conditioning session.
Coaching - inc. A marketing and Branding Consultant, A Head of Sustainability and A Business Development and Growth Director.
Meet up with the fabulous @Rob_Earnshaw for a catch up (it’s been too long) a great chat about the value of experience in the training room and finding joy in helping the next generation to grow in ‘our playing space’.
Facilitating the first day of our digital marketing programme for my friend and programme owner @angela_mclelland
Opening my The Little Boat - Art Gallery and making some small sales, with some interest in a commission for art to go on the fairing of a scooter and a barista experience course for a husband and wife.
A visit from my coffee house son @Elliot_Davison who used to work for us at TFCH and has just graduated with a first class honours degree in Digital Media and Communications from Manchester Metropolitan University.
Bright as they come and a lovely chap who is great company and determined to get into ‘performance marketing’ within F1 and motorsport.
Know anyone?
A wonderful cook up on Wednesday night with my mate @Jason_hayles for a Tuscan Bean Stew. No ride out this week as the weather was just too bad; but cooking up in Jasons’ Van was awesome. And the added question ‘what have you learned this week?’ led to an hour and a half discussion which was enlightening.
What's been good about this week?
I loved meeting with a Head of Sustainability this week; they're at a cross roads - they want their organisation to do more in the innovation space and to be seen as leaders in their industry. After some initial excitement and stakeholder and board impetus he's finding that his opportunity to have impact is lessening.
We talked about moving, and we talked about what he needs to lean into before he decides to do that. Let's not run away, let's lean into it and let's then look for fertile soil to plant yourself - that was joyous.
I also loved coaching a head of who is only a few years away from early ‘retirement’. Leading leaders and finding that to be joyous and painful in relatively equal measure. How does he add value and how does he use this chapter to inform the next, as well as his current Non Exec Director role. Here we talked about what he might need to lean into now and how that might create a platform for the future.
Key words trust and faith. He has one; he needs the other.
Finally; I loved meeting with the latest group on our digital marketing programme. A group of marketing execs, business owners and wanna be business owners.
I love helping them to lean into who they are and why they wanna be their business, who their customers are and what they value.
It’s enlightening to get them to reflect on the very positive impact they are having or have had and to become more confident in expressing the outcomes these owners can deliver.
Fabulous feedback at the end of the day and some potentially life changing admissions and recognition for these businesses already.
On top of all of this I released the first edition of my newsletter - ‘Be The Waves’ - thank you to everyone who signed up and for the lovely feedback from @Andreweberlin and @markdarlington in particular (two of life’s good folk) who provided invaluable feedback about the next edition - which will come out on the final Thursday in October.
In Mark’s words “Fantastic news letter. Really interesting read and something we can refer back to many times I think” and Andrews “A very good first newsletter”.
Every issue covers each of my five life pillars; Work, Rest, Play, Sustenance and Love. And like most things ‘you dont have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to become great’.
Please sign up here:
What am I grateful for?
This week I am grateful that…
The fabulous people in my network who continue to like my posts and, even more usefully, comment and share my posts.
This does three things:
1. It makes me feel valued and motivates me to do more.
2. It helps me get seen on linked and on instagram by ‘leaning into’ their algorithms.
3. It means that others, outside of my immediate network, get to see my work, know I exist and contact me to find out more about my work, chat about the great thing they are leading, or wish to lead, and just maybe ask me to coach them.
Thank you for helping me to do more of what I love.
This week thank you for likes, shares and comments go to @Estherpatrick, @JonBaldwin, @markdarlington , @Andrewsmith , @janethughes, @Andreweberlin , @Staceycrump @drstevemarshall @laurabrown @leefoley , @alex_bailey, @kerrioneill and @kearbrain
What could have gone better?
This week I’ll start by saying that I have been much better at balancing my bike rides and training (I mentioned that I’d overcooked it the week before). And I’ve also been better with my refuelling too - reflecting on it and saying it out loud, last week, really did help.
Funny that I still need to remind ‘myself’ of this as well as my coachees.
The one thing that could have gone better this week, is my van not going kaput on Thursday evening - some form of electrical fault left me a little stranded 35Km away from the little boat and needing to run the digital marketing programme from home on Friday. Not too much of a problem you might say; no, only the small matter of that same 35KM to cycle over to Freshwater to collect the kids; borrowing my ex wife’s car for the weekend.
On the plus side, I got the opportunity to ride my bike which gave me mental, emotional and social rest and recuperation time (would you believe) and an opportunity to ride based upon feel and my own internal sense of pace. I ride a lot to predetermined power outputs in my training and it was nice to go - how are my legs feeling.
Riding into a 28KM/h head wind, carrying a rucksack and aiming to conserve energy, I was only12 mins slower than my fastest unloaded time for the same distance. Very positive for next years big rides.
So silver linings all round.
What am I reading?
This week, David Attenborough’s “A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future” arrived and so I’ve been avidly reading that.
I ordered the book from a second hand book shop (go me) because of the number of leaders who are coming to me because they want to influence positive change in the climate change and sustainability space in their organisations or sectors and this book in particular because of the the beautiful review Ipsos CPO Kerri O’Neill did on Linkedin.
The book is fabulous and I can see why Kerri shouted about it so loudly. It’s a brilliant ‘call to action’ and a great ‘starting point’ for anyone wishing to know what they can do to effect sustainability change.
The opening lines from the book are powerful enough; you should read the rest:
"As a young man, I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world - but it was an illusion. The tragedy of our time has been happening all around us, barely noticeable from day to day - the loss of our planet's wild places, its biodiversity. I have been witness to this decline”.
And
“A Life on Our Planet contains my witness statement, and my vision for the future - the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake, and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right.
We have the opportunity to create the perfect home for ourselves and restore the wonderful world we inherited. All we need is the will to do so."
Get your copy from your local library, second handbook shop (like I did) or ask your network if anyone has a copy you can borrow.
The book is such a useful addition to my library as I grow my knowledge of the sustainability arena and what can and is being done at both an international, national and regional level as well as by individuals.
My purpose is to help good people lead great things, and as a coach my role is to help those I work with lead and influence more effectively, lean into their why and create strategies to help them effect the change they wish to see.
I really do believe that coaching isn’t about the knowing the detail it's about helping the individual to strategise action and work with their organisations and people to iron out the details. However, as more of those people come to me for help in leading environmentally and socially motivated change it make sense for me to become more greatly informed - it helps make my questions even more ‘razor sharped’ and I’m interested in it as a father and brother.
What am I wishing for?
This week, I am wishing for a fixed Van 🤣
And on a serous note I am wishing for wars to stop across our world and for acts of retaliation to come from governments world wide to leverage non violent sanctions to their fullest.
I am wishing for governments and large corporates in particular to ‘wake up and smell the dying roses’ and do something more concrete, more urgent and more widespread about their impact and the impact of their supply chain on climate change.
We are drying out, flooding out and breathing out in ways that are clearly impacting us now; there is a greater imperative than money and as I’ve said before - we need a planet to spend money on.
It’s Sunday, I have the kids, what are we up to today?
It’s Sunday AM and we’re having our usual gentle start, i’be just completed an indoor bike ride and am about to have breakfast.
After a few jobs around the flat an having cooked lunch, Will, Vera and I are off for a walk along Tennyson Down to the Needles with Dominique and her 4 lovely children. It’s not meant to rain until this evening - fingers crossed
A Last Word - Restore
The word I would like to leave you with today is "Restore” which means “… a return to an original state after depletion or loss”.
So many of those I work with are purposeful good people.
In this coming weeks Thursday Post - ‘REST’, I will talk more about the 7 energetic facets of rest which go beyond sleep and include the mental, emotional and social rest I mentioned above in my 35km ride to collect the kids.
For now, here are two snippets to whet your appetite:
“Good people usually care massively, over burden themselves, don’t always stick up for themselves (as much as they do the cause) and are often working harder than they need to” On top of this they “…often end up doing more than is healthy for them because of how purposeful they feel and because of how important they see the change they are leading, or want to lead”.
“Great things take time to gestate, to influence, to build and remain ‘liquid’ for a long time before becoming more solid and foundational.
Helping others to transition from an idea into a cultural norm and a way of working, living and being takes energy, it takes commitment AND almost as importantly pacing and recuperation’.
Like the bike races I do, leadership and change are an endurance race and those, like leadership aren’t won in the first pedal strokes, but can be lost by over ‘egging it’ and ‘burning brightly’ too soon”.
Keep an eye out on my linked in profile for the post and sign up here to received my newsletter ‘Be The Waves” which collates each weeks long form post on a monthly basis and you’ll get to read it later in the month.
Thank you for reading my week notes.
For now, let me leave you with three questions:
Are you getting enough rest and recuperation time?
Are you running, jogging or sprinting in work at the moment?
Is this really sustainable?
Have a great Sunday and Love to you all
I am…
An executive coach who specialises in helping good people lead great things.
Good people care about others, our planet and beauty. Great things are changes for the betterment of society and all that lives within an around it.
It sounds big and fun - it is.
I'm also an endurance racing cyclist and a go. getter.
You can read more about me and what I do; how I work here