Discover Your Adventure, Codify Your Value, Unleash Your Wildest Dream.
Wildest Dream
Wildest Dream
Wildest Dreams Come From Range
From Fuxi to Da Vinci, Leibniz to Claude Shannon - human progress has always been driven by those who crossed disciplines. They weren’t specialists. They were explorers. They followed curiosity, saw patterns others missed, and made creative leaps that changed the world. In today’s age of AI, complexity, and constant change, it’s not your niche that will define you - it’s your Range.
Lessons From Leaders On Range
“Smart people are a dime a dozen, they don’t usually amount to much, the real key was being creative. And whether it is Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin or Steve Jobs, these are people who love to seek patterns across nature. They were interested in everything you could possibly know. By seeing those patterns, they made mental leaps that others didn’t do.”
Walter Isaacson.
“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
John Lennon.
“Modern work demands knowledge transfer: the ability to apply knowledge to new situations and different domains.”
David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.
“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
Leonardo da Vinci.
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.”
Carl Jung.
Range Comes From Curiosity.
As a child I never believed I was amazing at any one thing. For Sunday league kids football I was a goalkeeper, then a defender and occasionally a forward in six a side. I could spend hours building Lego sets, arranging toy soldiers into imaginary battles, or piecing together puzzles of the world map and its flags.
In secondary school, I was popular, but not one of the cool kids. In class I was smart, but I never received the attention or pressure of being the smartest. My academic journey was never a straight line. Final exams had ups, downs, and several resits.
What I was great at was curiosity. Sometimes it got me sent out of class for talking too much or asking the wrong question. I wasn’t the best at any one thing, but I had a quiet superpower: I was fascinated by people.
I spent the summer break of university working for an eccentric American who owned a handful of engineering factories in Birmingham. I loved it. I was good at designing logos, understanding finances and organising machinery layouts. I was great at getting on with people – whether the eccentric American or the factory workers. This was one of my first data points that it was valuable to be good at many things.
I moved into consulting where I would have amazing conversations with business leaders and industry experts. Why was I good at it? I knew how to connect with people, to connect disparate ideas together, and to move fast. Whilst consulting, I discovered the phenomenal book Range by David Epstein. He challenges the myth that specialisation is the only path to success. Instead, he argues that generalists – those who dabble, explore, and connect dots across fields – often thrive in complex and unpredictable environments.
Generalists – those who dabble, explore, and connect dots across fields – often thrive in complex and unpredictable environments.
It made me look back at my experiences in a different way.
I knew that what I was doing, this ranging, exploratory type of work was beneficial. Why else would we place so much trust in general practitioner doctors – highly trained generalists who help us navigate complexity?
Range helped me to make sense of me loving Lego, blowing things up, history books, geography lectures, ski mountaineering, piano playing, cooking, drawing, being outdoors, being indoors with friends, economics, politics, sociology, psychology, strategy, communication, critical thinking. I’ve always been an easy-going person, willing to share, willing to try something because ‘why not.’
Looking back, I wasn’t born with Range – I built it. As a school kid, my Range looked like curiosity. As a consultant, it became understanding and insight. Today, it’s my ability to hold multiple perspectives, to move from abstract to practical.
I am finding my Wildest Dream in my Range. Yesterday evening Liv and I spent an hour building Lego – a Viking Village to be exact. It was such a throwback to childhood. My Wildest Dream is not to build a Lego Viking village for a living, but maybe it’s to build something new and novel.
Leonardo da Vinci lived through the Renaissance in the 15-16th centuries. In 2013 he shot back into the limelight for posthumously becoming the artist of the most expensive painting ever. $430m for the Salvator Mundi. I urge you to explore his story. Da Vinci wasn’t just an artist; he was a bridge between disciplines, the original interdisciplinary thinker. He was Range. He was the ultimate master of Range. His contributions to scientific discovery, engineering, military equipment, human anatomy and biology are incredible. He had such a diverse range of interests, curiosities and skills. Diversity which only he can make overlap.
Da Vinci wasn’t just an artist; he was a bridge between disciplines, the original interdisciplinary thinker. He was Range.
Never look at your hobbies and think it is getting in the way of something. If you love yoga and baking and piano playing, keep doing it. Maybe you won’t open a yoga retreat or an Etsy baking store or become the next Ludovico Einaudi. But those passions? They shape how you lead meetings, how you connect with people, how you see the world. That’s value.
I’ve been playing piano again. Not to perform – just to enjoy the process. That small creative act reminds me that our Range, our inspiration, lives in the margins, in how we choose to spend our time when no one’s watching. What hobby, what curiosity, could you return to?
Today I see range in my great friend James, a Gen-Z renaissance thinker. Able to talk, communicate and share stories in sport, philosophy and technology. Excelling in building deeply technical AI models and working with stakeholders in Australia, Dubai and Finland. James has a deep sense of Range.
He is the Gen Z AI-Renaissance man. What is his Wildest Dream? To contribute to multiple humanity wide challenges. Humanity wide challenges, that is a Wildest Dream. But, multiple, that is only achievable by someone with Range, by someone who has developed their passions across multiple disciplines.
Range is when the 17th century mathematician Gottfried Leibniz was inspired by the 4000-year-old concept of Yin and Yang.
Leibniz was a true Range master of the 17th century. He moved effortlessly between disciplines. Inspired by ancient philosophy and the concept of Yin and Yang, he made groundbreaking discoveries in mathematics and logic.
Yin and Yang are foundational concepts in Chinese philosophy, representing complementary opposites – light and dark, active and passive, expansion and contraction. According to mythology, eight elemental symbols were first developed by Fuxi, an ancient cultural hero. He observed the natural world and understood that these dual forces, Yin and Yang, were the building blocks of creation. The eight elemental symbols of Heaven, Lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, and Earth were each made of solid (Yang) and broken (Yin) lines.
Leibniz was a true Range master of the 17th century. He moved effortlessly between disciplines. Inspired by ancient philosophy and the concept of Yin and Yang, he made groundbreaking discoveries in mathematics and logic. One of his most enduring contributions was creating a simple numerical system using just 1s and 0s. One century later, George Boole would be inspired by this binary system to create Boolean Algebra.
In the 1930s, Claude Shannon took a philosophy and mathematics class at the University of Michigan and learnt about Boolean algebra. As an engineer he applied this idea of binary logic to electric circuit boards. 1s and 0s, Yin and Yang, on and off. Shannon was another Range master, making contributions across mathematics, information theory and cryptography. It might surprise you to learn that Claude.ai is named after Shannon.
From Fuxi to Leibniz, Boole to Shannon – Range has always driven progress. What began as ancient philosophy became mathematical logic, then evolved into the language of circuits, and now powers the digital age. Range is more than having a hobby. It’s how civilizations leap forward.
In times of uncertainty, Range becomes a competitive advantage.
We are living in challenging times. Challenges are just challenges – they are neutral, they are a construct of our mind. It is up to our interpretation on how we live through them. In times of uncertainty, Range becomes a competitive advantage. Like Da Vinci, we each carry the potential to overlap our own unique mix of skills – to find creativity in the collision points of science and art, philosophy and tech, the ancient and the future.
Each of these humans, Da Vinci, Leibniz, Boole, Shannon, have advanced human civilisation greatly, lived through challenging times and approached it with a sense of exploration. Each of these humans explored beyond their primary discipline, they found range in invention, in philosophy, in art, in engineering. In sketchbooks and circuit boards, in conversations and curiosity.
The artificial intelligence revolution is just beginning. The 21st century is just beginning. This is the renaissance for us, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen A. This is our time to get involved in transformational challenge. Be a warrior. Get outside. Find challenges and challengers that are worthy of you. Do not hold back, do not be meek. Seek courage to grow, to learn, to develop, to explore, to adventure, to meet people. Read books, talk to people you disagree with. Find your Range.
So, what is your Wildest Dream? What Range will you need to build it?
Deepen Your Curiosity
My favourite learnings on range:
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World by David Epstein.
The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish - Episode 121 with Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity.
The Lost Leonardo - Documentary Trailer.
Adventure Is In Our DNA
We’re wired to explore. From ancient migrations to modern leadership, adventure fuels growth, emotion, and self-discovery. But without rest, it leads to burnout.
Advenir (Latin): to come towards.
Aventure (old French): chance, fate, risk.
Adventure: to move towards something new.
Lessons From Leaders On Adventure
“Most decisions in life are two-way doors. You pick the door, walk through it and you can always turn round and walk back through it if you don’t like what’s on the other side.”
Jeff Bezos.
“It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown.”
Ernest Shackleton.
"As you begin to walk on the way, the way appears."
Rumi.
“Fill your days with more life, rather than your life with more days.”
Ben Fogle.
We Are All Some Version Of Space Faring Astronauts.
Since the dawn of human time, we have been adventurers and explorers. Hominid beings didn’t miraculously pop up in Africa, the Americas and Eurasia all at once. Our ancient ancestors started in Africa, battled, ate, fought, walked, forded rivers, climbed mountains, hugged coastlines, and sailed into the unknown, all in the hope of a better life. As tribes grew, climates shifted and food sources changed, humans walked their way around the world.
We are adventurers at our heart. It is in our DNA. Humans that couldn’t hack the journeys, weren’t socially smart to help the tribe, weren’t able to buy into a vision of something better – well, they were left behind, along with their DNA.
In the millennia to come, humans moved across oceans and continents. We still do. I am sitting on my balcony in Bangkok writing this. Days like today, I sit here and write and think my life is incredible. Adventure is at my heart. It is at your heart too.
Perhaps you have forgotten?
As a child we didn’t dress up as office workers, lobbyists and computer coders. We dressed up as frontier busting cowboys, space faring astronauts, faraway-land princesses, scary savannah animals – adventurers. Our childlike wonder is wrapped up in the excitement and fear of the unknown.
We are adventurers at our heart. It is in our DNA.
As children we are obsessed with Harry Potter, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and other universe stretching movies. We are meant to explore and be uncomfortable. Why do so many young adults travel and explore the world? It’s certainly not for fame and fortune. We have an in-built desire to adventure.
Adventure is filled with emotion: inspiration, wonder, danger, risk. When we have adventures, we are inspired to take positive actions we wouldn’t have dreamed of in the first place.
Adventure can not only come from travel, but also from new experiences. New experiences that evoke emotion. Watching Wilding by Isabelle Tree, I was inspired by the positive actions that this couple have taken over the last 25 years to regenerate a part of the UK from depleted farmland to wilderness. It inspired me to see two people so in love with what they do, so risk taking to do something so different.
The constant oscillation between movement and stopping, between adventure and rest, is what brings inspiration.
My friend Pete has an in-built compass for adventure. He joined us on our annual leadership retreat in Thailand. He grew up in a working-class family in the UK and followed all the usual routes, watching his parents work incredibly hard throughout his childhood before applying for an apprenticeship to learn a trade. At the same time, he was born into a UK system of schooling where everybody was encouraged to apply to university. He was not offered an apprenticeship. He was offered a place at university. Neither his parents nor his two sisters had been to university. It wasn’t a route well travelled.
His Dad gave him some great advice, ‘Pete, you aren’t going to sit around playing PlayStation. If you don’t have an apprenticeship, go to university.’ So off Pete went, and the rest is history. Now he is in Dubai, another kind of adventure, working for an incredible legal. His parents and sisters could not be prouder of him.
I continue to write this at 30,000 feet, enroute to Bergen. The past few days have been a whirlwind – landing in London from Bangkok on Sunday night, delivering a workshop for a brilliant B-Corp on Monday, coaching Next Gen leaders in Birmingham on Tuesday, and catching up with friends and old colleagues back in London on Wednesday.
By adventuring from one thing to the next, you build a catalogue of experiences but a debt of rest. The brain needs time to recover.
It was fast paced, but it was my pace. I get inspired when I jump from café, to train, to park run, to meeting, to lunch with a friend. I get inspired when my pace speeds up. I get reflective when my pace slows down, such as now, on the plane. This constant oscillation between movement and stopping, between adventure and rest, is what brings inspiration. Adventure to be inspired, rest to decompress, process and learn.
By adventuring from one thing to the next, you build a catalogue of experiences but a debt of rest. The brain needs time to recover. Adventure + Rest = Growth. Without the rest it becomes a slippery slope to burnout. When we double down on adventure we need to double down on the brakes.
Adventure for you doesn’t need to mean being on a flight from one continent to the next. It can mean reading a new book, exploring a new part of town, being inspired by a documentary.
Ben Fogle, the British adventurer, talked about how he had a mental health ‘blip’ in 2023. A blip in the course of his life, but a fierce storm at the time. This was a perfect storm built up from many different factors, none more so than his constant rush from adventure to adventure. His privilege was his curse. Privileged to be invited to climb Mount Everest one month, traverse rural Japan the next, and run a marathon the week after. All lifetime achievements for most, but an ordinary week for him. Ordinary, but no less consuming. And when you consume that much adventure, there is a necessity to slow down. He had to pump the brakes for a few months to recover from his debt of rest. Now he is fortunately through to the other side and has a much healthier relationship with adventure and rest. Even for someone whose identity is shaped by exploration, the body and mind eventually demand stillness.
Adventure is at the core of my life, it is something I value deeply. Being able to travel the world, meet new people, work with amazing clients and share it all over again creates an amazing feedback loop of inspiration for me. Adventure for you doesn’t need to mean being on a flight from one continent to the next. It can mean reading a new book, exploring a new part of town, being inspired by a documentary. Adventure is a tool to bring emotional inspiration.
The best leaders are adventurers. Not because they climb mountains, but because they step toward uncertainty. They choose growth over comfort. And they rest, not because they’re tired, but because they know growth depends on it. Ask yourself, what adventure can you have today?
Deepen Your Curiosity
My favourite learnings on adventure and exploration:
A History of the World by Andrew Marr.
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo.
Walking the Nile by Levison Wood.
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson.
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.
Podcast - Ben Fogle on High Performance Podcast.
Values Are Not Words. They Are Sentences With A Word Attached
Values aren’t words on a wall. They’re how you live and act - especially when no one’s watching.
Valere (Latin): to be strong, to be worth, to be well.
Value (economic 14th century): the price or monetary worth of something.
Values (philosophy 19th century): deeply held beliefs.
Lessons From Leaders On Values
“The true test of character is whether you manage to stand by those values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day.”
Hidden Potential by Adam Grant.
The antidote to Fear of People’s Opinions has two dimensions: (1) to have deep love and care for others’ well-being … and (2) to act in alignment with one’s purpose, values, and goals.
The First Rule of Mastery by Dr. Michael Gervais.
“Our values are constantly reflected in the way we choose to behave.”
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
Rumi.
“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what do you fall for.”
Alexander Hamilton.
Values Are Not Words. They Are Sentences With A Word Attached.
Most people hear the word values and quietly switch off. It sounds corporate - the kind of thing you'd find painted on an office wall or buried in a slide deck. We say we care about values, but most of us would rather talk productivity hacks. Yet, values are not corporate. They’re personal. They’re not what you scribble down in a workshop and forget. They’re what you do, especially when no one’s watching.
They’re there when you choose to tell someone the truth, even if it hurts. They’re behind that rising feeling of frustration when someone flakes on you. They’re the reason you give your time, or your money, or your energy, to something that matters to you, without needing a reason. We don’t need to manufacture our values. We just need to notice them. Think about a time:
You did something courageous, because you knew you had to even when you didn’t want to.
You disagreed with someone because what they said was so fundamentally wrong that you couldn’t sit idly by.
You told a friend the truth even when you knew it would hurt them.
You can’t help but give money to the homeless man on the walk back to your train station after work.
When things get comfortable, you can’t help but add a bit of jeopardy, risk, or change into the situation.
Chances are, one or two of these sentences will resonate with you. That’s because it is what you value. A value isn’t a word you scribble in a notebook during a workshop. It’s not what you post on LinkedIn or hang on an office wall. It’s not the five adjectives you hope people write about you in a leaving card.
You value what you spend your time doing. You value what you spend your time saying. You value what you spend your time thinking about.
Do we get to choose our values? I’ll take you back to Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone. When Harry and his classmates arrive at Hogwarts, they are led into the grand banqueting hall and one-by-one, the first years sit on a rickety wooden stool, and an oversized wizard’s hat is placed on their head and a dialogue between the sentient hat and young Harry ensues.
‘Not Slytherin, not Slytherin, not Slytherin…’ says Harry, desperate to avoid being placed in the progressively evil house of Slytherin. The Hat is drawn to all the dark things that have happened to Harry, his parents being killed by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort. As any good lead character, Harry has other ideas, he wants to be away from evil, and to be with the brave and courageous wizards sat in the red and gold of Gryffindor. In that moment, he chose his values. ‘Gryffindor!’ Roars the hat to everybody’s delight. He chose Courage over Cunning and Adventure over Ambition.
Much like Harry chose to not be Slytherin, we can find our values by defining what we are not. Warren Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger, delivered a speech on how to guarantee misery:
First, be unreliable. Do not faithfully do what you have engaged to do. If you will only master this one habit, you will more than counterbalance the combined effect of all your virtues, howsoever great. If you like being distrusted and excluded from the best human contribution and company, this prescription is for you.
In Hiroshima, Japan, a cool city with an incredibly dark past, Liv and I found a beautiful little coffee shop in the rain. Since I’ve stopped drinking alcohol, coffee has become my daily ritual of a bloody good drink. I’ve switched up searching out surreal vineyards for coffee shops that serve world class flat whites.
We drop our umbrellas outside and get welcomed graciously by the server behind the counter. I see an older Japanese man drinking his flat white, and I can see the foam is done precisely. ‘Flat white please’.
We sit down, the barista now weighing out the beans precisely on scales, the milk measured meticulously in a clean jug, the machine checked, the espresso pressed, and the milk poured. Another European couple walk in and order some coffees. We get our coffees after ten minutes and it is exactly as we expected. Precisely the same coffee as the guy before us. I savour it and watch as the barista performs the same rituals with the same precision at the same steady pace for the European couple.
If they had company values pasted on the walls in that coffee shop (they don’t because it was a cool place and not at all corporate), it would say Customer Service: Delighting Every Customer in Exactly the Same Precise Way. Customer Service across a lot of Japan has a ritual and deep respect throughout. The ritual is important. The treatment of the customer is almost religious. Time does not always come into it. If you want a fast coffee in Japan, go to Starbucks.
Because the truth is, you can’t live your values on a whiteboard, and you can’t understand them by staying inside, in your own head, your own comfort zone, or the echo chamber on your device. You can only live your values outdoors.
Values are a sentence with a word attached. Much like Charlie Munger, one of my core values is Reliability and I would define it as doing what you said you were going to do. Reliability means something to everyone. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as consistently good in quality or performance; able to be trusted. It is similar, but certainly not the same as my definition.
Yesterday evening, I had a conversation about values with my colleague Garreth. He talked about Integrity being one of his key values. His definition of Integrity, do what you said you were going to do. This is remarkable in how it is exactly the same as my definition of Reliability, one of my key values. How much more deeply can Garreth and I connect and understand each other, now that we know what it is we truly value.
If you’ve read this far, you probably already know what you value, you just haven’t put it into words yet. That’s the point. Your values don’t need to be pinned on your LinkedIn bio or printed on your company t-shirt. They need to be lived. You’ll spot them in how you show up under pressure. You’ll hear them in how you speak to the people closest to you. And if you're brave, you’ll start to consciously take tough decisions with values in mind. Because the truth is, you can’t live your values on a whiteboard, and you can’t understand them by staying inside, in your own head, your own comfort zone, or the echo chamber on your device. You can only live your values outdoors.
Deepen Your Curiosity
My favourite learnings on strong values:
Hidden Potential by Adam Grant.
The First Rule of Mastery by Michael Gervais.
Mark Manson’s Blog on personal values.
Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger.
Seven Lessons On Rituals
The greatest achievements in our life are not reached through daily epiphany and daily mountain top climbing. They are achieved with everyday actions.
Ritus (Latin): custom, usage, ceremony, religious practice.
Spiritus (Latin): breath, soul, life force, inspiration.
Spiritual (modern): A state of meaning, inner harmony, or well-being.
Lessons From Leaders On Rituals
“The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty.”
Atomic Habits by James Clear.
“Small daily improvements, over time, lead to stunning results.”
Robin Sharma.
“Champions don’t do extraordinary things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.”
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
Seven Lessons On Rituals
Doing the thing is so underrated. This morning, I almost didn’t do the thing, which is writing right now. My mind got sucked into preparing for holiday, working on a keynote I have in two weeks, and using time to tie up loose ends. I am writing what could turn out to be my life’s work, or it could not be, it is uncertain, and humans run away from uncertainty.
The greatest achievements in our life are not reached through daily epiphany and daily mountain top climbing. They are achieved with everyday actions. I dream of reaching mountain tops. As I encourage you to as well. The whole purpose of this blog is to get you outside, to get you exploring, to get you dreaming of impacting the world in the way you know that you can.
But, it always comes back to today. To tomorrow. If you go to the gym today, and tomorrow, I can assure you, you will notice no change to your body, perhaps it will even feel worse, it will feel sore, tired and the aches will make you want to pack it in. Today you can take a small step, you can’t finish.
Doing the thing is underrated. Doing the thing every day is what Warriors do.
First, Warriors create their own arena. The place they go to do battle. My thing is writing, and my place for battle is quiet solitude on my balcony, the kitchen table, a quiet place in a hotel resort, undistracted. There is no WiFi in my arena.
Second, Warriors operate on a schedule. Much like the English Premier League, my arena is scheduled far in advance. My time to create is anchored to finishing my daily yoga in the morning at 7.30am. Warriors don’t operate with surprises when things such as waking up are entirely in their control.
Third, Warriors approach their practice with a serious intention. Many of us feel deeply responsible to the work we do. But we are human. Put some smartness behind your intention. Am I lazy and uncommitted if I check my email whilst I am supposed to be writing? What if I turn off the WiFi before I start? Now the question is irrelevant if I am lazy or not. I can’t check my email now. We must appreciate we are in a world of distraction – turn off the WiFi when you are doing the thing.
Am I lazy and uncommitted if I check my email whilst I am supposed to be writing? What if I turn off the WiFi before I start? Now the question is irrelevant if I am lazy or not. I can’t check my email now.
As the arenas shift in our life, so can our intention. Bruce Springsteen would always blow away his children, until his wife, Patty, said, you are missing the children at their most beautiful. So he decided to fight more in the arena of fatherhood, to be there to cook breakfast, and to allow his writing to be distracted.
Fourth, Warriors don’t fight those people around them when things get tough. They fight their own inner demon telling them to ‘stop, it isn’t worth it, what you are writing will amount to nothing, that future you’re studying for, someone else has already done it, really they have, remember you saw them on Instagram last night?’ Warriors understand that the quickest path to positive self talk is through Self Awareness and Self Management. Recognise that you are talking s*** to yourself. Manage and regulate yourself through practices such as yoga, meditation, breathwork and exercise. Doing the thing after any of these practices is a super smart thing to do.
Fifth, Warriors approach life with humility. Much like John D Rockefeller comments in letter #36 to his son, rich people should give money away quietly. Those of us with the gift of time to focus on doing what we love should do so quietly, without ego, without arrogance. It should be dedicated to the betterment of humanity, not to the elevation of our Instagram feed.
Sixth, Warriors approach their practice as students. I follow my one hour of writing everyday with one hour of studying. I study where I feel gaps of excitement in my knowledge. In the last month it has taken me down the path of philosophy, Buddhism, Aristotle, Plato, shamanism, the smartness of New Caledonian Crows, hospitality, dopamine, adenosine, cortisol, agricultural revolution, Neanderthals and many more. Leonardo Da Vinci lived through the Renaissance – he is most famous for his painting of Mona Lisa and recently becoming the artist to have sold the most expensive painting ever, Salvator Mundi. Did you know he also made great leaps in military engineering and anatomy? He would sit in the morgue and understand the anatomical structure of corpses so he could better paint his Mona Lisa’s smile. Learning is never in vain, with an open mind it will always connect back to your practice.
Learning is never in vain, with an open mind it will always connect back to your practice.
Seventh, Warriors know that practice hurts. We aren’t fair weather warriors. We do the practice when we feel bored, like shit, like the world hates us, we still sit down for one hour to do the thing. We exercise when we are tired because we know that’s when we grow and become amazing. We judge our effort not our output. Because, hurt is effort. Leonardo Da Vinci posthumously sold his Salvator Mundi painting for $430m. He would have been hurting to create that, painstakingly, with then no output. Who would say he didn’t achieve greatness?
Deepen Your Curiosity
My favourite learnings on rituals:
1. Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield.
2. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
3. The Wealth Money Can’t Buy by Robin Sharma.
4. Atomic Habits by James Clear.
5. Podcast - Bruce Springsteen and Obama on Renegades Born In The USA.
What Is Your Wildest Dream?
Creating a Wildest Dream doesn’t mean fanciful living in the future. It means stopping to reflect, to think, ‘where do I want to go,’ because only then can we know and be truly conscious that the steps we take today, and tomorrow are in that direction.
Dream (Old English): joy, mirth, merriment.
Dream (modern): A cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal.
Welt (Indo European root for Wild: 4500 BCE): woodland, untamed land.
Wild (modern): not domesticated or cultivated, uninhabited, emotionally intense, or enthusiastic.
Wildest Dream: a bold and aspirational ambition, sitting in the uninhabited part of your mind. In its purest form, it is unconstrained and deeply personal.
Lessons From Leaders
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
TE Lawrence.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't – you're right.”
Henry Ford.
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”
Steve Jobs.
What Is Your Wildest Dream?
What does wild mean? It means uninhabited, inhospitable, impassable, unknown. Wild. You can only be brave enough to get there when you are totally uninhabited by restricting thoughts, negative people, dreary circumstances of reality. In Thailand on our annual leadership retreat, we answered the question ‘what is your Wildest Dream?’ We answered the question in the sea with the rain falling on our shoulders. The preparation was critical.
We finished eating lunch an hour ago. I look around at everyone, seven good men at the table, all fully bought into the change process. I’m so excited for the next part. I want their lunch to go down and be digested properly.
The rain starts, often that would be a hindrance to leadership development. Perfect. I stand everyone up and I just say, ‘to the beach’. ‘Will we get wet?’ Asks someone, ‘yes,’ I reply. We walk, with me speeding up, to the beach – it is just 20 metres. Down on the beach I gather everyone in a circle. I want to pump the blood up, get people moving.
“The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
TE Lawrence.
‘Max, give us an exercise to do.’ Max obliges and gets us to hold our arms horizontally, making the shape of a cross for one minute. Aching arms, ‘Patrick give us another exercise.’ We run on the spot doing high knees. Carter, Luke and Rami all give us push ups, squats and lunges. I’ve left Nate to last before me, he usually has a wild card. ‘Do roly-poly’s’ says Nate.
My eyes get wider as I see Nate doing one, getting covered in sand. I love it. It feels almost primal, childlike, and hilarious, watching everybody getting sand in their hair, down their back. It’s my turn. ‘I want everybody to jump in the sea, and I want you to grab the shoulders of someone opposite you in the sea and just shout! Shout and whoop in their faces!’
We get so primal, so wild, so unknown versus our usual environment.
‘Come in close guys, get in the circle, let’s just float here in the sea.’ Everyone comes in, a bit tense from throwing themselves in the sea, but ultimately relaxed, a thousand kilometres away from sending emails. I say, ‘what is your wildest dream?’
‘What is your wildest dream?’
Your Wildest Dream. This question is best thought about after a deep period of reflection, a quick period of dopamine release, a total reset of our brain. The magic, the courage, the uninhibited dreams that flowed from my friends’ brains and came out of their mouths was wild. Creating solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges, building an independent architecture practice, creating an interactive documentary to change a million lives, taking a business franchise to Africa from Turkey. Wild. Crazy. Totally out there, yet in that moment, we all believed it, we all felt it, we all knew we had the courage, creativity and grit to achieve it.
Your Wildest Dream is what sits in the rusty recesses of your mind. It is the tiny thought that you might have entertained once, but perhaps not shared with many people, if anyone. It’s that crazy thought that seems completely unachievable. It might be as crazy as flying to the moon, or as down to earth as living by the sea. We all have them. We all have excuses we tell ourselves that means we don’t entertain the thought. ‘I have a mortgage, I need to hold onto this job, I don’t know what will happen, the other candidates are more qualified than me.’
It is the tiny thought that you might have entertained once, but perhaps not shared with many people, if anyone.
I just finished reading Chasing Daylight by Eugene O’Kelly, the CEO of KPMG who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 53. He quit his job right away and lived out his final 90 days with the positive intention with which he led his company. “After I was diagnosed, I came to consider consciousness king among virtues. I began to feel that everyone’s first responsibility was to be as conscious as possible all the time.”
Creating a Wildest Dream doesn’t mean fanciful living in the future. It means stopping to reflect, to think, ‘where do I want to go,’ because only then can we know and be truly conscious that the steps we take today, and tomorrow are in that direction.
Maybe it’s time. Maybe it’s time to go back to that thought you once dismissed, the one that felt too bold, too uncertain, too ‘not me.’ Maybe it’s time to entertain the possibility that it’s not crazy – it’s just unclaimed.
Deepen Your Curiosity
My favourite learnings on finding your wildest dream:
Chasing Daylight by Eugene O’Kelly.
Podcast - What your dreams are trying to tell you about your waking life with Dr Rangan Chatterjee and Dr Rahul Jandial.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.