“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet”
Robert Nesta Marley
So tonight I was walking through London from one meeting to another, and as I saw these arches, this particular quote from the inestimable and incomparable Bob Marley came to mind.
A cold and crisp early evening as London remembered belatedly that mid-December is meant to feel like winter.
I’d headed out earlier to meet two amazing humans to give them copies of Alan Moore’s unspoken manifesto, his call to action to the question “how can you, your business, be more beautiful?”, his book: “Do Design: Why Beauty is Key to Everything“.
As Alan and I continue to hold the design and structure of the evolving community around Beautiful Leaders and Makers, we are sharing Alan’s visionary ideas with more and more people. For me, rather than use my words to explain, I carry around copies of Do/Design. It is beautifully concise and, again and again, those who read it totally “get it” when they then consider “how can my business be more beautiful?”.
So, my first meeting was in Carnaby Street over Dishoom’s addictive chai with the inspiring Gib Bulloch (author of “The Intrapreneur: Confessions of a corporate insurgent“). I first met Gib thanks to the wonderful annual summit put on in April each year by Entrepreneurial Scotland.
Alan Moore also uses the language “Better Human, Better Leader, Better Maker”. Gib is a beautiful human aspiring to look to model these words and so support building more beautiful businesses for our world.
After giving Gib his copy of Do/Design, I left for a fifteen-minute walk towards a “pop up”” event led by a “Beautiful Maker”, Matt Bagwell. Matt and his partners Ian are the founders of Seven Feet Apart, who make beautiful shoes. They ask and answer a key question on their site:
“Can a shoe company and its customers work together to make the world– and specifically, our communities – better? We believe we can and we do.”
(oh, and I am a BIG fan of “Sevens”, I wear my trainers/sneakers and my brogues more than all my other shoes combined!)
I’m very keen to have Matt be one of the “Beautiful Makers” that we involve in our “Beautiful Leaders and Makers” programme for transformative leaders in 2019.
So, I decided to attend their pop-up event to give Matt his own copy of Do/Design as a first step in engaging him around the concept.
Now, on my way I passed lots of beautiful Christmas light, and I also passed lots of pedestrians wrapped up against the cold, head down, pacing to their tube station or bus to go home. Suddenly I found myself facing the view of these beautiful arches.
Life is beautiful in all forms, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes brightly coloured, sometimes dark, with every shade and contrast along the spectrum.
Tonight, in between meeting up with two beautiful humans to give them their own copies of a beautiful book, I was stopped in my track by the view you see in the picture.
Bob Marley’s music has brought joy and awareness to millions, as well as immense pride to the people of Jamaica. To me this quote is his greatest of many great and poetic lines.
As I stopped to take the photo you see, I remembered it with vivid feeling:
“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet”
PS people ask me if I write every day for my daily posts. Often though not always. This post came to me and I realised I had twenty minutes before the opening of Matt Bagwell’s pop up so this is written on wifi and a lovely coffee at Jigsaw in Duke Street, great coffee, lovely world music. Feeling blessed.
“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet”