Today a short story about how you can be told something that seems totally new to you, only to then recognise that you knew about it but had tucked it into the back of your memory until a moment of serendipity brings it forwards again, and sometimes at the perfect time!
At the beginning of this week, on Monday, I returned to “work mode” after a lovely vacation break. Almost immediately I had an unsettling feeling in mind, one I immediately wrote about with the post: “What Comes Next for Me? Speaking events, Facilitating Leadership Teams?“, one that had the “10 year plan” image from Steve Chapman at the top of the post (see a post on that at “The Perfect 10Year Plan“!
Anyway, last Wednesday I remembered that, some time prior, I had booked to go and see the amazing Steve Chapman give a tlive (gasp, yes, in person!) talk called “9 Wonky Projects” as part of him having an art exhibition. It was wonderful to see Steve in person after quite some time, big bear hugs were indeed exchanged! I was also deeply grateful to be able to bring one of my adult sons to see him talk, and I happily note that my son loved it and had some great takeaways 😉
Now, in amongst Steve talking for an hour or so about various projects, several of his themes came back to me and at the perfect time. At a time when I am allowing myself to be relaxed about knowing that I will change a few things around my work but not yet knowing what those are, listening to Steve, himself always “playful with not knowing” was perfect!
Amongst the reminders that night was of the term “Quantum Flirting”, one I equate to creatins space for serendipity, to being open to listening then hearing opportunities. The term felt like I’d heard it for the first time, but NO! As it turns out, when Steve was a guest on my podcast WhatComesNextLive back in mid 2020, we did indeed talk about it then. What’s more, inspired by that podcast chat, I then wrote a post around the term “Quantum Flirting”, called “Don’t go looking for answers“.
Oh, and as I listened to Steve talk, I thought about how my podcast will soon hit the milestone of 100 episodes, and should I consider stopping it to create space for something new? I reproduce the wording from that quantum flirting inspired post below, but before that I state here that I will continue the podcast indefinitely as the very design of it is such that every conversation is different, plus every one inspires me!
Don’t go looking for answers
(from July 29th, 2020)
Don’t go looking for answers, be open to them coming to you
This and numerous other insights came from the fifth (so far) WhatComesNextLive show yesterday with Steve Chapman.
(the reference in the image above is an obscure Wittertainment one and links to both a Keanu Reeves interview and Steve Chapman talking about Quantum Flirting on our show!)
Each show is full on insights, one of my own from talking with Steve was a reinforcement around the power of an “enabling constraint”, linked to which he tends to start each new project, idea or other creative endeavour with the question: “I wonder what would happen if?..”
WhatComesNext.Live definitely took inspiration from listening to and learning from Steve. The show design already contains several enabling constraints and today, after talking to Steve, I added one more:
- The show goes out live
- It is only thirty minutes long
- There is no preparation required for the guests, only to think about the topic “WhatComesNext”
- There are no show notes added after the show
The first three were part of the initial show design, making it easy for guests to sign up and show up.
The last enabling constraint I just added. Each of the conversations so far has been rich in ideas, insights actionable in different ways, as well as references for viewers/listeners to further follow down rabbit hole(s) of their choice.
I’ve decided to stop adding even the briefest of such notes, instead please simply watch on YouTube or listen on your preferred podcast channel and take away from each show what uniquely lands for you.
One last thought. In his talk last week, Steve told us there would be no “takeaways” for us all, but we could each create our own. I shiver with recogniition that I chose something very similar as one of my enabling constraints on WhatComesNextLive !