A note from me

Whew! Another busy couple of weeks, including meetings, speeches and being interviewed for a podcast. I’ll be glad for a quieter time of reflection over Easter, and for the introduction of the foundation course on Scenario/Strategic Thinking and Energy Transitions for The Dodo Club (watch this space)!  

Do you find that you need to deliberately force yourself to make time for reflection and making sense of everything that’s happening around you, and even who you are? It can be hard, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Behavioural economists like Dan Kahneman have highlighted that reflective “Thinking Slow” takes more physical and emotional energy then our default mode of “Thinking Fast”.  

Personally, I find that I can bring myself into a reflective frame of mind through writing, reading and listening to thoughtful lectures. I’ve just completed a 10-week online course on European Art Treasures which ended with a lecture on the Isenheim altarpiece.  This is on display at the Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, in France. It is Matthias Grünewald's largest work and is regarded as his masterpiece. It is a Renaissance piece that can not only stimulate reflection on the stories it illustrates but also on the nature and purpose of art and how this interweaves with the work of the hospital church where it stood.  

I am reminded of the writer George Bernard Shaw’s insight that we use a mirror to see our faces but art to see our souls. I give thanks to Siân Walters for her lecture and hope that you will draw some similar value from reflecting on these Dodo Club Newsletters and the upcoming Dodo Club course. I hope there will even be moments of inspiration.  That is their purpose, related to what I feel as my personal purpose - the promotion of a better life for people with a healthy planet. 

Enjoy!

My Bi-Weekly Guide

Developing Your Purpose:

This topic is strongly related to the topics we have considered in previous recent Newsletters – Courage, Commitment, Patience and Persistence. These are important qualities in themselves for the development of Strategic Character, but all are underpinned by another characteristic – a strong sense of Purpose. It is this that enables us to strongly demonstrate those other individual characteristics; to help us pass through our ordeals, holding on to a higher cause.  As noted in the last Newsletter, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche put it well when he wrote - “He who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how”. A sense of purpose answers our question of “why?”.

Wrestling with the following five questions should be helpful as you develop your own sense of Purpose:

1. My Vision -  Who am I going to be?
   More than 20 years ago, I made the first draft of my personal “Mission and Vision” statement to help guide my life. It began with the sentence “In God’s economy, who we are is more important than what we do – though that is important too”. In other words, the sentence affirmed that we are actually much deeper than what we “do”. There is great value in reflecting on the questions of “What do I believe in?”, “What are the values I most deeply defend?” and “What kind of person do I want to be?”.  

2. My Mission – What am I going to do?
   Decisions about what you are going to “do” are best embedded in that broader and longer-term vision of what kind of person you intend to be. Different pathways may lead you towards that vision, so the “mission” question is at a rather more granular level than the “vision” question. While keeping the vision in mind, in deciding to focus on particular activities it can be helpful to consider “What things bring me satisfaction and joy?”, “What do I love to do?”, “What makes me lose track of time?” and “How do I spend my spare time?”. These are the types of activities that are likely to bring you satisfaction and success in pursuing your vision.

3. What are my gifts?
   We are all gifted in different ways, and in more ways than we may initially recognise. Any particular combination of gifts we have individually is rare, and that rarity itself has value. Our gifts may come from our talents, our personality, our experience, our qualifications, our opportunities, our relationships or our material circumstances.  How we view, develop and use our gifts are choices we can make, and be woven into our thinking about mission and vision. A wonderful young woman I know has severe physical challenges, but refers to these as “superpowers” that have enabled her to develop rare and refined listening, reflection and communication gifts.

4. What are my different roles in life and my objectives in each role?
   We all have multiple roles, and it is valuable to recognise this and to consider objectives and time allocations for each. Otherwise we can become drawn into excessive attention to just one or two professional roles. I still have important professional roles as a business advisor, but I also have roles as husband, father, grandfather, friend, thought-leader and promoter of energy transitions. As well as clarifying your most significant roles and objectives, it is also valuable to ask “How can I use my skills to help others?” and “What makes me feel good about myself in these roles?”.

5. What legacy would I like to leave behind me and what would I like to be remembered for?
   Whether you are looking back over a lifetime of activity or just looking ahead over a few years, it is helpful to have what I call a “legacy mentality”. If you are looking ahead, it helps you prioritise your activities to think about how they will have contributed to your overall vision and mission when you look back, and how you may want to institutionalise certain activities so they continue when you have moved on to another job or whatever. Valuable questions may be “What would I be doing if I knew I just had six months to live?” or “What would I be doing if I had all the time and money in the world to do it?”.

Question of The Fortnight

Every fortnight I’ll be asking a thought-provoking question in hopes of sparking interesting and enlightening discussion.

I’d love to hear your response! You can do so by simply responding to this email.

Today’s question is:

What would you like to be remembered for?

Join The Dodo Club

We’re getting close to the launch of The Dodo Club…

If you’re interested in early access to our community and my first course: An Introduction to Scenario/Strategic Thinking and Energy Transitions, please sign up through the button below.

We all want to avoid the fate of that unfortunate bird, the dodo. By sharing some of the insights I’ve picked up over my four decade long career and my time as Head of the Shell Scenarios team, I aim to help us do exactly that.

We’ve built a space for interesting and enlightening discussions on topics that can have genuine impact.

Dodo Club Members will have access to live interactive seminars, forums on a variety of related topics, and a bank of materials that can be drawn from in times of uncertainty.

I look forward to seeing you there!