What Alone Australia taught me about Experience
Ten people arrive in Arctic Finland. Before the first episode even begins, I started trying to predict who will win. I looked at their experience: military, survival, fishing, hunting, endurance, bushcraft, even previous Arctic experience. Who has the best preparation? But as the series progressed, something strange happened. The more I learnt about the contestants, the less […]
When Your Way of Working Stops Working with Dr Patterson Stark
What happens when the way you’ve learned to succeed is no longer a way you’re willing to live? After a life-threatening illness, Dr Patterson Stark didn’t simply recover and return to his old working life. He stayed away from clinical practice for 16 years. He was afraid that going back would mean returning to the […]
What Travel Taught Me About Experience
Several decades ago I was on a bus trip winding through the Black Hills of South Dakota on the way to Mount Rushmore. On board were twenty-four students from eighteen different countries. It was my first time travelling overseas and my first time spending extended time with people from so many different cultures. I found myself […]
Why Adults Become Sixth Graders with Linda Gidlund
Put a group of successful, educated adults into a training room and something strange can happen: They start behaving like sixth graders. Educator and facilitator Linda Gidlund began noticing this pattern while working with adult learners. Then she noticed something similar happening much closer to home. What is it about certain environments that can bring […]
What Mick Jagger Taught Me About Experience
I was listening to David Marchese interview Mick Jagger for The New York Times Interview when one word stopped me: Inhabit. Marchese didn’t ask whether Jagger could still perform songs he’d written fifty years ago; he asked whether he could still inhabit them. That caught my attention because it felt like an unusual but very […]