First published 16 March 2020 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
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We didn't have a theme for this one, and I admitted it in the first ten seconds. Which suited Nigel fine, because he wanted to talk about not always needing a plan. He had one big conference that week and some coaching at home. The rest he wanted to keep free for thinking.
He's been in offices built for it. Facebook has rooms you can go and sit in just to think. A consultancy called What If has a double bed in reception, and the idea is you're allowed to lie there and daydream (not sleep, he was clear on that). Nigel's line was that we're meant to dream in the day and sleep in the night. Get it the other way round and it's called nightmares.
Then there's his "nothing box". He can sit on the sofa with the dog thinking about nothing at all, and that's where a lot of his ideas turn up. His best speeches get written in the shower. He also warned me we'd get complaints over his milk story. He has never once checked the fridge before leaving the house.
For me it's meditation. I don't buy the idea that your head has to be completely empty. If something comes up, I let it, and some of my best ideas have arrived that way. Walks across fields do the same job. Oddly, so does a plane with noise-cancelling headphones and an eye mask. Nearly 20 years ago someone took me for a walk in the countryside and I kept asking where we were walking to. I couldn't get my head round going nowhere in particular. Now I love it.
We got onto letting go of control too. The less I try to control things, the more in control I feel. And the more I slow down, the quicker the results come. Nigel liked that one, and we wrapped up early. Because we weren't busy.
The short version
- Busy and being in business aren't the same thing.
- Tell people when you're taking planned thinking time, or they'll think you're just being lazy.
- Thoughts will pop up when you meditate. Let them, then go back to nothing.
- A 45 minute power nap leaves Nigel groggy. 40 minutes of guided meditation leaves him refreshed.
- A walk with nowhere to get to clears my head better than most things.
You need to dream in the day and sleep in the night.
Nigel Risner
I've found that the less I try to control things in life, the more in control of life I feel.
Neil Martin
