In Eurovision*, apart from the drama, the spectacle, the theatre of it all - my favourite part is the drone photography - when they zoom you around the world and you get to see different - beautiful - parts of our world that you might not have known existed before.
*if you don’t tune in, it was the final of the Eurovision song contest on Saturday evening.
Perhaps I’m biased. I did create a “World of Opportunity” campaign for a college last year which featured a highly talented drone photographer (Luke Macaulay)’s work of campuses as globes.
That feeling of being flown in, to glimpse these other spaces, triggers a weird emotional response from me which I haven’t quite figured out yet.
It’s the same when I see imagery of our planet taken from outer space. All at once I feel connected, a sense of awe-inspired overwhelm and some kind of ancient primeval attachment. I think it’s a kind of love and reverence. I can’t quite believe how beautiful our Earth is and how inter-connected we all are. The seas, rivers, land mass, air. We all experience so much on this dense and confusing plane and yet we get distracted by the silliest of things, alongside the big ugly things like raging wars. And the disconnect of working online isn’t lost on me.
This week alone I’ve read heartfelt emails from fellow course creators and highly respected women in the online space who have shared their vulnerability of not feeling “enough”, losing direction and reassessing their ambition, sensing imminent burn out. Another pronounced, with complete conviction, that social media is already on its way out. And, as I type this, I’ve just caught the late night news reporting on the race to regulate ChatGPT.
As our world spins we get caught up in where we place our attention.
Years ago I met a charismatic man at a conference. He’d built his whole business around the idea that the average person’s life span worked out at a set number of hours and we should make each and every one count. I was simultaneously impressed and horrified.
What if, instead, life is an Alice in Wonderland caucus race with the only objective to be ourselves.
On top of that, you get to decide who you spend time with, what you choose to create and which distractions might lead you astray.
Your time is your own, to use as you see fit and a single one of your ideas might (without any pressure on your part) change the course of humanity, light someone else’s path or live on as a legacy.
For now, I’m delving into the mind-bending attributes of using multi-dimensional thinking in efforts to create better ideas whilst staying open to possibilities - singing Loreen’s “It will come a day, when we will find our way” (sic) as I go.
With love and belief in your ideas,
PS - I’m sorry, I lied. I realise this will now be the third time I’ve mentioned my mentor, James Wedmore. He’s got a shockingly-good secret podcast series just starting out called “SourcererCEO” which you can listen to here. If you stayed ’til the end of my email there’s a good chance you might like it.