Spending more time in the clouds
#143 - talking to tube/train travellers is still tremendous
Hi there,
A mentally taxing week followed another mentally taxing week, but I’m on the other side now as February goes by faster than January. A herculean effort to do 4 weeks’ worth of work in 3 days for my coding exam followed immediately by a first spring week interview - the demands on my focus were high.
Thankfully, the week ahead is calmer (to begin with at least…) as we continue to travel through a politically other-worldly climate, an international TV drama unfolding live.
Highlight of the week: playing the sax in an underground bar at 9pm on a Tuesday - that’s the bare bones of it. In an act of ‘do as I say’ and shooting my shot, I got the chance to play at the networking event I was going to! A set starting with Rolling in the Deep (crowd pleasing, I know) preceded a clever Adi-authentic joke about us all trying to ‘roll in the deep’, before finishing with ‘Uptown Funk’. Whilst my tongue was far from impressed, the audience were! 🎷🙌
Let’s begin with a long-ish extract from a recent Diary of A CEO episode I found fascinating, before I share some thoughts.
When I went fishing recently was the first time in a long time that I had allowed myself to become totally bored. And as I sat there, bored out of my mind, dropping into this meditative state, so many of the answers that I'd been searching for in my life, work, and in business seemed to emerge out of seemingly nowhere.
The sheer volume of epiphanies I had while sitting bored on that lake led me to an even bigger overarching epiphany which I needed to share with you today. Because, for some of you, this might inspire you to reorganize your life in a way that helps you to become the creative force you need to be to reach your goals.
It’s the idea of clouds and trenches.The balance between two modes of work and how critical it is to spend the right amount of time in each mode.
The trenches are where the hard, focused work happens - the business meetings, the podcast recordings, the investment decisions, the flights, the speeches, the company building, the interviewing people to join my businesses, the Zoom calls, all the action. You and I both know them well.
The clouds, on the other hand, are where you step away from the grind. Not the kind of stepping away where you go and get paralytic drunk in Ibiza or distract yourself by playing video games, but truly disconnecting. Thinking, walking, running, reading, listening, doing nothing, fishing, dreaming. It's the space where creativity and innovation are born, where your intuition can be heard.
Most of my best ideas have come from time spent in the clouds, not from boardrooms and brainstorms. They've come while I was rolling through the hills on Bali on a moped alone at night, running on a treadmill in Cambodia, or sat on this small boat, praying, waiting for a fish to tug my line.
Over the last year, I've taken no time off. I've worked non-stop in the proverbial trenches, but I've had this haunting feeling that because of this, I'm missing something. Something that's quietly whispering to be discovered. Something that will only reveal itself if I pull myself up into the clouds.
But I've struggled to give myself permission to spend time in the clouds because everything feels so busy and urgent and important in the trenches right now. I have this strange feeling of guilt that if I stop, I'll lose everything. I have a feeling of complacency that's associated with stepping out of the trenches and into the clouds.
But there is another voice, I call it wisdom, that is demanding that I do, because the clouds have something important they need to tell me.
Let’s pause there.
Glued into the perennial state of bustle and busy in London along with a fast-moving and full-on degree, I’ve found that my modus operandi is much faster and ‘on’ than before. There’s the increased meal deals, the discovery of coffee, listening to podcasts and replying to even more messages on the tube and trying to squeeze out another news podcast whilst I have lunch.
However, similar to Steven, when I do pause, I feel that this is counterproductive. Instead, I consider if I’m missing the bigger picture and losing track of the overall direction in which I’m moving. Evidence for this is how insightful thinking about things on my first train journey back to London or at the Christmas holidays was, being able to truly pause and take stock of the goings.
I particularly like Steven’s analogy of the clouds and trenches (I’ve found recently that thinking in analogies is actually very useful). These last 2 weeks have felt like I was on all fours in the trenches, one test and then the next. Perhaps the quieter (by comparison) week ahead offers a chance for self-reflection, zooming out to think about the bigger picture and then refocus the lens for our final 4-week sprint.
What most people don't know about Steve Jobs was that he was deeply influenced by meditation and mindfulness practices. These practices played a significant role in shaping his creativity, his leadership style and the innovative products that Apple became known for. Frequent meditation helped Jobs to cultivate a heightened level of focus and mental clarity, which was crucial in his creative process.
“If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse. But over time, it does calm. And when it does, there's room to hear more subtle things. That's when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly.” To Steve, spending time in the clouds allowed him to hear his intuition. In one interview, he said, “Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. It's had a big impact on my work.”
I wonder what messages your intuition has been trying to tell you, but hasn't been able to because you've been so busy creating ever more noise. As I sat on the lake that day, rain pattering on my shoulders and head, words that I read many years ago from guru Ram Dass came to mind - “the quieter you become, the more you can hear.” And my life has continued to prove this to me. Silence, boredom and space aren't empty. They are full of answers. And I need to spend more time in the clouds listening to silence and all that it has to say. Get out of the trenches and into the clouds.
I bring this idea up this week because being conscious about it this week has helped. Staring into the distance to think about my spring week led me to someone knowledgeable I could contact for help. Sitting in silence meant I reached a clinching argument on whether to go to the Tuesday event before my coding exam.
A common sentence in (British) conversations these days tends to be ‘Life/everyone is just so busy these days’. Being wrapped up in the noisy (physically and mentally) existence leaves no room to listen to life teaching you, training you, guiding you. We gain our competitive edge by our ability to think differently and to think differently, you must think a lot and pour a ‘different’ amount of your resources into thinking. You can do this - by spending more time in the clouds.
A first of a kind post today with more writing from a podcast rather than my own. Let me know what you thought of the style. It is of course our…
Podcast of the week🎙️
The Diary Of A CEO: Steven Shares His Secret Diary: Dealing With Liam Payne’s Death, My Big Relationship Issue, These 4 Words Saved Me!
What I’m grateful for this week 🙏
All those who gave me their advice to prepare for my spring week interview 🤞
Quote of the week 💬
Being busy is a form of laziness, lazy thinking, and indiscriminate action. Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing and is far more unpleasant. Being selective, doing less, is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest. Tim Ferriss
Thank you as always for your time, have a brilliant week
Adi