great morning to ya,
i hope you’ve had a week with lots of fun and excitement in it?
if not, let’s try together to design one thing to do next week that adds some seasoning to this start to the final month of the first half of the year.
this is totally freestyling, but i’m gonna take tania out for dinner and a movie on monday night, don’t worry, i won’t spoil the surprise, she hardly ever reads my blog.
your turn.
anything that adds a bit of fun to your week.
and let me know what you plan, i love seeing seeds of a random idea grow.
which leads me on to how one of my seeds of an idea grew last week, and bigger than i could have expected.
if you’re a regular reader, you will be aware that i set myself a 12 talk challenge this year, doing exactly what it says on the can, procure and deliver 12 talks in 2025, and i have been wittering on about it quite a lot just recently, but bear (googles bear or bare) with me, there’s a story brewing.
last friday me and tan drove to lawrenny in beautiful west wales with the sun shining, to “the big retreat” for talk number nine, in a giant canvas wigwam, named the “ginesh tent” and for those like me who don’t or didn’t know the meaning of ginesh, research shows ginesh is a hindu deity, and is considered a remover of obstacles and a bringer of good luck.
how cool.
we arrived with our ’presenter’ car park pass, and duly had our presenter wrist bands attached.
a seamless entry process, which was great, as i had a big punch of nerves, which were starting to wash over me, which was frustrating as my previous talk i had actually been excited about prior to starting, and i thought perhaps i was learning to overcome them.
but, unfortunately in pembroke last week, they were back.
we arrived early and i reccied the tent for size, acoustics, screen, sight lines, and discovered a very undulating area where i would be standing and walking, due to woodchips being unevenly strewn, and with my dodgy balance, i mentally played a scene out in my mind where i tripped, fell into the audience, and crowd surfed to the back of the tent, darn you nerves.
the ginesh tent was a very small tent which seated approximately 30 people.
a lot of effort to drive to, to get physically nervous for, and then talk for 45 minutes to a group of 30 complete strangers.
but i believe in what ginesh means, and i think the power of storytelling and human connection is extremely powerful, and over all of the talks i have done, i have seen some wonderful relationships start to grow, and as connor the audio visual technical guy linked my laptop to the screen my nerves started to vaporise.
there were only about 15 people sitting on the beanbag type seats, but as started to knit my story together more arrived, and stayed, which was a good thing.
i’m glad they didn’t arrive, listen and go, that would have been awkward.
i had a charming young lady introduce me, and with ten minutes to go she did jazz hands and mouthed “ten”.
i was on time, unusual for me, and during the talk i had seen nodding heads, tears, laughter, and a spontaneous round of applause at a point i’d never expected, i was enjoying myself.
i wrapped things up, and asked if anyone wanted to join us on this bigmoose adventure, to which a handful of people raised their arms, which was great, as you never know who is watching or listening.
i had a number of emotional conversations after i finished, and as we headed off, i felt a warm fuzzy glow.
we walked toward the car park, and we noticed a vw buzz, an electric camper van we like the look of, so stopped to look at it.
sitting next to the van was a number of people that had been in the ginesh tent.
we had a chat, and charlotte my speaking coach, who had got me the gig, appeared and joined in the chat, as she knew the throng, small world.
one of the ladies in the conversation then reached out to me on instagram, and yesterday we had a telephone chat, where her and her friend have committed to fundraising twenty thousand pounds, yes £20,000, which on average will pay for 50 people to go through a full course of therapy.
amazing right?
i fully believe in the power of the ginesh tent, but more than that, i so believe in the power of storytelling, and want to say a huge thank you to charlotte for believing in me, connecting me, and being a phenomenal cheerleader, everybody needs a charlotte in their life.
next week i am going to share news of our next bigmoose project, which will be the biggest thing we’ve ever done, and it is scaring the life out of me, but also filling me with the most excitement ever, so tune back in next week.
i hope your week is fab, and don’t forget to do something exciting.
blue skies,
jeff
