Over the past 4 months I’ve done a complete line-by-line rebuild of my keynote talk.
It’s a fair question to ask why. There are two simple answers:
One is that I deeply believe that better never stops and whatever you do, it needs to get better every day
The other is that often it’s what’s not said that actually has most impact (my good friends Penny and Mark, both on the speaker circuit encouraged me to go deeper with what I share)
Everyone has a story and a set of experiences which has shaped them.
Usually, it’s the tough experiences that have most impact.
In my talks I’ve been sharing some of the challenges that I faced earlier in life and how the only place that I felt safe was at sea.
On land I never felt safe, and I was fearful of taking risks and stepping out of my comfort zone.
That pattern continued in my working life right up until my early 40’s.
I played it safe and never fully committed to work for fear of being found out, of being wrong, of being exposed.
That only began to change when we created our goals for sailing and turning my business around.
The balance of fear shifted when I created a goal that was bigger than me and involved my family.
The fear of not safely achieving our goal massively outweighed my fear of admitting I didn’t know the answer.
I started to embrace being a learner and to experiment, adapt and grow.
It was this mindset of being a learner that enabled us to turn our business around and to create the growth that led to us selling it to a global tech company.
It was this mindset that enabled us to navigate every challenge we faced to sail the world.
It’s the same mindset that I see time and again in world class leaders that I researched for The Big Bold Mindset® book.
I love the story of Microsoft under the command of Satya Nadella, when they shifted their mantra from “we know” to “we learn”, at Amazon every day is day one and the learning mindset is everywhere, and to countless other examples.
What I note from all of this is both simple and uncomfortable.
People don’t change when they’re told to.
They change when something shifts inside them.
In my case, it was fear. As long as the fear of being wrong, exposed, or not knowing outweighs the fear of staying put, I think we stay exactly where we are.
That was true for me for years.
What finally changed things wasn’t confidence or courage.
It was creating a goal big enough and shared enough to all my friends that playing it safe was no longer an option.
At that point, learning stopped being a weakness.
It became the only sensible response.
I wonder how many of us sense when we’re approaching that moment, even if we can’t easily articulate it.(it’s taken me years to be able to articulate this to this level, so give yourself a break if you’re being to hard o yourself!)
It does though leads to a quiet question that you may find value in sitting with:
Where do I feel I am I still playing it safe even if I can’t explain why that’s the case.
Three small experiments
Here are 3 experiments to play with this idea
(no insights required, no life lessons promised).
⏱ 2 minutes
The next time you’re in a lift, queue, or waiting for the kettle to boil…
Deliberately don’t optimise the moment.
No phone. No podcasts. No “quick check”.
Just stand there like it’s 1996.
Notice how oddly uncomfortable that feels and where your brain goes next.
⏱ 5 minutes
Ask someone this question:
“What’s something you changed your mind about recently?”
That’s it.
No debate. No counterpoint. No story about when you did the same thing.
Just let the answer land and move on.
⏱ 60 minutes
Pick something completely new to learn for one hour this week and use your preferred AI tool to guide you step by step. I’ve been playing with two new interests in the past month - some carpentry at home and perfecting roast dinner. My triple-cooked roast potatoes and roast lamb cooked on a trivet are getting rave reviews. I always struggled with reading cook books but I LOVE Chatty G guiding me a step at a time. Learning on steroids!
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