We usually hold a Summer School in August where we down tools and focus on keeping ourselves fresh, relevant and suitably diverted by interesting and wonderful people and things.
So…… with things changing moment to moment, and life as we know it on pause, we’ve declared (to anyone listening) that it’s time for Spring Break!
Spring Break Mini Conference #1
As part of our Spring Break we’ve been hosting a series of mini conferences via Zoom. The theme of the conference series is ‘Being Dangerous as a force for good’, inspired by something we did for International Women’s Day some weeks back.
The purpose of each conference is to hear from an amazing guest speaker about a topic that is close to their hearts. We get to keep our thinking at its freshest and to link up & collaborate with some fabulous people.
Our guest speaker for this first mini conference in the series was Lyn Paxman, Leadership & Team Development Specialist and Managing Partner of Somerset Escargot, which sees Lyn free range snail herding!
[The full video is available only in our private members club]
A little piece of joy!
“I just wanted to say that today was a little piece of joy in the midst of all the madness. Thank you so much for inviting me to join in with Spring Break – I look forward to it each week” – Sarah
Insights & Appreciation
At the end of each mini conference we show our appreciation and share our freshest thinking; here are the highlights:
“Be brave and don’t follow the well-worn path that everyone else has trod.”
“It’s easy to think that there is a right answer to everything, and not knowing everything is a good lesson in working it out via mistakes.”
“Just be yourself and do what you enjoy doing.”
“Slow down and create the environment that brings out the best in people – it is a massive gift that we don’t always take advantage of.”
“It was like watching an episode of QI, but this was DI (dead interesting!)”
“What your story proved was that there are no quick wins, if you want to do something well, you have to work hard and pay attention to the details with care and attention.”
“Sometimes you have to take things step by step, because you can’t always know how you’re going to get there (because you haven’t been there before) That’s the learning bit, take small steps and then regather your energy to allow you to take the next one, even if you’re not sure what that next step actually is.”
“Listening to what you’ve just said, it’s so easy to be reactive to things around you, and today I decided to be purposeful – that’s my step today that will re-energise me for tomorrow.”
“I loved the message about ‘do what you love and be okay with it’ and letting go of the ‘will people like me or not’ is important. A great reminder.”
A final thought from Lyn……
“I love that all of you as an audience have seen the layers in what I’ve been talking about, and talking it through really helps me to articulate those layers. I often see the layers in things.
It’s not just about snail farming, it’s about what I’m doing with my life, the whole picture. I sensed that there was something in that, and I’m still working on it.
It has re-enforced that for me, which has been fantastic. Thank you.”
You can find Lyn down on the snail farm at Somerset Escargot
https://www.facebook.com/SomersetEscargot/
Lyn works with humans too at Evolve You
You can visit her in her corner of the web here https://evolveyou.co.uk/
Want to get involved?
If you’ve been inspired by this event and you’d like to sign up for one in the future, please get in touch with us at hello@clearthinkinguk.com as we’d love you to join us.
At the time of posting this we’re 4 sessions into the series. We asked one of the participants why she keeps on showing up. This is what she had to say:
“These sessions have been delightfully curated and a joy to be part of. The ‘lightness’ and energy that I feel after every single one has become a highlight of my week. When you can have conversations that really matter with total strangers over Zoom then that’s testament to the incredible Clear Thinking bods. Thank you for allowing me to sneak into these. An invaluable resource.” – Kirsty
The Spring Break Mini Conference Series is a collaboration between The Clear Thinking Partnership and Performance Tree https://www.performancetree.co.uk/
