Inside Out

There was an experienced stand-up comedian on BBC Radio Wiltshire last week, being interviewed about his upcoming tour. I didn’t get his name as my car journey finished before the programme.

The DJ asked him “What advice would you have for any up and coming comedians?” and the answer he gave was quite enlightening.

He spoke about Gig-Miles and Stage-Time. Gig-miles are the distances you travel to do gigs, up and down the motorways of the country, often night after night. Stage-Time is the amount of hours you spend in front of an audience. Free or paid, it makes no difference he said, what counts is the hours.

These two metrics are a measure of two things. The first is commitment, if you are willing to put in the Gig-Miles and Stage-Time, you are dedicated to what you are trying to achieve. The second is experience, the more of both of them you have, the more experience you will have gained.

In the outdoor world, our equivalents might be Sleeping-Bag-Nights or Boots-Resoled or even Thank-You-Letters-Received.

What are the equivalents of Gig-Miles and Stage-Time in your job?

Picture under Creative Commons from That Other Paper’s Flickrstream.

My heart rate rises and my stomach gets butterflies just watching this video of Dana Kunze breaking the world high diving record. Watch for the vertical pan showing the height of the tower, it seems like it will never end.

World Record Highest Dive (Dana Kunze 172 Foot High Dive World Champion)

At a recent breakfast meeting, I had the opportunity to meet Mike Buss. Mike describes himself as a ‘World Record Breaking Endurance Athlete’.

A ex-soldier and Physical Training Instructor, Mike’s story was pretty incredible. After suffering hearing loss when a bomb exploded 20 feet from him in Northern Ireland, he was medically discharged and, struggling to adapt to civilian life, he found himself living on the streets of London.

An article on Paddy Boyle inspired him to sort himself out and he set out to break as many fitness world records as he could. He now holds more than 20 world records for fitness and aims to break at least 20 more.

Some of the records he holds are mind-boggling:

Fastest 10 mile road run carrying 40lb pack & wearing chemical warfare suit : 2hrs 42mins.

Longest time spent continuously cycling : 96hrs

Furthest distance covered on a treadmill carrying 120lb pack : 62km.

There is loads more information about his achievements on his website so go and marvel and, while you are there, think about donating to Help for Heroes, Mike’s chosen charity.

Right, I’m off to find my running shoes…

“You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”

Yogi Berra

This story from the days of the Apollo missions is probably apocryphal but it does raise an interesting point about the difference between job descriptions and vision.

In 1967 a journalist is wandering round NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory talking to people involved in the Apollo missions.

He encounters a man wearing the default engineer’s uniform of a white shirt and blue tie, a slide rule sticking out of his top pocket.

“Sorry to interrupt” says the journalist, “but do you mind me asking what you your job is?”

“No problem” replies the engineer, “my job is to calculate the mass flow rate of RP-1 fuel through each of the engines of the Saturn rocket”.

The journalist dutifully writes this down in his note book and thanks the engineer. In the office across the hallway he finds another man, dressed in a dark suit. He knocks politely then asks,

“Hello, I’m doing an article on the staff at NASA and I am trying to find out what peoples jobs are.”

“I’m the Lunar Module Flight Plan Director.” says the man in the suit,  “I manage and approve all changes the the LMFP.”

Again the journalist writes down what the man says and wanders off to find someone else. At the end of the corridor is a man in NASA overalls sweeping the floor. Under the blue and red logo is the word ‘Janitor’.

Sensing the possibility of a human interest story the journalist approaches the man

“I can see you are a janitor”, he says “but what does your job involve?”

“That’s easy”, replies the janitor “I’m putting man on the moon”.

Bill Krouwel of Trinity College, Carmarthen has started a social network  for those of us working in Development Training who have an interest in Emergent Learning. In his words;

“For those who are uncomfortable with the fashionable idea that learning events don’t count unless they have tight, pre-set objectives.”

If you have an interest  in such things, please do come and join us or ask me for an invite.

H: Why are you digging a hole?
C: I’m looking for buried treasure.
H: What have you found?
C: A few dirty rocks, a weird root, and some disgusting grubs.
H: On your first try??
C: Yes. There’s treasure everywhere!

From There’s Treasure Everywhere (Calvin and Hobbes) via Ivan Holroyd.

Why do it?

Is “Because it’s there” a good enough reason to do something? Do you want to do it to become wealthier, to be more secure, to learn something or just to get to the top?

Prepare

You need to work out what you resources you need, you need to work out a rough schedule as well. You also need to make sure you’re up to the task and have the right team around you.

Read More »

Like many people I know, I keep all my notes in a single notebook. I prefer a hardback A4 book, lots of space to write/draw and pretty robust.

I started a new book (left-most black) the day I started Totem. Almost exactly 12 months to the day I filled it completely. So with a new year comes a new book.

I always start each day by writing the date and where I am. Places I have worked this year include Cherhill (the office), Cheltenham, Llanberis, Forest of Dean, Southwick, Brixham, Duchy College, Bradford-upon-Avon and Transylvania.

The first book above was from when I was at Marlborough College and contains 18 months worth of notes and the second, held together with masking tape, from Boulder Adventures amazingly contains nearly 5 years of notes.

I’m looking forward to filling my new one.

At Totem we believe that outdoor training is a tool, not
an end in its own right.

A carpenter might sometimes reach for a chisel while making a chair, but it’s not the only tool he uses. In the same way, for trainers and training managers, only sometimes the outdoors is the right tool for the job.

We work with training organisations to deliver their learning aims, or parts of them, using the outdoors as the vehicle. We are proud to be a small cog in a larger training machine.

Unlike traditional adventure education, with us it’s not always climbing vertiginous mountains and paddling raging rivers. We frequently make use of the near-doors, that natural area just beyond the classroom where lessons can still be learnt but it’s still pretty comfortable, and a cup of tea isn’t far away. Adventure is, after all, a state of mind.

Our trainers use a mix of taught theory and ‘learning by doing’ (experiential) challenges. This allows the academic learning to be reinforced by practical examples of working with others under exciting conditions.