5 Connections, 5 Insights: 41-45 of 100

Project Horizon is a global conversation experiment by executive coach and high-performance consultant Tim Dutton. It aims to uncover diverse human perspectives by connecting with 100 remarkable people worldwide, linked through six referral-based chains.

ON THE GO? LISTEN TO THE INSIGHTS 🎧

41. A suspended teacher who’s trying to carve out a new career

42. 18-year-old Indian, studying in LA, who’s done more high-quality thinking than most adults

43. Chartered accountant who’s been on 20 stag dos and has a story for each one

44. A female movement therapist who’s passionate about supporting women through life transitions

45. Female Russian engineer, living in the UK

I felt a lot of conflict during this conversation.

I think part of why I was referred to Connection 41 was that the person prior to him in the chain had felt like they had benefited from the conversation. Benefited from having processed some of their life experiences in a way they may not have previously. With Connection 41, an inner-city teacher, being suspended due to an accusation made by a student, the referrer had thought the teacher might benefit from the conversation.

The first point of tension for me was the accusation, which I wasn’t aware of until about 5 minutes into the call. I felt it was important to recognise that my role there was not to judge (innocent until proven guilty, as they say), but to connect with and understand the perspectives and experiences of the person in front of me. One of the objectives of Project Horizon is to broaden my own understanding of the world. This means not only understanding what might underpin people’s successes, but also how they make sense of the inevitable challenges life throws at us.

The second point of tension was that I am not, nor do I intend to be, a qualified counsellor. Therefore, I had to be sure I wasn’t providing counselling services and that the connection knew that wasn’t the case. At the same time, I had a human being on the other side of the computer screen who was navigating a significant life event.

I was naturally curious about how he was coping with the situation. He told me that he had found it extremely challenging, and had accepted that even if he’s found to be innocent, it’s not a feasible option to go back into teaching, especially at the same school. It made me think of how tough it is for teachers who face false accusations and, even when cleared, still lose their profession (usually their passion, too) as a result.

He had been suspended for months and had decided he would likely need to change careers. He had started to look at becoming a coach or a counsellor, hoping to support other teachers and professionals facing similar challenges and transitions. I pointed him towards a couple of paths he might explore.

With Europe having just won the Ryder Cup, I’m going to make my insight here golf-related. “Play the ball as it lies”. I couldn’t travel into the past and see the incident for myself. And I couldn’t see into the future to see the verdict of the case. All I could do was work with the partial understanding I had in the moment and engage with the person in front of me.

At the time of writing this article, having completed 72 of 100 connections, Connection 42 was the youngest person to have been involved in Project Horizon. He was 18 and, from what I could tell, one of the brightest, most self-aware 18-year-olds I’ve come across.

Aged 13, he had worked with a personal development coach. He and his father had recognised that he might benefit from some external support around his identity and transitioning into young adulthood.

I’m acutely aware that he would have been in a very small and privileged group of 13-year-olds who had the financial ability to access a personal development coach. Some people reading this may also question whether 13-year-olds should get coaching. I can understand that people might think it’s a ‘bit much’. And I suspect some might also argue it’s the role of the parent to guide their child through their teenage years of development.

I absolutely understand those perspectives. All I can say is that, having spoken to his father as well (who referred his son to me), it was clear that he really values the support of a coach. He had engaged with numerous executive and performance coaches himself, so it’s no surprise that it was explored with his son.

What I really appreciated was that it seemed the coaching had given the son more appreciation for connection with family and friends, and had helped him process some perfectionistic thought patterns. This was contrary to my assumption that the coaching might have encouraged him to become more focused on achievement, striving and development. It was wholesome to hear it had helped him become more balanced and connected in his life.

One of the reasons I felt he was such a switched-on guy was his response to a particular question I asked. Towards the end of many of these conversations, I ask, “If you had only one question to ask me, what would it be?”. I think the question highlights what people value, and says a lot about how people look at the world.

He chose to ask me, “What have you learned from the project so far?”. Reflecting on it as I write, I’m surprised that he has been the only person to ask that question. I answered by reeling off a number of the insights which I’ve covered in this series of articles, and many more I haven’t.

He’s now off to Pomona College in Los Angeles for the next few years to study. When I caught up with his dad to thank him for the referral, I was excited to hear his son is considering starting his own Project Horizon. (There has already been one other person who has begun their own project, something which makes me really proud, as I know how much it has changed my own life.)

My big takeaway from the 18-year-old is that age doesn’t necessarily equal insight. He has done more thinking (and thinking about thinking!) than most adults. Bravo.

Connection 43 was a unique one.

For 45 minutes, he reeled off a series of stag do stories, which were a great listen. Project Horizon interviews can be quite heavy at times with the types of topics explored, so this connection felt like some welcome light relief.

He told me he had been on 20 stag dos, had been given the privilege of being best man 5 times, and had been a groomsman another 8 times. It was obvious that he was a well-liked guy within his social circles, but those numbers were still exceptionally prolific. As he was telling me this, I tried to make sense of it by attributing it to his sporting background. He had been around rugby his whole life, and I had seen the strong bonds that can be formed with teammates in sports. But 20 stag dos?!

A reason for being a consistently relied-upon friend started to become clear in the last 15 minutes of the call. He described to me how, when he was younger, a group of children at school had picked a fight with him. He was outnumbered and at risk of getting beaten up until a friend stepped in and helped him out. From that day, he vowed to be the friend who was always there for his mates whenever they needed him. That experience impacted him so heavily that he became an uber-dependable friend. And the stag do stats back it up!

If I’m honest, I didn’t expect this high-quality insight. It was not that I didn’t think he was capable of it. In fact, he seemed like a really intelligent, reflective guy. Funnily enough, in quite a contrast to the stag do stories, he is an accountant. I think the surprise for me was from having settled into a ‘laddish’ conversation about stag do mishaps and then being caught off-guard with a highly introspective and vulnerable reflection.

The combination of entertainment and depth made for an enjoyable conversation. Moreover, it provided a reminder to really be there for the people that matter in your life. In their times of hardship as well as the fun times.

Connection 44 was a movement therapist. Her passion lies in supporting women, often with a focus on helping them through life transitions. She does this by supporting them to understand themselves through understanding their bodies.

Being a childhood dancer, she has long had a passion for movement. Later, taking up yoga and learning how to instruct, she realised that the practice had been predominantly built around male bodies due to its male-centric origins in India over 2500 years ago. The movement therapist told me how she adapts her yoga teachings to female-specific events like menstrual cycles, pregnancy and menopause. I was surprised I hadn’t come across this challenge with yoga previously, especially considering data suggests women are more than twice as likely as men to engage in yoga. (I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me, considering I’ve almost exclusively coached men over the last decade. Project Horizon wins again.)

What I found really interesting was how she had developed her skill sets to support women through various life transitions. She didn’t attend a course delivering a syllabus structure around women’s experiences throughout their lives. She was led by her own need to navigate life transitions. Her lived experience triggered and guided her learning.

One particular example I found interesting was that after finding comfort in the support of her sister during childbirth, she became a ‘doula’. I didn’t know what a doula was prior to her telling me. And I’m glad she clarified, because according to Google, in Ancient Greece, a doula was a “woman servant” or “female slave”. Nowadays, a doula is a trained professional who provides emotional, practical and physical support during a pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum.

The main insight I took from the conversation was one which I have been reminded of many times during Project Horizon. Together, we explored topics which I would never have picked up a book and read about. And that’s the point, really. Getting out of my own echo chamber and engaging with topics which I know very little about.

It’s been a common theme throughout Project Horizon so far that people begin the conversation feeling like they don’t have an interesting story to tell.

Not everyone is like that, of course. Some people are aware that they have a unique set of experiences. Sometimes, I ask people what they think the person who referred them would think is interesting about them. After asking this a few times, I realised that the question is actually a thinly veiled way of asking, “What do you think is interesting about yourself?”.

Connection 45 certainly didn’t feel like she was interesting to begin with. I’ll let you make your own mind up, though.

She is Russian and grew up in a place called Ufa, just over 800 miles east of Moscow. In the current geopolitical landscape, I thought that in itself was interesting. Aged 12, she moved with her family from Russia to India and had to adapt to a new culture, education system, people and language. She spent her teenage years in a boarding school, which, curiously, she credits her good relationship with her parents to. I got the impression she meant she was a troublesome teen, and boarding school provided a helpful barrier which preserved their relationships.

She then moved to the UK to study engineering at university. After graduating, she landed an engineering job. Unfortunately, when she applied for permanent residency, it was rejected as she wasn’t earning over the £29,000 threshold. A tough one to take when you consider many graduates don’t make that much in their first job after university. Eventually, her second residency application was accepted, helping her gain much more security and stability in her life.

Meanwhile, her parents live back in Russia. She’s only been able to see them once in the last five years due to various reasons, including the war between Ukraine and Russia. With her father aged 72, she said she has the sense that her parents are getting old and wants to see them more often. Reflecting on it as I write this, it makes me feel grateful for only having to drive 4 hours to see my own parents.

Given the space and time, and nudged with helpful questions, she relaxed into the call and was able to share some really unique experiences and perspectives. Experiences and perspectives no one else in the project could have offered. In fact, no one else in the world has had the unique patchwork of experiences that she has had. And the same can be said of everyone else on earth (including you reading this). That means that how we make sense of the world is also unique. And, to me, that is interesting. I guess, sometimes we just need reminding of this.

These five conversations reminded me that we will always have to make decisions on partial information, that wisdom is not reserved for age, and that true friendship is shown in moments of need as much as in celebration. They showed me that learning often comes from stepping outside our own echo chambers, and that each of our lives is a unique and interesting patchwork of experiences.

Next time: Insights from connections 46–50.