5 Connections, 5 Insights: 6-10 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 🎧

6. Another serial traveller who’s also an Auditor at EY

7. Head Coach of an American ice hockey team (Chain 4 Starter)

8. A Polish musician in the British army

9. Brazilian education tutor and psychology student

10. World record holder (most weight deadlifted in 24 hours), sea kayaker and S&C coach for the elite military (Chain 5 Starter)

Note: Insights aren’t listed in the same order as the connections, and many come from more than one person. Where an insight is from a specific connection, it will be clearly stated.

As a couple of the chains moved to their third connection, I noticed a shift in the dynamic. Without a direct link to someone I knew, I sensed the level of buy-in drop. I wondered if this was because of there being less social proof behind these referrals.

I usually open each call by thanking the person for their time and asking what they’d been told about the project. The ubiquitous response: “Not much really.” This became so common that I later created a webpage to help ‘pre-frame’ things.

With these stranger-to-stranger referrals, I was met with more upfront curiosity: “What are you doing this for?” and “Where is this going?”. It felt like the unspoken question was really, “Who’s this random, nosy bloke and what does he want from me?”. (Later in the project, Connection 56 – a polytheist, tarot card-reader from Massachusetts – said “what do you want from me then?”. The blunt honesty was refreshing.)

It made me rethink how I introduced the project. As the strength of referral began to fade, I had to generate trust myself rather than borrowing it from someone else’s recommendation. The early calls benefited from inherited trust. Later ones demanded I earn it quickly.

The auditor at EY was a serial traveller, just like the carbon credits analyst who referred him. He had travelled the length of Sri Lanka in a tuk-tuk. Ridden around the Balkans on a motorbike. When he was 19, he hitchhiked from the bottom of Morocco to the top (well, he told me the southern border is disputed so apparently there are some blurred lines!).

To get a real taste for a country and culture, Mr Auditor likes to do Workaways. On one such Workaway, a responsibility of his was to look after 50 chickens. Hearing a rumour that cows produce more milk if you play them Mozart, he played the chickens some Rolling Stones in the hope that they’d produce more eggs. He said the jury is still out on that one.

With his travels being quite unique compared with most people I know, I asked him how he goes about planning them. I admit, the cynic in me expected it would be based on what would produce the most epic story to tell his mates over a beer. After all, his stories were epic. The response surprised (and impressed) me: “I take a top-down approach. I ask myself ‘What do I know the least about?’. He then added: “I didn’t know much about the ‘stans’*, so I planned a trip”.

As someone who often struggles to decide on where to go on holiday, I found this could be a useful decision-making model. Looking back, it may have even influenced me to choose to holiday in Tuscany this year, where I learnt a bit more about wine. Before that holiday, I used to act like a Master Sommelier whenever out for dinner with friends. I realise, now, I haven’t got a clue.

*Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

When I visited the ice hockey Head Coach, a good friend of mine, in the US last year on a consultancy trip, I was struck by his openness to experiment. Half an hour before a team meeting, we were discussing how to optimise skill development in training that day. I suggested it might help if, in the future, players set their own intentions for the on-ice session, to sharpen focus during and support better reflection after.

Being open-minded and bold, he had a go in the meeting.

As expected, it was clunky at first as the players adjusted to being asked to actively participate in the planning process. But he’d experimented with a new way of working; something many old-school coaches would avoid. I always enjoy working with him. He’s one of the most open-minded sports coaches I’ve come across, genuinely willing to do things differently.

So, you can imagine my satisfaction when, six months later, I caught up with him and he told me the intention-setting had become a regular fixture of their daily routine. His team were in the middle of their best points-per-game season in 12 years (Disclaimer: I claim no connection between setting intentions and that record!).

Being his first season as head coach, and with such an impressive points record, it would have been understandable if they had become carried away with outcomes and shifted away from the underpinning processes. The discipline to stick with these processes is high-performance.

It was a reminder of something I think many of us forget: to value process over outcome.

Two people in this block of five connections forced me to reassess my assumptions.

The first was the world-record holding strength and conditioning (S&C) coach (Chain 5 Starter). At work, we were recruiting a new S&C coach. When compiling the final interview shortlist, I took one last look through the applications. It was a particularly low-quality pile of applications in terms of experience, so I was looking hard for signs in the CVs which spoke to the applicant’s character, like hobbies and achievements. I noticed one CV that said, right at the bottom: “World record for most weight deadlifted in 24 hours”. I wondered what sort of person they’d have to be to achieve that. Of course, descriptors like ‘disciplined’ and ‘resilient’ and ‘mental’ come to most people’s mind.

Despite that achievement, his CV showed very little experience in high-performance environments, so I expected him to fall down when it came to both technical knowledge and potentially not handle the tough social environment. Without going into sensitive details of the interview process, I can just say he blew myself and the rest of the interview panel away with his composure, knowledge and interpersonal skills (I hope he never reads these compliments…).

How wrong was I?

The second example was with the Polish musician – a violinist – in the British Army. Over the years supporting the military, I’ve heard plenty of jokes aimed at ‘bandies’ — that they’re not real soldiers or not the sharpest. Those assumptions had settled in my own mind, unchallenged, until I was referred to him.

In all honesty (which Project Horizon is about), I wasn’t overly excited for the call. But, again, how wrong was I?

The theories he used to explain his performances – whether in the Army Band or performing on the streets – were captivating. He spoke about how he strategically uses the stillness of his body to capture the attention of pedestrians on the street. He had been studying the Feldenkrais Method to develop body awareness and control. He had also noticed that when he pays full attention to what he is playing, others start to pay more attention as well.

I guess the insight here is obvious, but important: inspect your assumptions as they can hold you back and make an ass of you.

A ‘throuple’, for those who aren’t yet aware, is a romantic relationship between three people who are all involved emotionally and sexually with each other. Maybe I was naïve, but this isn’t an insight I thought I’d glean when I started the project. But I think that’s part of the fun.

This didn’t come from a ’60s rock and roll guitarist or a free love advocate, but from a Brazilian school tutor with three degrees (and studying for a fourth in psychology). He described that whilst sections of Brazil have a more liberal view on romantic relationships, he struggled to keep up with the emotional demands of having more than one partner. It’s not my place to speak on the ‘physical’ demands!

Maybe the takeaway from this one is that we all have an emotional bandwidth, whether we’re single, in a couple, throuple, quad, or – my favourite – a sextet (6-way relationship). The underlying structure of the relationship can be different, but how do we stay present, attentive, emotionally available in a world which pulls us in many directions?

Together, these five conversations reminded me to adapt as the project evolves, especially when trust isn’t handed to you. They reminded me to challenge assumptions, embrace curiosity, stick to processes when outcomes could easily take the spotlight, and even reflect on the emotional demands of modern relationships.

Next time: Insights from connections 11–15.