5 Connections, 5 Insights: 76-80 of 100

Project Horizon is a global conversation experiment by high-performance coach and advisor Dr. 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 🎧

76. Journalist, author, and model

77. Native American fitness coach

78. Comedian and podcast host

79. Founder and programmer of arts venues, PhD in Politics

80. Marketing solopreneur working from Bali

“We’re not going to your graduation”, she was told by her mom.

Connection 76 admitted she had messed around a bit at university and had narrowly missed out on a 2:1 grade. Her mom was too embarrassed at the grade to attend. Occasionally, this still stings when she sees graduation photos at friends’ houses.

This seemed to be one moment of many where it was clear achievements, specifically educational successes, defined her value. She explained what might have been behind it: “Nigerians love education, they love letters after your name. Education’s a really big thing in Nigeria. And I guess money comes with that, but there’s definitely a sense that being knowledgeable is important.”

She spoke about the impact this had on her. “I [had] started to connect achievement with being loved”, she said. “I had to do all these things by a certain time so that they could be proud of me, and talk about me to their friends, so I could feel like I kind of like made it.” Every time she perceived herself to have failed, she “scurried” to the next attempt at proving herself.

Whether she would have become a model, author, and journalist without this drive to achieve, who knows.

The turning point for her was a series of serious health problems, which required surgery and chemotherapy. The ‘achievement machine’ was breaking down. She recognised the cause as exhaustion.

It was a shift that led to a different relationship with productivity. “I think life is about being present in the life I live. Use the things I’ve been given and love those around me.” Her religion also influences the way she sees the world: “I’m a Christian as well. I don’t believe my productivity is what’s gonna get me to heaven… I just need to be myself, look after the body that God gave me, and the community around me.”

I’ll let her have the final word on the insight from this conversation. Whilst labelling it “a bit cliché”, she recalled a colleague saying to her that “we’re human beings, not human doings”.

Note: Whilst writing this insight, I recognised the number of direct quotes I was able to include from the conversation. This is testament to the eloquence and insight with which she spoke.

Connection 77 was born and raised in rural Montana, on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. He is Native American, and a member of the Gros Ventre (A’aninin) tribe.

He was the first person of Native American descent I’d ever spoken to, so I turned up to the conversation full of intrigue.

Very early into the conversation he shared that, at the age of 13, his father committed suicide.

He told me how his father’s tragic death meant, despite being the youngest sibling, he became the man of the house. He spent his time helping his mother and two sisters. People explicitly told him he “had to be the man now”, and so he stepped up.

He sensed a constant presence of his father watching over him: “I always felt like, even though my dad wasn’t here, he could see everything I was doing. So, I made it a point to try to make him proud in everything that I did.”

Whilst he believed the need to mature early led to a discipline and ambition, he acknowledged it also came at a cost. He felt he’d missed out on things. The high school experiences and parties weren’t really on the cards for him, with the focus on supporting his family and maintaining his reputation within the small Gros Ventre community in which he lived.

He, understandably, didn’t share any of the details of his father’s death. Yet, I couldn’t help but remember an article I had seen a few months prior around mental health challenges in Native American communities. It attributed the high rates of psychological distress, substance abuse, and suicide to factors such as historical trauma, geographical isolation, and insufficient health care.

It struck me how Connection 77‘s present continued to be impacted by the actions of the past – the details of which I knew very little about. He told me about the Great Removal (or “the Trail of Tears”) and the re-education “boarding schools”. The big mantra of the time was to “kill the Indian, save the man”, he said, as children were taught to speak English and made to cut their traditionally long hair.

Despite this background, which he labelled akin to the “Holocaust”, he had hope: “It’s amazing that we’re still here to this day, beginning to thrive and move ahead in the educational systems and the business world.”

As I write this, what comes to mind is resilience in the face of trauma and adversity. Whether it’s coping with his father’s passing, or the generational trauma within his tribe, he’s working with and through what life throws at him. Nowadays, he’s a prominent figure within his tribe’s, running a fitness training business to help his community stay healthy.

Inspirational.

Personally, I often feel myself oscillating between states. One day, I feel a warm and fuzzy sense of ‘this is where I’m meant to be in life’. A week later, I notice an undercurrent of feeling like I’m not yet ‘there’. Not that I really know where there is supposed to be.

Whilst I’ve come to terms with this regular shift in perspective, it’s always comforting to hear others articulate a similar experience of ‘not being sure’.

It was Connection 78’s turn to bring me said comfort. He’s a comedian in his late thirties (he’d say mid) from the East coast of the US and was introduced by the now-retired comedian (Connection 75) I wrote about in last week’s post.

Whilst he had been doing comedy for seven years, after being signed up to an open mic by a friend, I sensed he was still in the ‘coming up’ stage of his career. I asked him what he’s trying to achieve, and he gave a refreshingly honest answer: “I go back and forth, man. When people ask me this question, I’m like, I don’t know. If you asked me a week from today, I’d be like ‘I need to do this’. I need to be a famous comedian.” Seeking a more certain answer, he said, “I know that I enjoy it. I know I make a little extra money from it, and it’s fun. That’s all I really know right now.”

I interpreted a tension between the potential sacrifice needed to ‘make it’, and other life ambitions he described, “Like finding a woman I love, having a child, and maybe owning a condo.”

After a little more exploration, he spoke from a place of deep self-awareness and willingness to ‘let go’: “I know my personality, I always think the grass is greener. I think, ‘I should do that rather than this’. But then I tell myself, ‘Why don’t you just try a range of things, and see where you land’…

So, we’re just going to keep trying, see what happens, and have fun with it.”

As always, the conversation prompted me to reflect on what the ideas might mean for my own life. In New York earlier this year, a wise friend of mine said, “I think people should just do more stuff, and then iterate”. He wasn’t advocating for abandoning judgement and strategic thinking. Rather, I think he wanted people to avoid the natural tendency to get stuck in ‘paralysis by analysis’. We tell ourselves we need to ‘think a little more’ before acting. Steven Pressfield, in his book The War of Art, would call this resistance.

What I’m taking away is if you don’t yet know what to do, get busy in the doing based on your best guess. Then let the world offer you feedback.

A consistent theme in my coaching work with CEOs and Head Coaches involves supporting them to navigate what they describe as the ‘new generation’ of the workforce.

There are consistent concerns regarding a perceived ‘lack of resilience’, and ‘less commitment’ to the organisation. Surveys of this ‘new generation’ of workers found 1 in 3 planned to change jobs within a year, citing a ‘lack of purpose’ as the main driver.

Of course, for everyone – not just Gen Z – there will be a range of factors influencing their relationship with work. It came up in conversation with Connection 79 – a cultural leader who creates community through directing arts venues in Leeds, UK – so I asked him about the timely topic.

He described how back in 1995, belonging was simpler. People made choices about where they spent their time, and who with, based on the options that were visible to them at the time. They “joined the Royal Air Force” or “went to music venues” due to geographical proximity. The internet and social media now present people with unlimited options for how and where they spend their time. Online, you can find every “niche” under the sun.

Of course, this brings many positives, such as people being able to find a community for any interest. Previously, you might have been the only World of Warcraft lover in your town. Now, you can find a community and sense of belonging online. You can play it yourself. You can watch someone else play it. Or, if you’re feeling really frisky, you can even watch someone else watching someone else play it.

But what does this mean for bosses managing this ‘new generation’?

Connection 79 doesn’t believe the new generation are less resilient or less committed. He believes they’re more discerning. They’ve experienced what genuine belonging can feel like through niche communities online, so they don’t have to settle for mediocre anymore.

When an employee feels their job isn’t for them anymore, they don’t have to stay and “tough it out”. They can find somewhere else, more aligned with their interests and purpose. Where they belong.

This means that creating a culture of community and purpose isn’t a ‘nice to have’ anymore. It’s fundamental to keeping people around.

Her boyfriend wanted to settle in Thailand. She wanted to stay in Bali. She chose Bali and they broke up.

Having spent time in both places whilst travelling, there was something about the environment in Bali that drew her in. It made her feel free and alive, in a way that other places hadn’t.

“I became a totally different person to who I was before. I’m more open minded, open hearted, like everything changed for me.”

Running her own marketing agency, Connection 80 said that the social landscape in Bali was perfect for her: “Bali is really special. You have a lot of business owners here, the content creators, a lot of interesting people who are really driven, with a healthy lifestyle. It’s everything that I need.”

She grew up in Czechia and, despite loving her homeland, she described it as having a “cold, Slavic energy”. She had been working “in the city” before Bali, where her experience was that she had to be “really professional, wear nice suits” and “everything would be really strict”. Nowadays, she finds herself riding scooters barefoot in the rain and screaming “I love my life”. (Hope she’s wearing a helmet.)

She said, “Before I had everything planned. Everything had a structure and rules. I was super strict with myself. Now, I’m just letting go because I’ve learnt that good things will come to me unexpectedly.”

I got the sense that what helped her in letting go was what she described as the “chaos” of Bali, versus the “order” she felt back in Europe. As many do, she captured this by pointing to the difference in ‘rules and etiquette’ on the roads. I remember a similar experience of needing to ‘let go’ when crossing the road in Vietnam for the first time.

The broader theme of the conversation felt more about the overwhelming power of environments and systems to change behaviour and perspective. Connection 80 may have spent years making the changes she made in a few months in Bali. There’s a good chance she may never have made them at all.

The unavoidable question after this conversation is ‘To live the life I want to live, which environment(s) should I be spending my time in?”

These conversations reminded me of the importance of environment for driving the behaviours you want, that community and purpose is a non-negotiable for retaining employees, and that if you’re not sure where to start with something, start with your best guess and get going. They also reminded me that we’re human beings not human doings, and the best we can do is play the cards we’ve been dealt.

Next time: connections 81-85.