5 Connections, 5 Insights: 56-60 of 100

Project Horizon is a global conversation experiment by executive coach and high-performance consultant 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 🎧

56. Hungarian art student

57. A British man of many careers

58. Northern Irish physiotherapist who relocated to Sri Lanka

59. Hungarian Researcher in the UK House of Lords

60. American firefighter-in-training

I realised on this call the importance of context around art.

On its own, a painting or sculpture tends to do very little for me personally. I struggle to appreciate a piece purely for its aesthetic qualities.

But Connection 56, a Hungarian art student originally from Budapest, drew my attention to the importance of ‘the backstory’.

He spoke about his family history in Hungary, which included generations of artists and art collectors. His great-grandfather was famous in Hungary for making glasses and pottery, before his grandfather became a collector of art. With this lineage, it was understandable that he too became interested in the field.

My interest piqued when he shared that some of the art which his family had created or collected over the generations had been erased through either war or confiscation during post-war communism. He told me that under communist rule, “every cultural element was closely censored”. This led to an illegal underground network of artists who created art in opposition to communist censorship. Now that sounds much more interesting to me.

I think it’s a reminder that when I see a piece of art of any kind, it wasn’t created, nor has it existed, in a vacuum. With a bit of curiosity, I’ll probably find it’s drenched in context.

It makes me think of the Mona Lisa, for example, which I saw in March 2025 for the first time. I stood in Le Louvre and wondered why everyone was so interested in it. Visually, I found it bland. But when I found it had been stolen from the museum in 1911, it became (slightly) more interesting. My mind was drawn to its journey over time, as opposed to seeing it as a static object.

Another nice reminder that context is king.

Speaking to me from what looked like his garden shed, Connection 57 told me about the many careers he’s had across his life so far.

The work he sounded most excited to reflect on was his time in charge of the National Career Service Association (NCSA). This was an organisation dedicated to supporting young people, especially those from underprivileged areas.

Surprisingly, he found that one of the most underprivileged areas in the UK was that of Westminster, right where he spent every Wednesday in the House of Commons lobbying for support.

He was particularly proud of one particular story. It was of a young man who came into the careers centre and was asked, “What really gets you excited?”

The young man responded, “Cooking!” before admitting that he rarely cooked at home and none of his family or friends knew about this passion.

The NCSA were able to get the young man onto one of Jamie Oliver’s cooking courses for young, talented people. The course provided the support and direction that he needed, and he went on to do work experience in Dubai and New York.

The NCSA’s support provided “the magic he needed” for the young man to go and fulfil his potential. Nowadays, when the now-not-so-young man returns to the UK, he drops in to the NCSA centre and asks other young adults, “What really gets you excited?”

The man of many careers described the NCSA as being in the business of inspiration, as opposed to career advice. What a nice reframe.

To me, this story is about a few things. Firstly, the power of asking good questions. The careers advisor could easily have imposed their own view of jobs market on the young man. Instead, they started with understanding the person in front of them. Second, it’s a reminder of the impact that just a little direction and support can make in people’s lives. It was just one person doing their job (well), yet another person had the course of their life changed.

Great story. (Shame the government pulled the programme a few years later.)

Connection 58 had built a successful physiotherapy clinic in Belfast. The clinic was busy, and he had staff working for him, but something didn’t feel right.

On our call, he described feeling like he had been experiencing “chronic fatigue syndrome”, which was presenting in a variety of ways. This persisted for months, and the health services struggled to pin down exactly what was going on.

After a period of deep reflection and some “dark times”, he realised that he hadn’t been “living authentically”. He felt himself constantly getting pulled into the business owner identity, managing staff and “people pleasing”. The latter being something he had long been wrestling with. “I had never leaned into what I want or what my intuition was telling me to do”.

Through his reflection, he concluded that his nervous system is most at ease in Sri Lanka. He’d been there to visit six times over the years and noticed that is where he feels most calm. So, he went out for a week to lay the groundwork for a move. He met more than a dozen real estate agents and ended up signing to buy a villa by the end of the week. He leaned into his fear and gut instinct.

At the time of our call, he was living in Sri Lanka with his partner and was really pleased with the move. Most importantly, his nervous system was telling him he’d done the right thing.

It poses a few questions:

1. When and where do I feel most relaxed?
2. Most myself?
3. And which fear do I need to lean into as opposed to away from?

OK, this insight write-up didn’t go to plan.

During the call, the Wi-Fi was terrible, so we switched to a good old-fashioned phone call. This left me with a 5-minute AI notetaker summary, which amounted to little more than ‘the participants discussed technical difficulties’. Great.

My backup plan of making handwritten notes while we talked on the phone also failed. And by that, I mean I didn’t make any notes.

What I do remember of the conversation was that he was another Hungarian guy, referred to me by Connection 56. He worked as a parliamentary researcher in the UK House of Lords. This means that he is dedicated to supporting one of the Peers in their role by performing tasks such as analysing policy, synthesising evidence for arguments, and engaging with a range of stakeholders (like civil servants, lobby groups, charities, etc).

Beyond that, I’m at a bit of a loss.

It makes me wonder about all the other great conversations and insights in life that must be lost to the abyss when things aren’t noted down.

Amateur, Tim. Amateur.

Connection 60 told an amazing story about his grandparents.

Both were originally from Poland. His grandma grew up on a dairy farm, and his grandpa’s family were tailors. Both were Jewish.

They met and fell in love before the Second World War.

During the war, they were separated and taken to concentration camps. His grandma was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau along with her two sisters. His grandpa was taken to another camp, along with seven siblings. He was the only one to survive.

Miraculously, they found each other again after the war ended and moved to Denmark before eventually settling in Detroit, USA. His grandpa and grandma lived to 99 and 100, respectively.

At his grandpa’s funeral, he found out that the only reason his grandpa survived the concentration camp was that the Nazi soldier in charge of his block became aware he was a tailor. He was put to work fixing Nazi uniforms and considered “useful”.

I had never spoken to a family member of Holocaust survivors before, so I asked, “What other stories did they tell you?”

The firefighter-in-training responded: “That’s probably the one regret I have with my grandparents. I always felt like it was inappropriate to talk about it.”

As opposed to asking, he took lessons from how they lived their lives. He learned to never give up. He learned not to waste anything. His grandpa would have “tiniest plates of food” as he “never overate”. He said, “They were scarred and lived with those scars their whole lives”.

I’m not sure if he could have asked more questions about his grandparents’ experiences. I imagine it’s an incredibly difficult thing to approach. That said, it was a reminder for me to ask more questions about my own family members’ lives. This Christmas just gone, I spent hours with my parents digging out old photos and hearing stories. Some I’ve heard dozens of times. Others I heard for the first time.

There’s always a story there waiting to be told. Don’t miss your opportunity to hear it.

These five conversations reinforced that nothing meaningful exists in isolation. Context gives depth to art, people, and decisions, and without it, we flatten what we are trying to understand. They reminded me that real impact can come from asking people good questions question and then getting out of their way, that growth sometimes requires leaning directly into fear rather than managing it, and that not everything valuable can be captured, recorded, or neatly summarised (even if you should be taking notes). They also highlighted how easily entire lives, cultures, and histories can be lost if we do not ask, listen, and pay attention.

Next time: connections 61-65