🎙️ S2 E16: The Cosmic Joke - What If Disruption Is The Teaching?

Everything can be going perfectly fine, and then suddenly the land is double booked, the schedule collapses, half your plan becomes impossible, and someone is shouting at your people in the heat. We’ve just lived that reality at one of our retreats, and what still amazes us is this: it ended up being one of the most magical, grounding, transformational weekends we’ve ever held. So we’re unpacking the real work of staying calm when things go wrong, and what “going with the flow” actually looks like when clients, logistics, and emotions are all in motion.

We share the practical tools we lean on when stress starts to rise, including our go-to question “What’s needed?” and the surprisingly effective “change body, change state” approach for emotional regulation and nervous system reset. We also talk about dropping expectations, how arguing your point can make everything worse, and why humour can be a pressure valve when used with care. Along the way we swap stories about flat tyres, wrong turns, late-night football pacing, and the kind of cosmic timing that makes you laugh even when you’re exhausted.

The deeper takeaway is about leadership and psychological safety: people don’t always need fixing, they need space. We explore how asking “What do you need right now?” helps you show up as a friend, coach, manager, or simply a steady presence, whether you’re running an event, leading a team, or navigating everyday life. If you want better resilience, calmer decision-making, and a more grounded way to handle chaos in business and relationships, press play, then subscribe, share, and leave us a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And The Chaos Question

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to Awesomely Off Topic, books, brand, business, and everything else we're not supposed to say out loud. I'm Tad and Asher. Now let's get into it. Imagine

Retreat Reality When Plans Unravel

SPEAKER_01 0:11

the scenario. You've got loads of people there for a training event, and somehow things start to go wrong. We've just got back from running one of our retreats on the big one, our 30-month spiritual empowerment programme. We've had everything from running out of time to hit everything on the schedule to the land being double booked, to people turning up with equipment in a different part of the site and then getting cross-at-R people who've been told to park somewhere that they booked. What would you do? Would you get stressed or would you just go with the flow? Asher, how did you find it?

SPEAKER_00 0:44

I just went with the flow. There would have been a time when I probably wouldn't have done that, and I can still be prone to barking a little bit too much and getting ultra stressed. But in the space that we were in, we'd created a really good space, a really good team of people around us where we knew we'd work it out. And it was very much like that, wasn't it? It was all going pretty much according to plan to begin with. And then on the I think it was actually on the last day, wasn't it? That things started to, you know, other things outside of our control started to happen. So and and to be honest, it was like, well, what are you gonna do? This is the you can't change that. We've got to work with what we've got. Totally. We've got to manage the people that we're working with to ensure that they're as okay as they can be. Yeah. And that they're, you know, and there's the only thing that they need to address any concerns they've got. Yeah. And then to work with our team to make sure that there's minimal disruption and that we can keep the people that we're serving happy and you know, able to carry on with the learning experience that that you know they're going through. So I think we did a good job.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

I think we did. But I also I think the people on that programme with us did a really good job.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Largely because the teachings they had. Yeah. I mean, one of them said, Thank goodness that they were speaking to me on this weekend and not one of just started with you, because I've calmed down a lot. You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There were no yeah, exactly. Tempers were, you know, pretty it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

To put this in context, we have a lot of people stay on on site. We have big shared yurt that we sleep in, but people also bring tents and camper vans, and they all have a specified area of the site in which to camp.

Double Booking And Lost Space

SPEAKER_01 2:18

So then on the Sunday, we'd got people turning up who'd booked that field where they'd all been told to park, and you know, they're all rigged up to the electrics and got all their supplies sorted. They've already been there for a couple of days, yeah. And all of a sudden, there's somebody getting really high right and screaming at them that they've booked this place and they need to move all that stuff. Now, to be fair, we've been using the site we work on for a lot of years now, and we have been double booked a couple of times. But this one literally had members of our tribe being shouted at by people coming onto the site, and not only that, but this was a weekend where we were working with the energies of the earth, and all of a sudden, half the site becomes inaccessible to us.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, and there was a prime example of that. So, with one of our guests, our clients, we wanted to do some work, and we've got a beautiful dreaming chamber that we've got.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah, it's like an underground chamber that you can. Yeah, it's lovely.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

And I said, okay, between sessions, we're on a break, lunch break. Let's go over there and just spend sort of 15 minutes and we'll we'll have the ground. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's lovely, it's a beautiful space. And the energy's there. I'm gonna sound really woo here, but the energy is really beautiful and calming and holding and holding. So that's just what we needed a nice private space. We could go and have a chat and just see what was needed. And we went over there, and unbeknownst to us, there's a small yacht next to the the dreaming chamber, and I could hear loads of voices. And of course, I was in that dilemma. If we go in, there's no way of telling people really, because we can't interrupt what's going on over there, because it's quite clearly they're in the middle of some sort of session, and we can't, we shouldn't. If we go into the dreaming chamber, we might might be interrupted, you know, midway. So, what's better better? And in the end, with the agreement of the client, we agreed that actually we wouldn't go there, we'd just go for a medicine walk, which is exactly what we did. So we walked around some of the site that we could still get to and had a chat that way, and it worked okay because we thought on our feet the client was happy and we were able to continue. But things like that, if that had happened even say six months a year ago, I might have been in a different space. But I think that's that's because I've learned from having this space, and sometimes things do come up, and often the teachings are in those moments, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Absolutely, and that's one of the reasons we wanted to bring this today.

Thinking On Your Feet

SPEAKER_01 4:33

It's not to have a moan about the people who are on the site because you know, we're all human and things happen, don't they? It's just life. But what I'm really interested in is how we all cope and manage when things don't go to plan. So when we first got there, I was like setting up and joining everyone because one of our delegates was in a bit of a state and needed some one-to-one time first. Yeah. Then we had you were called out, weren't you a couple of times asked to go and help people one-to-one? Yeah. Well, that took you out of the picture for a while. And one of the things I was really grateful for was that the the people who'd been with us for years, we have a a small team of people who support us there, and they automatically just went and started running things. Yeah, just carried on. It just carried on. So it was absolutely fluid. So we had that happening, we had the issue with the double booking, we had all kinds of things, didn't we? That we're just because we've been both taken out so much to work with people one-to-one, we ran out of time across the weekend for about three of the different activities we were going to run.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So everything we had loosely scheduled, and I say that because we do loosely schedule on this particular event, some events we can't loosely schedule on this one, we can, and actually that's what makes it work because we have to allow for whoever is needed a little bit more time for an individual. And we had we'd built that in, but obviously not enough because of what happened, and then with what happened on the Sunday, that threw another spanner in the works, yeah. So we then had to think on our feet again, and actually, because as you said, we had all those wonderful people around us that have been with us for a good few years now, we're able to just keep calm and carry on.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Even those people on their first turn around the world with us, the first time they've come and worked with us on the big one, were saying, I cannot believe the difference in me with what happened on that Sunday where I would have been at the beginning of the programme.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

And that's lovely feedback. And the the great the great point is that with everything that went wrong in air quotes, we're still finished on time. Yeah. And guess what? We had the best feedback. Everybody was really, really happy, and so many people saying it'd be one of the most magical transformational weekends. Really held, really grounding, really healing, really just safe. They were saying it was one of the best weekends they had with us, even though so many things were going wrong. So, what do you do? How do you keep your calm and just go with the flow and kind of to quote Tollyback on, let it be easy? How do you not allow the disruptions of the day or of the event, whatever? How do you uh make sure that things don't upscittle you? So we're even late recording this podcast because frankly, I've just had a load of tech issues, I couldn't even get the software running. Yeah. Now we are in Mercury retrograde, so we could just throw a lot of stuff out there.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah, we could we could blame them.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

We could, we could, but hey, let's not do that. But what if it is just life?

Calming Tools That Actually Work

SPEAKER_01 7:27

So what do you do? What are the steps, Ash, to help you get calm? Because everybody thinks you're this cute fluffy little hamster.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

No, they don't. Not since listening to this podcast. Let's face it.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Well, I think a lot of people still do. They just forget hamsters have.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Anybody that knows me beyond the they've met me once or twice at a networking meeting, and even then, I think now, it's become more and more challenging to hide anything, not like I would before, knowing well, I would. I'd mask like hell. And now, as I get older, I'm just like, this is me. If I'm anxious, I'm anxious. And then what do I do? I generally take a step back and say that lovely chief's question, which is what's needed? You know, what's needed, i.e., for my me personally to calm me down, and sometimes it is literally when things has changed on Sunday, and I was feeling just just felt it tickling at the old worry worry space in my brain again. So, what did I do? I literally went outside, went for a walk. I did like a five-minute circuit of the site, went up, found a place that I go to. There's a beautiful apothecary garden on the site.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

One of the people on the program called it called it the apathetic garden.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Well, maybe I was being apathetic, I don't know. But I just needed five minutes to just go in there, smell the flowers, sit on the bench and just take a couple of minutes to calm down and then come back out, and I was okay. So, one of the things for me is one of the things that we talk about change body, change state. So if I'm in a state, I've realized at the grand old age of 58, all the things, not that I did wrong, but now knowing how I am a bit more and knowing me a bit more, I know that the worst thing I can do is just sit in the worry. I need to get up and move, even if it's moving from one side of the hotel room to the other.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

What am I referring to, Tav? Which you did last night when the football was on, but we'll come to that in a minute. Okay.

Dropping Expectations Before You Snap

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Do you know what? One of the big things I've learned, I think, is to try not to have expectations. So when the proverbial starts to hit the fan, if you don't have an expectation, you're not going to feel let down. But also, if you don't carry expectations, particularly of people, you're not going to feel let down, but you might be really pleasantly surprised sometimes. Oh, I like that. So it's that flip as well, isn't it? Instead of rah, this isn't fair, this isn't right. Yeah. Because nine times out of ten, if somebody is arguing with us, they believe just as firmly and as staunchly in their side of the argument. Yeah. So there's no point just arguing because you are both equally as in air quotes again, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

I'm just remembering where not that long ago I completely did that, and I really hammered home my points, and it didn't help things, and I it just made it ten times worse with maybe a family member, and I'm not going to go into any more detail than that, but I wouldn't do that again because it because it was not good, it was not pretty, and I'm not proud of myself for that one. You did tell her you found her hair offenses. Yeah, I did. I was trying to break shape, I was trying to make her laugh, and it just made it worse. What a surprise. But yeah, I I totally agree. I think that's one of the things to not spit. And I have got, I'm known for having a anybody that knows me knows I've got I've got some anger issues sometimes, and I've really worked on that. One of the things I did when I was having my therapy was to work on that and to actually look at why I was doing it, look at you know, the root reasons for why that was happening for me, and that can still be an issue for me. So it's one of those things I'm very conscious of. Um, and that's why it comes back to what you said just now that people might see me as that little cute, but that's people that don't see little hamsters. Yeah, certainly people that don't know me, and and you know, a lot of that was learned behaviour from certain members of the family.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

It's funny though, isn't it, that so many people, when they see us together but they don't know us that well, assume that I'm the kind of boss, if you like, I'm the one that wears the trousers or shorts today, actually it's quite warm. Where in fact, whoa no, I'm the big softy of the pair of us, really. Yeah. In a I mean in different ways. We complement each other beautifully, but so many people assume that, you know, I'm the one who's out there and with the big brand and keeping Asher in the shadows when no, that's really not the way it works at all.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Oh no. Yeah, so where were we? Because we got off the other.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah. How do you get to that point where you don't have expectations? And the other thing is without taking away from how serious it can be at times and how bloody heart-rending life can be at times, yeah, life is also one great big massive cosmic joke. Both can be true at the same time, you know, and if instead of going, this is it right, you go, Oh, okay, what am I supposed to learn from this one then? What's going on here?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah. Can you give an example, a recent example? Because people might be thinking, I'm I'm kind of going, where's she going with this now? This is just reminding you listeners that we don't rehearse this in any way. So we've had a brief discussion about this for about two or three minutes, and then we've just gone for it tonight. Yeah. And so I'm not I'm looking at where you're gonna go with it. If you've got an example of what where that's happened for you, and where you can give it away.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Oh, there's so many times when I can think of that.

Life As A Cosmic Joke

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Do you remember we'd been speaking at an exhibiting at a big outdoor festival some years back?

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

And we were one of the last people who'd packed up the gazebo.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah. Or the gaze bow. The gaze bow.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

And we were about to drive off the site, and we had a flat time. Oh yes, I remember that one. We were knackered, we were stressed, we'd got the car full of stuff. Yeah. And there are a load of people milling around, and I thought, oh, I bet one of these fellas who is at the pub will come and give us a hand. Oh yeah. And I asked if somebody could give us a hand, and they all just stood there, pint in hand, just watching us. No, you don't want us to help you, lot are all feminists, aren't you? You can do things just as well as a man, so you can get that sorted, and we'll all just stand here and watch you.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

I remember that one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

I could have got upset, I could have got all right irate, I could have got really pissy.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Could have got really nervous, like you got an audience and now you've really got a buffer.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

I just bantered back at them and thought, fine. So I just got on with it and got the tire changed, and off we went. It's like, I'm not gonna stand there and argue with them.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

This is an opportunity for me to number one, prove to myself that I can.

unknown 13:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

It's only a tire change, you know, it's not a massive thing. Number one, prove to myself that I can. Number two, prove to myself that I don't need to get really irate and upset about everything. And number three, have a banter with them. You know? I think one of the things that made it trickier this weekend was the the weather. Because it was really, really hot as well on the site when everything was going wrong, which is probably why tempers were flaring with the people you came onto the site who booked the same place as us that we didn't know about. It's 30 degrees. People are gonna be feeling a little bit hot under the colour. So you just go with it. You just go with it. Where else can we think about where life's had a great big cosmic joke with us, and you know, we can we can learn from it. So many, what about you, Ash? What's something that's happened to you?

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Oh no, don't know. I'm just gonna go. I've just had a complete blank. I thought, please, Taz. I had that, I think you must have that's where you misread the signals I was sending you for the power of osmosis. I was like going, Taz, soak it up, soak it up. Get my idea. I was gonna say to you, Taz, don't ask me because my brain is a bit mushy. So I'm trying to think, Gordon, you've got another one.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

I'm sure I mentioned this on the podcast before, but the time where I tried to contact someone who had run a workshop I'd sat in once, yeah, and thought they were bloody brilliant and I'd love to do some work with them. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tried to hit up Google, couldn't remember the last name, only the first name. Hit up Google, tried to find them, found the person I thought it was, got in touch, said, Yeah, do you fancy having a chat? I'd love to see if there's a way for us to work together. Got invited over, got really excited about it, and then turned up to meet this person at their home and thought, who the bloody hell are you? I've never seen you before in my life. It's the wrong person. I know I just bluffed my way through they knew me. I just bluffed my way through it. And we did end up doing some work together. That was funny. So it again, I could have proper had egg on my face and tripped myself up. So many different ways I could have run it, and instead I just went, okay, don't have expectations. Go with it. Yeah. See what happens. Yeah. Just see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

And when you have that kind of attitude, things tend to go okay. I think.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

There's always there's always a way to think, what does this make possible? What can I learn from it? How can I grow from it? And you can also go, this is really shit. But if you're gonna go, this is really shit, you also have to go, it is, but it's my shit to deal with and my shit to learn from. And I can either give myself a really bad day over it or I can just laugh and get on with it. Yeah. Just laugh. Yeah. And that's not always easy,

The Of Course Survival Mindset

SPEAKER_01 16:44

you know. When we talked about that challenging spell we had a few years back where we had, you know, dog with cancer, cat with cancer, poorly parents, massive VAT bill hitting from nowhere because we didn't know we'd gone through the the VAT threshold. Trying to keep up with with very expensive cancer treatments for the dog. And then cat dies, then dog dies, or dog dies, then cat cat dies. And just so much. And by the end of it, we were talking to a friend of ours, Lou Caulfield, and she was saying, You've got to the of course point, haven't you? And we were like, What do you mean? She said, We've been a bit like that. And you get to the point where another piece of shit hits the fan, and you just go, Of course, of course it has.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Of course. But that was just what was needed because every time now we say that we just laugh. You just go, of course. That's a beautiful anchor, isn't it? To flip that negative into like, you know, of course. Irony, whatever, whatever you want to call it, but it's it's a great way to flip things so that you can get through things. Yeah. And then now I find I automatically chuckle when I hear that phrase.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

And you know, sometimes you turn up somewhere and think something's gonna be absolutely shit. But you've read the situation wrong. So I remember many, many years ago, back in 2014, when we were getting legally married. Yeah. We had because it'd been 12 years already. Yeah, because it was on my 40th birthday.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

It was, wasn't it? Just realised that we say this about every I usually say it's about every six episodes. So if you've listened to the last thing, you've probably heard me say it before. First birthday present I could ever have. Oh, okay. That's just so I can go, oh, you see, we've done that before as well. Anyway, sound 12 years.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

We had the we had a smaller do on the Friday at the registry office, which was still fun. We had everybody dressed up in kind of flower powder gear.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

But then on the Saturday, we were having a gathering at one of the woodlands near us that we love. One of those places that, for those of you who are somewhere on that woo spectrum with us, it's hooching with spirits that you can really feel the kind of fey vibe in the ancestor vibe there.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

It's a lovely place to be.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

And we didn't know who'd tell who'd show up. We'd stuck a note on you know our Facebook saying if anybody wants to come and join us for the day, we're gonna do this here. And you know, one of our friends was was doing a bit like a hand fasting for us, but not quite.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And somebody else was doing, we were having a pipe ceremony from Native American traditions. We'd got drumming, it was it was a good fun day. We'd got permission from the site to put up a little gazebo in case it rained. All great. And we turned up on the day, got to the car park, and the car parks, there's two or three car parks in there. And the car parks were all absolutely chocker. And we started to get into a real panic. It was like, oh my god, where are all get all our guests gonna park? Is there an event on it? What's going on? How are we gonna manage that manage this if there are this many people here? Oh my god. And anyway, got out of the car feeling grumpy and stressed and anxious. Sorry guys, I've got a c ticker with my threat. Carry on, carry on. We got out of the car feeling grumpy and stressed and anxious. In all our you know, rainbow clothes, because that's what we said the theme was. Dress dressed for comfort but bright colours only. And then walked into the little clearing area that we'd allocated, and all of those cars were for us. All of those guests, all of those people had turned up to help us celebrate getting married. And it was like, wow. So we'd gone in there, we'd assumed that everything was going to shit because there were so many cars which was gonna ruin our day. And in fact, they'd all shown up for us.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

It's lovely when those things happen, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah. So we've gotta we've gotta turn off that little voice in our head that goes on and on and on about everything being negative and looks for the negatives.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Well, if you're still looking for the positives. The other funny thing that happened that day, right at the end when we were packing up, one of the the groundsmen came over and said, You can't just put a Zebo up here, you know, you can't just do that. And started arguing with us. And one of our guests said, Well, actually, they've got permission. And look, here it is on my phone. Because I'd already sent them. In case anybody got a question, here's the letter. So that was funny as well. Yeah. And because one of our mottos is leave every place more beautiful than you find it, which again comes from the medicine path tradition. There was no mess. We'd cleared everything away. We watched him kind of take a sweep with his litter picker at the ground and pick up an imaginary sweet wrapper or something. But that place was spotless. Yeah.

Subscribe Then A Litter Rant

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Just while we think about it, if you're enjoying this episode so far, you'd probably really enjoy listening to the episode called The Big One in Series One. So go look that up. It's episode 24, I think. Episode 24. And also, please, please, please, if you haven't yet, please find us on whichever podcasting channel you prefer. And please remember to subscribe and listen and share if you can. It really helps us, no end. And if you want to leave us a bit of fan mail via Buzzsprout or on Apple or on our social channels, you can find Awesomely Off Topic on Instagram and on Facebook. Or you can look us up individually on pretty much every social channel out there. Taz Thornton and Asher Clearwater. We always love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

Treat your wood. With respect, please treat everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

It's one of the things we don't do in our kind of Western culture, is it? We don't stop and teach people the the importance of having taking responsibility for that tiny part, a patch of grass or earth or floor that you're standing on at any one time.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Do you know what really annoys me whenever you go near like a fast food outlet or something like that, particularly with drive-throughs and things, you can be there can be a bin in, say, the car park somewhere, and people still just go and throw it out. They've obviously just put it outside the car door and just drove driven up without doing it.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

I saw someone doing that a few weeks back. We were at services, we'd stopped on the way to somewhere to just go and use the facilities. And somebody drove through the through on the way out in the car, drove past the bin, and as they drove past the bin and they weren't aiming at it, they literally threw a box of kebab and chips out of the window. And I went and picked it up in the end until we came in.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

But you think about it, it's not difficult, is it? If you can't be I'm gonna swear now, everybody, if you can't be asked to put it in a bin, then at least turn your car into a bin for the duration of your journey and put it in your bin at home when you get home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Keep a carrier bag in the car or something.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

I often somebody said to me about that, keep a bag on the hooked round the on your back of your seat, and then it reminds you, and then just take it in with you when you get home. We do, because we frequently think it's the footwell. But that's only so that when we get home home.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Footwell's broadcasts frequently look like like water bottle graveyards.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah, but a lot of people would argue you shouldn't have water bottles, you should reuse things though. Let's not go down that route. But yeah, so yes, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

There you go, expecting the worst again.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

I know. Rant over though, because it is seriously, it's not a difficult thing, is it? It really isn't.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

But does that make sense now when I say that although life is sometimes really hard, it's not to take away from that as well. It is also a big cosmic joke. It just is. Think about what happened a few weeks back. I'd been talking to one of my mates in the business world, Brad Burton, who uh lives in the southwest. We live in Lincolnshire, very rarely see each other once in the blue moon. We'd been to an event in Newcastle.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

We'd been to Atomicon in Newcastle, which was brilliant. The next day we arranged to meet one of the delegates for a quick meeting there. And who happens to walk in for a meeting in the same cafe as us in Newcastle where neither of us would normally be, but Brad. I know we had a quick meeting there.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Amazing, wasn't it? It was one of those kind of just moments, you know, pinch me moments where it's.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

A cosmic gesture of life of the universe was just it all just married. You've got to be open to it, gotta be open to the teachings. You know, we all do there's there's a beautiful quote, isn't it? Who's the quote from? I forget who the quote's from, but it's you will do foolish things but do them with enthusiasm. Nice. Like that. So important. At that time you decided it would be fun to come down the children's slide. Got stuck halfway up, and then rather than just shuffling down, decided that you'd climb over the slide halfway up.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

I know, and hurt my knees. I do remember that. That was a bizarre afternoon, wasn't it? Really? Because I had this man trying to give me kind of some healing, as it were, and go and kind of sort of dancing around my knees, going, peace, peace. It's very lovely, it was very sweet of him, it really was very kind. It was, but it just made me laugh because it he got a beautiful accent with it, as well. I won't attempt to coffee or anything, or you know, but it was lovely. It was a lovely moment. It was one of those bizarre moments like my knee's really hurt. Where's my paracetamol? But it was like it was bless him, he was so concerned for me, wasn't it? He just sat with me until I felt a bit better. But yeah, I don't know what happened where I decided to climb off the well, I do actually, it's a repeat of the thing I did when I was about, I think I was about five. I was on a merry-go-round when I was a kid. My dad was looking out for me and I'd got on this merry-go-round, and apparently halfway through, I just decided I wanted to get wanted to get off the merry-go-round. I started climbing off it while it was still going round. Well, I don't quite know what happened. I didn't hurt myself, luckily, but my dad was not very concerned. You know what my dad was like, he was a terrible warrior. So I think that's where I've inherited it from a bit.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

And as I've said so many times before, remember it only takes a tiny change of character to turn a warrior into a warrior.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Or a friend into a fiend. Yes. And vice versa, so all of that.

Business Lessons From A Bad Hand

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Okay, so we're well and truly off topic, Dad.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

We are well and trying to be topic. But to be fair, we were talking about this what do you do when things go wrong? And there are some brilliant business lessons in that, yeah, as well as life. I mean, we might be talking about all things woo in terms of the weekend, but it that is part of our business.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

And, you know, the difference from keeping an open mind and an open heart and going without expectations is huge. If we all adopted that attitude in our businesses, not to the extent where we never get things done, but that instead of getting ourselves stressed and irate and standing in one sp one spot jumping up and down with with annoyance, if instead of doing that when things go wrong, we go, okay, this is an interesting card of set of cards have been dealt then. What am I gonna do here? Yeah. Yeah, treat it like poker. Sometimes you need to bluff a little bit. Yeah. Sometimes you might want to throw the cards in. But sometimes you can actually get a really good win by playing with with what at first appears to look like a really duff hand.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Right now. Yeah. And it's because you think about it, all the energy you expend doing that. I know myself over the years, I was thinking about if I if I could somehow add up my latest things, everything at the moment, I'm seeing in pie charts. Because I made you laugh about that on the way. I didn't know we were in the car today, and I was saying it has everything. I was talking about my little hedgehog I'm feeding at the moment. I'm just like, I'm you know, about her diet and stuff, and I'm like trying to say, Oh, I could see it in a pie chart with all the different colours and stuff. Yeah, but you know, imagine that though. If you look at that pie chart and you've got so much on there from all the times when you've kind of got really frustrated and you've been irate and you've had a good old rant, but the rant's gone on for a bit too long. If we added that up over the course of the months, the years, our lives, I know for one, for me, it would be so much of my life, there would be a big chunk of that.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Yeah, if you got to the end of your life and you're presented with a pie chart, that would be really that would be really cool, wouldn't it? It was divided into miserable git. What you say or just neutral, yeah. How much of your pie chart, if you if you carry on as you are now, how much of your pie chart is going to be stuck in miserable git? Yeah, try and aim for a pie chart at the end of the of life where most of it's happy.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

If you can. Yeah. And you know, remember that even in the most uncomfortable situation, you can still learn from it. It's always a way to learn and grow. Of course, that finished on the the Sunday night, and then we went back to our hotel. Which, of course, was the night of the England match. Now,

Football Stress And Midnight Pacing

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Asher's a much bigger footy nut than me.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

I don't know what she means. But imagine the irony. I've watched videos on TikTok of every England girl from various angles. Yeah. And England saves. So the irony.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Asher goes to sleep. Too tired and it's too stressful to watch it anyway. I duly to switch the put it on on my phone on BBC iPlayer at like 1am, only to realise it's been delayed by an hour. Yeah, so it's now 2am. So then again, wait for 2am. First goal scores, Asher snoring by my side. I lean over and whispering to her ear, like, okay, I am the voice of your subconscious mind. What's that from? What movie? Oh.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

This is the voice of your subconscious mind.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Oh, don't go, go on, it'll come to me a bit dumbo. Oh, of course, of course. Disney. Back to Disney again.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Okay, go on. Adam whispering in her ear, we've just scored. Bellingham's just scored another one straight away. And this carries on. Yeah, but I did go, didn't know. Oh. And then at some point she woke up. And it was.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Was there a delayed reaction though?

unknown 30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Or was it instant?

SPEAKER_01 30:17

You went, oh that's nice. Then just uh just before half time, I think, or just afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Oh, so I didn't do it immediately then. So there was a delayed reaction, there frequently is.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Round about half time you woke up.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

No, I think I woke up before then, because it was before half time. It was only score. No, because they scored just before half time, didn't they? They did. Mexico scored.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

But that's when you woke up. It's when I leaned over and went, I've just got one back.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

I don't think that's true. I think I woke up. I'm pretty sure I woke up and there was a bit of time and then they scored. So I reckon there was a few minutes. Anyway, that happened.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

She eventually woke up.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

That's not like me at all. No. But because she was so convinced that she might change their look, she then wouldn't get back in bed. Can I just say something else as well? I then began to eat that sit no Clementine or something.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

You had an easy peeler and then you refused to move the orange peel off your bedside table.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

I did, because that would change the bin. I didn't do that until the morning, until we just before we went.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

So because you're stuck between standing in the same place or getting back in bed, Asher then paced up and down the room. Those poor people. I'm sorry if you were in if you were below us in the holiday inn, I'm sorry. Place.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

I only did 3,000 steps. It wasn't any. It's not bad, it was quite a small hotel room. But I had a I had a particular route, and then I had to follow the route. So there was certain points. So I'd walk from the bed to the door, then I'd walk back, then I'd do a left into the bathroom, I'd go into the bathroom, round by the shower cubicle, round by the sink, touch the sink, come back out, look in the mirror and go, God, I've put on weight, then go left past the bed to the window.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Instead of how lucky I am that I'm able to eat whenever I want to.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Well, that's exactly it.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

And that's the privilege to be able to put on a bit of weight.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

What a privilege that is. Anyway, and then sometimes every five or six rounds, I'd then look out the window for a minute or so or half a minute. But even 30 seconds felt like 10 hours.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

How long is it? Are we on 84 minutes yet? Are we on eighty something minutes? And then 11 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

And then we got the we got the up 11 minutes of extra time. Extra time was 11. I mean, come on, referee, having a laugh. 11 minutes of extra time. It's really funny because I was I was tuning in, I was watching the radio, I think it was Radio 5 Live. I love their commentaries, their sports commentaries for the England matches. They were brilliant with the lionesses stuff as well. And their commentator did exactly the same thing when he said he said, not 11 minutes, can we all stand it? You know, he said, luckily, there are two ambulances behind Pickford's goal, that's the name of the England goalkeeper. So if I need one, I might be checking myself into the ambulance at the end of it. But yeah, so I did do about 3,000 steps, which doesn't sound a lot, but considering I was in a confined space, I had to get up, it's that changed body change state. I couldn't just lie in bed. And of course, then you went off to sleep at the end of the match. And I'm so hyper because I've not watched the match live, I've relied on you to give me updates. I've then I didn't watch the whole thing, but then I had to watch the highlights and watch all the interviews, and then of course I couldn't sleep. So I was awake for about an hour and a half, two hours after you'd gone to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

We are both stupidly short on sleep this past week.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

I don't think I don't think the listeners will notice at all.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

I don't so if we've been tripping up over our words through this, or maybe it's going a bit more off topic than normal, that's why we've just come back from a really heavy weekend. Yeah. I've been writing until stupid o'clock in the morning because I've gone into a bit of a hyper focus with writing this week as well. Yep. You know, on one of the nights I didn't go to bed until 8:30 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Ridiculous. That is mad, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 33:57

It is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Anyway, so where were we too? Where

The Hat That Would Not Leave

SPEAKER_00 34:00

were we convinced?

SPEAKER_01 34:00

So what else happened? So so talking about big universal jokes, this was another conversation we had, wasn't it? Because back in April, when we ran the last one of these retreats, we'd gone into a garden centre on our way home for a spot of lunch.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

And you've got a thing about hats, haven't you?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

I've never really liked hats. I think I'm quite self-conscious, considering that there's not probably a lot going up going on up there in that brain of mine sometimes. But actually, there's probably too much going on. That's some of the challenges. So I'm not a great fan of hats. Hats are for weddings, and even then, I'm not really comfortable in them. I always think I look a bit silly. So I don't wear them very often. Baseball caps are okay, that's kind of acceptable because I can be a bit tomboyish and I feel quite comfortable like that. And I can wear like something like an England one, for instance. How dare you! Wash your mouth out with soda. Anyway, nothing political about that statement at all, but there you go. What was I gonna say? You throw me off. Yeah, so yeah, I'm fine with a baseball cap, that sort of thing. I'm okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

But to if there was if there was a version for England, it'd spell me aga.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

What did you mean?

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Make England great again.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Anyway. Carry on. Meager, the word me. Mega, that'd be mega.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Omega.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Omega, but that needs an R and an E. I know, but in spelling it. What? You've lost me. This is really taking me. I've anyway, you throw me completely. What we say in Taz, carry on.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

We were talking about hats.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Yeah, so hats. So I've never been a great fan of wearing a hat. I've had them occasionally for weddings, felt a bit silly. But people, oh for goodness sake, but people generally say, Oh, they suit you. And I've also got an unfeasibly large head.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

I take after my mum massive head.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

For a little person, because I'm quite sure, I've got quite a large head. That was the point of saying there's a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

It's the one place where we can't really nick each other's clothes, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Yeah, so for instance, if I try Tuzzy's hats on, it'll be like a pimple what my mum would have said, like a pimple on a pea. So it'll just perch on the top of my head, no chance. If I put one of Ash's hats on, they'll just like spin round. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Anyway, so he had massive hats.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

So yeah, so I'm not huge hat. She's got a bigger brain than me. But the last time we went to this lovely guy, it's quite a nice garden centre. They do nice, quite a good vegan selection, so it's good to go. It's a nice place to wander around. I'm at that age, we're at that age now, where actually I never thought that would happen, but I quite enjoy going around a garden centre. I know he's gone off topic. I know. So I get in there and you saw her hat.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

On the way, I said, um, right, if if the hat's in there from last time, because I took a picture of her in this hat that I spotted for her last time. She still refused to have it, but I took a picture of her in this hat in the garden centre, posted it on social media, and all these people said that was a really lovely hat.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Yeah, but you see, I some people might say I'm quite tight, but I'm just I'm like, do I need a hat? And at the time it was quite it wasn't summer. Now I need a hat because otherwise I'll get sun straight.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

It was April, it was quite sunny.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yeah, but it wasn't like, you know, and I thought, do I actually need a hat? Not really. I'm trying to declutter my house at the moment. Do I really need a hat? No, I don't, and actually, do I enjoy wearing hats? Not particularly.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Anyway, before we turn up, I say, if that hat's there, I'm gonna go and buy you that hat. And guess what? All this time later, all the different hats are there, but there's one of that hat. There was only one in that colour and that style when we went last time, and it was still there.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

How do you know it's exactly the same hat?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Well, it's a bit coincidental, isn't it? That there's one hat. Not necessarily, not when there's only one and what well, either way. Okay, alright. There's one of that. I've been deliberately provocative. Sorry. She says provocative, I spell that D-I-C-K. You're being a dick.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

It's okay, still love you.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

I've just got a really weird visual then, but this is getting very rude now. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

What's that quote from?

SPEAKER_00 37:58

I don't know. Why would I know? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

League of their own.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Is it?

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Yeah, like a penis with a hat on, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

What the The film. The film. Yeah. Ah, okay. I love that film. And I love the series. Why on earth did they not make a second series? I know, I know. Ridiculous. It was fantastic. The chemistry between the two the preposterous. All the characters.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

You are now the proud owner of a hat, which you wore all around the garden sounds around in the garden.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

I did. I did. I wore it at home in the car. Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

And you loved it.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

Yes, I'm getting used to it. Yeah. It's fine. And it also protects my ears because I burnt my ear at the weekend. Which is one where I didn't put the appliance. And also on my shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

One spot with the sun cream mist on her ear, and one with the sun cream. The shoulder. I know. It's it's long. Long, rambling, long weekend.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Yes, okay. So what else,

Improvisation And The Giveway Teaching

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Taz?

SPEAKER_01 38:53

What else? Quick lessons from the weekend.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Some people had to duck out halfway through and came back in, and we just closed the gap and then widened up again for them.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

That happened. What else? What are some of the other things from the weekend? Some people forgot their their bedding and seating, so we just improvised and found some on site and gave them that.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Yeah. Um we have we have a lovely ceremony, don't we, that we do every time.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Called the giveaway, which is beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

And you bring something that means something to you and it's gifted, and we we work with that, but we didn't have we accidentally on purpose made sure there weren't enough gifts to go around this year. Yeah. Everybody got a big teaching about how to make sure that the entire tribe is giving together. Yeah. So no one person making a big gesture of I will give mine because that would have created more imbalance again. So we did that. We played with that. That was that brought that brought out some beautiful teachings, didn't it? It really did. Because everybody went into everything they got and everybody put found something small to make up the three gifts.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Yeah, and actually what happened was those three that had a gift had a gift made of all the different they had all these amazing, beautiful objects and things and lovely gifts, didn't they? Yeah. A real collection of things. Yeah, it was really good. It worked really well. We've never done that before, and it it just did work really well. So yeah, that was good. What else? What else?

SPEAKER_01 40:13

I'm trying to think. There's not a lot else, really. We've probably covered it all in terms of business lessons. I mean, we spent a chunk of the weekend telling very bad dad jokes over over the lunchtime. But other than that, the best one, well the one that made people laugh the most, was I was walking past this monastery the other day, and as I walked past the window, I saw this this guy in there, and he was chopping up potatoes into little thin strips ready for cooking them. And I said, Are you the friar? And he said, No, I'm the chipmunk.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Oh goodness, we could have just lost, you know, like any listeners we had, they've just gone now.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

This episode is so random, we could have done anyway. Very, very random, incredibly random. With everything that we've experienced over the over the past three days, with the the weekend and with with your your amazing hat incident. Incident? Yeah, the amazing this your your one hat still being there.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Yeah. If it was the hat or a look-alike.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Either way, there was only one hat in that style. Look-alike, it's an imposter. Biggest lessons for life and business through everything that you've we've we've explored.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

It

Ask What’s Needed Create Safety

SPEAKER_00 41:28

comes back to every time, usually when I'm I have to remind myself how much better I've got with managing my state. Not all the time, but more often now, is the change body change state. Because when I was I was ready to blow, because obviously I could see the impact that could possibly have on our guests, our clients, people that were in the circle with us, and I didn't want that happening because I wanted everybody to have a fantastic experience, and that's always obviously key to what you know, to why we do everything. I want everybody to feel safe, comfortable, happy, and feel relaxed. And I didn't want anything to jeopardise that. So the fact that I was able to say, right, okay, Ashley, you can't at the moment you've done what you can do, you've made the comments that you need to make in order to possibly change things for the future. You now need to just go out and just let the steam come off a bit and before you come back in, so that you're not you're not gonna create more drama.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

Because that's the last thing you want. So that was a good that was a good lesson for me. That's just one though. There's been loads this weekend, I think, and also just relaxing into it, you know, with the some of the work that I had I was doing on Saturday and Sunday that wasn't expected. And I thought, do I need to go away and think about this and look through my notes and or or do that? And it wasn't about that, it was about working with trust that you actually know enough to just. Yes, and that's what I did. And my interpretation might have been slightly different to somebody else doing that, but that doesn't make it less than or better than. It just is, and it was what was needed, and the feedback I got was lovely. So they're fantastic lessons for me. What about you?

SPEAKER_01 43:12

I think one of the biggest realisations or reminders I've had over this past weekend is the importance twofold. Number one, the importance of knowing what it is you really want or need and being able to ask for it, and number two, uh the ability to wait and find out what somebody really needs and ask if ask if they haven't told you, and then be able to provide it. So, you know, we spoke earlier about someone who uh I sat with before we even started who'd turned up in a really emotional fragile state and all they needed was to just be held where they cried it out. You know, and the all the people around them that were close to them didn't seem to have the ability to do that. So just having that space where they could just just talk, just let it all out and just cry was really, really important. And also one of our delegates at at one point in the weekend said they felt really lonely. And so we just went and sat with them, and everybody else in the in the group who who heard cued up to come and give them hugs. So it doesn't always need some massive huge intervention, it just needs for someone to feel heard and sometimes held. And it doesn't take much to ask people, what does it you need right now? Don't just jump in. What is it you need? Do you need me to be your friend? Do you need me to be your coach? Do you need me to be your your manager? Do you need me to be your mother? What do you need? Do you need me to sit and argue with you? Do you need to just spill and be held? Do you just need a safe space or do you want advice? Because that's one of the other biggest mistakes we can always make is by immediately trying to fix. When sometimes the fix, as it were, is just giving somebody the space to shift their energy to expel and just to talk it all out without somebody interjecting and coming up with ideas. Creating a safe space. It's not difficult to do, we just need to learn to ask the right questions and listen.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

Lovely. So altogether, lots of lessons for both of us, lots of teachings, yeah, and lots of really positive experiences, hopefully for all those that were with us over the weekend and as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

So

Tired Happy And Goodbye

SPEAKER_01 45:36

this one's tired, happy.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Tired, happy, happy, knackered. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

I think this has been a bit of a weird episode. We just said instead of planning this time, let's just talk about some of the things that happened and just ramble. I hope our rambling has been useful for you. And until next time, we will see you next Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

You've been listening to Autumn Me Off Topic. Make sure you're following so you don't miss the next one. And if you'd like more, come and find Autumn Me Off Topic on social media, or find behind the scenes footage, Blackfoot, and more. See you next time.