Into butterflies

We've have just come to the end of a landmark week in a landmark month

We are working with four schools (two new) with our foundation programme in the same week.

· Paddington Academy
· Walworth Academy
· Oasis Shirely Park
· Pimlico Academy

That means potentially 80 new students coming into stage two, which means we can push all that talent into our business talent pool to develop later down the line.

The targets for the remaining quarter are pretty steep (2 new schools, 3 new businesses), but I have every confidence we’ll get there, as the results we’ve generated to this point have been extraordinary. Including:

We’ve worked with over 600 students now, and have delivered over 40 different programmes, we've delivered over 1000 participation experiences and we’ve worked in 6 cities (in the UK) so far. So although the targets are steep, we know we can achieve them and what is more, they always have been and always will be.

I’m privileged in the job I have, (the job I created) I get to make an extraordinary difference to young lives, in partnership with some of the coolest people in the corporate world – how fantastic is that!

I have the most inspiring conversations and have the honour to be present to the most horrendous and challenging life stories, and yet these extraordinary young people still believe in themselves (enough) and in the possibility (of themselves) that one day their lives will work out.

The desire to run away or to shut down must be so tempting and yet ...and yet they still get up and set themselves against the storms of adversity to live the lives they want and not the ones they might get.

Investec won the Heart of the City – well done Alison Gardner and Investec! We’re so proud of being a partner to their CSR work, it’s strange but after a while, the Investec staff that support us do feel like friends.

I also had a moment with the Queen this week, whom I bumped into coming out of Lancaster House where the PM and Ed Balls were celebrating the Global Talent Fellowship programme

Ground zero

From nowhere really the words fell from my mouth…“I guess, all of this hides the fact that I don’t really have any confidence or belief in me”.

And as I continued that line of thinking, I realised that everything I did was in response to the belief that - I am unworthy, not good enough, lacking, not of value (valueless), useless, not a good person, unwanted, and unneeded.

There were no feelings or emotions when I said it, just a sense of release. The reason I can say such things without pretence or drama or up set, is that I’ve realised the same is true for you too. ‘Me! I’m different from you, I’m OK” You shout! Whatever I say to you.

In fact, I’ve never met a person, who in the darkness or as they quietly stare into the mirror at themselves don’t feel a sense of wanting to make something OK or different.

As I saw myself in this endless drama, like an eel nailed by its tail to the floor, I’m doing the following:

• Hiding the fact that I’m not good enough
• Trying to fool you or myself that I’m not good enough
• Pretending I’m OK or better
• Avoiding that I’m not OK
• Wanting something different or more
• Trying to prove something to someone that I’m OK
• Searching for some answer that somehow will resolve this underlying discomfort
• Keeping busy producing results so the world will see I’m OK
• Filling my life with things, noise, people so I don’t have to be with I’m worthless
• Trying to control everything, so you can’t see how fearful I am

I was reflecting on a couple of things that proved to me, that wherever you come from the underlying pathology seems the same.

The banks are handing out bonuses again, while the economy continues to shrink, we are seemingly lurching ever more to a have-and-have-not culture. Yet, I don’t believe I have ever met a happy banker, so I know money isn’t it.

The divorce rate in the city is very high, and they seem to love packing their kids off at a shockingly early age into the hands of strangers.

My fathers practice is full of very successful men who feel profoundly empty, in spite of the material success. Who strive their lives over to somehow prove to their distant and absent dad’s that they were good enough, were OK, worthy of daddy’s love.

At the other end of the spectrum, I talked to a woman who owned a charity - she was fixing something, not just a social issues, but more importantly/ profoundly was clearly fixing something in herself.

The thing is we’re all a little f**ked up, and if you don’t think YOU are, then chances are you are REALLY f**ked up.

Take a breath

Arriving at ground zero, to own that you don’t think your good enough is essential, that you have to come to accept it, without the need to change, or fix or mend you.

Then you might and I might too just get on with life, without being in response to something, something you and I are not. In the meantime, time is ticking, and not long from now, you’ll be on your bed (or if your lucky someone else’s) and life will leave you and at that moment you’ll have to reflect on your life…we’re you really free, were you really happy? Or did you spend your life trying to make something happen to fix something?

From grass roots to possible oak trees

Its growth time with the business. In fact, most of our focus is on finding talent currently to meet our delivery requirements.

We’ve had the most awesome, busy yes, but amazing summer. It’s almost been entirely all good news.

We’ve continued to sign up schools and the renewals have been very strong. We welcome to the gang – Oasis, Pimlico, Alexandra Park School, along with Walworth and Paddington starting again with a new crop of S4L students this term, we’ve also delivered in Bristol BEC with a programme called ‘I’m Alright, You’re Alright’ designed to engage with behavioural issues and acts as a rite-of-passage and leadership experience.

The feedback from the senior management team was excellent.

We have also thrown our hat into the ring with the iDiscover programme funded by NESTA that will work with schools in London and Manchester over the next 18 months.

It’s a great opportunity to re work our material, and create some more services.

With the Green Talent Fellowship programme getting a mention by the Prime Minister in his address at the Labour Party conference, we are now looking to expand the programme to 10,000 green talent work related experiences in partnership with the Eden Project and the Mayday Network (Prince Charles).

“And I can also announce we will work with the Eden Project and Mayday Network to create the biggest group of green work placements we have ever done – 10,000 green job placements so that our young people can make the most of the opportunities the low carbon economy will open up to them.” Gordon Brown

Lastly, we’ve been approached by a leading publisher to create a draft of a book, based on the work we’ve been doing, along the lines of - ‘making a difference and making money’.

We will move offices to match our expansion plans this side of Christmas. Can you get better than that?

Just one of those things

I was walking back through my local community here in North West London after working out in the gym.

I like to box, so I keep myself in shape between going to the boxing club on harrow road (All stars) by doing a little weights and shadow-boxing at the gym.

On the way home, I see a man staggering up the road; he’s a heavy boned man, rangey, yet clearly powerful if not well poised, of West Indian heritage, struggling to make a straight line. He’s lumbering, and swaying like boat with masts in the breeze.

I’m still loosening up a little after a hard workout. I see a bunch of boys up front on the curb, near corner end so I quieten myself down a little, as not to draw attention to myself. There’s a couple of gangs in my community and plenty of drugs and street crime, so at night, it’s best sometime to pull your horns in and look at the floor.

There’s six of then or so, and I don’t want to cross the street, so I snap to and walk tall, but then from behind me this big voice calls out – ‘Yo there, my man, what you do in’. I reply ‘nothing much’ he comes up and walks alongside me, swaying some, and I can smell sour mash on in breath. ‘You want to put your jumper on as its cold out’. ‘You’re right,’ says I. ‘I’ve been working out and I wanted to cool down’. ‘You’ll catch a cold’ says he. ‘True’. Says I. ‘I’ve been drinking since yesterday morning. I’m married with four kids.’ he proudly bowls out, chin in the air, real proud like. ‘I’m 46’. I says 'jeez, that’s good going, I couldn’t drink hard like that anymore.’ I put my arm over his shoulder and he over mine, I reckon he’s an inch taller than me and he stoops too. We catch each others gaze.

The boy (21 perhaps, 22. 6 foot, mixed heritage), in the gang calls out to me, ‘show me your karate moves. Show me your karate kicks or sumthin’. Without being asked the lumbering giant of a man, says ‘yo slow up, we need to get some money out of these boys. Give me some money’ he says to the loud one. ‘You and me, we’re big enough to take all these boys.’ The loud one squares up and looks up, peacock-like to the man and says with utter confidence ‘I’m a big man too’. ‘I want some money’ he says back at the kid, jabbing his bent finger in the general direction of the young mans chest. His phone goes off and he turns to answer it. Perhaps it’s his wife. I hope so. I want nothing to do with robbing these young men, who I sense, are somewhat concerned by the notion of the big man asking for money. The tables were turned there.

The kid, changing tack, says back to me ‘show me some karate moves’. ‘OK.’ I respond, ‘I’ll teach you some moves, and perhaps you’ll learning something tonight’. ‘Not on me though, against the tree here.’ he points at the tree. ‘Or in the air’. I step closer to him, putting away my iplayer. ‘No, I’ll show you, I’ll teach you.’ He doesn’t like the idea and says if I hurt him he’ll have to kill me.

Where’s the trust I ask myself. I touch my chest with assurances that I won’t hurt him. He finally expresses interest.

He's wearing purple leather womens gloves. I look at them. I show him a move and drop him to the ground, he gets up quick, spinning to his friends, ‘bruver, did you see that, damn that hurt though’ he’s very excited. I ask why they’re ‘on road’, they all shrug. I say my name is 'Daniel', (that sounds strange to me - my own name! Like I should be called Tarik, or Dylan') I say it, with the hope that next time I meet these young men, I’ll be able to expand the conversation. They’ve turned away, I’ve turned away. I walk home. I’m hungry.

These young men in their twenties should not be loitering. You could see the intelligence in their eyes, they’re bored, is what’s all.

May be I’ll try to make friends with them. I didn’t catch their names. I hope the big man went on his way.

The dark side

I was up late last night reflecting on a quote a new friend shared with me by Umberto Eco:

“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth”

Our meaning making is a mirror of our internal belief. We see what we want to see. Nothing more.

My father once said that very few truly engage with their dark sides, occasionally we venture to the edge of the abyss and take a peek. It can occur as though we might lose our minds or worse, so vile, and fearful our dark unconscious.

So we play games to avoid its vortex. Pretending to ourselves and to others how nice we are, how kind and morally righteous. Sometime we even fool ourselves into believing that we are balanced, that we know who we are, that we are ‘good’.

Nonsense

None of us can even begin to guess at the depravity and dark depth of our minds. What we'd do to others given certain circumstances. How quick our minds imagine thunderous thoughts when we are offended or with anger or rage.

A cursory glance toward conflicts, have shown it takes little to bring out the psychopath in us.

A Croatian fellow I knew praised the character of a local postman, who had been quiet of nature in gentler times, turned out to be quite a soldier - A hero for difficult dark times or perhaps a psycho in normal?

We don’t have to travel to war zones to see depravity; the papers are full of child killers.

Is it we that create these dark underworlds or others that shape them? Perhaps experiences in childhood lived out in adult years? What does a child mind make of what it sees?

The more people talk about how nice they are, the pinker and fluffier they are, the more they terrify me. It points to a profoundly hidden and denied dark side.

It isn’t till we have the courage to engage with our dark side that we engage with our light and visa versa.

For however terrifying and fearful our dreams and dark side may be, to deny it, to hide it is to cripple and corrupt it. The more hidden and unconscious the more horrific in may manifest itself. Then we may turn into…