Author: Rachel Crowther

Fear Hack – Feb 2019Street Wisdom is particularly powerful when the question being asked of the streets is crystal clear: the clearer the question, the clearer the answers. We encourage people to say their question out loud and make it super simple, taking away any jargon.  A group with a collective, clear focus – where the individual experiences are brought together – can be even more powerful.

Last October, Hilary Gallo, author of Fear Hack, was a guest speaker on one of our Members Club huddles. A fascinating discussion on fear led to us collaborating on a special Street Wisdom event to explore our fears and importantly how we can hack those fears. Fast forward a few months to an ice-cold Tuesday afternoon in Kingly Court where a group of strangers were writing down their fears on post-it notes before adding it to the ‘Fear Wall’ (pic below). There were lots of common themes on the wall: failure, inferiority, rejection, loneliness. All of which, Hilary explained, were in our heads – there was no real evidence for any of these fears. Fear is totally normal and the only way we can grow is to step out of our comfort zones, something all of us were doing with this exercise… 

There was something quite liberating about opening up about fears in a group who’d just met and in realising that everyone present had similar, albeit restricting, beliefs.  As Hilary said, our heads can be a ‘dangerous neighbourhood’ to spend time.

The quest was all about learning how we can embrace these fears – rather than avoiding them – knowing we can grow by learning from our fears and working with them. Starting the session with this Fear Wall exercise was fascinating and really gave the group laser focus.

People came back from their quests with clear steps on how they can hack their fears. Taking the time to think about their fear was hugely valuable: where it stems from, how it’s holding them back and why they need to move forward. There were some real breakthroughs. One of the group described the experience as ‘turning fear on its head and making it beautiful’.

At the end of the session, my group had an interesting chat on how much we’d shared with one another. Some of us speaking openly about fears we’d not said out loud before. I think we were all in agreement that it was an exercise well worth stepping out of our comfort zones for.

We have put together Facilitators Instructions for leading a Fear Hack Street Wisdom event, which you can find here. Get in touch if you’d like to run your own event on [email protected] 

Thank you to Hilary Gallo for leading, Nikita Mikhailov for making it happen and Justine Clement and Nick Hammond for facilitating. 

Street Wisdom is a social enterprise with a mission to bring inspiration to every street on earth. It’s a form of ‘walking-based problem solving’ – ask a question, walk the streets, unlock fresh thinking and see what answers present themselves.

Personally, I found the exercise surprisingly effective. I analyse processes and plans for a living – I am always thinking things through. But I don’t consider my own navel very often and the question I chose to explore – “Why am I procrastinating on this spreadsheet?” is not a question I would ask often or have been comfortable trying to answer. The first thing I noticed was that by slowing down and giving my self time to actually look at what was around me – without a particular agenda or priority – I was a lot more observant.

I like to look, to consider things, but I am busy – there are always things I should be doing and considering the quality of the brickwork isn’t on the agenda. The fact that I notice a variation is something I would normally congratulate myself on, but giving myself licence to spend ten minutes just looking at the street, knowing I couldn’t see everything and that I didn’t need to, was extremely relaxing.

Fate encouraged me: I found five pence! A cynic might complain that fate pays less than the minimum wage but I chose to see it as a good omen. It would be churlish to criticise. There were a couple of other “warm-up exercises”. We were asked to look for patterns – and Borough is full of them – from the simple geometrical precision of drain covers to the more complex natural patterns in pine cones or bird feathers. Spatial patterns created by street bollards and undulations in a flint faced wall. Temporal patterns overlay all of them with parents taking school children back and forth across the same cracked paving slabs, or delivery and cellarmen on daily pilgrimage, waitresses laying tables. There were easy wins here which subconsciously built confidence.
We were asked to look for beauty and in a food market surrounded by dead things – for all that I like the place – beauty, I was quickly reminded, is an abstract and entirely subjective thing. Thus prepared and perhaps sensitised to our surroundings and our own internal thoughts, we were asked to spend an hour loosely aware of our “question”. Something not too big and not too small, and which we needed fresh inspiration to try and answer. The idea is that we explore the question while being aware of our surroundings as we wandered and to “ask the streets for their wisdom”.

I spent the first 20 minutes trying to refine my question, but I was never short of inspiration to help seed ideas. Borough Market is full of people who have chosen to do the work they do. Yet for all this, few looked happy to be where they were. I was surrounded by people who looked bored, the few exceptions were tourists, but even they often looked perplexed rather than at peace with their leisure. I returned to the idea that a job is easier to complete if you have a purpose in doing it, so I asked “what is my purpose in doing this job?” And having wandered to the edge of the market I looked up from my narrow alleyway and saw the majesty that is Southwark Cathedral. Clearly, if that was my answer, I was asking too big a question! I turned and headed back to the Market. It occurred to me that just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the attitude to what we do – how we perceive the task in hand – is also entirely within our own control.

Whether we have to do something or want to do something makes a profound difference to our motivation.

I had to pass under one of the less salubrious arches while a train screeched overhead. The ground was covered in bird droppings and the path was crowded with refuse bins. Beyond were the brighter lights of the market stalls. I thought about the tasks I had been carefully ignoring at work and while I still wasn’t sure why I hadn’t finished them – I could see that if I wanted to move on to better things, I would just have to get through the less pleasant bits and get it done. If the market streets were imparting wisdom it was to remind me that making myself do it and deciding how I felt about it, were entirely within my control and as an immediate priority, that was all I needed to know.

Afterwards, we regrouped and had the opportunity to share our thoughts and observations. One woman explained that her question was about how to help her son who had recently dropped out of school, because of anxiety attacks. She had been braver than I and had directly approached a group of boys about his age. She had explained a little of what she was doing and she asked them how they coped with fear. The group had been helpful and informative. One explained that he too had been out of school for two years and offered her both the name of the project which had helped him return to mainstream education and contact details for the psychiatrist who had supported him.

Clearly, when seeking answers it’s not just about defining the question – it’s also, fundamentally, about having the courage to ask.

by Aidan Cuffe

This excerpt is from Wanderful: Sat Nav for the Soul, a book based on the inspiration behind global social movement Street Wisdom by founder and author David Pearl. It is a guidebook for people out there who are looking for answers. In life. In work. In everything. And beyond. The book shows us that answers to our questions are right in front of our eyes. We walk past them every day.

In this excerpt, David goes for a wander with Psychologies Magazine editor Suzy Walker, one of the many fascinating strangers we bump into over the course of the book.

We are currently crowdfunding to make the book happen. There are pledges up for grabs starting from £10 and include bespoke Street Wisdom sessions for your team and one-on-one walking coaching sessions with David. All profits from the book go to helping Street Wisdom’s mission of bringing inspiration to every street on the planet. Find out more and show your support here.

How would you like an extra 6 weeks holiday from work a year? Sounds appealing. That’s how much time you’re missing out on by not taking a lunch break and according to Bupa, a staggering 70% of us aren’t taking one.

We often fall into the trap of working over a lunch break to get as much done as possible becuase taking an hour off when there’s a looming deadline would be crazy. However, working well doesn’t mean working consistently and taking that precious time off means you return feeling refreshed with renewed concentration. Some of the long-term benefits of taking a break:

Stay active: We spend an unhealthy amount of time sitting at our desks and long periods of sitting can lead to long-term health risks. This study shows taking lunch breaks led workers to experience less somatic symptoms, including headaches, eyestrain and lower back pain.

Brain power: When working through your lunch break, your brain doesn’t get the chance to recuperate and so you plough on through the afternoon with slightly foggy thinking. Getting outside and focusing on something other than the task in hand can really help refresh your perspective. This study shows the declining performance of a group that didn’t take a break whereas those who did step away remained focused during the entire experiment.

Raring to go: Research by the University of Bristol saw a 41% increase in motivation by those who were active on their lunch break, a perfect way to avoid that mid-afternoon tiredness. So don’t feel guilty about taking time away from the office, you’ll likely be more productive if you do.

Change in perspective: Stepping away for a break offers a new perspective on the challenges faced in the workplace. The timeout often enables you to shake off some of the stress, think about things outside of work and come back with a more positive outlook.

It’s easy to talk about the benefits of reclaiming your lunch break but how can you put this into practice and make the most of the hour?

Street Wisdom offers a practical application of mindfulness, the process enables you to step back, slow down and find a new perspective. It’s about noticing the extraordinary in the ordinary in every opportunity and in the busy world we live in, those opportunities can be few and far between. That’s why Street Wisdom is a perfect lunch break activity. 

Got 15 mins? Leave your phone in the office, get outside and go for a wander with this very simple instruction in your mind: Notice the patterns.

Got an hour? Download our free audio guide narrated by Street Wisdom founder David Pearl. Get outside, plug into the Wanderguide and enjoy!

We’d love to hear how you get on, let us know in the comments below.

Street Wisdom is a social enterprise helping people find inspiration in everyday places with volunteer-led events in 40 countries.  Find a free Walkshop near you.

Street Wisdom founder David Pearl took to the streets of Fitzrovia for a special event in partnership with our friends A Plastic Planet to run a session for design consultancy Made Thought. The focus of the session was to think about how we can all turn off the plastic tap. What better place to think about such an important question than out on the streets surrounded by busy-ness in the unmistakable tempo of Central London?

At the heart of Street Wisdom is finding inspiration in our everyday lives, we don’t have to escape to a beautiful island to find fresh thinking – we seek to find the beauty in our everyday environment. Plastic is unavoidably noticeable when we pay attention to our surroundings and it’s desperately clear that we need to change our consumption of plastic. Not just picking it up or recycling but changing habits. That’s why we’ve partnered with the brilliant social movement, A Plastic Planet.  Their over-riding goal is igniting and inspiring the world to turn off the plastic tap. We just need to use less of it, all of us

We knew something powerful would happen in combining the creative minds of A Plastic Planet and the team at Made Thought, with the answers the streets have to offer. After all, answers are

out there, we just need to pay attention…

Step 1: David guided the group through Tune-Up exercises to help them slow down, connect with the environment and start to notice (inspiration, people, things around them).
Step 2: This created a more receptive mindset for the second part of the process – finding fresh perspective on the changes they could individually make to turn off the plastic tap.
Step 3: The Walkshop finished by sharing the experience, their ideas and inspiration. Bringing their individual ideas, collaborating with others’ learning and putting that into practical steps to take forward and make a change. It was a powerful process.

“I thought it was brilliant. It taught me that I can get so much more out of my environment and life if I acknowledge and set my own pace!”
 
“Interesting and insightful – really enjoyed the chance to see a familiar area in a new way and to be given ways to be conscious of my own thought processes.”
 
“A rare chance and opportunity to do something completely refreshing and unique. I found so many ironies in the whole experience but most of all how easy it is to find answers to questions amongst places and things you walk past every day.”

For more information on A Plastic Planet, watch the below video and visit their website: https://aplasticplanet.com/

On a balmy evening in May I joined seven strangers for a Street Wisdom walk in Dublin. Steve Blank famously said “there are no facts inside the building so get the hell outside”. While he was referring to customer discovery, sometimes when you’re feeling stuck the only thing to do is get out of the office. In fact, more and more research shows the importance of getting outside in generating creativity, reducing depression and even improving short term memory. Understanding this on an intellectual level is one thing, putting it into regular practice is another, especially if you work from home. …