Countryphile

As many of you know, I dashed off to the New Forest for summer camp after last weeks singing appearance at the Social Recruiting Conference. This camp is organised by a couple of friends for around 250 friends and family. It’s an amazing, friendly, wonderful event. The only fly in the ointment is that I get asked to kick off the entertainment on the Friday night. I’ve previously found this a hugely nerve racking, almost vomit inducing fright. And as a result my nerves have affected my performances. This time – it was going to be different. I decided that if people were going to watch me I owed it to them and me to have a good time. I’d also met up with Natasha Stallard earlier in the week and she’d spoken enthusiastically to me about challenging emotions more productively. So I gave it a go.

I think I did much better this year (and before you say it yep – there is still loads of room for improvement, and I’m motivated by that) and there are a few short video clips on this post for you to look at and listen to if you like. Oh – and the picture at the top of the post is me and two good buddies in a short play called The Dukes of Has-Beens, in case y’all are interested.

I plan to use this fantastic experience to think more carefully about how we integrate a sense of community into other places too. A great example of community crossing into the workplace for me is ConnectingHR. If you have any examples of workplaces behaving like a community I’d be pleased to hear from you.

Being a part of a community is the best!

In the zone

I met Natasha earlier this week. We’ve exchanged many tweets and I was excited about this opportunity to meet in real life. We had a flowing conversation and the time passed all too quickly, as it does when you’re in the flow. Natasha is a great listener. That’s a nice way of me saying I think I talked a bit too much.

One of the things I spoke about was nerves. I often get nervous when performing (in every sense of the word), particularly at the start of something. When I say nervous I mean sick to the bottom of my stomach locked up tight can barely talk or walk cold sweat fear of God. That kind of nervous. This is a shame because I enjoy what I do very much and I know if I could channel these nerves more effectively I could enjoy myself even more and give something much better to people.

Natasha suggested I try a slight shift in my thinking. Could I maybe convert nervous into excited? I’ll try anything and this sounds like a good idea thanks very much Natasha, let’s see when I can apply it.

Tomorrow I’ll be joining up with some of the biggest and best names in and around the world of social recruitment. I’ll be meeting some familiar faces and some new ones too. I’m confident that I will learn useful stuff and have a really good time, and make a useful contribution to the day. I’m nervous about excited by the possibilities.

On Friday evening I’ll be in the New Forest standing on stage performing to a group of friends and acquaintances. It’s our annual summer camp and therefore my annual big night out. I’ve been doing this for several years now and the organisers are always kind enough to invite me back. It’s high time I repaid myself and the audience for their faith in me. I am nervous about excited by the possibilities.

How will I get on? I am excited about checking in with you again next week to let you know.