Simon Sinek goes through the successful example of the Wright Brothers who, he argues, succeeded because they believed in the power of flight to change the world and thus inspired and attracted people working for them to give their blood, sweat and tears to the cause.

This opposed to Simon’s example of a guy named Langley who was the Wrights’ competitor, who had all the money and media backing any inventor could want, but who was doing it for the money and prestige and therefore had only people working for the paycheck for him.

Here’s the video if you’d like to see it:

So I ended the talk by asking Malcolm: “What do you think the ‘Why’ is behind Touchwood?” The ‘What’ is all the pilot projects and Power Off Weekends that we’re doing, but what is the reason behind our dedicating almost two years to it unpaid?

Well here’s why:

We believe we can do something bold about the environment, that we can take action right now, and that it should be fun.

Pretty simple, really.

It doesn’t sound to me like the kind of manifesto that would inspire millions off their chairs, but then again, who needs millions? I’ll start with the amazing people who have come our way already like Jess and Julie who helped us build a chicken pen, a compost bin, and plant our first garden. Or Victoria, who is leading the Upcycling Your Clothing pilot project this month (really, really need to write a post about these projects but have been so busy actually doing them to write about it). Or Kelly and Laura, who have inspired and led people to join the Power Off Weekend and fended off miserable people on the Guardian.

These people have been amazing and we all seem to share this same core belief that each of us can do something to help the planet and to help our own lives, and that it’s fun to do so.

So what do you believe?

I love how this woman, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, is so clearly being herself.  She’s not shy about saying not only what she really thinks, but much more impressively and rarely, what she truly feels. That raw honesty and sincerity earned my respect and appreciation.

Hope you enjoy it too.

That’s why today I want to have a little creative fun while looking at the 4 categories of strengths in StrengthsFinder and how to use your type of strength to help you be an effective leader and be part of a successful team.

StrengthsFinder for volunteer groups and families

Understanding your strengths is relevant not just for your working life whatever its shape, but for volunteer activities, organisations and even relationships.

My family did Strengthsfinder and it’s helped me understand and appreciate them and how we function together. It’s one of the core ways Malcolm and I run Touchwood, so I’ll continue to write about it for others out there looking to take more of a strengths-based approach to life.

I’m assuming you’re already familiar with the basics of StrengthsFinder, which is a tool that helps you identify your top 5 strengths from a list of 34. Now it’s about developing your strengths further and learning how to play your totally unique role as well as look for others to complement you.

How to be a great leader or part of a great team

To be an effective leader or part of a team, you need to 1) focus on your area of greatest ability then 2) build a team with complementary, very different strengths to yours.

Let’s start with you first.

The 4 types of strengths

Chances are, your strengths will fall into one of these categories: (These are my colourful intrepretations of the 4 types, complete with little icons and colour coding. I love designing this kind of stuff.)

OK, go find your strengths report and look up your strengths again if you’ve forgotten them. Ready? Now, let’s start with the first set: Strategic Thinking.

Strategic Thinking strengths

So far, I think everyone I’ve ever had take StrengthsFinder — which is about 35 people — has had at least one strength in Strategic Thinking. I love thinkers because you know, like attracts like and all that.

I mean, if you’re not into pontificating, analysing, discussing, then chances are you haven’t bothered to read this post. Because you find something as abstract as personal development boring and pointless.

Strategic Thinker: Does this sound like you?

A strategic thinker tends to love to read or discuss things, to learn.

They observe the past to learn its lessons, or live in the future. They assess something and find what’s wrong with it and then can come up with 50 ways to fix it.

They can also be accused of not getting things done, living with their head in the clouds, being procrastinators. Malcolm and I were both Class A procrastinators growing up — schoolwork wasn’t worth doing until the last minute.

Strategic Thinkers help the team make better decisions by analyzing information and thinking about what could be.

All five of my strengths are Strategic Thinking, which worried me at first, but I’ll get to why being so one-sided can also be a very good thing later.

On to the Persuaders, the Talkers: Influencers.

Influencing strengths

Obama is the guy I think of when I think of Influencers. Someone who likes people, working with them, speaking to them.

President Obama - a master Influencer

Influencers: Does this sound like you?

President Obama knows how to persuade people, to woo them and inspire them. The strength “Woo” cracks me up just for the name, but I knew someone with this strength and she was a master at getting people to do things. She just charmed them into it. She was very self-deprecating, so you don’t have to be flashy, you just have to enjoy being around people.

Influencers help you and your team reach a broader audience.

Since Malcolm and I are both Strategic Thinkers, we’re starting to look for an Influencer or two to help us better communicate what Touchwood is about. Someone who can help us distill our million ideas that make perfect sense to us and likely no one else, and tell a story that’s compelling and easy to understand. That’s what many Influencers can do, easily.

Relationship Building strengths

My Nana is a Relationship Builder. Her strengths are: Adaptability, Connectedness, Relator — all Relationship building strengths — plus Intellection (loves to discuss) and Responsibility (takes responsibility for what they say and do, as well as for other people).

Relationship Builders are the “glue that binds the team together,” as Strengths-based Leadership puts it.

Boy is that true! Nana is the matriarch of the DuBois clan, holding us all together through to 2nd and 3rd cousins all over the place.

Nana holding us all together in L.A.

She checks in with us all, keeping us up to date with what everyone else is doing. Because of her efforts, we DuBoises have a strong sense of family identity, despite the fact we all live very far away from each other and can only visit maybe once a year. Hard for me to say how much that sense of connection means to me and I know I have her in part to thank.

Executing strengths

Executers get things done.

For some mysterious reason, Executing types (Executioners?) rarely like taking StrengthsFinder. Or maybe I just don’t meet them. These strengths have only come up a handful of times so I know them the least. I also respect them enormously.

Executers: Does this sound like you?

One of our former Directors, Jenni, had Discipline as a strength. She loved To Do lists. Made them all the time, and then faithfully crossed items off the list as she completed them. We ribbed her about it but we also let her know how in awe we were of such organisational ability.

Executers are a definite essential to a project’s completion.

Executing strengths are like the complementary opposite to Strategic Thinkers. We ponder, they do. Incidentally, you might think doing is better, but I’ve seen plenty of botched jobs done by the Executer person who was so impatient to finish something they didn’t take enough time to think through the process. So we need each other.

Next time

More on developing your leadership style within your category of greatest strength.

A key point: the best leaders don’t try to be anybody else but exactly who they are. So stop thinking you need to be like Gandhi or Obama or Churchill to be a leader — you are one, you may just not know it. Yet.

What are your strengths?

Please post your strengths if you’ve taken the test and want to discuss them further. I find this stuff utterly fascinating and like nothing better than to hear about what people find easy to do and love doing.

For more info, check out Strengths-Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams and Why People Follow, which is what this article is based on, as well as the other articles about strengths and StrengthsFinder. Also check out Sam Radford’s Awaken blog where he’s been profiling different strengths.

Till next time.

Malcolm and I are sitting in the conservatory waiting for the sun to dip below the clouds and treat us to a rare sunset over the water. For the past several months, the sun had hidden behind the peaks of our neighbouring island, Hoy, and only for the next few weeks would it set right on the horizon before wending its way north to hide again, this time behind the slope of Stromness.

Dispelling a fuddy duddy image

I took the moment to explain to Malcolm my conundrum: how do I write about how fantastically fun spinning can be, how surprising and imaginative and even countercultural, when most people find it boring?

Hence Malcolm’s comment about little old ladies. Commiserating.

I cast about for a way to describe the kind of spinning I’m doing and what I’ve encountered in the research I’ve been doing on the subject and voila! Punk spinning was born.

I couldn’t find a photo to illustrate this idea, so played around in Photoshop to design this little logo. I should screen print a bag with this on it to hold my spinning stuff (feel free to grab the logo and use as you wish).

Punk spinning is about sheer joy

Punk spinning is about spinning for the sheer joy of it.

Punk spinning breaks the rules, grabs crazy things like nettles, or fabric scraps or copper wire and gleefully spins that. Pluckyfluff creates all kinds of madcap, sublime yarns and is excellent inspiration.

Pluckyfluff's "Posie" yarn

Punk spinning tosses in ornaments and dolls:

Little dolls are actually handspun into this yarn.

It’s about being messy, deliberately imperfect, and generally playing around.

One of my favourites. I'm learning this technique next!

Getting in touch with what makes you feel free

It’s yet another way to tap into what makes you feel free, excited and in flow and I hope you’ll consider giving it a try if you haven’t already. Chances are, someone has a spinning wheel they’d be happy to lend you to try out. Or you can find a class.

Once you’ve got your hands on a wheel, here’s a great beginner’s tutorial. She’s got several more video tutorials to help you learn all about spinning.

Get the right soundtrack

Oh one last thing: a soundtrack is all important.

To keep me from getting too caught up in spinning the right way, or feeling it has to be perfect, I enjoy the not-so-dulcet tones of Rage Against the Machine, or The Rapture, a band I found thanks to the TV show “Misfits”.

Misfits, about a group of screw-ups doing community service who unexpectedly develop superpowers, is also excellent spinning background. Here’s a clip: (Thanks to Channel 4′s shortsightedness, I can’t show a clip so never mind. Grrr, greedy copyright sticklers drive me nuts.)

But find what works for you. And let me know if you go for it.

I’m thinking about the often delightful responsibility of being a dreamer, a storyteller, and how you tell a story that’s both honest and worth telling.

A good story starts with the improbable or downright impossible

I think you start with attempting the impossible, which is why the quote above, which I discovered courtesy of Willy Wonka, keeps going through my mind. Here, take a look:

Isn’t it glorious?

The line is actually taken from a poem called “Ode” in a collection called Music and Moonlight — two of my favourite things and apropos since two nights ago we took advantage of a dusting of snow and bright full moon to go outside and waltz.

Impossible thing #1: Malcolm dancing

Dancing of any kind, much less the waltz, would probably have been on Malcolm’s list of impossible things to do up until recently. Even at our wedding, he refused to dance. But he’s always felt bad about that, so last Christmas my present was his promise to learn how.

We went to a few lessons of Scottish country dancing because that’s the closest thing we could find, but it still wasn’t quite what we were wanting.

Then the other night we were talking about it again and I finally thought to check YouTube, where I found a “Learn How to Waltz” video to teach us the basics. We then spent a goofy few minutes box-stepping our way around our kitchen.

We both felt so dizzy from turning around that we didn’t quite see how we’d be able to continue until I did some more Google searching (god I love research) and found you can avoid dizziness by looking at a fixed point in the distance.

So the other night we seized our chance and stepped out onto our gravel drive coated in a lovely couple of inches of snow.

The moon was full, the sky clear, and the light shone so brightly. I hummed off tuned-ly “Buffalo gals won’t you come out tonight…and dance by the light of the moon.”

I didn’t think to take a picture, and in searching around for a photo to best capture what it looked like and felt like, I found this one:

We too could hear the waves lapping on the beach, and while we aren’t actually Victorians, we felt like ones. Our house is the only one for maybe 1/2 mile around, and since we’re perched by the sea, half the view is ocean. That meant that once we stepped outside, the only illumination was moonlight.

But it was so bright you could almost pretend it was daytime, and I saw why there have been so many songs, poems, stories set to moonlight. With the snow reflecting the light, we could easily see our way through the steps and I felt a sense of timelessness and adventure.

Now before this gets too sappy, let me also say we looked a bit like those awkward teens at a school dance, less-than-gracefully shuffling our way through the “one, two, three, one, two three”s. Plus we couldn’t look at each other or else we’d get dizzy.

The point is, Malcolm put aside his self-consciousness about dancing and I put aside my lazy inclination to stay inside by the fire and we ventured forth into the improbable.

Result: a good story worth telling ourselves over the years.

The humble impossible

Doing the impossible or even improbable doesn’t have to be epic. It can be small, humble, silly. It’s a path to creating your own magical story, one you’ll enjoy telling yourself years down the line.

Now how to end this post? I asked Malcolm, and his answer was “by eating some soup.” OK then.

I’d write on the blog about what I’m thinking about with Touchwood and life. I’d share this North Star stuff, the ever-changing plans and dreams, different projects I’m working on.

The above sentences are from my notebook as part of an exercise from the book Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the life you were meant to live. There are a series of sentences along the lines of “If I were sure I’d succeed, I’d…” and “If I had the nerve, I’d…”.

So I dutifully wrote down my answers only to reach the end of the exercise where the author, Martha Beck, says:

Now I’d like you to choose one of your answers that is neither illegal nor physically dangerous and do it. Right now, before you’re sure that it’s fail-safe, or acceptable, or risk-free. When you’re finished with that item, pick another one, and do that one too. Yes, I know you’ll be breaking the Rules. I don’t care. The needs for certainty and permission are electric fences in your mind. Which would be worse: whizzing all over them or permanently forfeiting all of the things you wrote on the list above?

What? I have to actually do what I just wrote?

So here I am, writing, a part of me convinced that no one’s reading this anyway because it’s so self-indulgent. So New Agey.

But then I think “Hey, it’s the New Year, 2010, and it’s the time to do things that scare us.”

The thing is, I do think we’re doing a lot of exciting things with Touchwood and in our day-to-day lives (which is really one and the same), but I always feel I need to get it close to perfect, tidied up enough so that it will make sense and be appreciated by you, the reader.

I imagine you wouldn’t really be interested in our ideas and projects until I can figure out how to make them more accessible, more usable and relevant to you. I mean, ideas are one thing, but it’s the actual doing of it that’s the real value, right?

Because we’ve got enough people just talking about their lives, and I wouldn’t want to bore people by droning on about ours. So I’ve stuck with tutorials or helpful articles, things I think you might want to hear about.

Problem with that is, it requires so much work to do them you don’t often ever get to see them, and I’m starting to think perhaps I need to be less perfect and just do it. Maybe sharing some of our ideas without everything else might be interesting too.

Latest work-in-progress: Make your own boot liners

For example, I’m working on designing and sewing up my own wellie boot liners to keep my feet toasty and dry:

While I’m excited about sharing that with you, I feel like I need to do a whole bunch of things first before I can write about it here. Things like:

• testing them out in different conditions to see how the design holds up and whether it should be reworked
• drawing the pattern (currently fashioned out of plastic shopping bags) in Photoshop so it’s perfect and you’ll be able to print it out at home
• figuring out how to size it down or up so you can adjust it to your foot size
• finding all the links to the sites you’ll need to get supplies, both for the UK and the US
• taking photos of all the stages of construction
• writing clear, easy-to-follow instructions and testing them out

So uh, that’s a lot to do before I can write about it.

The problem is, aside from the amount of work involved, once I’ve done all that I’m kind of bored with the project and ready to move on to something else. So while we actually do quite a few projects, we don’t tell you about most of them because we’ve already moved on.

Which brings me back to this little North Star exercise.

Sharing the less than perfect stuff

I’m going to take a gamble and start writing about the projects in progress, rather that waiting until they’re good enough to feel I can tell you about them.  I hope it’s of value to you, either as something you can then do yourself or as entertainment.

And while I’m at it, I’d like to share not just the DIY projects, but some of our thoughts and more abstract ideas too in the hopes that they help or inspire you — at least in the “I thought I was the only one!” kind of way. We’re pretty ace at doing things the odd way, the kooky way, so if you feel like a dork or outcast, don’t. Because we know just what you mean and applaud you.

All the little but shrill voices of fear

It’s scary to do this because I just keep imagining all these people rolling their eyes, thinking how we’re such dreamers, that we’re not actually practical or achieving anything, all we do is talk about things and kind of half-assed do them. They whisper derision, masquerading as “But I’m just trying to be practical/helpful/realistic.”

Well, my answer is I am a dreamer and a thinker, but I’m also a doer. I’m less good at the doing maybe, and I’m definitely not the detail-oriented person who dots the is and crosses the ts, but I do get enough done and that’s just going to have to suffice.

Someday I hope to find those detailed, see-the-thing-through-right people because I know we need them in the long run to make Touchwood work. But in the meantime we’re just getting on with what we can do.

Let’s see, another little voice of fear I can hear in my head warns me that people reading this will think how they’d do it way better than that, that I’m so foolish, so ignorant for thinking my way could ever work.

OK, well if anyone out there reads about a project we’re doing and thinks they can do it better, I hope they’ll let us know. I like ideas for improvement.

The last little voice says that this all sounds suspiciously like self-help, all very American, and all I can say in reply is, “Then don’t read it.” You probably won’t have read this far in this post anyway, but for the benefit of my self-doubt, I’d say that personal development is basically the pursuit of happiness and what better goal than that? What could possibly be more important than understanding yourself, what a fulfilling life means to you, and what you have to offer the world? If you think thinking about stuff like that is a waste of time, then you won’t be interested in what we’re doing anyway.

So on to the positive. I’ll write for those of you out there who are interested in what makes for a happy, fulfilled life. Who find making things yourself, especially out of things you’ve already got or that are inexpensive or easy to get, a lot of fun.

I’ll write to those of you who see clearly the threats to a good life, to our environment through the endless buying of stuff and the pressure to always work harder, and believe that the best way to deal with that is to follow what makes you happy, cultivate adaptability and learn how to do things that matter.

Creating the tribe

Seth Godin says in his book Tribes that we should all be leaders, we should stop catering to the masses and focus instead on finding our tribe and leading from our own unique perspective. We should stop trying to fit in and should embrace standing out because, no matter how bizarre or far out you are, there are others out there like you. And they’re waiting to hear from others like them.

Like Star Trek fans who live in uniform 24/7, or people who spin yarn out of their pets’ hair.

Or maybe a couple who live on a remote island and like to go without electricity once a month, don’t have a car, live on £12,000 a year, and who spend hours every single day just talking to each other.

I’ll do my best then to share with you our ideas as well as our little projects that make life more interesting, fun or comfortable. I’ll talk about where we are with Touchwood, how it’s continually evolving, what we’re learning — because it’s a lot, and it’s exciting. To us, anyway and hopefully to you too.

I’ll be writing to our very own tribe because I believe we have much ahead of us to do and now is the time to start doing it.

,

Ha. I assure you, I’m far too lazy to make all these changes for some distant noble cause. Nope, I’m doing it first and foremost because I’m enjoying myself, a point which a little adventure reminded me of recently. I’ll call it “The Tale of the MacGyvered Christmas Gift.”

MacGyver to the rescue

Like the hero of the 80s show MacGyver, about a peace-loving secret agent who inevitably saves the day with his Swiss Army knife, a metal tube, and a piece of gum, I was in a sticky situation with only a few bits and pieces to rescue me.

My problem was Christmas.

The Christmas challenge

Since Malcolm is the youngest of five, we’ve got a lot of presents to make, what with nieces and grandparents and stepparents and three continents to worry about. We’ll be with my in-laws down in England for the holiday, and I’ll be honest: I’m feeling under pressure to come up with presents that won’t embarrass me or break the bank.

If it was my family, they’d like anything I came up with, under the motto of “It’s the thought that counts.” But with in-laws, as wonderful as they are, there’s still that anxiety over whether it will be good enough, whether they’ll actually like what you’ve done or just wished you’d given them a gift certificate instead.

Oh and did I mention we’ve got a budget of £20 for all the presents? Yes, £20 for about 20 presents. A year ago I would have said it was impossible. But I’ve learned a lot of tricks since then.

Putting the plan of action together

My first essential tool for the mission: a ball of yarn I’d gotten secondhand for free.

Treasure #1: free yarn

Thanks to learning how to knit two years ago, I knew I could make something with it and knock off at least one gift.

Next stop: Ravelry, a website for knitters, where I found a free pattern for a cowl scarf. But then I realised I only had one needle that was the right size. In the past I would have just bought a new pair like these, which would have set me back £15.

Beautiful but expensive knitting needls

But forking over £15 isn’t an option, so what to do?

Hm, could I make my own? A quick Google search and indeed, I can.

Going that frugal step further, instead of buying wooden dowels I scrounged around Malcolm’s woodpile that he uses to teach firemaking and stripped a stick with a knife. Then I sanded it smooth with an old bit of sandpaper lying in the garage. Perfect. Pretty as the bought ones and I can make multiple ones, saving myself £15 every time.

Onto the scarf. Encouraged by my success, I curled up in the kitchen next to the Aga stove, chatted with Malcolm, listened to the audiobook of Made to Stick and peacefully knitted. For an hour I just enjoyed the play of colour as it popped into view with each stitch and lost all track of time.

But then, whoops. I looked down at my tiny ball of yarn, annoyed because I didn’t have enough left to finish the project. I’d end up with half a scarf at this rate.

Now if money were no object, I’d just hop online and buy some more. £5 a ball and away I’d go. Instead, here was another opportunity to MacGyver a fix. Mulling it over with a cup of peppermint tea, I remembered some cream coloured yarn about the right size that’s hiding in the attic.

Raspberry swirl

Put em together and lo, there were stripes.

After another couple hours of happy knitting, I ended up with a snuggly, tasty raspberry and cream scarf, ready to be wrapped for Christmas. First part of the mission accomplished.

The scarf and handmade knitting needles

Knitting may not be your thing, but it’s the challenge that makes life fun. It’s finding a solution to each problem I encountered that excited me more than a trip to the mall or a spree on eBay could ever do.

It’s not all sunshine and roses

Lest all this happiness start to annoy you however, I assure you I do get cranky. Learning new stuff means you’re a bit of a loser at first. You’re a novice, and that means you often look like a dork.

It’s like this new bicycled experiment we’re on. I don’t ride much, I’m not in shape. When we were cycling into Stromness the other day for the first time ever, you should have heard me swearing as I huffed and puffed the 5 miles into town.

Legs on fire, lungs heaving after 2 miles. Then we hit a headwind and I kid you not, I had to switch to my very lowest gear of my 21 speed bike and we were on flat ground. I wasn’t peddling uphill, I was simply trying to move forward on a flat road, and you could have walked faster than I was going.

That's about what it felt like

Cars zipped by and I pictured the drivers looking on, amused at or worse — pitying my slow, slow wobble forward. I imagined lean lycra-clad cyclists whizzing past to leave me in the dust, contempuous of my snail’s pace.

Still I kept on cycling, pushing one foot then the other, finally resorting to counting each revolution to keep me going. Twenty-four, twenty-five...Get to 100 and start again.

I saw Malcolm up ahead, valiantly cycling as slowly as he possibly could, clearly having little trouble but doing his best to hide it. Humiliating.

But then we crested the hill into town and I saw I was home free. A nice long road downhill, coasting into town. I had done it. And I felt really, really proud of myself. Like I had run a marathon or birthed a child.

I figured the next morning I’d be dying, but I was surprisingly okay. Even weirder, I wanted to do it again.

It’s never the right time

That’s been my experience of doing new things so far. At first you think you could never do it, or that it’s just not the right time. You’ll do it when the kids have left the house, when you get the next raise, when you can afford to, when you know exactly what to do.

You couldn’t possibly make your own Christmas presents! You don’t have the time, you’re not artistic, no one will like what you make anyway.

Channeling your inner McGuyver

But then you start. You’re awkward, like I was riding the bike. You run out of resources, like I did knitting. But then you adapt and you keep going. You get wiley, you devise a cunning plan.

You start doing it and you focus sharpens. Time disappears. You forget to snack or complain or feel bored because you’re too busy doing your thing.

Then the best part: you succeed! You make the top of the hill or finish the scarf and you’ve done it. You’ve won, using your wits and your determination. You’ve done what they said couldn’t be done and won.

That’s the kind of happiness I’m talking about. It’s saying you want to do something, thinking it seems impossible, and then doing it anyway.

It’s enjoying setting challenges for yourself and succeeding at it. Saving the planet is just one more challenge that each of us can take on and have a great time overcoming with creativity and an easy laugh.

When we’re our own personal McGuyvers, we get to save the day on a regular basis — and have more fun than any 80s action star ever did.

What Would Your Own MacGyver Do?

What are your MacGvyered projects?

What challenge have you faced lately that required some MacGyver ingenuity? Have you made something out of stuff you had lying around that solves a problem? I’d love to hear your stories, so please share them here.

Update: Inspired by Darcy’s and Kerrilee’s hula hoop and fly swatter MacGyvered projects, I’ve added a new feature below that will let you upload pictures of your projects so we all can get some good ideas on how to tackle everyday challenges.

Just click on the Add Photo button and upload a picture of your project!

Add Photo

Select an image to upload:	Browse for file  Enter URL Import Image by URL
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Another Christmas present: Bag from old sweater   the Flyswatter 3000: a wooden spoon, paper bag, and twisty tie.

Today I remembered that while searching for a place to learn aikido.

A childhood dream

Since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to learn martial arts. I love Yimou Zhang’s films (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), Jackie Chan, Jet Li, as well as the lesser-known martial arts films with women like Michelle Yeoh in them. Fantastic!

Women can kick ass too

The ability to defend myself, to use my body in such an exciting way, was what first drew me. Now I’m interested in the philosophical side as well, of learning a way to be in the world that’s peaceful without being a victim.

That led me to one type of martial arts called aikido.

Aikido and going with the flow

The basic understanding I have of aikido is that you are working with your opponent’s energy to disarm them. So it doesn’t matter how big, strong or young you are, since you are using another’s force and movement to deflect their attack, rather than outright counterattacking.

You're never too old to learn aikido

I love the idea that you and your opponent are working together, that rather than overt confrontation, you are stepping aside and redirecting.

I think there are so many useful lessons from this approach that apply to how to be happy, how to make a difference in a world where, as you try to change things, you inevitably come into conflict.

OK, where can I learn aikido?

A quick Google search reveals that the closest place to Orkney that teaches aikido is near Inverness, so a 90-minute ferry ride and 2 hour train and £45 or so cost each time. Not practical.

Then I tried Amazon to see if there was a, oh I don’t know, Dummies Guide to Aikido or something which can teach the beginner. No luck.

There are DVDs, but none of them take on the task of instructing a pupil from the very beginning. And really, watching bodies fall left and right, it strikes me that yes, you probably do need a floor with special mats and padding to absorb the impact. Unless you did it outside in the grass? Or perhaps the beach would work.

So I think to myself, well, maybe I can make a special trip somewhere and at least learn the basics. Get some fundamentals and come home and practice with Malcolm, who happily, also wants to learn.

The just not very attractive public face of aikido

The problem is, many aikido websites are so uninviting: outdated, using lurid colours, fuzzy photos or just clunky, awkward language about how long the instructor has trained and where — with lots of jargon thrown in. It’s just not inviting for the newbie.

Add to that the actual dojos themselves — lots of flourescent lighting, absolutely no windows so you feel like you’re in a basement, and concrete walls. It’s depressing, off-putting.

Would you want to learn here?

The killer blow to any idea of going to one of these is the photo of grim-faced men — maybe the occasional woman if I’m really lucky — in funny-looking clothes, lined up as if for a firing squad.

Very serious. The light-hearted need not apply.

I don’t want to go here! I’m already apprehensive enough about the idea of learning something as daunting as martial arts without everything else putting me off.

Surely appearance doesn’t matter?

All of this sounds superficial. Surely one’s desire to learn something as noble-sounding as martial arts shouldn’t be so easily discouraged? Surely appearance is unimportant?

Well I don’t think so. Beauty is essential in all things. Walking into a dojo whose architecture and interior is carefully planned, with attention to the mood that’s created, makes an enormous difference to your attitude. I believe a beautiful space creates calm, reverence, an ability to focus on the present far more easily.

Appealing to women

And while we’re at it, recognising that women are a key market and therefore catering to them through how you present your dojo on the website and in person is also essential. A welcoming, more personal tone would be appreciated, one that would address the usual anxieties many women have about doing something as male-dominated as martial arts. Having some decent lighting — particularly natural lighting — and tasteful colours would be great.

Know of any beautiful aikido dojos?

Sadly, I’ve been unable in my Google searching to find any such place. If you know of any, I hope you’ll let me and others know, since these places deserve to be praised and known.

And let me say I don’t mean to insult anybody, I just get frustrated when people don’t take design, aesthetics and beauty seriously. I’m sure there are many wonderful, welcoming people in aikido, so it’s no reflection on them.

Until I find an attractive, welcoming dojo, aikido will just have to wait. I’ll console myself with the thought that I’ll still be able to learn it when I’m 60.

An all-women StrengthsFinder session

This second group was women-only, and after the results from this evening, I’m definitely keen to develop more sessions.

I went to an all-women’s university, Bryn Mawr College, and and I learned there to value enormously what can happen when you get a group of curious, motivated women together. Somehow the barriers fall away, laughing begins, and ties get established even between people who have never met before, as was the case today.

We started at 2pm, a small cosy group of 5, gathered around the fire crackling and the display of munchies to keep us going for several hours. We each read aloud our top strength, then asked the person to say to what extent they felt that accurately described them. Then for those of us who knew each other at least somewhat, we could offer our own view on how they saw a particular strength being shown in a person.

So for example, one woman who I’ve only met a few times had Developer as her top strength. The ‘Developer’ strength is about seeing unique qualities in every single person, valuing them, and then to some extent ‘developing’ that strength in the person. I could completely see that in her, even with my limited contact, because throughout the discussion itself, she was drawn to asking each of us about our strengths, taking note and offering encouragement that made each of us somehow feel incredibly special, that we each had such gifts that she recognized and treasured.

Another woman had Discipline as her top talent. Her strength meant she is very organised, tidy, and great at meeting deadlines. She talked about making a To Do list for the week and then crossing each task out as it was completed. The rest of us were in awe. We half-seriously asked if she could help us all get organised. Of the 5 of us, she was the only one actually on time for the start of the discussion.

A third woman had Activator as her top strength, which again was no surprise to me. She has been staying with us for a few days and regularly looks around for things she can do, projects to tackle. An almost restless energy radiates from her and already she’s looking at how we could plant a garden, fix my bike, and draw some sketches for Touchwood.

We each provided some food and drink and I made sure to have plenty of cushions, good music (ranging from Thievery Corporation to South African Legends) on the iPod, and the fire always topped up. You could see the sea from the two windows on either side of the fire, and a few candles burning on the mantlepiece. A good ambiance makes all the difference.

The value of discussing your strengths with others

I think the biggest value in discussing strengths with other people is that they point out to you ways in which you show that particular strength. So often, we take for granted what comes easily, so my top theme of Ideation, which is about loving new ideas and their connections, would never seem like a ‘strength’ until it was pointed out to me that I never would have started Touchwood with Malcolm without it.

Same strengths, very different interpretation

Oddly, all five of us had Input in our top 5, but they each were described very differently. For two of us, Input was about collecting information in many ways for the benefit of others — one woman was reading a book about Asperger’s because she knew someone whose child had it.

For another, it was about methodically and thoroughly processing data and facts in order to make sound, objective decisions, whereas I definitely skim and skip around to find nuggets of useful information.

At one point the question of ‘What do we do with this?’ was raised, and I mentioned the action items they give you after each strength. So I consciously post websites I think other will find useful or interesting on Facebook as part of developing my Input theme and helping others.

But I don’t have the time/it’s a luxury

What about feeling that spending £12/$15 on some personal assessment tool is self-indulgent or something that you’ll do someday but not anytime soon because you’ve already got so much on your plate?

As one member put it, it’s about improving your self so you can help others (this was the Developer one, and her second theme was Individualization, which is also about recognising abilities in every person and helping them develop their unique gifts — her staff are lucky).

We spend so much time criticizing ourselves for not doing more or better — why not spend that time looking at what we do well and making the most of it?

Overcoming the challenges to doing more sessions

So all in all, I definitely want to do more of these. The energy, laughter and sense of connectedness were just too good to not do more.

The main challenge is getting people to try it. I think a lot of people, dare I say especially British folks, are often pretty wary of things that smack of American self-help. They fear it’ll be a lot of navel-gazing and smarmy self-congratulation.

Others are nervous about talking about something that feels highly personal, leery of revealing things to people they don’t know — or perhaps worse, do know.

So I’ll need some help figuring out how it could work. I’d really like this to be a part of what we offer at Touchwood, particularly combining it with outdoor or craft activities so it’s all kept fun and easy-going.

The cover of the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0

That’s according to research conducted by Gallup of over 10 million people over the past 30 years. Out of these findings, they’ve developed StrengthsFinder, an online survey to assess your top 5 “strengths” out of 34 different possibilities.

What we’re interested in is: can StrengthsFinder help community projects and social enterprises be more successful? We’ll be asking a test group that question this weekend for Touchwood.

My experience with StrengthsFinder

Having done the survey 3 times over the past 6 years, I can definitely say it’s helped me.

I first discovered the book when I worked for Sprint, a telecommunications corporation in Washington, D.C. Back in those days, I struggled to get up in time to go to work. I remember dreading the sound of the alarm clock, the shuffle to put a suit on.

Once I was at the office, my days seemed miles of meetings about nothing. I felt hamstrung by the slow pace of change, the lack of vision. Though initially I was  promoted, eventually my performance started to suffer as I cared less and less about my job. I’m sure if I had stayed much longer, I would have been given the boot or quietly sidelined.

The biggest problem at my old job was that I rarely used my talents. I’m a big ideas person and a voracious learner, and there’s limited scope for either when you’re a corporate website manager.

What happens when you don’t use your strengths?

By all accounts, my experience wasn’t unusual. In a recent poll of 1,000 people, among those who “strongly disagreed” or “disagreed” with the statement “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day”, not one single person felt emotionally engaged on the job.

According to Gallup’s research, if you don’t use your strengths at work, you likely:

• dread going to work
• have more negative than positive interactions with your colleagues
• treat your customers poorly
• tell your friends what an awful company you work for
• achieve less daily
• have fewer positive and creative moments

Have you ever been part of a volunteer project that seemed to sap your will to live? Meetings drag on, people bicker, action moves at a glacial pace. A good idea, something you’re excited about and eager to help work, slowly becomes a chore, something you dread.

This happens all too often, and I think part of it is because we as a group don’t know our own strengths — and we don’t know anyone else’s.

Using your strengths

Now that I’m starting up Touchwood with Malcolm, I get to use my strengths just about every day. This won’t mean much if you haven’t read the book, but mine are:

• Input (collecting information)
• Ideation (love of new ideas)
• Intellection (love of thinking — getting the theme here?)
• Learner (love of learning) and
• Futuristic (envisioning the future).

At this early stage, Touchwood is a lot of big ideas and planning for the future, so I’m enjoying it. I also learn new skills constantly, from knitting to creating a WordPress blog like this one that all, however tangentially, tie into what we’re doing. I’m far happier, more energized, and productive.

Malcolm’s taking his test today, so he can post his take on things later.

Gallup’s research shows people who use their strengths regularly in their jobs are “six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs, and three times as likely to report having a better quality of life in general.”

I have a personal belief in StrengthsFinder and what I think it can do for people. The question is, is it too corporate, too American, to work in such a different setting?

Have you taken the StrengthsFinder test?

If you’ve taken the StrengthsFinder test, post your results here if you feel like sharing them. I’d be particularly interested to hear how you think knowing your strengths has helped you and how you think it could help social enterprises and community projects be more effective. I’ll post once we’ve run the first pilot Sunday as well.