The last blog was written in Sharm El Sheikh the day after failing the dive on the first attempt (see “Don’t Swallow Your Mouthfill” below for a description of how that happened) and the morning before the successful dive. The battle was still raging between the Angels and the Tigers at that stage. After the blog was posted I spent two hours practicing Kundalini Yoga and then went to the sea. I warmed up in the water with my training parter and coach Andrea (a male Andrea – he’s Italian/Swiss) for about an hour and then got onto the sled. I dived to 60 and then 80 metres to test the corrections in technique that I had made. I still had a lot of air in my mouth at 80 so we went for it and won. I had a fair bit of air at 101m still (without packing) so things look good for the next depth.

I will write about what happened in the sea and the dive itself over the next few days.

It has been very peaceful since Sunday and the feeling has been one of gratitude and contentment more than elation or celebration. The gratitude is to all the people who believed and to the sea. A number of people believed I could do it and took the trouble to tell me so and keep on telling me so. My gratitude to the sea is something very personal. Suffice it to say that the sea is a mystery, like so much of our planet, and it took care of me, as the planet often does. The contentment is that I set myself a goal that many (including me some mornings – never evenings – odd) thought impossible. I met the Tiger many times and in many forms, I followed the Ten Rules, all of them but especially Rules 2,3,4,5,8 and 9, and it worked. Thanks also to my partner Anita who came all the way to Sharm to support me – and who wisely went scuba diving with friends on the day of the record breaking dive rather than go through on Saturday what she had already been through on Friday!

The other big question I am being asked now is “What next?”. The answer is: much deeper. Eventually this will need sponsorship to fund the logistical requirements of the dives. If anybody out there would like to discuss this, please drop me a line.

My daughter is doing very well. She is very excited about the record but, more importantly, is excited about getting back to school on Monday. Not a place she has been to very much this year, but a place that she really loves. I hope she has a wonderful year.

If you wish to contribute to Sparks, one of the UK’s leading charities funding research into cures for childhood illnesses, you can do so here: www.justgiving.com/Jim-Lawless-No-Limits

I hope you create a great last quarter of 2010 for you and yours and defeat your Tigers when they roar.

Over to you.

Jim.

It was ambitious to do it this soon but that said, we all thought I could do it and I have been to 100m in training so it was a disappointment for everybody. Still, we can try again today.

Seeing as many people will be new to freediving I thought I it might be helpful for me to explain a little about No Limits and what happens to make a dive successful. I’ll say enough to explain why the dive failed but not get too technical, don’t worry – keep reading. I’ll let you know what I got right and what I got wrong…

No Limits freediving has four important areas:

1 Breath hold (and conscious, deep relaxation is a big part of this)
2 Equalisation Technique
3 Mental ability to cope with extreme depth and difficulties at depth without stress/ability to cope with nitrogen narcosis at depth
4 Physical Technique (I am not going to mention this below)

1 Breath hold

I’ll not write about breath hold today other than to say that at the depths I am going to it is not an issue for me. I am happy holding my breath underwater for well in excess of three minutes and I will complete this dive in less than three minutes. The only exception to this would be if I lose the “mental” discipline in part 3. Then my system will start to burn up oxygen way too quickly and the breath hold time will radically reduce. This has never happened to me and I will try to explain a little about how I work on this in part 3 below.

2 Equalisation

Equalisation (in the way we generally use the term in diving) is the way we maintain pressure in the middle ear that is equal to the pressure being exerted on the eardrum by the sea. From the edge of the earth’s atmosphere to the surface of the sea is 1 Atmosphere (bar) of pressure. From the surface of the sea to 10 metres below the surface is an increase of 1 whole atmosphere again. Each 10 metres thereafter is another atmosphere. At 100m the pressure exerted by the sea upon the body is 10 atmosphere’s greater than on the surface – 11 atmospheres in total. This has a number of effects upon the body and I’ll only mention the most obvious – and the one that caused me to fail yesterday. There are some airspaces in the body that are unable to adapt on their own to the increase in pressure, notably the air space in the middle ear. The result is that the eardrum will be pushed into that space unless air is moved by the diver into the inner ear from the lungs via the mouth. Scuba divers and those with difficulty on aeroplanes will be familiar with all of this. If you fail to equalise as you descend, the pain in your ears will become so extreme that you will have to turn and ascend to relieve it. If you can bear it and you decide to proceed, you will burst your eardrums.

A freediver has a limited amount of air to use for equalisation and this limited supply is subject to two complicating factors. Firstly, as you descend, the pressure causes the volume of air to decrease. Maddie and I tried an experiment on a recent flight to demonstrate this. We drank a plastic bottle of water and then sealed it tight at 33,000 feet. As we landed we looked at it’s crumpled form triumphantly! The volume of air had decreased – the density increased. However – the size of the airspace that we are trying to keep filling as the pressure increases does not decrease – only the air we have to fill it with does.

In other words – as I descend, the air that I have to fill my ear space decreases, but I still need lots of it. When you see freedivers taking great gasps of air at the surface or “packing” air in, it is not for an oxygen supply – it is to get enough air to be able to equalise at depth.

The second problem is that as you descend, your lungs shrink. They are around lemon size, I am told, at 50m. They do not let air out in that state! If you have not got the air out by then, your dive is over. The pain in your ears will be so extreme that you have to turn as you will have no air to use to equalise that pressure from within.

So the way to deal with this is to get the air out of your lungs at around 35-40 metres and into your mouth. This is called “mouthfill”. Many pressures want to get it out of your mouth as you descend. Your mask will suck it out through your nose and your lungs will suck it back. So you seal the balloon of your mouth in three ways – leaving the fourth exit open. The mouth is sealed, the nose is pinched tight shut and the larynx and epiglottis seal off the trachea – the tube leading to the lungs. The Eustachian tubes, leading to the middle ear, are kept open and pressure is applied to the air in the mouth to encourage the air to escape – into these tubes and on to the inner ear. 

This is the area where my dive went wrong yesterday. I did not have enough air to equalise as the depth increased and I had to turn around. Why? Well, either I didn’t get enough out of my  lungs and into my mouth at 35m (this is possible and I’m working on that today) or I let some escape through inadequate control of my larynx on the way down (also possible and the other area of concentration today).

Now it’s quite tricky to control all of that on dry land in training. As it gets dark and cold – and the descent starts to get very fast – at around 70m, mistakes can happen. They get eliminated with experience but still happen to experienced divers from time to time. If air escapes into the lungs through a slight opening of the larynx, it is called “swallowing the mouthfill” a phrase which causes great hilarity for everybody except the diver who has just turned early!
3 Mental Ability to cope with extreme depth

This is a complex area. It is the most useful for many readers and for anybody wishing to engage in Tiger Taming. I will not cover it in detail in this blog or attempt to do it justice here. I will return to the subject and I will also cover it in real detail in the second edition of Taming Tigers.

Many people actively enjoy a good panic. They love to have “a stress” about something or other. They can, of course, learn to control this as anybody else can. If this is you, the first stage is to notice it. Ask yourself whether it is helpful. Then, if you feel it is unhelpful, to take a different track when the next stress stimuli occurs and the desire to seek attention begins.

Assuming that you do not actively enjoy a good panic, there is a clear and well documented path from stimuli to panic – google “panic cycle” and “breaking panic cycle” to see it in graphic form. But for the purposes of this piece, think of it is a points system on a railway. You control the lever. You hurtle along on the train and just before the points you see something scary on the track ahead – with conscious practice you choose ENTIRELY your response. You can look at 70m of water above you, at the misty blue surrounding you, feel the cold of the water at depth and think “S**t – get me out of here before I die!” or “Wow! I am the luckiest man on the planet at this moment!”

Of course, we don’t start with 70m or we’d all feel the first reaction. We take it slowly and enjoy working within and on the boundaries of our limits until our limits and boundaries expand. That may mean starting with 1m of water or 50cm, but there are many people I know who will never try that.

Also, we can practise with the “points system” in ways that are not dangerous to us in any way. I am a practitioner of Kundalini Yoga and completing my teacher training at present. In Kundalini Yoga, we often put the brain into a position where it approaches the “points” and can choose failure and defeat or to continue to success. We prove to ourselves every time we practice that we can (and often in the real world do) make the conscious choice to fail rather than to persevere through minor discomfort, or that we can push past yesterday’s boundary and explore new areas of our capabilities. Training of this sort is invaluable when choosing how to deal with potentially stressful situations such as freediving.  

And here, dear Tiger Tamers, is the thought for today.

Do we go to our limits, where the fear is, where the Tiger lurks, and experiment with the points system there. Do we exercise our ability to choose our reaction, the thing that most differentiates us from horses and dogs, to experiment with consciously expanding our limits? Or do we stay well back from that (mildly) scary place.

Go to where the fear is. That is where the growth is. That is where the answers are.

Jim

Click on the image to view the Rule 10 video.

I hear that the X Factor has returned to our screens back in the UK. Autumn must be coming. Saturday evening is often an extended family evening in my world and so in the autumn an assortment of excited nieces, nephews, my daughter Mads, friends, dogs and so on always make sure we are sitting, opinions at the ready, watching the X Factor. There’s one part I don’t like. In the early stages those deluded souls who really believe that they have talent, wailing out a song in front of the judges and the camera – and the mocking nation.  They then give the judges that indignant, disbelieving stare and try to fight for their place, before exiting the room and breaking down in their their genuine disappointment and disbelief.

Who lets them get to that stage? How can people believe so wholeheartedly in something that cannot be believed in? More poor self-help books? Parents who can’t tell their children the truth?

I am always concerned that I am deluding myself at the start of a business or sporting project. But I think that there is a difference between the Tiger – saying “No way, forget that!” and our common sense saying “Really? are you sure?”. And I think that the difference is to be found in the intention behind the questions we ask ourselves. If the intention is to avoid the thing, albeit with an intellectually sound reason, then we are in Tiger territory. If the intention is, with a genuinely open mind, to carry out intelligent enquiry of ourselves and our challenge, to accurately assess the odds and to decide if we can accept the downside – and whether we desire the upside, before moving into new waters, then it is common sense at work and not the Tiger. 

This is not restricted to members of the public on the X Factor. I’ve heard it argued, for example, that those who ran Lehman Brothers and RBS had moved from “Tiger-battlers” to self-delusional. I know neither gentleman so cannot comment. It certainly applies to the decisions that you (and I) have made in the last year at work and at home and in our relationships.

Of course, the time for research and planning comes to an end, we take a view and we act, we commit. Thrilling. There is still, of course, a great deal that we can do to influence the outcome at this stage, it’s not over. Yet on one level it is. Once the commitment is there, it’s hard not to see it through (even though different paths than those planned may have to be taken). But the commitment is tinged with doubt until the thing is done. That is what keeps us battling our Tigers every day – keeps us innovating, caring, taking bold actions and making bold calls to scary people – the tension between the confident commitment to completion (self belief – the good self help books are correct that it plays a part) and doubt that it can be done (self doubt).

And of course, that is where the real battles are fought. Where the story of our lives is really written. In the silent, brutally honest, terrifying battles with our Tiger.

“I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
But Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”
(Leonard Cohen – with thanks to Phil Joslin for highlighting them to me on a very miserable December day)

We are either a few days away from the end of this project or a few weeks, depending on what happens over this weekend. My deepest training dive so far has been to 95m and I am off to train again in around 2 hours. Enough for the UK record if I can repeat it under record conditions over the weekend – but not the target.  So the self doubt is still there and the demons continue to battle with the angels. It’s the first conversation in my head in the morning. It’s in my dreams during the night in bizarre forms. I have no idea if it can be done, but I believe it can.

I’ll leave you with a quote from David Remnick’s extraordinary biography of Muhammad Ali, “King of the World”. It gives me comfort that even the best – and seemingly most self-confident – have intelligent doubt but push through it.

Ali (then Cassius Clay)had been making a lot of noise about the ease with which he would win his first big bout, a meeting with the terrifying, proven and much heavier Champion, Sonny Liston. Nobody seemed to believe that Ali had a chance of lasting a couple of rounds. And even Ali had room for “maybe”. It wasn’t over til he left the ring as victor.

The day before the fight, in the privacy of a hotel room after a noisy weigh-in, a reporter had the courage to ask Ali, who was staring silently out of the window:

” “Cassius, all these things you’re saying about Liston, do you really mean them? Do you really think you’re going to beat this guy?

Ali replied: “I’m Christopher Columbus … I believe I’ll win. I’ve never been in there with him, but I believe the world is round and they all believe the world is flat. Maybe I’ll fall off the world at the horizon but I believe the world is round.”  ”

 Jim

Click on the image to view the Rule 4 video

It is 12.36 and the temperature outside is around 35 degrees Celsius. I am inside. The temperature brings challenges. Sunburn and heatstroke are among them but not a concern to me. I only go into the sun during the day when I have to to travel. When I am in the water I wear a wetsuit with a hood and boots. My face is exposed but that is in the water from the start of the session til the finish. I breath through a snorkel, head down, or I am diving.

The heat makes you sleepy and slow. It’s not laziness or getting into a holiday vibe (I’m not in a holiday frame of mind at all). It’s the heat. A friend arrived from the UK on Saturday, went to bed at eleven that night and woke up at noon on Sunday wondering what hit her. Something about diving deep also makes you sleepy. On training days I am usually unable to stay up beyond 9pm and I wake up at 8 or 9am. It means that you can sit down to write a blog and discover with amazement that it is time to prepare lunch! I’ve been here for an hour and only written a couple of paragraphs. How can it be?

Dehydration is another risk from the heat. For example, I lose a couple of litres each night in sweat. I refuse to sleep with air conditioning on because of the effect of the dry air on my sinuses (and the resulting difficulty in equalising) so night time can be a very steamy affair – for all the wrong reasons. So by the time of writing this in the early afternoon I have drunk around 3 litres of water with rehydration salts. That will continue til bed time so my intake will be around 6 litres for the day and I buy the pharmacy’s stock of salts on each visit. He must think that I have the most incredible case of tummy trouble.

We keep training to the same time every day. We meet at 3pm and are in the water by 3.20. We warm up with three dives to complete a static breathold (a hang) whilst holding onto a rope at around 10m. On the first dive I cannot hold my breath beyond one minute thirty and my confidence always gets a knock. By the third dive I am comfortably over 3 minutes and feel self belief return. Then I’ll gently and very slowly swim down the line to 40m and back as a final warm up.

Feeling confident and at peace in the water, it’s time for the urgency and aggression of the sled. I’ll usually dive three times in a training session. Going to the deep, dark places that I am visiting every day, it is not wise to make too many trips for a number of reasons. You can store up problems. Each dive follows an identical, disciplined, pattern of preparation and each has a clear training purpose. Each one is analysed when I return to the surface. Time, sensations, technical features and how they were executed, equipment, etc. The third dive is the big dive of the day. But never so big that it is likely to fail and so far I have not failed a third dive. By “fail” the dive, I mean that we set the big goal of the day onto this dive. It will be the most testing. By now, pathetically, I am getting incredibly tired and I am dreaming two things – showering and getting out of my suit and the sticky drink. Yes – the big reward! A FANTA! And out here you can also get Blackcurrant Fanta. So I have a fridge full of both flavours back home. Just get the big dive right and you can go home for a Fanta!

The Rules protect me from the sun, protect my sinuses, protect me in the water, protect my brain and confidence from the big hit of taking on too much on the third dive and failing, make sure I am properly warmed up physically and mentally before going deep, ensure that my day has a routine so that my food intake and sleep can have an undisturbed routine. Oh – and there are Rules about food buying a preparation out here that keep your basic health in order. Those are very rigid. For example, there is no way that I would eat anything prepared in a restaurant during a trip out here to train – I just don’t want to risk three days out of the water and diminished strength for a week. I (or close friends) cook!

So Rule 9 is playing a massive part out here. But the part that it started to play began in January when I took on the challenge. It is strange looking back how the challenge shaped the Rule 9 Disciplines and Basics, these in turn shaped my lifestyle and this in turn has given me a shot at the record (only a shot at this stage, still no guarantees). For example, drinking, smoking, eating meat, drinking coffee or caffeinated drinks (OK – I probably fail on this about 4 times a week…) has been taboo. Diet has been pretty strict – but the challenge has not so much been of restriction but of making the time to buy and prepare healthy balanced meals – day in and day out. Daily breathing exercises and the daily practice of Kundalini Yoga have also been vital but incredibly difficult to fit in to a work and family schedule!

Whilst I have not hit my goal yet, signs are good and the journey has been incredible. I put that down to the following of Rule 9. The other Rules have all played their part. But Rule 9, I am beginning to conclude, may be the most important in effecting a major change. And a major change was required to get me even to the level that I am now diving to. And for all of us, success will be a “change”. We will need to move from A to B to create the success.

Of course, the Tiger stops us from taking on the disciplines and basics with a lot of Rule 2 excuses!

I won’t have the time to do them…
People will think I am odd if I…
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks…
I probably couldn’t make it anyway so there’s not a lot of point in putting myself through…
Life’s for enjoying and I couldn’t enjoy it without a pint or three!
Discipline is for the kids, I don’t think I need it at my age…

If the Tiger is, generally, protecting us from something – what could these Rule 2 Rules be protecting us from?

Well, you can answer for you. For me, my Rulebook was protecting me from:

You might not succeed – and you might fail publicly if you raise sponsorship in advance for SPARKS
It’ll take a lot of work and commitment – do you have the time and is it worth it? Especially if you fail?
It is scary to make a mistake at 100m
You will have to make time in your schedule to …
You will have to invest some money in flights and so on and turn down work whilst you are overseas – and there’s a recession on you know!
Others will tell you it cannot be done and be quick to knock the attempt

The question for you and for me is this: Is what the Rule is protecting me from worth more to me than the adventure of living my life?

If that makes you want to challenge the Rulebook, It’s some Rule 3 work followed by bringing those Disciplines and Basics into your life. Rule 9 again.

And to be honest, I have always really enjoyed the basics and disciplines and always felt really great as a result. Haven’t you?

Over to you!

Jim

Click on the image to view the Rule 9 video

Think of it like driving a car. You are free to use all of your attention and creativity to avoid a collision when the moment comes – but when you were a learner you would have used all of your attention to remember which pedal was for breaking with. It is there in Rule 9 of the Ten Rules. It was brought home to me again, breathlessly, yesterday. “Create disciplines, do the basics brilliantly.”

I have taken on a challenge this summer to raise funds for SPARKS, the children’s medical research charity. Taming Tigers have supported SPARKS since 2008 but this year, for personal reasons, it became even more important to do something to support them. The challenge involves freediving on a sled (like in the film “The Big Blue”). It is great fun, very challenging and pretty technical on various levels. Yesterday, the sled taught me a lesson: Make the process second nature before you try to perform at the next level.

I was training on a new sled which had just been built. Once at the maximum depth, before the ascent to the surface can begin, I have to shift my grip to the bar where my feet had been for a safe ride up. This is a new move that comes with this new sled. I had not perfected it. Having descended to a relatively shallow 30m, I inflated the balloon to take the sled and me to the surface – and let go of the thing in order to change my grip. It whooshed up to the air and light above – without me – before I secured my new grip. Not a big deal at 30m, just an unexpected swim back up. But a decidedly big deal at the depths we are aiming for.

There is always a simple procedure to follow to avoid problems. In rock climbing, you never let go of the rope when your buddy is climbing, you handle the rope hand over hand. In No Limits (sled) freediving, you never let go of the sled – you travel around it hand over hand. Of course, if you’re worried about remembering that , you cannot focus on the things you need to focus on. In fact if you’re “worried” about anything when you are freediving, you may as well give up. Adrenaline is not your friend down there.  So making the procedure second nature allows you to perform. Perhaps it is illuminating that the world’s greatest freediver, Herbert Nitsch, is a commercial airline pilot in his “spare” time. We all like to fly with pilots who follow the correct procedure and save the moments of creative genius for a crisis.

But this is not easy to do at work. It is not always apparent what the process is that you need to perfect.  If it is apparent, it may well be boring and repetitive to master it. It may be dull to work it out once and for all and manage the delegation of it in order for you to move on to play the main game with all of your attention. That is partly what differentiates a champion in my opinion. They take the time to identify the processes and then invest the time (and tedium) to perfect them – or delegate them properly. And so they create the space to perform. This is rarely sexy stuff, it is mundane, behind-the-scenes work, but it makes the difference. One of my sporting inspirations needed more sleep and relaxation time in his long and full day. He spent hours on the road each day. So he hired a driver and sacrificed the significant cost of that to perform at a higher level in the main game. Process delegated, time won back. Relaxation time acquired, game improved.

What are the processes that need tweaking for your organisation so that the business evolves into a performing, creative entity rather than a having to invent the basics from scratch every day. What are the processes and procedures  and tasks that you, personally, could perfect or delegate in order to become a more instinctive player of your main game. You will be rewarded for your effort in spades.

Over to you.

Jim.

PS – If you’re not sure what your main game is and how well you currently perform at it, don’t panic – but do take seriously and make urgent the task of discovering the answers.  We are not “employees” any more. We are all mini businesses. It is wise to know what business you are in – and strive to thrive at that.

“Claude”, said the frenchman to his colleague, without looking up from the computer screen, “will you look in this man’s passport for him, he has forgotten who he is”

“Who am I” is seen as one of those big questions. Perhaps it needn’t be. Perhaps the size of it depends upon which side of the lens we are looking through. Looking at it from my side of the lens, I might wrangle with who I am and who I want to be with the help of a therapist or a business coach or a mate in the pub for many happy self-obsessed hours. The reality, though, is that those observing me from the other side of the lens are often well aware of who I am. It’s the sum of the things I have done and the promises I have kept.

Moving around to their side of the lens for a few hours is not nearly as much fun. But it is very illuminating as to who I really am.

I think that this works just as well when evaluating myself as a leader or discovering what my brand truly stands for.

Over to you.

Jim.

Click on the image to view the Rule 3 video

Click on the image to view the Rule 9 video

I was taken on a tour of the company’s Heritage Centre by a retired member of staff with more passion for his work and team than the average England footballer (and being paid far less – volunteering in fact). I learned that the company was so committed to innovation that in the early 70′s its wholehearted commitment to solving a certain, “impossible” engineering problem and its failure to do so within the necessary timeframe led to it going into receivership (it is back out and it has solved the problem long ago). I learned that its engines powered the Spitfire 60 years ago and power you and me as we fly today.

I learned about the contribution that its research and daring is making to environmentally sustainable travel. I learned about its commitment to the recruitment, training and support of apprentices of all ages and its commitment to and investment in life long learning and world class leadership talent. I learned about the extraordinary level of thought and innovation that goes into making travellers safe at 30,000 feet. I learned about resilience in the face of tough and complex engineering and commercial challenges and repeated victory in these situations after long periods of head-scratching in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

I learned, above all of that, the professionalism, discipline and pursuit of excellence that go on behind the scenes to make the words “Rolls Royce” a by-word for quality of the highest level and the attitudes that have sustained that reputation for over 100 years.

And the point of this blog? I was reminded, in this digitally obsessed age, to remember the inspiring role of engineers and manufacturers that underpins so much of our daily lives. I want to pass that thought on and to ask what lessons we can each draw from the world of the engineers. Personally, I was struck that Rules 2 and 9 were in daily use in this corner of Derby – and had been for a century before I included them in the Ten Rules.

I was invited to Derby to inspire a division. They inspired me back. My thanks to all at Rolls Royce.

Jim.

Click on the image to view the Rule 2 video.

Click on the image to view the Rule 9 video.

Thanks Stu.

The Devil You Know?

One Monday morning recently, I caught myself daydreaming that I’d spent the whole weekend training under the guidance of a great Olympian and World Judo Champion, and getting to know both he and his Olympic Judo Silver Medallist wife a little bit; and I was struck by just how much it matters who you listen to while you write the story of your own life.

If I had a pound for every time I have been advised – sometimes with my best interests at heart, sometimes definitely without – not to try to run before I can walk, to be realistic, not to spread myself too thin etc. (you get the idea I’m sure) I’d spend most of my life at home in front of the tv with about two hundred pounds, and for some time that was about as good as it got, except I didn’t actually have the two hundred pounds.

But about eighteen months ago I happened upon a book called Taming Tigers. I read it with increasing amazement. Read it again, thinking, Well that’s really great, for him, I guess – and then a strange thing started to happen. I found myself compelled to begin putting the principles it contained into practice in my own life, sometimes with spectacular results, sometimes with little ones, but always with a new feeling of satisfaction that I was at last beginning to truly live.

And here’s the rub: the weekend I described daydreaming about actually happened. I stumbled on the training event on the internet shortly before it was due to take place, and thought the chance to mix with people of that calibre was too good an opportunity to miss out on. I sent some e-mails, made some phone calls, and went along – I mean, why wouldn’t you?

And I know what you’re thinking, that it’s OK for superfit Judoka like me to go along to these things, but that in the real world things aren’t so easy, and maybe you have a point. Except that for Tiger Tamers things go a little differently.

At the time I discovered the event online (quite by chance) I’d never done any Judo. And the event was two hundred and fifty miles away from home. And I couldn’t spare the time from work. And I couldn’t afford a hotel. And my partner needed the car that weekend. And it was too little notice. And I was 48. And bald. Still am.

I didn’t have a British Judo Association licence. Or even Judo pyjmas. So it couldn’t be done. Obviously.

But I’d read Taming Tigers. So I knew otherwise. And had one of the best experiences of my life so far. Obviously.

Check out the The Rules, from One right the way through to Ten. I had to use them all on this occasion, and this was not an isolated event in the life I now live – a far cry from the insecure, sleepless, under-achieving cigarette and alcohol craving body I inhabited eighteen months ago.

You might be thinking about now that a five hundred mile round-trip on a thirty year old motorbike to be tripped up, pushed over, strangled, choked, and flung to the ground repeatedly is not really your cup of tea, and that’s ok, I fully understand. But the really good news is that this is part of my story not yours; and that the delicious hot beverage of your own choice is simply a decision and some actions away. You could start with rules One and Two, which are my current favourites, especially helpful when someone with a vested interest in your continuing mediocrity counsels that the grass isn’t always greener, or, that the devil you already know is a better bet. My own experience has been that of fresher, sweeter grass; and escape from a devil who seemed set to kill me with boredom and frustration.

When you get to spend time with motivated successful people you come away with the powerful realisation that they find nothing surprising in you wanting to live the best life possible. They’re already doing it, and are generally very open to the idea of helping you to as well. When a great champion looks you in the eye and tells you you did well today it’s not easy to remember the advice about knowing your place, or discretion being the better part of valour. Or to keep the tears back.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tiger Tamers everywhere, I give you the entirely awesome and gracious Neil and Niki Adams – brought to me and you by way of the impressively effective Tiger Taming principles laid out by Jim Lawless. All we have to do is apply them, and trust ourselves to know what’s best for us; and as hard as I try I cannot think of a single statue or monument put up to the glory of someone who urged caution, but I’m willing to be corrected. If you know differently give me a call and show me where it is.

We can tear it down together.

Stu.

So the Stepford Wife Manager begins his presentation to the senior management team. Just like last quarter. Just like the woman that preceded him this morning.

Stepford Wife Manager Syndrome or Middle Manager Syndrome. It is exhibited in many ways. It is safe, mediocre and dull. I can see nothing wrong at all with having a middle management role. Acting like bored “Stepford Wife” middle managers the world over is the problem.

I get to sit in a lot of presentations across all sectors and I get to see a lot of Stepford Wife Managers. They are good people. But their Tiger has given them a real chewing and they are using the Rulebook and the safety of numbers to stay safe from it. It’s not safe, though.

You know who they are. But how do you know? Make a list of their collective attributes, their badges of honour and their tribal customs, the Rules and norms that they cherish. Then take a long look in the mirror.  

The world is changing fast. The industrial age is over. A new age has dawned and the Stepford Wife Manager is lagging dangerously behind.

Over to you.

Jim.

Click on the image to view the Rule 2 video

Click on the image to view the Rule 6 video

I like this quote from John Cleese: “High creativity is responding to situations without critical thought”

Aha! Easy!

Except that critical thought is just our old friend the Tiger in disguise. “What if I get it wrong?” “What will they think of me?” “Could this be a career limiting move?”. Roooar. The Tiger and his demand for “critical thought” just killed the creativity and spontaneity.

How do you do it? Here’s one tip: Explore random juxtaposition.

For example – let a random object (ask a passing child to pick you one or ask your partner to bring you anything they like from the kitchen) influence your thinking on a problem. What is/are the object’s history, uses, oblique uses in the hands of an improvisation expert, smell, texture, imagined history from creation, imagined future until destruction, colour, what emotions or memories does it evoke in you? Relate these qualities randomly to your problem, the people, the history, the way you might approach a solution and so on. Now discard the object and create a little speech, out loud, in the car, perhaps, about the problem that you are looking to solve, linking words and thoughts from the previous stage into the speech. Do not judge it, nobody is listening (and after all this is just a silly exercise, right?).

Did you get an answer? Did you get to the unexpected, central, real nature of the problem that you have to solve?

Over to you…

Jim

PS Blaire Palmer, MD of Taming Tigers wrote about creativity in our July newsletter. Email enquiries@tamingtigers.com to request a copy and sign up for future editions at www.tamingtigers.com (there’s a box on the top of the homepage)

Click on the image to view the Rule 2 video.