I was telling her about something that I’d seen unfold on LinkedIn today. The outing of someone as a BS artist. And let me tell you, it felt fucking amazing to see it happen.

Why ? Because I’ve had a hunch about this dude for a long long time. He fits into a very specific (and unfortunately growing) category of wealthy white dudes who suddenly see the opportunity to grow their ego/status by pivoting to become ‘environmentalists’. I put that word in speech marks, because they’re not environmentalists at all. Not even close.

What is it about blindspots ? Why are they so hard to see ?! I'm talking about the metaphorical ones, the things that tend to trip you up on the regular, the situations you end up in again and again - that normally can be tracked back to a single sucky decision you made (and continue to make).

I've got a pretty serious blindspot when it comes to business development. And this last month put a solid spotlight on it (which I'm actually pretty grateful for, in hindsight).

It was in her early days of being sponsored by Patagonia - and she was finding herself more and more frustrated by how much work she was putting in for the brand and how little she was being compensated. She felt like she was doing so much yet none of it was being noticed. She said she'd slipped into thinking that perhaps, if she just kept working harder and harder, someone would notice, validate her work and then she might just get paid what she deserved. So she kept pushing. She kept doing more.

I think our alarm went off at about 5.20am - which, in the middle of the winter, in the middle of the mountains feels like the middle of the night. We’d excitedly packed our gear the night before, so we stumbled sleepily down the stairs and de-iced the windscreen whilst trying not to get distracted by the incredible star-filled sky above us.

"The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease."

Ha - as I write this, there are (no joke) tears in my eyes. I've never taken my work or the travel & community that is connected to it for granted, but holy smokes, this last few months have made me realise just how damn lucky I am. And how much I miss it.

Like - really miss it.

A few weeks back I uncovered a pretty colossal screw up. One that was entirely my fault. And one that had a substantial impact on something I care deeply about.

Sometimes I hear something on a podcast or read a line in a book and find myself having to go back to it again and again. A collection of words that resonate with me so deeply that I realise I need to invest some time to explore more. To look under the surface and really try and understand the concept, embody it, experience it so I can start to integrate it.

And it happened last week. In the midst of a week that looked somewhat like a dark comedy, and whilst dealing with multiple layers of bullshit.

I was driving somewhere and plugged into a podcast, half listening, half zoning out thinking about other stuff when this one sentence just jumped out at me. It was like something inside me heard it and woke me up.