Threads

21 January 2010 2 By Viv McWaters

Two things I’ve been neglecting lately – listening to podcasts and exercising. Lucky for me they’re not incompatible. So today, as I was becoming reacquainted with bikes, treadmills, pulleys and weights, I also turned to my trusty iPod, crammed full of music and podcasts. I had to turn it up really loud so as I could hear what I wanted to listen to over the LOUD MUSIC and day-time television programs.

I haven’t yet got around to loading more podcasts on to my iPod, so I revisited a couple. What’s Love Got To Do With It? is a Hugh and the Rabbi Podcast on Johnnie Moore’s website. It features Hugh MacLeod, Pinny Gniwisch, Johnnie Moore and Euan Semple and rambles around the topic of love and organisations.

Here’s a few take-aways:

  • the importance of intimacy, the ordinary smallness of relationships compared with trying too hard to connect
  • it’s the small stuff, companionship, for example, that holds everything together – and that’s why Twitter works, people nattering about nothing – that what makes it valuable
  • transactions fall out of conversations, they’re not planned
  • the role of authority is changing – once it was conferred and  meant throwing your weight around, now it’s more about having a compelling argument or idea that attracts people
  • “authority is the power to be the author of your own experience”, not in terms of just getting what you want, but so that you create the experience, your voice has value, and you don’t need to take authority from an outside source
  • And on being brave: acknowledge your own authority, say what you think, don’t devalue what you have to say or your ideas, don’t dismiss it, don’t argue against yourself. Start up a blog (or whatever it is you want to do). Just do it your way.

Sounds like another way of saying: put down your clever and pick up your ordinary. I’ve also written about this here and here.

Go here to listen for yourself or to download the podcast.