In this post, I’m going to share with you the next 12 months of my podcast plan for my website, before I am even ready to go.

Even just writing that hurts.

The next 12 months are about “how to find your voice” something I have been procrastinating on for years.

Leading with a “find your voice” topic is hard for me.  

I always think I should have ‘found my voice’ before talking about how you might find yours.

But both of those are wrong.

Building The Plane

All the people I deeply admire and listen to are the people building the plane as it is taking off.

All the people who look like they have it together 24/7 just arouse suspicion in me.

Are You Qualified For This Bernie?

I’m not, but I am ready to learn as I go.

After thinking about it I decided I don’t need to be qualified for anything.

I know how to write, podcast and ask questions.

Besides no one has accused me of not knowing what I am doing for a few days now.

People I collaborate with always question what I say and do, but a healthy and active part of our work together, in a seek first to understand and then to be understood kinda way.

I’m embracing the role I learnt from the online learning platform Fizzle of being a ‘leading learner’.

This way of sharing is about ‘documenting the process’ for people a few inches behind you in their journey.  

I Am Good At That

If you were walking around @WorkHubs I’d be falling over myself to show you how I am working it out as I go along and help you too.

That is the essence of what happens at Not So Manic Monday, Art Club, Write Club, Blog Club.

These are the Meetups we do weekly for people who write, are freelancers or are looking to try and flex a new creative muscle.

10 Years To Be An Overnight Success

So here is what I have been dicking around on for a decade, and even more so in the last few now few months.

I read a lot these days after I left school I hardly read at all.

When I studied catering at Vincent Square in London we hardly had to read anything.

Years later when I went to Uni I had the first dyslexia test of my life and then started to learn how to read – slowly.

Then I found audible.com, well my #supercoolwife found audible, and I was off.

I read a book a week and then read summaries of those books in Blinkist, so I know a group of books significantly well.

Where Has That Got Me?

While I don’t have a private jet on 24-hour standby, I do have extraordinarily beautiful relationships with #Babybernie, Supercoolwife and people around me.

Over the last 12 years, I have read myself out of depression, drink, drugs, self-loathing and dyslexia.

Reading has enabled me to work out how I learn, something that school never managed to do.

Reading non-stop has given me the confidence to be happy to not fit in or be obedient.

It has caused a seismic shift in my natural curiosity.

I am now beautifully comfortable asking people awkward questions and being quiet while they think of an answer.

Talking Of Awkward Questions, What Kept You?

I have been sitting on a podcast idea for ever, and I can’t say why I have not shipped it other than I have to change the text in iTunes and maybe not everyone will like it.

OK, here we go.

On February 5th, 2008 I first read 8th Habit by Covey and have never stopped reading it.

Out of everything I have this is the book I read the most.

It has signposted me to other books, most notably Cluetrain, Built To Last, Victor Frankel and seek first to understand.

The list of topics, connections and application goes on for ever.

I have watched how what Covey talks about in the 8th Habit has unfolded in the both the World and my own life.

Boys Search For Meaning

Over 2017 has my head has come back together I’ve got an impatient urge to make meaning of the what is around me.

That search for meaning needs to happen alongside everything else that is going on right now.

As much as I’d like to, I just don’t have the lifestyle to go and sit on a mountain and work it out.

I have to and want to work it out in my early mornings, in the words, conversations and workshops that make up my week.

So for the next year, I am going to work through the book and find people who I think can poke the box with me.

I am petrified I have spent ten years thinking this would be a good idea, and I’ll find out it sucks, and I suck.

So be it.

But from everything else I have done shit, I always learn from those things and bounce back.

I had to find out how to bounce back, which I learnt from this book too.

So that’s my Plan For The Next 12 Months – Find Your Voice and I’ll be able to find mine too!

One more thing… a little shout out to Colin Gray and Chris Marr for a couple of chats that helped me get my head out my arse 😉

Photo by neil godding on Unsplash