Speaking and Communicating Podcast

0:00:00 - Alison Smith
What is linguistically wrong with the phrase? It feels like I'm talking to a brick wall. Where are you and where is the other person? Because if the person you're talking to is a brick wall, brick walls don't talk.

0:00:13 - Roberta Ndlela
Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I am your host, roper Tanlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into. Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. Whether you're about to speak in public, make a presentation at work, pitch to investors, or an entrepreneur looking to showcase your brilliance to a wider audience, you'll be glad you joined us and by the end of this episode, please love onto Apple and Spotify. Leave us a rating and a review and what you'd like for us to discuss on this show. Now let's get communicating. My guest today uses gardening and trees as metaphors to help you get unstuck and do the things that you know you need to do to create the life that you desire. Alison Smith is a trainer, coach and author. Her latest book is Can't See the Wood for the Trees, and before I go any further, please help me. Welcome her to the show. Hi, alison.

0:01:28 - Alison Smith
Hi, Roberta, great to be here.

0:01:30 - Roberta Ndlela
I'm glad you are here. You bring such wonderful energy. Thank you for being here, welcome. Yes, tell us a little bit about yourself.

0:01:40 - Alison Smith
I'm a coach, I mean you've done a really good introduction. I started way back when in business, in procurement, so I was a buyer, and in the late 90s I realised that managers we were trying to engage with weren't as interested in supplier management as we were. And that's when I started using metaphor, and I used the. So you mentioned gardening. Suddenly, rather than trying to engage these people with getting interested about supplier management, we could say well, gardens need mowing, weeding, the plants need feeding, they need pruning, time in the greenhouse. And suddenly these managers' brains went oh, that's what we need to be doing for the suppliers, we need to be managing the suppliers. And I've just been plonking suppliers in the corner of the garden and then berating those suppliers for not growing, and yet the soil wasn't right, we've not been paying any attention, and so that's when it all started. And then I suppose I went off and learnt all about metaphor and then have gone off at a tangent and now do soft skills training, coaching, around, specifically around helping people get unstuck?

0:02:54 - Roberta Ndlela
Why is it about metaphors and what I would say. I was raised Christian, so you know the Bible's got all these parables from Jesus. Actually, the other day my mom said because I had such a oh mom, I've been looking everywhere and I actually really got dizzy and the first thing she said was like the 10 virgins they were going. You know what I mean, no matter how much or how long you last heard the story, why are they always at our fingertips, those parables and metaphors?

0:03:23 - Alison Smith
You know, there's the phrase about a picture paints a thousand words. Metaphor paints a thousand pictures. But I think there's also something that it resonates with a deeper part of us because actually stories go back millennia, you know. You know our ancestors used stories to share, like the Bible, in terms of insights, learning this is, you know, values, beliefs, and they used stories because they talk at a deeper level, so it's not having to be retained in our memory, somewhere it's. There's a real metaphor going on, that's real inside us that we're able to more easily access.

0:04:00 - Roberta Ndlela
Mm-hmm, Because whether you believe in the religion, whether the story came from or not, people tweet these stories, that there's something about them. That is just that it has long staying power, sort of Absolutely I mean.

0:04:13 - Alison Smith
I mean that's why, in speaking, people say tell people a story, start with a story, you know, end with a story. People relate to the story. They might not remember the five points, but they'll remember the story and therefore, as long as those five points are contained within the story, then people will go oh yeah, that was the one about me focusing, or that was the one about me being clear, about knowing what my goal is, or whatever.

0:04:37 - Roberta Ndlela
You said you help people get unstuck. Do you sometimes feel like when we feel stuck, it's because we really don't know what to do next? Or we might have an idea, maybe we can Google something, but we just don't take that leap.

0:04:54 - Alison Smith
Yeah, I think I also say words have power, and as soon as we start saying we're stuck, we're taking power away from ourselves because we're saying I'm stuck, I don't know what to do, there are no other options, I've tried everything, there is nothing else I can do. So our language sort of reinforces our beliefs. But you're right, I absolutely believe there's a part of us that does know what to do, and sometimes it might be the fact that we're fearful of that. Or I had somebody the other week where I'm at a crossroads. I'm at a crossroads, so we were out in nature embodying this at every crossroads. I was saying so which direction do you want to go?

But it came quite apparent during the conversation that they weren't at a crossroads because they hadn't left, that they weren't ready yet to leave the destination previously. So they're going. I've got a decision to make, yeah, but it doesn't matter how long you talk about making this decision. You're not yet prepared to leave. It was a place of work. I'm not prepared to leave the job you're at currently, so we need to work on that first. So, yes, sometimes there's an order in which we need to go on the journey in order for us to move towards what we want, but quite often it's the belief that there are no options that my tools and techniques throw up in the air.

0:06:18 - Roberta Ndlela
Or so sometimes we know we haven't decided yeah absolutely. There's a fear of saying, ok, I'm going to do this, I'm going to make that leap. Then we say I'm feeling stuck.

0:06:30 - Alison Smith
Yes, and I think quite often, if we're using things like Can't see the wood for the trees because I'm looking for the language people are using when they're stuck you know, can't see the wood for the trees, or can't see the woods for the trees, or can't see the forest for the trees depending on what country you're in might resonate better. But when we're using that phrase, we're also saying I'm overwhelmed. You know, I don't have access to my logical brain because this is just too confusing. I'm lost. So in some respects, the first thing we need to do when people are stuck is exactly as you've said really is address the underlying, whether it's fear, confusion, whatever the feeling is, because it's that in some respects is stopping them seeing the options that are available.

0:07:15 - Roberta Ndlela
And so, when we use the trees metaphor, why couldn't you choose something different? Why the trees? Why gardens?

0:07:25 - Alison Smith
And you could do anything when they're stuck. People might say it feels like I'm on a merry-go-round or I'm on a carousel. So we do use metaphor. What I've tuned my ears to hear is the fact that people use nature metaphors or idioms all the time when they're stuck, stuck in a rut, going around in circles or pill struggle, stuck between a rock and a hard place, a matter crossroads. So all I did was go well, ok, we're using the metaphor when we're stuck. So I'm going to mine that metaphor for solutions and then we'll come back to the problem later, because I invariably use the language the person is using.

So in my podcast I go out into nature, I embody. So if it's an uphill struggle, I will struggle uphill in order to get inside. Or if it's treading water, I'll go into the very cold sea here in Scotland and tread water to get inside. The whole idea being is the fact that by embodying it we get insight that we're not aware of Nature's there. Most of us you know we were talking earlier about the fact that you know most of us have got some sort of nature on our doorstep.

0:08:39 - Roberta Ndlela
I can see a tree right through the door.

0:08:41 - Alison Smith
Yes, yeah, so. So actually, rather than just doing it in your head, you could go to that tree and go OK, so what is this tree, wood forest telling me about the situation I can't see the wood for the trees about? You'll notice a path or you'll go. You know what? I'm really bored with all those trees bar this one. So why am I worried about the whole wood? I just need to focus on this one tree, or, yeah, I just need to follow this path out. Let's find out what happens if I follow this path out.

0:09:14 - Roberta Ndlela
Can you give us an example of someone you coach, where they felt stuck and you use this metaphor and how they were able to have a breakthrough?

0:09:23 - Alison Smith
Yes, there's quite a few, but so I suspect the one story will merge with a few people. There was one person who felt like they were going around in circles and we were in a ward. There was about five or six leaders all doing different things in the ward relating to what I'm talking about, but this particular one was going around in circles. So I asked him to go in a particular area of his life and I think it was about what you wanted to do with his business. But it's that whole. I'm not making any decisions because I keep not making a decision Really. So I'm just going round and round, keep saying I want to make a decision and I'm not making a decision. So, yeah, I want to make a decision and I'm not making it. And I did say you know which of these sayings best describes how you feel in the car? See the wood, for the trees stuck in a rock, and I was going around in circles.

So I had quite often have somebody walking around in circles and I said so what direction do you want to go? Oh, that one. I mean he knew instantly which direction he wanted to go, right, well, ok, so let's walk. Let's see what happens when you walk in that direction. So he starts walking in the direction he wants to go. And then he got so far, and then it was I'm not sure this is the right direction. I said, well, where do you want to go? Oh, I know where I want to go. And then he noticed a bridge in the opposite direction. Oh, but that bridge looks exciting. And I said, but you're just distracting yourself, because where do you want to go? I want to go in that direction.

So what happens when we're out in nature, in my opinion, is we bring the patterns we run in the real life situation with us into the, into the landscape. So he obviously, in that particular instance, is allowing himself to get distracted, and this is actually comes up quite often. Oh well, well, this path, what about this path? But you know you want to get to the other side of the wood. So why are you worrying about the wood? Because I can't tell you how often, when I say where do you want to go, where do you want to go, the conviction with which people say they can point to it, they know where it is. So why are you allowing yourself?

to. Are you looking at the bridge?

0:11:27 - Alison Smith
Yeah, why are you looking at the bridge? Why are you getting distracted by these other paths? Let's put imaginary no entry signs of all these other paths, that sort of thing I mean. Another example is somebody who believed they were at a crossroads within their job. They were talking to people about what sort of job they wanted. So, anyway, we were in a botanical gardens in Edinburgh.

Every crossroads we came to, because there was lots of paths cutting over it. It was brilliant for finding crossroads. Every crossroads we got to, I asked him look, which direction do you want to go? But he always chose the path that hadn't got a signpost. So it's as if we get to a crossroads and three of the paths have got, you know, signposts saying this here, this here, and there was always one, it seemed, where we were, which was quite amusing Because I don't think there is as many of them without signposts as we came across. But he wanted to go on the one that hadn't got a signpost and what that enabled him to understand about his job was that he was applying for jobs where people had already gone down the path, had already put signposts up. That's not what gave him joy. What gave him joy was going down a path nobody else had gone down, making the signposts for others to follow, so it just meant that how he was embodying it in nature enabled him to go back and go. I'm applying for the wrong jobs.

0:12:52 - Roberta Ndlela
I'm a trendsetter, I'm not a follower.

0:12:54 - Alison Smith
Yeah, yeah, and sometimes it's like quite often we go on about oh, I want to go on paths less traveled.

0:13:02 - Roberta Ndlela
Yeah, but is that you? It sounds like a great idea, because sometimes great ideas don't necessarily mean that is who you are innately.

0:13:13 - Alison Smith
Yeah, and it was really funny because I was in nature, I was in a wood and you know, I like to think that I'm a path less traveled. But I'm a path less traveled on a field. I'm okay if it's a field and I've got 360 degrees worth of options and I can just go. Oh, I'll go east today instead of west. That's my path less traveled. When I was in a wood and I was faced with all this bramble and overgrowth and you know roots in the ground. I'm looking at this and going path less traveled. It'll still remain less traveled. I'm not going there. And so it gave me huge insight at the time about I'm not somebody that wants to brandish, you know something to cut all the undergrowth back, swipe through the underground, but some people would be. That's why I love metaphor, because I can think one thing logically, I can have this belief about myself, and then I go out into nature because logic isn't there to critique it. You can sort of notice the pattern, sort of understand the pattern, relate to the pattern.

And then once you've done all that, then go. Oh, I see that's what that means and logic is sort of gone with you a bit. So logic isn't resisting the yeah, I'm not a path layer, unless it's just on a field.

0:14:37 - Roberta Ndlela
Listen, logic has its place. Yes, but do you feel that sometimes logic is the reason people do describe themselves as stuck?

0:14:48 - Alison Smith
Yes, I mean I'm and is the reason why we stuck quite often, because one of the reasons I got into using metaphor is that my logic will run rings around me, because if I believe that that person is the awkward so and so or I should be doing this, my logic will run rings round and defend that belief that that's the other persons to blame or this is the way I should be going, whereas metaphor enables me to go. Hang on a minute. Logic yeah, my logic is real, but it's great when it's when it knows what it wants to do, but it defends things I think too much, so I say let's send logic on a coffee break. You know, this person said that and asked a friend you know how are you and they'll tell you about a problem and all they do is just tell you all the reasons why they're stuck and nothing about the solution.

0:15:39 - Roberta Ndlela
And you do find the evidence for whatever you believed first. All the evidence is there, all the proof is there. How right you are.

0:15:50 - Alison Smith
Yeah, At one point I tried sending logic on a holiday, but logic doesn't want to go on holiday and logic isn't happy because the holiday is too long. So what we have to say to our logical minds is logic, you're going on a coffee break, 40 minutes, 45 minutes, and then we're going to have some gorgeous ideas for you to plan and do something with. So we're coming back to you. We haven't forgotten you, but we would like you to go for that coffee break and have a chat with somebody else. You know, quite often in workshops, then I'll make sure that we've got a coffee machine and I put the word logic by the coffee machine and I'm always going.

That's where logic is, Because there's a part of us that does know what to do. But we just have to allow logic to dial down. And I mean that's not for everybody, because metaphor isn't for everybody, but anybody that's like me, who can be a bit awkward and a bit dig my heels in when people are coming up with new ideas. Oh, when we're stuck. Because if we're stuck then you know, our whole language is I'm stuck, I don't know what to do. It's an uphill struggle. I don't want to struggle. You know, words have power, so let's use our words to find solutions, rather than use the words to reinforce our stuckness.

0:17:03 - Roberta Ndlela
Because that will definitely keep us stuck. So tell us a little bit about your podcast Landscaping your Life with Alison Smith. When you started your podcast? What was the motivation behind that?

0:17:18 - Alison Smith
Bizarrely.

I think it was because I had a vision of getting the process out to more people and thought the podcast would be able to do that. What I've also realized is that it's morphed. I'm on series three. I've sort of do it a little differently now than I did initially. So initially it was quite theoretical in terms of I sat in the office I tell you what I'd learned from doing it with other people, which was great, but I wasn't as excited about it as I have been for series two and three when I go out and I go right.

If you think that you know, a particular situation feels like an uphill struggle, then let me go and go up on it uphill fear and struggle and let's notice what we notice about potential solutions. If it's an uphill struggle like, oh look, there's some steps there That'll be easier, or do I even want to get to the top of the hill? So it's just me in the podcast and I just explore the landscape. Recently I've done one about coming out of the shadows, and so you'd use that phrase. When you're sort of hiding a little bit, you're not perhaps speaking up, you're not getting yourself out there in the world as much as you might be, so you're hiding in the shadows. The reason I get so excited in the podcast is what happens is is that I uncover things I'm not expecting. So, because if I was going out and just reeling off what we already know, might the solution be? What's the point in me doing that? You know, so I go out into nature and find things you know, like a dead end for instance. Dead ends are very rarely dead and they're very rarely an end. So let's change the language you know. By saying I'm at a dead end, we're telling ourselves a whole load of information that is inaccurate, so let's change the language.

Coming out of the shadows, it's me going, so it has to be what's happening in my life. So it's not always going to resonate with everybody, which is why I always say go and find some shadows for you to hide into and see what you notice. But in this particular instance, it was a bit boring in the shadows because I was in the wood and it's like I'm looking around, it's like nobody else here, it's a bit dark, it's a bit boring. Yeah, yeah, okay, I do want to go out. Come out of the shadows into the sun, and I imagined that going out into the sun would be hot. It's as if, I think, we think there's going to be a spotlight and everybody's going to be looking at us as soon as we go out of the shadows, which is why we stay in the shadows. It's like, oh, I don't want, I'm not ready for the spotlight.

Yeah, I'm not ready for the spotlight, I'm not going to be able to cope when I get there. But what happened with Shocktree was I sort of got out of the shadows, so into the non-shadow, as I call it, and then there was somebody walking past and they said morning. I said oh, hello, and then as I walked down the street, it's like everybody was going about their day. It's like the builders were doing the building, the postman was delivering his letters, the kids were going to school. So why am I in the shadows, where it's lonely and dark and nobody's there?

0:20:25 - Roberta Ndlela
and even I don't like it yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:20:30 - Alison Smith
If I come out to the shadows, it's not nobody's going to pounce on me, nobody's even noticing.

Really, I can just go about my day and do what I do, but I'll do it out here in life rather than hide away.

So I think that's the power of metaphor, really, that we can embody it. This is why I always, you know, start every podcast by saying if you can go out into nature and do this at the same time as me, you're going to get more from it. And you're going to get more from it if you can think of a situation that resonates. So, you know, don't go to my podcast and listen to coming out of the shadows episode if that doesn't resonate with how you're feeling, because you'll listen to it and it'll be an academic exercise and you'll just go. It's a load of whatever. Whereas if you pick an episode and so there's about 40 episodes where the title is a idiom that we use when we're stuck pick the idiom that best describes a situation you'd like more insight on, I can guarantee you'll get more, more from it. And then you might go oh, actually, let me go and listen to some of the others in order to get the most from it.

0:21:34 - Roberta Ndlela
You do need to think of a situation that that idiom describes how you are feeling right now because you know how especially those psychometric tests with you filled one now versus 20 years ago, you'll have a very different result because you are feeling differently and looking at life differently back then.

0:21:53 - Alison Smith
I always say think of a situation you'd like more insight about. It could be that a problem you're grappling with it could just be a quite like to do that. I'm not doing that in this situation. So think of that situation and then look at the. Is it uphill struggle? Is it at across roads? Is it a corner to turn? And once you've chosen the idiom, then it's. You know, all the podcast episodes have a blog to go with it, so invariably there's more resource, because I've either done a video blog on it or bits and bobs of information that links to it the third series is added poems into the mix.

So what I'm doing at the end of recording is writing a poem that sort of brings the insights together, which seems to work. So it's sort of adding another layer really. So you've got the metaphorical shift, that you've got the poetic shift. However, you know you relate to that right. Just to add, add to that.

0:22:47 - Roberta Ndlela
Really, what exactly is the landscape problem solving toolkit? So the landscape.

0:22:54 - Alison Smith
What do they all stand for?

Ellie's language a is analogy and metaphor, so it's an acronym that is all the different tools I use, so laughter's in there, absurdities in there, just different nlp's in there, storytelling's in there, poetry's in there. So I just use the acronym to actually put all of the different tools that I use as a mechanism to say, yeah, if you're working with me, then yeah, we might go out into nature. And, to be fair, I haven't done anybody in Atlanta, but I have had somebody recently in LA, somebody in Florida, where I'm at the other end of the phone. They're walking around in a landscape, wherever they are and they're just telling me. But, for instance, the other week I was talking to a brick wall workshop and I got everybody to draw the brick wall that best described the situation they were thinking of.

So drawing might be in there. Because basically, what you do is think of a person that you feel like you're talking to a brick wall about. Draw the brick wall. You know it might be in color, not color, might be on a little post-it note, it might be on a full paper, it might be on a flip chart, but draw the wall and then the idea is so now what changes do you make to the wall? So you might want to draw a different wall. You might want to add things to this wall. So you might want to add a ladder to this wall. You might want to have a series of pictures where you imagine the wall putting some dynamite under the wall, the dynamite blowing up the wall falling down and then being able to see the person the other side of the wall. So drawing sometimes comes into it.

0:24:33 - Roberta Ndlela
It sounds like an exercise if you are married and you feel like your spouse is. It's like talking to a brick wall if you want them to do something well, we've all been there.

0:24:43 - Alison Smith
The first insight, though, is what is linguistically wrong with the phrase? It feels like I'm talking to a brick wall. Is my question, because some people get it when I ask that. The second question gets most people there, which is where are you and where is the other person? And as soon as I ask that question, people go oh, the other person isn't a brick wall, the other person is the other side of the brick wall.

Now that's a different problem, because if the person you're talking to is a brick wall, brick walls don't talk. So I understand that when we're saying there, I'm talking to a brick wall, there is nothing to do, because a brick wall is going to do nothing, yeah. Whereas as soon as you change your representation in your head oh, the better way of describing it is there is a brick wall between me and the other person then you can start taking ownership for what you do differently to either get over the wall, demolish the wall. I do have to add that sometimes walls are there for protection, and we and they're there for good reason. So sometimes we may not want to demolish the wall, but as soon as we get the language clear, then we're more able to see solutions, in the same way, as going back to that person who was at a crossroads. They hadn't made the decision to leave their current destination, so they were nowhere near a crossroads. So once we've got a language clear, it's oh, okay.

Yeah, I'd like to make a decision about doing something different, but I'm fearful about leaving where I am currently. So let's have an action about how can I become more comfortable about leaving my current employment. Then I can look at what decisions I might have. If you're trying to make a decision from a place of fear of I don't want to leave this place, you're not going to see as many options as there might be. So for me, it's been really clear about the words you've used to describe the current situation. Are they accurate and what might be a more accurate way of doing it? But if it's a metaphor, then let's use the metaphor to try and uncover, as I say, options that are currently hidden from view it amazes me how you say it's the language when you think of.

0:26:53 - Roberta Ndlela
You know, when parents talk to their teenagers, oh, she doesn't listen. It's like talking to a brick wall. He say that all the time and don't realize. Wait a minute, the person is on the other side of the brick wall. Is that now the language that makes us feel like the situation is unsolvable? It's stuck, yeah yeah, it's stuck.

0:27:13 - Alison Smith
The other person is the problem because we're not the brick wall. I mean, the interesting thing is that when you're saying you know it's like talking to a brick wall, then the other person is the brick wall. We're not the brick wall. They are, so they're the problem. Because one of the questions I asked in this workshop was how many walls do you know? Because once we'd realized there was a wall between us and the other person, I said so how many walls do you know that have only got one side? No, no, no, no, no. They've all got two sides. So they can see the brick wall, we can see the brick wall.

The other question is about brick walls is how often are you walking around in life and there's a brick wall suddenly appears, if from nowhere, in the most obscure of places that they shouldn't be? Never, you know, brick walls are always. You know, I'm looking out my window now. There's walls between me and the church next door. There's walls for protection, for climbing things up, for boundaries. So brick walls are there for a reason. So one of the things would be what, why is the brick wall there? I've got the prop with me, so those on audio I'm going to have to describe it but it's a brick wall made from wallpaper.

It is a two sided one. Sometimes it feels like, if we really stick with the truth of the fact that brick walls don't appear from nowhere and there is a reason for most brick walls is it sometimes feels as if we've all dodged around to sort of put a brick wall between us and the other person so wherever they're standing, it's like we're running around the garden trying to sort of make it so there's this brick wall between us and them, and that's where the absurdity comes in. From my landscape, the fact that let's get silly with this, because that's obviously not what's happened, it really does enable us to go. So who even built the brick wall?

In this poem I've written about brick walls, one of the lines is sometimes that wall has been there longer than anybody remembers. We don't know why it's there. We don't know who put it there. I go. It just requires a head above the wall and a cheerily hello. How are you? I think playing with the language, and certainly playing with the metaphor, just enables us to have a bit of fun. You're talking to a brick wall? Then it might be well. Let's say I'm shouting at a inflatable wall or I'm lying before a pebble wall and it's just playing with the words because all that does is if the talking to the brick wall is what is telling our brain. We're stuck, there are no options.

By playing lightly and fun with the language by going out into nature. All we're doing is, I suppose, demolishing the walls around our belief that there's, you know, we're stuck, and it enables us to see other solutions.

0:30:00 - Roberta Ndlela
There's a lot that you've shared today where we're going to see things differently, and one other thing yeah, one other thing is. In one of your videos you say change your environment to change your thoughts. But we do it the other way around, which is change your thoughts and then the environment will change. I think the example you used was to be creative and you feel stuck. You can go out to nature and maybe being in a different environment will change your thoughts, or maybe this is a metaphor for something different, because you know how we hear so much of you change your thoughts, you change your mindset and then things around you will change.

0:30:39 - Alison Smith
And, to be fair, I suppose I've come at it from that belief because I didn't help neuro-linguistic programming. I do talk about mindset a lot, and so it is about where's your mindset I start most workshops with. What mindset do you need to be in to get the most out of today? Some mindsets are easier to change than others. I think when we're stuck there's a difficulty because the mindset is already stuck and the language is stuck. So when I wrote can't see the wood for the trees, and because I talk and write a lot about being stuck, I absolutely notice that sometimes I get stuck because I'm writing about being stuck so much you know, covid, I do a lot of work at home.

Now I live on my own and I went to the dentist and so that was a change of environment. But and it was in Edinburgh, so it was city versus. I live sort of more in the countryside but it was just such a shock to the system. But I got so excited because I was having conversations with people and it was just new information coming in and I just think we you know, we do it differently each of us. If we're not comfortable with nature, then perhaps going to nature would be that thing. For me last week it was going into into city because I haven't been in the city for a while.

0:31:50 - Roberta Ndlela
And the reason I brought up that phrase is because, since you've described the work you do with your clients when they are in the job, they don't like that's the environment. So when they go into nature and you say to them, let's take, you know, let's go through the signpost, so the crossroad. Then the mind changed, so the environment came first.

0:32:11 - Alison Smith
Yes.

I mean, I think quite often in the procurement environment, because I still do some work in that when we're talking about creative problem solving, you know, and I say so, what tools do you use for creative problem solving? It's like, oh, brainstorming or whatever it's called these days, but it's in an agrarian meeting room with a conference table in the middle and a flicker and post-its. But is that really a creative environment? Does that really bring out? Because most people get ideas when they're in the shower. Now, I'm not suggesting we have group showers, you know.

0:32:46 - Roberta Ndlela
So absolutely not. No, no, not at all, Alison.

0:32:50 - Alison Smith
But what I have done is with groups of individuals is we've gone into nature to do some problem solving. So I know you were saying earlier that it was warm in Atlanta. We went out one day when the first question that somebody asked before we left the offices was, has everybody got their sun cream on? Because it was so warm out there. But we went out and we had people turning corners and doing all sorts of things but taking the shoes off. You know there was sort of 12 of us problem solving, but in nature, and it was a very different experience than in a gray meeting room with a flip chart or whatever.

0:33:25 - Roberta Ndlela
Because the brain starts to open up and sees things differently. Yeah, so, alison, how do we sow seeds that will grow into the life that we dream of?

0:33:38 - Alison Smith
What a great question I said. In fact, I'm going to repeat what I said to somebody yesterday, because they've just moved house and they're going I don't know what to do. You know, I don't know what to do. I was expecting it all to be clear once I moved house and I've said but moving house was sowing the seeds, so you've sowed the seeds, but it's now with patience required. So you've done something different. You've changed the environment, but if you did sow a seed, you wouldn't be there the next morning after you've sown it.

0:34:08 - Roberta Ndlela
And you dig up the ground. Are you growing a tree already?

0:34:11 - Alison Smith
Yeah, where are you? Where are you? So I think, as long as we've done something different, I think sometimes we can just sit there passively. So I think it is something about coming out of the shadows, doing something different. You know, nature teaches patience. You know tides. People say, oh, I missed the tide, but in most places in the earth there's another tide in 12 months.

0:34:32 - Roberta Ndlela
It's coming back, yeah, it's coming back.

0:34:35 - Alison Smith
So let's just get ready for that and let's be better prepared for the next tide seasons again.

You know, a lot of places have four seasons, but there are places in the earth that only have two, but nevertheless there are seasons and so it changes.

So it's like you know what, and even a tide. I mean, we're tidal where I live and it always amazes me that half a meter is the low tide. High tide is six and a half meters, so there's six meters between high and low tide. Now when you're standing on low tide with your feet on the ground with the water lapping your toes, it's hard to believe that there's going to be that much water above your toes. There's going to be six meters of water in less than six hours or something. But the other thing is is when you look at tides, it's that if we're looking for something at high tide, you're like, oh, I'm searching for the answer to my problem. If we go looking for it at high tide, it might be covered up by the water. We might have to wait for low tide, because low tide is when the water's retreated and suddenly we see the rocks or we see whatever the tide has been hiding.

0:35:49 - Roberta Ndlela
So things are clearer.

0:35:51 - Alison Smith
Yes, I think we can learn so much from nature. There's a surprise about that whole patience, about timing. I mean again, I've been doing this 20 years and I still find new insight. But on this particular day I was doing a recording for the podcast and I was telling everybody look look at the landscape in front of you, pick a part of the landscape that represents your current problem in front of you. And then suddenly it was if. Oh, hang on a minute, I'm only looking at the 180 degrees in front of me.

There's another 180 degrees behind me and so for me it was oh my golly. Yeah, we need to turn around. So I think the seeds are having patience. Make sure that we're looking at the right timing, right Things do happen in the winter, but you get more growth in the spring, you know. Are we ready for that? You know how's our well-being? Are we prepared and ready for everything that's to come, or do we just need to spend a bit of time getting some good sleep, eating the right things, exercising and not forcing our way to do something now Because, yeah, it feels like we're in the winter. So I just need to hunker down, eat nice nurturing things and the time will be right for my new idea in the spring and you know it isn't necessarily the spring, but it is a spring in your whatever that relates to within your idea.

0:37:11 - Roberta Ndlela
A spring phase in your life for sure. Thank you so much. Alison Smith, author, trainer, coach and the author of Can't See the Wood for the Trees, the podcast host of Landscaping your Life with Alison Smith. Thank you for helping us see how nature can help us solve our problems, basically, and get us stuck. Thanks, roberta, this has been wonderful. And before you go, where can we find you on the internet so that we learn more?

0:37:44 - Alison Smith
There's lots of Alison Smiths, so you're better off going for Landscaping your Life. So Landscaping your Life. On Amazon will find the book Landscaping your Life on podcasts, because Landscaping your Life is not used by many people, so Landscaping your Life on LinkedIn will find me. On YouTube will find me Landscaping your Life.

0:38:03 - Roberta Ndlela
Landscaping your Life with Alison Smith. This has been wonderful indeed. Thank you for joining the Speaking and Communicating podcast once again. The Speaking and Communicating podcast is part of the Be Podcast Network, where there are many other podcasts that support you in being a better leader and becoming the change you want to see. To learn more about the Be Podcast Network, go to bepodcastnetworkcom. Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify, and stay tuned for more episodes to come.