I live in a bizarro world.

I deliver strategic workshops to Executives using frameworks and tools I taught first year students at University over ten years ago. I work through my own systems and frameworks with junior, middle, and senior managers of all descriptions. It is the same stuff, but the context, language, and lens delivered through is tweaked for these various audiences.

What does a CFO of an education facility, a COO of a childcare business, a Sales Manager at a national utilities company, and a Manufacturing Department Head at an auto-motor company all have in common?

In the mid-naughties, I found myself somehow working as a floor manager in a high-end-big-box Salon Spa for Aveda (the American natural ingredients salon brand) in Covent Garden, London. It housed over 80 staff from more than 20 countries spanning three floors offering spa, salon, and education services. It was (and still is) a global centre of excellence.

It struck me in a workshop I was a participant in late last year.

As a presenter, I was going deeper into the importance of message, clarity of message, and finding ways to articulate this better in my speaking work. I filled notebooks with thinking, discussed my ideas one to one with colleagues, talked it out with instructors and practiced in front of the group. It was difficult, awkward, embarrassing and draining. But, then it popped.