As I spend more time figuring out what this new role of Chief Explorer looks like, I have been using a few channels to experiment. In stepping away from my leadership role, I wanted this new role to give me the opportunity to come up with ideas as we travel and explore things locally. I’ve already talked about the idea that the journeys are internal as well as external. Ideas flow from thinking as well as from external stimuli. I’ve also been really clear that the explorer role is not just tied to the organisation that I founded and have worked with for nearly a decade.
In August I created the first edition of something called The Chief Explorer’s Almanac. This was a collection of 20 or so ideas gleaned from travels, conversations, study and reading. I pulled it together around three themes: people; places and projects. I shared it with the team I used to lead and with a few other people too. In late September I created the second issue of the Almanac. This time it was a postcard sent to the team – a photo from our travels in France on one side and a description combined with a question on the other side. The first almanac, then, was a summary of many ideas and the second was focused in on just one thing.
Then I started to think about where to take this idea next. I love the idea of something that changes and evolves with each issue. So, I thought that future issues could be a newsletter, a pamphlet, a booklet, a paperback book, a film, an audio file, or a set of photos. And over time it could become something that others contribute to as well. All of these are badged as The Chief Explorer’s Almanac, whose core purpose is to inspire, inform and open the imagination.
I’m thinking that this could become something shared to anyone interested in being on the mailing list, usually shared here in this blog too and over on the Chief Explorer’s website too, often shared as a physical artefact. What do you think? Is this something you would find interesting? Would you like to be involved? Get in touch if you would like to be a part of this. I’m intending to push out developments with this throughout 2023. To coin a cliché, watch this space.
And, it would be remiss of me to not mention that the new book, “The Inner Fire” was published on 1st December. It’s available on Amazon and directly from me on this site (where you can get a signed copy).
Also published on Medium.