A week of motion and mixed emotions: gratitude, nerves, excitement. Paris one day, Japan the next. I keep catching myself thinking how lucky I am — and then immediately worrying I sound insufferable for saying so.

The truth is, I am grateful. I get to do things my younger self could never have imagined. But I’m also anxious, tired, feeling guilty and slightly overwhelmed. Big changes always come with a wobble, even the good ones.

This week at work

Still a quiet one. Began the final tranche of chapters for the book. Prepped for Japan. Did some thinking about (organisational) transformation.

Spent some time with an firm doing a discovery in a complex, multi-national setup, helping them to make sense of what they’ve seen and heard. Like many such organisations, they’re trying to find the right balance between central control, consistency and governance — and giving local teams the freedom and flexibility to create relevant content and experiences. In our experience, good governance balances both: standards set centrally, freedom within a framework. And an acceptance that, much as you’d like to, sometimes it’s best to control the things you can change and accept the things you can’t.

We also started ramping up work on a project that’s kicking off soon. Less positively, another proposal got bounced. The market’s pretty tough for everyone right now, I know, but I’m really feeling it right now.

Also this week

I went all the way to Paris for an exercise class. Which is, however I spin it, a ridiculous thing to do. The bonkers class I go to in Amsterdam announced a one-off special at Sainte-Chapelle — that extraordinary 13th-century jewel box of stained glass, in the city my grandmother called home. So I blagged a ticket and went.

I danced to Florence and the Machine in silent-disco headphones, gazing up at the kaleidoscope of light and thinking of all the history those windows have witnessed. During the meditation at the end, I lay on my back listening to Alan Watts’ Dream of Life speech:

“Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further and further-out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally you would dream where you are now — the dream of living the life that you are actually living today. That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have.”

Somewhere between Paris and Tokyo, that line landed hard. What was once a dream really is the life I get to live — and I’m grateful for every improbable, ridiculous bit of it.

Consuming

📺 Watching

Rewatched Princess Mononoke to get in the Japan mood (after last week’s Silence misery-fest). Looking forward to seeing some Ghibli-esque landscapes in the Goto Islands this week.

📚 Reading

Made some slow progress on Blood in the Machine. Still grimly fascinating. A reminder that every technological revolution, from the Luddites to AI, comes with winners, losers and a lot of noise in between.

🎧 Listening

Still have Life of a Showgirl on repeat, but after hearing Alan Watts in the Sanctum class I’ve been deep-diving into more of his speeches on Spotify. Here’s the playlist — perfect plane-listening for big thoughts somewhere over the ‘stans.

Coverage

Had a flurry of messages this week telling me that a provocative LinkedIn post I wrote a few months back — asking if enterprise social networks are over — was being used by Kim England to open her talk at the Unite conference in Nashville.

When you send things out into the internet, you’re never quite sure if you’re sparking debate or just belming into the void. So it’s lovely to hear when something actually lands — and even better when it sparks thoughtful replies and reflection months later.

Turns out being a twat on the internet isn’t a total waste of time after all.

Connections

Met up with campaigner and growth hacker Pranay Manocha as he was passing through Amsterdam this week. We talked Brexit, passport privilege, growth, social media toxicity (and balanced it all out with a few Amsterdam beers).

Travel

I’m writing this 39,000 feet over Asia, midway through a 24-hour, three-flight travel day. I’ll land in Tokyo in four hours and be in Nagasaki by the afternoon. My bag’s still in Paris, so I’m reluctantly piloting a minimalist approach to packing. Wish me luck. I fear I will need it.

Aside from that, looking forward to exploring my new city and meeting the other nomads on the trip, starting with a ferry to the Goto Islands.

Excited to explore, learn, get lost and find something new. Or, at the very least, buy some clean clothes. I’ll share it all here.

This week in photos