Monthly Archives: November 2013

Gaming = Future Ed

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The list below was created by Brian Jackson, whose workshop I attended at the IB Dunia Teachers Conference in Jakarta. I was amazed at the extent of research that’s been done. Singapore University seems to have been very busy on this topic and the conclusion generally seems to be that appropriate use of gaming in the classroom is extremely effective in engaging youth with issues and concepts and can also be a catalyst for action – propelling students out of the classroom and into real world situations that require research and problem solving.

I’ve was formerly fairly cynical about gaming – especially as a tool in the classroom. This workshop opened my eyes to the almost infinite potential of gaming platforms to stimulate learning.

As an experiential educator I agree wholeheartedly with Brian’s comment when he said he considered himself a facilitator, rather than a teacher. The difference is profound. As these kinds of resources continue to evolve and find their way into our tool kits, so our understanding of what it means to be a “teacher” must also continue to evolve.

Game on!

Here’s a list of the best game-based learning links…

2012 New Horizon Report

Games

Statecraft  humanities, english, economics, psychology

Urgent Evoke humanities, science, english, art

The Hexagon humanities, science, english, art

Finding Identity humanities, english, art, history

World Without Oil humanities, economics, history, english, art, science, pe

Legends of Alkhemia science, humanities, psychology

Catalysts for Change humanities, psychology, english

Chemblaster chemistry, science

Trust Me psychology, humanities, english, economics

Nobel Prize list of games science, humanities, english, literature

Quest Atlantis humanities, art, history, english, science

Resources for making games

Big World Learning

Earthworks

HP Catalyst Project

Spongelab

Research on Gamification

Early report

Crossing the Chasm

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I feel like I read this book without breathing. Some things just come along at the right time.

Geoffrey Moore’s iconic book, Crossing the Chasm, focuses exclusively on marketing strategies in the high-tech start up world, but I couldn’t help but to see numerous parallels. I’m the founder of a [still-newly-born] experiential education company called the Odyssey Institute, which in many respects couldn’t be more different. But our need to develop an effective marketing strategy is as real and essential as it is any high-tech start up. Here’s what I’ve learned from this book so far…

crossing-the-chasm

The Chasm

The chasm is the fathomless void that exists between where you start and where you need to end up if you want your company to become sustainably profitable. Don’t get me wrong, its actually possible to still be in business in year 10 without crossing the chasm – you just won’t be enjoying it much!

A chasm crossing is a profound experience for a company as it involves an evolutionary leap in corporate identity, with all that is implied for your company’s products/services, systems and people.

The Early Market 

One thing you can guarantee about a new product is that its far from perfect, but somehow these things still get sold. So who would buy a far-from-perfect product? Well, we probably all have at some point, but generally the answer is enthusiasts and visionaries – or what Geoffrey Moore refers to as “techies”. 

We have a handful of enthusiastic and visionary clients that make up our current early market share. We wouldn’t exist without them. In our case these folks are not techies in the IT sense, rather our techies are passionate educators who are looking for innovative educational products and solutions to the issues their students (and schools) are facing. Our techies are even willing to help create those solutions; they’re willing to get involved, buy a far-from-perfect product and go out on a professional limb. That’s an exact parallel to Silicon Valley.

Some of our techies are our friends and colleagues from previous jobs; they are our network of kindred spirits and share our passion for experiential education, holism and – most importantly  CHANGE. Working with them has allowed us to develop an initial product and get it into the market place. We’ve successfully done that and thus officially launched!

Our initial service was a series of field trips in Bali, Indonesia. I designed educational experiences to be facilitated in very unconventional classrooms (i.e. amidst rainforests and ancient temples) and used my network to both refine and sell these services. Although continually growing, my network is relatively small and the amount of sales we’re acquiring and retaining is far from the vision of greatness and profitability that I set out with. Suffice to say, we’re still entrenched in the early market sector, where we’re dependent on our slowly growing cohort of enthusiasts and visionaries.

The early market sector isn’t necessarily a bad place for us to be right now and we’re not in a hurry to leave it behind (despite the roller coaster of financial insecurity on this side of the chasm). We’re just starting our third year of operations and are still very focused on market research and product development. I guess that never stops, but you’d better be pretty sure you’ve got a solid foundation before you attempt a crossing. I don’t think Odyssey is quite there yet.

Beyond the Early Market

As we solidify our position in the early market our trajectory across the chasm is slowly revealing itself. Over the last two years we’ve been tip-toeing up to the edge of the chasm and staring across at the other side. Our early successes and loyal techies have lead us to the edge and we’re now beginning to engage with the pragmatists and conservatives of the mainstream market beyond. These pragmatists and conservatives are the faculty and administrative staff of the most established educational institutions in South East Asia. By definition they have a low tolerance for risk and a general disdain for anything “cutting edge” (despite often appearing to champion such values). The want “whole products” that have been tried and tested. They’re willing to pay more for them, but they’re also willing to wait almost indefinitely (or even just take their business elsewhere) if the service provider isn’t quite up to par. Needless to say this is a far less personal and substantially more bureaucratic kind of relationship. 

Geoffrey Moore encourages start ups to cross the chasm by finding a “beach head”. Its a 2nd World War D-Day analogy, but it works. You cross the chasm by penetrating a niche-market with your [by-now-hopefully-pretty-well-developed] product/service. You identify a specific point of entry (beach head) and aggressively go after that market segment with everything you’ve got. Once you go for it, its do or die time!

Choose your weapon

A key decision to make before a chasm crossing is which product/service to really get behind. We have a small, increasingly focused range of services that we’re offering and aren’t quite ready to choose. Our middle school field trips are doing really well, but our Odyssey Film School is also looking really promising. So for now we’ll keep looking to build our early market position and further establish our programs and reputation. I figure when the time is right we’ll know and at some point in the next 6-12 months we’ll have the clarity and momentum we need to leap across.

Activist Media workshop

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One of the most exciting break-out projects I’m working on right now is the Odyssey Film School. Its a 10-day workshop that we will be running on international school campuses as part of their summer school offerings. First up is International School Bangkok in June 2014.

To get kids excited about this and to clarify our agenda, I designed a short critical thinking / brainstorming exercise that can be facilitated free of charge in any school with students interested in digital media. Then I went on the road and tried it out. So far its been really exciting to facilitate and really well received. Here’s how it goes:

Critical thinking exercise part 1: organize the space and set the tone 

First of all you need to set the tone. Students are often not particularly comfortable sharing personal information (even just opinions) in front of large groups, so I always start by breaking them into smaller groups. This activity plan is based on the assumption that we have a group of about 20-30 students (the average class size). The exercise takes about 30 minutes – but you can take a little longer of you have the time (just play with the debriefs for a little longer after each question).

Split students into 4 groups. Either let them decide or you do it. Groups need to be of roughly equal size. Each group will then be asked the same question but need to answer it from a slightly different perspective. Perspectives range from local to global. Most recently when I facilitated this in Jakarta, I used the following four “perspective categories”:

1. Your school

2. Jakarta

3. Indonesia

4. The world

The questions

QUESTION # 1: Create a list of the top 3 issues you face today (social or environmental or both). Remember to answer this question from your group’s allocated perspective. You can write down as many as you want initially, but then have to create a short list of three.

NEXT: ask a representative from each group to share their conclusions.

QUESTION # 2: How do you know about these issues? How did you receive the information? Please write down a list of the sources of this information – i.e. family and friends, TV, newspaper, etc. Now please estimate the percentage of this information that comes from a digital media source.

 

NEXT: ask a representative from each group to share their conclusions.

QUESTION # 3: How much of the information about your top 3 issues focuses on the solutions to the issues? Create a rough percentage – for example if you watched 100 minutes of TV how many of those minutes would be looking at the solution and how many would be looking at the problem? If its 80 minutes focused on the solution and 20 on the problem then that’s your percentage.

 

NEXT: ask a representative from each group to share their conclusions.

The debrief… patterns / observations / 

 

Predictably, students invariably create statistics that suggest that most of their knowledge about issues outside of their immediate family and/or local community come form digital media sources.

 

The inverse is also true: the closer to home the issue and the more “local” the perspective they were asked to represent, the higher the likelihood of the information sources being non-digital media.

 

Students usually estimate the percentile of digital media coverage to be 70-90%.

 

Students also usually estimate the ratio of issue : solution news coverage to be about 80:20.

 

QUESTION: How do you feel about receiving so much information about issues and problems with so little focus on the solutions?

 

A common response to this question is silence, at which point I usually say, “exactly!”. Generally in life when we are confronted with a challenging / stressful situation to which we do not have a solution we do one of three things; fight, flight, freeze (silence is a freeze). This then becomes a segue into a conversation with the students about Activist Media: about how they can harness the power of digital media to make change happen.

We’re striving to do that through our collaborative partnership with the Paradigm Shift Project and the newly-formed Odyssey Film School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The OI Facilometer

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What is a facilitator?

We thought we’d share a little brainstorm from our thought wall, where we play with ideas and strategies.

The challenge…

We are fast-growing company that needs to protect and nurture its culture and clearly communicate its values. Getting the right people on board is essential. But how to do that? How to communicate our values? How to assess the values of new staff – especially if they’re part time. An interesting dilemma and one that we’ve been spending some time on.

To back up a bit and put this into context, we’re in recruitment mode right now. We’re looking for new staff – core team members that can help us move forward with integrity and passion and consistency. We’re trying to figure out who the best kind of people are to recruit and build relationships with – especially as we have an ongoing need for part timers. We’ve found that short term recruitment of powerful personalities is unsustainable and can undermine the development of the OI brand, so we decided to ask ourselves a simple question, “what is a facilitator?”

At Odyssey we don’t draw a line in the sand between our logistical support team and facilitation team. Some organizations do. We don’t. They are not separate species. We want everyone to have an appreciation of what other team members are responsible for and what their duties and roles feel like. In order to do that we deliberately blur the line. Not that we don’t delegate effectively, its more that when we do we know what it feels like to receive that responsibility and know who’s best to hand it to. This, we feel, is a good formula for building a community (as opposed to a collection of individuals).

The Facilometer

First of all my Operations Manager, Novi, and I took this one to lunch (a spinach pizza at Bali Buddha) and I ended up drawing out a diagram on a napkin. Next it went back to the office and turned into the OI Facilometer! Its basically a tool for diagnosing the potential of professional experiential facilitators to become full time core staff members at Odyssey. I guess you could also call it an HR strategy. Here’s what I came up with:

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Defining OI Facilitators

Once in the field with a group, our facilitators have what we call “front end” and “back end” responsibilities. As experiential educators we need to get a whole bunch of ducks in a row in order to create powerful Learning Adventures. Really, the list is long – especially when you consider we are operating in remote wilderness settings in developing countries!

If you get how to organize and manage the “space” (work environment) and are great at managing logistics, etc, but don’t have much of a connection to the students, or much of a passion for education, you could be a solid logistician (what we might call a “stage hand”) but very weak as a front end facilitator.

Similarly, if you are highly skilled and passionate about engaging students and holding them in a powerful, energized, focused learning space, but have no idea how to set the show up, you’re what we’d call a “rock star”.

As you can see from our Facilometer, anyone scoring high on either the front or back end exclusively is going to be suitable to part time work only. That’s not to say that Odyssey doesn’t need rock stars and stage hands (we need a whole bunch of them!). We’re just not building our company around them. At least not at the core.

So… for Odyssey the quest continues. Core Odyssey team members (facilitators) have a working knowledge of the dynamic range of responsibilities necessary for the creation of our Learning Adventures (holistic experiential education opportunities). Our logisticians and sales staff have a love of experiential education and our facilitators deeply appreciate the technical aspects of getting those kids to camp. And the more anyone is able to embody this middle ground (circled on the chart), the more likely they are to be a long term, full time member of Odyssey’s growing family.

We are, after all, in the business of holistic education and we want balanced individuals with a strong sense of team work and an appreciation for the diversity of skills required to get the job done.

OI Performance Evaluation

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Performance Evaluation

 

I wanted to develop a framework for reflection and meaningful dialogue at Odyssey. I wanted it to emphasize the company’s core values and for them to be a point of reference as staff consider their performance.

 

The key concept here is holism, a concept further unpacked in the actual wording from Survey Monkey, which is below. We are an experiential education company which means we provide students with opportunities to learn by doing. As our focus is on the environment, culture and leadership development, we provide a dynamic range of experiences in natural settings and amidst unfamiliar cultures. Thus the experiences we facilitate are multi-sensory and engage multiple intelligences. For us that’s deeply exciting as it greatly increases the depth and breadth of potential learning outcomes and also the likelihood of an experience being meaningful. And let’s face it, anything we try and teach kids that isn’t meaningful to them goes in one ear and out the other.

 

So with this passion and insight in mind, I wanted to find a way to allow staff to learn and grow and also stay very conscious of our core culture. Odyssey staff basically fall into two categories: they’re either administrative in orientation with a focus on some aspect of logistics, sales, admissions and all the associated communications, or they are facilitation oriented and predominantly concerned with program development and delivery. Whichever category they’re in, they inevitably overlap quite a bit and all need to have a strong relationship with our core values and mission. As such, I felt it made sense to develop one evaluation tool that worked equally well for both admin and facilitation staff.

 

Being a really new company with a need to keep overheads low, we set up a  free account with Survey Monkey and haven’t yet found a need to upgrade it. The following questions usually take staff about 60 minutes to answer. Part time facilitators do this after every program they run for us. Full time staff do this about once a quarter. The following is taken directly from our Survey Monkey questionnaire. Once complete staff notify my and we arrange a time to check in and talk through their answers. I think most of them will tell you that this feels a little burdensome, but once they’ve done it and we get to the bit where we are able to talk it tends to be a very powerful reference tool.

 

Feel free to take and use anything you feel is useful…

 

About the Performance Evaluation (PE)…

 

This tool has been developed to allow the Oi team to effectively and efficiently review their performance after every program.

 

The foundation of Oi’s teaching methodology is principally concerned with experiential education. People learn most effectively by doing because the more of a human being’s core self you are able to stimulate, the greater the likelihood of generating meaning (learning). 

 

At Oi we believe that Human Nature is comprised of five parts: we all have a mental, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual self. The idea with experiential education is to teach by engaging as much of a human being as possible (that is to say, a dynamic range of senses and parts of self). Sometimes this is referred to as holistic education.

 

It follows, then, that in order to be an effective holistic/experiential educator, you need to have a well-rounded (holistic) skill set. In other words, you need to develop your facilitation skills within each of the five core fields of self. The following questionnaire breaks down those five fields and provides concrete examples of the kinds of skills that Oi expects to be in place in a highly evolved facilitator. 

 

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1. FIELD 1 :: SOCIAL… Your skills in this area relate primarily to your ability to cultivate and effectively manage positive relationships with a) your Oi team; b) the teachers; c) the students.

 

Effective Field 1 facilitation skills include but are not limited to…

 

1. strong group leadership and teamwork skills = commands respect. delegates effectively. works collaboratively with all team members to make decisions and share delivery of learning objectives. colleagues feel empowered. 

2. powerful engagement skills = students and co-facilitators are “hooked in” and feel ownership over topics and activities. 

3. establishes appropriate connections = consistently approachable. open to feedback. supportive. demonstrates humor & compassion. identifies own and others’ needs and is proactive in fulfilling them. develops meaningful rapports with a,b, and c. 

 

WITH REGARDS TO THE PROGRAM YOU HAVE JUST FINISHED FACILITATING, PLEASE COMMENT ON THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU HAVE MASTERED THESE FIELD 1 FACILITATION SKILLS AND PROVIDE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE. 

 

 

Use the descriptions to evaluate your own performance and to take inventory of your own personal level of professional development within the specific context of the program you have just facilitated.   

 

2. FIELD 2 :: PHYSICAL… Facilitation skills in this area relate primarily to:

 

1. Technical guide certifications acquired (such as PADI, WFR, rock climbing, high ropes, etc). 

2. Excellent physical fitness. Established runner / yogi / swimmer, etc.

3. Groomed and equipped. Possesses all the personal gear he/she needs. is able to maintain personal hygiene and appropriate professional appearance whilst in tropical wilderness and/or challenging, unfamiliar environments. 

4. High levels of comfort in tropical wilderness environments. Solid camping / outdoor / back country survival and leadership skills. Established EE / outdoor facilitation skills. 

5. High level of personal health awareness. Knowledgeable about personal dietary needs. able to effectively manage energy levels during field work. 

6. Excellent risk management skills. Understands the physical needs and limitations of self and others. Understands the physical challenges present in an environment and is able to initiate effective strategies for mitigating risks. Exhibits consistent awareness of risks through appropriate communication, use of equipment and effective teamwork.

 

WITH REGARDS TO THE PROGRAM YOU HAVE JUST FINISHED FACILITATING, PLEASE COMMENT ON THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU HAVE MASTERED THESE FIELD 2 FACILITATION SKILLS AND PROVIDE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.

 

3. FIELD 3 :: MENTAL… Facilitation skills in this area relate primarily to:

 

1. Deep subject knowledge. Confidently answers technical questions with appropriate facts and information. Able to satisfy the appetite of even the most curious of young minds. Effectively engages with teachers regarding learning outcomes and technical subject matter. 

2. Extensive group dynamics/facilitation knowledge. Can confidently and effectively work with Oi team mates to deliver a broad range of activities for groups of varying size and age. 

3. Prepared & focused. Turns up ready. Knows what to say and how to say it. Consistently conscious of desired learning outcomes. Always has a few extra tricks up their sleeve! 

4. Energized and inspired. Sleeps well. Knows how to rest. Enjoys their subject areas and enthuses others with a love of learning. Established stress management practice. 

5. A life long learner. Humble. Appetite for exploring personal passions and weaknesses / areas where growth is needed. Willing to share needs and develop new strategies for personal growth.

 

WITH REGARDS TO THE PROGRAM YOU HAVE JUST FINISHED FACILITATING, PLEASE COMMENT ON THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU HAVE MASTERED THESE FIELD 3 FACILITATION SKILLS AND PROVIDE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.

 

4. FIELD 4 :: EMOTIONAL… Facilitation skills in this area relate primarily to:

 

1. High emotional awareness. Understands own personal challenges and has developed effective strategies for managing them. 

2. Efficient emotional processor. Effectively deals with emotional reactions to field-based situations. remains calm and present when challenged. Effective communicator of emotional reality and associated needs.

3. Highly empathic. Able to identify with the emotional realities of others. Creates safe spaces for sharing and processing. Consistently present for others. 

 

WITH REGARDS TO THE PROGRAM YOU HAVE JUST FINISHED FACILITATING, PLEASE COMMENT ON THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU HAVE MASTERED THESE FIELD 4 FACILITATION SKILLS AND PROVIDE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.

5. FIELD 5 :: SPIRITUAL… Facilitation skills in this area relate primarily to:

 

1. Strong & clear sense of purpose. Has clarity around personal mission in life and understands correlation to the Oi mission and vision. 

2. Nature lover. Experiences a deep feeling of “Connection” in wilderness environments. Has a natural fascination for the diversity of life (flora and fauna) on earth.

3. Anthropologist at heart. Deep curiosity about how people live and experience life. Natural enthusiasm to learn from others – even those from very different cultural origins. Willing and able to embrace the Odyssey culture. 

4. Deep appreciation of value of service. 

5. Extremely playful and creative. Demonstrates flexibility and can spontaneously contribute fun games. 

 

WITH REGARDS TO THE PROGRAM YOU HAVE JUST FINISHED FACILITATING, PLEASE COMMENT ON THE EXTENT TO WHICH YOU HAVE MASTERED THESE FIELD 5 FACILITATION SKILLS AND PROVIDE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.

Black Swan dynamics

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Black Swan dynamics

 

Nassim Taleb’s book, “The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” is an articulate expose of the innately random nature of certain influential events. Its a scary thought to think – that random events rule the world – especially as an entrepreneur, but in reading this I am reminded of the naivete (and even arrogance) of assuming authority and attempting control. Black Swans (random events that effect change) are a pervasive feature of life. The more we try to forecast and predict (and, according to Nassim, especially if we do it wearing a tie) the further we get from reality. Its why we shouldn’t watch TV – or at least not the “news” – and its why, as an entrepreneur, I find myself constantly reminded of the need to develop a compass by which to navigate the world – risk management strategy for the soul, so to speak.

 

Strategic plans are important, so long as they are flexible. Business plans are also important, so long as they are understood for what they are (just a plan), but to be honest, I haven’t looked at mine since I launched my company almost three years ago. It seems to me that building a foundational layer of clear values and healthy relationships is a far more essential part of compass development, which in turn can hopefully help us to manage Black Swans – and maybe even see them as opportunities. I feel like this is something Whinnie the Pooh might say, but it seems the general rule is this:

 

“you will never end up exactly where you thought you were going to end up having followed the precise route you envisioned”. 

 

Some might say that’s stating the obvious, but as an entrepreneur I frequently forget, only to be reminded later when I reach some point of frustration that I could have avoided (or at least didn’t need to experience with quite such intensity!). My compass is partly about people – close friends, mentors and colleagues – who form an essential layer of resilience and point of reference. Relationships are such a fascinating area to understand as a manager and company owner – especially when working in developing countries and regions beyond your country (and culture of origin). All great stuff to “unpack” in future reflections on entrepreneurship.

 

It seems to me that greater our ability to intelligently respond to new and shifting market trends and previously unpredicted events the greater our potential for sustainable growth. Considering how one does this catapults me into thoughts about holism, yoga, intuition and love, which are hardly the words on the tip of the tongue of most entrepreneurs – at least not when they’re in the office! I’m exploring all of this daily at the Odyssey Institute and look forward to sharing our mistakes, learning and current practices.

Himalayan Odyssey

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The Bowen Youth Himalayan Odyssey

 

This was a program I developed for Bowen Island Municipality in BC, Canada, where I worked as the Youth Services Coordinator for 5+ years. This is the story of how it came to be.

 

I remember being interviewed for the job in the local youth center. I’d just got residency in Canada and was excited to make my mark. My wife and I had just moved to the Island having returned to Canada to “settle” after many years of Himalayan travel and adventure.

 

Bowen is a small, quiet forest-covered island off the coast of Vancouver. The population of just over 4000 is extremely family-oriented. People move out of the city to raise their kids there. Its safe – like, really safe – in fact the only reason most people put up a fence around their property is to keep out the marauding deer. Nobody locks their doors because there’s no property crime. But despite the trees and tranquility and healthy social fabric of the community, for many local teens there seemed to come a point where they needed more. It seemed there was a generation of teens drifting around in the woods, unobserved and unobservable. BC is saturated in marijuana and other drugs, most of which are cheaper and easier to obtain than alcohol. The upshot of this was a sub-culture of drug and alcohol abuse amongst a minority of bored and marginalized teens. Or at least that was mainly what the adult population seemed to talk about when they spoke of Bowen youth; they were concerned and the Municipality (i.e. me) was supposed to do something about it.

 

So as the manager of the local youth center and local outreach worker I dived into the fascinating Bowen youth sub-culture. They were, like in most other Canadian communities, an extraordinarily creative and fun loving bunch. I made connections and did what I could to offer mentorship and recreational opportunities and at some point in this process I decided to go for gold, to develop a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, as they say and decided to take a shot at the community’s perception of teens. It was time for a counter attack; for teens to be given an opportunity to voice a different message about who they were and what they were capable of. We were going to the Himalayas.

 

Over the following four years I developed what became known as the Bowen Youth Himalayan Odyssey (BYHO). In short, it brought together local teens in an audacious goal to journey to the top of the world. I worked with a maximum of 12 students every year and slowly, with their help and the help of West Vancouver youth workers and colleagues from Capilano University and Vancouver Coastal Health, I developed a series of leadership initiatives and fundraisers that got British Columbian teens to the Himalayas.

 

By year 3 of the BYHO, the trip to Sikkim (in Himalayan India) had become a central feature of youth service provision on Bowen Island and something much talked about by local teens and the community.

 

I’ll post details of specific events and activities in subsequent blog entries.

Monkey Mind

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Monkey Mind is an article I wrote for Inspired Bali magazine. A personal story about some of the catalysts for learning in my life.
Ben Tamblyn in the Himalayas with monk friends
I was born and raised in a quaint seaside town, surrounded by the glorious rolling hills of southern England. Despite the idyllic setting, I proved a “handful” as a child, a “bright spark” with a wild and reckless spirit in dire need of structure. Thus, at the age of 11, I found myself at a private boarding school for boys, one of the best in the south, wearing a blazer and tie and signed up for rugby and cricket. Think Harry Potter without the spells.

Not surprisingly, the additional structure of a traditional British boarding school did little to reform me. I remained a charming but “deviant young man” who persistently challenged authority and disturbed the status quo. I broke the rules that didn’t make any sense to me as often as most of my peers handed in their homework. I got more detentions and spent more time in the Head Master’s office than any other kid in the school and quickly got a reputation as the school prankster and troublemaker.

Being the charming rule breaker became the prevailing face of Ben, an image I rarely shook off. Despite showing promise in theatre, my creativity went largely unnoticed and was channelled–in its entirety–into mischievous pranks and random acts of disobedience.

But somewhere in the middle of this period of happy delinquency, the universe began to spin differently. Shadows loomed on the horizon that I was ill-equipped to meet.

At 14, my parents divorced suddenly and tragically, within 18 months my mother had died of cancer. I was utterly devastated. I felt as if my world had been torn apart and I was completely unequipped to deal with my emotions. I was no longer simply dealing with ADHD (undiagnosed)and an inability to concentrate and conform; I was now desperately trying to survive in an ocean of anger and grief. Mr Deviant became Mr Dark and my exploits escalated rapidly, leading to my expulsion from school at 16.

Emboldened by anger and a reckless disregard for life, I began a war I simply couldn’t win. Suddenly, it was me versus Life. Or God. Anything really. It really didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore–except that I couldn’t allow myself to feel. I rapidly descended into a permanent state of anesthesia. Every high I survived was a miracle. Relationships fell apart and now, more alone than ever, Mr Dark became Mr Dangerous as stolen cars went up in flames and pharmacies, homes and accounts were emptied. I raged against life in a desperate mission to avoid my grief.

Hospitals and jail cells replaced the Head Master’s office and by the age of twenty Mr Dangerous was burnt out, bankrupt and very nearly dead. I found myself living in the shadows–armed, tweaking, terrified and with my mind and body in ruins.

Some time in 1993, I found myself in a local Magistrates Court facing charges. I was given a 3-year suspended sentence and offered an ultimatum: rehab or jail. I chose rehab and “graduated” about ten months later. I’m prouder of my graduation from that clinic than any other “school” I have ever attended.

I remember my arrival on the clinic grounds. I was about 40 lbs (almost 20kg) underweight and scared witless. Three weeks later my detox was ending and I found myself in a counselor’s office smoking a cigarette.

The counselor saw my potential. We connected and for the first time in my life I had a mentor. I felt safe and over the ensuing weeks, my rage subsided and was surpassed by a broader, deeper range of emotions, all of which terrified me and erupted in wild, unmanageable bursts. But it was time to get real and with help from my mentor and my newly found community, I began a journey into the truth about Ben.

After nine and a half months of intensive therapy, I left the rehabilitation center and returned to the “real world”, clean for the first time in years. I was 21 years old and back from the dead. I felt inspired and ready for a lifelong journey of recovery that was only just beginning.

Ultimately, rehabilitation was an opportunity to get the kind of education I’d so badly needed as a young child. I learned how to feel and process emotion which included, perhaps most importantly, the utterly terrifying and profound process of grieving. I learned techniques for stilling my mind, re-discovered the great outdoors and ignited my long-abandoned spirituality. For the first time in years, I felt excited about life and began to appreciate my own potential.

At the age of 23, I finally graduated from high school. I trained as a youth counselor and worked in front line drop-in centers. I discovered a passion for rock climbing, an activity that took me on expeditions around the world and formed a natural precursor to the yoga I practice today.

My early experience of grief and addiction fostered a deep curiosity about life and a thirst for adventure. I was drawn to Tibetan Buddhism and stories from the Himalayas and shortly after finishing high school, I joined an aid expedition to Mustang (a region of Himalayan Nepal) where we delivered medical supplies to Tibetan refugees. I fell in love with the mountains and the people and returned every year for almost 15 years. I became an aid worker and anthropologist and lived in the monasteries and remote villages of Nepal and Sikkim seeking wisdom, refuge and companionship. I felt a particular affinity with the communities of displaced Tibetan monks who became like an extended family of brothers that reminded me of long-past school days.

No single place on earth held more mystery (and thus more answers) for me. Here, amidst the biggest hills on Earth, I sensed infinite potential for adventure and self-discovery. I was enraptured by the magnitude of the mountains and moved by the carnage of poverty and the extraordinary tenacity of the people who welcomed strangers with their familiar “namaste”.

On one fateful visit in the late 1990s, I went to Nepal with the intention of taking my vows and becoming a Buddhist monk. I sat with my friend, Tenzin Jampa, a respected monk in the local community. We drank salty tea and discussed my intentions. He said he would speak to the Rinpoche (the revered incarnate monk and head of the monastery). The next day Tenzin and I met again. With his arm around me and half a dozen random young monks squashed into our room in close attendance, Tenzin explained to me with a huge grin on his face, “Rinpoche says you have monkey mind!” and then, as if to clarify, “in here, monkey mind no good!” Monkey mind is a commonly used expression in Tibetan Buddhist monastic circles to describe the western mindset. It refers to our endless curiosity: always tinkering, analytical and –most importantly–eternally busy.

As I looked into the round, grinning face of my shaven-headed friend in his maroon colored robes it dawned on me–with almost a sense of embarrassment–that my attraction to Tibetan Buddhism was in part an attempt to transcend that which I had not yet mastered–or even fully appreciated. In short, sat there amidst the flurrying robes and incense and itchy carpets I realized that my monkey mind.

Beginning

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Sometimes its the hardest thing to do. To simply begin. Its a decision to initiate momentum; its a commitment to the unknown.

About three years ago I set off on a journey into entrepreneurship, not knowing what I would find or where I would end up.  This is my blog about that uncertain life, with all its perils and serendipity. This blog is my attempt to collate my insights and musings and share them, for better or worse, in the hope that they may inspire a weary traveler or two.

I am on the steepest learning curve of my life.  At times the “curve” feels more like a vertical line. I feel as if I’m passed the point of no return, or that I’ve made a commitment to a journey that is far from over. Mountaineering analogies spring to mind. However the one big difference between mountaineering and entrepreneurship is that starting your own business is the metaphorical equivalent of attempting to climb a mountain with no summit.