Pausing 4 Thought in a 2Quick World: Myanmar and pissing on your feet...

It’s a strange place the place where you should be sleeping but you’re not. It’s even stranger when there’s a strangely interesting French film that is sort of like a documentary on the tv.

I write because I feel I should. There is a strange humour on me. I think I may have eaten too much sugar. Or played too much table tennis. Sleep has no interest in me.

Now that I think about it, the strange place reminds me of the feedback I’d give myself from today. Today I presented for an hour and a half to 200 school children from a selection of schools in Myanmar.

In the strange French film a group of Skinsesque teens are tearing a sofa apart at a party.

Now it is the day after and the unpopular kid whose house it was is getting an earful from her brother.

Today was fantastic. I am very grateful. The feedback I would give myself is to keep seizing opportunities to present and facilitate. There were times when I messed up. It felt like my first real time doing what I love doing. Why is it like the strange place? Part of me wants to lecture myself for the things I should have said and lessons I should have drawn out and offered. The other part of me knows it was my first real time and that I should be ecstatic and celebrating.

That is why it is like the strange place between sleep and waking. Perhaps so much so that I can’t quite educe the full extent of the link.

As with most trips away with Harry, sleep has so far been at a premium. All the more strange why I am currently writing to you from the strange place between sleep and waking. I really should sleep.

I wonder what you are making of my minimalist writing style.

Maybe I shouldn’t use a word like educe. It is a good word though.

The students and the academy where we have been for the last tow days are incredible. We have been delivering a youth leadership camp.

In the strange French film the one of the kids who trashed the house has had the shit kicked out of him by the psycho older brother.

Somehow I have developed very mild athletes foot. Tonight I will piss on my feet.

I think the unpopular girl may be about to commit suicide.

I have been very lucky to have had some lessons about the importance of working hard. Just when you think you should give up. That’s the exact moment when you just work a little bit harder. One of two things will happen. Or both will happen. You will be successful as a result of that little extra effort and achieve what you had thought was impossible. Or you will learn great things about yourself and your own capacities. Either way it’s a win win. Or rewardingly close.

I wonder if I should wash my feet before I piss on them. Or after.

So far Myanmar is amazing. We have not yet ventured that far a field so my impressions are not yet worth much. The people have been warm and inspiring.

Tomorrow I will aim to be more awake. Although the strange place has its merits. Albeit strange ones.

There is news relating to our time at the school and plenty of craziness from our ultimately successful efforts to get to Myanmar.

Stay tuned.

Now to sort my feet. It will be like a strange celebration.

Ok…it’s about 6 days since I wrote the above. I’m actually awake, rather than bordering on insomniac…so I’ll try and offer a more coherent, less pretentious/twattish version of events. This update might come out a little Memento ish – since the events that have happened most recently and are fresher in my mind’s eye will be narrated first and used as a springboard from which to launch the broader narrative.

We are currently midway through training up Myanmar’s first batch of Life/Youth coaches. This is by far the largest cohort Harry and the team have ever trained up at once. There are 44 on the current course, comprising the 20 young people who were voted as leaders of the camp at the last two youth leadership summits, as well as teachers and sales staff from all the schools under the Total educational umbrella.

Let me give some context for the above paragraph, since it presents you with the facts of what we’re currently up to, but gives no background. We are in Myanmar on one of the trips that are part of my Platinum mentoring program with Harry Singha. This doesn’t mean I get lots of platinum jewellery as a result of signing up…rather I get an intensive program of personal development coaching and mentoring from someone who definitely knows what they’re doing…and my needs and outcomes are placed 2^nd only to the needs of his family, which once you get to know how important family is to Harry, gives the assurance that he is passionate about helping you. Harry is one of the UK’s leading personal development speakers, especially in the field of leadership and youth personal development. We are here with him in Myanar at the invitation of Mr Mohan, who is the founder of the Total group of schools – a set of schools that are amongst the most inspiring I’ve come across…and if the desire to serve humanity and the planet that is present in the students and teachers I’ve met…these schools must be regarded as some of the best in the world. The journey of Total began in Mr Mohan’s living room 8 years ago, and now encompasses 8 different schools throughout Yangon, with another soon to be completed in far off Taunggey. Wow!

The current coaches training course is the final course/camp we have facilitated in our two weeks in Myanmar. We began with a two day Leadership Camp for the students.

This event will remain one of the most significant in my life – it being the first event where I truly stepped up and lived one of the loves I feel I’m here on this to live. The session I ran was on the Poetry of Leadership. I am massively grateful to have been given the opportunity to present. The reason I signed up for Harry’s mentoring program was not because I wanted to be a life & youth coach (the fact that I now have these skills is a fantastic bonus – since I had been searching for a way to develop my abilities as a youth worker and mentor for young people) …but because I want to be doing what Harry does: speaking in front of hundreds of people and sharing with them experiential lessons that can enhance their lives and the lives of others.

The more I have studied what Harry does…and set about developing my own content around my talents and passions (in this instance mainly poetry)…the more I have been chomping at the bit to get on stage and test my capacities as a trainer and facilitator – hence my gratitude at finally getting the opportunity whilst in Myanmar.

I was both nervous and massively excited as I waited by the side of the stage. It felt like the culmination of everything I’ve been searching for, as all the various threads of my story so far wove themselves into the fabric of that living moment…and yet that nagging little doubt was still there…‘can I really do this? Will it really help others?’ etc etc.

I realised then I am so blessed to be marrying my FAN-tastic fiancée. She came up to me just as I was in the middle of questioning myself and asked me to pick three images that summed up some of the magic I would like to experience in what I was about to create. At first I was very resistant, telling myself, ‘not now…I’ve got bigger things to focus on’.

Thankfully one of Harry’s key leadership ideas from the previous day had been the notion that ‘what you focus on is what you get’. I swiftly realised how grateful I was to Fan for giving me a nudge to focus on what I did want to happen rather than on what undesirable things may or may not happen.

I felt like a teenager again, readying myself for the first night of one of the numerous plays I acted in during my teens. I remember back then how I developed the habit of anchoring the feeling of nerves to positive adreno-emotional feedback which I trusted would kick me onto a higher level of performance. Being now so familiar with performing, it was refreshing to connect with these feelings with an intensity I now only get when I am about to go on stage at Glastonbury or another such event with a large and unknown audience.

The audience I was about to deliver to was made up of 200 students aged 11-17. They possessed an energy and enthusiasm I’ve not seen any where else, which was matched only by the energy and passion demonstrated by the 20 teachers who had been chosen to be their team leaders and mentors.

A quick note on the camps:

As stated our first undertakings in Myanmar was to run a students leadership camp, and then a teachers camp directly afterwards. The structure of these was as follows: The 200 students of the students camp and 250 techers of the teachers camp were divided into 10 teams. Each team in the students camp was assigned two teachers to act as a mentor and a team leader respectively. Here’s the amazing thing…and why I Fan and I so support and salute Harry for his vision and belief in young people…in the teachers camp, the students themselves became the team leaders and mentors for the teams of teachers – resulting in some truly incredible learnings for both students and teachers alike.

Without going into laborious detail, a few of the personal and general highlights from the two camps are as follows:

Seeing the mutual appreciation of the teachers and students for eachother, and for Mr Mohan the principal – there was a unique atmosphere present, where the Mr Mohan was thankful for having such passionate, dedicated and capable teachers, the teachers were grateful to have a leader who so believed and trusted in them, and the students were grateful to be learning in an environment that so valued their talents and input. Rather than the vicious circle of apathy and depression that characterises some western educational institutions, this was a truly beautiful spiral of integrated learning development

Seeing the two youngest participants of the students camp being voted as leaders of the camp by their respective team-mates. Both proved on the teachers camp and the coaching course that this was not a sentimental vote from their peers, but that they were both searingly intelligent, highly articulate souls who possessed and wisdom and compassion that belied their years

Hearing the Vision Raps of the students and teachers – proving that the content I had delivered was of great value to them…and that as I look forward to developing my speaking and training, I know I already possess, and am still developing, tools that can truly serve individuals and groups in fantastic ways

I was also overjoyed to receive so much positive feedback from my Platinum teammates and from the students and teachers themselves

Seeing Fan presenting on stage…and hearing how many of the students and teachers took her two key messages to heart.

Seeing the three oldest members of the teaching staff taking part in one of the leadership games we played – it required them to let go of their limiting beliefs about their age, and to trust their younger team-mates to help them achieve their goals. Truly inspiring to see how their whole being changed after realising what they had achieved

I hope I’ve given you a taste of what we’ve been up to. Before sharing some impressions of Myanmar and its people, I’ll conclude my words about the programs we given by saying that both Fan and I arrived in Myanmar without much idea of what we would be doing or how exactly we’d be contributing. What we experienced was a nurturing yet boundlessly vibrant energy that should be bottled and used to make nuclear power obsolete, a level of commitment to personal and educational development that should be recognised as the standard for anyone aiming for world-class educational practices, and a warmth and gratitude that left us constantly humbled.

On Myanmar…

Myanmar has a very different heat…and one can feel almost constantly that the nearly tropical humidity and sense of lushness could at any moment transform itself into one of the cyclones that periodically devastates the agriculture and rural infrastructure of this very beautiful land. Indeed, mitigation of natural disasters was a very prevalent theme whenever the students or teachers were asked to express their visions for a better world.

Before we headed to Myanmar many members of the team, myself included, received questions and suggestions from people who thought that we ought not to be going to Myanmar or trying to be of service there because of the country’s human rights record. I admit I mulled over this for sometime…and I think it is only now, having spent some time there that I am clear in myself how I feel…and how I see our presence there. To those who felt we ought not to have gone to Myanmar at all, I would ask the following question: ‘ought we to demonise and refuse to nurture all young people simply because some young people are drug dealers…or should we put down every dog, simply because some dogs bite?’

I appreciate this is a simplistic contention…but you get the point. I have spent a good portion of my adult life trying to batter down the door of change with a sledgehammer. Undoubtedly this is sometimes necessary, but is not always advisable if you don’t know what lies on the other side of the door. I feel now that more often than not it is more effective and long-lasting if one chooses not to adopt the sledgehammer approach and opts instead for the approach of the water that once carved the grand canyon. That same water in Myanmar can nourish the seeds of love and growth in the hearts and minds of the nation’s youth. I see this as the reason life chose to take us to Myanmar.

As a country…I can only talk from my ridiculously limited experience. Myanmar is larger than France…and we saw about 0.1% of it. The people we encountered within that 0.1% were amazingly kind hearted, with a ready smile. They are also passionate about their country and are committed to growing it in a holistic way.

During our time, we had the chance to visit a number of rural schools which the Total group of schools are contributing to – another way which confirms why Total are one of the outstanding educational groups on the planet, since they use a portion of the fees and private financial backing to ensure the maintenance of education provision in the poorer areas outside of Yangon. Imagine Eton or Harrow contributing to build classrooms or science labs at nearby comprehensives – I know hard to even conceive of right?

One school we visited had a classroom constructed entirely form bamboo…and which was a definite health hazard if you happened to step on the wrong decaying piece of floor…it was heartening to see their need would be met.

One of the most inspiring examples of the desire to serve that so imbues Myanmar culture was the work of a monk we were introduced to. He began adopting orphans at the age of 19 and has now grown his contribution activities to include an orphanage, schools and health clinic. It is unforgettable the sheer number of children he has helped…and the fact that he has taken all twists and turns of governmental policy in his stride and focused simply on serving. A true example of the humbling experiences we encountered on an almost daily basis.

I’m sure I’ll have more to add as Fan and I have time to digest our trip…and I’ve certainly some Indian experiences to fill you in on both pre and post Myanmar, but for now, we’re nearing 3000 words, I’m sure your cuppa is long since drained. Here are some amusing photos to enjoy – including the promised ‘indian Fan and George with clothing induced stumpyitis and some shots of from our Myanmar adventures.

Until next time…xx

Enjoy the photos...