My name is Tom Smallwood and here you will find my posts and those of guests, on the positive effects of time spent outdoors.
Every time I go for a walk I see rubbish. Every time I go for a walk, I Pass rubbish and I tut, in a sort of self-satisfied way.
I regularly ask myself; how could people be so crass as to drop litter? Why don't they pick it up?
The question I never asked is; why don't I pick it up?
Read MoreWhen it comes to working from home people often talk about the distractions: Television, endless teas and coffees, biscuits - I'm sure there are biscuits somewhere, even the ironing, tidying up, mowing the lawn, the bills, the books, the music and games... and so on and so forth.
But these do not affect me. In any case I think there are more dangerous distractions available on any smartphone this day and age, so location is not an issue for me in this regard...
Read More"Oh, to be in England, now that April’s there”
I don’t know where Robert Browning was when he wrote these words, or indeed if his apparent melancholy was justified but, as a happy pedestrian in Spring, the sentiment is one I understand.
As has been well documented my running over the last few months has been hampered by injury and, although I am getting slowly back into it, these charges of energy have been replaced by more gentle-paced tramps around the countryside.
Read MoreWhen I was sixteen we lived in a rented house in the Gloucestershire countryside and I had fields, woodland and nature as my companions every weekend. For all the restrictions I may have had when it came to socializing with my peers, my parents always allowed me to roam across the fields providing they knew roughly where I was and when I would be back.
At the time I was going through a phase of reading survival magazines. Long before Ray Mears hit the popular consciousness or Bear Grylls inexplicably chewed off a snake’s head, I was fantasizing about the possibility of surviving from the earth and from my own wits.
Then, one day, I had a sort of epiphany...
Read MoreOn April the 9th, the morning after a very late flight in from a week walking in the Azores, I met Dave Cornthwaite. I imagine to quite a few who read this blog it will be a familiar name. Dave is an energetic man in his thirties, with sunny hair and an equally sunny disposition.
He is responsible for Say Yes More. It is difficult to succinctly define Say Yes More, other than by saying it is a movement, a global community that has spawned the Yes Tribe and Yestival, and has inspired and continues to support people in redesigning their life...
Read MoreOne of the greatest things about quitting the rat race to redesign my life is the chance to work from different locations. Of course I am a father and a husband so I am at the mercy of my daughter’s education and the ability of my wife to have the same flexibility as me.
Now, as I type these words I am sitting in Amelie, a charmingly shabby little bar in Belgrade, drinking a coffee, half an eye on the world strolling by seen through a tatty net curtain.
Read MoreVideo is already important and will continue to become more so, especially on mobile devices. Nobody with an online presence can deny this importance and all small business and brands should be looking at ways of engaging with their audience and customers through video.
"I reached the meadow and stepped through the screeching metal gate.
It was chilly, but in the fading winter light I took a moment to breath deeply and enjoy the view that gets rather ignored during these runs. In front of me a wide circular expanse of grassland, surrounded by water. Only the loud hum of the A14 taints the atmosphere but even this was dulled by the soggy earth and low lying mist.Read More
We are just under one month away from the British Medical Council holding its AGM and the executive committee facing a vote of no confidence.
Whats that? Oh sorry, its the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. So I guess its the citizens of Mumbai who are not happy… no? BMC Software Solutions? No.
Read MoreOne year - when I was seven years old, if memory serves me right - my brother and I set sail on a home made raft made from branches and planks nailed and lashed together with twine and strapped over some large plastic jerry cans.
We drifted out into an often limpid pool that was only a few metres across, but in doing so we lived out an adventure that few children did. We translated our imagination into reality. Alright, we had some grown-up help in the construction of this vessel but the Swallows and Amazons fantasy we lived out was all ours.
Read MoreDifferent generations. Back in '93, when being really, really thin and pale was cool!
Morphine and Memories. It's all I seem to have these days.
Ok, perhaps a tad dramatic but I am writing this hunched and twisted in agony. Another night of fitful sleep saw me turn up to ER at 06:30 this morning seeking pain relief. I am pinned by a trapped nerve in my back which is particularly excruciating. It means that yet another week goes by in which I cannot get close to doing what I want; namely spending time outdoors. Walking boots gather dust and a new packraft lies deflated and unloved.
Read MoreI went to the physio again yesterday and although it seems my "quads might be loosening" and I might be getting better, I have still not been able to run beyond 2 - 3km without knee pain since early January. It all happens at a time when I feel stronger than ever due to the specific strength training I have done and yet I have no way of demonstrating this to myself through a good, long and cathartic thrash across the fields.
Read MoreEmma and Jatta!
I recently came across something called the "Power Thank You", courtesy of Mark Goulston (American Psychiatrist and Consultant to Major Organisations). You will find this short quotation from Goulston’s book Just Listen, all over the internet, but here it is:
"if you’re deeply grateful to someone who’s done an exceptional favor for you, you need to express that emotion by going beyond the plain words ‘thank you’ and instead offer a Power Thank You. When you do this, your words will generate strong feelings of gratitude, respect, and affinity in the other person”.
This is as valid outside the workplace as it is in, and today, back from our travels in Thailand, I would like to say a power thank you to someone who made a difference in my daughter’s life, and therefore mine.
Read MoreI am mixing work with family fun by the beach, but it seems to me that everyone else is so preoccupied with getting that Facebook profile selfie right that they can’t actually enjoy themselves.
I look at my daughter, who is 5 years old, and she is having a whale of a time splashing in the pool, flicking sand over her legs or jumping over what she describes as “massive” waves, but are, in reality, the lightly frothing ripples of a calm and benevolent Andaman sea. I am 41 years old and happy doing pretty much the same as her.
Read MoreThis morning's view.
I decided a while back that this is a subject I would revisit on a regular basis in my own time and in my own thoughts and consequently in this blog.
This week I am in Thailand with my family enjoying some winter sun and fulfilling some of the travel ambitions of my youth. Last week, however, I was at a large trade show in London. I spent a couple of days in meetings, talking with people about the industry in which I have worked for 12 years. It was great to meet up with some people and talk shop for a while. Invariably I discussed my own availability as a consultant with some, and the single refrain that I found myself saying over and over was my willingness to work on time-limited projects.
Read MoreOne month into 2017 and I have managed one 10k run in January. Since then problems with my knees have prevented me doing anything but 3km jogs and strength training much of which was of my own design and based on my own diagnosis.
The 17th of June doesn’t seem so far away and I am now staring at the prospect of potentially having to find an Ultra marathon later in the year. In the meantime I nurse two sets of slightly bruised quads. Not from any punishing run as I might like, but from the ravages of a physio. “Have you ever had a sports massage?” was her question after listening patiently to my jabbering repetition of how unfortunate I am to have one pain after another. "I don’t think so”, I hesitated.
Read MoreWhen I first met my wife I remember her telling me about the happiness she derives from planning travel. Believe it or not it is a simple pleasure I had long neglected, at least since the days of my late teens or early twenties when I still used up valuable hours imagining myself on classic Alpine routes… instead of actually being on classic Alpine routes.
Now, in this year of transformation, I find myself in a position to plan a number of interesting travels which in turn I intend to intersperse with smaller adventures. Next weekend we travel to Thailand and with us shall go a few guidebooks of the countries that make up what was once Yugoslavia (Ex-Yu).
Read MoreIn early January I wrote on this blog that one of my goals for 2017 was to run an ultra marathon. Now, I have never actually run a marathon but I was regularly running in the last 3 months of 2016, including a 15km circuit (mostly off road) so... why not?
I thought it would be a good challenge to give myself 6 months to get in the kind of shape that would allow me to run (and probably walk a bit) a course of 74 km (46 miles).
Read MoreLast week I had a conference call with small group of successful business people. We are discussing cooperating on a project (side project for me) where each of us will bring our own experience, expertise and contribute the skills that we have picked up along our professional journeys.
This sort of project is exciting and interesting; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Whilst there are never any guarantees, the putting together of a team that - at least on paper - looks as if it covers all the areas required to make it successful does give a certain confidence and a freedom to the individual. It doesn’t mean you can take a free ride, but knowing you can also rely on others within a team to help make a venture successful is undoubtedly a comfort that often brings added energy to the individual, allowing him or her, in turn, to perform better.
Read MoreI have just published a second article about funding adventure including interviews with Alex Roddie and my friend Daniel Smith, both of whom have in their own way made adventure central to their lives.
Alex has made a career of it and Dan, a focal point to his lifestyle. These interviews, along with those with Ash Dykes and Gilad Nachmani indicate that adventure, rather than being a luxury many of us simply dream of, is in fact eminently reachable and the barrier between us dreaming and doing is a mental one, not a financial one. Below are some key lessons I am taking away from these interviews to apply to my journey toward a more adventurous life.
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