We Learn More From Stories Than Textbooks

The Women by Kristin Hannah

We can learn all we like from non-fiction, but some of the best sources of wisdom are in stories. Real, made up, or loosely based on facts, these stories are how we learn to interact with the world. I’ve just finished reading The Women by Kristin Hannah. It is a coming-of-age story wrapped up in the tragedy of the war in Vietnam. I am hesitant to say Vietnam War after we were told in Vietnam that it is called the American War. The protagonist, nurse Frankie, rushes off to Vietnam age 21 to follow her older brother to the dismay of her parents who want nothing more than for her to be a good wife and mother. She returns home after two tours, broken by the loss of her brother, her fellow doctors, patients. Compounded by a broken heart, she loses her way, deep into the forest. Her forest is marred by drink, prescription pills and PTSD. 

This fictional character, steeped in the reality of history, lived and breathed the reason I created Wildest Dream:

She’d made some of the most momentous choices in her life before she had any idea of consequences. Some had been thrust on her, some had been expected, some had been impetuous. She’d decided to become a nurse at seventeen. She’d joined the Army Nurse Corps and gone to war at twenty-one. She’d gone to Virginia with her friends to run away from home, and when her mother needed care, she’d come home. In love, she’d been too cautious for years, and then too impetuous. In retrospect, it all felt haphazard. Some good decisions, some bad. Some experiences that she would never trade. What she’d learned about herself in Vietnam and the friendships she’d made were indelible. But now it was time to actually go in search of her life.

Hannah, Kristin. The Women.

She was lost in the forest. At times death seemed the only way out. But through the passing of time, great friends and supportive parents, she came to a place at the age of 29 when she could finally look in the mirror and say, ‘I need to find the path.’ 

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

On her 16th birthday, there was no celebration as both her parents were in prison. Instead, Jung writes down a poem. Something she loves about her father is how he introduced her to classical Chinese poetry. She knows it’s dangerous to write as your words can be taken out of context and help against you for many years. Her words hit the page. “I described my bewilderment at the new world, at not knowing what and how to think. It was a poem of groping in the dark, searching.” A banging on the door. Happy birthday. As usual the rebels were probably here to raid the house. Jung runs to the toilet, tearing her poem into tiny pieces and flushes it away. 

We learn a lot from fiction, but perhaps we learn more from the lived experience of others. Jung Chang is an inspiration for me, author of Wild Swans who documented life in 20th century China by telling the story of her grandmother, mother and herself. Her life was unspeakably hard. As a child of Mao’s China, she lacked access to proper education, play and her love of writing, instead witnessing death of her friends and of society instead. 

She watched first hand as her parents were tormented, beaten and imprisoned for their inability to bend to the complete mania of Mao. After Mao died, a slither of normalcy returned, and she could go back to school, finishing top of her classes and nationwide tests – her ticket out of China. She was one of a select few who were granted permission to study in the United Kingdom.

She was in her mid-thirties, finally free from China and its daily torment. Yet she was stuck. 

It was at this moment that I lost the passion [for writing]. In fact the last thing I wished to do was to write. To me, it would have meant to turn inwards, and dwell on a life and a time that I hated to think about. I was trying to forget China.

Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.

Throughout her early adulthood in China, then in the UK, she was in her shadowed forest. But drip by drip, she found her passion. She explored her new country, she fell in love with Jon Halliday. Eventually, her mother was able to visit her. For weeks and months, her mother recounted stories of the three Wild Swans. The grandmother, the mother and finally the daughter, Jung. These stories would go on to become her international bestselling book and launch her as a voice for the truth about recent Chinese history. 

She didn’t wait until she was 50 to turn inwards. She turned inwards when she intentionally started thinking, what do I love doing? What am I passionate about? An entire generation were under some form of mind control from Chairman Mao. For Jung to break free and create the life she now has is remarkable. It would’ve been easy, and entirely forgivable, to give up at any of the hardships in her life. She didn’t. She kept on walking through that shadowed forest until she re-found the path. 

The Original Mid-Life Crisis Was Not About Porsche 911s and Buying Red Trainers

I’m sitting in a café in Brera, Milan. A small wooden table, the legs balanced on the cobbled streets. I’m alone. Liv flew back to Bangkok this morning. In front of me is a plate of pasta, half eaten. In my hand a book. A book, half in Italian with English translations alongside it. I’m halfway through it, but I again flick back to the first page, re-reading the sentences I’ve underlined.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

ché la diritta via era smarrita.

When I had journeyed half of our life’s way,

I found myself within a shadowed forest,

For I had lost the path that does not stray.

The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri, Canto I (14th Century).

The Original Mid-Life Crisis

We are all familiar with the stereotype. The 50-year-old guy buying a Porsche 911 and a pair of red trainers. But this halfway-point-of-adult-life is too late for a crisis. Why have your mid-life-crisis when your kids have already left home and you have just the twilight of your career left?

But, the original mid-life crisis was not about sports cars and colourful trainers.

The original mid-life crisis is and always will be around your 30th birthday. And it isn’t reserved for men. In Dante’s time – 14th century Renaissance Italy – life expectancy was 60 years old if you were rich. So half of our life’s way was very much your 30th birthday.

We Have A Child’s Brain Until Our Late Twenties

Dante was onto something from a neuroscience point of view as well. In our 20s we look outwards for validation. We look to the world and say, ‘who do you want me to be.’ Up to our 30th birthday, our brain is constantly building neural pathways, solidifying them and pruning unused connections. 

As we progress into our 30s, our mind shifts and with a fully developed pre-frontal cortex we move into a more reflective state. 

With reflection comes early signs of wisdom, we usually begin a journey of realising that the identity we have created for ourselves is based on following the world’s expectations. Satisfying parents, then teachers, then friends, then universities, then organisations.

When we reach half of our life’s way, our brain supports us to move to an introspection unavailable to a teenager. ‘Who am I?’

My Shadowed Forest 

As I read and re-read those sentences in the Divine Comedy, I reflect onto the last few years of my life, my shadowed forest and my path. It would be easy to say my ‘shadowed forest’ was working my career and realising I was selling unhealthy food to children. Yet, it would be too easy to say that – I loved my time there, the pace, the people, the challenge.

I found myself within a shadowed forest.

Too often we try to point at one single cause – it is easier for our brains to understand that. For me, it was more a feeling that the world has always given more to me than I have given in return. My career has always been about learning and my personal growth. I have never looked at my years in consulting and corporate and thought, how can I make the world a better place. My shadowed forest was not burnout, it was not a slap around the face, it was a mismatch between potential and purpose. Yet knowing something is not the same as doing. 

I needed agency and as is usually the case, inspiration came from adventure. Sat in the driver’s seat of our Toyota Hilux, the white paint stained red by the desert dust of Namibia, Liv and I listened to the incredible Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. As the hours of bumps passed underneath us, I knew that as soon as we returned from that trip I needed to do what he’d done since his mid-twenties. Not to take as many drugs or play the bongos naked, but to start recording my life by journalling. That was my Greenlight, my first drip in the bucket.

“We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows. We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing.”

Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

Catch The Drips And Let Your Purpose Take Care Of Itself

You won’t be as clear headed as Steve Jobs, having epiphanies to make the world’s best computer. Instead, the first step out of the forest is to figure out who we are, and that starts with what we love. Don’t spend your time ruminating over lack of passion, spend it recording what you love, what you are passionate about. Move the bucket to catch the drips. 

Drips are those small moments when you quietly think to yourself, ‘that’s cool’. One drip into the palm of your hand quickly evaporates. Quickly forgotten. Catching the drips in your bucket means noting things down with intention. Journalling or sharing your curiosities with someone.

In Milan I’m catching drips. One morning I am at the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana checking out Leonardo da Vinci’s journal of inventions (read more about da Vinci’s amazing range in this previous post here) . The next morning I’m with the incredible Nikos where we discuss our Wildest Dreams. That evening, I meet an old friend Francesca for dinner and talk about life. The rest of the time we walk around the city, exploring. 

Catching drips. 

Those small moments for me are my inspiration. Reading and learning about the renaissance history, brainstorming the future with an amazing Greek guy, sharing life’s challenges with a good friend. 

Drips are those small moments when you quietly think to yourself, ‘that’s cool’.

When you are present enough to catch a bucket full of drips, the water can be used to wash away the dirt which covers the path. 

The bucket of drips has led me down this path of studying, researching, coaching. On a Monday morning 18 months ago, I was paid handsomely to check my emails and talk to my team. Instead, I am sat here writing a blog post that might be looked at by up to 100 people, perhaps half will make it to this sentence, maybe less. I don’t have clarity on where it will lead, but I know I’m moving towards something that matters.

The pasta’s finished. A light breeze moves through Brera, sliding the napkin off my lap and onto the cobblestones. I take a sip of water, glance again at the underlined lines in Dante. I’m still here, in the shadowed forest. But light is filtering through the canopy now, and the path ahead is just a little more visible. And that’s okay. Have your crisis early. Get your bucket, I’ve got mine and I’m catching the drips.

Deepen Your Curiosity

This week I feature two incredible books – The Women, and Wild Swans – in their own way the protagonists tell the story of entering their shadowed forest, losing the path, and finding their way out in their 30s. To read more about how we learn more from stories than textbooks, check out the bonus blog on the website. 

1. Divine Comedy, Inferno by Dante Alighieri.

2. The Women by Kristin Hannah.

3. Wild Swans by Jung Chang.

Wildest Dreams Come From Range

Lessons From Leaders On Range

“Smart people are a dime a dozen, they don’t usually amount to much, the real key was being creative. And whether it is Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin or Steve Jobs, these are people who love to seek patterns across nature. They were interested in everything you could possibly know. By seeing those patterns, they made mental leaps that others didn’t do.” 

Walter Isaacson.

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

John Lennon.

“Modern work demands knowledge transfer: the ability to apply knowledge to new situations and different domains.”

David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Leonardo da Vinci.

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.”

Carl Jung.

Range Comes From Curiosity.

As a child I never believed I was amazing at any one thing. For Sunday league kids football I was a goalkeeper, then a defender and occasionally a forward in six a side. I could spend hours building Lego sets, arranging toy soldiers into imaginary battles, or piecing together puzzles of the world map and its flags.

In secondary school, I was popular, but not one of the cool kids. In class I was smart, but I never received the attention or pressure of being the smartest. My academic journey was never a straight line. Final exams had ups, downs, and several resits.

What I was great at was curiosity. Sometimes it got me sent out of class for talking too much or asking the wrong question. I wasn’t the best at any one thing, but I had a quiet superpower: I was fascinated by people.

I spent the summer break of university working for an eccentric American who owned a handful of engineering factories in Birmingham. I loved it. I was good at designing logos, understanding finances and organising machinery layouts. I was great at getting on with people – whether the eccentric American or the factory workers. This was one of my first data points that it was valuable to be good at many things.

I moved into consulting where I would have amazing conversations with business leaders and industry experts. Why was I good at it? I knew how to connect with people, to connect disparate ideas together, and to move fast. Whilst consulting, I discovered the phenomenal book Range by David Epstein. He challenges the myth that specialisation is the only path to success. Instead, he argues that generalists – those who dabble, explore, and connect dots across fields – often thrive in complex and unpredictable environments. 

Generalists – those who dabble, explore, and connect dots across fields – often thrive in complex and unpredictable environments.

It made me look back at my experiences in a different way.

I knew that what I was doing, this ranging, exploratory type of work was beneficial. Why else would we place so much trust in general practitioner doctors – highly trained generalists who help us navigate complexity?

Range helped me to make sense of me loving Lego, blowing things up, history books, geography lectures, ski mountaineering, piano playing, cooking, drawing, being outdoors, being indoors with friends, economics, politics, sociology, psychology, strategy, communication, critical thinking. I’ve always been an easy-going person, willing to share, willing to try something because ‘why not.’

Looking back, I wasn’t born with Range – I built it. As a school kid, my Range looked like curiosity. As a consultant, it became understanding and insight. Today, it’s my ability to hold multiple perspectives, to move from abstract to practical.

I am finding my Wildest Dream in my Range. Yesterday evening Liv and I spent an hour building Lego – a Viking Village to be exact. It was such a throwback to childhood. My Wildest Dream is not to build a Lego Viking village for a living, but maybe it’s to build something new and novel.

Leonardo da Vinci lived through the Renaissance in the 15-16th centuries. In 2013 he shot back into the limelight for posthumously becoming the artist of the most expensive painting ever. $430m for the Salvator Mundi. I urge you to explore his story. Da Vinci wasn’t just an artist; he was a bridge between disciplines, the original interdisciplinary thinker. He was Range. He was the ultimate master of Range. His contributions to scientific discovery, engineering, military equipment, human anatomy and biology are incredible. He had such a diverse range of interests, curiosities and skills. Diversity which only he can make overlap.

Da Vinci wasn’t just an artist; he was a bridge between disciplines, the original interdisciplinary thinker. He was Range.

Never look at your hobbies and think it is getting in the way of something. If you love yoga and baking and piano playing, keep doing it. Maybe you won’t open a yoga retreat or an Etsy baking store or become the next Ludovico Einaudi. But those passions? They shape how you lead meetings, how you connect with people, how you see the world. That’s value. 

I’ve been playing piano again. Not to perform – just to enjoy the process. That small creative act reminds me that our Range, our inspiration, lives in the margins, in how we choose to spend our time when no one’s watching. What hobby, what curiosity, could you return to?

Today I see range in my great friend James, a Gen-Z renaissance thinker. Able to talk, communicate and share stories in sport, philosophy and technology. Excelling in building deeply technical AI models and working with stakeholders in Australia, Dubai and Finland. James has a deep sense of Range. 

He is the Gen Z AI-Renaissance man. What is his Wildest Dream? To contribute to multiple humanity wide challenges. Humanity wide challenges, that is a Wildest Dream. But, multiple, that is only achievable by someone with Range, by someone who has developed their passions across multiple disciplines.

Range is when the 17th century mathematician Gottfried Leibniz was inspired by the 4000-year-old concept of Yin and Yang. 

Leibniz was a true Range master of the 17th century. He moved effortlessly between disciplines. Inspired by ancient philosophy and the concept of Yin and Yang, he made groundbreaking discoveries in mathematics and logic. 

Yin and Yang are foundational concepts in Chinese philosophy, representing complementary opposites – light and dark, active and passive, expansion and contraction. According to mythology, eight elemental symbols were first developed by Fuxi, an ancient cultural hero. He observed the natural world and understood that these dual forces, Yin and Yang, were the building blocks of creation. The eight elemental symbols of Heaven, Lake, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Water, Mountain, and Earth were each made of solid (Yang) and broken (Yin) lines.

Leibniz was a true Range master of the 17th century. He moved effortlessly between disciplines. Inspired by ancient philosophy and the concept of Yin and Yang, he made groundbreaking discoveries in mathematics and logic. One of his most enduring contributions was creating a simple numerical system using just 1s and 0s. One century later, George Boole would be inspired by this binary system to create Boolean Algebra. 

In the 1930s, Claude Shannon took a philosophy and mathematics class at the University of Michigan and learnt about Boolean algebra. As an engineer he applied this idea of binary logic to electric circuit boards. 1s and 0s, Yin and Yang, on and off. Shannon was another Range master, making contributions across mathematics, information theory and cryptography. It might surprise you to learn that Claude.ai is named after Shannon. 

From Fuxi to Leibniz, Boole to Shannon – Range has always driven progress. What began as ancient philosophy became mathematical logic, then evolved into the language of circuits, and now powers the digital age. Range is more than having a hobby. It’s how civilizations leap forward.

In times of uncertainty, Range becomes a competitive advantage.

We are living in challenging times. Challenges are just challenges – they are neutral, they are a construct of our mind. It is up to our interpretation on how we live through them. In times of uncertainty, Range becomes a competitive advantage. Like Da Vinci, we each carry the potential to overlap our own unique mix of skills – to find creativity in the collision points of science and art, philosophy and tech, the ancient and the future.

Each of these humans, Da Vinci, Leibniz, Boole, Shannon, have advanced human civilisation greatly, lived through challenging times and approached it with a sense of exploration. Each of these humans explored beyond their primary discipline, they found range in invention, in philosophy, in art, in engineering. In sketchbooks and circuit boards, in conversations and curiosity. 

The artificial intelligence revolution is just beginning. The 21st century is just beginning. This is the renaissance for us, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen A. This is our time to get involved in transformational challenge. Be a warrior. Get outside. Find challenges and challengers that are worthy of you. Do not hold back, do not be meek. Seek courage to grow, to learn, to develop, to explore, to adventure, to meet people. Read books, talk to people you disagree with. Find your Range.

So, what is your Wildest Dream? What Range will you need to build it?

Deepen Your Curiosity

My favourite learnings on range:

1. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World by David Epstein.

2. The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish - Episode 121 with Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity.

3. The Lost Leonardo - Documentary Trailer.

Values Are Not Words. They Are Sentences With A Word Attached

Valere (Latin): to be strong, to be worth, to be well.

Value (economic 14th century): the price or monetary worth of something.

Values (philosophy 19th century): deeply held beliefs.

Lessons From Leaders On Values

“The true test of character is whether you manage to stand by those values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day.”

Hidden Potential by Adam Grant.

The antidote to Fear of People’s Opinions has two dimensions: (1) to have deep love and care for others’ well-being … and (2) to act in alignment with one’s purpose, values, and goals. 

The First Rule of Mastery by Dr. Michael Gervais. 

“Our values are constantly reflected in the way we choose to behave.”

Mark Manson. 

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

Rumi.

“If you stand for nothing, Burr, what do you fall for.”

Alexander Hamilton.

Values Are Not Words. They Are Sentences With A Word Attached.

Most people hear the word values and quietly switch off. It sounds corporate - the kind of thing you'd find painted on an office wall or buried in a slide deck. We say we care about values, but most of us would rather talk productivity hacks. Yet, values are not corporate. They’re personal. They’re not what you scribble down in a workshop and forget. They’re what you do, especially when no one’s watching.

They’re there when you choose to tell someone the truth, even if it hurts. They’re behind that rising feeling of frustration when someone flakes on you. They’re the reason you give your time, or your money, or your energy, to something that matters to you, without needing a reason. We don’t need to manufacture our values. We just need to notice them. Think about a time:

• You did something courageous, because you knew you had to even when you didn’t want to.

• You disagreed with someone because what they said was so fundamentally wrong that you couldn’t sit idly by.

• You told a friend the truth even when you knew it would hurt them.

• You can’t help but give money to the homeless man on the walk back to your train station after work.

• When things get comfortable, you can’t help but add a bit of jeopardy, risk, or change into the situation.

Chances are, one or two of these sentences will resonate with you. That’s because it is what you value. A value isn’t a word you scribble in a notebook during a workshop. It’s not what you post on LinkedIn or hang on an office wall. It’s not the five adjectives you hope people write about you in a leaving card.

You value what you spend your time doing. You value what you spend your time saying. You value what you spend your time thinking about. 

Do we get to choose our values? I’ll take you back to Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone. When Harry and his classmates arrive at Hogwarts, they are led into the grand banqueting hall and one-by-one, the first years sit on a rickety wooden stool, and an oversized wizard’s hat is placed on their head and a dialogue between the sentient hat and young Harry ensues. 

‘Not Slytherin, not Slytherin, not Slytherin…’ says Harry, desperate to avoid being placed in the progressively evil house of Slytherin. The Hat is drawn to all the dark things that have happened to Harry, his parents being killed by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort. As any good lead character, Harry has other ideas, he wants to be away from evil, and to be with the brave and courageous wizards sat in the red and gold of Gryffindor. In that moment, he chose his values. ‘Gryffindor!’ Roars the hat to everybody’s delight. He chose Courage over Cunning and Adventure over Ambition.

Much like Harry chose to not be Slytherin, we can find our values by defining what we are not. Warren Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger, delivered a speech on how to guarantee misery:

First, be unreliable. Do not faithfully do what you have engaged to do. If you will only master this one habit, you will more than counterbalance the combined effect of all your virtues, howsoever great. If you like being distrusted and excluded from the best human contribution and company, this prescription is for you.

In Hiroshima, Japan, a cool city with an incredibly dark past, Liv and I found a beautiful little coffee shop in the rain. Since I’ve stopped drinking alcohol, coffee has become my daily ritual of a bloody good drink. I’ve switched up searching out surreal vineyards for coffee shops that serve world class flat whites.

We drop our umbrellas outside and get welcomed graciously by the server behind the counter. I see an older Japanese man drinking his flat white, and I can see the foam is done precisely. ‘Flat white please’. 

We sit down, the barista now weighing out the beans precisely on scales, the milk measured meticulously in a clean jug, the machine checked, the espresso pressed, and the milk poured. Another European couple walk in and order some coffees. We get our coffees after ten minutes and it is exactly as we expected. Precisely the same coffee as the guy before us. I savour it and watch as the barista performs the same rituals with the same precision at the same steady pace for the European couple. 

If they had company values pasted on the walls in that coffee shop (they don’t because it was a cool place and not at all corporate), it would say Customer Service: Delighting Every Customer in Exactly the Same Precise Way. Customer Service across a lot of Japan has a ritual and deep respect throughout. The ritual is important. The treatment of the customer is almost religious. Time does not always come into it. If you want a fast coffee in Japan, go to Starbucks. 

Because the truth is, you can’t live your values on a whiteboard, and you can’t understand them by staying inside, in your own head, your own comfort zone, or the echo chamber on your device. You can only live your values outdoors.

Values are a sentence with a word attached. Much like Charlie Munger, one of my core values is Reliability and I would define it as doing what you said you were going to do. Reliability means something to everyone. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as consistently good in quality or performance; able to be trusted. It is similar, but certainly not the same as my definition. 

Yesterday evening, I had a conversation about values with my colleague Garreth. He talked about Integrity being one of his key values. His definition of Integrity, do what you said you were going to do. This is remarkable in how it is exactly the same as my definition of Reliability, one of my key values. How much more deeply can Garreth and I connect and understand each other, now that we know what it is we truly value. 

If you’ve read this far, you probably already know what you value, you just haven’t put it into words yet. That’s the point. Your values don’t need to be pinned on your LinkedIn bio or printed on your company t-shirt. They need to be lived. You’ll spot them in how you show up under pressure. You’ll hear them in how you speak to the people closest to you. And if you're brave, you’ll start to consciously take tough decisions with values in mind. Because the truth is, you can’t live your values on a whiteboard, and you can’t understand them by staying inside, in your own head, your own comfort zone, or the echo chamber on your device. You can only live your values outdoors.

Deepen Your Curiosity

My favourite learnings on strong values:

1. Hidden Potential by Adam Grant.

2. The First Rule of Mastery by Michael Gervais. 

3. Mark Manson’s Blog on personal values.

4. Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger.