I don’t get out and about very often….

Most days you’ll find me exactly where I am right now – slumped in an office chair behind a computer keyboard staring into space, desperately hoping that it’s my turn for inspiration  to pay an all-too-rare visit.  Sometimes, I’ll get up and move around a bit,  look out of the window, maybe even talk to another human being – but most of the time it’s lots of sitting and lots of staring, only punctuated by the occasional sigh. Most days, inspiration is making house calls elsewhere.

The causal observer may conclude that I’m not doing very much – that I’m wasting my time.  Most days the casual observer might be right.   But last Monday was different. Last Monday wasn’t most days.

You see, the sun was out, it was 30 degrees centigrade in the shade and I decided it was time that I part company with my office chair and see what the outside world had to offer. And nobody could say that I didn’t get anything done on that day, because within an hour of arriving in the wonderful British countryside I’d:

• Stood in the biggest and sloppiest sheep turd on the face of the planet  in open-toed sandals.
•  Had my sunglasses stolen by a naked toddler.
• Halted filming of a BBC period drama

Quite impressive, I’m sure you’ll agree. You can’t do any of that from an office chair in Rotherham, I can tell you!

We’d  gone to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, a place I’ve visited  many times before.  What I hadn’t realised though, is that the gardens don’t open until 11.00am and we’d arrived quite a bit earlier than that. Now you might wonder, if I’d been there many times before, why I wasn’t aware of this fact? The answer is a simple one – I’d only ever been there with my wife, and such is the degree of preparation and preamble which any outing with my wife entails, that it’s flat impossible to arrive anywhere before 11.00am, let alone somewhere an hour from home. In fact as my daughter gleefully pointed out as we pulled up in the car park, “We wouldn’t have left the house yet if Mum was coming!”    However, a few minutes later, I had cause to wish that she’d come along after all.

Since the gardens were closed we decided to kill a little time by walking  down by the river, an area devoid of animals. But they’d clearly not been long gone. I realised this when I looked down after stepping backwards to take a photo, to see the sloppiest, smelliest sheep turd clinging to my  sandal and perilously close to making a final assault over the top on to my toes. I suspect you might think I make these things up. My daughter likes to photograph anything bad that happens to me (she has a file on her phone labelled  Dad being ‘Special’). Here’s the evidence.

 

 

So why did I wish my wife was there? Well she has many fine skills, and one of those is an almost minesweeper-like ability to detect and avoid animal excrement. She can often be seen walking down a street or through a field announcing “Dog muck!”, “Sheep poo!” or  “Cat shit!” at the appropriate moment. Strange behaviour for someone who walks alone, but there you are.  Had she been with us,  I probably wouldn’t have stepped in it, and even if I had,  there would have been a remedy to hand. The preparation and preamble that makes it impossible to arrive  anywhere before 11.00am is frustrating, but it does result in a bag full of tissues. As it was, we had nothing and I had to do a passable impression of a rutting stag for ten minutes before all traces of the offending material had gone. I was just relieved to be wearing smooth soled sandals rather than deep-ridged trainers, which would have necessitated an unpalatable, but familiar, operation with a pointy stick.

Anyway, with freshly scraped-clean sandals we set off for the gardens which were now open.

It was getting hot by now,  and so we headed straight for the cascade – a 300-year-old  waterfall type structure where a ribbon of water flows  over 24 groups of steps  from high on the hill behind the house. It’s a popular place to cool off in hot weather- and a source of brisk business for the first aid department given the number of people who fall on the slippery surface. I’ve spent many a happy hour there, taking bets on who is likely to go arse over tit next.  Anyway, we took our shoes off left them on the side, along with my sunglasses and other stuff, and waded in.

It was then that I noticed a naked toddler running down the hill and making a beeline for our gear. He promptly picked up my designer shades (okay I paid $10 for them in a 2 for 1 deal in a Florida mall but I’m building a story here) and hared off back up the slope with them.

As a middle aged man (indeed as a man of any age) your options are limited when something like this happens. You haven’t prepared  for it. It’s not like you’ve been sitting in a pub at some point in your life and someone has said to you “Okay, here’s one for you. You’re having a paddle and a naked toddler runs up and whips off with your sunnies. What do you do?” You’d have thought about it then, but nobody ever raised the scenario, so you haven’t.

You briefly contemplate chasing after the little fellow, but quickly realise this isn’t going to play well with the police…or with anyone else really.  “So Mr Harrison, the only reason you were chasing this two year old naked child was to recover a pair of  sunglasses  which you say he stole from you worth …hmm let me see…around £6? That’s the explanation  you’d like us to consider is it?

And so you do what I did. Nothing. Eventually he got bored, discarded them in a bush and I sheepishly went to collect them.  I honestly thought my daughter may need oxygen at one stage.

Having cooled off, we decided to move on and see what else the gardens had to offer.  Now when we first walked in, I’d seen a sign that said something about filming, but didn’t read it. I really should pay more attention.  As we emerged from behind some trees,  we found ourselves right in the middle of a period drama. There were horses, there were coaches there were gentlemen and ladies in period costume….and then there was us in shorts  T shirts and shades. We didn’t really fit in, and it didn’t go unnoticed.

Somebody yelled ‘Cut!’ and a nice lady who I think was liasing  with the film crew on behalf of the  Chatsworth estate, strode over to us. “Are you enjoying your day in the gardens today?” she said. She didn’t fool me though. I knew this was a precursor to what she really wanted to say. I know someone with an agenda when I see one. She put it very nicely, but here’s what she said in essence. “We’re bloody filming today and you’re right in the middle of the sodding shot. Didn’t you read the signs on the way in? Now it’s a sodding massive  garden, this. Bloody huge it is. Now  bugger off and play somewhere else in it. Thank you so much sir.”

She did invite us to stay and watch for a bit, hence the picture below. You can tell the cameraman in the back of the coach is thinking, “That’s the idiot who just ruined our shot.”

 

 

I want to show you another photo though, something else  you won’t see when the programme is aired on the BBC later in the year.

 

 

Now as you can see, it’s a period coach being pulled along by a 21st century pick-up truck with the actors being filmed inside the carriage. When you see the finished programme, you won’t see anything of that of course.  Nor will  you see any of the day trippers just out of shot, the dozens of crew in vests and shorts,  the 6 large trucks  containing goodness-knows-what or the idiot in crappy sunglasses taking photos of it all.  Nor will you see the 14 hours of effort that went into creating  what will probably end up as no more than  two minutes of useable film.  You will see what the producers want you to see…a carefully edited version of what happened on the day. In effect, an illusion.

I know this isn’t a revelation to you. You know that what you see on film and TV – the finished product – isn’t real. But what you might not think about too often is that the finished product almost every individual, business and organisation presents to the world is an illusion as well. It’s a carefully  edited version of what they want you to see, and not an accurate reflection of any kind of reality. It’s the glossy tip of a sometimes scabby and perilous iceberg.

It gives no real indication of what went into creating what you see, hear and touch. You get no real feel for the time and effort it took to get to what you’re now experiencing. A film crew will often work all day in order to get two minutes of useable film. Some days they will work all day and get nothing they end up using.   The same input/output ratio is often in place in less obvious fields,  but you wouldn’t know it without getting a peek behind the scenes at the preparation, the trial and error, the blood,  the sweat and  the tears.

The bottom line is that because you usually only  get to see the final result, rather than the process which led to it,  it’s very tempting to draw the conclusion that others have life much easier than you – that their grass is greener than yours. The reality though, is that if they do have green grass, they have invested much  time and effort growing and tending it. They probably have an awful lot of grass that dies or goes brown as well. Sometimes their grass won’t grow at all, and the only thing separating them from the masses is a recognition that nothing worth doing is ever as easy as it looks…and a refusal to give up. Green grass takes time and effort to cultivate.

I think this whole issue of the ‘hidden workings’, explains a lot. It explains why we have a tendency to look enviously at what others are doing; it explains why we are tempted to  abandon our own jobs, businesses and projects for ‘easier pickings’ elsewhere…and it explains why  most of us then give up on these new undertakings as well,  when the full enormity of the iceberg is revealed…when our  grass starts to turn brown…or to keep the film analogy alive, when we see what’s piling up on our  cutting room floor.

Whatever businesses, projects or careers changes you’re planning, it’s worth  investing some time and effort to see past the illusion created by  the ‘finished product’.  It isn’t easy because the world doesn’t want you to see the iceberg below the surface, it doesn’t want you to see its scrubby grass, and it doesn’t want you to look at what’s on its cutting room floor either. That would spoil the illusion.  No, it isn’t easy, but it is  crucially important.

Building a business or a career on an illusion is tantamount to building a marina in an oasis. Ultimately it will leave you high and dry. Yes, there’s short term comfort in illusion, but it doesn’t come close to compensating  for the pain and discomfort when reality sets in.

We’ve come a long way from sheep shit, haven’t we?

* Footnote

The BBC production is called ‘Death Comes To Pemberley’  and you can find some further details here.  Oh, and if you watch it on TV in December and see anyone who looks like this, you’ll know the editors have done a lousy job!

 

* My latest book ‘Why Didn’t They Tell Me? – 99 Shameless Success Secrets They Don’t Teach You At Eton, Harrow Or Even The Classiest Comprehensive’ is now published. Go to www.streetwisenews.com/why for full details.