The Unperformed Day
When did life become something you were managing
rather than something you were in?
You can be successful, capable and good at what you do, and still find that life has become very full of things that require a response.
People need you. Decisions need making. There’s always something else to think about or get ahead of.
You may thrive on variety and momentum. But there’s a difference between feeling alive and being permanently switched on.
When there’s very little space between one thing and the next, instinct gets drowned out.
Curiosity narrows.
We become very good at responding to what’s required and less aware of what’s happening while we do it.
The Unperformed Day changes the conditions.
A private day away from the usual four walls, surrounded by the living world, where nothing is asking you to perform or prove anything.
Not to escape your life.
To experience it differently.
What if we changed the conditions?
Most of us try to think our way through things in the same environments where the noise is being created.
So for this day, we leave them behind.
We go somewhere with space. Somewhere you can follow a thought, change your mind, or simply notice where your attention goes when nobody is asking anything of you.
And we spend time surrounded by a living world that has a wonderful way of interrupting our preoccupation with ourselves.
A bird call you weren’t expecting. Movement in the trees. An animal appearing where you weren’t looking.
Suddenly, you’re paying attention to something beyond yourself.
I’ve experienced this again and again around animals. They don’t give us a framework or tell us how to live.
But they can make us notice.
Presence is difficult to learn as another technique. Sometimes we need to experience what it feels like first.
The Unperformed Day wasn't really an idea for an offer.
It began while I was preparing my keynote, The Maiden Flight, looking again at the encounters with animals that had shaped it.
There was one thing I kept noticing.
Around animals, I wasn't thinking about myself very much. I wasn't wondering how I was coming across or what I needed to do next.
I was absorbed in what was happening.
And I felt incredibly alive.
So what do we actually do?
There isn’t a rigid timetable, because this isn’t a programme I’m going to take you through.
We start with what has brought you here and what we uncovered in our preparation session.
Then we go outside.
We’ll walk, talk and follow what catches our attention rather than rushing towards an answer.
I might challenge something you’ve said, or notice when you immediately try to solve, dismiss or turn something into another thing you need to do.
And I’ll listen to how you express yourself, not only what you tell me.
Where you come alive. Where certainty disappears. Where you edit yourself or reach for the version of you that knows how to sound as though everything is under control.
Because how we express ourselves can tell us an enormous amount about where we’ve learnt to perform.
Throughout the day, we’ll keep returning to the ideas at the heart of The Maiden Flight:
Presence over Performance. Instinct & Uncertainty. Aliveness & Connection.
Not as principles to learn.
As something to experience.
Your Unperformed Day
Before we meet
We begin with a private 60-minute preparation session. This gives me a sense of what's happening in your world, what has brought you to the day and what you'd like to explore.
You don't need to arrive with a neat answer. That's rather the point.
The day itself
Around five to six hours together, privately, surrounded by the living world.
The day is shaped around you rather than a fixed programme.
We'll give some things more room than they usually get, while leaving space for the unexpected.
Take it back into your life
Then you go back to the work, people and responsibilities that haven't magically disappeared while we've been outside.
But you have a reference point for something different.
We'll agree on something specific for you to notice or experiment with once you're back in your own world.
Come back together
Two to three weeks later, we'll have a private 60-minute online session to look at what changed, what surprised you and what you want to keep exploring.
Because the point isn't to feel wonderfully present for a day in nature.
It's what happens when you take the experience back into your life.
Private 60-minute preparation session
Five-to-six-hour immersive day surrounded by the living world
A private day shaped around what you want to explore, notice and change
Private 60-minute follow-up session two to three weeks later
Investment: £1,200
I've spent 25 years studying what happens between expression and perception
As a professional voiceover artist, presenter and broadcaster, I've spent more than 25 years noticing what changes when somebody stops delivering and actually connects with what they're saying.
Tone. Pace. Intention. Energy. What we emphasise. What we hold back. What somebody hears beneath the words.
I've created characters from pictures, made people see places they'd never been and found the humanity in complicated medical language.
But I've also spent much of my life in industries built around performance.
Auditioning. Competing. Being chosen. Reading the room. Knowing how to create an effect.
And I've become fascinated by what happens when some of that performance follows us off the stage.
When we're not simply expressing ourselves, but monitoring how we're being received.
Editing. Adjusting. Managing how much of ourselves to show.
I can hear when somebody is delivering, and when they're actually there.
My relationship with the living world made me curious about what becomes possible when we stop using so much attention to manage ourselves.
That's the territory I work in now.
This might be for you if..
You've become very good at functioning.
Your mind is often ahead of you. Solving, anticipating, preparing.
One thing is finished and your attention has already moved to the next.
You keep thinking things will ease when this project is over, this period settles down, the list is cleared.
But somehow, life keeps getting postponed until you've dealt with life.
Perhaps things that once came naturally are harder to access.
Curiosity. Absorption. The ability to be completely in something rather than thinking about what comes next.
Perhaps you recognise the performance too. Reading the room. Managing the response.
Knowing what version of you is required. None of this has necessarily stopped you succeeding.
That's partly why it's so easy to keep going.
But being highly effective at managing your life isn't the same thing as actually experiencing it.
Not because you want to escape your life.
Because you don't want to miss it.
If something here has made you recognise yourself...
The Unperformed Day is a private experience, so I only open a small number of dates at a time.
You don't need to arrive knowing exactly what needs to change.
Curiosity is enough to begin.