After many years of dreaming about it*, and talking about it, I'm now actually writing a book. For publication and everything. I've committed to a programme that should see it in print before the end of the year.
And right here, right now, I'm taking the rash decision of sharing the working title with you too, even though it could change before it hits the shelves. It's:
(It's ok, everything has a really long subtitle these days.)
In fairness to my internal critic, I have actually been writing it—one chapter at a time—for the last 6½ years, manifesting as individual pieces of published writing for the Focus Magazine, a local periodical here in South Wales.
This has left me with many (more than I can use in one book) polished pieces of prose, all focused on different aspects of life, seen from an Innate Health perspective. (I have shared the odd one with you, from time to time, as optional extras.)
They are currently being strung together into a sensible narrative arc. (A clue)
I picked this particular narrative theme—escaping the trap of ‘personal development’, in its many guises—because it most closely echoes my own journey. Being pointed in this direction and subsequently realising for myself that there was nothing wrong with me was a sharply delineated turning point – the key that unlocked the door to an entirely new way of seeing and being in life.
(And in that way that the creative floodgates are often hard to close, once opened, I already have a second book planned, focused more on mental health.)
So anyway, there we are – I'm on the record, and that's many hundreds of you who can now hold me accountable.
☺️
Origin story
I was bed-bound with a tummy bug that ripped through our household last week, and scrabbling around for ways to distract myself, I found that my Audible subscription included the complete canon of Sherlock Holmes, as narrated by Stephen Fry (quite possibly the most British thing you could ever hope to encounter 🇬🇧💂🏻♂️).
It's been multiple decades since I read any, and as soon as I started listening, I remembered just how instrumental these stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had been in my early life. I loved these books!!
I was a voracious reader as a child (Mum used to take us to the library once a week, for a whole evening) and one year a friend of the family bought me The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as a Christmas present. It was easily the biggest, fattest book I'd ever attempted (I could barely lift it), but I had my nose in it at every opportunity.
I love the way he writes and in far hindsight, it's possible I've picked up some of his overly-wordy mannerisms (for why merely tell someone something, when you could instead “bring forward all the facts”; nor wear simple clothing, when you could “affect a certain quiet primness of dress”)
A proponent of Strunk & White's classic maxim, ‘Omit needless words’ Conan Doyle was not!
😂
Holmes does basic principles
But the thing that stood out to me, from re-reading that first story—A Study in Scarlet—was Holmes’ chiding of the two Detective Inspectors, for layering unnecessary, unwarranted and downright obfuscating complexity of explanation onto a relatively simple case:
“All this seems strange to you, because you failed at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single real clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has served to confirm my original supposition… Things which have perplexed you and made the case more obscure have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions.”
And I thought – just like the Innate Health understanding! It too is based on principles, that have a tendency to clear everything up. That's because:
1. Constant – e.g. ‘single real clue’
2. Explanatory – e.g. ‘strengthen conclusions’
3. Predictive – e.g. ‘confirm suppositions’
In my life, all used to ‘seem strange to me’, and ‘perplex me’ but this was only because nobody had pointed me toward the 3 Principles. And when we're operating in an environment where we don't properly know how something works (like our own psychology, for instance), then we do indeed, very innocently, layer unnecessary, unwarranted and downright obfuscating complexity onto everything!
(Have a look at the field of mental health and the ever-ballooning list of DSM ‘diagnoses’ if you want evidence.)
These days, clients show up in my practice with all manner of issues they want to address (including on some subjects I know nothing about), but I'm able to help, because working from the most fundamental principles of human psychology and behaviour, everything becomes more simple. Explanations are barn door obvious. Predictions are just common sense.
It's elementary!
I'll leave you with word from Syd Banks, who elucidated the principles behind human psychology, some 50+ years ago:
“Look for simplicity. Simplicity always holds the key you're looking for. And that key... it opens the door to wisdom.”
~ Sydney Banks
💟
Giles
*There have been two false starts. 📗 The first book I started was in 2007, when I began pulling together all my diary entries from my 4,000 mile, 3-month solo cycle ride to Turkey and back. 📘 The second was a written version of my 10 Principles of Career Change conference talk– and both have been instrumental in where I find myself today ☺️
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Giles P Croft