The journey is part of the work

#WeeklyNRG – A Snapshot of All Things #NRG

This week’s theme? The journey is part of the work.

For leaders, it is easy to view travel as something to get through: a necessary inconvenience between meetings, responsibilities and the next item on the list. But a journey can also create something increasingly rare: space. Space to think, notice, reflect, catch up, and see situations from a slightly different perspective.

As Mark Twain put it: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

The Weekly Debrief

Last week was a continuation of my “home alone” period in France. I found more time for reading, walking and being outdoors, less television and perhaps surprisingly less fizz. I was trying not to simply fill the time with work, although I will admit that I do sometimes find it hard to resist. Discipline remains a work in progress.

The time did, however, reinforce something important: when I make space to step away from the laptop and the constant pull of emails, I think more clearly. Walking gives me headspace. Reading challenges my assumptions. Quiet time helps me distinguish between what feels urgent and what is actually important.

I also had two very different coaching moments last week. One came unexpectedly, through a cold call. The caller was trying to get his business off the ground, but was clearly reading from a script, losing his words and struggling to communicate with confidence. I could easily have ended the call, but instead we had a short coaching conversation about how he might approach it differently. I did not need to do it, but it felt like the right thing to do. Sometimes, if you can help someone take one better step forward, you should.

The second was a planned coaching call with a Business Wales AGP client who is facing a difficult situation with a member of their team. Here, some of the thinking from Ray Dalio’s Principles was useful: move towards an honest understanding of reality, ask good questions, and separate the facts of the situation from the stories we can quickly create around them. Strong leadership is not always about having an immediate answer; it is often about creating enough clarity for the right next decision to emerge.

The Week Ahead

This week, I’m travelling from France to London for a meeting with foreign government officials, before heading to Cyprus on Friday to see hubby. It will mean two long days 7am to 7pm involving trains, planes and automobiles.

For me, though, travel is not wasted time. It is an opportunity to work through the important admin and reports that need uninterrupted attention, but it is also a chance to step away from the usual pace. There is something useful about being in transit: you are temporarily unavailable for every immediate request, which can make room for more strategic thinking.

I will be taking the opportunity to reflect on the questions that have been emerging over recent weeks: What do I want next? Where can I make the most meaningful contribution? How can I create more discipline around my time, focus and energy? Travel gives me a different lens for those questions, and sometimes the distance from everyday routine is exactly what is needed.

Lessons Learnt

This week has reminded me that mindset matters as much as the destination. We can approach travel, busy periods and unexpected conversations as interruptions, or we can see them as opportunities to learn, support others and think more clearly.

There is also a leadership lesson in the unexpected cold call. Being helpful does not always need to become a formal piece of work. Sometimes it is simply listening, offering a useful observation, asking a better question or giving someone the confidence to try again. That is not about saying yes to everything or giving away all of our time; it is about recognising when a small act of support could make a genuine difference.

Ray Dalio writes that “meaningful work and meaningful relationships” are more valuable than money alone. That feels especially relevant this week. The best use of our time is not always the most immediately productive one. It is the use that helps us learn, contribute, build stronger relationships and move with greater intention towards the work and life we want.

Here’s to treating the journey as more than the gap between two places, and using the space it gives us to think, connect and find the next right step. Just the right dose of #NRG.

Question for you: When do you get your best thinking time, and how could you protect more of it this week?