Belonging

How I travelled 30,000 miles to relearn how similar we all are

On 1st December I flew to Russia to start a programme of workshops for a well-known brand. Tasked with developing a global content strategy and selling it in to individual markets, I started on a remarkable global journey to four countries I have never been to before.

In just over a month I visited Moscow, Kiev, Rio and Tokyo. I flew around 29,000 miles on 8 planes. I trudged through snow in -6 °C and got burned at the beach in 33 °C.

Work went well, which made it easier to enjoy the rapid immersion into four very different cultures.

After finding the secret entrance in the ‘Lucky Noodle’ Chinese take-away I passed through thick deep red velvet curtains and spent the evening in Mendeleev (named after the inventor of the Periodic Table), one of Moscow’s most fashionable cocktail bars. As I was handed yet another excellent alcoholic concoction I asked one of the owners if ‘mixology’ was his passion. "No, I’m a barman. I like to make people happy. That's why people like it here; they feel at home."

In Kiev, in a Chinese restaurant called BAO recently opened by Ukrainian Masterchef judge Héctor Jiménez-Bravo which was now a fashionable destination for Kiev’s elite, over dim sum with two Kazakhstanis I discussed the impact of Borat on the image of their country. "Not good" they told me, also informing me that his catchphrase "Yakshemash" was not Kazakhstani and was, basically, meaningless. "We're proud of our home country, and don't like that all people know about it is a meaningless TV character.”

I walked the length of Ipanema and Leblon Beaches and saw at first hand the 'Carioca Lifestyle' being played out on the beaches. A 'Carioca' is a Havaiana-wearing Caipirinha-drinking cheerful and easy going native of Rio, for whom the beach at the weekend is everything. Rio beach culture is incredibly stratified, delineated by lifeguard towers called 'postos'. At each posto a different kind of Carioca gathers, from posto 1 which is popular with families and an older crowd, through the LGBT crowd at postos 8 and 9, to postos 11 and 12, the 'millionaire’s beach,' popular with the affluent residents of Leblon, including football players and TV personalities.

After passing through a nondescript entrance and up a flight of stairs at 14-16, Shibuya she 1-chome, I found myself in one of Tokyo’s famous 'Salaryman' bars. White-shirted, grey-suited, heavily drunk groups of men forge deep relationships with colleagues in a practice called 'nominication” (a combination of “nomu (drinking)” and “communication”). If you are going to work with people for around 40 years, then you best get on with them. The photo is me with Shuhei Kawabe. We have a friend in common. 5,936 miles and in a Salaryman bar I bump into somebody who knows a good friend of mine. The world is indeed a small place.

Tokyo was the most interesting and most complex city of the four I visited. Parts of it were neon-lit in “Blade Runner” style but most of it was a modern and less eccentric than I had expected it to be. Yes, there are girls in the Akihabara area dressed as maids handing out leaflets for cafes where you are served by girls dressed as maids. And I still smiled every time I sat on a heated toilet seat and enjoyed a “pre flush”. But all of this is no more weird than I might see in London. I learnt that in Japan most people don’t want to stand out and be different - the maids, punks, and cosplayers - they’re all tribes. Just like the Salaryman. Just like the groups gathering around the postos on Ipanema Beach.

I travelled nearly 30,000 miles and relearned something that I discovered for the first time over 20 years ago as a student studying cross-cultural psychology, which is the study of our behaviour under diverse cultural conditions. I specialised in tribal behaviour, particularly in ceremonial exchange in Papua New Guinea: an elaborate system of gifting between villages which keeps peace and creates social cohesion.

I relearned the value we place on a sense of shared identity and social connections. We want to be part of something that is bigger than ourselves: to feel that we have social ties that are meaningful and that we have a place in a community. To be part of a tribe, indeed many tribes: colleague, neighbour, sports club...

Whether its ceremonial exchange in Papua New Guinea, Carioca culture in Rio or nominication among Salarymen in Tokyo: whoever we are, wherever we are, we are all the same.

We all want to belong.

What tribes do you belong to and why do they matter to you?

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This year pretty much every weekday I've written about my journey to live a more remarkable life and what I've learned on the way. I’ve written over 60,000 words, which I know many of you have enjoyed. There have been highs and, for teh latter part of the year, a lot of lows. Every experience fed my desire to understand better, and share that understanding, of living a remarkable life.

Recently I stopped posting quite as often to focus on a new book.

I realised half way through the year that, for most of us, work is the biggest barrier to living a remarkable life. Work swallows our time, makes us stressed, anxious, and overwhelms us. Many of us wouldn't say we had purpose at work, that what we do is meaningful in any real way. We feel trapped: "paying the bills, and then we die".

I've worked out how to create remarkable work where you work now. How to create work that is meaningful, that you might even call your calling.

In January I will release a Remarkable Work Manifesto and a free ebook that will get you started in making work less stressful, overwhelming and anxiety-creating.

In February "Remarkable Work" will be waiting for you to download and read on your way into a job that doesn't fill you with joy any more.

AN OFFER!!

I have 10 places left in my initial first group of people to receive a monthly newsletter that starts this week. In it you'll get sneak previews of Remarkable Work, plus more of my writing that doesn't appear anywhere else.

Message me with your email address. First 10 are in.

A REQUEST!!

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