Making The 2020 Quest

Tim Snell

Dec 23, 20197 min read

Updated: Dec 16, 2020

Filling a bag with oregano (and then stuffing it in my pocket)

Filling My Pockets Today Tuesday #fillingmypockets

This past week I wasn't able to get out and fill my pockets as I normally would. Following the exit from my job, I was unwell as my body released the stress and returned itself to a different rhythm.

Rather than going outside to fill my pockets, I decided to look back over time and to recent adventures to think about what I fill my pockets with and gain insight to what I'm uniquely curious about.

The answer is so simple... I collect things in nature, things that I can use or make other things with. A great example is shown in the photo above from 2017 where I was foraging for wild oregano on the island or Amorgos. A local herbalist had told me to what to look for on the path and I took samples back to her to validate what I thought I had found. It was fun and I loved the experience of it. Many of the herbs were at the end of season so I felt grateful to have been able to fill my pockets with local thyme, oregano, some dandelion and wormwood. These herbs were washed, prepped and then bottled to make powerful home remedies.

At the start of the fall I went to visit a friend and we filled our pockets with Hawthorn berries and rosehips and I used the haws to make a tincture for the Living in Flow intensive that I will deliver in June 2020. In France in November, I collected Sloes for Sloe Gin and Rosehips for Rosehip Syrup, both of which are macerating in France for the next 6 months.

There's something very deep in this for me. It's not because I want to become a herbalist - I like being able to create my home apothecary and I love sharing what I make with friends, but I don't do it for money or because I want to be a home herbalist. It's more to do with the virtuous cycle of nature that gives unconditionally in the right circumstances. It's probably why I love visiting herbal, crystal and 'alternative' stores because I love exploring what nature has given us and what we can do with nature's gifts.

I'm acutely aware that this foraging of plants is something I learned from my grandmother who would fill her pockets with cuttings as she wandered around the countryside - or her local neighbourhood. When she saw something she recognised (or simply liked), quick as a flash a small cutting would be bagged up for propagation.

The other things I tend to fill my pockets with are rocks and feathers - the former making for some heavy pockets at times. On any walk I can be transfixed by a pebble or rock that catches my eye by its colour, shape or some other remarkably unremarkable feature that most people don't even notice. These things call out to me the way blue attracts a bowerbird during nesting season. My love of feathers has been noticed by my mother who has taken to creating small collections which she hands over every couple of years when we meet.

At first I wrote that I don't feel the need to block specific time for this as it is already part of my DNA to work consistently, and sometimes assiduously until things are completed. ey have to help us, humans, in our... well in our humanness.arious colourful feathers she found on their travels around Australia.

At the same beach in Portugal, I was curious about the smooth and very bright white pebbles that were littered across the beach. I chased them down after the surf had receded to inspect them and noticed in a couple that there were small holes. Looking closer I noticed there were tiny crystal caves that you'd normally associate with a geode and so I was completely transfixed.

After I sat to meditate on the beach that day, I looked around me to find even larger white stones and when I picked one particularly large head-sized stone I noticed that it had a full quartz point embedded within it. No wonder I had been sleeping so well, I was surrounded by quartz crystal within the matrix of rock.

When I'm not filling my pockets with these items, I'm photographing them because I'm endlessly curious about what things are - can you eat them, are they medicinal, what properties do they have to help us humans in our... well in our humanness.

I feel this will always be part of what I do - whether it is for my work, for my hobby or perhaps part of both, particularly for the intensives that I intend to deliver, because I can very easily use what nature provides as a metaphor for what is happening in our lives.

Creating The Best 2020 Future Friday - #AlchemyOfPotential

Would you love to discover your potential for more impact on a beautiful island in Greece for a week? (yes, that's a serious question)

If so, read on - and no this isn't a sales pitch (yet).

If 2019 was the year that I laid down the foundations for the next year, 2020 is the year is the year that I use this new time and work-freedom to create a new program for the next phase.

It is my goal for 2020 to create a new program for the personal development industry and launch it on the island of Amorgos in Greece in May 2021. The dates and the venue are already booked, so I have a natural deadline to make this happen, and I have a brief description of what the program will be about - and that's it.

I'd love your feedback on it - www.timsnell.co/greece

My 2020 Project:

The name of the program as it stands right now is: The Alchemy of Potential

I've chosen this name because it really represents me and the transformational work I am doing in this world. As the Chief Potential Igniter of individuals and businesses, this program is about creating a transformation within my heroes so that they can take the next steps towards reaching their impact potential.

Structure:

The program is a 3 fold path that looks at individual potential from a completely new perspective. For now, I’m keeping the detail under wraps.

I believe that with all the changes on our planet, the old way of coaching and personal development will shift dramatically from 2020, and this program is being created to meet the needs of that upcoming shift in an elegant and smart way.

It will be a culmination of everything that I have learned and will (I hope) force me to embody my teachings in a completely new way.

Milestones:

First Quarter

By the end of March the deepest part of this process will be completed. As I look back from the end of March, I will have worked through all the personal development work I have done and highlighted all the aha moments I have had, and each of those moments where a real change happened for me. This is essential pre-work for understanding how I have transitioned from one point to the next - a sort of evolutionary timeline for Tim Snell if you like.

It's essential to get this completed by March as I will be learning to teach a new healing modality in the last week of March and the shifts and insights from that experience will be added to the ones already identified until now.

Third Quarter

As I reflect back on period from March to September I am quietly proud of the work I have done in bringing this program into being. All of the components of the program will be identified and refined into a coherent framework that is a) easy to follow; b) powerfully transformative and c) deeply engaging and d) irresistible to the people Jeffrey Davis would would call my patch of the planet. I’m giving myself a full six months to get to this point since its a busy time for revenue generation and it’s the summer as well.

Fourth Quarter

By the end of the fourth quarter at least half of the places on the Greece Intensive, which uses this methodology, will be sold out. This last quarter will also involve tying up any loose ends and speaking to partners and team members on Amorgos so make sure that activities are aligned and booked for the event in May 2020.

Supporting Wisdom:

In 2019 I have already done a workshop to help me understand where my authority is, and how to market and sell a course. I will need to apply some of those principles to marketing and selling this intensive. One workshop I am curious to take is with a coach who is presenting 2 webinars in January focused on how to make your business remarkable - which in his mind is to not do what everyone else is doing. I'm curious about what this person has to say, but acutely aware that after investing 1/4 of my income on personal development in 2019, 2020 is about taking focused action based on the knowledge I've already accumulated.

My Pack:

I will need help from the mentors I work with - you know who you are - to help me get this new program up and running.

They are:

Holly Couch - ideation and sense checking

Damien O’Donoghue - androgogy and learning outcomes

Robert Stewart - online support and messaging

Shaping Time:

At first I wrote that I don't feel the need to block specific time for this as it is already part of my DNA to work consistently, and sometimes assiduously, until things are completed.

On reflection I do need to put a 1 hour block of time aside each week. More broadly I also need to make time for: