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# Robert Poynton

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## Posts

- [Articles](https://robertpoynton.com/articles/)
- [Name calling](https://robertpoynton.com/name-calling/) - On Friday, one of the group I was working with in Oxford asked me what "the trick" was for remembering names. I often get asked this. There isn't a trick. And that's the trick. I had spent most of the day sitting in a lecture theatre listening. Everyone was sitting in named places and I had all day til my session began at 330pm. The "trick" is simply to regard it as worth making the effort.
- [Voices in the head](https://robertpoynton.com/voices-in-the-head/) - Yesterday I started writing again. Not planning or preparing or making cups of tea or dithering around but actually writing. Miranda, my publisher, will be pleased, or perhaps relieved. My wife, Beatriz, perhaps less so.
- [The Copenhagen Interpretation](https://robertpoynton.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation/) - In July we were in Copenhagen. We were with my friend Helene Simonsen at one of the open air jazz concerts when she bumped into someone she knew. I remember he was wearing some very cool glasses and looked like a bit of a boffin.
- [The craft of improv](https://robertpoynton.com/the-craft-of-improv/) - Just got back from the Do Lectures. Quite the most extraordinary four days I have ever had I think. One of the highlights was a conversation about craft and where the craft of improv lies. It was one of those conversations where I heard myself saying things I hadn’t ever thought before, which was what I liked about it.
- [It's amazing what you forget](https://robertpoynton.com/its-amazing-what-you-forget/) - On the way to the Do Lectures I was reading 'Everything's an Offer' and I found it a little depressing to discover quite how much of my own work I had forgotten. All that effort and how little of it I recall. Makes me wonder what else I have forgotten....
- [Do Do's](https://robertpoynton.com/do-dos/) - Had a couple of great bits of feedback from the Do Lectures. One was John of Brainjuicer (now System 1 Group), another of the speakers, who decided as a result of my talk to run a board meeting with no agenda. And Amanda Blake, who wasn't even at the Do Lectures but listened to a
- [How to cultivate conversation](https://robertpoynton.com/how-to-cultivate-conversation/) - Recently, I was working with friend and colleague Marshall Young at Green Templeton College, Oxford. We filled three enormous whiteboards with scribbles, which I always think is a pretty good sign. We were thinking about how conversation works and what the underlying conditions or dimensions (many of them physical) that shape conversation are and what you would seek to vary or manipulate if you are endeavouring to create a series of rich conversations.
- [How are things?](https://robertpoynton.com/how-are-things/) - Where I live people are really struggling. There is little work and less prospect of work. And yet I have had a good year. Which is a bit tricky. For most of the year I have tried to be positive (without gloating) and to do what little I can to spend money locally and employ local people. Whilst being sensitive to what’s happening around me, it also seemed important not slip into negativity myself.
- [Social intellectual physical reflective](https://robertpoynton.com/social-intellectual-physical-reflective/) - Imagine you divide your day into four kinds of activity: – intellectual or cognitive (like thinking or writing)
- [My jet pack arrived](https://robertpoynton.com/my-jet-pack-arrived/) - This afternoon I decided to try and do a Skype call from home. Our house is remote – there is no phone line (and therefore no fixed line internet). In fact, there isn’t even mains electricity or water. So I decide to use my phone as the connection. It will work with voice I reasoned.
- [Leonardo da Vindication](https://robertpoynton.com/leonardo-da-vindication/) - I saw the Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London over the holidays, which was fabulous, though reminiscent of looking at great art on a rush hour tube, so crowded was the space. I was struck by how significant two pieces of improv practice were in the masters work - collaboration and being willing to be changed.
- [Improv in ten](https://robertpoynton.com/593/) - Dave Morrison does a wonderful and quick explanation of the improvisational way. Makes me realise that the twenty minutes I got at the Do Lectures was a luxury.
- [The Introductor](https://robertpoynton.com/the-introductor/) - I am very pleased to have been featured on The Introductor this week. There are some fascinating people on this, I am thrilled to be in their company. Sincere thanks to Ella Saltmarshe, who I met at the Do Lectures, for this.
- [Slow Slow Quick](https://robertpoynton.com/hurry/) - I met technology theorist Tom Chatfield in Oxford back in November. A few weeks later I sent him an e mail, inviting him to an improv session in London. I didn't hear back for a while. When I did, after about a month, Tom was profusely apologetic, bless him.
- [Rhythm versus Pace](https://robertpoynton.com/rhythm-versus-pace/) - One of my neighbours, Vicente, lives mostly off the land. Nature made him a very elegant calendar, with a beautiful cadence from one crop to another, preparing, sowing, fertilising, harvesting, pruning. Olives, then figs, then cherries, then chestnuts in a cycle of cycles throughout the year. Quite a contrast to the clients who always want the worksho
- [Bald spano-limey improv dude](https://robertpoynton.com/bald-spano-limey-improv-dude/) - Bald spano-limey improv dude. This is how a great friend (himself a bald proto californian yorkshire limey runner dude) described me yesterday. I thought that was worth sharing.
- [The false god of scale](https://robertpoynton.com/the-false-god-of-scale/) - Human scale. What a difference it makes. Yesterday I wanted to transfer money from a UK account to an account in Spain. By chance I got an e mail from Lloyds bank that very morning saying that they had just made this easier and that I could do it on-line. Hooray!
- [Take your own advice](https://robertpoynton.com/take-your-own-advice/) - I like playing around with the sub-title of this site. So far I have had 'Out on an edge', 'Life is a mash up', 'Big fan of small airports', 'What will this year hold?' and currently 'Time for a walk'. I went for a walk on Sunday morning. With the dog. It was a spectacular day, as you can see from the photo (click on the title of this post).
- [Jam today](https://robertpoynton.com/jam-today/) - Today I got a birthday present from thirteen virtual strangers. In the form of an Improv Jam organised by Steve Chapman and Caryn Vanstone based on that wonderful premise of inviting an interesting group of people simply to explore and learn together with no specific objective.
- [There is always the chance of a fresh start](https://robertpoynton.com/there-is-always-the-chance-of-a-fresh-start/) - I had a terrible day on Wednesday. I didn't get anything like what I wanted to do done. What I did, I didn't like. Then, in a foul mood, 'everything' got worse, mostly because I started interpreting it that way. Which gave me the great displeasure of being right.
- [Collaboration in Cambodia](https://robertpoynton.com/771/) - I am in Cambodia this week, working on collaboration. I was invited only last week, to work with a co-facilitator I hadn't met, for a client I don't know in a field I am completely ignorant of (disaster relief management).
- [The Creative Tapas Experiment](https://robertpoynton.com/the-creative-tapas-experiment/) - Well. Creative Tapas happened. And it was quite an experience. I will write some more about it when I have digested the experience a little more.
- [Start before you're ready](https://robertpoynton.com/start-before-youre-ready/) - I have been very struck recently by how productive it can be to start things before you are 'ready'. It is something improvisers do the whole time. They step on stage before they have an idea, rather than waiting until they have one. They let the idea emerge from the action.
- [Work in progress](https://robertpoynton.com/work-in-progress/)
- [Off cuts](https://robertpoynton.com/off-cuts/) - There wasn't space for everything I wanted to say about leadership in my 'Do - Improvising' book, so I recorded it here.
- [Sediment](https://robertpoynton.com/sediment/) - A change of scene this weekend (maybe that will help me write). Not far, just north 80km to the other side of the sierra, to Avila and an old house that belongs to my wife's family. Place makes such a difference.
- [Your own worst enemy](https://robertpoynton.com/your-own-worst-enemy/) - I just finished a draft of a chapter of the Do book and it is so funny to watch myself, working against myself. First there is the terror of the blank page, the fear that I can't find anything worth saying so I struggle hard to get going, to get something (anything!) down. My fears prove misguided and I quickly generate tons of stuff, most of which is crap. But not all of it. So then I have to struggle again to find and dig out the bits that aren't crap.
- [Quit while you are ahead](https://robertpoynton.com/quit-while-you-are-ahead/) - It struck me recently what a skill it is knowing when to stop. Marshall Young (Director of the Oxford Praxis Forum), who I work with at Oxford, seems to me to be a past master at this. A couple of weeks back we were having a typically rambling conversation when, as is often the case, a striking idea hailed into view (it was to do with the difference between an economy and an ecology).
- [Two Be](https://robertpoynton.com/two-be/) - I find myself thinking about the theme of permanence and change and the balance between again. Hardly surprising perhaps since in Spanish, it is woven into the language. Castillian has two verbs to be - 'ser' and 'estar'. The first is used for things that are deemed to be permanent - like where you are from (or which football team you support).
- [Small town networks](https://robertpoynton.com/734/) - Friends from London, or some other metropolis, often ask me what it is like living in a small town. I think they wonder what on earth we do to entertain ourselves in such a place. When I first lived in Arenas, I used to answer that there was a trade off (one I was quite happy to accept) but a trade off nonetheless, between the spectacular natural landscape and the human landscape which was, so I thought, pretty limited. I see it a bit differently now.
- [Cooking the Books](https://robertpoynton.com/cooking-the-books/) - My wife commented to me this morning that ‘Do – Improvising’ – the book I am currently writing – seems to be a lot easier than ‘Everything’s an Offer’ ever was. She is right.
- [Change as a skimming stone](https://robertpoynton.com/change-as-a-skimming-stone/) - I often come across people who want to change the world, or create 'large scale change'. A noble aim indeed. Yet I wonder about this. To scale things we create systems and programmes that can be 'rolled out'.
- [Your body knows stuff you don't](https://robertpoynton.com/your-body-knows-stuff-you-dont/) - A few years back I was lucky enough to see the Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero perform. She is a classical pianist. And she improvises. The first thing she did was invite the audience to sit anywhere. Many joined her on stage. Some even sat under the piano.
- [Does it scale?](https://robertpoynton.com/does-it-scale/) - Recently I have become very interested in the issue of scale. In particular in the assumption that more, or bigger, is better (necessary even). This assumption is everywhere. Business seek more sales, more customers, more products and yet more growth.
- [The power of the polymath](https://robertpoynton.com/the-power-of-the-polymath/) - Sometimes I think there are too many TED talks out there nowadays - it becomes so hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. But I love this one. Of course, as a polymath myself I am biased, but I think Ella (who I know from the Do Lectures) makes a great case for why generalists are sorely needed (in a nutshell - cross fertilisation and holistic thinking). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
- [Shameless Self Promotion](https://robertpoynton.com/shameless-self-promotion/) - In November I will be co-teaching a course at the wonderful Schumacher College in Devon, with Patricia Shaw. It is about leading in the midst of complexity. It will bring together improvisational practise with complexity thinking and focus on 'working live'.
- [Do Improvise](https://robertpoynton.com/do-improvise/) - My new book 'Do Improvise' is out.I am very honoured to have been asked to be one of the first 'Do' authors and Miranda, who runs Do Books, seduced me into it with the beguiling brief 'it will be rather like a Ladybird book' (for those of you old enough to remember such things).
- [The locational fetish](https://robertpoynton.com/the-locational-fetish/) - Why is it that people get so excited about knowing which bit of someone's brain lights up when they are engaged in some activity or other? It doesn't explain anything. In fact I think it is dangerously misleading.
- [Living in the future](https://robertpoynton.com/living-in-the-future/) - It was William Gibson who said ‘the future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed’. For the last year or so, I have felt as if I am living in the future. Which doesn't mean that Arenas de San Pedro, the small rural town in Spain where I live looks like a set from Blade Runner.
- [Reading weekends - expert or emergent?](https://robertpoynton.com/reading-weekends-expert-or-emergent/) - Looks like Reading Weekends are becoming popular. The School of Life are running one too (not for the first time it seems). Here. There is an interesting difference though, between what we did and what they are doing. They have specially selected "books that will change your life" and Burkeman and Berthoud play the role of 'expert guides'.
- [Busy is the new lazy](https://robertpoynton.com/busy-is-the-new-lazy/) - Being busy is great, isn’t it? It makes you feel and sound so purposeful, so important. But actually I think being busy is often just lazy. It is an excuse for not prioritising – for allowing business and work to trump things that are more important.
- [Blue Sky Thinking](https://robertpoynton.com/blue-sky-thinking/) - Hiking in the sierra with Neil Randhawa, we saw this. The mountains were beautiful on their own, that's true, but the clear, straight line of the contrails behind the plane added to it. The juxtaposition of the regular and the irregular is, I suppose, what makes such a striking image and it makes me think of the value of contrasting perspectives, a theme of the conversations Neil and I were having as we walked through the snow and ice.
- [I don't work](https://robertpoynton.com/i-dont-work/) - Driving down the hill this afternoon, I bumped into my neighbour, Vicente. He is one of the few people (even round here) who lives mostly off the land. I mentioned I was heading down to the office to do a bit of work. 'I don't work' he said. This puzzled me. After all, I happen to know that this week he and his family have harvested (by hand) several tonnes of olives. 'I only do what I like' he said. 'I don't have any money, but then I don't work like you do'.
- [Opening Movement](https://robertpoynton.com/opening-movement/) - I had a revelation this morning. I realised that for years, I have been unconsciously regarding good posture as a fixed thing, as a standard, ideal, static thing to aspire to, as a particular position that I encourage my body to adopt. And as a result, I suspect I have got stuck, in all sorts of ways and that this no doubt contributes to the stiff back and all the other discomforts that I attribute to 'ageing'.
- [Stop Pushing](https://robertpoynton.com/stop-pushing/) - A couple of weeks after the Reading Weekend, two of the participants have told me that it helped them solved business problems. Which I think is brilliant. It convinces me of more than ever that it is pointless to just push harder
- [Read, walk, eat](https://robertpoynton.com/read-walk-eat/) - We recently hosted the Praxis Reading Weekend at La Serna. I am hoping this is the beginning of all sorts of interesting things that La Serna could play host to. One of the participants, Chris Riley found it very thought provoking and had this to say about it. I am thrilled. As you would be.
- [Pay more attention](https://robertpoynton.com/pay-more-attention/) - I had a lovely surprise on Monday morning. I found a new product. Of my own. One I had already made without realising it. There it was, lying hidden in an e mail from a client, who, it turned out, had already bought it, as had several others. She was now, albeit unconsciously, telling me what it was. She called it: “Conversations with a creative thinker”.
- [There's no such thing as a bad idea - or is there?](https://robertpoynton.com/no-such-thing-as-a-bad-idea-or-is-there/) - People often say there is no such thing as a bad idea. I disagree. I think there are plenty of bad ideas. I have lots of them myself. Instead, I prefer to say… ‘there is no such thing as a good idea….yet’. I think that is much more useful direction for anyone interested in having ideas.
- [Humour me](https://robertpoynton.com/humour-me/) - I am beginning to realise how important it is to have a sense of humour. Not just because it makes life more enjoyable, but because it draws attention to things, that you can then do something about. I am learning this from Marshall Young, who I work with at Oxford. For example, he used to call old Oxford of the dreaming spires, the ‘theme park’. Not something you would catch many Oxford dons doing.
- [The brain is a symphony](https://robertpoynton.com/the-brain-is-a-symphony/) - I have been struggling to find a fitting metaphor for the absurdity of the ‘locational fetish’ that seems to be afflicting anyone who writes in the popular media about the brain these days - i.e. the idea that by knowing which part of the brain is active we know something important.
- [Act yourself into a new way of thinking](https://robertpoynton.com/start-before-you-are-ready/) - 'Start before you are ready' is an invitation to action. It reminds me that we can act ourselves into a new way of thinking, just as well as we can think ourselves into a new way of acting. This maxim encourages me to pay attention to what is happening as events unfold, to be present and attentive to what actually happens, rather than what I imagine might happen.
- [The old ones are the best](https://robertpoynton.com/the-old-ones-are-the-best/) - In an interview last year, I was asked why we use the arts and humanities so much on the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme. To me, the question revealed a couple of assumptions. First, that the most important knowledge is proto-scientific, technical and in the main, rational.
- [A New Parenthesis Experiment](https://robertpoynton.com/parenthesis-beta/) - I have been running one person 'Parenthesis' retreats here in Spain for a couple of years now. This year, working with Hilary Gallo we are adding a new, small group format. We are going to be running the first one as a kind of beta-test at the end of June this year.
- [How are we thinking about this?](https://robertpoynton.com/how-are-we-thinking-about-this/) - Earlier this year I took a few days out to stay at the Krishnamurti Centre - a beautiful retreat centre in southern England, next to Brockwood Park School, where two of my sons are studying. The Centre is dedicated to Jiddu Krishnamurti’s work. They have all of his books in just about every language you can imagine and a large number of his talks on video.
- [Woolly thinking](https://robertpoynton.com/woolly-thinking/) - WDG. "Woolly Doable Goal". What a lovely phrase, courtesy of John Willshire at Smithery. A great way, I think, to remind ourselves that getting going is easier than we think. Just set yourself a 'woollly doable goal'. I have a few of these phrases myself, from 'start before you are ready', which occasionally graces this website as a byline, to 'start anywhere' (from "Everything's an Offer").
- [Evaluation vs. Feedback](https://robertpoynton.com/evaluation-vs-feedback/) - My friend and colleague John-Paul Flintoff has been writing about feedback. So I gave him some and he gave me some – inviting me to write this post. I am interested in how easily we confuse feedback and evaluation. Indeed, we don’t just confuse them (i.e. have trouble telling them apart) we conflate them – assuming them to be the same thing. But they aren’t.
- [A view inside the mind](https://robertpoynton.com/a-view-inside-my-mind/) - …plan plan plan, talk, worry, plan, plan, decide. Rush, hurry, meet, talk, talk talk, check. Plan plan, rush, decide, talk talk, micro-plan, check, worry, doubt, talk talk rush rush hurry hurry decide doubt check, check, check, talk plan, mini-plan, anticipate, confirm, talk, talk, hurry, worry, hurry talk talk talk talk.
- [People are oceans not objects](https://robertpoynton.com/people-as-oceans-not-objects/) - l like the idea of thinking of people as oceans rather than objects. Whilst it is neat and tidy to identify people as objects, we are more complex than that. Context shapes who we are far more than we realise and in some ways, we blur into each other (something I have written about before). There are various aspects of the oceans metaphor I like.
- [Who is my son Pablo?](https://robertpoynton.com/who-is-pablo/) - At the beginning of September my two elder sons went away to school, leaving Pablo, the youngest, living alone at home with his parents. He is, as they say 'a different person'. We see it ourselves and others comment upon it. With no competition for attention, or food, or time on the Play Station, Pablo has indeed become different.
- [The hand and the mind](https://robertpoynton.com/the-hand-and-the-mind/) - At the Do Lectures, way back in 2011, I had this conversation with Leonora Oppenheim. I am so glad I did, and so glad that she recorded it. Its about craft, the hand and the mind. And it set Leonora off on a fascinating project The Craftsmanship of Doing.
- [Travel Thinking](https://robertpoynton.com/travel-thinking/) - Travel broadens the mind they say. For me it has another benefit. It also deepens it. Living in rural Spain and working mostly in the UK I travel a fair amount and I find that when I travel I escape the insistent, nagging of the to-do list.
- [Draw your own conclusions](https://robertpoynton.com/draw-your-own-conclusions/) - Years ago a friend, who is an artist, did a very simple line drawing portrait of me. A few years later another, who is an engineer turned it into a wood block. I was amazed at his ingenuity. ‘I have made a few improvements though’ he said. ‘Your glasses weren’t drawn straight, so I levelled them out’.
- [Learning fast and slow](https://robertpoynton.com/learning-fast-and-slow/) - Over the past couple of months I have started to realise how long it can take for me to learn. Sometimes, years after an event I am still learning. For example, even now, two years on from The Creative Tapas Experiment I am still getting ideas from it – both through reflection and through conversation with other people who were there.
- [The Dictatorship of Diaries](https://robertpoynton.com/the-dictatorship-of-diaries/) - Diaries take time, lay it out in a long line and chop it into little bits. They all do. In more or less sophisticated, clever, beautiful or techie ways perhaps, but essentially it is the same idea. As if time is a piece of string.
- [More Shameless Self Promotion](https://robertpoynton.com/more-shameless-self-promotion/) - A chapter from Do Improvise has just been posted on the Shopify partners blog. Here. And people have been adding some really interesting comments, which is nice.
- [Patient learning and the futility of 'happy sheets'](https://robertpoynton.com/patient-learning-and-the-futility-of-happy-sheets/) - Freddie Mercury was wrong. If you want it now you can’t have it all. At least not in the realm of learning. Part way through an experimental, two-day, Praxis workshop, one of the participants told me that she couldn’t work out what she was getting from it. She was by her own admission having a wonderful time and she was well aware that the workshop was experimental (there was a clue in the title - it was called ‘The Awareness Experiment).
- [Fresh eyes and ears](https://robertpoynton.com/fresh-eyes-and-ears/) - I was recently interviewed by a Radio Station, BFM in Malaysia. Which I thought was rather lovely, given that I live in a small town in rural Spain. I think I can reasonably claim to be the only inhabitant of Arenas de San Pedro to be interviewed by an Asian radio station.
- [We don’t know](https://robertpoynton.com/we-dont-know/) - If the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, what should we do about it? What can I do? What can you do? What should we do?It’s a question that, like many people, I often ask myself.
- [Good beats right](https://robertpoynton.com/good-beats-right/) - In the past few months I have been making an effort to substitute the word ‘right’ with the word ‘good’. Why?
- [Help – ask early, ask often](https://robertpoynton.com/help-ask-early-ask-often/) - In the spring I hosted an event called ‘The Help Weekend’ – an inquiry into what it takes to get and give help. It was based on the observation that most people are slow to ask for help, yet when they are asked to help someone else they are (often) delighted.
- [Simplicity on the other side of complexity](https://robertpoynton.com/simplicity-on-the-other-side-of-complexity/) - Whilst working on the Praxis symposium this year I found myself thinking about what is it that I am really doing when when I am designing a workshop or learning experience. I have written about this before (see How to cultivate conversation, The Craft of Improv) but I still keep learning. Which in itself is fabulous – one of life’s great joys is to find you can keep on learning about something you already know well.
- [Forget it](https://robertpoynton.com/forget-it/) - I read a lot. I am not a particularly fast reader, so I don’t get through as many books as some, but by any measure I read a fair amount. And yet I forget most of it. The vast majority in fact[1]. The irony is that people often comment on how much (they think) I
- [The Book of Your Life](https://robertpoynton.com/the-book-of-your-life/) - Imagine you had written a book. What kind of book would you like it to be - a novel, a history, a text book, poetry? What would you have written about - fish, acupuncture, space invaders? Consider it done. Ignore the self doubt and just for a minute or two imagine that all the struggle is
- [A to do about To Do lists](https://robertpoynton.com/a-to-do-about-to-do-lists/) - Last week, as part of the Oxford Literary Festival, I was invited by Blackwells bookshop to talk about my new book ‘Do – Pause’. For me, it doesn’t get any better than that. Oxford has been a special place for me since I was four years old and is now my home in England. Blackwells
- [Walking is Working](https://robertpoynton.com/walking-is-working/) - Yesterday, in the middle of the morning, I went out for a walk. Through the fruit orchard, down the hill under the oaks and pines to the stream, across the river by the waterfall, past the reservoir and back up the hill along the track. It was slippery underfoot, the carpet of leaves damp with
- [Nothing Doing](https://robertpoynton.com/nothing-doing/) - Yesterday I decided to do nothing. On purpose. I found this surprisingly hard and quite illuminating. It had been an unsatisfying week. I was a bit jet lagged, having been in South Korea on a business trip the week before, but it wasn’t really that. For once, I had no looming deadlines. There were no
- [A knowledge worker needs a good body](https://robertpoynton.com/a-knowledge-worker-needs-a-good-body/) - What does it means to be a ‘knowledge worker’. The term conjures up an image of cerebral, nerdy, cleverness – of academics, geeks or intellectuals, steeped in learning of a bookish kind. And it suggests, that to stay employable, you need to be studying, acquiring more information, and qualifications, constantly. Which creates a huge amount of pressure and stress, particularly on young people who trying to make their way in an ultra-competitive world.
- [Cutting ties](https://robertpoynton.com/cutting-ties/) - A neck tie is a curious thing – a long, thin piece of cloth that serves no practical function, wrapped around a man’s neck, where it dangles in a perfect position to collect any stray drops of spaghetti sauce. A tie separates head and body, physically and symbolically.
- [JOMO not FOMO](https://robertpoynton.com/jomo-not-fomo/) - Since ‘Do Pause’ was finished I have started using Instagram, for the first time. As a result I look at things with a different eye and find myself thinking in pictures, which I quite enjoy. So there’s something in it, but even so, I can already feel the insidious creep of ever more frequent connections.
- [Walk the Line - A different kind of path dependency](https://robertpoynton.com/walk-the-line/) - Most of us think of our lives as a line, much like a path or road, where events happen one after another in a single, linear, sequence. The past lies behind us and the future stretches out ahead.We frequently use the language of paths – whether it is career paths, spiritual paths or ‘bumps in
- [The Perfect Steve Chapman](https://robertpoynton.com/the-perfect-steve-chapman/) - know the perfect Steve Chapman. He always comes up with Steve Chapman-like comments. He is an unending source of Steve Chapman style ideas. When I want a Steve Chapman perspective on something of mine, he’s the guy.
- [Moving towards difficulty](https://robertpoynton.com/moving-towards-difficulty/) - It’s a filthy day. The rain has been coming at us, all day long. Horizontally. People don’t associate this weather with Spain, but here in the Gredos Mountains, when it rains, it really rains. It looks implausible, like bad movie rain, with exaggerated sheets of water coming at us hour after hour.
- [Chair Game at the V&A](https://robertpoynton.com/chair-game-at-the-va/) - This last year I have become somewhat obsessed by a game I call the Chair Game, which I learned from Stefan Cousquer (who in turn, learned it from Michael Jacobs).

## Pages

- [Home](https://robertpoynton.com/)
- [Contact Me](https://robertpoynton.com/contact/) - My life and work have been shaped by seemingly random meetings and contacts, so feel free to get in touch if you want to ask me something or have a conversation.
- [About Me](https://robertpoynton.com/about-me/) - Sometimes I call myself a Marxist. A ‘Groucho Marxist’ - I am reluctant to belong to any ‘club’ that would have me as a member. I am English but have lived more of my life in Spain than England. I have been part of three start-ups but I am not an entrepreneur. I mash up
- [Follow Me](https://robertpoynton.com/follow-me/) - I don’t do much social media. Though I do occasionally post on Instagram. If you would like to receive my (very) occasional musings you can sign up below.

## Books

- [Do Pause](https://robertpoynton.com/book/do-pause/)
- [Everything's an Offer](https://robertpoynton.com/book/everythings-an-offer/)
- [Do Conversation](https://robertpoynton.com/book/do-conversation/)
- [Do Improvise](https://robertpoynton.com/book/do-improvise/)

## Projects

- [Articles](https://robertpoynton.com/do/articles/) - For me, writing is a way of 'thinking out loud'. So if you are curious about how I think and what I think about, have a rummage around here. Or you could sign up for the new writing I (occasionally) do via my Substack, here. When I look back over these articles myself, I find
- [Yellow](https://robertpoynton.com/do/yellow/) - Catch a glimpse of yourself, coming alive Together with Alex Carabi, I created Yellow in April 2020. For three years we formed small online groups which gathered every two weeks, for two hours, over a period of five months, to explore and learn together. What is most distinctive about this was what it was not. There were no learning
- [Books](https://robertpoynton.com/do/books/) - Why I write I write to synthesise what I have learned. And because I love writing - difficult though it is. The books also operate as search algorithms, bringing me into contact with interesting people from all over the world. Since most of my work is intangible, it’s nice to have made something physical. I
- [Applied Improvisation](https://robertpoynton.com/do/applied-improvisation/) - We all improvise – no one has a script for their life (or their work) and we constantly have to deal with the unexpected and the uncertain. Life is a responsive, adaptive dance and yet we devote hardly any time to develop our improvisational skill or capacity. I have been working with ideas, tools, and
- [Oxford](https://robertpoynton.com/do/oxford/) - I studied Psychology and Philosophy at Oxford University but never imagined I would work there. Yet in 2001, serendipity - which seems to be the governing principle of my life - led me back. I find it a beautiful and romantic place and I love the fact that there are people here from all over the
- [Kitchen Sink](https://robertpoynton.com/do/kitchen-sink/) - A mish-mashed hodge-podge of doing. I end up doing all sorts of things, some of which happen and many of which don’t. Events, retreats and residencies For example, I occasionally host Reading Weekends at the old house in Spain where my wife runs an organic beef farm. For a few years I held one person
- [Creative Tapas](https://robertpoynton.com/do/creative-tapas-experience/) - A powerful, playful exploration of creativity and leadership The ‘Creative Tapas Experience’ is an exploration of creative collaboration and leadership, where a group of people who never met before, come together and create whatever they like in the course of a day. As well as the joy of making stuff and the energy that this

## Categories

- [Uncategorized](https://robertpoynton.com/category/uncategorized/)
- [Do Lectures](https://robertpoynton.com/category/do-lectures/)
- [writing](https://robertpoynton.com/category/writing/)
- [Improv](https://robertpoynton.com/category/improv/)
- [Leadership](https://robertpoynton.com/category/leadership/)
- [Place](https://robertpoynton.com/category/place/)
- [Mind-body](https://robertpoynton.com/category/mind-body/)
- [Pause](https://robertpoynton.com/category/pause/)

## Tags

- [complexity](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/complexity/)
- [simpicity](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/simpicity/)
- [Bohm](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/bohm/)
- [Krishnamurti](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/krishnamurti/)
- [thought](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/thought/)
- [Help](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/help/)
- [mind](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/mind/)
- [reflection](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/reflection/)
- [metaphor](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/metaphor/)
- [ocean](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/ocean/)
- [self](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/self/)
- [action](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/action/)
- [John Willshire](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/john-willshire/)
- [smithery](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/smithery/)
- [Vicente](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/vicente/)
- [Amanda Blake](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/amanda-blake/)
- [Feldenkrais](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/feldenkrais/)
- [Your Body is Your Brain](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/your-body-is-your-brain/)
- [Ella Saltmarshe](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/ella-saltmarshe/)
- [polymath](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/polymath/)
- [change](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/change/)
- [Creative Tapas](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/creative-tapas/)
- [scale](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/scale/)
- [embodiment](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/embodiment/)
- [Creative Tapas Experiment](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/creative-tapas-experiment/)
- [knowledge and learning](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/knowledge-and-learning/)
- [walking](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/walking/)
- [Blade Runner](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/blade-runner/)
- [future](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/future/)
- [Gibson](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/gibson/)
- [book](https://robertpoynton.com/tag/book/)

## Book Tags

- [Currently Available](https://robertpoynton.com/books/currently-available/)
- [Out of print](https://robertpoynton.com/books/out-of-print/)

## Project  Tags

- [On Sabbatical](https://robertpoynton.com/project_tag/on-sabbatical/)