Awaken Out Of Context

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I started this episode in a bad mood! Work had taken over, I was frustrated with being injured, my fitness had gone backwards, and I’d reached that point of thinking: what’s the fucking point? I stuck my runners on, grabbed a camera and went for a run around Phuket.
Along the way, I get into:

* Why maintaining your fitness can actually be progress
* How quickly I lost strength after injury, illness and stopping the boring basics
* Why tracking your numbers matters when things start going backwards
* The first sub-4:00/km pace I’ve seen in months
* Why I’d stopped running for the simple enjoyment of it
* The less glamorous reality of working remotely in “paradise”
* Losing fitness and realising how little I appreciated what I had
* Gratitude; and why sometimes you only understand something’s value after losing it
* Using running to change your mental state
* How changing your behaviour can change your environment, not just the other way around
* Why sometimes hitting a low point is exactly what forces you to do something different
By the end of the run, none of the problems had magically disappeared. But they did feel smaller and sometimes that’s enough :)

Chapters:

00:00 Trailer
00:34 I’m Not Having a Good Day
05:23 Why Maintenance Is Actually Progress
13:05 I Haven’t Seen Sub-4 in Months
23:20 Running, Injury & Losing My Fitness
25:00 What I Had — and Didn’t Appreciate
28:35 The Run Changed My Mood
32:35 Why Changing Your Environment Changes You
34:00 Sometimes You Need to Hit a Low Point

🎙️ MY STUFF
The Chapter System (the PDF): https://thechaptersystem.com/pdf
Newsletter: https://awakenoutofcontext.com
More episodes like this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMebuClQRf09omZ7V629URAvyHG0KxIH_

Get the exact system I designed and live by to set my goals. It's ten bucks, and it's how you can support the show without me ever asking you to buy me a coffee: https://thechaptersystem.com/pdf

Two travellers ask an old man at a crossroads what the people are like in the city ahead. He gives them both the same answer, and it's different for each of them. This episode starts with that old parable and then tests it on a real flight from Bali to Phuket.

What I get into: the choice I made boarding that plane to be kind to every single person with no conditions attached. The couple blocking the aisle and what happened when I didn't sigh. Deciding to welcome whoever sat in the middle seat, and the Turkish woman who wrote in my journal because we couldn't share a language. The George Michael impersonator I judged, then chose kindness for, and the chocolate bar that came back. And the question under all of it: is it really kindness if it comes with conditions?

🎙️ MY STUFF
The Chapter System (the PDF): https://thechaptersystem.com/pdf
Newsletter: https://awakenoutofcontext.com
More episodes like this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMebuClQRf09omZ7V629URAvyHG0KxIH_

Get the exact system I designed and live by to set my goals. It's ten bucks, and it's how you can support the show without me ever asking you to buy me a coffee: https://thechaptersystem.com/pdf

The moment I turned the camera on, my phone felt heavier. Same phone, same hand, nothing changed except being watched. This solo episode is me sitting in a cafe in Bali pulling on that thread until it unravels into something bigger: how observation distorts everything.

What I get into: why the camera activates presenter mode rather than creating a fake version of you. The manual labour paradox: AI promised leverage, but the way to look authentic now is to do everything yourself, glued to your phone. Presumptive fame, and why my brain rates a stranger's video above a friend's. Productive procrastination, and pouring energy into work that looks right but misses the point. And the thing it all lands on: most of what feels urgent is noise, and the skill is telling it apart from signal.

If this one lands, let me know. Subscribe and drop a review if you're enjoying the show.

🎙️ MY STUFF
The Chapter System (the PDF): https://thechaptersystem.com/pdf
Newsletter: https://awakenoutofcontext.com
More episodes like this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMebuClQRf09omZ7V629URAvyHG0KxIH_

VLOGS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ky3sQEMwUM&list=PLMebuClQRf09N1EW4xaBRDZJQqPlDB_5B
AMAS: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMebuClQRf09DvwNgIXJOsd6ca4azb7nQ
SOLO: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMebuClQRf09omZ7V629URAvyHG0KxIH_

The lads from school woke me up this morning ripping me for changing my accent, so let's get into it. Why do some of us smooth our accents out when we move through the world, and is it fake?

I get into linguistic accommodation, the concept Valerie Fridland taught me when she came on the show, and why softening the edges of my Southern Cumbrian accent is the opposite of inauthentic. I've been on both sides of this: on lads holidays I'd turn the accent up as a weapon, out in Bali I turn it down to connect. Same tool, different job.

Also in here: catching myself switching mid-sentence, a Sean Connery impression nobody asked for, football hooligans, why the biggest connections I've made out here would never have happened in my broad accent, and what happened to Chris Williamson's Geordie accent. Accent isn't personality, it's a set of options.

If this one lands, let me know. Subscribe and drop a review if you're enjoying the show.
Check out my conversation with Professor Valerie Fridland: https://youtu.be/3yOSIGNAhhk?si=UM4oXwHE6dJ-PmsJ

🎙️ MY STUFF
Awaken Out of Context: https://awakenoutofcontext.com
The Chapter System: https://thechaptersystem.com

#howtocommunicate #communication #travel #podcaster

Apologies for the low quality audio today. It does improve as the episode progresses. This one is a raw solo entry, recorded on my phone in a coffee shop in Canggu, no camera setup, no plan.
Today felt like a shift. First easy run in over a month after a back injury, food poisoning and a rough few weeks, and the start of moving on from a minor heartbreak. Along the way I get into something I keep noticing: the moment a song or a place stops being part of your present and crosses over into nostalgia, and why that threshold feels so much sharper when you are travelling.
In this episode:
The nostalgia threshold, when familiar songs start to sting
Moving through heartbreak without dressing it up
Why walking into a new coffee shop scared me more than recording in public
Booking HYROX Bangkok with four weeks to train
The three levels of sharing personal stories, from private journal to public insight
If this format lands for you, let me know. And if you have not already, hit follow so the next one turns up on its own.
🎙️ MY STUFF
Awaken Out of Context: https://awakenoutofcontext.com
The Chapter System: https://thechaptersystem.com