The skull in my hand.
I held a skull in a pub two weeks ago.
On Saturday I held it again.
Earlier in October, Mandy and I were down at the caravan in Kington. We were thinking of closing it up for the year. In the end we didn’t. We thought we’d go back one more time.
Then we went to a little pub we like called The Tavern.
It’s a small bar. The kind of place where locals sit and chat. No music or anything. You can just sit there and chew the fat.
There was a bloke there I didn’t know. We got talking. He passed me something across and said, “What do you think of this?”
A small lump of metal. Quite heavy for its size.
I felt the weight of it. I rubbed my thumb across the top. Looked at the sides. It was a skull, about three centimetres by two, cast in silver and nickel. I turned it over. It wasn’t completely flat underneath, so it had obviously been poured.
“Did you make it yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make a wax model of it first?”
“Yes. What do you know about that?”
So we went through it, the whole process of how you do it. He’d put in bits of cutlery that actually contained silver as well as nickel when he was making it up. I’m always interested in technical things. I was holding the little skull in my hand while we talked it through.
All the while I was thinking about the coins some people carry. People have carried these for centuries, if not thousands of years. A skeleton or a skull on one side. Memento mori is what it usually says. I’m not too hot on the Latin.
It’s a reminder that you’re going to die.
That sounds morbid. It isn’t, not really. It’s not a reminder that you’re going to die. It’s a reminder that today you need to live. Today you need to do the things you’re going to put off.
On Saturday, Halloween itself, we went back to Kington for the fireworks. Afterwards we went to The Tavern to mark the night.
He was there again. His name’s Mark.
I asked him, “Have you still got the skull?”
He had. He showed me again.
Two weeks on, and there it was, back in my hand.
For me it’s other people. I’ve got other people in my life. Spending time with them is usually the most worthwhile thing I can do. But I tend to forget.
Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our business that we forget what’s important. It isn’t about doing more and more work. Sometimes it’s just about taking a step back. Half an hour, an hour or so, to sort out the things that really need doing.
We all get so consumed by the day to day. Even in your business, you need to be able to step back and think: if we could get this fixed, we’d get more time, and we’re not on a hamster wheel.
If you hit your £10k month, what would that be worth in time?
We all leave those things. The dripping tap. The things we need to fix.
That’s the whole idea of Find the Block. It’s a little thing. It’s one of those things you could easily put off. But fixing it would make life so much simpler.
One session, one to one, on Zoom, under an hour. £60 for the first five places. We find the one thing holding the business back, and you leave with one thing to do the next morning.
It’s a waiting list.
It costs nothing.
It closes at 6pm on Sunday 15 November, and places go out at midday on Monday 16 November.
Magnitude, for people who would rather do it today.
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