What would today look like if you met it the way your seven year old self would?
It is day two of being Mayor of Truro and I woke on Monday feeling sick. Not ill. Nervous. A seven year old tells you about their day like it is the most extraordinary thing that ever happened, because to them it is. I am meeting people today and I am excited like a kid going on a school trip. And underneath that, the thing I keep coming back to is that we are all the same. Alcohol, takeaway, Netflix, whatever it is, everybody is just trying to improve their moment.
One thing to try: Do one thing today with a seven year old's enthusiasm and an adult's skill. Both. Not one or the other.
In this episode
(1:26) Two things I want to say, and the first is we are all the same
(2:36) Everybody is just trying to improve their moment
(4:09) How a seven year old tells you about their day
(5:09) Excited like a kid on a school trip
(6:24) The sick feeling before the mayor making ceremony
(7:33) Be brave, but bring some skilful wisdom with you
(9:08) Do not let me say I am fine. Ask me properly
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The story behind this one
Day two of being Mayor of Truro, recorded in a hurry because I had to go out.
I woke on the Monday feeling sick. Not ill, nervous, with that feeling in your belly like you have eaten something dodgy. I barely ate all day. I had toast for tea and could not finish it. I was not drinking much either, for a reason nobody plans for: I use a leg bag, and I did not want to have to deal with it halfway through the ceremony.
Then I went and did it. I messed up my speech several times. Everybody noticed. Nobody cared.
Then the radio the next morning, where I probably fluffed something as well. Nobody cared about that either. What people notice is somebody stepping forward and doing what they can from where they are.
And underneath it, something I could not stop grinning about. I signed off an email as Mayor of Truro and wrote next to it, how awesome is that. Then I thought, that is exactly what a seven year old would write.
What it taught me
A seven year old comes home and tells you about their day like it is the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened, because to them it is.
That is how this week feels. I am off to meet councillors this afternoon about a settlement boundary and protecting fields from development, and I have very little idea how any of it works. I am excited like a kid on a school trip.
So what does the grown up version of that seven year old look like? It does all the same things and adds the safety line. Still climbs, still plays, still wants the new thing. Just with some experience attached.
It is okay to freak out. It is not okay to back out.
The nerves are not a signal to stop. They are just your body saying pay attention.
And one more thing, which I keep coming back to. Everybody is doing the same thing.
Even the rotten potato sprouts towards the sun.
Carl Jung
Whether it is drink, or an evening of television, or a takeaway. All of it is somebody trying to improve their moment. Once you see that, judging people gets much harder, and what you notice is that you were mostly judging yourself.
Questions people ask
Why is this episode so short?
Because it is a daily update from a very full week rather than a proper episode. I had to be somewhere.
What is the practice here?
Do one thing today with a seven year old's enthusiasm and an adult's skill. Both together. Enthusiasm alone gets you hurt and skill alone gets you bored.
What was the ask at the end?
Accountability. I said publicly what I wanted to do with the year and asked people to hold me to it, and to not accept fine as an answer when they ask how it is going.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
In this episode
personal-story · update · joy · vulnerability
Read the transcript
So, it's day two of being Mayor of Truro in Cornwall in the UK. And what a crazy few days
it is. I woke up Monday morning and I had that feeling in my belly where I'd ate something dodgy
a few days before. And I just felt like, I've got to go into the public meeting tonight and I've
got to talk in front of everybody. And it just terrified me. And
it's that wonderful, uncomfortable feeling that you can so just pull back and not do it, or
you can step forward and do it,
and everything was okay. I messed up my speech several times. Everybody noticed. Nobody cared.
I
had a big belly. Nobody noticed. Or even if they did, they don't care. And I was on the radio
yesterday, and I probably said something, you know I probably messed up the works Nobody really cares.
What people care about is just stepping up and stepping forward and doing what we can from where we are.
And I want to talk about that on today's podcast. So I'm Steven Webb, and I'm the current mayor of
Truro, which I still think is absolutely crazy, but what a wonderful opportunity. And this is stillness in the storms,
and I help people suffer a little less, especially when times are difficult. And there's two things that
I really want to discuss today, and that is, you know, we're all the same. And in my last podcast,
I talked about how can we love everybody, and how can I love everybody? And I talked about that the
fact that everybody is the same as me and I'm the same as everybody else. We are all struggling to,
you know, just better our lives in some way. And I've just had a wonderful conversation with a guy from
the Bbc, and we were talking about stoicism and all that, and it reminded me of a quote from Carl
young that says, even the rotten potato sprouts towards the sun. I just think that's a
wonderful quote, because do you know what? If your life has or somebody's life has steered you towards using alcohol
or drugs or sex or something else to avoid life, or just Netflix of an evening or just that
takeaway of an evening, all we're doing is just trying to improve our lives. Every single one of those people,
whether it is alcohol, whether it's takeaway, whether it's Netflix it's just trying to improve their lives in that
moment. So it means we're all the same. And I just think when you approach other people like that,
we stop judging them, because we realise when we judge them, we judge ourselves. And I think that's so important
when we judge them, we're really judging ourselves. There's something in ourselves that we haven't seen
that's subconscious that we're not aware of. And we judge them because we fear that
side of ourselves, whether
it's even subconsciously. And the other thing I just thinking about this morning and, and I signed off an
email uh it's mayor of truer Steven meritor And I wrote
next to it, how crazy is that with or how awesome is that With a question mark.
And I thought, well that's like what a seven-year-old would do. And I thought how brilliant. And
for years I've been denying the seven-year-old that just wants to play games, have fun, relax, see
the world in a way that every day is new and amazing, you know, you know that seven-year-old that sees
something for the first time or sees a new film and they come out and they talk about it with
such enthusiasm or they met a new friend at play school or okay, a seven-year-old doesn't go play school but
you know, I mean they met a new friend at school and it's like brand new to them, like as
if it's the first time this has happened. But of course to them it has. And that's what it feels
like to me. It's like I'm looking at this and going, wow, how awesome and amazing is this? This today
is like this is the first time I've had day two of this. And this afternoon I'm going out to
meet some of my fellow councillors that work on the neighborhood planning team to have a look at how we
can set up the settlement boundary. I don't know how to do it, I've really no clue. I've just got
the passion of protecting our fields and the countryside from
development and all that kind of thing. So we're meeting some of the experts and we're meeting some of the
other councillors that are all passionate about this.
I'm meeting a couple other people today that I'm going to be introduced to. I'm just so excited, like, I'm
like um I don't know, how can you explain it? I'm like a school kid that is going on a
um a school trip. Instead of doing homework and all that, they're doing something new. And I
think we need to approach life a bit more from this seven-year-old self that's locked up inside of you.
So what's your seven-year-old self crying out for? It's crying out for fun, it's crying out for love
and attention and playing and seeing the world and experiences. So what does an older version
of that seven year old do? Well, it does all those same things, but with an element of wisdom and
experience.
So it still wants to climb the rock face, it still wants to go and play, but it's about hooking
on the safety net because, or safety line because, you know, you might say something wrong or you might
um fall down or something like that. So it often stops us and we, we don't do it or we
cannot do that. And like I said at the beginning of the podcast, we have that, that stomach feeling that
I felt sick and I felt awful. I barely eaten anything all day Monday leading up to the mayor making
ceremony which is available. I'll put a link to it underneath this podcast in the podcast notes. You can see
that speech online
leading up to it, I could barely eat anything. I think I had toast for tea and
I didn't eat both bits because I just literally couldn't face it. And I was barely drinking anything. You know,
I have a leg bag and I go pee in a leg bag and I didn't want it to fill
up because I didn't want to. What happens if I like um need to empty it during the ceremony tonight
and things like that. So I was freaking out, but I stepped in anyway because it's okay to freak out.
It's not okay to to back out. And freaking out is just saying be aware. And
that's what the older version of the seven-year-old needs to do. Do all the fun things, get out your comfort
zone, you know, be brave, you know, climb up that thing. But do it with a little bit of skillful
wisdom from experience. But don't let that fear stop you. I
think that's the message of today's podcast and it's relatively shorter um because I really need to head out in
a minute and I'm. If it's okay with you, I'm going to do shorter podcast I'm going to do shorter
daily updates and things like that. I'm just going to do a lot more of them because this is going
to be an
incredible year
and I want you along with it
god I'm gonna I'm emotional now because I'm so honored and I just, it's just incredible for me. I want
it to be incredible for truer too if I can. I have no idea how to make that happen. But
let's do it. You know, the town, I love the town. The other councillors love every single one of them.
And, you know, that's why we're there. That's why we do the public service. That's why we put ourselves out
there for scrutiny and accountability, which is absolutely right. We should be scrutinized and we
should be held accountable. You know, I've promised things that I want to do this year. Hold me accountable. At
the end of the year, look up and go, hey, you didn't deliver or you did deliver, you know. And
during the year, make sure that you ask me those questions, how are you doing? And I'm when I say
I'm fine, say no, I'm asking, how is your mayor your year going? Are you achieving the goals you think?
Ask me those questions, please keep me Keep me on track, keep my feet on the ground and make
sure we deliver as a council for Truro. That's what we're all there for. So yeah, I didn't mean to
make this podcast about that. Just remember, just look at your seven-year-old self What is that seven-year-old self wanting
and what are you denying? Start seeing the world through the seven-year-old eyes the seven-year-old heart the
seven-year-old that loves everybody, that just wants to play, that just wants to enjoy life, that just
wants as aspirations and goals and dreams and hopes, you know, Let that seven year old come alive
with the wisdom of experience and then you'll do all right then you Then you may start loving life
again in the same way I do. Take care guys. This is Steven Webb Stillness in the Storms podcast and
please subscribe. Hit the subscribe whether it's on itunes or Spotify or it's available everywhere and leave a review.
That would be amazing because it helps to go up the ranks and it helps, it get helps me to
get my message out and that message today. Embrace the seven-year-old self I
