In a recent workshop I made the observation that:
“We decide the future in the present, based on beliefs from the past.”
This is not terrible. There is much to be cherished and learnt from past experiences. At the same time, a myopic focus on the past ignores the deeper truth that we are in a constant state of becoming, and the past is not always a great reflection of where we are now or where we want to go next.
This isn’t just a philosophical observation or a “business strategy” problem. It reflects the journey of growth and evolution we all experience through our lives.
As a consultant and speaker, your awareness of this can be particularly acute. Through blog posts, keynotes, and LinkedIn updates, you are constantly positioning and repositioning yourself as you learn and grow.
For outside observers (and even inside participants), this type of activity looks somewhat narcissistic, but claims of narcissism ignore the reality that most people engaged in this type of activity find it deeply uncomfortable and borderline embarrassing. These activities are for the purpose of alignment rather than validation. They are a process of finding fit between a constantly evolving human being and a constantly changing world.
The most deeply challenging of these activities is launching a website (especially if the URL follows the format “myname.com“). A website is the ultimate statement of who you are and the purpose behind your work. The last time I launched a website was nearly 10 years ago when I created simonwaller.live.
More than just a rework or rewording of my previous work, it was a statement about where I believed the world was going. At the time, I wrote a blog post titled What Professional Speakers Could Learn from the Rolling Stones where I laid out my belief that the future of professional speaking needed to be in live performance, not online content, and that these experiences would ultimately need to be too big and too bold to replicate on a screen. Just like artists rarely make money on streaming or music sales anymore and have to get out and tour, professional speakers would also need to “lean into live”.
This was more than a throwaway line – simonwaller.live represented a fundamental shift in my work. And although there was a pause over the pandemic years (where live wasn’t really an option), this is still the trajectory the industry is on.
But over the last few years I’ve come to realise that leaning into this identity has had consequences. It has led to more and more of my work taking place over shorter and shorter timeframes. Last year, more than 90% of my work was delivered in three hours or less.
I know that some might find that appealing, but for me it was a source of frustration. The world of futures thinking I studied and the corporate scenario work I’ve done was always focused on creating a space for deep thinking. Its goal was to improve decision-making in the present by getting leaders to first contemplate the future.
This is not work that can be done in three hours or less.
I eventually realised that by leaning so heavily into live and highlighting how keynotes could be (and should be) different, I had hidden a core part of who I am and the purpose I bring to my work. Perhaps more concerningly, I was also perpetuating the seductive but improbable myth that meaningful change can be delivered in a 60-minute keynote.
So over the last six months I’ve been working with my team to relaunch simonwaller.com.au (ironically the domain I used before .live). This might seem like an extraordinary amount of time to spend on a website when you can “vibe code” one in an afternoon, but just like a well-tailored suit, it takes time to make sure the fit is “just right”.
Whereas the “fit” of .live was in the power of live experiences, the fit of simonwaller.com.au is in the importance of strategic leadership and a deep belief that strategy shouldn’t be outsourced but needs to be facilitated. This is more than just marketing, it’s a reflection on where the world is at and where it is going next.
We live in a time where our trust in institutions, online platforms, and each other is in decline. More than ever before, we need to make the time and create the space for leaders to step back and make collective sense of what is going on around them, and from there we can start to envision where we might head next. This can’t be done in three hours or less, and it can’t be done while holding a microphone on stage. It’s necessarily longer and messier than that.
I’m going to keep simonwaller.live because this is still a big part of who I am and what I do, but it’s also no longer the only thing I’m leaning into. And please visit simonwaller.com.au if you’d like to check out some of the work I’m now doing in the strategic advisory and leadership education space.
Simon
