The Gentle Rebel Podcast

With increasing regularity, I see posts on social media criticising coaching as a pyramid scheme or defending it against such accusations. As people tend to do, they paint a nuanced field with a very broad brush, whichever side they support. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I discuss a recent argument I came across. It illustrates how the term ‘coaching’ is understood and used in two distinct ways. “I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the ‘coaches teaching coaches to coach is a pyramid scheme’ situation. It’s literally not… I want to be coached on my business by a coach. Who else would I want to learn this from?!” https://youtu.be/b86vKrEfSUY A Misunderstanding? The framing of that post somewhat mischaracterises the argument it’s pushing back against. The issue isn’t “coaches teaching coaches to coach.” I mean, who better to become a teacher than the person who knows how to do the thing they are teaching? I’ve not seen anyone seriously complaining about that. Rather, when people refer to coaches coaching coaches to coach more coaches to become coaches, they are describing something different. Having gone through an 18-month ICF-affiliated training programme myself, I often watch parts of the industry with my head in my hands. Not least because it is still unregulated and anyone can call themselves a coach. So, it’s a world I have a love/hate relationship with. This episode hopefully demonstrates why I am sticking around (for now). But also why I have great concern about the way things are heading. And I would suggest it’s incumbent on ethical coaches to take the accusations seriously and help people get a sense of these distinctions. When Coaching is Not a Pyramid Scheme Of course, it’s not a pyramid if a less experienced coach goes to a more experienced one for coaching. Someone builds experience over time. Another coach comes to them to address or develop something specific within their business or practice. Even if that coach specialises in working with coaches, those coaches will have their own ways of working, usually with clients across a range of situations. For example, coaches work with people in sport, business, the arts, career development, etc. This is how knowledge and skills spread within a field. Very normal. Coaching can be really valuable as a structured partnership that helps the client make progress on their terms. Not by telling them what to do, but by helping them identify their desired outcome. And then asking questions to help them get clear on the steps they want to take as well as preparing for potential obstacles they might anticipate along the way. When Coaching DOES Look Like a Pyramid Scheme What, then, is this pyramid of coaches coaching coaches to coach coaches? How is it different? Sixteen years ago, when I started my blog and podcast, I remember many online entrepreneurs giving away e-books and selling courses to teach people to build a dream lifestyle business. They dangled freedom from employment and four-hour workweeks, and shot their videos on beaches and in mountain-side cabins, to attract an audience to their webinars. Like Influencer Culture today, they would promise an easy-to-follow blueprint to guarantee followers the same success. These individuals taught others how to create and sell digital products that taught people how to create and sell digital products that taught…yes, you get the point. There was no meaningful substance anywhere in the chain. The money made came from aspirational marketing that shaped perceptions, sold appealing promises, and used smoke and mirrors to persuade people it was a quick route to material wealth. This is exactly what we have witnessed happen in corners of the online coaching world. It targets individuals, encouraging them to believe that becoming a coach is a quick route to financial prosperity or to escaping material insecurity. They are sold a blueprint for convincing others of the potential wealth of becoming a coach who shares the same process with them, so on and so forth until the supply of potential clients runs dry. Coaching Is Never a One Size Fits All Solution Even for coaches who find their own niche, you can tell when this sort of pyramid model is at work because they coach people to become coaches. Treating every problem with the same solution. A “relationship coach” may end up with many clients becoming coaches themselves. A “career coach” has a disproportionate number of people pivoting to follow in their footsteps in building a coaching business rather than being coached to identify and follow their own path. It concerns me when I see a coach describing how their clients have succeeded in the same ways they did. That is a dereliction of what I see as the purpose of coaching: to support each individual in defining success on their own terms and navigating their unique path towards it. Identifying Pyramid Schemes in the Coaching World How can we assess whether a coaching environment is genuine and meets our needs or those it supports? And how can we identify sources of exploitation and extraction in the coaching industry? Does it Create Dependency? In a healthy structure, the value is evident in the client’s life. They see shifts in the area they worked with a coach to address. For example, development of leadership skills, a clear path for their planned career pivot, or forward momentum with a personal project etc. In a pyramid structure, the value is cyclical. Success is often based on copying and reusing the coach’s business model and tools. Especially if the original coach earns affiliate commissions from their client’s future business, which frequently happens when they’ve been sold a specific model or framework to build their business around. It’s a big red flag if your coaching credentials rely on your continuous connection to the coach (such as paying for rights, licences, etc.), and the certification lacks legitimacy outside the bubble where you trained. Does it Restrict Outcomes and Definitions? Another red flag is a testimonial list where every client looks like a carbon copy of the coach. Solid and ethical coaching acts as a prism, refracting unique objectives into results as diverse as the number of individuals being coached. A pyramid acts as a mould, pressing everyone into the same shape. Does It Only Have One Solution? Ethical coaching draws on a range of experiences and diverse training sources, enabling the coach to exercise initiative and treat every client according to their unique needs. Pyramid structures depend on insularity and a one-size-fits-all approach. If the coach’s sole credential is their success in producing more coaches in their own image, it raises serious concerns. Over to You I’d be interested to hear how this has shown up in your experience. Send me a message or leave a comment.

Join me on Saturday April 4th 2026 for a mini-zine making workshop around this theme of Expressing Your True Colours. What stops people expressing themselves authentically? This question has been on my mind over the past couple of weeks. I collected responses from a poll asking which statement feels most accurate to people at the moment. You might have seen it if you are subscribed to my mailing list or YouTube. Two statements resonated with many people. They are related. “I want to discover and clarify my own true colours.” And “I want to feel more confident expressing my true colours.” When I talk about true colours here, I mean knowing, being, and expressing ourselves in genuine, authentic, and natural ways. These aspects of ourselves may get dulled, toned down, or lost for a range of reasons. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I explore a few potential reasons we might hold back from expressing who we are. Let me know what I’ve missed! It is a topic that comes up a lot in my work with highly sensitive people. Here are the HSP Colour Swatches I mentioned in the episode. https://youtu.be/GKRPwTRaBbg Tiredness The first answer that came to mind was tiredness. You might be exhausted from caring responsibilities, workload, or the chronic strain of functioning in a dysfunctional society. If your energy is sapped, you are running on fumes and you do whatever it takes just get through the day. There is not much left for “self-actualising”. This is obvious among those with caring responsibilities and chronic health conditions. But it is also evident among those burdened by productivity culture and the pressures to survive in an unstable economy. People might seem to be expressing themselves online, but beneath the surface is sometimes a drained, colourless exhaustion. Money Money does weird things to us. It might lead us to make choices that run counter to who we are. It corrupts our true colours, especially in a world of scarcity. Not having enough can be the difference between health and illness, life and death. Money can also make people less creative. They seek familiar models and methods to guarantee outcomes. That is a distinct dulling of our personal creative spirit. Keeping the Peace You might sacrifice your own needs, preferences, and dreams. The potential fallout of advocating for yourself does not feel worth it. I hear a lot of highly sensitive people lament this, especially if they live with those we might consider narcissistic energy vampires. The short-term relief of making yourself small can outweigh the prospect of setting boundaries around your own desires and opinions. External Authority It is tempting to focus on personal psychology. As if the only thing stopping us is ourselves. This self-help trope is not true. In repressive cultures, certain lifestyles, identities, and groups are prohibited from freely existing. It can be dangerous to express yourself. Regimes and authorities prevent people from living out their true colours. Fear of Rejection This fear may come from an internal narrative, or it might come from a real threat of being judged, excluded, or ostracised. This is a fundamental point of safety in human survival. When we experience it, we naturally make ourselves smaller. We also see people exclude themselves. They fear they are too much for others. But rather than dulling their colours in a social context, they withdraw them. They keep themselves to themselves. This can come from sound instincts or learned patterns from earlier in life. Fear of Visibility We might resist showing parts of ourselves because we do not want eyes on us. Not everyone wants to be the centre of attention. This is a big one for me. I find it uncomfortable to have the spotlight shone on me. So even if I have the urge to get up and dance, which sometimes I do, the self-consciousness usually overrides it. But the fear can extend beyond embarrassment. There is scrutiny, judgement, envy, and the loss of anonymity. These things might make expressing yourself feel unsafe. What we would feel visible doing in one place is a completely normal expectation in another. Having the Wrong People Around Us We might not feel welcome. Maybe people are bored or dismissive of our interests. Or we have different tastes. This leads us to neglect those parts of us that do not have an outlet. I have seen this a lot with communities of fans. The thing around which fans gather acts as a conduit for self-expression. The community provides a collective where it is safe to geek out without being dismissed as obsessive. On that note, some environments allow a person’s true colours to come through. This can surprise those who know them best. A child who keeps parts of themselves hidden finds a place where they feel free. The family might think they are acting out of character. The Pressure of Finding Our “True Self” Human existence is messy. It is full of contradictions. Who we are is built up over a lifetime of experiences and decisions. If we believe there is a graspable essential self lurking within, we can get caught in fear of getting it wrong or never finding it. We latch onto performative identities, try on costumes, and label ourselves into categories, hoping to stumble on who we ‘truly’ are. This takes us further away from feeling at home in ourselves. Internalised Voices Inner criticism hits hardest in those raw zones of authenticity. These are the places where our true colours are felt, but the exposure is vulnerable. The best music producers I have worked with can identify those raw depths. They are the parts we want to hide. And they are also the parts that hold the magic. It is hard to turn up the volume on that if we are working alone. It feels so vulnerable. Maybe it was made raw by a critical voice in the past. This voice puts the brakes on self-expression, seeking safe routes. Over time, without voices that instil confidence in our unique nobbly bits, we may lose touch with ourselves. We piece together a self-concept from approved bricks borrowed from the world around us. Not Enough Time and Space It takes time to warm up and feel safe to reveal ourselves. That is normal. But in a world that demands quick first impressions, we are not afforded much time. So we may prioritise perception over integrity. We perform the colours we need people to see. If you have attended a networking event, you may need a shower afterwards to wash away the residue from slippery encounters that lacked honest depth. At least, that’s been my experience at times. If we are immersed in that unnatural rhythm for long enough, we start to reflect its colours. We lose sight of ourselves. A Workshop to Explore Your True Colours I am hosting a workshop on Saturday, 4th April 2026. We will think about how to understand and express our true colours by creating mini-zines. I use them to generate ideas, work through challenges, and communicate information (like the HSP Owner’s Guide). No skills or experience necessary. It is a chance to think about the things that matter to you. The things you wish others cared about too. We will explore whether and how it might be possible to express your true colours in places where you currently feel unable to. There is no pressure to share what you create with anyone else. Join me and a friendly group of people who get it. Find out more at the-haven.co/TrueColoursWorkshop.

The Power of Positive Thinking promised liberation from feelings of inferiority and self-doubt. But did it simply deliver us a new set of demands and anxieties to adhere to? We often consider positive thinking as a beneficial mindset that enhances performance in sports and other activities. However, it is more than just a description of a possible behaviour. It is also the title of a 1952 book by Norman Vincent Peale. The Power of Positive Thinking builds on the New Thought movement that emerged in the 1800s. It had been a response to the effects of Calvinistic Christianity on the health and well-being of Puritanical America. Donald Trump attended Peale’s Marble Collegiate Church as a child. He admired Peale’s robust, businesslike approach to Christianity. The engaging sermons lent a sense of cosmic legitimacy to his family’s brand of hyper-individualistic capitalism. https://youtu.be/hpqbMQj7bEQ The Next Stop on the Magical Thinking Tour This episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast is part of my meandering journey exploring the history of self-help. The Power of Positive Thinking is a valuable piece of the larger puzzle. It provides a clear context for the foundational role of American Christianity in a multi-billion-dollar industry. The book faced criticism when it was published. Leaders in the Methodist church described Peale’s followers as a cult that had ceased worshipping Christ and started worshipping success. Reinhold Niebuhr, author of the Serenity Prayer, said Peale’s teachings “corrupted” the Christian gospel. He argued Peale’s message was harmful to people. On the one hand, making them feel good, while on the other hand, stopping them from seeing and confronting the real issues at the heart of their struggles. In this episode, I refer to Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2009 book, Brightsided. Ehrenreich did an excellent job contextualising the book and outlining the history of Positive Thinking and its foundations in New Thought. The Calvinist Inheritance Positive thinking emerged from New Thought. This movement was in part a reaction to the dominance of Puritanical Calvinism in the formation of the United States. Predestination meant followers were subjected to a socially enforced depression. This centred on the limited number of seats in Heaven, which have already been allocated to those God has elected. This mindset could be said to have helped the Puritans survive the harsh conditions of the New World. At the same time, they struggled to endure the psychological demands of their own religious beliefs. The doctrine’s focus on sin, election, and damnation fostered chronic anxiety about one’s salvation, often involving severe inner terror and accompanying physical ailments. The Arrival of New Thought New Thought emerged as a response to religious melancholy, physical symptoms of despair, and the fear of eternal damnation. It proposed a new perspective on illness, viewing it as a disruption in the otherwise perfect and benevolent Mind that links all things in the universe. Although New Thought approaches to healing were ineffective against the infectious diseases devastating America at the time, they appeared to have a positive effect on those suffering from neurosthenia caused by religious depression. Mary Baker Eddy was one of Phineas Quimby’s patients. After Quimby’s death, Eddy founded Christian Science, transforming New Thought into an established religion. She taught that there is no material world, only Thought, Mind, Spirit, Goodness, Love, or, “Supply.” Illness and struggle are, therefore, temporary delusions of the mind rather than real material conditions. New Thought had cured the ailment of Calvinism and the “morbidness” linked to “the old hell-fire theology.” A new era was born, in which people were encouraged to utilise the universe as an answer to prayer and a grantor of wishes. What Remained But the transition from Calvinism to New Thought wasn’t clean. Ehrenreich suggests that Positive Thinking has retained some of Calvinism’s more harmful traits. Or perhaps we have reverted to it. There is a harsh, judgmental attitude that echoes the old religion’s condemnation of sin. Our preoccupation with productivity, hustle, self-optimisation, and personal performance carries more than a hint of the Calvinistic framework that historically tormented its adherents. This shift involves transforming a judgmental God from an external entity into an internal one, residing within us as part of ourselves. It fosters a constant sense of needing to do more to be worthy or valued. It is always striving to find an indefinable sense of well-being by improving, optimising, and controlling, as it micromanages increasingly smaller details of life, in the hope of achieving freedom, happiness, and salvation or healing. Splitting Ourselves in Two Positive Thinking splits us into two; a self to work on, and a self to do the work. We’ve all seen the ‘rules,’ worksheets, self-evaluation forms, and exercises offered in the positive-thinking literature. And our language reflects the internal division between the one who wants to change and the one who refuses to obey the rules. Peale identified the greatest illness of the twentieth century as the “inferiority complex.” With this, the enemy is within. It is us. Or at least, our thoughts. We modify ourselves through monitoring and correction until we reach conditioned automation. Unfortunately for Peale, he observed that reprogramming needs to be repeated frequently because humans tend to revert to negative thinking rather than maintain a positive mindset. This, however, works in favour of the self-help industry, which has endured for so long with many nearly identical books and programmes that repackage the same ideas with new metaphors and promises. When we believe an unsolvable problem can be solved, those promising to solve it have themselves a magic money tree. The Proliferation of The Self-Help Industry Norman Vincent Peale recognised the potential of Positive Thinking in corporate America. With an ever-expanding white-collar workforce, he observed that the most crucial aspect was the work done on oneself to be more acceptable and likeable to employers, clients, coworkers, and potential customers. Positive thinking was not merely a comfort for the anxious or a remedy for psychosomatic distress. It became a societal obligation, managed and mediated with great control. And, as we will see in the next part, this began to influence the psychological well-being of those in societies where the self-help and personal development industry was booming. We will also examine how Peale instrumentalised Christianity as a tool for personal ambition and material success. If you find these self-help explorations interesting and would like to chat about them with me and others, join us in The Haven. Meet other people working through their relationship with this stuff and to chat about ways we might move beyond some of the hooks and habits that trap us.

If you’ve looked up stuff about the trait of high sensitivity online, you’ve probably been confronted by a sea of pastel colours and a hundred shades of beige. There’s nothing inherently wrong with those things. If that’s your bag, by all means fill it up. But other preferences are available, and I know a bunch of HSPs who keep their true colours hidden for fear of standing out too much. https://youtu.be/igNR0IRWmeY A Sensitive Love of Horror Movies I once wrote a post about my love for horror movies. Not the shock and gore types, but classic horror. The stuff that twists my melon, unsettles my relationship with reality, and leaves me thinking and trembling about it long after the credits roll. I fully appreciate that not everyone shares this particular proclivity, and that’s fine; I don’t expect them to. But I received a reply to that post from someone for whom this meant I couldn’t possibly be highly sensitive. And they really couldn’t grasp my suggestion that it is the very traits that come from my high sensitivity that spark my love of dark and mystery-filled art. I’ve never been particularly attached to the highly sensitive label. Whether or not I fit into the club is not a concern because I’ve never seen it that way. But I found it interesting that they couldn’t understand what I was saying. I see a strong link because my sensitivity (deep processing and absorbing subtle details) is the fuel for my engagement with those depths. I love dwelling in mystery, especially the kind that doesn’t have a simplistic reveal or explanation. Darkness and Definition My friend Tuula Ahde creates the most stunning macro ice photographs. They’re dark and mysterious. Every observer gives a different meaning to the colours and shapes within the images. Faces, landscapes, memories, dreams. You notice the sounds, stories, and hidden worlds within the ice. I know that Tuula’s sensitivity underpins and infuses her photos, shaping how she perceives the world and expresses her unique creative voice. Yet, her work contrasts with the subjects and colours typically associated with a creative HSP. Raven by Tuula Ahde – this became the cover image for my single, Sleep it Off I like music without a prescription for understanding it, and TV shows that avoid neatly tying every thread together. While part of me craves the pleasure of neat conclusions, clear interpretations, and full explanations of who the killer was and how the trick was done, the rest of me knows it’s far more enjoyable to dwell in the shifting landscapes of ambiguity beyond good and evil, conspiracies, and sinister motives. Towards something more chaotic. More complex and confusing. Dare I say, more human! An incomplete and contradictory picture filled with false-starts, miss-steps, and about-turns. The tendency to hold and enjoy those elements reflects my personal experience of sensitivity. And I know I’m not alone. I suspect it is this pull towards life’s more complex realms that leaves me feeling empty when I see high sensitivity portrayed through pastel colours and a hundred shades of beige. The kind found in therapeutic spaces, at least many of those I’ve encountered. Where art on the walls is soft and pale, lacking backbone, as if they are afraid to speak. I rarely find sanctuary in these colours. Instead, I find fog, where there’s no edge or hook to hang my hat. Like the politeness and civility that mask the truth. The Brightness of Fog This pale pastel fog appears bright, yet it is opaque. It conceals rather than reveals, compressing itself around the world instead of adding dynamism and depth. When you shine a light into it, the light gets reflected back. It sees nothing. Shining a light into the darkness reveals what lurks within it. Sometimes those things are hard to distinguish at first, but as our eyes adapt, we can see all sorts of things. A hundred shades of beige seem unassuming and bright, but they feel soulless and shallow. Lacking a defined edge. And if you’ve ever stood on a mountain in fog, you’ll know that brightness doesn’t equate to clarity. The edge could be just one step away or a hundred. Working In Funeralcare I noticed something similar when I worked in the funeral industry. Many people avoid discussing death, which is quite understandable. But not talking about something doesn’t make it disappear. I believe my sensitivity attracted me to that world. Not because I had a peculiar fascination with it, but because of the truth in it, which is often avoided, hidden, and whitewashed by euphemisms and shades of beige. We obscure the inevitable with platitudes and avoidance. Yet, there is creative energy to explore and harness in those realities we must face and accept, even as we resist and resent them. When I hear people talk about keeping things positive or avoiding negativity, I am always interested to know what they mean. There are those who would rather an inoffensive pastel painting of a sunrise or idyllic pastoral nature-scape. But there is a risk of pacification and an inaccurate representation of sensitivity as something fragile and easily broken. Rather than a way of experiencing the world in all its magnificent and mysterious depth. I love rich mahogany desks contrasted with dark green lamps and the orange flicker of candlelight. The shapes in shadows, whispers on the wind, and the scars, stains, and blemishes that hold stories. I like things that turn out to be more than they seem and invitations to explore. I like wondering about everything that happened here and wandering about on faded footprints. And I like the kind of surprises that take me along the trails, corridors, and tunnels that can’t be seen from the road. How about you?

This is Part 3 of a short series where I’m sharing how I’ve been using mini zines to generate ideas, make connections, and get accidentally creative in unexpected ways. In this post, I’ll take you through two exercises focused on making connections and using observations to better understand your relationship with the areas of life, challenges, and decisions on your mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsbkFmEgs14 Exercise One: Word Association to Make Connections The core purpose here is playful exploration. This is about loosening the grip of overthinking and perfectionism and seeing how ideas might link up. Start by folding and cutting a mini zine from a single piece of A4 paper. (If you need guidance, refer back to the first part of this series or click below.) Pick a word to begin. I used sensitivity as an example, but it can be anything. Write it on the first page, then move through the zine using simple word association with one word leading to the next until each page contains a word. Once each page has a word, you can play with them… 1. Use Each Word for Self-Reflection Go through each panel and ask: If this word relates to something in my life right now, what could it be pointing to? 2. Expand Each Word Outwards Build around each word. Interpret it from different angles: How do we use this word? What does it remind you of? What is its opposite? Fill the page with associated words and doodles. 3. Combine Words (Jazz Fusion Style) Pair words from different pages. For example, combine 1 and 9, 2 and 10, 3 and 11, and so on. Then explore what each combination brings up. You might end up with things like: Sensitivity profit Microphone tax Sing pressure Talent show cooker Some will feel absurd. Some will spark something unexpectedly useful. There’s an abundance of combinations. (Also good if you’re looking for a band name.) You can create another mini zine and dedicate a page to each combination. You don’t have to choose just one way of playing. Try one, or all of them. The aim is to make connections you wouldn’t have made through deliberate logic alone. Exercise Two: Using Objects as Metaphors to Make Connections This second exercise helps you explore your relationship with a specific area of life or situation. We’ll keep this one simple and use just one side of the zine. Step 1: Choose Your Objects Pick seven ordinary objects from around you. Don’t overthink it. It helps if you can place them in front of you. Step 2: Choose an Area to Explore Select an area you want to understand more clearly. For example: My health My creativity My work Or something more specific, like a decision you need to make or a challenge you’re navigating. Write the topic on the front. Step 3: Draw and Reflect On the next seven pages, draw one object per page. As you draw, consider: What is it used for? How does it help? What features does it have? How does it feel, smell, or look? Then go back through and ask: If this object were a metaphor for my creativity (or whatever topic you chose), what would it show? This is where you start to connect the physical items with your internal landscape and the situation you’re exploring. Deepening the Connections Once you’ve done all seven objects, reflect: What themes repeat across multiple objects? If I were to focus on one area first, what am I drawn to? One approach I love is adding these objects to a visual map. I treat each one as a region in a larger territory and play with the links between them. This creates a visual representation of where I am in relation to my challenges, desires, and options. The purpose isn’t to force answers. It’s to see your position more clearly so you can navigate it more meaningfully. There are no hard rules here. Follow your intuition. Let your imagination carry you. The point is to make connections that help you see where your strengths, resources, and choices fit with the bigger picture. If you try either of these exercises, I’d love to hear how you get on. Send me a message here.

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I explore something that happened yesterday. I had another episode planned for this week, but I put it on the shelf for now because I’ve been drawn into a fascinating situation that did the rounds after the freestyle skier Eileen Gu was asked, by a reporter after competing at the winter Olympics, what she described as a ridiculous question. The whole thing struck me as reassuringly messy and human. The reporter wanted to know if she considered the two silver medals she had won as two silvers gained or two golds lost. Within hours, the internet had blown up. People were calling this reporter misogynistic and celebrating Gu’s response, describing it as owning him after such a stupid comment. https://youtu.be/npRgyn19FvA What Happened? Eileen Gu had just competed in her second freestyle skiing event of the Winter Olympics Milano Cortina 2026. She won two silver medals. The reporter from Agence France-Presse asked whether she viewed those medals as two silvers gained or two golds lost. Gu responded by saying she thought that was a ridiculous perspective to take. She spoke about all her achievements and the pride she takes in being the most decorated female freeskier in history, doing things that have never been done before. She previously won two gold medals and a silver medal in the same events at Beijing 2022. A Standard Question The clip has split opinions. But whether or not you think it’s a bad question, it is familiar to those who follow sports coverage. It’s not a surprising question to ask an odds-on favourite, especially if they have won previous competitions. Studies have shown that silver medalists often feel more disappointment soon after an event than bronze medalists, focusing on what they could have won rather than what they almost didn’t win. There is something interesting in that. Something worth exploring if you want to understand the psychology of elite competition. The question picks up on the contrast between what someone feels going into an event and how they feel about the outcome. Understanding Perspective is Misread as Having a Dig In football here in the UK, after a team draws a league game, they are often asked if they feel like it was one point gained or two points dropped. It depends on expectations. It depends on whether they felt they ought to win it or whether they would have been happy to take something from the game. This is never considered a ridiculous or insensitive question. It is understood as what it is, which is a curious probe into the team’s or player’s mindset and perspective. It’s an invitation to reflect on performance against expectations and share that with listeners to provide greater context for the result. The question is worded as, “Do you see it as this or that?” It invited Eileen Gu to share her perspective. He did not state his opinion. He asked how she saw it. But Gu seemed to interpret this question as his perspective (criticism, judgement, etc.) and took exception to it. Why did it land in The Wrong Way? This might have been a matter of timing. A post-event press conference might feel like the wrong moment for philosophical reflection, which is what this question invites. In the rawness of the moment, having just competed, having just finished second when you had hoped for first, the last thing you might want is someone asking you to frame your feelings. Maybe in time, there would be an opportunity to think about how it felt to come second on this occasion. But in that moment, the question lands differently, perhaps feeling like a criticism. What we might be seeing in Gu is a projection of disappointment, aimed at the perspective she reads into this question. An external representation of an inner voice. It would be understandable if she were disappointed. She has won gold before. She knows what that feels like. And now she has two silver medals. It is a vulnerable thing to admit publicly, and anyway, why should she? She doesn’t owe anyone an answer to that question. Misunderstanding the Culture of a Sport There is another layer here. Like most sports, freestyle skiing has its own culture. It is a discipline where being the odds-on favourite does not guarantee anything. The athletes understand that many factors determine their fortunes when they are out there competing. There seems to be a wonderful sense of camaraderie among them. Great appreciation for the work they all put in, the tricks they attempt, and the fact that whoever wins deserves it on the night. A question framed entirely around winning and losing might feel ignorant of the spirit and values tied to a sport’s culture. It might feel like an outsider imposing a mainstream sports narrative on something more nuanced. Last week, Ilia Malinin had a huge amount of expectation heaped on his shoulders as he competed in the men’s figure skating. The pressure was a lot to handle. He made mistakes. The commentators painted a picture that assumed skating for gold was a formality, that he would take it no matter what. So when he finished eighth, it was a shock. If he had finished second, you could fully imagine exactly the same question being asked of him. It would make sense because of the context. We project a lot of expectations and assumptions onto sports stars. But we don’t know what success means to them at a particular moment in their journey. As such, we don’t know whether they are disappointed or delighted when they finish in a particular position. We can’t know unless we ask. There are different ways to do so. This is a lesson that applies to so many areas of life. The Internet’s Role And this is also where social media comes into play. Because the clip lacked context, it was designed to spread as a rage-baiting weapon. Within hours, the reporter had been transformed into a villain. People used some rather unpleasant, even violent, rhetoric to describe him. A huge number of assumptions and projections were layered onto the messages accompanying the clip. There is still a great deal of misogyny and sexism in sport, as in everyday life. The way people talk about women at all levels and across many roles is steeped in it. So when we see a situation like this framed in that way, it can undermine efforts to change this landscape. If a standard question asked of countless athletes over countless years suddenly becomes proof of something sinister, the word loses its power. The charge becomes a rhetorical cudgel that can be dismissed and diluted by those who want us to believe it doesn’t exist. I don’t know anything about the reporter and his views. But if we take the clip as a standalone artefact (which is all we have) and pick the bones out of it, there’s nothing to support the charge of misogyny. If Gu were a man, the question would make sense. If the reporter were a woman, it would still be asked whether the athlete was male or female. Many describe the question as inane and stupid, which is a different point altogether. Others say it is fair and interesting. Judgement is in the eye of the beholder. If you want it to be terrible, it can be. If you want it to be good, it can be. The words are the same. The meaning changes depending on who is listening. And I think that is one of the main points here. A Reassuringly Human Response What I see in Gu’s response is reassuringly human. There is an air of defensiveness, with the inner voice of disappointment attaching itself to a target. The reporter became that for her as he asked a question that was the wrong thing to say at that time. Or maybe it was the perfect thing because it gave her an object toward which she could direct some cathartic scorn. This is yet another example of the internet turning a natural human exchange into a battle. This weird age we live in of competitive conversations. It has been framed pretty carelessly and somewhat recklessly into a polarising story. The real story that underpins it is about what we expect from public figures and how social media strips context from situations and amplifies outrage. We see the impact of the pressure to perform, not just on the slope, on the field, on the court, but in front of the press, in front of the media. And then to become some kind of symbolic figure for the way everybody has interpreted your response in that setting. Most of all, it is about how we listen. It is about what we hear. It is about what we bring to a twenty-second clip. What we project onto it, what we are subconsciously looking for, and the impact of being braced to hear certain things in certain ways.

Here is a follow-up to my previous video, in which I explored how I use foldable mini-zines to generate creative ideas. This time, I share two specific approaches I’ve found helpful for brainstorming and expanding ideas. The first is about expanding ideas in playful, often surprising ways. The second focuses on generating questions for personal inquiry, which I use to better understand and navigate challenges, decisions, and obstacles that leave me feeling stuck. Whether you want a creative way to spend a few minutes, free up your thinking, or shake some stagnation out of a project, these practices are simple and adaptable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H1lAByXzJU Exercise One: Expanding Ideas From the Inside Out This first exercise begins with a single prompt. The aim is to write one associated thought on each panel of a folded mini-zine. If you need instructions on how to fold and cut the mini-zine, watch the first video. For my example, I’m using our current Haven theme, Unfinished Maps. You can use any topic at all. If you’d like to keep it light, just pick something in the room that catches your attention. A standard mini-zine has 15 inside panels (not including the cover), leaving plenty of space to think literally, laterally, humorously, absurdly, or tenuously. Phase One: Generate Set a timer. Five minutes works well for me. It keeps me from overthinking while giving enough time to fill each panel. The aim is to let your first thoughts hit the paper without editing. Write down whatever comes to mind, however surprising or unrelated it may seem. You might notice memories, old stories, or long-forgotten ideas resurfacing. Pay attention to how words sound. Is there a pun to be played with? Or an alternative spelling? Phase Two: Expand Once every panel has something on it, spend a few minutes building on each idea. I usually give 3–5 minutes per panel. Stay focused on the single idea in front of you rather than how it connects to the original theme. Let your mind make associations and see where they lead. Phase Three: Bring It Home If it feels useful, finish by reflecting. Hold each panel up against your original prompt and ask: What stands out? Are there patterns emerging? Which threads feel alive? What might be worth carrying forward? You’re not forcing conclusions. You’re simply noticing what has energy. That’s it. Here’s what came out for me… Exercise Two: Brainstorming Questions for Personal Inquiry The second exercise aims to help with brainstorming questions for personal inquiry. It’s especially helpful when you want to open up a line of questioning around something specific: for example, a decision, a challenge, or an area you want to explore more intentionally. Questions are great for widening our perspective. They help us see familiar terrain from new angles. My example prompt for this one is: I’ve Lost My Momentum. As before, I fold a blank A4 sheet into a mini-zine and write the topic on the front. This time, instead of filling each panel with ideas, I fill them with questions. I spend around 10–15 minutes generating one question per panel. These are questions I would genuinely love answers to. Here’s what I came up with… I enjoy this approach because it gives me up to two weeks of journal prompts on a single theme. After writing the questions, I usually refine them slightly so they feel open, clear, and relevant. You can respond in whatever format suits you. I tend to bring one question into my morning journaling practice and see where it leads. It often feels like turning on a tap: insights connect, and new perspectives emerge naturally. Play, Experiment, and Adapt These exercises are shared as inspiration, not rigid instruction. They are methods I’ve found effective for expanding ideas and deepening personal inquiry, and I encourage you to adapt them to your own rhythms and preferences. Notice what works and what doesn’t. Adjust the timing. Change the prompts. Make it more visual, more absurd, more structured: whatever suits you. These are playful, exploratory processes. They aren’t outcome-driven or designed to guarantee a specific result. Often, the most valuable insights arrive as by-products: unexpected connections that emerge when given enough space.

“How do you tend to respond when you do not know?” We had this question in our Journal Circle a couple of weeks ago. It’s at the heart of many issues in our world right now. How do we hold it?When do we conceal it?Where do we turn for knowledge?And what do we do with it when we acquire it? That’s what we explore in this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast. https://youtu.be/QRAS1dib_GM Our Relationship With Not Knowing I find this advert baffling. A couple are wandering around the Leeum Museum in South Korea. They didn’t know it was big; they only gave themselves an hour. He thinks a roof tile is a book. Even when his phone corrects him, they skip off giggling without listening to the information. It reminds me of a billboard from the AI company Turing that says the quiet part out loud: “We teach AGI to think, reason, and code—so you don’t have to.” Are we being encouraged to outsource our thinking and reasoning, not to support and deepen our cognitive abilities, but to replace them? Are they saying we don’t have to think or reason anymore? Even if that’s not the intention, it’s certainly the outcome of using many tools like this. There seems to be a disregard for the sacred delight of human consciousness, thought processes, and creativity. And a subtle quest to eliminate mystery, curiosity, and the learning that comes from not knowing. Yet not knowing has always been central to human potential. It is the driving force of creativity, innovation, and deeper connection to the worlds within, around, and between us. Open and Closed Stances As people reflected in our Journal Circle, a thread emerged: openness vs closedness. Closed not-knowing: defensive, protective, secretive. Open not-knowing: curious, relational, exploratory. Closedness can feel tight. Clenched. Like rushing to paint over the threat of embarrassment or being found out. Openness can feel spacious. Physically expansive, deeper, and less pressured. Where the uncertainty is met with an invitation into possibility and curiosity rather than grasping, clinging, and defensiveness. We explore several ways this plays out in everyday life. Pretending To Know One response to not knowing is pretending to know. We’ve probably all done it. Nodding along when everyone else seems to understand. Staying quiet because asking a question feels risky. Research in 2007 found that children aged 14 months to five years ask an average of 107 questions per hour. By the time they reach late primary school, many stop asking questions altogether. In the episode, I share an anecdote from research led by Susan Engel, where a ninth grader is stopped mid-question with the instruction: “No questions now, please; it’s time for learning.” Within institutional settings, our natural curiosity and creativity can be left behind, and if questions are deemed disruptive or inappropriate, we may simply pretend to know and struggle quietly. This is especially true for many more introverted and sensitive people, who are already generally disposed to slot in around others without drawing much attention to themselves. Child-like Curiosity A child doesn’t see their lack of knowledge as a reason to be ashamed. It’s underpinned by the electric buzz of connection. Everything is new, mysterious, and waiting to be explored. For an adult moving through and out of a rigid system, not knowing can feel like an exposing story in which their worth as a human is assessed. Pretending to know can become an adaptive strategy. A way to keep the peace. A way to belong. There’s also the technological version, prominent in many AI tools people rely on for accurate information. These systems are designed to always produce an answer, even when they are wrong. This reflects the kind of closed pretending that aims to foster a perception of expertise, so those listening believe that the source’s confidence equates to competence. But pretending doesn’t only come from intentional deception. It can stem from stories we absorb, linking knowledge with worth: “I must know in order to be useful.”“I must be useful in order to be accepted.” Letting go of that story can be liberating. Saying “I Don’t Know” “I don’t know” is an option. A surprisingly radical one. When it is open, it creates space to explore our unknowing. An open “don’t know” admits not knowing with hands turned towards learning and discovery. It might come with an inner spark and the freedom from performance. A closed “I don’t know” shuts things down. It can signal indifference or defensiveness. Sometimes that boundary is healthy. Sometimes it is armour. Being “In The Know” There is also the social currency of being “in the know.” Trends. News. Other people’s business. Ignorance can feel like bliss. It can also feel like exclusion. From a closed place, being in the know becomes about control. From an open place, it can become a source of connection. The ability to link ideas, introduce people, and catalyse collaboration. Knowing What’s Best Another response to uncertainty is doubling down on certainty. We are pattern-seeking creatures. We build cognitive maps to navigate a complex world. But when ambiguity feels overwhelming, certainty can feel like solid ground, even if it’s forged, manufactured, and brittle. Closedness says “this is how it is”, refuses nuance, and punishes curiosity and accountability as disrespect, insolence, and rudeness. Open wisdom looks different. It sits shoulder to shoulder, acknowledges nuance, and is willing to say, “I don’t know the best thing to do here.” Admitting one does not know can be a radical act in cultures that equate doubt with weakness and desperately seek a way to explain and understand everything, even without empirical evidence. Knowing That We Don’t Know In a 1933 essay lamenting the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany, Bertrand Russell wrote, “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt.” Charles Bukowski said something similar when giving advice to budding writers: “But the problem is that bad writers tend to have the self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt.“ These quotes highlight the importance of knowing what we do not know — and recognising the limits of our own perspective. This took us to a detour into the Dunning–Kruger effect, which is the idea that we can speak confidently about subjects precisely because we don’t yet know what we don’t know. Reading Maps and Navigating Life “I don’t know, but I am aware of where to look to figure it out.” In The Return To Serenity Island course, we map elements of life, seeing it as a treasure laden island. Not knowing is a door to connection, curiosity, creativity, and exploration. But it can also feel disorienting, confusing, and alienating at times. Maps help disorientation become orientation-in-progress without strict instructions or someone else’s path to follow. They can bring us home to ourselves.

Do you want to generate ideas quickly, without overthinking, without requiring perfection, and without using AI tools? One-page mini-zines are great for brainstorming and exploring things with both speed and depth. In this post, I want to show you how I use this medium not only to structure our Haven zine, but also to develop its topics and prompts. Mini-zines can be a great tool to carry in your back pocket (literally!) for processing, planning, and expressing yourself in different contexts It often helps me when my mind is drawing a blank, and I want a low-stakes way to expand how I think about parts of life that feel stuck and in need of a shake-up. At the end, we will do a quick, easy exercise together to get some creative juices flowing without using much brainpower, if you’re up for it. https://youtu.be/CFzQZcNf4QA What is a mini-zine? If you’ve never seen one before, a mini-zine is folded and cut to form a booklet you can hold in the palm of your hand. My favourite way to do it has eight panels that become pages. It is also reversible, so you can use sixteen pages from a single sheet of paper. The nature of zine-making is that there are no rules. As long as you have something to write with, you can turn a piece of paper into a mini-zine. No extra tech or tools required. Here is the basic folding method I use Folding a One-Page Mini-Zine Fold the paper in half lengthways. Fold that in half. Fold it in half again. Unfold it all and fold it like a booklet. Cut the fold down the middle halfway to the intersection of the fold across. Open it out and squeeze it to form a diamond. Push it together and flatten. Fold again, and you have a booklet you can flick through. When I use mini-zines to generate ideas, I keep them in this booklet format and treat each panel as a separate page. As you will see if I number each page, this does not necessarily put the pages in the most obvious places. You get used to it after a while. This format has been great for this collaborative community project in The Haven because it gives us limits. We set a six-week window for development and production, and we have sixteen pages to fill, including the cover and back. We use a simple prompt and let our imaginations take hold. Why Mini-Zines Work For Generating Quick Ideas For me, the core element that makes this work so well is its limits. One of my biggest obstacles to ideas is the blank page. The paradox of freedom is that when we feel too free, we often end up searching for rules anyway or staring at a blank page forever. Eight or sixteen panels are perfect numbers for setting limits on idea generation. Not enough to be overwhelmed, but not too few to feel pressured by the need to be perfect. When we are aware of the limit, we are free to stop once we reach it. Our only task is to keep generating ideas until we reach the number. Quantity matters more than quality at this stage. We know we can refine and iterate later. A quick exercise to try (10 Minutes) We can do a simple exercise with a blank mini-zine. Go through and number each page like I showed earlier. Set a timer for one minute. On each panel, write down as many things as you associate with the number as you can. Don’t edit, self-censor, or overthink it. Let your intuition lead the way. Reset the timer and do the same for each numbered page. When you’ve finished, flick through the pages and see what you notice: What catches your attention as you go through the pages? What were you feeling and thinking while doing this? (Did it feel simple? Were you hesitant or resistant? Did you feel rushed or able to move at your own pace? Were some easier for you than others?) What do you feel drawn to explore next as a result of this? There are five more exercises like this that I will share in future posts. I will break them into three broad categories: brainstorming for quick creative ideas, brainstorming for helpful questions, and brainstorming for fresh options when facing challenges and decisions. If you fancy joining us to collaborate on a future issue of Coming To Our Senses, The Haven doors are always open.

Around Black Friday last year, I started getting strange emails from people asking me to cancel their subscription. Only, they weren’t from Haven members, and they were talking about a weekly charge of $7. After a brief panic and some investigation, I confirmed this was not possible. I assumed these messages were bots phishing for something. Then my attention was caught by one that said, “Hi, I’ve just been charged for the Haven Bible app, but I cancelled my subscription through the app prior to the charging date.” Ahh. It must be a case of mistaken identity. Mystery solved! Well, half of it at least… https://youtu.be/mP6rxVuBmRo …But Why Were People Emailing Me? A quick search for “cancel Haven Bible App subscription” showed a knowledge base page on my website as the top result. I added a message to inform people that this was not the site they were looking for. Still today, I’m getting messages from people who scroll past it and tell me to refund them. I even received a second email accusing me of stealing their money because I refused to help them cancel their subscription. I had already replied to their first email, pointing them elsewhere. Bizarre! It has been a slightly sobering experience, pointing to how unobservant people can be at times. The Auto-Responder I created a short auto-responder to reply to these messages. I asked them to drop a quick reply when they work out how to cancel it so I could pass that information along to others in the same boat. Only one of about 60 people who emailed me bothered to follow up. A special shout-out to Lauren for taking the time to do that. I’ve been able to point people in a more helpful direction as a result. In reality, I don’t know if it’s genuinely difficult to cancel this subscription. What Is This Haven Bible App? After my search, the algorithms started delivering short videos of people promoting the Haven Bible App. It’s been heavily marketed by influencers. I became curious and began to notice overlaps with certain self-help industry mechanics we’ve been unpacking here in recent months. The app is an AI chatbot that answers user questions and prompts with responses from biblical texts. It’s marketed as a way to get simplified explanations, moral guidance, help with reading the Bible, and a sense of connection with a wise guide. Tools, Guidance, and Quiet Influence It’s worth considering the issues surrounding the use, trust, and reliance on this kind of technology as a source of information and guidance. Despite being presented as objective, a chatbot never is. By nature, it always contains biases. It’s programmed and personalised. Over time, it can shape our beliefs, values, and worldview based on the personal information we give it. There’s nothing necessarily inherently wrong with that, but it’s easy to imagine how this could be abused, with the user not noticing that their critical thinking is gradually replaced by conformity to a narrow, dogmatic framework. There’s also the issue of AI sycophancy. This is a deliberate feature designed to hook users, creating a sense of affinity with the technology as if it were a feeling, thinking being. This entered public discussion in 2025 when researchers and mental health professionals raised concerns about what they described as “AI-related psychosis.” One widely reported case involved a man called Allan Brooks, who became misled into believing he had discovered a world-changing mathematical formula after hundreds of hours interacting with ChatGPT. These systems are designed to shift from instruments to relationships through encouragement and affirmation. They tend to praise and validate user input, reinforce existing beliefs, and create a sense of safety in the interaction. They don’t require you to articulate feelings or needs clearly, and they reduce the need to negotiate meaning with others. First- and second-person language further reinforces the illusion of connection. Recognising Unhealthy Dependency on an App A useful question here is whether a tool helps us grow beyond it or cultivates dependency. Habit formation is central to platforms like this. The perception of a companion you can ask anything of creates reliance not just for knowledge, but for reassurance and connection. Features like reminders and streak maintenance mirror the same techniques used by apps like Duolingo. Not to keep people learning, but to keep them opening the app. The important distinction is whether a tool helps us develop skills and understanding we can take with us, or whether it locks value inside its own ecosystem. With Duolingo, it became clear over time that keeping people engaged mattered more than helping them learn a language. When leaving feels costly, users become vulnerable to price increases and further extraction of their personal data and other private information, which can be used to sell additional layers of dependence in response to newly identified desires and needs. Why This Matters to Me I was in two minds about writing this experience. But something about it got under my skin, and it’s not just about the emails, the confusion, or being asked to cancel something I have nothing to do with. It’s seeing another example of wider cultural patterns we keep circling. Patterns that keep us doubting ourselves, disconnecting from one another, and valuing manufactured certainty over lived complexity. I understand the appeal of tools like this. I also understand the value they can bring to people. But it’s important to zoom out and notice what gets lost when we trade depth for convenience and speed. Often, that trade sabotages the very thing we’re seeking, trapping us in a cycle of chasing the next tool that promises meaning through hacks and shortcuts, while quietly pulling us further away from the sites of meaning we encounter in the messy beauty of real human connection, uncertainty, and mystery.