“Odo wrote: A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well,—this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.| Michael Ashcroft
Back in 2022, during our year of nomad travel, I did a week-long Awakened Leadership group retreat in Bali. It was an intense experience where we explored our emotions on shadowy topics like death, sex and money, and we did it in a hot jungle environment that often hit 100% humidity. One of the exercises on money was to explore our relationship with money as if it were an actual person.| Michael Ashcroft
It might just be that I’m adjacent to Weird Health Twitter, but I keep coming across the idea that exposure to artificial electromagnetic fields (EMFs) may be harmful to health, or at least that they interact more with our bodies than we generally believe. I’m not going to write about whether or not I think this is true, because that would require a literature review and a refresh of some key concepts from my physics degree1, but I’m curious about my response to the idea itself.| Michael Ashcroft
There’s a refrain I sometimes hear from parents, which is “I wish I’d had children earlier”. I recently had my first child, aged 37, and I can’t imagine wishing I’d had children earlier. This is not at all because I’m regretful or not enjoying being a dad. In fact, I love it, and not once have I felt even a flicker of regret. I’m grateful for this, because I suspect there’s a lot of good fortune in my being able to make that claim.| Michael Ashcroft
I recently read Wind, Sand and Stars (🇫🇷: Terre des hommes) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who is best known for writing the utterly wonderful The Little Prince. Wind, Sand and Stars is a memoir of Saint-Exupéry’s experiences as a pioneering airmail pilot in the 1920s and 1930s flying routes across Europe, the Sahara desert and Andes mountains. Not only did he fly the routes, he established them, flying over unknown and inhospitable terrain with minimal instrumentation in aircraft bui...| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally posted on my newsletter He will never be this tiny again My son, Étienne, is one month old. Most early mornings I lie on the sofa as he sleeps on my chest, and these hours are the most precious of my day. I get to give his mother a little more sleep while I bathe in his presence during the stillness before the sun rises. Each morning reveals a new version of him.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter. My son is due on 15 March, and I’m surrounded by objects that imply his presence. The empty bassinet, the changing table and chest of drawers filled with unfathomably tiny clothes each announce they will soon belong to a brand new someone. While for now he exists for me through these objects, as pictures from scans and as increasingly dynamic movements in his mother’s belly, I’m excited to meet him in person.| Michael Ashcroft
I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude lately. I am blessed in a great many ways. To name just a few, I am healthy, safe, and comfortable. I love and am loved. I am the master of my own time1. These alone put me among the ranks of the most fortunate people in the world, and therefore, surely, among the most grateful. Well, it pains me to admit this to you, but I am not as grateful as would seem commensurate with the scale of my blessings.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter We all have habitual patterns in every domain of life. We move, talk, think and feel in the same kinds of ways that we once learned were good and useful. Eventually, though, it becomes clear that those ways aren’t always the most constructive ones. The tracks that once guided a train somewhere it was needed later constrain it from adapting to a world that has changed around it.| Michael Ashcroft
This post was originally published in my newsletter. I just spent a week in the middle of nowhere in the south of Spain at ‘RichFest 2’ (named after the organiser, Rich Bartlett), where about 20 people from the Internet gathered to enjoy each other’s company away from the familiar patterns of everyday life. There was a moderate amount of techno, there were participant-led workshops and there was all the joy of co-living, namely cooking and cleaning.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter I’m part way through a book called You and Your Profile: Identity After Authenticity in which the authors argue that the meaning of identity, as influenced by society, has changed between different types: sincerity, authenticity, and ‘profilicity’. In their use of these terms, sincerity refers to playing social roles that are largely assigned to us: farmer, husband, mother or devout follower of a particular faith.| Michael Ashcroft
In his excellent paper “Knowledge Synthesis: A conceptual model and practical guide, Joel Chan makes passing reference to the idea of “funded time”. We don’t always have the luxury of being able to devote (funded) time and attention at an intense level for a given project. As an academic, I assume that most, if not all, of Joel’s work is funded through grants for specific projects and areas of research. Unfunded time still exists, but it’s an investment from individual academics w...| Michael Ashcroft
Indulge my whimsy for a moment. Imagine that there is some other plane of existence filled with conscious entities that can peer into our world. And imagine further that these entities are formless. They have no bodies, which means they have no capacity for sensation. No pleasure, no pain, no anxiety, no excitement. Knowing nothing else about them, I wonder if they look upon our capacity for feeling with a formless version of yearning.| Michael Ashcroft
As I was passed yet another consent form for a podiatry treatment this morning, I joked that I was signing my children away. The podiatrist laughed. I laughed. The podiatrist applied liquid nitrogen to the sole of my foot. I stopped laughing. Yet, despite the pain from my frozen verruca, I felt a gentle warmth spread across my chest. I don’t have children, but for a brief moment I had spun up a little world where I did.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published in my newsletter. All my life I’ve been tantalised by little wisps of dreams. Whether these dreams belong to me or to others is hard to discern, but they arise and tempt me all the same. I could live here, or there. I could be this kind of person, or that. I could marry this person, or not. While the wisps stir a powerful yearning, they tend to be ambiguous with their imagery and narrative.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter. A few weeks ago I finished the Art of Accomplishment Master Class, an eight week course that is largely about welcoming and feeling all your emotions. There was one particular lesson, which explored the relationship between want and should, that really caught my attention. It’s become a cliché that you should (ha) avoid using should, because should brings with it a kind of heaviness of expectations.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter. I’ve been feeling more and more distractible and, to be quite honest, I don’t love it. There are many factors at play, but the one I want to explore here is the role of technology and its downstream effects on the rest of my life. To do that, I’ll compare and contrast the two kinds of day that I seem to have. The first kind of day is when I ‘check’ my phone in the first few hours after waking.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter. I often find myself thinking about authenticity, the idea that it’s possible to ‘be myself’, or not. Although I’ve encountered many people who scoff at this, I think it points at a real thing that’s well worth digging into. “Be yourself” is common advice, but it’s easy to get stuck when you try to follow it. Trying implies doing, and being oneself isn’t something that can be done.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally posted on my newsletter. I’m going to open this piece with what is likely to be a gross mischaracterisation of what an archetype is. If you can forgive and bear with me, let’s get to it. Jungian archetypes are “a universal, inherited idea, pattern of thought, or image that is present in the collective unconscious of all human beings.” (Wikipedia). They are perspectives, roles and perhaps development stages that have played out repeatedly throughout human history—...| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter. There’s a period of my life, aged 27, that I rarely talk about these days, when I was Managing Director of a tiny crowdwork-based technology intelligence startup. I learned an enormous amount in that time, but one lesson stands out: my body knows things that my mind doesn’t. For context, technology intelligence helps organisations monitor and make sense of technological developments that could affect them.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published in my newsletter. From July to December last year, I lived in a little surfer town called Uluwatu, which lies at the most south-westerly point in Bali. It is among the most wonderful places I have ever been. The beaches are clean and sandy, the food is delicious, and the region is densely forested with quiet, winding little roads perfect for scooters. The people—Balinese and foreigners alike—are largely relaxed, cheerful and friendly.| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter. In February 2022, my partner and I packed our lives into a 35-square-foot storage unit in south London and headed to Mexico with a couple of suitcases and backpacks. After three months in Mexico, we spent time in Hungary, France and Singapore, ending with a full six months in Bali. I will tell stories about what happened. But returning to London has been a psychedelic experience because everywhere I go reminds me of something.| Michael Ashcroft
It was a pleasant Saturday afternoon in Bali when I found myself doing standing hip thrusts while yelling “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!” as angrily as I could at a man I had just met. He was doing the same to me. It’s not as weird as it sounds—although it’s still pretty damn weird. I was at a workshop on Hindu Tantra and another thirty or so men and women were doing the same all around us.| Michael Ashcroft
I’ve been noticing a subtle background feeling whenever I work recently. It seems to be saying “this isn’t done yet, why isn’t this done yet?” In fact, I can feel it right now, even though I’ve only written 50 words. But this is clearly insane, since I’ve only just started writing. Nothing starts out finished. This feeling is sufficiently uncomfortable that it makes me want to avoid it, which is how I end up on Twitter so easily.| Michael Ashcroft
The last time I published a note here was 12 February, a few days after I left the UK at the start my nomad travels. I thought that note would represent the start of a new wave of creative energy, given that I had published the previous note three months earlier. I was wrong. If my ability to ship these simple notes is representative of my creative life as a whole, I’ve been in a rut now for about six months.| Michael Ashcroft
Hello from Oaxaca de Juárez, the capital of the state of Oaxaca in Mexico. A typical street in the centre of Oaxaca The last few weeks have been a frenzy of activity. It was my partner’s last couple of weeks of work before taking a year-long sabbatical. We packed our lives into two suitcases, two backpacks, and everything else into a 35 sq ft room in south London. And then we flew across the world, spent a few busy, tourist style days in Mexico City and finally arrived in Oaxaca yesterday ...| Michael Ashcroft
I’m going to use an example from crypto, but this note is not about crypto. It’s about how a long, slow decline can be the most dangerous kind of collapse. Photo by Andrew Amistad on Unsplash Back in 2017 I got quite caught up in the crypto bull run, getting particularly interested in a privacy coin called Verge (XVG). The team seemed good, they promised the option of both public and private transactions and they had very low transaction fees.| Michael Ashcroft
One of my favourite books is The Clock of the Long Now, by Stewart Brand. It’s a book about what it means to think and act responsibly over extremely long time frames. The book is framed around the idea of a physical clock that can keep time for 10,000 years and an institution that can maintain it for as long. The clock would serve as a buffer against the ever shortening length of ‘now’:| Michael Ashcroft
Hello, I am Michael Ashcroft. I am a human who owns and is employed by a business called Michael Ashcroft Ltd, because I have no imagination. I created the business in March 2021. Until then I had been doing freelance work for about ten years (around full time employment) as a ‘sole trader’, also known as a sole proprietor in other parts of the world. Any income I made from these ‘side hustles’, as people who aren’t me call them, just counted towards my personal income, so all I had...| Michael Ashcroft
When you put a load of crabs in a bucket together, any crab near the top that tries to escape the bucket is pulled back into the bucket by the other crabs. This is known as crab mentality. Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash Crab mentality is often invoked to demonstrate the mindset of “if I can’t get what I want then I won’t let you have it either”. Of course, we have precious little insight into what’s going through the minds of those crabs, but let’s assume they are inde...| Michael Ashcroft
The main way that my business makes money right now is through the sale of my Alexander Technique online course. There’s also some 1:1 coaching, but I don’t do much of that so it generates less than $1k a month. Until now I’ve sold the course through a series of launches, where I would make it available for a few days and then close it. Without a doubt this was a wise approach as I was getting started and I would do it again.| Michael Ashcroft
There is an online game being played around you. In this game people are making new friends, meeting up around the world, working on exciting projects and generally creating opportunities to change their lives radically, should they so wish. There is no central story line; it’s all side quests based on curiosity and relationships. While everyone can observe the online game for free, participation has a cost. This cost isn’t financial, although a little money is required for access and tools.| Michael Ashcroft
I have become one of those people who eats a weird diet. Right now I am doing strict keto, which means I eat less than 20g of carbohydrate per day. I also exclude all nuts, cow dairy, alcohol and caffeine. Not only does this make ordering any drink at a pub difficult (“I’ll have an overpriced sparkling water, please”), it also requires a lot of thought, planning and not allowing myself to have things I enjoy.| Michael Ashcroft
Anjunabeats is a record label that, according to Wikipedia, specialises in electronic, trance, progressive trance and progressive house music. I listen to an enormous amount of Anjunabeats. I have been to at least 20 club nights, concerts and events put on by their artists and have introduced many of my friends to them. Literally two days ago I went to the live event for their 450th weekly radio show (needless proof).| Michael Ashcroft
This is how I seem to work. I can write a note like this, with 500 - 1000 words, in about 45 minutes and then it’s done. I mean, done enough that I can publish and feel satisfied. It’s both a blessing and a curse that my first drafts are largely immediately publishable. A blessing, because that means I have sufficient writing skill to be able to do that, and a curse, because it means I’m stuck at a local maximum of never editing my work.| Michael Ashcroft
I started my career, way back in 2010, as an intern at the Royal Society, which is the UK’s national science academy. It was an incredible experience for many reasons. We interns were shown various treasures in the library, like the manuscript copy of Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, I organised a conference where I met Naomi Klein, among others, and I swam in the choppy waters of a topic that even today is controversial: solar geoengineering.| Michael Ashcroft
When people think of a startup they often imagine something that needs investors who believe in a vision before there’s a product or people to sell it to. Since it has no revenue it may need to exist for several months before it generates revenues, let alone a profit. And because it has investors, the expectation is that it scales quickly and to a high summit so the investors and founders can sell and make their money and sweat back.| Michael Ashcroft
I want to share a mental reframe I made that gave me the push I needed to quit my job and head out on my own. In September 2020 I was toying with the idea of making an online Alexander Technique course. I pre-sold 50 spaces to test interest, before I had made anything, and when 50 people bought it I became more confident that there was something there. I was further comforted when they seemed to like what I ended up making.| Michael Ashcroft
I spent ten years working in a traditional employment structure, where I received a fixed amount of money in my bank account every month. This money was unambiguously mine, since tax is already removed in the UK, so all I had to do was allocate it to my various living costs, fun money and savings. The only levers I had over my money were to redistribute my costs, reduce my costs or increase my income.| Michael Ashcroft
Many things have changed since I left the world of work to set up as a solopreneur (I’m trying to get comfortable using that word unironically). I have shoulder-length hair, I struggle to introduce myself in a pithy way, and, I’m in the best physical condition of my life. Since this is a bit of a novelty for me, it’s worth exploring how this happened, so here are two things that came together to get me fit.| Michael Ashcroft
In his TEDx talk Don’t do your best, Keith Johnstone, the world-renowned expert in theatre improvisation, advises improvisers to be average. Photo by Gavin Allanwood on Unsplash This is not because he wants average performances. He knows that improvisers want to be original, but when they try to be original their performances turn out mediocre. He gives supporting evidence for this in the form of world record breaking athletes. When do you think they broke the records?| Michael Ashcroft
It’s astonishing how, when you find the right metaphor, what was once confusing and opaque suddenly becomes obvious and clear. This recently happened for me about gestures vaguely all this online stuff. I was introduced to the idea of an online oasis by Rob Hardy, who I consider it my very good fortune to get to know over the last few months: An oasis is a small patch of fertile ground in a desert.| Michael Ashcroft
Greasing the groove is an expression from the world of strength training, apparently coined by the god of kettlebell training Pavel Tsatsouline, which means to put in consistent regular practice around a specific exercise. For example, if you had a pull up bar in a doorway at home, doing one or two pull ups every time you walk past it would be greasing the groove. This gradual, consistent practice helps you put in a lot of volume (total number of pull ups) that you would struggle to do all ...| Michael Ashcroft
I’ve noticed an interesting tendency in myself as I’ve once again picked up regular creative output of the ‘make something every day’ kind, where my intention is to publish a new YouTube video and/or a new notebook post every day. This tendency is my mind’s habit of discounting potential video or notebook ideas almost as if they’re unworthy of consideration. On the face of it this might seem sensible. I mean, not every idea is good and should be broadcast to the world, right?| Michael Ashcroft
This might be a little self-therapy, but whatever, it’s my blog and I can do what I want. I just made a YouTube video on this subject, which is front of mind following a conversation with my friend Salman. I’m going the other way this time and doing some writing after having made the video In short, the idea is that being self-directed is itself a kind of work, and one that I, at least, am not taking seriously.| Michael Ashcroft
“The mere copying of quotes almost always changes their meaning by stripping them out of context, even though the words aren’t changed.” – Sönke Ahrens, How To Take Smart Notes Picture the scene. You’re happily reading a book when all of a sudden there’s a moving, rising sensation in your solar plexus, which you interpret as “THIS IS IMPORTANT!”. So maybe you get out your trusty highlighter and make a sentence bright yellow.| Michael Ashcroft
I am frustrated. It’s a familiar frustration though, because it’s the same one that comes up again and again when I try to communicate Alexander Technique to someone new. I enjoy talking about it, but it’s just so hard. Here’s the problem. Alexander Technique is really hard to describe, in part because it is genuinely a complex thing and, perhaps more importantly, because I suspect it literally deals with the parts of our brains that don’t have language.| Michael Ashcroft
”Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness… Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet I read this quote in the book Building a Life Worth Living by Marsha Linehan, the developer of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, which is one of the most effective therapeutic modes of treatment for Border...| Michael Ashcroft
You know that experience where you had a long day at work so you stay up way later than you probably should? It has a name — “Revenge Bedtime Procrastination”, based on the Chinese 報復性熬夜 (Bàofù xìng áoyè). Revenge Bedtime Procrastination is an attempt to exert control over one part of life (the night) given the absence of control over another (the day). I am coining its opposite: Revenge Productivity.| Michael Ashcroft
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about authority and, in particular, its relationship to a non-coercive way of being. I plan to write a long and considered essay about this, but for that to happen I need to write lots of smaller chunks along the way. This is the first. The way I see it, there are actually two kinds of authority that are often and unknowingly conflated. This conflation has huge implications for our relationship to authority, whether external (e.| Michael Ashcroft
When you first start publishing your thoughts and ideas online — particularly the more vulnerable ones — it can feel a lot like screaming into the void. No one is listening to you. Even if people happen to chance upon you, they will see that no one else listens to you, and that encourages them to pass you by as well. It’s a lonely experience and it’s the failure mode that causes so many to give up.| Michael Ashcroft
There’s something really peculiar about writing, which is that I have no idea where the words actually come from. Yes, even these ones. These ones too. As I’m writing, I don’t find myself consciously crafting ideas or sentence . Instead, different options sort of just ‘show up’ in my awareness, I catch them and then I write them down. Once written down I seem to contrast the words against an internal felt sense, a sort of “how close is this to what you meant?| Michael Ashcroft
You’re probably either considering purchasing, or are about to participate in, the online course Write Of Passage by David Perell. If you’re about to take part, this article will tell you how to get the most from it. If you’re considering it, you’ll get a good understanding of what the course involves. Putting yourself out there in the way that Write Of Passage demands is not at all easy, because it’s not just about writing, it’s about becoming someone who writes online.| Michael Ashcroft
So you want to quit your job and make money online? Oh, it looks like there are loads of people out there who want to make money online, why don’t I make products to teach them how! Buy my ebook teaching you how to teach people to teach people to teach people to… Hmm. I’m being unfair, of course — most people who make money online don’t do this. But it’s definitely an alluring trap if, at first, you’re short of other ideas.| Michael Ashcroft
My style of writing seems to be to look at my own experiences and extract some kind of wisdom or generalisable principles that I can share usefully. This often leads me to personal places, although I rarely feel that uncomfortable. I think I’ve been playing with my own fear dials for long enough that I know roughly where the line is. Sometimes I move closer to “this might be too much” , but I sit with the feeling and I’ve never regretted writing and publishing what I find in that ...| Michael Ashcroft
There are a few variations of this apparently Irish joke, but for the sake of argument I’ll use this version from Wordreference. A traveller stops to ask a farmer the way to a small village. The farmer thinks for a while and then says “If you want to go there I would not start from here. This is why I quit my last job, because I realised I couldn’t get to where I wanted to go from where I was.| Michael Ashcroft
There’s a common trap that gets in the way of our natural abilities. That trap is to care too much about achieving an outcome. This is something I experienced in my Alexander Technique lessons with Peter Nobes. He would throw me a ball and, like most humans who have ever played catch, it became important that I catch the ball. That led me to try to catch the ball, which looked like me coordinating myself somewhat awkwardly, probably dropping the ball, and looking sheepish and apologi...| Michael Ashcroft
The more comfortable I get being an ‘online creator’, the more I appreciate the different stages of production that each bit of ‘content’ represents (I don’t like the word, but I’m not sure there is a better one yet). I have a few channels for my writing now, and each one has a different vibe to it. There are the two newsletters, where there are either c. 670 people or c.| Michael Ashcroft
Note: this essay contains discussion of orthopaedic injury that some may find distressing. I lay screaming on the floor of a conference centre in Gwangju, Korea, with dozens of concerned onlookers around me Twenty-one hours later I gave a talk on ‘digital transformation in energy’ in front of 300 senior energy professionals. In November 2019 I was invited to speak at a high profile conference hosted by the Korea Electric Power Corporation.| Michael Ashcroft
First of all, I ask that you watch this one-minute video. None of this will make any sense if you don’t. What was that like? When most people see this for the first time, they go ‘wow’. Why? What makes this clip so powerful? There’s something about Reeve’s way of being that makes him captivating – so captivating that you can’t help but pay attention. It’s not his deeper voice.| Michael Ashcroft
I’m scared. I’m scared that I’m not good enough. I’m scared that you’ll judge me. And I’m scared that if I put myself out there I’ll feel shame, not pride. But my biggest fear is, and has always been, feeling too comfortable, hiding from risks and missing out on growth. This website is bringing me face to face with my fears. I plan to write about the playfulness of the universe, the value and cultivation of awe and the intrinsic value of humanity.| Michael Ashcroft
You’re seeing your favourite band live. The music is unbelievable. You look around to see your closest friends dancing and smiling. On a giant screen you see the words: “Life is made of small moments like this.” Above and Beyond at the O2 Arena in London And it feels right. Life is made of small moments like this, moments shared with the most incredible people. People who were once complete strangers.| Michael Ashcroft
My Zen practice asks me to give myself wholeheartedly to everything I do in each moment. When ironing, iron. When walking, walk. When eating, eat. This is insanely difficult. When I have nothing to focus my attention, I can feel my mind start to wander. I get an urge to do something, like listening to a podcast. The opposite is also true though. When my attention is fully absorbed it’s like there’s no room for mind-wandering.| Michael Ashcroft
When I was around seven years old, my mum offered me an opportunity: “you can have an ice cream if you go and buy it yourself”. But I was too scared to ask. A few months ago I spoke at a conference in Korea in front of 300 senior energy industry professionals from around the world. I didn’t have a script, I was horribly jet-lagged and I had dislocated my left knee the day before (really).| Michael Ashcroft
What image comes to mind when you hear the word Zen? If you picture something calm and tranquil, I hope this article will surprise you. While it happens occasionally, my experience of Zen is generally neither calm nor tranquil. In fact, Zen has an uncanny way of making me feel more worked up. So why do I practice it? Gentling the bull Zen practice is like a loving, yet strict parent.| Michael Ashcroft
Note: I am not a doctor and don’t play one on the Internet. This article is about my own experience and what I’ve learned and doesn’t constitute medical advice. For most of my life I’ve experienced a background level of tiredness, struggle to focus and ‘brain fog’. I used to hate waking up in the mornings and some days I would struggle to think so much I felt like I had lost 50 IQ points.| Michael Ashcroft
It’s 2119 and the tide has turned for global warming. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is returning to safe thresholds on its downward trend towards pre-industrial levels. Nations came together to almost fully decarbonise the now buoyant world economy, supported regions that bore the brunt of global warming and invested in programmes to restore the Earth’s biosphere. The global effort far exceeded the ambition, scale and optimism of the Apollo lunar missions.| Michael Ashcroft
One of my favourite places in London is the Natural History Museum. I love the exhibitions and the elevation of the natural world, but that’s not why I keep going back. I go for the awe I feel as I step inside. Take a look… Image credit: Gene Krasko In a quiet corner of this vast atrium is a small, unremarkable notice, which says: Taking inspiration from the collections it was to house, the building was designed to be richly decorated with a diversity of extinct and extant species.| Michael Ashcroft
I’m torn. There seem to be two elements of me that are constantly fighting with each other. The first is my belief that humanity is at a crossroads with respect to global systemic change, particularly around global warming and the associated need to restructure our civilisation. If we don’t adjust our course dramatically and quickly then we will find ourselves in a world very much unlike the one that has allowed human civilisations to rise and flourish.| Michael Ashcroft
| Michael Ashcroft
Built with Hugo. Hosted on Github. Published with Netlify (free tier). Designed by Joodaloop| Michael Ashcroft
The full list of places Where you can find me across the internet. Twitter Bluesky Elsewhere| Michael Ashcroft
1. Live in integrity What it is: Doing what I say I will do, even when I feel resistance Accepting and saying things that are true for me, even if it might cause conflict and pain Leaning into conflict when necessary, standing up for myself What it isn’t: Imposing my way on others or ‘do-gooding Believing that my way is the only way or the correct way Creating conflict carelessly when there are more skilful routes available 2.| Michael Ashcroft
London, UK Early days of fatherhood At the time of writing (7th March), my son isn’ here yet, but he will be soon, I’m winding down and preparing for whatever comes. Learning to be a better coach I’m about to start level 3 of Aletheia’s Advanced Coaching Program. I’m reading a lot of materials relating to this, and thinking about how I will be able to launch a more sincere coaching practice when I have appropriate spaciousness for it.| Michael Ashcroft
These aren’t all of my projects, but a subset of the longer term ones that I want to share that I’m working on, as well as curating notes and resources that I think may have wider value. Alexander Technique book I’ve decided to write a book for two reasons: As a forcing function to help me cohere my thoughts in a more stuctured, narrative way, and to help my find the gaps in my own understanding.| Michael Ashcroft
Currently reading The Language of Emotions — Karla McLaren An Everlasting Meal — Tama Adler The Body Electric — Robert O. Becker, Garden Selden Creative Thinking – J. G. Bennett (reread) Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual — F. M. Alexander (reread) Transformation - J. G. Bennett June 2025 Completed Moral Ambition — Rutger Bregman Abandoned: The Extinction of Experience — Christine Rosen May 2025 Completed Fluent Forever — Gabriel Wyner March 2025 Had a baby, read...| Michael Ashcroft
This was originally published on my newsletter.| Michael Ashcroft