- This is the Great Escape Podcast, episode 14: "A Little Escape" with thoughts on community.
- Several of my podcast guests recently, and some that you haven't heard yet because they're in upcoming episodes, have talked about the importance of being in a community; of having friends and family who they can talk to, who they can explore ideas with, who can encourage them, who can hold them to account or even criticize them. And that's had me thinking quite a lot about when I've been happiest in my life is when I've been in relationships with people, not necessarily big, serious relationships, just relationship, friendship or whatever it is; that have been positive and uplifting, sometimes challenging. But rarely sort of blindly critical. And the times when I've felt worst, especially times where my mental health has been at its worst; have been the times when I've been incredibly alone, even in the midst of a crowd. And part of that is my own doing, when I'm feeling down I tend to...

Little Escape episodes are recorded wherever I am and usually have a lower level of audio finesse.

- [Stuart L. Morris] This is The Great Escape Podcast. Episode 10.
- [Announcer] We are Go for liftoff in T minus 30. All systems are a Go.
- [Stuart] Well actually it's the 11th episode because I started counting from zero which is a bit of a geek joke and now I feel I have to continue it because it's too difficult to change and renumber all the episodes. Last time I was interviewing Michael Cordova who left his corporate job and started Floating Point Center just outside Reading in the UK. And he and his wife Tina have built a business that they run themselves, that they're passionate about, that they enjoy, and that is meeting the needs of their family as they expect the birth of their first child. As something that struck me particularly about Michael's story last time was how he said that he had ended up basically stalking me to the car park of the organization we both worked at at...

Little Escape episodes are recorded wherever I am and usually have a lower level of audio finesse.

I'm on the road again today. Bright and early, glorious sunny sky. In fact, not a cloud in the sky as I crawl onto the M25, the motorway around London, which is always a bit of a car-park at this time in the morning. And today, although I've got a lot of driving to do, which gives me time in the car to listen to podcasts, and think, listen to some music, it also is a day when I'm doing what is absolutely essential to any successful project, which is thinking about that project, planning how the whole thing's gonna fit together, what we're going to do, how we're gonna make it work.

The idea of today is not to get it perfect, but just to get something down so that later on, as the project moves forward, that plan can be refined, and edited, and modified. But if there's nothing down, then I'm just making it up as I go along so there can't be any improvement. What I find really, really...

Alex Hannold climbed the 3000 ft vertical rock face called El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in the USA. He did it on his own without ropes or any climbing aids - a technique called Free Solo. Is he mad? Probably but he said this:

"You face your fear because your goal demands it"

If your goal isn't demanding things of you that are stretching you is your goal really worthy of the name?

I've been thinking a lot recently about a film I watched the other day by a guy called Alex Honnold who is a free solo climber.
So basically that means he climbs really, really difficult rock faces without any ropes and on his own.
It was June 3rd 2017, he climbed El Capitan which is a 3,000-foot rock face in Yosemite Park in North America.
Most people take a couple of days to climb it with ropes and help.
He climbed it in just over three hours on his own, no ropes, no safety equipment, just straight up this rock face.
Now apart from the insanity of doing such a thing and I think the film covers that quite...

Sarah said to me "everything worthwhile is outside my comfort zone" and this has had me thinking. In this "Little Escape" episode I have some thoughts on fear and overcoming it.

The Great Escape titles music was created by Darren Reddick