Last Saturday I woke up in a place that looked a little bit like a mix between the Grand Canyon and the moon.

It was the Vale do Catimbau, in the Brazilian interior. I was there on a retreat, which is something I’ve never done before, and now can’t recommend enough.

There were fifteen other women, most of us strangers at the start. But as many of you know, I’m a huge supporter of experiences alongside other people that turns strangers into something else entirely. Unsurprisingly, by the end it felt like we had known each other far longer than three days.

And here is what I kept thinking while I was there.

For nearly twenty years, my work has been about shifting paradigms, and creating the conditions for people to step away from the familiar so people can see themselves and the world around them differently.

Then last weekend it was my turn.

The days were not exactly built for me. Trail walking at 5:30am 😳 (anyone who knows me knows mornings and I have never been close friends). Yoga at 6:30am, long stretches of quiet and time to actually notice the natural world instead of passing through it.

And then, as if on cue, by the second day, the ideas started flooding in. The moment I had stepped far enough out of my own routine, there was now room for them.

I have watched this happen in other people for two decades. I teach it, I’ve built entire programmes around it and there are chapters in my book dedicated to this messaging. And this was a much needed opportunity to feel it again for myself.

Different thinking rarely comes from staying in familiar environments.

We cannot have new ideas in the same rooms, with the same routines, looking at the same things. Something has to move us out of our own context before our thinking can move too.

This sits at the heart of what we do at TIE Leadership. We create experiences that help people step beyond what they know, so they can return seeing differently.

What struck me most last weekend wasn’t learning something new.

It was the reminder that sometimes the fastest way forward is to step away for a while.

Now for organising all of these ideas! 🙂