Effortless Thursdays #5: What the “Fisher’s Wife” left behind
The variety of presence
Fisher’s Wife’s Rake. Fisher’s Wife’s Rake. Fisher’s Wife’s Rake.
If you say it quickly over and over, it rivals the best tongue twisters. You might even catch a “Vicious Wife’s Snake”, if you’re going fast enough.
There are a few rakes in the Lake District; not the kind you’ll find in the local garden centre, mind you.
They’re steep, often narrow, gullies (ravines formed by the action of water) - like the Lord’s Rake and Jack’s Rake, which are well known around here.
I discovered Mrs Fisher’s rake on a gloriously sunny day - the day after New Year’s day. Andrew and I were trying out a new hiking route from Wanthwaite Bridge to Helvellyn.
Some 200 years ago, Mr Fisher would climb up to Clough Head to dig out peat from the ground to provide fuel for his family.
It was Mrs Fisher who - once it had dried - hauled the peat down one of the steepest gullies in the Lakeland back home. And so came into existence, “Fisher’s Wife’s Rake”.
As I was hauling myself, my bottle of electrolytes and my thermos of homemade moussaka up her namesake’s Rake, Mrs Fisher got me thinking.
I noticed from the top of the rake, the valleys stretching across the horizon below as they emerged again from the shadows of night as the low winter sun crept up and up. The biting wind gushed to find its own route around the smooth and jagged contours.
The mountain fells stand silent. Majestic. They’re what stays behind after the ice aimlessly carved their shapes over millions and millions of years. Doesn’t their presence remind us of the blip of our existence on Earth?
I noticed my concentration increasing to place every footstep - testing, testing before hauling another step up.
The variety of presence
I love hiking for many reasons. It’s good for my health. It helps start my intradian rhythm when the sunlight falls on my retinas. I observe. I feel grounded.
Hiking nourishes my soul.
In Effortless Thursdays #4, I shared with you that 2023 is the year I’m focusing on presence.
Presence emerged in so many different forms that day.
The physical presence of the Fells we were climbing over.
The presence of time - existing among the Fells, but not seen.
The presence I noticed in myself: not getting caught up in what’s gone or what’s to come - simply placing one foot in front of the other and observing what’s around.
The word presence comes from Middle English, via Old French from the Latin, praesentia - being at hand.
And it’s in that sense of presence, being at hand, - being present for others around you - that’s most soulful.
When we are present for others, we engage, we listen, we are understood, we are heard.
So what did the “Fisher’s Wife” leave behind for me among the footprints and the ice-carved valleys?
The creativity of her presence.
Over to you!
What will you leave behind?
What I’m working on
In conjunction with the Centre for Legal Leadership, we’ve launched the Pioneers Programme: Effortless Leadership for Lawyers.
I’m not sure what you’d come up with if you said it as quickly as Fisher’s Wife’s Rake.
The first live session starts on 23 January, and the community has already started connecting in the dedicated Circle space.
It’s the first time I’ve started up this kind of community, and we’ve got over 90 individuals signed up. So at the moment, I’m a mix of fear, nerves and excitement.
In the programme, I’ll be sharing my 3 Pillars for Effortless Leadership so that leaders can stop wasting time on learning yet more quick tips that fail to work when it really counts, and avoid the worry about succeeding at work at the expense of their health and relationships.
I’ve been coaching high achieving entrepreneurs and professionals one-on-one so that they can deliver results and achieve success that speaks to their heart and feels worth it.
I hear frequently from them that leadership is lonely, and I’ve been fortunate to experience myself over the past couple of years - and particularly during the pandemic - the power of being together with like-minded individuals. The conversations that emerge always foster ideas and change.
That’s true of the WELL Mastermind group I set up in 2008 with Will Welch, Laura Gilchrist and Lauren Angelil, each of whom are skillful coaches with a deep presence.
It’s also true of the Write of Passage community. It’s a course that helps writers learn the art of writing and publishing online. The course, and my conversations each week with members of the WoP community from all around the world are a key reason that you’re receiving this newsletter today.
And that’s what I want to bring to the Pioneers Programme: a community for leaders.
It’s one of the things I want to leave behind.
That’s it for this week!
As always, I appreciate your feedback on Effortless Thursdays.
What did you think of this week’s edition? How can I make it more useful to you? Let me know in the comments, by email, on Twitter or on LinkedIn.
To your health and success,
Eric
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