I was listening to an interview with Billy Connolly the other day. He was talking about comedy and was asked “How do you know you can trust the ideas you go on stage with? His reply?

You just go along and let it happen to see what the result is.

Billy Connolly

He’s able to say that because he has agency from his experience, practise and skill. He’s also rarely worked within common rules and has 50 years’ experience in what he does.

He also mentioned how, when he started, comedians were drawn from a certain place. Learning is in a similar situation. Many of us ‘old heads’ were brought up on OHPs, flipcharts and basic technologies. We honed our skills in places where we were able to go along and see what the result was.

People new to LnD now are drawn from a different quarter (as are comedians) and their approach draws on their experience. What Billy Connolly recognises later in the interview is that it’s not the background that matters, it’s the mindset.

We forget that sometimes when we look at the new and the old.

The growth state is new – new is not the growth state. The death state is old – old is not the death state.