I’ve just finished listening to the podcast S-Town.
From the makers of Serial, it’s about, and I quote:
John despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it. He asks a reporter to investigate the son of a wealthy family who’s allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But then someone else ends up dead, sparking a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one man’s life.
It’s worth a listen to, but the bit I want to reference here is the opening paragraph of the first episode.
It’s about restoring very old clocks.
“When an antique clock breaks, a clock that’s been telling time for 200 or 300 years, fixing it can be a real puzzle. An old clock like that was handmade by someone. It might tick away the time with a pendulum, with a spring, with a pulley system. It might have bells that are supposed to strike the hour, or a bird that’s meant to pop out and cuckoo at you. There can be hundreds of tiny, individual pieces, each of which needs to interact with the others precisely.
To make the job even trickier, you often can’t tell what’s been done to a clock over hundreds of years. Maybe there’s damage that was never fixed, or fixed badly. Sometimes, entire portions of the original clockwork are missing, but you can’t know for sure because there are rarely diagrams of what the clock’s supposed to look like. A clock that old doesn’t come with a manual.
So instead, the few people left in the world who know how to do this kind of thing rely on what are often called witness marks to guide their way. A witness mark could be a small dent, a hole that once held a screw. These are actual impressions, and outlines, and discolorations left inside the clock of pieces that might have once been there. They’re clues to what was in the clockmaker’s mind when he first created the thing.”
Listening to that got me thinking.
When new ninjas start with us, our conversations can be the equivalent for looking for witness marks.
Working out what has happened in the years and decades leading up to them joining us.
We, of course, know that losing weight can be boiled down to less calories going in than coming out.
We’re not stupid.
But we also know that people coming to us have known this for probably at least a decade.
Real life is often more complicated than this.
All sorts goes on before we get down to that ‘boiled down to’ stage.
Looking at peoples habits, beliefs, particular situation, relationships with food, etc, etc……..
Helps to get an idea of ‘the work that needs to be done’.
And when you make changes to the above, the calories in – calories out bit starts to fall into place a bit more readily.
So, if you’re struggling……….
Look for your ‘witness marks’………..
Or talk to us and we’ll find them together.
Figure out what’s caused the situation that you’re wanting to change.
And work on those things.
Rather than just ‘trying harder’ with something you’ve struggled with before!
Much love,
Jon ‘B’ Hall and Matt ‘Tyler’ Nicholson
