Get on your bike! Pedal-powered Ridgefield Fitness Club photo by Green Revolution
It all started with the 1973 dystopian science fiction film, Soylent Green. Most people who see this film remember the food stuff of the title but I remember scene with the bicycle-powered electricity. For years after watching the film I wondered how you could rig a bike to generate enough electricity to run a small appliance such as a tv or a computer.
I know the idea of people power is not new. History-textbook images easily spring to mind of roman galleons powered by oar-wielding humans and huge stones being dragged up a pyramid by, yes, humans. And, indeed, in our contemporary lives we still have humans behind most actions, slavishly pushing those keys on the keyboard or maneouvring those hulking great mining dump trucks.
But much work today has been automated to minimise human energy required and maximise the use of our treasured energy resources. While the smart and savvy are exploring alternative sources of energy (such as the sun, the wind or some other thing we’d need to dig out of the ground), I wonder where could we passively harness human energy and convert it to electricity?
Football fields? Dance floors? City streets?
StepperWash by Stephen M Johnson
Steven M Johnson has also spent a lot of time contemplating the question of harnessing human power. His illustrations of human-powered appliances are brilliant. The Pedal Wash, Stepper Wash, Wash Cycle and Vanity Cycle may not have contemporary apple-styling but I love the way Steven has imagined the possibilities. Okay, the Exervac is somewhat disturbing but I think that’s more to do with the 80s-style leotard.
During some of the hundreds of hours I’ve spent sweating it out on a bike or rowing machine at the gym I’ve often thought it would be great to harness some of this. When a gym manager was telling me how he was addressing the gym’s skyrocketing electricity costs by turning off all lights when they weren’t needed, I had a hunch that the idea of the people-powered gym might become a reality. I looked at the banks of bikes, steppers, and rowing machines and thought, “That’s where your electricity could be coming from”. Energy in, energy out and where’s it going? Nowhere.
Well, I’m happy to tell you that the people-powered gym is now a reality. A number of gyms around the world are tapping the energy of their members and it seems that it’s win-win-win all round. Less fossil-fuel electricity is used, the energy generated by the members is used to run the machines and lights of the gym, and in some cases, the members get credits for energy they’ve contributed to the system. It a beautiful whole-system approach to business, fitness and the environment.
It’s also heartening to see some of these gyms promoting their human power globally. The more people who see that it’s possible then the more it will be adopted or adapted. Perhaps even my friend the gym owner, who recently refurbed his entire gym with brand new energy-guzzling, tv-on-every-machine equipment might even see its potential.
You might ask, how important is it to reduce the energy consumption of the gymnasiums of the wealthy? Well, every little bit helps but really this is about the development and promotion of the ideas.
When this little butterfly of an idea flaps its wings, it takes very little for it to become a pedal-powered water pump that dramatically changes the lives of a community in India or a remote area of Australia.
You never know where a brilliant, life-saving idea will come from.
‘The real act of discovery is not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.’ Marcel Proust
The use of metaphor is a powerful way to discover who we are and find our place in the world. It can be the lens which brings what’s important or what’s really going on into sharp focus. One of my favourite visualisations, My Land, uses the metaphor of our inner landscape as a country – complete with its own values, traditions, celebrations and border control.
I love this visualisation. It takes a right-brain approach and quickly taps into the values and beliefs that are important in our lives. It reminds us that we each have our own “land” but we often can’t see it – or assume that we live in the same “land” as others.
I first encountered My Land about five years ago. It was one of the excellent self-discovery exercises introduced to me by my coach at the time, Fernando Lopez.
I’ve been wanting to “check in” with My Land ever since and see if anything has changed – but it’s just not the same when you’re reading the text. So I recorded it for myself – and found it still works a treat. This time, I found that while a lot of the terrain is familiar (vibrant, cosmopolitan, almost boho), I’m much clearer about who “my people” are and was surprised to realise that MyLand is very similar to a place I lived 15 years ago.
So, I share it with you here for you to see your own land with new eyes. Who knows what you might discover …
Enjoy your trip. 
DOWNLOAD: My Land visualisation (9 minutes: 8MB mp3)
If you would like to receive monthly updates of what’s new in The Studio, just subscribe to our monthly ezine, Brilliant! Ideas for Work and Life.
If you could only own 100 things, what would be on your list?
Do I really need five towels? 15 pairs of shoes? A different shirt for each day of the month? What would it be like to live with so few possessions?
I realise that a great proportion of the world’s population probably already does so but, for those of us in the West who have been reared on a high-fat diet of consumption, this is almost unthinkable.
But I am starting to think about it.
Over on on my personal blog, I’ve been exploring what my 100 things are. The “100” number and the idea to explore the limits of my own material possessions came from a couple of brilliant life experiments that have been getting a bit of attention lately.
Kelly Sutton, at The Cult of Less, has been selling off his material possessions online over the last year. If you check out his website, you’ll get an idea of what he’s found important by the types of items he keeps, sells and gives away. Kelly’s goal is to reduce his possession to two bags and two boxes.
Could you imagine all your possessions fitting into two bags and two boxes?
This idea does my mind in. I can barely imagine it – let alone imagine doing it. But then I’m very new to this. I have been an out and proud hoarder all my life.
But seeing as Spring Cleaning has been on my mind lately and as I’ve been living between two homes (and thus out of a backpack) for the last few months, I’ve started observing my “must have” items. These are the things that travel back and forth with me or I have one of each at both locations. But what else would be in my two boxes and two bags?
That’s brought me to Dave Bruno’s 100 Thing Challenge. In 2007, Dave set himself the challenge to reduce his possession count to 100 – and then live 12 months with only 100 possessions.
By setting a number, you set up one of your “design limitations” and start working around it – and in that place I’ve found that it becomes really clear what’s important to have around me all the time and what are the things that are nice but I don’t need.
What I love about both of these approaches to minimising “stuff” is that it shakes up our cultural assumptions about material possessions and consumption. Mainly, that to consume is to live, or, that our freedom comes from our freedom to consume.
Plus, there’s nothing like de-cluttering your life and opening up the space (physical, psychological, emotional) to with as you want. As Kelly says, the greatest thing he’s got from his minimalist life is freedom.
Or is it simply, less is more.
You can receive a roundup of Brilliant! ideas for work and life in your Inbox every month by subscribing to the Brilliant! newsletter here
“It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” Roy Disney
In order to go into the world and live a life you love, you need to know a little bit about yourself. You need to know what’s important to you, what your values are, and how they can guide all the decisions – big and little – you make in your life.
Being aware of your values not only helps you with decisions but also gives you direction. You are able to ask yourself at any time, “Is doing this helping me create a life I love, or is it hindering me?” You begin to live with intention, rather than adrift in the drama of your own and other people’s lives. Your purpose becomes clear.
Getting in touch with your values also helps you reconnect with and understand your passion for life.
A passion for animal rescue may reflect how important the treatment of all living creatures is for you.
A passion for the provision of services for immigrants may reflect how important social justice is for you.
A passion for, um, disco music may reflect how important feeling joy may be for you.
There are all sorts of ways to get clear on your values. You can look at moments in your life when you’ve had heightened emotions (happy, sad, angry, etc) and draw out the value that was being honoured or in conflict in those situations.
One of the easiest ways I’ve found is by doing a Values Sort. It took me 20 years to find a really good list of values but I finally came across the list used in research by Miller, C’DeBaca, Matthews and Wilbourne which captures the core values quite well. (As well as having scope to ‘add your own values’)
To help you get clear on what’s important to you, I’ve developed the handy Sorting Out Your Values exercise.
Download Sorting Out Your Values
