What would today look like if you met it the way your seven year old self would?

It is day two of being Mayor of Truro and I woke on Monday feeling sick. Not ill. Nervous. A seven year old tells you about their day like it is the most extraordinary thing that ever happened, because to them it is. I am meeting people today and I am excited like a kid going on a school trip. And underneath that, the thing I keep coming back to is that we are all the same. Alcohol, takeaway, Netflix, whatever it is, everybody is just trying to improve their moment.

One thing to try: Do one thing today with a seven year old's enthusiasm and an adult's skill. Both. Not one or the other.

In this episode

• (1:26) Two things I want to say, and the first is we are all the same
• (2:36) Everybody is just trying to improve their moment
• (4:09) How a seven year old tells you about their day
• (5:09) Excited like a kid on a school trip
• (6:24) The sick feeling before the mayor making ceremony
• (7:33) Be brave, but bring some skilful wisdom with you
• (9:08) Do not let me say I am fine. Ask me properly

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Thank you for listening.

Steven

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So, it's day two of being Mayor of Truro in Cornwall in the UK. And what a crazy few days

it is. I woke up Monday morning and I had that feeling in my belly where I'd ate something dodgy

a few days before. And I just felt like, I've got to go into the public meeting tonight and I've

got to talk in front of everybody. And it just terrified me. And

it's that wonderful, uncomfortable feeling that you can so just pull back and not do it, or

you can step forward and do it,

and everything was okay. I messed up my speech several times. Everybody noticed. Nobody cared.

I

had a big belly. Nobody noticed. Or even if they did, they don't care. And I was on the radio

yesterday, and I probably said something, you know I probably messed up the works Nobody really cares.

What people care about is just stepping up and stepping forward and doing what we can from where we are.

And I want to talk about that on today's podcast. So I'm Steven Webb, and I'm the current mayor of

Truro, which I still think is absolutely crazy, but what a wonderful opportunity. And this is stillness in the storms,

and I help people suffer a little less, especially when times are difficult. And there's two things that

I really want to discuss today, and that is, you know, we're all the same. And in my last podcast,

I talked about how can we love everybody, and how can I love everybody? And I talked about that the

fact that everybody is the same as me and I'm the same as everybody else. We are all struggling to,

you know, just better our lives in some way. And I've just had a wonderful conversation with a guy from

the Bbc, and we were talking about stoicism and all that, and it reminded me of a quote from Carl

young that says, even the rotten potato sprouts towards the sun. I just think that's a

wonderful quote, because do you know what? If your life has or somebody's life has steered you towards using alcohol

or drugs or sex or something else to avoid life, or just Netflix of an evening or just that

takeaway of an evening, all we're doing is just trying to improve our lives. Every single one of those people,

whether it is alcohol, whether it's takeaway, whether it's Netflix it's just trying to improve their lives in that

moment. So it means we're all the same. And I just think when you approach other people like that,

we stop judging them, because we realise when we judge them, we judge ourselves. And I think that's so important

when we judge them, we're really judging ourselves. There's something in ourselves that we haven't seen

that's subconscious that we're not aware of. And we judge them because we fear that

side of ourselves, whether

it's even subconsciously. And the other thing I just thinking about this morning and, and I signed off an

email uh it's mayor of truer Steven meritor And I wrote

next to it, how crazy is that with or how awesome is that With a question mark.

And I thought, well that's like what a seven-year-old would do. And I thought how brilliant. And

for years I've been denying the seven-year-old that just wants to play games, have fun, relax, see

the world in a way that every day is new and amazing, you know, you know that seven-year-old that sees

something for the first time or sees a new film and they come out and they talk about it with

such enthusiasm or they met a new friend at play school or okay, a seven-year-old doesn't go play school but

you know, I mean they met a new friend at school and it's like brand new to them, like as

if it's the first time this has happened. But of course to them it has. And that's what it feels

like to me. It's like I'm looking at this and going, wow, how awesome and amazing is this? This today

is like this is the first time I've had day two of this. And this afternoon I'm going out to

meet some of my fellow councillors that work on the neighborhood planning team to have a look at how we

can set up the settlement boundary. I don't know how to do it, I've really no clue. I've just got

the passion of protecting our fields and the countryside from

development and all that kind of thing. So we're meeting some of the experts and we're meeting some of the

other councillors that are all passionate about this.

I'm meeting a couple other people today that I'm going to be introduced to. I'm just so excited, like, I'm

like um I don't know, how can you explain it? I'm like a school kid that is going on a

um a school trip. Instead of doing homework and all that, they're doing something new. And I

think we need to approach life a bit more from this seven-year-old self that's locked up inside of you.

So what's your seven-year-old self crying out for? It's crying out for fun, it's crying out for love

and attention and playing and seeing the world and experiences. So what does an older version

of that seven year old do? Well, it does all those same things, but with an element of wisdom and

experience.

So it still wants to climb the rock face, it still wants to go and play, but it's about hooking

on the safety net because, or safety line because, you know, you might say something wrong or you might

um fall down or something like that. So it often stops us and we, we don't do it or we

cannot do that. And like I said at the beginning of the podcast, we have that, that stomach feeling that

I felt sick and I felt awful. I barely eaten anything all day Monday leading up to the mayor making

ceremony which is available. I'll put a link to it underneath this podcast in the podcast notes. You can see

that speech online

leading up to it, I could barely eat anything. I think I had toast for tea and

I didn't eat both bits because I just literally couldn't face it. And I was barely drinking anything. You know,

I have a leg bag and I go pee in a leg bag and I didn't want it to fill

up because I didn't want to. What happens if I like um need to empty it during the ceremony tonight

and things like that. So I was freaking out, but I stepped in anyway because it's okay to freak out.

It's not okay to to back out. And freaking out is just saying be aware. And

that's what the older version of the seven-year-old needs to do. Do all the fun things, get out your comfort

zone, you know, be brave, you know, climb up that thing. But do it with a little bit of skillful

wisdom from experience. But don't let that fear stop you. I

think that's the message of today's podcast and it's relatively shorter um because I really need to head out in

a minute and I'm. If it's okay with you, I'm going to do shorter podcast I'm going to do shorter

daily updates and things like that. I'm just going to do a lot more of them because this is going

to be an

incredible year

and I want you along with it

god I'm gonna I'm emotional now because I'm so honored and I just, it's just incredible for me. I want

it to be incredible for truer too if I can. I have no idea how to make that happen. But

let's do it. You know, the town, I love the town. The other councillors love every single one of them.

And, you know, that's why we're there. That's why we do the public service. That's why we put ourselves out

there for scrutiny and accountability, which is absolutely right. We should be scrutinized and we

should be held accountable. You know, I've promised things that I want to do this year. Hold me accountable. At

the end of the year, look up and go, hey, you didn't deliver or you did deliver, you know. And

during the year, make sure that you ask me those questions, how are you doing? And I'm when I say

I'm fine, say no, I'm asking, how is your mayor your year going? Are you achieving the goals you think?

Ask me those questions, please keep me Keep me on track, keep my feet on the ground and make

sure we deliver as a council for Truro. That's what we're all there for. So yeah, I didn't mean to

make this podcast about that. Just remember, just look at your seven-year-old self What is that seven-year-old self wanting

and what are you denying? Start seeing the world through the seven-year-old eyes the seven-year-old heart the

seven-year-old that loves everybody, that just wants to play, that just wants to enjoy life, that just

wants as aspirations and goals and dreams and hopes, you know, Let that seven year old come alive

with the wisdom of experience and then you'll do all right then you Then you may start loving life

again in the same way I do. Take care guys. This is Steven Webb Stillness in the Storms podcast and

please subscribe. Hit the subscribe whether it's on itunes or Spotify or it's available everywhere and leave a review.

That would be amazing because it helps to go up the ranks and it helps, it get helps me to

get my message out and that message today. Embrace the seven-year-old self I

love you guys. Have an awesome day. Take care.