"You are only adding zeroes [to your salary] and zeroes is nothing" Sameh Khatib, owner of Palmera Camp, Wadi Rum and the leading Arabian horse breeder in Jordan.

What calls you most—the mountains, the ocean or the desert? 

For Sameh Khatib it is the desert. As a bedouin, he always dreamed of returning to his roots. There, in the space of nothingness, he has built his Masterpiece, a camp for adventure travellers, with his own hands and a lot of love.

What makes this camp remarkable is the food—it was SO tasty—the organic design—it blends into the landscape—the staff—they were so friendly—and its eco-credentials—you could remove the camp and the desert would remain untouched.

Sameh built the camp himself, without plans or designs—it just emerged step by step in his head. His journey is a powerful illustration of what it takes to create your Masterpiece—obstacles and all. I couldn't believe what he shared with me... he created his Masterpiece based on all the principles I've been talking about for the last decade and we only met 'by chance' as we stayed here as part of the #Masterpiece | Creation journey.

We also discuss:
— How he values money;
— Why doing what you love is so important;
— Why he hired his staff twice;
— How to communicate to dogs, horses, falcons and his team.

Links:
Follow Palmera Camp on Instagram
Discover more about Palmera Camp on TripAdvisor

“I believe we all have that cubic centimeter of chance that is dangling tantalizingly in front of us, encouraging us to be bold and cross the threshold.” -- Gib Bulloch

We live in a world that has mastered acceleration. Can you imagine a world that is equally masterful in deceleration? What would you create if you embarked on an adventure, fully trusting that the ‘how’ of your Masterpiece would take care of itself? 

Gib Bulloch joins me for a deep conversation from the French Alps above Morzine, while I enjoy nature from Mont Pèlerin above Lake Geneva. Founder and former Executive Director of Accenture Development Partnerships, Gib experienced two significant events that changed the course of his life forever: a fever that triggered a flow of inspired insights following a trip to India, and five days and nights he spent in a psychiatric ward in Glasgow that catalyzed the creation of another Masterpiece: his book Intrapreneur: Confessions of a Corporate Insurgent. His journey is a powerful illustration of the need to break down in order to break through. 

We also discuss: 

• The corporate immune system, the symptoms it creates, the underlying cause, and the need to catalyze purposeful innovation in the fourth sector
• Breaking mental health taboos in business and remaining open to every possible interpretation
• Gib’s Hero’s Journey of stepping over the threshold, allowing bliss to guide his vision so that he could return home to the Isle of Bute and create his latest Masterpiece: the Craigberoch Business Decelerator

Links:

Craigberoch

Gib’s book Intrapreneur: Confessions of a corporate insurgent 

“I always feel that I’m quite limited by my imagination. You might think, I’m going to go thataway but you need to be open to where ‘thataway’ actually takes you.” -- Alison Cairns

Joining me at Lake Riffelsee in the Swiss Alps, Alison shares her incredible journey of painting the Matterhorn while it was covered by cloud, transforming frustration into focus and setting an intention to start with what she could see rather than what she could so that the cloud revealed the mountain it was hiding. She also discusses the role of creativity in food, and Alison’s pop-up gallery for amateur artists launching in January 2021 in Geneva (currently pending a review of the gallery space). We also explored what happens when we treat our lives as our Masterpieces, and the power of decelerating enough to listen to our intuition so that we can create our greatest contribution to our planet, people and prosperity.

We also discuss:

• How Alison's background in development, health and business is helping her as Partnerships Lead for the UN Food Systems Summit 2021.
• Her commitment to helping to create a food system that supports nutritious food and equity within planetary boundaries.
• That if we feed people in the right way using the knowledge and tools available to us, we become part of the entire ecosystem.
• What would happen if we could create a world where our food system was provide good food for all, was equitable, and restored and regenerated our planet for good?

Links:

Food Systems Summit 2021 

Craigberoch Business Decelerator and my conversation with Founder Gib Bulloch **add this link once published

#Masterpiece Creation

“Enjoy the ride. You get to write your journey as you wish.” -- Kathleen Hamilton

What would it be like if everyone had the safety, security, and access to the tools they needed to create their Masterpiece? We would create a new future together. 

Kathleen Hamilton is the Head of Product at GeniusU, one of the world’s leading ed tech platforms. Kathleen shares her story of growing up around social entrepreneurship in Bali (her father is Roger James Hamilton) and later, graduating from university in America without a physical place to call home and feeling unable to make an impact. This unleashed an opportunity for her to reclaim her potency by connecting with the GeniusU community of entrepreneurs, traveling extensively, and creating meaningful work that she loves.

We also discuss:

• The story of Zach, an Artist-Genius and Starving Artist whom Kathleen befriended in San Francisco, and the power of mindset when creating your Masterpiece
• Kathleen’s mission to change the educational system for good, so that everyone will have access to what they need in order to create what they love
• The concept of ikigai, Kathleen’s recently-launched Ikigaia podcast, and the importance of time 

Links:

GeniusU 

The Ikigaia Podcast and my interview with Kathleen

Enjoy the Ride

Read the first chapter of my new #Masterpiece book for free

Join Marlen Karlen and I to talk about how to grow your ecosystem. Marlen is the founder of Engelwurz, a bio-dynamic farm, 45 minutes north of Zurich, in Switzerland. It is home to a bio vineyard, a mandala vegetable patch, a mushroom farm, two camels, chickens, homing pigeons, Marlen herself, her husband, Guido and a procession of volunteers who come for anywhere between a few weeks and a few years to nurture the permaculture - for free. What's most remarkable though is that Marlen considers herself to be part of the ecosystem. Like the plants and other animals, she says she has a unique role to play, because she has different capabilities than the plants and the other humans within the ecosystem. She defines her Purpose is to help every other entity within the ecosystem to find their Purpose. What's even more remarkable is she considers what the permaculture produces - the wine, fruits and vegetables - a byproduct of the permaculture fulfilling its Purpose. It's a bonus. Having tasted the wine and eaten the vegetables, I can tell you it's a very tasty bonus indeed. Watch this episode to discover what a permaculture is and why you should consider growing an ecosystem (in which your Masterpiece can emerge) too.

You can find out more about Marlen, her husband, Guido, and the very tasty byproduct online.

Join Peter Koenig and I to discover how you can reclaim your relationship to money. Peter invented the term reclamation work to refer to the process of reclaiming whatever we have suppressed, which stops us form creating the Masterpiece we were born to create. He has lived a life he loves for over 30 years, during which time he has become arguably the world’s leading expert on our relationship to money. He was a pioneer in the Purpose and Open Space movement in the 1980s. I caught up with him next to Lake Geneva on a beautiful summer’s day. Enjoy our wide-ranging conversation. It may just change your world for good. Wherever you are happy creating!

The next #Masterpiece program starts on 15 December 2020 in Asia and 12 January 2021 in Europe and North America. Find out more.