“Embracing the Unconventional:
Date: Sunday 11 February 2024
"Breaking the Silence
Strategies for Dealing with Ignored Emails"
Several weeks ago, I called the British Heart Foundation. I spoke at considerable length to their customer service desk about an idea I had to generate a very large amount of money. To my surprise, I have yet to hear from them. I called a couple of times. I was so frustrated that I logged the call and recorded it. I did so to have a record of my story. I have subsequently made several attempts to contact the CEO, requested emails, and left tweets for the CEO, Dr. Charmaine Griffiths. I wrote as a very regular customer of their shops and others. We are resellers; we sell on eBay. We conservatively estimate that we spend more than £15,600 annually in retail charity shops. What's more, we have done so religiously for several years, and on a personal basis, I am a decayed or so into reselling. I now work with my partner. What’s more, we would wholeheartedly spend more. That said, this has remained our ongoing first choice for shopping, and the outgoings reflect a charitable constant that stretches back several years, as do the outgoings.
I have an admission. As a 55-year-old man, I recently found myself strolling through a charity shop, clutching a box of marbles I had impulsively picked up. With a mischievous grin, I concealed them behind my back, fully aware of the inevitable questions that my girlfriend, who was dutifully accompanying me in our habitual charity shop adventure, would pose.
You see, we have this ongoing joke whenever I stumble upon peculiar items and decide to purchase them on a whim. These are the kinds of things that may end up languishing unused once they find their way into our home. It's become a running gag between us. As soon as I present my latest find, she playfully exclaims, 'That's a thing!' Her tone carries a hint of a seasoned tour guide's knowingness. To be fair, the evidence in our expanding room of collected clutter stands testament to her intuition. But oh, the irony! Today, I can proudly say that I did indeed put those marbles to use. I seized the opportunity to challenge the stereotype of their decorative obscurity. Today, I used them. This entry is directly attributable to those marbles. There are 89 marbles, and for every thousand words I write, I'm going to put a marble in a transparent bottle. It will hold me accountable and serve as a visual account of progress. And it's a suggestion I read about in James Clear's book.
"I've got a marvellous book. It's structured, thought out, and begins innocently enough with a simple game of baseball. Then it goes on to describe the horror of a baseball bat swinging at full capacity and passing its desired target regrettably landing at full velocity in the face of a player. The player is James Clear, and it immediately causes his nose to break before moving at frightening velocity into his skull and causing multiple fractures. It’s safe to say that it changed the entire course of his life. It's heart-rendering, and I can't possibly give it the justice it deserves in these few paragraphs, but what I will say is that I am far from an avid reader, but this had me hooked.
The story worryingly unfolds: James, thwarted by the horrific injuries, is then placed in an induced coma. It describes how on the same day his sister is due to have a graduation ceremony and how his father, close to tears, has to tell her he can't make the ceremony as he watches over his son’s life-threatening condition in the confines of a hospital bed.
You can picture all of this; this is like a movie. You can visualise the absolute worry and feel the apprehension as it describes his father in tears and his mother describing the hospital as the worst night of her life.
Unfortunately, the ordeal for James is horrendously traumatic and far from over. He describes how he loses his sense of smell, and a nurse suggests he blow his nose. When he does so, his eye pops out on an optical cord, and it stays like that for several months. He endures multiple fits and then has to start his slow road to recovery.
There's an array of medical complexities. It's the stuff of nightmares. He subsequently returns to baseball, gets demoted, and is dropped from the team. Along with coming to terms with all the neurological hazards that a head injury can cause, he faces hurdle after hurdle.
I likeAtomic Habits because it makes me feel that small tasks are ultimately achievable. I'm not a fan of big, outlandish promises from books. The net is awash with them, and I find them disingenuous, but this is a more reserved, bite-sized format where even after all he has been through, he apologises for boasting when he turns his life around on the baseball field. I find this both very humble and unusual. I wholeheartedly believe he has an awful lot to boast about, though. Atomic Habits; it's quite brilliant.
Today I had a quizzical look from my girlfriend as I bought some marbles from a charity shop. If you read the book, you will see that he discusses minuscule ways to significantly change your life. One of the suggestions is this: If you want to visually see how far you have, it helps to give it a visual perspective. Each time you do one small act, it moves you towards your bigger objective. If you want to simply lift a marble and place it in a container each time you complete a task, you can see it. Today I tried it. The intention was to place a marble in a jar if I completed a thousand words. It resulted in this article that was well over my usual word count—about 2486! It worked, James. Thank you.
If you're ever swathed in melancholy, wondering why, even when you set off with the best intentions, you unfortunately find yourself shifting off course, then this is for you. Alternatively, if you’re exploring the unpredictable pitfalls of life throwing you unexpected curve balls (who isn’t?) again, this offers gentle and relevant instructions. If you want to achieve more, then this is the poster child of the instruction manual, giving baby steps for massiveness. Atomic Habits is a must-read.
I can fully envisage that it would give you a roadmap of where to start bit by bit without letting the entirety of the journey overpower you. I will let you know how I get on, but here’s another admission. I am quietly excited about the progress made so far. I became aware of this intriguing book when Dan Koe rather enthusiastically spoke about it, whose book I also read. These authors were a mystery to me up until two weeks ago. The Art of Focus initiated me, and again, it was as far removed from an "also-ran" as conceivably possible (also incredibly good). Dan writes 1000 words a day, and the reason I do it so late is directly attributable to that book. I found similarities between him and myself. i.e., an interest in photography and Photoshop and an interest in lifting weights. I have trained consistently since the age of 23. Recently, while I avidly watched yet another video of Dan, he said something like, 'Anyone who ever reads Atomic Habits could never write another passage without thinking of the contents of James Clear’s book. If you’re struggling to maintain and improve your good habits, this is an essential guide. So here they both are: Dan and James, the "doers" in life, the "go-getters! The ones who faced incredible setbacks and personal challenges in differing formats and fought through tremendous personal battles, the ones who gallantly somehow used their lives as glowing testimonials of what’s possible, Dan found himself flummoxed by the apparent alienation of the public eyes on his fabulous pictures and set about (with great effect) on to the "all eyes on me" stage. He learned multiple methods of coding and built his social skills with all the methodical precision, mimicking the attention to detail of a military commander orchestrating a covert but exceedingly determined military operation. He accompanies his words with his imagery, a distinct array of graphical charcoal and white imagery created by Adobe After Effects that is both entrancing and like modern-day simplified Michalagelos illustrations.
Yeah, I’m reading again, and they are two great and very influential authors, James Clear and Dan Koe. These authors are the ones who ventured through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond! How fabulous that, through the pages of a book, you should be left feeling exceedingly proud of people who, until a few days ago, were strangers. How intriguing that you might allow them the privilege of shaping the course of your life! How remarkable that they have the tremendous capacity to influence you, and if you internally allow them, their teachings can potentially help you radically change great swathes of your life and alter aspects of yourself.
Unlocking the inbox, the power of response
I’ve never been someone easily persuaded (there have been a few exceptions, the beautiful woman I am with now being one, oh and cakes!), so I made a deliberate effort to soak in the essence of these authors, who, though relatively young, have incredibly good insights. I saw it as a recipe for uncovering fresh perspectives.
As you can see above, I came to this particular part of the story and thought it would be appropriate to praise literary icons, and I do so because I think it's important to give dues where they are rightfully deserved. These are incredible insights that have the power to help you press on. A marinade for unleashing innovative potential. They give you the. courage to venture through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond. For a few weeks now, I have been writing emails addressed to people who head huge institutions. The truth is, the emails are 0.1% of the full story on the back of the countless calls I'm exploring. Despite the ideas I put forward highlighting a way to make an awful lot of money for the institutions they represent (more than 1 million) and subsequently massively change the lives of people affected by cardiovascular problems and fund education and research for others, none of the people I wrote to saw fit to grant me a response.
What's more, thereafter, I self-analysed, looked within myself, and explored if I had not explained my concept enough. I then set about doing so. Could (I mused) my enthusiasm have been confused with pressure? I had always thought of myself as an effective communicator. There had been proportions of my life where I had been very capable of placing my case in a way that attracted the right attention. One or two had appeared on several major television stations; what was sort of puzzling me was that my thoughts were welcomed. In turn, the message, or the way I approached it, had also been considered interesting enough for Fleet Street to weave it into their publications. I decided to change my direction. So I then set about writing multiple other emails and creating small presentations that simplified it (see Sweet Shop above), still to no avail. But they were gathering more traction.
Social interaction has never really been my first go-to or port of call. Nowadays, I am essentially a private individual; I have little courage or faith in social networks. I don't believe that they are governed well enough. That being said, they are an integral part of modern-day communication. I believe they run amok with the projectionists and the ego-oriented people obsessed with capturing the moment rather than enjoying the fun and living and enjoying it, not to mention the opportunists and snakes creeping in through the back door. But surely, the heads of corporate companies had an obligation to answer emails. Day by day, I was becoming appalled, seemingly by the second, at roadblock after roadblock. I steadily diversified and wrote to others in other institutions and also to people within the public eye. What I rapidly became aware of was that it was very difficult not to become dissatisfied with the lack of response; indeed, the common denominator was ignorance. I couldn't quite fathom it. Especially when some particularly prominent people in the public eye had orchestrated PR that, on the face of it, was highlighting one message while stonewalling mine. They were unreceptive to the proposals I had or invitations to pursue the avenue to create funds.
So now I find myself wondering just what I have to do and forcing myself to become curious rather than judgmental. It doesn't take a lot of personal enlightenment to realise that curiosity is by far the greatest and most productive character trait that will allow the continuation of what I consider to be an imperative, ongoing goal. i.e., to assist charitable institutions in gaining access to over 1 million pounds within the first year of operation. Diversifying, I then thought about my newsletter, Resell Decadence (free; see links). Perhaps Dan Koe and James Clear utilised some of these tenacious traits and ran across similar obstacles; after all, necessity is the mother of invention. I know there's a way, from deep within the integral pathways of my mind, that a resolution will be found; it's just going to take some time. I have a right-hand man (a woman, actually); she's as unrelenting and determined as anyone I have ever known. Perhaps the best ideas aren't meant to be immersed in simplicity and immediately actionable. Perhaps the fulfilment of dreams only feels incomprehensibly more satisfying when the naysayers and disinterested (not to mention rude!) suddenly hear from another source that, while they ignored someone, was gobsmacked and listened.
While some clicked a mouse on delivered emails, sending them to the trash, my resounding hope was that someone else would have enough foresight to willingly persevere. It would surely only take one to create a knock-on effect. One person who understood and acknowledged my idea enough to make an insurmountable movement in the right direction, a direction that, just like the books above, could change the course of millions of people's lives irrevocably for the better. What I can't figure out is why that other person isn't the person I've already inquired with.
A common thread among those who achieved greatness is their refusal to give up, even when faced with scepticism and doubt. They understood that ideas, no matter how revolutionary, often face initial resistance. Instead of succumbing to discouragement, these individuals persevered, continuously refining their concepts and strategies.
"Outside of my small but valid story (now two months in), what does this say about the futility of the lack of communication on the World Wide Web? Should we expect the WWW, no matter how great or prolific the institution or company, to stand for the World Wide War? If so, the existential question is: What on earth have we amounted to?
Are we really in a position where 'The New Normal' in 2025 will accept this? What's the public's perception and emotion about this?
I think we are amidst a rapidly escalating and growing lack of faith. If this is the new norm, it causes significant damage to social stability, especially when ideas are disregarded and people, for their reasons, reduce the likelihood of rational deliberation. I am of the mind that it's my obligation to urge critical evaluation and not simply accept it as given. Isn't there anything else but the stifling of progress and the perpetuation of harmful systems?
Aren't we looking for an evolution of digital life? Do we not remember the thing that excited us to pieces in 1983, when the net was first created for general use with the public? Seemingly, it has become apparent that the internet will continue to feature both positives and negatives.
Have large companies evolved into the comfort of paid PR to facilitate the story and beef out the good? Where perception reigns supreme and reality is just a minor inconvenience.
I put it to you that not only is it patently apparent that there's something wrong afoot here, but there's an important moral obligation to actively enthuse over new ideas, specifically when they have the real potential to radically pole vault change and massive continued financial prosperity.
If an industry leader in charity retail saw its turnover increase by just 2% last year, could there be a crucial argument for the door to be opened on additional innovative suggestions and measures to increase this figure and (when successful) for them to play an ongoing part in continuing evolution and change? Let's celebrate those who prioritise integrity and substance and, though biased, leave some room for innovation. i.e., my idea!
Aside from that, who wouldn't ever want to be associated with fresh ideas and spark additional drive and progress? Come on!
Where to go from here? Can you assist?
What is your perspective? I am interested in speaking to you if you fall into the following category:
Do you run a charity? Have you ever struggled to stay afloat with your charity? What is it? Do you, within your charity, sell furniture and bric-a-brac?
Have you a senior role in any UK charity? Do you have a role in the British Heart Foundation? Or any similar ones, in particular outside of clothing retail and formulated around furniture, collectables, and
Are you someone with experience producing a monthly publication If so, I would like to form a line of communication and call upon your experience in producing a publication.
References
Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Art of Focus by Dan Koe. Wayne Dyer Change your thoughts; change your life.
Please view my work on Substack; it’s a free newsletter. If you can follow me on other platforms, it draws attention to my goal of getting all eyes on my musings, but more importantly, I am on a mission. I want to make the biggest change in charity retail since its inception. I am pleased I am documenting that it’s like pushing a treacle up a hill and have dated this piece for reference. Be the change you want to see. I want to actively encourage my readers to draw attention to what I am doing. I appreciate any help you can provide.
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