The Good Listening To Show: Stories of Distinction & Genius

Legacy Life Reflections: Marines or Ballet? A Life of Courage, Creativity, Conservation and Leadership with the Warm & Wonderful Nigel Hughes from Outstanding.Global

• Chris Grimes - Facilitator. Coach. Motivational Comedian

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A single choice can shape a lifetime. When Nigel Hughes told a careers panel he’d choose ballet over the Marines, he set a compass for courage, creativity, and connection that still points true decades later. We invite you into Nigel’s “clearing”—a 1642 Suffolk cottage turned open house—where hedges host micro-moths, neighbours drop by for sugar-free Black Forest gâteaux, and leadership looks like tending land until it teaches you how to lead.

The story travels far beyond the garden gate. In Papua New Guinea, Nigel and his partner used theatre—songs, stories, and dugout canoes—to help local communities see what was at stake as industrial logging closed in. Their work helped protect 2,000 square miles of primary rainforest and seeded a long-term push toward World Heritage status. He calls it global kinship, a respectful exchange that begins with listening rather than lecturing. Along the way, we meet mentors who challenged him to be “dangerous or dead,” and we hear how personal rituals—like watching evening primrose bloom at dusk—guided him through cancer and back into purpose.

Closer to home, Nigel’s philosophy shows in the details: a biodiverse, organic landscape that encouraged neighbouring farms to go chemical-free; a practice of meditation and deep listening; a belief that internal diversity—ballet in the morning, county rugby in the afternoon—creates stronger, more human leaders. He worries about phone addiction and the loss of face-to-face connection, yet remains relentlessly optimistic that attention, courage, and care can leave places and people better than we found them. If you’re ready to rethink leadership as leaving more life behind than you took, this conversation will meet you where your feet are and invite you to stand for something that lasts.

Subscribe, share with someone who loves nature and bold ideas, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s one brave choice you’re ready to make today?

Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)

Thanks for listening!

Chris Grimes:

Welcome to another episode of The Good Listening to Show, Your Life and Times with me, Chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the clearing, where all good questions come to get asked, and all good stories come to be told. And where all my guests have two things in common. They're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors, a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 54321, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, and a cake. So it's all to play for. So yes, welcome to the Good Listening to show, your life and times with me, Chris Grimes. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. Boom! And we're in. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to what really should be called, no offense to either of us, but old men and technology. Hurrah! We have done this, ladies and ginmin, min min min. We're here. Outstanding and outstanding global. See what I'm doing there? Uh, this is the wonderful and the enigmatic Nigel Hughes, who's here to do a really wonderful hybrid leadership reflections and legacy life reflections episode of the Good Listening to show, Stories of Distinction and Genius. And you have a story of both distinction and genius, not least because you're an ex-champion Scottish Highland dancer. You also sent me an article, which is why is Nigel Hughes Outstanding? And that reminded me of that joke. How can you tell a good farmer? He's always outstanding in his field. And you were standing in a field with an owl called Barney as you prepared for today's show. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Nigel Hughes, who's an ex-B O V T S Bristol Old Vic Theatre School alumni dum dee, num num doodals as well. You're very welcome to the show, sir.

Speaker 1:

Hello, thank you. And um, I don't think I'm an ex-alumni because I think I'm an uh current alumni, isn't that right?

Chris Grimes:

Do you know what I've never really understood the Latin-ness of all of that? So that's why I always go alumni, numney, dum, dum. But we we both went there, is the important thing.

Speaker 1:

We did, we did. And and I've surprisingly enough to me, I got my O level in Latin. Go you.

Chris Grimes:

So that's another reason why you're outstanding as well. So it is a great delight. You you are from Outstanding Global, and what's really important is you go, you work way beyond the BAU, which I loved. And as we know, BAU is business as usual, and you go beyond surface level to do wonderfully immersive, in-depth experiences, and and it's outstanding global because it's leading through courage, creativity, and connection. I'm just blowing a bit of happy smoke at you, but yes, so um, if people don't have a frame of reference for you, lovely man Nigel Hughes, what's your favorite way? You know, how would Barney the Owl describe you uh in terms of what you do?

Speaker 1:

Okay, uh well, Barney the Owl would say, Who are you? And what are you? And what do you stand for? So that's really it's that so I think I think the way to describe me best is I'm an agitator and I love to go beyond the norm. I think the I think the key story is at the age of 13, I was invited by the careers counseling panel to join the Marines. And I said, Thank you very much for your advice. I'm not going to join the Marines, I'm going to do ballet. Thank you very much for your time. And I left the room.

Chris Grimes:

And when you first got in touch, sorry to briefly interrupt you, you did very enigmatically, you sent me a web form saying you're interested in being in the show, and it went Marines or Ballet.

Speaker 1:

Exactly that. Yes. And that's the uh that's the current book that I'm working on because um now I'm of an age, 75 last birthday and 76 next birthday. People have said, oh, you know, you do have quite an interesting story to tell. So I've kind of focused it on Marines or ballet, which is a life choice that I make constantly because my family background is military, but I am uh the odd one out, if you like. Yeah. And um chose to do ballet and went down the creative arts route. And that's why Bristol Olvick Theatre School was on my list of things that what I've done.

Chris Grimes:

Love that. And I'm now re appreciating you also have a facial um similarity, which is a compliment to John Hartok, who I call the lovely old bagpuss, who was one of my teachers who I appreciate was probably not of your era, but you you have a you have a resonance and an Oliver Postgateness in your tonality. Oh gosh. Amazing. Okay. So um it's my delight, pleasure, and privilege to curate you through the leadership reflections, and as I mentioned rather beautifully in your case, the hybridness of also doing a legacy life reflections. So the invitation is to go where you like, how you like, as deep as you like, into the following construct where there's going to be a clearing, a tree, a lovely juicy storytelling exercise called 54321. There's going to be some alchemy, some gold, a couple of random squirrels, squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, a golden baton, and a cake. So it's all to play for.

Speaker 1:

Who knows? This this is um this is certainly uh the most um unusual interview that I've conducted. So let's go.

Chris Grimes:

Let's do this. And yes, so if you are watching this for the first time, this is the show, just to do a final bit of positioning, where I invite I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers, and also personal heroes into the clearing I mentioned, which is your serious happy place, as my guests all arrive to share their stories of distinction and genius. So, Nigel Hughes, uh, where is what is a clearing for you? Where is your serious happy place? Where do you go to get clutter free, inspirational, and able to think?

Speaker 1:

Right outside my door, because I have the uh privilege of living in a 1642 cottage. It's now set in seven acres of organic, biodiverse, rich land with trees and ancient hedge that I can see out of my window. And me and my husband have lived here since 1976.

Chris Grimes:

What a wonderful place to belong, a sense of belonging. Also, talking of your husband, uh, you fell in love with a piano player. Would you just quickly tell us that beautiful story?

Speaker 1:

Well, there you go, you see. Um, when we were at Bristol, I arrived at Bristol Vic first in 1969. I'd come out of art school. I did a fine art degree first, and then I was dying to get into Bristol, and they suddenly said, Yes, Nigel, you can come in, and you're part of the experimental three-year course. So there were 10 of us that started in 1979. 69, yes, when I was 19. So yeah, but then along came Richard Edmonds at the time, and um, and he was very much a hippie in those days, and he was assigned to me to accompany me on our final concert of the year, and I was singing some strange Mozart song, which I couldn't sing terribly well, so we had to rehearse quite a lot, and um, and suddenly I found myself much more interested, as you said, in the piano player rather than the song. So, yeah, so we fell in love over the piano. I chased him down the road several times until he invited me to tea a week later, and um the rest is history. I love that. Well, you literally chase me, chase me running and down the street. Leave me alone. But then then he caught up and then he invited you in for tea. But it's also part of my characteristic, you know. I'm I'm a Taurian male, I'm determined, stroke, stubborn. And if I see something that I want, I do anything I can to get it. He's also, by the way, a Taurean male and stubborn, and I think that's probably why he ran away several times.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, but your your your stubbornness outweighed his reluctance, which I which I really like. Lovely. So I know you'll probably mention more about your lovely husband as well as we go through. But it's anyway, we're in your clearing now, which is literally outside your front door. If you want to stick a flag in the sand, just give us the geography of that just so we can all not come around to visit, but just to get a sense of where we are.

Speaker 1:

Oh no, you know, one of the things is we have an open house policy, we have an open land policy here. We uh we love people to visit. So we're in a lovely village called Lawshall, L-A-W-S-H-A-L-L, which is in Suffolk, it's seven miles from Bury St. Edmunds. And funnily enough, the reason we arrived here is because I was cast to play Joseph, Joseph is an amazing type of cutter dream coat, in the Mercury Theatre Colchester in 1976. And we arrived in a village because friends of ours had a big farmhouse, and we stayed there for three months while I was doing Joseph. And Rick left our London flat and created a garden for them. But at the end of that three months, we said, Oh, we rather like it round here. We don't happen to know anybody that's got a cottage available. And Penny and Ron said, Well, as it happens, last week Bernie and Kelvin just moved out of this rather tumble-down cottage. So Rick and I came to have a look, a very, very dark, dismal November day. We looked in the windows because we couldn't get in the doors, and there was the uh their last meal still on the table. And um, we thought we looked at each other and went, yep, I think we'll have it.

Chris Grimes:

Well, they didn't need more than to wash up before they left. No. So were they were they on the run from the mafia or something? How come they left so quickly?

Speaker 1:

Well, funnily enough, they they had this great plan that they'll be going to renovate the cottage and make it sort of open plan, you know, 1642 cottage. It's wonderful, it's gorgeous, it's got timber frame, blah dahbly. It's just post-Shakespearian, isn't it?

Chris Grimes:

I'm just doing the math on the yes, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So we we knocked on the landlord's door and uh and said, Oh, we'd love to take over that cottage, please. And he was the Justice of the Peace at the time, Humphrey. And he looked at us and he said, Hmm, what do you do? And I said, Well, I'm an actor, and Rick said, I'm a writer. And he said, What on earth do you want to be doing living in that old place? And we said, Because we're nature lovers mostly. And he said, Okay, it costs you two pounds a week. We said, I think we can probably afford that. So we did, we afforded that, and that we put our feet in the ground, and we've been here ever since. We, you know, we purchased both cottages in 1993. But our primary the thing really is, you know, Torians may be, as you know, are nature lovers, and we both were brought up in nature, and there was just something about there was a real strong pull. It all it was almost like we had a calling to be here. Yes. And Humphrey said to us, he said, make sure you look after the place. So that's really been our intention, that we've looked after the place. And over the years, over the 50 years that we've been here, we've really increased the biodiversity thousandfold. Because in this agricultural area, of course, chemical sprays diminish biodiversity and has been one of our life challenges to increase biodiversity. And here, because we are registered organic, funnily enough, our neighbor farmers suddenly got the same buzz, and all the neighboring farmers. So we've got four and a half thousand acres around us that is now farmed organically, and you know, and you kind of go, well, what's the connection to leadership? And I think for me, the connection to leave leadership and legacy is that we did have a vision of uh making sure that we were enhancing this place so actually we leave it in a better condition than we found it.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, which is a testament to great leadership, leaving the room, the entity, the organization in a better state than when you first walked in, as your own legacy as a leader, as a parallel universe. Also, your centrifugal desire to conserve also extends as far as it could even go further, Papua New Guinea, where your your 20,000 acres of rainforest conservation project also exists out there. That could just be one of many reasons that, as we've discussed, that you're outstanding.

Speaker 1:

Just a correction there, it's 2,000 square miles. Oh, yes, which is a little bit longer. We kind of almost arrived in by accident in Papua New Guinea in uh uh just before the 90s.

Chris Grimes:

I I also already love your recurring theme of being in the right place at the right time by happy accident, even looking on the cottage window and a bit sort of Goldilocks and the three bears, seeing a plate uh of the last meal before the previous occupants left. Being in the right place, you know, be where your feet are is a recent thing I've learned about leadership as well, about the idea of just you know, your feet can take you to some extraordinary places if you're able and willing to be present.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think I think that's the thing for me, you know, one can say, you know, good luck, but it's also about the choices that we make. Yes, and you know, and and the relevant choices. Funnily enough, this year, in you know, in my 70, come my 76th year, I've been setting myself the question: relevant or redundant? And you know, because often there's so much disruption around the world and in businesses and and leadership, and people are being made redundant, redundant, redundant, you know, hand over fist everywhere, uh, which is really, really disturbing. So, you know, so it kind of prompts the question for me. It's like, well, am I relevant or am I redundant? And if I'm redundant, then I better find a way to do something else so that I can be more relevant. So it's always been that match. And at the moment, you know, the Papua New Guinea story is that we discovered this area of rainforest that and we went into an area where no white people had been before. Um, so it was a bit of a shock for them, it was a shock for us. Funnily enough, there's a there's a Sadeave Nattenborough documentary, which I've only just recently discovered, and it's called A Blank on the Map. So look it up because it's wonderful, it's a wonderful piece of filming. It was his first nature documentary, which he filmed in 1970, which was kind of 20 years before we arrived in the same place. Yes, and it's got original footing of the first contact with Europeans and Papua New Guineans, so it's really, really worth looking at. But we we discovered this area of rainforest, uh, which we walked in. We also then discovered it was under threat by the biggest industrial logging operation in Papua New Guinea at the time. And through the medium of theatre, because Papua New Guinea are a storytelling culture, we just happened to be invited into the National Theatre Company in Papua New Guinea, wonderful man called William Takaku, and he then helped us navigate up the CPIC and found a local theatre troupe that helped us create a piece of theatre that went on tour by dugout canoe to help raise the awareness to the local tribespeople in their own cultural fashion, the dangers and the benefits of where they live, what they have, and what might happen if they don't take care of it. So actually, the power of theatre was one of those moments where we absolutely made a difference.

Chris Grimes:

And to borrow from that Hamlet line to show as it were the mirror up to nature, that's just absolutely the essence of that.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, exactly it. Yeah. So, you know, so now what I'm currently doing, because you know, this 2,000 square miles of of virgin rainforest, which is still standing to this day, and we're still very much in touch with the people. In fact, we've had five Papua New Guinea visitors over from the remote area to our remote village in Suffolk. So we've got this cultural, we call it, we call we call it global kinship. But now we're actually working with the World Heritage Site organization to secure this area as a World Heritage Site because that will give it long-term protection.

Chris Grimes:

I love the notion of global kinship as opposed to a village sign that says twinned with, because normally you've got somewhere like Upton come Keksby twinned with Paris, and you always think, well, actually, probably Paris has got the rum deal there. Whereas you've got a wonderful global kinship in what you've just described.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, and it's and it's and of course, what it is, it's an exchange of culture. Because when we went into Papua New Guinea, you know, we didn't go with the colonial attitude of you know teaching these silly natives to behave better. We actually went in really to learn, to listen, to understand, and uh, you know, the amount of learning that we've had, and of course, now that's mutual. Yeah. Because when when the uh when the when the tribes people came over to uh see us in the year 2000, we had to take care because it took us three or four years to help them do the transition. We didn't just say, you know, here's a plane, jump on it, come over here. So, you know, there was a real cultural level of learning and understanding, and it's it's such a rich opportunity.

Chris Grimes:

And there's some the currency of deep listening is in there as well, which is obviously about you know leadership and coaching and proper deep and and the best theatre is when all protagonists are in a deep listening state.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and that's exactly what we do, you know. And for me, it's always about you know listening, seeking to understand rather than judge. So, therefore, curiosity has to be one of the you know top values.

Chris Grimes:

So it's curiosity saved the cat as opposed to killed the cat because you're curious.

Speaker 1:

Very much so. Very much so.

Chris Grimes:

I'm gonna arrive with a tree now in your clearing, and you'll enjoy this because it's um of of our theatre background. It's very deliberately, uh existentially becket-y. I'm gonna shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. How do you like these apples? And this is where you've been kind enough, before we spoke uh a couple weeks ago to prepare for this, to have thought about four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention, and that's borrowed from the film Up, where the dog goes, Oh Squirrels. So um that's going to be your two monsters of distraction. And then the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you, Nigel Hughes. We couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us. None of this is a memory test, so I'll curate you through it. If you're happy to go in the right order, um, could I first of all get you on the open road of shaking the canopy of your tree with four things that have shaped you, first of all?

Speaker 1:

Number one, it has to be the dedication and the love of my parents and family. Because, you know, being the unusual one in the family, I was never made wrong for who I am. My mother's famous phrase was, you know, as long as you're happy and you don't harm anyone else, you do what you like. And the other thing she said was, tell the truth and you'll have nothing to remember. So those two things. Going back to the the uh the aforementioned of Highland dancing, I've got a wonderful picture of myself um at a Caye when I was about six years old, dressed in my kilt and sporron and tabashanta, and uh my father's kneeling by my side, and the look of love and pride that he's feeding me is just so heartwarming. So, yeah, so love of parents, dedication of parents, and sadly, my father died of lung cancer when I was about 15. So that was a bit of a shock.

Chris Grimes:

May I ask if you'd be willing to share that photo as well as part of what we're curating here? Because it sounds just perfect.

Speaker 1:

I'll send it to you, yes, yes, yes, definitely.

Chris Grimes:

When we post together about what your experience was like, that would be lovely to share the photograph of your dad's just adoring love and projection towards your Scottish highlandness.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, very good. I'll do that. So the uh the other thing, of course, has to be has to be teachers, because you know, you get sent off to school and and Mr. Japs, Mr. Jasper and Miss Inglefield were two primary school teachers that just again recognized that I was slightly different, and they just encouraged me to be who I am. So, you know, a huge thanks to Mr. Jasper and to Miss Inglefield.

Chris Grimes:

And of course you remember, of course you would. That's so lovely. And you reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote as well, linked to what your mum said, but also those two lovely people too. Be yourself because everyone else is taken.

Speaker 1:

Yes. Mind you, he also said Barry St. Edmunds is, which is where I live near, seven miles away. Barry St. Edmunds is the graveyard of ambition. Not for us. We've been hugely ambitious and made a difference. Yeah, so Mr. Jasper and Miss Inglefield, absolutely, they they absolutely shake me. Then there was another man uh at the Actors Institute in New York. So there's two there's two elements. Actors Institute in New York was set up by a film producer in America called Dan Fosse. And he said, You're either dangerous or you're dead. And we created a workshop for creatives to help people really take risks, open themselves up, be alive, be present, be open-hearted, you know, absolutely following your heart. So that was primarily set up for the creatives industry, you know, for theatre, television, screen, da-da-da. But of course, partners of those creatives began to come in. And so we it it extended, you know, to the business community. But Dan Fossey, who coined the phrase dangerous or dead. And any relation to Bob Fossey, the the no interesting.

Chris Grimes:

No, uh no, no line connection whatsoever. Also, just while I while at this point, how you step into the impossible and show others almost like you're a torchbearer within leadership, how they can too. That sounds like that was almost born of this era that you've just described.

Speaker 1:

Very much. And you know, the phrase is if you see the possibilities in everything, then anything is possible.

Chris Grimes:

And uh did you see, well, have you noticed that rather cheesily somebody pointed out recently that the word impossible deconstructed is impossible.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. Yes. That's that's that's the way that I see it as too. And you know, for me, it's about okay, if it's impossible, there has to be, there has to be a solution. W. H. Murray did it with Climbing Everest and his Scottish team. Everybody, you know, the space shots that are done, it's like medical inventions, you know, it's about people going beyond the norm and having that courage and having that audacity to stand up for something unusual. So I think that's you know, so so Dan Fossey was certainly helped me in the in the dangerous or dead. And then the I think the last person is I I mentioned the the director of the National Theatre Company in Papua New Guinea, a wonderful man called William Takaku. Um, sadly he's passed as well. But, you know, he Rick and I were in Australia doing our creative workshops because he ran a course called Daring to Write. I ran a course called The Mastery of Creativity, and I just happened to think, okay, well, if we're going to Papua New Guinea, there must be a theatre connection somewhere. So I wrote a letter to the director of the National Theatre Company in Papua New Guinea. And I was sitting in um in a wonderful studio in Sydney. The phone rang and he said, Hello, this is William. And I went, Oh, hello, William. William who? I said, William Takaku. I went, Oh, he said, I'm I'm inviting you and Richard over to come and work with us, the National Theatre Company, to do your theatre work and your writing work. So he was the door opener, but his story, which is really important, he comes from an island called Bougainville, which is just northeast of Papua New Guinea. And they had the most phenomenal environmental disaster I consider ever. So Rio Tinto decided that their copper minerals were the most valuable in the world. So they literally blew off the top top of a mountain and started open cast mining for copper. They did that for about 10 years, and you know, obviously everything got poisoned, the effluent, the river. Children started having problems with their eyes. Most importantly, they lost their symbol of spirit, which is the flying fox. Wow. Suddenly the flying fox disappeared. Now, the story is that the women who had been experiencing all these challenges and difficulties were really concerned, and they knew that the men had been trying their best to make sure that everything was operating well. But actually, there was a little incidence where some people managed to um find some dynamite and blow up the central generator of the Panguna copper mine. It's been stopped forever, but the environmental damage still occurs 50 years later. And for us, we actually went over, we were lucky enough to go over to Bougainville, invited by William. So we saw that environmental impact, and it is so shocking that some people's greed can really just absolutely destroy a whole island.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

For uh forever, and they're still in the reparation of that.

Chris Grimes:

It's the worst of mankind in the fact that we can be a pestilential race and just consume and and churn all in front of us as we progress.

Speaker 1:

So that's so that's why, you know, and it and it absolutely touched, you know, Rick and I to our souls about you know the value of nature, the value of ecosystems, yes, and the value of us as humankind living in balance with nature.

Chris Grimes:

Yes. And in that playing into Outstanding Global's philosophy as well, in terms of the leadership moment, what would you like to say about the connections to your philosophy and then outstanding global?

Speaker 1:

Well, I wonder, because there are you know there are there are many incidents, and I think for me it's um the reason I set up outstanding.global because you know, people kept on asking when I was 68, 69, oh um, when are you going to retire? And I kind of went, well, I'll probably retire when I'm dead. Because I'm blessed with a lot of energy, and and I'm blessed with a lot of, if you like, dedication, ambition, determination. So I kept on asking myself this question. I wonder when I'm going to retire. But I was just happened to be working, I have a partner company in uh in India called Pause and Play. And in 2018, there was the historic repeal of section 377, which of course everybody knows about it. So suddenly homosexuality was allowed in India, and you know, people have been campaigning that for a number of years. I just happened to meet once when I was in India, the head of that campaign, and we got on famously. So when that um repeal happened, I suddenly thought, golly, this is this is phenomenal, because to convince the Indian society, like we had to convince our own society in Europe across Europe many, many years ago, and it's you know it's taken them 50 years to convince behind us.

Chris Grimes:

And it was clause 28, wasn't it, over here?

Speaker 1:

I'm trying to get the parallel section, yeah, clause 28, when you know you weren't allowed to educate homosexuality, it wasn't allowed, all that kind of stuff. So for them it was section 377. So I thought, gosh, this is at this the word came, this is outstanding, and it's about people standing up, yes, who they are, what they are, what they believe in. And that was the bedrock of setting up Outstanding Global. So I thought, well, if they can do it in their own various cultures, because you know, we talk about India as one place, but it's multicultural, yes, and so if they can manage that, then people in business can actually find a way to really identify who they are, what they are, what they stand for, and what purpose they can serve to benefit humanity.

Chris Grimes:

If you don't already know about, then it'll be my pleasure, and I hope you do already know about it. But Collaboration Global is an entity on LinkedIn in particular that you should definitely uh join me in, because there's a wonderful, wonderful central protagonist called Jill Tiny, and she'll be thrilled that I'm mentioning her and you and connecting at this point. Lovely. Uh, it speaks to Outstanding Global as a sort of parallel universe of one plus one equals 57. That's just awesome. And well done for you. I'd just like to say your zest for life. You're blessed with a zest, which is I don't know if you've ever had it couched like that, but I've just as you were speaking, it was chiming in my head of a man who's blessed with a zest. So we could be on to your fourth shapage now, or maybe we've done that and it's time to talk about three things that inspire you.

Speaker 1:

Number one, inspiring me, nature, nature, nature.

Chris Grimes:

And then Barney the Owl, and even as we were having our technical problems, there was a there was a Robin that appeared as your head of IT.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, so nature is is what constantly inspires me. And having lived here, you know, in this same place for 50 plus years, you know, since 1976, we've seen nature respond to not a beating, but an allowing to be who she is. And again, I think that's also a message about leadership. It's about how you allow people to be who they are. You know, that's the kind of Marines or ballet crossroads that constantly comes in. Funnily enough, when I when I had that conversation with the uh with the Careers Advisory Council, and I said, Oh no, I'm going to do ballet, not Marines, and I left the room as a 13-year-old, I had a tap on the shoulder, and my art and geography teacher Tony Franks, who was a brilliant teacher, he said, Nigel, they want you to come back and have a little quick word. I went, Oh, okay. They asked me the question, why ballet and not marines? And I said, Well, my understanding is that if I'm trained in the Marines, I'm trained to kill people. If I'm trained in ballet, I'm trained to inspire people. Thank you very much for your time. So off I went. I mean, it's a little audacious for a 13-year-old, but apparently that's what I came up with. But for me, the point is, you know, we can crush things or we can allow things to flourish.

Chris Grimes:

Yes. And find your true nature, using the word nature again, but I love that. Yeah, it's authenticity and true nature.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So the so again, the thing of the thing that I focus on nature so much is having seen nature flourish here, you know, with a bit of tender loving care from us and other people, is that this year, because it was such a beautiful year weather-wise, you know, we had that terrible drought, but but it allowed us to spend more kind of peaceful time outside. And Rick and I kept on noticing the micro moths. We'd seen the moths and we'd seen the butterflies, but it was the micro moths and the micro butterflies and the small insects that we'd not really noticed before. And again, you know, how dare we, as humankind, what gives us the audacity, the permission to constantly destroy this whole ecosystem that is there for our benefit as well. So actually, we've now got 141 photograph samples, not real samples, on our kitchen door. When people come to visit us, and we have people from all over the world coming to see us, and then we we often spend quite a lot of time looking at the pictures of those micromoths butterfly, and they are golly, talk about beauty, they are just so phenomenal. And of course, then we ask, well, how come these particular butterflies, particular moths, particular insects, are here? And of course, they're there because they're feeding off what we've provided. Yeah?

Chris Grimes:

The perfect ecosystem, yes.

Speaker 1:

Total, total, total, total ecosystem. So so I think you know, my three things is nature, nature, and nature.

Chris Grimes:

That's such a perfect way to answer that with the rule of three as well. I love that. Great communication happens in threes. That was beautiful, and I love reincorporation. I do a lot of comedy improvisation, yes, and yes, and one of the techniques of that is reincorporation. So I love that. And now uh it's your squirrels. Uh oi. So um, this is borrowed from the film URP, Comedy Squirrel Notwithstanding, where the dog goes, Oh, squirrels. Uh so what are your two monsters of distraction? What never failed to distract you, irrespective? Sometimes it's called your shiny object syndrome. We've all got things that always perpetually distract. What are yours, your two squirrels?

Speaker 1:

Okay, so funny enough. In our, I call it tree mend us, in our tree mend us plantation, last year, because of the drought, because of whatever, we our our horn beams particularly were attacked by guess what? Squirrels. Get in. So if there's a major distraction on part of my walk now, every day, we've actually put up a squirrel trap, a humane squirrel trap, fed, you know, uh stuffed with peanuts. Uh, and then there's a box because they go it go into the peanuts and they nom nom nom nom nom nom nom, then they just happen to fall into another box and then they get taken away. And you have to take squirrels about 35 miles away to bother somebody else. That sort of nimbyism. I'm afraid so. But you know, but we're working very closely with the forestry research department because this area is now a designated county wildlife site. So a major distraction every morning is to um is to go and make sure that the squirrels are uh behaving themselves.

Chris Grimes:

I love the literal, the nature, nature, nature, and my squirrel is me squirrel. And I'll repatriate your squirrels in a minute, as they say, but that's great.

Speaker 1:

Now, of course, like everybody, major distraction.

Chris Grimes:

Yes, the phone, please. The iPhone, yes.

Speaker 1:

So, you know, the iPhone or the smartphone can be a constant disruptor, and of course, one has to, I think, discipline oneself to not looking at it every three seconds. So that I think that is a major. And I tell you, one of the big things that I'm that I'm kind of on it about at the moment is that I think we're all in danger of, you know, young, it says young people of are are are not so good at face-to-face communication anymore. Yeah, they're they're incredibly good at all this, and that for me is a real danger for humanity. And the more we go into the technology era, the more I have fear that we're going to lose basically our heart and soul.

Chris Grimes:

That chimes so brilliantly and perfectly with what I'm trying to achieve with this, which is keeping it warm, human, and connecting, you know, using technology, of course, but it's more than anything, we need to connect to the humanity that binds us all.

Speaker 1:

Yes. So it's the human stories and it's the human integration. Yes. And you know, we've got a we've got a six-year-old who lives next door to us. And again, I see this six-year-old, she's obviously brought up in the tech age, and she's constantly on her phone. And of course, they've now got a no-phone policy here in our local primary school. And you know, the her her withdrawal symptoms were huge at six years old. It's worrying.

Chris Grimes:

It is. And therein lies a delicious irony because I am human too, and I'm, you know, I'm I'm struggling perpetually with being addicted to it's called my evil yellow box because it's got a yellow uh casing. My EYB. So, yes, a warning to us all, and we all know that there's an irony in that because we all need to actually preach it and also try and live it. Because I can we can all preach it, but it it's it gets to us all. Yes. And now, um the one is a quirky or unusual fact about you, uh Nigel Hughes, that we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.

Speaker 1:

Well, I suppose one of the quirky facts when I was a teenager is That given my creativity and my sportsmanship on a Saturday at the age of fourteen, in the morning, I got on a bus to Exeter and I had a 90-minute ballet class. In the afternoon, I got on another bus and I was playing wing three quarters for Devon County rugby team under 15. So in that respect, it was Marines and Ballet. You know, if I can say rugby is Marines and ballet is ballet. So I was, you know, I was inhabiting those two different spaces. So I think that's probably an interesting fact. And I think the message in that is that, you know, we all have internal diversity, you know, because organizations are talking about, you know, diversity, inclusion, all that, but we all have internal diversity. And I think how can we honor our internal diversities and be the full human beings that we are?

Chris Grimes:

Beautifully put. I like the regiment of using that word of discipline of doing things in order, but also having the gift of dance. One of my favorite comedy sketches within a comedy improvisation show is where you ask for a really major social issue and then we solve it using the gift of dance. And of course, we're crap dancers, so it's quite nice to just go for it with full vigor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have shaken your tree, sir. Hurrah! Now we stay in the clearing, move away from the tree, and now, next, we talk about alchemy and gold. So when you are at purpose and inflow, here is your bar of gold. What are you absolutely happiest doing? This is like your purpose imperative. What are you absolutely happiest doing at Nigel Hughes in what you're here to reveal to the world? Okay.

Speaker 1:

I am a colorectal cancer survivor. 2012, 13, 14, I was in the middle of all that. And I chose the holistic route rather than the regimented medical route. One of the things that I discovered one May, June, evening, sometime then, was the power of the evening primrose. We just happened to have that year arrive in the garden an evening primrose plant. Now, an evening primrose grows on a tall stem and it's multi flowers, but actually at a certain time, just at dusk, suddenly you can see this bud and the sepals very slowly peel back, and then suddenly the evening primrose bursts. It takes about three minutes, and that was really the moment where I thought, okay, this is what I have to do. I have to stop, breathe, look, listen, enjoy this moment. And guess what? As soon as the evening primrose had flourished, a little insect came and fed. Now I do have a video of this. I just happened one night to sit there and do it. So I think for me, as well as the as well as the pyramidal orchid, because we have wild orchids in our in our meadow, the place that I go to for solace, comfort, is again, guess what? Nature. I'm also a Vapash meditator. I do um sit and meditate daily, but I also use my Vapassion of meditation as a as a walking meditation. So yeah, so but again, it's it's very much nature-based.

Chris Grimes:

Absolutely. Beautiful answer. And now, I'm just allowing a little bit of silence to float there. And now I'm gonna award you with a cake. Hurrah! So, Nigel Hughes, uh do you like cake first of all? And I've even got a comedy cake for you. You're gonna put a cherry on the cake in a moment. Do you like cake, first of all? I do. What's your cake of choice, please?

Speaker 1:

Oh. We just happened to have the best cake maker who lives two and a half miles away in the next village. We found her by accident because good old COVID lockdown. She's a teacher, she wasn't allowed to go into school, but she's also a petissier. And she started to put beautiful cakes on her hedge for sale. So we kind of went, oh, we'll have we'll have one of those. So she now we now ask her for a weekly order, and you know, we we ask her for different cakes.

Chris Grimes:

I love this hedging your cakes. It depends on what she's I like that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now we ask Emma to to make us a cake, a different cake every week. And because we like to go the sugar-free route, what she has perfected is a sugar-free line of cakes, which are delicious. You don't miss the sugar. And we ask her to, because we had some friends, we had some Iranian friends coming to visit us a couple of weeks ago, and we needed a special cake. And I said to them, Oh, what's your favorite cake? And they said, Oh, for some reason they knew about black forest ghetto. So I said to Emma, Can we have a sugar-free black forest ghetto? And it has to be alcohol-free too. So she made the most beautiful black forest ghetto. And there were five of us around the table, eight-inch cake. We managed not to eat it all in one go. We left about that much for later. So, yeah, black forest ghetto, sugar-free, alcohol-free, with all the bells and whistles on it, and definitely fresh cherries on the top.

Chris Grimes:

Emma's Cakes, hedging your cakes. Love that. So a forest, deep forest ghetto, alcohol-free, sugar-free, shall be yours. And now you get to put a cherry on your cake. This is the final suffused with storytelling metaphor. Uh, what's a favorite inspirational quote, Nigel Hughes, that always has given you succor and pulled you towards your future? I've got one short one and one long one.

Speaker 1:

Am I allowed to? Yes, of course you are. Number one whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. Begin it now. The slightly longer one is by Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. I'm going to read it. Are you sitting comfortably? I am. Success. To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Chris Grimes:

Beautiful. With the gift of hindsight, what notes, help, or advice might you proffer to a younger version of Nigel Hughes? And you can pick a time in your life to go back, wrap your own arms around your own shoulders, and sort of holographically appear to whisper in your own ear. Where have you gone back to and what are you going to tell yourself?

Speaker 1:

I don't have many regrets. I was fortunate enough to visit my father the night before he died when he was in hospital. His name is Ellis Marion Hughes. And as I said earlier, you know, love, love, love, love. And the night before we died, which was November the 5th, 1965, I went to his bedside, and my father was a very, very good crossword puzzle maker. And he was doing his crossword as usual, and obviously very, very ill, very weak. And the next day we discovered when he died that the nurses just happened to look at his crossword puzzle and um he'd filled it out. He'd completed it, but it didn't make sense. And there was something I didn't say because I didn't know it was the last time. I love you. And thank you. Later, when my mother was ill and was dying of breast cancer, I made sure that I repaired that. I wrote her a long letter saying how much I appreciated her love, her care, her attention, her walking beside me. And I made sure that she absolutely got that I loved and respected her. So I'm glad I was able to, you know, thirty years later repair that omission.

Chris Grimes:

Is there a favorite piece of music that you have, Nigel?

Speaker 1:

Yes. James Taylor, you got a friend. Winter spring summer fall.

James Taylor:

All you got to do is call. And I'll be there, yeah, yeah. You've got a friend.

Chris Grimes:

We're ramping up gradually to talk about Shakespeare, but just before we do that, and Shakespeare's going to be about all the world to stage, Seven Ages of Man, just before we do that, this is a part of the show which is called The Golden Baton Moment, please. So this is an invitation, now that you've experienced this from within, if you'd like to to pass the golden baton along to somebody else that you know, love, admire, or just think would be you know grateful of the opportunity to be given a damn good listening to in this way. Who might you like to pass the golden baton along to?

Speaker 1:

Catch him while he's alive, Simon Pantanu. At the moment, he is the Speaker of the Parliament of Bougainville. He is phenomenally wise and a very deep, deep soul. He would have an incredible story to tell.

Chris Grimes:

Thank you for the seismic gift of that particular golden baton. And now, uh, inspired by Shakespeare, and you'll enjoy this. This is the uh not the first folio, but this is the actual book I bought to go to the Bristol Vic Theatre School. This is my well-thumbed version. This says 1698 in my margin, because I was there during the two-year post-grade between 1986 and 88. But anyway, um, this is borrowed from the seven ages of man's speech now. When all is said and done, Nigel Hughes, how would you most like to be remembered?

Speaker 1:

The phrase that comes to mind is he went beyond all expectations.

Chris Grimes:

That legacy is secure. It's in the bag, Bob, as they say. And now, uh, there is one final, final question coming in a moment, but this is a lovely moment now, which is called Show As Your QR code, please. So if you've been watching and listening, uh, this first of all is a QR code that will flash up to talk about outstanding.global, which is Nigel Hughes' website in all you're up to in terms of the leadership domain. Would you like to tell those that are listening rather than able to scan the QR code where to go to find out all about you on the internet, Nigel Hughes?

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you look up www.outstanding.global. You will find me and us and the work that we do there, and long may it continue.

Chris Grimes:

Bless you. If we want to connect with you on LinkedIn, this is the next thing, which is Nigel Hughes on LinkedIn. So here we go. This is the final question now. As this has been your moment in the sunshine, in if I may say, a delicious hybrid exercise of leadership reflections and also legacy life reflections, as this has been your moment in the sunshine, is there anything else you'd like to say, Nigel Hughes?

Speaker 1:

Oh well, this comes from Gawen Kiji, who is our Vapashna meditation teacher, and whom I studied with for a number of years. He's sadly passed about four years ago. And we close each session with Meta. It's called Meta. And if I may, it says, May I be free from anger, hatred, animosity, ill will, and jealousy. May I generate love, peace, harmony, compassion, and sympathetic joy. I pardon all those who knowingly or unknowingly have harmed or hurt me through their thoughts, speech or actions. I seek pardon from all those who knowingly or unknowingly I have harmed or hurt through my thought, speech or actions. All are my friends, none are my enemies. May all beings be happy.

Chris Grimes:

Thank you so much, Nigel, sincerely, for gracing us with your presence here on the Good Listening to show. Just a quick announcement from me. If you've enjoyed listening to Nigel Hughes and me, if you'd like a conversation about being in the show too, then the website for the show is the goodlistening to show.com. There's the QR code there. And then also, as we've mentioned a couple of times, this is a slightly deeper version of the show, which is called Legacy Life Reflections, which is to record either your own story or the story of somebody that you love for posterity, lest we forget before it's too late. But look at legacylifereflections.com too. You can either record your own story or if you'd care to, you can gift it to somebody else. So I've been Chris Grimes, but most importantly, this has been the delight, and I'm so, so happy sincerely to have met you, Nigel. And I'd like to make a point of being one of the people that visits someday if you'd if you'd allow me to invite myself. So please do come. And I want to leave you with the final word. Is there anything else else, the beautiful man that is Nigel Hughes, that you'd like to say?

Speaker 1:

One last thing. Those who know me and those who understand me well, call me by my nickname.

Chris Grimes:

Noddy.

Speaker 1:

So if you're if I get an a note from somebody and it says Noddy, I'll know that you've been listening to this. I'm just gonna do a photograph of you doing that. That's so lovely.

Chris Grimes:

I love that. What an existential thing. Noddy's lost his bell, but he's still going. That's great. Wonderful. So thank you for that. Thank you, Noddy. And you've been listening to me, Chris Grimes. That's been Nigel Hughes. Good night. You've been listening to the Good Listening2 Show with me, Chris Grimes. If you'd like to be in the show too, or indeed fifth an episode to capture the story of someone else with me as your host, then you can find out how pair of the series strands at the goodlistening2.com website. And one of these series strands is called Brand Strand Founder Stories, for business owners like you to be able to tell your company story, talk about your purpose, and amplify your brand. Together we get into the who, the what, the how, the why you do what you do, and then crucially, we find out exactly where we can come and find you to work with you and to book your services. Tune in next week for more stories from the clearing, and don't forget to subscribe and review wherever you get your podcasts.