Part 3 – 6 Shortcuts To Insights And Inspiration

Posted on by Wil Allan

What Makes A Boutique Business Retreat?

Packing your vision and leaving the rest behind to spend time alone. Here are elements 5 and 6 of what makes a boutique business retreat and this – blog wraps up the last of the fundamental elements that define Being At The Cottage.

In all, there are 6 fundamental elements that make Graig Ddu – The Cottage In The Forest a unique business retreat. Three are synonymous with many beautiful places to stay, but three elements are game-changers which elevate the experience at the cottage into something unique, and the combination of these elements make up more than the sum of their parts.  You can read Part 2 here:       

Part 3 – Meeting your unconscious mind through conversation. 

Our unconscious mind is one of the most under-utilised human resources. It has an infinite capacity and guards all the answers that you presume you don’t know yet.  If your unconscious is doesn’t know you want to develop a relationship with it, it will continue to hold onto the secrets it could be sharing with you.

“If the unconscious is the turbid bottom of the lake of the mind, you have to be peering down into the lake to notice it.” Prof Guy Claxton – The Wayward Mind

One of the most powerful ways to help you to peer down into the lake is to have a conversation.

We can all spend time on our own and not always get the answers and outcomes we want. Having a conversation with someone who’s good at listening and asking the right kind of questions, can unlock a wealth of inspiration and insights.

The conversations are a pivotal part of the process and spirit of Being At The Cottage. They are a potent and powerful way to gently sift through all the information that gets absorbed into your streams of consciousness which are naturally kindled by spending time alone.

Conversations with an intelligent stranger

Your unconscious doesn’t have free will like your conscious mind does. It takes instructions from you. As you understand and deepen your relationship with the unconscious it will begin to dissolve any barriers to progress and it will gratefully offer up information and insights it has been holding onto. 

Your unconscious is your gut feeling and where your intuition lies. The more you can connect with your unconscious, the more extraordinary results and eureka moments it will give you.

Putting a conundrum into words by taking it outside your internal mind chatter, releases new insights and perspectives from your unconscious, creating expansion and possibility.   A good conversation sculpts the fragments of insights gleaned into more than the sum of their parts.

Part 2 – 6 Shortcuts To Insights And Inspiration

Posted on by Wil Allan

What Makes A Unique Business Retreat?  Packing your vision, leaving the rest behind and spending time alone.  These are elements 3 and 4 of what makes a unique business retreat.

In all, there are 6 fundamental elements that make Graig Ddu – The Cottage In The Forest a unique business retreat. Three are synonymous with many beautiful places to stay, but three elements are game-changers which elevate the experience at the cottage into something unique, and the combination of these elements make up more than the sum of their parts.  You can read Part 1 here: https://tinyurl.com/yy3rbymx

What may be one person’s nemesis is someone else’s bliss.

Spending time alone is an overlooked and under-rated element on the road to succeeding. Having only your vision to mull over is a luxury, while spending time alone is an inspiring leveller.

Being At The Cottage - Notice The Small Stuff

Notice The Small Stuff 

When you leave behind the thrum of city life and all the stuff that’s competing for your attention, you have time to stand and stare.   Time to notice the small stuff.  Being able to choose the rhythm of your day will help you condense and distil your thoughts.  You can empty your head, stop the mind chatter, and then wait and see what fills the space.

Packing your vision and leaving the rest behind means going offline, unplugging, disconnecting from habitual distractions and reconnecting with yourself.   There is richness in being rooted in the present moment, and you’ll find that you’re able to evoke your most inspired ideas when you settle in to being by yourself for an extended period of time.

Muse

Spending Time Alone

The extended period of time matters.   David Strayer, cognitive psychologist at the University of Utah who specializes in attention and is researching the psychological benefits of being in nature, says there is a 3 day effect.  â€œIf you can have the experience of being in the moment for two or three days, we don’t only feel restored, it seems to produce a difference in qualitative thinking and mental performance. Through EEG scans of his students while out backpacking in the wilderness, he has now been able to show this.

When you give your brain the chance to adjust into relaxation, then you begin to connect to your hidden seams of inspiration.

When you’re immersed in your vision, there’s a sense of anticipation and completeness. A blending of you with it and it with you.  Spending time alone with your vision allows you to re-calibrate, re-evaluate and re-group.

Earl Nightingale said that success is the realisation of a worthy ideal.   Sometimes to have success you need to get away for a while.

6 Shortcuts To Insights And Inspiration – Part 1

Posted on by Wil Allan

What Makes A Boutique Business Retreat?

I believe that houses choose their owners. In 1991 Graig Ddu chose me.  You can find that story here:   https://tinyurl.com/ydyz5wp3 But back to the present.

After leaving an out of character foray into the corporate world as a property manager in 2018 where I had over 100 holiday cottages to oversee and their owners to manage, I knew that it was time to withdraw Graig Ddu from its role in that bricks and mortar rat race and make the transition from holiday cottage to a boutique business retreat.

As I was gushing about my idea to a friend one day, she bluntly said to me that she didn’t get how it would be any different from going away on your own to any other cottage.  What?

How odd, I thought, as I reflected on what was so clear and beautiful to me somehow hadn’t hit home to her!  I’d obviously made the mistake of leaving  a large amount of information in my head.  I retreated and thought more deeply about the nuances of the idea.

Over the following months I identified the 6 fundamental elements that capture the spirit of the boutique business retreat and why they are so important to connecting with intuition and capturing elusive insights.  Three are fairly common to many beautiful holiday cottages, but three elements are game-changers and elevate the experience at Graig Ddu into something unique.

Being At The Cottage - Graig Ddu - The Cottage in the Forest

Let’s start with the leading actor – Graig Ddu – also known as The Cottage In The Forest.  On the face of it, it’s a simple two up two down cottage – but yet, not at all.

It’s sheltered below the great domed moorland of the majestic Black Mountains in the Llanthony Valley, surrounded by forest.  With no WiFi or TV it’s immersed in timeless tranquillity and really is on the fringe of 21st Century life.

I’ve struggled to find the right words to describe just what it’s like to be there.  So, I’ve chickened out and left it to others who are far more eloquent than I.

There are many who are completely spell-bound by their experience of staying at the cottage and, after nearly 30 years, I still am.

I remember turning up the forest track to the cottage in October 1991 to meet my future landlady.  The crunching of the stones, the steady pull up the hill, driving deeper in amongst the trees.  Keep right at the fork, carry on climbing, go around the hairpin and then, the clearing amongst the trees with Graig Ddu standing there.  Every bit the cottage in the forest.  I knew, at that time, it didn’t have electricity, and I thought about what it would be like living without it for the shortest time.  After all, it was only going to be for 6 months.

Being At The Cottage - Small band of Welsh Mountain ponies above the Grwyne Fawr reservoir

But the thing is, you could pick up Graig Ddu and plonk it down in another rural area, and the magic would have vanished.  The Black Mountains, and the Llanthony Valley in particular, have a very special aura.  They are steeped in history and ooze ancientness.  Walking across what the farmers call ‘the flats’ you will always be walking in another’s footsteps, who knows whose inspiration and insights you may pick up on.

In these exquisitely peaceful surroundings, which are becoming increasingly rare and difficult to find, is another of the 6 elements which are a pre-requisite for capturing the spirit of small, but perfectly formed, business retreat.

Stay – Choose From 3 Exceptional Experiences

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