Scott Poynton
on Forest Therapy
Do you consider yourself different? A misfit?
If the answer is yes, keep on reading.
If the answer is no, keep on reading.
As a forest therapist, writer, Chief Inspiration Officer & Founder of adifferentway community and Pond Foundation, Scott Poynton supports leaders, teams and individuals to travel their journeys based on their own resonance, their own ‘different way.’
He is the one to deliver the blunt message you needed to hear: do not attend sustainability events, pause reading any sustainability books, and even remove the used and abused “sustainability” word from your vocabulary. Instead, just get to the bush. Spend time in nature, understand what’s happening there and in your own Self. Books get us into our heads, Nature gets us into our souls and bodies.
A sustainability voice he recommends you follow?
Yourself. Connect to yourself and live from that place. That’s how he lives. According to his values: Truth, Respect, Courage, Humility and Compassion.
The essence of his life and work is that, if you live in alignment with your own values, you can inspire everyone around you to do the same. Instead of seeking inspiration from others, you can do your best to BE an #inspirator yourself. How? Just by “listening to your own soul, because its wisdom is eternal”. If you turn the lens on your inner growth, only good things will come from that place.
The most heartwarming and kind message you’ll probably read today, which reminds us of Rumi’s poem, “The Guest House”: “Sit a while with your despair. Soak in it, invite it in and offer it a seat at your table. Greet it, embrace it, give it a cup of tea. Be with it. In time, it will continue its journey, and you will be left to carry on. Love yourself and the world around you. Forgive and live a compassionate life. Hope may not reemerge from that darkness, but you will not be hopeless. You’ll be able to forge on and contribute and in time, the wind might pick up, and you’ll be sailing once more."
Living life in a different way dares you to go back to your intuition. Put the intellect aside for a minute and invite your body and heart to the table. As Scott says, “a different way respects your mind, but places it second, asking you to feel first, then think.”
This should be the dictionary definition of regeneration: "a shared experience where everyone comes away better, uplifted, moved – something that connects us, most beautifully, with ourselves.”
Don’t forget to go to (forest) therapy and savour Scott Poynton’s blunt, yet touching answers for #inspirators!
Thank you, Scott, for being A Different WayFinder!
#INSPIRATORS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: Scott Poynton
Company / Institution: Pond Foundation and a different way Limited
Title: Founder and Chief Inspiration Officer
Website: https://www.pond.foundation/ and https://www.adifferentway.community/home
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-poynton/
Country of origin: Australia
Country you currently live in: Switzerland
Your personal definition of Sustainability: Treating others and the world with kindness, love and respect. Being humble.
Main business challenge you face: Having ideas that are many years ahead of where everyone else is. It takes time for people to understand what I’m offering and why it’s a good thing to do so in the meantime. It’s a struggle to keep going with a few brave pioneers. Eventually, though, people catch up.
Main driver that keeps you going: A deep love for this amazing world and everything on it!
The trait you are most proud of in yourself: I find this difficult to answer. I try to live every day according to my values which are: truth, respect, courage, humility and compassion. I don’t always make it, but I strive to do so.
The trait you most value in others: That they live according to their values, too.
Passions & little things that bring you joy: Being with Finn Jack Russell, in the forest; Being with Alessia, Ale and Luca. Sunsets. Rainbows. Moss and lichens.
The #inspirators who determined you to take the sustainability path:
Richard St Barbe Baker (The Man of the Trees)
Robyn Williams (Australian ABC Radio Broadcaster)
A hint or starting point for companies or professionals that are taking the first steps in the sustainability journey: Be ready for the most grueling, excruciatingly difficult, despair-filled journey of your life. But, know that if you stay true and keep your path, it will lift your soul and spirit to heights you never imagined.
Remember, there is no destination, you will never know the thrill of victory, but you will know that you have contributed. Just keep going.
Most used and abused clichés in sustainability that bother you: “Sustainable”, the word itself. I strive never to use it. It has been stretched and abused beyond repair. It has become meaningless.
An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope:
Sit a while with your despair. Soak in it, invite it in and offer it a seat at your table. Greet it, embrace it, and give it a cup of tea. Be with it. In time, it will continue its journey, and you will be left to carry on. Love yourself and the world around you. Forgive and live a compassionate life.
Hope may not reemerge from that darkness, but you will not be hopeless. You’ll be able to forge on and contribute and in time, the wind might pick up, and you’ll be sailing once more.
Be different. Just go in a different direction to what everyone else is doing!
Books that had a major impact on you:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Between Two Worlds: Science, Policy and the Environmental Movement by Lynton Keith Caldwell.
Must-reads for any Sustainability professional: I recommend not reading too much, to be honest. The best thing you can do is spend time in Nature and building a strong connection to yourself. Books get us into our heads, we need to spend more time with our souls, and for me that means in my body.
Movies / Documentaries you would watch all over again:
Apocalypse Now.
Strangely, it has been a movie that I’ve watched many times. I haven’t watched TV for more than 20 years and seldom go to the cinema.
Blogs / Websites / Podcasts etc. you visit frequently: I scan the BBC News website, but otherwise don’t read so much. My work is to stay connected to myself and Nature and the thoughts and ideas of others can drag us away from that.
My aim is to commune as much as possible with Nature and myself. It sounds strange and it’s not that I don’t value the ideas of others, I really do. I just don’t take them in through these media.
Music that makes you (and your heart) sing: So many, so, so many. Music is my mainstay. It carries me. I cannot list all the beautiful music that sustains me through my day but it’s a diverse mix.
Places you travelled to that left a mark on you: Nepal, Vietnam, Africa
Global Sustainability Voices you recommend us to follow:
Follow yourself, it’s hard enough. The essential lesson from my work is that if you live true to your own values, and to your own soul, you can inspire everyone around you to do the same. We spend too much time looking for inspiration and wisdom from others when all we need is there inside us. It’s a lot of work to build and strengthen that connection, which is why I don’t read much or ever watch TV or go scrolling through websites. Listen to your own soul. Its wisdom is eternal and it will guide you and inspire others and for sure we would make the world a better place.
Trends in Sustainability we should keep an eye on: The Regenerative movement, but be ready to watch it slide into nothingness and become a cliché like sustainability and so many other trends before it.
Best places for business networking (online or offline): Golly, I don’t do much networking. I see conferences as a total waste of time and indeed deeply counterproductive to change.
I like LinkedIn, but really just find that those I need to find or need to find me do so in their own ways.
The Universe will work it out, let it do its magic.
Events we should attend: None. Just get to the field, to the frontline and understand what’s happening there. Events are drains on sustainability efforts. Get to the bush.
Associations, business clubs, tribes you belong to – and why: None, for all of the above reasons.
Sustainable Development courses / trainings / certifications that really teach us how to have an impact: We don’t need courses to learn how to have impact. I wouldn’t recommend any.
We need to do the work to connect to ourselves and nature and to live from that place in everything we do. We are enough.
Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030: I can’t really answer this or the next question.
I think it’s not a question of optimism or pessimism. Rather, it’s about focusing on being true to ourselves and knowing that good things will come from that place.
Be kind, truthful, respectful and compassionate.
Be humble and most of all, be courageous.
Just focus on that and when you lay down to sleep each evening, you will know that you have done what you can with that day to make a difference. Optimism and pessimism don’t matter and don’t help.
Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today: Truth, respect, courage, compassion and humility.
Quote that inspires you:
“Man is perishable, but let us perish resisting
And if it is nothingness that awaits us
Let us so act that it may be an unjust fate”
(Miguel D'Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and in Peoples")
Your own quote that will inspire us:
