The phrase ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’ has been haunting me for several years (as has Shiva) and yesterday clearing paperwork from a recent office move I placed a notebook called bright ideas on a table beside me – within a second of putting it down a fabulous red admiral butterfly landed on the cover and stared at me!
Now I am not one to disappear into the realms of fantasy and I know enough and have seen enough to know that signs are out there and if we choose to see them they can lead us to great places.
I picked the book up and what did I see a note from 2016 ‘The windmill of My Mind’ & ‘Passion’ in the same thought process along with #ConsciousLeadership #ConsciousHealth and #ConsciousLearning
No one would ever have been able to convince me that I have taken 4 years to get to write this and to follow up on it in a cohesive and structured way. A lot has happened in the previous 4 years, so I am not truly surprised. BUT and of course, there is always a BUT a couple of months ago an elderly gentleman I have been shopping for during lockdown rang me up to talk to me about a song he had just listened to and how he thought it related to me and my mind. We do have very interesting conversations; he was a lecturer on engineering and is fascinated by human evolution.
Guess what the song was – you’re right ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’
That led me to research the song which was written in 1968 and was the theme tune for The Thomas Crown Affair sung by Noel Harrison – now why do I mention this BECAUSE Noel Harrison was not only a professional singer and self-taught guitarist but he was an actor and an Olympic skyer and the 1st UK grand slalom champion and he left school at the age of 15 who also appeared as a regular on The Tonight TV programme.
He was a #ConsciousLearner and did not rest on his laurels or his fathers name.
The song has been covered over and over most recently by Alison Moyer & Venus
I looked the words up and just some of the phrases and how I see them related to Leadership & Management
The Title 1st – ‘The Windmills of Your Mind’
A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy and since the 9thC has had from 9 sails to more recently 3.
Now as Leaders as a windmill we have:
- Wind power – communication
- Rotational – movement at different speeds around a centre point
- Energy – momentum
And the
- Mind you have has the impact on yourself and those you lead and manage. The mind is the element that enables you to be aware of the world and your experiences, to think, to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought. The mind links to intelligence, awareness, capacity, wits, rationality, perception, the mind provides you with the cogs that drive the Windmill through your powers of reasoning.
The words to the song which I will speak more on in a future article
‘Leadership is a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel’
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that’s turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning to the colour of her hair!
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
Contact Julie on Connect@julieHogbin.com to have your questions answered Leadership is vital at all times and even more so in times of uncertainty