This is the Leadership and Adventure blog written personally by Alastair Macartney.
I’ve got a lot going on this year and, as a result, I’m having to slow down the rate at which I’m blogging – apologies. This is temporary. I will continue to blog and I will get back to a regular schedule. In the mean time I’ll keep new content coming, just not as frequently, and please do check out the archives.
I’d still love to hear from you so please leave comments and I’ll make sure that I attend to them personally.
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 18:13 in Adventure, Comfort Zone, Risk | Comments Off on Staying Alive
Staying Alive Do you have a plan to survive the year? And beyond? A system to guide you along the way? I do, and I’m going to reveal it. This weekend is the British Parachute Association Annual General Meeting and I’ll be speaking on the topic of Staying Alive. I’m going to share my plan to do so and how I will ensure I make it to the end of the year despite undertaking a bunch of seemingly crazy activities. If you’re a skydiver or BASE jumper, this is certainly for you. If you’re not, there’s...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 20:29 in Adventure, Challenge, Comfort Zone, Leadership | Comments Off on Empowering Your Year
Empowering Your Year You’ve had a blitzing year, perhaps a roller-coaster ride, perhaps your worst on record. Either way, what’s done is done. It’s time to digest, learn and move on. It’s time to empower your next year. 2013 – The Up My year has been turbulent. It’s had it’s ups and downs. A roller coaster ride for sure. I’ve had some great times. Here’s a few of my highlights: World Champion. I won the ProBASE World Cup in Istanbul. It was a tough and different competition with strong and gusting winds and I...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 06:00 in Challenge, Comfort Zone | Comments Off on Are You A Giraffe? The Real Answer To The Viral Riddle
Are You A Giraffe? The Real Answer To The Viral Riddle What are you like at riddles? Did you change your profile picture to a giraffe? Did you do so under protest? Here’s the real answer to the giraffe riddle that went viral. For those that don’t know what I’m talking there was a riddle that recently went viral across a multitude of social media channels. There is debate about who started it. Some claim it to be New Zealand Vlogger Andrew Strugnell while others say it was his friend Tim Hodge. Facebook spread...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 06:00 in Adventure, Challenge, Risk | Comments Off on Keep It Simple: Can Complexity Save Us? Part 3
Keep It Simple: Can Complexity Save Us? Part 3 KISS has been a well used, and perhaps over used, acronym and mantra for some time. Keep It Simple Stupid. If we could keep it simple, there was less potential of something going wrong. But perhaps that’s where it was going wrong. Perhaps we need to embrace the complexity and work with it rather than avoid it. In Part 1 of Keep It Simple I talked about simplicity and continued with the need to educate rather than legislate. In Part 2 I looked at how all content producers are...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 18:42 in Adventure, Challenge, Risk | Comments Off on Keep It Simple: The Complexity Story – Part 2
Keep It Simple: The Complexity Story – Part 2 Keeping things simple can be a life saver. Failure to acknowledge the complexity can also be a killer. In Part 1 of Keep It Simple I talked about simplicity and continued with the need to educate rather than legislate. This post looks at a method of producing and providing the quality content that can assist with this education. Part 3 will focus on the complexity, how we can embrace it and use it to our advantage. We operate in a complex environment. While we have methods to...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 06:00 in Adventure, Challenge, Risk | Comments Off on Keep It Simple
Keep It Simple – Part 1 Keep It Simple BASE jumping and skydiving are simple. That’s how we like it and that’s how it works. We get in a plane or on the edge of a structure with sufficient altitude, jump, open our parachute and land. Simple. This isn’t a complex process. Too Simple? But, perhaps, we’ve made it too simple. And perhaps we’ve shown the world that it’s more simple and less complex than they think. It’s become too easy for people to enter these sports...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 16:00 in Adventure, Leadership, Risk | Comments Off on Impossible Leaps – TEDxKC
Impossible Leaps – TEDxKC Defy Impossible. That was the theme of TEDxKC earlier this summer. I was invited not just to talk at the largest TEDx event in the World but to be the first person to make the impossible leap from the 217 feet high Liberty Memorial World War One Museum in Kansas City. The video from the event has just been released (see below). A professional five-camera team has spent the last couple of months putting together the edit. My talk was a challenge for them. In particular, when I acted out a wingsuit...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 06:00 in Adventure, Risk | Comments Off on Surviving the ProBASE Competition Season
Surviving the ProBASE Competition Season We did it. We survived the ProBASE World Cup competition season. In the current climate, with a high number of recent fatalities, that feels like a great achievement. I wrote recently about my strategy to survive my wingsuit BASE jumps and preventing death with the attitude that we adopt. But the ProBASE World Cup events have had a strong safety record. I understand that there was not even one injury – that’s a great statistic. Even in skydiving competitions, which are often perceived as...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 06:00 in Adventure | Comments Off on ProBASE World Cup Final
ProBASE World Cup Final The ProBASE World Cup for 2013 is over. The four events were a complete success. Medals were won, champagne was sprayed and plenty of celebratory beer was drunk. This last race, held in Stechelberg, Switzerland was exciting. Flying head-to-head with some of the best in the World, diving my wingsuit hard at the finish line, was truly exhilarating. I was fortunate to race a range of athletes in training and the competition. From the Skydive Dubai Wingsuit Team I raced champion Julian Boulle as well as his team...
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Posted by Alastair Macartney on 06:00 in Adventure, Leadership, Risk | 2 comments
Preventing Death – August Attrition Part 2 Experienced jumpers are dying. These guys are adventurers that have been around for a while and yet they are meeting their match without seeing it coming. Something is seriously wrong. It makes me wonder – how expert are we? Earlier this month I wrote about Preventing Death – August Attrition Part 1. We lost 5 experienced BASE jumpers in just 7 days in August. This is a startling figure. Since then there have been more fatalities. Many of these deaths have been while...
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