What is the difference betweent Wide Aware and the hundreds of sites out there about adventure travel?
Purpose
Every site about adventure will tell you about what they sell. Wide Aware sells things as a business, but the site is purely about information. You will not find “rush to book nows” and “discounts” and what nots plastered through the content.
Single ownership
For all the content out here, we are not a social networking site, which seem to be the only large ones related with outdoors and travel and training. We don’t have anonymous authority. Its directly you to us. Well, more likely to me, Vidyut, but I do share many of the responses, comments, feedback and other emails with Raka when possible. This is not a business, its communication, curiosity and a desire to connect with you. You make a comment, I read it. Personally. You email me, I write back. You have a problem, need information, want to give suggestions, do it absolutely anywhere on the site, and I read it and pay attention. That simple. No anonymous team of moderators reading your feedback and deciding what to do with it, no unknown authority figures with their unknown responding abilitites. If you feel not attended to, pick up the phone and yell. You’ve got the right person – direct.
What you see is what you get
If you see loads of information, that is because it is thus. We do have announcements about upcoming programmes, but they are rare, and limited to announcements in certain areas of the site.
The scope of the content
Not being into selling, you will find far fewer ready itineraries, but you will find information on places, culture, suggestions, all kinds of things that help you know more and make informed choices. If you decide to book something from us, good luck, opportunities are few and with just the two of us taking only as much work as we can directly manage, you are in a queue.
Yet, that doesn’t stop the flow of information on the site. That is because we want you to celebrate your relationship with yourself through discovery of different aspects. Much as we’d like to pretend we are indespensible, and you will remain in the stone age without us, we know that while we are awesome, growth and change is a fact of life. If we can touch more lives than we directly work with, we are happy.
Free information
All the information you find here is free, and we are happy to respond to emails asking for more information as well. We will share all that we know, happily.
What more? Oh yeah, we are always in a state of work in progress – much like life itself. Yet, everything works (thought parts of the site probably look different from other parts). Content keeps changing, things keep getting clearer, or more confusing, offerings evolve…. if you don’t like the state of matters, send me a shout on email, and I’ll probably gratefully grab your feedback like a lifeline.
That’s Wide Aware for you.
I had written about an incident years ago, from a programme where I was not a trainer, but providing outdoor activity support for a programme for
ts feeling good that they tried.
Yet, without identifying failure, you are doomed to taking that same unproductive path time and again, simply because its okay, its not perfect, but its acceptable. Identifying and acknowledging failure is the laser that precision moulds success with each pass.
When I wrote the article with
What Raka likes about the Lafumas are comfort and a good walking experience. He is partial to the ankle support as well as the excellent grip in all kinds of terrain. The action trekking shoes are something he prefers for their reasonably good feel and grip for price. Plus, they last well and are easily available in India. They are excellent for mountain trekking in the Sahyadri. In his words, “They don’t cost enough for me to worry about taking them on monsoon hikes or other places where the wear and tear is high.”
An important skill for a leader is listening. Listening provides you with information you need to make effective choices. It empowers you to understand the multiple realities you influence and make choices that lead to the most accepted decisions and productive change.
Yet, the reality may be different. It is only when I really listen to his words and understand what he has said in those words, rather than my own descriptions, is when what he has said has reached me. I may or not agree. I may or not use his opinion as an input, but until I really have ‘got’ what he is saying, I have lost out on a resource in my belief that what I’m thinking is what he is – I already have myself as a resource. So I have effectively missed out one important resource without even realizing it.
How can you develop listening skills?