About

Welcome to The Nous that Jack Built!

My name is Jack and The Nous that Jack Built is my evolving story, told through bite-size pieces that hopefully give you insight and food for thought, as well as some useful takeaways you can use in your everyday life.   

I am intensely interested in self development and self improvement, and hope that you find these pieces stimulating and thought-provoking in your own journey through life.

You will find a mix of themes explored here, but mainly focused around some of the following key topics….

What sort of things do you write about?

I write about striking lessons that help me learn and make sense of life, which I capture as daily thoughts. These thoughts can come from anywhere – conversations, observations, interactions, experiences or reflection sessions when I sit and try to think back through the day. They tend to be management- or leadership-related, and always have some element of self development and some takeaway lesson. They are almost like ‘notes to self’.

Why did you choose these subjects?

My MBA was at Henley Business School, and part of the reason I chose that school was because of the strong focus on personal development that runs through the course. The study encouraged me to (a) learn about myself and (b) journal, which meant recording and reflecting on my thoughts. I became intensely interested in self-development and the wonderful lessons that exist in everyday interactions and events.

Are there themes to the pieces?

The subjects of the pieces can certainly jump about. This makes sense, of course… It is the nature of life that your thoughts, observations and interactions are unpredictable – they happen when they happen, and in no particular order. We do not control whom we meet, what they say, how we react to it, or what that stimulates in your head, but there are general themes based on my interests, and there is always that element of self-development. We are always growing and learning.

How have your pieces developed over time?

I started out writing single statements rather than prose, and still use this technique sometimes when mapping out where I want a piece to go. It helps you get the key thoughts out of your head and down on the page, quickly and efficiently, without needing to worry about forming complete sentences.

Later, I started writing longer pieces, roughly once a month. Some I published through LinkedIn, but never systematically or regularly. The plan was always to start publishing, but I was fearful that I would start and run out of material. As I came up to completing my third year of notes, I figured I had enough to get moving!

What is the format of the pieces you write?

My writing tends to be one of the following forms:

A story – these tell a story based on my own experience, and revealing a lesson I have learnt from it. They are usually based on me screwing up one way or another, and tend to have three takeaway lessons.

Observations – these are observational or reflective pieces. They could be something I have noted in myself or others, or just some useful thought to remember. These often have one key takeaway ‘thought for the day’.

How often do you add new pieces?

I am uploading pieces one by one, and updating the ‘in numbers’ section on the home page as I go, so you can check there to see if anything new has been added.

I typically add at least one piece per week, and these could be either fresh writing, ie a new thought I have just written, or one of the pieces I have written over the years. 

I am backdating the publication date to show when I originally wrote the piece, so you may find that newly-uploaded pieces feature on the earlier pages of the blog page, which lists the pieces chronologically by ‘publication’ date, even if it is backdated.

How are the pieces categorised or tagged?

Each piece is tagged and can be searched by:

Category: this is the high-level subject, for example, leadership, management or personal development.

Tags: lower-level subjects or themes, for example, ‘overcoming adversity’ or ‘resource management’.

A thought year: the year I had that thought and the note was made.

A written year: when I developed the thought into a written article.

Wordcount: the length of the article.

Style: whether the article is an observation or a story.

How can one use The Nous that Jack Built?

The tagging system allows readers to search for specific themes that interests themes – all the themes are listed in the word cloud above and on the right of the blog page.

You can also filter to certain types of article, for example, if you prefer the stories to the observational pieces. Alternatively, you could narrow your search down to a particular period, when certain events would have been prevalent in my thinking.

You can gain an idea of what I would have been writing about from the timeline page, and take it from there!

What’s the point of the wordcount?

Each piece is tagged with a wordcount, so you can just single out the longer or the shorter pieces, as you prefer.

I also include an approximate ‘reading time’ at the top of each article, based on the following:

Less than 500 words: 5 minutes reading time.

500-1,000 words: 5-10 minutes reading time.

Over 1,000 words: over 10 minutes reading time.

How much time you spend reflecting on the pieces is entirely up to you!