THE EXPERIMENT BEGINS HERE

Back in the days when I had what was considered to be a stable career (it very much is a stable career but stable only if you remain), I moved from a standard state school into a groundbreaking vocational school. We were truly vocational and groundbreaking. One of the challenges was in de-institutionalising ourselves. We had no rules - at least not bestowed upon us by a government led education department attempting to make blanket decisions which often failed to benefit anyone, let alone the most important people: the cherubs who relied on a sound education. At the end of my first year - which for the school was its second - we realised we were still doing things structured and formulaic and while lots of what we did suited the students, there were things which suited neither us teachers, or them.

It’s taken me almost 10 years to swing back round to that idea of de-institutionalising, which sort of makes sense because I’ve spent 4 years trying to create, implement and perfect routines and rules and habits to become a business owner, an entrepreneur, one of those people that spends a lot of time at home working on a computer - whatever you want to call me. And other than a few fleeting moments, I’ve failed spectacularly. There was a point where I was like a machine and I remember this productivity with fondness. I was working full time as an English teacher and for at least 3 months I was sustaining 3 gym classes (remember back in 2016 they were the thing to do - group sessions where you pushed yourself to almost sickness? Some people did, I pushed a little bit) and 2 to 3 hot yoga classes a week. I was leaving the house at 5am, driving to my studio in Finnieston to work on an oil painting that was only 6ft by 8ft (I hadn’t really ever painted and the scale of what I had done in the months before was miniscule in comparison), cycling from my studio to where I worked near Cathcart, being a teacher, cycling back to my studio, painting and then going to the gym or yoga (or some nights, both) and then repeating for 5 days On the weekends, I simply painted. Oh and I was eating properly: nothing was processed, I made everything, including chocolate, from scratch and counted and tracked calories and all the other things the app and my trainers told me too. It’s only as I sat down to write this that it would seem I remember very little other than that period being rather frenetic. Life is a blur of jumping from one thing to the next, feeling like I had a window to complete X, Y and Z and get onto the next thing. The only exception to this was while I was working with the students where I had to slow down and be present or painting. I favoured fiction books on Audible and finally made the time to enjoy “Love in the Time of Cholera." There were others, of course, but that sticks out. In those moments, the world slowed to calm and I suspect that’s why I was able to sustain what I did for so long.

Interestingly, this is by the far the most productive I have ever been and for a wee while I heralded this moment as some kind of beacon to aspire to. Why? Because that’s what being a successful entrepreneur is: working yourself into the ground to reap the rewards of a nicer life later. And the alternative? Work yourself into the ground in a 9-5 job for the same. Yes, even in network marketing which is probably a better option when you get it off the ground (in other words: are not me.) Floundering for 4 years has made any of those outcomes appealing. A stable income, the freedom to spend again (not frivolously but beyond necessity or the guilt that sets in when the spend isn’t essential.) And yet. And yet.

Why do I have to become a robot to make an income? In any context, it’s what I’ll be forced to become. I’ll have to suck up habits and routines and a schedule I look at and stick to. And I don’t want to. Say hello to the petulant 2 year old. Recent months have shown me that I’m happiest when reading and in the last 2 years I’ve gone from reading non-fiction now and again to extensive reading of non-fiction. You know people talk of the Shower Gods for ideas, or walks or conversations? My ideas come from reading. Spells where I spend a week or two or more consuming topics I want to learn about. Currently, they’re so intertwined that when I read one, I’m finding quotes from one I’ve just read or at the very least a reference to an author. And what does this mean? Nothing. It’s coincidence. Or a sign that I’m filling my brain with words from the same topic or fields or space, at least. I’m beginning to notice patterns of behaviour: I read, take ideas, produce something new, socialise a little (have conversations with the people closest to me where I spew all over them about what I’m exploring and how awesome it is and how awesome what I’m making is…) And then, when I can’t properly pay my bills, I feel guilt and shame and like I’ve wasted weeks developing myself instead of making connections and generating leads and following up conversations and converting them to sales and blah blah blah. Everything (and almost everyone) tells me this is what I need to do to run a business (and to be a network marketer.) But. I’m bored of all that. It’s sucking the life out of me. I get excited when I come up with an idea and can do something about it. To the outside world it probably looks like I complete nothing but my GHL account shows otherwise. I create and finish loads. I simply never share what I make. The sharing is due to happen in the moment where I need money and so I have to do other “income generating” tasks and then when I’m back over that spell, it’s back to reading… It's all cyclical. And explains very pictorially why I’ve been treading water for 3 years. If that were true, my arms and legs would be super strong. They’re not. My mind is though. Strong in ideas and in vision.

The cycle has led me to this question:

Can a person operate across distinct domains, without collapsing into a single identity or system and still sustain meaningful work and material success?

Which assures me my latest round of reading has been different. The chain started with a book called “You Are Not a Fraud” by Dr. Marc Reid. It turns out my issue is probably not the imposter phenomenon - although some of his ideas are superb and I blame/ credit him solely for my latest idea. In one of his chapters he mentioned antifragility, a term unfamiliar with, I had to explore. “Antifragile” is written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I must have heard of him somewhere because I instinctively knew he had something to do with the predictions of the 2008 financial crash. It wasn’t until I continued down the rabbit hole that this was confirmed in a book called, “The Art of Thinking Clearly” by Rolf Dobelli, in which one of the opening chapters recounts a meeting with Taleb. It would seem that these books set off a ticking time bomb. I want to know about the ways where humans are productive, and successful, without first having to sell your soul to the clock and the calendar, to chronos. If it’s not possible, I want to know I tried with a damn good fight and then I can return to the world of the human robot and a “real job” with my tail between my legs. Or sheepishly. Or shamefully. Choose the image you like best. My hypothesis is that I will find a way. I have an idea.

I created Repatterned after attending Mastermind, a conference style event held in Bulgaria for network marketers. I walked away from it inspired but frustrated. Network marketing is not hard but why couldn’t I do it? Or, more precisely, why wouldn’t I? For about 8 months, I’ve been eaten away by a chasm and in October 2025, I vowed to find a way to climb out of its jaws and reclaim the parts of me being consumed day by day. Dramatic, yes. But that’s how it feels. Or felt. I’m in that weird state where what I’ve done so far is working but I need more - ironically - structure. But not routine, habits… I was told the other day that I was the “most confused and confusing person” someone had ever met. The timing on this is strange because this is the first time I’ve felt I had direction in a while. And yet, they were right. They may have been the first to say it this year but it’s been said before in round-a-bout ways. I flit from one thing to another to another. Since I do this and I will continue to (as the past 4 years have demonstrated), I have two options: listen to people and suppress it because I have no choice; or learn how to turn it to my advantage.

It’s going to become my advantage.

Repatterned is a system for seeing the patterns that organise how you think and act. The final stage of Repatterned is to create your own field studies - little experiments - so this idea has been flying around since October but it lacked weight and research and the evidence that taking information, or data, about yourself and testing it will make a difference to your life. Like any normal person, I figured I had to read more and work out how experiments could be used in place of productivity to ensure the success of someone directionless, confused, confusing, floundering… someone like me. The first book to come up in my search was “Tiny Experiments” by Anne Laure Le Cunff. Le Cunff outlined a great structure for experiments. And then I started “The Serendipity Mindset” by Dr. Christian Busch. I’m still in the early chapters but it feels like this is what I need to pull all these threads together and create something even more powerful than I set out to.

I’ve been led here, to a place where I will work with experimental frames. The areas I’m working on each become a field study where I do what feels right and when (the inputs are not defined) and then record what emerges. On the surface this might remain completely unfixed but there is a boundary: where I proceed with, pause on or abandon an experiment, I have data. At the moment everything is failing because of my inability to “track and monitor” inputs and outputs. Even the writing of that phrase is abhorrent. As soon as I require myself to do that, I refuse. But I’m also highly aware that to simply swim in my ideas is to replicate the problem of lack of direction. It seems that experiments are a way to break down structure while still retaining some form of direction. They create the space for uncertainty and serendipity to occur - as long as they hold my attention for long enough to ponder over. This is the crux. If what I am doing is not sustaining my attention, I have to explore it. It becomes another experiment and by repeated unmeasured trial and error, I create a field for myself to figure out what it exposes and, if any, what pressures cause me to retract from the wondrous idea I had.

It’s an experiment. A very public one. Wish me luck.
– Victoria