Life doesn't come with a manual.
But sometimes it helps to have somewhere to make sense of things.
RelationshipsMoneyFamilyWorkIdentityFriendshipSuccessFailureDecisionsLossPurposeChange
Write it as you would say it to someone you trust.
For example: I don’t know whether to leave my job.
Not sure where to start? Explore what TAIU can help with.
Nothing here quite fits? Start with what’s going on.
A way of looking at it
I think life is a bit like a tree.
I have spent a lot of my life talking to people. Friends, family, people I have worked with, people I have met along the way. Quite often, once you get beyond the surface, people tell you what is really going on.
I have come to realise that I do not think I have ever met anyone who has everything sorted. I have met plenty of people who look like they do. Successful people, wealthy people, people with brilliant careers, great families, beautiful homes and seemingly happy relationships. But talk for long enough and there is nearly always something they are working through. Their health. Money. Work and what they are doing with their life. Love. Something happening in their family.
I am exactly the same. That is why I have started thinking about life a bit like a tree.
You are the tree.
Underneath you are the roots that support your life. At different points in our lives, different roots need attention. One can be incredibly strong while another is struggling. Sometimes you know exactly what is wrong. Sometimes all you know is that something does not feel right.
Quite often, one root starts affecting another. Money affects relationships. Work affects health. Family affects work. Health can affect everything. What is happening underneath eventually shows up somewhere else.
Health
Your body, your energy, how you actually feel.
Money
What you have, what you owe, what it lets you choose.
Work & Purpose
What you spend your days on and whether it still fits.
Love
The closest relationships in your life.
Family & Belonging
The people around you and where you feel at home.
Everyone is working on their tree, and the point is not to get every root to ten out of ten. It is to know your own, be honest about what is strong, recognise what is not, and then decide whether you are going to do something about it.
Life will bring storms.
Some you see coming. Some you do not. A relationship ends. You lose your job. Your health changes. Money gets tight. Someone you love needs you. Something you thought was certain suddenly is not.
You cannot stop every storm. But if you have spent time strengthening your roots, you are in a much better position when one comes. Your health gives you strength. Money gives you choices. Work and purpose can give you direction. Love gives you support. Family and belonging give you people to turn to.
Strong roots do not stop the storm. They help you weather it.
Afterwards, you keep growing. Maybe differently. Maybe in another direction. Maybe with a few scars. But you grow.
The alternative is unthinkable
Sometimes you just need another way of looking at it.
I have had a lot of conversations with people who felt completely stuck. They had been going around and around something in their head and had reached a conclusion about the choices available to them. Usually it was some version of:
- Stay or leave.
- Take the job or turn it down.
- Say something or keep quiet.
- Keep going or stop.
Neither felt particularly good. Then we would talk. I would ask questions, challenge something they had assumed could not change, look at the situation from another direction, bring in something from my own experience or something I had seen elsewhere. Sometimes another possibility would appear. Not necessarily the answer. Just an alternative they had not considered.
I have seen the weight lift from people when that happens. The problem has not disappeared and they still have to deal with it, but suddenly there is another way forward. That is where The Alternative Is Unthinkable came from.
What TAIU does
Your life. Your plan.
Most of us spend a lot of time trying to work these things out in our own heads. We talk to friends, read books, search online, listen to podcasts, ask people we trust. We are looking for something that helps us see the situation differently.
TAIU brings that thinking together. It gives you somewhere to work through what is happening, ask yourself better questions, explore different perspectives and find useful exercises, ideas and resources along the way.
It will not give you a final answer. The aim is to help you find your own way forward.
How it works in practice
Start with one root.
01
Understand where you are
Work through a relevant TAIU session.
02
Be honest about it
Decide where you think this part of your life is today.
03
See what could make a difference
Identify the few things worth working on.
04
Make your plan
Choose what you are actually going to do and when.
05
Come back
See what has changed. Adjust the plan. Work on something else when you need to.
You do not have to work on everything. Start with the part of your life that needs you now.
My Tree
Build your tree.
Your life does not sit in separate boxes. Work affects money. Money affects relationships. Relationships affect how you feel about yourself.
My Tree brings the five roots of your life into one place, so you can see what needs attention without reducing your life to a single score.
Choose one root. Find a session, exercise or resource that fits. Keep what you learn in a private journal. Turn it into one to three actions, then come back with what actually happened and update your view.
Over time, your tree becomes a record of where you were, what you worked on and what changed.
There is no perfect tree and no finish line. The point is to notice what needs your attention and do something useful with it.
My Tree is being developed. The panel here shows how your Life Tree could work.
My Tree
Five roots, seen together. No overall score.
- Health7/10
- Money4/10
- Work & Purpose5/10
- Love8/10
- Family & Belonging6/10
You decide the number. It is your reflection, not a measurement.
What I am strengthening
Money
- Am I under financial pressure?Session
- What is money for?Try
- Reading on money and securityResource
My actions
- List every fixed monthly cost in one placeBy 4 September
- Have the conversation about the joint accountBy 11 September
Private journal and saved findings. Yours to write, yours to read.
Coming back
Review on 18 September. Where am I now?
- May: Money 3. Plan set, two actions.
- July: Money 4. One action done, one carried over.
There is not a finish line.
You do not get healthy and tick Health: Complete. You do not build a great relationship and stop working at it. Money changes. Work changes. Families change. We change. The tree is always growing.
The point is not perfection. It is understanding your life well enough to know what needs your attention, and having somewhere useful to start.
Where TAIU came from
Twenty years of meeting people, in one place.
Work and curiosity took me around the world. Different countries, cultures, religions, businesses and ways of living. I have had periods with very little money and periods with more than I needed. I have built businesses and lost them, moved countries, lived out of suitcases, and made plenty of decisions I would handle differently today. TAIU grew out of what I have learned along the way. Not because I have the answers, I am still working plenty of things out myself, but because I have seen how much can change when someone asks you the right question at the right time.
Back to you
We are all working on our trees.
Some of us just have not stopped to look at the roots yet. TAIU gives you somewhere to stop, look beneath the surface and ask: what needs strengthening, what am I not seeing, what else could I do?
Because sometimes the moment you realise there is another way forward, everything feels different.
The Alternative Is Unthinkable.