Michael Ashcroft

Hi, I’m Michael.
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I believe that we humans have qualities that make us intrinsically worthwhile: curiosity, contemplation, the drive to explore our internal and external worlds, the capacity to experience awe.

I’m fascinated by how we can move towards the best versions of ourselves — individually and collectively — and live our lives as fully as possible.

My website is how I let the others find me.

In February 2021 I said goodbye to a ten year corporate and consulting career in low carbon energy innovation to pursue my dream of living a self-directed life as a free agent. In February 2022 I left the UK with my partner to travel the world while working entirely online.

I'm still exploring what this year will look like, but here are some things I'll be playing with.

• Exploring what it means to be creative. I write a weekly newsletter called Thinking Out Loud, I write essays on this website and I have a YouTube channel. I also publish regularly in my Notebook, which is where less polished, early stage ideas go.
• Expanding my Alexander Technique online course. I am a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, an awareness based educational process that helps people live with greater ease and freedom. Alexander Technique is conventionally taught in person and through touch, and I think this course is the first and only of its kind ever to exist. The best place to hear about this is by checking out my dedicated website for Alexander Technique and adjacent topics, Expanding Awareness.
• Developing new digital products. I have a lot of ideas of little things I can make that might be of benefit to others, so I'll be playing around with some of these this year. The first one is going to be a course called Playful Creativity, which will help people get out of their own way and allow their natural creativity to emerge easily and playfully.

• helping the UK government as well as electricity and water network operators navigate the energy system transformation, as part of the Power & Utilities team in the Infrastructure Advisory Group at KPMG, and
  
• leading the design of innovation projects for National Grid Electricity System Operator, the entity that balances the electricity transmission system in Great Britain.

Working in the shadow of climate change has focussed my attention not just on how we might solve it, but on what lies beyond it. As Nietzsche said, “he who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” What futures do we want to create that will make solving climate change and other global challenges worth it?

I want to help foster a world where we have the freedom to move towards the best versions of ourselves as individuals and as a civilisation. I love working on this process in myself and helping others on their own paths.

Around the web

• Joe Wells' podcast # 32 // Michael Ashcroft: How to Say "No" to Your Boss // In this episode, Joe and I discuss why I left my corporate career to be an online teacher and some of the problems with corporate culture. I explain what the Alexander Technique is, who benefits most from it, and how to practice it. We also talked about building an email list, David Perell's course "Write of Passage", and how to find your niche as a creator. // 14 June 2021
• the good timeline #55 by Ryan Ferris // We discuss Alexander Technique, expansion of awareness and ways of being, human advancement and pluralistic utopianism (thanks Tyler Alterman), aesthetics, carbon removal, art incubators and “how to find the others”. // 07 May 2021
• Colossal Turbo Love #3 with Orpheas // A 9 minute podcast on my day-to-day after quitting my corporate role, my work with the Carbon Removal Centre, and my longer-term plans // 03 May 2021
• find your childlike ability and catlike agility with Alexander Technique // A 9 minute podcast with Reddy on Alexander Technique, playfulness, and being like cats // 03 May 2021
• Reimagine Work with Paul Millerd — "What happens six months (and three months) before you quit?" // Paul and I had two conversations - one six months before I left work (before I had quit) and another one three months before I left work (immediately after I quit). We talk about what it's like to leave a ten year corporate career. // 13 April 2021
• episode 09: eigenrobot vs michael ashcroft // We talked about awareness, drug zeitgeists, game theory, using psychic powers for evil, and Superman // 11 February 2021
• A Becoming Creature #8 // Nick and I chatted about keto, herbal remedies and pine needle tea, David Perell and Tiago Forte’s courses — Write of Passage and Building a Second Brain, finding your niche, long-term perspectives, energy innovation, the Alexander Technique (is it magic?), Gendlin Focusing, coercion and my BALs // 2 January 2021
• Strangely Earnest Podcast // James Stuber and I talked about how I developed my Alexander Technique online course by playing around on Twitter // 5 November 2020
• The Stoa // The Alexander Technique - 30 minute guided intro and 30 minutes of Q&A from the fantastic Stoa crowd // 27 September 2020
• Roam FM #4 // Norman Chella and I talk about: how I stumbled into Roam Research from Building A Second Brain; my workflow when building my second brain, the Alexander Technique, and using Roam to expand my understanding of it, and applying it to coaching. how I use Roam as a self-coaching tool, #roamcult as a culture, not a cult and a filter for meeting interesting people // 16 July 2020
• Do Explain #14 // Christofer Lövgren and I talk about the theory and purpose of Alexander Technique, similarities and differences from other meditative frameworks, non-doing, bodymind, posture, mindfulness, contracted vs. expanded awareness, flow, and other related topics. // 25 June 2020

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