Kia ora, my name is Dan Gerrard. I run my own small leadership consultancy business and I've been doing that for about two or three years. 

It's been a journey, it's definitely been a journey, I think I can relate to living in a place of ego for so long. And then just being caught and lost up in society's ways, I suppose, of just rushing one thing through the next thing, and then this whole concept of befriending a tree was like, you know, whatever. 

But in reality, as I've kind of opened myself up and told my ego to kind of bugger off and just actually trust, trust in a process a little bit more, you can actually feel, feel a connection there. It hasn't been an easy journey, there's been a lot of judgment of self and judgment of the process and judgment of it, but I think, I think the more I face into that judgment, the more I kind of get from that. 

And so I've thoroughly enjoyed the process of building a relationship with my tree, I think some of the things I feel, I feel about it as the stillness of it, I'm often so go go go, but I love this whole concept of being still and so if I can feel into what that does for me, well then I often think, wow, okay, like, you should really be doing more of this. So it's been a cool journey to kind of go down that pathway and have my tree and I've had a tree friend, for probably a good 16, 17 months now since I bought my new place, and it was a little bit damaged. So I've kind of had to nurture it back and trim some branches off. But it's, it's amazing to see it flourish and I think that if I can support the tree like that.

What does the tree do for me? I've definitely faced some tough times over the last kind of 12 months or so especially these last kind of two or three months and so going out and just holding my tree helps me kind of reground. I've been more at peace with what life is giving me in these moments, and just more trusting of the support of the tree and the support of myself. So I feel like it's a bit of a two way, I've kind of helped nurtured this tree and the tree is definitely helping me at the moment. Yeah, I think it's important that we learn how to do this. So it's definitely a journey of self discovery and I think through the work I do through leadership development, you can see on people that they do need to go a little bit deeper within themselves. 

And people kind of project a lot out onto their networks and into society, but they're not doing the internal work. So I think it kind of starts internally and you work on yourself. And I think as if I can't fix it, but we can. And so I think if you're doing your work, I'm doing my work, somebody else is doing their work. And then we start to build this collective network of this human forest. And I think that's an amazing concept, then. I've loved, love the journey, love the practice and love to kind of encourage other people to be able to do this, because I definitely know, the life I've lived and I definitely feel the life I'm moving into and this life I'm moving into far more beneficial than the previous one. So it's foreign. It's a foreign concept, this whole thing, like we're gonna do this weird thing of hug a tree, we're gonna do this weird thing of build a relationship with a tree. And it can feel weird. It does feel weird at the beginning. But I think you have to be able to bypass your own self judgment, your own ego. 

And I think for me, I think back the things that kind of come natural to me as a human being and I don't know where that's come from, but I, I enjoyed going snorkeling and diving with my son and we dive into the ocean and we get mussels and go fishing and things like that. And before we do that, we always start off with the karakia, a prayer of firstly, thanking ourselves for this opportunity to be able to do that, but then also the safety of the and so we've always had this this indigenous relationship with, with nature, but I think through through our society at the moment, we've definitely lost that. So I definitely feel more in touch with that space and knowing that this is how my ancestors would often operate before they would go gather food and so, once I can understand that and park that weirdness and actually just commit to the process, it's definitely adds value. And I'm sure to add value to our human tree forest. 

I think the relationship I'm building with nature, whether it's a tree, or being on the land or in the water, is working out how we ground ourselves naturally. I've always felt at home in the ocean or in the water. And I've really started to work in that space myself as to when I'm feeling myself really rigid and fried and tense and stressed is to just go be in the water, whether it's a river, lake or the ocean. I love the ocean because I just love the saltiness and the rawness and the roughness of those waves, and I often just float in it and I can feel myself getting tumbled around and just think about the things that need to wash off me and things that need to wash onto me. 

And there's definitely spirit and peacefulness, in all of that, tumbleness of learning to let go of the things that we need to let go of. And I think that as we do this work, the benefit for me personally is that I become a better father and a better friend, and a better person for my networks. And I think that's how we help grow these networks.