The Clearing · Heidegger

01The premise

If you haven't got time, this isn't for you.

Most leadership work happens on the surface: frameworks, optimisation, the next move. Heidegger asks the question sitting underneath all of it. Who is the one making the moves, and from what ground?

Being and Time is the hardest, most rewarding book most people never finish. We explore it together, slowly, over eight weeks, and apply it. You won't get through it on your own. That's rather the point.

“The only great thinker in our time is Heidegger.”
Leo Strauss

02What we explore

The core text, and the turn beyond it.

Being and Time is the spine, taken in sequence and applied. Where it opens things up, we follow Heidegger into the later work on technology, dwelling and thinking.

Being and TimeThe spine
The Question Concerning TechnologyThe turn
Building Dwelling ThinkingThe ground

The ground we cover

01Being-in-the-worldWe're never detached minds; we're already caught up in things and people.
02ThrownnessYou didn't choose where or who you started from, yet here you are.
03FallingThe steady pull to lose yourself in busyness and the crowd.
04The TheyThe anonymous "this is how one does it" that quietly runs your life.
05CareThe basic shape of a life that things genuinely matter to.
06AnxietyNot fear of a thing, but the ground going quiet enough to see your freedom.
07AuthenticityOwning your life as yours, rather than living it on default.
08Being-towards-deathLetting the fact of finitude sharpen how you spend the time.
09ConscienceThe silent call back to a life you'd stand behind.
10TemporalityYou live forward, out of a past, toward an end. That's what time is here.
11ResolutenessChoosing, and standing in the choice, without guarantees.
12HeritageTaking up what you've inherited and making it deliberately your own.

Sessions are conversational and slide-supported, online, in a cohort of four. We think out loud together, with no breakout rooms and nothing to prepare.

03What it does

Honestly, we won't promise you outcomes.

Anyone who does is selling something. But across the cohorts we've run, the same patterns keep surfacing.

The low-grade anxiety quietens. You stop mistaking busyness for living.
You notice how completely you'd disappeared into the role.
You listen differently. Slower, and much sharper.
Mortality and reputation look different from here.
The word people reach for most often is relief.

04Who it's for

Leaders willing to be confused.

Senior leaders, founders, head coaches, elite performers who suspect there's something underneath the optimisation layer, and are willing to be confused on the way to finding it. No philosophy background needed. What's needed is time, and the nerve to slow down.

05Practicalities

The particulars.

DurationEight weekly sessions, two hours each

FormatOnline, conversational, text-led

CohortFour people, maximum

Led byDr John Stoszkowski & Dr David Priestley

Investment£7,000 per person.

GuaranteeEngage fully, and if you genuinely don't believe it was worth it, we'll refund you in full.

Sequence I of The Desert

The Hammer

Nietzsche's late period and beyond. Slowly. Properly. In good company.

See inside →

“Thinking is alive again.”
Hannah Arendt · On first encountering Heidegger

Start with a conversation

Some things can't be optimised. Only understood.

The first conversation costs nothing, and we'll tell you whether this is for you.

Let's talk