Tamsen Webster explains three meanings of the red thread: an Eastern philosophy concept of invisible connection between people, the Royal Navy's rogue's yarn as a distinguishing mark, and the Greek myth of Theseus as a through-line. She shows how to find and articulate your own red thread for your work.
What is the meaning of the red thread? I figured it was time for an update of my original video. So here we are with episode 101 of Find the Red Thread. I'm your host, Tamsen Webster, of TamsenWebster.com. What is the red thread? Well, there are red threads in almost every major religion and philosophy around the world, and three of the main explanations of the red thread are particularly useful for you, not just personally, but for how you think about and talk about what you do as well. And that's why I call my process the red thread. And so perhaps this will help shed some light. So red thread explanation number one is the red thread of Eastern philosophy. In that belief system, when someone's born, there is a red thread that is tied to them, an invisible red thread that connects them to the people they are destined to meet and be connected to in their life. Now, some folks take this as being a connection between parent and child. Others think about it as soulmates, and still others just think of it more generally as those people that you're meant to be connected to in some way. So that's the personal application. But for me, there's a business application too. And one of the reasons why I love the concept of the Red Thread is that it's anchored in the people that you're meant to serve. So the Red Thread of you, of your business, of your idea is connected to other people. And the Red Thread is a way to do that. It's the connection between your answer, which is your idea, and a question that the people you serve are asking. There's a second red thread that also comes into play, and this one has its roots in the history of the British Royal Navy. In this case, the red thread goes by another name. It's sometimes known as the rogue's yarn. Now, back in early days of shipping and sailing, rope was a pretty important thing. It was how they got the sails up, and it was also a pretty valuable commodity. And that meant that people liked to steal it a lot. And so the British Royal Navy, not wanting to have their rope stolen, or at least if it was, wanting to be able to recover it, did something special with the rope. And what they did was they twined in it. So when they were creating the rope, they wove into it a piece of, you guessed it, red thread with the idea that no matter what piece, big or small, short or long, of rope was found, if it had that red thread in it, It was identifiably the property of the British Royal Navy. Now, I love that because I think all of us want to have something about us and what we do, both personally and professionally, that is identifiably ours. And so this second meaning of the red thread is connected to how can you make sure that whatever you do is remarkable to what and who you're serving? So How can you make sure that that red thread that connects the people you serve, kind of that first red thread, how can you make sure that it's differentiated, it's different, it's yours? And that's the British Royal Navy Rogue's Yarn red thread. Now, red thread number 3 comes from Greek mythology, but before I explain that, let me explain how red thread number 3 is usually used because it's the red thread that I work with most often. Now, it's usually used as an idiom in Nordic, like Swedish, German cultures, and they use it to say, What is the thing that makes this make sense? What's the theme? What's the through line? What's the sequence of concepts or ideas that create an argument for something? And that adaptation you see a little bit in other areas and other industries where, for instance, interior designers will talk about the red thread of a room. What's the theme that kind of pulls it together? And you'll hear people talk about finding the red thread of a thesis or an academic paper or something like that. But ultimately what it's about is this, this idea of what makes things make sense. Now, why is it called the Red Thread, though? Well, in this case, as I mentioned, it comes from Greek mythology. And the Greek mythology in this case is the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. So the Minotaur was a monster, half man, half bull, and it lives in a labyrinth that was so complicated that nobody, even the Minotaur, could escape. But in order to defeat the Minotaur, which Theseus needed to do in order to save his city, he had to figure out a way to defeat the maze as well. So when he went into the maze, he took with him a sword, but also a ball of red thread. And he used that red thread to trace his path from the beginning of the maze to the monster. And the reason why I love this image of this red thread that guides you when you don't know where you're going is that a lot of times when we're trying to figure out What is it that brought us to a certain place? So personally, how did we get here from where we started? And professionally, how is it that we arrived at an idea? That process that Theseus went through is still a really valid one. We need to retrace our steps. We need to understand how we went from not knowing how to do a thing to doing a thing, to needing to slay the monster and actually having done it. So that's why the Red Thread that I talk about is this retracing of the steps from a question you asked or your company asked once upon a time to the answer that ultimately is what serves your audience and is remarkable as well. So that's the 3 big Red Threads and how they tie into my Red Thread. And my question to you is, what's yours? I'm Tamsen Webster of tamsenwebster.com, and This was Find the Red Thread.
