Through the Looking GlassKey Business and Life Lessons from Lewis Carroll

Pommie Lutchman – CCMG ChairpersonFebruary 2016

Lewis Carroll (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898)

• Real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson• Writer, Mathematician, Logician, Anglican

Deacon and Avid Photographer

• “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

• “Through the Looking Glass”

• www.lewiscarroll.org

Lewis Carroll Facts

1. Migraines, and epilepsy, stammering, partial deafness, and ADHD.

2. 11 books on mathematics, and 12 works of literary fiction.

3. Could write 20 words a minute, a page of 150 words in seven and

a half minutes, and 12 pages in two and a half hours.

4. Wrote over 98,000 letters in his lifetime (sometimes upwards of

2,000 times in one year)

5. Financially inept.

Lewis Carroll Facts6. The Cheshire cat was inspired by cheese molds

from the Cheshire county in England

7. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has been translated into more than 70 languages.

8. There’s a white rabbit and Alice holding a flamingo immortalized in stained glass in the Christ Church College at Oxford, where Carroll spent most of his life.

9. Only traveled abroad was in 1867 on a trip to Russia, stopping in Poland, Germany, Belgium, and France.

The Lessons

Do go down the Rabbit Hole

“It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, 'when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet—it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life!”

Know Yourself

“'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.''How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'”

Accept advice from Unexpected Places

“'One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.”

Believe in the Impossible

Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said: 'one can't believe impossible things.''I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Always indulge in the whimsical

“"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!”"Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle …"'

Communicate carefully with others

“You should say what you mean," the March Hare went on."I do," Alice hastily replied. "At least I mean what I say. That's the same thing you know."

Stop doing things that get you nowhere

“'Now! Now!' cried the Queen. 'Faster! Faster!' It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!' The Red Queen