(And somehow that turns out to be exactly what was missing.)
For people who want to think more carefully about the life they're already living.
In a small cohort, over three or twelve months, you'll attend regular Salons — carefully hosted conversations that use everyday stories as a starting point for genuine reflection.
The conversations go somewhere you didn't expect. What you take away tends to surface long after the session ends.
In their own words
What participants say
The first time you take part, you don't know what to expect, you don't know where it's going. It's very unsettling — and then deeply satisfying.
Renaud — Nancy, France
I never feel like I'm going to be judged. Pushing the limits with care — I find that really beautiful.
Jessica
It's like taking your brain out and giving it a cool shower.
Adam
It's like stepping into a favourite cafe, knowing that people you like are there — and having no idea what's going to happen.
M
It's the beating about the bush that draws out the real meaning. And in the salons, there's a lot of that.
Ashley
What it is
It's not therapy. It's not training. It's not a book club.
(We did wonder about the book club comparison. The difference is: no one has to have read anything.)
In a small cohort, you attend regular Salons — open-ended conversations using everyday stories as the starting point for reflection. These moments usually pass without examination. But our response to them reveals a great deal about what we actually believe.
Over time, the effects tend to linger long after the sessions end — surfacing in meetings, on walks, in the middle of the night.
Space to think for yourself — but not by yourself.
Story — sent to the group before the Salon
Stop Eating Animals
On my way to work, I passed a wall with two pieces of graffiti. The first, in large pink letters: "STOP EATING ANIMALS." The second, added later in darker ink, directly alongside it: "Stop telling me what to do."
Neither author had met. Both were certain they were right. Together, they'd accidentally made the other's point.
What does it take to change someone's mind — including your own?
Themes that emerged
ProtestAuthorityIronyCommon sense
The Programme
It's three things. Bear with us.
Element one
The Salons
Weekly or monthly one-hour conversations in groups of up to five, drawn from your cohort. A story arrives beforehand. You show up. The conversation goes somewhere you didn't expect. (It always does.)
Element two
The Workshop
After the Salons, a session to look back at what happened — and to think about whether you want to create similar spaces for other people in your life. Many participants find they do.
Element three
The Book
On completion, a summary of the themes you explored together — a record of where your thinking went — plus a collection of stories to use in creating your own thinking spaces.
Participants say
What actually happens when you join.
(We'll let them speak for themselves.)
"
It has become a very important part of my life — a metaphorical watering hole, where I get my mental batteries charged. We laugh, discuss surprising perspectives, and help each other make a little more sense of the world.
Joel — Denmark
"
It's like taking your brain out and giving it a cool shower — the rubbish you are dealing with day to day is cleansed for a moment at least, and you feel slightly smarter for it.
Adam — UK
"
While I wouldn't say I am friends with other participants, I do feel a connection with them. That is a really important feeling in a world where we are all connected but nobody is really connecting.
James — Canada
"
Throughout Covid, while many people felt lonely and full of despair, the Salons provided regular company, a collective ear that could listen and not judge — and most importantly, hope.
Jessica — France
You weren't looking. But here you are.
If it sounds like the right thing, it probably is.
Part of The Loop
Thinking Space is an initiative by The Loop — a consultancy helping organisations build the conditions for shared meaning and deeper collective understanding.
For three or twelve months, you'll be part of a small cohort with a shared purpose.
The programme has three elements. None of them are complicated. Together they're designed to develop your capacity for reflection, deepen your thinking, and — if you want — give you the tools to create similar spaces for others.
Three elements
The programme in full.
01
The core experience
The Salons
Weekly (3-month cohort) or monthly (12-month cohort) online conversations, one hour each. A story arrives a few days before. You show up. What happens next is genuinely hard to predict — and that, it turns out, is the point.
Each Salon has up to five people, drawn from your wider cohort of ten according to availability. You indicate when you can attend, and are placed into a group. Over the course of the programme, you'll encounter most of the cohort — in different combinations, which keeps the conversation fresh.
Cohort of up to ten people
Salons of up to five per session
One hour per session
Times selected to fit the cohort's schedule
Story-led, open-ended, carefully hosted
02
After the Salons
The Workshop
Once the Salons are complete, a workshop to reflect on what you've experienced — and to consider whether, and how, you might want to create similar spaces with the people around you.
Many participants arrive at the workshop not quite expecting to leave with any intention of hosting their own conversations. Many leave with exactly that intention.
03
On completion
The Book
At the end of the programme, you receive two things: a summary of the themes your cohort explored — a record of where the thinking actually went — and a curated collection of stories you can use to start your own conversations.
It is both a memento and a toolkit. (It is also, admittedly, quite a nice object to have.)
Your cohort
A small group, composed with care.
Cohorts are put together so that a range of perspectives can be present — without pressure to represent them. You might be in a cohort with a teacher from Bristol, a consultant from Copenhagen, and someone from Texas who heard about this from a friend.
That mix is not incidental. It's where the thinking comes alive.
New cohorts start every month. Places are limited. A short conversation before you join helps ensure the space is right for you — and for everyone else.
While I wouldn't say I am friends with other participants, I do feel a connection with them. That is a really important feeling in a world where we are all connected but nobody is really connecting.
James — Canada
Choose your pace
Same experience. Two speeds.
3 months
Weekly Salons — ten sessions over twelve weeks. Immersive. Good if you want it done before summer.
12 months
Monthly Salons — ten sessions over the year. Slower, more reflective. Time for things to settle between sessions.
Because the space depends on sustained engagement, participation is offered for the full programme rather than individual sessions. £600 per participant.
A small number of supported places are available in each cohort.
Part of The Loop
Thinking Space is an initiative by The Loop — helping organisations build the conditions for shared meaning.
It begins with a story. No one knows where it will end up.
Small, intimate, carefully hosted. The conversation goes wherever the thinking takes it. That's not a problem to solve. That's the design.
Small groups
Five things that make the conversation worth having.
01
Speak from experience
Share what you've lived, seen, or truly felt — not theories, not headlines.
02
Give the whole story
Even when it's messy, uncertain, hard to express, or full of contradictions.
03
Consider your lens
The beliefs and assumptions shaping what you share — they're worth noticing.
04
Value difference
Stay curious about perspectives that stretch or unsettle your own.
05
Listen deeply
Not in order to reply. In order to be changed.
When more of these things are happening more of the time, you are more likely to leave with something that quietly shifts your way of seeing.
Skilled hosting
Less a performer. More a steward.
The host listens with precision, asks questions that open rather than close, and protects the pace so that reflection is not rushed. They curate stories carefully, frame themes lightly, and model curiosity across difference.
When the conversation drifts toward certainty or abstraction, they gently bring it back to lived experience. Above all, they hold the space steady enough that something can take root between people — without forcing anything to grow.
(It is, in short, harder than it looks.)
In their own words — on the host
The stories
Small beginnings. Large questions.
Stories are chosen for their capacity to open thinking — to reveal hidden assumptions, spark genuine curiosity, and connect people to lived experience rather than abstract argument. The best ones tend to be slightly absurd. The worst ones tend to be the most useful.
Initially stories are provided by the host. Once the group is comfortable, everyone brings their own.
Story — sent to the group before the Salon
The Scotch Egg Dilemma
At a wedding reception, a Scotch Egg was served. One guest insisted it was a starter. Another said it was a snack. A third pointed out it had arrived after the main course, which made it, technically, a dessert.
Nobody agreed. The debate ran for forty-five minutes. Nobody changed their mind. But everyone remembered it.
Why do we defend our position most fiercely when the stakes are lowest?
Themes that emerged
IdentityEgoHabitTribalism
Story — sent to the group before the Salon
Sleep on It
A neuroscientist once told me there was a reason it was a good idea to "sleep on it" before making a big decision. When we sleep, the brain re-orders the day's experience — connecting it to what came before.
Yesterday, I made a decision at the end of a long meeting. I woke up this morning regretting it. The neuroscientist did not mention this possibility.
Why do we trust the version of ourselves that was most tired?
Themes that emerged
Epistemic humilityDecision & regretMental fatigue
The Salon is the heart of the programme — but only one part of it.
Part of The Loop
Thinking Space is an initiative by The Loop — helping organisations build the conditions for shared meaning.
Most of us have more ways to communicate than ever, and fewer moments that feel genuinely unhurried.
We're more reachable, more informed, and — quietly, for a lot of people — more isolated than we expected to be.
The Salon doesn't solve this. But it offers something that's become harder to find: a space in a small group, with no agenda other than thinking carefully together. No notifications. No output. No one performing expertise.
Just people, being genuinely curious about each other's experience.
01
Clearer thinking.
Most of us move through our days on autopilot — responding to situations rather than examining them. The Salon slows that down. Over time, you get better at noticing your own assumptions, questioning your first response, and seeing the same situation from more than one angle.
This is not a technique you learn once. It's a habit that builds gradually — and then starts showing up in places you didn't expect. Meetings. Difficult conversations. Decisions you'd usually make quickly.
It doesn't have to come to a conclusion, but you always come away thinking a bit more broadly about an issue — understanding different people's perspectives a bit more.
Adam — UK
02
Deeper listening.
In most conversations, we're half-listening and half-preparing what we're going to say next. The Salon interrupts that pattern. Because no one knows where the conversation is going, you have to actually pay attention.
People regularly notice this bleeding into the rest of their lives. Not just in conversations, but in the quality of attention they bring to almost everything.
In other conversations, I find I'm waiting all the time to say my bit before I've actually heard what they're saying. Whereas in the Salon, I have to listen more carefully. I have to concentrate and actually wait.
Roy
03
Stronger connection.
The cohort is deliberately diverse — people from different countries, professions, and walks of life who wouldn't naturally find themselves in the same room. That diversity is not incidental. It's where the thinking comes alive.
The connection that forms over the course of the programme is hard to categorise. Not quite friendship, not quite collegiality. Something specific to having thought carefully together over time.
While I wouldn't say I am friends with other participants, I do feel a connection with them. That is a really important feeling in a world where we are all connected but nobody is really connecting.
James — Canada
04
Something that lasts.
The effects of a Salon don't tend to arrive during the session itself. They surface afterwards — an hour later, a day later, sometimes weeks later. A question that keeps returning. A reframing of something you'd long since settled.
This is one of the reasons the programme runs over months rather than days. Reflection needs time. Things need to settle before they can shift.
I often use the yoga analogy — the effects of the session, you only get them after. It triggers things in my brain, sometimes an hour after, sometimes the day after, sometimes weeks or months.
Renaud — Nancy, France
Who it's for
Thinking Space is not for everyone. (Most good things aren't.)
People who think carefully about their lives and want a regular space to do that with others rather than alone.
People who are good at what they do, and quietly interested in what sits underneath that.
People in the middle of a transition — not a crisis, just a shift — who want to think it through properly.
People who find themselves doing their best thinking in good conversation, and don't get nearly enough of it.
(You don't have to be all four. One is usually enough.)
For organisations
The same benefits. Multiplied.
When an organisation invests in Thinking Space for its people, the benefits above don't stay individual for long. Clearer thinking spreads. Better listening changes the quality of meetings. People who've learned to question their own assumptions start bringing that habit to shared decisions.
It is not training. Not a workshop. Not an away day. It is a sustained practice — and sustained practices change people in ways that one-off events don't.
It has become a very important part of my life — a metaphorical watering hole, where I get my mental batteries charged. We laugh, discuss surprising perspectives, and help each other make a little more sense of the world.
Joel — Denmark
I don't know the number of times where I've had a super packed week and I'm like, there's the Salon sitting in the middle of there and I could really use that time to do something else. And then I go, and I come out feeling refreshed. Alive. Warm. It's usually the highlight of my entire week.
Jessica
The best way to understand it is to talk to someone who's been through it.
A discovery call takes about an hour. No commitment — just a conversation.
Part of The Loop
Thinking Space is an initiative by The Loop — helping organisations build the conditions for shared meaning.
It began as a practice of paying attention to what happens when people are given time, trust, and careful listening. Only later did its patterns become recognisable — or nameable.
How it started
A gathering that became a practice. Eventually, a programme.
Around 2018, a few friends noticed they were having a similar conversation with different people in different places — about missed opportunities and the conversations they wished they were having more of. They decided to gather together. They lived in Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain, and the US. So they did something that seemed radical at the time and got on Zoom. (They even had to send some of them instructions on how to use it.)
They started with grand questions. "How do we redesign education?" But over a few months they found themselves gravitating toward something smaller and stranger: the everyday moment, carefully attended to. A dream after too much cheese. A sign on a fence. An email chain about a Scotch Egg that somehow reached 149 messages.
When they started small, everyone could contribute. With the right conditions, the small always opened onto something larger.
They started calling them Salons. Now roughly thirty people meet every month in groups of up to five. Eight years later, they are still going. Thinking Space is an initiative by one of those original participants — to take what was learnt and help others experience and create reflective environments with others.
An ecology
Grown from experience, not from theory.
Rather than tracing back to a single thinker, Thinking Space is better understood like an ecosystem — something that grew under the right conditions, before anyone tried to describe it.
A lot of conversation is functional. You leave having exchanged information, made a decision, moved something forward. That's useful. But it's also extractive — something is taken out, and nothing particular is put back.
The Salon works differently. People leave with more than they arrived with — not because anything was taught, but because something happened between people that couldn't have happened alone. Over time, the conversations feed each other. Questions from one session surface in the next. Connections form that nobody planned.
This is why the ecology metaphor feels right to the people who've been through it. Not a system. Not a curriculum. Something closer to a habitat — where the conditions are tended, and what grows is genuinely unpredictable.
Curious to find out more?
A discovery call takes about an hour. No commitment — just a conversation.
Part of The Loop
Thinking Space is an initiative by The Loop — helping organisations build the conditions for shared meaning.
A short conversation before you join helps ensure the space is right for you — and supports the quality of dialogue for everyone else. It is not an interview. (It is, appropriately enough, a conversation.)
Book a discovery call.
The call takes about an hour. We'll talk about what you're looking for, how the programme works in practice, and which cohort and format might suit you best. New cohorts start every month.
If it doesn't seem like the right fit, we'll say so. The quality of the cohort depends on everyone in it — including you.
If you're looking to your employer for the time or cost, a fact sheet is available explaining the programme's benefits for managers and HR teams. Request the fact sheet.
It has become a very important part of my life — a metaphorical watering hole, where I get my mental batteries charged. We laugh, discuss surprising perspectives, and help each other make a little more sense of the world.
Joel — Denmark
Throughout Covid, while many people felt lonely and full of despair, the Salons provided regular company, a collective ear that could listen and not judge — and most importantly, hope for a better world.
Jessica — France
Programme cost
£600
per participant · full programme
Duration3 or 12 months
Cohort sizeUp to 10 people
Salon sizeUp to 5 per session
FormatOnline, weekly or monthly
New cohortsEvery month
Ten Salons — weekly or monthly
One workshop on completion
A personalised book of themes and stories
Cohort of up to ten, Salons of up to five
3-month or 12-month format
A small number of supported places are available in each cohort.
For organisations
Investing in how your people think.
Thinking Space is available to organisations who want to develop the thinking capacity of their people. It is not training. Not a workshop. Not an away day. It is a sustained practice that develops clearer thinking, deeper listening, and stronger judgment — over time, in a small group, with people they wouldn't otherwise meet.
The Salons develop your capacity to reflect. The Workshop asks what you want to do with it.
It happens after your final Salon — usually two hours with your cohort. By this point, you know each other well enough for the conversation to go somewhere real.
The conversation shifts from what did we notice? to what might we create? Many people arrive not expecting to leave with any particular intention. Most do. (This tends to surprise them.)
01
Looking back
A reflection on the arc of your Salons — the themes that kept returning, the moments that landed unexpectedly, the questions that are still open. This is where the programme becomes visible as a whole rather than a series of individual conversations.
02
Understanding what made it work
An introduction to what actually makes a thinking space work: the conditions, the hosting, the stories, the pace. Not as a formula — more as a set of things worth paying attention to. By this point in the programme, most of it will already feel familiar.
03
What comes next
A practical session on how you might create something similar — with a team, a group of friends, a community you're already part of. This is not about replicating Thinking Space. It's about understanding what you'd want your version to be.
You don't need to arrive wanting to host anything. But most people find that having experienced the Salon from the inside, they start to notice the conversations around them differently.
Part of The Loop
Thinking Space is an initiative by The Loop — helping organisations build the conditions for shared meaning.
