If us humans are exceptionally good at anything, it’s overcomplicating life and our existence. We are experts at thinking too much, adding meaning where there is none, taking offence where none was intended, becoming confused, befuddled and utterly discombobulated in the process. And the harder we try, the more we complicate things. The result is that we become misaligned with our values and our identity, and further away than ever from living a life of fulfilled potential. The French poet Guill...
Aug 29, 2020•38 min
I have a favourite quote by the Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung: “Beneath the threshold of consciousness, everything was seething with life.” This notion – that there is life beyond what we know in the physical world of systems and money and society and iPhones – is reflected in a drawing called Three Worlds by M.C. Escher. It depicts a lake with fallen leaves floating on it. Beneath the water you can see a beautiful carp swimming, and reflected on the surface of the water are the now leafless tr...
Jul 20, 2020•1 hr 6 min
I stumbled across mindfulness pretty much by accident. In a typically low moment when I felt like there were no options left for me, I did the only thing I hadn’t done and turned my attention inwards. After a while I noticed things beginning to change – both in myself and in the world around me. It was a revelation, and I eventually learned that I had discovered – among other things – mindfulness. “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change,” said Dr Wayne Dyer, an...
Jul 12, 2020•41 min•Season 2Ep. 32
I am a middle-class white man, born and raised near London, England, and I have found life to be hard to navigate. I have found it hard to navigate, despite living in a system that has been created and established by people who look like me, for people who look me, over a period of many hundreds of years. So, if I’ve struggled to get by, and to make sense of it all, what must it be like for people who don’t look like me? What must it be like to navigate this life when the very structure of the s...
Jun 23, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Fear is a powerful thing. It can hobble us, preventing us from taking action and putting ourselves ‘out there’ when it manifests as “but what if I fail?” or “what will people think” or “what if I’m not good enough.” And it can cripple us in the form of phobias, anxiety or even fear of the unknown. And fear can also be used against us, as it has for many hundreds and hundreds of years. We are sold products on the promise that they will keep us safe from the bacteria on our kitchen surfaces. That ...
Jun 15, 2020•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 30
If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. That’s the oft quoted phrase intended to snap us out of our happy – yet ignorant – bubbles and make us take action. And right now it feels appropriate. The world is facing a health crisis in the form of COVID-19, we are being told by our leaders to stay indoors, yet people are taking to the streets to protest hundreds of years of wholesale oppression, injustice and racism, that has manifested in the killing of yet another unarmed black man by pol...
Jun 09, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 29
There is this notion that in order to get ahead in life, to be successful and to receive our just rewards, we must sacrifice ourselves somehow. Working all hours at the office to prove our worth. Constantly giving, giving, giving. In time, money, energy, emotion and attention, to show that we care, that we’re worthy, loyal, or that we’re moral or somehow superior. But sacrificing ourselves like this ultimately has the opposite effect. It wears us down, burns us out, lowers our frequency, harms o...
Jun 01, 2020•52 min•Season 2Ep. 28
We don’t perceive reality the way it is. We perceive it the way we are. Through the filters of our personality, our ego, our experiences, our circumstances, and myriad other factors, all influencing how we interpret our surroudings and our place in them. Many of these influences which affect our view of the world – and of ourselves – are not us, but baggage that we have acquired along the way. Humans have a natural tendency to focus on all the things that are going wrong, often to the point wher...
May 25, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 27
We experience our own lives in high definition. The frustration when we’re already running late, and we can’t find our keys. The moment of irrational hurt when we allow a throwaway comment from a friend to get under our skin. The dissatisfaction of not being where we want to be in life. The taste of that first cup of coffee in the morning. Those sounds and smells that remind us of holidays. This vast patchwork of feelings, emotions, sensations, macro and micro, makes up our lives. Birth and deat...
May 17, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 26
A few months ago, I was lucky enough to host Dr Maggie Gilewicz as a guest on my podcast, to discuss her book How to Make Sure Your Life Doesn’t Suck. Her book is unique and well worth reading, and it also share a few common themes with my last book, Shine Manifesto. So she decided to return the favour and invited me as a guest on her podcast, and has graciously allowed me to share the recording with my listeners, too. We spent nearly two hours discussing a wide variety of themes. We explored ho...
May 11, 2020•1 hr 46 min•Season 2Ep. 25
I meditate every day. I sit still with my eyes closed. I try to relax and focus my attention on my breathing. When I notice that my mind has wandered and I’m thinking about something else, I bring my attention back to my breathing. And repeat. And repeat. And keep repeating until my timer beeps, or I feel that it’s time to stop doing this. I’ve been doing it for several years now and I’m not sure what I gain from doing this. But I do know that by doing it I get to take a break – even if it’s jus...
May 04, 2020•57 min•Season 2Ep. 24
After my previous conversation about mindfulness with Michelle Butler, I wanted to explore the topic further. So, I reached out to Neil Seligman. He’s a mindfulness expert and former barrister who works both with individuals and also organisations, encouraging them to bring mindfulness into the workplace through his Conscious Professional consultancy. A conscious visionary and inspirational speaker, Neil has travelled the world sharing his thoughts on mindfulness and encouraging others to bring ...
Apr 19, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 23
When we have a thought or carry out an action, we create a connection between neurons in our brains. If we repeat that action or thought, then the connection gets stronger. And the more we do this, the more we literally wire our brains in favour of that behaviour or action. If our thoughts are negative or undermining, then we move closer to creating beliefs that don’t serve us. If our actions don’t work in our favour, then we move closer to developing habits that can harm us. And considering tha...
Mar 10, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Season 1Ep. 22
There is only this present moment. Our entire life – indeed the entire history of time – is made up of a long series of present moments. But we can only exist, and live, and take action, in one moment at a time. And then we find ourselves in the next moment. And the one after that. And in each moment, we have a vast array of choices. We can choose action or inaction (though inaction is still an action of sorts). We can choose love or fear. We can choose cowardice or courage. We can choose vanill...
Feb 25, 2020•1 hr 40 min•Season 1Ep. 21
When you step up to life, life will step up to meet you. But when you don’t engage with it or put the energy in, then life will happen to you. It will roll over you, drag you along behind it. You either take control of life, or it will take control of you. Life is like water flowing downhill. It will find its way to the sea – it’s essential destiny – one way or another. And you can either harness its energy, or you can be washed away. Admittedly, I was not the target audience, but when I read Le...
Feb 07, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 20
For most of my life I was waiting to receive the rewards you get for keeping your head down and working hard. But they never came. Life was something that happened to me and not for me, and ultimately I felt powerless to steer it in a direction of my choosing. The result was that I ended up somewhere I hadn’t planned to be. But then I learned that if you change your perspective and your approach to life you can also change your results and the world around you. By engaging with life you can lite...
Nov 11, 2019•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Caroline Millington and I have been friends for 20 years. We studied for our postgrad in Features Journalism together in London, and since then she gone to write for some of the best known magazines to grace the shelves of the newsagent, before moving behind the scenes in television. Most recently Caroline’s become an author. Her first book, Kindfulness, is about recognising that you’re not a robot but a gloriously imperfect human. Her second book, which was published recently, is The Friendship...
Sep 19, 2019•1 hr 23 min•Season 1Ep. 18
I’ve been trying to get my neighbour Karl Morgan on the podcast for ages, because he has a really interesting story. He spent years as a professional dancer in the West End, appearing in musicals such as Cats, and Guys and Dolls. And then he founded Movement Warriors (https://www.movementwarriors.com) with his partner Janine, a company that teaches youngsters how to dance, instilling them with confidence and helping them keep fit. But he also has an amazing garden. It’s overflowing with greenery...
Sep 09, 2019•37 min•Season 1Ep. 17
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” said motivational speaker Jim Rohn, and this is advice that has stood Pip Jamieson in good stead. As the founder of the dots (www.the-dots.com) she’s made it her job to surround herself with good people. Everyone on her team has been carefully chose not just for their skills - she rates her data and tech teams incredibly highly - but also for their attitude. When the shit hits the fan you want people around you who will keep ...
Aug 28, 2019•47 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Most of us live our lives according to what we think we are supposed to do. There are conventions and traditions, the well-worn paths of those who’ve gone before – and trying to do the things that will keep others happy – steering us throughout our lives. But the problem with these tried and trusted modes of living, is that they have been created and decided by other people. And what happens when we follow rules of engagement in this entirely made-up system which have been made up by others, is ...
Jun 05, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 15
When things get desperate, it can either lead you to the depths of despair, or it can lead you to take stock and fall back on something – anything – to keep you going. For some that might mean taking on a second job to pay the rent – for me that was working as a carer and a van driver. For Lorenzo Escobal it meant cleaning cars. He was broke, and when his job applications were met with rejection after rejection, there was nowhere else to go. Refusing to let pride get the better of him, he turned...
Feb 21, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 14
It’s always cool to get to chat with someone who calls themselves an encouragement leader. Not only because we all need more encouragement these days instead of criticism, but because it’s great to speak about the human potential, and how we can all do so much more if only we’d get out of our own way. So when Monique Hohnberg said she would be on the podcast, I was over the moon. She’s the person who started Rise Regardless, a movement to encourage people to achieve more, do better, and build a ...
Oct 10, 2018•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 13
My big ambition in life is to make a career doing things that I enjoy and find interesting. For me that includes writing about mindfulness and the art of living, helping others, taking photographs, and talking to interesting people about interesting things. That's why I enjoy my recording my podcast. This latest episode is a perfect example of this, and it was a real honour to chat with Tony Wrighton who, like me, seems to be doing lots of things that interest him. If sport is your thing, you pr...
Aug 25, 2018•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Kerrin Black is driven. An entrepreneur in the true sense of the word, she's here to help. She travels the world as a publicist, trying to get the best coverage possible for her clients. And she runs two charities which aim to help those who can't the high costs of pharmaceuticals get the medicine they need. As if that wasn't enough, she is also the founder of Talent Finders – a resource for artists looking for clients and vice versa. But her biggest skill is network building. She is ferocious a...
Jul 22, 2018•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Life is so unfair. That’s what I thought, anyway. I’d kept my head down, worked so hard, and did exactly what I was supposed to do. And while everyone around me seemed to be enjoying there rewards, I was still waiting for mine. It felt like an all-time low. I was getting up before dawn to deliver groceries to people, and feeling pretty sorry for myself. I never saw my wife, I could barely make ends meet. I was bitter and angry. But every day, as I drove my van from town to town, I got a glimpse ...
Jul 09, 2018•16 min•Season 1Ep. 10
If you were to look at anything under an electron microscope – your lunch, yourself, your t-shirt, space dust, moon rocks, the bricks in your house, a slice of cheese – anything at all – you would see it’s made up of atoms. And those atoms are vibrating. It’s one of the first things we learn in physics at school – everything is vibrating. All the time. And everything vibrates at a particular frequency. If you heat something up or give it energy in some other way (think microwave ovens) it vibrat...
Jul 03, 2018•27 min•Season 1Ep. 9
I had an amazing opportunity the other day, when I bumped into senior Buddhist monastic Chan Phap Vu. And when I say “bumped into” what I really mean is “followed around until he agreed to speak to me for twenty minutes.” Brother Phap Vu studied under Master Thich Nhat Hanh, and is an American monk of the Cinammon Tree Family in San Diego. He was ordained in 2003 at Plum Village monastery in France. During our conversation I learned something that seems obvious in retrospect – that many of the p...
Jun 07, 2018•23 min•Season 1Ep. 8
People like Yewande Akinola inspire me. She’s well aware of the voices in her head that try to stop her doing things, but she refuses to let them hold her back. Instead of allowing them to undermine her dreams of becoming an engineer, she overcame them and left Nigeria to study at Warwick University in the UK. Instead of letting the voices that asked, “but what will people think?” hold her back when she was invited by Channel 4 and National Geographic to present the television show Titanic: The ...
Apr 17, 2018•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 7
I must have photographed Everton Bell-Chambers six or seven times – from the very beginning of my photographic career to where I am today, he’s always been lurking somewhere in the background, ready to get in front of my lens and help me out whenever I’ve had a creative itch to scratch and needed someone interesting to photograph. And Everton is certainly interesting. Born in Canada, bred in London, he’s dancing his way round the world. He’s got a batman tattoo and runs events for people of all ...
Feb 14, 2018•56 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Laura Bingham is braver than me. She's eaten out of bins, swam in shark infested waters, been alone in the desert and worse. Much worse. But there's been better, too. Much better. When she travelled across South America by bike, without any money, she was forced to beg for stale bread and scavenge for scraps to keep her going. But there were times where she was overwhelmed by human kindness when she was offered more food than she could possibly eat. She's an adventurer and explorer, and she's d...
Dec 01, 2017•49 min•Season 1Ep. 5
