Welcome to week 12 of the Art and Science of Success podcast.

Thank you for your involvement so far, the aim when we set up the podcast was to offer some free help and support for leaders coming out of the pandemic.

Some of the conversations this week have been with friends

and clients with the theme – “Great and what should/can I focus on right now?” so that is what we are going to focus on. In this 30 min podcast, I review some of the main points and share some questions we are helping clients with. There’s a clear recovery/preparation focus in what we are doing. For some clients we are offering health screening and personalised performance plans, for others it’s boosting their resilience work so that their people will be able to tackle what ever comes their way in the next six months.

Here’s the key talking points.

00.00     Welcome and what’s your story?

02.30     The Man Who Could Fly.

05.50     Values matter even more and becoming a 3C leader.

07.00     Create a shared positive focus with your people.

10.00     How can you ensure your past is perfect preparation for today’s challenges?

13.00     How can you boost any resilience work in your organisation?

17.00     If in doubt, build relationships and be with people you want to emulate.

19.30     How can you increase courage to do what is necessary?

22.00     We can make Post-traumatic growth more likely than PTSD.

23.30     Some questions to consider as you prepare for the next 6 months

29.00     The “soft stuff” gets you through hard situations.  

30.00 Thank you and Close.

I will send out the final summary email at the end of the week.

Best wishes,

JB

Hello, well here we are at week 11 the penultimate podcast in this series. And in response to one of the main themes of the catch up calls and (as you’ll find in the podcast) data from the CDC in the USA [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention- they play the same role as Sir Chris Whitty and colleagues in the USA] showing that fear and anxiety was the second biggest cause of hospitalisation and death when someone fell ill with COVID.

In this podcast, we speak with Gavin Andrews, MD of HeartMath UK and Ireland, co-founder of WeAddHeart a now global meditation initiative set up in response to the pandemic and also of Syntropy, a new app that integrates digital art, music and meditation to help people get faster and easier results from their meditation and relaxation efforts.

And we also get into the great advice many of you shared in the questionnaire from last week. There were some fantastic contributions showing the care and wisdom in this community. Thank you. 

I have known and worked with Gavin for over 10 years and we recommend the HeartMath tools, techniques and biofeedback devices to help people perform more effectively for less cost. He’s super smart and a really nice chap! 

Here’s what we discuss:

00.00  Welcome and Introduction

02.00   Gavin’s work – Making it easier to live through the heart every day.

07.00    The CDC research – fear and anxiety making COVID worse – the comorbidity you can change the quickest. 

11.42    The UK Government using fear as a motivator – well intentioned but with side effects.

16.00    Noticing, labelling and accepting our negative feelings- fear, anxiety, stress, call it what describes it best for you.

21.00    What is fear and anxiety? What happens in the body? (see diagrams)

26.00    How our stress affects our brain function. 

35.00    Why triggering our recovery response is so important. Clear away the debris.

41.00    Using emotional regulation to get us to Plan-B

44.00    Start with breathing more effectively – here’s how.

50.00    Practice session. Heart Focused Breathing.

1.01       Advice from the questionnaire -stunning stuff!

1.05       Build capacity skills and connection while we can.

1.12       Finding your senses.

1.13       Community and how to learn more.

We go through two slide. I have included them as images in case there was a problem with an attachment on your company systems.

Best wishes 

JB

Hello and welcome to the 10th podcast in our 12 podcast series. It’s been quite a journey so far reconnecting and connecting with the speakers and so many of you. Be sure to get in touch if you haven’t already.

This week’s speaker is John Butler and comes courtesy of Shepheard Walwyn publishers, the ethical publisher I support. John Butler is an 84 year old YouTube sensation with his own channel with 200k subscribers. He had his first book published in his 60s but only really came to people’s attention after a YT interview on stillness and spirituality went viral. That video now has an estimated 10m views on all platforms.

In this conversation, we explore his life and how he’s found “success” in life. John was one of the first organic farmers in the 1960s and collaborated with people like EF Schumacher, author of Small is beautiful and Lady Balfour, co-founder of the Soil Association. He’s also half Russian (his mum escaped Russia after the original Russian Revolution) and lived there for some years.

Whilst this conversation is easily the most spiritually minded of the series, I felt it was a great conversation to include because his ideas on (and experience of) meditation and remaining calm and connected to stillness in challenging situations works at every level. Also, his ideas on consciousness would resonate equally with philosophical idealists such as Bernardo Kastrup and Christian theologians such as Meister Eckhart. His commitment to meditation (almost 60 years of twice daily practice) is staggering and inspirational.

Harmonious relationships are at the heart of everything john has done in his life. He demonstrates this in the way he interacts with others. Interviewing him and spending time with him was a real highlight. I spent most of the day with him recording content for ethical publisher Shepheard Walwyn. The first was interview about his book was in the church in Bakewell, Derbyshire. I will post a link on Friday. The interview we have here was in his “first church” as he describes it, which is the hillside overlooking Bakewell. There is some background noise in this interview so apologies in advance. The worst part is around minute 16 but it gets better after that.

Here’s a summary of what we discussed.

00.00 Welcome and Introduction

03.00 Nature as John’s first Church – seeking space.

07.00 John in Africa – Space, Freedom and Spiritual Connection.

14.00 From organic farming as raising soil consciousness to human consciousness.

16.00 Wanting to be a farmer from before he was born (wind noise worse here).

20.00 Lessons from being a farmer for daily life-The challenge with “helping others.”

22.00 To make whole, be whole and finding meditation.

26.00 Inheriting Three Acres at Bicker Fen, Lincolnshire – Can you farm without destruction?

32.30 How to align intention and purpose.

36.00 Listening to your environment to know what to do.

38.30 Eating his favourite pig – recycling love. TLC in everything you do.

44.00 From tending to vegetables to tending to people. And making the economics fit your approach.

48.00 “Sinners” and “consumers” - are they the same thing? Connecting with God.

54.00 Taking whole.

57.00 The upside of failure and depression.

1.03 Russia and being with your own people for the first time.

1.10 The funniest “additional information” section ever written on a CV – Don’t fence me in!

1.12 Close.