Better Beings

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amber Brandner and Brad Harris are the co-founders and principals of A Frame - a venture studio as a force for better businesses. In this episode they discuss their experiences, motivations and the community aspects of building better from the bottom up.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE

• What are the biggest challenges for mission-driven founders to structure impact at early stages?
• ‘Humanity-centred’ design rather than human-centred design: looking at problems from the root cause with a long-term mindset, being iterative, continual refinement and building with community
• The power of the collective and what is possible when we come together and create from a space that is bigger than ourselves.

REFERENCES

Mirth Drink

Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard

Let my People go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard

Perspectiva Press

The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts

Shantaram (audiobook)

Armchair Experts (podcast) 

Syzmon, Blue colored mountain (song)

Barca Matchday Playlist 

CONNECT WITH BRADLEY HARRIS

LinkedIn

CONNECT WITH AMBER BRANDNER

LinkedIn

www.aframeventurestudio.com

SUPPORT BETTER BEINGS

If you enjoyed this episode of Better Beings, please share it with your friends and follow us on socials. Thanks for listening! 

Instagram

LinkedIn

CONTACT

Let us know your thoughts, feelings, critiques, and resource recommendations [email protected]

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Better business genius and spiritual leader John Featherby joins us to discuss the limits to materialism, a crisis of meaning and what spirituality means in the modern world.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE

• Reaching the end of a hyper-rational, high secular materialism age - and looking at what comes next to fill the ‘void’ in realising it doesn't provide real meaning 
• Exploring Spiritual Capital as a “resource of collective memory, benefit, and impact of a culture’s religious, spiritual, philosophy history and heritage” and investing in it through honouring purpose, value, virtue, and meaning in cultures 
• Religion as a way of being. It’s a pattern and we’re all in one. We’re all worshipping something
• CENTRES OF POWER ARE MOVING AWAY FROM THE WEST - neutral secular perspectives that are not neutral. Parts of the world are pushing back.
• How you develop leaders - mindfulness, breathing, embracing the wilderness 
• The agenda of “purpose” in business spaces & leadership programmes - and how authentic and meaningful this actually is. 

QUOTES & SNIPPETS

“We’re in a meaning crisis. Spiritual Capital doesn’t ‘belong’ to big businesses. You cant import purpose, ritual, philosophical ideas etc”

“It’s a pattern and we’re all in one”

“Consumerism doesn’t provide the meaning people thought it would so they’ve gone looking for meaning in something else”

“All people have now IS their work - home - and hobby. People's lives have gone from many layers to work and home. Back in the day, people belonged to a community organisation, there were layers between the individual and the state that gave them meaning and a sense of grounding but we’ve stripped them out”

“Most of the stuff you read in these modern business books about purpose and good culture - they exist in all the great scriptures. We’ve had this stuff forever.”

REFERENCES

Richard Dawkins

Gus Speth

Robert Tombs

Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton

CONNECT WITH JOHN

Substack

Website

LinkedIn 

SUPPORT BETTER BEINGS

If you enjoyed this episode of Better Beings, please share it with your friends and follow us on socials. Thanks for listening! 

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CONTACT

Let us know your thoughts, feelings, critiques, and resource recommendations [email protected]

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The wonderful Dan Haggis - from chart-topping band The Wombats - joins us to discuss creativity and commercialisation in the music business. In this fun and thoughtful episode we also discuss parenthood, wellbeing, mid-life-crises and what makes for a fulfilling and grounded life.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE

• The appreciation & sense of wonder that parenthood brings - for the journey that all humans go through
• Prioritising a creative career and navigating the school system
• Holding onto the purity of making music vs being ‘successful’ in the industry 
• The mid-life crisis that comes when we turn 30; “slowly untethering from youth, accepting that you’re moving on to a new chapter”, and how yoga helped him through this process

QUOTES & SNIPPETS

“It’s like I’m seeing the pyramid of Egypt for the first time when I’m watching him (son), that sense of wonder, seeing his little personality grow”

“No matter how much work you do on yourself (e.g meditation, Wim Hof ice showers) - you can still fall into bad habits. We are all a work in progress”

“Keep the harmony. If you don’t get things ironed out with yourself and your band or business; there’s no longevity”

“Yoga was a revolutionary force in my life; the one place, apart from making music, that could go to be in the moment where no other thoughts exist”

REFERENCES

The Infinite Monkey Cage, Brian Cox

The Rest is Politics

Cold Reactor, Everything Everything

Doppelganger, Naomi Klein

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***, Mark Manson

The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle

CONNECT WITH DAN

Instagram (Dan)

Dan’s new album

FOLLOW THE WOMBATS

The Wombats

Instagram (The Wombats)

SUPPORT BETTER BEINGS

If you enjoyed this episode of Better Beings, please share it with your friends and follow us on socials. Thanks for listening! 

Instagram

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CONTACT

Let us know your thoughts, feelings, critiques, and resource recommendations [email protected]

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Steve Biddulph is the world's top-selling parenting author this century. His books include Raising Boys, Manhood, Raising Girls, and Fully Human, which are in over 6 million homes. Steve campaigns for better treatment of families and children and a more affectionate and connected form of parenting.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE

• Why caring for your people should be the first goal in any human organisation 
• Thriving with autism
• The mental health and emotional intelligence of the younger generation
• The complexities of gender differences in raising boys and girls
• Getting in touch with our “Wild Creature Mind”

QUOTES & SNIPPETS

“If your kid sees you cry sometimes, that’s a gift to them”

“Human beings are broken and that’s the beauty of us - it’s what we make of that”

“There’s a thousand different ways to be a boy or a man, and there’s a thousand different ways to be a girl or a woman” 

“Instead of thinking ‘I'm anxious’ - try thinking: ‘there's something in me that’s anxious;’ then everyone can muster that strength to nurture themselves”

“There’s a generational uprising. It’s angry and it’s tender at the same time. These kids have got heart and they’ve got backbone. And they know what’s what.”

“We are wired to have fatherly, sisterly, and motherly feelings. A human organisation will only really hum when we honour these”

“Any organisation that has money as its purpose is automatically doomed to fail, because money is a myth, it’s a fairytale.”

REFERENCES

Fully Human by Steve Biddulph

The Secret of Happy Children by Steve Biddulph

Make Friends with Your Wild Creature Mind by Steve Biddulph *coming soon*

Ian McGilchrist (neuroscience) 

CONNECT WITH STEVE

https://www.stevebiddulph.com

SUPPORT BETTER BEINGS

If you enjoyed this episode of Better Beings, please share it with your friends and follow us on socials. Thanks for listening! 

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CONTACT

Let us know your thoughts, feelings, critiques, and resource recommendations [email protected]

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Lorna Davis is passionate about helping leaders to live and lead with love. She has lived and worked in 7 countries on 5 continents, and was previously the leader of multi billion dollar businesses such as Danone, Kraft and Mondelez.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE

• Social Impact - where should people act? How do we make a difference when there’s so many things going on in the world, and use our heart to lead us there
• The illusion that business is all to do with the head - but there is a lot more permission around love & connection than we allow ourselves to think 
• How to back up, shift to a more human perspective, and see things differently - gaining perspective & joy from those on the front line
• Inspiration from working with Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice

QUOTES & SNIPPETS

“Where to act is where your heart breaks”

"To be human is a heartbreaking, excruciating experience, and it is an uplifting liberating experience. But holding both of these as true, is key to our liberation and  destiny"

“Play, practice, push the edges of your imagined cells, and the worst that can happen is that you have to apologise”

“Every time a subject is freaking you out, instead of moving away, get closer to it and see what joy you find… There are always people on the front line doing remarkable things”

“In our quiet moments, something powerful is guiding us that isn't our logic”

REFERENCES

Barbara Sreisand’s Autobiography

The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why by Richard Nisbett

Beyonce Texas Hold ‘Em

Wilderness Leadership School

FTE’s (Full Time Equivalents)

CONNECT WITH LORNA

LinkedIn

lornadavis.net

Ted Talk

SUPPORT BETTER BEINGS

If you enjoyed this episode of Better Beings, please share it with your friends and follow us on socials. Thanks for listening! 

Instagram

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CONTACT

Let us know your thoughts, feelings, critiques, and resource recommendations [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew Hunt, founder of superfoods company Aduna shares the highs and lows in his inspiring entrepreneurial journey.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE:

• How Conscious Wellness is rooted in helping others 
• The interconnectedness of all living things - based on the West African belief of Aduna 
• How Andrew and Aduna grew a leading wellness business supporting local farmers in Ghana 
• Modifying the capitalist structure so that it’s not exploitative, extractive and unhealthy
• Where our sense of worth and value comes from as human beings

QUOTES & SNIPPETS:

“Doing something on a daily basis that is making a difference to other people is the most important part of wellness”

“I am because we are” - the concept of Ubuntu

“So many people are living in deficiency of human community in modern life” 

“If you want to achieve a state of oneness it can’t just be about yourself”

“Collective Wellness is true wellness”

“Physical and emotional health are two sides of the same coin”

REFERENCES:

The Baobab Tree

Microbiome

‘Ubuntu’ Philosophy

B-Corp

Fonio seeds

How To Do The Work, by Dr Nicole LePera

CONNECT WITH ANDREW:

LinkedIn

FOLLOW ADUNA:

Aduna

SUPPORT BETTER BEINGS:

If you enjoyed this episode of Better Beings, please share it with your friends and follow us on socials. Thanks for listening! 

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CONTACT:

Let us know your thoughts, feelings, critiques and resource recommendations [email protected]

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Journalist, author and political commentator Adam Lowenstein discusses business systems and power dynamics.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE:

• What it means to be in the world of corporate and political ‘power’ 
• How to see the best in people and build bigger, more inclusive movements
• How to live by the practice of ‘memento mori’ 
• Adam's experiences of seeing first-hand how American politics operates behind closed doors 
• The small shifts needed to imagine a new system & step forward with true purpose

QUOTES & SNIPPETS:

“Corporations are claiming to be the solution to the problems they have created”

“It has nothing to do with bad people - it has everything to do with incentives and structures & the way human beings operate”

“When do you call someone out and when do you bring them into your movement?”

“There’s no secret formula for achieving power”

"If we’re going to die at some point, we might as well live”

"I’ve seen what's on the other side; and they're just people"

"At the end of the day, it's not going to be the emails I regret or the work I didn't do - it's going to be the walks in the park i didn't take"

REFERENCES:

The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler 

The Persuaders, Anan Giridharadas

The Long Now Foundation

Lupe Fiasco 

ESG

Reframe the Day, Adam Lowenstein

Memento mori

CONNECT WITH ADAM:

LinkedIn

Blog 

SUPPORT BETTER BEINGS:

If you enjoyed this episode of Better Beings, please share it with your friends and follow us on socials. Thanks for listening! 

Instagram

LinkedIn

CONTACT:

Let us know your thoughts, feelings, critiques and resource recommendations [email protected]

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.