I can't believe a week has gone by as I write this and continue to reflect on what adventure means to heart-centered living.

This past week, I set out to interview the people I want to serve through my business - creative entrepreneurs. I set up a few appointments with people I have never met before for "virtual coffee" over Zoom to chat. My goal was to understand the life of a creative entrepreneur so that I could serve them well and provide them with the information and knowledge they needed to succeed.

I set up 9 conversations to meet this goal but little did I know ~ and least of all expect ~ that it was the journey towards the goal that made a lasting impression on my heart and how I understand the service I was providing. The conversations that I had with these highly creative and intelligent individuals broadened my worldview and changed the way I thought about the art and science of creativity by teaching me that the process of creating something is messy but highly rewarding. I've come to realize this from the past week: the most memorable - and indeed valuable - part of any destination is the journey there. The true adventure is in the journey towards the destination. 

Because, it is in the journey that our experience of the destination is shaped. Cherishing and soaking up every single step towards the destination offers us countless lessons, memories, and opportunity for reflection. So much so that when we recall that final destination, it is inevitably entwined with the tears, sweet, happiness, joy, and gratitude we offered to get there. It doesn't matter whether the destination is right in the middle of the Amazon rain forest or on top of Mount Everest or the signing of papers for the sale of your start-up for upward of 7 figures. Let's all learn to cherish the journey there and let's not focus so much on the BIG adventure to the final destination that we forget that every step there opens a whole new world of smaller but just as magnificent adventures.

In this week's episode, we have a guest who has cherished every step he took towards where he is right now. And of course, the journey is still on-going for him. Lee Chambers has made a name for himself as an environmental psychologist, a well-being consultant and as the founder of Essentialise Workplace Wellbeing. He is also a workshop facilitator and sleep specialist, having spent the last 10 years focusing on well-being and performance in the local government, corporate organisations, and in elite sports spaces. He now brings his experience and qualifications to the general public with the aim of impacting the well-being of thousands of individuals and businesses.

Well-being is an issue very close to Lee's heart. After losing the ability to walk in 2014 due to chronic illness, he has battled back to achieve a positive health outcome and is now on the pathway to becoming medication free. He holds a Masters of Science in Environmental Psychology, with a focus on human interaction with workplaces and natural environments. Based in Preston in the North of the UK, Lee is currently working with business owners and employee teams to create culture change and well-being strategies. He is a father of 2, coaches a disability football team, and enjoys eating good food with good friends. He is currently writing his first book, “How To Conquer Anything”, which will be released in November 2020.

Lee also presents the Health and Wellbeing show on Ribble FM Radio, and speaks in educational establishments about his varied career path, health challenges and having a resilient mindset.

Links to resources mentioned in the podcast:

Download Lee's Latest Book Here

Connect with Lee’s Consultancy

Twitter: @essentialise

Facebook/Instagram: @essentialisecoach

Connect with Lee on Linkedin

Check out Lee's Youtube Channel

And if you haven't already done so, download the June 2020 Adventure Booklet here.

~~~

As I was preparing the show notes for this podcast episode and thinking about what adventure might mean in day-to-day life, I toyed with the idea that adventure might mean the breakthrough of a pattern that holds a person back from experiencing the complete joy that life can bring and the journey forward from that breakthrough. Maybe some of us become too wrapped up in the fallacious idea that life should be perfect and that only people with perfect lives deserve success - probably perpetuated by the images we see of other people on social media - and never overcome the challenges life throws at us. As I thought about my interview in today's podcast and the adventure theme that is interwoven throughout the episodes this month, I came across this quote by one of my favorite creative, Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love. 

“Let’s just anticipate that we (all of us) will disappoint ourselves somehow. Go ahead and let it happen. Let somebody else be a better mother than you for one afternoon. Let somebody else go to art school…

Let somebody else have a happy marriage, while you foolishly pick the wrong guy. (Hell, I’ve done it; it’s survivable.) While you’re at it, take the wrong job. Move to the wrong city. Lose your temper in front of the boss, quit training for that marathon, wolf down a truckload of cupcakes the day after you start your diet. Blow it all catastrophically, in fact, and then start over with good cheer. This is what we all must learn to do, for this is how maps get charted — by taking wrong turns that lead to surprising passageways that open into spectacularly unexpected new worlds. So just march on. Future generations will thank you — trust me — for showing the way, for beating brave new footpaths out of wonky old mistakes.

Fall flat on your face if you must, but please, for the sake of us all, do not stop.

Map your own life.”

The whole article where that block quote came from is here.

I highlighted the parts of the quotation that I think speaks so specifically to adventure. That maps are charted through trials and error, that we make wrong turns sometimes, that finding new worlds is a risk we have to take in order to experience the wonders that the adventurous are blessed with. And the learnings that we record, the maps we draw to navigate life, that we then pass on to future generations become invaluable.

I think my interview with filmmakers, Tamika and Kimmlyn Archie, embodies that spirit of adventure. Tamika and Kimmlyn are the producer of the hit TV series Behind Closed Doors and we talked about a wide range of topics: how to produce a TV series with very little experience and a limited budget, organizing the production and actors to keep the show on schedule, drawing the inspiration for the storyline from real life, and using the TV series as a platform for difficult conversation around childhood trauma and women's issues. I hope you sense the spirit of adventure in both Kimmlyn and Tamika and enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

Links to resources mentioned in the interview:

Nuvysion Media Group

Facebook Page

Tamika Archie Knights

Stormii Knights

Behind Closed Doors

Twitter: NuVysion Media

Bring adventure into your life this month with prompts, ideas, and resources on adventure with the free HCL June 2020 Adventure booklet. Download the Adventure Booklet here.

We start a brand new season with the Heart Centered Life podcast today. Some of you may know that the podcast is all about helping you align your intellect, intuitions, and emotions so that you are able to find a heart-centered space where you feel grounded, calm, and happier. And hopefully, you feel called to create positive change in the world from this space.

The underlying philosophy of the podcast is to help you find a space where your deep happiness meets the world's deep hunger. Because, in that space, miracles will unfold for everyone, including you.

If you are new to the podcast, I would like to welcome you. I hope you like what you hear and see and will decide to stay.

In season 1, I had the opportunity to have so many great conversations with wonderful people who had a wealth of wisdom, knowledge, and experience to share with the world. If you haven't listened to us before, I encourage you to visit some of the episodes from season 1 and if you have listened to us before, I encourage you to revisit us again to see if there are episodes you missed.

For season 2, I have lined up more awesome guests to talk to us about what heart centered living and leadership means. But that's not all. There is a new structure to how the episodes are produced in season 2.

While guest interviews are still an important part of the podcast, season 2 will center around monthly themes that support a heart-centered life. Themes such as adventure, creativity, passion, and resiliency are a few of the themes we will explore and reflect on throughout the months. 

And to help us think about these themes, I will be producing downloadable booklets with some-original-some-curated ideas, prompts, quotations, resources, and inspiration. These will be downloadable with the first episode of the month.

And we will revisit these themes and your reflection of them in the last episode for the month. Then we move on to the next theme. Our guests come on in weeks between the first and the last episodes for the month.

It is my sincere hope that these booklets transform your experience of daily living. And that they take you from one state of being to a different one. From stressed, frazzled, and overwhelmed to being calm, grounded, and confident in your abilities to meet your next challenge. That is the essence of heart centered living.

Thank you, dear listener, for being the most incredible part of the podcast. I hope you will download the HCL June 2020 Adventure Booklet and come with me on the journey of exploring this theme this month.

And if you feel inspired to, please share your experience and reflection with me. With your permission, I may share them with the audience in the last episode for the month where I bring the theme to a close and share my own reflection and experience of the adventure theme with you. 

Download a copy of the HCL June 2020 Adventure Booklet.

I look forward to reconnecting again at the end of the month and to sharing my own adventure this month.

With much love,

Creativity is an innate skill that we all possess but so few of us use it to our advantage. Our ability to see new connections between disparate ideas, identify patterns in analogous spaces, express our inner thoughts in a way that resonates with an audience, and inspire emotions in other people evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. Creative thinking kept our ancestors alive in a world that was uncompromising and today, creative thinking is an essential tool to keep us mentally and emotionally healthy in a world that is ridden with anxiety, stress, and fear of others. Creative thinking also provides innovative solutions to problems we face. In this interview, I talk to Robert Belle about how to be creative during a pandemic.

About Robert:

Robert A. Belle is a transformational speaker, mentor and ACCA Qualified Accountant. He is the Managing Director of Smip Consultancy and helps people who feel stuck in their career or life journey to break away from the “norm” and find new paths that reveal their true value.

He has shared his secrets of creative success at numerous speaking engagements as well as on Antigua and Barbuda’s ABS TV and Radio, Kenya’s NTV and KUTV. He also spends much of his time mentoring and guiding men of all ages to have a strong, positive impact on their families and society as a whole.

Robert is a winner of the 2019 Advocate of the Year Award (Affiliate) by the ACCA for his work assisting other accountants embrace their creativity and reach new growth potentials.

Robert is the author of "Blow The Lid Off! Reclaim your stolen creativity, increase your income

Links to resources mentioned in the podcast:

Amazon link to "Blow the Lid Off!"

Human beings have brains that are wired to dwell on negative thoughts and the negative things that happen to us. Cognitive scientists call this the "negativity bias" because a negative event affects us much more than a corresponding positive event. Sometimes, we forget about the specifics of the negative event but the effects and feelings we got around it slips into our subconscious and make their home there. The effects and feelings that surround negative events hold us back from accomplishing what we want in our lives and living the live we dream of. 

In this episode, Janine talks to us about how painful life experiences can affect our lives and hold us back. Janine also provides us with ways in which we can replace subconscious negative thinking by bringing them into our conscious mind through the power of clinical hypnosis - which, if you listen to Janine, is not some magic art practiced by a magician who wants you to give him all your bank account details as most of us perceive hypnotherapy to be. Rather, hypnotherapy is a form of therapy used to put people in a relaxed state to access the subconscious and replace negative thinking with more positive affirmations. 

Listen to Janine's interview to see how you can overcome painful life experiences (like losing a loved one as Janine talked me though) to see things in a more positive light.

About Janine:

Janine Wirth is on a mission to free women from the burden of unresolved trauma without spending years in therapy. As the CEO of Path to Healing Therapy and Coaching and the creator of the ground-breaking Pain to Purpose Academy, a 6 month experience combining therapy and coaching.

Links to resources mentioned in the interview:

Janine's Webpage

Janine's Free "Heal Your Inner Child" Hypnosis

We tend to think that creating social impact and making profits are mutually exclusive endeavors. The former belonged to the public sector, which included government, non-profits, and foundations, while the latter was the purview of businesses and the private sector. With the emergence of the B-corp and like businesses that work to align their business operations with the UN's sustainable development goals, it is becoming more apparent that profits and social impact can be aligned. Bill Drayton and Valeria Budinich discuss it here in a Harvard Business Review article: When Profit and Social Impact Unite

Tom Matzen teaches us how to do it in this podcast episode. Tom's vision is to empower entrepreneurs to be the greatest force for good they can be and his warm delivery of his message will resonate. As an international best-selling author and seminar presenter he has been able to share his message of business success & failure to more than 100,000 people on 4 continents. He has been interviewed in Success Mag, Inc Mag, Entrepreneur, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and literally 100's of radio & TV Stations across North America, sharing the secrets of business success, learned from his business ventures and from his personal interviews with some 204 business leaders. 

Links to resources mentioned in the podcast: 

Tom's Business Webpage

Embark Million Dollar Authority Partnership (for link to Tom's Scholarship Program)

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to talk to Kevin Hofmann, the author of "Growing Up Black in White." Kevin's warm-hearted book draws attention to the difficulty of growing up as a person of color in racially-charged Detroit in 1967 and how easy it is to give in to the pressures of social labeling and prejudice. With humor and humility, Kevin shows us that the best response when we are pigeon-holed by others, is to grow through it and develop the resiliency, self-respect, and personal identity that will define us as individuals in that process. In this interview, Kevin talks about how important diversity is in any thriving society and provides actionable steps to take to ensure that diversity in embraced and protected in our schools, communities, and work places. You will find Kevin's comments insightful, instructive, and candid but also deeply warm and sincere.

Links:

Kevin's Website

Amazon link to "Growing Up Black in White"

Connect with Kevin on Twitter

I believe that creative expression is essential to personal transformation and business or professional success. However, creative expression has to be authentic for transformation to happen and for businesses or a career to launch successfully. Intrinsic creativity takes us a lot further than extrinsic motivations such as monetary rewards, punishment or fame. This is why I think that this podcast is really good in that it provides the tools you need to access personal memories that can form the basis for personal story telling. 

Links:

Miranda's website (where you can find contact details if you would like Miranda to send you the Memory toolkit)

Have you ever had the desire to pursue a creative passion - writing, music, art or making a movie - but dismissed the calling as impractical or unrealistic? Maybe you are a busy professional or entrepreneur and pursuing this desire is not aligned with the trajectory of your career. In this exciting episode, I talk to Bryan Smith about pursuing your creative calling while maintaining a successful career.Bryan is a trial attorney, musician, writer, and creator of the DreamPath Podcast. DreamPath explores the artistic journeys of musicians, filmmakers, writers, painters, and creatives of all types. He asks these questions: What inspired these people to make the leap from their day jobs to a career in the arts? What hurdles did they overcome? What did they learn from their failures? What advice do they have for aspiring artists? The DreamPath Podcast draws out the answers from these creative artists more. As an intellectual property law professor who has spent so much time thinking about creativity and pursued so many different creative projects, I truly enjoyed this conversation with Bryan who has incredible insights and advice to offer anyone who wants to pursue a creative calling.Resources mentioned in the podcast:The DreamPath Podcast WebsiteJulia Cameron's Morning PagesConnect with Bryan on:InstagramFacebookTwitter

Have you ever been in a job or career that just did not align with who you are or what you are about? Many times, we end up in jobs or careers because we took one logical step after the other. The problem with being in a job that you are unhappy or dissatisfied with is that it depletes your energy and dampens your spirit. Find a higher purpose to what you do in your daily life and being in alignment with it is essential to the heart-centered life.In this episode, I talk to Betty Kempa, a career coach who helps high-level executives, especially women, transition from a job they do not like into their dream career. Here Betty talks candidly about the 5 steps she walks clients though to take them from an unhappy career situation to one that is fulfilling. Here are the 5 steps Betty takes her clients through:1. Unpacking Your StoryUnpacking your job history to identify why you may be unhappy with your current job and what you actually do like about your job as it is. Find the moments in your day that makes you truly happy. Monitor yourself for a week and make a record of what makes you truly happy at the end of every day. These simple records can be very insightful.2. Clarifying Your VisionWhat is your life plan (how do you want your life to look like and your career goals should match your life goals)? What is your mission statement (and your mission statement SHOULD match your company's mission statement) if you are to be happy and thrive in that company.3. Gathering Clues about YourselfAssessments that reveal your career preferences, your strengths, life and career values, talents, and personality (such as the Myer Briggs  personality test) can help you gather clues about the type of career or job that would make you the most satisfied. 4. Narrowing Your Clues DownSift through all your clues and separate your values into what is "non-negotiable" and just "nice to have." At this point, you would also engage in some research and interview people doing work in careers you are interested in to find out whether that career path is really something you want to be on. Listen to your gut as well. Do you feel expansive or do you feel tight in your stomach when you imagine yourself in your potential new career path? 5. Making your TransitionWhen you are making the transition to a new career, re-brand yourself and rewrite your resume. Instead of sending application letters to companies you think may be your ideal place to work, network instead and try to transition into your new job with the help of your network. Who knows who your hairdresser actually knows?Some questions to ask yourself if you are unsure about your current job situation:1. stress and anxiety: is your job the greatest (or one of the greatest source of your anxiety)?2. money: even if your job is so bad, can you afford to quit your job? can you afford to not quit your job?3. family: are you missing time with your kids or is the relationship with your spouse affected?4. values: are you able to use your talents in your job? is your job aligned with your values and life mission?5. people you work with: do you have a good relationship with the people you work with? are their values aligned with yours?Betty's advice: You are not trapped even if you feel that you are. So, just take one step this week to get some clarity and if you know what you want, take a small step in the right direction.Links to resources mentioned in the podcast:Dan Zandra, the 5 Book: Where Will You be 5 Years from Now?Betty's Website and How to Reach Her  Freebie: The Sure Fire Guide to Finding Your Passion