Deliberate Life™

It feels a little like we are back in March-2020, when we advised our clients to “hope for the best, prepare for the worst”. Except we didn’t know what we meant by “the worst”. Certainly not that we would, almost two years later, be back at what feels like another chapter in the ongoing story of this global pandemic. Today we discuss resilience. How can we train ourselves, our bodies and minds, to be more physically, mentally and emotionally resilient? This, we argue, is a super power that is very useful in a world full of covid-induced setbacks and disappointments.

In this early morning recording of this episode, we talk about sleep. We start from the technology, the biohacking / tracking tools we use, Whoop (Pia) and Oura (Bart), and how we use these tools in optimising sleep. We discuss some of the basics of sleep for example the four main aspects of sleep: Quality, quantity, continuity and regularity and the main stages of sleep: Deep, REM and light sleep.

We continue discussing other matters such as the value (and potential risks) of daytime napping, the value of each of the main sleep stages on body and mind repair, and the importance of knowing your chronotype: Are you a lark, a night owl or somewhere in the middle? Do you need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning? Then you are probably not a lark!

We talk about the stages of life and how this impacts sleep, for example the sleep of teenagers, parents of very young children and older people. All sleep deprivation in our lives, throughout our lives, has an effect on our health, in particular later in life. How do we deal with this, psychologically and emotionally? What can we do to fine-tune the quality, quantity, regularity and continuity of sleep?

We discuss the importance of being aware of the trade-off of certain activities in life and sleep quality and making conscious decisions around this. We discuss some of the tips, hacks and tools we know and use, for example work with changing routines and habits around light, journaling, temperature, nutrition, supplements, exercise, and the timing of daily activities throughout the day.

It has been a while since the last episode, not sure what happened to the time! In this episode, we discuss organisational culture. A good episode to listen to before you listen to this episode is Episode 3, of May 2019, in which we talked about personal values. We define culture as those values and behaviours that are important to a team, group, company or country. What is important to us who work and/or live here?

Culture happens anyway, whether you are aware of it or not. We talk about the importance of leadership, and the relation between leadership and culture, and the importance of walking the talk. We also touch on the importance of the company founder(s) in culture, especially when they are still around in executive roles, and for senior leaders to explicitly work with culture.

Next is the importance of culture in international expansion, and how for example a European country’s corporate culture might meet US corporate culture and how to get the best out of both. We discuss the importance of authenticity and being able to ‘bring your personal values and strengths to work’, which means there will be alignments between your personal values and the culture of your company, which will result in being happier and more engaged at work.

We talk about the type of work we do with our clients to help them have more meaningful dialogues about culture at work, how we measure culture through culture audits and we briefly discuss the relationship between strategy and culture. Our assertion is that if we as leaders don’t work explicitly with culture in organisations, there is a very good chance we will not achieve our strategic objectives and priorities.

Following on from our last episode on coaching, we are discussing a closely related topic, motivation, with one of our clients, Max Barclay. We discuss the importance of motivation in managing and leading people, and what’s important in motivating people. We talk about: Knowing the people you motivate because it’s personal and situational, generational differences, the limited role of reward in motivation, the connection between personal values and motivation, how to use feedback in motivating people, and the importance of motivation in happiness at work. We touch on our favourite book on the subject, Drive by Daniel Pink, and the three drivers of motivation: Autonomy (leave them to it, don’t micromanage), mastery (allow people to get really good at what they are good at already) and purpose (support them to find some meaning bigger than themselves).

It’s the early morning on Good (Long) Friday and we are talking about coaching. What do we talk about when we talk about coaching? Of course, it’s our profession. It’s also a communication or leadership style. And it’s a methodology, a series of behaviours. It’s a personal value, and it’s a way of being in the world. We discuss some of the most essential coaching behaviours: It’s about showing curiosity and openness, being present in the here and now, having empathy with the person you are coaching (which means real interest in the whole person, not just the subject matter), and we discuss some tools such as using silence. We leave listeners with some ideas on what to experiment with the next time they are in a coaching conversation.

Back together in Stockholm after a few months on zoom, we discuss the topic of feedback. Before that even, Pia explains how in her calendar 8 minutes equals one hour, but that aside. Back to feedback, we believe sometimes people think this is a boring topic in leadership development, “oh no not feedback!”, and we also believe that people are not really giving enough feedback in practice. And that it doesn’t have to be difficult, and it can actually be fun. We kick it off by discussing the barriers to giving feedback. Why is it not happening?

Then we discuss some other things, here is a selection: Timing of feedback (the earlier the better). The best set and setting for giving feedback. Focus on strengths (getting even better at something) versus fixing weaknesses. Talk from yourself and not others (your feelings, your thoughts, your observations). Feedback is continuous, not an annual event. Be very specific, also about positive feedback eg ask “what was good about it?”. When discussing improvements, coach, don’t tell. Also, ask for feedback on specifics in advance, to make it easier for the giver of feedback.

It’s January 2021, some of us are back in full lockdown, and we are talking about Pia’s most used phone app: Calendar. She addresses some of these questions: Why is this her most used app? Why is planning so important to her? What does planning for spontaneity mean to her? Other questions that we address in this episode: What are some of the neuroscientific and psychological aspects of how we use calendars? How can we be more deliberate about how we use calendars? What is, or should be, the impact of pandemic/working from home on how we use calendars?

Some practical aspects of using the calendar we talk about: How to use the calendar for all aspects of your life and work, not just for meetings? How to use the calendar to enhance joy and calm in your life? What can we do in our corporate cultures, systems and team working practices to enhance the most effective use of calendar? How to plan well in advance for space for “no meetings”, solitude and deep work? How to deliberately plan for breaks in between meetings? How to use the calendar so as not to forget things, keep to your routines and stick to your intentions?

We are back online, back on zoom, to record this 2-part podcast on curiosity. We discuss the many aspects of curiosity. Why is it important to be curious? What can we be curious about? How does curiosity work? How does it feel to be curious? How can we invoke curiosity? What stops our curiosity? What is the purpose of curiosity? What is needed for us to be able to be curious? We roughly identify three categories of curiosity: Curiosity into the self, curiosity into others, and curiosity into things.

We discuss different ways to develop curiosity and to learn more about curiosity, the relation between curiosity and the personality trait of openness, the importance of curiosity in leadership, how curiosity is an antidote to polarisation and how the inner journey of inquiry can help us get in touch with the essence of our true nature. Our discussion takes us into many examples, ranging from discussions with cardiologists, Rumi poetry, why we practice yoga, what stops puppies from learning, the metaphor of scuba diving, the love for an octopus and the US presidential elections.

We are back online, back on zoom, to record this 2-part podcast on curiosity. We discuss the many aspects of curiosity. Why is it important to be curious? What can we be curious about? How does curiosity work? How does it feel to be curious? How can we invoke curiosity? What stops our curiosity? What is the purpose of curiosity? What is needed for us to be able to be curious? We roughly identify three categories of curiosity: Curiosity into the self, curiosity into others, and curiosity into things.

We discuss different ways to develop curiosity and to learn more about curiosity, the relation between curiosity and the personality trait of openness, the importance of curiosity in leadership, how curiosity is an antidote to polarisation and how the inner journey of inquiry can help us get in touch with the essence of our true nature. Our discussion takes us into many examples, ranging from discussions with cardiologists, Rumi poetry, why we practice yoga, what stops puppies from learning, the metaphor of scuba diving, the love for an octopus and the US presidential elections.

We recorded this 2-part podcast in a very special, happy place for us, a tiny village in southern Spain, and we discuss happiness. What are the important elements of happiness for us? We touch on nature, slowness, timelessness, lack of a need to perform, presence, mindfulness, space, absence of self-doubt, the somatic experience of emotions (positive and negative), purpose, personal values, truth, freedom, pleasure, positive relationships, flow states, physical and mental wellbeing, success, attention, lightness, play and the relative joy of carrots.

We discuss some formulas for happiness, for example the relationship between happiness and success, or the relationship between happiness and expectations of life. We also discuss some distinctions for example between happiness and pleasure, happiness and desire, and happiness and purpose and we dig a little deeper into the purpose of negative emotions.

We discuss some important practical tips, we suggest to try for example meditation, gratitude writing, reflecting on personal values, lowering of expectations (desire what you have, not what you don’t have), internalising goals that you have control over (and don’t try to control things you don’t have control over), reasoning (present the negative feeling with evidence of the opposite), changing our beliefs (accept people do what they can with the resources they have), or practising kindness and compassion.