People Soup

What happens when the immediate becomes more important than the longer term?

In Part One of my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp, we explored how addiction can compress a person's experience of time — making the immediate reward feel much more compelling than what might matter further into the future.

In this second part, we take that idea into the workplace and the wider culture around us.

Ryan and I talk about the impact of addiction at work, the way drinking can become normalised, and how organisational cultures can reinforce short-term thinking and behaviour.

We explore what happens when we're constantly rewarded for immediate results - quarterly numbers, annual targets, bonuses and quick wins - and what that might mean for relationships, psychological safety and the longer-term health of organisations.

We also talk about something more practical: how can managers respond when someone is struggling with addiction without excusing harmful behaviour?

For Ryan, the starting point is relationship. If a relationship is built around fear and compliance, people are unlikely to have honest conversations about difficult things. Compassion, vulnerability and trust create a different possibility.

We finish by talking about values — and how reconnecting with what matters can help people move beyond the immediate and begin to see a longer-term direction again.

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Listen to the first part of my conversation with Ryan
• Transcending Addiction by Ryan Kemp
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

Here's the People Soup Website.

And you can subscribe to the People Soup YouTube Channel here.

Visit Ross' Website.

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

People Soup on Instagram which also features plenty of Ross' photos of the Andalusian life.

Sometimes the things we reach for to make ourselves feel better can also stop us from finding out what's really going on.

In this Quick Spoon, I reflect on an observation from Dr Ryan Kemp about our culture's focus on the immediate — "now, do it, enjoy it, live for the moment."

That got me thinking about what we do when we've had a difficult experience.

We feel stressed, so we distract ourselves.

We feel frustrated, so we vent.

We feel uncomfortable, so we do something that takes the edge off.

And sometimes that's exactly what we need.

But what if the relief gets in the way of the reflection?

What if we never quite get to ask:

What is this experience trying to tell me?

So here's something to try.

The next time you find yourself looking for some immediate relief, give yourself a little space before you reach for it.

What might I learn if I stayed with this for a little while?

This Quick Spoon comes from my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp about addiction.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation: When the Future Gets Smaller: Dr Ryan Kemp on Addiction

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Transcending Addiction by Ryan Kemp
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

Here's the People Soup Website.

And you can subscribe to the People Soup YouTube Channel here.

Visit Ross' Website.

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

People Soup on Instagram which also features plenty of Ross' photos of the Andalusian life.

We all tell stories to make sense of our experiences.

• Your boss says something you don't like.
• Someone challenges you in a meeting.
• A colleague doesn't do what you expected.

And almost immediately, we can have a story about what's going on:

"They're being difficult."

"They don't appreciate me."

"They've got it in for me."

In this Quick Spoon, Dr Ryan Kemp talks about how we can construct stories about other people when we've had a negative experience — and how it can sometimes take a little longer to consider our own part in what's happening.

Sometimes our story might be absolutely right.

But Ryan's observation made me think about the value of creating a little space before we settle on our explanation.

Not to blame ourselves.

To be curious.

So here's your Quick Spoon:

The next time you find yourself telling a very convincing story about someone else, pause and ask:

What else might be true here?

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Transcending Addiction by Ryan Kemp
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

Here's the People Soup Website.

And you can subscribe to the People Soup YouTube Channel here.

Visit Ross' Website.

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

People Soup on Instagram which also features plenty of Ross' photos of the Andalusian life.

Sometimes, when something feels difficult, uncomfortable or overwhelming, our instinct is to make the feeling go away.

We distract ourselves.

We work.

We scroll.

We reach for something that changes how we feel.

In this Quick Spoon, Dr Ryan Kemp talks about this in the context of addiction — and about what happens when we aren't willing to stay with an uncomfortable experience for long enough to understand it.

I'm not suggesting that these everyday behaviours are necessarily addictions.

But Ryan's perspective raises an interesting question for all of us:

What am I trying not to feel?

And perhaps, before we rush to make an uncomfortable feeling disappear, there might be something useful to notice.

That's the idea behind this People Soup Quick Spoon.

🎧 This Quick Spoon comes from my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp, When the Future Gets Smaller: Dr Ryan Kemp on Addiction.

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Transcending Addiction by Ryan Kemp
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

Here's the People Soup Website.

And you can subscribe to the People Soup YouTube Channel here.

Visit Ross' Website.

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

People Soup on Instagram which also features plenty of Ross' photos of the Andalusian life.

What's driving the choices we make at work?

In my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp, we were talking about addiction and how a person's experience of time can become compressed around the immediate.

Ryan described part of his therapeutic role as helping people with addictions to expand that time horizon — to consider not just the immediate consequences of their actions, but the medium- and longer-term implications.

That got me thinking about something I see quite often in my own work: the path of least resistance.

We avoid the difficult conversation.

We put off the thing we know we need to do.

We go for the quick win.

We choose what's going to make today a little easier.

And sometimes that's absolutely fine.

But sometimes the short-term gain comes at the expense of something that matters more in the longer term.

So here's your Quick Spoon:

Am I choosing this because it's what matters, or because it's the easiest option right now?

A small question that might just help you widen the time horizon before you act.

🎧 This Quick Spoon comes from my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp, When the future gets smaller: Dr Ryan Kemp on addiction.

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Transcending Addiction by Ryan Kemp
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

How often do we get pulled towards what's going to give us relief or reward right now?

In this Quick Spoon, Dr Ryan Kemp describes how addiction can change someone's experience of time, so that the immediate becomes much more important than what might happen in the future.

I'm not suggesting that ordinary human behaviour is the same as addiction. But Ryan's insight got me thinking about something we can all recognise: the difficult conversation we put off, the easier option we choose, or the short-term reward that gets in the way of something that matters more in the longer term.

So here's the Quick Spoon:

The next time you find yourself choosing the easiest or most rewarding option, pause and ask:

This Quick Spoon comes from my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp about addiction.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation: When the future gets smaller: Dr Ryan Kemp on addiction

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Transcending Addiction by Ryan Kemp
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

What can addiction teach us about being human?

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr Ryan Kemp, a clinical psychologist and Director of Therapies at a large NHS Trust. Ryan is also an author and Honorary Professor of Clinical Practice at Brunel, University of London.

Ryan has worked in the field of addiction for more than 20 years. When he was last on People Soup, we talked about his journey into psychology and some of the pivotal moments in his career. This time, I wanted to understand something I'd never really explored with him: why addiction has held his interest for so long.

Ryan has developed a distinctive approach to addiction based on phenomenology — starting with the lived experience of the person.

In this first part of our conversation, we explore:

• Why Ryan became interested in addiction
• What phenomenology can tell us about addiction
• Why Ryan moved away from describing people experiencing addiction as simply "impulsive"
• How addiction can change a person's experience of time
• What happens when the future becomes harder to hold in mind and the immediate becomes increasingly important
• The relationship between addiction and pleasure, reward and relief
• Why Ryan believes dishonesty can begin with the relationship we have with ourselves
• The stories and narratives we construct to make sense of difficult experiences
• How those patterns can affect relationships with other people
• What some of these ideas might reveal about ordinary human behaviour and our tendency to choose short-term relief over longer-term consequences

We also begin to explore what this might mean for workplaces and organisations — and that's where we'll pick up the conversation in Part Two.

One of the ideas I'm taking away from this conversation is Ryan's description of addiction as an experience in which time can become compressed into the now.

We don't have to be experiencing addiction to recognise the pull of the immediate. The quick win. The avoidance of an uncomfortable feeling. The path of least resistance. The thing that gives us relief now, even when we know something else might matter more in the longer term.

I'm not suggesting these ordinary behaviours are the same as addiction. But I do think Ryan's perspective gives us an interesting lens through which to examine our own behaviour.

This is Part One of a two-part conversation with Ryan.

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Transcending Addiction by Ryan Kemp
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

Here's the People Soup Website.

And you can subscribe to the People Soup YouTube Channel here.

Visit Ross' Website.

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

People Soup on Instagram which also features plenty of Ross' photos of the Andalusian life.

We often think about recovery as something we do after the productive work is finished.

But when is the work ever really finished?

In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Dr Amanda Super challenges that assumption:

“Recovery is productive.”

Amanda suggests that self-compassion isn't just something we think about — we need to act on it. And that can include taking care of some of the basics of our physical wellbeing and building opportunities for recovery into the working day.

Ross explores what that might look like in practice.

Recovery doesn't have to mean a week away or a long weekend.

It might be five minutes away from your screen.

A walk around the block.

Some fresh air.

Taking your lunch away from your desk.

Or simply stopping for a moment and taking a breath.

Here's something to try:

Put one small recovery break into your working day this week.

And don't wait until you've earned it.

Treat it as part of the day.

Because recovery isn't the opposite of performance. It can support how we work — and how we experience work.

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Full episode here - Can you be ambitious and self-compassionate? Dr Amanda Super - People Soup
• Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn
• About Amanda's book - "A Year of Self-Compassion: Finding Care, Connection and Calm in Our Challenging Times"
• Amanda's website

Here's the People Soup Website.

And you can subscribe to the People Soup YouTube Channel here.

Visit Ross' Website.

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

People Soup on Instagram which also features plenty of Ross' photos of the Andalusian life.

Being kind to yourself doesn't mean lowering your standards.

In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Dr Amanda Super challenges the idea that self-compassion and ambition are somehow incompatible.

Amanda shares what she learned from comparing her experience of her Master's degree with her doctorate ten years later, after developing self-compassion.

She was still ambitious. Still driven. Still wanting to achieve.

But she wasn't doing it at the cost of herself.

So perhaps the question isn't whether we should be ambitious or self-compassionate.

Perhaps we can be kind to ourselves AND ambitious.

As Ross reflects:

“Self-compassion doesn't necessarily mean asking less of ourselves. It might mean changing the way we ask it.”

Try this:

Think about something you're currently working hard to achieve.

Ask yourself:

“What would being kind to myself look like in this context?”

And then:

“Can I take one small step towards that?”

This Quick Spoon comes from Ross's conversation with Dr Amanda Super about self-compassion, ambition, boundaries, recovery and being human at work.

#PeopleSoup #QuickSpoon #SelfCompassion #Psychology #Leadership

When something difficult happens, we can move very quickly from what's happened to what we're going to do about it.

• An email we don't like.
• Something someone says that gets under our skin.
• A difficult or overwhelming situation.

And suddenly we're going from 0 to 100 in nanoseconds.

In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Dr Amanda Super offers a remarkably simple question:

“What do I need right now?”

Ross explores what might happen if we create a little space before we react.

The answer might be:

• taking a break
• seeking some support
• having a difficult conversation
• or simply taking a couple of deep breaths before doing anything at all.

Here's something to try:

The next time you notice yourself becoming stressed, frustrated or overwhelmed, pause before you react and ask yourself:

“What do I need right now?”

A small question that might change what happens next.

This Quick Spoon comes from Ross's conversation with Dr Amanda Super about self-compassion, ambition, boundaries, recovery and being human at work.

People Soup: Real conversations about work, leadership, and being human — grounded in behavioural science, with practical ideas you can actually use.

If this episode resonated with you, please consider following People Soup, leaving a rating or review, or sharing it with someone who might find it useful.

Every recommendation helps more people discover practical, evidence-based conversations about work, leadership and being human.

• Full episode here - Can you be ambitious and self-compassionate? Dr Amanda Super - People Soup
• Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn
• About Amanda's book - "A Year of Self-Compassion: Finding Care, Connection and Calm in Our Challenging Times"
• Amanda's website

Here's the People Soup Website.

And you can subscribe to the People Soup YouTube Channel here.

Visit Ross' Website.

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

People Soup on Instagram which also features plenty of Ross' photos of the Andalusian life.