Self Centred with Roann

Buddhist monk, meditation teacher and author of A Monk’s Guide to Happiness.

Thubten is not your normal monk. Super-sharp, super-smart, super-capable, he went to Oxford University and then to New York to become an actor. He was living the dream, and yet he describes it as hell. “It was really hard, because I was so unhappy. And so everything I was doing was just to escape the unhappiness - and it wasn't working.”

Facing burnout and breakdown, he retreated to his parent’s house, before deciding to join a Buddhist monastery, which he thought would help soothe his troubled soul. But it did more than that. It turned out to be his life’s purpose.

Now, after 26 years of being a monk, his perspective is different, but the way he communicates with the world remains deeply real.

As you’ll hear, he’s very grounded, spreading his message of meditation and the truth about happiness anywhere that he can serve. He has worked in prisons, businesses, hospitals and schools, and is now working with the UN trying to get global business leaders to include meditation in their meetings, in the hope of driving real change. Change which is internal and long-lasting.

And that internal change relates to us too. Thubten’s message is that happiness is within reach for all of us - and you can take steps to find it now. You already have everything you need.

It’s very empowering and a message I really needed to hear. So I hope you enjoy it too!

Founding lawyer, Client Earth.

Essentially acting as lawyers for our planet, Client Earth has spent 15 years making sure that countries, companies and politicians consider the environment with their actions. And they actively pursue in court those who don’t.

As founder James Thornton said me to in this week’s episode; “We've been stopping a whole generation of coal-fired power stations in Europe. You can't build one anywhere in Europe - we’ll stop you.”

James and his ever-growing team of environmental lawyers are defending the oceans, protecting the forests and giving a voice to the people who depend on them. This is tackling the climate crisis at its root, and defending our long term right to prosper as a species in the most practical way possible.

It’s a very novel, and thankfully increasingly effective, approach - as you will hear from James, a man who has a very interesting take on things. His story and mindset are really enlightening and his practical approach also applies equally to day to day life.

He says: “Before you get up out of bed in the morning, it's a good thing to say, what do I want to dedicate my life to? And that in itself is a very centering thing to do.”

There’s a lot we can learn here. And, far from leaving me downhearted, this conversation is practical, uplifting and offers a renewed sense of hope for the future.

Award-winning Sunday Times columnist and author of Man Down: Why Men are Unhappy and What We Can do About It

“Whether or not I will be a more ‘successful person’ is up for debate - but who cares, quite frankly.”

It’s fantastic to have Matt Rudd on the podcast today. Matt’s book, Man Down looks at reframing toxic masculinity and how it doesn't serve any anyone - a really urgent subject, given the rising cases of male suicide and depression.

In our discussion, we talk about what success looks like - the misconception of what that is and the damage we are doing by striving for the wrong things. At its heart, his message is for all of us to get out of autopilot. He talks about readdressing our values, and we discuss how what we're told at school about being a success creates a generation of ‘completer finishers’. As if there is no reward in the journey, only the outcome.

I love the way that Matt is truly open and vulnerable about his struggles. He’s just trying to work everything out too. And in writing his book, I think he's found some important lessons that we can apply to our lives right away.

And, if you are a female listener, then this episode is definitely for you too. We're all interlinked - mothers have sons, wives have husbands, sisters have brothers and so on. The pressures of the modern family unit are very real for a lot of us. It's refreshing to be given permission to be kinder to yourself and to move the goalposts in on what success looks like.

I really enjoyed our conversation, and I hope you do too.

I’m delighted to be talking to Eve Kalinik today, author of Happy Gut, Happy Mind, and champion of promoting nutritional wellbeing as a way of supporting your mental wellbeing.

She says: “If we truly want to have an authentic life-long attitude towards nourishing ourselves - which by the way food is only one part - then quick fixes, fads, detoxes and diets are not going to cut the proverbial mustard.”

As for Eve herself, she had a successful career in fashion PR, which she says was anything but “healthy” - long hours, fast food, skipping meals, being sucked into weird diets. Which is something we can all relate to. Subsequent burnout and recurrent kidney infections led her to really take stock and stop, to look at her life, look at what she was putting into her body and to make that leap to connect the way she lived and ate and the way she was feeling.

So we talk about her journey, we also talk about the microbiome and the gut, because, as she lays out in her book, the gut is intrinsically linked to the state of our mental health and the new science around our gut is fascinating.

She also talks about this idea that we’ve got a lot of time back. Because of COVID and lockdowns, we aren’t commuting for so long, and she says we need to use this time to start nourishing ourselves by slowing down the way we work, the way we think, the way we eat.  Maybe even going back to former traditions where we honour our food and take our time with it, rather than being obsessed with working and productivity.

“What has transpired in the last six months," she says. "Is that reconnection - fundamentally reconnecting with ourselves.”

She also talks about how you can nutritionally take small bold actions now, that can have a lifetime of effect.

I’ll think you’ll get a lot from this, there’s some really practical stuff that you can take away, and some fascinating ideas for starting to nourish your whole self more.

Welcome to the third in my series of Designing a Life to Thrive. 

We have a big opportunity to re-appraise our lives thanks to Covid. To put our focus on things like connection, nature, family, personal fulfilment and purpose. A new narrative for our time. 

As a society, we can start to develop new systems that serve us and our planet more.

The first principle in this series was to slow down and make time for the self; the second principle was to be as one, thinking of ourselves as global citizens.

The third principle is going to be one of the most practical, but powerful things you can do - to choose your true values over put-upon ego. With practical tasks as well as some profound ancient wisdom, I hope you get a lot from this episode. 

“To what extent are we going to let these things be someone else’s problem, the next generation’s problem? Or are we actually going to say, let’s re-evaluate the economic wealth disparities around the world?"

This episode I’m speaking to David Price OBE. He’s had an incredible portfolio career, first as a musician, then working in education during the 80s and 90s, before founding UK culture change consultancy We Do Things Differently. He is the author of Open: How We'll Work, Live and Learn In The Future and this year published his most recent book, The Power Of Us: How We Connect, Act, and Innovate Together.

The Power of Us is an urgent call for leaders, teams and individuals to challenge the status quo. In our conversation, we talk about how the response to Covid-19 has shone a light on the people-powered innovation which is reshaping our world. David says that we’re now seeing a global wave of self-determined and self-organised activism, a sense of community that has been empowering for all of us.

David takes us behind the scenes of some of the world’s most innovative organisations, harnessing the power of collaboration and diverse thinking to effect real change – and demonstrates what we can learn from them. He also offers a practical tool kit of ideas to show us how we can foster our own cultures of creatives to transform our lives and rebuild this world, better for the future.

And he also explains how urgently change is needed, across the world. "We are faced with something that is quite shameful when you think about it," he told me. "Globally, only 30 per cent of employees are engaged by their work. That means 70 per cent arent. And they are leading lives of unmitigated misery." For David, the answer is not in trying to change cultures from the inside, but in starting anew, building a different model, a better one, with a culture of trust and autonomy for the future. 

We also talk about how you can find your way out of a career and life that you are not passionate about by trying new things, looking for new learning opportunities and taking time out for your hobbies in your daily life so that you can get closer to your purpose and passions. And we even discuss the end of line managers!

If you are the two-thirds of people not loving their careers, this episode is for you.

“Purpose is that feeling you get in the morning when you wake up and you know that what you’re working on, what you have planned, is precisely what you should be doing.”

It was a privilege this week to talk to Saasha Celestial-One about feeling fulfilled in her work every single day. The founder of Olio - the revolutionary food-sharing app - explained how her work to reduce food waste has given her a true sense of purpose, something she describes as ‘the absence of regret, and a lightness of knowing what you’re doing.”

Born in America to hippy parents - who gave her her unusual name - Saasha is a true hunter-preneur - someone who has found the patch of land in which they can truly make a difference, and then thrown all they have at it.

Remarkably down to earth, she is a huge advocate for the power of the collective, and explains how people often think they need a bigger patch of land than they actually do.

But we can all make a difference if we are led by our passion. As she reminds us: “Find the smallest possible thing that feels achievable and just do that.”

In this chat, we also talked about the freedom of no longer having self-judging conversations with yourself, the difficult balance between investment and social impact and learning how to understand the difference between what you need versus what you think you need.

Saasha says her greatest motivation lies in the lives of the individual people she’s helping with Olio - facilitating a return to wholeness, and a way of living that feels less lonely and more communal.

“I’m really curious about everyone else’s story,” she says. “It’s real easy to get caught up in your own little world, but we’re all just humans doing the best that we can."

Follow your passion and it will lead you to purpose... In conversations with purpose-driven individuals, there are consistent themes that come up. There are patterns of daily habits, routines and that are mentioned and repeated again and again. 

In this series of quick talks, Roann Ghosh looks to find where these practices originate so that we can gain a better understanding of why they have been so enduring. He's found five central universal principles that are central to us thriving as humans beings. Five principles that are not taught in schools. And yet five principles that are universal, simple, and accessible to all. 

Accessible because they cross borders, cross belief systems and span millennia as accepted wisdom. Universal principles that unite east and west. Principles that are espoused in ancient religious and philosophical texts, and 21st century purpose driven entrepreneurs alike.  

In this episode, Roann discusses the second universal principle that he believes can create the conditions for personal and collective thriving: Be as one - look for unity in all things. Especially now in times of civil unrest in America and the global coronavirus crisis.

Self-Centred Podcast is presented by Roann Ghosh and Epiphany Social Innovation.

“From the outside, my life looks pretty much the same. I still work a full-time corporate career. I’m still married to the same woman. I still live in the same neighbourhood. The only difference is me. I’m no longer fragmented. I’m whole.”

If you feel unhappy in your job, the solution isn’t always to change your job, but to change yourself.

In this week’s episode with coach, author and public speaker Aaron McHugh, we talk about how important it is to get out of your own way. And about how his new book, Fire Your Boss, isn’t so much about firing your boss as getting real with yourself.

McHugh talks about his own journey from loss and burn out, to laying down all of who he was before to find his purpose. We also talk about how fear often drives our purpose and impulses –leading us into places and positions that are wrong for us.

The key to Aaron’s message is that resolving the deepest root of workplace unrest always stems from those drivers that keep us trapped - fear and self-preservation. “What happens when you turn that voice of fear or dissent into a voice of abundance? How does that reframe your reality?” asks Aaron.

We also talk about the purpose of play as a way to access sheer joy, about being responsible for your own happiness, slowing down to give ideas and possibility space to breathe and how important our attention is as a tool for focusing ourselves towards what matters.

Follow your passion and it will lead you to purpose.

In my conversations with purpose-driven individuals, there are consistent themes that come up. There are patterns of daily habits, routines and that are mentioned and repeated again and again.

In this series of quick lectures, I have looked to find where these practices originate so that we can gain a better understanding of why they have been so enduring.

I have found five central universal principles that are central to us thriving as humans being.

Five principles that are not taught in schools. And yet five principles that are universal,  simple, and accessible to all.

Accessible because they cross borders, cross belief systems and span millennia as accepted wisdom.

Universal principles that unite east and west. principles that are espoused in ancient religious and philosophical texts, and 21st century purpose driven entrepreneurs alike.

These universal principles have stood the test of time, and I want to share them with you.

In this episode, I will discuss the first universal principle that I believe can create the conditions for personal and professional thriving:

Slow down to get to know yourself better.

Self-Centred Podcast is presented by Roann Ghosh and Epiphany Social Innovation.