The Occupational Philosophers - A not-so-serious business podcast to spark Creativity, Imagination and Curiosity

In episode 24, The Occupational Philosophers explore the question, "How often do we date life?" 

Life throws us up many opportunities but how often do we take them, embrace them and date life? 

Do we date life often enough? 

Inbetweeners episodes are a short, sharp blast of 10 minutes to kick start your week with a sweet boost of creativity, curiosity and imagination (and some other things thrown in as well) 

Here's to dating life this week.....

www.occupationalphilosophers.com 

In Episode 23, The Occupational Philosophers chat with Mike Parsons - This guy is one curious cat. He’s left a footprint across the globe with multiple careers in music, advertising, design, technology and innovation. 

In this episode, they explore:

• What 3 things unite some of the most creative, innovative and entrepreneurial minds of our time

As always, there is an original thought experiment and this time they ask Mike:

• Moonshot or Moonshit?

There is so much goodness in this episode and we hope you enjoy the chat with Mike as much as we did.

Learn more about Mike

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeparsons/

https://mikeparsons.net/ 

https://www.moonshots.io/

https://qualitance.com/

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ailsa_Craig

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-the-moon

In this Inbetweeners episode, The Occupational Philosophers build on the idea of a curiosity advent calendar - for teams. 

Imagine.....every team meeting, reaching into the curiosity box (interesting already isn't it?) and pulling out a short activity to drive creativity, curiosity and imagination in that meeting or in the week ahead?

Or in a more businessey way - "driving an innovative force of agile and entrepreneurial dynamism across the different learning modalities and networks of the brain to master workplace performance." 

Mmmm, that could be interesting.......

How about: 

• Inventing a team holiday?

Small, tiny shifts in thinking can bring about BIG changes - and the odd smile as well. 

Watch this space for when we release the full curiosity advent calendar (for any month of the year) 

We hope you enjoy the show. 

www.occupationalphilosophers.com 

In Episode 21, The Occupational Philosophers re-dive into the business, life, and leadership lessons we can learn from three very well-known artists - Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, and Picasso. 

Along the way they explore: 

• How innovation happens when we join the dots and make connections from wildly different things 

As with all episodes, The Occupational Philosophers conduct a thought experiment called "Things artists do" 

As always, there are some great lessons and ways to bring more imagination, creativity, and curiosity into your workplace and how to live a most interesting life in the process. 

They hope you enjoy the show. 

www.occupationalphilosophers.com 

Links

National Gallery of Victoria displays 3D-printed artificial reefs, showcasing fusion of art and science https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-03/artificial-reefs-showcased-national-gallery-of-victoria/100736484 

In episode 20, The Occupational Philosophers build on the idea of a curiosity advent calendar - for teams. For all of us, it's easy for things to become a little 'vanilla/boring/same-same. As we know, a great question can do the heavy lifting and can power creativity.

Imagine, sitting down each day and asking one of these questions each day? 

• If we hosted a forum on why our products and services suck, what would be the main points? 

Truthfully, question five had good intentions but there's some debate as to where it ended up.  

We hope you enjoy the episode, and, as always: 

• Stay curious

www.occupationalphilosophers.com 

In Episode 19, The Occupational Philosophers chat with the Amazing Entrepreneur Danielle Chiel. 

Danielle's story is a great yarn (pun intended). Danielle Chiel is an Australian entrepreneur who founded KOCO (Knit One Change One). She has a Ph.D. in Musicology, sits at the intersection of fashion, entrepreneurialism, creativity, and joy, and making a more beautiful, creative, and happy world and real difference in literally thousands of women's lives.  

Danielle, through KOCO, is seeking to change lives one hand-knitted garment at a time.

She currently employs 200 Indian ladies from various villages in India, to hand-knit garments for her; but her dream is to expand the business and employ 10,000 women. KOCO hand-knits garments for global fashion brands – they produce fashions and homewares that customers love, by working with women in the rural villages in the south of Tamil Nadu. At the same time as giving these ladies employment, KOCO provides them with an education and all the training they need, in order to become world-class hand knitters.

"What I admire about the art of knitting are the same qualities that I admire in music: endless creative possibilities made possible by skilled and passionate hands and a perfect score, or pattern". 

Connecting fashion brands, customers, and artisans through the art and science of handknitting, along with being one of the most amazing curious problem solvers we have ever had on the show, this is a chat you won’t want to miss!

Links 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellechiel/

https://koco.global/ 

https://theartisannation.com/ 

https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/headline-20160409-go2k7y.html

Despite speaking regularly, The Occupational Philosophers realised that they missed each other greatly in 2021. As such, they have decided to catch up more regularly - which brings us to this episode. 

Whilst all of the above is true, The Occupational Philosophers have decided they need to drink their own Kool-Aid and explore what's possible with micro experiments, trying new things, understanding how things work and embracing a curious, imaginative and creative mindset each and every day. 

In this 15-minute inbetweener episode, they explore: 

• The impact of a curious and creative exercise every day 

Watch our for a short, sharp inbetweener episode every second Monday (yes, that's right, that makes The Occupational Philosophers now a weekly show) 

www.occupationalphilosophers.com 

In Episode 16, The Occupational Philosophers chat with the very talented and very funny, Neil Mullarkey. Neil co-founded the world-famous improvisation group The Comedy Store Players in the UK with Mike Myers, later appearing with him in the fabulous Austin Powers movies. He has appeared on TV over many years, including Have I Got News For You, Whose Line Is It Anyway, Saturday Live and QI. He has also won awards for his alter ego - L. Vaughan Spencer, (L-Vo for short), A Life Coach, Self-Help Guru and Gangsta Motivator.

Neil has become highly accomplished in the field of management training, running many workshops and hosting conferences for a wealth of private and public organisations where he uses the techniques of theatre improvisation to inspire business people to embrace their creativity and enhance their communication skills.

In this episode, they explore:

• How Improv comedy can teach us how to work more effectively in teams and organisations

As always, there are some great thought experiments such as:

• What’s in the box?

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilmullarkey

Learn more about Neil:

http://neilmullarkey.com/

http://www.improvyourbiz.com/

http://succeeedy.com/

https://neilmullarkey.com/sevensteps

References

http://www.provocativetherapy.com/

https://almosthappy.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Rogers

https://www.seenandheard.org/

https://gestaltcentre.org.uk/what-is-gestalt/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel

https://chimpmanagement.com/

https://hbr.org/2015/02/how-to-revive-a-tired-network

https://www.leadershipcentre.org.uk/artofchangemaking/theory/complexity/

https://comedystoreplayers.com/

In possibly their loosest episode ever (and the bar is pretty low.....), The Occupational Philosophers met up in the time vortex that is the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve where time stands still and people eat leftovers and drink wine from 9 am and feel no guilt whatsoever. 

As such, they found themselves wading into unusual territory - setting and achieving new year's goals and some of the common (from experience) pitfalls along the way. 

In this time vortex, The Occupational Philosophers explore: 

• Why a January advent calendar may be good for your curiosity 

As per usual, there are thought experiments and for this episode, it's "Filthy Habit or Monk's Habit"? 

If you have gotten this far....we can't wait to bring you some more great shows this year that will help you to be the creative, imaginative, and curious cat you were designed to be in 2022 (and apologies in advance for this episode!)

Links 

Camel Botox https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-09/camel-beauty-pageant-disqualified-over-botox-injections/100685840

Celebrity Apprentice Australia https://9now.nine.com.au/celebrity-apprentice-australia

Derek Sivers https://sive.rs/goals

In episode 15, The Occupational Philosophers explore imagination - what it is, why it's so important and why we have oodles of it, ready and waiting for us to use. 

So what is it? 

“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and, therefore, the foundation of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.” J.K. Rowling

In this episode, they explore: 

• What it is (see above) 

And, importantly.....Why an imaginative life is SO MUCH FUN 

As always there are some great thought experiments including "Imagination Badger" 

Here's to a world filled with imagination. 

www.occupationalphilosophers.com