It’s not only the 26th Episode of Hello, You Podcast … it’s also our 2nd international episode! Louise dials in from Portugal and we have a glorious hour of chat.
Listen to episode 26 and peruse the shownotes below.
There’s been a lot of life happening for both Louise & Neil since the last episode. Louise got married, which was the most glorious day (obvs Neil was invited). Neil’s beautiful cat Shiro died and he has been exploring, even welcoming, grief as a teacher. (For some pictures proving Shiro cat’s beauty and rapier sharp wit, see her Twitter account.) Grief manifests in unexpected ways and Neil generously and vulnerably shares his reflections on grief, including finding himself shouting at a vacuum cleaner and what insights that opened up for him. (Thank you Neil, it’s an honour to witness your explorations – Louise.)
From here, Neil steers us into a swirling pot of creativity and we jump, feet first into the world of … Barbie. Neil was, at first, somewhat unsettled by Louise’s excitement about the upcoming Barbie film (due for release July 2023 in the UK). However, with Greta Gerwig as director, it’s become clear there’s no way this film will be an extension of the Barbie merch machine. With the film’s trailer paying homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, we both agree we’re now both very excited about seeing it and answering an important question: how will Barbie open jars with her inflexible hands?
Next we swirl into an article from Behavioural Scientist (we do love it so!) on creativity in borrowing and combining ideas you’ve encountered before, rather than landing on an entirely new idea. Neil poses the question ‘How valuable do you find the idea of combination and recombination as being part of the creative process?’ and we range over a lot of ground, including Louise’s poetry practice (shout out to her poetry mentor Arji) and also how identity and shame can get tangled up in creativity. Neil shares an incredible line from ‘Identity’ a poem by Elizabeth Jennings.
And we have a last flourish on ChatGPT, with this article on the embodied nature of language and how large language models completely lack the embodied context we humans have (unsurprisingly, as they don’t have bodies). Coffee and doughnuts feature heavily and Louise also talks about her insightful and wonderful experience of attending a Leadership Embodiment workshop, run by Paul King, who gives an entirely ‘before you can think’ connection with how we lead and how we show up (see his website here).
If any of this has piqued your curiosity, please stroll on into the salon and by all means fix a cup of coffee for yourself as you do. Episode 26 is ready and waiting for you to listen to it – if you enjoy it, do share it with others and let us know what you loved about it.
Link to listen to episode 26 via Spotify here, or grab it from whatever platform you prefer to use for podcasts.
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