Episode 32: The universe is in the correct place, we are aliving and wonderful!

Welcome to Episode 32 of Hello You Podcast!

We start by talking about the universe that hovers over Louise’s head, alongside a mini menagerie of printed creatures. Louise, the treasure trove of ornithological awesomeness that she is, takes us into a deepcut about Goldcrests (and an RSPB link here) – because, well, birds are very cool. Neil, meanwhile, chats away about the Cognitive Bias Codex which folks on camera can now see as he’s turned his desk 90degrees.

We relatively swiftly move into wonder and walking. Louise has been walking in the rain within a group, uncovering hidden thoughts and ideas as she did so – including a fascinating jump into permitting distractions to leach into our awareness.

Somehow, a world erupts between Louise leaving the house and a man jumping in a pond. Neil breaks, minorly, momentarily as we decide that it’s all Jane Austen’s fault. It does make sense, in a HYP way, we promise…

Back to birds, Louise has been beautifully beset by skylarks up on Mount Caburn. Which leads to a whole new world: ALIVING.

This is a stunning addition to the English language – Thank You Louise! Neil vowing to try and use it in every possible context – and we dive into why for a while. It’s simply glorious – and thoroughly aliving.

In a semi-planned way, we sashay into a wonderful piece written by Lauren Hug, exploring how sharing human things helps us to connect with others (even in a business context). This leads us back to birds, and then out into a wonderful video by Monica Parker for Big Think about wonder – and why it’s more important than happiness.

Nature continues to create wonder – and who knew that cicadas have a 13 or 17 year emergence cycle? Lots of people, by the sounds of it – but it’s incredibly wonderful to dig in and find out more!

Finally, we move into a chat about leadership embodiment which is based on the principles of Aikido. Louise has been on a number of workshops, seeking to deepen understanding about how our physical selves react before our mental selves. It’s a fascinating way to think about how we are in the world, how we show up for ourselves and others – and how we adapt to the needs of any given situation.

What a place to round up! From aliving to embodying, via the wonders of nature – this can only be a glorious unfurling of a HYP episode! Listen in here – and don’t forget to let us know what you think!

Episode 31: a chain reaction involving lions, zebras and invasive ants

Well, it may sound like an entry from a bizarre caption competition (think Have I Got News for You) but the lions making fewer zebras kills, all thanks to some invasive ants comes together in a ripple of interactions and dinner right at the end of the recording. It can only be episode 31 of Hello You Podcast!

Louise begins with how she’s starting the year and welcoming slowness, which can feel like a radical act. That leads us to ponder self-care as “fixing ourselves” vs exploring and adventuring, and we think about the plant kind of, cyclical, growth vs the economic, never-ending growth. Neil drops in a connection to the improv idea of ‘Yes, and’ which swiftly brings us to the emerging theme of the episode: experiencing the world as systems and relationships. We muse on being part of, rather than directing or controlling the world around us.

In that vein, Neil drops this awesome book recommendation: The Book of Householder Koans.

Up next: Poor Things. We’ve both seen it and there’s no way we could not talk about it.

Louise: “it’s very surreal and at the same time it’s not abstract.”

Neil: “I have no idea what that [the film] was, but it’s fantastic.”

SPOILER ALERT: we chat about the film from 20:00 minutes in up til 30:00 and we can’t promise we don’t give away important plot details. We talk about progression and following a life path, an important theme in the film and how the sound design invites us into a world that is decidedly off-kilter, among other things. Neil also mentions the sound design in Zone of Interest and we explore the idea that all actions create a ripple of impact, even if they’re not seen or witnessed directly.

“You can have a conversation in a closed room with no one listening and the fact of it having happened ripples out into the world.” says Louise.

Next up, a beautiful article on kinship as a verb or “kinning.” Neil draws out the piece on listening with our entire bodies, picking up on what’s unfolding physically and emotionally, not just what’s said and we continue to make the most of the imagery of rippling.

As so often happens we meander towards poetry, how it affects us physically and Neil shares the idea of using poetry to crack open different kinds of collaboration among leadership teams. (A wonderful and useful resource for exploring how we live with & inhabit poetry is Kim Rosen’s Saved by a Poem).

We settle into the notion of gratitude, which comes from the kinning article, with it’s observation that

“in gratitude you can’t be anonymous”

and Neil ponders the different connotations and meanings of thank you and gratitude. For Louise, this brings up the difference between saying thank you and sharing appreciation, something she learned in the Thinking Environment. Neil vows to go off and research the etymology of thank you, we’ll share the results with you next ep.

And finally, after contemplating dinner (we’re recording in the evening), Neil drops this gem of an article about unexpected interrelations between lions, zebras and ants. Could the zebras have reason to be grateful to the invasive ants? And how did Neil manage to tie up the final article, suggested by his Mum as a very HYP-like topic and the approaching dinner hour? It’s all in the system …

It really could only be HYP. If we’ve piqued your interest with these show notes, please do settle into a comfy chair and join us for Episode 31 – listen here.

Episode 30: We’re available and curious (researchers – we’re here for you!)

Episode 30? THIRTY? Yes, dear listeners, Hello You Podcast has officially reached the big 3-0. And here it is, for proof!

If it were a person, it would be entering its 4th decade of life. Is there a word for this? We know what a teen is, a Tween and several things in between – but is there a specific term for this period when a person’s not in their teens/twenties, certainly not in ‘middle age’ or ‘retired’? 

If there is, please let us know!

Anyway, it’s been another hot minute since we last jumped behind the mics. Louise has been adventuring, dancing internationally and putting the miles on her car.

Which leads us into exploring playlists. Do you make playlists, dear listeners? Music to take you from A to B down literal highways and byways? Or to mediate your experience through music?

As we dig into Louise’s playlists, we discover a mutual love of East Hastings by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (who Neil has seen 2.5 times live and was, to quote, “turned inside out” by them). Louise drops a love of the Secretary film theme by Angelo Badalamenti, because, well, Angelo, and we explore how musical restlessness tells Neil something’s wrong. And let’s not forget someone he nicknamed Murder Gloves at a Boy Harsher gig in Brighton.

Which leads us to something we’d actually planned to talk about – new research suggests that there’s a link between musical preferences and moral preferences. While it isn’t the biggest sample size in the world, researchers have discovered links between not only lyrical preferences (which makes sense), but also the attributes of the songs themselves – eg beat/dynamics or loudness. 

As Proud Generalists, both Louise & Neil wonder what this all means for our playlists and moral value linkages. If anyone wants to repeat the research, we’re here for it! (Just pop a note in the comments or email us – Chat@HelloYouPodcast.com)

Keeping with the musical theme (zipping past Neil’s Three Acceptable Christmas Songs and Louise’s other half’s Trojan Christmas Record), Louise has been dancing at a Jazz club in Amsterdam, on stage no less. Which leads us into an exploration of the transcendental nature of being in the moment, and how music (especially at live gigs) can make this happen.

Excitingly, there’s new research about synchrony among music goers, and how similar physiological responses to music emerge throughout the audiences. We begin to wonder about links with empathy – when we are consciously empathising with others, are we syncing up in important physiological ways (even if we don’t realise)? Are there studies on this? If not, and if there is a research gap here – we’re available and we’re curious! 

Somehow, in a link that makes sense in only the way a HYP link can, we get curious about Glacier Mice (who wouldn’t be) but not before a complete diversion into Fox’s Glacier Mints, gemstone collections and Neil’s memory of his Nan’s massive jar of said mints.

As we try to get back to the Glacier Mice, in another diversion, do Glacier Mice taste of mint? Again, if there’s a research gap here, we’re completely available to go to Iceland on a funded research trip to lick Glacier Mice and rate their mintiness.

Glacier Mice are genuinely fascinating phenomena, which no-one yet understands. It’s rather wonderful, as Louise says, that we also live in a world where there is time and space for this type of research to exist – let’s bask in that moment of gratitude.

From Glacier Mice (which may or may not taste of mint) to mice with tiny VR headsets. Scientists have developed tiny VR systems to see if there are differences between the reactions of ‘free running’ mice and VR-headset wearing mice when they’re shown pictures of birds of prey. It’s a fascinating study and technological advance – which may help to unlock new understandings about how the brain works in a less invasive way than before.

Louise launches a new industry – virtual wellbeing for mice (after they’ve been terrified half to death by birds in VR headsets). No, really, it makes perfect sense…

We also talk about other business ideas around alcohol-free pubs and sober cèilidhs. Is there a link between these events and crowd synchrony? Does alcohol help or hinder synchrony – in another shameless pitch for research funding – we’re here to support the academic corpus (just sent us the grant money, please)!

As we finish up – Louise comes up with the fabulous idea that the owners of Fox’s Glacier Mints could sponsor a Glacier Mint licking research trip, accompanied by a model of Peppy the Polar Bear. Can our listeners’ social graph make this happen? The research challenge is on!

It all makes perfect sense, in the unfurlingly experimental way that Hello You Podcasts episodes do. So pull up a chair, pour something warming and enjoy Episode 30!

Episode 29: System level levers and the individual ‘shimmy’

How lovely to welcome you, dear listener, to this latest episode, number 29 🙂

Embracing spontaneity and context, Louise & Neil start by talking about meaningful objects in the spaces they’re each in, prompted by Neil noticing Louise’s new galaxy poster on the wall behind. Neil gives us an audio tour of his ‘biography shelf’ and introduces the cat that came with a washing machine.

Being hesitant to step into the identity Neil offers of ‘Business Magnate’ Louise opts for business owner, and we chat about her journey from employee to freelancer to business owner. She reflects on the rules and norms she brought from employment into working for herself and the surprisingly long (even ongoing) journey to sifting and discarding the elements that don’t work for her. Neil keeps posing fantastic questions and we ponder the non-linearity of becoming who we really want to be. For example, having successfully worked in marketing for years, does that mean Louise can market herself? Erm, no! (See her recent LinkedIn post on working ‘on’ her coaching business and her conflicting needs around becoming more visible).

Louise shares a new (for her) approach of asking herself questions about balancing marketing herself and diving into client work. In the usual, unfolding nature of our chat, this brings Neil to talking about meditation and he drops a stunning observation about kindly bringing ourselves back to ‘I want to’ rather than ‘I need to’. This, in turn, is a beautiful example of what Louise loves to do in coaching, finding ways to relate differently to what’s going on for us.

The visible / not visible thing echos through as Neil talks about his own career experiences of working on systems change in organisations. He reflects on how an individual’s context necessarily has an impact on the interpersonal dynamics at work, which then affects how we collaborate and how change happens. Neil asks “how do we make it [change] real … how do we keep that balance [between the individual and the system]?”

This reminds Louise of a podcast she’s keen to recommend, ‘Highly Relational‘ by Robert Digings. In particular an episode on storytelling with Stuart Maister, which you can find here. Essentially, if we don’t have a shared story it’s going to hard to go anywhere together. Neil goes a bit meta (have you met him?), bringing in the way fairly transactional behaviours can be situated in an overarching meta-story of “we do this in service of our bigger, shared goal” and somehow we get to what Ru Paul’s drag race illuminates about leadership.

We swing by the concept of meeting people where they are and the dangers of designing ANYTHING without understanding where the people who’ll interact with it are, by way of the fantastic Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.

We round off with some contained cynicism about AI, scooting by Mark Ritson’s recent article and the recent ‘appointment’ of an AI chat-bot as a Principal Headteacher at Cottesmore school, giving rise to a differentiation between the School’s human and AI headteachers. In Louise’s view this a clever spin on the concept of providing AI assistants for knowledge workers, a practice that’s already been adopted by at least one of the big 4 consulting firms. And Neil does the podcast equivalent of a mic drop with the question “is AI a tool of late-stage capitalism?”

We’d love to share Episode 29 of Hello You Podcast with you. Come in, the Salon is open and you’re very, very welcome!

Episode 28: Diving down and breaking boxes

Can it really be episode 28 of Hello You Podcast? Already?

It’s frankly been a hot minute since Louise & Neil got behind their respective microphones. Something to do with ‘busy’ and ‘adulting’, apparently.

Louise has been enjoying more and more conversations with people, having been nudged by her mentor. We dive into how and why is this challenging her way of working, what being a mentee is unlocking in her practice and where surprises have arisen along the way. (Check out Louise on LinkedIn to follow more of her journey and the incredibly exciting new proposition she’s refining)

For some reason, there’s a ghost noise in the recording at around 3mins. It sounds, for a couple of seconds, like a phantom with a saw. Neither of us were undertaking any DIY, we promise. We can only apologise and wish that the ethereal beings creating the digital noise would actually do some woodworking – Neil has shelves which need sorting…

Sawing digital sounds aside, we reminisce about an afternoon spent in a basement flat, surrounded by mirrors, cowbells and a fascinating collection of folks exploring the inner limits of connection. We listen into narratives that people tell themselves, obliquely drifting into embedded self story telling and whether these help or hinder us.

It’s all getting a bit deep. So, to lighten things up, we take a breath and take a deeper plunge – into the realm of the Barbie Movie (because it’s an intersectional feminist masterwork).

We unpick some of the criticism levelled at the film, and address the idea of literally breaking out of the box. Allan, meanwhile, is our unsung hero of the Barbie film who confounds expectations and challenges the idea of societal constructions of masculinity (yes, we’re keeping it light) at a pivotal moment in the film’s arc.

Louise brings in the concept of blonde fragility, particularly in reference to Ken’s arc, which counterpoints to moments of rupture especially for Allan… See, we told you it would be light…

From here, we delve into the pleasure and pain that comes with being both generalists and polymaths. We’re both interested in pretty much all of the things, and while this is deeply enriching, it can be painful to keep up with everything.

How much interesting stuff is there in the universe? How much more can be crammed into one skull when everything is so interesting? And why do people like the idea of infinity, which isn’t actually infinite because you can always have infinity plus one?

Moving swiftly on, Louise mentions a new community that’s about to launch for neurodivergent business owners – Joyfully Different – and conversations she has recently been delving into on neurodiversity.

From which we step further down into the dichotomy of being a Generalist in the workplace. When so much of our system is geared towards specialisms and boxes, how can Generalists thrive and survive?

If you class yourself as a Generalist, we’d love to hear from you and your experiences. We talk about the difficulty of being a Generalist, explaining what you do and creating links/community with other Generalists. What’s your experience of being a Generalist? How do you navigate through a world that is so often made for specialisms?

And, finally, we dive into the world of eggs, prisons and how to smuggle a message into the latter using the former. Sometimes, being a generalist polymath yields useful informational snacks, it’s true…

For all of this, and more, leap into Episode 28 of Hello You Podcast.

Come in, the Salon is open and you’re very, very welcome!

Episode 27: Making connections, in surprising ways?

Welcome to Episode 27 of Hello You Podcast!

Louise is wearing a cardigan on 4th July (2023) – has the summer failed to load? Are we in a Summer 404 situation? Spiders are at war with each other (when they’re not spinning webs on carnivorous plants, rude) and we wonder if the sun will come back anytime soon.

Meanwhile, important things have been happening in Louise’s family – the most recent of which is her sister’s ordination. Both Louise & Neil are atheists, so this is new territory to be explored!

Louise paints a picture for those of us who have never been to an ordination, as well as introducing Neil to the fascinating history of Coventry Cathedral (designed by Basil Spence who also did the honours at Sussex University).

There’s joy, kneeling, laying on of hands and an acknowledgement that a life of ministry asks a lot not just of the minister, but of all of those around them as well. Plus an incredible piece of organ music – Toccata from Fifth Organ Symphony by Widor – which break Louise’s experience open. Written words don’t do justice to Louise’s description of the day – so leap into the stream and find out more for yourself!

We start to explore links between techniques that create awe in music and architecture – there’s something about the juxtaposition of small spaces or pauses and expansive spaces/sounds. They’re small ‘t’ tricks which mediate experience in interesting ways…

Work, family, friends and mental spaces appear, courtesy of an enquiry into how we root ourselves into our communities. We also think about how the COVID-19 lockdowns introduced discipline into our continued connection – which is genuinely much more fun than it sounds!

We reflect – briefly – on what has changed for us after the pandemic. It feels unusual to return to talking about COVID-19 right now, but we go where the experiment takes us… We think about the cognitive dissonance of not wearing masks on public transport, the social-norms of masking up in public and the continual threat to those people for whom COVID still presents a real and present danger.

Social Media pops up with a shout out for Mastodon (which we’re both enjoying) and the idea of digital beings – specifically how we can be intentional about creating and curating them. Louise drops the revelation that HR folk were on fire bloggers back in the day – who knew? (Not Neil for sure..!)

Louise has been exploring topic based communities (rather than broadcast) – for example Facilitator’s Cafe as a really strong example of a small, intentional community. Are these digital evolutions taking us back to what the internet used to be – small, manageable groups which allow us to find and use our voices for genuine human connection? And how do they relate back into the meta-connections and structures which surround us? We’d love to know what our listeners think!

Finally, we jump into music as a way to mediate experience (Neil talks about descending into the London Underground listening to Imperfect Things by MONO).

<<<LISTENER CHALLENGE>>> Neil promptly sets Louise a challenge – and you’re more than welcome to join in!

Pick a track you know well, and listen to it in a place you don’t know OR pick a track you don’t know and listen to it in a place that you know well. How does this influence your experience? What does it make you feel? Does anything surprise you?

We’d love to hear from you – comment on this post, on the episode track or anywhere that you discover this episode!

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 27 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.

Come on in. The Salon is open!