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.