A New Way of Being

What does it take to become an Olympic great? Michael Johnson is one of athletics' greatest ever performers. He did the 200m and 400m double at the 1996 Olympics, smashing a world record in the process. All this while wearing gold shoes - which certainly takes some confidence. I spoke to him a while back about what it took to achieve what he did, and learned some valuable lessons about dealing wit...

'You have to ask yourself the question 'Who am I?'. This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem and you will solve all other problems' - Ramana Maharshi. Self-Inquiry is a process through which you investigate and discover what you fundamentally are - and what you are not. It is a 'technique' popularised by the...

'Awe Is The Emotion Of Self-Transcendence' - Jonathan Haidt Dacher Keltner has spent over 20 years studying happiness, and he thinks the secret to a good life is 'finding awe'. Awe is a state when we feel deeply connected to something bigger than ourselves, and in the process our sense of self (the idea we have about who we are) disappears, or at the very least shrinks dramatically. One of the bes...

Duncan Scott became Britain’s most decorated Olympic swimmer ever in Tokyo three years ago when he grabbed a gold and three silvers to add to the two silvers he bagged at Rio 2016. He is in Paris currently, and by the time this is out may have bagged a hatful more medals. Ahead of Duncan taking to the pool in Paris, we caught up to speak about the habits that have taken him to the top of his sport...

'All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.' - Blaise Pascal What are you like at sitting without any distractions, and just being? Not great I imagine, as it is something most people resist and avoid like the plague. Our culture is built on continual doing and a cult of productivity. But sitting and just being, while frequently torturous at first, can tra...

“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself—and there isn't one.” Brad Stulberg is a best-selling author, speaker and coach. He is a man whose social media posts have a rare value in what can be a sea of rage and golden-bullets. In this conversation, requested by one of our respective listeners, Brad and I discuss integrity, the pro...

'Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching' Brad Stulberg is a best-selling author, speaker and coach. He is a man whose social media posts have a rare value in what can be a sea of rage and golden-bullets. In this conversation, requested by one of our respective listeners, Brad and I discuss integrity, the problem with the 'optimization fad', and how consistency and community mat...

Changing 'negative' thoughts to 'positive' thoughts takes up a lot of energy and doesn't always work. But if we can recognise that having 'negative' thoughts and feelings is an entirely normal part of the human experience, we can stop resisting the inevitable. And when we stop resisting - they frequently unwind on their own. My guest is the world-renowned ACT expert Dr Russ Harris, author of The H...

A Groundbreaking new study has found that MDMA shows great promise as a mental health treatment. My guest today is a giant in the world of trauma and Mental Health: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. He is a world renowned psychiatrist, and author of the seminal best seller about trauma called The Body Keeps the Score. This is Bessel second appearance on the show. In this episode, we revisit the basics of t...

"I just admire people who are happy in their own skin" It can be so easy to put so-called successful people on a pedestal, but the truth is many of them are driven by a sense of disquiet and fear. That’s not to cast judgement – it’s just a fact, as Adrian Chiles told me. The former Daybreak and One Show presenter hosts a radio show on 5Live where he interviews high performers, and that is certainl...

We all want to feel a sense of inner peace and happiness. The problem is we tend to equate happiness with things out there – like success, accumulation, approval etc. In reality, happiness is our deepest nature, and so typically people are looking in the wrong direction. My guest is Francis Lucille – a teacher of Advaita Vedanta or non-duality, whose most well known student is Rupert Spira, who is...

Most things are not black and white and there is huge value in embracing that. Paul McGee is the best-selling author of SUMO - Shut Up and Move On - which has been selling like the proverbial hot cakes for well over a decade. In this bitesize clip, Paul cleverly illustrates that we need to recognise that people see things in different ways. Embracing different perspectives is a good and healthy th...

My guest this week is a titan in the world of British sport – Eve Muirhead, who of course won curling gold for Team GB at the last winter Olympics. Curling is that sport that absolutely grips the attention when the winter Olympics is on – and then doesn’t get quite the same level of coverage the rest of the time. This episode is really about understanding that gold medal winners – or successful pe...

Human beings are animals, and as such we have typical mammalian impulses, like being tribal and territorial. These base impulses can get us in trouble, but in this bitesize episode Shane Parrish shares a brilliant way to embrace the power of self-imposed rules to stop you from doing or saying something you will later regret. The advice in this episode is brilliant, and references the brilliant aut...

Do you know what attachment style you are? Whether you are secure, anxious, avoidant or a bit of a mix – your attachment style developed in childhood as a result of your relationships with your parents and primary caregivers, which then likely shapes what type of relationships you have for the rest of your life. That is, unless you can become aware of an insecure attachment style, and work to heal...

“All of humanity's problems, stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” - Blaise Pascal This bitesize episode is with Steve Magness, best-selling author of Do Hard Things. It's all about developing genuine resilience, but the beauty of this conversation is in recognising that one of the best ways of truly 'toughening up' is to sit still without distractions. To embrace simply being...

Jason Fox is a former Special Forces soldier, an adventurer, TV personality and author. This is Foxy's second appearance on the show, and in this conversation he shares what he perceives as the four life cycles we all go through, including periods of chaos and calm. How can we embrace and thrive in the former, while maximising our recovery in the latter? Expect to find out about how to find hidden...

There are few skills as important to develop as acceptance. Psychological flexibility – which is described as our ability to make contact with the present moment fully and without defence, is all about acceptance. When we feel uncomfortable – our thoughts typically try and drag us away from the source of apparent discomfort. But discomfort is a part of life, particularly if we want to live life to...

Rates of burnout are higher than ever before, and continue to head in the wrong direction. We have more inputs in a week than many people had in a lifetime 100 years ago. We have prehistoric brains in a futuristic world. So what's the answer? Professor Cal Newport argues that we need to embrace slow productivity. Instead of getting lost in busy-ness, and 'pseudo-productivity', we need to slow down...

If you want to get along with other people, and therefore be able to get ahead, being able to communicate clearly is a fundamental skill. In this age of chatbots and remote work, one thing that cannot be outsourced to machines are decent communication skills. And yet, so many people in so many industries speak in a language and jargom that makes it difficult to actually understand what they are sa...

Enough is an underrated word. If more people recognised we are all innately 'enough', then the world would likely look very different. Becky Hall is the author of 'The Art of Enough', and she explains the relationship between being enough, having enough and doing enough. The sense of not being enough is so prevalent and drives so many fear-based behaviours we see in the world. In reconnecting with...

A New Way of Being is about recognising that we are all innately enough. Most of us don’t always feel that way, but it’s an illusion largely created by identifying with the outdated voice in our heads. And so much stuff out there, including much of the so-called high performance culture, comes from a place of inadequacy. If we are not enough as we are, of course we will expand vast amount of energ...

"If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships - then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far." That is one of Daniel Goleman’s quotes about emotional intelligence, which was also the title of his best-selling book – which outlin...

"Letting go is one of the most efficacious tools by which to reach spiritual goals." - David Hawkins This conversation is about the power of letting go of outcomes, identity and attachments. It is paradoxically incredibly hard, and easy, at the same time. Letting go allows us to free ourselves from the burdens of the past and live fully in the present moment. This is a re-released episode with the...

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation." - Arthur Ashe So many of the elite performers I have spoken to over the last six years have exuded confidence. But what makes them so confident in their abilities? The answer — preparation! Once the building blocks are in place, you can let go and surrender to what happens. That's when magic happ...