People Soup

Perfectionism isn't always just about the standards we set ourselves. In this Quick Spoon, Chris Rodgers-Wilson introduces a useful way of understanding perfectionism, drawing on the multidimensional model developed by Hewitt and Flett. He explores three sources of pressure: The standards we set for ourselves. The standards we expect other people to meet. The expectations we feel from the wider cu...

When we think about moving on, we often assume something has gone wrong. Perhaps we're unhappy, we've failed, or we've reached the point where we simply can't carry on. But what if it's different? In this Quick Spoon, former professional ballet dancer Chris Rodgers-Wilson reflects on a moment when he realised that performing Romeo might be the peak of what he wanted to achieve in his dancing caree...

We tend to focus on the big moment: the presentation, the difficult conversation, the important decision or the final result. But how we show up in those moments is shaped by what we do repeatedly beforehand. In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Chris Rodgers-Wilson offers a thoughtful perspective on the relationship between practice and performance. He suggests that high performance isn't simply abou...

What happens when someone is struggling on the inside but still managing to show up and do their job? In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Chris Rodgers-Wilson reflects on a period of profound grief when, despite feeling broken inside, he continued to perform as a professional ballet dancer. What helped him through wasn't simply his own preparation and experience. It was also the trust, connection and...

What happens when you work hard towards something and don't get the outcome you hoped for? In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Chris Rodgers-Wilson reflects on the experience of watching others get opportunities you'd have liked yourself. It's something that can happen at any level, and it's easy to start measuring yourself against other people's success. I pick up on an important point from Chris: o...

What happens when the work that has shaped your identity begins to change? How do you keep hold of a sense of self in a world built around performance, comparison and high expectations? And how do we support each other when life brings experiences that are difficult to talk about at work? In this episode of People Soup, I'm joined by Chris Rodgers-Wilson, who spent much of his working life as a pr...

When we're under pressure, it's easy to get pulled towards whatever feels easiest or most attractive right now. Put off the difficult conversation. Take the path of least resistance. Go for the quick win. But what if our values could help us see beyond what's tempting us in the moment? In this Quick Spoon, I share a short exchange with Dr Ryan Kemp about the importance of values — both in addictio...

Can people be honest with you when things aren't going well? In this Quick Spoon, Dr Ryan Kemp reflects on why honest conversations about addiction depend on having an established, trusting relationship. He makes a point that applies just as much to managers as it does to professionals working with people experiencing addiction. If a relationship is built around fear and compliance, how likely is...

At work, are we always rewarding what really matters? In this Quick Spoon, Dr Ryan Kemp talks about the different forms of reward we experience at work, pay, bonuses, praise, recognition and positive feedback and asks what happens when we derive that pleasure too quickly. It got me thinking about the pull of the quick win: getting something done, receiving the praise, solving the immediate problem...

What happens when the immediate becomes more important than the longer term? In Part One of my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp, we explored how addiction can compress a person's experience of time — making the immediate reward feel much more compelling than what might matter further into the future. In this second part, we take that idea into the workplace and the wider culture around us. Ryan and...

Sometimes the things we reach for to make ourselves feel better can also stop us from finding out what's really going on. In this Quick Spoon, I reflect on an observation from Dr Ryan Kemp about our culture's focus on the immediate — "now, do it, enjoy it, live for the moment." That got me thinking about what we do when we've had a difficult experience. We feel stressed, so we distract ourselves....

We all tell stories to make sense of our experiences. Your boss says something you don't like. Someone challenges you in a meeting. A colleague doesn't do what you expected. And almost immediately, we can have a story about what's going on: "They're being difficult." "They don't appreciate me." "They've got it in for me." In this Quick Spoon, Dr Ryan Kemp talks about how we can construct stories a...

Sometimes, when something feels difficult, uncomfortable or overwhelming, our instinct is to make the feeling go away. We distract ourselves. We work. We scroll. We reach for something that changes how we feel. In this Quick Spoon, Dr Ryan Kemp talks about this in the context of addiction — and about what happens when we aren't willing to stay with an uncomfortable experience for long enough to un...

What's driving the choices we make at work? In my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp, we were talking about addiction and how a person's experience of time can become compressed around the immediate. Ryan described part of his therapeutic role as helping people with addictions to expand that time horizon — to consider not just the immediate consequences of their actions, but the medium- and longer-ter...

How often do we get pulled towards what's going to give us relief or reward right now ? In this Quick Spoon, Dr Ryan Kemp describes how addiction can change someone's experience of time, so that the immediate becomes much more important than what might happen in the future. I'm not suggesting that ordinary human behaviour is the same as addiction. But Ryan's insight got me thinking about something...

What can addiction teach us about being human? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr Ryan Kemp , a clinical psychologist and Director of Therapies at a large NHS Trust. Ryan is also an author and Honorary Professor of Clinical Practice at Brunel, University of London. Ryan has worked in the field of addiction for more than 20 years. When he was last on People Soup, we talked about his journey into psy...

We often think about recovery as something we do after the productive work is finished. But when is the work ever really finished? In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Dr Amanda Super challenges that assumption: “Recovery is productive.” Amanda suggests that self-compassion isn't just something we think about — we need to act on it. And that can include taking care of some of the basics of our physica...

Being kind to yourself doesn't mean lowering your standards. In this People Soup Quick Spoon , Dr Amanda Super challenges the idea that self-compassion and ambition are somehow incompatible. Amanda shares what she learned from comparing her experience of her Master's degree with her doctorate ten years later, after developing self-compassion. She was still ambitious. Still driven. Still wanting to...

When something difficult happens, we can move very quickly from what's happened to what we're going to do about it . An email we don't like. Something someone says that gets under our skin. A difficult or overwhelming situation. And suddenly we're going from 0 to 100 in nanoseconds. In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Dr Amanda Super offers a remarkably simple question: “What do I need right now?” Ro...

We often think of boundaries as something we put in place to manage other people's demands . But what if a boundary is actually an act of compassion towards ourselves? In this People Soup Quick Spoon, Dr Amanda Super describes boundary setting as a “radical act of self-compassion” . She talks about including ourselves in our own circle of compassion, rather than trying to be all things to all peop...

When something goes wrong, it's easy to add another layer of difficulty by being hard on ourselves. What's wrong with me? I should be able to handle this. Why can't I cope? In this People Soup Quick Spoon , Dr Amanda Super recalls a nurse telling her: “You're being very hard on yourself.” That comment helped Amanda discover self-compassion — and it got me thinking about how differently we sometime...

What if being kinder to yourself doesn't make you less ambitious — but helps you work, recover and live more sustainably? In this episode of People Soup , I talk to Dr Amanda Super , an occupational and coaching psychologist, author and founder of Creating Compassion. Amanda specialises in self-compassion and compassionate leadership, working with organisations across the public, private and not-f...

I'm taking a short break from People Soup during August. Before I do, I'd like to leave you with one final invitation. Give yourself permission to stop. Not forever. Perhaps for ten minutes. An afternoon. Or even a few weeks. In this final People Soup Quick Spoon before the summer break, Ross McIntosh reflects on what happens when we pause—and what we might notice if we resist the urge to keep goi...

If your holiday had a soundtrack, what would it be? Music has an extraordinary ability to transport us back to particular moments in our lives. In this People Soup Quick Spoon , Ross invites you to use that deliberately: choose one song that represents not simply where you're going, but how you'd like to be while you're there . Curious? Present? Connected? Here's something to try Choose one song a...

Have you ever unpacked your suitcase and, within three days, felt as though you'd never been away? Recovery isn't simply about taking time away from work. What we do with that time matters too. In this People Soup Quick Spoon , Ross invites you to think about what you might bring home from your holiday—other than souvenirs and dirty washing. Perhaps it's reading for ten minutes. Walking after dinn...