Psychology to Live By

This is a wonderful conversation with a deeply thoughtful and insightful artist, Luca Fogale. He is a Canadian singer/songwriter who hails from Burnaby, British Columbia. He's been twice nominated for Juno awards (Best Adult Contemporary Album). We discussed Luca's explorations of psychoolgical experience: the tension between light and dark, between apathy and optimism; we explored the the...

My guest on today’s episode is Miles Spencer who’s done so much in his life it is hard to summarise! He has founded, financed, built and exited three digital media companies and his new startup, Reflekta, is the subject for this podcast. Reflekta is an ai-driven platform for interactions with one’s deceased loved-ones.  The big picture is that Reflekta moves beyond existing digital tools in assist...

This was a fascinating discussion about a challenging topic: Miles Spencer's 'Reflekta: - an AI generated avatar of one’s deceased loved ones. We explored the thorny ethical issues of whether this will prevent people from full acceptance and/or grieving successfully. This led to the distinction between sadness as accepted loss and grief as no-yet-accepted loss. We explored likely family is...

A wonderful podcast with musician Jake Isaac led to an equally wonderful roundtable with my friends from Nettwerk Music. We began with a discussion of creativity as communal experience. This led to the insight that this is the opposite of being precious or needing to be validated. Rather, music is a driving for connection and, for Jake Isaac, a quintessentially sacred experience. We also discussed...

This is a deep dive into the dynamics of winning teams. Mark Murphy's research has identified five key team roles: Director, Achiever, Stabilizer, Harmonizer & Trailblazer. Our discusion ranged widely from psychological safety, to comparative advantage, to reciprocal expertise affirmation. This podcast is essential for anyone who manages or who participates in teams. There is also a deep p...

With two senior HR Practitioners and a CEO, I had real expertise  for this particular roundtable discussion of the Mark Murphy podcast discussing his book ‘ Team Players: The Five Critical Roles You Need to Build Winning Team’.   We dug deep into the concept of Psychological Safety and how this allows for a diversity of roles, for robust discussion, for curiosity and tough questions and for creati...

I found this roundtable discussion of the 6 Missing podcast to be both delightful and thought-provoking. First, we discussed the idea of an addictive personality and how we can convert such impulses into 'useful addictions'. We also agreed how 'comforting' TJ Dumser is as a person as reflected by his insights, vocal tone and general demeanour. We explored the idea of ‘state depende...

Not surprisingly, the podcast with Chloe Carmichael ('Can I Say That?') stimuated a very spirited and thoughtul roundtable discussion. Topics discussed included: the importance of finding a common humanity with people whose views we strongly disagree with; how technology amplifies our differences and deeply reinforces more and more extreme ideas; how our own authenticity and integrity is r...

This podcast discusses Chloe Carmichael's book: 'Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly'. Chloe explains how to unlock the mental health benefits of free speech. We also discussed the neagtive side of thought and speech suppression: we explored secondary gain, especially the growing prevalence of victimhood. We also explored the link to bullying, poor ment...

This Music, Creativity & Mental Health podcast is with Jake Isaac, who is a Manchester-based, multi-instrumentalist with a distinctive style as a singer-songwriter fusing soul, jazz and rock. He’s had a stellar career having worked with and supported a diverse range of artists from Sting, India Arie, Ella Eyre, Paloma Faith, Lake Street Dive, Joan As Police Woman, Angus and Julia Stone, Tori K...

The Sharon Niv podcast on psycholytic ketamine therapy stimulated a deep andvibrant roundtable discussion. We began by exploringg state-dependnet memory - highlighting the fully embodied (cogntiive, motivational, emotional, physiological) nature of memory and the consequent link to somatic-based therapies. We briefly discussed the positive implications of an adffordable and readily available means...

Dr Sharon Niv, is the cofounder of Joyous, a platform for providing Psycholytic, or very low dose, Ketamine Therapy. The promise here is an affordable, effective mode of treatment that is effective and possible at scale. Sharon takes us through what a psycholytic dose is; how ketamine at this level affects people; the neuroplastic action of ketamine and how this is integrated into therapeutic prac...

This was an insightful and inspiring conversation with TJ Dumser from 6 Missing. He’s an ambient artist, award winning sound designer, mixer and composer based in Austen Texas. Themes in this conversation included: how music really helped TJ overcome his addictions, anxiety and depression; how creating ambient music provides a platform for listeners to feel their emotions and to practice a form of...

My guest on the podcast is Dr. Henry Venter. Henry is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor of psychology. He is currently the Program Director for the Master of Arts Human Behavioral Psychology Program and Professor of Psychology at National University ( https://www.nu.edu⁠ ). Dr. Venter’s research focuses on the rising mental health issues among young adults, including the increasing ra...

The Dr Henry Venter podcast led to a spirited and thoughtful roundtable discussion. Topics included: how do leaders in workplaces 'show up' for young workers who are fully remote? How do we help them with person-to-person connection?; Expanding the conversation beyond the (terrible) impacts on youth ,but also on older folk; thevery real problem of future jobs and vocational assistance to y...

The first topic in this roundtable on the Portair podcast was self-concern versus egolessness and that learning to co-exist with self-doubt creatively leads to more authentic experience. We also discussed how: self-concern Is typically not very objective; metaphorical and symbolic levels of significance in works and art entrain vast networks of significance and meaning beyond our conscious grasp;...

A fascinating conversation with Dr David Clarke as he explains Neuroplastic Symptom Therapy. Dr Clarke defines neuroplastic symptoms as brain-generated, as distinct from pain emanating from body damage or illness. It appears a very high percentage of the US population has such symptoms, which respond poorly, or not at all, to traditional medical treatments. We discuss how the brain generates these...

This is a roundtable discussing my podcast with Dr David Clarke on the promise of neuroplastic symptom therapy for chronic pain and ilness. Neuroplastic symptoms are those that are generated by the brain. Topics discuss included: whether people could self-treat if they understand the theory and practice of the approach; the disctinction was drawn between neuroplastic symptoms following organic iss...

This is a conversation with Drew Southwell, better known as indie singer, songwriter, producer and composer Portair. We had a free-flowing and candid conversation about music, mental health and creativity in which we touched on many topics including: Drew’s background as an artist; his drive to create and the factors that nurture his creativity; the centrality of uncertainty and the tolerance of a...

This podcast showcases Bill Goodwin discussing his book 'Priority Living: 7 Pillars to Make Your Life Count'. The central thesis is that to be happy and to have a life of satisfaction, one needs to base it on a clear purpose, or what Bill calls 'intentional living'. He discusses the pivotal life experience of dying and being resuscitated, and how this second chance inspired him to...

This roundtable discusses my podcast with Bill Goodwin and especially his book,  Priority Living . Topics explored included Bill's definition of 'legacy' as what we leave in others; we talked about how refreshing Bill's wisdom is, born of lived experience; parenting was discussed in terms of guiding our kids via the 7 Pillars of Bill's book and innoculating them with those valu...

This roundtable discussion of the podcast Music Creativity & Mental Health with Harrison Storm focused on three or four main themes. The first was intuition: how do we know when to trust our intuition? This led to a discusion of what intuition is, when it is needed, and it's relation to expertise. In artistic enterprises intuition is needed to naviagate ambiguity and often results in authe...

This podcast with Garrett Wood, entitled 'Healing the Problem Under the Problem', explores Garrett's work helping high-masking professionals break free from burnout, chronic stress, and the imposter syndrome, building sustainable success without sacrificing health, happiness, or relationships. Garrett is a National Board-Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Certified Clinical Hypnoth...

This roundtable discussing the Garrett Wood podcast began with a discussion of the difficulties for managers having to performance-manage people who may have mental health issues or who may be neurodivergent. We discussed the two duties that any manager has to balance: the duty of care and the duty to manage performance. Other topics included: the power of emotional reasoning to bias thought outsi...

This is a wonderful conversation about music, mental health and creativity with Harrison Storm, indie-folk singer and songwriter, in which we touched on many topics including; Harrison’s background and trajectory to a musical career; songwriting and singing as self-discovery and emotional catharsis; the centrality of intuition for both wellbeing and creativity and being in tune and true to self; H...