Deliberate Life™

It feels a little like we are back in March-2020, when we advised our clients to “hope for the best, prepare for the worst”. Except we didn’t know what we meant by “the worst”. Certainly not that we would, almost two years later, be back at what feels like another chapter in the ongoing story of this global pandemic. Today we discuss resilience. How can we train ourselves, our bodies and minds, to...

In this early morning recording of this episode, we talk about sleep. We start from the technology, the biohacking / tracking tools we use, Whoop (Pia) and Oura (Bart), and how we use these tools in optimising sleep. We discuss some of the basics of sleep for example the four main aspects of sleep: Quality, quantity, continuity and regularity and the main stages of sleep: Deep, REM and light sleep...

It has been a while since the last episode, not sure what happened to the time! In this episode, we discuss organisational culture. A good episode to listen to before you listen to this episode is Episode 3, of May 2019, in which we talked about personal values. We define culture as those values and behaviours that are important to a team, group, company or country. What is important to us who wor...

Following on from our last episode on coaching, we are discussing a closely related topic, motivation, with one of our clients, Max Barclay. We discuss the importance of motivation in managing and leading people, and what’s important in motivating people. We talk about: Knowing the people you motivate because it’s personal and situational, generational differences, the limited role of reward in mo...

It’s the early morning on Good (Long) Friday and we are talking about coaching. What do we talk about when we talk about coaching? Of course, it’s our profession. It’s also a communication or leadership style. And it’s a methodology, a series of behaviours. It’s a personal value, and it’s a way of being in the world. We discuss some of the most essential coaching behaviours: It’s about showing cur...

Back together in Stockholm after a few months on zoom, we discuss the topic of feedback. Before that even, Pia explains how in her calendar 8 minutes equals one hour, but that aside. Back to feedback, we believe sometimes people think this is a boring topic in leadership development, “oh no not feedback!”, and we also believe that people are not really giving enough feedback in practice. And that...

It’s January 2021, some of us are back in full lockdown, and we are talking about Pia’s most used phone app: Calendar. She addresses some of these questions: Why is this her most used app? Why is planning so important to her? What does planning for spontaneity mean to her? Other questions that we address in this episode: What are some of the neuroscientific and psychological aspects of how we use...

We are back online, back on zoom, to record this 2-part podcast on curiosity. We discuss the many aspects of curiosity. Why is it important to be curious? What can we be curious about? How does curiosity work? How does it feel to be curious? How can we invoke curiosity? What stops our curiosity? What is the purpose of curiosity? What is needed for us to be able to be curious? We roughly identify t...

We are back online, back on zoom, to record this 2-part podcast on curiosity. We discuss the many aspects of curiosity. Why is it important to be curious? What can we be curious about? How does curiosity work? How does it feel to be curious? How can we invoke curiosity? What stops our curiosity? What is the purpose of curiosity? What is needed for us to be able to be curious? We roughly identify t...

We recorded this 2-part podcast in a very special, happy place for us, a tiny village in southern Spain, and we discuss happiness. What are the important elements of happiness for us? We touch on nature, slowness, timelessness, lack of a need to perform, presence, mindfulness, space, absence of self-doubt, the somatic experience of emotions (positive and negative), purpose, personal values, truth,...

We recorded this 2-part podcast in a very special, happy place for us, a tiny village in southern Spain, and we discuss happiness. What are the important elements of happiness for us? We touch on nature, slowness, timelessness, lack of a need to perform, presence, mindfulness, space, absence of self-doubt, the somatic experience of emotions (positive and negative), purpose, personal values, truth,...

It has been a little while since you have heard from us, we took a break. This episode is a follow-up on an episode we recorded in May 2019: Episode 4, titled Decompression. We suggest you listen to that episode if you didn't already. We go deeper into this topic, and discuss the importance of taking a break from a high intensity life, and also bring it into the context of the current COVID situat...

In this episode, the 20th episode to date, we discuss trust. What do we mean by trust, how does it relate to sensemaking and news (and fake news)? We discuss for example how the Swedish COVID situation is reported in international media, and the distinction between truth and truthfulness in journalism. We discuss what makes people trustworthy, and the importance of knowing yourself and authenticit...

We have managed to go one and half year since starting the podcast without personality being the main topic of dialogue, so we thought it was about time. We discuss the importance of personality in how people react to the COVID-19 situation, we briefly touch on the point of neuroticism and how it impact how we react to the crisis, but the main discussion is about introversion versus extraversion,...

In this episode, recorded in the third week of April, we discuss compassion. Continuing the theme of the last episode, we thought it would be appropriate to follow up with a discussion on compassion, perhaps one of the most important values for humanity in these unusual times. We start by discussing distinctions between empathy, sympathy, compassion and kindness. We discuss the importance of self...

In this episode, recorded at Easter, we discuss radical self care. Lots of people are in lockdown, busier than ever trying to do a job, perhaps looking after children and other family members, staying in touch with friends, providing support to people that need it, selflessly being kind to others, and often the very last on their priority list is their own wellbeing. We discuss the concept of radi...

In this episode, recorded in mid March 2020, we discuss working from home. Many people, most people in fact, are housebound because of the COVID-19 situation and we thought it would be good to share some practical tips and hints on working from home. We discuss for example the importance of creating the right space to work in, tidying that space, ensuring it is a quiet space, and perhaps wearing h...

In this episode, we discuss the value we can get from trying things out in our lives: Experimentation with different supplements, tools and techniques on our own bodies and minds, and then the qualitative and quantitative measurement of the impact, also sometimes referred to as biohacking. We give a range of examples from our own lives, things we have tried and tested and that have become routines...

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss attention. We define attention as the ability to focus or concentrate on one particular thing, it is the opposite of being distracted, it comes with a sharpness of the mind. Distractions are addictive, and in a world of constant distractions and information overload, attention is becoming more and more important while at the same time it’s becoming...

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss learning. In this special anniversary session, exactly one year after we started this podcast, we go back to the topic we also discussed in the very first episode, this topic that’s so close to our hearts. We talk about what excites us so much about learning, why is learning so important to us, why is it an important value for both of us and why did...

In this episode of the Vidya podcast we establish some defining characteristics of community, the need for community culture and purpose, the importance of acceptance of differences, the importance of size (Dunbar number) and the importance of regular gathering. We discuss the increasing societal needs for people to belong to community, and we discuss the distinctions between community and other g...

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss experience. After a busy week full of client work, we ended the week flying in a wind tunnel and visiting a lovely wine bar, and in between those two experiences we recorded this episode of the podcast. This is another episode where one of us (Pia) had a vague idea what we would be talking about and the other (Bart) had absolutely no idea. We talk a...

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss routines. We discuss why routines are important in life, the importance of thinking a little deeper about why you would have certain routines and the importance of deliberate living through the use of routines. We also discuss the risks of having too much routine in life, for example life could become too structured, rigid or even boring. We define...

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we have invited our dear friend Jenny Tiger to join us in our dialogue and we discuss her chosen topic, success. We define success, what does it mean, how does it relate to impact, happiness and meaning. We discuss the different areas of life where we can feel successful, in our private lives (for example when dealing with our kids), or in our work lives (for...

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss the importance of letting go and how letting go can give us peace and freedom and increase our happiness. First, we discuss the importance of letting go of control and surrendering to life. Then we talk about letting go of limiting beliefs, beliefs that do not serve us anymore and potentially could be holding us back. Next, we discuss planning and h...