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 values; as with Bill's death and resuscitation, we also explored catalysts in our lives that wake us up from 'the big sleep' and reorient us to live more intentionally; how important actual modelling of these pillars is as parents; how not to be too perfectionistic about this as kids take a 'weighted average' of what we do, and are actually quite resilient; and finally, a discussion about the difficulty and guiltlmany people experience when trying to relax.

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 not waste his life or to let it drift. Bill takes us through the 7 Pillars with earthy, real-life examples laced with pithy quotes. Throughout we discuss how contemporary psychology provides empirical support and guidance for much of what Bill has discovered.

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 authentic expression. The second theme was how Harrison used the Covid period to grow personally and artistically, especially by having time to reflect and to explore somatic therapy and the PEM training method to enhance his performances. We also discussed a sense of accomplishment amidst the challenge of not workig a 9-5 job with clear measures of achievements and milestones. Finally, we explored Harrison's growth musically and how he embodies 'appreciative humility.'

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 outside direct awareness and how preconscious feeling states inplicitly structure concious thought; how medications designed to numb emotionscan be a problem as it is important to learn what imporant things those emotions are conveying to us; we also discussed how this can lead to feeling disembodied as we compress and numb our feeling states; the tight relationship between identity and burnout andhwo they relate to staus and self-esteem; how tendncies to burnout are reinforced by workpkace reward systems.

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 Hypnotherapist, and Executive Function Specialist. We started with Garrett’s background and what led to his passion for working with burnout and high performers. As is often the case, a tragic suicide of a very high performing colleague was the catalyst for the wonderful work he does. We explored the relationship between high performance and burnout; how one can recognise burnout in oneself, especially as it manifests in the mind, the emotions and the body. We then discussed the shortcoming of traditional approaches and finally explored Garrett’s approach that starts with body regulation, then relating with compassion to one’s painful feelings and thoughts that are masked by apparent thriving and resilience, and only then using reason to restructure more adaptive, healthy understandings of self.

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; Harrison’s maturing as an artist and taking a broader, less attached outlook; mindfulness and somatic therapy as methods to sustain creative output; using the PEM acting method to cultivate his performance skills and elevate his experience of performance; the wonderful feeling of calm connectedness and authentic communication in performance and how performing in this way feels like ‘a better version of myself’; the distinction between entertainers and artists; the dilemma of a contemplative artistic life and feeling guilty about not achieving enough each day. It was a delightful and insightful conversation, and I hope you really take a lot from it.

This roundtable on the third personality podast, Building Character, traversed quite complex and nuanced terrain: the scientific basis for morality beyond the effects of culture and politics; the difficulties of navigating moral disagreement; the problem of in-groups and out-groups; the imperative to grow one's moral thinking; how good character bestows high status and respect, but that status can also be accrued via pseudo-esteem for bad moral characters; the problem of lies and lying becomeing normalised, even respected; the important insight that evolution is not about flourishing or moral good, but about passing on genes; and that moral wisdom is an emegent possibility of our success as a species.

The podcast Building Personality begins with a distinction between personality and character: the former you are born with, and the latter you build. Character is a a moral stance to the world and good character seeks flourishing for self and others. Character is examined through the lenses of moral realism and evolutionary adaptation. I then provide examples of character development starting with recalibrating our extreme personality traits. There is also a discussion of the Dark Triad personality disorders and how they are so shocking given our moral wiring. I end on the observation that cultivating relationships is the key not only to a viable morality, but a life of satisfaction and wellbeing.