On the 96th episode of What is a Good Life? podcast, I am delighted to introduce our guest, John Oliver. John is an artist and sense-making facilitator, exploring multidisciplinary practices based on complexity principles and narrative frameworks. Since 2020, he has developed an artistic practice that integrates the arts with complexity principles, working in portraiture film, and experimental installations. Certified in developmental psychology coaching and co-founder of Human-Equity Ltd, he specialised in qualitative metrics for organisational development and human insights in investment portfolio management. Previously, John managed technology transfer projects in Nepal and Ghana for the NGO Intermediate Technology Development Group, spent 15 years in strategy consulting, and was an early team member at the French start-up OneAccess. He holds a BEng from Brunel University and an MBA from EDHEC in France.

In this expansive conversation, John shares his journey towards greater creativity and his explorations of self and no-self. We discuss sense-making through dialectics, revelations through creativity, and the concept of positive disintegration. We also delve into the dissonance experienced during transitions, with John sharing his insights on the arts as a spiritual practice.

If you are currently navigating, or contemplating, major or minor life transitions, this conversation offers many valuable insights and themes that are worthy of your contemplation.

Subscribe for weekly episodes, every Tuesday, and check out my YouTube channel (link below) for full interviews and clips.

For further content and information check out the following:

John's experimental art: www.tyler.world
John's portraiture film: www.interiortruth.com
John's positive disintegration piece: https://www.tyler.world/positive-disintegration

- For the What is a Good Life? podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos
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- My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mccartney-14b0161b4/

Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own lines of self-inquiry through 1-on-1 coaching, take part in my weekly free silent conversations, discuss experiences I create to stimulate greater trust, communication, and connection, amongst your leadership teams, or you simply want to get in touch.

00:00 Introduction
02:50 The path of no self

07:50 Sense making through dialectics 

12:10 Revelations through creativity

19:05 Positive disintegration

24:55 New paths and intergenerational influence

29:10 Sense of self and connection to collective

33:40 Navigating the dissonance between transitions

39:20 Realisation through suffering or awareness?

48:20 Integrating the whole 

53:20 Silence and being enough

58:20 The arts as a spiritual practice 

1:04:05 The Soul and the Spirit

1:10:35 Sexuality as a spiritual practice

1:14:00 What is a good life for John?