🎙️  Episode OverviewYou might have come across Eric through his award-winning podcast ‘The One You Feed’ where he has interviewed hundreds of the wisest and most inspiring humans on the planet.He's also a father, serial entrepreneur, behaviour coach, and author on a quest to understand how we might live more intentional lives.And we get into the impact that these conversations has had on his life and perspective over the last decade, but we begin with the chapters of his life before the podcast — at age 24 Eric was living out the back of a van, spending $300 a day on his heroin addiction and up to 50 years in jail.We dive into this transformational journey of recovery—the gifts and challenges inherent in the AA program as well as his thoughts on what created the conditions for both his addiction and the sobriety that followed.It was interesting to see how Eric and I share a mutual fascination for questions around how to take insights and apply them to everyday life—and the parallels between the Spiritual Habits group program that Eric hosts with the work that I’ve been involved with around resilience and researching the nervous system.🫁  Episode Sponsor // Nervous System MasteryThis podcast has its first official sponsor — it’s a 5-week program called Nervous System Mastery designed and hosted by myself. The course is designed to share research-backed protocols to cultivate calm, agency + resilience in everyday life. We've had incredible feedback from the first version that ran in October last year, one previous student wrote to me and said: “Nervous system mastery was supportive, grounding, expansive, interesting, delivered with integrity and true passion. Science + practical evidence.”Building and teaching this course is now my primary obsession and the income that comes from this course, directly enables me to put my time & money into these episodes. If this sounds interesting at all, you can find more details here >> nsmastery.com << 🔗  Show Notes + Links🎙️   Subscribe to the 'One You Feed' podcast on Spotify👨‍🎓   Learn more about Eric's 8-week Spiritual Habits Program🖥️   Watch his superb TEDx talk on the battle of changing your behaviour

Paul and I first met 3 years ago at an event in Portland—he had recently left his job in corporate consulting and we bonded over how lost we'd both felt at times.Later that week I gave him a copy of 'The Three Marriages' a book by David Whyte where he talks about the Pathless Path that is required for anyone looking to do or create something original.Fast-forward to today and Paul has just published his first book — Called the Pathless Path — which is his roadmap of sorts for those of us who might have had the boldness to quit the default path & taking an experiment-based approach to figure out how to live well.Some of the themes we dive into are:🤔  How he has been exploring the magic of non-doing❓  Some of the most powerful questions he uses during curiosity conversations with others who are looking to take the leap.🎢  How to navigate the painful reality that family + friends might not understand his decisions to walk away from a successful career.📚  Some of the things he believes hold most people back from living more intentionally & the big breakthrough moment he experienced in the midst of writing his book.***This episode is also sponsored by Nervous System Mastery, a 5-week Bootcamp led by Jonny Miller—applications for the Spring Cohort will be opening up soon so if you're curious to nerd out on research-backed protocols for emotional self-regulation + resilience you can find more details at nsmastery.com***🔗   Links📚  Get your copy of The Pathless Path🖥️   Subscribe to Paul's excellent newsletter and listen to his podcast.🐦  Connect with Paul and say hi on Twitter

🎙️   Episode OverviewI'm thrilled to bring you this conversation with philosopher, writer & activist Charles Eisenstein. For those of you who aren't familiar with Charles' work—it's no exaggeration to say that his ideas contained in his books and writing have shaped my personal worldview more than any other author I can think of.What I appreciated about this conversation was his deep presence and at times a refusal to answer my question because he felt like there was a deeper and more real question beneath the surface. You can feel the urgency in the tone of his voice, the deep sense of how much is wrong with the world and his sincere desire to not bypass this deep discomfort.I've re-listened to this conversation several times myself and some of what really stood out for me was:👽  Our mutual sense of confinement, wrongness and alienation that we felt growing up in middle-class education — he described how he wrestled with this question of ‘who marooned me on planet crazy’.👐  His earnestness to be "fully available" and to be in service to life and his belief that it’s actually technically 'easy' to heal the planet, but our consciousness is getting in the way 🌎   We also touched in on the state of the world and how he believed that grief for the dying world is actually what is required for the world not to die.🎅  Making the case for getting truly serious about being selfish & why laziness is a message that points towards how our life energy wishes to be expressed. 📚  Why Dr. Seuss' Myth of the Grinch is so relevant for our times and what we can learn from seeing today's world through a more mythic lens.************************************************************************************************************************************🫁    Apply for Nervous System Mastery // Cohort #2This episode is also sponsored by me—or more specifically the upcoming Nervous System Mastery training that I've poured my heart and soul into. Applications will be opening up soon so if you're curious to nerd out on research-backed protocols for emotional self-regulation + resilience you can find more details at >> nsmastery.com << ************************************************************************************************************************************🔗    Show Notes + Links💌    Subscribe to Charles' superb substack newsletter👀   Explore his thought-provoking essays from the past decade🌎   Two of Charles' Books: A More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible & The Ascent of Humanity👨‍🎓   His self-paced online courses (the gift economy + exploration of masculinity are highly recommended)📹   Curated youtube videos containing some of his biggest ideas  📚 Two Books Mentioned by Charles📖  Charles favourite story growing up:  The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster🎄  A myth for our times: How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

This is a really unique episode—Michael King has been a mentor of mine and dear friend for nearly four years now.  If it weren't for some of our conversations I'm not sure that Curious Humans would even exist, at least not in the form that it does today.I find some of his perspectives and approaches to meditation and life so refreshing and my goal for this conversation was really to tease out some of the ideas and radical concepts that he has shared with me privately over the years.Some of the questions we explored:😬  What is the case for living life from a place of ease rather than over-efforting — which is something that I've wrestled with for a long time, as well as how our experience of reality is shaped by who we are and our beliefs.🧘  Some common meditation myths and pitfalls that he sees with meditators with varying levels of experience as well as how he recommends navigating the landscape of meditation and the vast number of options and traditions and approaches out there.📝  And finally, he also shares a really powerful framework for feeling into and moving through any challenging emotional experience or resistance.***Michael is also launching the third iteration of his Meditation Teacher Training early next March which I was a student in two years ago. What I learnt in that training profoundly shaped not only my work as a founder coach but also deepened my own practice and my relationship to my own mind and emotional landscape. So if training to become a meditation teacher or deepening your own practice is something that calls to you, I would absolutely recommend getting in touch with Michael. He's generously offering Curious Humans, listeners, $200 off the 2022 training — just mention Curious Humans when you reach out.***🔗  Links🧘 Check out the Meditation Teacher Training 2022 👋  Find Michael on Instagram @kingsmeditationandmentoring

I'm really thrilled to be bringing you this philosophical deep dive with truly I think one of the most radical and thoughtful thinkers of our generation.Dr. Zachary Stein is a co-founder of The Consilience Project—which publishes novel research and explores questions surrounding global risk mitigation and existential threats facing humanity. He is the Academic Director Center for Integral Wisdom and the author of 'Education in a Time Between Worlds' – which I've personally gifted myself to many friends and shifted how I think about the future of schooling.In this conversation, we cover some truly fascinating territory, because of his multi-disciplinary approach Zak has a truly unique perspective on some of the biggest questions of our time.To give you a sense of what to expect in this conversation:🙏   We began with a model of what it means to move into the perspective of post-traumatic growth...🌱   He shared a thought experiment of 'Nous Arc' which asks the question of what seeds of ideas could be stored such that they could reboot human civilisation.🫁   We talk about the role of nervous system regulation in models of adult development 🌎   Zak's diagnosis of 'Global Intimacy Disorder' and re-imagining what it means to be human and his work to start the conversation for a new kind of global philosophy called cosmo-erotic humanism. What questions come alive in your mind? How might you see yourself contributing? Drop me a note on twitter... and finally, if this conversation resonates, do consider sharing a link with a friend who might also appreciate it.🔗   LinksZak's Homepage // zakstein.orgThe Consilience Project // consilienceproject.orgNous Arc // Zak's talk at the centre for integral wisdom

Joe Hudson is many things — he's a Venture Capitalist and renowned executive coach, but beyond that, he is a rare example of someone who in my perspective has accessed some profound truths about the human experience and is putting himself out there into the world helping others to find greater joy and ease in their lives. ***❓  We begin with his perspective on wonder and explore what makes for the capacity to ask transformational questions.🤩  He then shares his VIEW framework—which stands for Vulnerability, Impartiality, Empathy & Wonder—and how life-changing it can be if we're able to truly inhabit these states of being.🔥  We both then begin to unpacking the concept of emotional fluidity, why it's very different from emotional management and dive into specific examples of unclogging the tube of anger, Joe's process for dissolving shame (in which I become the guinea pig and it gets real for a few minutes)Joe also mentions his experiences doing naked breathwork, the one-two punch tactic he used to use to get out of speeding tickets, why selfishness is a word used to get children to do what their parents want and why you have to allow your heart to break a little to increase your capacity to love.***I was quite taken aback by how many of my recent Nervous System Mastery students had taken Joe's 'Connection Course' and how tremendously impactful they shared it had been in their journeys of self-exploration and finding greater depths of emotional maturity.I rarely (if ever) promote other courses, but having listened to Joe's 'Art of Accomplishment' podcast episodes, heard from several of his students whose lives have been transformed by his work as well as the depth of our recent conversation I believe his work and methodology deserves to be shared more widely.So to this end, I'd like to make the case for at the very least considering the 'Connection Course' that he's offering—it's very reasonably priced ($300) and uses a “cohort of two” learning format that combines the power of cohort-based learning with the flexibility of a self-paced course.It's an opportunity to access workshops usually only reserved for elite execs and combines 20 years of Joe's research into dozens of spiritual traditions + robust psychological frameworks, also backed by the more recent findings from neurological research."This course is a unique approach to relationships with yourself and others. It dramatically changes your ability to accomplish what you want in your life with ease and joy. It will help you examine the way that you show up at work and in your personal life, all through training a mindset that leads to more connection and more satisfying relationships."So there you have it—a wholehearted recommendation to first listen to the podcast conversation with Joe and if the themes of emotional exploration resonate, then definitely check out the amazing podcast and self-paced connection course linked below for a deeper dive.>> You can use the code CURIOUS to save 10% on Joe's course here << ***Links to Joe & the Art of Accomplishment👨‍🎓  Art of Accomplishment Connection Course (link)🎙️  Art of Accomplishment Podcast (link)📸  Art of Accomplishment on Instagram (link) 💬  Joe Hudson on Twitter (link)

In this episode, I speak with my good Twitter friend Malcolm Ocean. Malcolm is many many things, but first and foremost I consider him to be not only relentlessly curious but also prolific in sharing his practical philosophy mostly through the medium of thoughtful Twitter threads.I predicted that the experience of listening to this conversation might be a little like the feeling of being trapped inside a pinball machine bouncing between unrelated topics... but in fact, what unfolded was a really satisfying dance around parallel threads which centred around our mutual interest of human attention and perception — and how these theories have deep practical value our daily life.Some of the topics we danced around include:❓ The value and art of holding questions, and sitting with deep uncertainty.🔥  His case for an aliveness-based productivity system and discussing why to consider even setting goals in the first place.🧠  How the barely known ideas contained in 'Perceptual Control Theory' have shifted his outlook on life and how these theories connect to the work of Iain McGilchrist's findings on the differences between our left and right brain hemispheres.🌎  We talked about our 'domino memes' as a way of attempting to articulate the different levels of impact that we're hoping to make in the world and I also really appreciated his framing of what he calls 'negative effort' which is a way of saying the creative work that we can't not do — and ideas for how we might incentivise this on a wider scale.Relevant Links👋  Find Malcolm on Twitter: @malcolm_ocean (and his thread collection) 👀   Read his blog: malcolmocean.com❓  Ribbonfarm blog post on 'Questions are not just for asking'🧠  His superb Divided Brain Twitter primer🎲  His 'Domino Meme' (and my domino meme)📚  A cheeky bootleg copy of 'Making Sense of Behaviour' (the actual book is out of print)

Kelly Wilde is an artist, podcaster, performer, meditation mentor and poet who has been exploring the intersections of soul explorations, creative work and rewilding. She also happens to be my wife, and this episode fell on our 18-month anniversary — it’s a particularly juicy conversation and easily the most personal conversation that I've aired to date.In this conversation, we dance around a range of personal topics including: 🪨  Reflections on the last couple of decades of her life—from existential reckonings, identity crises, multiple career paths and rock-bottom moments that she has been through—and how these challenges have given way to a deeper clarity, knowing herself more intimately and beginning the process of what she describes as rewilding the feral aspects of her psyche.🧘  This led into the story of our experience at a 10-day meditation retreat we attended in Mexico last year, and how reflecting on death led to us getting married a mere two weeks later.❣️  We also talk about our reflections on the value we found from working with a couple's therapist, early on in our marriage and how being aware of what she calls the skeleton woman archetype has helped us to navigate rocky moments along the way in our partnership.I hope you enjoy this intimate conversation with the love of my life, Kelly Wilde.***Where to find Kelly on the Interwebs:📸   Instagram: @kellywildexo🎙️  Podcast: Wild on Purpose  👩‍🎨  Website: kellywilde.art

Conni and I have collaborated on a number of projects over the years and we've both followed remarkably similar paths from the world of entrepreneurship into the world of breathwork & nervous system science. In this conversation, Conni starts off by sharing some of her personal journey, her various heartbreaks and compartmentalisation of her sexuality that led her from being a very successful travel writer into being a prolific creator in the world of personal development and ultimately to the work she's doing now as a breath coach. From there we pretty rapidly dive go into the nitty-gritty aspects of breathwork and unpack some of the nervous system neurobiology that we've both been learning... including: 🌬️ How some of the functional breathing practices have impacted her life and the lives of the clients she works with, what it means to have a dysregulated breathing pattern and how to begin correcting this.🫁  She goes on a myth-busting roll, talking about common misperceptions around the role of CO2, we both share our concerns with Wim Hof training and riff on the importance of honing our sixth sense of 'interception'. 🧠  How helpful it has been for us to gain an embodied understanding of the difference between our 'Ventral' & 'Dorsal' branches of the parasympathetic nervous system.🤯   This episode might feel like a lot of information if you're just hearing this for the first time, but I encourage you to stay with it my hope is that there will be some real nuggets for everyone listening regardless of how much knowledge you currently have.– – – – – 👨‍🎓  Nervous System Mastery Online BootcampRegain control of your body + mind — cultivating effortless calm & sustained focus. Upon completion of this intensive 5-week Bootcamp you will be equipped with science-backed protocols & have built your own personalised "Human Operating System" — enabling you to regulate stress in real-time, rewire breathing patterns & reset your nervous system.  Dates: Oct 17 – Nov 22Learn more here: nsmastery.com– – – – –🙋‍♀️  Where to find Conni Online🖥️   Website + blog: conni.me💌   Her awesome newsletter: flow + wonder🎙️  Conni's 'CREATE' podcast📸   Instagram: @breathwork.alchemy🐦  Twitter @connibe

In one of the longest and most wide-ranging episodes to date, this conversation is with filmmaker, poet, relationship coach and utterly unique human being Alice Frank—who is here as she says to proudly "eff the ineffable".Her book 'My Real Name Is You' has been loved by Eckhart Tolle said 'My favourite poem I ever heard' and Jason Mraz who shared: 'Her words are alive the same way notation can fly off a page and become sweet music.'I'm slightly at a loss for words attempting to describe the ground that we covered but I will add that she is one of the most present people I've ever met and has a truly astounding capacity to articulate the great mysteries of life. Here's a sampling of where our conversation led:✨ Her spiritual awakening that lasted for a decade and what her experience was of being no-one (and the challenges of living so deeply in the present)... followed by what she described as her 'breakup with god'.😆 Why we lose touch with our sense of play and why we should strive to 'relieve reality of its seriousness'. I loved that one of her favourite mantras is 'Can you imagine if it mattered? Can you imagine if it mattered?' ❤️ Her journey from the depths of polyamory to more recently getting married, reframing un-conditional love to 'all-conditional' love & how she now coaches couples to remember what this even means. 🎴 Her current meditation practice and why she created a 'silent retreat in a box' — a beautiful series of mantra cards to create your own home meditation retreat (definitely check this out!)***Explore Alice's Homepage + Portfolio // UniamoryConnect with Alice on Instagram // @uniamory