Be Mythical

This week's show is with Adam Quiney, Adam Quiney is an executive leadership coach specializing in working with the Smartest People in the Room. Adam's clients don't simply change; they transform their lives and the way they show up in world, creating massive impact in their relationships, companies, and families. They go from being natural born leaders that create followers, to transformational leaders that create leaders. Adam brings the concision, skills and brilliance that he honed in his previous careers as a project manager and a lawyer. His clients include lawyers, doctors, executives, world-class designers, olympic athletes, financial professionals and CEOs across North America and Europe. A couple of surprising facts about Adam: He trained with the founders of popping, locking, waving, tutting, and various other funk styles and he's played a card game called Magic the Gathering since it first started, and owns the most powerful card ever printed. It sells for around $4,000 when in mint condition. To Adam it’s priceless, because it’s his gold medal in the nerd olympics. Adam's a self-confessed straight up nerd and I think that's got a lot to do with why he and I get on so well.   This conversation is basically this is an hour of he and I geeking out! It's on the topic of what Adam calls spectrums of being. Another way to describe it is our essence, that unique beauty and power that is there within every one of us. We explored what is it, why we struggle to know ourselves and then, you'll be pleased to know... how we can begin to discover who we are.

This week's show is with Dr Stephen Snyder, a sex and couples therapist, psychiatrist, and writer, and author of Love Worth Making: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Long-Lasting Relationship. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York City, and chairman of the Consumer Book Award Committee for the Society for Sex Therapy and Research (SSTAR). He has treated patients at his practice for 25 years, is a guest on major media outlets nationwide, and writes for Psychology Today and Huffington Post. He lives with his wife and children in New York City. In this conversation, a second part to the last show that Dr Snyder and I recorded together, we spoke about sex in long lasting relationships: what the obstacles are to having good sex in the long term, and how to overcome them to have ridiculously great sex.

This week's show is with Dominic Scaffidi, Dominic’s purpose is to inspire greatness.  He is committed to people and organizations being extraordinary and producing extraordinary results.  Dominic has coached executives and senior leaders in a variety of organizations as they take on challenges including new roles, goals, dealing with significant change/transition and new projects.  He helps leaders engage the full potential of their people to achieve unprecedented performance.  His approach is to engage with leaders through intentional conversations that cause them to generate new thinking, create new strategies and produce new actions in areas that are most important. As President and founder at HR Possibilities Inc., Dominic’s focus is executive coaching, team coaching, and training managers to develop coaching skills.  With over 25 years of business experience as an HR executive, sales manager, entrepreneur, and consultant; Dominic has worked with leading edge global organizations across a variety of industries including consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, software, telecommunications, financial services, retail, public sector and non-profit.  In this show, we spoke about Dominic's incredible clear understanding and personal experiences of abundance. In fact, he goes further than that to describe it as overflowing abundance - in that we can never use up all there is. This isn't about thinking positively or simply wishing for a new Tesla or whatever, it's simply understanding the design of life and how we can align ourselves with it to experience all the abundance that life has to offer.

This week's show is with Richard Abbot, a professional numerologist and teacher of all things spiritual, cosmic and mystical. Combining mathematics and spirituality his unique approach has helped thousands of people find their core identity and purpose. He has written numerous books and magazine articles, appeared on TV and radio and at events in the UK and the USA.  He teaches and consults from his base in Northamptonshire, and is also a consultant and teacher at the College of Psychic Studies in London. In this show we explored the whys and wherefores of numerology - basically answering the questions that might be on your mind: what is numerology and why should you even care? And then I was the guinea pig, Richard gave me a consultation on the show so you can hear how this stuff actually works. I've got to say it blew my tiny mind!

This week's show is with Dave Booda, a writer, teacher and musician. He is the co-founder of IntimacyFest, an annual festival in Southern California that celebrates connection, sexual self-expression and community. He writes weekly at Boodaism.com and his work has been featured on ABC, NBC, National Geographic, Elephant Journal, Good Men Project and Thought Catalog. He is the host of three podcasts, Dude Panel Radio, Darken the Page and Boodaism. In this show we explored one of Dave's recent posts about how we rarely go after the medicine we need. When it comes to our personal growth we typically do what's comfortable and what we're already good at. If we can instead lean into discomfort and things that we're not so good at, that’s when real transformation can occur. I’d love to know what YOU think about this week's show. Let’s carry on the conversation…  please leave a comment below. What you'll learn from this episode: We tend to do the same things over and over when it comes to personal growth, this is amplified because we're often surrounded by people with similar beliefs and preferences. It can take some effort to go outside of our normal surroundings to look for the medicine we actually need! Self-awareness can only get us so far if we're only listening to ourselves, real awareness and growth comes from being part of a community and listening to others about what they see in us. We don't necessarily have to completely change how we approach our personal growth, sometimes it's powerful to just lean a bit in the opposite direction.

This week's show is with Jeremie Mercier. Jeremie is a natural health coach who helps his clients to find the nutrition, emotional hygiene and natural health practices that will bring them back to full health. An interesting factoid is that Jeremie is married to one of our previous guests, the amazing Flora Douville who we had on the show a month or so ago talking about her incredible approach to expressing your unique essence. What an amazing couple they are! In this conversation, Jeremie and I talked his research into the Blue Zones - the regions of the world with the highest concentration of centenarians - and what he's seen about the three most impactful things you can do to create a long healthy life. What you'll learn from this episode: The importance of eating a wide range of fresh, natural foods, especially plant foods such as legumes and grains. This can be challenging in this modern world where we typically don't have access to locally grown food but I thought the example of Loma Linda in California was a great one for showing that it's possible to still eat healthily when living in a city. What's seen to be true in all of the Blue Zones is a lack of chronic stress. Stress is a natural feature of humans, it's only when it becomes chronic that it often creates health issues. As we often talk about on this show, when we're in our natural state, our primal state, we move in and out of stress when it's useful. Movement (and the all important rest) are a common feature of all the Blue Zones. It's not typically intense, high impact exercise like going to the gym for a session of cardio, it's more lots of natural movements such as walking, stretching and crouching as they're going about their day.

This week's show is with Dr Stephen Snyder, a sex and couples therapist, psychiatrist, and writer, and author of Love Worth Making: How to Have Ridiculously Great Sex in a Long-Lasting Relationship. He is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York City, and chairman of the Consumer Book Award Committee for the Society for Sex Therapy and Research (SSTAR). He has treated patients at his practice for 25 years, is a guest on major media outlets nationwide, and writes for Psychology Today and Huffington Post. He lives with his wife and children in New York City. In this conversation, we spoke about understanding how we got to where we are today where so many people are having bad sex, what good sex is, and how can we let ourselves have it. I suspect it's much easier than you might think. What you'll learn from this episode: Good sex is about feeling 'dumb and happy'. A similar way of experiencing the world to when we were babies who could just relax and enjoy sensations without feeling responsible for creating them. As a culture we're not cool with men having pleasure. Women are seen attractive on based on being whereas men are seen as attractive based on what they're doing. Be relaxed about these expectations and have a sense of humour about them. Be open about what you would like and what would give you pleasure. Finally, we're designed for around the year sexual attraction and sex. As Dr Snyder said "We're the sexiest species on the planet!" I think that understanding that about ourselves allows us to be lighter and more playful about something that we probably going to spend a lot of time thinking about and doing!

This week's show is with JP Morgan, JP guides creators in being more powerful in every area of their life and work. The entrepreneurs and artists he coaches all share an aspiration for excellence and an obsession with mastery. Through regular loving and confronting dialogue, which compliments their daily practice of self-cultivation, JP’s clients discover how their mind creates their world and how through surrender they can gain greater control, more fulfilment and exponential results in their life and work. In its essence, JP Morgan has been supporting entrepreneurs and artists around the world since the late 90’s, though this work became his profession in 2010. Since then, he has supported numerous individuals in growing their peace, joy and success in the world through growing themselves. Beyond his the daily work with clients, he has been invited to share his ideas and spirit on numerous stages. (TEDx, Global Citizens Forum, BBC & SkyTV, YES Group, Interesting Talks London, InsideOut Movement, METal International, educational institutions, etc.) At a private event, attended by many of the world’s billionaires, JP was invited to speak on creating a world world without borders. At the University of Cambridge, he was the subject of a covert study between the psychology and business departments where researchers sought to understand the impact of his state of being. Previous to his current work with leaders, and post formal studies in Physics and Mathematics, JP founded a real estate business and then (from a backpack) founded a web media company serving local and global non-profits. He has lived nomadically while travelling the world for three years, coached human rights leaders, toured as a musician in bands, developed a children’s library in Cambodia, published travel writing and photography, competed as a black belt and triathlete, performed as a professional magician, studied with Buddhist monks and spiritual teachers, paraglided the Swiss Alps, cycled solo for thousands of miles and has gone on many other adventures. In 2013, in the Riveria Maya, JP married a wise, loving and beautiful British-Indian woman. In March of 2016 they gave birth to their first child, a boy. Today his family calls Santa Monica, California home although they spend many months abroad each year, including extended visits for work, friends and family in London. In this conversation, a follow-up to the last episode with JP (about how to create your dream life via the energy of thought), we got stuck into how growing our awareness of our creative potential can actually produce tangible results out there in the world. We explored all kinds of interesting stuff including creating abundance, whether we're spiritually bypassing by always going into creation of new stories or beliefs rather than exploring through the shadow, and the biggie of responsibility vs innocence! This episode has stiff competition from last week's show, that was blooming awesome but this one might have just edged it. I’d love to know what YOU think about this week's show. Let’s carry on the conversation… please leave a comment below. What you'll learn from this episode: Magic happens when we embrace the marriage between recognising the illusionary nature of life whilst using our ability to create amazing things in our lives - JP's story about Byron Katie and Steve Hardison exemplifies this perfectly! As JP quoted Steve "If you want peace: drop your story. If you want to produce: create your story." The topic of money kicks up thinking in almost everyone - it's something that looks very real. That can make it a cool place to explore, as JP said "Go where the pain is". I particularly loved what he said about the relationship many of us have with debt vs being grateful that we can get the money to allow us to invest in ourselves as an asset. Our state of being has a tangible and direct link to what is created in the world. From a grounded state of being everything flows towards us - people, experiences and money. I think we all kind of know this at some level but it's something we seem to forget and then think that success, connection and all kinds of good things comes from somewhere else. So I think it's a brilliant reminder that how we are in the world is what creates results in the world.

This week's show is with JP Morgan, JP guides creators in being more powerful in every area of their life and work. The entrepreneurs and artists he coaches all share an aspiration for excellence and an obsession with mastery. Through regular loving and confronting dialogue, which compliments their daily practice of self-cultivation, JP’s clients discover how their mind creates their world and how through surrender they can gain greater control, more fulfilment and exponential results in their life and work. In its essence, JP Morgan has been supporting entrepreneurs and artists around the world since the late 90’s, though this work became his profession in 2010. Since then, he has supported numerous individuals in growing their peace, joy and success in the world through growing themselves. Beyond his the daily work with clients, he has been invited to share his ideas and spirit on numerous stages. (TEDx, Global Citizens Forum, BBC & SkyTV, YES Group, Interesting Talks London, InsideOut Movement, METal International, educational institutions, etc.) At a private event, attended by many of the world’s billionaires, JP was invited to speak on creating a world without borders. At the University of Cambridge, he was the subject of a covert study between the psychology and business departments where researchers sought to understand the impact of his state of being. Previous to his current work with leaders, and post formal studies in Physics and Mathematics, JP founded a real estate business and then (from a backpack) founded a web media company serving local and global non-profits. He has lived nomadically while travelling the world for three years, coached human rights leaders, toured as a musician in bands, developed a children’s library in Cambodia, published travel writing and photography, competed as a black belt and triathlete, performed as a professional magician, studied with Buddhist monks and spiritual teachers, paraglided the Swiss Alps, cycled solo for thousands of miles and has gone on many other adventures. In 2013, in the Riveria Maya, JP married a wise, loving and beautiful British-Indian woman. In March of 2016 they gave birth to their first child, a boy. Today his family calls Santa Monica, California home although they spend many months abroad each year, including extended visits for work, friends and family in London. In this conversation, I took the opportunity to mine JP's wonderful mind for his take on creativity and living an incredible life. JP and I explored what it means to be a creator, the potential we all have to create the experience of life that we want whilst also recognising the paradox that it's all illusory and made-up. I loved this episode so much that we suddenly realised that we were out of time and still had so much we wanted to get into so we then agreed to come back and do a part two.

This week's show is with Eliane Sainte-Marie, the founder of Parenting for Wholeness, creator of the acclaimed Clean Parenting Program where she guides parents in experiencing the ease and harmony she promises is possible in families, author of the book Clean Parenting: the Peaceful Parent’s Essential Handbook, and mother to three wonderful adult daughters. She’s passionate about helping parents raise children who are whole, as well as helping them shed what’s in their way of living from a place of wholeness. In this conversation, we spoke about one of the main reasons many parents who try gentle parenting struggle and why adding in the missing ingredient of leadership makes so much difference. It's actually quite magical! What I especially love about Eliane is that she grounds everything she talks about in what's natural for humans and also what's she's seen herself as a parent and as a parenting coach. She's wonderful! I know you're going to love her too! I’d love to know what YOU think about this week's show. Let’s carry on the conversation… please leave a comment below. What you'll learn from this episode: Why is leadership in parenting so important? As Eliane says: imagine if you were moving somewhere with a completely different culture. Or even to a different planet. Picture yourself being there alone, not knowing the language and not knowing any of the local customs; not knowing what is considered rude or might upset people or possibly even make them want to harm you; not knowing how to operate any of their technology or how to operate in their society, organizations, businesses, etc. How would that feel? And now imagine that you have a local guide who is there to help you acclimate. Would you do whatever you want, or would you check with that trusted person to find out what's appropriate? Would that person be controlling you or helping you adapt to the culture? As far as that guide goes, would you prefer someone who is afraid to give you information, who is apologetic and who avoids giving you directions as much as possible? Or would you want someone who knows you well, knows what you already know and what you haven’t encountered yet, and matter-of-factly presents you with the information you need when you need it. Find your tribe: Surround yourself with parents who are parenting this way, this stuff is so much easier when we're not doing it alone! And be very choosy about who you talk to parenting challenges with  - Eliane's suggestion of having a phrase to politely rebuff unwanted parenting advice is a great one! Understand your non-negotiables, personal non-negotiables and preferences and give your children clear and benevolent leadership around them accordingly, I love Eliane's example of crossing the road - almost all of us will know that feeling of guiding children to cross the road safely - it's that same feeling that informs clear, benevolent leadership elsewhere.