In Conversation with Nathalie Nahai

Hello again! It’s a pleasure to be back with you over the airwaves, for this little catchup ahead of the new season, which will be launching on Sunday the 20th August.This new set of conversations has been a little while in the making, not least because I’ve been working on some new and exciting projects that weave together the themes that we explore here, with some of my personal interests in the arts, in gathering, and in our capacity to step into life with greater presence.The Hive actually turned Five years old this summer, and since it started, it has grown and blossomed into a project that has introduced me to so many new people, perspectives and ways of being, that it’s become one of the favourite parts of what I do. And that’s in large part, thanks to you.With all of the challenges that we’re facing individually and collectively - from ecological, climatic and economic disruption, to the huge impacts we’re only just beginning to feel from the accelerating deployment of AI - the question of how we can withstand and perhaps embrace so much uncertainty has been on my mind for quite a while. And in all of the research and writing I’ve done over the years around psychology, values, integrity - themes which I explore I my latest book, Business Unusual - I’ve been reflecting increasingly on how I can more actively walk the talk.With that in mind, alongside the projects I’ve been developing around how we can show up and flourish in a changing world (more to come soon), it felt like the right time to rename the podcast quite simply: Nathalie Nahai, In Conversation.It’s nothing grand, and it does what it say on the tin – but you’ll notice from the cover art that it has a new visual identity, one that for me at least, connects into our ongoing exploration of what it means to be human, in search of connection and meaning within the wider web of life.I’ve also decided to experiment a little with the format. Alongside this audio version of the podcast, you can also watch the video version over on my YouTube channel, where I’ll also be posting additional bonus content with my guests. I’ll include all the links in my shownotes, so you can check them out.The new season will be launching on Sunday the 20th August, and I’m excited to share more with you about my companion projects as they unfold. Until then, thank you for joining me on this adventure, and I can’t wait to share this next chapter with you.

ABOUT MY GUEST In this final episode of the season, I speak with Paddy Le Flufy. For the past 8 years, Paddy has been focussing on understanding how we can redesign our societal systems to avert the unfolding environmental catastrophe and improve our quality of life. He is now beginning to publish what he has learned, starting with a book, Building Tomorrow: Averting Environmental Crisis With a New Economic System, which was published in March 2023. Throughout the next twelve months, he will be following this book with a series of essays on various aspects of positive societal transformation, which you’ll be able to find over at his substack.Before this chapter, Paddy had a somewhat different life. He first earned a degree in mathematics at Cambridge University and qualified as an accountant at KPMG in London. Then he spent years living something of a double life. He worked as a finance specialist in London for six months at a time, but used his money to live in remote places, alongside people whose lives were drastically different from his own.He has travelled with economic migrants, been taught to fish by rural Mozambicans, and lived with Hadza hunter-gatherers. He spent two months living with an indigenous tribe in the Amazon rainforest, then won a Royal Geographical Society Award to spend an entire year being taught by traditional wisdom-keepers from another jungle culture.In 2015, Paddy paused his travels to concentrate on how we can improve our own society - and in doing so, improve the lives of the billions of people currently affected by the dominant global systems.Recorded on 4th May 2023.RESOURCES@paddyleflufylinkedin.com/in/paddy-le-flufyPaddyleflufy.substack.comLISTEN NOW iTunesSpotifyPlayer.fm

In today’s conversation, I speak with Camila Moreno, an environmental researcher, author and activist, who has worked extensively on land reform, deforestation, GMOs, agribusiness, and biodiversity issues. A leading climate-policy expert and critical voice on neoliberal climate policies and “green capitalism”, Camila’s main area of study has been the interface between reasoning on climate change and the greening of capitalism. A researcher at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Camila has been following the climate negotiations since 2008, and in 2016 she authored a book titled Carbon Metrics and the New Colonial (2016), exploring these themes and more. The former coordinator of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, in the Brazil office, Camila has been accompanying the United Nation’s Convention on Biological Diversity since 2006, and the Climate Convention since 2008. She is a working group member of Political Ecology of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences and the International Council of Red for a Latin America Transgenic Free (RALLT), and she served with the organizations Terra de Direitos (Land’s Rights) and Amigos da Terra (Earth’s Friends) as a researcher and activist. Recorded on 29th April 2023.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with a dear friend of mine, Carl de Jager. Carl is an extraordinary artist who was born and raised in South Africa, and has since spent many years living in the UK, Spain and Australia, all of which are places he calls home. Having first met Carl at Barcelona Academy of Art, his passion for the creative process has been an ongoing source of inspiration to me, and his captivating paintings communicate a deep interest in our perception of reality. Growing up in South Africa, having lived the ‘doublethink’ indoctrination of politics and religion, Carl carries a profound sense of disillusionment: At a fundamental level he expresses that he cannot trust the reality that is presented to him by his environment. His story is a rich and fascinating one. In 2015, Carl left a successful career in software development in Melbourne to study classical drawing and painting at what was then the nascent Barcelona Academy of Art. After graduating he continued on as a resident artist, and was then invited to stay as a teacher and program coordinator. In early 2020 as the pandemic was unfolding, he returned to Australia to exhibit his works and train in traditional (and some non-traditional) printmaking techniques, before returning to Barcelona where he is now based. Whether in print or paint, Carl’s art deals with his subjective experience of life and draws upon a deep symbolic canon, from existentialism and eastern philosophy to metaphysics and psychology. When words fail, it is this symbolism and abstraction to which Carl turns, to provide a language that can both understand and convey complex feelings and emotions to which, I would say, we can all relate. Recorded on 18th April 2023.

In today’s conversation, I speak with Elena Sinel, a multi-award winning social entrepreneur whose mission is to inspire young people across the world to engage in Artificial Intelligence for Impact. A sought-after AI ethicist, policy adviser and keynote speaker, Elena is trusted by global brands and governments to deliver messages that inspire young people and individuals to build responsible AI. Committed to inspiring young people to make a change in their community, country, and economy through passion, agility, teamwork, and expert support, Teens in AI, an initiative that Elena founded, is designed to give young people early exposure to AI that is being developed and deployed for social good. Launched at the AI for Good Global Summit at the UN in 2018, Teens In AI aims to empower the next generation of ethical AI researchers, entrepreneurs and leaders who will shape the world of tomorrow. Prior to this work, Elena spent over 10 years traveling, volunteering and working in Central Asia (where she grew up), as well as the Balkans, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, where she worked with NGOs and the British Council, developing education, entrepreneurship and mentorship programmes for women and young people. Upon returning to the UK as a single mother of two, Elena was shocked at the state of secondary school education across the UK with its “factory” style learning model and was inspired to launch a pioneering educational social impact enterprise, providing young people across the globe with opportunities to interact with leading experts in technology to create solutions that solve real-life, world problems. Recorded on 17th April 2023.

Today I speak with Matt Celuszak, Founder of Element Human, a customer understanding platform that uses AI to measure and make sense of the drivers of human behaviour. Having spent the last decade working alongside top experts in technology and psychology to build machine learning that recognises body language using webcams, Matt works at the intersection of people and technology, pioneering a new class of Human Data that enables tech, AI and its users to be more emotionally aware and empathetic. With clients including the BBC, Amazon, Whalar and Omnicom, Element Human helps organisations measure the conscious (behavioural) and subconscious (emotions) drivers of human behaviour within their ecosystems, using everyday devices paired with advanced intelligence to better understand key stakeholders, improve their experience, and drive more socially sustainable business. While I am now behavioural science adviser to his company, I first met Matt many years ago when he was starting out, and alongside his desire to transform the media landscape, his interest in applying technology to help create meaningful change across critical issues in education, healthcare, mental health, and children's well-being is something I really appreciate, especially in an industry that is not without its challenges. From exploring human centred design and our understanding of emotions, to unpacking the shortfalls and benefits of machine learning in human data and the impact of regulation and privacy when building artificial intelligence systems, Matt’s areas of expertise touch on many of the themes I’m looking to explore in this season, and I’m excited to share this conversation with you. Recorded on 31st March 2023.

In this conversation, I speak with Tugba Kirhan, a breathwork and embodiment practitioner I had the joy of meeting during my time at Embercombe earlier this year. Passionate about nurturing a culture of personal growth and bringing joy into our everyday lives, Tugba is a project manager, facilitator and coach who has worked in the charity and humanitarian sectors in the UK and overseas, dealing with issues such as international development and women & youth empowerment. After experiencing Embercombe’s program, The Journey, first-hand as a participant back in 2018, Tugba’s relationship with the land and Embercombe’s ethos has deepened, and she now facilitates on various different courses. She has also led fundraising campaigns and coordinated events including Mac Macartney’s Kith and Kin residentials. Named after the tree of life, Tugba is a native of rural Anatolia (Turkey), where East meets West, and this quality of bridging is present in the many ways in which she works to weave together a sense of kinship between and within humans, and with all forms of life. Recorded on 23rd March 2023.

In today’s conversation, I speak with Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic – an author and international authority in psychological profiling, talent management, leadership development, and people analytics. The Chief Talent Scientist at Manpower Group and CEO at Hogan Assessment Systems, Tomas is also the co-founder of Deeper Signals and Meta Profiling. Having published 10 books and over 150 scientific papers on the psychology of talent, leadership, innovation and AI, Tomas is a Professor of Business Psychology at both University College London, and Columbia University. His most recent book, I, Human: AI, Automation, and the Quest to Reclaim What Makes Us Unique, explores the impacts of artificial intelligence on how we work, rest and play, and his previous book, Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?: (And How to Fix It), examines why it is so easy for incompetent men to become leaders, and why is it so hard for competent people - especially competent women - to advance. He has previously held academic positions at New York University and the London School of Economics, and he has lectured at Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, London Business School, Johns Hopkins, IMD, and INSEAD, among many more. His global academic contributions, paired with his creation of science-based tools to improve performance prediction in organisations, make him one of the most prolific social scientists of his generation. Recorded on 21st March 2023.

Today I have the pleasure of being in conversation with a very special guest. Mac Macartney is many things, but perhaps chief among them, he is a storyteller, a writer and a change-maker. Oriented towards cultivating a more just, peaceful, and regenerative future, and mentored by indigenous people over many years, Mac has acquired profound and original insights into the questions preoccupying many contemporary leaders today. Seeking to inspire the emergence of the leader in each of us, the kind of leader who will take courageous action for a better world, Mac’s work seeks to Champion A New Story of Sustainability and reconnection so that together we may walk a path that supports the flourishing of all life. An international speaker and author of two wonderful books - Finding Earth, Finding Soul: The Invisible Path to Authentic Leadership and The Children's Fire: Heart song of a people , Mac is the founder of Embercombe, a beautiful 50 acre rewilding estate on the edge of Dartmoor, that offers courses, programmes and experiences designed to reconnect us with ourselves, with community and with the wild nature that exists within and beyond each of us. Described as a place to breathe, to reconsider, to regenerate and to relearn, I had the precious opportunity to spend a week at Embercombe on a course they call “The Journey”, at the start of this year, in the crisp, cold month of January. It was a profound, moving and rejuvenating experience incandescent with connection, beauty and the magic of stories told and re-told to help us find our place in a changing world. I can only say that if you’re yearning for a deeper sense of purpose and connection with nature and with the vibrance and preciousness of your life, this course is a real gem, facilitated with skill and soul and compassion, and I heartily recommend it. Recorded on 28th February 2023.

In today’s conversation, I speak with Veronica Stanwell - a multidisciplinary healing and creative arts practitioner who weaves soma, psyche, ceremony and song into intimate gatherings for connection, healing and growth. Driven by a longing for a collective shift towards nature-awe, eco-imagination and rekindled interconnectedness, Veronica is the founder of Rooted Healing, an organization that helps heal and connect inner and outer landscapes through transformational gatherings in nature, cross-cultural wisdom exchange, and somatic and transpersonal workshops. Offering legal and unique ceremonial Psilocybin retreats in the Netherlands, ancestral immersions in her homeland of Wales and many other gatherings that re-indigenise and re-root people back into the land, Veronica’s mission is to cultivate the kind of profound belonging that ends habits and systems of harm and instils an embodied remembrance of what it means to be creative, human and alive. As part of a growing collection of resources and projects, Veronica also hosts the wonderful Rooted Healing podcast, which explores how we can heal, re-imagine and co-create a thriving world. With an MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology with the Alef Trust, Veronica’s animist embrace of life permeates her explorations into expanded states of consciousness, both within indigenous traditions of the Americas, and her own personal enquiries into Europe’s native ways. Drawing upon a background in professional theatre that continues to guide her work, Veronica’s approach is one that carries deep reverence for the power of story, music, expression, catharsis and playfulness. As a movement teacher with roots in dance, yoga and somatics, she is currently developing a modality based on animistic ideas, that invokes playful enquiry into the inspirited interdependent body-mind. Recorded on 22nd February 2023.