Just Two Things

What is Spirituality, and why is it relevant today. We all have a model of the world. This is about how we think the world works, and what our own capabilities are. It is also about what we think our place in the world is, and what is the purpose of life. Everyone has a model of the world even if you haven’t fully articulated it. Your model of the world evolves over time based on your life experiences. It develops from what you get taught at home, or school, or what you experience around you. You can also draw, to a greater or lesser extent, on what science, religion, and philosophy have to say. Spirituality is a model of the world where you say that who you are is not just the physical body, and that life has purpose and meaning, at least to you. I believe that overcoming the world’s current challenges is possible, if more people adopt a Spiritual perspective. On this podcast I explore these ideas a little further.

Most people would agree that being in a committed long-term romantic relationship with another human being is one of the greatest gifts that life can offer. And that being in an unhappy one is a whole lot worse than being single. Positive romantic relationships can bring joy, and even better health outcomes in our lives. And being in a relationship which is not happy is challenging. But how do you learn how to make relationships work. From your parents, or friends maybe, certainly not in school. This podcast is about relationships and draws on advice from renowned couple’s therapists. So, regardless of the form of relationship you are currently in and even if you are single, there will be something you can learn about relationships in this podcast.

Human evolution is a fascinating subplot in the history of life on Earth. What makes us different is our ability to walk upright and our large brain. Upright walking evolved first about four million years ago. Our branch of the Hominin tree of life, Homo sapiens, are currently judged to have arrived on the world stage about three-hundred-thousand years ago. As well as evolving a large brain, how we use that brain has been, and continues to evolve too. On this podcast I am going to explore a psychological model that maps out the evolution of human thinking. This model was developed by Clare Garves, and it details how humans think, what motivates us, how we like to organise ourselves because of that, and how that thinking changes over time. When I look at the world through this Gravesian lens the world becomes much easier to understand. Don Beck, who worked with Clare Graves used this system to advise the South African government as it transitioned away from apartheid in the early 1990s. It is useful for leaders, managers, and coaches, because it can give you a sense of the different motivational hot buttons that people have, and how someone’s thinking might evolve next. It also helps us to understand what might be next for humanity, if we continue to evolve that is.

One of the enduring mysteries of life is death. Even though we often push the idea away, we all know that death awaits us at some point in the future. Religious belief systems reassure us that there is a heavenly after life realm, and at the same time attempt to scare us into good behaviour with the idea of a hellish alternative if we are bad. Modern, secular, scientific thinking scorns the whole idea of life after death. If you believe, as materialistic science does, that consciousness is produced by and in the brain, then the death of the physical body means the end of your consciousness. There is nothing else to experience. To some degree, you do need to make yourself comfortable with the idea of the death of your loved ones, and of yourself. Of course, you always can delay having to face the idea until it happens. On this podcast episode I am going to explore Near-Death-Experiences. These are accounts of what people experienced, whilst they were clinically dead. Not only does this subject gives us information about what could await all of us eventually, it also tells us more about how we should be living our physical lives on Earth too.

When we’re born, we come into this world like a new personal computer. Our operating systems are in place and functioning, but we don’t yet have any applications downloaded. As we go through life we are constantly, often unconsciously, downloading various applications from the environment around us. We are little biological learning machines. But what are we learning, how efficiently, effectively, and how consciously are we learning? In this, so called Post Truth World where we are saturated by social media, filled with influencers who sometimes present content of dubious veracity, and where mainstream media and politicians spin a message to suit their own agenda, knowledge is the antidote. You may want to learn because you have qualifications that you want to get. Or you may have children who are learning. Or you may just like learning for the sake of it. Or maybe you follow Gandhi’s instruction to, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Whatever your reason for learning may be, my intention is that by listening to this episode you can learn something new about learning.

A common theme in personal development is Mindset. This idea was popularised by American psychology professor Carol Dweck in her 2006 book called, Mindset. Her ideas about mindset are, to some extent at least, based on the results of research that she and her collaborators conducted. The reason that mindset is a popular topic is because personal development is about getting more out of your life, and growing into a better a version of yourself. So, if someone says that they have a proven way to do that, then we all want a piece of it. There are two mindsets that Dweck talks about. One is a growth mindset and the other is a fixed mindset. On this episode I talk about mindset, what is it, and if you need to, how do you change it.

Hello and welcome to the Just Two Things podcast. My name is Ewan Mochrie. Today the world faces many challenges, like climate change, wealth inequality, the threat of conflict between nuclear armed countries, and the rise of authoritarian governments, just to name a few. I believe that the way to tackle these issues is to re-understand what our experience is about and how reality works. Or to put that another way we need to update our model of the world. We need a New Paradigm. Your model of the world is how you think reality works and what your own capabilities are within it. Over the years humans have very broadly separated these ideas into three main categories, Philosophy, Religion, and Science. On this Podcast I will briefly talk about each of these topics before exploring what a new paradigm might look like and where that might take us.

Leadership is one of the most studied but least understood subjects in the psychological and social sciences. But it is an essential component of making any organisation successful. Though it is hard to teach, it can be learned, and it can also be coached. On this Podcast episode I will look at key elements of leadership and highlight these with some examples from history. You could be leading just a handful of people all the way through to a large organisation, or even a country. Your leadership could be in a family, social group, a sports setting, a charity, a corporation, in the military, or even politically. Either way there will be something on this Podcast that you can learn from. Although good leadership can sometimes be difficult to describe, you tend to know it when you see it. Today I believe we are being starved of good leadership by our political, business, and spiritual leaders. I believe that humanity is rapidly approaching a significant bifurcation point. We are about to be confronted with stark choices about our future. If we don’t significantly up our leadership game, then this test is one that we will flunk. Perhaps you are one of the aspiring leaders that the world needs today. If you are, remember that becoming a leader is about growing into more of who you are; it is about fully becoming you.

The pursuit of happiness is assumed by many people to be the purpose of living. But do we need to pursue it, can’t we just be happy because that’s what we chose to be? Sonja Lyubomirsky is a psychologist who has studied happiness. In her book The How of Happiness, she says – “Happier people are more sociable and energetic, more charitable and cooperative, and better liked by others…happier people are more likely to get married and to stay married, and to have a richer network of friends and social support…they show more flexibility and ingenuity in their thinking and are more productive in their jobs. They are better leaders and negotiators and earn more money. They are more resilient in the face of hardship, have stronger immune systems and are physically healthier. Happy people even live longer.” Another eminent happiness researcher was psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He discovered that people were the happiest when they were in the state that he called flow. Flow is when we are involved in an activity to the extent that nothing else matters. Our ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost. But what is the flow state, how do you access it and what is achievable for you when you do? On this Just Two Things podcast I explore the idea of happiness and how to achieve it and the state of being called Flow.

There are a handful of thinkers, writers and speakers who have influenced me the most, and it is two of these Wayne Dyer and Stephen Covey that I talk about in this session of my podcast. Wayne Dyer is the author of what is, in my opinion, the best personal development book ever written, Your Erroneous Zones. To date this book has sold over 35 million copies, and it is also one of the most gifted books in the world. The best way to summarise the book is through Wayne Dyers own words. He said that it is… “An approach that relies on responsibility for and commitment to yourself, plus an appetite for living and a desire to be all that you choose to at this moment. It’s an uncomplicated approach, a common-sense approach.” Your Erroneous Zones helps to highlight incorrect thinking and gives the reader ideas about how to change. It helps people to build self-worth and to begin fully expressing themselves as the person that they want to be. As you do so you become independent. And as you master this sense of being independent you can then kick into a higher gear by incorporating the thinking of Stephen Covey, as expressed in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. By doing so you then become truly interdependent. If these were the only two personal development books, you ever read you would still be fully armed to become the person you want to be. These books have guided my thinking and they are well aligned with the philosophical basis of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). By listening to this episode you can incorporate the ideas of two personal development giants into your life too. “You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.” Wayne Dyer “Life is not about accumulation, it is about contribution.” Stephen Covey