We discuss psychologist Kati Morton’s book: Why Do I Do This – Unlearn the Habits Keeping You Stuck and Unhappy. In a vibrant discussion, topics explored included: How repeated behaviours carve deep mental "ruts" that feel effortless to follow and require real effort and discomfort to change; 2. The need for control expressed in people-pleasing, perfectionism, and impression management, as futile attempts to control how others perceive us; Anxiety, the ego, and the necessity of "feeling your way through" rather than intellectual insight to break these patterns; How avoiding difficult conversations creates suffocating, superficial relationships contrasted with naming problems directly to deepen trust; and authenticity that flows from relaxing into being rather than performing for others.

This podcast is a discussion of psychologist Kati Morton's book: Why Do I keep Doing This? Kati is a clinical psychologist, author, public speaker and has a large online following. The book is largely about people who suffer with an obsessive need to control: whether that is to control their own thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and/or also other peoples' attitides and behaviors towards them. They are people pleasers, perfectionists, self-deprecators, and so on. But the book has relevance to a wider audience because we all fall into this need to control how other's perceive and value us. Kati shows that such attempts at control are illusory and counter-productive and the book is full of practical ways one can regain one's authenticity and and self-steem. But it is no quick fix self-help book. THe reason we 'keep doing this' is that these are deep, automatic, often uncosncious patterns of feeling, thinking and doing. The book explains the realistic and diverse strategies to gradually live more spontaneously, with more self-compassion and more freedom. It is a book about learning how to let go. It was, needless to say, a stimulating and informative discussion.

Not surprisingly the Luca Fogale podcast stimulated a deep and enlightening discussion covering: Luca’s phrase ‘the soft panic in the background’; how music builds deep community; how solitude can stimulate an artistic life, the poetic sensibility, Luca’s very personal and exploratory ‘mattering project’, the difficulty of coming off tour, abiding in ambiguity and uncertainty and developing character and virtue.

In this roundtable we discussed my podcast with Steven Puri and the topic was his website and app designed to encourage flow at work and a state of inner calm and satisfaction (Sukha). We began with the value of the community of users, especially for those who work predominantly from home. We then discussed procrastination and how Sukha helps. We agreed that ‘I’ am the biggest distractor of ‘me’ and we compared the less distracted mind to a cultivated mindfulness. We also considered how meaningful work structures and directs the mind in healthy ways. A key conclusion was that productivity is not the goal, nor does it lead to happiness. Rather, the goal is Sukha. Finally, we saw how thai app allows for idiosyncratic and personal tailoring: what works for you. As usual, a great conversation!

Sukha is a Sanskrit word that translates to inner ease and happiness. The Sukha Company is a website and app designed to help people attain flow states while working. The idea is to have all the tools in one place, activated by one button, to support this daily practice. In this conversation with founder and CEO Steven Puri we cover many topics including the epedemic of distraction and 'acedia' -a widespread sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness - and therefore Steven's purpose is not so much productivity increase, but increasing people's happiness and wellbeing. The app is a whole system of AI-informed aids including aural lanscapes (music and/or sound), a smart assistant that gently prods you if you surf the internet or pick up the phone; a pomodoro-type timer; a real-time task management system that also helps construct fewer, more practical goals; suggestions for break activities (stretches, walks, breathing etc) breaks, and an optional live community. This was an entertaining and really practical discussion.

This is a wonderful conversation with a deeply thoughtful and insightful artist, Luca Fogale. He is a Canadian singer/songwriter who hails from Burnaby, British Columbia. He's been twice nominated for Juno awards (Best Adult Contemporary Album). We discussed Luca's explorations of psychoolgical experience: the tension between light and dark, between apathy and optimism; we explored the therapeutic role that creative practice plays for him; we discussed the necessity of dropping of the ego, yet all the while recognizing that creativity comes from self; we talked about virtue and develping character, developing a better and more virtuous future self. In large part the conversation was about courage and a faith in moving forward. All in all, he's a delightful human being and it is a heart-warming and uplifting conversation.

This was a fascinating discussion about a challenging topic: Miles Spencer's 'Reflekta: - an AI generated avatar of one’s deceased loved ones. We explored the thorny ethical issues of whether this will prevent people from full acceptance and/or grieving successfully. This led to the distinction between sadness as accepted loss and grief as no-yet-accepted loss. We explored likely family issues about which is the 'true' reflection of people who have passed. We also agreed that everyone does grief differently and this resource may well be cathartic and help people build on their relationships with deceased loved ones. We also explored the other applications for Reflekta: for people to create their own Reflekta legacies before dying and for a range of uses in aged care homes. All in all, this fruitful discussion posed as many interesting questions as it answered.

My guest on today’s episode is Miles Spencer who’s done so much in his life it is hard to summarise! He has founded, financed, built and exited three digital media companies and his new startup, Reflekta, is the subject for this podcast. Reflekta is an ai-driven platform for interactions with one’s deceased loved-ones.
The big picture is that Reflekta moves beyond existing digital tools in assisting those in grief or helping to counter memory loss, to more celebratory interactions such intergenerational storytelling and legacy building. Behind this is a philosophy of ‘Soul Tech’ or human centred AI. Topics discussed included: The benefits for storytellers in creating their own legacy reflections (including for those who may have dementia or are near end of life); The benefits for family and loved ones in terms of comfort, resilience and having a growing resource throughout life; Growing one’s relationship with a deceased loved-one; The distinction between grief therapy and legacy-based interactions; The distinction between reflections and attempted simulations; Promoting tradition and legacy for subsequent generations; The broader social benefits of the passing down of wisdom at scale; Discussion of the thorny ethical questions involved - including the guardrails established by Reflekta to try to deal with these.
All in all, probably a conversation to follow up when there is more water under the bridge for this very new Reflekta!