0:03

Welcome to the show where we expose new perspectives on our ever evolving world through the lenses of various industries, cultures and backgrounds.

Our guests are disruptors, united by a common goal to bring their purpose to life.

0:21

Whether they’re from the commercial world or third sector, from the global North or the global S, expect an inspirational journey that will transform your perspective on just what is possible.

My name is Philippa White and welcome to Thai Unearthed.

0:41

Today we’re diving into the topic of intuition.

Now, some of you might think intuition sounds, I don’t know, a bit woo woo.

But by the end of this episode, you’ll see why learning to recognize and harness it is one of the greatest superpowers at your disposal.

1:01

Hello and welcome to episode 97 of Thai Unearthed.

Today’s guest is Hunt Gunston’s daughter, an Icelandic author, filmmaker and sustainability leader who’s passionate about bringing together ideas and people from across sectors to inspire creativity and Dr. real world solutions.

1:24

Hoont’s journey is fascinating, from managing post war reconstruction in Kosovo and helping craft a gender equality manual that later became law, to leaving her full time UN role due to burnout and then completely reinventing herself.

1:41

She draws on her global experience from sustainable business and development to the arts to show how real change begins within.

In today’s conversation, Hoot explains how intuition isn’t just a feeling, but a skill we can all cultivate.

1:59

She delves into the thought patterns and rhythms of change, showing how tapping into these rhythms can elevate our intelligence and insight.

You’ll leave this podcast with fresh perspectives on self-awareness, and Hunt offers practical tools to help unlock your own intuitive power to navigate the complexity of modern life.

2:24

So whether you’re out on a run or relaxing with your favorite beverage, let’s jump into this conversation with Hunt.

Ruth, thank you so much for joining us today.

2:40

It is.

I’m so excited for this conversation and I’m just thrilled we’re finally making it happen.

Thank you for joining me.

Thank you for inviting me, it’s such a pleasure and I’ve been looking really much forward to this.

I have two and your energy comes through on the LinkedIn posts and everything, and I’m feeling it now, which is great.

3:00

So I’m really, really, really looking forward to this.

Before we go into all of my questions and into this conversation, you can tell our listeners where you are sitting right now.

I’m sitting right now in the countryside in Germany.

This is where my partner has a home and we go here on the weekends and it’s a beautiful paradise.

3:20

It’s, it’s a location in the forest and we have bees and roses and lots of fruit trees and a vegetable garden and lots of green and beautiful and, and after this conversation, we’re going to go cycling for about two hours somewhere in the forest.

3:37

So this is where I am at the moment, feeling very grounded and deeply grateful.

I love the really solid Stonewall behind you.

I mean, you can see that it’s an old stone building.

Yes and it’s done in a very it was renovated many years ago and it was about to collapse this house, but the renovation is all very done all very sustainably.

4:00

You know, there’s it’s all natural material and the walls are very thick, so that when it’s really warm outside, it’s just really cool temperatures inside.

We make our own electricity and there’s water from the fountain and it’s sustainable living.

Sustainable living.

It’s it’s it’s really a beautiful place.

4:18

Yeah.

I really love it, yeah.

How lucky, how wonderful.

As we start this conversation, perhaps you can tell us a little bit about you and your story.

So I’m Trent.

I’m from Iceland.

4:33

I grew up wanting to be a writer somewhere in my teenage years that was kind of buried very deep inside me.

I wanted to explore the world.

I wanted to get to know people and, and different cultures and, and basically always had this very deep sense of belonging on earth, not necessarily in one country and wanting to make the world a better place.

4:55

So I remember when I was very young thinking, hang on, maybe it’s not very clear where, where I end and somebody else begins that lives in a different part of the world, you know, thoughts like that.

So I go on and I study, I study social anthropology, I study development studies complex emergencies in Iceland and in London and very quickly I go on to work with United Nations.

5:17

So I had dreamt of working for the UN.

Things happened very quickly for me.

So I was only 27 when I moved to Kosovo to be a program manager or head of agency for a small agency called UNIFEM at the time it’s now called to UN Women.

5:32

This was the first time UNIFEM was involved in post conflict reconstruction work and it was a year and it felt like 10 years packed into one when it came to my learning curve, maturity and you know, going to Kosovo was like walking into an open wound.

5:48

It was just after the war and I was really determined to do my best to make people’s lives better and help rebuild.

I didn’t give my health, my well-being or my energy any thought.

I just really thought I could put that aside and just.

So I stayed there for a year and the work went, it was, it was an amazing year.

6:08

I made really good friends and we, we applied a participatory approach so-called, which is all about creating local ownership and empowering people to take ownership and define what their needs are.

We managed to bring together people and women from different groups, ethnic groups, you know, professional groups, different parts of Yugoslavia in a way and also Kosovo who had actually some of them been in deep conflict against each other.

6:35

We managed to bring them together and one of the things that they succeeded in doing was to create the gender equality manual for for Kosovo, which later became law.

So that was amazing.

After the year, I had taken a competitive examination with the UN, which is open or was at least open for people from countries that were unrepresented within their core UN structures.

6:59

So I took the the two days examination and was offered a position with the UN, which was a permanent position.

It’s like when you start work for the Foreign Office, you travel the world and you’re you that that becomes your career.

So that was how my career looked like when I was close to 29.

7:16

I started working for the UN in Geneva.

I started working in a statistical division analyzing gender disaggregated data from 55 member states.

And to make a Long story short, I really felt like we were serving a system instead of the system serving people on the planet.

7:34

I was also going through really rough time in my private life.

I’d had some unresolved health issues from my Kosovo time.

Everything kind of came into one and, and I ended up just resigning for my permanent position.

And what I would call I hit a wall, I collapsed, I hit AI didn’t know what to call it.

7:52

Burnout wasn’t the thing.

It wasn’t the word that I knew then.

So I, I resigned from the UN.

But whilst I was in a mental and physical space that was very hard.

It was like it was a dark place.

It was, you know, I couldn’t tie my own shoes.

My, my back was, was so bad that was diagnosed with the three slipped discs.

8:13

I was told I wouldn’t necessarily be able to work full time ever again.

But in the middle of all this kind of whirlwind of difficult experiences, let’s put it that way, I managed to gain a moment of clarity where I I just met myself being an older woman.

8:31

I walked down to the coast where I lived and I just had this moment with myself.

I met myself as an older woman after having asked myself what kind of a life do I want to have lived?

When I look back and what I saw was very different from how I was feeling and how I was finding myself in my new role.

8:50

And I just knew that I needed to make some big changes in my life or think about how do I want to lead my life and where do I want to do it.

So I go back to Geneva.

I resigned for my job.

And on my last day at work in a palate donation in Geneva, I, I’m sitting on a chair and I’m having an imaginary conversation with Kofi Annan, the then secretary General of the UN, where I promise that I, I’ll stay true to the ideals of the UN, wanting to make the world a better place.

9:19

But I promised myself that I would follow through with I persistent ideas that were likely to have good impact on the world, no matter which sector or what disciplines I was working with or groups of people.

So that’s kind of kind of what I’ve been doing since.

9:36

So since then I’ve had more than 20 titles in my life and this includes a worked in investment.

I’ve chaired Iceland’s biggest innovation public grant fund.

I’ve been a mentor for entrepreneurs.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for example, in education where I created a disruptive university program.

9:54

I continue to work for the UN.

I’m certain assignments as a consultant for some years.

I’ve been engaged with the World Economic Forum.

Recently I LED Iceland’s Sustainability Center for about 5 years.

I directed and wrote the film about intuition, which was shown on Netflix worldwide from 2016 and 17.

10:16

And then now most recently left my job in Iceland and decided to follow through with my book, which is coming out in all continents in 13 languages at least about intuition.

Yeah.

Tell us about your book.

Was there a catalyst to specifically about going down that route?

10:33

Exactly.

That’s a great question because I, I think that at the core of all this is my personal in a way like discovering for myself, but also then later seeing it everywhere around me.

It’s that deep conviction that we now live in a world that is changing so fast and it has been changing so fast in the last recent decades, but our systems are not keeping up with these changes, whether it’s education or, you know, global architecture around finance or whatever it is.

11:06

So our systems need changing, but systems don’t change themselves.

It’s people like you and me that change systems and that I feel very, I don’t only feel strongly about, I now have been able to accumulate experience and read research and done research on this topic.

11:21

So I, it’s my deep conviction that actually there is this incredible, beautiful, magnificent, intangible world within every single one of us.

And I think we’re trying, we’re kind of finding it harder and harder to access that world.

11:37

It’s our intuition.

It is a huge part of our intellectual faculty.

It’s connection with our emotions, it’s connecting with our hearts.

It’s our connection with our whole body because our whole body is an intelligent system.

And so I think we’re, we’ve been neglecting intuition for a very long time.

11:57

It’s very interesting when when you do research and and read around it and contemplate like, why should that be?

And let’s not go into that here.

I think that that’ll take another podcast interview, but it is really taking me to the place where I’m I’m on a mission to get all of us to deepen our understanding of what intuition is, to understand how fundamental it is to our intelligence and why it’s important for us to reclaim ownership and more trust in our own intelligence in the world we live in today.

12:27

What is the name of your book?

My book is called In Saye, which is the Icelandic word for intuition.

One of the subtitles is He’ll Revive and Reset with the Icelandic Art of Intuition.

The reason why I, I keep using the Icelandic word for intuition is because I, I discovered during many years of both practice and research and conversations with leaders from around the world that we have very different definitions about intuition.

12:53

It’s all from the continuum of defining intuition as an irrational impulse that we should rely on all the way to saying it’s, it’s a VUVU that, you know, hasn’t been backed by science.

And then somewhere in between, we have very sophisticated, rigorous research showing that actually a well honed intuition is where we can take our best decisions.

13:12

It is where our highest minds, you know, in the form of Nobel laureates and what we call human genius.

This is the key ingredient to their big leaps in their big discoveries throughout the years.

It’s when they know how to shift between analysis and intuition and understand how these things merge together.

13:31

But I should say both they the Nobel laureates, because I’m thinking about a certain research, but also most of us, we might do this, but we don’t really, we are not really that aware.

And even the Nobel laureates are not always aware or the scientists or the artists of how this works.

They just have a feel.

13:46

They just kind of unconsciously know their cue went to shift between these two rhythms.

I believe a lot in intuition and I would say that a lot, I think probably a lot of entrepreneurs probably do really believe in intuition on different levels.

14:02

You know, you go down a certain path and then when you look back and you think, God what you know, how did I know?

And, and there’s so much to that.

But when I do talk to people about intuition, because I’m not, I’m not, I am spiritual to an extent, but I’m not religious.

14:18

There’s something about energy and I, I don’t even know how to articulate it.

And maybe this is what intuition is.

But when I go down this route and I’m talking to people who maybe aren’t very spiritual or certainly don’t really understand this, they do think it’s a bit woo woo.

It’s hard to make sense of it.

14:33

People like no, well, you just you know, you know what to do and you’re lucky or, or whatever it might be.

What I what really resonated with me when I’ve heard you speak or I’ve read your some of your work.

You know, you do say that in Saye brings together the scientific and the spiritual, you know, the solid and the poetic and that it refers to the ever flowing conscious mind that can’t be put into boxes otherwise it doesn’t flow.

15:01

Now, I love how you have said that this is scientifically proven as well as deeply spiritual and I can, I mean, I’m covered in goosebumps.

I can relate to that, but I don’t know the scientific side of this.

And I imagine that your book, I haven’t read it yet, but I imagine that your book is full of examples.

15:23

And I know from your Ted Talk, you know, you do touch on some examples.

And I just wonder for our listeners, can you bring this to life perhaps with stories or examples so that the listeners don’t just sort of see this as like a woo woo kind of OK intuition.

How?

How can you elaborate a little bit more for the non believers?

15:41

Yeah.

Thank you.

So this is a great question.

There’s a lot in there.

So don’t hesitate to to direct me if I’m going off track.

So we, we have consciousness, by far the biggest part of our consciousness is unconscious.

It’s stored in our whole bodies.

We pick up sensory data, information, whatever we want to call it, stimulation with our whole body and senses.

16:02

It’s stored in our body and most of the things that we are learning throughout every minute of every day is unconscious.

Our very focused conscious mind is on top of things like I’m going to go to the shop now and, and shop, I’m going to do this analysis before 3:00.

I’m going to pick up the kids and and I see you high all these different things, but most of the things that are going on are unconscious to us.

16:23

So our intuition is our gateway into this.

It helps us tap into the unconscious.

Now, the unconscious, and This is why I love the Icelandic word intuition, insight, because it means to see within like you describe perfectly.

16:39

So it’s the sea within, There’s so much going on.

There’s tide and wave in the sea within.

It’s constantly moving.

You know, it’s the world of imagination and emotions, decisions that we take that may emerge later in life clearly or unclearly or feeling spontaneous or but they’ve been brewing for a very long time.

16:59

This is the the inner world that is constantly making new connections, which also depends on our brains and our thought patterns to what extent we allow that to emerge as well.

That’s another interesting connection.

Our intuition is it’s different from instinct.

17:15

We confuse these terms together.

So we say instinct is something that’s more genetically inherited.

It’s, you know, it’s our old brain that helps us escape from the wild animals and or the fight or flight mode, which we are in way too much in today’s world for different reasons and perhaps the wrong reasons.

17:34

But intuition is something that we keep developing throughout our lives.

There are a few things here that I want to highlight.

You know, it’s what we put in informs our intuition.

It shapes how we show up, the decisions that we take, how we perceive the world, what people we are, and what course we choose to navigate.

17:53

Again, most of this is unconscious to us.

That’s why it’s so important to be aligned and connected with your intuition.

It’s also because of the overflow of information and the constant destruction and stimulation that we’re going through.

It makes it even more important for us to be in control of what we’re taking in.

18:11

You know, like somebody said to me, let’s not be trust pins because if we just allow agents to throw trust at us, we’re going to give out trust, right?

It’s an extreme description, but I kind of like it.

So what we put in comes out again.

So that’s that’s very important for us to be aware of.

18:27

And also the fact that it’s ever flowing.

You know, we we’ve heard about this condition to be in a state of flow when we put hand to head, you know, when we are just doing something and we lose track of time.

And if we’re totally in the zone, we are in a very brilliant way going slightly beyond our the limitation of what we know how to do.

18:46

So we are challenging us in a healthy way.

So we are absolutely focused on the task at hand.

It’s called the highest form of attention that humans can offer.

And so that is being In Sync with our intuition.

And when I say that intuition is fundamental to our intelligence, that’s what it means.

19:01

It’s not a singular thing inside our brain or gut or heart.

It is actually the the flow of everything that our intelligence is combined of.

So for example, in order to reason well, you need good intuition and without intuition there wouldn’t be much innovation or art.

19:19

So it’s that kind of combination.

And, and sometimes the reason why I draw out the poetic because the Icelandic word in means inside or into saye means the sea or two sea.

So it’s their sea within and it does a 2 sea within.

So self-awareness is key to having, having any chance of honing, harnessing your own intuition because you have your intuition, I can’t tell you what it is and how you feel it, and you have to sense it and understand it with your whole being and body.

19:48

So I’m going to get to self-awareness in a second because I love that other part that you I talk a lot about that with my work as well.

But before we get there, do you have any stories just about that scientific, more proven side to intuition?

20:04

Where have the people that you’ve spoken to, the stories that you have in your book where intuition became a huge driving force of their success?

Do you have a story that you think of that inspires you that that helped bring this to life?

20:20

I feel like, I mean, you wouldn’t have made the life choices that you made had you not been in touch with yourself and had that.

That self-awareness and in touch with your intuition, I feel the same way.

But there’s a lot of people who are stuck in that hamster wheel or they’re just following what society or culture or they’re on a route that maybe they’re not living with intention.

20:42

If you can, talk to them.

Yeah, so, so actually that’s a that’s a really useful cue to take this too, because there’s there are many different varying examples.

I’ll take an example of my my dear friend and Ruxala, who is today an actually geographic explorer in residence and one of the founders of the Pristine Seas projects.

21:02

Enrique Sala grew up at the sea in Spain and he always dreamt of becoming an ocean explorer like Jacques Cousteau.

He loved the ocean.

He went down to study and he became a marine biologist.

He did really well in his studies.

21:18

He went on to work in a university.

He became a professor and he was teaching.

And then one day he just wakes up and realized that he feels that he’s literally writing the obituary of the ocean.

He’s watching it from a great distance as it’s health deteriorates and he doesn’t feel like he’s doing anything about it.

21:39

He feels very disconnected from the ocean, the topic of his passion.

So he takes a dramatic decision and resigns from his professor position and he permits himself to spend most of his time in the ocean in order to explore it first hand, immerse himself in the ocean in order to understand it fully with all his senses and all his being and intuition.

22:05

Shortly after I got to know Anrixala, we started talking and and I had already started my research.

This is 2011 around intuition and he shares with me an academic paper that he wrote in university with his friend about intuition.

So you know, things are often looming for a long time.

22:21

But anyway, so he resigns, he commits himself to spending most of his time in the ocean because we need to be connected with the world, the real world we live in in order to grow our intuition about it and to be able to have an impact and do something and also to do something in the moment.

22:39

That’s another thing which we can come to later.

So he starts, he, he found the Pristine Seas project.

Since then, the Pristine Seas has led to the establishment of 27 of the largest protected ocean areas in the world, which is an incredible achievement because what they do is that they engage film makers who create visuals.

22:59

They, they engage local leaders, local people who come from the region that we’re talking about each time and they engage them in what is the challenge, the problem?

Why should we do this?

How do we do this?

And, and then they, they have the ownership, the people who are the guardians of the ocean in every place.

23:18

So Anrik’s story is, is, I think highly inspiring because I think for many of us, we can relate to being working somewhere that’s far away from the, the things that we feel like we should be working on or we think we are working on, but we don’t feel that sense of connection.

23:33

And also, you know, people all over the work world are working in places where they feel like they really don’t matter.

They can be easily replaced.

And I cannot tell you how many emails and messages I received from people in different jobs.

Like, I’m sure some of them took a train to go to Cafe to send me an e-mail, you know, to people who are professors in universities or CEO’s of companies.

23:56

But but people who are sharing the same story again and again, if you’re disconnected, they can’t find the deep sense of security that we all need for so many reasons.

And one of them is to be able to take decision, to be able to have the confidence in trusting their own senses and feelings and, and experiences and to be able to stay present in the moment and presence is, is hugely important because we have this from the world of business, military arts, spiritual practices, wherever we look.

24:31

There’s even for sports coats, which I interview in my book, our ability to be present in the moment defines our ability to react to unexpected circumstances.

Totally, totally to that point, actually.

24:46

So in the last section of my books and my books called Return on Humanity, Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World.

An amazing book.

So I’m halfway into it.

It’s amazing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

As I said at the beginning of the book, you know, I define, you know, what is humanity and, and what does it mean to be more human?

25:02

self-awareness is one of those pillars.

Then I talk about the importance of interconnectedness.

So it’s understanding our impact on the world and sort of that, you know, cause and effect and then interdependence is a big one, which is understanding the need for outside voices to come in and you know what you put in.

25:22

I love that you said that it’s sort of what information, what stimulus are you bringing into your knowledge base to then be able to build on that?

And it’s very egotistical to sort of think that we have all the answers or without sort of outside voices coming in, we can make decisions because it’s obviously impossible.

25:42

And that’s why, you know, bringing sectors together is so important and going into communities is so important and that connection and belonging.

Because even at a company, there are so many people, even if you’re the owner of that company or running that company, there are so many people within that company that know things that you don’t know and you need them and they need to feel that they are needed.

26:03

So I just could not agree more.

It’s my book.

It’s focused on sort of individuals.

And you know, before you’re a leader, before you work at a company, you’re a human being and just sort of talking about how being more human just makes life better.

Then we talk about leadership and companies.

26:20

And then I do talk about the world.

And so the last part is the impact on the world when people are more human and, and to be more human, as I mentioned, has a lot to do with self-awareness and being in touch with who you are.

And, and you then in your work, you talk a lot about systems and how systems don’t change themselves, which you said at the beginning, and how it’s people like us that change these systems.

26:42

And I couldn’t agree more.

I mean, that’s why I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for 20 years and we can’t change systems without changing ourselves.

And so we need to be in touch with who we are.

I would just love for you to dive into that a little bit more because I feel like we are so aligned with what we have been working towards, our research, our work, we come at it from different points of view, but we’re, there’s so many overlaps and I just would love for you to just unearth that a little bit more for our listeners.

27:12

I find it fascinating.

Yeah, thank you and feel free to jump in as well because I’d love to hear also your thoughts on this.

But what I mean by this is that the change that we need to see in the world today comes from within us.

So like you say, that’s because systems don’t change themselves.

27:28

It’s people that change systems.

I used the phrase shifting the centre of gravity in ourselves.

So when I was this version of me, when I was this friend who thought she was following her heart and was in many ways, but wasn’t aligned with it, wasn’t In Sync with it and her inner voice, it wasn’t so hard to play that role to be like to just doing really well at work and waking up in the morning and going to work and doing my job and, and I did it well.

27:57

You know, it’s not like we can’t do it well, but when when our center of gravity shifts so that we are deeply aligned with who we are, this informs how we experience our connection with other people and the planet, definitely the natural world and also the world around us, whatever world that is.

28:16

You know, if we live in a very concrete world with little nature, that is also our world.

So it’s shifts the centre of gravity and how we show up.

So it becomes intuitive to understand that extrapolating too much from nature is going to be a bad decision someday.

28:33

It becomes intuitive to understand that we become much more sensitized towards nowadays that we when we step into a room, how we Co regulate as a specie, how my energy gets projected on you and I can either commitment in and say, hi, it’s lovely to see you.

28:50

I just noticed what you did yesterday is like, thank you for doing that, or I can come in with a really bad energy and kind of break your heart a little bit.

So that’s the impact that we have on a very cellular level, like very energetic level and everything in between with changing systems.

29:05

There is a lot of emphasis in our conversations in the world today to say we as collectives, we together change systems and we need to do it together.

There is no one leader doing it.

We do it together, let’s say an organization or a company, and there is a CEO who comes and take over the company.

29:23

And that person is strongly aligned with her humanity, strongly aligned with her in say and intuition and understand that this person won’t be able to do much work and Speaking of transition or chains unless he or she establishes a deep connection with the people that she’s working with.

29:41

And in order to do that, you need to be human.

You need to act like a human.

And then you look at things differently.

You have conversations around things.

There is more ownership of the things that are being done.

There is more sensitivity towards the the society around the work that you’re doing.

29:56

There is more creativity.

There is more imagination.

There is more energy in every single individual.

It’s everybody grows, yeah.

Yeah.

Are you familiar with the Nordic Secret?

Thomas Borkman, I think he talks about and it’s this fascinating story, but it’s basically rooted in in the in Scandinavia, when the region changed from being agrarian to being industrial.

30:22

The leaders of the region recognized that in a time of significant change and unrest in society, that blows open a lot of opportunity for people to be very vulnerable and for people to to feel very uneasy, which we can all relate to.

30:40

Now, as we said, you know, there’s a lot of change happening right now.

We’re in a very similar moment right now, which is why it’s such an amazing book to read, Ted Talk to watch.

But what he talks about is at that time, the leaders of Scandinavia, they decided to create Nordic folk high schools.

30:58

And these Nordic folk high schools did one thing and one thing only.

They taught a very particular group of people.

So they were late teens to early adults.

One thing and it’s self-awareness.

And the reason why they did that was because they said, if the more self aware people are, the less susceptible they are to the impact and the power of external forces, you’re much stronger and you’re rooted in who you are.

31:24

And so therefore you don’t have challenges, sort of authoritarian leaders coming in, people being able to manipulate you.

And we can relate to that.

You know, you’ve been through a lot of, I’ve been, I’ve been through really difficult moments as well.

And the, when you, when you feel destabilized, you are more susceptible to people manipulating you.

31:42

And the stronger you are, the stronger their region is.

And so it was state funded, but it was not state-run and that’s what stabilized that region at that time.

What’s really interesting is in the states, in Tennessee, I think there was a guy who.

Saw the power.

31:57

Of this and then it was after the Second World War and he created a Nordic folk high school.

But in the states there was just one.

And I think it might still be there, I don’t know.

But anyway, the whole thing is it is focused on self-awareness.

And a couple of weeks after one of the students studied at that Fok High School, she was on a bus and she was sitting on a bus and someone said you need to move.

32:19

And she said, I’m not moving.

And they said, no, but you need to get up.

You need to move.

You, you, you can’t sit here.

And she said I’m not getting up.

And it was Rosa Parks.

Oh my goodness, that is an incredible story.

And it’s really interesting because there’s there’s a Andrew Bovarnik who was the is I think still the global head food and agricultural commodity systems at the UNDP and this thinking, he says, I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change.

32:53

I thought that with 30 years of good science, we could address these problems.

But I was wrong.

The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy.

Oh wow, that’s very powerful.

So I think there’s so much truth in that.

Yeah.

33:08

And I just think it’s so interesting and that’s why moving forward, understanding the power of, you know, spending real time understanding who you are, understanding what is around you, what do you stand for bringing in those other voices?

33:23

Because the more that you do that, the more secure and solid you become.

Also, more innovation happens, the more opportunities, but also the healthier communities are right.

Now, absolutely, I so agree.

And there’s two parallel threats in my book. 1 is about exactly that.

33:41

Would you say?

Like when you go out into the world and you allow it to come to you, you explore with an open mind.

You’re not always intentional about how the day is going to go.

So it’s like I’m going to be open and see what comes as well.

It can be pockets of time, it could be hold days.

However we develop that.

33:57

But then at the same time, there’s this other parallel stream that’s going on and that is that constant journaling, paying attention to what it is that you pay attention to.

And that’s like, hi, how are you?

You’re knocking.

You’re knocking on yourself like your own shelter and saying, hi, are you there?

34:14

Are we together now, the mind and the body?

And then are we going through this together?

And you pay attention to what you pay attention to because we pay attention to so many things throughout the day, but do we actually pay attention to what it is that we’re paying attention to?

And this is what I have found for my myself personally, one of the most powerful tools anyone has ever given to me.

34:34

And I share that in my book as well.

So it’s like as you wave find to navigate a turbulent, constantly moving, changing world community work that you are also constantly allowing yourself to learn, understand, be open to different perspectives, but always checking in on yourself how it is that you are experiencing them.

34:57

And then at the same time, you are building a stronger and stronger inner compass, which gives you that strong inner security, which I think is wisdom, at least in my case, that’s wisdom that comes from spirituality.

I haven’t learned this from anywhere but spirituality as strongly at least.

35:16

It’s like spiritualism has so much to teach us, you know, ancient wisdom, ancient books, ancient poetry and mythology.

It’s there is so much wisdom there and there is no one way to explain the world or place in it.

You know, it’s not only science.

35:31

Science changes too.

You know, we learn new things, science, which is hugely important, but so is imagination, You know, if we can’t imagine something different than from what is, how on earth are we going to get there?

Oh.

It’s fascinating you, you do talk at the end of your, of the Ted talk and it, it, I’m sure you talk about it in your book as well, to the point of climate change and planetary and human interconnectedness.

35:55

How can INSI help the future?

And we’ve touched on this, but from the point of view of the connection with climate change and the the challenges that we’re facing.

So there there are two things to say in that and there are many but two things that most importantly, people who are working in climate today are working to address our biggest the global challenges.

36:17

There is recent research and survey shows that climate scientists have never been as hopeless as now.

So hopelessness is drains our energy, it doesn’t give us energy.

So being aligned with the sea within with your intuition not only allows yourself to regenerate instead of getting drained, in order to align with your inside intuition, you do stuff that regenerates you.

36:44

What happens when you do that?

You also gain more clarity of mind, so you save yourself time and energy on things that are not that important.

What also happens is that your brain starts to revive differently so it moves from a fight or flight mode to a more receptive open listening we mode as opposed to I need to protect.

37:06

So the mindset changes with the physicality of aligning with intuition or insafe.

I can put it that way.

God, it’s so powerful.

About 15 minutes ago, you did talk about thought patterns, and I talk a lot about thought patterns as well.

37:22

And it is so powerful, isn’t it?

I mean, it’s very easy to get into negative spirals, become the victim.

Do you have any tools?

Do you have any suggestions for the listeners just for what they can do to try and avoid getting into those negative thought patterns or into those downward spirals and how you can shift the energy?

37:43

I’m a big believer in shifting the energy, and it’s something that I feel I’ve really gotten control of.

But I think that’s one of the things that on teams in businesses, you know, if you have a leader that doesn’t get that, you create an environment that isn’t positive or happy, that creates that connection.

38:00

And those are awful environments to work in.

Absolutely.

So before I do that, I just want to add the second point to the relationship between insight and climate.

But just because it’s important that I haven’t heard it that often.

And I just want to add it very briefly.

When we trust insight and learn how to work with it, and I teach it to the through the two rhythms in my book.

38:20

But when we work with it, you intuitively start to see how things are interconnected.

Yes.

And it becomes your intuitive reaction to let’s say, circular economy or sustainability, those two huge challenges.

They are not linear, they’re not in boxes.

38:35

They actually require us to think about how everything is interconnected and understand how that works.

So the logic of intuition gets us there.

So let’s go to your last question about the what do I want to share with people?

What are the tools I want to share with?

So my book is full of tools to choose one.

38:52

I’m going to take us to the big picture.

I’ve already mentioned pay attention to what you pay attention to and and jot it down in your journal.

Just allow it to come and unfold for you.

But another thing I want to just lay out is I work a lot with the two rhythms.

So let’s imagine we are made-up of two rhythms.

39:08

You know, 1 breathes in, one breathes out, one is receiving, the other one is calculating, one is contemplating, while the other one one is is planning.

When we harness these two rhythms, we put everything in motion that has to do with our intelligence and body and presence and we are more able to be in the now and heighten our intelligence and insights into things.

39:30

Some of the tricks to get to that place are are things that we already know.

It’s like when you leave work, leave work, do something else, go for a a comic evening, go to the cinema, go for a run, laugh, have a laugh.

It’s OK to be joyful when the when the world seems to be collapsing.

39:49

It’s OK.

There are limits to what we can do and joy and laughter and companions.

It gives us a lot of energy and sense of purpose.

Another thing is basic things like sleep.

Well, let your brain do it’s washing up.

You.

Know let it do the washing, clean things out and throw out the toxic waste and and bring in some new stuff so that you feel pressed tomorrow.

40:12

Care for yourself.

Be your cheerleader number one.

It’s okay to think critically both outside and inside, but know why you’re doing it.

The most important things that we ever say are the things that we say to ourselves.

These are very important things.

So.

So I would think about two rhythms.

40:29

What are your two rhythms?

You know your work rhythm.

If you are somebody who’s working a lot and needs to hear this, you will know your work with them.

What are you doing at work?

How does it make you feel physically?

Do something that’s opposite.

Attend to the garden.

Make beautiful food, you know, breathe in fresh air, do yoga, whatever it is that makes you go into a different rhythm.

40:50

Much good advice, much good advice.

Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to tell her listeners?

We’ve covered a lot of ground.

I just maybe just to say have a conversation with with friends and family.

Try it out for one evening at the dinner table.

41:05

Talk about intuition.

Tell them about inside.

Maybe you can post the question.

When was the last time you listened to your insight, your intuition and what happened next?

Try it out.

So good, I will include the details for your book.

I will include the details for your Ted talk.

41:22

I highly recommend people getting stuck into both.

And thank you for joining us.

It’s been an honour.

Same here.

Thank you so much.

Until the next time.

Hey everyone, this is Philippa again, and I hope you enjoyed listening.

41:38

Now this is your chance to get involved with Ty.

If you’re looking to create better leaders, better companies, and a better world, that’s just what we do by helping leaders tap into their greatest asset, their humanity.

We have a number of corporate programs that impact a range of people, from individuals at a company to 500 people around a business.

42:00

Or check out my book Return on Humanity Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World.

You’ll find the answers to how business can truly become a positive force while remaining at the forefront of competition.

You can find all the information you need on all of this at thaileadership.com.

42:19

Get in touch and I can explain more.

A huge thanks to Beja Naviera for Co producing this with me and for creating the music.

I hope we’ll meet up again soon.