Quick Win: The daily ritual that helped Lisa Leong to find peace of mind

Lisa Leong doesn’t do things by halves - if she’s worried she might not be getting enough sunlight in the dead of Melbourne winter, she goes out and buys an infrared desk light. If she learns cold therapy might be beneficial, she jumps into a sub-zero cryotherapy chamber. 

So when the ABC Broadcaster started feeling a disconnect between her mind and body, she didn’t just start practicing Qigong (a meditative martial arts practice similar to Tai Chi). No, she wanted to learn it from the master himself, Robert Peng. 

She thought she might be in luck, because the Chinese healer was brought to Australia by… Bob Hawke? But by the time Lisa wanted to learn, Peng had moved to New York. So naturally, Lisa flew across the world to spend ten days under his tutelage! 

Lisa shares why she felt compelled to learn Qigong, what she learned from Robert Peng, and how Bob Hawke fits into the story!

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Listen to the full interview here

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Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: Martin Imber

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Lisa Leong doesn't do things by halves. If she's worried
she might not be getting enough sunlight in the dead
of Melbourne winter, she goes out and buys an infrared
desk light, and if she learns cold therapy might be beneficial,
she jumps into a sub zero cryotherapy chamber. So when
the ABC broadcaster started feeling a disconnect between her mind

(00:23):
and her body, she didn't just start practicing key gong,
a meditative martial arts practice similar to tai chi No.
She wanted to learn it from the master himself, Robert Peng.
Lisa shares why she felt compelled to learn key Gong
and what she learned from Robert Peng and how it

(00:45):
helped her find peace and presence of mind. My name
is doctor Amantha Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and the
founder of Behavioral science Consultancy Inventium. This is how I work,
a show about how to help you do your best work.

(01:05):
On today's quick Win episode, we go back to an
interview from the past and I pick out a quick
win that you can apply today. In today's show, I
speak with lisaly On about how kigong transformed her emotional
and mental health.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
The last thing that I do well of like I
basically do tin things. But this is the fifth and
final one that I'm going to share with you is
a practice called four Golden Wheels, and that is part
of my chigung practice. So chigong is like a cousin
of tai chi. I mentioned that I find hard to
do meditation sitting down cross legged, so this is a

(01:42):
practice that I do to basically stretch my body and
get myself back into my body. I've been doing that
since June. I used to do tai chi, but now
I'm doing chigung, and I have noticeably made a difference
to my headspace I feel as a result of this.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
I remember you telling me after it because you'd gone
to America I learn from a master, yes practitioner, And
I remember you saying when we caught up after that,
that people close to you in your life, your family,
have noticed a difference in just how like your personality.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Almost Yeah, I was. I think i'd lost my joy
actually at the beginning of the year, and sometimes, you know,
I spoke about being stuck in our heads. I knew
I was stuck, but I felt like a prisoner. I
could not get out, and I was really stressed, and
I was feeling really sort of I was moping around
and not myself, and I couldn't buy a hack my

(02:45):
way out, Amantha. I'd really tried. I tried everything, and
I was stuck. And there I read this book and
it was in January about a guy called Robert Ping.
Now he's an Australian citizen. Actually, so what happened was
Robert Peng I was in China and former Prime Minister
Bob Hawk happened to be visiting as a diplomat and

(03:08):
got injured, and so Robert Peng sort of helped him,
and Bob Hawk was so amazed. He said, actually, my daughter, Susan,
she's been sick for seven years, bedridden, kind of like
my story bedridden. Can you help? So he flew Susan
all the way to Robert Ping in China. Robert Pen
worked with her for six months and basically she was

(03:30):
able to walk again and get her life back. She
flew back to Sydney and not only was she healed,
but she looked younger, and so all her friends thought amazing.
And Women's Weekly did a story on Robert Peng and
the fact that Susan Hawk looked younger, and so he
became super popular. They flew him out to Australia and

(03:52):
he lived in Australia for a long time and taught
she gon in Australia. But unfortunately I missed that because
he went to New York, and so I decided there
and then, and this is part of my you know,
sometimes I do these things. I thought, I feel like
I need to go to the US to spend ten
days learning chigong from Robert Pan and I did. And

(04:18):
do you know what?

Speaker 1 (04:20):
It was?

Speaker 2 (04:20):
In the middle of the week. Kamantha and I had
been walking through this flower garden to get to the
chigong hall every single day, and on that day, it
was a Wednesday, I saw this cute be dancing on
in between these flowers, and then I realized, I'm back

(04:42):
because I noticed.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I hope you enjoy this little quick Win episode today.
If you would like to listen to the full interview,
you can find a link to that in the show notes.
If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
that you work. I write a short fortnightly newsletter that
contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me
work better, ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving

(05:08):
through the interesting research findings. You can sign up for
that at Howiwork dot com That's how I Work dot co.
Thank you for sharing part of your day with me
by listening to How I Work. If you're keen for
more tips on how to work better, connect with me
via LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm very easy to find. Just
search for Amantha Imba. How I Work was recorded on

(05:33):
the traditional land of the Warrangery people, part of the
cool And Nation. I'm so grateful for being able to
work and live on this beautiful land and I want
to pay my respects to elders, past, present and emerging.
How I Work is produced by Inventium and hosted by
me Amantha Imba, and a big thank you to Martin
Imba who did the audio mix and makes everything sound

(05:55):
better than it would have otherwise