Psychology to Live By

In this roundtable discussion of Personality & Developing Character Part2: Can You Change Your Personality?, we explored a wide range of issues: How ageing and declining neuroplasticity may make personality recalibration more difficult; how we really need to be motivated for change to be possible; how becoming more comfortable with who we are allows us to better curate our environment; how it is harder for younger people to cha...

In this Music, Wellbeing & Mental Health podcast I talk with singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Max Frost. We had a wonderful conversation and we touched on many topics including: the role of anxiety in the creative process; learning to drop expectations that ‘this matters’ and learning not to care so much; technology and the evolution of art, especially the speed of music production; the myth of the torture...

This roundtable discussion of the podcast 'Personality and Developing Character Part 1' was very lively and filled with insights from the participants:. Topics discussed included: the surprising virtue of being average on personality dimensions; the understanding of a wider range of people when you are centrally located on the traits; some fantastic examples of the egocentric basa!; a live personality assesmmet of one of th...

This is the first in a podcast series on personality and the building of character. I’ve called it ‘Being the Best You Can Be’ because, in my opinion, this is the best way to fulfill our most important of desires: to maximise wellbeing for ourselves and for those around us. 
An important way to maximise wellbeing is to understand one’s own personality and to have the skills to recalibrate it to function more wisely in everyday l...

This is a roundtable discussion with my friends from Nettwerk Music. Our subject was the Music, Creativity & Mental Health podcast with Robot Koch. It was a deeply insightful and wide-ranging discussion that appropriately matched the often deep and fascinating discussion I had with Robert. Topics discussed included: Why do people decide to be artists even though they know it is likely to be difficult, insecure, stressful and so...

The first 2 podcasts in the Staying Composed in Troubling Times series focused on more direct psychological strategies for equanimity, but the focus in this third podcast is on less direct, but nonetheless very practical strategies that lead to inner calm and composure. I broke these into four, overlapping categories: 1 Maintaining physical health & resilience; 2. Intentional information and media consumption; 3. The active pur...

This roundtable discuses the third podcast in the Staying Composed series and is titled ‘Cultivating Equanimity Within Everyday Life’. Topics discussed included: how so many small things can build equanimity; how we should cultivate a certain skepticism or epistemological humility in the face of misinformation and disinformation; how we need to transcend particular disputes looking for the larger picture; how we need to strike a ba...

Today in this Music & Mental Health Podcast I’m talking with artist, composer and record producer Robert Koch, who is much better known by his stage name, Foam and Sand. Originally from Germany, At the age of 13 he was inspired by MTV videos and embarked on his musical career. Now residing in Los Angeles, Robert has a stellar background in composing and producing his own work as well as for other major artists. Our topics are c...

Many of us are finding contemporary life unsettling. This second podcast in the series focuses on psychological pathways to equanimity. We cover a lot of gground: the Serenity Prayer and the freedom that potentially lies in the space betwen stimulus and response; the power to choose as exemplified by Viktor Frankl; The role of courage and of Mindfulness in equanimity; the Buddhist notion of the Sacred Pause and how this can be appl...

This roundtable on cultivating equanimity psychologically, with my esteemed friends from Nettwerk Music, explored many implications of the podcast: that you can always exert some control over your response to the world; that playing the victim keeps us stuck and is a psychological trap that extends our suffering; that the Fundamental Attribution Error feeds into polarisation and hatred; that mindfulness is at the core of slowing do...

This roundtable with my colleagues from Nettwerk Music explores the podcast with Martin Kerr, a British Canadian singer songwriter based in Edmonton, Canada. It was a broad-ranging discussion on topics including: creativity as a connection to the ‘undermind’ or unconscious intelligence; the central role of intuition in this process; the role intuition has in life decisions and career moves; the importance of learning from one’s own...

This roundtable discussion of the first 'Staying Composed' podcast is full of deep and practical questions and insights. The topics discussed included: how equanimity is not a one-off, not a black and white phenomenon, but rather an ongoing activity that results in a continuous changing of our experience; how often after a triggering reality is in the past, we have to now apply equanimity to our ongoing thoughts, feelings a...

The central theme of this podcast series is equanimity as the antidote to the stress of living in turbulent times. Defined as the ability to maintain inner calm when the world around us is objectively disturbing, this podcast begins by exploring the nature of equanimity. We see that it is a very active psychological state that is in dynamic engagement with the world. It is not passive and is not a state of retreat from the world. W...

In this Music & Mental Health Podcast I’m talking with Martin Kerr, British-Canadian singer-songwriter based in Edmonton Canada. Martin shares what he's found that helps him balance music, relationships and family life. We discuss many topics, including: how success is the result of years of grassroots community building, how music is fundamentally about community, communication and sharing emotional truths, how intrinsic motiv...

This roundtable explores how we manage others to better navigate difficult conversations. Topics covered included: a discussion of a workplace culture of 'feedback for redirection', which is more akin to coaching rather than telling; how asking questions for which we don't have the answer does not mean we shouldn't prepare ideas or have opinions entering into difficult conversations; how and why it is more challengi...

The Music & Mental Health roundtable discussing my podast with Jon Bryant was very insightful and stimulating. As usual, my friends at Nettwerk Music took the conversation to very interesting places including: an exploration of how meditative mind states generate openness and curosity to what shows up - a 'waiting-upon' rather than a predictive mode; the metaphor of the mind as a 'mobile' as a means to understan...

When we find ourselves in a difficult conversation, or when we are anticipating one, before we can manage other people skilfully the first task is usually to manage our own emotions and reactions. The best approach is to be proactive. Such ‘Approach Coping’ enables us to manage our own thoughts, behaviours and emotions and to take care of our own needs. It then allows us to better manage the needs of the other person and the conver...

This Q & A explores issues arising from 'Mastering Difficult Conversations Part 2 (Managing Self). Topics discussed included:stepping outside one's reaction and pausing and seeing how this breaks habitual patterns in self and others; how, in dealing with personality-disordered people it is less about changing them, and more about protecting self and others around them; when we are not getting win-wins the importance of ...