The Brilliant but Limited Mind: Why Leadership Presence Starts in the Body with Linden Thorp

Most leadership failure is not a strategy problem. It is a presence problem.

In this episode of Arkaro Insights, Mark Blackwell speaks with Linden Thorp, a Buddhist priest, somatic practitioner, communication specialist, and creator of the Lodestone Method. After more than four decades in academia, contemplative practice, and now executive boardrooms, Linden has watched leader after leader run on what she calls "the brilliant but limited mind", an intellectual firework display that captivates the room and then leaves a plume of smoke behind.

This conversation explores what gets neglected underneath the slide deck and the strategy: the body, the breath, and the wider nervous system. The layer Linden argues is the actual seat of leadership presence.

In this episode:

• Why most leadership failure is a presence problem, not a strategy problem
• The brilliant but limited mind, and what intellectual firework displays cost teams
• Burnout as a loss of nervous-system regulation, not just a psychological state
• The parable of the ruby in the hem of the coat
• What a tribal leader in Arnhem Land taught Linden about whole-body listening
• Why physiological safety is different from psychological safety, and why leaders need both
• The distinction between the leader who speaks and the leader who is present
• Three Monday-morning practices any leader can try: breath gratitude, 3D visualisation, and diaphragmatic breathing
• A business case in a supermarket strike

About the guest

Linden Thorp is a Buddhist priest, somatic practitioner, communication specialist, former professional musician, and creator of the Lodestone Method. Her work draws on decades of experience in education, voice, bodywork, contemplative practice, and embodied leadership. She is the author of Your Body is Your Business Plan and is based in Tokyo, Japan.

Find Linden at lindenthorp.com and her Lodestone Inside programme at lindenthorp.com/lodestone-inside. She is most active on LinkedIn.

Related episodes

• Hilary Scarlett on the SPACES model and the neuroscience of collaboration
• Garrett Forsythe on the transition from technical expert to leader
• Keith Sawyer on group genius and the ten conditions for group flow

#Leadership #Presence #SomaticLeadership #Burnout #NervousSystem #EmbodiedLeadership #ChangeManagement #B2BLeadership #ArkaroInsights

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Transcript

Fireworks Thinking And The Cost

Linden Thorp 0:00

People are driven by the intellectual ideas by what I call this amazing firework display. It's a superb firework display and you know captivates everybody. But then we're left with a plume of smoke and a trace of ash because the intellectual world is not real.

Mark Blackwell 0:25

Welcome back to Arkaro Insights. I'm Mark Blackwell, and today we're going to explore a theme that really sh probably should be and the root of human performance in complex adaptive systems, the science of presence. In recent conversations, we've deconstructed this lone genius myth with Keith Sawyer and explored with Hilary Scarlett how our brains are primed to live on the savannah and not so much suited for modern times. So that's more of the you know the what, but today we're going to talk more about the how. How a leader actually regulates their own biology to remain effective when the pressure is on. My guest today

Why Presence Matters For Leaders

Mark Blackwell 1:12

has spent more than four decades inside universities, contemplative communities, and executive boardrooms. She's a Buddhist priest, a somatic practitioner, and the creator of the Lodestone Method. Her provocative core argument is that most leadership failure is not caused by lack of business strategy, but by over-reliance on what she calls the brilliant but limited mind at the expense of our wider human intelligence. She's the author of Your Body Is Your Business Plan. Joining us from Tokyo, Japan, Linden Thorp. Welcome to the show.

Linden Thorp 1:54

Thank you, Mark. It's so lovely to be here. I'm thrilled. And uh I really am excited about our conversation. And I hope it will develop into more conversations because this is such an important message, I think, to get out.

Mark Blackwell 2:08

Yeah, I think just as a positioning segment of the overall theme of this podcast is how to thrive in a complex adaptive world and uh what it means to do that. One of the topics um that comes up repeatedly, obviously, now in 2026, is the arrival of AI. And we've often double-clicked as a result of that. We're just strengthening the question of what does it mean to be a human being? Uh on a on a quite a deep, broader level, because from a competitive business space, it's a fundamental question to ask to be successful. So that's why I'm looking forward to the conversation today, because it's rare to find someone who can speak with equal rigor, academic rigour, about ancient contemplative practices and modern failure modes. But coming from it, your background, just again, for your per perspective of the listener, you've had a distinguished 40-year career in academia and Buddhist research, and being a Buddhist priest as well, but you've also built a methodology that targets chief operating officers and commercial officers, commercial directors. Can you tell us how these two worlds merged and what was the specific performance gap that you saw in leadership teams that convinced you that Buddhist teachings and insight and somatic science were not just well-being topics, but something critical for business success?

Linden Thorp 3:35

That's a great question. Yes, I think the turning point for me was leaving academia. So three years ago I retired. I had to retire formally. And for a while I was in limbo, you know, although I'm always writing something. I'm a prolific writer, among many other things. Um, and then it started to come to me that actually I taught business studies at university. So, and I've got an MBA, so I've got all that background

From Academia To Executive Work

Linden Thorp 4:05

to business, but I'd never ever been in business. So one day I woke up and I thought, yeah, I've got to do this, I've got to go into business. And I have this very, very strong message to get across to people. And the message about the brilliant but limited mind has been going on for a long time with me. Um, and I've been fighting with academics about it quite a lot. And so that really came to the fore. And I thought, yes, you know, when I examine the business communities I've been involved with, the major thing is that people are driven by the intellectual ideas, by what I call this amazing firework display. It's a superb firework display and, you know, captivates everybody. Um, but then we're left with a plume of smoke and a trace of ash, because the intellectual world is not real. And nobody knows this more than Buddhists do. I mean, we we work to get away from the intellect, to get back into the spirit and the simplicity of being human, innately human, you know. So that was where I decided I would start. And to begin with, I was very caught up in wealth management. Now, I'd always been impercunious as a teacher. You would never you will never make a lot of money as a teacher. And I'd always struggled really for money and given too much of myself, usually, because that's who I am. And so I thought, yeah, right, I'm going to do this and I'm going to become a millionaire. That was my thought. And when I'm a millionaire, I'm the first millionaire Buddhist priest in the world, I think. No, I think there are a couple of others, but um then uh then, wow, what can I do with all this money? And I had such a strong commitment that the wealth of the internet should be in the hands of people who really know what to do with it. So that was my kind of beginning millionaire mentor. I was with him for a year, he's a multimillionaire, actually. He taught me all the tricks. I'd got all my marketing teaching background, the academic background. So I put it all together and then started to bring in the Buddhist notions and also indigenous wisdom, which I'm very passionate about. So that was the turning point, really. And I'm so excited that I made those decisions because three years on, wow, I'm in my element. I'm having fabulous conversations, I've got a huge network now. Um, and people are really starting to listen. Yeah, it's great. It's very exciting.

Mark Blackwell 6:58

Well, so that first phrase he said, the brilliant but limited mind. You know, believe it or not, it reminded me of a podcast we had right at the beginning of the series with Garrett Forsyth. And his theme was the leadership transition from being a technical expert to a leader. What do I mean by that? Well, it I think it echoes of what you're saying is in the industries that we work in, agriculture, food, chemicals, particularly, very often people are promoted for their technical brilliance in whatever discipline that they have, and that dominates. And they find themselves completely unprepared for what it means to motivate and inspire a team of people. And so we had a lovely podcast where we talked about some tricks and indeed neuroscience tricks that uh I'll be to think about. And we had a lovely discussion about being aware of the amygdala hijack.

Speaker 1 7:59

Yeah.

Mark Blackwell 8:00

And I thought, oh well, I could just put those words in your mouth, Linden, because that might send you off on the journey. The sense of oh, being and I you tried to use the words with care, being aware that your body is having a response. Maybe you can just build on that.

Linden Thorp 8:16

Well, now, my my passion for the human body began a long, long time ago as an Alexander teacher and Feldenkrais teacher. These are two very special techniques to get particularly performance people, worked with actors, musicians, you name it, into a state where they don't collapse and have stage fright and so on. So the love of the human body and my uh an anatomical and physiological research has gone on for years. And I do truly believe that um our bodies are, well, and this is testified to by many scientists, that we are 100% evolved. The systems, when you look at them closely, as a biologist yourself, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. They're incredible systems. And the architecture, which of course everyone is now talking about architecture, structure within business. It it's phenomenal. And the problem is that because we're so taken up with

The Brilliant But Limited Mind

Linden Thorp 9:20

intellectual firework displays and so on, we neglect the body. We don't put the lights on at home. It's dark, you know, we don't go there very often, many of us. So of course, the the body starts to protest. We we're kind of really abusing it in many ways. And it's so amazing that you know, a very short, mindful practice with somebody, ten minutes, I can get them to go inside their bodies and they are home. And they say that very often. And I say, How long has it been since you've been home? And they say, Well, I don't know, decades perhaps.

Mark Blackwell 10:06

Yeah.

Linden Thorp 10:07

So I think the body is our most precious asset. And I'll put the breath in the same category because without the breath we can't have life. And so, from the Buddhist point of view, you know, we have to make bonds with the universe. And that's very much the Buddhist practice that we are earth dwellers and we belong here because we are on the only planet that provides breathable air that we know of. And so the bond with the earth for Buddhists is very, very strong, and with the universe also. So we we really want to bring people back to that position where gravity, which is another incredible asset, is holding us on the earth. I've talked a lot about gravity recently because I do I do a lot of gravitational sitting and standing, letting people really feel the force, as it were. And so, yeah, I think the more we come back to the body and the more we are grounded and we realize that the earth and the gravitational force are our greatest assets and they are free, unconditional, then the more we can become present. And so I lead people in this way when I work with them, especially leaders who are very often frazzled and very disillusioned. And the moment you talk about the earth and bring them to a sense of gratitude for being here and now, they start to relax and they start to really see things very, very differently. So I think, you know, we are like the guy who had no money and went off elsewhere to seek it, it's parable really, and he got lots of money, sent it home to his family, but then he lost it all because he gambled and so on and drank a lot and crawled back home thinking they wouldn't accept him, and they did, they were so glad to have him back. His mother died, and in a letter that he read after her death, the letter said, My dear son, you have been so blind. When you left home, I sewed the family ruby into the hem of your coat. So you went off, you got all this money, you lost all this money, came back a beggar, and all the time you had this ruby in the hem of your coat. So it's like that. I think human beings are always looking outside, not realizing that really everything they need to be successful, to be loved is right inside them. And so that's what I do. I I help people to remember. And of course, the other interesting thing is that the body remembers everything. This forgets. You know, we need to-do lists, we need shopping lists, but the body never forgets. And once you access the body in a certain way, then it all comes back. All of that incredible wisdom, and not only through your life, but through your ancestral line too. And you know, our ancestors survived, and that's why we're here. So it's very kind of logical in many ways. But

Breath, Gravity, And Coming Home

Linden Thorp 13:40

people go off to the fireworks.

Mark Blackwell 13:43

Yeah. Well, again, yeah, I mean, maybe just test something with you. Um, and I'm going off to the fireworks and thought that the responsibility of think being a leader. You know, people see how leaders behave and they change their own behaviour and respect for the leader by the presence that is being displayed. And that's a very important thing. There's a term of felt leadership, you know, which is that behaviour that you are demonstrating people respond to way more than the words that come out of the leader's mouth. And so I want to come back to this concept of the amygdala hijack and over bracing, because and find parallels between the guidance that the Buddha gave and also the insights they're getting from neuroscience. We are taught by neuroscientists that if we feel that rushing of anger, typical of the amygdala hijack, we should name it, name that feeling to try to distance itself from ourselves, which I think is also close to Buddhism, saying that you should be saying I'm sensing anger rather than I am angry, as a way of is that is that fair?

Speaker 1 14:56

Yes.

Mark Blackwell 14:57

And and also that because that that helps you control your body, and a term that you may use, which is overbracing, which I think has implications for the individual and the team, maybe.

Linden Thorp 15:09

Yes, yes, yes, yes, I think this is so true. We we are living in a bubble, most of us, I think. You know, we are not grounded, we're not anchored in who we are. I often spring this question on people when they least expect it. I say to them, Who are you? Do you know? You know, terror comes into their eyes immediately, mostly, and they say, I don't I don't know who am I? Through the Buddha's teachings, he he was so adamant that we should know ourselves before we do anything else. And that's why he left the world and went into retreat to get to know himself. And through that process, um he discovered the teachings, he he built the teachings. Um so, yes, I feel that we we have all this incredible potential, but we're missing the point somehow, you know. So coming back to our true nature um is essential. And so my main, my flagship product is Lodestone, which you mentioned earlier. Thank you for that, by the way. Lodestone is a 30-day program. Um, it's 30 minutes a day. It's a 30-day audio transmission given by me, and I guide you um through all the layers of social conditioning that have been there for maybe decades since you were five, and when we start to become socialized, and we go down through all those layers, through meditation, through mindfulness and other things to encounter your true nature. And people actually ring me up and say, Linden, I can't believe it, but I met myself today in your meditation. I know who I am, and I never knew before. And of course, this is a combination of things, but it's the body remembering the true nature of the child, because we're all endowed with this incredible honesty and you know, uh joy that children often usually have. And so the body remembers through the meditation that we were once so so happy, so carefree, uh, so um loved, all of these things. And so, yeah, it's safe. It becomes safe to know who you are and not just psychologically safe, because physiological safety is really different to psychological safety. Um, and think until people experience that physiological safety in their nervous system with a good guide, they have no idea what it is. You can't read about it, you have to experience it. That's the parallel with Buddhism, too, you know. There are many Buddhists who think they're Buddhists because they've read all the sutras, but it's nothing to do with the written word, it's nothing to do with language in the end at all. It's to do with your unique experience of whatever form it's taking. But it's a tiny shift, maybe, and that's what happens to lodestoners. They say when they're telling me what's happening, oh, today something shifted. I I don't know what it was, but I feel different. So it's those tiny shifts we can't explain, we can't describe, that are actually making inroads into reconnecting with the true self, the Buddha nature, as we might call it. So we've really got so confused about the power of language. Um, as you know, I'm sure, something, lots of research has been done on how much of any interaction, any utterance is verbal

Amygdala Hijack And Overbracing

Linden Thorp 19:10

and how much is non-verbal. Up to 75% is non-verbal. It's hard to generalize these figures, but it's been researched now for a long time. Imagine that you're standing up to give a presentation, you've rehearsed your speech, you've got your slides sorted out, but in fact, you haven't connected beyond those words, behind those words. And so the words you say, meaningless. They drop onto stony ground. And if you look at a really embodied leader, then they don't say much at all. You know, they are a presence, they pause, they move around a little bit, you know, they are not scared to death of failing with their script and you know, breaking political rules. They are truly there, here and now. And those are the leaders that really make the difference. Yeah.

Mark Blackwell 20:13

So can I pick up p pick up on that word embodiment a bit? Just because I'm just wondering a couple of listeners, if they've made it this far, they might you know, just think of them very scientific people looking for hard evidence and spelt their careers looking for that. So just give me a moment to see if I can make a bridge to sort of keep the listeners on board. Okay. 1988. I was in university in a physiology lecture, and I still remember the hall where a distinguished professor was talking about the vagus nerve. And honestly said, and you know, we call it the vagus nerve, it's the wandering nerve, it's far larger than we need than it needs to be, so that's probably doing something that we don't understand. But um, we don't really understand why evolution has created this thing. This was 1988, which is not a long time ago.

Speaker 1 21:03

No.

Mark Blackwell 21:04

Since then, many of our listeners are in the food ingredients industry. They'll know about the microbiome, they know about the 72 trillion cells that live with us that are communicating to our brain with the gut brain axis via the vagus nerve. There we may be people of you have got Garmin sport watches who are measuring your HRV, your heart rate variability, which is the twoing and froing, the upping and downing, the communication between the heart and the and the brain. Now, as scientists, we know that these things in recent years are very important. You know, good scientists also know that there's probably more that we don't know that we do know. But we still believe now that the vagus nerve is fundamentally really important to us in a way that we don't fully comprehend about how the state of our mind, and may I use the word our embodiment. So that's why I was researching about your logic. You've got your four compass framework with connecting the brain, the heart, the solar plexus, and the base. Maybe there's a bridge that you can make between the listeners who readily accept the gut-brain access and heart rate variability and the science that you're aware of from Buddhist teaching.

Linden Thorp 22:18

Right, yes. Well, the Vegas nerve is, yes, it's an extraordinary thing. But in fact, it's not my Buddhist background that makes me focus on the Vegas nerve. It's my indigenous wisdom background. Because about 35 years ago I spent several months with a group of Australian Aboriginals, and I was involved in escorting them back to Arnhemland, which is their now their territory, and no white people are allowed in there. And we we were walking with them during the night, and then we built shade shelters for them during the day. But above all, we got to know them so well, and I I got to know them so well, and they taught me so much. And I learnt about the Vegas nerve from them. So picture this. We are walking under this amazing sky. One of the tribal leaders suddenly stops. We all stop. He stands on one leg, which they do when they're really, you know, focused. Stood on one leg, we stood still and we waited. And after about five minutes, he turned round and he said, Quick, we have to get out of this place. There's a sandstorm coming. So the white people were a bit confused. You know, we didn't have our phones, we didn't have any news broadcasts. How does he know? Anyway, we all repaired to a cave and we we were fine, we were fine. And later we we did access news and we saw that that sandstorm was ten miles away from where we were, and he had picked it up through his body. Because aboriginals

Lodestone And Meeting Your True Self

Linden Thorp 24:05

and tribal peoples in general don't believe that we only listen here. This is a limited mind trick. The listening is close to the brain, and this is intellectual listening, and yes, we need it in the intellectual world. But in fact, sound is vibration. And if we are open, our whole body can receive that vibration. And you know, you only have to look at deaf people dancing, which I I've worked with quite a lot of hearing-impaired people. They can't hear the music, but God they can dance. They feel the vibrations, you know, through their entire body. So, you know, this is it's a it's a fact that we can detect vibration with the whole body. And as a musician, this is very, very precious to me. I started out life as a professional musician and so and then became music therapist, which is another strand of the things I'm bringing together. So basically, yes, I was knocked out by this whole body listening thing. I just couldn't understand it here at all. But what when I got back to civilization and started to research it, I realized that most tribal peoples have incredibly toned up vagus nerves. Very tightly toned up. And most urban dwellers flax it, no tone at all. So, of course, the signals that are coming, the biofeedback signals that are coming up here, are very weak. And that's why burnout happens. Sorry, I'm mentioning burnout, but it's a big concern of mine. And really, it is a breakdown of the vagus nerve that causes burnout because people don't receive the distress signals. They can't stop. And their body's screaming, but they can't hear it. You know, that's so sad. So, anyway, when I looked closely at the vagus nerve, because like you and maybe our audience, I wasn't sure it was such an important nerve at all. When I researched primitive peoples and indigenous peoples, and quite a lot of research on their physiology, because they've got lots of things that we don't have, like incredible eyesight. You know, they can see ten times further than we can, even the best kind of measurement of eye strength. So when I started to research that, I realized that, yeah, they can survive the harshest climate on the earth because their vagus nerve is so strongly toned up, and it enables them to pick up these vibrations at a huge distance. And I bring that very much into my work with people now because when we start to practice whole body listening, it's amazing what change is. People become much more present, much calmer, and they are they feel in control because they know if they close their eyes, they can feel a vibration, no matter how far away. And that in turn leads them to other feelings that they've neglected. Feelings like gratitude. You know, that's a big part of my teaching too, because you know, gratitude, we can talk about it, we can think about it, but can we feel it?

Mark Blackwell 27:20

Yeah.

Linden Thorp 27:22

I really strengthen people's sense of gratitude, and it starts in the gut, and it starts.

Mark Blackwell 27:28

It is bizarre, these freezes heartfelt and gut feeling. I'm constantly amazed that maybe there must be more to it than that. I mean, in my own little life, I uh try some exercises to increase my vagal tone, but nothing much as an Aborigine's got, but I'm re-learning that cold showers helps with getting your vagal tone, gargling in the morning, humming whilst you're shaving. Yes. Humming, and and by the way, humming, oh my goodness me, we are back to ancient traditions like Buddhism again so quickly that they seem to have discovered these things as being that we're now discovering as neuroscience valid, that was just part of the daily life.

Linden Thorp 28:07

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, I have to say, and I'm I I uh r at risk of offending your audience maybe, but I do think that neuroscience is a bit of a fashion fad. You know, I think that we focus so much on this brain, which for ex by by the way, the vibrations that this brain gives out are fifty times weaker than the vibrations the heart gives out. The heart is your true brain, and Buddhism says that very strongly. Don't listen to this, listen to your heart, and that's the heart of the teachings, really. You know, it's a heart like teaching. So I think that I don't mean to be disrespectful to neuroscientists. I think they've done a great job in educating us, but I think it's time now to come down a bit into the body and to look at things the other way round. So look at the body first and you know, plumb the depths of the body. And of course, when we look back at Vedic culture, I I've got a very long background with uh Vedic meditation and so on, vipassana and so on. Then we see that the chakra system is just brilliantly accurate in terms of ganglions and you know nerve endings coming together and so on. Um, and they they knew that, you know, five or six thousand years ago.

Mark Blackwell 29:33

Um so it's all coming I mean, in my defense of neuroscientists, I think their message for me that I'm picking up, maybe it's a biased message, is that there is more neural tissue outside of the brain, so we should be thinking outside of the brain as a processing organism. Yes. And that's the bridge I think that we need to think from neuroscience that it's not just about the servo. It is, it is there is stuff going on elsewhere that we should be opening our minds to the possibility that it may be more than we currently think it is from a limited mind perspective.

Linden Thorp 30:09

Absolutely.

Embodiment Evidence For Sceptics

Linden Thorp 30:10

I mean it's great, and uh you know, I it's really interesting, but is it useful to our lives? Does it make people happier knowing about neural science? And that's what I'm concerned about. Are people happy? You know, and when you ask them, I do very often, I'm you know, great at intimidating people with asking these strange questions. I asked someone the other day, are you happy? And he said, Oh yes, I'm so happy. I've got a beautiful wife, got three children, great job, a supercar, and I go on holiday three times a year. I'm so happy. So I paused and I said, But what if you didn't have any of that? Would you be happy? And again this look of terror came into his eyes, and he said, No, would not. I would be unhappy. So there is a way in which we are so habituated to outsourcing our happiness and many other things, our health, our wealth, all sorts of our education we outsource when all the times coming all the time coming back to the ruby sewn into the hem of the coat, we've got so much, and in fact, I would argue all we need to be truly happy and truly successful right here, you know.

Mark Blackwell 31:27

So I I mean I again I could pushing a little bit back, going back to a combination of being inside us, and we don't need external analyses and the value of the brain. Psychobiotics. I mean, I can be a lot happier based upon what I eat in my diet and the chemical signals that the microbes in my body send to my the rest of my body, including my brain, as a result of that. I don't think I'm not saying that's the end of the journey, I just view it as a door opener into thinking more holistically from what it is.

Linden Thorp 31:58

Yes, yes. I I think that's so true. And hygiene, not hygiene, what uh nourishment, nutrition. Sorry, I've I've got Japanese words coming into my head where I'm losing my English steadily. Nutrition is really uh key, and Buddha said that very strongly. You know, you you can't be wealthy and healthy and happy unless you're well fed. So nutrition is just so important. And of course, that's another problem with fast food, with people addicted to screens and so on. They're not eating properly. They're not eating at all sometimes. And quite often burnout victims are malnourished, they haven't eaten for months because they've been staring at their screens. And that's I think in the 21st century, that's very scary in developed nations, you know.

Mark Blackwell 32:52

So, Linda, thank you. We've had a broad discussion. We've I mean, I've got a load of questions to ask yet, but um I know if you want to come on again, I've I've already prepared for another podcast. But maybe I've got to be conscious of the listener's time. Just as a final question for today.

Speaker 1 33:10

Yes.

Mark Blackwell 33:13

The listeners pausing over the weekend and reflecting on this conversation that we've had together. What three things could they try out on Monday morning to approach the week differently to the week before?

Linden Thorp 33:27

Right, that's that's a great thing to suggest. Yes. Well, I would say the first thing is when you open your eyes on Monday morning, switch off the alarm clock, open your eyes, just pause for a moment and be grateful for your breath. Because you've got through the night, you've slept for seven or eight hours perhaps, without thinking about your breath. And it has got you through

Indigenous Wisdom And Whole Body Listening

Linden Thorp 33:55

that night. And so every day I start off, and especially on Mondays, because that's my starting day too, I spend just a few moments feeling gratitude. And as I mentioned before, it's not a thought and it's not a word. You can't put it into words, it's a state of being, and it's well researched too, for those of you out there who don't need all the proof. It's well researched that grateful people have very kind of healthy systems going on inside their bodies. So, yeah, if you feel it, feel gratitude coming up from the base of your spine, from your gut, and feel it welling up and let it come because it may bring tears. It brings tears quite often to me. Wow, I've got this incredible opportunity to be a human being. And it's only made possible through my breath. So for me, the breath is the first thing every day. So you can try that. Number two. Number two, we are each the supreme rulers of our being. Many people don't believe that, but we are. Only we can make decisions, only we can make changes. And so what I do next is I spend a few moments visualizing my day. Very calmly, almost meditationally, and it's not just a D visualization, it's D technicolor. And it's me walking into my life, doing this project, working on this, walking out into the forest, and it's me choreographing my day, actually going through it, as sports people often do, and music performers. So I I visualize my whole day. The finishing is when you say, okay, that's my day. But also I have to promise myself that if it doesn't go quite as I rehearsed it, that's okay. It's okay. Something may take me away. And that's okay because I'm using my awareness to move perhaps in another direction from my choreographed day. So you have to give yourself permission for it to be slightly different than your visual. If not, you may start to get frustrated and you may strive too hard to make those things happen. And that's again when we start to get the burnout patterns coming. That's number two. Okay, visualize. Number three is the very first thing I do every day is I go out of the house. I have a balcony actually. So I go and I stand on my balcony and I breathe diaphragmatically. And I raise my arms and I widen my rib cage and I take some several deep breaths from the diaphragm. Because your diaphragm is your solar plexus area. The solar plexus is the root of your intention in life and your intuition too, many things. So if you breathe from the diaphragm rather than the upper chest or the belly, which increasingly people do when they're in the visual firework display, they breathe very shallowly. If you breathe consciously from your diaphragm, you will start the day with an incredible clarity. Because clarity is not a mindset. It's nothing to do with the neurology, I'm afraid. It is nervous system based. Comes from the nervous system and it's a state, it's not a strategy, you know. So we we've got it all wrong in in many ways. So yeah, and once you're breathing diaphragmatically, that's a very good time to say to yourself, I am the supreme ruler of my life and my mind, this mind.

unknown 37:49

Yes.

Linden Thorp 37:49

And no one can change that, no one can make decisions for me, no one can pressurize me. I particularly do this with leaders, and it strengthens into a kind of mantra, and eventually they really believe. It's kind of lodged in their bodies, you know. So, yeah, you are the supreme ruler of you. Nobody else. And you are the only person who can make you happy. Hence, my friend, wouldn't who wouldn't be happy without his wife and his child and his car and his blah. You know, you are the only person who can make yourself happy. Do that, and you'll be amazed how much happiness is around you because it radiates. Now that's another problem with leaders. They're not happy, and they're not they're not radiating that happiness because they're so outsourced, so stretched, and rarely go home and put the lights on, you know.

Mark Blackwell 38:46

Thank you for that, Linden. That story of happiness, it's uh just a little anecdote. I was one of the things I read this morning was a story of a manager of a chain of supermarkets in um New York who knew every name of employees across it. And the board of directors just felt that he wasn't as efficient as he could be, and so they fired

Outsourcing Happiness And Burnout Signals

Mark Blackwell 39:10

him.

Speaker 1 39:11

Really?

Mark Blackwell 39:13

Response 25,000 employees went on strike because of the board decision.

Speaker 1 39:22

Wow, great.

Mark Blackwell 39:23

And the lack of having a happy boss who cared about them forced the board to change their minds, really bring back the CEO, and after 10 weeks' strike, the chain of supermarkets was on strike. So there was a hard business example of the simple value of walking the talk of what exactly you've described, I think that's a good thing.

Linden Thorp 39:46

Walking the talk, yeah. Yes, and it really radiates. We, you know, we we don't realize how powerful we are just as we are. Um, and if you're if you're really listening to your heart and you're really embodied, when you walk into a room, you bring a light into that room, which is probably full of dark beings who are weighted down with too much intellectual stuff, baggage. Thank you.

Mark Blackwell 40:16

Thank you for that, Linda. So if people want to find out more about you, where do they go? I'm going to put everything that you say in the next minute in the show notes. So please give me some pointers.

Linden Thorp 40:28

Well, okay. Uh I've got a YouTube channel, I've got two websites, and it's really easy. It's lindenthorpe.com. And I've got a business website, which is my corporate leg, and it's lindenthorpe.com slash loadstone, which is my product, dash inside. So we can put those maybe in the comments box or something. And also, if you want to find me any day, anytime, I'll be on LinkedIn. That's my major platform. I'm a thought leader there, and I really collaborate with people via LinkedIn. So just come and visit LinkedIn and uh you'll find my profile very easily, I think. It's an easy name to remember, isn't it? Linden Thorp.

Mark Blackwell 41:13

Yes. Thank you, Linden. That's really enjoyed our conversation and hope we have another one sometime soon. Yeah, hopefully. Yes. Listen, we've got a great list of future guests coming up. So please be sure to subscribe to the podcast. And we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you very much.

Linden Thorp 41:32

Great, great. Thank you, Mark. It's been a great pleasure. And thank you, everybody out there, too, for you know, patiently tolerating me.

Mark Blackwell 41:42

It's been a wonderful journey. Thank you, Lynn, and goodbye. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.

Linden Thorp 41:46

Bye-bye.

Mark Blackwell 41:47

That was Linden Thorp, and I suspect many of you are currently thinking about where you might be over bracing against the pressures

Three Monday Morning Recalibrations

Mark Blackwell 41:55

of the week. If today's conversation about the science of the present has a pique your interest, I highly recommend tuning into a few of our past episodes that lay their neurological and systemic groundwork for an Indian chair today. For more on the amygdala hijack, revisit my conversation with Garrett Forsythe on navigating the transition from technical expert to effective leader. Garrett provides a brilliant breakdown of how that reactive brain state can derail even the most brilliant technical experts when they move into a digital role. She provides the hard science why our brains crave certainty in social connection. Precisely the conditions Linden's work is designed to create. Keith explores group flow and the ten conditions teams need to move apart to group. Linden touched on so much today, but there is one area of her work that we really didn't cover, her ENSA protocol. This is a meeting methodology derived from the Japanese concept of a circle with no head at the table, designed specifically to address the decision drag and listening collapse we see in high-pressure teams. It's a fascinating practical tool, and it's something I hope to explore in a dedicated session with Linden in a future episode. Looking further ahead, all of these threads on inner intelligence and presence are leading us towards a conversation later this year with Deborah Rowland. Her empirical research confirms what we discussed today that the leader's inner state of stillness and regulation accounts for over 50% of the variance. As to whether a major organisational transformation succeeds or fails.

Links, Recommendations, And Closing

Mark Blackwell 44:05

Until then, I challenge you to try Linden's Monday morning recalibrations. Start with breath gratitude, visualise your day in 3D, and remember that you are the supreme ruler of your own mind. I'm Mark Blackwell, and this is our Caro Insights. We'll see you next time.