Unlocking the power of conscious leadership with Martin Palethorpe, Founder of Unbounded

This week’s podcast is a special feature-length episode in which Yiuwin Tsang talks to Martin Palethorpe, founder of Unbounded, about the power of conscious leadership.

Conscious leadership emphasises self-awareness, mindfulness, empathy and an ethical and purpose-driven mindset. It requires leaders to be fully present and attentive, to understand and manage their own thoughts and emotions and to connect with others on a deeper level.

Conscious leadership is important because it promotes a more positive and sustainable approach to leadership, one that is focused on the well-being of all stakeholders, including employees, customers, and the environment.

Martin is an experienced Executive Coach and an expert in unlocking the power of the human mind. He is a motivational speaker on Conscious Leadership and founder of Unbounded.

Martin is passionate about inspiring and challenging CEOs & CxOs to be better leaders, to achieve their potential building healthy high-performing teams & responsible organisations. He also inspires many leaders to play their role in the current planetary emergencies. His transformational teaching about the human mind - ‘shifting consciousness’ is at the core of his work.

He is also a former adventurer and ultra-marathon runner, an active yogi and an environmental activist. 

Transcript

Yiuwin Tsang:

Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business podcast. Beautiful businesses is the community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy and soulfully grown. 

Hi, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of the Beautiful Business podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang, part of the Beautiful Business team. And this week, we're joined by Martin Palethorpe. Martin is all about creating a new normal for yourself and for our planet is an executive coach quality of mind expert and the founder of Unbounded a UK based global consultancy, is passionate is about inspiring and challenging business leaders to be better leaders to achieve their potential building healthy, high performing teams and organisations is transformational teaching about the human mind is at the very core of his work. 

Prior to founding Unbounded, Martin worked as a senior executive in the technology industry holding various management positions across Europe and Asia, and spent several years running a UK software business. It was a fascinating chat that we had, and I really hope you enjoy listening to it. 

Okay, Martin, let's talk about the need to shift consciousness. We all know about the power of great leadership as well written about there's lots of content that's out there about that we know about the effect it has on teams on communities and society. But I think sometimes when it comes to failing leadership, the effects can be lost in the noise and what and we end up focusing on the failed leadership itself as opposed to the effect that it can have, which in itself kind of challenges its own problem. But I guess a question to you is how and why do you feel that leadership is failing? What do you feel is the root cause? 

Martin Palethorpe:

Thanks for having me as part of this. And so what I would say is, so I'm sort of looking at it from a psychological level and a personal development level. And the simple reason that leadership is failing is because of the level of consciousness from which we're leading. So if we're leading from a self focus and ego focus, I want to make sure I've got enough, I want to make sure that I get to the next level, I want to make sure that I can grow and have a nice big house and be successful and be seen as successful. All of those attributes really have the ego gripping us. And that's really why leadership is failing, because we're focused too much on the self. And do you feel like this is something that we're conditioned to? Is this something that's kind of programmed into us because you know, all the things that you mentioned they are so they're the traditional yardsticks that you measure success by materialism? How big is your house, how big is your boat, I mean, just saying it out loud feels so kind of old fashioned, yet it still exists was tourism still exist? I think some of it can. Okay, the two thing, the societal story that we grow up in, you know, that we grow up through childhood, through school, through university, or college, or whatever it is we grow up with, you've got to work hard, you've got to be successful. And there's a link generally in society between success and money. And we've got to have enough, we've got to have more than enough, we want to have freedom. And we think that freedom comes from the money. So we worked really, really, really hard for many, many years to have freedom, which we think is to do with money. So I think there's one element of that's very societally implanted. But really, it's about our own inner journey is how we grow up how we evolve ourselves not to be gripped by the story's not to be gripped by our own insecurity that has us get on our hamster wheel and drive to want to get somewhere. So this is a lifelong journey. I believe in personal and spiritual development to evolve beyond the grip of these forces to live with more kindness, with more love with more focus on humanity. That's what I see. I love it. And I think it's incredibly powerful as well, when you think about how we've been programmed in such a way we've been brought up in such a way by our parents, by their parents, it's intergenerational, this kind of view. And perhaps it was a necessity at the time and generations gone by where money did or for that freedom, that kind of financial freedom at least yet when you reflect on it, so many of us are actually trapped by the need to make money. We are almost kind of safe. Even the autonomy that you have in running your own business becomes a ball and chain and even more so as you start growing the team and more people rely on you and it's not unheard of for founders for leaders or businesses to feel trapped to feel the mental weight that comes, that's psychological weight that comes with additional responsibility. 

And I feel like that is connected, as you say, to this conditioning that we have for material success, yes. But it's also beyond money and material success, because, you know, we can have some very wealthy clients that are still trapped. 

So it's not necessarily about money, it's also about the ethos of I must work hard, I must get somewhere I must achieve. And actually, there's some deeper questions to say, Hang on a second, what am I doing? And why? Where am I going? And what's important to me in life? And how does life not all be about doing? How does it also about being in the world? Who am I being in my company, you know, it's beautiful that the people that are on this membership, some of them are potentially very busy doing some beautiful things in their business. 

But there's a whole being element to how we show up that actually, is really what conscious leadership is about, in our view, let's see, it must be a real challenge helping people kind of unlock because that association between the material view the achievement view that I suppose is the degree of status in there as well achieving greater status, and that driving the decisions that you make as a leader is an incredibly strong bond. How do you start to kind of seal this associate that how can you stop building the bond or as you say this the shift that you say, the shift towards being kinder, be more human, and strengthening those connections away from the material, the status side of things? How do you start doing that? I mean, what are the first question? So wonderful questions? So for me, it's an exploration and the learning about the mind, psychologically and spiritually. So if I'm caught up, really what I'm caught up with is a caught up with a lot of thinking, my thinking that says, If I do X, or it doesn't even think if I do X, I just do X, I just achieve I must have good eye muscles at cetera. But what we do is take people on a journey of exploring and saying, well hang on a second, what is the mind doing? And what's the unconscious thought that's driving us. And there's some unconscious thought often that says, If I achieve x, then I will be, I will be free, I will be happy if we all feel good. And there's a misunderstanding about the mind that feeling good or feeling happy comes from getting somewhere. But actually, peace and happiness and joy is not linked to being somewhere or getting somewhere or having a title. It's an inner state of being that is available to us right here. Right now. What I'm sharing is simple, but profound and complex, but it's also aligned with ancient wisdom from all sorts of cultures, if people are religious, or if they studied Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Taoism, or multiple wisdoms, not just religions, many other things to what I'm sharing is known already, it's wisdom, yet, we've got caught up in a wheel of misunderstanding how we actually work. 

And it's one of those narratives that are really played in day in, day out, it's in our everyday lives. It's a weird example here, man, so do bear with me, but a friend of mine who started a company which organises holidays and retreats in the Nordic islands, and they do lots of things like beach cleaning up there, visiting the polar bears and seeing the effect the climate change has on the area, the whole purpose of her business is to kind of, you know, take people up there. And she often says to me, like, you see the development of programmes and things like this, but there's a distance to these things, which reduces the impact or are perceived impact of it. And I'm wondering if there's almost like a role reversal there, you know, every day, we go out, we see a fancy car, we see a big house, you know, we see Dragon's Den or the apprentice, or whatever it might be. 

And it's just a continuous kind of message to us that reinforces this narrative that unless you are successful in this space, or if you don't have the status, or if you don't, then you know, you are in. It's almost like an inadequacy. So it's a bit of that challenge of that disassociation. And it sounds like from what you're saying, it's this sounds so simple, but it's about expanding our horizons, expanding our knowledge, our consciousness of the different wisdom, the different thoughts that are out there. Yes. And also our own experience, do we experience that having a big house and a nice car and this and that? Do we experience that they provide us long term well being and peace of mind? Generally, that's not the case. Because otherwise the richest and most successful would be way happier than you and I right. But we know that that's not the case. And so from our own experience, that we can see that actually it kind of is seems to be operating in the opposite way. The more the world is striving, the more chaos there is, the more sadness there is the more mental illness that is. So we just have to look at our own experience and not be caught up in the conditioned mind, but the experienced mind that we intuitively get, and then the other thing just to say to riff off your comment about your friend in Sweden, when we take ourselves out of this environment with the cars and the busyness and the nice houses, and then whatever, and we take ourselves into nature, for example, and we also start to not just read about the impact of the climate, but deeply experience the impact of the climate, then we're on the journey of shifting our own consciousness. 

Yeah, it's almost like that kind of spark. It's that something I think when we first spoke, Martin, you talked about epiphany moments. And I wonder whether or not this is one of those types of examples. I haven't been up to the Nordics before, but everybody that was spoken to especially those that have been on the tours, that my friend organisers is that the leaves change, they say, you know, it is life changing. And there's a shift in behaviour, which stems from that experience, it comes from that it comes from that shift, as you say, in our consciousness. 

So I guess my interpretation, what you're saying there is, we almost need to open our minds to that. I mean, is it possible to look for these things? Or is that reaching too much? Or how can we do that? How can we enable ourselves to action, the shift? So I think there's an internal mechanism, which is, if you're feeling frustration, or tiredness, or overwhelm, your body's telling your mind that there's something imbalance, there's something not working naturally as it should. So you may want an inner voice that keeps saying, Look, I've had enough of this, or this is too much, or whatever the bill of voice is saying, is there internal mechanisms of the human system indicating to you that something's not right. So you have got your own internal mechanism. 

And then there are a wealth of courses and explorations that you can go on. Some of those are Yeah, travelling to remote places, and spending time with nature or with people in nature. But there's a whole plethora of courses that are related to exploring and learning about the mind and leadership from a more conscious way. It's really interesting, just from what you're saying, there, Martin, I remember a talking about the human body as a system and its indicators. And the way that works. 

I remember I was in the south of France many years ago. And I think it was I just had too much cheese, and my body didn't really like it. And I had a really funny tummy. But it's not the sort of thing that you bring up during dinner. And at the dinner was some friends who came along and I said, Oh, I've got this funny little rash on my wrist here, because he was a I forget what the title was. But he's kind of like a natural healer, if you like. And again, Western kind of conditioning, I thought was this a bit mumbo jumbo kind of stuff? And he looked at my wrist? He said, Oh, that's on your intestinal meridian. Are you having stomach problems at the moment? And it was just like, wait, wait, hang on a second, you could tell from here that then you start talking about as you say, how the body kind of works. And the signals that it can give you and I guess from what you're saying is, is that we need to listen better to what our body is telling us. And we need to kind of read the signs better and not just, I'm just tired. It happens every day. Literally. Today, I've got a sore throat, runny nose feeling bit rundown. And that's it. I just put it I'm just a bit rundown when perhaps there was a deeper, awesome, yes. 

So conscious leadership, our field of work, the first part of that is conscious, so conscious is being aware. And so are we aware of the indications that our body is giving us if we're coming up with a rash? Or we've got a sore throat? Are we aware of what our body's telling us? If we are stressed? Are we aware of what's going on for other people? I mean, this is on every other level is like, Are we aware of how our partner really feels about the issue in the family at the moment? Are we really aware of you know, how our child is feeling? If we've got children? 

Are we aware of how people are in the company right now, because we do surveys, and we run off and we you know, but we've normally very busy caught up in our own mind and our own thinking, and we lack the awareness, awareness of ourselves, awareness of others, awareness of what's really happening in society. Awareness is the first part. Definitely. And I guess it's really interesting. Again, all these things that you say that you hear about the component parts of conscious leadership, I remember way back when going on some training for emotional intelligence, just being more aware of people that are managing, you know, or being better able to recognise challenges that they're having, or issues that they might be facing, but on emotional level, but it comes back to awareness, as you say, however, with conscious leadership, it sounds much more expansive, a much more holistic view of the impact and the effect that you have on people as well as their lives as well as in what's going on in their own contexts. Yes, absolutely. And it also links into where we started off really, which is also aware of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it and where I'm coming from. Is it ego? Is it conditioned in old patterns? Am I just getting triggered? Am I aware of what's driving me? Yes. And that comes on to the next question. Actually, just in and around these gaps that we see in leadership, this falling back onto the narrative kind of just accepting things, ignoring the signs being unconscious of it, just then you just touched on there about being aware of where we are operating from as individuals, and where are we coming from? If we like has been an important consideration to our leadership. What do you mean when you say that when you say were thinking about where we operate from? 

Simply put, where am I coming from? In my comment? Where am I coming from? Let's take this interview. For example, where am I coming from? in having this dialogue with you? Am I coming from self interest? Because I want to promote myself? Am I coming from passion for my subject and desire to communicate with the world? Because and there can be different variations of those two, right, that can show up in here? But where's the gravity of who I am being in the world? Is there some self interest in it? Is it about looking good or getting more or so generally, there's, we want to have enough, we want to be love enough. And we also want to be enough. 

And if it's coming from, I want to be worthy, or I want to make money or I want to be regarded? Well, then what there is to look at is like, where am I coming from? That means that or am I coming from ultimately service to the world, right? Have I gone beyond the grip of self focus to be doing what I'm doing in this world for a bigger purpose, that's incredibly powerful, to be able to have that self awareness to be able to have that comes back to consciousness, I think if we did a word cloud, in this interview, the consciousness would come up a lot. Again, it comes back to training that we had before where we all talked about being unconsciously incompetent, and then become unconsciously incompetent, and then come to the point where you are unconsciously competent. And it feels like as a journey that we need to go on is we need to take those steps, we need to know we need to accept that we do come from a place of ego. And that is normal. And you know, there are reasons why that might be but if we can first accept that, that's where we come from, we can then start making the steps to moving towards that. 

Yeah, external world view. Because it's incredibly powerful. If you are in that space, where you are communicating and making decisions, you're thinking about stuff you're planning, whatever it might be, but instead of coming from out, right, okay, how is this gonna make us hit target? How is this going to pay for the next mortgage payment, or you know, whatever it might be. But instead, it's about how does this create good in the world, that's an incredible place to be. But from the perspective of, you know, somebody who maybe the backs are against a wall, you know, that things aren't going great, or whatever it might be, it's harder to get into that place. Yes, but this is the personal journey that leaders need to go on, right? Because this isn't about just doing this stuff, when it's easy or nice. It's really about having it at the heart. I mean, abundance can come from being of service to the world, and of service to my team and of service to my family. But abundance can come from that. It's not just a nice to have when I've got a few million in the bank. This is the journey of life, in my experience. And in some of the models that I work with, we come through childhood, very focused on self, teenage years very much about the self and my friends in my life and what I want to do, etcetera. This is the journey of personal development, which is to work and have epiphanies and insights to break through to this next level of leadership. And that's what I'm saying is really needed in this world. If we look at so many of the examples that we might talk about their self interest, there's defensiveness, there's greed, there's lack of transparency, there's deceit, there's all sorts and really, that comes from this very topic that we're talking about. Yeah, I love it. I love that idea that it is a journey because that's exactly what it is. I think that if you speak to most of the listeners to this podcast, and you speak to most kinds of business people out there, it's that old kind of allergy look after the pennies of pounds will look after themselves. But you can apply that into the same kind of context, as you say, could get into a place of abundance. If you put good into the world. If you look after your teams, if you look after your communities will have to decide to look out to the planet. If you do these things, well then it's almost like the money if we measure it in money almost becomes a byproduct of doing these things. Well of there are lots of examples where people say, Oh, if you do this really well, the money will come anyway. You just focus on doing it well. And it feels like that's the almost a mindset almost like kind of approach that we can have. Where if we are able to anchor ourselves into putting good into the world into kindness into love into looking at it and looking after the planet then those other measures of success will happen. Yes.

I absolutely, totally agree. And the other thing that's part of this journey is shifting our relationship to money anyway, right? Of course, we need some money. But there's a significant journey I experience mostly it just needs to go on, including the journey I've been on myself is what I need it for, how much do I need do I need that really does the nice car provide me happiness, all of those things actually is all about starting to look at that there's two fundamental things on the journey of more conscious living, is shifting relationship to money, and shifting relationship to time.

They're two incredibly fundamental factors when it comes to our kind of working lives and from our working lives to our personal lives. You know, it's that relationship with money, that relationship with time, it does remind me I was lucky enough to go on honeymoon to Bali when my wife and I married. And I remember seeing these fishermen out in the water before we got about the hotel, and they'll be out in the water up to their waist, fishing away catching the fish, they will then sell the fish to the local restaurants. 

And then we'll spend the rest of the day playing with their kids on the beach, you know, they didn't have huge houses, there weren't really any fancy cars and binders, certainly not in places that we kind of lived in place at work. And it just made me think that was perhaps one of those epiphany moments that unfortunately, hasn't had as much of an effect on my life as I would have liked. But it did just make me think look at the lives that those dads particular dads, because it's all connected to it. Look at the lives they get to live, they spend the morning out fishing, they then get to spend the rest of their day playing with their kids and spend his lovely time together. And I guess that's that ticket money. And it's time and how does that balance with what I suppose what genuinely gives you fulfilment and gives you a reward in your life?

Yeah, absolutely. And so I totally agree with you. So you might realise that actually, you need less and want less and want to do this from this, you might want to get a boat and go and live in Bali. But we're also not, I don't do that, you know, I've chosen some other things in my life. So it's not just about going live in Bali upon a fishing boat, it could also be that the listeners carry on doing what they do. But the journey is just a questionnaire. And then the questioning it took more consciously then be choosing what you're doing and why. And you could still be running a high growth business, but it's about your being your essence of how you're doing that how you're living, and how you're being in the process of running that company. That is what we're looking at. Because you could still have the Bali fishermen sense of being as part of running a company here.

I love it. So interesting. It just speaks to me, Martin, of just peeling away the layers, it's kind of getting right down looking beyond, you know, the operational logistics and kind of top layer. It's important that what we do, it's the day to day. But there's so much more that we can explore as individuals, as leaders of businesses, not just in terms of our companies, and what we do, but how we are and the way that we operate as beings as a consciousness.

Yeah, I'm working with a number of B corpse at the moment. And you know, obviously beautiful businesses sort of in that field of how do we help people inspire people to run beautiful businesses. My love in this field is people care, because that's why they're part of this already, which is lovely and beautiful. But carrying could still mean that you're living and leading in a way that's not conscious. And the focus can be on how do we become a B Corp? How do we have an environmental policy? How do we love Avila do some charity work, etc. And it can all be on doing. So what we're inspired to be waking up to people, especially in this sort of area is not just about what they do, but how they really be in this world.

That sounds really, really good. I guess you're absolutely right. It again, it speaks to me of this level of thinking this level of consideration, being open minded, and able being able to see those signals to being able to read the signs that are out there. And again, we spoke about this before we talked a little bit and I think this links back to what you're saying, Martin about how in our minds, we have our own narratives we have our own movies, I think is a way that you articulated to me before. And we have our own kind of vision and view of how things should play out how we should behave, how we should react to things conditioned into us. And we spoke a little bit about the importance of releasing ourselves from our own kind of movies, our own narratives. Can you maybe just elaborate a little bit more on what you mean when you say that?

Yeah, really great thing to bring up. So this is a sort of deeper exploration around the mind. And how the mind works is it's generating thoughts, actually, the brain, the gut, and the heart are all connected together, and they're firing neurons between each other. And a thought is simply neurological activity that's flying around the system. So I have a thought about this interview. Well, where is that that's being generated inside me? And it's like my own movie. So I'm living in this stream of thought, the thought is so immersive that it creates the story creates the movie that I live within. And so I'm having 70,000 thoughts a day. So that's millions and millions and millions of thoughts that I've had by now. But actually, by the age of 41 and a half, I think you've had a billion thoughts based upon that calculation, millions of thoughts. And they're coming in, they're very, very immersive. And they create a story that says, This is what I'm in, like, I'm a confident person, or I'm an entrepreneurial person, or I'm a shy person, or I'm struggling right now, or I'm really worried about the world or whatever else, I don't like that person, I don't trust them. And we live immersed in the movie that thought is creating. And this is massive, because this has us be caught up really caught up in the movie that we're making, and watching and experiencing all at the same time.

That links back to the conditioning piece, right? There's links back to the decisions that we make, and the choices that we take lining up with this narrative lining up with, you know, the things that have been conditioned into us from an early age because these thoughts are shaping that and they are kind of channelling us in that direction.

Yes, it's partly conditioning. I mean, it's a big part of conditioning. But it's also happening all the time in every moment. It's happening now for you and I and like, we're creating a story, subconsciously, as this is going on in this moment that this is going well, this is interesting, this is exciting. I like you in or Oh, my goodness, this isn't going well, or, but he hasn't asked me this yet, or whatever else is going on the movies playing and patenting and thought is creating our experience right in this moment right now. So it could be that I've picked up something from me, and I'm sat in a meeting and someone frowns, and then I see them look away, and they look. So before I know it, I create a story, a movie in my head about that person, they're not interested, you know, maybe it's a client and I make before I know it, I'm caught up in a store, they leave the meeting early. And before I know it, I've got this little story running that they didn't like what we said, Now, then the next day, they email me and say, Look, I'm really sorry, I had to leave early, I'm really interested in what you're saying. But I've got a personal issue going on. And all of a sudden, we go, Oh, my God, look at the movie that I was creating. And so we have to shift our relationship to what the mind is doing.

That is fascinating. It's quite deep. And you know, you forgive my brain. And my brain was doing exactly what you said, it was creating this story where it's kind of like you and are you able to keep up with what Martin is saying to you here, you know, you have to work really, really hard to try and keep up. So in terms of what we do, as business leaders and for listeners for them to reflect on this, that kind of narrative, the way that our minds create this narrative, create this movie based on interactions and experiences almost in the moment, but then start projecting forward what it might be. The danger is is that we end up making decisions on a narrative that might not happen, or is a more a case of the energy that we expend, or the hope and the dropout, what can we do? How do we say this story can play out I mean, it's like, if I think that person didn't like me in that meeting, then I start to impact how I feel. But it also impacts what I do with them or don't do with them. You know, you might have a couple of people in your team, one of them you naturally really like and the other that you don't like so much. That narrative then plays out in the energy you give off. It plays out in your decisions in your behaviours, it plays out everywhere. So we'll come back to what you were saying about yourself you in in a sort of dialogue like this, there's a voice in our head can come in and go, What am I going to say next? Or what I yeah, there's an inner dialogue going on, that can also just get in the way, and stop us from being really deeply present. Now, when we're deeply present in every moment, in any moment, we tune into this greater intelligence of what to do, we don't need the rational mind the voice in the head, we don't need that to work it out. It just gets worked out when we're present. Now.

I love it, it comes back to that thing where somebody said to me, are you listening? Or are you waiting to reply is that as you say, it's being present as being in there. And again, to go back to your example there about how powerful this internal narrative can be in a sales environment. If you get a negative vibe of somebody or as you say, if they're kind of distracted or if they finish meeting early all the all these sorts of things. They don't reply to your email within 48 hours, all these little things and your mind goes on. I'm not interested or I've you know, we're not going to get the deal when I go to the effect that has on you. Are you going to be as energetic on the follow up? Are you going to be as you know, as coherent in your responses and things like this, if in your mind, the narrative is in the deals done? There's no point in doing this. You know, they're not interested That's the effect that can have are powerful it can be where you give up on something which perhaps isn't ready to be given up on. And this feels a bit counterintuitive to and perhaps this is conditioning one to gut feelings, is that a separate thing in your mind, you know, when wonderful when you have that kind of vibe.

So the journey we go on with this work is deciphering between what we call quality of mind quality thinking, which often comes from the gut or the heart, and the voice in the head, the noise. And you know, if you look at big decisions, right, you know, moving home moving job, maybe even going on holiday or something like that, what we find is, there's the noise in the head, well, I need to do that I have to do that, I should do that. And there's a story that we're immersed in. And then there's this deeper intelligence inside us, that shows up that can be what guides us through life. What does my gut say? What's this deeper wisdom inside me to say, Yes, I should do it. And what I experience is, I increasingly, I'm just going with life, I'm going, Yeah, I'm gonna do that. Then my friend comes along and says, Well, why are you gonna do it? And I'm like, I can't tell you because if I tell you, then the rational mind is going to get hold of it, and justify what the gut knows, it just wants to do. And the gut doesn't operate in words, it just knows. It just knows something. So it's a beautiful question, which is how do we operate from this deeper intelligence subside have to make choices and discipling? Obviously, we have to work out what is God and wisdom versus what is noise or ego. But that's the journey to go on to be more than guided by this deeper intelligence.

I love it. So basically, there isn't an easy answer. But it's a very valid question in that, you know, you have this the narrative piece of story is the movie piece, which we need to kind of break ourselves free from and not be controlled by. But at the same time, we have this deeper knowledge within us this deeper, it's almost like I guess, like an energy. There's intuition, that gut feeling, interestingly, in my mind, that's still built up on conditions in our learning and spirits of our life so far. So I guess what we need to get better at is this being able to distinguish between the two is been able to separate might be the wrong word. But it's been able to identify from where that energy is coming from.

 Yeah, it's not a black and white thing. Really, it's an exploration to say, where is that coming from? And yes, you're right. I could say it's coming from my gut. But it could be conditioning, actually, yeah. I'm off to Colombia to hang out with this indigenous tribe I mentioned to you for two weeks. And it only came up about a week and a half ago. And I looked into it, and I read about it, and I'm like, Oh, my God, I've got to go, I've got to go. Now, where is that coming from? I went through a process of exploration and one level, you could say it's conditioning Martin, you always like doing adventurous things, you know, like being bold, etc, etc. But to me, it feels like a deep knowing that I just have to be here. If this experience looks profound, I have to be there as part of my path. But it's going on that journey of working out which is one in which is the other is such an interesting quandary. That whole kind of you use the word rational how the narrative in your head start rationalising things, whereas that kind of gut feeling feels almost kind of more emotional. In that sense. It's less logic bound, if that makes sense at all. And I'm wondering whether or not that's where the separation lies? I don't know. Because just that trip in itself, to me sounds like it's really interesting in the sense that it's such a radical change of environment of people of surroundings, it almost removes that element of conditioning in many ways, in terms of being experience.

Yeah, I'm wondering where to go with that. Yeah, there's the actual experience and what I'm gonna get from it, and why going, but then there's this other point you make about the rational mind versus gut, yes. The other thing I just want to share with you is, so I don't think God is just emotion, it's just a deeper knowing about something that might not be emotion involved in emotion can often come when the noise of the mind gets ahold of something and makes it dramatic. The other area we talk about here, and if we look at this dialogue between us un is we talk about the flow state. So we can either do this interview from our rational mind, what are we going to answer next? How am I going to answer this? How is this going? Does this look right? How long will we got there? etc, etc, etc. And with that produces a slight stiffness and lack of flow actually, but when we let go of the rational mind, we have this flow state. And in the flow state, we access the full potential and brilliance of the mind. So you'll have experienced that in the multiple dialogue, you know, it feels like this flow. Now. I don't know where the hell we're going. But you know, there's flow right? And we'll work it out. And yet sometimes there's a stiffness and there's an awkwardness and there's whatever else that gets in the way. And so we're part of the See and do so is how do we live more from flow is that's where brilliance that's where we access elements of the mind that are miraculous magical in what is actually producible

100%. There's some friends of ours that do a lot of mountain biking, and forgive the analogy here, but they use exactly the same words, you know, they talk about getting into the flow. So when they're flying down these hills, and really technical tracks, and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And if they were to analyse every single, every single tree root and everything, they will be on their backsides immediately. And they talk about getting into the flow. And that's when they it's like they are just flowing over the rocks and like butter smooth over it. It's almost like they're in a higher state of consciousness. And they just go down and they take it all in. And it sounds a little bit like that. And I wonder mark, because we had this, I had this question sent out to you, you know, I said, we're going to do part one, part 2220, let's go out the window with this, and we just had this conversation, when we've reached into parts that perhaps you wouldn't have explored.

And that's the beauty of this right is like too much of the time people are planning and structuring and deciding where they need to be in five years time and planning the meeting with the client, so they get everything covered. And this is the rational mind trying to control it. And of course, there's some value sometimes in having a plan and a rough outline. But actually, when we surrendered to remembering we can be in flow, it all takes care of itself. And the meeting that needs to be had happens. And potentially even more than that, you know,

100%. And we've all been in those meetings where I guess there's a couple of things that are happening, you feel safe to go into the flow with whoever else is in the room in these kinds of contexts where an interview in a meeting, or whatever it might be. But even if you are on your on the mountain biker, for example, or if you're going into a piece of work or project or whatever it might be allowing yourself to go into this flow state, letting go of I suppose the really kind of solid structures are planning and things like this, it takes a degree of trust, I suppose I'm certainly a level of belief in yourself that you can do it that you can go into the flow state and let yourself go into it. The other part, I suppose is a bit of chemistry in the room. As I said, there's a I feel like it's either bravery or it's trust where you can kind of so right, let's take that share, Joe's put out the window, let's just go for it. To be able to do that I think takes a perhaps bit of chemistry a bit of trust, a bit of belief, a bit of bravery is that would you agree? Well, I train it totally differently to that. But what we suggest is that flow is a natural built in part of the human design. It's available to us in every moment everywhere, in walking in presenting in public speaking and being productive, and being on a mountain bike flow is available. We don't have to get into flow, it's our natural state, we just have to not be caught up in our thinking. Because it's our thinking that pulls us out in flow, because we start to go, Well, how's this gonna look? Are we running too long? And now, when the mind gets to go, you know, am I going to hit that bump? Oh, my goodness, look at that bump, you know, it's the mind that pulls us out of the flow state. So we have to go on a journey of shifting our relationship for the voice in the head. And you could call it then trusting the flow state, but it's kinda like just knowing that the flow state is available. I actually had a meeting last week with someone and I walked into the meeting, and I felt judged, it was a really kind of awkward atmosphere in the air already. And and actually, I know that 10 years ago, I probably would have gotten caught up in that and gone, oh, my God, what's going on here? What you know, was he judging me and, you know, I'm probably judged him for judging me and making up whatever. But with this work, I'm like, I just relaxed into flow. And within flow, I can be self expressed and intuitive and loving and friendly and light and intelligent, I can be whatever I need to be. And as a result of me giving off an energy, this is my experience, right? This is my story I made up about my analysis of the situation, because not be might be just the movie. But my analysis was, I was my true self. And that enabled him to relax out of whatever he had going on into his mind and to express himself and be totally what seemed more like his true self.

That's interesting. It comes back and right up at the top of what we're talking about where you're coming from isn't a kind of, what does he think of me? How has he judged me? Why is he judging me? And it's coming from expressing yourself as your true self, as you say, being able to allow yourself to flow. 

Thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. Martin. It was a pleasure speaking with you and it was really interesting to hear your thoughts, your ideas are on how we can become more conscious leaders. 

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