Following Our North Star - Niall McKeever

[00:00:02] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees podcast. So today I'm delighted to be joined by Niall. Niall McKeever, looking forward to our conversation today Niall. Me too Simon, I'm really looking forward to it. So Niall, listeners, Niall has a podcast too and you're really going to check it out, it's called The Weekend University.

[00:00:23] And the reason that Niall is on the show, despite not being an adoptive and in relation to it, is he's interviewed some of the real leading lights within the trauma space. And also one of my favourite guys, or my favourite author and speaker at the moment, Rupert Spira.

[00:00:45] So that's why he's on the show, because he's had this, like I've had the chance to riff with over 500 people from the Adoption constellation. Niall's had a chance to riff with a whole load of other genius, intriguing superstar people. So that's why it's here if you're wondering.

[00:01:10] So as I ask most guests, what does thriving mean to you Niall? For me, thriving is the first thing that comes to mind. It's the experience of feeling fully alive. It's the experience of, I suppose, being on purpose, like moving towards something that you really value.

[00:01:37] But you're also enjoying every step along the way of getting there. You know, I love this metaphor from, I think it was from Will Smith, where he's talking about building a wall. And he says, you don't actually build the wall. You only ever lay one brick with as much quality, as much love, as much care as possible. So to me, it's, that's what thriving is. It's laying every brick with as much love and presence and care and creativity as possible. Yeah.

[00:02:03] So it's about the little picture right now, the moment right now. And, and yeah. But moving towards another star as well. That's really important to have both of those elements, you know? Steps along the way. Yes. Along the way. Have you seen that?

[00:02:22] I think is it the first Indiana Jones movie where they're taking the stepping stones across a chasm and each, the next one only, you know, you know what I'm getting at. Yeah. So there's a, so there's a chasm and like you said, infinite drop below them. And there, there's, there's, there's no way across this chasm, but then he gets close to the edge.

[00:02:50] One stepping stone appears and then he steps on that. And then the next one. Okay. Next one. So it, it's some, I guess, I would guess it's from some kind of Buddhist thing or, you know, but it obviously it's been Hollywood. It's been made into Hollywood and I hope it is an Indiana Jones movie because I may, maybe I'll be wrong. But, you know, we're taking one step at a time, but towards going, going in a, in a, in a direction. And yeah.

[00:03:20] So you're talking about like on purpose and, and being intentional about where we're trying to go. You're talking about like, begin with the end in mind. Is that, that sum it up? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Seam ballpark.

[00:03:37] Like I, all I'm really saying is that I've noticed in my own life that I'm happiest when I'm moving towards, I'm moving in a direction towards a North star that I really, that's really important to me. But at the same time, I'm enjoying the day to day to day process of getting there where I'm, where I'm actually, you know, I'm waking up in the morning and I'm thinking, yes, today I get to work on this or I get to speak to this person or I get to actually do this thing or build this thing, you know?

[00:04:06] And I think you need to have both of those elements in place. If one's missing, life becomes quite challenging for me. Is there a particular person that's helped you towards that philosophy? I think it's been my own lived experience, Simon, to be honest.

[00:04:28] It's a lot of trial and error, a lot of chasing the wrong things in life and doing things as a, as a means to an end has never worked for me doing things. You know, like I would say, like, I'm going to make the sacrifice now to, for X amount of months or X amount of years to achieve this future goal. And anytime I've tried that approach, it's always come back to, to bite me in the ass.

[00:04:55] So for me, it's very important that whatever I'm doing, I build in the element of actually enjoying the process of moving towards, towards the goal. If that makes sense. Yeah. So it's, it's doing it, doing it for the intrinsic joy in, in doing it rather than thinking that doing that is going to help me somewhere further down the line.

[00:05:25] Exactly. And, or doing that for external markers, like making money or you, you know, uh, if something about like trying to, trying to get status out of doing something, or this is going to look really cool or whatever. It's like, no, it has to be from the inside out. The most important thing whenever you're working in something is your, is your internal subjective experience of actually doing the thing.

[00:05:50] And that's the thing I think that we need to be optimizing our, our lives around. So that's the, that's the Will Smith bit where he's, he's loving each brick. He's putting love and attention into each brick and the placement of that brick. And I guess the right amount of cement and the right amount of tapping and checking it out and that sort of stuff is a, it's like a real micro focus on, on the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:20] That's, yeah, that's what we're getting at here for sure. And was, was there a moment, was there a particular moment where you, you spotted this for yourself that you were doing something, uh, chasing the wrong ends? I could think of probably a hundred. Um, the second, uh, the second business I started, it was a way to my, my goal at the time was I wanted to start a business.

[00:06:49] That would give me an automated income so I could travel the world as a digital nomad. And I started this when I was like 23 and I was sourcing products in China and selling on Amazon. I was living in Barcelona at the time. And this all sounds fantastic, but the reality of my day to day was sourcing these products that I didn't really care about dealing with Chinese suppliers all day, every day.

[00:07:19] And although that, that was like the means to the end of traveling, the reality was my day to day experience was doing things that I wasn't, they weren't aligned with my values and it was kind of soul destroying, you know? So that was probably the biggest lesson for me to, to not go down that path. Yeah. Yeah. So you talked about enjoying every, every step.

[00:07:45] Is there a particular guest or a set of guests that you've enjoyed the conversation with more than the, the, the, are there certain guests that stand out for you? There's many, many guests that stand out.

[00:08:04] Like, to be honest, like for me, interviewing people is like, I maybe do two interviews a week, but those two hours a week are the highlight, highlight of my week usually, to be honest. Um, if it just feels like play the whole time, um, in terms of guests that have really, I suppose, left a lasting impression. You've good people like, I know you're a big admirer of Rupert Spira. Um, he, he had a huge impact on me.

[00:08:33] His friend, Bernardo Kastrup, the same, uh, professor, Paul Gilbert, compassion, focused therapy, huge. Um, all the different people that talk about parts work, like say Dick Schwartz. Um, I interviewed Jill Bolte-Tealer yesterday, which was, was actually mind blowing. She's, she's got a new model of the, the brain as well, which is actually very, not, not the same as, as the IFS model, but quite similar. Um, Stephen Hayes work on psychological, psychological flexibility.

[00:09:03] I think it's really unbelievable. Um, Ian McGilchrist on the, on the two hemispheres. Ken Wilbur, I think is just an unbelievable thinker. Um, Martha Beck, Lisa Miller. Anyway, I could go, I could literally go on. I don't want to, I don't want to keep going on because I'll forget people that are super important, but that's some of the, some of the people that stand out, I think.

[00:09:31] Um, so cause the, the, it was a bit of a duff question. I think in hindsight, it was a bit of a duff question for me to ask now, because you're talking about enjoying every step. That would be enjoying every interview. And I'm asking you to pick the one that you enjoy. So it was a duff, it was a duff question. Um, I've actually interviewed, uh, Jill Bolte-Tealer as well. Really? And she blew my mind too. Um, so, uh, I would, uh, I would encourage people to, to, to chat.

[00:10:01] I'll put a link in, in this one here. And, uh, when, when your interview with her is live, I'll, I'll put that on, on, on as well. What was the one I was gonna, there was one that I, let's talk about Dick Schwartz and his, and his, uh, uppercase as self and his parts work. What was it that you got from, uh, from Dick?

[00:10:30] I think the main thing that I've taken from IFS is just the, the very real acknowledgement that there are different parts within me or within us all. Little kind of sub personalities that it's almost like they've got a mind of their own. And sometimes there will be a part of you that's kind of running the show. And that can be a good thing, but it also sometimes can be a bad thing, you know?

[00:10:59] And I personally find myself, you know, say I've got a really busy day at work or whatever. I find myself in this kind of like rushed frantic stress mode. And that's usually like a part of me that's kind of like, you know, it's sort of taken over because of the, the demands of the schedule. And the real value in that work is being able to become aware whenever that's happening.

[00:11:23] And then to have a little bit of differentiation and separation from the part, and you can ask, is this serving the kind of whole system right now? Is this the best state of being that I could be in? And if it, if it's not, then you can kind of step back from it and maybe choose a different, a different level of consciousness almost. So it's really powerful.

[00:11:48] And I would recommend anybody to, to study like there's different approaches to parts work, but IFS is a great one. And Dick's book, No Bad Parts is, is a really good introduction as well. Yeah. And we've had the, Dick Schwartz has done another book with a number of different authors in different specialisms.

[00:12:13] And one of them is a, an IFS, an IFS specialist who's an adoptee and who does IFS with, with fellow adoptees. She's a lady called Kathy, Kathy McKechnie. So if you are interested in what Niles just said, I'm going to put a link onto that and to the Kathy McKechnie interview.

[00:12:37] And then she'll give, she gives a kind of like an adoptee specific take on parts work. My, my own metaphor for parts work is based on Trivial Pursuits. You've ever played Trivial Pursuits? No? Okay. No. Do you know what it, you know what it looks like? Not really, no. Not at all. Okay.

[00:13:05] Um, so it's a board game and each, each player has a little, um, plastic, little piece of plastic, a plastic disc. And it's, it's, it's divided into six, six, six, it has six segments. It has space for six segments.

[00:13:27] And as you go, you go around the board and you get a, you get a little segment and you put that in, into your, it's a cheese. Yeah. A piece of cheese. Uh, and you, you put that into your cheese holder. Each, each player has a cheese holder. So the way I think about parts work is that our individual parts.

[00:13:53] So little Simon, who's got, um, bullied for, bullied on Scam cam, right? That's, that's one cheese, uh, one cheese, uh, the traumatized, you know, the, the five, five week old little Simon, the wonder where's his wonder where's his mom's gone. Right. That's a, both of them gone. That's another part of cheese, right?

[00:14:17] So got these individual cheeses, uh, and the, but the, the trauma is in the cheeses, but not in the cheese holder. That idea. I like that. So we're separating, we're saying that we are not our, we are not our trauma.

[00:14:38] And Dick Schwartz would say there's, there's an uppercase S self that is intact, complete enough, um, unwounded because it's unwoundable. So there's this, there's this book in the adoption space called the primal wound wound being, uh, trauma being, um, Greek for, for wound.

[00:15:06] Uh, and, and, and that, that wound is psychological rather than essential because we're not our psychology, right? Our psychology is not essential to us. We're not born with that stuff. Our psychology changes. That's a beautiful metaphor. I really like that.

[00:15:36] And I think it, it, it frames that the whole IFS part. I'm very well. So it's powerful. Uh, it's, uh, IFS is, um, a, a really cool part. Uh, and a lot of, a lot of therapists like, um, like Kathy are bringing in IFS into their work, but they wouldn't be the only part of what they do.

[00:15:56] They would be, um, also maybe looking into EMDR, uh, a lot of people talking about, um, you know, kind of, uh, the, the drug assisted, like, um, psychedelics and drug assisted therapies and stuff, stuff like that. Uh, I remember listening to you cause you, when you interviewed, um, that's a Vandercolp, didn't you? Mm. Yeah.

[00:16:25] Um, and I think whilst you, I think it was you that was talking to him about this, he was talking about him becoming, about the fact that he became aware of his secondary trauma on the back of doing the psychedelics. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:46] He, um, he went through his whole life thinking, you know, he seen probably thousands of people that experienced quite severe trauma and he thought, you know, I've got a good support system. I've got a good wife, friendships, hobbies, and that's, what's kind of this, that's, what's sort of acting as a buffer against the trauma. So it's not really affecting me. It's not really, you know, it's not really getting to me.

[00:17:11] And then he did, he did, um, MDMA one time and he going into the experience, he thought it was going to be like, just like bliss and fun. And, you know, MDMA is used as a part as a party drug. Um, but he was obviously doing it for the, the therapeutic effects and just to see what it was actually like.

[00:17:33] And during the experience, he said, he was essentially revisited by every, every client that had come to him with a, with a severe trauma and it all came back and all of the pain that they'd experienced just sort of landed with him in that, in that session. And he said, that was just shocking.

[00:17:52] So I think the takeaway there is that, you know, you might think that these, these interactions aren't having an impact on you, but on some level they, they are. Yeah. Yeah. Powerful stuff. And totally, and most powerful because he was totally unaware of it. Like, yeah, crazy. Like, uh, despite his knowledge and like, he's, he's been in this field, like 50 odd years, I guess he's, cause he's in his sixties or seventies.

[00:18:21] Anyway, a lot, a lot of, um, um, a lot of water has passed under his bridges. Right. It raises, it raises a very interesting question to you. Like, you know, in some cases it's not always good to dig, you know, if someone is doing well in life and you know, they've got a good structure around them and they're, uh, you know, you could say they're even, they're even thriving.

[00:18:49] And then they go and they start seeing a therapist or they maybe take psychedelics and they start digging into the past and they start uncovering all these traumas that have already been resolved and they're not really affecting them. And that can be, you know, you don't always have to go do this really deep inner work. If you're doing, doing well in life, you know, it's not always essential, you know, so I think it's just worth raising that too. Interesting. Interesting.

[00:19:15] One of the things that landed for me listening to that interview with, with you, um, and, um, was the fact that I became aware of how much exposure to a lot of trauma stuff on Facebook.

[00:19:38] For example, I thought it wasn't impacting me, but there was a, it wasn't as profound or as heavy experience as, as Bessel van der Kolb's and no MDMA was involved. Right. But think listening to him helped me see that spending time in, in Facebook groups where, uh, there's a lot of trauma being shared by, uh, by adoptees.

[00:20:08] That was landing on, on me and I hadn't, I hadn't noticed. And I, I, it just, it, I just felt it on my, on my shoulders, like on a, on a, on a Monday afternoon. Uh, and so as a consequence, I spend less time looking at that stuff because, um, I just hadn't spotted the, the extent to which it was impacting.

[00:20:36] You know, it makes, makes me sort of think, you know, like, and I really have noticed this, that energy is contagious. Like one that I remember, I'll never forget. I was having a, having a relatively good morning. I was in good spirits. You know, I was just going about my day. And then I got a phone call from somebody that was in distress and really ruminating about something that we couldn't really do anything about and really worrying and really anxious.

[00:21:01] And, you know, and after the phone call, I could literally feel that in my body. I could literally feel that, that anxious, nervous energy just pulsing through me. And it was almost like I had to shake it off. I was like, you know, and literally energy is contagious, both good and bad. So it's just, it's, it's really important to consider what energetic effect you're putting out into the world and to be intentional about that.

[00:21:27] Like going into interactions, thinking, how do I want this person to feel during, but also after we've had this interaction. I think you can really impact people's lives in a positive way if you just ask yourself that question, you know? Yeah. I mean, when you talk about body, obviously it takes us, shaking it off. It takes us back into that somatic space. I can't, have you, have you interviewed Peter Levine or am I just making that up?

[00:21:56] No, I haven't. No, no. No, no. What did you, have you, does Bessel van der Kopp talk about a lot? Does he go a lot about talking about somatic stuff? Have you, have you, have you heard much about that? That interview with Bessel was, was mainly around attachment. With the somatic stuff, a really interesting woman to check out is Dr. Pat Ogden,

[00:22:25] who started sensory motor psychotherapy. And there's a lady, she does a lot of stuff on YouTube, Irene Lyon. She does a lot on the nervous system. Stephen Porridge's polyvagal theory as well. Really powerful stuff. With the somatic stuff, I love the metaphor from Eckhart Tolle. And it's not really somatic, but I, I, this came to mind whenever you're, you're talking there. Um, he talks about, he's sitting in a park bench and he watches, he used to sit and watch the ducks.

[00:22:53] Cause he just sat in the park bench for like years after he had his like enlightenment. And he would watch ducks. And every so often two ducks would get into like a, you know, a fight. And then after the fight, the two ducks would walk away in a separate direction. And they would both just like ruffle their feathers really like aggressively. And then they just walk about, uh, walk on and go about their day. And that was the fight done.

[00:23:17] Whereas if two humans have an interaction, the thing is lingering for the, like the 24 hours after thing. I should have said that. And I can't believe she said that. And he, you know, and all the rest. And it's like, we need to be more like ducks, I think. And I think the somatic stuff can really help in that regard. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was listening to something this morning and, uh, they were talking, I think they were talking about ducks and the, the, the fight actually, um, changed, transformed into lovemaking.

[00:23:49] Right. Yeah. So there you go. These ducks do different things at different times. Um, yeah. Uh, shake, shaking it off. Uh, well, we're, there's a Taylor Swift line there, isn't there? Um, shake it.

[00:24:05] Um, the, the, the, the Jill Bolte-Taylor stuff and this left brain, uh, left brain versus right vein side. What did you, so Jill Bolte-Taylor had a left brain stroke, um, which meant that her left brain,

[00:24:30] Greg was out of, out of action and her right brain was all she experienced, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. What did you, can you unpack that a little bit more and maybe share what you took from that? Well, that was, that was yesterday. That was yesterday.

[00:24:52] So it's still kind of, I suppose, digesting, but I, you know, she had that stroke and because a certain, a small number of cells in her left hemisphere were destroyed, her whole sense of separation from the world complete, completely dissolved. There was no longer a boundary separating her, her sense of self from everything around her. So she suddenly just felt that she was everything, which is pretty crazy.

[00:25:22] And this went on for about eight years. So, you know, that's even, that's even a bit mad to think about in and of itself. Like there's a, there's a small number of cells in your left hemisphere. And if they go, you suddenly lose all sense of separation from the world around you. So that taps into a lot of kind of like non-dual teachings of people like, like Rupert Spira, who we mentioned earlier.

[00:25:46] And there's just a small kind of sense of self that is one part of you, but it's, we confuse our identity with, with that rational, egoic mode of consciousness when we're actually something much larger. Yeah. And there's a particular part of the left brain where the inner critic is, it's like a biological thing. That's what I remember her. I remember in her books and interviewing.

[00:26:15] So it's, it's a figment of our imagination, but it is, it isn't a figment of our imagination. It's a figment of our left brain, that inner critic that tells us that we ain't gonna, we're not gonna succeed at this, that we're not good enough. The imposter syndrome, like people talk about imposter syndrome as well, but it is a, it's

[00:26:43] a biological part of the brain that's kind of developed and that, that was gone. So. Exactly. Exactly. Her, her model is that there's essentially four parts to, to your, to your brain, to my brain, to everybody's brain. So there's this, she calls them character one, two, three, and four, and she encourages everybody to give, give each part a name. Um, so character one is this logical thinking, um, busy bee, the person that's sort of like,

[00:27:12] you know, wants to get things done, wants to be productive, wants to be on time, like the real sort of manager within you, you know, character two is essentially all of your emotional pain from the past. And, uh, this is the, you know, this is the part of you that's carrying trauma. This is the part of you that is really sensitive. This is the part of you that has, has had to deal with all that, those difficult emotions. And the first two characters, these are in the left hemisphere. So they're concerned with the past and the future.

[00:27:41] They're always thinking about, you know, what's happened in the past, what's happened in the future. And they're always kind of, that's, that's how they relate to time. And then the character three and four, these are both in the right hemisphere. Character three is this part of you that just wants to play and is impulsive and wants to, you know, be in the moment and enjoy life. And, you know, this sort of inner, inner child. Um, we've all kind of got that part as well. And then character four is this part that Jill mostly spent eight years in whenever she

[00:28:11] had the stroke. This is the part of you that would be the self and IFS. This is the part of you that is, you know, see, would feel yourself connected to everything and every one in the world around you. It would be the part of you, you would access in a deep state of meditation. So her whole thing is like, if you can recognize that there are these four characters within you, and then you have, you can sort of, she, she recommends doing this thing called

[00:28:39] the brain huddle, where you sort of like, you can essentially talk to each of these parts and decide who you want to be in any given moment. Um, so yeah, it's her, the book's called whole brain living and it's really, really cool stuff. And I've been trying it in the build up the interview and it actually really effective for just like regulating your emotions and choosing who you want to be in certain situations. So I would definitely recommend checking it out. Yeah.

[00:29:09] So how do you, how do you put what you've just been sharing, um, now about the stuff that you talked about at the start of the, of the interview in terms of feeling fully alive, enjoying every step, being intentional and on purpose. Do you, do those two things sit together for you or?

[00:29:36] Well, the thing is the left hemisphere, this is the part of us that picks a goal and then narrowly focuses on it, right? It's, it sees the parts, it sees the, the isolated individual elements of something, right? It takes things apart, but it doesn't, it can't see the whole picture, right?

[00:30:06] It only sees a tiny fragment of what kind of what it's aiming for. Whereas the right hemisphere, this is the part of us that sees the whole picture. It's, it thinks holistically it, the right hemisphere sort of seeks to understand, whereas the left hemisphere seeks to grasp and cling onto things and focus narrowly. So the key thing here is, is that if you want to have a fulfilling life and if you want to set goals,

[00:30:34] you've got to set your, your aims from the place of the right hemisphere. You've got to set it from the big picture, the things that are connected to your values and what's most important to you, to you in life. If your goals come out of that place, you'll do well. Whereas if you're, if you're operating from a very narrow left hemisphere focus, where you're only thinking about one thing or you're, you know, you're only thinking about survival

[00:30:59] or whatever, then you're, at least my experience has been that it's not sustainable and I burn out very fast. Whereas if the goal has been set from the bigger picture, right hemisphere view, then you're, you're on solid ground. Yeah.

[00:31:19] So when you were doing the e-commerce business, you were looking for, you were looking for, uh, financial stability and, and, and, and safety, but that wasn't enough. It was, it was part, it was a left brain driver, wasn't it? Exactly. Exactly. It was a very narrow focus.

[00:31:46] It didn't really consider the, the bigger picture of my life and values. And yeah, no, I think it's worth just raising here quickly. You're probably already familiar with it. Um, Ken Wilber's, uh, four quadrants. Do you, are you familiar with this? I've not, I've not listened to any Ken Wilber. I've heard his name, but I've never dug into him.

[00:32:10] It's a really simple model, but Ken essentially says that everything in, in the human world exists and involves in four different dimensions simultaneously. Right. So if we're talking about things like thriving and, you know, psychological wellbeing, let's, let's take these four elements. So we're talking mind, which is your inner subjective experience.

[00:32:38] Um, we're talking body, which is, you know, the, the measurable, measurable aspects of your, of your behavior. You know, this is things like neuroscience. This is things like habits, behavior change. Then we move into, into culture. So this is things like, you know, the social groups you belong to, the, the media you consume and all the rest. Then his fourth quadrant is society. So these are the societal systems that emerge out of culture.

[00:33:04] So these are, you know, um, the books you read, the workshops you attend and all the rest. Now I would add a fifth element would be, um, spirituality. And it's really important whenever you're trying to do anything in life to sort of look at all these different levels and sort of take them into consideration in your plans. Otherwise you can kind of get tripped up by them later on. You know, does that, does that make any sense? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:33] And do you mean, when you say spirituality, do you mean, um, a religious take on this or, or is it more like the consciousness and the essence and spirit? Like who we truly are? I would say it's. Well, I. So, so I was going to say, I would say it's each person's version of that. You know, it might be your connection to nature. It might be just having a, like a larger purpose for your life.

[00:34:03] It could be the universe. It could be these experiences of awe and wonder, or it could be religion too, you know, but it's meditation, you know, it's different for everybody. And I would be very hesitant to say, you know, it's this one thing because it's not, it's people have different ways of expressing that. Yeah. So it's totally personal, totally unique, totally individual. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:24] Um, you, you, you, you mentioned meditation and one of the things I've heard from Rupert Spire is he, he says something. I'm not sure whether it's an interview with you or somebody else, but he talks about the difference between, um, meditation as who we are. When most people think about meditation as something that we do.

[00:34:54] Hmm. Yeah. Um, so have you, do you, have you heard that from before? I think, I think I've heard, I've heard him say that once, but I wasn't in our conversation, but I think it's a, it's a really radical idea. You know, it's like, that that's, he's sort of saying that's our default state and everything else we're doing is sort of just like a distraction from that. Yeah. It's a very different way to look at it. You know?

[00:35:19] The, the metaphor I see for it is if we are, if we are the universe, and you're talking about Jill Balty-Taylor's, you can take us, you talked to Jill Balty-Taylor, you talked about her being part of the right brain is connected to everything. If we take that a step further, that we, we are everything we are, we are the universe.

[00:35:49] Then we, what that brings to mind is that we are the space in which our thoughts or feelings occur. So there's a planet called trauma, right? There's a planet called trauma, but we are the space in which that planet appears.

[00:36:15] We are bigger than our trauma. We are space for our trauma. We're space, we're space for our thoughts. We're space for our feelings. We're space for our behavior. These are none of, that isn't us, right? So it's more, that seems to be in keeping with the right brain living.

[00:36:45] And the big picture. Yeah, I really like that. It's a, it's similar. It reminded me of the cheese metaphor from earlier on, you know, the, the trauma can be in those planets and everything, but it's not you. You're the, you're the space around them, you know? And I think that's a very, a very freeing perspective for people if they can feel themselves to be that way. Yeah. Yeah. It is a feeling. It's a spacious feeling. It's, it's, it's big, you know, it's big picture thinking.

[00:37:13] Um, and, but I'm, I'm thinking earlier on that I, maybe I should have tried a different metaphor from the, um, from, given you didn't, you haven't played Trudeau Pursuit. Uh, so, you know, like a, do you remember Derry Lee cheeses in the box? Six segments? Yeah. Yeah. So you could use the same. That, that would, I should have come up with a second down actually, because you can remember that, right?

[00:37:43] So they, and I don't know if this translates, we got a lot of listeners from over in the, in the U S. Um, but yeah, it's a cardboard. This is a circular cardboard box, uh, with a, a top and a bottom. And inside there are six individually foil wrapped pieces of allegedly cheese. It's, it's, um, it's kids cheese, apparently.

[00:38:12] Uh, but with, with a, with a box, with a box, not the individual segments, not our individual parts. Um, so putting the metaphors together, you say, was it Jill Bulte's, um, was it two? Was it, um, you talked about the, the four, her four characters.

[00:38:38] What did it, what did you, uh, what characters, one, two, three, and four? And yes. Character two is the trauma bit. Yes, very much so. Yeah. Character two is the trauma bit. So I'm saying that, that the character two, the trauma bit is, is all the individually wrapped cheeses. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:08] Um, and the, the box, the wholeness, the big picture thinking thing, that's either three or four right brain thinking. Four, yeah. Four, yeah. Okay. I'm not diving too much. I guess I'm just trying to draw, uh, draw connections between what we're talking about. And I'm starting to think I might be driving people slightly mental with this.

[00:39:37] But they're still listening, I guess, if we've got that far. Um, so you talked about North Star, your North Star. Um, what's, what is your North Star? What is the thing, what are you aiming towards?

[00:39:56] Um, from, so I was on a ski trip when I was like, I think I was 20 at the time and I was applying for an internship in Canada. And I knew they were going to ask me during the interview, um, what I wanted to do with my life. You know, what was the, what was the kind of bigger picture goal? And I was thinking about it.

[00:40:25] I was coming back from a run up, up, up a mountain this day. And it just hit me. I was like, I want to start a business that helps people improve their lives. That was very simple. I want to start a business that helps people improve their lives. And that's kind of just been so simple, nothing grand about it, but I just want to do that thing. And for me, my North Star is sharing ideas that help people improve their lives, you know, and simple, but it's a, it's a really good filter for making decisions.

[00:40:54] Like if I have an opportunity, it's like, well, does it help me to sort of grow that mission and build towards that? Or does it not? So I think the lesson here isn't, isn't my particular purpose or North Star. It's just the value of having one. Because if you, if you have something like that, it just gives you a really easy filter for making the decisions in your life. You know, it makes it easy to say yes to things, but more importantly, it helps you to decide what to say no to.

[00:41:24] Yeah. So it's a, it's a, it's a decision-making tool for, for day to day. And choosing longer term directions as well. Yeah. And what does that look like at the moment? Does that have, does that have, um, it's like, cause you're clearly making a big dent with you.

[00:41:53] Are you making big impact with your, with your podcast? The quality of the speakers that you have on is incredible. What, what, what does it look, what does it look like outside of that for you at the moment? Well, something I've been really reluctant to invest in, in recent years is like short form content.

[00:42:18] Cause I just, I don't like using social media myself. I don't, it doesn't have a good effect on me whenever I'm using it a lot. So I just, I try and stay off these platforms as much as possible. But recently I've just realized, you know, if that's the goal, I want to share ideas that help people, help people improve their lives. And I want to actually do whatever I can to make a, make a difference in the world.

[00:42:48] Then by me advocating that responsibility and by not being on these platforms and not trying to sort of use them as tools to kind of grow the impact of our speakers insights. Then I'm not showing up as best as I can in the world. So it's sort of, you know, I've been so reluctant to invest in social media until now, but whenever I was, I ran it past the sort of idea of purpose and this kind of, this bigger picture filter for my life.

[00:43:17] I was like, I need to, I need to get stuck in here. And I've spent actually this week working on the strategy to sort of, to leverage short form content and really take that seriously and invest in it just because that's one of the most effective ways. I think I can serve the purpose and I'm, that I'm here for. Yeah.

[00:43:42] So if, but if you'd been staying purely left brain, you would have just said, I'm not, I'm not changing. I'm sticking to my, I'm sticking to my long form content. I'm sticking to my podcasts because that's where, that's, that's where I'm, that's in my safety zone, in my, not safety zone, my comfort zone. And the left brain would have you focusing on what you've always done. Whereas your right brain is more expansive. It's thinking about change. Is that?

[00:44:12] Yeah, that's, that's it. Exactly. And you know, like when I was thinking about whenever I'm planning a project, I would say I'm quite, I'm quite ADHD. So I need to really sit down and think through like a framework and certain questions whenever I'm planning a project. And I'm asking myself like, you know, what's the purpose of this? Why is this important? Um, what are, what are the key principles I need to keep in mind as I'm doing this?

[00:44:40] Um, the questions like that, what's the desired outcome? And whenever I was asked myself about, you know, this social media strategy thing, I was like, well, what's the purpose of this? And whenever I thought about it, I was like, oh shit, this is actually really, really important. You know, this, this is aligned with my, my, my big, my big values in life.

[00:44:57] And because of that, all this sort of, all of these reservations I had about the short form content and all these doubts and all these things, they all, they became like these minuscule things that were actually insignificant. And I actually had a massive amount of motivation and energy to invest in an area, an area that I've been avoiding for so long, just because of this clarity of purpose. Yeah. Amazing how those insights land for us.

[00:45:25] It's really, it's really powerful what an insight can do like, you know? Yeah. I often, I often get into this, this space where we're talking about trauma and we're talking about healing and, and the, the, there's that old saying that time is the greatest healer. And I think, well, if there's no change over that time, then there's no healing.

[00:45:56] So what, what does healing, you know, what drives healing? What is the ultimate healer? If it's not time. And in, in my take, it's, it's insights. It's, it's a shift in perspective. It's penny drop moments.

[00:46:17] So it's interesting to see what I align with, you know, what I think about in the kind of the trauma space, you're talking about more in terms of the, the business space, the impact space. Yeah. Yeah. And curious, have you, you do a lot of work to help adoptees? Have you articulated a purpose for yourself?

[00:46:50] To help, help the, no, but thank you. I would say it's to help the adoption constellation thrive. So not just adoptees. That's powerful. Yeah. The purpose of the podcast is, is kind of similar to, to yours.

[00:47:09] I think it's to interview people about the wisdom that they've learned in, in the hope that their wisdom will catalyze wisdom or insights. For their listeners. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, what have, what have you learned that you think can help others?

[00:47:34] It's the idea is to kind of short, short circuit, the short circuit, well, bring the learning forward, learning curve forward, steepen the learning curve, help more people to more insights. Faster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I have the same challenge with, with short term content, actually.

[00:48:01] And I tried something last year and it, it didn't work. So I, I stopped doing it. Yeah. I, I, I used, I used video clips. I used video clips of the interviews and used them on social media with a view that it, with the idea that it would increase downloads and it had no, no effect on it. On downloads.

[00:48:30] So I stopped. Yeah. But you've got me thinking that maybe I should go back to the drawing board and figure out a different, a different way of doing that. Different way of looking at short, short form. Because I get my, I get, I think like you, I get my juice from the conversation. Yeah. Yeah. That's the point.

[00:48:51] Although we have very different approaches, you know, listening to you, I can tell that you've, you've got, you've got a far more, you're far less freewheeling than I am. I can tell, right. Niall's done his research. He's got some questions. It seems to me that you have some questions in mind before you go into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:18] I think I find the best interviews when you have that combination of you've prepared really well, but then once the conversation happens, you kind of just, you let it go where it wants to go. And you're not, you're not depending on the questions, you know. But the thing is, if you prepared well, the right question will just appear at the right time. And it adds to the conversation as opposed to takes, takes away from it. Amazing.

[00:49:48] So we're coming up on time here. Now, is there anything that I've not asked you about anything that comes to mind in terms of this thriving topic, this theme? One topic I think is pretty cool is there's a lot of research been done in the past few years about the psychological benefits of connecting with your future self.

[00:50:13] So developing a very clear picture of, say, who your future self is in five years or 10 years, and then actively strengthening the connection with that person. Because the problem is, and they've done like brain scan studies on this, that whenever we think of our future self, we literally imagine them as a different person. So, and because of that, we treat them as if we would treat another person. We don't actually treat them. Okay. That's going to be me in the future.

[00:50:39] So if you want to, like, just increase your motivation, you want to make better decisions in the present, like, actively start working on building that connection with your future self. And you can do things like, you can, once you've kind of got an idea of who that person is for you and what their life looks like, you can literally, like, write a letter to them. Or you can write a letter from them to your current self. And these have all been scientifically proven to actually strengthen that connection and improve decision making in the present.

[00:51:09] So that's a really cool, I suppose, life hack that anybody can do. It doesn't cost anything, but it can really impact your quality of life in a positive way. Yeah. Yeah. I've tried that, but I'm getting the thinking that, I'm getting the idea that I didn't put enough into it.

[00:51:31] It was, it was like a to-do list thing rather than something I really invested, invested time and thought into. Yeah. Good stuff now. Thanks a lot. Great to spend time with you. And listeners, I'd encourage you to check out Niall's podcast on Weekend University. It's great, great stuff. Thanks a lot, my friend. Thanks very much, Simon. This was a lot of fun.

[00:52:01] Yeah. Cheers. Thank you, listeners. We'll speak to you very soon. Take care.