Dr. Martha Beck (author; “best-known life coach in America”) is about to release a book on anxiety. The international best-selling author – who holds three Harvard degrees in social science and was described by Oprah as “one of the smartest women I know” – specialises in helping people find meaning and integrity in their lives.

In this episode, Sarah and Martha reconnect after 15 years to discuss their takes on the role of anxiety in our lives, and how it can be used to create purpose and direction (tune in to hear about the time Martha “bent a spoon with her mind” for Sarah!). They also share tangible techniques for using creativity to switch out of anxious spirals. Martha’s book, Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose comes out in early 2025.

SHOW NOTES

Here’s the newspaper column I wrote about my first meeting with Martha in 2010.

I refer to previous podcasts with Dr Jill Bolte Taylor and Iain McGilchrist, and another on the role of creativity with Ian Leslie.

You can read more about Martha's work here and connect on IG here.

Preorder a copy of her upcoming book Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's Purpose

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If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page

For more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!

Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious Life

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Indy Johar (founder of Dark Matter Labs, systems designer) re-imagines and redesigns systems for a changed world. The architect and Professor of Planetary Civics at Melbourne’s RMIT and the University of Sheffield has worked with and advised organisations worldwide. Including the Scottish Government, the Mayor of London and WikiHouse, solving complex, entangled problems. Using complexity, emergence and entanglement theories he is a rare expert in this space to provide the (only) path to fixing the world, which is to say fixing our relationship with the world.

This conversation goes to a level I’ve not been to before publicly. On his modelling, we don’t have any choice but to start building the world that comes next, for the current one has no viable pathway. He gives a vision for this this. And he gives a timeframe, too.

For this episode, I’m providing a forum where you can talk through how you feel about the ideas and your feelings with others. Indy has offered to chime in too: Join the chat on Substack HERE.

SHOW NOTES

If you are new to this collapse topic you might want to catch up via this conversation with Luke Kemp, the one with Meg Wheatley and this one with Corey Bradshaw.

There are some previous guests and topics that are referenced in this chat:

• Nate Hagens on the future of fossil fuels
• Kate Raworth on Doughnut Economics
• We talk about zero-sum theory. I talked about this with Liv Boeree, former world poker champion.
• We also cover the Blue Zones concept. I interviewed the man behind this, Dan Buettner, here.
• Indy also references the work of Iain McGilchrist, a guest a few weeks back.

You can learn more about Indy's work via DarkMatterLabs

Connect with Indy on socials @DarkMatter_Labs and @indy_johar

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If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page

Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious Life

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lyndsey Stonebridge (Humans rights academic, Hannah Arendt biographer) was worried about the banality of evil she was observing in the world and so dug down into the work of controversial philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt for insights. Her new book, We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience is a guide on how to live--and think--through a moment like the one we’re in now in the wake of the US election. It draws on Arendt’s ideas about totalitarianism, loneliness, the dulling of the mind, capitalism, as well as the imperative to love the world. Lyndsey is a Professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and writes and broadcasts about a range of topical subjects: refugees, feminism and the moral mind. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

SHOW NOTES

I mention the Wild episode with BBC Washington correspondent Nick Bryant

Get your copy of Lyndsey's new book, We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience

Read more about Lyndsey's work here and follow her on IG here

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If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page

For more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!

Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious Life

Let’s connect on Instagram

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.