Potential Psychology

Joining me on the show for this episode is science communicator and content creator Ryan O'Donnell, a.k.a RyanO. Ryan wakes up daily trying to fill the gap between the amazing science of behavior and the billions of people that it could impact for the better. He does this by creating content for behavioral science enthusiasts via The Daily BA on YouTube, The Controversial Exchange and CHATTcon while preparing for his next big venture. (He gives us a sneak peak into that during our podcast chat.)Ryan started his career as a Behaviour Analyst but his interests have grown to include everything from entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, reinforcement learning, social media, podcasting, and vlogging. These interests and skills have allowed him to work with a lot of great people, travel and share the science of behaviour with the world at large and that's what we are talking about today - how to bring the science of behaviour to a bigger world.In this episode I ask Ryan: •What is Behaviour Analysis and why doe

How do we learn, grow and fulfil our potential today and into the future?My guest for today's conversation arrived in the United States from Kenya at the age of 18 with $273 to his name and a mission to survive. As he tells it, he is LGBTQ and grew up in a world in which his identity either did not exist or was punishable by death or a lifetime in prison.Upon his arrival in the US he was granted a diversity scholarship to attend college which led to both a Bachelor and Masters Degree from Stanford University, a role with the prestigious Boston Consulting Group and a successful stint as Group Business Product Manager at LinkedIn. Today Thomas Igeme is the co-founder & COO of Trybe.ai - a technology platform that uses the science of habit building to help people reach their full potential.His LinkedIn bio simply states, 'I build tech that unlocks the potential of people and teams' but in this conversation you will discover that there is so much more to him than that.During our discussion Thomas and I explor

I was introduced to Tess Walton at an event late in 2019 and we clicked straight away. We got talking about her specialist topic - the future of work - and I quickly realised that this was a podcast episode in the making.It took us a little while to co-ordinate schedules but we connected last week for this amazing conversation which weaves and wends its way through a whole lot of topics all focused on the future. •How do we create the future? •What could it look like? •What skills and what kind of thinking do we need to get there? •How does working with the leaders of large organisations to visualise and create the future parallel working with individuals to create and live our best life? •And how do we get curious - about everything? •This interview was so much fun and I walked away full of energy. I'm sure you will too.About Tess WaltonTess specialises in Workforce Planning, People Metrics, HR Strategy, Change Management, Business Analysis, Business Strategy, HRMS Implementation, HR Projects and Productivit

Today on the show we're talking a bit about exercise, a bit about spirituality, a bit about indigenous cultures and quite a bit about a very select group of people who choose to run around and around an extended city block in New York City for not just days but weeks at a time!My guest is Sanjay Rawal, an award winning documentary maker based in New York City. We're talking about his film 3100: Run and Become, a beautiful and intriguing documentary about the Self Transcendence 3100 Mile Race and the role that running plays in personal growth. But as you'll hear the film is just a starting point for a deeper, wide ranging and insightful conversation about the many different paths we can take to be our best self.During our conversation Sanjay and I discuss: •The Self Transcendence 3100 Mile Race - What is it and how did it come to be? •Who enters it and why? •How to manage your mind to run for 52 days. •Finding flow through exertion and contemplation through movement •Staying in the moment to manage challenge a

The one in which I share my family's brush with bushfires on New Years Eve 2019 and then explore the effects of calamity and catastrophe on children with psychologist and author Karen Young.Welcome back to the Potential Psychology Podcast and our eighth season of the show. It's great to be back.We've had a turbulent start to 2020 in Australia. We're no strangers to bushfire but as of as of 14 January 2020, fires this season have burnt an estimated 186,000 square kilometres (72,000 square miles), destroyed 2,779 homes) and killed at least 34 people. It's estimated that anywhere up to one billion animals have also died as a result of the fires.News coverage of the disaster was global with graphic images of fire ravaged communities broadcast on every conceivable platform. It was all we could talk about. For weeks eastern parts of the country were swathed in smoke and for many communities lives have been turned upside down.After our own escape from the fire affected NSW South Coast early in January I was keen to

This episode of the Potential Psychology Podcast is brought to you by PAFOW and their upcoming Sydney event, PAFOW20 Sydney: Honoring the Human Experience in the Age of AI & Perpetual ChangeWelcome back. Our Summer Series - in which we are revisiting favourite past episodes - is drawing to a close. We will be back next week with new interviews and new guests and another big year.Today we revisit my conversation with Dr Adrian Medhurst. Adrian is a psychologist, a speaker, an author and the CEO of - Benny Button, a wellbeing and performance organisation.Adrian mission is life is to improve the lives of as many people as possible through wellbeing and performance initiatives, starting with our workplaces.In this interview Adrian and I chat about •Agility and finding the balance between being well and performing at our peak •Using little tweaks to enhance our happiness •How to live well and have impact •Mindfulness •And how to master daily stress - something we might all like to get a better handle on as we

It's week three of our Summer Series of the Potential Psychology Podcast. While the team and I are busy behind the scenes prepping Season 8 of the show, we're taking a look back at some of our favourite episodes.And this quote encapsulates the essence of today's show.... 'Don't waste a lot of time and money pushing kids in directions they don't want to go. Instead, find out what weirdness they excel at and encourage them to do that. Then get out of the way' - Seth GodinMy guest is Professor Lea Waters, one of the world's leading experts on Positive Education, Positive Organizations and Strength-Based Parenting and Teaching. She's a psychologist, a past president of the International Positive Psychology Association, and the Founding Director of Positive Psychology Centre at the University of Melbourne.Lea is also author of The Strengths Switch: How the new science of strength-based parenting can help your child and your teen to flourish and the creator of The Strengths Switch online program, your online guide

It's week two of our Summer Series of the Potential Psychology Podcast. Over the next few weeks while the team and I have a short break and get started behind the scenes on the next super cool series of the show, we're revisiting some of our favourite past episodes.Today we are talking about one of my favourite topics - Sleep! My guest is Dr Kate Sprecher and she is speaking to me from Colorado, in the United States, where she a is post-doctoral researcher in the Sleep and Chronobiology Lab at the University of Colorado, Boulder.Kate's passion is understanding how sleep affects our physical and mental health with her guiding question being, 'How we can get the best sleep possible?'In this conversation I ask Kate about: •The impact of sleep (or lack of it) on our health and wellbeing •How she and her team study sleep in the lab •Her tips for better sleep, and •Her recommended resources for learning more about better sleep and how to get it.We also discuss: •The impact of our natural and unnatural environments

Our Summer SeriesWe're back after a slight delay due to the Australian bushfires. My family and I were caught up in the bushfire drama on the NSW South Coast where we were holidaying with family (15 adults, 7 kids and a dog) on New Year's Eve 2019. We're all safe and home now but it was a tense and difficult day as we prepared to defend my sister-in-law's home and our lives. Thankfully the worst we experienced was heat, smoke, anxiety and exhaustion as our little pocket of the coast, whilst surrounded by fire, was saved. We spent two and a half days unable to leave as the roads were closed, with no power or communication - so no means of uploading a podcast episode! We were eventually able to evacuate when Mother Nature gave us a brief window of respite. We had 14 hours on the road and covered 1100km but made it home safely.My heart goes out to all of those who have suffered loss during these fires. We will be talking further about it on the show in our next series.In the meantime and in an effort to regain s

Today we meet Emma and Carla Papas, The Merrymaker Sisters.These real-life sisters are Yoga, Pilates and Meditation teachers, entrepreneurs, podcasters, authors, social media stars and, as I discover in this interview, flourishing personified.They quit their full time government desk jobs in July 2014 to pursue their passion of bringing health and happiness to the lives of others. Since then they've created the #1 mobile recipe App Get Merry, published the best selling healthy cookbooks Make It Merry and Get Merry, host the #1 GetMerry podcast as well as created MerryBody: an online yoga, pilates and mindset studio.Every month they reach over 200 000 people through their products and programs, with a mission to live in a world where people finally accept, love and respect their bodies and themselves.In this high energy conversation Emma, Carla and I explore: •Following your bliss and thriving through challenge •Finding the courage to do hard things •The benefits of yoga and pilates beyond 'a better body' •Why

Hands up if you procrastinate.Okay, hands down.Of course you procrastinate. You're human aren't you? The question is, are you one of the 80 per cent who procrastinate over some tasks, some of the time? Or the 20 per cent who procrastinate over most tasks, most of the time?And why do you procrastinate?What is procrastination from a psychological point of view? (It might not be what you think it is)How are feelings involved?And how do you stop?I'm exploring all this and more in this SOLO episode of the show.I've got tips, strategies, some myth busting, the research and a lot of the 'why' of procrastination that helps us understand it and then change it.Join me to get a grip on your time and tasks and set yourself up for less procrastination in 2020!This episode of the Potential Psychology Podcast is brought to you by the Wellbeing Evidence and Horizons Conference, Australia's leading multi-disciplinary, evidence-based wellbeing and resilience conference. April 28 & 29, 2020. See you there!--- Send in a voic

Tales from the Valley of Death: Reflections from psychotherapy on the fear of death. It sounds morbid but it's not. It's fascinating.Tales introduces us to the complex lives of 10 individuals who have been crippled by death-related fears and related existential issues. Their stories are told through interviews with their psychotherapist, internationally renowned clinical psychologist Professor Ross Menzies. It's a captivating read.In this episode Rachel and I explore these stories and discuss cultural responses to death anxiety. We delve into some of the existential issues surrounding our fear of death and rejoice in the Death Positive Movement - a revolution in our approach to death.Questions I ask Rachel include: •Why write a book about death and psychotherapy? •What is 'death anxiety' in a modern, psychological sense? •Do we all worry about death and at what point do these worries become problematic? •What does science say about the link between death anxiety and complex mental illness, particularly OCD? •

What is it like to thrive and flourish at work? Not just survive, but really have the opportunity to be your best self? My guest for this episode is Dr Peggy Kern. Peggy is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Positive Psychology in the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Education. (She's also a speaker at the Wellbeing Evidence and Horizons Conference, our fabulous podcast partner, in Melbourne on 28 & 29 April 2020.)Peggy is an expert in workplace thriving and in this conversation I had the chance to pick her brain and uncover; - what it means to feel and function well at work - how we can measure workplace thriving, and - what workplaces can do to create environment in which people thrive. We also explored: •How understanding ourselves and living in alignment with who we are helps us to navigate a purposeful life •Why we should care about feeling and functioning well at work •Navigating the work/life blend and how thriving at work lifts us up in every area of life •Finding meaning, purpos

This episode of the Potential Psychology Podcast is brought to you by the Wellbeing Evidence and Horizons Conference, Australia's leading multi-disciplinary, evidence-based wellbeing and resilience conference. April 28 & 29, 2020. See you there!What do you do when life gets tough?Do you retreat? Avoid? Get angry? Self medicate? Exercise your need for control?Life throws us all a curve ball eventually and in this episode of the podcast my guest suggests that the remedy for life's difficult patches is not in avoiding what's hard but in wrestling with it and emerging a more complete individual.Dr Sarah Sarkis is a psychologist, a writer, and a performance consultant. She has a private practice in Honolulu and also works with The Flow Research Collective, a science-based peak-performance research and training organization doing some very cool stuff exploring and understanding the science behind ultimate human performance.Sarah blends psychoanalytic theory, positive psychology, existential psychology, neurobio

If we have the same 24 hours as Beyonce, how should we use them if we want to be happy and well?Do we pour our time into work? Do we sacrifice sleep for exercise? What trade-offs do we make? Because I don't care who you are, you can't fit 30 hours into 24!My guest for this episode is Professor Tim Olds from the University of South Australia. Tim is a time-use epidemiologist and the first of our guests who will be speaking at the upcoming Wellbeing Evidence and Horizons Conference - a 2 day science-based wellbeing event taking place in Melbourne at the Melbourne Exhibition and Conference Centre on 28 & 29 April 2020.Tim's presentation at the Conference is titled: How to Build Your Best Day and in this episode we're getting a sneak peak into his research, his knowledge and his wisdom on what 'best days' look like and how to create yours.Questions I ask Tim: •What is behavioural and time-use epidemiology? •What is the Goldilocks Day? •What is the relationship between our time use and our mental health and we

This episode of the Potential Psychology Podcast is brought to you by the Wellbeing Evidence and Horizons Conference, Australia's leading multi-disciplinary, evidence-based wellbeing and resilience conference. April 28 & 29, 2020. See you there!What can we, as humans, learn from horses to boost our wellbeing and overcome struggle?My guest for this episode is Naomi Rossthorn. Naomi is a psychologist and the Clinical Director of Harnessing Wellness, a psychological counselling service located in the beautiful Yarra Ranges in Victoria in the SE of Australia. Harnessing Wellness is not your ordinary counselling practice. Rather than sitting in a room with a therapist, clients and therapists take to the great outdoors with a gorgeous horse or pony. Naomi and her team have a specialist interest in equine assisted psychology; the use of horses in the therapeutic process.During our conversation Naomi and I discuss: •The ins and outs of equine assisted psychology: What is it? Who accesses it? And why? •The life sk

This episode of the Potential Psychology Podcast is brought to you by the Wellbeing Evidence and Horizons Conference, Australia's leading multi-disciplinary, evidence-based wellbeing and resilience conference. April 28 & 29, 2020. See you there!Do you think in one dimension? Or two dimensions? Or maybe even three?I kick off this episode of the podcast with some reflection on Tim Urban's article, The Thinking Ladder from Wait But Why and his insight into multidimensional thinking - the what and the why of human behaviour. I then get chatting to my guest, Dr Jarrod White, who most certainly thinks in at least two dimensions. In fact it's the why of human behaviour that drives him, his work and his passion for spreading the word about emotional wellbeing and human potential to a wider audience.Jarrod is a Melbourne-based clinical psychologist and the co-founder of The Lives of Others, an Instagram platform that allows followers to share their mental health and mental ill-health stories. While Jarrod works on

This episode of the Potential Psychology Podcast is brought to you by the Wellbeing Evidence and Horizons Conference, Australia's leading multi-disciplinary, evidence-based wellbeing and resilience conference. April 28 & 29, 2020. See you there!Welcome back to the Potential Psychology Podcast and our seventh season of the show. Seven seasons! And it's only getting better from here.Today my guest is Dr Gordon Spence. Gordon and I studied together at The University of Sydney in the early 2000s and our paths have crossed a few times since. In July 2019 we met up by chance at the IPPA World Congress on Positive Psychology in Melbourne and what began as a quick, 'Hi, how are you?' quickly escalated into an intense and fascinating conversation about Gordon's upcoming book and his interest in exercise, longevity and motivation.I walked away from that conversation so inspired and excited about the work that Gordon is doing that I just had to get him on the show. Here we recapture that conversation with all of it

My guest today is passionate about reducing stress and chaos in people's lives.Tom Cronin knows first-hand the power of meditation in overcoming mental health issues and the potential this ancient practice has for personal healing and human transformation.Tom is a meditation teacher, a film maker, an international speaker and founder of The Stillness Project - a global movement to inspire one billion people to sit in stillness daily. He is also the author of six books for adults and one children's book - Missy Moo Meditates.In this episode Tom and I are talking about The Portal - an upcoming experiential documentary that he has co-produced - and his commitment to a planetary shift.Can stillness transform individuals, communities and the world?Tom and I also explore: •His transformation from financier to meditation teacher •The power of our connected world to educate, inform and inspire •How you know when your life must change •Teaching meditation to CEOs •Why stillness and meditation is vital to busy workplac

My guests on the podcast today are the living embodiment of 'testing and learning', particularly when it comes to life admin - everything from getting your mobile phone plan and contract sorted out to planning family holidays to filing your tax return.Mia Northrop and Dinah Rowe-Roberts are the co-hosts of the Life Admin Life Hacks Podcast. Their mission is to help you save time, money and achieve a little more peace of mind and household harmony.Mia gets a thrill when they unearth processes and tools that help their listeners. She says it's 'satisfying to know we've made someone's life a little easier in some way by giving them a shortcut or nudging them to finish something or make a better decision'.In 2018 Dinah decided to take a break from the corporate world to see how she could find more balance and purpose in her life. During that break she decided she needed to do two things: 1. Find a job at an organization where she genuinely believed in the purpose and thought she could make a meaningful contributi