Dot to Dot Behind the Person Fiona Murden

This week is a solo cast - I answer the question of one listener 'Why is it so difficult to maintain the resilience and positivity I start the day with? A solid morning routine of positive intent often degrades into something far less positive and more destructive during the day.'

Back again, on this episode Fiona speaks to her good friend Giles Paley-Phillips. Fiona and Giles talk about Giles’s 14th book, the fascinating podcasts he’s the host of, how to spark creativity, mentoring, giving back, gardening and how important it is to reconnect with nature, Native American Indian culture, friendship, the personal impacts of trolling on social media and much more.

On this episode I speak to the truly wonderful Sophie Green. Sophie is an award-winning conservation & wildlife artist who specialises in capturing the photorealistic details of animals and their surroundings. We talk about her journey through life including how she suffered with selective mutism as a child. This led to her being unable to speak in certain social situations meaning she developed an ability to listen and observe what people said, how they said it and what reactions that led to in others.

On this episode Fiona speaks to Patrick Foster, former cricketer and recovering gambling addict. Gambling addiction is a dark and interesting world, one which is made yet darker still because of the social undesirability. Patrick says ‘I spent £4m on gambling and my betting addiction almost killed me, yet I told no-one’ highlighting the secrecy and shame associated with what is as much addiction as drugs or alcohol. Leading what he describes as a double life, Patrick fought a secret gambling addition for over 12 years, causing him ‘trouble and pain in ways I could never have imagined.’ Patrick explains how he gambled at every opportunity. And because he gambled, he lied, and he stole. He stole from those close to him as well as from those he barely knew. He even stole money intended for charity

On this episode I speak to Andrew Bustamante, a former ‘covert CIA intelligence officer’. We delve into the psychology of being a spy. Andrew explains the need for officers to know themselves really well, to know how to optimise their own recovery which is in part something helped through profiling and in part a process of self-discovery. We discuss the extreme cognitive load experienced as an officer and the need to retreat to a safe space in order to recover. Getting this wrong isn’t just a case of burnout, but as a spy it means ‘you become a major liability, not just to the operation, but to yourself and your own life.’

Sir Dermot Turing is the acclaimed author of 7 books including Prof, a biography of his famous uncle Alan Turing. He is brilliant in his own right but has also strived to tell the ‘real’ story of an extraordinary man. As he says himself Alan Turing ‘crammed into a life of only 42 years the careers of mathematician, codebreaker, computer scientist and biologist. He is widely regarded as a war hero grossly mistreated by his country and it has become hard to disentangle the real man from the story.’