Restore with Eoin Walker Eoin Walker

In this episode, I will be speaking with Joseph Tan. Joseph is the author of Good Monday Consulting, an executive management consultant, and Malaysia’s first Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach. Joseph consults and coaches both blue chip and governmental organizations through to startup companies towards developing a strengths-based culture. He leads coaching and cultural change within organizations at both governmental and local levels. He also works with leadership teams on the alignment of key workforce principles of motivation, mission, and momentum. Joseph is also a senior leadership consultant and coaches CEOs and executive leadership teams on authentic, aligned, and articulate leadership principles. In this conversation we tackle the concept of workplace fatigue, ‘quiet quitting’, and the degradation of morale within large segments of organizations. Other topics we cover in the conversation include: 

· Defining the problem – ppl in vocational roles (roles that require moral decisions over financial ones) have lost the horizon of their calling.

· The reasons – varied and many (lay some of these out)

· The desired goal – alignment with passion

· Culture: restoration of balance – how to get there

· Concept of the three A’s of leadership

· Motivation

· How this is embodied in the staff and modeled

· Solutions Vs problems

· Final thoughts and take-home messages from Joseph



Good Monday Consulting can be found here: 

http://www.goodmonday.com/

You can also find Joseph on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJM7Hy4Tgyc



My thanks to Joseph for an engaging and insightful interview. 

In this episode, I am speaking with Alice Chun about her innovative creation of light boxes that are powered by solar light and created out of sustainable foldable material akin to an origami design. Currently, 1.6 billion people live without access to electricity and rely on kerosene to light their night. The solar lights that Alice has designed have won several product innovation accolades, been awarded two US utility patents, and lauded by leaders in design including MoMA, the modern museum of art. The company name is Solight and part of the product's USP is that Alice has utilised recyclable, biodegradable, light fabric and material technology, for ease of travel and to be stronger and more durable to withstand the most extreme weather conditions. The leverage of smart material technology has allowed Alice to design a power-free spectrum of light for homes without electricity. She recently visited and gifted many lights to citizens of Ukraine without power and light due to the Russian invasion.

Alice Chun is the founder and CEO of Solight Design and the inventor of SolarPuff, the world's only self-inflatable, portable solar light. She's won numerous awards, including the U.S. Patent Award for Humanity. Her products have been exhibited at MoMA in New York City.  Alice is a former professor of architectural design and material technology at Columbia University and The Parsons School of design. and focusing her work on solar energy after learning her son had asthma.  She invented ways to bring solar energy into everyday living, beginning to prototype an inflatable solar light in 2008. In 2010, following the  Haiti earthquake, Alice shared her solar technology research with her class of design students to create a solar light solution that could be used immediately in disaster relief situations. This led to Alice designing the SolarPuff in 2011, based on origami techniques to create a cube that inflates on its own, without the requirement to be inflated by mouth, which can pass on germs. In 2015 she launched a company Solar Design and crowdfunded the SolarPuff, raising nearly half a million dollars. Her invention has been featured in Hillary Clinton's docuseries, "Gutsy," on Apple TV+ and is currently undergoing clinical trials. In 2022 she was voted Forbes impact 50/50 a list dedicated to spotlighting women over the age of 50 who are breaking age and gender norms across every sector of business, politics, the sciences, and society. And finally, in the same year, she was voted one of Marie Claire’s most influential women. 

In the conversation we examine: 

· Background on Alice and her history of architecture

· Inception story of Solight – The revelation and need Alice saw

· The challenges in setting Solight up as a business

· Spectrum of emotions Alice has been through

· Some of the media attention Solight has received

· Alice’s opportunity to visit Ukraine

· The current projects Alice has got on

· What Alice has learned through the process of scaling her business

· Final thoughts and take-home messages from Alice.



Solight can be found here: https://solight-design.com/products/solar-lantern-light-sensor-solarpuff

Alice Chun can be found here: https://www.forbes.com/profile/alice-min-soo-chun/?sh=52d764664255

My thanks to Alice for a fascinating and engaging interview. 

This is the second part of the lecture series on building effective teams and dealing with difficult people. The concepts taught here involve models of teamwork (Action centred Leadership, the five dysfunctions of a team), trust - both as a concept and a pre-requisite, culture, homeostatic teams, and finally tools and techniques for fostering good teamwork.

In the second half of the podcast, we examine dealing with difficult people from the perspective of understanding the triggers, root cause analysis, rapport building, the energy investment model, the ELCR framework, self-awareness, humility, and insight. Some of the resources and models can be found here:

Energy investment model: https://careerresilience.wordpress.com/2021/06/03/how-are-you-investing-your-energy-in-times-of-change/

Action Centred Leadership: https://www.businessballs.com/leadership-styles/action-centred-leadership-john-adair/

The Five Dysfunctions of a team: https://tomorrowsleadership.nl/how-to-overcome-the-5-dysfunctions-of-virtual-teams/

Empathic communication: https://hbr.org/2022/08/4-ways-to-communicate-with-more-empathy

I hope you get something from this episode that you can use either within clinical practice or within general work-based situations. I'm always keen for feedback on sessions, please feel free to reach out to me at eoinwalker@hotmail.com - please also rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. This episode will be aired across the Pre-hospital Care Podcast and Restore Podcast platforms.

Many thanks,

Eoin

In this episode, I am talking with Seth Gillihan on his new book 'Mindful Cognitive Behavioural Therapy'. Seth is a clinical psychologist, best-selling author, podcast host, and creator of the Think Act Be Online School. He specializes in mindful cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Seth is no stranger to the podcast and joined me in an earlier episode speaking on ‘The CBT Deck: 101 Practices to Improve Thoughts, Be in the Moment & Take Action in Your Life'.

In this conversation we dig into the origins of his new book; Mindful Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the new level of vulnerability that he displays through his work, the Think, Act, Be model of living, mindfulness-centred CBT, the anatomy of CBT, and much more. Subjects we explore in the episode include:


His underlying reason for writing the book. 
The vulnerable & personal pivot – very personal narrative (his illness) compared to his other work
Connecting with yourself – Think, Act, Be
The medical model and reaching beyond - Mindfulness-centred CBT
Goal setting - importance and relevance to achieving goals  
The Anatomy of CBT: Acceptance, Behavioural leverage, consistency, micro-tasking, present-focused awareness.
The importance of accessing inner self-talk & coming home to yourself.
Final thoughts and take-home messages from Seth

The book can be found here and is an excellent read: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindful-Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy-Healing/dp/1399805363

He also runs the 'Think, Act, Be' podcast that can be found here: https://sethgillihan.com/podcasts/

Please enjoy this episode with a friend and fellow podcaster. 

In this episode, I examine the art of active listening. It is a slightly different episode and one of a number to come where I give a series of lectures. In this episode I wanted to do two things:

1. Build awareness of the factors that affect our listening ability.

2. Build and create conditions that can produce good listening habits.

One of the main problems is caused by the fact that we think much faster than we talk. The average rate of speech for most of us is around 125 words per minute. In contrast, we process and think at about 800 words a minute. This is a fundamental mismatch that can cause a deficit in receiving information. The human brain is made up of more than 13 billion cells and operates in such a complicated but efficient manner that it makes any comparison to computers seem insignificant. It might seem logical to slow down our thinking when we listen so as to coincide with the 125-word-per-minute speech rate, but slowing down thought processes seems to be a very difficult thing to do. When we listen, therefore, we continue thinking at high speed while the spoken words arrive at low speed. In the act of listening, the differential between thinking and speaking rates means that our brain works with hundreds of words in addition to those that we hear, assembling thoughts other than those spoken to us. The latency of this mismatch is often taken up by internal dialogue rather than integration of the spoken, but more importantly, inferred meaning behind words. In this episode I examine:

The definition of active listening.  

The 'classic' example - one which we all fall prey to.  

The anatomy of the received message. 

The why and what of ‘Active Listening. 

Triple-A listening (what triple-A listening actually is).  

Kinesthetics of listening – what it feels like to be heard amongst other aspects.  

Models of active listening: Four ears of communication, the communication triangle.  

The power of silence 

The quality of listening - The hierarchy of active listening  

Chunking information as an adjunct to active listening  

Closed loop communication  

The power of agreement



Please let me know what you think of the content at eoinwalker@hotmail.com and also feel free to recommend future topics. Please also feel free to rate and review the podcast and I always welcome feedback.

In this episode, I will be speaking with Sarah on her reflections on growing up in Canada and is now based in Ohio in the US. Sarah suffered from abuse growing up as a child and what we wanted to do was to unpack her narrative, how it affected her, how she has coped and dealt with it, and indeed how she frames it now as an adult. I wanted to have this chat with Sarah as one of the primal mandates of this podcast is to have real and vulnerable discussions that can both help and reframe others’ perspectives of adversity and navigate through the adversity of abuse. 

**Trigger warning** In this episode we touch on Sarah's recollections of abuse as a child, please be mindful that it contains some memories and depictions that might be difficult to hear. In the conversation we touch on a number of themes:

· The challenges that Sarah experienced growing up and the abuse, and how it shaped her youth.

· The spectrum of emotions that it brought with it. 

· Navigating the stress physically and mentally retrospectively.

· The bleed-over into relationships and how it affected them, particularly her husband. 

· Some of the methods of organic coping mechanisms and whether they worked or not.

· Counselling/therapy sessions that Sarah had. 

· Forgiveness and the daily practice of forgiveness. 

· What Sarah has learned through the whole process. 

· Final thoughts and take-home messages from Sarah



If this episode resonated with you or a family member, there are a number of services that you can reach out to: 

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/?gclid=CjwKCAjwtKmaBhBMEiwAyINuwGQKPfqOui9bRJZtlMsdp2clhr08aQ0hYA-Gr2xRIUY0nEoOAOTpDBoCFKkQAvD_BwE

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/talking-therapy-and-counselling/how-to-find-a-therapist/

https://www.kooth.com/



My thanks to Sarah for opening up and being prepared to have a truly honest and vulnerable conversation.