Psychology to Live By

Dr. Chris Stevens
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  • Mental Health
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Living well can seem elusive. We strive for a life of joy and meaning, but it can feel like we are navigating the world blindfolded with a hand tied behind our back. This podcast is meant to equip you with tools to thrive, focusing on nurturing your mental health, enabling healthy relationships, and unlocking your creativity to truly live well.

  1. Jun 8

    Music, Creativity & Mental Health: Jake Isaac - Roundtable

    A wonderful podcast with musician Jake Isaac led to an equally wonderful roundtable with my friends from Nettwerk Music. We began with a discussion of creativity as communal experience. This led to the insight that this is the opposite of being precious or needing to be validated. Rather, music is a driving for connection and, for Jake Isaac, a quintessentially sacred experience. We also discussed suffering as a road to deep learning - which then morphed into a conversation about wellbeing and contentment as the natural consequence of being attuned to reality. Finally, we explored the live environment, jamming, improvising and creative interaction and concluded it is a type of public conversation. When done authentically, it converys a unique expressiveness and brings about a miracle of communication: that I am not alone in my experience. This reflects Isaac’s philosophical ground in ‘Ubuntu’: ‘I am because we are’.

    32 min

  2. May 25

    Mark Murphy: The Five Critical Roles You Need to Build a Winning Team

    This is a deep dive into the dynamics of winning teams. Mark Murphy's research has identified five key team roles: Director, Achiever, Stabilizer, Harmonizer & Trailblazer. Our discusion ranged widely from psychological safety, to comparative advantage, to reciprocal expertise affirmation. This podcast is essential for anyone who manages or who participates in teams. There is also a deep practicality in Mark's approach to overcoming common social and cognitive biases in teams including herding, groupthink, confirmation bias, personality dynamics and power differentials.

    57 min

  3. May 25

    Mark Murphy: The Five Critical Roles You Need to Build a Winning Team - Roundtable

    With two senior HR Practitioners and a CEO, I had real expertise  for this particular roundtable discussion of the Mark Murphy podcast discussing his book ‘Team Players: The Five Critical Roles You Need to Build Winning Team’.  We dug deep into the concept of Psychological Safety and how this allows for a diversity of roles, for robust discussion, for curiosity and tough questions and for creative outcomes. This led to a discussion of how to apply the idea of the 5 roles in decisions for hiring - and how  to talk with teams and those on interview panels well before new hires about what roles they actually need. This was to avoid the ‘hiring like me’ tendency to clone oneself in hiring decisions. Comparative advantage was seen as a crucial concept for legacy and succession, with founders/CEOs etc needing to hand over key functions and bring people through well before they themselves are due to leave. Another deep conversation was around setting objectives and key results, and the discussion landed on the need to frame these in terms of peoples’ natural role types.

    52 min

  4. May 11

    Music, Creativity, and Mental Health: Six Missing - Roundtable

    I found this roundtable discussion of the 6 Missing podcast to be both delightful and thought-provoking. First, we discussed the idea of an addictive personality and how we can convert such impulses into 'useful addictions'. We also agreed how 'comforting' TJ Dumser is as a person as reflected by his insights, vocal tone and general demeanour. We explored the idea of ‘state dependent cognition’, which led to a discussion of the shift in psychology to include somatic or body-based therapies. A quite profound discussion followed about accepting our relative insignificance and how this takes a self-imposed weight off our shoulders. We agreed that a new insight was that ambient music doesn’t so much dictate what emotions we are to feel, but allows us to uncover what's there and finally, we explored how TJ’s music is a type of mindfulness practice.

    37 min

  5. Apr 27

    Chloe Carmichael: Can I Say That? - Roundtable

    Not surprisingly, the podcast with Chloe Carmichael ('Can I Say That?') stimuated a very spirited and thoughtul roundtable discussion. Topics discussed included: the importance of finding a common humanity with people whose views we strongly disagree with; how technology amplifies our differences and deeply reinforces more and more extreme ideas; how our own authenticity and integrity is restored when we do speak up; the talking cure - which allows us to articulate that which ails us; the devestating impacts of self-censorship and self-suppression; the limits of free speach, especially speech inciting violence and intended harm; the deep need to continuously have the debate and conversation about protecting free speech for everyone.

    36 min

  6. Apr 27

    Chloe Carmichael: Can I Say That?

    This podcast discusses Chloe Carmichael's book: 'Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly'. Chloe explains how to unlock the mental health benefits of free speech. We also discussed the neagtive side of thought and speech suppression: we explored secondary gain, especially the growing prevalence of victimhood. We also explored the link to bullying, poor mental helath and lowered resilience. More positively, we discussed not only how free speech unlocks creativity and growth, but is also a key foundaiton for civic virtue and civic health.

    49 min

  7. Apr 13

    Music, Creativity & Mental Health: Jake Isaac

    This Music, Creativity & Mental Health podcast is with Jake Isaac, who is a Manchester-based, multi-instrumentalist with a distinctive style as a singer-songwriter fusing soul, jazz and rock. He’s had a stellar career having worked with and supported a diverse range of artists from Sting, India Arie, Ella Eyre, Paloma Faith, Lake Street Dive, Joan As Police Woman, Angus and Julia Stone, Tori Kelly and Elton John. This was a really stimulating discussion and you’ll see what a delightful, gentle and thoughtful man Jake is. Themes in this conversation included: the central role of one’s ‘internal antenna’ or intuition in the creative process; how Jake’s managed a happy medium in terms of family and wellbeing, not compromising his music and learning how to be content with what he has; his advice to musicians to be true to their creative identity, not just to copy others; the spiritual and sacred aspects of music; the role of highs and lows, including suffering in making art authentic and relevant; the centrality of the African philosophy of Ubuntu or ‘I am because we are’ in Jake’s whole approach; and his advice to young artists to both diversify and to get enough rest to sustain and stimulate creativity. It was a wonderfully diverse and well-humoured conversation, and I hope you love it too.

    49 min

  8. Mar 30

    Psycholytic Ketamine Therapy: Roundtable

    The Sharon Niv podcast on psycholytic ketamine therapy stimulated a deep andvibrant roundtable discussion. We began by exploringg state-dependnet memory - highlighting the fully embodied (cogntiive, motivational, emotional, physiological) nature of memory and the consequent link to somatic-based therapies. We briefly discussed the positive implications of an adffordable and readily available means of accelerating psychological growth. We then dug deep on neuroplasticity (the way the brain restuctures itself to instantiate change). This appears to be the primary action of ketamine, and paired with intentional activity (therapy, journaling, intriospection), this creates very promising outcomes with psycholytic ketamine dosing. We then went broader into the notion of habits and 'loops' being more amenable to intentional change, extending the efficacy beyond therapy to more everyday challenges. Finally, we discussed the centrality of receptivity and openneess in providing the user with a sense of agency and psychological safety.

    32 min
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About

Living well can seem elusive. We strive for a life of joy and meaning, but it can feel like we are navigating the world blindfolded with a hand tied behind our back. This podcast is meant to equip you with tools to thrive, focusing on nurturing your mental health, enabling healthy relationships, and unlocking your creativity to truly live well.

Information

  • Creator
    Dr. Chris Stevens
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    123
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Dr. Chris Stevens
  • Show Website
    Psychology to Live By

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