Image of author of Path to Purpose William Damon

William 'Bill' Damon – Crafting Purpose and Resilience

In this episode, we sit down with William ‘Bill’ Damon, a leading expert on adolescence and author of *The Path to Purpose*, to explore the vital role of purpose in shaping resilient and fulfilled lives. Bill shares insights from his extensive research, including collaborations with Howard Gardner and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and discusses how purpose influences various aspects of lifeā€”family, education, and work. He also reflects on his personal journey, offering practical advice for anyone interested in fostering a sense of purpose in themselves or others. This conversation is a must-listen for parents, educators, and mentors alike.

Ellen Langer Innovation Show Aidan McCullen

Ellen Langer – The Mindful Body Part 1

An Interview with Ellen Langer: The Power of Mindfulness in Health and Life. Ellen Langer was the first woman to be tenured in psychology at Harvard. Known worldwide as the mother of mindfulness and the mother of Positive Psychology

Trails Less Travelled: Innovation Lessons from former CEO and Chairman of Pitney Bowes, Michael Critelli Part 1

In this episode of ‘The Innovation Show,’ host Aidan McCullen sits down with the former chairman and CEO of Pitney Bowes, Michael Critelli.

Through a deep dive into Critelliā€™s career, we explore his penchant for the road less traveled, his transformative leadership at Pitney Bowes, and his insights on innovation, strategy, and foresight. From humble beginnings to leading a staple communications company through times of intense change, including the internet era, 9/11, and the recession, Critelli shares lessons on valuing potential over qualifications, listening to dissent, and the importance of constant adaptation in business and life.

00:00 Early Career and Joining Pitney Bowes

01:40 Climbing the Ladder: From Legal to Leadership

04:28 Reinventing Pitney Bowes: A Tale of Transformative Change

07:09 Embracing Agile Strategy: Lessons from the Front Lines

13:51 The Power of Listening and Adapting in Leadership

42:39 The Importance of Vision and Courage in Decision-MakingĀ 

44:47 Fostering a Culture of Continuous Learning and Innovation

Private Lawns, Planning: Protection or Growth

The ‘private lawn’ is the ability to have the time and space to plan, think and grow. For some of us, daily survival consumes all our time and energy, leaving no room for strategic thinking or planning. Few organisations carve out the time to plan, strategise and think about long-term goals and objectives.

As business leaders, creating an environment where everyone can access their ‘private lawn’ – a space for growth, planning, and forward-thinking is crucial. However, we must also plan by priority.

Mark Solms – The Hidden Spring Part 8: A Predictive Hierarchy

It is a pleasure to welcome the author of The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness, Mark Solms. In this episode, we talk about the brain’s prediction system.

Ā 

00:00:00.000 Introduction and Overview of the Chapter
00:03:30.388 Establishment of the Meteorology Department
00:11:59.546 The Fundamental Task: Minimizing Free Energy
00:15:43.370 Feelings: Connecting Us to Our Ancestors
00:19:36.790 Neglecting the inter-receptive and extra-receptive in cognitive science
00:22:30.002 The brain’s attempt to contain environmental effects on the organism
00:31:32.675 Innate Predictions: Fear and Instinctual Behaviors
00:34:19.723 The Evolution of Responses and Predictive Model Complexification
00:42:59.118 The Brain: Ones and Zeroes, Predictions and Errors
00:54:18.834 The Brain as an Organization
00:59:57.338 Emotional Needs and Scripts

A scales of justice

The Homeostatic Organisation/ Organism

Homeostasis refers to the maintenance of relatively constant internal conditions in an organism. For example, we maintain an average body temperature of about 98.6Ā°F (37Ā°C). In a cold environment, we shiver to return to our ideal body temperature. We fan ourselves or find other means to restore homeostasis in a warm climate. This delicate balance within biological systems is the hotbed of existence.

Mark Solms

Mark Solms – The Hidden Spring Part 6: The P.A.G.

It is a pleasure to welcome the author of The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness, Mark Solms.

In this episode, we will discuss questions such as where does arousal come from anatomically and how does it arise physiologically? And the central question of today is where the seemingly magical shift from automatic reflex to volitional feeling occurs. Today, we will share some terms like synaptic transmission, reuptake, post-synaptic modulation and the role of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, and we will also explain the role of the PAG, the periaqueductal grey.

Mark Solms

Mark Solms – The Hidden Spring Part 4: Feelings 1

Feelings are difficult to research because they are inherently subjective, but If we exclude feelings from our account of the brain, we will never understand how it works. You tell us, to a fantastic degree, neuroscientists searching for an explanation of consciousness have ignored feelings. Mark Solms takes us on an exploration of Feelings and te work of his friend and collaborator, Jaak Panksepp.

Hire For Neurosignature, Train for Skill_ The Brain is Like a Waterbed-2

Hire For Neurosignature, Train for Skill: The Brain is Like a Waterbed

Hire For Neurosignature, Train for Skill: The Brain is Like a Waterbed. Audio version of our popular article.

Mark Solms The Hidden Spring The Cortical Fallacy

Mark Solms – The Hidden Spring Part 3: The Cortical Fallacy

In The Hidden Spring, our guest Mark Solms does not dive too deeply into Karl Fristonā€™s mathematics. As you will discover, he summarises its implications, describing Fristonā€™s free energy as a quantifiable measure of how a system models the world and how it behaves. This notion leads to a very different idea of consciousness from Descartesā€™s reason-centric version that set up the puzzling dualism of ā€œmindā€ and ā€œmatterā€, a la Damasio’s Descartes Error. Mark explores the ā€œcortical fallacy,ā€ which refers to his view that neuroscientists who have argued that the ā€œseat of consciousnessā€ is in the cortex are wrong. Recent neuroscience has shed light on where this is.

As Mark points out, damage to just two cubic millimetres of the upper brainstem will ā€œobliterate all consciousness.ā€

So where does it “Spring” from?

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