Vidya By Pia & Bart

In this episode of the Vidya podcast we establish some defining characteristics of community, the need for community culture and purpose, the importance of acceptance of differences, the importance of size (Dunbar number) and the importance of regular gathering. We discuss the increasing societal needs for people to belong to community, and we discuss the distinctions between community and other groups such as families, networks, friends, church or online groups.

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss experience. After a busy week full of client work, we ended the week flying in a wind tunnel and visiting a lovely wine bar, and in between those two experiences we recorded this episode of the podcast. This is another episode where one of us (Pia) had a vague idea what we would be talking about and the other (Bart) had absolutely no idea. We talk about the importance of having new experiences, experimenting with uncomfortable feelings and fear when trying new things, and the essential role of reflection and debriefing after an experience to enhance the learning. We define internal and group coherence, how we can increase coherence through different types of experiences and why and how this can help us have more meaningful dialogues.

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss routines. We discuss why routines are important in life, the importance of thinking a little deeper about why you would have certain routines and the importance of deliberate living through the use of routines. We also discuss the risks of having too much routine in life, for example life could become too structured, rigid or even boring. We define routines as those activities in life we like to do more or less of, and by measuring or logging somewhere how many times we do something (e.g. per week, month or year) we can positively influence our happiness, success and wellbeing. We suggest some ways to take the insights from today’s podcast episode forward: Start small and experiment.

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we have invited our dear friend Jenny Tiger to join us in our dialogue and we discuss her chosen topic, success. We define success, what does it mean, how does it relate to impact, happiness and meaning. We discuss the different areas of life where we can feel successful, in our private lives (for example when dealing with our kids), or in our work lives (for example seeing the success in our clients). We discuss the different scales of success/impact, for example being successful in one’s own personal growth, or with one person or a small group versus being able to impact thousands, and what this means to us. We talk about what gets in the way of success, we discuss how we can find meaning and success even in extremely harsh circumstances. As always, we give some tips on how to apply some of what we discuss today.

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss the importance of letting go and how letting go can give us peace and freedom and increase our happiness. First, we discuss the importance of letting go of control and surrendering to life. Then we talk about letting go of limiting beliefs, beliefs that do not serve us anymore and potentially could be holding us back. Next, we discuss planning and how letting go of planning can open us up for spontaneity and adventure. Finally, we discuss letting go of stuff, and how a minimalism mindset and the occasional decluttering process can free our minds as well as our apartments. We give many personal examples of what we can let go of in our lives and give some hints and tips on what listeners could practice letting go of.

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss reflection and the importance of it in the learning process. This is probably the most personal episode we have recorded to date, talking through examples of our own reflections and the essential role this process has in our lives. We discuss different types of reflections, and the different functions reflection can have in the learning and personal growth process. We have a dialogue around the why, what, when and how of reflection and during the dialogue we touch on topics of previous episodes (such as dialogue and setting intentions), and future episodes (self-acceptance, working with emotions, personality). We also give some ideas on what listeners can do to make time and space for reflection in their own daily lives.

In this episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss dialogue, which is one of the main reasons we started this whole podcast series. We define dialogue as a specific type of conversational method where ideas and opinions are exchanged, without trying to convince each other of each other’s rights or wrongs, with the objective to collectively learn, reflect and come to new insights. We discuss how people can use the method of meaningful dialogue much more in every day settings, be it work meetings, social gatherings, or any other setting where people come together and communicate. We discuss principles of dialogue, such as curiosity, deep listening, presence, surrender to the process and ‘no need to think’ and we give listeners some tips and examples on how to use dialogue in daily lives.

In this fifth episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss presence, which we define as being in the here and now, with single-minded concentration, focus on one particular activity, not being distracted, not being lost in thought, not resenting the past or worrying about the future. We discuss the many health & wellbeing, social and professional benefits of being present. We argue that practicing presence is the single most important tool to ensure that we are fully alive and present to all that life has to give us. We discuss the different ways to practice presence, giving examples of tools and techniques to help us to get stronger at the practice of being present. We also suggest some practical next steps listeners may take after listening to this episode of the podcast.

In this fourth episode of the Vidya podcast, we talk about decompression. We all need to decompress from our busy lives once every so often, allowing our bodies and minds to pause and take some time to reflect and integrate experiences, allowing our shadows to catch up with us. We discuss in this podcast the different activities we may use to decompress. We discuss sleep, solitude, slow travel, journaling, decluttering and the importance of advanced planning: If we don’t plan to pause it won’t happen. We give many examples from our own lives and from working with our clients and we suggest some practical next steps listeners may take after listening to this episode of the podcast.

In this third episode of the Vidya podcast, we talk about personal values. We define values as all in life that is truly important to us. We discuss why it’s important to know our personal values and to reflect on the alignments and misalignments between our values and our actions and behaviours in life. Next, we discuss how we can go about finding out what our values are. We discuss what questions to work with in the space of personal values. As in previous episodes we give examples from our own lives and from working with our clients and we suggest some practical next steps listeners may take after listening to this episode of the podcast

In this second episode of the Vidya podcast, we discuss the importance of setting intentions. We discuss the important distinction between goals and intentions, the relation between intention, attention and energy, some types of intentions and some potential timeframes for intentions. We also get into the importance of setting intentions to achieve ’the unknown’, we introduce the concept of "mind movie” and we discuss the importance of the subconscious mind in reaching our wildest dreams. We also suggest some practical next steps listeners may take after listening to this episode of the podcast.

In this first episode, we discuss the concept of learning enemies, which we define as anything that gets in the way of personal and organisational learning, change and growth. We argue that leaders should know their learning enemies so that they can challenge them, for their own benefit and for the benefit of their teams and organisations. We describe several common learning enemies found in the business world, illustrate these with examples from our leadership & culture consulting practice and suggest some immediate next steps listeners may take after listening to this podcast.