Podcasts about westernised

I hear some people say translating terms like “nemawashi” into English is difficult.  Really?  I always thought it was one of the easier ones.  Let's just call it “groundwork”.  In fact, that is a very accurate description ,from a number of different angles.  Japanese gardeners are superstars.  There is limited flat space in this country, so over centuries gardeners have worked out you need to move the trees you want, to where you want them.  They prefer this approach to just waiting thirty years for them to turn out the preferred way.  It is not unusual today to see a huge tree on the back of a big truck ,being moved from one location to another and presto instant garden.  The roots of that massive tree will be wrapped up in cloth to protect them.  That wrapping process is called “nemawashi”.  In business, it means being well prepared for the business meeting – doing the ground work beforehand. In a Western context being well prepared for the meeting will mean assembling all the data and analysis in order to make an impassioned plea for your idea or suggestion, to be accepted by the big bosses.  We all get to the meeting, listen to the different approaches and we make a decision in that meeting.  What could be more time efficient and logical?  They never do it that way in Japan. Concepts of time efficiency differ for a start and throwing massive amounts of overtime at a problem is not problem in Japan.  The meeting is also a ceremony, because the decision has already been arrived at beforehand and the gathering is just to formalise the outcome.  This happens in the West too.  Whenever you see global leaders delivering their joint statements or signing agreements,  they didn't arrive at the wording during the meeting. That was all worked out by their minions beforehand, over many hours of debate, negotiation and discussion.  The TV cameras just capture the big guys and gals inking the document, after all the “groundwork” has been completed. I was talking with a Western businessman recently and he was relating how hard it was to get the team behind his ideas.  The issue was, he was trying to get it all agreed to, at the key meeting and hadn't invested the time to do the groundwork.  What he needed to do was go to see all the key people, the influencers, the stakeholders with a vested interest and explain the idea. Get their input and agreement and then rinse and repeat with the rest of them.  By the time the meeting happens, everyone will recognise parts of their preferences and ideas in the submission.  Agreement flows easily in these cases. In sales, we will probably not have direct access to all of the decision makers, influencers and stakeholders.  Our primary contact has to become our champion for sheparding the agreement through the internal nemawashi process.  Asking them directly who are these hidden decision makers is insulting.  It says, you are a nobody, but I still need your help.  We need to be more considerate of their “face” and ask in a way that enhances their face. Once we have established the trust, have uncovered their needs, shown we can help and have dealt with any hesitations they may have, we are ready to marshal our forces for the final push through to a “yes” to the sale.  We explain, we understand that many people will be interested to know about this change in the delivery of product or services.  We also know that they will be tasked to explain it to others who cannot join our meetings.  We ask how can we help them?  This is a rhetorical question because we want to get into the detail of who are the players.  So we go straight into asking who do they think would have the most concern about the change and why they would be concerned?  We keep repeating this process until we have fleshed out the people who will have the most interest in saying “no”.  The next stage is to arm our champion with the tools to deal with the pushback.  We try to understand the concerns and then arrive at creative ways of overcoming those concerns.  This is what we mean by nemawashi or ground work.  Is it time consuming – yes!  Do we have to invest the extra time – yes!  There is an internal  logic to the way decisions are made in Japan.  There is no point railing about how the Japanese business decision making process should be Westernised, so it is more familiar for us.  That is never going to happen, so we need to be better and more flexible to understand the system and then become a master of influence within it.  We need to become the nemawashi maestro!  

This episode lands at a crucial point of religiopolitical history, as we talk about all things New Apostolic Reformation. Academic Jon Sawyer joins me as we talk about some juicy, heavy hitting topics - conspiratorial demonology, weaponisation of testimony culture, self-invisible LGBT Christians, sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts, load language inside Evangelicalism, white supremacy and indoctrination techniques used in Christian Nationalism. I mean...that about covers whats wrong in the world, doesn't it?  You really should look at the rest of Jon's work at https://www.jonsawyer.org/ and of course his contribution to Dr Lucas Wilsons, book "Shame Sex Attraction." (Find it here https://amzn.asia/d/5Et3wfT)  Its a vital time in history to be informed, especially if you are in a Westernised nation where the backlash against progress, and the decrying of "Wokeism" (ie. Empathy and respect for others) threatens a Christian Nationalist uprising masked as resurging religiopolitial conservatism. This episode, Blake Chastains episode (and book), and Lukes episode (and book) need to be top of your to-listen lists. And I'm not often demanding like that. 

What's it really like in passive house?Today, you are going to find out.In this first episode, I let passive house speak for itself through the experience of 5 passive house owners from different climate zones around Australia.Most of them are home owners, but my final guest is from a commercial building, because passive house delivers incredible benefits for all building types, not just houses!In today's episode, my 5 guests explainwhat made them decide to build a passive house,their concerns before they started,what they now love most about their passive house, andhow it has affected their lifestyle.The interviews bring to light surprising information and sweep away all misconceptions and scepticism.One thing to note: You'll hear in the interviews that some guests live in Passive Houses, and some live in Passive House style high performance homes. The high performance homes incorporate all the components, testing and outcomes of a Passive House, but have not sought formal certification. You'll find out more about the pros and cons of formal certification in Episode 4 with the Passive House consultant and Certifier Luc Plowman from Detail GreenIf you're an Australian Architect you can claim your formal CPD hours for these podcasts. Jump on to the Renovation Collaborative website for more information. KEY POINTS SUMMARYTo conclude, I want to draw your attention to six main points. 1. Passive House delivers genuine health and comfort benefits. The temperature is always stable and pleasant. It's quiet and calm inside the house. There's no mould and the filtered air keeps dust, dirt and pollen and all other pollutants out of the house.2. It's low maintenance. Because the windows can stay shut, the dirt and dust build up slower and there are no insects and spiders, so there's a lot less cleaning. The bathrooms can stay dry and fresh and your towels are dry within a few hours.3. You can still connect with the outside like any typical home. You can open the windows whenever the weather is comfortable outside, or just to hear the birds sing, feel a breeze or talk to the neighbours.4. Passive Houses require a specialised system to duct filtered outdoor air throughout the house. This is called a HRV or an ERV depending on your climate zone. It's silent and you can't feel it. The air is just trickling out at the ceiling level. You also need some air conditioning to fine tune the temperature to a small degree or for a minimum amount of time. You're not running an air conditioning unit on full for hours at a time.5. There are substantial energy use and running cost savings. The HRV or ERV energy use is negligible at about 80 watts, so if you had to compare that to something, it's probably like a computer monitor. Savings for a large home are in the thousands of dollars a year.6. The Australian National Construction Code Energy requirements for houses would have to be some of the lowest in the Westernised world. All my guests could not understand why anyone in the industry could turn their back on the science and evidence of Passive House and continue to build in this outdated way.If you'd like to see some more information about the houses that we've talked about today and the Bob Marshman commercial building, you can find YouTube video links below. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS00:00:00 IntroductionResidential...

It's Women's Health Week and endocrinologist, Dr Megan Ogilvie is with us and flipping the script on menopause. Megan draws from other cultures and looks at menopause through a positive lens. A must-listen for all women that will leave you feeling aspired! We cover: What is menopause? And what is “normal” for women? How do you think women should view this time? What does this time really mean? Menopause myths Menopause and belly fat, why? One-liners you don't want to miss:“In the 1800s life expectancy was about 45-50 years, we all died of our postpartum haemorrhage having our eighth baby. In 2024, life expectancy for women is about 85 so we can all expect very reasonably to live about 1/3 of our lifetimes in our postmenopausal years.” “Increasingly, science is showing us that this midlife time that is often the menopausal time for women, is a real window of opportunity to shape their health and wellbeing and therefore quality of life over their postmenopausal years.” “All of this talk around menopause which is so vast now is mostly good, but it's a very negative Westernised narrative out there at the moment. It's all about you'll get this symptom, this symptom and this symptom then you get old and you become invisible. All tied up with Western ideas of ageing.”Referenceshttps://www.menopause.org.au/health-infohttps://erhassociates.co.nz/curated-resources

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Dr. Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club can tell us about the evident woes of global order today. In interrogating how Indian diplomats learned to live under a Westernised world order, it also offers a sociologically grounded reading of what might happen in spaces like India as the world transitions past Western domination. An awkward balancing act animates the order-making of India's cosmopolitan diplomats: despite a genuine desire to strive toward a postcolonial world founded on diversity, difference, and the symbolic representation of a global subaltern, there is a strong sense of a lingering caricature-like notion of a white, European-dominated homogenous club, to which Indian diplomats feel a deep-rooted and colonially embedded desire to belong. Cosmopolitanism operates inside this balancing act not as an international ethic upholding an equal, tolerant, or liberal global order, but rather as an elite aesthetic which presumes cultural compliance, diplomatic accommodation, and social assimilation into Western mores. Based on 85 interviews with Indian diplomats, politicians, and foreign policy experts, as well as archival work in New Delhi, the book asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club tells us about the social hierarchies of race, class, religion, gender, and caste under global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Dr. Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club can tell us about the evident woes of global order today. In interrogating how Indian diplomats learned to live under a Westernised world order, it also offers a sociologically grounded reading of what might happen in spaces like India as the world transitions past Western domination. An awkward balancing act animates the order-making of India's cosmopolitan diplomats: despite a genuine desire to strive toward a postcolonial world founded on diversity, difference, and the symbolic representation of a global subaltern, there is a strong sense of a lingering caricature-like notion of a white, European-dominated homogenous club, to which Indian diplomats feel a deep-rooted and colonially embedded desire to belong. Cosmopolitanism operates inside this balancing act not as an international ethic upholding an equal, tolerant, or liberal global order, but rather as an elite aesthetic which presumes cultural compliance, diplomatic accommodation, and social assimilation into Western mores. Based on 85 interviews with Indian diplomats, politicians, and foreign policy experts, as well as archival work in New Delhi, the book asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club tells us about the social hierarchies of race, class, religion, gender, and caste under global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Dr. Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club can tell us about the evident woes of global order today. In interrogating how Indian diplomats learned to live under a Westernised world order, it also offers a sociologically grounded reading of what might happen in spaces like India as the world transitions past Western domination. An awkward balancing act animates the order-making of India's cosmopolitan diplomats: despite a genuine desire to strive toward a postcolonial world founded on diversity, difference, and the symbolic representation of a global subaltern, there is a strong sense of a lingering caricature-like notion of a white, European-dominated homogenous club, to which Indian diplomats feel a deep-rooted and colonially embedded desire to belong. Cosmopolitanism operates inside this balancing act not as an international ethic upholding an equal, tolerant, or liberal global order, but rather as an elite aesthetic which presumes cultural compliance, diplomatic accommodation, and social assimilation into Western mores. Based on 85 interviews with Indian diplomats, politicians, and foreign policy experts, as well as archival work in New Delhi, the book asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club tells us about the social hierarchies of race, class, religion, gender, and caste under global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Dr. Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club can tell us about the evident woes of global order today. In interrogating how Indian diplomats learned to live under a Westernised world order, it also offers a sociologically grounded reading of what might happen in spaces like India as the world transitions past Western domination. An awkward balancing act animates the order-making of India's cosmopolitan diplomats: despite a genuine desire to strive toward a postcolonial world founded on diversity, difference, and the symbolic representation of a global subaltern, there is a strong sense of a lingering caricature-like notion of a white, European-dominated homogenous club, to which Indian diplomats feel a deep-rooted and colonially embedded desire to belong. Cosmopolitanism operates inside this balancing act not as an international ethic upholding an equal, tolerant, or liberal global order, but rather as an elite aesthetic which presumes cultural compliance, diplomatic accommodation, and social assimilation into Western mores. Based on 85 interviews with Indian diplomats, politicians, and foreign policy experts, as well as archival work in New Delhi, the book asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club tells us about the social hierarchies of race, class, religion, gender, and caste under global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Dr. Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club can tell us about the evident woes of global order today. In interrogating how Indian diplomats learned to live under a Westernised world order, it also offers a sociologically grounded reading of what might happen in spaces like India as the world transitions past Western domination. An awkward balancing act animates the order-making of India's cosmopolitan diplomats: despite a genuine desire to strive toward a postcolonial world founded on diversity, difference, and the symbolic representation of a global subaltern, there is a strong sense of a lingering caricature-like notion of a white, European-dominated homogenous club, to which Indian diplomats feel a deep-rooted and colonially embedded desire to belong. Cosmopolitanism operates inside this balancing act not as an international ethic upholding an equal, tolerant, or liberal global order, but rather as an elite aesthetic which presumes cultural compliance, diplomatic accommodation, and social assimilation into Western mores. Based on 85 interviews with Indian diplomats, politicians, and foreign policy experts, as well as archival work in New Delhi, the book asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club tells us about the social hierarchies of race, class, religion, gender, and caste under global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Dr. Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club can tell us about the evident woes of global order today. In interrogating how Indian diplomats learned to live under a Westernised world order, it also offers a sociologically grounded reading of what might happen in spaces like India as the world transitions past Western domination. An awkward balancing act animates the order-making of India's cosmopolitan diplomats: despite a genuine desire to strive toward a postcolonial world founded on diversity, difference, and the symbolic representation of a global subaltern, there is a strong sense of a lingering caricature-like notion of a white, European-dominated homogenous club, to which Indian diplomats feel a deep-rooted and colonially embedded desire to belong. Cosmopolitanism operates inside this balancing act not as an international ethic upholding an equal, tolerant, or liberal global order, but rather as an elite aesthetic which presumes cultural compliance, diplomatic accommodation, and social assimilation into Western mores. Based on 85 interviews with Indian diplomats, politicians, and foreign policy experts, as well as archival work in New Delhi, the book asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club tells us about the social hierarchies of race, class, religion, gender, and caste under global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Dr. Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club can tell us about the evident woes of global order today. In interrogating how Indian diplomats learned to live under a Westernised world order, it also offers a sociologically grounded reading of what might happen in spaces like India as the world transitions past Western domination. An awkward balancing act animates the order-making of India's cosmopolitan diplomats: despite a genuine desire to strive toward a postcolonial world founded on diversity, difference, and the symbolic representation of a global subaltern, there is a strong sense of a lingering caricature-like notion of a white, European-dominated homogenous club, to which Indian diplomats feel a deep-rooted and colonially embedded desire to belong. Cosmopolitanism operates inside this balancing act not as an international ethic upholding an equal, tolerant, or liberal global order, but rather as an elite aesthetic which presumes cultural compliance, diplomatic accommodation, and social assimilation into Western mores. Based on 85 interviews with Indian diplomats, politicians, and foreign policy experts, as well as archival work in New Delhi, the book asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club tells us about the social hierarchies of race, class, religion, gender, and caste under global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cosmopolitan Elites: Indian Diplomats and the Social Hierarchies of Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Kira Huju narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Dr. Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club can tell us about the evident woes of global order today. In interrogating how Indian diplomats learned to live under a Westernised world order, it also offers a sociologically grounded reading of what might happen in spaces like India as the world transitions past Western domination. An awkward balancing act animates the order-making of India's cosmopolitan diplomats: despite a genuine desire to strive toward a postcolonial world founded on diversity, difference, and the symbolic representation of a global subaltern, there is a strong sense of a lingering caricature-like notion of a white, European-dominated homogenous club, to which Indian diplomats feel a deep-rooted and colonially embedded desire to belong. Cosmopolitanism operates inside this balancing act not as an international ethic upholding an equal, tolerant, or liberal global order, but rather as an elite aesthetic which presumes cultural compliance, diplomatic accommodation, and social assimilation into Western mores. Based on 85 interviews with Indian diplomats, politicians, and foreign policy experts, as well as archival work in New Delhi, the book asks what the experience of historically marginalised actors inside the diplomatic club tells us about the social hierarchies of race, class, religion, gender, and caste under global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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Mason, and long time SuperFeast friends, Dan Sipple and Marcus Pearce join forces today for an insightful conversation around diet, lifestyle and longevity in the world's Blue Zones, and how the quality of life experienced by the individuals living in these areas is cultivated through joy, community, resilience and pace. The tread that weaves itself so gracefully throughout this conversation is one of unbridled self expression, of the value in allowing ourselves the freedom to include and relish in the aspects of our lived experience that we most enjoy, those feel like a balm not only to our bodies and hearts, but our souls as well. We're given insight on these musings as Marcus shares from his experiences spending time with the people of Ikaria, an island located on the coast of Greece in the Eastern Aegean Sea. Here the people live slow and in community, moments are savoured and enjoyed, alcohol is commonly consumed but rarely in excess, the same goes with meat. Things get done in the time it takes to do them and deadlines are not really a thing. The pace and the variants considered essential for life are vastly different to those that we are indoctrinated to esteem through the Westernised systems that the majority of us are engaged in, with motivation for "success" often derived from pursuits laced in capitalism. Listening to Marcus, Dan, and Mason discuss research on the factors that contribute to wellbeing and longevity in the Blue Zones worldwide, we can identify that it is not the frantic striving for shinier, more, better, higher, younger, that enables a human to flourish, it is in fact the very essence of the dutiful notion of chop wood, carry water, and not duty as in oppression, more so an agreement with what is, carried forward allowing space to enjoy the simple yet enriching facets of life that can only be accessed in the present with presence. We're introduced to the fact that when measuring the two separately, social connection has a more potent positive influence on health than diet, and those that have the most abundant sense of health are embracing both in equal measure. In the field of wellness individual's are so often told (and sold) that health is something that can only be accessed on the other side of "clean" living, and that longevity is derived from the perfect morning routine, nutrient intake, exercise and supplement regime. However in reality often the people that live the longest (and happiest) lives are those that are living in joyful communion with the things that they enjoy, vices included. We've all seen or heard the stories of the 100+ year old woman or man who attributes their longevity to their daily cigarette, coffee or can of coca cola. Centenarians are not exclusively green juice drinking yogini's or those who engage in a multifaceted wellness routine, Many are those that live simply, at natures pace, in community with purpose and without too much stress. Those who are culturally rich. How your life looks is not nearly as important as how your life feels, for you, regardless of the thoughts/opinions of an external audience. It is not always accessible for those living in the psyche of the Western grid to live like the inhabitants of the Blue Zones, however what is accessible is the knowledge of a different way, and the inspiration to include more of what and who you love in your days, and that that is often more powerful than any perfected way of living.   Mason, Dan & Marcus discuss: - The Blue Zones diet controversy. - Adapting Blue Zone lifestyles to a modern setting.  - Traditional lifestyle and its influence on health.  - Social life over diet for longevity. - Authenticity and success, what it is and how you measure it. - The power of adopting an individualised approach to health.    Resource guide Guest Links Dan Website Dan Facebook Dan Instagram Marcus WebsiteMarcus Longevity Podcast Marcus Facebook Marcus Instagram Marcus Youtube Marcus Linkedin Marcus X Mentioned In This Episode Dan BuettnerGraham HancockWeston PriceThe China Study Book Dan Sipple's Netflix Blue Zone Documentary Instagram Post Related Podcasts Moving Towards Destiny with Harmony with Marcus Pearce (EP#181) Connect With Us: SuperFeast InstagramSuperFeast FacebookSuperFeast TikTok SuperFeast Online Education      

Today Mason welcomes the remarkable Peter Galle onto the show. Peter is a practitioner of true Classical Chinese medicine, one of many exceptional individuals keeping the practice of this lost healing art present and alive in the current diluted culture of Westernised appropriation. Peter and Mason go deep in this episode, inviting us to acknowledge with gravity, the enormous value the sensory faculties of sight, smell, taste, touch and perception hold in the fruitful practice of healing, regardless of the modality. Both men share their knowledge and insights passionately, many of which are heavily influenced by the Huang Di Nei Jing, The Yellow Emperor's Classic Of Internal Medicine, a seminal text on Chinese medicine that captures the root intention of the Classical approach. Peter speaks from the heart, with care and diligent reverence for those who walked before him, whose path of mastery was apprenticed in alignment with the original guidance of this ancient craft. Covering all manner of topics; including the challenges practitioners face when working to harmonise complex pathologies, the importance of honouring lineage and working with classical texts, why self-cultivation and self-care are crucial aspects for the longevity of the healers' practice, developing perceptual sensitivity and the acuity and discipline that is required to accurately read the body and its subtle cues, plant medicine and the indigenous use of Cannabis in China and so much more! This episode is rich and valuable, a truly insightful listen for all, especially those in communion with the practices of Chinese medicine.    Peter & Mason discuss: - The difference between commercialised Chinese medicine and true Chinese medicine. - The challenges faced by practitioners in treating complex illness. - The magic and interconnectedness of plants in healing. - The importance of self-cultivation for practitioners. - The layers of the body and disease in Chinese medicine. - Honouring the lineage and working with classical texts in Chinese medicine. Resource guide Guest Links Peter's Website Peter's Instagram Mentioned In This Episode Stephen Harrod Buhner Books Related Podcasts Qi Cycles And The Dao with Jost Sauer - Acupuncturist (EP#48)Lifestyle Medicine with Acupuncturist Jost Sauer (EP#63) Connect With Us: SuperFeast InstagramSuperFeast FacebookSuperFeast TikTok SuperFeast Online Education   Check Out The Transcript Below: https://www.superfeast.com.au/blogs/articles/chinese-medicine-beyond-the-surface-with-peter-galle-215  

Building rapport in the first meeting with a prospective client is a critical make or break for establishing likeability or trust.  The first three to thirty seconds is vital, so what do we need to do?  Here are three things we need to get right: Pay attention to our dress and our posture! Looking sharp and stand straight – this communicates confidence. Walk in standing straight and tall, stop and then bow or shake hands depending on the circumstances. If there is a handshake involved then, drop the dead fish (weak strength) grasp or the double hander (gripping the forearm with the other hand). The latter, is the classic insincere politician double hand grip. Some Japanese businesspeople I have met, have become overly Westernised, in that they apply a bone crusher grip when shaking hands. Don't do that.  When you first see the client, make eye contact. Don't burn a hole in the recipient's head, but hold eye contact at the start for around 6 seconds and SMILE. This conveys consideration, reliability, confidence – all attributes we are looking for in our business partners. We combine this with the greeting, the usual pleasantries spoken with supreme confidence, “Thank you for seeing me”, “Thank you for your time today”.  Now, what comes next is very important.  We segue into establishing rapport through initial light conversation. Try and differentiate yourself with something that is not anticipatory or standard. Be careful about complimenting a prominent feature of the lobby, office or the meeting room. Say something unexpected, intelligent and memorable.  For example, “Have you found your brand equity with your client's has improved since moving here?”.  This get's the focus off you the salesperson and on to the client and their business. Having a good stock of conversation starters should be basic for every salesperson.  It might mean imparting some startling statistic that they may not have heard.  For example, “I read recently that the number of young people aged 15-24 has halved over the last 20 years, are you concerned about future talent retention as demand exceeds supply?”.  We might educate the client with some industry information they may not be aware of, but which would be deemed valuable.  We face a lot of competition for the mindspace of our prospective clients. To counteract that possible external pre-occupation and to get them back in the room with you, use a question – it works every time. Remember: Refine an image through dress, posture and eye contact that projects confidence; stock your opening comments such that they are really well differentiated from all of your competitors, who have swanned in ahead of you; provide useful business references to introduce something new to the client that gets the attention off you and on to the client's business

It has always been astonishing to me how hopeless some salespeople are in Japan. Over the last 20 years, I have been through thousands of job interviews with salespeople. We teach sales for our clients and so as a training company we see the good, the bad and the ugly - a very broad gamut of salespeople. We also buy services and products ourselves and so are actively on the receiving end of the sales process. Well actually that is a blatant exaggeration. There are almost no salespeople operating in japan using a sales process. But there are millions of them just winging it (badly).   Why? On The Job Training (OJT) is the main training pedagogical system in Japan for training the new salesperson. This works well if your boss has a clue and knows about selling. Sadly, there are few sales leaders like that populating the Japan sales horizon. So what you get are hand-me-down “techniques” that are ineffective and then even worse, these techniques are poorly executed in the hands of the newbies.   We like to buy, but few of us want to be sold. We like to do business with people we like and trust. We will do business with people we don't like and very, very rarely with people we don't trust. Neither is our preference though. The million dollar question is, “what makes YOU likeable and trustworthy?'   Building rapport in the first meeting with a prospective client is a critical make or break for establishing likeability or trust. When you think about it, this is just the same as in a sales job interview. In both cases we enter an unfamiliar environment and greet strangers who are brimming over with preoccupation, doubt, uncertainty, reluctance and skepticism. If a sales person can't handle a job interview and build rapport straight away, then it is unlikely they are doing much better out in the field, regardless of what is glowingly written down in the resume.   So what do we need to do? Strangely, we need to pay attention to our posture! Huh? It is common sense really - standing up straight communicates confidence. Also, bowing from a half leaning forward posture, especially while we are still on the move, makes us look weak and unconvincing. So walk in standing straight and tall, stop and then bow or shake hands depending on the circumstances. Smiling at the same time would also be good, depending on the situation..   If there is a handshake involved then, at least when dealing with foreigners, drop the dead fish (weak strength) grasp or the double hander (gripping the forearm with the other hand). The latter, is the classic insincere politician double hand grip.   Some Japanese businesspeople I have met, have become overly Westernised, in that they apply a bone crusher grip when shaking hands.  Recently I have met a couple of Japanese businesswomen, who are trying to out man the men and are applying massive grip strength when shaking hands. It sounds very basic advice, but please teach your Japanese team how to shake hands properly. Too weak or too strong are unforced errors which impinge on building that all important first impression.   By the way, we probably only have a maximum of 7-10 seconds to get that first impression correct, so every second counts. We are all so quick to make snap judgments today, we just can't leave anything to chance. When you first see the client, make eye contact. Don't burn a hole in the recipient's head, but hold eye contact at the start for around 6 seconds and SMILE. This conveys consideration, reliability, confidence – all attributes we are looking for in our business partners. We combine this with the greeting, the usual pleasantries – “Thank you for seeing me”, “Thank you for your time today”. Now, what comes next is very important.   We segue into establishing rapport through initial light conversation. Japan has some fairly unremarkable evergreens in this regard – usually talking about the weather or about the distance you have travelled to get here, etc., etc. Don't go for these bromides. Try and differentiate yourself with something that is not anticipatory or standard.   Also be careful about complimenting a prominent feature of the lobby, office or the meeting room. I was in a brand new office the other day and they have a really impressive moss wall in the lobby. I will guarantee that my hosts have heard obvious comments about the moss wall from every visitor who has preceded me. “Wow, what an impressive moss wall ” or “Wow, that is a spectacular entry feature”. Boring!   Teach your salespeople to say something unexpected, intelligent and memorable. In this example, “Have you found that team motivation has lifted since you moved to this impressive new office?”, “Have you found your brand equity with your client's has improved since moving here?”. This get's the focus off you the salesperson and on to the client and their business. For example, if you are a training company like us, you definitely want to know how the team motivation is going, as you may have a solution for them.   Having a good stock of conversation starters should be basic for every salesperson. It might mean imparting some startling statistic that they may not have heard. For example, “I read recently that the number of young people aged 15-24 has halved over the last 20 years, are you concerned about future talent retention as demand exceeds supply?”.   We might educate the client with some industry information they may not be aware of but which would be deemed valuable. An example would be: “Dale Carnegie's recent research into Engagement amongst employees found three critical factors impacting motivation. The relationship with the immediate supervisor, the team's belief in the direction being set by senior management and the degree of pride in the organization – what are you seeing in your organisation around the area of engagement and motivation?”.   We face a lot of competition for the mindspace of our prospective clients. Busy people have a lot on their mind and we are an interruption in their day. Some of our prospective clients may be moving continuously from one meeting to another, so the attention span is shredded and the details begin to blur. They may have their eyes open but don't imagine their mind is in the room and focused on you. To counteract that possible external pre-occupation and to get them back in the room with you, use a question.   If I suddenly asked you, “what month were you born in?”, I will guarantee I have your 100% attention. So questions are powerful disrupters of pre-occupation and we should have stock of little beauties we can wheel out when needed. For example, “most people I talk to say Abenomics is not having any significant impact on their business as yet. Have you seen any benefits yet?”.   Another might be, “My clients' opinions seems to have changed – they are becoming more concerned about the possible future increase in consumption tax – is that an issue for your company?”. We want them talking about their business, because this is going to provide us with insights for a later line of questioning, as we try to uncover their performance gaps, needs, aspirations, etc.   The very first seconds of meeting someone are vital to building the right start to the business relationship. In modern commerce, we are all so judgmental and quick to make assumptions. Dressing the wrong way may even disqualify us before we get to open our mouths. Simple initial errors in posture, greetings and conversation can be our undoing. Let's get the sales team's basics right and make sure they totally nail that first impression.   So key action items from today:   Refine an image through dress, posture and eye contact that projects confidence Stock your opening comments such that they are really well differentiated from all of your competitors, who have swanned in ahead of you Provide useful business references to introduce something new to the client that gets the attention off you and on to the client's business   This is the rapport building stage of the sales process and it is both a science and art we need to perfect.

In this episode I challenge the very common narrative in our modern Westernised culture that restrictive eating disorders are at their core driven by a fear of weight gain. I believe that this view is an oversimplified and convenient narrative that has been convenient to draw but it also prevents eating disorders being more widely understood.    My books: Addicted to Energy Deficit Aiming for Overshoot   www.hellybarnes.com  

Divorce has been typically framed in Indian popular culture as available mainly to upper-class urban and Anglicised people with the financial means to pursue long-winded remedies in courts. In addition, Hindus have had specific obstacles to accessing divorce; among the various religion-based personal law systems, Hindu personal law was the last to legalise divorce. Critics have long framed divorce as anti-Hindu and a practice promoted by frivolous Westernised women. Escaping unwanted or abusive marriages has therefore been an uphill battle. What arguments did early proponents of divorce in the mid-twentieth century use to legalise divorce? How did they seek to show its acceptance in shastras? Author & Professor, George Washington University, Ashwini Tambe pursues these questions in this talk by looking closely at Marathi public culture, and specifically the longest running Marathi women's magazine, Stree. She shares translated content from Stree— excerpts of letters to the editor, legal advice, and opinion pieces— to describe the arguments that facilitated the stronger social acceptance of divorce. Looking at Marathi public culture is important because a significant number of reformists and legislators who helped formalise Hindu women's legal right to divorce at a national level (such as Chimnabai Gaekwad, Dr. Gopalrao Deshmukh and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar) were Marathi. Bombay Presidency and Baroda (ruled by Marathas) legalised divorce for Hindu women before the country as a whole did so. In effect, this episode of BIC Talks traces the itinerary of reformist ideas about divorce that gained prominence in the 1940s and then led to the national-level legalisation of divorce in the 1950s. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favourite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast and Stitcher.  

Forget what you know about yoga! We sit down with Nikita Desai this week to re-trace the roots of yoga. Nikita takes us through her own journey with discovering an authentic practice of yoga and becoming disillusioned with the westernised, whitewashed version we see on social media. Come on this journey with us.Diversify your yoga practice. Check out Nikita's YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@nikyyoga and make sure to give her a follow on TikTok for more educational content https://www.tiktok.com/@nikyyoga

This was very frustrating.  It became obvious from the client's email response that there was a sizeable gap between what I thought was going on and the reality.  How could that be?  I am an experienced salesperson with a solid track record of sales; I have written two books on selling in Japan, one in English and one in Japanese, I have had a weekly blog on the subject for nearly seven years. I teach selling techniques as part of my job.  What went wrong?  In the email response, he clarified that he was only thinking of a very minimum role for us in the sales training process.  Now that was not obvious to me when we met and had our discussion.  This was perplexing. I have been replaying that sales call in my mind looking for what did I wrong. Where was the bread crumb trail that I missed? The questioning phase of the sales call is crucial because if you don't know what the buyer wants, how do you satisfy them, how do you fix their issues, solve their problems?  We know many salespeople don't ask questions because they are too busy going straight into the nitty gritty detail of explaining their solution.  Let's put it in simple terms. This is the problem of not asking what is the buyer's favourite colour, which is blue and then just talking endlessly about your awesome range in pink.  It just doesn't work well to get the sale. What if the buyer's answer isn't that clear?  This can happen, of course.  Not every buyer is articulate or well thought through or well considered or smart.  Often, they don't have a clear picture of what they need.  Operating from a flawed central proposition can also complicate matters, because not every client is sophisticated in understanding their own core underlying issues. As salespeople, we can make the problem worse too.  We ask questions which get them thinking and considering the problem from fresh perspectives.  Normally, this is a good thing because we want to rock them back on their heels and have them thinking, “We haven't thought about that” or “We haven't prepared for that”.  This is where we establish ourselves as the trusted partner with the buyer, by bringing greater value and a fresh angle to the issue.  However, we may also trigger some concerns they haven't thought about as yet and raise issues which until now have lay quietly dormant. Thinking back to that sales meeting, I realise I didn't dig in deep enough on the issues they were facing.  Our solution was a good fit for them and I fell in love with that idea. Unfortunately, that email showed me they hadn't fallen in love with it.  I should have stopped talking and should have looked for additional barriers, especially internal barriers within the company, which would prevent this deal from happening.   Sitting right in front of me, across the meeting room table, I could see the wheels of the Swiss watch inside his brain whizzing around as he was obviously processing a lot of information and possibilities.  Instead of just noticing that he was just doing a lot of thinking, I should have asked him what he was thinking about.  I needed to do this, to flesh out where he was in the internal conversation he was having with himself, which was going on silently in his mind.  If I had said, “What is going through your mind at the moment?”, that would have been a very disarming way of tapping into his thought process at that point.  He may have shared what was holding him back from accepting my proposition, instead of getting the rejection later in an email as part of the meeting follow-up.  I could have dealt with it on the spot, while we were face-to-face. I should also have dug in for areas where he had concerns about this solution I was offering.  As I have noted, I fell in love with my solution for him, because I could see how this would really help him.  I was convinced myself and that just led me down the path of more detail on how the solution would help him.  He was sitting there thinking why this wouldn't work in their situation, because he felt they could do it themselves, to a great enough extent.  Grant Cardone, the well-known American sales trainer, is very good at this.  He challenges the buyer to justify making the investment to buy Grant's subscription video courses.  He says things like, “How could you justify spending $10,000 to buy this subscription for your people?”.   It is quite clever, because now the buyer has to become an advocate for Grant's business. They have to justify the rationale and the pricing.  He is flushing out resistance on the spot, so that he can deal with it.  Maybe this wouldn't work in every case in Japan, but this buyer was quite Westernised and educated overseas, so he could have deal with this approach. Maybe a more local Japanese buyer would have been simply confused by the proposition. I am still annoyed this one got away.  Not for the size of the deal, but because I couldn't read the buyer well enough during the meeting and I made too many assumptions about what was going on.  I pushed him to do something about starting the training in my follow-up email and this generated his blunt assessment that they could do it themselves and didn't need me. Ouch!  I will be more observant from now on and will question my assumptions more closely, while I am sitting across the table from the buyers in future.      

Heather Hansen is a global communication consultant who helps companies navigate the challenges of communication in multicultural and multilingual settings. She emphasises the importance of conscious communication, confident communication, and connected communication in her approach. The "unmuted" framework she developed from her award winning book, focuses on self-awareness, skill building, and creating inclusive environments. Heather works with companies that have recently undergone strategy revamps and helps them implement their new strategies by ensuring effective communication throughout the organisation. This involves engaging employees, aligning their roles with the strategy, and maintaining communication channels to drive strategy execution. She possesses the expertise to empower clients in conquering communication and cultural hurdles when venturing into new markets or collaborating with diverse teams. In this episode we explore: 1. The subjective and Westernised nature of professional presence and how this impacts bias and progress. 2. Gender influences exert a profound impact on professional expectations and leadership dynamics. While men are readily accepted as powerful leaders, women often find themselves navigating a delicate balancing act, striving to be perceived as both powerful and attractive. 3. The challenges faced by women, particularly minority women, are even more daunting, as they constantly grapple with societal expectations regarding their appearance, manner of speech, and behaviour in order to be taken seriously and avoid succumbing to negative stereotypes. 4. The intersection of gender and language further amplifies biases and discrimination. Women with accents, unfortunately, encounter even stronger bias compared to their male counterparts with accents. 5. The COVID-19 pandemic cast a glaring spotlight on the paramount importance of communication skills, thereby leading to a surge in demand for Heather's expertise as organisations recognised the urgent need for effective communication and seamless collaboration. 6. Successful cross-cultural communication necessitates unwavering clarity, constant checks for understanding, and heightened awareness of the unique challenges faced by non-native English speakers. 7. Asynchronous work affords numerous advantages by enabling individuals to tackle tasks at different times, thereby injecting fresh perspectives into the workflow. To harness its potential, leaders and managers must adopt novel approaches to work allocation and distribution. 8. The advent of asynchronous work dismantles the limitations of the traditional 9-to-5 paradigm, granting teams the ability to work around the clock and endowing startups with a remarkable competitive edge, facilitating rapid growth. 9. The values of authenticity and vulnerability are now highly esteemed in leaders, who are expected to possess a well-defined strategy and stand firmly for their principles. 10. Leaders must employ diverse modalities to articulate their ideas and ensure comprehensive understanding among team members. Utilising visual prompts, repetition, and embracing various communication styles are vital! 11. In order to transform the existing leadership landscape, it is imperative to establish role models who embody vulnerability and authenticity in their leadership approach. You can connect with Heather Hansen on LinkedIn or at her website www.heatherhansen.com and pick up a copy of her award winning book, Unmuted, from any good book store.

If we are going to save the planet, Tema Milstein says we need to start hugging trees. Westernised humans tend to believe they are separate from nature, which shapes thinking and actions toward the environment. But seeing the world with humans at its centre has massive ramifications – from climate crisis to mass extinction. What stands in the way of more of us remembering we are embedded in the natural world and its intricate networks? And how do we override anthropocentrism, and start seeing ourselves as one with the flowers? For more information, visit unsw.to/TemaMilsteinFODI This talk was a part of Unthinkable, an event of short talks in the 2022 Festival of Dangerous Ideas.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Type 2 diabetes is one of the biggest health issues facing people in the Pacific, and the World Health Organisation suggests women may be the key to stopping it. But does this place yet another burden on them?

Type 2 diabetes is one of the biggest health issues facing people in the Pacific, and the World Health Organisation suggests women may be the key to stopping it. But does this place yet another burden on them?

Ogino Ginko is known as the "first woman to practice Westernised medicine" in Japan. The number of hurdles she had to cross in order to get there was immense. 140 years later, attitudes towards women in medicine have not advanced as far as one would have hoped... Today's guest is Hannah Lane! You can find her via her Instagram page, and she is also the co-host of our horror movie review podcast that we do together, Not Another Film podcast. For more content follow me on @hikikomoripodcast on Instagram where I'll be posting photos relevant to this episode! You can also find me on Twitter @sequencepod, or you can listen to my other podcasts Final Fanservice and Not Another Film on any big podcast app. Sources: Hektoen International - Ogino Ginko  Mara Patessio - Women and Public Life in Early Meiji Japan: The Development of the Feminist Movement Japan Times - Ogino Ginko article  Wikipedia - Ogino Ginko  Japanese Wikipedia - Ogino Ginko BBC - Japan medical schools scandal   Guardian - TMU scandal 1  Guardian - TMU scandal 2  Washington Post - TMU Scandal  Asahi Shimbun - St Marianna sued  Journal of Educational Integrity - TMU entrance exams scandal  Mainichi Shimbun - University refuses to accept responsibility  Asia-Pacific Journal - A Necessary Evil?  YouTube - TMU executives apologise poorly  Japan Times - TMU subsidies withdrawn  Asahi Shimbun - Legal ruling against TMU  YouTube - Seikou Nagaoka - Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) 

If we are going to save the planet, Tema Milstein says we need to start hugging trees. Westernised humans tend to believe they are separate from nature, which shapes thinking and actions toward the environment. But seeing the world with humans at its centre has massive ramifications – from climate crisis to mass extinction. What stands in the way of more of us remembering we are embedded in the natural world and its intricate networks? And how do we override anthropocentrism, and start seeing ourselves as one with the flowers? A UNSW Centre for Ideas project, with podcast editing and music composition by Bryce Halliday. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Western idea of following Jesus is that he makes my INDIVIDUAL life better or more enjoyable. Like social media celebrity Christianity/church - Do a great work for God - Be Popular. Be Great. Be Successful. Jesus SHOCKS his disciples when halfway through his ministry he clearly/PLAINLY explains where all this is heading - the cross

This week we are talking to the wonderful Nick Kemp. Nick is the founder of Ikigai Tribe, a membership site and podcast that focuses on the concept of Ikigai from a Japanese perspective. Nick learnt about Ikigai whilst living in Japan and really connected with it. Later he saw Westernised frameworks based on this concept and felt there were a lot of misconceptions of what Ikigai was. He decided to work at dispelling some of these misunderstandings of Ikigai by moving beyond the famous Venn diagram and exploring what Ikigai as a concept and philosophy really means. If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we'd love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway.  In this episode you'll hear: How Nick discovered the concept of Ikigai Why Nick founded Ikigai Tribe, a membership site and podcast focusing on Ikigai from a Japanese perspective How hosting his own Ikigai Podcast expands his understanding of the concept of Ikigai Nick's advice for those struggling to find a source of Ikigai Examples of the ‘dark side' of Ikigai About  Nick: Nick is the founder of Ikigai Tribe, a membership site and podcast that focuses on the Ikigai concept from the Japanese perspective. As a Japanolgist Nick studies philosophical and physiological aspects of Japanese culture with an emphasis on Ikigai. Nick lived in Japan for over 10 years, living in various suburbs of the Big Mikan that is Tokyo and in Toki-shi a small village in Gifu prefecture where his wife is from. He currently lives in Melbourne Australia with his wife and son. He hopes to spend his life living both in Japan and Australia after the pandemic. Connect with Nick: Twitter: https://twitter.com/NicholasKemp (https://twitter.com/NicholasKemp) Ikigai Tribe website: https://ikigaitribe.com/ (Find Your Ikigai - Become a Certified Ikigai Tribe Coach) The Ikigai podcast: https://ikigaitribe.com/podcasts/ (The Ikigai Podcast - Exploring What Ikigai Means To Japanese (Ikigaitribe.com)) Connect with Jennifer Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifershinkai/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifershinkai/)  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifershinkaicoach (https://www.facebook.com/jennifershinkaicoach)  Website: https://jennifershinkai.com/ (https://jennifershinkai.com/ )

We live in an interconnected world, full of beings, spaces and life that are connected through an intricate web of interdependence which sustains the health of Earth. Yet we are increasingly seeing a disconnection between humanity and the wider world, which has been exacerbated by the human-nature dualism adopted by Western and urban spaces, but this disconnection runs deeper into the flawed notion of humanity's domination of Earth and rejection of our positions in the world as relational beings.  In this Reflection episode, Agrita explores the social crisis of community fragmentation within modern and Westernised societies, with a particular focus on the cultural divide caused by the individualism-collectivism approach for cross-cultural/national studies between/within Western and non-Western cultures. Agrita calls for a rejection of defined categories to represent individuals and society and instead emphasises the need for us to rebuild a culture of relatedness and understanding for every individual and every community to be valued. *** To listen to other episodes in the Reflection series, and access episode show notes, transcripts and resources, visit mindfullofeverything.com. Follow the podcast on Instagram (@mindfullofeverything_pod) and Facebook (@mindfullofeverything).

The outstanding performance by track and field athletes at the recently concluded Olympic Games is the latest demonstration of the indomitable spirit of the Jamaican people, according to Leighton Beckles, communication officer at Tax Administration Jamaica (TAJ).Beckles says this can-do spirit, as well as our ability to "tun our hand and mek fashion" has been a hallmark of Jamaicans in various fields of pursuit since Independence in 1962. At the organisational level, the revenue official reports that TAJ has invested heavily in technological infrastructure to provide a customer-centric service."More specifically, for the Diaspora, we have gone even further to allow persons from anywhere in the world to pay their property taxes and meet their obligations here at home," Beckles tells Impacting Jamaica host Byron Buckley.However, Beckles worries that the Jamaican cultural identity is being gradually eroded by Westernised influences. In addition, he has issued a call to arms for Jamaicans to arrest the rising level of crime and violence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode follows on from last episode in that it was recorded in Tasmania; I had just come out of the takayna rainforest and I headed down to the CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research offices in Hobart to speak with a scientist who is working on new ways to link science with other sources of knowledge, including traditional wisdom. It's fitting that this episode is being released on World Oceans Day because she is a marine, atmospheric, and climate scientist who has studied ecosystems ranging from Indonesia to Antarctica. In this conversation we talk about her childhood experiences that built her deep connections with our ocean, and led her down this path to want to study and protect our marine ecosystems. We talk about the WAY science is presented, including the pressure environmental scientists feel when delivering ‘bad' news and perhaps feeling the need to sugar coat it. We talk about her current role as a ‘Transdisciplinary Researcher & Knowledge Broker', and we break down firstly what this is, and secondly, why this role is important. This includes discussing the limitations of science as we know it and use it in our current Westernised and corporatised system. She shares the importance of what she calls ‘Two-eyed seeing'; that is, not trying to blend science with traditional knowledge, but seeing the world through the lens of science in one eye, as WELL as traditional knowledge and wisdom in the other. As someone who comes from a STEMM background myself, it can be interesting at times to have these conversations with people about science being a tool in our arsenal and not the only way to see the world. We also talk about gender diversity in science, because she also co-founded Homeward Bound, which is a program to empower women and grow female leadership in the STEMM community. Oh, and on top of all of that she was the 2020 Tasmanian of the Year, and formerly a Rhodes Scholar. Please enjoy this conversation with Dr Jess Melbourne-Thomas

In today's episode we're talking through the 4th and final aspect of the Ikigai framework - monetization. I also reveal a discovery about what the Ikigai really is and explain how the Westernised version of the Ikigai evolved.Here's some useful links from today's show:1. Find out more about National Reconciliation week here: https://nrw.reconciliation.org.au/2. Become a Free member at Lauren's Laboratory to join discussions about this show and more: https://laurenslaboratory.com3. Read about the real meaning of Ikigai at http://ikigaitribe.com/ikigai/ikigai-misunderstood/4. Check out the 12 types of value from Josh Kaufman's book the Personal MBA here: http://book.personalmba.com/12-standard-forms-of-value/This podcast episode is free, but it isn't cheap. To show your support you can leave a rating, write a review or share this episode with someone who'd like it. You can also buy Lauren a cup of coffee on ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/laurenkress or hire her to speak - to find out about her rates and availability, send her a message on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenkress89/

I hear some people say translating terms like “nemawashi” into English is difficult.  Really?  I always thought it was one of the easier ones.  Let's just call it “groundwork”.  In fact, that is a very accurate description ,from a number of different angles.  Japanese gardeners are superstars.  There is limited flat space in this country, so over centuries gardeners have worked out you need to move the trees you want, to where you want them.  They prefer this approach to just waiting thirty years for them to turn out the preferred way.  It is not unusual today to see a huge tree on the back of a big truck ,being moved from one location to another and presto instant garden.  The roots of that massive tree will be wrapped up in cloth to protect them.  That wrapping process is called “nemawashi”.  In business, it means being well prepared for the business meeting – doing the ground work beforehand.   In a Western context being well prepared for the meeting will mean assembling all the data and analysis in order to make an impassioned plea for your idea or suggestion, to be accepted by the big bosses.  We all get to the meeting, listen to the different approaches and we make a decision in that meeting.  What could be more time efficient and logical?  They never do it that way in Japan.   Concepts of time efficiency differ for a start and throwing massive amounts of overtime at a problem is not problem in Japan.  The meeting is also a ceremony, because the decision has already been arrived at beforehand and the gathering is just to formalise the outcome.  This happens in the West too.  Whenever you see global leaders delivering their joint statements or signing agreements,  they didn't arrive at the wording during the meeting. That was all worked out by their minions beforehand, over many hours of debate, negotiation and discussion.  The TV cameras just capture the big guys and gals inking the document, after all the “groundwork” has been completed.   I was talking with a Western businessman recently and he was relating how hard it was to get the team behind his ideas.  The issue was, he was trying to get it all agreed to, at the key meeting and hadn't invested the time to do the groundwork.  What he needed to do was go to see all the key people, the influencers, the stakeholders with a vested interest and explain the idea. Get their input and agreement and then rinse and repeat with the rest of them.  By the time the meeting happens, everyone will recognise parts of their preferences and ideas in the submission.  Agreement flows easily in these cases.   In sales, we will probably not have direct access to all of the decision makers, influencers and stakeholders.  Our primary contact has to become our champion for sheparding the agreement through the internal nemawashi process.  Asking them directly who are these hidden decision makers is insulting.  It says, you are a nobody, but I still need your help.  We need to be more considerate of their “face” and ask in a way that enhances their face.   Once we have established the trust, have uncovered their needs, shown we can help and have dealt with any hesitations they may have, we are ready to marshal our forces for the final push through to a “yes” to the sale.  We explain, we understand that many people will be interested to know about this change in the delivery of product or services.  We also know that they will be tasked to explain it to others who cannot join our meetings.  We ask how can we help them?  This is a rhetorical question because we want to get into the detail of who are the players.  So we go straight into asking who do they think would have the most concern about the change and why they would be concerned?  We keep repeating this process until we have fleshed out the people who will have the most interest in saying “no”.  The next stage is to arm our champion with the tools to deal with the pushback.  We try to understand the concerns and then arrive at creative ways of overcoming those concerns.    This is what we mean by nemawashi or ground work.  Is it time consuming – yes!  Do we have to invest the extra time – yes!  There is an internal  logic to the way decisions are made in Japan.  There is no point railing about how the Japanese business decision making process should be Westernised, so it is more familiar for us.  That is never going to happen, so we need to be better and more flexible to understand the system and then become a master of influence within it.  We need to become the nemawashi maestro!

Vegan and omnivorous diets promote equivalent muscle mass gain, study shows University of São Paulo (Brazil), May 19, 2021 Protein intake is more important than protein source if the goal is to gain muscle strength and mass. This is the key finding of a study that compared the effects of strength training in volunteers with a vegan or omnivorous diet, both with protein content considered adequate.  In the study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, 38 healthy young adults, half of whom were vegans and half omnivores, were monitored for 12 weeks. In addition to performing exercises to increase muscle strength and mass, the volunteers followed either a mixed diet with both animal and plant protein, or an entirely plant-based diet, both with the recommended protein content (1.6 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight per day). At the end of three months, there was no difference between vegans and omnivores in terms of muscle strength and mass increase.  “Like any other protein in our organism, such as the proteins in our skin and hair cells, which die and are renewed, our muscles undergo synthesis and breakdown every day. Diet [protein intake] and exercise are the main protein balance regulators, favoring synthesis over breakdown,” said Hamilton Roschel, last author of the published study. Roschel is a University of São Paulo professor affiliated with both USP’s Sports and Physical Education School (EEEE) and Medical School (FM). He also heads the Applied Physiology and Nutrition Research Group jointly run by EEEE-USP and FM-USP. Protein sources are characterized primarily on the basis of essential amino acids, especially leukin, which plays a key role in anabolic stimulation of skeletal muscles. “Animal protein has more leukin than plant protein. Leukin is an essential amino acid in the anabolic stimulus signaling process. A plant-based diet is often thought to contain less leukin and hence trigger less anabolic stimulation, potentially affecting vegans’ capacity for muscle mass gain,” Roschel said. The study is published in Sports Medicine and resulted from the master’s research of Victoria Hevia-Larraín, with support from FAPESP.  The study innovated by including a clinical analysis of the effects of protein source quality on muscle adaptation in vegans as compared with omnivores, since most research on the topic to date has focused on the acute anabolic response of muscles to protein intake under laboratory conditions and not on muscle mass as such. “Our findings show that there is no impairment of muscle mass gain for young adult vegans if they ingest the right amount of protein. In fact, the outcome of both diets was the same in this respect,” Roschel said.  However, the researchers stress that, for the purposes of experimental control, protein intake was made the same in both diets by means of protein supplements. Omnivores and vegans were given milk serum protein isolate or soy protein respectively in accordance with individual dietary needs in order to attain the targeted protein intake.  “In clinical practice, we know foods of animal origin generally have a higher protein content,” Roschel said. “Meat, milk and eggs contain more protein per gram than rice and beans, for example. In a clinical application with plant-based foods as the sole protein source, vegans would need to ingest a large amount of food to obtain the same amount of protein. In some specific cases, this could be a major challenge.” The protein source (mixed or plant-based diet) made no difference, provided each subject received an adequate amount of protein. “This result corroborates other data in the literature showing that a vegan diet can absolutely be complete if it is properly planned and executed,” Roschel said. “Previous studies suggest it can even be healthier than an omnivorous diet. For this to be the case, however, it requires appropriate nutritional counseling and education regarding people’s choices in restricting their intake to plant-based sources.”  Another point noted by Roschel is that the subjects were healthy young adults, and the results might be different for older people or subjects with health problems. “Aging entails a phenomenon known as anabolic resistance, meaning a suboptimal anabolic response to the stimuli provided by diet and exercise compared with young people. Optimal response is possible in older people only if their protein intake is higher than that of the average healthy youngster. So we should be cautious about generalizing our findings for the entire population.”   Yoga and breathing exercises aid children with ADHD to focus Ural Federal University, May 17, 2021 Yoga and breathing exercises have a positive effect on children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). After special classes, children improve their attention, decrease hyperactivity, they do not get tired longer, they can engage in complex activities longer. This is the conclusion reached by psychologists at Ural Federal University who studied the effect of exercise on functions associated with voluntary regulation and control in 16 children with ADHD aged six to seven years. The results of the study are published in the journal Biological Psychiatry. "For children with ADHD, as a rule, the part of the brain that is responsible for the regulation of brain activity - the reticular formation - is deficient," said Sergey Kiselev, head of the Laboratory of Brain and Neurocognitive Development at UrFU, head of the study. "This leads to the fact that they often experience states of inadequate hyperactivity, increased distraction and exhaustion, and their functions of regulation and control suffer a second time. We used a special breathing exercise based on the development of diaphragmatic rhythmic deep breathing - belly breathing. Such breathing helps to better supply the brain with oxygen and helps the reticular formation to better cope with its role. When the reticular formation receives enough oxygen, it begins to better regulate the child's state of activity". In addition to breathing exercises, psychologists used body-oriented techniques, in particular, exercises with polar states "tension-relaxation". The trainings took place three times a week for two to three months (depending on the program). "Exercise has an immediate effect that appears immediately, but there is also a delayed effect. We found that exercise has a positive effect on regulation and control functions in children with ADHD and one year after the end of the exercise. This happens because the child's correct breathing is automated, it becomes a kind of assistant that allows better supply of oxygen to the brain, which, in turn, has a beneficial effect on the behavior and psyche of a child with ADHD," says Sergey Kiselev. This technique was developed by the Russian neuropsychologist Anna Semenovich as part of a neuropsychological correction technique. UrFU psychologists tested how well this approach helps children with ADHD. But the study is pilot, says Kiselev. It showed that these exercises have a positive effect. However, more work needs to be done, involving more children with ADHD. This will also take into account factors such as gender, age, severity of the disease, concomitant problems in children (speech, regulatory, etc.).     Study findings suggest vitamin D deficiency may be associated with reduced arterial elasticity Guizhou Medical University (China), May 17, 2021   According to news reporting out of Guizhou, People’s Republic of China, research stated, “There is evidence that serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25-(OH) D] levels may be associated with cardiovascular disease and its risk factors. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between 25-(OH) D levels and blood pressure (BP), blood lipids, and arterial elasticity in middle-aged and elderly cadres in China.In this retrospective study, we included 401 civil servants and cadres aged >42 years who underwent medical examinations at Guiyang Municipal First People’s Hospital, China in 2018.” Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Guizhou Medical University, “The participants were assigned to deficiency ( 20 ng/mL), insufficiency (20-30 ng/mL), and sufficiency ( 30 ng/mL) groups according to 25-(OH) D levels in their blood. Demographics, brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), BP, ankle-brachial index (ABI), and blood lipids were compared among groups. The associations between 25-(OH) D and other parameters were evaluated using linear regression analysis.Median (range) 25-(OH) D levels in the deficiency (n = 162), insufficiency (n = 162), and sufficiency (n = 77) groups were 15.32 (2.93-19.88), 25.12 (20.07-29.91), and 33.91 (30.23-82.42) ng/mL, respectively. There were significant differences in systolic BP, pulse pressure, baPWV (left and right sides), ABI (left side), high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, and triglycerides (TGs; all P< .05) among groups.” According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Multivariate linear regression revealed that TG, left baPWV, and right baPWV were significantly negatively correlated with 25-(OH) D levels (all P< .05).In this study, 25-(OH) D levels were found to be associated with TG, left baPWV, and right baPWV values. 25-(OH) D deficiency may be associated with reduced arterial elasticity.”     Icing muscle injuries may delay recovery Kobe University and Chiba Institute of Technology (Japan), May 19, 2021 A study using a mouse model of eccentric contraction (*1) has revealed that icing injured muscles delays muscle regeneration. The discovery was made by a research group including Associate Professor ARAKAWA Takamitsu and then PhD. Student KAWASHIMA Masato from Kobe University's Graduate School of Health Sciences, and Chiba Institute of Technology's Associate Professor KAWANISHI Noriaki et al. In addition, the researchers illuminated that this phenomenon may be related to pro-inflammatory macrophages' (*2, 3, 4) ability to infiltrate damaged cells. This research raises questions as to whether or not severe muscle injuries (such as torn muscles) should be iced. These research results were published online as one of the Journal of Applied Physiology's Articles in Press on March 25, 2021. Main points The research results revealed that applying an ice pack to a severe muscle injury resulting from eccentric contraction may prolong the time it takes to heal. The cause of this phenomenon is that icing delays the arrival of pro-inflammatory macrophages, which are responsible for the phagocytosis (*5), or removal, of damaged tissue. Furthermore, this makes difficult for the macrophages to sufficiently infiltrate the damaged muscle cells. Research Background Skeletal muscle injuries encompass a range of damage to muscles; from a microcellular level to a severe level. These injuries include not only those that happen during sports or schools' physical education lessons but also external injuries that occur as a result of accidents and disasters. 'RICE treatment' is a common approach for skeletal muscle injuries, regardless of the extent of the injury. This acronym stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation and is often used in physical education, sports and even medicine. Ice is commonly applied regardless of the type of muscle injury, yet little is known about the long-term effects of icing. Ice is used to suppress inflammation, however, inflammation in response to tissue injury is one of the body's healing mechanisms. This has come to be understood as a vital response for tissue regeneration. In other words, suppressing inflammation with ice may also inhibit the body's attempt to repair itself. Experiments investigating the effect of icing muscles after injury have produced conflicting results. Some have reported that it delays muscle regeneration while others have stated that it doesn't inhibit this process. However, none of the research up until now has investigated the effects of icing using an injury model that mimics common sports injuries caused by muscle contraction. Using a mouse model of eccentric contraction injury, the current research team decided to observe the effects of post-injury icing. In this mouse model, injuries were induced to resemble severe torn muscles. Research Methodology and Results Eccentric contraction was induced by electrically stimulating the leg muscles of the mice and then exerting a stronger force during this stimulation to make the leg muscles move in the opposite direction. After this, the muscles were harvested. Icing was performed by placing polyurethane bags of ice on top of the skin over three 30 minute sessions per day, with each session being 2 hours apart. This was continued until two days after the injury. The icing was based on the usual clinically recommended method. The researchers investigated the regenerated skeletal muscle two weeks after injury, comparing the icing group with the non-icing group. A significantly higher percentage of smaller regenerated muscle fibers were found in cross-sections from the icing group, with a greater number of medium to large fibers in the non-icing group (Figure 1). In other words, this revealed that skeletal muscle regeneration may be delayed as a result of icing. Next, the researchers periodically took samples of muscle from the icing and non-icing groups of animals in order to investigate what was happening in the regeneration process up until this point. In the regeneration process, inflammatory cells gather at the site of the injury, remove the debris from the damaged muscle and then begin to build new muscle. However, the results revealed that it is harder for inflammatory cells to enter the injured muscle cells if ice is applied (Figure 2). Macrophages are typical of the inflammatory cells that enter the injured muscle. These consist of pro-inflammatory macrophages, which phagocyte damaged tissue thus causing inflammation, and anti-inflammatory macrophages (*6), which suppress the inflammatory reaction and promote repair. It is thought that pro-inflammatory macrophages change their characteristics, becoming anti-inflammatory. The results of this research team's experiments showed that icing delays the arrival of pro-inflammatory macrophages at the site of the injury (Figure 3). These results indicate the possibility that macrophages are unable to sufficiently phagocyte the damaged muscle when ice is applied after severe muscle injuries caused by eccentric contraction, consequently delaying the formation of new muscle cells. Comment from Associate Professor Arakawa In sports, the mantra of immediately applying ice to an injury is commonplace, regardless of the injury's severity. However, the mechanism that we illuminated through this research suggests that not icing a severe muscle injury may lead to faster recovery. The idea of immediately cooling any type of injury is also entrenched in schools' physical education classes. I hope that in the future, the alternative option of speeding up recovery by not cooling severe muscle injuries will become known. However, even though icing may disrupt the recovery process for severe muscle injuries, there is no denying the possibility that there are degrees of mild muscle injuries that can be iced. The next issue is to work out where to draw the line. We are now in the middle of investigating what effect icing has on slight muscle injuries. Next, we will continue to investigate how icing should be carried out according to the extent of the muscle injury. We aim to contribute guidelines that will enable people in sports and clinical rehabilitation to make accurate judgements about whether or not to ice an injury.     Probiotics associated with fewer respiratory symptoms in overweight and older people Findings provide further evidence of relationship between the gut and lungs Imperial College London, May 14, 2021 Daily probiotic use was associated with fewer upper respiratory symptoms in overweight and older people, according to a study that suggests a potential role for probiotics in preventing respiratory infections. The study was selected for presentation at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2021.  "This is not necessarily the most intuitive idea, that putting bacteria into your gut might reduce your risk of respiratory infection," said Benjamin Mullish, MD, a lead researcher on the study and clinical lecturer in the Division of Digestive Diseases, Imperial College London, England, "but it's further evidence that the gut microbiome has a complex relationship with our various organ systems. It doesn't just affect how our gut works or how our liver works, it affects aspects of how our whole body works." Researchers re-analyzed detailed daily diaries of 220 patients who participated in an earlier double-blind placebo-controlled study on probiotics and weight loss. Reviewing the entries for common symptoms of upper respiratory infection, including cough, sore throat and wheezing, researchers found that participants who took probiotics during the six-month study had a 27 percent lower overall incidence of upper respiratory tract symptoms compared to the placebo group. The effect was largest among participants who were aged 45 years or older, as well as those with obesity. People with obesity are at higher risk for respiratory infections. Previous research has shown that probiotics reduce upper respiratory infections in healthy adults and children, but little data exists on this vulnerable population of older, overweight and people with obesity. "These findings add to growing interest in the gut-lung axis -- how the gut and the lungs communicate with each other," Dr. Mullish said. "It's not just the gut sending out signals that affect how the lungs work. It works in both directions. It adds to the story that changes in the gut microbiome can affect large aspects of our health." The researchers did not measure immune response, only respiratory symptoms. Future randomized clinical trials could help identify the mechanisms related to the reduction in respiratory symptoms and explore the possible impact of probiotics on the immune system, Dr. Mullish said.     Fruit discovery could provide new treatments for obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease University of Warwick (UK), May 11, 2021    A combination of two compounds found in red grapes and oranges could be used to improve the health of people with diabetes, and reduce cases of obesity and heart disease. The find has been made by University of Warwick researchers who now hope that their discovery will be developed to provide a treatment for patients.   Professor Thornalley who led research said: "This is an incredibly exciting development and could have a massive impact on our ability to treat these diseases. As well as helping to treat diabetes and heart disease it could defuse the obesity time bomb."   The research 'Improved glycemic control and vascular function in overweight and obese subjects by glyoxalase 1 inducer formulation' has been published in the journal Diabetes, and received funding from the UK's innovation agency, Innovate UK. The project was a collaboration between the University of Warwick and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust.   A team led by Paul Thornalley, Professor in Systems Biology at Warwick Medical School, studied two compounds found in fruits but not usually found together. The compounds are trans-resveratrol (tRES) - found in red grapes, and hesperetin (HESP) - found in oranges. When given jointly at pharmaceutical doses the compounds acted in tandem to decrease blood glucose, improve the action of insulin and improve thehealth of arteries.   The compounds act by increasing a protein called glyoxalase 1 (Glo1) in the body which neutralises a damaging sugar-derived compound called methylglyoxal (MG). MG is a major contributor to the damaging effects of sugar. Increased MG accumulation with a high energy diet intake is a driver of insulin resistance leading to type 2 diabetes, and also damages blood vessels and impairs handling of cholesterol associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Blocking MG improved health in overweight and obese people and will likely help patients with diabetes and high risk of cardiovascular disease too. It has already been proven experimentally that blocking MG improves health impairment in obesity and type 1 and type 2 diabetes.   Although the same compounds are found naturally in some fruits, the amounts and type required for health improvement cannot be obtained from increased fruit consumption. The compounds that increase Glo1 and are called a 'Glo1 inducer'. Pharmaceutical doses for patients with obesity, diabetes and high risk of heart disease could be given to patients in capsule form.   Professor Thornalley increased Glo1 expression in cell culture. He then tested the formulation in a randomised, placebo-controlled crossover clinical trial. Thirty-two overweight and obese people within the 18-80 age range who had a BMI between 25-40 took part in the trial. They were given the supplement in capsule form once a day for eight weeks. They were asked to maintain their usual diet and their food intake was monitored via a dietary questionnaire and they were also asked not to alter their daily physical activity. Changes to their sugar levels were assessed by blood samples, artery health measured by artery wall flexibility and other assessments by analysis of blood markers.   The team found that the highly overweight subjects who had BMIs of over 27.5 with treatment displayed increased Glo1 activity, decreased glucose levels, improved working of insulin, improved artery function and decreased blood vessel inflammation. There was no effect of placebo.   Professor Thornalley said: "Obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease are at epidemic levels in Westernised countries. Glo1 deficiency has been identified as a driver of health problems in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease."   "Diabetic kidney disease will be the initial target to prove effective treatment for which we are currently seeking commercial investors and partners. Our new pharmaceutical is safe and expected to be an effective add-on treatment taken with current therapy.   "The key steps to discovery were to focus on increasing Glo1 and then to combine tRES and HESP together in the formulation for effective treatment. "As exciting as our breakthrough is it is important to stress that physical activity, diet, other lifestyle factors and current treatments should be adhered to."   Professor Martin O Weickert, Consultant in Diabetes and Endocrinology at UHCW NHS Trust, and co-applicant for the grant, said: "We were really excited to participate in this study with Warwick Medical School, as taking part in world-leading research makes a real difference to our patients both now and in the future. "As well as the positive effects for the UHCW patients who took part in the trial, we hope this study will lead to new treatments to help patients with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases all over the world."   Prof. Thornalley and his team are now hoping manufacturers will want to explore the use of the compound as pharmaceutical products.       Vitamin D supplementation associated with less time spent in ICU among critically ill patients Lishui People’s Hospital (China), May 18, 2021 According to news originating from Lishui, People’s Republic of China, research stated, “Vitamin D deficiency is a common scenario in critically ill patients and has been proven to be associated with poor outcomes. However, the effect of vitamin D supplementation for critically ill patients remains controversial.” Our news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Lishui People’s Hospital: “Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the effect of vitamin D supplementation among critically ill patients. Electronic databases PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library were searched for eligible randomized controlled trials between 2000 and January 2021. The primary outcome was overall mortality, and the secondary ones were the length of intensive care unit stay, the length of hospital stay, as well as the duration of mechanical ventilation. Subgroup analyses were performed to explore the treatment effect by type of admission, route of administration, dose of supplemented vitamin D, and the degree of vitamin D deficiency. A total of 14 studies involving 2,324 patients were finally included. No effect on overall mortality was found between vitamin D supplementation and control group [odds ratio (OR), 0.73; 95% CI, 0.52-1.03; I2 = 28%]. The vitamin D supplementation reduced the length of intensive care unit stay [mean difference (MD), -2.25; 95% CI, -4.07 to -0.44, I2 = 71%] and duration of mechanical ventilation (MD, -3.47; 95% CI, -6.37 to -0.57, I2 = 88%). In the subgroup analyses, the vitamin D supplementation for surgical patients (OR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.47-0.94; I2 = 0%) or through parenteral way (OR, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.22-0.82, I2 = 0%) was associated with reduced mortality.” According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “In critically ill patients, the supplementation of vitamin D has no effect on overall mortality compared to placebo but may decrease the length of intensive care unit stay and mechanical ventilation. Further trials are necessary to confirm our findings.”

Episode 68 marks Chris and Alex’s first look at popular animation studio DreamWorks, turning to the California-based company’s early cycle of cel-animated cartoons to examine The Prince of Egypt (Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner and Simon Wells, 1998). Joining them to separate the historical realism from the packaged Westernised fantasy is biblical scholar and broadcaster Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, whose research encompasses ancient Israelite and Judahite religions, and portrayals of the religious past in the Hebrew Bible. Listen as they discuss the artistic and historic license (and forms of poetic embellishment) that support this part-musical animated adaptation; The Prince of Egypt’s late-1990s context and vital place within the development of DreamWorks as a successful Hollywood studio; how the original Exodus story functions as a foundational myth central to the construction of Israelite identity; the formal and narrative interplay between Moses’ divine power, the supernatural, and Egyptian magic; star voice casting, vocal performance, and problematic processes of white-washing and colour-coding; the use of embryonic digital imagery during certain spectacular set-pieces; and how The Prince of Egypt presents its Christian iconography alongside the framing of miraculous activity within Moses’ own search for figurative and literal truth.

This week on the WarriorU Podcast, Bram Connolly and Trent Burnard continue their Leadership Analysis Series. During this series Bram and Trent will be forensically analysing leadership styles throughout history and attributing them with a score for different facets of leadership. By doing this, they hope to find knowledge, skills and attributes that modern leaders may, or may not want to emulate.This week on the WarriorU Podcast, they dissect Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Due to his status as the last Shah, or King, of Iran, he is often known simply as, The Shah. He was born on the 26th of October 1919 in Tehran. His rule started in 1941 until his overthrow in the Iranian Revolution on the 11th of February 1979. Throughout his reign, aimed to achieve two broad goals – consolidate his personal power and Westernize Iran.Leadership AnalysisInspiration and Motivation - Score: 4/10The Shah used his image of being a young, confident, wealthy and progressive to gain public support for his visions and bring political stability and reform to Iran.Used vibrant celebrations of Iranian culture and history to inspire the people, while also being seen as a Westernised leader.Had a personality of being timid, indecisive and hesitant was both a strength and a weakness.Established the SAVAK, secret police, and had the Army be loyal to him personally in order to use coercion to force people to follow his vision.Was able to nationalise the oil fields, creating a new economic flow of wealth into the country.Providing Purpose and Direction - Score: 5/10The Shah aimed, throughout his reign, to achieve two broad aims – consolidate his personal power and Westernize Iran.In 1946 he sent the army to defeat separatist leaders in Persian Azerbaijan, leading to public popularity of the Shah increasing.An assassination attempt on the Shah in 1949 was blamed on the Communist Party of Iran (Tudeh) and the Shah used this an opportunity to ban the party, who he saw as a political threat to his power.Effectiveness of Leadership Style - Score: 4/10The Shah was an authoritarian autocrat, and had a dictator's approach to leadership.Introduced social reform which gave women the rights to vote, decreased the role of Islam in Iranian culture and promoted Western culture and customs.Although being in power for a long time, his dictatorship wasn't enough to sustain his rule and he wasn't comfortable with responsibility nor the accountability that comes with being dictator.Enduring Legacy - Score: 4/10The downfall of the Shah and ushering in of the Islamic Republic saw all of the Shah's reforms reversed and conservative Islamic social laws introduced – many of which still continue today.The Shah's legacy is highly contestable – some hold him and his leadership's accomplishments in high regard and still follow these ideals now, however the Iranian state has effectively criminalised any adoration of the Shah and his ideas, and many also see him as a weak and ineffectual leader, and his lasting impact in Iran is heavily suppressed.How it ended for them - Score: 0/10The Shah's indecisive leadership and increasing unpopularity amongst all social classes of Iran saw him flee Iran in the face of a popular and increasingly violent revolution aimed at overthrowing him and all of his Western initiatives.He died in 1980, from cancer, in Egypt.Overall Leadership Summary - Score: 18/ 50The Shah's ability to pursue his goals of consolidating power, modernising and westernizing Iran was able to occur through the inspiration and motivation he was able to utilise through his centralization of power, coercion through SAVAK/Army, and pandering to social groups in order to pursue his vision for Iran, which was achieved successfully for much of... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Canada's beautiful nature and multi-cultural inclusivity OR the American dream? This episode's guest, Surya Dhulipala, has lived, studied and worked in both countries. Originally from Mumbai, India, Surya earned his PhD in Texas before moving to Canada to pursue a career in Environmental Science. We talk about his experiences as an immigrant in both Canada and the US and he shares some important advice on climate change and what we can do in our day-to-day lives to help.    You don't want to miss: All you need to know about Mumbai, India. What an Indian really thinks about Westernised “butter chicken”... Day to day life as an international student in Pittsburgh, Austin & San Francisco. The differences between life as an immigrant in the USA vs. Canada. The questions you should ask yourself when deciding which country to move to. PLUS, the simple changes you can make in your daily life to help combat climate change: Straight from a PhD qualified Environmental Scientist. Links & Resources: Find Surya on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/suryadhulipala/ Download my 50 free tips from newcomers to Canada: What they wish they knew before they moved! bit.ly/freetipscanada Follow us on Instagram: @TheNewcomerCollective For more about us and what we do, check out our website: TheNewcomerCollective.com Make sure you hit SUBSCRIBE so you don't miss out on any of our inspiring interviews and valuable ‘life in Canada' lessons. And, if you enjoyed this episode, please let us know by leaving a review - Until next week!   

In Episode 2, we go a bit lighter and discuss Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1979 smash comedy Gol Maal (meaning “Messed Up” in English), a comedy where a sports-and-film obsessed chartered accountant switches between dual identities to keep his job and woo his boss’s daughter, Urmila. If you’re feeling, like us, that one of the best remedies for these trying times is a good comedy, then this might just be for you. Fake identity hijinks! Mocking Bollywood superstar cameos! An obsession with moustaches (so many moustaches)! It may not quite match the comic insanity of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (which we will definitely cover one day) but this movie is pretty close in its dedication to making you laugh yourself silly. In this episode, we also attempt to unravel some of the context of late 70s India which influenced the film. Much of the humour is actually a gentle and good-natured poke at the conflict between traditional Hindu values of the older generation (such as having the right kind of moustache) and the increasingly Westernised values of the younger one (such as not even having a moustache). The film also contains a smattering of gender and workplace politics, all done in good fun. So, moustache or not, take your seat and get ready for kick-off as we dive into Gol Maal.   NB: The episode Thumbnail is the Poster for Gol Maal, as found on Wikipedia. The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist.

Imagine if you were told that there wasn't enough space on your hand for all five fingers, so one needed to go, what would you think about that course of therapy? This is exactly what modern orthodontics proposes for issues such as 'crowding of teeth,' an issue which is ever-increasing in developed nations with "Westernised" diet. Leading Australian holistic dentist Dr Ron Ehrlich, has in his decades of clinical practice, looked deeper, searching for reasons why dental issues are on the rise, despite widespread availability of dental health services. In today's podcast, Andrew and Ron explore the controversial issues in dentistry including how to promote healthy jaw size and function, the re-mineralisation of tooth enamel, and the real health issues surrounding mercury amalgams and root canal therapy. Find today's show notes and podcast transcript here: https://www.fxmedicine.com.au/podcast/dental-controversies-dr-ron-ehrlich *****DISCLAIMER: The information provided on FX Medicine is for educational and informational purposes only. The information provided is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional advice or care. Please seek the advice of a qualified health care professional in the event something you learn here raises questions or concerns regarding your health.*****

Through our diets, hygiene practices, overuse of antibiotics and other aspects of our Westernised diets, we are losing much of the vast diversity of our gut microbiomes. In this episode for World Microbiome Day, I speak to Prof. Maria Gloria Dominguez Bello who has conducted fascinating work on the gut microbiomes of uncontacted Amerindian Tribes in the Amazon Jungle, who have amazingly diverse microbiomes. We also discuss her pioneering work on vaginal seeding in C-section births and her fascinating initiative to store microbial diversity through the global Microbiota Vault.

Tahnee welcomes Helena Norberg-Hodge to the podcast today. Helena is a pioneer of the New Economics movement and has spent many years studying the driving forces behind why our economies are failing us, and what we can do about it. Helena’s perspectives are informed by a systems based approach and coloured by the many years she spent in Ladakh, part of the larger region of Kashmir, where she watched global capital completely transform entire communities. Today's chat is deeply insightful and informative, for anyone interested in creating a global community where we all thrive Tahnee and Helena discuss: Helena's journey and the time she spent in Ladakh as the catalyst for her path into activism. Food and human centred supply chain. The problem with neoliberal multinational global economics. How small business is threatened by the global economic model. How change needs to occur at both an individual and systemic level. How we can create sustainable systems at the local level by drawing on insights from the global community. Technology as a part of the problem not the solution. Helena's upcoming online event, World Localisation Day.   Who is Helena? Helena Norberg-Hodge is the director and founder of Local Futures, and founder of the International Alliance for Localization. Helena's aim is to renew ecological and social well being by promoting a systemic shift away from economic globalisation towards localisation. Helena is the producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness, and is the author of Ancient Futures: Lessons from Ladakh for a Globalizing World. Since 1975, Elena has worked with the people of Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”, to find ways of enabling their culture to meet the modern world without sacrificing social and ecological values.   Resources:   World Localization Day Event  Local Futures Website Economics Of Happiness FilmAncient Futures Book Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee:   (00:00) Hi, everybody and welcome to The SuperFeast Podcast. Today I'm really excited to have Helena Norberg-Hodge with me. She's the director and founder of Local Futures and the founder of the International Alliance for Localization. She's also hosting and facilitating World Localization Day, which is on June 21 this year.   Tahnee:  (00:18) I'm really excited to be supporting her and getting the word out and to be attending ourselves. We're really, just super excited and interested to learn more about this work because living where we do and doing the work we do, we feel like it's really important in this kind of global landscape to start also talking about what's happening locally and how we can ... You know, we're all living through the time of Corona and now the riots and movements with Black Lives Matter around Australia and the world and we're seeing governments just really behaving really ignorantly and persuing models that are really out of date and outmoded and I think the work that Helena is doing is just so important in this time. Really excited to have her here.   Tahnee:  (00:56) She's also had this really amazing kind of cultural life living in Tibet in Ladakh and she also has made films and written a beautiful book Ancient Futures: Lessons From Ladakh is the book and also the name of the film if I'm right. Is that correct, Helena?   Helena: (01:12) This is the name of the film too so we have a book and a film and then The Economics Of Happiness [crosstalk 00:01:16].   Tahnee:  (01:17) Yeah, which is the one Mason and I have seen, which is really amazing. You also won kind of the alternative Nobel Prize, which is pretty rad. Is that for your work in that region?   Helena:   (01:27) Yeah. That was for the work in Ladakh.   Tahnee:  (01:29) Okay. Pretty impressive resume. Every time I've mentioned your name people are like, "Oh my gosh." You seem to have this incredible reputation, especially around this area and I'm sure globally as well. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be interested in localisation and what that means for us in this age of globalisation?   Helena:   (01:47) Yeah. I had my eyes opened to this in 1975 when I arrived in this part of Tibet but belongs politically to India. It's called Ladakh and I was going as part of a film team, I was a linguist at that time living in Paris and I love nature, really love nature, but I wasn't an activist. I wasn't aware at all of these issues to do with the economy and local versus global.   Helena:   (02:14) I came in contact with the people who had never been pulled into this global economic system because they hadn't been colonised. Even the missionaries who had come earlier had not been able to destroy their culture. They still had their own Buddhist culture that went back for thousands of years.   Helena:   (02:35) They had a way of life that in many ways was a paradise. It was a Shangri La. Almost every person who came in the early days said that, they said, "Oh my God. What a paradise. What a pity it has to be destroyed" and I, having picked up a bit of the language, because, as I said, I was a linguist and I had [inaudible 00:02:58] part of a film team that in helping to make the film and picking up some of the language I then decided to stay on. I was just in love with the people.   Helena:   (03:08) I realised that if they heard these foreigners saying, "It's a paradise. What a pity it has to be destroyed" they would be absolutely perplexed and amazed because from their point of view, they were getting the impression that in the West we just had everything that they had, plenty of time, community, connection to nature, every mother having 10 live in caretakers for every baby, no one in debt, no one having to pay rent or mortgages, unbelievable leisurely time frame. There just wasn't the time pressures that we have.   Helena:  (03:49) All of that they assumed that we had and on top of that we had all of this amazing money and we were flying in aeroplanes and they were being told that if they just would hurry up and get their children educated, get them to school, then they'd be able to go into the city and get a modern job and have everything that we have.   Helena:  (04:12) I witnessed over the next sort of decade how this process of global economic growth and the global economic system transformed their total way of life. I witnessed how people were being pulled into the city to get that job, almost overnight, led to friction between groups that had lived side by side for 500 years. There had never been group conflict.   Helena:  (04:42) After 10 years of huge tensions, after 14 years they were literally killing each other. By that time, this was in 1989, I had also been doing some work in Bhutan, [inaudible 00:04:56] work in Bhutan and I witnessed almost exactly the same process there. It was a very similar situation. They also had a Buddhist kingdom that had been cut off from the outside world. Both Ladakh and Bhutan had been protected by the Himayalas.   Helena:  (05:12) They were just so remote. They had been seared off for political reasons and both of them thrown open roughly the same time and in the same time period that led to this terrible bloodshed. In Ladakh, it was mainly between Muslims and Buddhists, and Bhutan between Hindus and Buddhists.   Helena:  (05:31) In the meanwhile, as I started speaking about this problem with the economic model and giving talks around the world. There had been lots of information from all over the world substantiating what I was saying and when I wrote a book later Ancient Futures that was translated into almost 50 languages and I would get from all over the world people telling me this story you tell of Ladakh is our story too.   Helena:  (06:01) I think I am telling a really important story and I feel supported and substantiated by all these people, almost 50 language groups, telling me this wasn't just a rare exception.   Helena:  (06:16) Really what that's led to is having to examine this economic system holistically, understanding how it has actually come to shape, everything we do virtually. It really has been shaping our thinking, our view of history, relationships to one another, our relationships to nature and in a fundamentally destructive way.   Helena:  (06:43) You'll hear a lot of critique of the neoliberal economy and so many people on the left in the Westernised world are very critical of what happened in more recent years, since the '80s basically with Margaret Thatcher and so on but when you come from [inaudible 00:07:05] we're coming from a deeper, I would say, spiritual awareness of the interconnections between human beings and the rest of life and this absolute conviction that intergenerational community is essential for our wellbeing. That's particularly for children.   Helena:  (07:26) What I saw in Ladakh was this tradition. Just this amazing, just unbelievably beautiful relationship between the wee little one year old and the great-great-grandfather ... You know, they'd be walking hand and hand, both of them barely able to walk, both of them [inaudible 00:07:44] speak clearly. They're both toothless. They're both hairless. They were sort of made for each other.   Helena:  (07:52) It was something that was so beautiful. I guess the thing that has made my work sometimes very difficult and lonely is that most of the people I've known intimately, personally, who have experienced something like this are by now dead and it does worry me a lot that a lot of people now would say go to many parts of the world they think they're experiencing tradition in rural remote communities.   Helena:  (08:23) But what I'm fearing is that in almost every place now, either colonialism, missionaries from long time ago or more recent, what I see is this mental pollution coming in through television and tourism as well, has so changed people and that means that people often find, very often, what they feel is a traditional village would actually be a few old people because all of the young people have had to go to the city. There would be, obviously, a lot of dissatisfaction and unhappiness as rural people are left behind and everything about rural life has essentially been marginalised.   Helena:  (09:06) That's been going on from the very inception of this modern economy. Yeah. There's just so, so much to say about it but it became very, very clear that ... Literally, I could probably list hundreds of reasons why the lesson from Ladakh was we must do everything we can to strengthen community and our deeper connections to nature, and when I say nature I mean also children having the opportunity to relate to animals.   Helena:  (09:39) That's a tricky issue today because people think that we should all become vegan but my experience was that all Indigenous people I know actually did eat animal products and they also had an ongoing caring connection with animals.   Helena:  (09:55) I just loved seeing a five year old boy care for a young baby goat just like I love seeing them carrying their little sister. I realised over the years that nurturing, we are animals and so it means, essentially, domesticated animals because we aren't and shouldn't be doing that with wild animals but that relationship with domesticated animals was so im turn nurturing young men and allowing them to maintain all of their feminine nurturing side. Now in neuroscience too people are recognising ... Actually I'm not sure if it's neuroscience but what we feel that there are some people who realise that this would effect the hormones of young men. It's actually really fundamentally important.   Helena:  (10:43) I came to realise that this deep connection to nature, this being embedded in nature, being much more deeply interdependent with particularly intergenerational community, was the foundation for the most remarkable joy and lightness of being.   Helena:  (11:03) I experienced people who were just so deeply relaxed in who they were. Part of this whole framework where you as a young person were involved in the nurturing yourself, you were also in the framework where you were deeply nurtured and where you felt eyes around you where a multitude of older people were there for you. They saw you, they heard you, they knew your name, they deeply recognised you as a unique individual.   Helena:  (11:38) The paradox is I discovered that when you had this really stable and secure community fabric, people are actually free to be genuinely an individual and we had all this hype about individualism in the modern world but I see a lot of young people petrified of in any way imperfect, petrified to live up to a standard image and to look important, and look busy, and to always send that message, "I'm fine. I'm okay" and not able to express their vulnerability, their imperfection.   Helena:  (12:22) To me, this has multiple levels but what happens when your role models are very intimately connected to you, you never think anybody is perfect because nothing in life is perfect. This is also why I remember asking mothers if they worried if their child didn't walk at age one they really absolutely couldn't understand my question. It took quite a while for me then to think why, because I spoke the language fluently but it took like half an hour before we figured out that they simply could not comprehend how anyone could worry about a child not walking exactly on some schedule. They were just laughing when I explained how in the West people would start worrying if the child didn't walk by age one. Their whole attitude was, "Of course, the child will walk at some point."   Helena:  (13:20) This was sort of the incredible wealth of this deep connected way of being and I realised fairly early on that it was actually ultimately economic pressures that were destroying this and tearing people apart and as they were pushed into the city then there's no space for the grandparents and they weren't needed anymore because now you were suddenly dependent on huge institutions far away and it was all about doing this job and it was a job that turned you into a very narrow little entity in a big system.   Helena:  (13:57) You were no longer someone who knew how to ... Already as a child you knew how to look after a baby. It wasn't something you had to read a book about [inaudible 00:14:08] have a baby yourself. You knew how to build a house, you knew how to look after animals, you knew how to grow food. Everyone knew how to sing and dance and make music. You were a much broader, wider and more developed human being.   Helena:  (14:26) What I saw was this narrowing as people went into the city and very rapidly this fear that, "Okay, I'm earning X amount of money now but every day the prices are changing." I saw structurally how this urbanising economic path where literally global markets and global institutions were behind it all, led to fear and, of course, as I said, the rise [inaudible 00:14:56] local people but also this fear that I'm never going to have enough money to feel secure so it led to this greed and hoarding and... Yeah. People changed dramatically.   Helena:  (15:09) All of this showed me so clearly, first of all, that human beings are not by nature innately greedy or aggressive. I'm battling now huge vested interests that are systematically putting out ideas that eradicate this knowledge that I'm talking about and it's very insidious and it's what children are taught now at universities, what we're taught through the media. It's just really very, very frightening to see how it's [crosstalk 00:15:45].   Tahnee:  (15:45) Are you talking about how they're controlling the messaging and the types of subjects studied and the ways in which things are taught? You know, that we gaze in a certain direction and don't look in the other direction. Is that kind of what you're getting at?   Helena:  (15:58) Yeah, but actually even more overtly than that, you know, there are books that reach everybody but in more recent years someone named Steven Pinker and these books get out really widely and his message is basically, "Don't worry about violence because in the past we were so much more violent" and the message that is being put out is subtly that economic growth through technology makes life better and better and better.   Helena:  (16:31) It's a package deal, an idea of progress and people very vulnerable to the idea that life has always got better through growth and technology and that's further back in the past we go the worst things were, it means that a book like mine that right now is in the schools in South Korea, for instance, wouldn't be in the schools in America. It's particularly in the English speaking world that corporate influence has been even stronger than some other cultures.   Tahnee:  (17:06) Who's paying for these media outlets. You look at the technological kind of industries, they're massive contributors to political and media campaigns.   Helena:  (17:15) I've spoken to a lot of those people who are continuing to promote this worldview and they really ... Most of the ones that I've known and I've had some in my family and most recently just last year I was meeting with Nobel Prize-winning economists, one of them is somebody named Joseph Stiglitz, who was the head of the World Bank, and he's a double Nobel Prize-winning and he's been a critic of globalisation, which I have been also actively involved in raising awareness about how the global economic system we have from the very beginning was very destructive but then in that neoliberal era in the last 30 years, 35 years, policies were brought in that were even more overtly supporting giant corporations, reducing any space for genuine democracy, corporate media, corporate-run medicine, corporate influence in education.   Helena:  (18:19) That process has been accelerating in the last 30 years, which is also the period in which most people recognise now that whether it's loss of biodiversity, extinction species, the terrible crisis of climate, the gap between rich and poor, which in every country has escalated absolutely obscenely and that's been true in every country I know of, including Sweden, my native country.   Helena:  (18:53) These trends have got worse. In some countries, it's much worse than in others and, particularly, with Black Lives Matter, the issue of black lives in a country like Sweden has not yet been an issue but I have seen ... I shouldn't say it hasn't been an issue but I have seen fear, racism, xenophobia increase there too because these policies that have led to a few people getting super rich and the majority of people struggling, and that's even the middle classes, has led to increased fear and prejudice everywhere.   Helena:  (19:37) I just so hope that people will be willing to focus more on this economic system and come together to look at how we can, all around the world, in every country, we need to be strengthening community and local economies.   Helena:  (19:55) You know, what that does is to actually ... It rebuilds those relationships that I talked about in Ladakh. It doesn't do it in, overnight. It doesn't do it in a complete and amazing way as they had it but I actually see a way that we in the modern world could have some greater comfort, some more communication and transportation without destroying ourselves or the earth.   Helena:  (20:28) There is a way forward that I'm really, really excited by and I'm excited by it because I also see it starting to happen. It's a many, many small initiatives and it's particularly evident in places like Byron Bay, where we are now, but many hubs around the world that actually starting to rebuild their community fabric, more human scaling businesses and interconnections, and definitely much, much greater attention to the impact this has on the earth, on nature, and its impact on climate.   Tahnee:  (21:09) Most definitely, yeah, in this time when we're talking so much about climate change and we look at the economic kind of models, which are all around foreign trade and they're not even supplying domestic ... I remember being appalled when I was a teenager watching it, must have been Four Corners or something and they were destroying the entire orange crop because they couldn't sell them in Australia because they were getting dollar a kilo oranges from California and they couldn't sell them overseas because they wouldn't travel or they weren't set up for that so they were just literally tipping them into a paddock to rot. I was just like, "That's insane. How can that be a system?"   Helena:  (21:46) [inaudible 00:21:46].   Tahnee:  (21:46) Not uncommon. It's like really common.   Helena:  (21:49) Yeah and yet ... I don't know. I just don't understand, think about this. I do think Covid has definitely helped. You know, when people started realising we can't even make our own gowns and masks what's going on? They realised how fragile the supply chains are. I do think Covid in that way is creating a major rethink.   Helena:  (22:12) I also saw many countries how this unjust system meant that people of colour were much, much worse off in a pandemic, and as they're still seeing in places like America.   Helena:  (22:28) It has led to quite a wake up that also included ... We have such a big network and are connected with people on every continent and it's just been so heartening to hear about the number of people who started growing some food and planting things from seed and really enjoying slowing down a bit.   Helena:  (22:51) I think I'm so, so hoping now that this will really spark an interest in what I call the big picture understanding, the bigger picture so that instead of just treating isolated symptoms ... Like if we just look at climate change in isolation and we don't understand its links to this global economic system and we don't understand either that the media has been so dominated by big business, it's not just Murdoch, it's virtually everything you hear in the mainstream, hasn't been telling people that the reason those oranges were just rotting on the ground and why we have everywhere, every year, the most unbelievable waste in food is because we've allowed global corporations to run our food system and they're running our government as well.   Helena:  (23:52) I think looking at the food system is one of the best ways to understand why we really must move towards a more local path instead of continuing to globalise.   Helena:  (24:04) Once you start seeing that picture, you start seeing that not only do you have, as we said, in one year when these crops just rot but every single year, every minute, virtually as we speak now, food is being imported and exported across the world. Literally the same product so that Australia will import wheat from Europe and exporting wheat to Europe and importing those oranges from California and just destroying the local oranges.   Helena:  (24:41) Right now they're importing 20 tonnes of bottled water I think from the UK and they're exporting 20 tones of bottled water to the UK. Scallops are flown from Tassie to China to be peeled and flown back again. Fish flown all the way from China to America to China to be treated.   Helena:  (25:03) This is going on while we talk about climate change but the official description of climate change and it's sort of cure has all been focused on the individual. The individuals have this finger pointed at them saying, "What is wrong with you? We have told you about climate change and you haven't changed anything. You're still driving your car, you still want to go on holiday on aeroplanes ."   Helena:  (25:30) It's led to a sort of conclusion that human beings are just innately greedy and another very popular mantra right now is people never learn from information. We've got to do it differently, we've got to do storytelling, we've got to do something else.   Helena:  (25:47) People didn't get information about the easiest, simplest way to reduce emissions and that would be that we eat our own oranges here and California eats their own oranges [crosstalk 00:26:00].   Tahnee:  (26:00) Start there. Shuck your own scallops.   Helena:  (26:04) You know, I can send you right now just most recently, a perfect bit of propaganda to, hopefully, explain to people how we really got to ... We have to wake up to the truth of the type of conspiracy, that is a very different type of conspiracy from what most people think. I see it as a structural conspiracy where tragically allowing business to become bigger and bigger and bigger and more global, allowing global traders to have so much power over different countries and allowing basically a system that started with slavery to continue to go in the same direction for several generations. That is the disaster that lies behind climate change, behind poverty, behind epidemics of depression, behind almost every serious crisis we face.   Helena:  (27:02) We don't need to go back to living as some ancient traditional culture. Partly, with localisation, we understand in any case we need to adapt more to different ecosystems, different cultures so we're talking about diversity, we're talking about local people having much more power over their own lives but also closely intune with the real economy, which is the living earth, the real economy. There's nothing we depend on, nothing that doesn't come from the earth.   Helena:  (27:39) Of course, we've allowed this structural conspiracy to escalate where business has been allowed and not just allowed [crosstalk 00:27:47].   Tahnee:  (27:47) It's been encouraged.   Helena:  (27:48) Yeah. Encouraged through blind adherence to an economic, really, a myth, which started early on in the modern economy, something called comparative advantage and saying, "Oh, no. Don't say self-reliant." Self-reliance has been described as hardship, has been called subsistence and that's why the truth about cultures like Ladakh and Bhutan are so important in terms of re-examining these assumptions.   Helena:  (28:19) We've all been brainwashed. I certainly had and I was in Ladakh for years before I even recognised what I was seeing. I was there for years and I was still thinking, "Well, it is a very hard life" because they were carrying things on their back. In retrospect, I now realise that there are some exceptions, I would definitely choose a future with some glass in windows but it was just ... The more we learn about our bodies, the more we learn to use our bodies and use the muscles we've been born with, not only to be healthy but to be happier ... You know, again, neuroscience showing all this.   Helena:  (29:02) The picture that I am painting is really one that I think so many people would agree with but the big difficulty is reaching them because instead ... I started telling you about the propaganda that just now has come out is a short film from the Financial Times where they start off ... It's so cleverly done because what they do these days, they show these images of these huge ships going back and forth and they talk about how all these emissions of food being transported around the world really looks like it's very damaging for the climate.   Helena:  (29:43) But then in this supposedly reasonable way lead you in and the conclusion is, "No, no, no. Those emissions are really not that important. If you care about the people in Kenya, you should be buying their flowers in winter."   Helena:  (29:59) Now no one is there telling people that in Kenya they're using the best, most fertile land to grow flowers to be flown to Europe, and while people are going hungry there. I actually believe in the structural conspiracy that the people who produce these things are not even aware of the truth. They haven't been there or if they have, they might have met some business people in Kenya who were making money out of selling those flowers.   Tahnee:  (30:28) I was thinking about that because I think so many people often ... You know, they play at that whole social justice kind of like, "Help them have what you have" kind of a thing, which, naively, sounds really beautiful I think, yes, it's a really nice emotional piece for people. I think the creators often aren't aware of how the actual economics of what's going on happens ... Yeah. They just don't appreciate ...   Tahnee:  (30:55) Even with aid, I remember studying with a group of women that was about problems of aid and this idea of coming in and giving money and it's like that's not really the solution. It's more about who is the best taro grower? Get them to teach other people how to grow taro. That's a better solution for aid. You know? Or how to make the soil better or how to build a better hut.   Tahnee:  (31:16) This is where we come in with our expectations and our cultural kind of indoctrination and you said that as well, like when you're in Ladakh it's like you have to learn to see differently when you enter these places. It takes time and it takes humility and the ability to drop your ego and be in a space of learning I think.   Helena:  (31:34) Yeah. I also think, for me, what's scary about it is that because in so many places now people really have become impoverished and they really aren't very happy so there's been a fragmentation of the family and very often the young people have left so then it becomes really easy to think, "These poor people. How can we help them?"   Helena:  (31:57) I've also seen that in the most remote areas like up on the Tibetan plateau, the most remote traditional nomads are almost the worst affected. They have developed this idea that they are the most impoverished, backward primitive people in the worst sense of the world and they just beg you to give them money to send their child to school. They think that's their responsibility, that's the future, living out on the land is backward, primitive and their children are being left behind.   Helena:  (32:31) This is something that most Westerners are not aware of that so when they go and those people themselves say the first thing you can do to help us out is build a school or give us money to send children to school because very few people are looking at the bigger picture and they're not seeing that these children that are being sent to school are then now in the thousands of applying for one job. You know, sometimes having gone through university, applying for jobs as cleaners and those people that are helping with the school they don't realise that the end result is there's now suicide among young people, one a month in a place where it would happen maybe one in a generation before.   Helena:  (33:13) It's all about seeing the connections and also Tahnee... You know, one thing that's scary is that the next iteration of this whole issue of aid became with the help of the World Bank, microcredit and so then people in the West were told, "You're all wrong with aid. That was very patronising. You came in there and you just dumped money and created dependence."   Helena:  (33:41) Then they came up with the idea of microcredit, which was suddenly marketed as this way of not creating dependence but actually coming in with a loan creates much more dependence [crosstalk 00:33:53].   Tahnee:  (33:52) Repaying them and interest and ... Yeah.   Helena:  (33:55) They were pulling people into debt who have never been in debt before.   Tahnee:  (33:59) They become customers of the bank, don't they?   Helena:  (34:01) Yeah.   Tahnee:  (34:01) If everyone is a customer then we all ... Well, not we profit but they profit.   Helena:  (34:06) Yeah. Now what's difficult is to say, "You shouldn't go in" and maybe give a microcredit loan... It's not that simple. You know? Each context has to be scrutinised much more carefully but I think once people could get a much better understanding of the bigger picture, as I say, understanding those connections between what's happening in this global economic system, understand how almost everything we do now, we've got to be examining it carefully that we're not ending up reinforcing a systemic support for even more globalised, even more commercialised ways forward.   Helena:  (34:50) Right now one of the biggest threats, as I said, is leaping into of a new robot culture where robots are being romanticised, they're being pushed by the FAO so the UN, again, has so many good people in it but as an organisation the UN is, essentially, appointees from these governments and most governments are shaping their policies around what big business is demanding.   Helena:  (35:20) This is just sort of structural conspiracy that we need to understand better to understand that even something like regenerative agriculture, we need to be looking really carefully at systemically what is happening on the ground when people use that word, because it's actually being massaged into a way of only talking about soil, only carbon, not about diversity, not about shortening distances, and once we really get the bigger picture we should be encouraging wherever possible diversification on the land, shortening the distance to the market, and trying to create a generally circular economy, not a corporate circular economy, which they are now pushing where they say, "Oh, yeah. We're recycling all our waste and we're making this wonderful product out of plastic and now we're melting it again" and it's all toxic stuff. Usually making things we don't need.   Helena:  (36:22) We need to be looking really carefully at what are the real needs and I just want to say that the best way to understand global/local is to look at food and the food system. It's the best way to understand and it's the best and most important area to focus on.   Helena:  (36:42) Also, what you're doing with health in terms of the mushrooms or the herbs or the plants that can genuinely restore health through the natural methods. It has to do with our relationships to the land and it has to do with much more human scale chains of connection.   Helena:  (37:02) Once we start going via this global corporate systems, even when there are really good people involved, it cannot support diversity, it cannot support real empowerment of people, it cannot support the community fabric so there's a structural reason why we must go slower, smaller, more local. That all goes together.   Tahnee:  (37:29) I just wanted to ... Having a business that's a conversation we have all the time is we've had offers from people to invest in all of these things and we think, for us, to keep it to this point where we can control the ethics of the company and how we do business is so important.   Tahnee:  (37:45) I can feel ... Like Mason studied business and what you're talking about, he learned how to be polite in a meeting with a Chinese buyer and all this weird stuff that had no application to running a small family business, like what we do.   Tahnee:  (37:58) It's just for so many people that's almost ... I don't know. It's seen as you're not reaching your full potential, you're not going to what's possible and it's like we constantly have to say, "No, we don't want more. We want to do better at what we're doing. We want to slow down. We want to make sure that we still do know the people we buy herbs off." You know?   Tahnee:  (38:15) It has to be this constant effort and checking in and I think when you look at a corporation there's no space for that. It's not built into the system. It's just about the bottom line and the profit and the meeting with the board. Yeah. It's like a whole redesign I think.   Tahnee:  (38:30) Even when you look at how politics is ... Everyone is like, "What's the budget doing? What's the economy doing?" What about the people? How is our culture? How are the children going? I feel like we're just having conversations all the time.   Helena:  (38:45) I think it's really good also to have this conversation to recognise how pressured we are by the culture and how here you've done really quite well and yet if you don't keep growing it's like you're a failure and when is enough enough? What is that level of balance and sort of keeping a generally sustainable balance where you know that you're doing well enough, especially where you have enough awareness to know exactly how they're being grown and that that's happening in truly ecological and ethical way and all the way across to the consumer and being aware and also aware enough to realise that doing podcasts, as you're doing, I think is one of the most important things you can do because you're swimming in a sea of enormous pressures to get bigger or die.   Helena:  (39:39) It's just like the individual. Like I said, when you get into this system where you're suddenly caught up in this anonymous system where how much you earn is never going to be enough unless every day the prices are going up. Once we start creating more localised systems we start changing that a bit but the reason why I'm glad you're doing podcasts is I hope it will help to get out enough awareness so that we start also pressuring for policy change.   Helena:  (40:10) When I say pressuring for policy change, I really believe that the combination of the activists that started XR and they've started Occupy could come together in a really powerful movement to, essentially, take the economy back, to now make it very clear to political leaders, we know the game, we know the exact point that we need to look at and that is your commitment to global trade and you're subsidising, you're taxing, and you are regulating in a way that is destroying the smaller and also Tahnee you should keep in mind that literally every business that operates within a national arena is being squeezed for taxes, being regulated, and in the meanwhile the giant global monopolies that do not pay tax [crosstalk 00:41:03].   Tahnee:  (41:03) Right. [crosstalk 00:41:04].   Helena:  (41:05) [crosstalk 00:41:05] subsidised and deregulated.   Tahnee:  (41:06) We were talking about this today because, for us, to like register a herb with the TGA or something it's thousands of dollars and it's a giant headache. Then you look at some of these medical companies with vaccines and they get rushed through, no testing. You know? You're just like, "Hang on a second. How is it that a herb is more dangerous than an injected drug?"   Helena:  (41:28) And, you know, the actual truth is also that these multinationals have been working to pressure governments to bring in those regulations because that would destroy their smaller companies. They've been pressuring governments to make it illegal even for farmers to sell food from heirloom seeds.   Tahnee:  (41:48) Yeah. I remember learning about that at university with Monsanto through India and they were getting them sucked into that loop of the seeds that don't reproduce that were genetically sterile and then they're having to buy them or the World Bank is giving them loans so that they can buy the seeds and then they end up in debt and it's just this cycle, which is completely evil. There's no other way to look at it.   Tahnee:  (42:11) Yeah. They were fining the seed savers. They were women storing the seeds and they were getting fined because they were keeping fertile seed that could reproduce.   Helena:  (42:20) It is an evil system and yet I see a lot of good people supporting it and that's why I also feel in a way positive in a sense that I really believe that we're in such a mess and on so many levels because of the blindness to how this system works.   Helena:  (42:40) What I'm finding is that I go higher up the ladder and talk to these Nobel Prize-winning economists or to ministers and so on, I'm seeing the higher you are up the power ladder, they're more blind. They're running even faster and they're relating to the whole world just through numbers. They don't see the people, they don't see the soil, they don't see the earth worms.   Helena:  (43:02) They cannot understand diversity. Diversity is inefficient. Monoculture has to be the way in those laws, and monoculture is deadly. It's deadly. It's destroying the soil.   Helena:  (43:16) On the other hand, not only do I feel optimistic because I see this blindness but that is related to what I see, which is that most people are looking for love and connection. Most people if they're helped to be guided to once again communicate in a more real, vulnerable way with other human beings and they start actually connecting at a deep level and do that in communities as they do in alcoholics anonymous and now in many emerging therapies where the combination of deep connection to others and to nature, to the animals, to the plants, that heals people and it's been proven all around the world and yet it's a micro-trend because the dominant system pushes psychologists and therapists and counsellors in exactly the opposite direction. You know, give them a quick drug, put them in prison, you know if they're not behaving well.   Tahnee:  (44:15) And they make money out of them when they are in   Helena:  (44:19) They make money out of it.   Tahnee:  (44:20) I mean, that's another [crosstalk 00:44:26].   Helena:  (44:26) [inaudible 00:44:26] globally I suppose maybe why I feel more optimistic than many of my colleagues or friends my age because I just see despite this huge pressure and all the money pressures, the regulations, the battle and so on, I just see so many amazing initiatives and amazing people.   Helena:  (44:46) Almost every day I will hear about positive trends that demonstrate that this is not about human nature, human beings despite this enormous pressure are actually managing to create alternatives and a whole movement that, the best word that I can come up with is localising, is just demonstrating and start getting this circle of positive change happening.   Helena:  (45:11) We are also now at the point where we desperately need more people to wake up to that and to actually start doing it, supporting the local food systems, supporting the local pub, and also put a bit of effort into what I call big picture activism. You know, helping to get the word out so that we can ... When I say get the word out, I'm talking about the fact that I have been involved I alternative things from the time of Ladakh, 45 years ago.   Helena:  (45:41) You know, I taught at the University of Berkeley and that's where we set our office for our institute and I was involved in place like Bolder in America and in Totnes this in England and in France and Germany so more alternative places and alternative when you analyse it means this coming back to nature and to community. It's about human scale, it's about all the fabric of local. I had never heard of Byron Bay. Never heard of it. Just like most people in Bryon Bay have never heard about all those other places.   Tahnee:  (46:15) Yeah.   Helena:  (46:16) Even in Japan, I know key places where you start getting life coming back to life as there is that connection because you can't go at it alone and that's one of the really important messages I want to get out. If you're questioning things, try to do it as part of a group. Try to come together. Support each other in that connection. Be sure you also spend some time rethinking those assumptions.   Helena:  (46:46) We like to lead people with five words, connect, educate, resist, renew, and celebrate, and the first word I see as so fundamental that the system operates by making us feel isolated and on our own and with climate change and pointing the finger and, "You as an individual" [crosstalk 00:47:10].   Tahnee:  (47:10) Social media.   Helena:  (47:12) Terrible. Terrible. It's the anti-social media. It's so frightening. To come together right now in Covid maybe more online but hopefully soon face to face to actually have even just two or three people just change their I to a We. Then the next thing we really want people to do is to be willing to take a deep breath and be willing to think really holistically big picture, is there really a way forward that's going to be now at this ... We're in a lot of trouble. We need to find systemic solutions. We can't continue to just treat every single issue separately. We need to come to the root causes so that this is what we have ...   Helena:  (48:02) You know, we have materials and so on that then lead us to say there is a way forward that is healing for you as an individual, for you as a family and for the entire planet but it does require rethinking some basic assumptions that you may not realise you're actually subscribing to ideas that support the dominant system.   Helena:  (48:26) As part of that rethinking we really want to encourage people to be willing to also say no and yes. Not fall into this also very well massaged mantra spreading out, telling people, "Only focus on the positive. Don't want any negativity." We believe that negative thinking about ourselves and negativity in our internal environment, being angry and obviously depressed has a very negative effect on our health and it sort of breeds negativity.   Helena:  (48:59) But being willing to say no to nuclear power, to this mad economic system, being willing to say no to a new development that's clearly destructive, that in no way has to affect us negatively. This thing about thinking and creating the world we want to see through thinking is much more to do with our inner world. [inaudible 00:49:25] maintaining that positive, calm and loving attitude is vital and we can be very loving as we still say no to developments that we know are harming life, are harming the community. This resistance and renewal is important that we be aware that we need both.   Helena:  (49:47) I personally am completely devoted to non-violence. I'm really devoted also to try and not even feel anger. I know that when I feel angry at something or somebody I'm harming myself. Even as we talk about this horribly unjust system and evil system I still try to maintain a positive climate inside my body and in my soul.   Tahnee:  (50:12) It's funny, though, also, to interrupt but I was just ... Even in our business in the last three years it's grown so quickly and I can really empathise how when you get to the top of an institution, how you can lose sight of what's happening. We went from having three staff to 20 staff in three years. There was a time there where I was so overwhelmed that I didn't know what was happening. I can honestly say I wouldn't have ... I'm really lucky we have such great people in our team but it's really easy for things to get out of control and to feel that pressure from the vested interests.   Tahnee:  (50:45) I feel like there's this deep empathy in me for ... Even Bill Gates. I've had people writing to me saying, "Oh my God. He's the devil incarnate" and I'm like, "I can empathise that he thinks technology is the solution." I don't agree but that's what he's been raised in and that's what he believes and to change his mind is incredibly difficult.   Helena:  (51:04) I'm so thrilled that you said that because I do see a pattern where people assume that everyone at the top is completely conscious of what they're doing and they are evil incarnate. I just don't see that. That's also what gives me hope. I mean, I'm not very hopeful at all that we're going to change Bill Gates but enough people will wake up and say, "That is enough." We need the numbers. It's about the numbers.   Helena:  (51:32) In a way, we're being really stupid if we allow a few men with essentially no real wealth because the money that they're accumulating has no inherent value. If it were gold coins at least they could melt it [crosstalk 00:51:50].   Tahnee:  (51:52) And do something with it. Alchemise it into something.   Helena:  (51:53) Yeah. Even then, a huge pot of gold coins. It wouldn't get them very far. [inaudible 00:51:59] truly make [inaudible 00:52:02] escalating with the deregulation of global economic activity but we really I think have a responsibility and the opportunity to try to get this picture out. It just doesn't have ...   Helena:  (52:17) I find when people assume that all these people in power are evil and then they're obviously then assuming if we put good people in, everything will be fine. Well, no, it wouldn't because the structures are incapable of respecting diversity, incapable of actually doing what we need to do.   Tahnee:  (52:37) I think about that with politics all the time. People go in with really good intentions and they get spat out again because the system does not want that. It doesn't foster those kind of ethics.   Helena:  (52:47) See, that's again ... I also do think ... I hope you'll think about it this way because, for me, that's why I've been begging friends not to go into politics because I keep telling them as an individual, you just won't be able to do anything. The key about politics is that we at the grass roots should be much clearer about the policies we want, we're economically illiterate. It's not only economic illiteracy so certainly the number of people, especially women I talk to when I talk about the economy their eyes just glaze over and they're just not interested.   Helena:  (53:25) I'm beginning to think it's partly because they just assume, "Well, this is far too big. Can't change it." They've been brainwashed into believing that it's this almost evolutionary process that's just inevitable so no point thinking about it or a lot of people also think, "I never will be able to get my head around it" and a lot of women say to me, "Helena, will you just shut up? I'm not interested."   Tahnee:  (53:48) Men's business.   Helena:  (53:49) Yeah. Now, I mean, it's also ... Yeah. I've heard a lot of people saying that for instance... Yeah. Trade treaties and the global economy and no interest to me. I just sort of want to say to them, "Well, it means you're not interested in whether you're going to have a job or not, you're not interested in the health of your child, you're not interested in democracy. You're not interested [crosstalk 00:54:15]."   Tahnee:  (54:15) Yeah. Where your food is coming from.   Helena:  (54:16) Yeah.   Tahnee:  (54:17) In terms of what the World Localization Day Summit because that's happening June 21, you have so many people coming on, some massive names. You've got Russell Brand and Satish Kumar, I loved his book, and Jane Goodall and Amanda Shaver and yourself, of course, Charles Eisenstein. You've been endorsed by the Dalai Lama, which is about as good as it gets.   Helena:  (54:40) Noam Chomsky and Zach Bush is on the program.   Tahnee:  (54:42) Yes. Zach and Johann Hari, I loved his work on addiction.   Helena:  (54:45) Yeah.   Tahnee:  (54:46) That was really beautiful. And beautiful Ella who's local to this region.   Helena:  (54:50) Yes.   Tahnee:  (54:51) Joanna Macey. So many good people. That's happening on the 21st at 6 P.M. Is this a series of talks? What can people expect?   Helena:  (55:00) It's a program that is going to be about four hours. We don't expect people to sit through it in one go but we hope that they will want to watch all of it. It will be available so once you sign up and everything then you can look at it again and we hope people will see it as a repository that they hopefully will want to share with other people.   Helena:  (55:21) We will be also later on offering the individual talks and interviews on the website so you can go if you want to hear more from people. It's been pretty much a nightmare having to cut things down and [crosstalk 00:55:35].   Tahnee:  (55:35) Yeah, because this was originally an in-person event or mostly in-person. Yeah. Then Covid happened.   Helena:  (55:41) That's right.   Tahnee:  (55:42) You guys have pivoted to an online space, which is a lot of work.   Helena:  (55:47) And also we're doing a webinar the following evening at 7:30. There will be a webinar with some of the speakers from the program answering questions.   Tahnee:  (55:59) Wonderful. People can sign up World Localization Day dot org. I'll share the links to that in the show notes and share them on our social media. I wanted to just touch on I think just finally what I've really appreciated about your work as I've trawled through it is that you have this really balanced harmony between globalisation and localisation in the sense that you're not telling everyone to isolate in their communities. You're sort of inviting people to share what's working and share ... It's kind of the best of... A human-centred approach I suppose, what you talk about, the best of what we're doing here and you can share this out and make models that work.   Tahnee:  (56:39) It's more of this idea of bringing it back to the humans and this kind of grassroots sharing and connection. Is that right? Am I on the right track with that?   Helena:  (56:46) Yeah. Absolutely.   Tahnee:  (56:48) It's not to shame people for travelling or for engaging with other cultures. The system is what's really causing the issue. Let's go back to people and back to real connection and community.   Helena:  (57:00) Also, that when we think that if we do get into an aeroplane or we do drive our car that we're destroying the planet without knowing that actually whatever we're doing on that individual level is a tiny fraction of why climate change is happening. We just need to look at the bigger picture and then, yes, as individuals we could do more but we need the help of policy change.   Helena:  (57:28) It drives me mad to see this self-blame that's being pushed now where people are actually in many places that train lines have either been shut down or trains have become so expensive ... It's more expensive to travel by train from Devon to London than to get in an aeroplane and fly to the other side of the world, certainly, the other side of Europe. All of that has happened because of policy change that we have not been told about. If we had had the big picture, been more economically literate, there's no way that people would have allowed this insanity of supplying food back and forth across the world. That was obviously the easiest way to reduce emission but instead this narrow focus on you, the individual, this blame on the individual.   Helena:  (58:16) I'm really worried now about young people with Black Lives Matter. We have to be so careful we're not saying to young white people, "This is your fault. You, as a white person, you can't speak anymore and you've done this, you've created this." We really have to try to come together and work absolutely as broadly as we can across all cultures and races across the world to a system that has so been ...   Helena:  (58:43) From the very inception, this system we want to change was racist, it was misogynist, it was based on overt rejection of the feminine and any people of colour. It was literally based on slavery. This is how the whole thing started and slavery today is actually as bad as it was from the very beginning but it gets hidden from us.   Tahnee:  (59:06) Yeah. Just different forms.   Helena:  (59:08) I think there's a huge release that can come if we realise that this self-blame or blaming the other is not going to get us anywhere. You know, even though, we're talking about even at the top we're going to waste our energy blaming Bill Gates or thinking that just putting another person in his place is going to make a difference. it's really about us coming together and we can start at the local level by building just new economies that really reduce our ecological footprint [inaudible 00:59:39] but then also speak out, educate ourselves and educate others.   Tahnee:  (59:46) Such a beautiful place to finish on I think, Helena. Thank you. For everybody, you have to get on this World Localization Day dot org. I will put the link in the show notes and we will share it out everywhere we have people watching so you guys can come along. I'm really grateful for your time. I know how busy you are right now so thank you for sharing your story.   Helena:  (01:00:08) I am grateful to you really.

This week, we share the third (and last for a little while) of our A Walk Through... series where we bring you through Gemmayze, one of Beirut's most Westernised neighbourhoods, and try to take a critical lens to the area. For transcripts and translations, or to sign up for Arabic classes, go to https://realarabic.weebly.com 

Tahnee welcomes Heba Shaheed to the Women's Series today. Heba is a qualified women's health nutritionist and physiotherapist who specialises in pelvic and sexual pain, menstrual health, bladder and bowel health, pregnancy, postpartum, and complex trauma. Heba provides women’s health and paediatric pelvic health services including physiotherapy, exercise and nutrition. Heba’s mission is to make women's health information accessible globally and to provide high-quality women's healthcare in the privacy and comfort of a woman's own home. Heba believes women's healthcare needs to be disrupted so that women can stop suffering in silence. Heba is a global leader in her field and an absolute wealth of knowledge. Today's chat is informative and truly inspiring, if you're a woman or know one - tune in!   Tahnee and Heba discuss: The anatomy and physiology of the pelvic floor. The normalisation of period pain. What healthy bowel and urinary movements should look like. Mechanical constipation. The functionality of the squat. The pelvic floor and child birth. The use of Jade eggs - best and worst practice. The East vs West approach to pelvic floor therapy. Releasing trauma from the psoas. Multidimensional health and the importance of taking an integrated approach, heart, mind, body.  How and where the body stores emotion.  The subjective nature of pain. Retraining the brain and neuroplasticity. The correlation between pelvic pain conditions and childhood trauma. Sensitivity, self awareness and the importance of developing emotional boundaries. Tips for creating a happy and healthy pelvic floor.   Who is Heba Shaheed ?  Heba Shaheed is co-founder and CEO of The Pelvic Expert, a digital wellbeing platform specialising in maternal, menstrual and hormone health. Heba was inspired to work in this space following her own challenges with a 15-year history of chronic pelvic pain and endometriosis, and after witnessing the devastating effects of birth injury following her sister's first birth. Through the The Pelvic Expert Heba provides holistic and research-based, women-focussed, online wellbeing programs to corporates, government, private health insurers, workplaces and individuals. A qualified physiotherapist, Heba has supported more than 2000 women on their journey to better health and wellbeing, and instructed more than 1200 therapeutic yoga and Pilates exercise classes.  Heba is a leading authority on women’s pelvic health and is a media commentator on this important yet under-represented issue, and a regular speaker at global health and women’s conferences. Heba also offers specialised physiotherapy for complex female pain and endometriosis in her private practice.     Resources:   Heba Website The Pelvic Expert Website The Pelvic Expert Instagram The Pelvic Expert Facebook The Pelvic Expert Youtube The Pelvic Floor Program - Paid 4 Week Course   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee:   (00:01) Hi everybody, and welcome to the SuperFeast podcast. Today, I am here with Heba Saheed, and she's a qualified women's health nutritionist and physiotherapist. Her expertise lies in pelvic and sexual pain, menstrual health, bladder and bowel health, pregnancy, postpartum and complex trauma. And a lot of that is as you guys know, a massive area of interest for us at SuperFeast. So I'm really excited to have her here today.   Tahnee:  (00:27) She offers one-on-one pelvic health physiotherapy consultations in the Sydney CBD area. And this is for complex pain conditions like endometriosis, bladder pain symptoms, chronic constipation. I may not do these words justice, but I'm going to try, vaginismus and vulvodynia and painful sex, you can laugh at my pronunciation Heba. And she's also the founder of The Pelvic Expert where she blogs about pelvic health and provides online pelvic health programs and consultations which especially right now, given that everyone's in lockdown, is really useful for people.   Tahnee:  (01:01) She has also got a really great Instagram account with is how I came across Heba. It's @thepelvicexpert but we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. And she also has a really awesome website, so if you guys want to go check that out after this, I would highly recommend it. Thanks for joining us today, Heba. It's really nice to have you on the podcast, finally.   Heba Shaheed:  (01:19) Thanks so much for having me. I know we've been going back and forth for a while now.   Tahnee:  (01:23) I know.   Heba Shaheed:  (01:23) But yeah, it's great and I really hope I'm able to provide some insight on this wonderful world of pelvic health. It's kind of a bit, it's almost sometimes hard to understand if you don't really get it.   Tahnee:  (01:41) Yeah. In researching you and preparing for this podcast I listened to a view other interviews you did and I was, because I've got a bit of a background in anatomy too, and I think you made the point in one of them of how a lot of people when they imagine a pelvic floor they're thinking about a banana hammock shaped piece of tissue in the pelvic area that just contracts. And they don't really have much of a three dimensional concept or a visual of what the pelvic floor actually is and how it functions.   Tahnee:  (02:15) Is that fair to say when you start seeing people, that you're educating them as well as obviously working with them?   Heba Shaheed:  (02:22) Ah yeah, absolutely. Education is the first thing. Educating them firstly, part of that is anatomy and that it is a three-dimensional, multi muscle system. I think people picture the pelvic floor as just this one little muscle that goes from your pubic bone into your tailbone, but it's more complex than that. It's got a right side, it's got a left side. It's got muscles that go to your hips, muscles that go to your tailbone, muscles that go to your pubic bone, muscles around your vagina, muscles around your urethra, muscles around your anus.   Heba Shaheed:  (02:55) It's a very complex system and they all have to interplay together. It's more than just muscles, it's connective tissue and fascia and nervous system and an immune system. There's just so much going on down there that we're almost oblivious to how important it is. There's organs there as well. Your pelvic organs, your bladder or your rectum, your uterus if you're a female.   Heba Shaheed:  (03:21) A lot of that is just beginning with education about yes, anatomy, like your physiology. But then even more than that, it's education around simple things like habits. What's appropriate for emptying your bladder? How often should you be going? What position should you be emptying your bowels in? How long should you be spending on the toilet? What should your periods feel and look and how long should they last? And all that sort of stuff. It's a lot of, more advice around simple things like your basic pelvic habits that we often have to educate people. And they're coming to us when they're in their 20s, 30s, 40s, even up to their 80s and not having known such simple concepts.   Tahnee:  (04:11) Yeah. I think back to health ed at school, which was pretty poor. It's such a mystery area for so many of us. And obviously then there's all the cultural stigma around bums and vaginas and vulvas and all those kinds of things.   Tahnee:  (04:30) When you're talking about these general health markers I suppose, something I'm really passionate about educating women around, is it's not actually normal to experience bad periods. For example, I have my period right now, and apart from feeling a little bit more introspective and a little bit quieter, like physically I don't have symptoms and that took me quite a long time to work out through my own journey of course. I think that's the same with things like bowel movements and urination. These are natural processes that require a really complex interplay of the nervous system and the myofascia and all of these things.   Tahnee:  (05:16) They're bio-markers. They're ways of us actually assessing our overall, more holistic state of health, right? So if you were talking to someone, what would you say how many times should we be going to the toilet? And what should we be looking for? And same with bowels. What are the averages, I suppose, if there are any that you would be looking for?   Heba Shaheed:  (05:35) Mm-hmm (affirmative). I can empathise with you on that front of having had periods that weren't great. And I agree with you in that we've kind of normalised period pain to the point that we don't even acknowledge that period pain is not normal. It's to the point where, "Oh I know, that's normal. Everyone goes through it. That's, you just kind of have to put up with it. That's life as a female."   Heba Shaheed:  (06:04) But the thing is, we know that period pain it still comes along with, if you start off your periods having had severe period pain and then you go on to have severe period pain through your whole teens and your 20s and whatever, that actually sets you up for development or exacerbation of both bladder and bowel symptoms. Because, as you mentioned before, it is a very complex interplay of the myofascia, which obviously your uterus is connected to your bladder and your bowels, fascially and muscularly as well, and of course your nervous system, the nerves are all supplying the same kind of area, and then the immune system and so on, right?   Heba Shaheed:  (06:46) In terms of what is acceptable in terms of behavioural habits when it comes to the bladder and urination, unfortunately what I often see in my clinic, because I see mostly complex pain patients is, "Oh yeah, I go about two or three times a day to empty my bladder." And I'm like, "Well, that's not right." And they're like, "I have such a strong bladder, I only need to go two or three times and I can really hold it." And I'm like, "Well, that's not actually something to be proud of, because you're actually putting a lot of strain on your bladder when you do that. Actually what you should be doing, is going around about every three hours."   Heba Shaheed:  (07:25) The bladder capacity, think of a bladder like a balloon. It's deflated when it's empty and then that balloon slowly inflates and the nerves send us messages when the bladder's more on the full end. But, you should also be getting minor nerve messages saying, "Ah, yeah. It's a little bit full," or, "It's moderately full." But if you're only going when your bladder is like stretched to extreme capacity, that's not actually healthy. Every three hours is good. That's about four to six times a day, or six to eight times a day. Six is kind of like a good, round about average number. If you're going less than four times, then I find that unhealthy.   Heba Shaheed:  (08:07) It should be a steady stream, a straight stream. If your stream's going off to one side or spraying, that could indicate that there's something going on. There should be no burning. It should be a steady stream, there shouldn't be any start stop of the flow. The flow should be relatively normal, not too slow, not too fast. Unless your bladder's full, then of course it's going to be a little bit fast. We also need to pay attention to what's happening. I think a lot of people, even when they're coming to my clinic and I'm asking them these questions, they're like, "Oh, I don't know. I don't know if it starts and stops. I don't know if it's a slow flow. I don't really know. I'm not aware."   Heba Shaheed:  (08:50) Or things like you go to sit on the toilet and it takes a few moments before the stream actually starts. That's suggesting that something's off with the muscles there as well. It's like these little things that if we start to become aware, I mean obviously we don't want to be hyperaware in that we're just fixated on it. But it's just like little cues that your body's telling you that the bladder or urinary system is functioning optimally or not. That's that.   Heba Shaheed:  (09:22) In terms of your bowels, the literature is strange, in that it says three times a week is okay to go to the bathroom for bowels. But I really don't believe that.   Tahnee:  (09:35) Yikes.   Heba Shaheed:  (09:38) I really don't believe that that is [crosstalk 00:09:38]-   Tahnee:  (09:38) Is that the scientific literature, I suppose in inverted commas?   Heba Shaheed:  (09:41) Yeah. It goes from three times a week to three times a day, is the realm of acceptability.   Tahnee:  (09:48) Geez louise.   Heba Shaheed:  (09:49) Yeah. I'm not really a huge fan of that. I'm thinking of it biologically and physiologically and mentally, psychologically the impact of not emptying your bowels on a daily basis. I'm a big proponent of, bowels should be emptying every day. If you're eating every day, you should be emptying your bowels every day. And if you're not, then that is suggesting that something is off in the digestive system, or in the immune system or in the nervous system. And it is something that needs to be addressed.   Heba Shaheed:  (10:22) And the fact, the thing is because I work with so many women who have complex pain and chronic constipation, irritable bowel and Crohn's disease and all sorts of bowel disfunction, I know for a fact that every single one of them is able to achieve daily bowel movements. Regardless of whether they came to me having said, "I haven't been in a month," or, "I haven't been in a week." In clinical practice I'm able to get them to go every day. It further justifies my belief that we should be going every day.   Heba Shaheed:  (10:53) And of course, it's just logical that you should be going every day. If you're having three massive meals a day, you could very well be going three times a day to empty your bowels, right? And they could be three type four stools, which is like a long smooth sausage, and that would be considered healthy. I would say at the very least once a day, and up to three times a day is good. But it's more about the consistency of the stool as well. It shouldn't be, "Oh, I'm going three times a day, but it's coming out as small pebbles and I'm incompletely emptying."   Heba Shaheed:  (11:27) It should be a complete empty of a type three to four stool, which is a long smooth sausage, and it should be easy to come out and I should be done instantly, I shouldn't be sitting there for 20 minutes trying to empty my bowel. And there shouldn't be any pain when I'm emptying, there shouldn't be any fissures, I shouldn't be straining, I shouldn't have haemorrhoids popping out. It should be a complete empty and I should feel like once I'm done, I'm done. I don't have to sit there trying to get little bits and pieces out.   Heba Shaheed:  (11:58) And if you're feeling that there is, sensations that aren't as I described, then it is starting to suggest again, that there might be some dysfunction. Whether that's a pelvic floor dysfunction, so for example the pelvic floor muscles, because the pelvic floor muscles surround your rectum, one of the muscles is called puborectalis, it surrounds your rectum and another is your external anal sphincter, these two muscles are part of your pelvic floor and if they're too tight, then they can make you functionally constipated.   Heba Shaheed:  (12:33) A lot of people get confused in that they think, "Ah, I just have to have more fibre. Or I just need to drink more water." It's a very nutrition focused approach, which is important for sure, but there is also a type of constipation that is purely mechanical. It is the muscles of the pelvic floor are extremely tight, and then it's actually physiologically difficult to push your bowel motions out. Or they are dyssynergic in that when you visualise yourself trying to push out your number two, it's actually tightening instead, because you're having this poor coordination. Your brain is sending the wrong message to the muscle.   Heba Shaheed:  (13:15) This is where pelvic floor physio comes in. Because it's like, "Okay, what's going on? How do we figure it out?" How do we... that's why we have such a great success rate with functional physiological pelvic floor dysfunction based constipation. What else? Yeah, I think that's the main kind of things. When we do go to the bathroom for number twos as well, positioning is super important. As I mentioned before, puborectalis slings around your rectum. It's part of your pelvic floor.   Heba Shaheed:  (13:45) When you're sitting on the toilet in just a general normal position like you're sitting on a chair, that puborectalis muscle is kinked, right? But as soon as you elevate your feet onto a stool and you lean forward, that kink relaxes, so that pelvic floor muscle actually physically relaxes just by being in a squat position. So think, eastern countries and so on, where they squat to empty their bowels, that's actually physiologically healthy and normal. We need to replicate that in the western world and that's where you would get a stool, and you'd lean forwards to produce that same effect. And that, again, physiologically, physically releases the muscles and you're able to actually empty your bowels without having to sprain and or without feeling uncomfortable.   Tahnee:  (14:36) Yeah. We have squatty potties in every toilet in our house and office. They are-   Heba Shaheed:  (14:42) Perfect.   Tahnee:  (14:42) They are very popular. But it's interesting just thinking about that, because I was lucky enough to have a birth that I was in control of. And I found the birth also I wanted to squat to deliver my baby. My mum, as I was growing up, always talked about that as being the most natural position to deliver in. I remember when I studied physiology that bend in the pelvis as well, you can really when you start to look at the muscles in the anatomy you can see how being in that squat position just allows everything to relax.   Tahnee:  (15:17) I think one of these misconceptions around the pelvic floor is that we always want to be tightening it, because and I was taught this through more the Taoist tradition but we work a lot with jade eggs and I don't know, you might not be into this, but taught me certainly to actually be able to relax and contract my whole pelvic region. And one of the practises we do is like almost using the vagina like a hand to like swirl them up and then down through the vaginal canal.   Tahnee:  (15:49) The first time I tried that I was just, "Oh my God, I have no connection to the... Like I can't feel anything in there. I don't," it was like one area was quite strong and then everything else was really weak. Is that kind of a similar thing when you're doing internal exams, what you're noticing is that people are quite tight in certain areas, but then really unable to get their brain to talk to their tissue in other areas? Is that what you're talking about with the anal sphincter as well? Things just gripping and holding on?   Heba Shaheed:  (16:23) Yeah. There's varying presentation that would come I guess. I think the biggest thing is that we have a complete lack of awareness of our pelvic floor. That's number one. It's just this disconnect, like our mind, body disconnect between the, well with the pelvic floor and pretty much that whole female region.   Heba Shaheed:  (16:50) If we go back to firstly what you mentioned about birth, yes, we're traditionally and physiologically you're supposed to birth, not supposed to birth, but it's inherently more conducive to birth to be in a squat position, right? Because we know that physiologically that opens up the pelvic floor muscles. And whereas in more kind of medicalized births where they're lying on their backs, that's completely not conducive to birth at all, because just the fact of lying on your back shuts your tailbone, it doesn't allow that tailbone to move. And that in itself tightens up, well not tightens, but it reduces the capacity of the pelvic floor to open, right? Yes, you're in a contractile state rather than a relaxed state, which is what it's supposed to be and then a bearing down state which you're supposed to be in for birth. That's number one. That's birth, right? But then aside from birth, well to be honest for birth you need to be connected to your pelvic floor.   Tahnee:  (17:58) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Totally.   Heba Shaheed:  (17:58) The issue that we see a lot with now is things like obstetric anal sphincter injuries. And that's because it's almost like women have been told, "Push through your butt like you're trying to push out a poo." But that's not the same muscles. They're part of the muscular system of the pelvic floor, but the vagina is very different to your anal sphincter. The anal sphincter in your posterior compartment, which is why you'll end up with an obstetric anal sphincter injury and perineal tears. And your vagina is your medial, like the middle system, but it's also part of the anterior system of the pelvic floor. It's very different, even the imagery that we are giving women is completely inappropriate. That's number two.   Heba Shaheed:  (18:55) We need to be connected to our pelvic floor, but not just, and I guess this is what you're saying, is like part of it is strong, what part of it is weak and part of it is connected, but part of it's disconnected. Well, that's the thing. If a person is visualising the pelvic floor as that little banana hammock thing, then of course you have no idea what's happening in your pelvic floor, because it's beyond that. Like I said, there's part of the pelvic floor that surrounds your urethra, part of it that surrounds your vagina, part of it that's part of your anus.   Heba Shaheed:  (19:25) Then you have another part that is a triangle that goes from your pubic bone out to your sit bone and across to the other sit bone and it creates a triangle. Then you have your perineal muscle, which are also part of your pelvic floor. Then you have a deeper perineal muscle. Then you have puborectalis that goes from your pubic bone and slings around your rectum and goes around to the other side of your sit bones. Then you have iliococcygeus, then you have pubococcygeus. Now I'm just putting words out there.   Tahnee:  (19:54) Then all of those are ligaments.   Heba Shaheed:  (19:55) That they have no idea what I'm talking about.   Tahnee:  (19:57) Well, [crosstalk 00:19:57].   Heba Shaheed:  (19:57) Yeah.   Tahnee:  (19:58) They're all ligaments of the uterus and the bladder and the vagina.   Heba Shaheed:  (20:02) Exactly. You've got all the ligaments which are your, so you've got contractile tissue that's under your control, but then you have ligaments that you can't really [crosstalk 00:20:11] control.   Tahnee:  (20:11) Yeah, not innervated.   Heba Shaheed:  (20:12) Yeah, exactly. Then you have your connective tissue beyond that. You have fascia, pubovesical fascia, you have the rectovaginal fascia. You've got all this complex system that I feel, yeah it might sound like it's hard to understand, but if you're going to go and give birth, at the very least you can develop a basic understanding so that you're able to differentiate between a posterior compartment push, right, as opposed to an anterior compartment breathing and let go and just facilitation of birth. It's not about forcing birth, it's about facilitating birth. It's changing the focus from a straining kind of action to allow the body to generate force from within to facilitate the birth, right?   Heba Shaheed:  (21:12) You mentioned jade eggs. Yeah, in traditional cultures there has been an emphasis, and the thing is today a lot of the, I guess western pushers of jade eggs aren't using it accurately.   Tahnee:  (21:30) Yeah, I know. Don't worry.   Heba Shaheed:  (21:33) A lot of them are more about, yeah.   Tahnee:  (21:33) I have that pet peeve too.   Heba Shaheed:  (21:33) Yeah. A lot of them are more focused on, "Ah, let's tighten up the vagina and tight, tight, tight. And squeeze and tighten." And it's all about squeezing, right?   Tahnee:  (21:43) Yeah, and like better sex and blah blah.   Heba Shaheed:  (21:43) That's right. Like you want to have... The thing is even if you want to have better sex and you want to have better everything down there, it's actually every muscle has the ability to contract and relax. And the pelvic floor is part of that. The pelvic floor musculature, rather than just a muscle, the pelvic floor musculature needs to be able to engage in contraction and relaxation. And traditional cultures who were using the jade egg in more traditional form, we talk about the engagement of the muscles in a contractile state, but also in a relaxation state. It's a bit of, not ballooning, but it's opening. It's letting go as well. And that when you have the jade egg, you shouldn't feel discomfort in there. You shouldn't feel sticky and uncomfortable and painful, but it also shouldn't feel like it's just going to fall out. It's like two concepts.   Heba Shaheed:  (22:39) The jade egg is something that's used in traditional cultures, but in more physical-   Tahnee:  (22:47) Modern context.   Heba Shaheed:  (22:47) Yeah, modern physical therapy context, we use something similar, but it's, what are they called? Vaginal weights. So they use vaginal weights, which are usually like a silicone thing or a plastic type of thing which I'm not really a fan of, so a silicone type of thing with magnets or weights in there that helps. It's a similar kind of concept. And-   Tahnee:  (23:10) Yeah, because I use weights. But just I use crystals.   Heba Shaheed:  (23:15) Yeah. And it's in the sense of that they use them more again, for strengthening and coordination, but again there is that kind of focus on tightening things as well. Usually you wouldn't see vaginal weights being used in somebody who has already a tight pelvic floor. However, in saying that, I could see the benefits of doing that in a sense that you're getting them to be more aware of their pelvic floor. And for them to desensitise the pelvic floor. Because a lot of issues with pelvic floor, pelvic floor pain in particular, is that there is an over sensitisation of the nerves and the muscles and the connective tissue of the pelvic floor.   Heba Shaheed:  (24:03) Can we go back to, what was the last question that you asked me?   Tahnee:  (24:07) I feel like I've gone so many places now, I think I was asking about in examining women and what your actual experience was as a clinician, I suppose. In the back of my mind, because we don't know each other super well, but I've studied with this guy in Thailand who's a Chinese man. Part of his system is you actually have internal massage to relax all of the tissue. And they work on your psoas through your vaginal wall and the psoas attachment at the femur and everything. It's interesting.   Tahnee:  (24:45) Yeah, so [crosstalk 00:24:46]. I was curious as, because for me I had probably six or seven treatments in a period of time. And then obviously didn't find many people here offering that sort of thing. But it's become more common lately, I've noticed. I just wondered, because for me I could really feel where there were areas of tension and pain, and then areas where I was, like you were saying, desensitised or didn't have a lot of awareness. I had that pre-birth and it was, I think, one of the reasons I had such a great birth. Because it had given me some context and some of biofeedback. I was able to, I love manual therapies in general because they teach you how to connect into your body in this new way, the tactile kind of way. I guess I was leading into what is your experience as a clinician and what do you see?   Heba Shaheed:  (25:34) Yeah. I guess my qualification is as a physiotherapist, but I work specifically in pelvic floor right, and women's health. But even more deeper than that, my expertise lies in female pain. I work specifically with women as you mentioned earlier, with women who have sexual pain, pelvic pain, period pain, vulva pain. Very specific to dysfunctions of pain down there. If we talk about the guy in Thailand, in a lot of traditional cultures we know that they utilise a lot of abdominal myofascial work.   Tahnee:  (26:23) Yeah, that's what I'm trained in.   Heba Shaheed:  (26:24) Yes. And intrapelvic myofascial work. And that's kind of in that whole body worker type of thing. And it's a traditional kind of thing, but then there's the Westernised modern thing which is pelvic floor physical therapy or pelvic floor physiotherapy where there's a medicalised version of it. Depending on the physio that you see, because again we're also divided in our approach. A lot of physios are moving towards more of mind focusing thing where it's like change your brain, change your body kind of thing, was my approach is a little bit more hands-on.   Heba Shaheed:  (27:09) I'm like change the body and the mind and the heart all at the same time, integrate them all. I know that I'm very, I don't know, just a bit more progressive in my approach and I'm very open, because I've also studied. I did a lot of South American Mayan type of abdominal massage training.   Tahnee:  (27:31) Yeah, like Arvigo and stuff.   Heba Shaheed:  (27:32) And I've done Ayurvedic and Abhyanga type stuff. I'm very open to all disciplines and all medicines. I'm not the type that's like, "No. It's all just about evidence-based pelvic floor physiotherapy." I'm not like that. And I'm very open about the fact that I'm not like that. And it's not exactly, it doesn't sit well with a lot of the evidence-based physical therapists, but I don't really care anymore.   Tahnee:  (28:00) I was curious about that, because when I saw you, I saw that you were working in kind of in clinic and like quite, like at universities and things. And I was thinking that's interesting that you're so open-minded, because I've, I guess in my career, bumped up against a lot of people who are evidence-based who think a lot of the stuff we practise is really wild. I've seen amazing transformations, and I also believe strongly in evidence-based stuff as well, but I'm like traditional evidence is still evidence to me.   Heba Shaheed:  (28:31) That's right. And clinical practise is still evidence. The thing is I find that the discussion or the disputes kind of occur because a lot of people get so focused on evidence-based being what is researched and done in a trial and done in a research study, but the thing is, most practitioners regardless of whether you're eastern, western whatever, most practitioners aren't sitting in research studies. They're actually with people.   Tahnee:  (29:04) Every day.   Heba Shaheed:  (29:04) Fixing the people's bodies. They've treated thousands of people using their practises. And this is where Ayurvedic medicine and traditional Chinese medicine and all these other traditional medicines come in. They've been doing that for thousands of years with beautiful results, right? And it has nothing to do with sitting in a lab or in a research group or whatever. I think people forget that clinical practise is actually, so there's three type of evidence-based medicine. One of them is research study. But the other one is clinical practise. Thousands and thousands of hours of clinical practise.   Heba Shaheed:  (29:40) And you know what? It comes down to a personality thing. We are all structured, we all have proclivities, right? I have an extreme proclivity for openness. Openness to experience and openness to intellectual things and openness to all sorts of things. But then you have other people who are more about like conscientiousness in like orderliness, or very low on the openness scale. And that's fine. That's who you are, like whatever. We're going to attract whoever is aligned with us. That's the people that I attract to my clinic. Most of the people, well 95% of my clientele are like intuitive, feeling, empathetic type of people who are very disconnected from their bodies, which is pretty much exactly who I am.   Heba Shaheed:  (30:29) I'm very intuitive person, a very feeling person, and I was very disconnected from my body, that I didn't realise that I had all these pelvic pain problems coming up, but they were there from when I was little, I just didn't realise until my periods came, and it hit me like a tonne of bricks that I wasn't emptying my bowels on a daily basis, that I was holding my bladder and only going twice a day. All these little things that you don't even realise, and it comes down to just who you are I guess biologically and psychologically anyway.   Heba Shaheed:  (31:05) The people who are a bit more, I suppose, conservative would end up with the more conservative physios. And then the people who are a bit more liberal end up with the bit more of the open physios or a bit more with the open traditional type of medicine. You're going to attract whatever, and that's fine. There's room for everybody. There's room for everything. And so I guess if we go back to what you were saying about what do I actually encounter in my practice, because I see mostly pain patients, they're coming in with these pelvic floors that are really tight, really uncomfortable, the fascia's yuck the nerves are very sensitised and all sort of things.   Heba Shaheed:  (31:43) And because I have such a touch-based approach, like I do a lot of intra-vaginal massage with them, and I do a lot of abdominal massage. And not just that, I do whole body massage. I work through the whole, if you're looking at meridians or myofascial lines, I work up into their ribs. I work down into their feet. I work into their cranium. Whatever I feel like, because I'm more of an intuitive person, it's like they come in and I don't know. It's just a weird thing that I have. I don't know how to explain it, but I can just look at them and I'll be like, "Yeah, this, this and this." And then I work into it and it frees whatever's holding. It's like it's something deep inside that you just have. You either have it or you don't. Or you can grow it, I guess.   Heba Shaheed:  (32:28) That's why, some people say, "Oh, she's a bit woo." But I don't care. I'm like, "Yeah, I am, but it works." And my patients are attracted to that and they love that. And then while I'm working with them, I'm talking to them, like anatomy and stuff. In talking to them, to their rational mind too. Obviously there's a rational part of this. There's and intuitive part and there's a rational part too. And I'm talking to them. And usually when I'm working on something and it might be the psoas interiorly, right? And they were like, "Oh yeah, my ex-boyfriend was very abusive," or something like. Things come up. You know that when we interact with the psoas, you're talking trauma extroverting muscle. As soon as you start to engage with it, the person starts to remember and wants to get out the trauma that occurred or whatever.   Heba Shaheed:  (33:24) Part of that is also allowing them to verbalise stuff, because we know a lot of stuff is repressed or held in. And because I attract this certain type of clientele who are the type, they're usually very assertive females who are assertive in their life, what they want, they're all like a bit type A type personalities. Type A, type B, I guess, but then they don't put their own needs ahead. They're putting other people's needs ahead of their own. And then they hold things in and a lot of them are quite out of touch with what is actually their feeling, because they're just constantly looking after people around them.   Heba Shaheed:  (34:09) It's like getting them back in touch with, "Okay, what happened to you and how did it change your life?" It's more like I do a lot of coaching stuff with them at the same time. It's an integrated thing. I've been to a lot of other pelvic physios and I can see the difference in the way that I treat, because a lot of them will just sit there quietly and do the work. Or ask you about your weekend or something, and I can never ever remember what I've done on the weekend, so it's like well what's the point of that?   Tahnee:  (34:45) You have a three year old, it's like, "I don't know."   Heba Shaheed:  (34:48) [crosstalk 00:34:48]. Yeah, you're having a deep meaningful conversation where you're freeing a lot of repressed stuff, whether it's microtrauma or a macrotrauma, it doesn't matter, they're still traumas. Even microtraumas have an impact and they're repressing them. And when a body comes to me in that state of, this inflamed state of severe period pain, chronic constipation, bloating and all this stuff, oh man, there's shit going on in there. There's stuff. It's not just, "Oh yeah, I fell over on the weekend." It's not that. This is deep stuff. What do you have to do? You have to have a deep conversation, otherwise that person's going to be going from one therapist to another never really figuring out what's wrong with them.   Heba Shaheed:  (35:33) And they're the ones that end up, because they start with the modern medical stuff and then it's not working, and then they have all this surgery and it's still not working, then they end up seeing traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurvedic Medicine and any of these traditional type of stuff, Mayan and whatever. And you know what? That's okay, because for you that is what is going to work, because it isn't just a body thing for you. When it becomes this complex and angry really, it is, there's like a poor alignment of your heart, your mind and your body. And it's trying to integrate all of them so that you actually feel like you're in control of your body, and it's not your body that's kind of controlling everything else.   Tahnee:  (36:19) Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's a such a common theme I think with women, is repressed anger and this sense that they have no control. I think especially women that are sensitive and like you were saying, empathetic and intuitive, because they take on so much and then it's this kind of push back or rage against what they've... It's their gift as well. I know you're an empath, and I am as well. It's my gift, it's also my curse sometimes. But I can feel, and that's certainly been my lived experience in my body, is when my own boundaries get brittle I start to really find that my body starts to lean back into the patterns that I've worked really hard to unravel.   Tahnee:  (37:11) I think it's just a constant process. But it sounds like you have such a holistic focus that people are able to work on that multidimensional level which I think, I mean for me it seems outrageous that that idea of bedside manner and all these things have been lost from the Western Medical system. Because, I think about just how important therapeutic touch and therapeutic listening is. I can remember going to older GPs when I was a little kid, who were like grandfatherly and gentle and kind. And just being in their presence was really healing. And I think now the system is really flawed obviously. But I can see how this disassociation of body from mind, from spirit has really led us down this path.   Tahnee:  (37:56) I'm super inspired to talk to someone who's actually gone through that system and continues to integrate, because I think that's really the future of medicine. That we need to have the evidence-based deep research and for me studying anatomy has given me so much power. But on the flip side of it, I have to keep remembering that the body is an integrated system and it's a holistic system and I can't just work on my pelvic floor and not have an overall effect on every single part of my body. It's this kind of dance always I think between the poles, I suppose, the Yin and Yang to use the Taoist ideas. But I mean-   Heba Shaheed:  (38:32) Yeah, well, it makes so much sense because what happened was in the last 50 or odd years or whatever, it really went into a more of a biological focus, like medicine went into a really biological focus. And then in the last kind of 20 years or so, they're like, "Oh no. We have to look at the mind as well." It's now kind of like a bio-psycho process, biological and psychological and then they're like, "Oh well, we know we do better in community." They're at this stage going to go into bio-psycho-social kind of thing. But the thing is, even the psycho-social stuff is still from a biological point of view, because it is like looking at psychology from a biological point of view.   Heba Shaheed:  (39:19) Really, depending obviously on what you believe in and stuff, and I'm assuming that obviously many of the people listening to SuperFeast are going to be more on the spiritual side. We feel like we have a, it's like a deeper connection, it's like a bigger connection, it's not just about my body right now. It's my body, it's my mind, but it's not just my body and mind, it's my heart and my soul as well. I need to be nourished in my soul too, for me to be really healthy. It's not just about always focusing on the physical elements.   Heba Shaheed:  (39:53) And that's part of it. It is part of it of course. You need to nourish your body to nourish your soul, but it's also vice versa. It's interesting. And the other thing that you mentioned before as well was about anger. One of the things that I've studied is when you look at, we have the mind or the head. And the mind and the head is where you hold fear. And then you have the heart, and that's where you hold shame. And then you have the gut or the pelvis, the gut and the pelvic paradigm where you hold anger. And that anger could be like anger to others, or it could be anger to yourself, or repressed anger.   Heba Shaheed:  (40:39) A lot of, that's often what we see. People are angry at themself, or they're angry at their bodies for not working the way that they want to, and it just feeds that cycle of anger. And their pelvic region gets worse and worse and worse. But if you really, really trace it back, you trace it right, right, right, right, back, there is that initial sliver of anger that started, but even before that there might have been an element of shame. There's even the heart isn't integrated. It could be shame, like shame at your own self. Or it could be a shame because somebody put a belief of shame onto you. Like, "Ah, that's not what girls do," or something like that.   Tahnee:  (41:18) Cultural.   Heba Shaheed:  (41:20) Yeah, cultural type of things. But it's somebody else's thoughts and feelings that you manifested of your own shame, or it's somebody else shame. Or even with a partner that you're with, or the parents, or whatever. Or society. And then even more so than that, your head is where you hold fear. Then what happens with a lot of my clients is that they get so stuck in their head, in that they're afraid that, "Sex is always going to hurt. That I'm always going to have period pains. Like, this is my life for the rest of my life. I'm never going to get better."   Heba Shaheed:  (41:56) It's like constant looping of fear in their head. What I try to do, is I try to get right to the beginning. It's like, "Okay, what was the first thought and feelings? What was the first thought?" If we go right back it could be something, a shameful thing that happened when you were two. Or it could be a fear driven thing that happened when you were just born. Maybe you were born to very abusive parents. Or like anger driven thing where you weren't allowed to be your authentic self, for example.   Heba Shaheed:  (42:33) It's like tracing it right back, because a lot of the time you can get so caught up in trying to treat the body, and then you think you're treating the mind because you're giving them pain education advice and all this stuff which is important, but at the end of the day the heart is completely not even involved. But I feel like that's really crucially important especially with the patients that I see, because they're all the kind of the feeling heart centred type of people. And then sometimes it's something as simple as, "I just hate my job. My heart's not in my job, and because I'm in my job," and I've had patients like this where it's like, she wants to be a naturopath for example, but she's working as a lawyer, you know what I mean? And she just hates her job. And I'm like, "Well, if your heart's not in it, your body's going to rebel against it."   Heba Shaheed:  (43:21) It's like even simple concepts like that could be the key that unlocks why a woman is having so much dysfunction.   Tahnee:  (43:31) Yeah. I can hear a little girl. Hello darling.   Heba Shaheed:  (43:35) She's dancing in the room.   Tahnee:  (43:37) Super.   Heba Shaheed:  (43:37) Spinning around, dancing.   Tahnee:  (43:39) Very cute.   Heba's Daughter: (43:39) Dah.   Tahnee:  (43:40) Yeah. It's you.   Tahnee:  (43:43) I'm curious-   Heba's Daughter: (43:47) Dah.   Tahnee:  (43:47) You're in a podcast darling.   Tahnee:  (43:50) I'm curious about complex trauma and pain and stuff, because one of the big epiphanies for me, I mean I was so scared of pain when I was 20. To the point where I've made some hilarious statements that now make me laugh. But I remember being 18 and 19 and saying, "There's no way I'm giving birth naturally. I need drugs to do that. I don't want to feel it." And obviously 10, 15 years later had a home birth naturally and blah blah. I changed. But a lot of the pain science and stuff I researched, I know that's an area you've studied a lot, like pain is just this completely subjective and incredibly difficult thing to measure and track. And so much of it is really due to this, I guess inability to be intimate with ourselves and to really give ourselves permission to have the full human experience, which is warts and all. It's not always sunshine and rainbows.   Tahnee:  (44:47) Is that kind of, I assume that's something because you work so much with really chronic difficult issues, is that something that you're always trying to educate people around? Is that, I'm not trying to say pain isn't real, because I feel like that's a really difficult thing to say, but it's sort of like from my experience, I've changed my relationship with sensation so much that pain and I have a very different relationship now. Is that what you're trying to work with people toward? Is to redefine their experiences, sensation and how they relate to their body?   Heba Shaheed:  (45:20) Absolutely. So it's all about perspective. We can create a relationship with our body that is pain driven. Or we can create a relationship with our body that's pleasure driven. Memories create little tags in your brain, neurotags, that can latch onto experiences as being with negative emotion or with positive emotion. And it depends on which part of your brain that you're using. We know that the right side of the brain is more associated with negative emotion, and the left side of the brain is more associated with positive emotion. Actually, we know that people, the ideal, so positive emotion isn't to do with being happy. Positive emotion is to do with not suffering. We don't want to suffer. And pain is an embodiment of suffering. We don't want to be in pain. If you're the type that is so fixated on not wanting to be in pain, that you'll use that-   Heba's Daughter: (46:25) Mum.   Tahnee:  (46:25) Exactly.   Heba Shaheed:  (46:31) If you're the type that doesn't want to be in pain, you'll become so fixated on that, you can become so fixated on that negative emotion, because you don't want to suffer, but unfortunately that actually propagates the feeling of suffering because you've become so fixated on that part of your brain that, because pain in itself is a negative emotion. Now here's the thing, right? Your brain actually doesn't know the difference between truth or lies. And this is a fact. It doesn't know. It's what you feed it. The food that you give your brain, food that you give your mind, is going to nourish it. If you're feeding it negative thoughts, which is fear of pain, and fear driven messages, and suffering driven messages, negative polarity based messages, then the brain will be nourished by that. And it will become hyper aware of that.   Heba Shaheed:  (47:28) But on the flip side, if you're feeding it positive thoughts, like I'm safe. I am content. If you're sending it positive messages, that will then nourish the brain in that sense. Think of it as like negative emotions and negative messages drying out the brain and making it hard and inflexible and uncomfortable. And positive thoughts and feelings and messages nourishing the brain and lubricating it, and filling it up that the brain is sitting in a soup, and it's relaxed and chill.   Heba Shaheed:  (48:01) Firstly a lot of it is just education on that sort of thing. Like visualisation based education, but then also anatomical and physiological based education in that explaining the actually neurophysiology of pain can be very helpful. But not just explaining that, but also getting them to do little workbook tasks to help them identify their patterns and behaviour. Because, remember a lot of it is beliefs driven as well. If you have this belief, that belief can be changed. We know that the brain is plastic, it's neoplastic. That means that it can be changed.   Heba Shaheed:  (48:40) Within three months, six months, 12 months, you'll have a completely different brain and cells in your body, if you continue to send it specific type of messages. That's why we can see a person, for example myself, I had like a 100 out of 10 pain 10 years ago. Literally every moment of every day was severe, excruciating neuropathic pain. From migraines to pelvic pain, or pain down my leg, sciatic nerve, and just like fibromyalgia type, like just horrific pain. That was because I was so fixated on the pain and the fear that I was always going to be in pain. Remember what I said about the head space being driven by fear.   Tahnee:  (49:29) I know. I call is the loop, like that constant feedback.   Heba Shaheed:  (49:32) That's right. And the thing is, that is very draining. That is very, very draining. Then you've got this rock hard brain that is completely devoid of lubrication, whereas today 10 years on, I can't even remember the last time I had a migraine. I can't remember the last time I had severe period pain. You can very drastically change it. And it's a constant work of it on daily basis. Obviously there are some times where I might regress and it's oftentimes where my mental state isn't well. Like if I fall into severe depression because of whatever, at the end of the day it is my thoughts and feelings. But certain events can trigger it.   Heba Shaheed:  (50:21) And that also comes down to trauma. We were talking about trauma just before, you mentioned trauma just before. Trauma, especially childhood trauma effects your hard-wiring. I was born into a very malevolent, narcissistic personality disorder family. To the point where there were times where I would be left by myself in the apartment crying my head off under the age of one, because of like no safety. No... Obviously that would've triggered a, what's it called? Fight or flight response in the brain. And we know that the nervous system is divided into two. Your sympathetic nervous system which is your fight, flight, freeze or fawn system. And your parasympathetic nervous system which is your relax, reproduce, digest, rest, chill system.   Heba Shaheed:  (51:17) If a baby is living in a chronic state of sympathetic nervous system hyperactivity, fight or flight, screaming and crying and being scared and feeling unsafe and all this sort of stuff, that's going to send your nervous system into overdrive. And your brain is just going to shrink, not shrink, but it's just going to become like that dried sponge. If it's a dried sponge, well all your nerves are coming out from your brain, well then those nerves aren't lubricated. Your immune system is then compromised. Your immune system is largely lubrication, right? It's mucous membranes.   Heba Shaheed:  (51:57) That's what I mean about going right back with my patients is that we're trying to figure out what caused this nervous system to go nuts? What caused your immune system to go nuts? And the musculoskeletal system is only the end product, the end thing. This all started way back when. It's like, "Okay, how do I then manage that?" Because I was one of those kids that when I was young, I had all this auto-immune stuff, like severe asthma, eczema, this condition called vitiligo where my skin turns white if I'm like severely stressed.   Tahnee:  (52:34) Yeah. I've seen that.   Heba Shaheed:  (52:36) It was just like super auto-immune type condition. And a lot of this stuff said, "Ah people say it's incurable. You'll just have to live with it. And maybe you'll grow out of it or something like that."   Tahnee:  (52:44) Those people are wrong.   Heba Shaheed:  (52:46) That's right. Exactly, because it's your immune system. Your immune system doesn't care, like it's trying to tell you that, "Help me. Help me. Save me. I need to feel safe."   Tahnee:  (53:03) This is the thing. If it's this line of defence, our protection and we're constantly being bombarded, like you're going to end up with immune responses.   Heba Shaheed:  (53:13) Mm-hmm (affirmative). If a patient comes to me and then they report to me that they had childhood asthma. I'm not going to be like, "Oh, you just had asthma." I'm going to be, "Woo, hang on."   Tahnee:  (53:21) Yeah, what happened?   Heba Shaheed:  (53:22) "Why did you have childhood asthma? Why did your immune system react like that?" And it's like 99% of the time that my patients will tell me and I'll be the first person that they've ever told, "Oh yes, this happened to me when I was little." Or something like that. There's a really, there's quite a correlation between persistent pelvic pain conditions and childhood trauma, whether we recognise it or not. And it could be just neglect. It could be neglect, it could be severe abuse, it could be sexual abuse, it could be physical abuse, emotional abuse. It could be anything. It could be sibling abuse, right?   Tahnee:  (53:55) I think even like-   Heba Shaheed:  (53:55) Or it could be bullying at school.   Tahnee:  (53:56) Yeah, I had a really, my family are loving and kind. But my parents had a really weird relationship and I'm super sensitive and I think took on a lot of that. And I disassociated from the body really early. I remember my mum having to be like, I'd be like, "I'm sick." And she's like, "Have you pooed today?" And I'd be like, "Oh yeah. I have to poo." I fully had that complete lack of biological connection. And it'd like that was my whole 20's it was working back to that. It's really interesting, because if I look at it, it's like I had a really happy childhood, but even just being in that energy all the time because I was sensitive to it.   Heba Shaheed:  (54:34) Absolutely.   Tahnee:  (54:35) It's like I can't [crosstalk 00:54:36] put blame onto them, but I have to do my own healing now to work out what my boundaries are.   Tahnee:  (54:43) And I'm curious, because you're an empathetic person and you're working with a lot of people's pain and suffering. Do you have boundaries for yourself on how much you can take on? Or how do you handle that sort of work?   Heba Shaheed:  (54:54) Ah yeah, for sure. I have massive, massive, massive boundaries. I only allow myself to work once to twice a week, and it depends on the week, it depends on my menstrual cycle.   Heba's Daughter: (55:09) I'm hungry.   Heba Shaheed:  (55:13) And with my patients, I used to think it was better to have breaks between patients, but it's not. For me, I need to just see them bang, bang, bang, one after the other with no break. Because then I don't allow all of the emotions to overwhelm me between patients.   Heba's Daughter: (55:32) I'm hungry. I'm hungry.   Heba Shaheed:  (55:35) That's my daughter crying out, "I'm hungry. I'm hungry."   Tahnee:  (55:38) I know, we're nearly finished, darling. They eat so much at three. My daughter's like a bottomless pit.   Heba Shaheed:  (55:44) I know.   Tahnee:  (55:44) It's ridiculous.   Heba Shaheed:  (55:48) Yeah, so.   Tahnee:  (55:50) Boundaries.   Heba Shaheed:  (55:50) Yeah, so boundaries. Yes, I discovered for myself that I need to see them bang, bang, bang, one after the other, because I couldn't allow myself to experience the overwhelm of emotion in between patients, because then it would be too draining to see the next patient. And then what I do is, I only, I actually see a lot of patients in one day. I can see between eight to 12 patients in one day, which is quite-   Tahnee:  (56:18) Whoa.   Heba Shaheed:  (56:18) A lot for-   Tahnee:  (56:18) That's heaps.   Heba Shaheed:  (56:20) Yeah. That's why I only work one to two days.   Tahnee:  (56:23) Yeah. Sure.   Heba Shaheed:  (56:23) And it depends. I do these really weird stuff, but before I go to work I tell myself, "Okay, who am I going to be today?"   Tahnee:  (56:38) Good. Yeah. I love this stuff.   Heba Shaheed:  (56:42) Which mask, which costume am I going to put on today? Even like now when I'm talking to you, this isn't the real, like it is, it's a part of me.   Tahnee:  (56:51) Yeah. It's one aspect of you.   Heba Shaheed:  (56:52) Mm-hmm (affirmative). But like the real me is actually very quiet and I kind of stick to myself, like a very introverted type of person. But, I'm like, "Okay, which costume am I going to put on today?" And that almost serves as like a physical barrier between my emotions and theirs. And then I have to physically tell myself, "Everything I feel today, none of this is my emotions. Anything that I feel," so like if I'm with a patient, the patient walks in and I immediately feel depressed, I'm like, "I know I am not depressed. She is depressed. Why is she depressed? What's happening?" Or if a patient walks in and they're like super happy, super excited and I suddenly feel like really bubbly and stuff, I'm like, "I know," I'm like, "Yes, I have the capacity," like obviously you have a capacity to be depressed and bubbly or whatever, "but in this moment every emotion that I'm feeling, is her emotion."   Heba Shaheed:  (57:45) Being conscious of that, so when the person walks in having that immediate consciousness of, "This isn't my emotion." And in that way I'm able to kind of, so I reflect. I imagine myself as a mirror and I'm reflecting her. So whatever I'm feeling is only hers. What I do, and this is a really amazing thing I've discovered is like I feel her emotion and then I allow myself to process her emotion, and then I actually speak out her emotion to her. I rationalise what she's feeling. And then she comes back to me with something, but it's allowed her to heal in that moment, that emotion that she was feeling, because instead of just feeling it inside, we've brought it to her outside. She's extroverted it out.   Heba Shaheed:  (58:30) And that in itself can be really powerful. What I've done, is I've also rationalised that it's not my feelings. It's like being very, very in the moment conscious of everything that you're feeling isn't actually your feeling, and it's theirs, but you're also letting them process their feelings. It's a really amazing thing to be an empath in the sense that you can allow other people to actually sort out their own feeling. It's a really amazing thing.   Tahnee:  (59:00) Yeah, in mirroring them.   Heba Shaheed:  (59:02) Yeah. And then-   Tahnee:  (59:04) Do you have meditation practises or anything as well around that? Or you just-   Heba Shaheed:  (59:07) What is it?   Tahnee:  (59:10) What do you do other... like yeah, obviously you're going to keep talking, so go. I jumped in.   Heba Shaheed:  (59:14) Oh, I was just saying and then at the end of the day I get on the train back home, and all I do is just filter everything out. I'm like, "Okay, what am I feeling right now? Is it mine? Or is it someone else's?" And then just letting it out. And then by the time I get to my car to go pick up my daughter, I've already sorted everything out, because I'm on the train for half an hour or whatever. It's like, "Okay, I've done it." And then it's like I could be super drained if I just let myself, because the thing is you have to filter them. Because in the past I hadn't done that and I would be so exhausted.   Tahnee:  (59:46) Oh it smashes you, yeah.   Heba Shaheed:  (59:47) After a day of work. Ah, my God, like I would be dead literally, and I'm just, "Leave me alone. Don't talk to me. I just cannot deal. I need to be on my own." But if you do that filtering process, and then you reflect on the day. And you reflect on how much you helped them, because remember as an empath helping other people, helps you as well. You feel that sense of, you get energy from that. And then it's the end of the day. And then I go pick up my daughter and I'm fine, because I know what's my feelings and what's not.   Heba Shaheed:  (01:00:17) I could do this every day if I wanted to, because I've kind of gotten really good at filtering my feelings, but I don't want to. Because I know there's a capacity to give, right? And a capacity to give, because we're giving people, but then there's also an importance of individually as well. I need to also be myself and do stuff that I want to do, and it's not always just about work and helping other people.   Tahnee:  (01:00:41) Yeah. And being a mum as well. For me certainly when I had my daughter, my priorities shifted a lot around she needs me more than others do a lot of the time. That's the priority.   Heba Shaheed:  (01:00:53) Absolutely. Especially that zero to seven really, it's like they need you, to nurture them.   Tahnee:  (01:01:02) Yeah. I wonder, I'll start wrapping up, but I was wondering if you had any advice for home care for the pelvic floor for people. Because I get frustrated that the Kegel thing, because I'm like that's not really good enough. But for so many people, it's pretty foreign territory down there. Is there stuff that people can-   Heba Shaheed:  (01:01:25) I'm not really a huge fan of Kegel, I actually am like well what the?   Tahnee:  (01:01:30) Yeah, it's just more tightening which people don't need.   Heba Shaheed:  (01:01:33) Yeah, so I don't. My focus for home care is more around your daily habits. We talked about it right at the beginning. Healthy bladder habits, going every three hours. Healthy bowels habits, going every day. And that means eating well, because we know your diet heavily influences your ability to empty your bowels. And just healthy bladder habits, healthy bowel habits, sexual health habits and vulva health habits as well. Like not using all these creams and douches and washes and all this stuff. The vagina's a self cleaning machine.   Tahnee:  (01:02:07) Leave it alone.   Heba Shaheed:  (01:02:08) Just use warm water. Yeah, just leave it. Don't put anything in there, except if you're having penetrative intercourse or if you're using jade eggs and whatever, that's okay as well. But, just leave it. Let it do its job, kind of thing. You don't want to mess with the PH and all that. And when you're having sex, simple hygiene practises.   Heba's Daughter: (01:02:31) [inaudible 01:02:31].   Heba Shaheed:  (01:02:31) Like washing your hands and stuff beforehand. And wiping from front to back. And emptying your bladder after sexual intercourse rather than before. And using a tissue. Stuff like that. Just simple sort of stuff. And even like the underwear that you wear and the pads that you wear. I'm a very, because I know this, I've seen it, like just simple thing of changing your pads to an organic cotton pad, or a menstrual cup or something, can be very helpful, rather than a lot of these mainstream pads and stuff that are like heavy with perfumes and toxins and stuff like that.   Tahnee:  (01:03:10) Yeah. And that stuff actually gets into your tissues and create issues.   Heba Shaheed:  (01:03:12) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Heba's Daughter: (01:03:12) [crosstalk 01:03:12].   Tahnee:  (01:03:14) Yeah, inflammation. Okay, well, I think you have a little darling that needs you.   Tahnee:  (01:03:21) I will say thank you so much for your time and for this conversation. I really enjoyed speaking with you. And for anyone who wants to connect with Heba, she's on social media @thepelvicexpert and she's also online at www.thepelvicexpert.com.   Tahnee:  (01:03:36) I saw you have some courses up there. People can have online consultations. There's lots of ways people can reach you. Is there anything I've missed? Or anything else you wanted to add?   Heba Shaheed:  (01:03:46) Yeah, no that's all. If you are in Sydney and you do want to book a consult, if you have any complex

It has always been astonishing to me how hopeless salespeople are in Japan.  Over the last 20 years, I have been through thousands of job interviews with salespeople.  We teach sales for our clients and so we see a very broad gamut of salespeople.  We also buy services and products and so are actively on the receiving end of the sales process.  Well actually that is a blatant exaggeration.  There are almost no salespeople operating in japan using a sales process.  But there are millions of them just winging it (badly).    On The Job Training (OJT) is the main training pedagogical system in Japan for training the new salesperson.  This works well if your boss has a clue and knows about selling.  Sadly, here are few sales leaders like that populating the Japan horizon.  So what you get is hand-me-down “techniques” that are ineffective and then these techniques are poorly executed in the hands of the newbies.   We like to buy, but few of us want to be sold.  We like to do business with people we like and trust.  We will do business with people we don't like and very, very rarely with people we don't trust.  Neither is our preference though.  The million dollar question is, “what makes YOU likeable and trustworthy?'   Building rapport in the first meeting with a prospective client is a critical make or break for establishing likeability or trust.  When you think about it, this is just the same as in a job interview.  In both cases we enter an unfamiliar environment and greet strangers who are brimming over with doubt, uncertainty and skepticism.  If a sales person can't handle a job interview and build rapport straight away, then it is unlikely they are doing much better out in the field.   So what do we need to do?  Strangely, we need to pay attention to our posture!  Huh?  Standing up straight communicates confidence. Also, bowing from a half leaning posture, especially while still on the move, we look weak and unconvincing.  So walk in standing straight and tall, stop and then bow or shake hands depending on the circumstances.    If there is a handshake involved then, at least when dealing with foreigners, drop the dead fish (weak strength) grasp or the double hander (gripping the forearm with the other hand).  The latter, is the classic insincere politician double hand grip.  Some Japanese have become overly Westernised, in that they apply a bone crusher grip when shaking hands.   Teach your Japanese team how to shake hands properly.  Too weak or too strong are unforced errors which impinge on building that all important first impression.    By the way, we have a maximum of 7-10 seconds to get that first impression correct, so very second counts.  When you first see the client, make eye contact.  Don't burn a hole in the recipient's head, but hold eye contact at the start for around 6 seconds and SMILE.  This conveys consideration, reliability, confidence – all attributes we are looking for in our business partners. We combine this with the greeting, the usual pleasantries – “Thank you for seeing me”, “Thank you for your time today”.  Now, what comes next is very important.    We segue into establishing rapport through initial light conversation.  Japan has some fairly unremarkable evergreens in this regard – usually talking about the weather or about the distance you have travelled to get here, etc etc.  Don't go for these bromides.  Try and differentiate yourself with something that is not anticipatory and standard.    Also be careful about commenting on a prominent feature of the lobby, office or the meeting room.  I was in a brand new office the other day and they have a really impressive moss wall in the lobby.  I will guarantee that my hosts have heard obvious comments about the moss wall from every visitor who has preceded me. “Wow, what an impressive moss wall ” or “Wow, that is a spectacular entry feature”.  Boring!   Teach your salespeople to say something unexpected, intelligent and memorable.  In this example, “Have you found that team motivation has lifted since you moved to this impressive new office?”, “Have you found your brand equity with your client's has improved since moving here?”.  This get's the focus off you the salesperson and on to the client and their business.  For example, if you are a training company like us, you definitely want to know how the team motivation is going, as you may have a solution for them.   The very first seconds of meeting someone are vital to building the right start to the business relationship.  Simple errors in posture, greetings and conversation can be our undoing.  Let's get the basics right and make sure we totally own that first impression.  

Start  In today's show we are looking at how to be differentiated from our rivals and be the consumate professional when we first meet the client. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Friday of "THE Japan Business Mastery Show".  I am your host Dr. Greg Story, Your Corporate Coaching and Training Guy, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Business Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our studio in the High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo.   This is episode number five  and we are talking about  Use These Three Sales Amplifiers In The First Thirty Seconds      Before we get going, a quick word from our sponsor….   Welcome back, Okay, now its time for the show, Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Use These Three Powerful Sales Amplifiers In The First Thirty Seconds   Building rapport in the first meeting with a prospective client is a critical make or break for establishing likeability or trust.  The first three to thirty seconds is vital, so what do we need to do?    Here are three things we need to get right:   Pay attention to our dress and our posture! Looking sharp and stand straight – this communicates confidence. Walk in standing straight and tall, stop and then bow or shake hands depending on the circumstances. If there is a handshake involved then, drop the dead fish (weak strength) grasp or the double hander (gripping the forearm with the other hand). The latter, is the classic insincere politician double hand grip. Some Japanese businesspeople I have met, have become overly Westernised, in that they apply a bone crusher grip when shaking hands. Don't do that.   When you first see the client, make eye contact. Don't burn a hole in the recipient's head, but hold eye contact at the start for around 6 seconds and SMILE. This conveys consideration, reliability, confidence – all attributes we are looking for in our business partners. We combine this with the greeting, the usual pleasantries spoken with supreme confidence, “Thank you for seeing me”, “Thank you for your time today”.  Now, what comes next is very important.    We segue into establishing rapport through initial light conversation. Try and differentiate yourself with something that is not anticipatory or standard. Be careful about complimenting a prominent feature of the lobby, office or the meeting room. Say something unexpected, intelligent and memorable.  For example, “Have you found your brand equity with your client's has improved since moving here?”.  This get's the focus off you the salesperson and on to the client and their business.   Having a good stock of conversation starters should be basic for every salesperson.  It might mean imparting some startling statistic that they may not have heard.  For example, “I read recently that the number of young people aged 15-24 has halved over the last 20 years, are you concerned about future talent retention as demand exceeds supply?”.  We might educate the client with some industry information they may not be aware of, but which would be deemed valuable.  We face a lot of competition for the mindspace of our prospective clients. To counteract that possible external pre-occupation and to get them back in the room with you, use a question – it works every time.   Remember: Refine an image through dress, posture and eye contact that projects confidence; stock your opening comments such that they are really well differentiated from all of your competitors, who have swanned in ahead of you; provide useful business references to introduce something new to the client that gets the attention off you and on to the client's business Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. THE Japan Business Mastery Show is here to help you navigate your way around business in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues.  Hit the little bell for automatic new episode notifications. Our website details are on screen now, enjapan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. Please leave me some feedback on YouTube, I would love to know how this show helped and what other topics you are interested in for me to cover.  Remember I am here as a free resource to help you, so just tell me how I can help you best. You might also enjoy my other weekly shows.  For podcasts, Mondays for the Cutting Edge Japan Business show podcast version, Tuesday for The Presentations Japan Series, Wednesdays for The Sales Japan Series, Thursdays for The Leadership Japan Series, and Fridays for The Japan Business Mastery Show, wherever you get your podcasts.  Also on Mondays, I release my other TV show The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show on YouTube.   In episode six we are talking about Six Ways To Accentuate Your Authentic Leader Voice Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next exciting episode of the Japan Business Mastery Show   

Nicola Rae Wickham honours Oprah Winfrey.   In today’s Black History Month audio takeover my work wife [bride emoji] Nicola Rae Wickham honours Oprah!   Nicola speaks to Oprah bringing much needed nuance to the Westernised world of wellness and personal development and the power of representation.  In terms of wellness Nicola passionately talks about Oprah inspiring us to use our voices to feel, own and value our own stories.   Nicola stopped me in my tracks as she said, "The story I want to write with my life". Just wow! Question: What is the story you would like to write with your life and are you writing it?   Make yourself a cuppa and get comfy for this one.   About Nicola Rae-Wickham:   Nicola Rae-Wickham is founder of A Life More Inspired, a platform which helps women take the ideas that are on their hearts and in their minds and bring them to life. She combines her 20 year career in corporate marketing combined with her NLP coaching certification to provide Creative Mentoring for women who want to make and market their purpose driven brands and put them and into the world so that they can change the world!      From her podcast to creative mentoring and merchandise, its all about supporting women to Dream and Do and bring more of themselves to their lives and businesses   You can connect with Nicola here: InstagramWebsite Podcast

We like to buy, but few of us want to be sold.  We like to do business with people we like and trust.  We will do business with people we don't like and very, very rarely with people we don't trust.  Neither is our preference though. Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and we are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Well, where is this Cutting Edge?  For all of us, the quality of our people is the cutting edge for success in Japan. In this show I will: Stimulate your thinking about ramping up your business Bring you insights from the best training organisation on the planet Provide you with the highest quality Japan information Motivate you to motivate yourself and motivate those around you Help you to shoot the lights out at results time I don't want to just help you succeed in your business.  I want you to dominate! Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. According to the 2017 OECD report Health At a Glance Japan is doing pretty well in some key areas. Life expectancy is 83.9 years against the OECD 35 member country's average of 80.6%.  Japan's obesity rate is only 3.7% compared to the OECD average of 19.4%  Stroke caused mortality rates here are only 34.1 per 100,000 people compared to the OECD average of 112 per 100,000.  All of this has been achieved at a level of spending not much higher than the OECD average.  Japan is an outlier though in terms of the length of hospital stays, with an average of 16.5days against an OECD average of 7.8 days.  Basically in Japan there are not enough homes for the elderly, so people who are infirm through aging are spending their final days in hospitals, rather than specialized aged care facilities.  Hopefully by the time I am ready Japan will have built a lot more of these.   This is episode number 15and we are talking about How to Be Likable And Trustworthy In Sales  Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.     It has always been astonishing to me how hopeless salespeople are in Japan.  Over the last 20 years, I have been through thousands of job interviews with salespeople.  We teach sales for our clients and so we see a very broad gamut of salespeople.  We also buy services and products and so are actively on the receiving end of the sales process.  Well actually that is a blatant exaggeration.  There are almost no salespeople operating in japan using a sales process.  But there are millions of them just winging it (badly).    On The Job Training (OJT) is the main training pedagogical system in Japan for training the new salesperson.  This works well if your boss has a clue and knows about selling.  Sadly, here are few sales leaders like that populating the Japan horizon.  So what you get is hand-me-down “techniques” that are ineffective and then these techniques are poorly executed in the hands of the newbies.   We like to buy, but few of us want to be sold.  We like to do business with people we like and trust.  We will do business with people we don't like and very, very rarely with people we don't trust.  Neither is our preference though.  The million dollar question is, “what makes YOU likeable and trustworthy?'   Building rapport in the first meeting with a prospective client is a critical make or break for establishing likeability or trust.  When you think about it, this is just the same as in a job interview.  In both cases we enter an unfamiliar environment and greet strangers who are brimming over with doubt, uncertainty and skepticism. If a sales person can't handle a job interview and build rapport straight away, then it is unlikely they are doing much better out in the field.   So what do we need to do? Strangely, we need to pay attention to our posture!  Huh?  Standing up straight communicates confidence. Also, bowing from a half leaning posture, especially while still on the move, we look weak and unconvincing.  So walk in standing straight and tall, stop and then bow or shake hands depending on the circumstances.    Find out when we come back from the break   Welcome back. If there is a handshake involved then, at least when dealing with foreigners, drop the dead fish (weak strength) grasp or the double hander (gripping the forearm with the other hand).  The latter, is the classic insincere politician double hand grip.  Some Japanese have become overly Westernised, in that they apply a bone crusher grip when shaking hands.   Teach your Japanese team how to shake hands properly.  Too weak or too strong are unforced errors which impinge on building that all important first impression.    By the way, we have a maximum of 7-10 seconds to get that first impression correct, so very second counts.  When you first see the client, make eye contact.  Don't burn a hole in the recipient's head, but hold eye contact at the start for around 6 seconds and SMILE.  This conveys consideration, reliability, confidence – all attributes we are looking for in our business partners. We combine this with the greeting, the usual pleasantries – “Thank you for seeing me”, “Thank you for your time today”. Now, what comes next is very important.    We segue into establishing rapport through initial light conversation.  Japan has some fairly unremarkable evergreens in this regard – usually talking about the weather or about the distance you have travelled to get here, etc etc. Don't go for these bromides.  Try and differentiate yourself with something that is not anticipatory and standard.    Also be careful about commenting on a prominent feature of the lobby, office or the meeting room.  I was in a brand new office the other day and they have a really impressive moss wall in the lobby.  I will guarantee that my hosts have heard obvious comments about the moss wall from every visitor who has preceded me. “Wow, what an impressive moss wall ” or “Wow, that is a spectacular entry feature”.  Boring!   Teach your salespeople to say something unexpected, intelligent and memorable.  In this example, “Have you found that team motivation has lifted since you moved to this impressive new office?”, “Have you found your brand equity with your client's has improved since moving here?”. This get's the focus off you the salesperson and on to the client and their business.  For example, if you are a training company like us, you definitely want to know how the team motivation is going, as you may have a solution for them.   The very first seconds of meeting someone are vital to building the right start to the business relationship.  Simple errors in posture, greetings and conversation can be our undoing.  Let's get the basics right and make sure we totally own that first impression.   Keep pushing hard with us here at THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, japan.dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. In episode 16we are talking about Be A Better Listener.  We can all do a better job of listening can't we, find out how next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show Until then, create seriously massive levels of success. We are here to help you do that.  Dale Carnegie Training Japan has only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

This week our tour through Martial Arts movies has reached the 1950s, with SAMURAI SAGA (the Westernised title). After reviews of the film we launch into a discussion that ranges from 8 MILE to Kaiju movies, via US teen high-school drama… Next Week The next film in our Martial Arts season is 1966's COME DRINK WITH ME, available here. This Week's Media AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018): Anthony Russo, Stan Lee, Robert Downey Jr. THE AMERICAN MEME (2018): Bert Marcus, Paris Hilton, Josh Ostrovsky ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (2019): Robert Rodriguez, James Cameron, Rosa Salazar Recommendations SIERRA BURGESS IS A LOSER (2018): Ian Samuels, Shannon Purser, Kristine Froseth THRONE OF BLOOD (1957): Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune, Minoru Chiaki ROXANNE (1987): Fred Schepisi, Steve Martin, Daryl Hannah GODZILLA (1954): Ishirō Honda, Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi Footnotes The basic story of the source material is here. On day-for-night shooting, as discussed by Rob, see here. Here's that astonishing-yet-wordless Heath Ledger performance. This is the most prominent Kevin Smith Q&A in which he refers to his weight (and his ‘ownership' of this). Finally, here's that piece of information about the link between Toshiro Mifune's other films and the final scene of this one.

As beautifully performed and presented as it was, there is far more to the concept of the 'genie' than Disney's manic blue singing version in Aladdin. The genie is the Westernised version of the Jinn, the supernatural being from Islamic and Arabian mythology and lore. On this episode of the Folklore Podcast, host Mark Norman and researcher Tracey Norman are joined by Dedra Stevenson, an author from the UAE who draws on a lot of this folklore in her fiction writing. Dedra explains exactly what the Jinn are, and how they are a very real part of Muslim beliefs. Support the Folklore Podcast on Patreon for extra content and rewards at www.patreon.com/thefolklorepodcast

I was thinking today about how New Zealand seems to be slowly changing under our feet and I wonder if we’ve acknowledged it.A while back, it seemed like every second issue was an issue driven on or caused by our largest city. It got to the point where the A word was hated by half the country and the people who lived there were more and more reticent to mention the place.But the place seems to have gone off the boil lately while the rest of New Zealand is on fire.  I thought that when I heard that Phil Collins is coming but only playing Napier and Christchurch. Dunedin is now on the global stadium music venue radar. Frankly, if I was a mega star flying halfway across the world to play a gig I’d rather plat those exotic places rather than a bog standard mid-sized Westernised city like A town.The investment in facilities up and down the country is another great thing.  Tauranga today is boasting that 120,000 visitors are heading to the Bay because of their music festivals but also the development of the international cricket ground at the Mount.Here’s to the cities that invested and stole cricket from the biggest city.  Nelson’s Saxton Oval is the prettiest ground.  The University Oval and Seddon Park are great places to watch the sport.But sport and music are the cream.  The cake is the regions boom.  Regional real estate prices are surging as refugees escape the big smoke. The Waikato and Cambridge Expressways are a revolution for Central Waikato and making South Waikato more attractive as well.  When the new Wellington motorway is completed then the Kapiti Coast and Levin are going to explode.In Queenstown, the debate is what to do with the airport.  Do we make the present one bigger or do we look for a new location for a big Central Otago air transport hub. No matter which prospect you prefer it’s still a sign of great confidence in the region.In a generation Queenstown and Frankton will be a thriving city not a pretty town.  With Air New Zealand showing such strength in yesterday’s financial report you’d hope that they’d be expanding services to the regions.All over the nation, towns are lifting their game and improving their infrastructure and becoming more attractive.  The country is getting bigger but at the same time it’s getting smaller and smaller.   We’ve never been so connected, both electronically and in transport optionsI tell you, these days if I was setting up the headquarters for a medium sized nationwide business, the last place I’d be looking is the country’s biggest city. The cost and the hassle of the place is just not worth it.It seems to me that the market is correcting the issue that we’ve complained about for a couple of decades, bit by bit. The A word will always a bit a pain in the butt, but the Queen City’s problems are proving to be an opportunity for the rest of the country.And look at that, I didn’t say Auckland once.  

NEW: Subscribe to WDF's newsletter for a weekly update on the latest in WDF, exclusive deals, stories, quizzes, perspectives and so much more that you won't get anywhere else. Cut through the cr@p and AXXESS the history with our weekly telegram service. Simply click on the link provided and add your email, and WALLAH!Link: https://mailchi.mp/a0d49eec863c/wdfpodcastEpisode 18: Korean Background Part 1 examines, oddly enough, the background in Korea before the war broke out, in the early years of Syngman Rhee's career. Rhee's life existed in the backdrop of the creeping Japanese influence in Korea, as the peninsula was passing from a Chinese to a Japanese satellite in the late 19th century. All the while, Russian tensions with the Japanese also escalated, and Rhee found himself trapped in a homeland with few friends, and many predators.At 30 years old in the early years of the century, Rhee began his auspicious journey to the US, where he gathered up several degrees and distinguished himself, before returning home as a missionary of all things, just as the Japanese were preparing to annex the region. Rhee's departure in 1910 signalled a watershed moment in his life - for the next 35 years, Rhee would remain an American resident, tirelessly campaigning for the rights of Koreans to independence, as his calls fell on mostly deaf ears. Not until 1945, when he was needed as a Westernised, English speaking Korean person, would Rhee be called upon by the US. We conclude the episode by examining the arrival of the two sides in the peninsula in 1945, and the decision made thereafter to divide Korea along the 38th parallel. It was a decision taken, we'll see, without any consultation with the Korean people, and it was also a decision taken entirely with the interests of the US and Soviets in mind. Time would tell exactly how important this dividing line would be, but for now, it sufficed to keep everyone quiet, if not happy.************ Music used: Georgie Price, Morning Will Come, 1923. Available: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Georgie_Price/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_03242015/Morning_Will_Come_-_Georgie_PriceWant to grab yourself some quality, stylish head/ear phones and get 15% off? Use the code WDF15 to avail of this special offer and start your listening journey with When Diplomacy Fails like never before! See: https://www.sudio.com/eu/Want to support this podcast in other ways, as we meander through the Korean War? Check out the following links to our social media, shop, website, source materials and Patreon below.History Podcasting Platform: http://www.wdfpodcast.com/history-podcasting-platform/Official shop where you can pick up all manner of podcast-related goodies: http://www.wdfpodcast.com/shop/Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WhenDiplomacyFailsPodcast/Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1856652614380207Twitter: https://twitter.com/?lang=enSupport us financially on Patreon and access an ad-free episodes ($2 per month) and an hour of extra content ($5 per month): https://www.patreon.com/WhenDiplomacyFailsVisit the website: http://www.wdfpodcast.com/Visit the blog:

Stuff we talked about 4.50: LITT Nomads - remote work and travel program to give remote workers an immersive experience in Southeast Asia 7.15: "My travel around Southeast Asia has been really good to me!" 09.08: What is something every expat in Malaysia should experience at least once? Explore outside of the city areas! 15.20: Living here is not super difficult for me culturally because it's such a Westernised city. It's a very modern place; they have a lot of conveniences, they speak English in most places, I can find what I need and my work environment specifically is very Western 19.10: Learning the power of building community; moving outside a circle of friends based on familiarity. Images by Kristen Noelle

Romans 12:1 There is no middle road in Christianity; no middle ground upon which to stand. Any seeming appearance of such is an illusion and a figment of one’s imagination, a product of Westernised consumer Christianity which on the say so of Jesus Christ Himself is no Christianity at all!! ”I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15-16). Now I know that such straightforward speaking is not very popular today and won’t win one many friends but Jesus knew of no double talk, and said point-blank, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (Mk. 8:34). This sermon is a call for wholehearted devotion to the God of the universe. This idea that we can bring our offering to God on Sunday and live as we please rest of the week is blown out of the water as soon as one is confronted with the person of Jesus Christ. My dear friends, the High and Lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; the One before whom angels veil their faces resting not day and night, saying “Holy, holy, holy” calls for more than a convenient Christianity. It is going to cost us to bring the sacrifice that God requires and I ask the question, are you willing to count the cost?

How To Be Likeable and Trustworthy In Sales The first few seconds decides all     It has always been astonishing to me how hopeless some salespeople are in Japan. Over the last 20 years, I have been through thousands of job interviews with salespeople. We teach sales for our clients and so as a training company we see the good, the bad and the ugly - a very broad gamut of salespeople. We also buy services and products ourselves and so are actively on the receiving end of the sales process. Well actually that is a blatant exaggeration. There are almost no salespeople operating in japan using a sales process. But there are millions of them just winging it (badly).   Why? On The Job Training (OJT) is the main training pedagogical system in Japan for training the new salesperson. This works well if your boss has a clue and knows about selling. Sadly, there are few sales leaders like that populating the Japan sales horizon. So what you get are hand-me-down “techniques” that are ineffective and then even worse, these techniques are poorly executed in the hands of the newbies.   We like to buy, but few of us want to be sold. We like to do business with people we like and trust. We will do business with people we don't like and very, very rarely with people we don't trust. Neither is our preference though. The million dollar question is, “what makes YOU likeable and trustworthy?'   Building rapport in the first meeting with a prospective client is a critical make or break for establishing likeability or trust. When you think about it, this is just the same as in a sales job interview. In both cases we enter an unfamiliar environment and greet strangers who are brimming over with preoccupation, doubt, uncertainty, reluctance and skepticism. If a sales person can't handle a job interview and build rapport straight away, then it is unlikely they are doing much better out in the field, regardless of what is glowingly written down in the resume.   So what do we need to do? Strangely, we need to pay attention to our posture! Huh? It is common sense really - standing up straight communicates confidence. Also, bowing from a half leaning forward posture, especially while we are still on the move, makes us look weak and unconvincing. So walk in standing straight and tall, stop and then bow or shake hands depending on the circumstances. Smiling at the same time would also be good, depending on the situation..   If there is a handshake involved then, at least when dealing with foreigners, drop the dead fish (weak strength) grasp or the double hander (gripping the forearm with the other hand). The latter, is the classic insincere politician double hand grip.   Some Japanese businesspeople I have met, have become overly Westernised, in that they apply a bone crusher grip when shaking hands.  Recently I have met a couple of Japanese businesswomen, who are trying to out man the men and are applying massive grip strength when shaking hands. It sounds very basic advice, but please teach your Japanese team how to shake hands properly. Too weak or too strong are unforced errors which impinge on building that all important first impression.   By the way, we probably only have a maximum of 7-10 seconds to get that first impression correct, so every second counts. We are all so quick to make snap judgments today, we just can't leave anything to chance. When you first see the client, make eye contact. Don't burn a hole in the recipient's head, but hold eye contact at the start for around 6 seconds and SMILE. This conveys consideration, reliability, confidence – all attributes we are looking for in our business partners. We combine this with the greeting, the usual pleasantries – “Thank you for seeing me”, “Thank you for your time today”. Now, what comes next is very important.   We segue into establishing rapport through initial light conversation. Japan has some fairly unremarkable evergreens in this regard – usually talking about the weather or about the distance you have travelled to get here, etc., etc. Don't go for these bromides. Try and differentiate yourself with something that is not anticipatory or standard.   Also be careful about complimenting a prominent feature of the lobby, office or the meeting room. I was in a brand new office the other day and they have a really impressive moss wall in the lobby. I will guarantee that my hosts have heard obvious comments about the moss wall from every visitor who has preceded me. “Wow, what an impressive moss wall ” or “Wow, that is a spectacular entry feature”. Boring!   Teach your salespeople to say something unexpected, intelligent and memorable. In this example, “Have you found that team motivation has lifted since you moved to this impressive new office?”, “Have you found your brand equity with your client's has improved since moving here?”. This get's the focus off you the salesperson and on to the client and their business. For example, if you are a training company like us, you definitely want to know how the team motivation is going, as you may have a solution for them.   Having a good stock of conversation starters should be basic for every salesperson. It might mean imparting some startling statistic that they may not have heard. For example, “I read recently that the number of young people aged 15-24 has halved over the last 20 years, are you concerned about future talent retention as demand exceeds supply?”.   We might educate the client with some industry information they may not be aware of but which would be deemed valuable. An example would be: “Dale Carnegie's recent research into Engagement amongst employees found three critical factors impacting motivation. The relationship with the immediate supervisor, the team's belief in the direction being set by senior management and the degree of pride in the organization – what are you seeing in your organisation around the area of engagement and motivation?”.   We face a lot of competition for the mindspace of our prospective clients. Busy people have a lot on their mind and we are an interruption in their day. Some of our prospective clients may be moving continuously from one meeting to another, so the attention span is shredded and the details begin to blur. They may have their eyes open but don't imagine their mind is in the room and focused on you. To counteract that possible external pre-occupation and to get them back in the room with you, use a question.   If I suddenly asked you, “what month were you born in?”, I will guarantee I have your 100% attention. So questions are powerful disrupters of pre-occupation and we should have stock of little beauties we can wheel out when needed. For example, “most people I talk to say Abenomics is not having any significant impact on their business as yet. Have you seen any benefits yet?”.   Another might be, “My clients' opinions seems to have changed – they are becoming more concerned about the possible future increase in consumption tax – is that an issue for your company?”. We want them talking about their business, because this is going to provide us with insights for a later line of questioning, as we try to uncover their performance gaps, needs, aspirations, etc.   The very first seconds of meeting someone are vital to building the right start to the business relationship. In modern commerce, we are all so judgmental and quick to make assumptions. Dressing the wrong way may even disqualify us before we get to open our mouths. Simple initial errors in posture, greetings and conversation can be our undoing. Let's get the sales team's basics right and make sure they totally nail that first impression.   So key action items from today:   Refine an image through dress, posture and eye contact that projects confidence Stock your opening comments such that they are really well differentiated from all of your competitors, who have swanned in ahead of you Provide useful business references to introduce something new to the client that gets the attention off you and on to the client's business   This is the rapport building stage of the sales process and it is both a science and art we need to perfect.   Engaged employees are self-motivated. The self-motivated are inspired. Inspired staff grow your business but are you inspiring them? We teach leaders and organisations how to inspire their people. Want to know how we do that? Contact me at greg.story@dalecarnegie.com   If you enjoy these articles, then head over to www.japan.dalecarnegie.com and check out our "Free Stuff" offerings - whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs. Take a look at our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules.     About The Author Dr. Greg Story: President, Dale Carnegie Training Japan In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development. Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making and become a 30 year veteran of Japan.   A committed lifelong learner, through his published articles in the American, British and European Chamber journals, his videos and podcasts “THE Leadership Japan Series”, THE Sales Japan Series and THE Presentations Japan Series, he is a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations. Dr. Story is a popular keynote speaker, executive coach and trainer.   Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate and is currently a 6th Dan. Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.      

What can we learn from the past, and from different traditions as they exist in the world? And how can such learning help us tackle the problems of today? In this lecture, Anthony Black asks whether, and to what extent, the histories of the West and the East are different, but complementary. Could it be that, in today's increasingly globalised (meaning Westernised) world, the West and East need each other? At a time of stress and short-sightedness, we would do well to remind ourselves of the resources and achievements of the human mind.

Dale Carnegie Training Japan: http://japan.dalecarnegie.com/mainsite/ How To Be Likeable and Trustworthy In Sales The first few seconds decides all   It has always been astonishing to me how hopeless some salespeople are in Japan.  Over the last 20 years, I have been through thousands of job interviews with salespeople.  We teach sales for our clients and so as a training company we see the good, the bad and the ugly - a very broad gamut of salespeople.  We also buy services and products ourselves and so are actively on the receiving end of the sales process.  Well actually that is a blatant exaggeration.  There are almost no salespeople operating in japan using a sales process.  But there are millions of them just winging it (badly).    Why?  On The Job Training (OJT) is the main training pedagogical system in Japan for training the new salesperson.  This works well if your boss has a clue and knows about selling.  Sadly, there are few sales leaders like that populating the Japan sales horizon.  So what you get are hand-me-down “techniques” that are ineffective and then even worse, these techniques are poorly executed in the hands of the newbies.   We like to buy, but few of us want to be sold.  We like to do business with people we like and trust.  We will do business with people we don't like and very, very rarely with people we don't trust.  Neither is our preference though.  The million dollar question is, “what makes YOU likeable and trustworthy?' Building rapport in the first meeting with a prospective client is a critical make or break for establishing likeability or trust.  When you think about it, this is just the same as in a sales job interview.  In both cases we enter an unfamiliar environment and greet strangers who are brimming over with preoccupation, doubt, uncertainty, reluctance and skepticism.  If a sales person can't handle a job interview and build rapport straight away, then it is unlikely they are doing much better out in the field, regardless of what is glowingly written down in the resume. So what do we need to do?  Strangely, we need to pay attention to our posture!  Huh?  It is common sense really - standing up straight communicates confidence. Also, bowing from a half leaning forward posture, especially while we are still on the move, makes us look weak and unconvincing.  So walk in standing straight and tall, stop and then bow or shake hands depending on the circumstances.  Smiling at the same time would also be good, depending on the situation.. If there is a handshake involved then, at least when dealing with foreigners, drop the dead fish (weak strength) grasp or the double hander (gripping the forearm with the other hand).  The latter, is the classic insincere politician double hand grip.  Some Japanese businesspeople I have met, have become overly Westernised, in that they apply a bone crusher grip when shaking hands.   Recently I have met a couple of Japanese businesswomen, who are trying to out man the men and are applying massive grip strength when shaking hands.  It sounds very basic advice, but please teach your Japanese team how to shake hands properly.  Too weak or too strong are unforced errors which impinge on building that all important first impression.  By the way, we probably only have a maximum of 7-10 seconds to get that first impression correct, so very second counts.  We are all so quick to make snap judgments today, we just can't leave anything to chance.  When you first see the client, make eye contact.  Don't burn a hole in the recipient's head, but hold eye contact at the start for around 6 seconds and SMILE.  This conveys consideration, reliability, confidence – all attributes we are looking for in our business partners. We combine this with the greeting, the usual pleasantries – “Thank you for seeing me”, “Thank you for your time today”.  Now, what comes next is very important.  We segue into establishing rapport through initial light conversation.  Japan has some fairly unremarkable evergreens in this regard – usually talking about the weather or about the distance you have travelled to get here, etc etc.  Don't go for these bromides.  Try and differentiate yourself with something that is not anticipatory or standard.  Also be careful about complimenting a prominent feature of the lobby, office or the meeting room.  I was in a brand new office the other day and they have a really impressive moss wall in the lobby.  I will guarantee that my hosts have heard obvious comments about the moss wall from every visitor who has preceded me. “Wow, what an impressive moss wall ” or “Wow, that is a spectacular entry feature”.  Boring! Teach your salespeople to say something unexpected, intelligent and memorable.  In this example, “Have you found that team motivation has lifted since you moved to this impressive new office?”, “Have you found your brand equity with your client's has improved since moving here?”.  This get's the focus off you the salesperson and on to the client and their business.  For example, if you are a training company like us, you definitely want to know how the team motivation is going, as you may have a solution for them. Having a good stock of conversation starters should be basic for every salesperson.  It might mean imparting some startling statistic that they may not have heard.  For example, “I read recently that the number of young people aged 15-24 has halved over the last 20 years, are you concerned about future talent retention as demand exceeds supply?”.  We might educate the client with some industry information they may not be aware of but which would be deemed valuable.  An example would be: “Dale Carnegie's recent research into Engagement amongst employees found three critical factors impacting motivation.  The relationship with the immediate supervisor, the team's belief in the direction being set by senior management and the degree of pride in the organization – what are you seeing in your organisation around the area of engagement and motivation?”. We face a lot of competition for the mindspace of our prospective clients.  Busy people have a lot on their mind and we are an interruption in their day.  Some of our prospective clients may be moving continuously from one meeting to another, so the attention span is shredded and the details begin to blur. They may have their eyes open but don't imagine their mind is in the room and focused on you.  To counteract that possible external pre-occupation and to get them back in the room with you, use a question.  If I suddenly asked you, “what month were you born in?”, I will guarantee I have your 100% attention.  So questions are powerful disrupters of pre-occupation and we should have stock of little beauties we can wheel out when needed.  For example, “most people I talk to say Abenomics is not having any significant impact on their business as yet.  Have you seen any benefits yet?”.  Another might be, “My clients' opinions seems to have changed – they are becoming more concerned about the possible further increase in consumption tax – is that an issue for your company?”.  We want them talking about their business, because this is going to provide us with insights for a later line of questioning, as we try to uncover their performance gaps, needs, aspirations, etc. The very first seconds of meeting someone are vital to building the right start to the business relationship.  In modern commerce, we are all so judgmental and quick to make assumptions.  Dressing the wrong way may even disqualify us before we get to open our mouths.  Simple initial errors in posture, greetings and conversation can be our undoing.  Let's get the sales team's basics right and make sure they totally nail that first impression.  So key action items from today: ·      Refine an image through dress, posture and eye contact that projects confidence ·      Stock your opening comments such that they are really well differentiated from all of your competitors, who have swanned in ahead of you ·      Provide useful business references to introduce something new to the client that gets the attention off you and on to the client's business This is the rapport building stage of the sales process and it is both a science and art we need to perfect.

Jully Makini makes fun of young women becoming Westernised in her poem Civilised Girl.