What does it mean to flourish?, with Luke Swann

Carlos: 00:01:21

so today we're gonna be talking about this idea, what does it mean to flourish?

Carlos: 00:01:25

Uh, and we've been, we are grateful to have Luke Swan with us to.

Carlos: 00:01:31

Uh, share his perspectives on what it means to flourish, um, how he's helping others flourish.

Carlos: 00:01:37

And I think this journey of his to, to finding the work that makes him flourish.

Carlos: 00:01:44

So I'm gonna see how many times we can use the word flourish today, is

Laurence: 00:01:47

it one of those things, the more you say it, the more you flourish, just like Exactly.

Laurence: 00:01:51

I'm manifesting.

Carlos: 00:01:51

That's it.

Carlos: 00:01:52

It's, what was it?

Carlos: 00:01:53

Neurolinguistic programming.

Carlos: 00:01:55

That's what you're doing here.

Laurence: 00:01:56

Yes.

Laurence: 00:01:57

Subliminal messaging.

Carlos: 00:01:58

There we go.

Carlos: 00:01:59

so yeah, before we kick off, Luke, why don't you, uh, just introduce yourself in terms of, uh, the work you're doing now, um, and who you're doing it for and why you believe it's important.

Luke: 00:02:11

Yeah.

Luke: 00:02:11

Thanks Carlos.

Luke: 00:02:12

So, um, yeah, obviously Luke and, um, came into contact with the two of you through the 2020 Vision program, which has been really great and.

Luke: 00:02:19

Really, he helped me to shape things, you know, over the last couple of years.

Luke: 00:02:23

So I've really appreciated that.

Luke: 00:02:24

Um, obviously now as you know, I'm at, I'm working educating young people and then training leaders as well on how we can better understand and then measure and improve wellbeing and how we can flourish as a whole.

Luke: 00:02:38

And I place greater emphasis on meaning and purpose.

Luke: 00:02:41

So that's a really important part of wellbeing and flourishing, which is often neglected and on character as well, like determining who we are and seeing how we can apply our character strengths.

Luke: 00:02:51

So I've been delivering that in a school setting for the last couple of years, which has been fantastic.

Luke: 00:02:56

Um, as a full program, like 10 sessions, I go in once a week, work with young people, teach them some science, a bit of psychology, a bit of philosophy as well.

Luke: 00:03:05

And then they use that to be self-aware and develop insights into themselves.

Luke: 00:03:09

And then they create these purpose projects where they develop something that's meaningful to them and will improve their wellbeing, but which also will benefit the world in a positive way.

Luke: 00:03:21

And this year I've started to focus on expanding that because obviously when you're delivering everything yourself, it can be harder to scale things.

Luke: 00:03:29

And I care so much about the impact that I have and always want to improve.

Luke: 00:03:32

So I've been focusing on doing teacher and leadership training and then also advising some organizations as well that are focused on improving mental health and wellbeing for children.

Carlos: 00:03:41

And if people are interested in finding about Milton, we're going to get the shameless promotion in straight away the plug.

Carlos: 00:03:48

If, where would, where would we like to point people to for now at least if they wanna find out a bit more?

Luke: 00:03:53

A good general, um, frame would be newpurpose.org.uk.

Luke: 00:03:59

Um, that's the website that I've got up and, um, there are contact details there, so if anyone wants to get in touch about anything, um, we can set up a curiosity call.

Luke: 00:04:08

Um, I'm a very curious person.

Luke: 00:04:09

That's one of my core character strands.

Luke: 00:04:11

Um, and yeah, and just talk about this a little bit more.

Luke: 00:04:14

So that'd be a good start, I guess.

Carlos: 00:04:16

So we've got an idea of the work you're doing now and it sounds like very much around helping people flourish.

Carlos: 00:04:21

What would be useful, I think, at least for myself, is just that definition of flourishing.

Carlos: 00:04:27

I think you touched on it, but maybe just bring it together as like, what is your, your perspective on, on what it means to flourish?

Luke: 00:04:35

Yeah, so I mean, in a broader sense, flourishing is thriving, like achieving our maximum potential.

Luke: 00:04:40

Um, I've got quite a scientific and psychological background, so I, develop my work within that sphere.

Luke: 00:04:45

And, um, there's a Harvard model of flourishing, which is like a prominent one.

Luke: 00:04:49

And that's to be in a state where all aspects of your life are good, are in a state of complete wellbeing.

Luke: 00:04:55

And I've worked within that because wellbeing's obviously really important to people, and we often know about having ill wellbeing and mental health problems.

Luke: 00:05:03

And then in the middle we can be languishing.

Luke: 00:05:06

Um, but then at the upper end of that spectrum, we have flourishing.

Luke: 00:05:09

And when we say all aspects of a person's life are good, um, obviously no life is perfect and we should never attempt to strive for that.

Luke: 00:05:16

But there are key domains that are central to all people, like Happiness Health, meaning character relationships and financial stability to a certain extent.

Luke: 00:05:25

And so it's really looking at each of those different domains or areas of wellbeing and seeing how we can enhance each of those in our lives.

Carlos: 00:05:34

So where, where do you feel, you know, you're working with young people, where, where do you feel that they've struggle or what is it about flourishing and, and tackling wellbeing, uh, for them that is a struggle or a challenge?

Luke: 00:05:50

Where do we start?

Luke: 00:05:50

I mean, it's incredibly challenging for them, as I'm sure you know.

Luke: 00:05:54

Um, like just in this country for instance, we've got Happiness and life satisfaction levels, which are the lowest for young people around 15 across all Europe.

Luke: 00:06:03

On meaning and purpose, which is another domain of wellbeing and flourishing young people.

Luke: 00:06:07

Um, come last place again for that.

Luke: 00:06:10

Um, compared to all of the European countries on record.

Luke: 00:06:13

And so.

Luke: 00:06:15

There are lots of different areas where they're struggling.

Luke: 00:06:17

Obviously another domain, which we know there's increasing problems is with mental health as well.

Luke: 00:06:22

And there's some issues with physical health too.

Luke: 00:06:24

Um, so there are quite a few key domains there where we've got problems.

Luke: 00:06:29

And with my work, there's some work which does touch on mental health and looks at ways they can improve it.

Luke: 00:06:35

But I don't focus on that directly because there is already some work there that's being done, which needs to be expanded on.

Luke: 00:06:41

There needs to be more.

Luke: 00:06:42

But I found that the meaning and purpose domains in particular and character are the ones that tend to be lacking based on my conversations with young people, based on the research, based on my own experience as well.

Luke: 00:06:53

Like it's, it's very hard understanding, um, what really matters to you, what your place is in the world, and who you are as a person.

Luke: 00:07:01

And we can have some really great guides and mentors in our life who can help us with that.

Luke: 00:07:05

But there often seems to be a lack of formal structure around that and a lack of clear knowledge and the development of skills around that, that is quite comprehensive and evidence-based and just personal as well.

Luke: 00:07:17

So they're the areas that I focused on, meaning, purpose, and character.

Carlos: 00:07:21

And what age group do you tend to work with?

Carlos: 00:07:23

What kind of ages?

Luke: 00:07:24

At the moment, it's towards the latter end of secondary school.

Luke: 00:07:28

So they're around 14 to 16.

Luke: 00:07:31

And, um, this is, um, often a decision of the school.

Luke: 00:07:34

Um, for me, working with adolescents is a really great opportunity because they're in this period of life, which is often framed as they've got all these hormones that are out of control, problems with behavior and everything.

Luke: 00:07:46

And there are some challenges of adolescents, sure.

Luke: 00:07:49

But there's this remodeling of the brain, which is incredibly exciting, and you can actually work with that, they're developing their identities, they're developing their place in the world, so it just give them some formal education structure around that work with their brains, and you can help them to better understand themselves and see where they want to go with their lives.

Luke: 00:08:06

But as I'm expanding my work, I want to go younger again.

Luke: 00:08:10

Um, before the pandemic I was working with eight to 12 year olds, and some of them like set up their own charitable structure and were setting up dance clubs and were recruiting other people and doing leadership at the ages of eight and nine.

Luke: 00:08:22

Um, so they can, they can also do this work.

Luke: 00:08:24

It's not beyond their capabilities.

Luke: 00:08:26

And I would actually argue that it's.

Luke: 00:08:29

Generally better to work with a younger age because developing these skills earlier leaves better benefits.

Luke: 00:08:35

Um, but I feel like I've come in at a bit of a compromise because this is where people tend to value meaning and purpose and character.

Luke: 00:08:42

It's like you're finishing school, you need to figure these things out, but of course they need to work earlier.

Luke: 00:08:46

So I'm keen to get back to primary school age as well.

Carlos: 00:08:50

I'd like to touch on that in a bit.

Carlos: 00:08:52

The kind of the, I'm gonna call it the pragmatic aspect of how you're doing your work and where, you know, there's a mission there, it sounds like, is very worthy, but then there's also implementing it and actually practically making it happen given where your audience sits.

Carlos: 00:09:08

But, um, given the age group, I just wanted to, like, bring it back on.

Carlos: 00:09:13

Myself and Laurence, our kids are that kind of age now, aren't they?

Carlos: 00:09:17

? And it's like, how, I don't know.

Carlos: 00:09:19

With you, Laurence, any, have you noticed anything about your kids in terms of their perspectives on these things and these ideas?

Laurence: 00:09:27

Well, my eldest would fit in, was getting close to 14, so he'd fit into the age group that you're working with now?

Laurence: 00:09:33

My youngest is 11, so I would say he would be less receptive to this stuff.

Laurence: 00:09:38

I mean, he might be not typical, but yeah, I can see how my eldest, I think he's at the point of choosing options, for example, which again, feels quite scary for kids to start to think about, you know, when they're asked questions like, , what do you wanna be when you grow up?

Laurence: 00:09:52

You know, which as we know, most people who are our age are still struggling with that question.

Laurence: 00:09:58

Um, and this pressure almost to have some certainty around that.

Laurence: 00:10:02

You know, what do you wanna do with your life?

Laurence: 00:10:04

What do you wanna focus on?

Laurence: 00:10:06

What do you want?

Laurence: 00:10:06

Any, you start to narrow down your options.

Laurence: 00:10:08

Um, so yeah, I would say one thing I've always been fascinated by is how school gives you up for lots of things, teaches you lots of things, but it doesn't really teach you anything or very little about yourself and, and what it is you are about or what it is that you can bring versus what is out there.

Laurence: 00:10:25

And I've always felt, I always felt when I was younger that there's a, there's a game and if you do all these things right, you, you win at the game and then you get to the world of work and you realize actually, a lot of people at work don't really care about the education unless you may be a doctor or a lawyer or something, but it's really about how you show up as a person.

Laurence: 00:10:42

Um, in some ways your, your confidence and self-belief in your own ability and, and what's important to you.

Laurence: 00:10:48

So that's why I think this works so important is it feels like it's giving people space to give that some room really, rather than expecting that the world's gonna tell you what is available to you, actually allowing you to choose what, what you might want for your life.

Luke: 00:11:02

With your son obviously said he's unsure about what he wants to do.

Luke: 00:11:06

There often seems to be a focus on, you know, what we do and, um, I think that's the way it can be framed at school a lot.

Luke: 00:11:11

Does he have an idea of who he wants to be?

Luke: 00:11:13

Like the type of person like our, even with the way that he acts now and the choices that he makes, cause obviously he has to decide how to spend his time.

Luke: 00:11:21

Does he decide to do things in a way that demonstrate that he does have some understanding or, um, is he more clueless like some of us can be at times?

Laurence: 00:11:29

It's a bit of both, I think.

Laurence: 00:11:31

Um, I, I think it's that thing of not, he, he's scared of making the wrong choice.

Laurence: 00:11:35

Now that might impact on his ability to do something later.

Laurence: 00:11:38

So for example, if you don't choose your language and you decide later on that you wanna focus on or have a year abroad at university, obviously that limits that option.

Laurence: 00:11:46

But I think also a lot of the qualities in the way we show up, so for example, like emotional intelligence, you know, I know something you focus on, but it isn't necessarily something that's really rewarded through this, the education system, I mean, obviously it is in the workplace and it is in real life, but I think it's hard to measure that kind of thing.

Laurence: 00:12:01

So I think it's always trying to give kids confidence that they're, who they are and how they are is fine.

Laurence: 00:12:06

But also not always getting that sort of feedback from the system itself.

Carlos: 00:12:10

Gabriel wants to be a YouTuber . I have no idea what, I don't think he knows what kind of person he wants to be.

Carlos: 00:12:17

You know, I've, I've been a bit light touch with that cuz you know, you don't wanna bring the work home.

Carlos: 00:12:22

It's like, well that's heavy.

Laurence: 00:12:25

People all day.

Carlos: 00:12:26

Of course.

Carlos: 00:12:27

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:12:28

Do my kids.

Carlos: 00:12:28

But there's a gentle, I think there's a gentle nudging that I'd like to do with my kids, but again, I'm also aware the, I have the minority of time with them compared to, uh, YouTube and their kids, their kids, their friends, God, not their kids, not yet please.

Carlos: 00:12:47

The kids in their school.

Carlos: 00:12:48

Um, and those kind of influences.

Carlos: 00:12:51

And so, I, I'm, I'm interested in this aspect of you, you talk about meaning and purpose and when you were talking before, uh, there's this level of just, very similar to what we do with the Vision 2020 program, this inside out approach of like, you know, what's meaningful and what's purposeful to you, and then how do you apply that to the things you do in the world.

Carlos: 00:13:13

Um, at the moment with Gabriel, it's like, uh, I want to create YouTube videos, so I'm gonna learn how to use some software and I'm gonna download stuff and mix it up and do that cuz it, he finds it fun.

Carlos: 00:13:25

What does that mean in terms of his own sense of meaning and purpose?

Carlos: 00:13:28

No idea.

Luke: 00:13:30

What type of content, um, are they, are they, are they thinking of doing?

Carlos: 00:13:33

He plays a game called Valant, and so what he does is he, yeah, basically he's just screen casting his games and then editing and cutting them down and putting music to it.

Carlos: 00:13:43

And so, um, he enjoys that.

Carlos: 00:13:47

And that's what he's, and I think his friends do it.

Carlos: 00:13:49

And so, and that's what he sees everyone online doing, so that's,

Luke: 00:13:52

Yeah, it's fascinating seeing that happened.

Luke: 00:13:53

How old are they?

Carlos: 00:13:54

13.

Luke: 00:13:55

13?

Luke: 00:13:55

Yeah.

Luke: 00:13:56

So it's interesting, there's playing games and then there's recording those games, editing them, having all of that, and then sharing them on YouTube perhaps for a sense of connection with other people to be part of some wider community to contribute something towards that, that other people might like.

Luke: 00:14:11

There's lots of young people that do it and, um, it's just interesting when you.

Luke: 00:14:16

Ask them about that, what it is that is specifically there.

Luke: 00:14:19

Cause for some it's, it's the graphics and the graphics are brilliant and they might be interested in, you know, more arts and they love the design.

Luke: 00:14:26

For some, it's, they're entering this world and they love stories.

Luke: 00:14:30

And for some it's like they want the technical aspects.

Luke: 00:14:32

Or for some it's, they want to accomplish something and they love the challenge of the game because it's always doing that.

Luke: 00:14:37

And for many, it's a sense of connection with the community.

Luke: 00:14:40

So it's always really cool seeing that and then like, kind of looking a bit deeper and breaking up a little bit and seeing what's underneath.

Laurence: 00:14:46

Well, it's a bit like during the lockdowns, you know, a lot of us are pretty, quite hard on our kids going, oh, they're on, you know, Fortnite all the time when the mates and should be doing, you know, homeschooling.

Laurence: 00:14:54

But in, in actual fact, it's, it was a connecting experience.

Laurence: 00:14:57

I think it was the only way that they would actually communicate with their friends.

Laurence: 00:14:59

They're not gonna pick up the phone and have a conversation.

Laurence: 00:15:01

They're gonna talk through a shed experience like that.

Laurence: 00:15:04

So yeah, it's just understanding, like you said, what's, what's actually driving it.

Carlos: 00:15:08

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:15:08

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:15:08

I like the way that Luke skillfully did that.

Carlos: 00:15:10

It's like, okay, what's behind the creation piece?

Carlos: 00:15:13

What's behind the sharing piece?

Carlos: 00:15:15

So I'm assuming that, and I'd like to find out more then, because that's the, that's what was of personal interest to me now, you know, having a 13 year old going on to 14, um, them not necessarily knowing what they want to do when even Laurence was saying, I like, you know, he's gonna have to make choices next year.

Carlos: 00:15:29

And like, which language?

Carlos: 00:15:31

Spanish or French?

Carlos: 00:15:32

You know, I quite like Spanish, didn't like French and he doesn't like Spanish.

Carlos: 00:15:35

And he quite likes French because of the teacher.

Laurence: 00:15:37

Exactly.

Carlos: 00:15:38

Not because of the topic.

Laurence: 00:15:39

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:15:40

So there's this, um, I think there's something here around making choices, not based on the experience of school necessarily, but what I'm understanding from you, Luke, and I'd be curious to find out more, is this a bit more self-inquiry about these words, meaning and purpose though.

Carlos: 00:15:59

They they feel quite heavy even for us adults.

Luke: 00:16:02

Yeah, just the one before I've done that as well at school, where you, um, you do something because you like the teacher.

Luke: 00:16:07

And I've always seen that as like a poor decision.

Luke: 00:16:11

It's like you're not supposed to pick that because of someone you like, because you're not gonna have that teacher in the future and you don't know what the subject's necessarily like.

Luke: 00:16:19

But, um, it's really cool making a decision based on, rather than the subject that you do, uh, at school, making a decision based on the type of person you want to lead you.

Luke: 00:16:29

And if you can identify that and you're aware of that, you might say, Okay, I want to work with, and I want to be led by people who have certain qualities and they can describe what the teacher's like who's perhaps is respectful, who, um, encourages me, who's like strong in, in their leadership.

Luke: 00:16:46

But yeah, that's always something I felt was a bad decision, but I think we just can look a bit deeper.

Luke: 00:16:50

So with meaning and purpose, they're often used interchangeably.

Luke: 00:16:54

One of the first things I do when I introduce these is to actually say what I'm talking about, cuz often we can be talking about very different things when we're, when we're speaking about these things and, um, what does meaning actually mean.

Luke: 00:17:05

So for me there's personal meaning and there's the meaning of life.

Luke: 00:17:09

Capital m meaning of life is roughly what is the meaning of all existence.

Luke: 00:17:14

Why are we all here?

Luke: 00:17:16

Um, I don't have the answers to that.

Luke: 00:17:18

. Um, we can have a discussion if.

Carlos: 00:17:19

Alright.

Carlos: 00:17:21

Okay.

Carlos: 00:17:21

Sorry, we're gonna have to cut this short now.

Carlos: 00:17:23

. Luke: Exactly.

Carlos: 00:17:24

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:17:24

So like, let's, that's the paid version.

Carlos: 00:17:26

Um, personal meaning I can speak about, um, with grades confidence because personal meaning is what matters to us.

Carlos: 00:17:34

Like in psychology, in science, internally constructed cognitive system about what gives a person's life significance, coherence and direction.

Carlos: 00:17:44

So this inner map of knowledge about what really matters to us and what gives our life sense and direction.

Carlos: 00:17:50

And so when we look at what matters to us in particular, um, we can really break that down.

Carlos: 00:17:56

I mean, it seems quite abstract still.

Carlos: 00:17:58

So what I did was I looked at, um, lots of the research, lots of the background, the way that people generally find meaning in life.

Carlos: 00:18:05

And then, um, I broke it up into a few ways.

Carlos: 00:18:08

And one of the things that I do is get students, I'll get people to, um, answer this question, which I'm gonna ask you actually.

Carlos: 00:18:14

So, out of these four, which is most important to you in life now?

Carlos: 00:18:20

Doing what you love.

Carlos: 00:18:22

So that's like your passions, living according to your values, having your needs met, or doing what you are good at are?

Carlos: 00:18:30

What energizes you, like your strengths?

Laurence: 00:18:32

I'm drawn to values, which goes against what we talked about last week on the fire side about needs.

Laurence: 00:18:38

I'm probably happy to do something that doesn't necessarily fulfill my needs as much, or, um, doesn't give me as much joy if I feel like it's true to what I believe in.

Carlos: 00:18:47

Yeah, I am definitely in, firmly in the needs camp now.

Carlos: 00:18:52

I'm converted to that.

Carlos: 00:18:53

For a while I didn't really quite understand it, but I, I now know why I, I don't necessarily, I find it hard to create life plans and just like say, oh, that's why I'm gonna do, or that's what I'm do because I'm, I realize I'm much more driven by what's present for me in the moment and what's, yeah, what feels right.

Carlos: 00:19:15

Didn't think about that before.

Carlos: 00:19:16

I thought it was all about knowing what.

Carlos: 00:19:18

What, where to go and what to do.

Carlos: 00:19:21

But I feel more comfortable now with that.

Carlos: 00:19:24

And I think also getting to a certain age is like, I have no idea what's gonna happen next, particularly after this past two years.

Carlos: 00:19:31

So to a certain level it's like, okay, what, what feels good right now?

Carlos: 00:19:37

And what makes sense maybe on the short to medium term?

Carlos: 00:19:41

So it's not ridiculously, uh, they're not like neglecting the future, but at the same time, not having the future dictate what I do now necessarily.

Luke: 00:19:49

For me, um, I mean, in the, in the past it's always been, um, doing what I love and it's usually doing what I love, living accord into my values, and then it was doing what I'm good at, having my needs met.

Luke: 00:20:06

My needs have moved up.

Luke: 00:20:08

And I would probably say that meeting my needs could be the first one now.

Luke: 00:20:14

And that's the first time in my life that that's true.

Luke: 00:20:16

Um, but yeah, there's been a massive shift, I would say in the last couple of years.

Carlos: 00:20:21

Stuart basically asked, well, he said, surely you can only choose from the other three once your needs are met first, which is, um, an interesting perspective.

Carlos: 00:20:33

Um, yeah, I kind of agree with you, Stuart.

Carlos: 00:20:36

Uh, but more from the point of view of like, it feels much more present as opposed to in the future or trying to guess what's gonna happen next or trying to go towards somewhere, which I feel that's what we're taught at school.

Carlos: 00:20:49

You know, what are you gonna be when you grow up?

Carlos: 00:20:51

And make that happen.

Luke: 00:20:53

Yeah, I think it's a really good point Australia made.

Luke: 00:20:55

Um, it's really difficult to do the others when you're not meeting your needs.

Luke: 00:20:58

And um, so I used to be very focused on, as a more agreeable person is focusing on other people's needs and trying to help them meet their needs, um, as opposed to my own.

Luke: 00:21:08

And, um, when you're doing that, you can still strive towards things that you care about.

Luke: 00:21:14

And even that's meeting and needs.

Luke: 00:21:15

So they're obviously all interconnected.

Luke: 00:21:17

These are not mutual exclusive like groups as well, by the way.

Carlos: 00:21:20

Interesting comment from Mart.

Carlos: 00:21:22

One of my values is that everyone should get their needs met.

Carlos: 00:21:28

That's a curious one there.

Luke: 00:21:29

Yeah, it'd be good to see a follow up to that.

Carlos: 00:21:31

I wanna go next to talk a bit more about, um, why you're doing this work and your journey to actually really focusing on meaning and purpose.

Luke: 00:21:40

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:21:41

But I, I just wanted to stop on this one with Mart, cuz I'm, I think this is something that I'm quite, I wouldn't say passionate about, but it does sort of create a lot of, um, energy in for me about this idea of me trying to meet everyone's needs.

Carlos: 00:21:56

Because sometimes we can't.

Carlos: 00:21:59

You know, some of the things that we want for ourselves or we need for ourselves can be in conflict with the needs of the people around us.

Carlos: 00:22:10

I don't know how, uh, that have you experienced that or how you've navigated that, navigated that, um, in your life?

Luke: 00:22:16

Yeah, yeah.

Luke: 00:22:16

It's an interesting one because, um, yeah, there can be at odds and it's not our role of responsibility to meet everyone's needs.

Luke: 00:22:23

Um, like sometimes I found myself in the past trying to do that because that was my need to fulfill their need, but they perhaps didn't want to do that.

Luke: 00:22:33

They perhaps didn't see it as something they needed to do.

Luke: 00:22:35

Um, and so, yeah, it's important to sometimes like check yourself a little bit.

Luke: 00:22:40

And see what's true to you and what's important to you.

Luke: 00:22:44

But certainly like fulfilling your own needs sometimes is out of line with what other people want.

Luke: 00:22:50

And sometimes it's good to not other people's not meet other people's needs.

Luke: 00:22:53

Sometimes it's good to set boundaries in place and even intentionally do things that can be selfish as long as it's in an ethically selfish way.

Laurence: 00:23:03

Yeah.

Laurence: 00:23:03

The thing that strikes me is, and again, someone's values is their own values.

Laurence: 00:23:07

Just for me, the words people pleaser comes to mind when I think of me trying to make other people's needs be met means that I'm trying to appease them all the time.

Laurence: 00:23:16

That's my meaning for it.

Laurence: 00:23:17

And it might be very different to Martin's, but yeah, like Luke said, I think it's uh, if you're that kind of person, there's a danger there that you end up just always responding to other people's.

Carlos: 00:23:26

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:23:27

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:23:27

I think, you know, that's what the, that's where it landed for me.

Carlos: 00:23:30

And again, of course, we all look at these from different perspectives is just my own past behavior of always trying to help, well meet other people's needs.

Carlos: 00:23:39

And this is more emotional needs as well than necessarily needs to put the food on the table or to eat, or to, to more physical, tangible things.

Carlos: 00:23:48

Um, and I, I take what he said now as like thinking collectively, uh, that there are basic needs that we should all look out for.

Carlos: 00:23:55

And so, yeah, Maslow's hierarchy, you know, bottom two rungs of, uh, as it physical safety and also having, um, food on the table as I understand it, I, I, I can see, I can, yeah.

Carlos: 00:24:12

I'm not in a disagreement with you there, Mart.

Carlos: 00:24:15

Definitely, uh, collectively that those are things that we should be meeting.

Carlos: 00:24:20

I think where I was taking it to was really when, um, When we potentially avoid conflict because we want to make everyone's needs met.

Carlos: 00:24:35

And then what that actually ends up looking like, because we assume too much about what other people are thinking.

Laurence: 00:24:43

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:24:43

And then, and then we maybe not serve them in the way that they need to be served because we're, we're too, we're too worried about what their nee their needs not being met

Carlos: 00:24:53

. Laurence: Yeah.

Carlos: 00:24:54

I'm thinking of email, like email needs, like if I've, I want, I wanna not respond to emails.

Carlos: 00:25:00

And then there's just a, a whole spiral of emails that people are expecting responses to.

Carlos: 00:25:04

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:25:05

I don't think you can ever appeal people's needs in that setting.

Carlos: 00:25:09

Well, it's, I, like Luke said, it's, I think there's this an aspect of here of like really clear boundary setting.

Laurence: 00:25:15

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:25:15

And, and being able to defend those boundaries.

Carlos: 00:25:19

Um, and that for me is kind of linked to this more.

Carlos: 00:25:22

Uh, confident knowledge of self, which is my segue to finding out more about your journey of self knowledge, luke, um, maybe tell us a bit more of a story of where, where you started out and what kind of person you, you would describe yourself as and, and what that, how you got to where you are now, which seems to be very self-aware.

Luke: 00:25:46

Yeah, so it's an interesting one telling like your journey and your life story.

Luke: 00:25:51

Um, usually I tell it from the perspective of me now, which I think I might do, cuz you can get more sense and coherence from that and it can be more meaningful as a result.

Luke: 00:26:01

Um, so like where I am now having some, like a good degree of self-awareness and self-knowledge, I can look back and I can trace the certain aspects of my life and how things have progressed and some of the reasons why.

Luke: 00:26:15

But the truth is at the time, um, you just can be quite lost within that.

Luke: 00:26:21

And, um, just thinking to how I was as a child, how I was as a young person.

Luke: 00:26:27

I mean, I was very close with my mom, um, it was just me and her for the first seven years of my life, like growing up in Colliers, Manchester.

Luke: 00:26:34

And then after that, my brother, brother came around, uh, got a stepdad as well, a couple years later, a sister, and then another sister, and then another brother is my, um, biological cousin who was fostered.

Luke: 00:26:46

And so I think the, the nurturing and in particular the compassion and kindness, um, from my mom was something that was a big influence.

Luke: 00:26:57

And I'm not religious anymore, but Christianity was a big influence when I was a child.

Luke: 00:27:01

Cause that was a big part of my life then.

Luke: 00:27:04

But the biggest parts were my mom.

Luke: 00:27:06

And then also being an older brother, like when I first became a brother at the age of seven, um, that was something that was incredibly exciting to me.

Luke: 00:27:14

And looking after my brother seeing game was something that I was very excited about that I absolutely loved.

Luke: 00:27:20

And because of that, because there's a roughly 10 year gap between me and my siblings, I think trying to look after them in the best way that I could and also trying to the best way I could as well, meant that I, at least the last, the first one meant that I wanted to work with children.

Luke: 00:27:38

I care tremendously about them.

Luke: 00:27:40

And, um, yeah, I value their lives and that's something that's always been really deep to my heart.

Luke: 00:27:45

Um, but then when I was in school, um, I got in trouble quite a lot and wasn't particularly finding anything that really mattered to me.

Luke: 00:27:53

Um, that struggles with my mental health as well.

Luke: 00:27:56

Um, but I loved maths and that was something that I was really good at.

Luke: 00:27:59

It was the thing I was best at that I knew about, and it was something that I was really good at in the context of other people as well.

Luke: 00:28:05

And so I went to college, did maths and science A Levels, left there, had a year out to go back to my old school where I did some teaching as an unqualified math teacher, which was probably the second important milestone after my sibling's birth where I found something that was incredibly meaningful and purposeful, although I didn't have the words for it then.

Luke: 00:28:25

Um, it just brought a lot of, um, joy to my life and I absolutely loved it and thrived in it.

Luke: 00:28:31

And then I went to Cambridge to do maths.

Luke: 00:28:33

Stayed there for a year.

Luke: 00:28:35

Um, didn't particularly enjoy there too much, but I had some great times about some brilliant people.

Luke: 00:28:41

And then I changed subjects twice to biological natural sciences.

Luke: 00:28:44

And then I switched to Bristol to do experimental psychology.

Luke: 00:28:47

And then after that, left university and became a published children's offer.

Luke: 00:28:52

So there's the theme of children, obviously, and of education, a bit of writing.

Luke: 00:28:56

And then after a few more years, um, I set up my own social enterprise and focused around education and wellbeing and writing as well.

Luke: 00:29:06

And that kind of led to where I am now where I'm a person who values curiosity.

Luke: 00:29:12

I love learning value, critical thinking, value, compassion and kindness and passion itself as well.

Luke: 00:29:19

And, um, like my purpose, I feel I have many purposes, but I feel like one of my core social purposes is to create like a world wellbeing system, um, a system of forms of education and of connections that we can make between existing organizations and existing programs and services.

Luke: 00:29:40

And just really give people this center where they can go to for all aspects of their wellbeing.

Luke: 00:29:47

And so I've started to work on that and build the smaller foundations and I'll build that up brick, uh, brick by brick as I go on.

Carlos: 00:29:54

Well, there, you know, there's a very strong passion for helping others with wellbeing.

Carlos: 00:29:59

And I'm just curious about your own struggles with wellbeing and how you've well navigated that, but also come to the awareness of actually needing to do something about it.

Luke: 00:30:14

Um, so yeah, I mean, from being two or three years old, I had incredibly difficult sleep.

Luke: 00:30:19

And I found out that that was related to trauma that I had from a very young age.

Luke: 00:30:23

And so I struggled a lot around sleep and in other aspects of my life from an early age.

Luke: 00:30:29

But a lot of these come on under really observable, are memorable.

Luke: 00:30:33

In adolescence and around 16 is when I could, I guess, self-identify with having depression and anxiety a little bit, um, and self-harmed a couple of times around then when I was at school.

Luke: 00:30:46

And then, um, as time went on, I think it got progressively worse and worse.

Luke: 00:30:51

So as I went through college, um, then through university, um, it just became more and more difficult.

Luke: 00:30:58

And, um, when I was in Cambridge, my behavior was terrible.

Luke: 00:31:02

It was as, as well at college and I almost got kicked out of college.

Luke: 00:31:06

I was in fact kicked out of my maths and further math lessons and had to teach myself those subjects and just sit in one lesson a week for physics.

Luke: 00:31:14

And then at university I had a lot of troubles as well.

Luke: 00:31:17

Some of it due to mental health, but a lot of it due to the person that I chose to be.

Luke: 00:31:20

So, um, the struggles that I had wasn't an excuse for some of the wrong things that I did.

Luke: 00:31:24

And then when I was in Bristol, um, I guess it got worse and worse and then had some struggles with addiction as well, um, around weed initially, and then Valium as well.

Luke: 00:31:33

And just got in trouble a lot.

Luke: 00:31:36

I think the moment for me, there were many moments where I sought help and I was in therapy and I was learning more about the mind and I was making changes.

Luke: 00:31:46

But I think the one that was a really big one for me was when I got arrested for selling drugs and at the time I actually aspired to be in prison, like that was what I wanted.

Luke: 00:31:58

I was, I, I even made the plans and everything.

Luke: 00:32:00

I contacted Vice and said, uh, I'm looking to go to prison.

Luke: 00:32:06

It's ridiculous, isn't it?

Luke: 00:32:07

I'm looking to go to prison, and here's some of the journalist work that I've done.

Luke: 00:32:12

Cause I was doing some student journalism work at the time.

Luke: 00:32:14

Um, I've already been arrested.

Luke: 00:32:15

I'm gonna go to court and there's a minimum three year, um, sentence for it.

Luke: 00:32:21

Um, and I said, if it comes about, um, could I be an in-prison correspondent?

Luke: 00:32:27

I wanna learn about people inside and I wanna like help more and I wanna just write about that and discover like what's going on in these different aspects of life.

Luke: 00:32:35

But what was really going on was that there was a lot of self destruction.

Luke: 00:32:39

I think I was just glossing it and making the glamorous side of things and looking at these interesting experiences and stories that I could create.

Luke: 00:32:47

But really it was just a lot of self-destruction.

Luke: 00:32:49

And I managed to get a suspended sentence, which means it was for two years in the end.

Luke: 00:32:53

And um, if you do anything, any crime whatsoever in two years you get an immediate two year prison sentence.

Luke: 00:32:58

So I got off, I was very lucky.

Luke: 00:33:00

And um, I immediately after that I triggered that, um, suspended sentence, um, by getting arrested on purpose.

Luke: 00:33:07

And um, then I had to go to court and it was like, right, I'm gonna go to prison now.

Luke: 00:33:12

When that happened, it just kind of clicked and really hit me and I was like, what the hell am I doing?

Luke: 00:33:19

I was really struggling with depression at the time, just lost a relative and everything, and it just became apparent.

Luke: 00:33:24

I was like, what am I doing?

Luke: 00:33:26

And I had to call my mom and just calling her was really difficult and hearing like a voice break, she spoke to me cuz she was so excited that things had started to go well.

Luke: 00:33:36

And then I'd just done this by my own choice.

Luke: 00:33:38

It was devastating for her.

Luke: 00:33:40

So hearing that devastation in her voice was a really big wake up call.

Luke: 00:33:43

And I was like, I need to make some really, really big changes now.

Luke: 00:33:48

And so I did.

Luke: 00:33:48

And I got some evidence for why I was struggling and I managed to avoid going to prison, which is really great.

Luke: 00:33:54

And um, from there I think I've been on a journey to improve myself, to look after myself as best as I can, not impact others in a negative way through the things that I'm doing.

Luke: 00:34:06

And generally just have a better life and contribute more to others as well.

Luke: 00:34:09

And um, since then there's been more and more that's not the end of the journey.

Luke: 00:34:15

Like I'm still on it.

Luke: 00:34:16

I still have struggles.

Luke: 00:34:17

Um, I was in therapy over lockdown for 37 sessions, working, working through some, um, complex trauma.

Luke: 00:34:25

And um, so it still goes on, but I'm at the best point I am in my life and things just keep getting better and better.

Luke: 00:34:32

So I keep building on the foundations that I've got and then I'll just be easy on myself when things are a bit more difficult.

Carlos: 00:34:39

You're a highly articulate and very intelligent man, and I think there's this, I sometimes get this image of when people get in trouble maybe with the law or they go through these kind of difficult patches, it's like, you know, you don't think of it in terms of someone who, who has the mental capacity to make, you know, good decisions, right decisions, inverted comments.

Carlos: 00:35:04

What I'm trying to get at is, I think there's a sensitivity to say actually this, this kind of mental wellbeing challenges can affect anyone.

Carlos: 00:35:12

It feels, and it's something a lot deeper than just, I dunno, just not being able to work life out.

Luke: 00:35:19

Yeah.

Luke: 00:35:19

I mean, um, one of the reasons why it's good to talk about these things is because I never want to give the impression that because I'm Luke, I'm working around people's wellbeing.

Luke: 00:35:28

I'm flourishing.

Luke: 00:35:29

I'm flourishing myself in many different ways.

Luke: 00:35:31

This is Friday.

Luke: 00:35:32

It's Friday flourish.

Luke: 00:35:33

That's about a hundred times we probably said flourish now.

Luke: 00:35:36

Um, but I don't wanna, cause I have some really great things going on in my life and I'm really happy with what I'm doing and content with my relationships.

Luke: 00:35:45

I don't wanna give the impression that I'm not someone who struggles because it's not an accurate picture for me.

Luke: 00:35:51

And authenticity is really important.

Luke: 00:35:53

And it is important that we can share these stories ourselves and, um, really connect because, um, otherwise it can feel like we can be the only ones who experience like difficulties, like isolation and low self-esteem and many of different problems that we might have.

Luke: 00:36:12

But yeah, these things do affect everyone to some degree.

Luke: 00:36:16

They obviously affect some people more and some people require more help.

Luke: 00:36:20

But I do think that I'm lucky that, um, I'm intelligent in some ways and in some of the ways that I'm intelligent.

Luke: 00:36:27

There are ways in which when I finally cared enough, I could apply to myself.

Luke: 00:36:31

And a lot of that was around not just self-awareness, but self-work as well and learning more.

Luke: 00:36:38

And the more that I've done through my work with young people, the more I've been able to learn myself and apply it to my own life and essentially practice what I'm preaching as well.

Luke: 00:36:48

Um, so there's a lot that can be done and, um, yeah, I find building up my knowledge and building up my skills and coping mechanisms and finding out more what's right for me in life is something that always benefits me.

Carlos: 00:37:01

There's that term self work.

Carlos: 00:37:03

I know Laurence isn't a big fan of it, but, um, when you say that, what, what does that mean to you?

Luke: 00:37:10

Okay, I'm gonna quickly go to what came to my mind first because like recently I've really changed my routine and, um, like, because sleep is something that I've typically struggled with.

Luke: 00:37:20

I'd get to sleep really late, especially in the pandemic when you're working for yourself, you can do your own hours.

Luke: 00:37:25

Um, but I've really changed my like, day around.

Luke: 00:37:27

And I set myself at the beginning of the day.

Luke: 00:37:30

I do a writing exercise and then I've got a wellbeing checklist.

Luke: 00:37:34

Um, and on that checklist are all of the things that I need to do to have a great day on a general day.

Luke: 00:37:42

So it's things like starting a day with writing, waking up at an early time, obviously without my screen, having sunlight, having water, healthy breakfast, healthy meals with water, obviously.

Luke: 00:37:52

Things like at least an hour of social connection.

Luke: 00:37:55

Minimum at least 30 minutes, exercise at least 30 minutes in nature.

Luke: 00:38:00

At least 30 minutes journaling, cause that's important to me.

Luke: 00:38:03

And at least an hour of learning or reading.

Luke: 00:38:07

And then there's my work.

Luke: 00:38:09

So when I said self work, sometimes it's the semantics.

Luke: 00:38:13

So it'd be interesting to hear what term you would prefer Laurence, but when I talk about that, I mean, um, wellbeing, I mean flourishing work in a sense.

Luke: 00:38:23

And um, yeah, perhaps you can give me a better term for it, in fact, because, um, yeah, it does, it does invoke the idea of the other types of work we do.

Luke: 00:38:32

But it just also demonstrates that it's something that we prioritize and it's effortful and it's something that we work on actively.

Laurence: 00:38:38

Mm-hmm

Luke: 00:38:38

But yeah.

Luke: 00:38:38

What would you prefer, Laurence?

Laurence: 00:38:40

I dunno if I have a better description for it.

Laurence: 00:38:42

I think inner work rather than self work was with my issue with that description.

Carlos: 00:38:46

I mean, my take on it with Laurence as well, and I, I see it as well that like, there's an element of self work is like, I need to fix myself.

Carlos: 00:38:52

You know, I've gotta, there's bits of me that are broken and I need to like, ah, I need to like fix that bit and fix that bit.

Carlos: 00:38:59

Um, and that's my understanding of, part of the, sort of the challenge with that phrase.

Carlos: 00:39:07

The thing that sprung out to me and in the conversation we've had previous.

Carlos: 00:39:10

Luke is around the idea of discipline, and creating a discipline.

Carlos: 00:39:16

Um, because, you know, getting up early isn't easy for a lot of people.

Carlos: 00:39:21

So like, committing to these regular rituals.

Laurence: 00:39:24

Especially Luke.

Carlos: 00:39:26

Isn't, that, isn't that easy.

Carlos: 00:39:29

So there, but there's to, there's a, well, the two words that spring to mind a commitment and discipline.

Carlos: 00:39:35

And I had a conversation earlier this morning with, uh, with another community, Like Hearted Leaders community about, you know, what, what is it that helps us commit to something?

Carlos: 00:39:45

And I, I get a sense from you that you, through your journey and through your work, you've found some, you've found things that you are willing to commit to, which means that there are things that you are not doing, which is a choice.

Carlos: 00:40:00

And some people find it hard to make those choices.

Carlos: 00:40:02

How, how has that manifested for you in terms of being very confident about the choices you're making?

Luke: 00:40:07

Um, I guess I get more confident over time and one of the reasons why I think I can gain confidence over time is that I challenge them and I question the things that I'm doing.

Luke: 00:40:17

Um, so for instance, just one which would, um, struck me as something bad to do in like a few years ago, but I used to be a vegetarian and then on my first or second birthday, this la last year, sorry, um, I decided to look at, rethink basically and look at my beliefs and my attitudes and my rules and to see if there are still things that I believe in, if there's still things that serve me and to see if I can improve them.

Luke: 00:40:43

And, um, I made like quite a few changes, but the one that I was very surprised with was around eating meat and it's just something that I decided to do.

Luke: 00:40:51

The reason that I did that was because when I first made the decision not to, I was doing it for ethical reasons because of animal welfare, um, but I wasn't taken into consideration my own nutrition and given the way that I eat.

Luke: 00:41:02

Um, having meat is something that brings health and it brings Happiness to me.

Luke: 00:41:07

And obviously I moderate and do an ethical way.

Luke: 00:41:09

But I think challenging myself is something that gives me more confidence because they're not just beliefs that I blindly believe in, although I'm somewhat blindly believing them, cuz you can never truly a hundred percent challenge yourself, um, but there are things which I challenge and are things which I've reflect on, and I give myself periods of time where I can think about those.

Luke: 00:41:32

And what I found was that in the past there are certain moments where we are motivated to change.

Luke: 00:41:40

And so obviously having difficult experiences like some of the ones that I described, having a moment where, um, you've really not done well by yourself and by your by others is a time where you might think, okay, I need to change.

Luke: 00:41:54

But I wanted to make those periods more frequent so I could basically assess things and update more, more frequently than I was.

Luke: 00:42:03

Another one we might do is on New Year's, and we obviously know what happens to a lot of New Year's resolutions as they go on.

Luke: 00:42:10

And then sometimes when we don't meet those, it can affect our self-efficacy, the belief of our own abilities.

Luke: 00:42:15

So for me it was great setting up the Friday flourish cuz it's like, okay, here's a day for me that's gonna start out as an experiment and I'm gonna not really plan anything for that time, but I'm fo gonna focus on my wellbeing, on my growth and on my flourishing.

Luke: 00:42:32

And since doing that, I've been able to reflect on important aspects of my life every week.

Luke: 00:42:38

Sometimes I don't, I don't want to do that on that day and I just wanna completely rest or go and have an adventure with certain people.

Luke: 00:42:45

But sometimes there's deep reflection in writing and that's enabled me to look at different aspects of my life and to see what needs to change.

Luke: 00:42:53

And that's given me the clarity to say, these are the things that I'm not happy about.

Luke: 00:42:57

These are the things really meaningful to me, and which are not currently aligned with my life.

Luke: 00:43:02

And because of that, I've been able to make changes.

Luke: 00:43:05

But I think having something that's meaningful to you is really important.

Luke: 00:43:08

And having that intrinsic motivation is key as well.

Luke: 00:43:11

And when you have those spikes of motivation, instead of letting them subside and you go back to your, the rest of your life, like act on them at those moments and make at least a small action and then try to sustain that and reflect on the process as you're doing it, and build it towards something that you are really proud of.

Laurence: 00:43:27

It takes courage.

Laurence: 00:43:28

I think, you know, particularly to say one day a week, I'm gonna devote it to myself.

Laurence: 00:43:32

You know, we talked about this a bit last week on the call about needs with Lana, this feeling of, yeah.

Laurence: 00:43:37

As, as people who are givers, first and foremost, we love doing things, helping others, how do you do that in a way that doesn't feel well?

Laurence: 00:43:45

It doesn't bring out all these feelings of guilt or, you know, judgment?

Laurence: 00:43:49

And I'm sure you must get that, but it sounds like you're, you're able to navigate that, um, and know what, well, know what's good for you first so that you can be of best service to other people.

Luke: 00:44:00

Uh, yeah.

Luke: 00:44:00

I've started to, when I first set out, set out on my entrepreneurial journey and the first time was I was my own boss, um, I was a terrible boss, so treating myself in a way that I would not take from anyone else.

Luke: 00:44:12

Like working myself like 70 hours a week, um, not getting like much rest, not getting much sleep, um, compromising things that didn't need to be and shouldn't have been compromised.

Luke: 00:44:23

And I really found it hard a few years ago to take one day off.

Luke: 00:44:27

And so could go for two years with only having a couple of days off in a row, very sporadically.

Luke: 00:44:34

And it's just something that I've learned to do.

Luke: 00:44:36

I think the pandemic has helped in that respect.

Luke: 00:44:39

Um, it's been like massively challenging and obviously I worked through the most difficult things I've ever worked through with going through all this really difficult trauma around a friend's suicide, you know, and, and finding them after that, um, in my house.

Luke: 00:44:52

So like going through all of that during this pandemic and the lockdowns.

Luke: 00:44:56

Was incredibly challenging.

Luke: 00:44:58

And like people, we are resilient.

Luke: 00:45:00

Um, like we don't always make it through everything, but we get through most things.

Luke: 00:45:05

If we look at the pandemic, for example, if we would've told ourselves before or someone would've told us that we were gonna go through all this, a lot of people wouldn't have thought that they would've survived or thrived at all, or a, a lot of people have.

Luke: 00:45:18

And I think because of some of the more difficult circumstances of late, and because I've worked on some of the problems from earlier, earlier on in my life, I've been able to focus on, um, things in a, in a more positive way.

Luke: 00:45:31

And it's brought about some great things.

Luke: 00:45:33

So yeah, it's been very challenging, but, um, I'm really, really grateful for all of those brilliant positive things and then all the difficult, more negative things of what as well, which have, which have, um, brought me to where I am now.

Luke: 00:45:47

Like, yeah.

Luke: 00:45:48

What's it like, what's it been like for you, I guess not just this last two years, but when you think of your wellbeing, do you just think of your mental health or Happiness.

Luke: 00:45:56

Or do you think of your like, meaning and character as well, and how is your, how have your levels within that been throughout your lives?

Luke: 00:46:04

Has it been quite consistent or have you had like turbulent dips apart?

Laurence: 00:46:08

Yes.

Luke: 00:46:11

Yeah, there's a lot.

Laurence: 00:46:12

All of that.

Laurence: 00:46:12

There's all of that.

Laurence: 00:46:13

Yeah, the last couple of years I've, I think for me, my wellbeing's been the most important thing in terms of, uh, my wellbeing and the wellbeing of my kids and family, I think.

Laurence: 00:46:22

You know, particularly when we were like homeschooling in the first, um, lockdown, in some ways their education came second and wellbeing came first.

Laurence: 00:46:30

And, and also me and my wife were working full-time.

Laurence: 00:46:33

You know, you've been on the Vision program that's been mine and Carlos' main focus for the last two years.

Laurence: 00:46:38

Uh, so in some ways work has been different, but good because, in some way people need community more than ever and, and I need community and to belong more than ever.

Laurence: 00:46:48

And in some ways I think it's allowed us all to kind of reflect on that and, and understand how important people are to our, our Happiness.

Laurence: 00:46:54

So that part's been good.

Laurence: 00:46:56

Having access to, to people through Zoom and things like this for the last two years has been a real source of support.

Laurence: 00:47:02

Um, but at the same time, not being overwhelmed by that too.

Laurence: 00:47:05

So yeah, like you, I've tried to put in ring fence my wellbeing time really.

Laurence: 00:47:09

Whether that's walking the dog or, uh, time to read or you know, time with my wife, whatever.

Laurence: 00:47:15

But just that's the most important thing.

Laurence: 00:47:17

And then everything else comes after, rather than work the most important thing.

Laurence: 00:47:20

And I fit that other stuff around it.

Luke: 00:47:22

Yeah, sure.

Luke: 00:47:23

So like, um, you mentioned with your wellbeing, like since the pandemic, it's been a priority for your wellbeing and your families, your immediate families as well.

Luke: 00:47:32

Um, was that not as much the case before the pandemic?

Luke: 00:47:36

So is that something that is brought to you in a sense?

Laurence: 00:47:38

Uh, it was important, but I would say, well, partly it was the pandemic, but partly just my journey with our work.

Laurence: 00:47:44

I think the year before the pandemic hit, me and Carlos were just busy with loads of events.

Laurence: 00:47:48

You know, I, I would say I probably pushed myself too much, um, saying yes to everything at the beginning, and then I, over time you realized actually I can't have another year like that.

Luke: 00:47:56

And has that been similar for you, Carlos, or quite different?

Luke: 00:47:58

Cause obviously you're on a similar journey, but you could have very different experiences on that.

Carlos: 00:48:02

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:48:03

generally, I'm quite a happy person.

Carlos: 00:48:05

I'm quite a positive outlook on life.

Carlos: 00:48:06

I have very much, I value physical wellbeing and I've always thought if I'm physically fit, most of the time my mental wellbeing follows.

Carlos: 00:48:15

And it's quite a virtuous circle.

Carlos: 00:48:17

There was a period though for, you know, particularly halfway through the Happy Startup School up to now where I was completely lost.

Carlos: 00:48:27

A really, um, when you talk about meaning and purpose, I had a real, wasn't sure what, how I fit into this whole sort of scheme of things.

Carlos: 00:48:36

And one of the, one of the aspects of that was just clinging onto an identity, and clinging onto what it is that means, uh, success for me personally because of the path that I'd taken, I, for many years, I relied, or I identified very much with being a logical, technical type of person.

Carlos: 00:48:58

And that's, that's the kind of work I do.

Carlos: 00:49:00

I solve technical problems and, and then finding out, okay, but what, what, how, what does that mean in a, an organization that does events and goes abroad?

Carlos: 00:49:09

You know, what, what role has that, you know, what is my purpose?

Carlos: 00:49:14

Where is there any meaning in that?

Carlos: 00:49:16

And only through meeting lovely people in our community, and also just thinking about a, having a definition of meaning that isn't a me, like you said, not a meaning of life, but what does, what is meaning for me right now?

Carlos: 00:49:28

And also what is it underneath the stuff that I do that is really important?

Carlos: 00:49:34

What are the needs in the way of the language I'm starting to use?

Luke: 00:49:38

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:49:39

And you know, in terms of the technical stuff, it's, I love learning, I love solve, solving problems.

Carlos: 00:49:47

They don't have to be, how do we build a app in a certain programming language anymore?

Carlos: 00:49:54

It, it could be, what is it that this person who's just like mind vomited in front of me, actually saying, and Ashley meaning, and actually wanting?

Carlos: 00:50:05

And there's, ah, God, yes.

Carlos: 00:50:07

There's different ways that I can apply what I, I, you know, my skills and proclivities.

Carlos: 00:50:13

But there's underlying, there's always the same needs.

Carlos: 00:50:16

Always the same needs.

Carlos: 00:50:18

And that's what's helped me like connect to okay, feeling a lot more comfortable with doing different things as long as they meet those needs.

Carlos: 00:50:28

And so for me that's the, the, there's a journey of wellbeing.

Carlos: 00:50:33

It was just like you've done reconnecting to what, what's below all the stuff that we do.

Carlos: 00:50:40

Um, and also understanding where that came from and saying, Okay, on one hand I could let go of it.

Carlos: 00:50:45

On another hand it might be someone else's.

Carlos: 00:50:48

And also maybe I can just keep it cuz it's actually helpful.

Carlos: 00:50:51

So, um, that's for me, I feel a lot more at peace these days with A, not knowing where we're going.

Carlos: 00:51:00

B, the work I can apply, whatever work I do as long as it meets my needs, but C, the importance of connection, I think, and the importance of being able to hear people's stories like yours, like everyone we meet on the Friday side fireside, like the people we meet at Altitude, like the people we meet at Summercamp.

Carlos: 00:51:19

Just that not sense of being like, oh, I'm on my own, trying to work things out.

Luke: 00:51:23

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:51:23

Okay.

Luke: 00:51:24

Interesting.

Carlos: 00:51:25

Thank you very much for that.

Laurence: 00:51:26

There's not, there's not many people who turn the tables on us.

Carlos: 00:51:29

Uh, no, no.

Carlos: 00:51:30

It's lovely.

Laurence: 00:51:30

So.

Carlos: 00:51:31

Yeah.

Carlos: 00:51:32

Before we leave, there's a quick question actually, I just wanted to see if you can address that.

Carlos: 00:51:36

Brett was asking, you mentioned you're doing some work in organizations.

Carlos: 00:51:40

How have you found that compared to working with school age groups?

Carlos: 00:51:44

A bit of a want to tackle that.

Carlos: 00:51:46

Just before we leave, if you can.

Luke: 00:51:48

Uh, it is really, really exciting in many respects because I feel like there's more freedom, more capacity, and a lot of people further on down the line tend to value some of the things that we're talking about more because you've had more life experience and you've seen that as opposed to being told what's important from an earlier age and, and, um, not having had the opportunity as much to develop your own ideas.

Luke: 00:52:11

So it's been really exciting.

Luke: 00:52:13

Like I've started work with, um, a venture builder program called Zinc where they work with, um, they're developing organizations to tackle children in people's mental health and wellbeing.

Luke: 00:52:24

And I had like eight calls a couple of days ago, back to back with different founders within different organizations.

Luke: 00:52:31

And it was just really exhilarating to hear all of these incredible ideas and to provide a different perspective on some of it and add something whilst receiving something from them.

Luke: 00:52:42

It was a really great interaction.

Luke: 00:52:43

So I love doing that.

Luke: 00:52:44

It's great working with people on the individual level cuz you get to talk in the way that we've been talking and see the very human side of things, which is the foundation for everyone else.

Luke: 00:52:54

But then it's great looking at the wider organization and seeing how it functions.

Luke: 00:52:58

However, working with children and young people is always gonna be more fulfilling for me, um, more meaningful, but it's great having that wide variety.

Luke: 00:53:10

So I, I will continue to do both and some of the work that I do with adults can compliment the work that I do with young people and vice versa.

Luke: 00:53:19

But it's just great seeing this wider spectrum.

Luke: 00:53:21

But yeah.

Luke: 00:53:21

And another thing as well is that when we look at different people in life, every individual's got their unique like talents and unique things that they can add.

Luke: 00:53:30

But there are some general differences between adults and between children and between young people.

Luke: 00:53:35

So I find it fascinating working with all of them and seeing the different benefits that they have and all of the things that they can provide.

Luke: 00:53:42

Um, cuz yeah, I think I'm a problem solver like you and I'm just very curious and I love to help people.

Luke: 00:53:48

Yeah.

Luke: 00:53:48

And I love to work with them as well.

Luke: 00:53:50

So it's a very, very great job, I feel.

Laurence: 00:53:54

Is there an ask Luke?

Laurence: 00:53:55

Cuz I know we've been chatting about, you know, you doing more work with people in the community and being more visible to people on the outside too, so Yeah.

Laurence: 00:54:03

I'm just wondering, are you wanting to connect with people who might be thinking of some of these bigger questions?

Luke: 00:54:08

Definitely.

Luke: 00:54:09

Yeah.

Luke: 00:54:09

Yeah.

Luke: 00:54:09

Um, for anyone who wants to get in touch, luke@theprologue.org.

Luke: 00:54:13

Um, I can be contacted by email anytime.

Luke: 00:54:16

The website we put up earlier.

Luke: 00:54:17

But yeah, it's just great to set up a call and have like a 30 minute chat to see where we're all at, because there are many things which, um, I feel like can provide and can be beneficial to people.

Luke: 00:54:29

But obviously other people have a lot to offer as well.

Luke: 00:54:31

And I'm someone who strongly values collaboration.

Luke: 00:54:34

Um, and if there is anyone who's, I guess struggling in particular with any of the things that we've.

Luke: 00:54:40

Where they feel I might have some lived experience and some professional experience, like to work with, um, that would be great to do.

Luke: 00:54:48

But then if there's anyone who wants to get in touch in a more collaborative way, that would be fantastic.

Luke: 00:54:52

And if there's anyone who would just like to help in some way, I'm open to receive it, which I haven't always been in the past.