Graham Allcott 0:05
Hello, you're listening to beyond busy, the show where we talk productivity, work-life balance and everything in between. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this week's episode, I'm in conversation with Francis Briers. Francis is a fellow by Brightonian. He's client lead at FizzPopBang, so he has a lot to say about culture in organisations. He's also the founder of Wise Fool School and an interfaith minister. So we taught wisdom and faith and all sorts of stuff, as well as productivity and he's someone who's done 494 consecutive weekly emails. So just in terms of consistency of output and productivity. He's got loads to say loads of great tips. So I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation. Before we get into it, just wanted to talk to you about my new programme that I'm running in November. It's called Six Weeks to Ninja. You can find out Details at GrahamAllcott.com and it's basically a six week evening course where I'm going to take everyone through all the tips and tricks and key habits from how to be a productivity ninja so if you're a fan of productivity ninja if you've done some work with think productive my company before, you'll know how this stuff can really change your life actually, you know, and really just give you the the kind of backbone habits that will really up your game in terms of productivity. So if that's a tool of interest, go to Graham Allcott, calm, you should see a little pop up, come up on there with some more information about six weeks to ninja. There's also an event bright page, if you just go to Eventbrite and type in six weeks in nd you'll find it and it's really limited. So we're just going to do it for we're going to sell 30 tickets, and so it's going to be a fairly small and intimate little gathering of people, Whatsapp group to keep everyone accountable and through the weeks as well. And starting in November, so if that isn't enough, Thursday evenings UK time through November through to Christmas. Then go up to six weeks to ninja on the Eventbrite page or on grey market.com to find out more. So let's get into this conversation. So as I say, France is just really interesting guy. You know, we talk wisdom, faith, productivity, embodiment, all sorts of stuff. In this episode. We're down the line. Even though we're both in the same city recording this it was recorded a few weeks ago, when there was still some some fairly strong restrictions in place of that meeting. It just didn't feel like the right thing to do. So I'm looking forward to having a proper coffee and catch up with Francis when that feels like a bit more of a normal thing to do. But let's get into it.
Here's my conversation with Francis briars. I'm here with Francis priors. How you doing now?
Francis Briers 2:54
Well, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, looking forward to the conversation.
Graham Allcott 2:58
And I say before we hit record That. Often if I'm in an office or something, then that bit is our starting point. But maybe we're doing this down the line on Zen caster. Maybe just tell us a little bit about what does your day look like so far? Where are you what we've been doing?
Francis Briers 3:17
Yeah, so I'm at home like most of us right now. Still on the on the end of lockdown. So I don't know when this will be published, but we may be a little more out in the world by then. But it's Yeah, certainly mostly people still at home right now. So I'm in a little box room where I've been working. And I did a great coaching session earlier today, which I really enjoyed fascinating conversation and was doing homeschooling with my son this morning. Yeah, so rich and varied Friday, Friday morning so far.
Graham Allcott 3:52
Props to you for still doing homeschooling because it feels like everyone else I speak to just gave up like weeks. How's that been for you?
Francis Briers 4:00
Yeah, well, I've not been doing the bulk of it. My wife has been doing more of it than me. So, but because I don't do my day job on Fridays, I usually do the homeschooling on Fridays. But yeah, it's been a funny mix of the moments of really feeling like it gives me a real window into my son's process as a learner, which I don't normally have, because he's normally doing his movement, the majority of his learning at school, and which feels really useful and actually really great to see him be part of and, and sometimes really joyful and playful as well. And especially with English because I'm a writer, so I enjoy kind of helping him open up his imagination and find ideas and get them down on paper, which he sometimes struggles with but, but can really get into swing off to them and then sometimes horribly painful. And so, ladies moments when he really doesn't want to do it and we really need to get done. And he's just kicking off in one way or another, and especially on a Friday because he's often tired. You know, it's I think it's been quite tiring for a little people. Yeah. Having to kind of motivate themselves and kids, you know, find things to do. And yeah, I think it's it's a very strange time for all of us. But my son's an only child, so he's not, he's had very little social contact. That hasn't been online for months now. And actually, that's pretty tough. And, and, you know, he's doing doing amazingly in lots of ways and and Sundays, that shows up as a obliquely, is not he's not complaining about that or talking about that, but he'll, he'll be upset or frustrated. And it's not really about the work. It's about. It's about wider context so yeah. Yeah, it's been it's a it's a wild wild tapestry to be exploring but, but great to be hanging out with him in that space too.
Graham Allcott 6:13
Yeah, it's a good reminder, isn't it that things like COVID and and and obviously everything else that's going on in the world as well, right? There's there's a huge amount of stuff in flux, trauma, lots lots of things like that, that people are experiencing emotionally that because we're having to just get on with it or in cases of homeschooling, you know, invents a whole new job for yourself and all these other things. It's like it can sometimes be forgotten that that's all happening emotionally whilst we try and muddle through everything as well, right? It's, yeah, it's an interesting time. You say you just don't get there at your day job. So you don't do that on Fridays. Is that for phys? Pop bang is that Yeah, that's right. What you described is Because it feels like you have lots of jobs, right? You have lots of different hats and stuff. So let's just talk about just to give people a sense of context of some of the things you're involved with. So do you want to just talk about a physical bank and then and then we'll kind of lead into some of the other the other hats that you wear as well?
Francis Briers 7:18
Yeah, sure. So yeah, might why I call my my day job. I feel like that term makes it sound more boring than it is or less less like something I love than it really is. And is with a little boutique consultancy, creative consultancy called fit spot bang. We do culture work generally. So working with companies to help them create a really great sense of relationship and integrity between their brand and their employee experience. So I see a lot of it's one of one of my bugbears over the years in some ways has been the way that brands sometimes on the outside to the outside world, make these grand promises and then don't have within them to make good on those promises, you know, the culture isn't there or there, they're just not set up, you know, so they're kind of marketing guys or their their ad agency team do this amazing job of making grand promises to the world and then they don't really deliver on them. And then there's the people. I've seen lots of big companies get sort of surprised that people are disappointed in the mod, you know, don't get disenchanted and so in a way, I think a lot of what we do best at his bot bang is helping helping companies to make the insides match the outside, you know, the to help that be as vibrant and full of promises, as the marketing historically has been. And, and sometimes that's through culture work. So kind of diagnostic and understanding culture and values and things like that. And sometimes that's more through creating a learning culture and helping them to have really vivid, engaging, learning experiences that help people to be at their best. So face.
Graham Allcott 9:00
Yeah, and the other thing that you're involved in, or have been for the last sort of couple of years is this thing called the wise fool school. Yeah. And so, so what's that?
Francis Briers 9:12
Yeah, so that's, that's in way as a kind. It feels to me like a culmination of years of work. And because for years, I've done various kinds of personal development kind of work, and I've written books and, and, and run courses and all sorts of things and, and, and wise for school is more in a way I think of it as like a platform or a creative space I get to blame that feels like it brings together lots of different strands of my work from over the years. So that includes embodiment, and Taoist wisdom and spiritual development and more broad personal development and health and well being and coaching, lots of these different strands that I've done various different things with over It feels like they all come together in, in what I've come to call wise for school, which has a kind of obvious, obvious external expression of there's an online course that you can sign up for them. And there's a community that goes with it. But then I also, I had actually, I had, just last weekend, I would have been running an in person wise for school workshop that I had to postpone. And for obvious health related reasons, under the current circumstances, so why school is going to be this kind of broader thing. And like, say, I see is isn't just a great, it's a place where lots of different strands of my fascination have come together.
Graham Allcott 10:42
And you strike me as someone who is eternally curious and eternally searching for and trying to sort of diagnose and define meaning and things right so the so another thing that I've previously Not only for is as an interfaith minister, which I just found really fascinating. Yeah. So is that something that you feel like you've always had a new as this kind of fascination curiosity? With what else is out there? Is that something that you kind of noticed very early on in life?
Francis Briers 11:18
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I've always been super curious. And I've always loved learning and been fascinated with different things. And I, I came across some writing by Joseph Campbell, who's a famous, he's famous for having studied folklore, cross culturally studied folklore and mythology, and come up with the idea of the hero's journey, which some people might have come across. Yeah. And I was fascinated when I was really interview with him and he described himself as a generalist. Now for someone who insight in so many ways Seems like such a kind of niche specialist I found that really fascinating. Academically he's cuz he was considered a generalist in his time because he wasn't studying one subject he was studying anthropology, sociology, myth, myth and folklore. And he was studying across all different cultures as widely as he could rather than studying one culture for one part of the world. And, and so I've really come to feel aligned with that idea of being a generalist and and embracing the fact that I'm a strange kind of generalist where I get curious, fascinated in lots of different directions. Yeah. But in some ways, it's that is that is that breath that is part of what makes me who I am as a person, but also in my work actually is part of what makes me useful to people is that sometimes I see connections between different things. And that can enable something really creative to happen, or can open a door to a totally different way of thinking about something. Then you'd you'd get from from someone who is more of a specialist or or more conventional, someone operating more conventionally in the kind of spaces that I work in, whether that's leadership development, or culture work in organisations or less in personal development, and one to one coaching or writing books or whatever I do, I have learned to see the value in Wait, I see connections that other people don't see, even if sometimes it feels a bit uncomfortable to him that I don't know how to. I don't always know how to position myself and I don't think other people sometimes don't quite know what to do with me.
Graham Allcott 13:33
Yeah, because it's like, I suppose, from one, on the one hand, as you mentioned there, if you're a generalist, if you've got a broad perception of the world, then yeah, that's, that's obviously vital, particularly if you're working with organisations about culture, but just generally you're going to Well, generally, because you're generalist, like you're gonna have that greater sense of how to join the dots up how to kind of see different paths. and things like that. But I suppose just the word generalist has, it feels like it has a bit of a bad rep as a piece of terminology as well. So that's something that you have had to sort of battle with. Personally, it's like the difference between your enthusiasm for that that piece of terminology of generalist and then the world's seeming rejection of the idea of being a generalist in a kind of career sense.
Francis Briers 14:23
Yeah. I don't feel like I've had to battle with it particularly, or not in the outside world more than myself. I think in interfacing with the outside world, it's more been around kind of marketing or selling, selling widely, especially I used to have my own business. And I'd often get feedback from people. I remember one person who would bring me in on projects and loved working with a buyer. I remember her saying, I really love what you do. I just have no idea how to describe it to people. And I think that was partly because I because I did lots of different things, you know, and they were These different strands that and sometimes my sometimes, you know, there's there are some things that I've got greater depth in, so I can bring that. And actually that's what people would come to me for is the depth in one subject. And but often what made me different than someone else or you know, kind of unique or happy or helpful was the fact that I had some enough depth to really go somewhere with with one thing, but I draw these connections out to something else, and I'll be able to draw different strands together. So I think that's in the kind of marketing and being present in the world in that way. I really see that that I probably have had some struggles. And because we live in a world that, in many ways wants to put us in boxes. And, and where, especially if you're dealing with marketing or selling things you're dealing with, often with a relatively short and from the research, shortening, attention span. And so you got to get across to people What what value you can offer them really fast? Yeah. And actually, if it's Well, it depends. And there's lots of different things. And and sometimes it's a bit numinous and we only discover it by working together, and then you go, Wow, that was really helpful. When did that come from? And then you discover that it came from totally not what you asked for is your totally other area of expertise or insight. That can be hard to make sense of.
Graham Allcott 16:22
And it strikes me that the value of that then like, you just talk about your, your colleague there who loved working with you, but wasn't sure how to describe it. A lot of that comes from trust and relationships. Which I guess brings me back to the, the interfaith minister hat as well. Yeah. So it is that something that you think has really helped you in businesses like I'm presuming there's a lot of training and a lot of emphasis, as an interfaith minister on you know, how to build that connection. And how to listen. You know, and and generally how to help people through some of those those personal situations.
Francis Briers 17:08
Yeah, I think. So, certainly one of the strands of study, training to be an interfaith minister is spiritual counselling. And which interesting, I'm doing more of, again, as a strand of my work, they've gone quieter for a few years because I was just very busy with a full, very pretty full on full time job and wanting to be present as a father and husband, in my family, and so it just wasn't a lot of space for me to do do the things on the side in the way that I have done in in years gone by. And one of the core ideas in spiritual counselling in many ways it's the core idea is that you're absolutely perfect exactly as you are. And there's nothing wrong with you. So when Pete but people come to you for spiritual counselling, when they're feeling to some degree in difficult to interpret, isn't it it's a little strong, but not for There is the internal experiences is of someone feeling kind of broken. Yeah, in some way we did. And so the one of the real core ideas in spiritual counselling is that you're absolutely perfect exactly as you are. But sometimes we forget that. So while you've forgotten, I'll just hold on to that for you. And I'll keep remembering that and turning up with people in that spirit and holding, holding a seeking to hold an awareness for them on their behalf that you There's nothing you need to do. You're absolutely perfect just as you are. There is something about that quality of presence, that quality of relationship that can I experienced as opening doors for people in a really interesting way. And whether that's coaching or whether that's with groups, facilitating groups in learning, and creating a space of possibility. There's something In numinous and magical I really like about creating that space of possibility. Where it's not that it's not that there's a problem to be solved or something that needs fixing. It's that there is a possibility of becoming more whole, more connected, more aware and vibrant. That's, that's something I find exciting and magical with it. And often it's not explicit. That's just but that's part of how I turn up. And I think that's part of what people value when I turn up.
Graham Allcott 19:31
Would you mean it's not explicit?
Francis Briers 19:33
And why sometimes, you know, I'm just running a running workshop on a piece of learning, or I'm doing some coaching, that's more business, you know, leadership coaching. So I wouldn't necessarily talk about that. Yeah, quality of presence or that that underlying assumption. But there's something about how I turn up when he's with it, because that's part of who I am part of my history and part of who I am how I turn up. Like I say can can help others seem senior seems to help others to inhabit a different way of seeing the world and that creates possibilities that opens doors and that that can change things and problems get solved without us going after problems.
Graham Allcott 20:16
And I think I suppose what draws a lot of these various strands of your work together is this sense of curiosity wisdom, this this this kind of search for different truths and stuff Did you feel like so are you atheist would you describe yourself as atheist or agnostic or like,
Francis Briers 20:43
definitely not atheist. Right and just really clear about that there's nothing wrong with being atheist. But But atheism has become so it's been popularised and and in places I think has been weaponized in a way that I that I want to be really clear on. align with Yeah. Because Yeah, I've seen this. I feel like I meet more and more evangelical atheists, right. I mean, more evangelical atheist, I meet evangelical Christians. And, and that seems a little strange to me when evangelising is explicitly part of the Christian, Christian faith, certainly for some churches, and so yeah, and I wouldn't even say I'm agnostic. Because that's about I believe in something but I'm not sure what. And so spiritually, I'd say I'm a pluralist. If we want to put terms which is about that there are I think there are many expressions of the Divine. Not to sound to or not wanting sound to to woo or out there. That's right. Yeah, I'm okay with it. But I am a person of faith. Again, this is not something I necessarily talk lots about. Especially My day to day work, but it is part of who I am and how I turn up. I have dime, I am a person of faith.
Graham Allcott 22:07
Because I guess the reason I asked is like that imagine there's there's, you know, learnings or, you know, interesting ideas that you could come across in any religious text. Yes. And it's sort of, you know, it feels like you have a choice there to I mean, you can have a choice and say, I don't believe any of its true. So I would, I wouldn't, I wouldn't leave myself as an evangelical atheist by any means, but I definitely like myself as an atheist in general, although, technically, Richard Dawkins says that he's a an agnostic, right? doesn't like okay, yeah, cuz he says that. One of the things with science is that science is always still learning the next thing so so you have to have, even if you think it's a very very distant, tiny percentage wise possibility, you have to be open to that being a thing that we might discover in the future. So technically, like, he says that everybody's agnostic, but. But I would also say that even if I don't have faith, there's probably as I read through different, you know, religious books or exposed more to those ideas, it's like, it just feels ashamed to just throw all of that out, because I don't necessarily believe in that version of God. Whereas I suppose what you're saying is, having a pluralist view is just saying, well, there might be a divine and it can be expressed through, you know, all of these sort of different cultural ways, but it's ultimately about ultimately about the same thing.
Francis Briers 23:55
Yeah, I think I think that's a good way of describing it. And I guess there's A couple of things there for me one is that in some of the traditions that I've studied and explored, the one of the core ideas is animism, that all things are filled with spirit spirit filled with the divine, whatever label you want to give it, there's a way that I really, genuinely don't care what label we put on it. That which is greater than us. So my experience is that there is something greater than us, which is a kind of connective tissue between everything in the universe. And, and there are lots of people who have explored that in lots of different ways, including some fairly some people with a fairly hardcore scientific background as a guy. So one of the areas I've studied in is called dialogue and explored in called dialogue, which is an approach to relationships, facilitating relationships and groups. There was established largely by a guy called David Boehm, who is a particle physicist by background. And he, he was one of the early people who showed that when you split, subatomic particles, you can take half of the particle and to the two hours of particles separate them and if you spin one half the other staff half starts spinning in the same direction, even when they're physically separate. And he talked about from from that experiment, his explorations in physics, he, the way he described it was the implicit order that there is an implicit order where all things are interconnected. And from the idea of the implicit order, he started to explore how our relationships might trade with each other might transform. If we went in with an understanding of the implicit order, and sought to create social environments in which the implicit order the connectedness could be Merge, that doesn't mean there's not conflict or that you'll come. In fact, often there's significant conflict that can come into that space. But how you respond and how you create the environment enables the fundamental connectivity to emerge rather than staying focused on the fragmentation or getting stuck in the fragmentation, which is often where we get stuck in arguing our points in discussion and debate, in such a way that we keep ourselves separate, rather than seeing what connects us rather than coming into contact with what connects us and, and that connection. That sense of connection creates other possibilities. We don't have to love each other. We don't even have to like each other necessarily. But there is a possibility for a a neutral sense of fellowship to emerge that enables us to relate differently if we stick with it,
Graham Allcott 26:54
and it feels like Western culture and therefore business culture is always much more About the individual and about shunning any ideas of interconnectedness, right? It's like sometimes when you travel to other parts of the world, you kind of, you just really get a sense that people are much more in tune with how interconnected they are with others, even just the way people drive or the way people act in shops and all those sort of things.
Francis Briers 27:19
Yes, there is.
Graham Allcott 27:22
You know, UK, US, culture feel, you know, and certainly in terms of careers and stuff, it feels like it's very individualistic, and like, you know, you're on your path, and everybody else is an extra in your film, right? Yeah. Yeah, and so, yeah, just a huge array of different things that you bring to the table and I guess, even talking about something like dialogue with many CEOs would probably leave them feeling a bit alienated or cold or whatever like it is like find finding the right way to Bring this wisdom in must be like a huge challenge. And then I suppose there were like other things that are just like universal experiences. So you wrote a poem called Death and life. Yes. And so I'd love to hear more about that and how, you know, maybe different bits of wisdom that you've studied and interact with, with death? And also is, is there something that we can learn from that stuff in terms of corporate culture, bringing it back to organisations as well? Yeah.
Francis Briers 28:31
So, I mean, yes, you're right. You have to be, you have to be careful as practitioners about how we bring in parrot bring expertise into the room. And that's, again, that's where I say I'd say it's not always explicit. I don't have to tell you that what we're doing is is dialogue in inverted commas. If you're wanting me to facilitate an experience, you know, and that could be our work with exact boards, and facilitating the dialogues, you know, their conversations to help them be as effective as possible around your training and development workshops. I've done all sorts of things, you know, in that kind of facility of coaching, educative kind of space, and training kind of space with organisations, lots of different levels, right Debord and right through to graduate programmes. And sometimes it's useful to bring in the frame of dialogue into being in terms of being able to distinguish between different qualities of conversation so you can be conscious about Okay, we're ending up in a discussion right now. I'm not sure how helpful that is, and how do we shift the conversation so we achieve a different quality of conversation. But that's really just about the outcome where that the philosophy that that approaches based on some people will be really interested, but it's not necessarily what I bring into the room explicitly. And not because I'm hiding anything just because I'm not sure it's going to be helpful or feel relevant. And for me, that's, that's how I orient is how can I be helpful. However, the most helpful in this moment, and sometimes that does mean making things explicit. And sometimes it's, it's about how I turn up and the way, the ways in which ways I have or facilitating a conversation or a session or a piece of learning such these as, as helpful as it possibly can be for the people in the room. So I come to death and life specifically in just a moment. But more broadly, I'd say wisdom. You know, most of us, I think, intuitively have a sense that wisdom is a good thing. Yeah. We'd like to be wise as we get older to kind of gain wisdom. And we'd like our leaders, our organisational leaders and social leaders to have wisdom that feels like a that doesn't feel like a terribly controversial statement like that would that feels like a like an outdated thing. Now what wisdom is we might have different ideas about but that kind of genuine generally intuitive sense, based on a kind of broad background, social Idea collective idea of sort of what we think wisdom is that I think that we have some fairly common ground in most people and in most organisations and, and whether you are spiritually inclined, or not, I'd say all sorts of texts from texts and traditions and bodies are learning from over thousands of years of human history and can help us to find our own wisdom. And that's, that's the way around, I'd put it. Now, indefinite life is a poem that is intended to do that in a particular way, in its own way. So that's, that's the connection. But I just want to expand on that idea of how these things help us find our own wisdom. Because that's, that's a, I put that carefully. Yeah. And the reason is that and when I say was wisdom is something I'm really fascinated with as you've picked up on, and has anyone who looks at my work and my site and things would would get as well. And in trying to work out I so I got I've been fascinated with Islam for probably to some degree and most of my life but very explicitly in the last 10 years. And I've been really trying to get to what is wisdom? How does it work? How, how, practically how do we cultivate more of it if it's generally a good thing and it will be good for leaders to be wiser and first to have a wiser world? How do we do that, practically. And one of the early things as I was trying to work out what it is, and and I saw a useful comparison with knowledge, traditions and wisdom traditions. So broadly speaking, knowledge traditions are the ones where, what you the way they progress is by knowledge being passed on and the next generation of people taking knowledge further, taking the next step. So if you look at something like maths or science, then if you look at the science books from even 100 years ago, but certainly, you know, let's say 200 years ago, what they were telling you some of the principles would be the same, but the content of what they're telling you is really quite different to what science books now. Yeah. Because each generation of people have been able to take on the knowledge of the previous generation, it's been recorded and passed on. And then they've progressed it, they've gone further in a fairly linear way, linear and progressive. If you look at wisdom text, so the town's ageing, for instance, which is one of the most thought to be one of the most ancient surviving written texts, to Chinese spiritual text. And you compare the core lessons, the core principles, it's exploring the core lessons of it, with something like the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle a written and what is it 15 years ago, something relatively rare. And the core lessons are very, very similar. Or if you compare the writings of Buddha with the writings of Eckhart Tolle, and they're pretty similar, the same kind of the same thing.
Graham Allcott 34:11
He was a got a lot of entrepreneurs. Particularly, there's a big sort of movement in the Silicon Valley around stoicism, right? Yes, very old ideas, but yet still
Francis Briers 34:22
exactly as relevant today. So I look at that and I go so either the people in the in what I would broadly call the wisdom traditions, religion, spirituality, and philosophy. I would I would include the arts as well. More broadly, but in either the people in the wisdom traditions have been really lazy or stupid. Because they haven't progressed, right. Yeah, scientists working working really hard and have really progressed and these guys are saying basically the same stuff. So either they were kind of lazy or you know, kind of the the everyone in that field has been a bunch of lights. bozos for thousands of years which seems unlikely to me just statistically that seems unlikely. And, or what they're trying to do when they're writing their books is something very different. And in thinking about that, one of the conclusions I came to because if science progresses, generation on generation and wisdom doesn't, it must be that wisdom is cultivated within the span of a lifetime. Because otherwise, you'd see progress generation, you know, one lifetime after another, you'd see the same kind of linear progress. And what I think is happening is that wisdom is based entirely on personal experience, is it fundamentally it's kind of insight into how life works, the underlying principles of how life works, what matters most. How to live a good life. And while someone can tell you that stuff, you're not really going to live and breathe it until you've felt it for yourself. You start to have the experiences that help you to come to your own conclusions. So what the wisdom texts I think are doing, were that stoicism or Buddhism or whatever, or Eckhart Tolle is a modern example. JOHN katzenback, or whoever. Is they're trying to point you towards the kinds of experiences and the ways of digesting your experience making sense of your experience that will help you to cultivate your own wisdom, which is a different purpose.
Graham Allcott 36:31
Before we talk about death and life. Yeah, I think I just feel like I've got to ask you having obviously having studied a really broad range of texts, yes. Around wisdom. Do you think there are particular things like I mentioned stoicism there, but are there particular things for you that have helped you with specifically work life, how you define success and happiness just like the particular things that happen? really stood out to you as as almost becoming like a personal mantras or, or or things that are very resonant to your own life.
Francis Briers 37:08
Yes, not the answer.
Graham Allcott 37:12
You need to give, give all the listeners the three practical tips, right? Listen, this is actually my, my real problem with 20 minute commute friendly podcast format is like it's you know, it's all like, particularly when I do those kind of interviews as well. It's like they always ask me loads of deep stuff and then and then at the end, they always go, what are the three really sort of obvious takeaways? It's like, well, maybe the first speaker is just listen to the things I just said, Yeah. That's my bugbear pay attention. I better
Francis Briers 37:50
pay attention. Yeah, so I can give you three. I don't know if they're the right three. And because I'm really, really close for there's certainly three that come to the session. is really fast, cool. One is responsibility. And another is presence. And, and another is integrity. So, the responsibility piece is about that I am unconditionally responsible in the face of whatever life throws at me. Now, that's a pretty painful place to be, actually. Because what that says is that it doesn't matter what happens. It's still up to me to do something about it. It doesn't mean I have to take the weight of the world on my shoulders. And in fact, I can make a choice not to. That's one of the options. But once I'm aware of something, I am responsible in the face of it, I'm not responsible for it. And in a way, that's a gift and a price, right? Because the gift is it means I don't have to take the blame for it, because someone else might have created the problem or the difficulty or whatever else the challenge or the opportunity I'm not to blame for it. But just because I'm not to blame for it doesn't mean I don't have to find my own response to it I am respond to people in the face. And that lesson is in lots of traditions in lots of different forms. It's in there and it's very strong in stoicism that particular one is also in very strong in martial arts philosophy, which I've studied quite a lot. There's versions of that I am. But there's variations of it in I think, in lots of different traditions, and certainly there in the in the Bhagavad Gita in India, and you know, lots of different traditions from all over the world. And there's versions of it in the, the traditions of the book, kind of Christianity and Judaism, and Islam. And, and that is something that I come back to in myself time and time again, it's something that I build into pretty much every leadership programme that I've ever been involved in, in some way that subject has To come up, because it it's both a painful reality we have to deal with. You can't collection, complain and abdicate responsibility or you can but it's not going to get you anywhere and it's going to create problems for other people. And so that's the pain of it. But but it's a pain worth dealing with if you want to be do good things and make stuff happen. And the benefit of it is that it's hugely empowering regardless of what life throws at you, you have a response you have the capacity to do something about it doesn't mean you're gonna fix it doesn't mean you're gonna you know end world hunger but you can do something and you can make a choice is always a choice to do something. So that's that's the responsibility piece. The the President's pieces I have a phrase is not very profound. But it's something that came to me years ago, before I'd I mean, I've since come across it in loads of different traditions. But really, before I come across that stuff, it just occurred to me that phrase I have in the is my phrases. You can't leave Spain If you ain't in Spain. As I say, not not very profound. But the truth in it is that generally speaking, if you want to change, if you want something to change, you have to become present first. Often when people want something to change, they run away from their problems, or their pain or whatever it is that they want to change, they try and leave it behind. But often by leaving it behind you perpetuate it. Whereas there's an opportunity if we become fully present in something, which is often what we're trying to avoid, actually, we're trying to avoid the pain of being fully present. And that could be grief or emotional pain. It could be an ending, it could be a difficult situation or death or difficult relationship by becoming fully present in it. Whatever it is, you have the opportunity to change it and link links very strongly with the responsibility piece, but it's a it's a different face of it in a way. So if you want to If you want things to change, you have to be really as present as you possibly can be in them. And so that's the, that's the presence piece and the transformative nature of presence on point, just get more convinced of every day. Whether that's through meditation or facilitating groups, and or, you know, looking at conflict or just in my own life, we're here hanging out with my son, helping him with his learning. You know, it's only when I get really present with him in whatever's going on, pay him in that moment, that becomes possible to move on. As long as I'm trying to push him into
you know, I may be sick of him complaining. I'm trying to push him back into doing his work as long as I'm pushing, he's resisting. Yeah, when I get really present with him, and really empathise with wherever the struggle is, that's coming out as complaint or whatever. It's However, it's bubbling to the surface when I get pregnant with him. And this isn't my wife's really wonderful when we get present with it. Then we get bored, then something else happens. We get an insight into his world in a way that helps us to understand what's really going on at a deeper level. And usually right after that, he says, Come on, and let's get back to it and he gets himself focused. I don't have to push him anymore.
Graham Allcott 43:16
It's also feels like when you leave that dynamic of if you're looking at a problem with somebody sat side by side next to them. That's a really different scenario to if you're SAT, opposite them and yes, like that difference between being on the same team. Yeah, feeling like you're in opposition, right?
Francis Briers 43:35
Yeah. Yeah. How do we turn and face the problem together?
Graham Allcott 43:39
And then integrity?
Francis Briers 43:40
Yeah, so that third piece around integrity is about is a great writer, who I used to work with a consultancy that he founded. And I really like his work still called Fred Kaufman, who wrote a book called conscious business. And he talks about the idea of success beyond Success in that if your happiness and satisfaction is dependent on external success, so like winning the deal, landing the job completing the project, whatever it might be, then you're pretty stuffed. Yeah. Because your your, your happiness and satisfaction is is not fully in your own control. You're dependent on external circumstances that may or may not come to pass. So your your happiness or satisfaction is going to be like a roller coaster, you might have years where it's going up, but there'll be some point where something doesn't come off. And the odds are you've got that attached if you've attached your happiness to the external results that strongly then in the crash is going to be hard when something doesn't come off. So six the idea of success beyond success is not to say I'm not interested in any external results do you still chase after things want to win, you know, achieve But make sure that you know what really matters to you. And as a person, what are the qualities and values that you know only a spouse but you want to live your life by? Who do you want to be? Because you can always control who you are, you can always be as to the best of your ability, no one's perfect. But you can make choices that are in integrity with what you believe to be right and good. Yeah. And
Graham Allcott 45:25
who do you want to be is a really nice way of putting that often sort of think about it slightly simplistically as being, you know, focus on the journey, not the destination. Yeah. And success is actually about what you do on each step of that way, rather than a thing that you're chasing a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but like, Who do you want to be is a really nice, sweet, nice way of looking at it.
Francis Briers 45:46
Yeah. And if you know who you want to be, you can always be that. Yeah. And win or lose, right? You can still look in the mirror at the end of the day and feel proud. And for me, and that's integrity. I think I think that's what integrity is, is that I know that I am coherent in forward indeed. And as long as I have that internal sense of coherence, then that gives me a really solid foundation, regardless of what life throws at me. And again, you know, that's, I think that's in so many traditions, there's versions of that lesson, expressed in so many traditions. I mean, it's the goal in a way it's a version of the golden rule is a different way of looking at it is more internally oriented rather than externally oriented. But it's the golden rule being treat others as you would have them treat you behave in the world, in the way that is coherent with who you want to be
Graham Allcott 46:43
cool. Love that. And I love the fact that it's like, you know, distilling all of that different wisdom from across the board. I'm sure that's, I mean, you could write you could literally write careers but couldn't do saying, responsibility presents integrity to sort those Three life, you'll have a good career today. I want to talk about death. And then I want to talk about emails.
Francis Briers 47:08
Yes, yes, I understand why there's so death the book on death was it was a poem I wrote. And and I didn't turn into a kind of illustrated because it's a long form poem turned into that sort of a little illustrated book. And, and it's, it's a, really, it's a lot of what I've just been describing in a poem about the way that death can inform life. So in it's particularly prevalent in the martial arts traditions, but it's in other traditions like stoicism as well. In fact, there's a whole book by one of the great stoics about this, and the idea that we with an awareness of death, you will make the most of life yeah. The front one of fundamental problems many people face in their lives is that they live as if they're immortal. They keep putting off tomorrow, all the things that are most important to them and constantly feel frustrated or underwhelmed. Or, you know, like, it's not quite what they wanted. And somehow, you know, life is not quite how they want it to be or you know, and there's a way that I bring heightening and awareness of death. When it's done healthfully can help us get much clearer about what really matters. And, and in all sorts of ways, you know, whether and that's that touches on, you know, the integrity piece, you know, if you want to get to the end of your life and feel proud of who you were. It's not because you want that million dollar deal or that might be a cool thing. But it's going to be because you live your life as the person as a person you can feel proud of If you want to do the things that are most important to you in life, you have to take full responsibility for your life and how you pay. And more if there's anything that makes us present its death.
Graham Allcott 49:13
I wonder whether this whole lockdown COVID period that we've just been through. One of the reasons that some people found that really tough the idea of not rushing around doing their daily commute and running, you know, between offices and all the rest of it, and then in the evenings running to the theatre and to dinner with people and all that stuff, and all of that being put to one side. I wonder whether one of the reasons that's tough for a lot of people and I include myself to a certain degree in this is that it does force you to just be alone with your own thoughts. And to be alone with your own thoughts often involves, you know, confronting death as much as anything else, right because it's about existence. And presence and, you know, I just wonder whether that's something that we haven't necessarily just feels like it hasn't necessarily been explored very much as maybe a bit of an opposite to busy, right. So busy is a way to, to keep yourself on that treadmill away from contemplating your own mortality. Sounds like a really strange you know, sort of linkage to make but what you think about that?
Francis Briers 50:34
Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah. What is it? There's a truth in that for sure. I think there's, there's a way to and in some ways in a really positive and understandable way, right. Yeah, we know we're alive when we're out in the world doing stuff, feeling feeling vivid and full of life and busy, but in a really lovely way, though. You've been busy when it's the right kind of busy couple. So wonderful and enlivening and, and when we don't have that when we can't do that, there's a way that they can feel deadening.
Graham Allcott 51:12
Yeah. And there's a whole bunch of other stuff just in terms of the brain chemistry of that right? Like if you're running around being busy being addicted to stress hormones, and dopamine Absolutely. Oh yeah. And suddenly all of that is kind of gone Yeah. Then no wonder people feel low or you know, people have struggled for motivation and all those sort of things that have been very well documented but
Francis Briers 51:36
yeah, well yeah. And you know that so that's you know, I mentioned the kind of good kind of is in a way what you're describing is the kind of negative kind of busy of a bit the addiction to getting to dopamine and their connection with stress wines and but the
Graham Allcott 51:49
dopamine can be good and then just addiction to it isn't isn't good, right?
Francis Briers 51:53
You feel great in
Graham Allcott 51:54
the moment and when is the bad part about it is when it's gone?
Francis Briers 51:57
Yes. Yeah, we crash and and Yeah, so that hazard is that when that sudden it has to suddenly stop like it did you know, it's forced to suddenly stop. It doesn't mean those stress hormones leave our system or their addiction is resolved. It just means it's got nowhere to go. So it comes out in these ways where I feel really anxious. And I don't know why it's like, well, because you're used to feeling anxious, but normally you channel that into being productive. Yeah. But today, you can't. And so you just have to sit with the discomfort of it. And that's hard. Yeah. And, and, you know, the, the upside of if you if you practice any kind of meditation over an extended period of time, as you will have sat with discomfort at some point, you know, that's just physical discomfort of sitting still when you don't want Yeah. When somebody doesn't want to, and it gives you a capacity to sit with discomfort, if nothing else, which can be a really useful life skill.
Graham Allcott 52:54
Let's segue from the into email then. Yes,
Francis Briers 52:58
yeah. Talking about SEO They discover they're still here.
Graham Allcott 53:03
So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is that you do this, you are doing it like five days a week. And I think now it's three days a week, but just very regular emails going out on your mailing list, sort of covering all these various different topics of wisdom. So thing you say before we start recording, you're on your 494. Is that right?
Francis Briers 53:27
I think so. I think that was today's Yeah.
Graham Allcott 53:29
So tell me why you started that up. And also, just really curious, being, I think six weeks into my own email mailing list. I was just really curious by the idea of doing a five day a week. Yeah. email and why anyone would set that as the target for themselves versus like, wow, that's incredible. Yeah. So yeah, just tell us about that. That journey.
Francis Briers 53:53
Yeah. It started off. I got the inspiration for a friend My friend Paul Bates. he's a wonderful artist of doing this daily. Now, she was doing it for a little while. And, and I really liked it actually, I thought it would be too much. I signed up for it because he's a friend and I wanted to support it. And I was kind of curious. And I thought I'd get too much. But actually, I really enjoyed the little notes every day it was, he was just five minutes. That was the days I didn't read every day. And that was okay, too. But the days I did, it was five minutes to start my day that felt like it set me up in a different rather lovely way for my day. So I've seen someone do in a way that I've seen other people doing it, you know, in a much more kind of a handy marketing kind of way. And I was like, man, don't do that. But I'm just offering this little creative window. Felt like a real gift. Yeah, I was inspired by that. And I was also it was a combination of them. I wasn't, I love writing and I'm a writer. I consider myself a writer in some ways, almost more than anything else. Although there's lots of things I do and have deep have deep experiences and I do lots of but I love writing. And I didn't have a writing practice. I was busy in my day job. And I wasn't finding time to write. So I wanted to have a writing alight. And there's a way that I go, if I'm not writing Am I am I am I, a writer, for me, is so much about being in the practice. So, I wanted a writing practice. That was something I've been thinking about trying to work out how to build into my life. And I also I have a long history of creating orphan book babies, where I kind of write a book, and then kick it out into the world into the wide world and then almost forget about it. And they know, I like to think that they kind of go feral out there in the world of the internet, and then some of them do thrive and some of them don't. That's the thing with my world
Graham Allcott 55:56
is I think there are people who consider themselves writers Right. And then they speak in order to try and promote the book that they're in. Yeah. And then there are people who consider themselves speakers and they write a book because that helps them with this. You and you could probably count on one hand the people who are genuinely really good at both.
Francis Briers 56:17
Yeah.
Graham Allcott 56:18
So I think I put myself much more in the like year, you know, being the much be much happier just writing and writing and never having to promote and, you know, much as I really enjoy speaking, and I love the interaction of it. Yeah, it I'm much more at that end of the spectrum. Yeah.
Francis Briers 56:35
Yeah. And I love facilitation and working in groups and things I enjoy speaking to, but in many ways, that's more of my background because I trained originally as an actor and I do lots of facilitation work that's that's been my kind of my bread and butter for a lot of years now, but, but there's a way that I love writing. And you Yeah, I'd like to say I've been it's been felt like years. Kind of Being rubbish at marketing or promoting or you know, really doing anything to support the book go on to is a book. Yeah. And I also wanted to get more conscious about it and find some find some things to do that would help me to promote rather than rather than just getting down writing another book, which was my habit is I think, ah, I want only to promote my work, I'll write another book and then not promoted. And I wanted to do something that maybe might be more of a kind of marketing channel in a way. But to do that in a way that was about building relationships, and not about selling really, about building relationships. And so I thought, if, you know, if I started an email, sending an email every day that would if I had to sit down and write it would kind of force me through public commitment to writing everyday or writing really regularly. And it might create a create a community of people who are invested in my work and, you know, when I was ready to put another book out or whatever that They might, there might be a bunch of people who like I do and it's therefore feels like a kind of natural thing. Just go Yeah, that's always been something I'd like to learn and, and and that and one of the things I found fascinating about it once I started doing it is that it felt more like ministry than and it pretty much anything else I've ever done as an interface. Okay. And because as an interfaith minister, you know, you tend to come into people's lives for a specific event, you know, that people would ask me to do a wedding for them or a funeral or a baby blessing or something where they come and see me for a period of time as a spiritual counsellor, but it's not like being a kind of treasure England minister with it with a parish, you know, where there's hope, you
Graham Allcott 58:43
know, running a sermon every Sunday. Yeah,
Francis Briers 58:44
exactly. No, so you don't have that regularity of contact. So writing these emails, and I'd get people writing back to me quite frequently, much more than I expected to saying I thank you that one really landed me or that one really meant something to me today or, and those messages are just so lovely. And it felt so much like there was a community of people. That's part of why I started wise for school actually was because I was like, if only these people could speak to each other, I think they'd really like each other.
Graham Allcott 59:10
Yeah. I'm finding all of that same stuff even after six weeks. Yeah.
Francis Briers 59:15
And so that's partly what part of why I wanted to sort of shape a community rather than just it just be related to him having a relationship with me. So yeah, it was really fascinating. It has been a really fascinating experience. And I continue to really enjoy it. And I of course, I have some days where I'm more excited about it. And I'm really like, Oh, yeah, that's right today, and there's other days I gotta go write one today.
Graham Allcott 59:37
Do you write them every day? Or do you batch them up? Like what's your what's the sort of productivity creativity practice around it?
Francis Briers 59:44
I started off with doing a batch when I first started by quite quickly found that hard to sustain and stay and ended up just writing them each day like getting up a bit earlier. And making sure I had 20 to 30 minutes to to write yeah And, and then got really flew today, you know, because at first it would take me longer than that, you know, it felt like a bit of a burden by quite quickly got into a flow where I could just like go and find a quote they inspired me, I often start he use a quote as a starting point, or it was just be something I've been thinking about. And I share that idea or Yeah, and I just go into a flow with it and I just sit down and and that was actually I prefer that in many ways, because that's what makes it a practice. Yeah, I felt like if I was batching them up, you'd be okay. But it's the fact that I just keep coming back and sitting down and keep going back and sitting down and really make fit makes it feel like in a live practice to me.
Graham Allcott 1:00:38
I have a post a note on my desk that just says writers write. Do you think it's one of those things that it is a muscle and it is a practice and it's like if you if you find yourself out of that for a period of time, as someone who makes a living from a from being a writer or identifies themselves as a writer, then you know, it's just harder to get back in. It's It so yeah, having that as an everyday thing I think is really powerful. Is there anything you've learned in terms of just thinking about people who don't necessarily write but have to do things regularly, but get stuck with them? Whether that's creative practices or just work practices? Is there anything that you found on the days where you didn't necessarily have anything to say, or you weren't sure where to start or whatever, or were just feeling that sort of procrastination, brain kicking in anything that you found really helps you to, to sort of break out of the more negative sort of cycles and actually create something? Yeah.
Francis Briers 1:01:40
Two things come to mind. One is create ways to, to let yourself off the hook some days. So at the beginning, for me, that meant having a bunch of them in reserve, so that if I just had a really, really starting day, I could just copy and paste from somewhere else. Yeah, and after I'd done about After I'd done a year of them, which is about 250, I gave myself permission to sometimes, like reuse old ones, go and find a really good one and, and repost it. And if the last time I wrote that, you know, the time I first wrote that was like six months or a year ago, then no one's going to complain about if they even notice. Even people who've been on the on the mailing list the whole time. Yeah. So when it felt like that was okay. And again, you know, I get different people writing back to me saying, Oh, that one, I really love that one. So, you know, it feels like it still serves them. And it just means that if I'm, if I'm rushed, or having a tough day, or whatever else, it just takes the pressure off. So I think having a pressure release valve is good, not just forcing yourself forwards. I think it just feels healthier.
Graham Allcott 1:02:46
Yeah, because otherwise it starts to become, you know, like the discipline can become almost a bit toxic. Like if you're sort of flogging yourself too much. Exactly. You know, it can be it can really have sort of negative effects on But yeah, giving yourself those, those safety nets, parachutes, whatever you want to call it. I think it's really important. Yeah, I love the thing about reusing a post as well. Think about this recently how no one. No one criticises, let's say, the Church of England for doing Christmas again. Yeah, 25th December every year, or like, Oh, it's Easter again, he's still banging on about Easter. But like, I feel like in business, we have this idea that if things are only noteworthy if they're new, like, it's like the only one here about your new book or your new idea, and it's actually old, as we've talked about old ideas. Yeah, good. And there's and there's something quite useful about them being in a certain cycle or, you know, certain times of the year at harvest festival is always one of the ones that springs to me like, you know, winter solstice, summer solstice, they're particular. Yeah, moments that are really interesting to, to sort of keep coming back to and And kind of tracking your life through, you know, where were you every Christmas or every summer solstice or whatever, you know, just think they're in. Yeah, we should we should get more comfortable with just the general idea of reusing or kind of cycles of knowledge and wisdom. I think it's important.
Francis Briers 1:04:17
Yeah. Yeah.
Graham Allcott 1:04:20
Before we finish, I haven't talked to you about actually how we first met which was around embodiment. Yes. And, again, this feels like going from email to go into the body feels like a really nice sort of fun little juxtaposition for embodiment, just as an area might be, which I just think has so many powerful you know, applications in leadership and also just in professional life generally. So what is embodiment and What are some of the things that people can think about their? If that's not too big? A final question?
Francis Briers 1:05:05
Yeah, I'll see if I can really naturally say. So embodiment is the exploration of the body as a lived experience, rather than an object. So to a fair degree, the cultural norm, and there are various factors that reinforce this, is to treat our body as an object, right? I'm semi-famous on the internet for having said the body is a brain taxi. Or that that's how we treat it. You know, there shouldn't be a taxi for the brain, kind of vehicle to get your brain to meetings. But and yet, that's how many of us behave towards it. And even people who are more body oriented, it's often about fitness. So it's like making a machine that's as efficient as possible. Or it's about beauty so it's making it an object that's as beautiful as possible, aesthetically pleasing as possible. Which is still objectifitions. It's still not fully lived relationships with our body, they were doing something to our body. I mean, that's really evident if you look at gym culture and advertising, yeah, there was a whole series of ads for big kind of trendy gym up in London, I remember seeing being kind of horrified by those. Were all basically the kind of themes were brutalising your body. And, and that's the measure of a good way a good workout. And so there's various factors, you know, including advertising, all sorts of cultural stuff that will tend to nudge us towards objectifying ourselves, rather than fully inhabiting the subjective experience itself. And the body is part of that. And for us as the foundation of that really, so, embodiment as a field can go from that kind of quite deep psychological and sociological kind of exploration of her relationship with ourselves right through to just really nuts and bolts practical stuff about understanding the physiology of stress, for instance, and how to counteract stress in the body really effectively, and really fast. So kind of much more pragmatic nuts and bolts applications. She's done some fascinating stuff, including, you know, like pain relief, all kinds of things that you can do. And really, you just working with kind of how we organise ourselves in our body, how we breathe and how we, and how we shift our awareness within that within our body experience. right through to like us a kind of quite deep sociological questions, psychological or sociological questions about who we are. And yeah, so that's kind of as that's the field. Yeah, yeah. Does that help? Is that have I?
Graham Allcott 1:07:50
Yeah, I was gonna maybe just add to that, my own experience with that, which is that a few years ago, I did. A couple of courses around embodiment. One of the One of the things that was really interesting for me was, you can take different, I guess, kind of different archetypes of, of, of how people are in their bodies. And by using some of those different archetypes you can kind of, you can kind of, well, by the nature of it, you can embody the kind of changes that you want to make, right. So if you want to be much more focused on marketing, that can be a really physical, embodied experience as well as, okay, I need to do some projects around getting a mailing list going or whatever, right. Or if you want to be a better list or more inquisitive or there, there are things that you can do that the physiology of which will really aid any other changes that you want to bring about. So I think it's a really fascinating area in general. Yes. Are there particular resources that you think are really good places for people to go around that? Because I feel like it's, in some ways, it's like a whole nother episode. Yeah. Where can people find out more about that? Just so that we can do it justice here?
Francis Briers 1:09:16
Yeah, there are books and videos and various different teachers in the field. So, a friend of mine, Rachel Blackman does a really lovely work with this more in the kind of therapeutic space and she's also a theatre maker. So she kind of does stuff around performance as well. Some of the founders of the field in many ways are people like Richard Strozzi, Hector and Wendy Palmer, and in the US, so you can kind of go and explore their staff.
Graham Allcott 1:09:47
And this is all like, especially the US, you know, sort of like set there were certain cities in the US that seems to be really up on this kind of stuff, right like to Colorado and Austin, Texas, and There's kind of places like, yeah, just feels that there's whole communities of people that are really in tune with this stuff in a way that maybe a lot of the rest of Western society is not.
Francis Briers 1:10:10
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And in this country, you know, Brian has for a long time and a big kind of embodiment community and and there's Yeah, there's really I'd say there's the the real way to get a feel for it is to go in and engage in some practices, more than anything else, because that's what it where it lives, you know, is is in lived experience. And in the body. I actually have a friend who you might know as well as Peters wrote a book called Own It, which is about public speaking and kind of being being the best in the spotlight. Yeah, he has loads of great embodiment stuff in there.
Graham Allcott 1:10:47
Liz Peters actually has been on the podcast before. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. And I did a little endorsement thing for her book as well, which is really great. Yeah, in fact, we maybe should get Liz back on because I had her on quite a while. Before she did that book, so it might be worth getting around to, to talk about that book because yeah, there's just some really useful, practical little nuggets there from someone who has obviously been comfortable as an improviser on on stage as Edinburgh and everywhere else. You know, literally just using her body in the moment to create, you know, entertainment for people, you know what I mean? So it's, yeah, she's got she's got a lot of useful stuff to say, there. We better I thought, because we were one hour and 12, which is, which is long bike, I kind of feel like I could have touched your data.
Francis Briers 1:11:39
Just as we finish up, like, do you want to just let people know where they can find out more about your work and anything that you want to particularly draw people's attention towards? Yeah, sure. So if you're interested in my corporate work, so kind of leadership and culture and that kind of thing, then phys pop bang.co.uk is where you can find me In the physical bank team, my personal website is Francis Bryan's dot com. And that's where wise for school is. And also I'm developing. I'm in the process of writing a book, but I'm also developing some online resources for wisdom more broadly. So if you want to help people to cultivate wisdom, or if you want to put wisdom into learning and development programmes and understand how to do that, and then I'm developing some resources there around around wisdom, particularly, and there's also my books there too. The book that's most popular is I did my own version of the Tao Te Ching, the Chinese spiritual texts I mentioned before, I kind of modern transliteration, kind of putting into contemporary language. And you can find that it's called my teaching or for was guide to effing the ineffable. a mess. So that's out there. And there's others, you know, like that in life that you mentioned, which is just a poem in a book, really, but yeah, come and check out my site. say like, anything if you wanted to sign up for my newsletter that's on my site as well. It's called everyday magic.
Graham Allcott 1:12:59
Nice. Well, I think this has probably been the wisest episode of beyond busy. So I just want to say thanks again and enjoy the rest of your day.
Francis Briers 1:13:10
It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Graham Allcott 1:13:19
Thanks again to Francis thanks also to Think Productive, who are our sponsors for the show, find out more about productivity training and coaching at thinkproductive.com. And as I mentioned at the beginning, my new personal programme Six Weeks to Ninja, and we're launching in November, so if you're interested in working with me working on your productivity, just go to grey market.com and you'll find out more information there. And you can access the show notes for this show, and all the previous episodes at get beyond busy.com. And thanks also to Mark Steadman and Podiant, my producer and platform for this show. We'll be back next week. We've Gone weekly! Really happy to say that we've gone from a fortnightly podcast to a weekly one. And people seem to be liking it, the numbers are going up. So that's good. And I'd love you to just share this and subscribe and help us with that mission of bringing this stuff to more people. So if you've enjoyed this episode, share it with your friends, put it in WhatsApp, subscribe, leave your review in a like and all that stuff that we know helps. And let's get us up the algorithms and up the charts and all that stuff.
So until next week, take care bye for now.
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