Our first ever guest and what a guest!!!

Sarah Acton, career and leadership coach, shares with us a great tip on creative inhaling and exhaling. Spoiler alert, it isn't about breathing. It is about, attention, processing, pausing, producing and finding you balance within that. And all of this in 10 minutes, I know, I told you she was good.

www.sarahacton.com

This episode we revisit habits and explore how to make changing your habits easier...not easy but one that requires less effort and willpower than the harder option.

Are you trustworthy?

This episode we look at why trust is important and what two questions you can ask yourself to improve your trust rating.

Source: Charles Feltman´s "The Thin Book of Trust"

This episode is all about how to preserve your energy. We look at a simple technique, that you probably are familiar with, which if implemented and adhered to impacts positively on your mood, motivation and productivity.

This episode we discover what people are really thinking about us and how this impacts on our behaviour, decisions and mood.

I recorded this outside as that when the inspiration hit so the sound quality is a little different from normal.

This episode takes a seek peek at how to increase your happiness by avoiding something we probably all do. It is a piece of advice taken from the book by Arthur C. Brook and Oprah Winfrey called "Build The Life You Want".

This is a highly useful muscle to develop and continue to flex. Children are masters at it. Find out how you can become more cognitively flexible.

This podcast looks at four simple steps to go through in order to increase the likelihood that our boundaries will be understood and respected by ourselves and others.

To read the full article with "homework" and examples go to emmacrook.com or substack Emma Crook.

This week it is the turn of my monthly newsletter or as I refer to in the recording "bulletin".

There is one word that we can add to that sentence which opens us up to a more productive and motivating response. Listen to the episode to find out what that is.

This episode is about listening. How we do it and the impact of doing it well. See if you can spot the listening traps that you fall into. Mine are 1 and 3!

Without giving too much away, this one is about the questions we ask ourselves. Ok so I've given it away.

Starting off September with an exploration into the ideal conditions for fruitful mind wandering.

In this episode we explore how to get the benefits of gratitude by using negative thinking. I know that sounds counter intuitive but it works. We look at three techniques which William B Irvine talks about in his podcast "The Stoic Path".

This month we have a quote from the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, a tip on how to spring clean the mind and a podcast recommendation: Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History.

If you would like to receive my newsletter via email you can do it on my website emmacrook.com

This episode looks at how to achieve more by doing less. Yes you read that correctly. If you´re ready for the subtraction challenge press play.

Leidy Klotz book "Subtract" is a great source of information on the impact of subtraction with tips, including the ones mentioned here, on how to do it.

This week we explore the topic of strengths and how you can use them to increase your energy, engagement, productivity and confidence.

Here is a free survey to find out your strengths VIA - institute on character https://www.viacharacter.org/account/register

Two tips on how to make more balanced and optimal decisions. And hopefully take some of the indecision out of choosing.

This is an audio version of my monthly newsletter. This month we focus on when to offer help and when to resist.

If you would like to receive my newsletter in your inbox to www.emmacrook.com

The lag between the actions we take and the results we see can be long and thus lead us to feel unproductive. Find out what you can do to flip this on it´s head.

Tip on how to effectively regulate and change your self-talk so that it is a little more compassionate towards you.

1. What exactly do you feel?
2. How do you express it?

Find out why these questions are important for your well-being.

In less than 6 mins we cover: perspectives, shoulds, attention and the brain.

One quote, one tip and two extras.

In this episode I share something with you and encourage you to do the same. Why? Well you´ll just have to listen.

In this episode we take a different approach to time management. There are no tools and techniques in this one just an alternative perspective.

To find out more read Oliver Burkeman's book "Four thousand weeks - Time and how to use it."

In this podcast we take a look into the world of mini habits and how to use them to build consistency.

If you are interested in finding out more about habits then you might what to look up James Garrett and James Clear.

Here are some tips on how to loosen perfections hold on you. The fifth question is my favourite.

It would be great if more of us helped but it would be better if the help we offered was wanted, needed and useful. Here's how to ensure that...

In this episode I push the limits of your attention as we nearly hit 10 minutes. We learn more about attention; it's power, it's fragility and what we can do about it. There are great resources from where I have drawn on:

1. The Distracted Mind by Adam Gazzaley and Larry D Rosen
2. Mindsight by Daniel J Siegel
3. Driven To Distraction At Work by Edward M Hallowell
4. The Procrastination Puzzle by Timothy A Pychyl
5. Peak Minds by Dr Amishi P Jha (if you read one thing on this topic, choose this)

Who do you trust?

This episode explains the four components essential for trust to exist according to Charles Feltman.

We can't avoid discomfort but there are things we can do to make it less stressful and/or that we can handle it. Listen to find out how.

The tip for this episode came from a webinar I attended by Rebecca Heiss a few years ago.

There's a difference between distraction and interruption but both are harmful for your attention. Find out how to replenish your attention and why it is important reduce distraction and interruptions.

This episode we take a look at our purpose and how trying to "find" it might not be the best way to get it. For more information you can read the full article on my website emmacrook.com or on my substack emma crook.

When do you keep going and when do you call it a day? Listen to this episode to find how to answer this question.

This episode looks at an idea suggested by Dr Simran Jeet Singh which can help us to match up how we spend our time with our priorities. Enjoy.

We could make things a lot more easier on ourselves and others and, as a bonus, improve our performance if we could learn to effectively manage our expectations. This episode explores why.

This episode was a little off the cuff but it encapsulates most of what I wanted to say. I may elaborate more on this subject as the weeks roll on.

Today we look at the pitfalls of giving advice. We discover what we can do to make sure that our advice is wanted, needed and helpful. The tip for today is inspired by the author of The Advice Trap, Michael Bungay-Stanier.

We're starting season 4 with a look at catastrophisation. For those of you who's mind tends to go to the worst case scenario within a beat, this episode is for you. The technique we look at is taken from the book "Tomorrowmind" by Gabriella Rosen Kellerman and Martin Seligman.

Is it harder for you to acknowledge what you do well? You're not alone. This episode takes a technique used by Kristen Neff, a leading expert on compassion, to help make it easier for you to see your own strengths.

This episode was inspired by Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis in particular the work on wisdom by Robert Sternberg. Listen to find out how you can respond to situations more wisely.

Dan Gilbert is a social psychologists and his research has shown that most of us mis-predict our potential. In this episode I explain what that means for us and how we can use it to our advantage.

Dr Jenny Taitz recommends that to control the trajectory of our emotions we do the opposite of what they tell us to do. Find out how in this episode of 10 minutes or less.

Our emotions help us navigate our world. However, somehow it feels as if they are steering the ship. Listen to find out how you can control where you go.

The second part of the wellbeing episodes looks at four questions to help you to reap some of the benefits associated with your wellbeing thriving.

We start season 6 with a two parter. In this first episode we look at what is wellbeing so that you can make informed choices on what you need to do in order to enhance it.

We draw on findings from Gallup and Martin Seligman's PERMA model.

In the final episode of season 5 we explore how to use evidence from our past to help use solve problems in our present.

Final episode for awhile on productivity. This one is about working at your pace…it might sound impossible especially if you work for someone else but with a little bit of intention and some simple techniques it can become your default.

For ideas on reducing procrastination go to my Substack page Emma Crook

This is our second episode looking at productivity. Building on last weeks tip from Cal Newport we explore how we can really know if we have the time and the space needed to complete a task or project to the best of our abilities and what we do if we don't.

Over the next few weeks we are going to take a look at productivity. Before you sigh and say 'not another podcast telling me how to be more productive', well yes and no. In these episodes we will be looking at some recommendations taken from Cal Newport's book Slow Productivity in particular how to take on fewer things.