Escaping your fixed mindset

Julia: 00:00:00

Welcome to Generative Leaders, a series of conversations with leaders generating positive outcomes for society, the planet, and future generations to inspire, challenge, and have fun with what's universally true of the human mind.

Julia: 00:00:15

So you can do the same.

Julia: 00:00:20

I'm your host, Julia Rebholz, and this week to help me, I'm in conversation with Rena Loizou.

Rena: 00:00:30

I'm leading a couple of in a couple of ways at the moment.

Rena: 00:00:33

One is where I'm working with.

Rena: 00:00:36

Leaders and their teams in a variety of business sectors.

Rena: 00:00:41

I suppose basically enabling them to create amazing results.

Rena: 00:00:44

And doing that in a way that allows both the individuals and the organization and basically everything that systemically connected with them to flourish.

Rena: 00:00:56

The other thing that I'm leading in at the moment is a, a business called Seniors Helping Seniors.

Rena: 00:01:02

And what that's about is a way of creating some kind of social impact for older people in the way that they're cared for as they as they age and their physical, emotional, and social needs change, but also in the way that their work and life experience is harnessed.

Rena: 00:01:22

And providing, I guess, a way of enabling them to create an income past past a certain age where they might not necessarily be easily able to do that.

Julia: 00:01:32

It sounds like that's a real generative activity, both for you and for the people involved.

Julia: 00:01:41

So when you think about a generative leader, what do you mean by that?

Julia: 00:01:46

What do you understand by that?

Rena: 00:01:48

if I think about that, if I think about what a generative leader or what generative leadership is about, I suppose the word that comes to mind for me is emergence.

Rena: 00:01:59

And so it's about, whatever it is we're leading in life, whether it be uh, a new business, whether it be something within our community you know, our families, ourselves, generative leadership for me is about the constant flux and change and emergence of fresh insight, new ideas, creativity and a way of evolving and moving forward that's not bound by our sort of fixed current ways of think

Rena: 00:02:30

I think the more that we're able to do that as human beings to kind of, I guess the old fashioned term for it might be to think outside the box, just enables us to think more creatively, be more inspired and just access a potential in more what we're doing and the way that we are leading that then impacts the results that we achieve, perhaps beyond what we might think is possible.

Julia: 00:02:53

And so, know, Rena, we've been friends for a long time and I obviously your, your background is very similar to mine in terms of working in a corporate environment and being in that very rigid structure.

Julia: 00:03:09

What were some of the moments of insight that had you realize that you needed to escape that corporate life, and, and has led you to, to what you are, what you're doing now.

Julia: 00:03:21

We'd love to hear your story.

Rena: 00:03:23

Thank you.

Rena: 00:03:23

Wow.

Rena: 00:03:24

Yeah, just really interesting, I guess.

Rena: 00:03:26

I ended up in, in the corporate world, in, in the retail sector as an executive in my early twenties.

Rena: 00:03:33

Seemed to do quite well in that field.

Rena: 00:03:35

I sort of spent, I guess 10 years in the retail sector.

Rena: 00:03:39

I, I sat on the board of directors for a French fashion brand that was based here in, in London.

Rena: 00:03:46

But I, I remember very, very early on just having this knowing, just knowing within myself and seeing that almost the way that business was done.

Rena: 00:04:00

I've just seen that there's another way of doing that.

Rena: 00:04:03

I didn't really know how.

Rena: 00:04:05

Well, I suppose I perhaps had some idea of how it might be different or how we might do things differently, but I just remember having this deep knowing that, gosh, this is just not the way to do things.

Rena: 00:04:17

You know, we're, we're not really working in a way, or thinking in a way that is allowing people to flourish, allowing the business to truly flourish, allowing all of the people that you know, all, I suppose all of our stakeholders, our, the people that are connected with us, the organizations that connected to us, our suppliers, our factories in, you know, in the far East wasn't really working in a way that would allow them to flourish too.

Rena: 00:04:48

So I just had this sense and knowing that there was just a different way of doing things.

Rena: 00:04:54

I didn't really know what to do about that.

Rena: 00:04:57

And as I said, I spent 10 years just in, in that arena just doing what I did.

Rena: 00:05:02

And I guess always had this sense that I wouldn't be doing it this way forever, right?

Rena: 00:05:07

And that's, I guess it's just as far as it went.

Rena: 00:05:10

However, like most people I was a product also of my conditioning.

Rena: 00:05:16

And what I mean by that is I had certain ways of thinking about things I had you know, certain perhaps you might say insecurities or ideas about what life should look like, the amount of money I should be earning by a certain age and what my career progression should be.

Rena: 00:05:33

And so in a way that kind of became what you might say is a bit of a prison in the sense that I just couldn't see beyond what I was already doing until I had an experience that really threw me out of all of that fixed thinking, sort of condition thinking that I had.

Rena: 00:05:55

And I think it kind of took something completely out of the realm of anything I'd ever experienced before to, to allow my mind to open up to something fresh.

Rena: 00:06:09

Now what I've come to realize is that You don't need to have a kind of a big thing happen in your life in order to have some insight about what to do next in, in your life and what changes that might need to happen.

Rena: 00:06:21

But the thing that did happen definitely propelled me into a space where I could see a way forward that was different to what I, the situation that I was in.

Julia: 00:06:31

And tell us about that moment.

Julia: 00:06:33

What was it like for you?

Julia: 00:06:35

What was what was it, the experience like?

Rena: 00:06:38

Yeah, so I this was back in, in 2005 and I found myself caught up in the the bombings that took place in London in July.

Rena: 00:06:49

And I was basically trapped underground on a tube behind one of the tubes that had been bombed in London.

Rena: 00:06:58

and, And I was down there for.pretty much most of the day.

Rena: 00:07:01

So I'd just been on my way into um, to work.

Rena: 00:07:05

I I was working near Knightsbridge at the time and, and just got stuck on the tube, not really knowing what had happened.

Rena: 00:07:12

Very gradually we had a bit of information that came through and really all we'd, all we knew was that and to the tube driver's words were that Aldgate had been taken out by a bomb and so had um, Liverpool Street, that's all we knew.

Rena: 00:07:28

So, uh, you can imagine what my mind did with that, with that information.

Rena: 00:07:33

And I think, during those hours of being trapped underground and I guess at some stage really believing that, you know, we wouldn't get out there was a whole flux of different thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Rena: 00:07:48

That emotions that happened, but the insight that came, and the clarity that came around what to do in my career in terms of a next move happened, obviously after that situation had resolved itself.

Rena: 00:08:05

And it was maybe sort of within two or three weeks of that happening that I just had this moment of realizing that in order to make a change in order to make a difference in how things were done in organizations, I almost had to step out of what I was currently doing, I had to step out of doing the doing in the organization and come at it from a different perspective.

Rena: 00:08:35

And so what happened then was after taking a bit of time off I then came back in still working with businesses, mainly in retail, but I came back in as a consultant.

Rena: 00:08:45

And so I consulted on different aspects of change management and um, systems and process changes and that sort of thing.

Rena: 00:08:54

And I guess that was my way with, you know, my understanding at the time of trying to enable organizations to, to go through change and to make those changes.

Rena: 00:09:06

From, yeah, from a different perspective.

Julia: 00:09:10

so, I don't want to sort of minimize the experience that you had and um, thank you for, for sharing that with, with everyone, you know, time of, of all of these things happening.

Julia: 00:09:20

But, you know, it sounds like that then set you on this trajectory of kind of going from, I'm trapped in this prison of corporate life and the money that I should earn and the status that I should have and, and all of that kind of stuff.

Julia: 00:09:37

And then you, you sort of broke out of that.

Julia: 00:09:40

prison and went, Hang on a minute, I'm designing my life and I, I can have a different life and I can be in a different way.

Julia: 00:09:48

And so, what was the insight that you sort of had that, that you feel has led you to today?

Rena: 00:09:57

Yeah.

Rena: 00:09:58

Great question, Julia.

Rena: 00:09:59

And, and if I may just say it would be easy to look at the thing that happened and say, gosh, that caused it all, the experience of being trapped underground, which actually, just as I was hearing you describe it in that way, I thought, wow, I hadn't actually made the connection that I actually was trapped for a while, in the prison underground.

Rena: 00:10:18

And then Clarity came after that.

Rena: 00:10:20

So, that, that was an interesting way of thinking about that.

Rena: 00:10:25

But I think I'll just go back if I made to the point that I made earlier, which is around, now that I suppose I have quite a deep understanding of the mind, how it works, what I think happened in that, in those moments.

Rena: 00:10:41

and beyond of being in a situation that was so intense and so frightening but also having moments of feeling real, deep peace and love and compassion for the people around me.

Rena: 00:10:56

And, and a letting go, you know, and just an acceptance of what was potentially gonna happen was that it's almost like, It's like my mind just went through this car wash or something, you know, it's like some, something happened where, all of my, or a lot of my conditioned thinking, the fixed thinking that I had, seemed to be washed away, dissolved somewhat, and that's what allowed me to then have this fresh thinking and this fresh insight about how things might be different.

Rena: 00:11:34

But just going back to the question you just asked me, what led me to be here today?

Rena: 00:11:39

Now, what was that insight?

Rena: 00:11:41

I think what happened for me was that again, I spent another 10 years working as a consultant and trying to affect change within organizations, and the big insight that I had there was that there was a missing variable that we hadn't, I hadn't really fully realized before.

Rena: 00:12:00

Because, I would work with many organizations that would spend millions on changing systems, through a change management process, trying to change best practices, ways of working, training people on skills development.

Rena: 00:12:15

Increasing the knowledge, all that sort of stuff.

Rena: 00:12:18

And they would land the change project, but it wouldn't actually have the impact that they wanted it to have.

Rena: 00:12:24

And what I realized was that there, there was a missing variable that wasn't being addressed, or if it kind of was being addressed, it wasn't really being addressed in, in a sustainable way.

Rena: 00:12:34

And that was, the variable of the human dimension.

Rena: 00:12:38

Of the people in the organization, the human beings with human minds that are being used to do everything that they're doing in the organization to affect the change or not.

Rena: 00:12:50

And that, that was really the, for me, what I realized was that that was the thing that needed to be, that was the foundation that needed to be set to, to address that, to work with that, and then everything else be layered up on top of that.

Rena: 00:13:05

You know, In terms of systems, changes or cultural changes or what, whatever it is that the organization's trying to achieve?

Julia: 00:13:13

So what you're pointing to you Rena, is that whatever change we want to make in the world, it starts with the human beings making that change.

Rena: 00:13:23

Absolutely.

Rena: 00:13:23

Well, for me, it starts and ends with that because, nothing happens without the human being and therefore the human mind being involved.

Rena: 00:13:33

Doesn't matter what you're trying to do or how you're trying to do it,

Julia: 00:13:36

well.

Julia: 00:13:36

Let's just take that in for a moment.

Julia: 00:13:39

Because it doesn't look like that, does it?

Rena: 00:13:41

No, I mean, you know, as I said, I spent 10 years, helping organizations create an amazing system that they can use, that they can roll out to do all of their financial planning or their buying or that just the way that they work, training people on how to be, the best that they can be in terms of how they can use those systems.

Rena: 00:14:08

And yet the results were hugely variable.

Rena: 00:14:11

You know, sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't.

Rena: 00:14:14

It'd work a little bit in the beginning.

Rena: 00:14:16

I mean, just what comes to mind now is I think sometimes it's easier to see this point in the world of sports.

Rena: 00:14:24

So, you know, you can have an amazing, the most talented soccer player who comes up to take that final penalty and whether they get it in or not, is not really gonna be dependent just on their skills.

Rena: 00:14:40

There's another variable.

Rena: 00:14:41

It's the mind and, and that's so recognized now in sports that's something that's being addressed, whether it be through sports psychologists or you know, whatever, there are lots of ways that you know, that, that can be looked at.

Rena: 00:14:55

And it's the same thing.

Rena: 00:14:56

We can have the best systems, the best processes everything that we need to do our jobs.

Rena: 00:15:03

But actually, there is that other variable of the mind that will trump, whether that's successful or not.

Julia: 00:15:11

And so, moving our conversation on then to the mind and how it works, what do you think have been some of the biggest things that you've learned about the mind that have allowed you to really get that perspective on how to do business?

Rena: 00:15:30

So I would say that well there were lots of things that, there were probably two main points for me that I've realized.

Rena: 00:15:39

And there were lots of subpoints off those.

Rena: 00:15:41

But I guess the first one is that That actually that the mind is being powered by an intelligence that is beyond my own personal apparent intelligence.

Rena: 00:15:56

So, as an example, when I was trapped on the tube in that back in 2005, I really saw how the mind worked to an extent.

Rena: 00:16:05

I was there, I was caught up in a lot of worry and anxiety and fear.

Rena: 00:16:12

But then I, what happened was that almost like I realized that was just interference, because when my mind settled and there was less of that, what happened was that there was some space for an insight to come through, which really is just another way of saying a fresh idea or almost that light bulb going off that gave, you know, and I had this amazing idea.

Rena: 00:16:36

Well, she wasn't that amazing, but it felt amazing at the time because my mind felt so full of everything.

Rena: 00:16:42

But I, I just had a, I had a, had some inspiration on what I might be able to do to try and escape the tube that I was on, and that just hadn't come to me until that moment.

Rena: 00:16:53

And I've had so many moments like that as I'm sure people that are listening to this.

Rena: 00:16:58

If they were to sort of look back in their lives, they would, I'm sure it would be very easy to remember times where they have what you might call that light bulb moment.

Rena: 00:17:09

You know, Where an insight comes through or they realize something, you know, whether it be, that moment in the shower when you've, you suddenly get the answer to a, a problem that you've been trying to solve for a while.

Rena: 00:17:20

The mind has this built in capacity to bring us realization and insight and answers to the things that we need answers to.

Rena: 00:17:30

And that for me, especially working with numerous leaders over the years, sort of differentiates for me the difference between a leader who's, you know, using their minds in a way where they're not really accessing that full potential of insight versus the leader who I guess I will call, is probably more of a generative leader who is fully harnessing that power.

Julia: 00:17:52

Yeah.

Julia: 00:17:52

So is that difference between , when we can feel our mind flowing with lots of new inspiration ideas that seem to make sense rather than feeling stuck with problems and not knowing how to move and change.

Rena: 00:18:13

Yeah, absolutely.

Rena: 00:18:14

And, it's that flow and it's that emergence of something fresh so that, we're not just creating from what we already know.

Rena: 00:18:24

From the, the fixed kind of thinking that we already have.

Rena: 00:18:29

There's an emergence of something fresh that comes through that maybe is not something we necessarily would've thought of before.

Rena: 00:18:36

You know, that's one of the real key things that I've learned about the mind, and it's, for me, it's revolutionized how.

Rena: 00:18:44

I go about my day to day life, how I run my businesses, how I work with leaders.

Rena: 00:18:50

And actually the way that the Seniors Helping Seniors business came about for me, happened in that very way.

Rena: 00:18:55

It wasn't something that I was looking to do.

Rena: 00:18:58

I wasn't sitting there scratching my head thinking, Right, I need to start a new business here.

Rena: 00:19:02

What could it be?

Rena: 00:19:03

It was through a few cumulative insights that I had that I then suddenly had the idea that actually this is something that I could and want to do because I had this real, What came a for me was this real vision of how we could change the way.

Rena: 00:19:23

Older people are cherished, valued honored and live in our societies and our communities in the future and are cared for.

Rena: 00:19:36

And it was, it was a series of realizations that had about that, that led to me, starting this business.

Julia: 00:19:41

So it was like you, you saw that there was a problem in this area and that felt l like, you know, something that you felt really moved.

Julia: 00:19:52

to address and inspired to address.

Julia: 00:19:56

And then by pointing your mind in that direction, it's almost like it then started to generate, literally, new ideas, new business models, new ways of doing that, that then created this vision of what you have now.

Rena: 00:20:13

Yeah, that's absolutely right.

Rena: 00:20:14

I'm really well put, Julia, because I'd had the insight there was something to do here in, in the, in the care sector, I could see that there was some change that needed to happen.

Rena: 00:20:25

And I remember thinking to myself I wonder what a business model could look like.

Rena: 00:20:29

And I kind of played with it a little bit in my mind and, and really I had no idea, I had no experience of this before, it's not a sector I'd ever worked in.

Rena: 00:20:39

But as you say, I point my mind was then pointed to that.

Rena: 00:20:43

And, you know, I was saying earlier that the mind has this deep intelligence, like, well, well, wherever you point your mind to wherever your awareness goes or your attention the mind's gonna generate some thinking for you around that.

Rena: 00:20:56

And I think the key thing here was that I wasn't sitting there grinding, trying to come up with something.

Rena: 00:21:04

I pointed my mind into a particular direction, and then I let it do its thing.

Rena: 00:21:09

And then it just did.

Rena: 00:21:11

And it, it just did.

Rena: 00:21:13

And I had some further insights about what that could be.

Rena: 00:21:15

And, you know, as you say, the stars then, aligned in a way and, and things happened.

Rena: 00:21:21

And it all there, there was then an unfolding that happened rather than a sort of a fixed way of trying to make things happen.

Julia: 00:21:31

And how does it feel when that's happening?

Rena: 00:21:33

It's really inspiring.

Rena: 00:21:36

When that happened for me, there was just such an obviousness about, starting this business.

Rena: 00:21:42

It was obvious.

Rena: 00:21:43

I, I just, you know, there, There was an obviousness to it.

Rena: 00:21:47

I felt really inspired to move forward with it.

Rena: 00:21:51

I had a, I had, I didn't have the whole.

Rena: 00:21:54

Path necessarily mapped out in my mind, but certainly the first few steps of what I needed to do, actions I needed to take, people I needed to speak to, you know, so there was just real clarity around that.

Rena: 00:22:05

And it just felt very clear and easy.

Rena: 00:22:09

But, you know, the, the one thing as well that I would say is that within myself, I just felt really grounded because it came through as, as that insight or that realization it was just something that was just really obvious.

Julia: 00:22:25

And it just, it just felt really natural and like the next thing to do.

Rena: 00:22:29

Absolutely.

Julia: 00:22:31

So I can imagine Rena, that there's lots of people listening to this who have had those moments or flashes of insight.

Julia: 00:22:39

They've got this vision for this, this business.

Julia: 00:22:42

They're really inspired by it.

Julia: 00:22:43

They think it's the right, right thing to do.

Julia: 00:22:47

And then they somehow get stuck.

Julia: 00:22:50

And the shininess of it starts to fade and it starts to feel like a big albatross around their necks, you know something that's weighing them down.

Julia: 00:23:02

What is it that you've learned about the mind that, that might help people with that aspect of a generative business?

Rena: 00:23:10

I suppose the, the main thing really is the discernment between, you know, cause we're thinking all the time.

Rena: 00:23:18

We're in this constant stream of thoughts, feelings, perceptions.

Rena: 00:23:22

So, so the mind is constantly active and, the weighing down that you are talking about and the sort of the loss of the shininess, if we boil that down to what it actually fundamentally is, Is interference is in the mind.

Rena: 00:23:38

You know, it's worrying that what if it doesn't work?

Rena: 00:23:40

I've invested so much money in this.

Rena: 00:23:43

Maybe I don't have the skills.

Rena: 00:23:44

I don't feel very confident in this.

Rena: 00:23:46

What happens if, you know the market crash?

Rena: 00:23:48

It, you know, that the fundamentally it's, it's about seeing that the mind is in this constant state of activity and being able to discern, you know, from that noise, what is actual interference?

Rena: 00:24:03

What's noise versus what's clarity and insight?

Rena: 00:24:08

Because I guess in my own experience, if I think about.

Rena: 00:24:11

What can happen is sometimes I will get a bit of that interference come through.

Rena: 00:24:18

A few little worries or concerns or this has happened and whatever.

Rena: 00:24:23

Or maybe, you know, maybe I haven't got enough clients yet, or, you know, are we doing the right marketing, but, you know, You can ask those questions, but from very different spaces.

Rena: 00:24:33

There can be questions that come up because there's some intelligence to asking that question.

Rena: 00:24:39

Or it can come from fear and insecurity.

Rena: 00:24:43

And so it's just discerning, what space am I in?

Rena: 00:24:46

Am I overthinking things?

Rena: 00:24:49

And you know, there's a feeling that comes with that.

Rena: 00:24:52

It tends to be heavier.

Rena: 00:24:53

This is what I've noticed for myself.

Rena: 00:24:55

My mind feels much narrower in what I can see and the possibility that I can feel and the ideas that I can come up with, versus actually when I'm feeling inspired and the thinking is coming from a space of clarity and being grounded as I we was talking about earlier, it, It, you know, has a very different feeling to it.

Rena: 00:25:19

It feels clear.

Rena: 00:25:19

It feels light.

Rena: 00:25:20

There's an expansiveness to my mind.

Rena: 00:25:23

And so the thing that, I think I've learned the most that helps me with that is, is knowing how my mind works, knowing that that's even going on and being able to tune into how, how it feels.

Julia: 00:25:35

So you've been talking about something Rena about, you know, what's going on in, in my mind and in, in each of our minds, and you used a very big word which is discernment.

Julia: 00:25:47

Can you say more about what you mean by discernment?

Rena: 00:25:51

So the word, I don't mean it in a, in an intellectual way.

Rena: 00:25:56

So in that I'll sit there and intellectually try to analyze my thinking or whether it's coming from a clouded mind or a clear mind.

Rena: 00:26:09

It's the discernment, I guess is more being, for me, in the way that I'm using the word is being more in tune with how grounded I'm I am.

Rena: 00:26:20

And what I mean by that is, you know, in any moment, which space am I coming from?

Rena: 00:26:25

Is, is, Is my mind operating from flow, from clarity, from creativity?

Rena: 00:26:33

Is it attuned to seeing insight?

Rena: 00:26:37

Or is it caught up in a whole load of habits and conditioning and rigid fixed thinking which has a very different feeling to it.

Rena: 00:26:46

So the discernment is feeling my way around where I'm.

Rena: 00:26:51

almost.

Rena: 00:26:52

Which side of the fence am I on?

Julia: 00:26:54

I hear a lot of people say, Well, they don't even know that that's going on.

Julia: 00:27:00

Cuz it just looks like there's something happening out here.

Julia: 00:27:04

I have to go and deal with it.

Julia: 00:27:06

And there's actually no connection between anything that's going on in me.

Julia: 00:27:11

It's the outside world that's creating my experience.

Julia: 00:27:14

And it sounds like you are not saying that.

Rena: 00:27:18

I'll go back to my example of being stuck on a tube in the middle of a terrorist attack.

Rena: 00:27:23

you know, What really became obvious to me during that time was how everybody on the tube that I was on had a very, very different experience.

Rena: 00:27:33

I mean, that, yes, there were some shared experiences, but it really struck me as I sat there hour after hour.

Rena: 00:27:42

In my own experience, but then also watching everyone else and talking to people was what really struck me was that, we were all in the same situation.

Rena: 00:27:52

We were all trapped underground in the same carriage, and yet we all appear to be having very different experiences of that same thing.

Rena: 00:28:03

And not only that, people's experiences varied as well.

Rena: 00:28:07

You know, so if I think about my own experience, it really varied as I mentioned earlier, from being in intensely afraid and fearful, worrying.

Rena: 00:28:18

I remember creating.

Rena: 00:28:19

Images in my mind about what had happened above ground.

Rena: 00:28:23

And that both tunnels had been completely caved in and we wouldn't be able to get, you know, really creating a whole picture of what had happened.

Rena: 00:28:31

And also what would happen.

Rena: 00:28:33

But then also having moments of feeling just intense peace and love for no reason whatsoever.

Rena: 00:28:39

And, you know, just an acceptance.

Rena: 00:28:42

To then having an experience where, as I said earlier, I had these ideas about what I could do to escape and, just so it was so variable.

Rena: 00:28:53

And so my, my big insight from that time around how the mind worked was, well, if we're all sitting here in the same situation, how, and we're all having a different experience because some people were laughing, some people were crying, some people were arguing, some people were just reading the paper for five hours, And our experiences are changing over that period of time.

Rena: 00:29:15

How can it be that this situation is causing it?

Rena: 00:29:19

You know, this outside thing, so it really pointed me to look in a different direction on the human dimension and how the mind works.

Julia: 00:29:27

So what you're saying, Rena is that we've all been told a lie.

Julia: 00:29:35

In that it's not the world that creates our experience.

Julia: 00:29:39

It's actually something happening in us that's creating our experience of the world.

Rena: 00:29:45

Wow.

Rena: 00:29:46

When I go to sleep at night, there are lots of lies that happen.

Rena: 00:29:49

And I kind of slightly joke about it, but I think, you know, when we sleep and we dream, it's such a great example in my mind of what this lie is, and how this thing works because we fall asleep at night for a portion of that when we're having a dream or dreams.

Rena: 00:30:08

And in those dreams, they are very real felt experiences.

Rena: 00:30:16

We see things.

Rena: 00:30:17

Our mind creates amazing, fully immersive 3D 4D experiences.

Rena: 00:30:25

And it looks so real and it feels real.

Rena: 00:30:28

And the ice cream tastes amazing, and the roses smell beautiful.

Rena: 00:30:34

And the monster that's chasing me is really, really, really scary to the extent when I wake up, my heart's still pounding.

Rena: 00:30:41

So, It points to what the mind is capable of doing.

Rena: 00:30:46

Now the same mechanics that are responsible for creating that experience when we're asleep are also at play when we're awake.

Rena: 00:30:55

And so they're creating our moment to moment experience.

Rena: 00:30:58

And I guess the difference is, when we're asleep and then we wake up, we kind of think, Well, it's fine.

Rena: 00:31:05

That monster wasn't true.

Rena: 00:31:07

It was just a dream.

Rena: 00:31:09

It felt true.

Rena: 00:31:10

It looked real.

Rena: 00:31:11

It felt real.

Rena: 00:31:12

It really was chasing me.

Rena: 00:31:13

I felt scared, but I don't need to go about the rest of my day as though the monster was true because I know it's just a dream, and it is a dream because my mind's made it up.

Rena: 00:31:26

Yet, in our waking reality, we'll have all of these experiences, the good, the bad, the ugly, and we don't see that the mind is doing that.

Julia: 00:31:39

And I'm sure people that are listening are gonna have loads and loads of questions on that point.

Julia: 00:31:45

Because it's something that's really, really tricky to see.

Julia: 00:31:48

But what would you say is the value of a leader realizing that fact?

Rena: 00:31:57

So the value in, in a leader and indeed in anyone seeing that, experience is happening in that way, that the mind is creating at moment to moment and that things aren't happening to us from the outside, so to speak is that we're then not at the mercy of what's going on out there, what's going on in the markets or what's going on in our teams, or what's going on in the world as such.

Rena: 00:32:21

And what I mean by that is our ability to have our minds function really with loads of clarity and flow and ease, to be able to come up with generative ideas and, ways forward and to function with that ease and flow day to day, just becomes so much more accessible.

Rena: 00:32:42

And really it's just that in seeing the way that the mind works, it allows to unlock a potential that's beyond.

Rena: 00:32:52

What our conditioning and our habits and our kind of fixed thinking is.

Rena: 00:32:57

So it's accessing more potential within all of us.

Julia: 00:33:01

And accessing potential in our people as well.

Rena: 00:33:04

Absolutely.

Julia: 00:33:05

Rena, as always, this has been a fascinating conversation.

Julia: 00:33:09

I know we could carry on talking for a long time, but what advice would you have to any leaders that are trying to do business differently and generate something new?

Rena: 00:33:21

My one piece of advice will be to invest the time and the energy in understanding, exploring this thing that's called the mind.

Rena: 00:33:34

We've all got one.

Rena: 00:33:35

We all use it as a, we were born with it.

Rena: 00:33:39

We've been using it our whole lives.

Rena: 00:33:41

And yet, you know, we rarely learn to access its full power.

Rena: 00:33:45

And so for me, you know, that really is the foundation, because it underpins everything that we do in life and in business.

Julia: 00:33:53

How true Rena, how true.

Julia: 00:33:55

Well, thank you so much for being with us today.

Julia: 00:33:58

Um, If people want to learn more about you and Seniors Helping Seniors, how can they find out more, get in touch and follow what you're doing?

Rena: 00:34:07

They can drop me an email on Rena, R E N A, at seniors helping seniors dot co dot uk or they can also find me on LinkedIn.

Julia: 00:34:16

Fantastic.

Julia: 00:34:18

Thank you Rena, and looking forward to talking to you again soon at some point in hearing how the journey's progressing.

Rena: 00:34:25

Great.

Rena: 00:34:26

Thanks Julia.

Rena: 00:34:26

It's been a pleasure.

Julia: 00:34:29

Wow.

Julia: 00:34:30

What a fabulous conversation um, that I just had with Rena.

Julia: 00:34:35

It's such a joy to speak to her.

Julia: 00:34:38

What did you take away from the conversation that Rena and I had today?

Julia: 00:34:42

If you've enjoyed this, share it with someone who needs to hear it.

Julia: 00:34:46

You can do that by going to generativeleaders.co.

Julia: 00:34:52

I was reflecting on what I really took away from the conversation with Rena and there were a couple of moments that really stuck with me.

Julia: 00:35:02

And they sort of were really woven through the entirety of the conversation that we had.

Julia: 00:35:08

And the first one was really thinking about where am I coming from?

Julia: 00:35:16

I find that when I'm coming from fear or anxiety, like Rena spoke to on so many occasions, that I kind of get a bit stuck.

Julia: 00:35:29

I find myself not really knowing what to do, being very worried or concerned.

Julia: 00:35:37

And then there's this other space that we have the potential to occupy, which is having a little bit of distance from the situation and just sort of wondering about it, wondering and questioning about the situation.

Julia: 00:35:53

And Rena spoke so elegantly about her experience in the train when she was stuck underground and didn't know whether she was gonna get out, that she had moments where she really felt that fear and anxiety.

Julia: 00:36:09

And started to have a terrible, terrible experience.

Julia: 00:36:15

And then a few months, minutes later, she started to feel joy and opportunity and all the things that she was going to do when she got out of that train.

Julia: 00:36:29

Now, the circumstances hadn't changed, but what was running through Rena's mind was completely differnt.

Julia: 00:36:36

And we all have the opportunity to notice that in every moment.

Julia: 00:36:41

What's driving our thinking process?

Julia: 00:36:44

Is it fearful thoughts, anxious thoughts, or is it generative thoughts?

Julia: 00:36:50

And seeing that the mind just has this capacity to do that.

Julia: 00:36:55

There's this space, there's this intelligence that's guiding us.

Julia: 00:37:00

And that's the true power in everyone's mind.