How to go from unhappy to body-painted, half-naked happiness! ...with Jacob Sokol

This week, I'm talking to Jacob Sokol, a life coach who helps twenty to thirty year olds create a life with more happiness, more fulfilment, and getting paid to do what they love.  He helps people follow their hearts while bringing their heads. Through his company Sensophy, Jacob has brought together a community of over 12,000 soul-siblings while creating a multiple 6-figure coaching biz in under 3 years. When he’s not leading retreats in Bali or coaching at home in NYC, he’s either listening to hardcore hip-hop or cuddling with his two cats.

We started the conversation with me asking Jacob how come I'd seen a photo of him half naked and covered in body paint. :) Jacob rolls back a a few years and shares his story of discovering what it really means to be a happy and fulfilled human being.

What you'll learn in this show:

• As children were often told "This is how it is. These are the rules. This is what's important." and then most of us keep on being told that as adults. There's something inside most of us that feels that what we're being told doesn't feel right or doesn't make sense (especially given most of the adults telling us the 'right' way to live seem miserable and unfulfilled!) but it's not clear what the alternative is, or even if there is one!

• If we stay in a situation where we're around people who believe and keep confirming our stories about who we are, it can be seriously hard to see what's true and what is simply years of beliefs and conditioning. I loved Jacob's example of how he went on his trip and then began to realise that he wasn't his thoughts.

• Nature's taking care of business, it's just about understanding how to listen. As Jacob described it 'the universe speaks universe', the more we get in touch with who we are before all the stories about ourselves, the more we're able to hear what's good for us.

How to feel love when you hate... with Bill Cumming

This week, I'm talking to Bill Cumming. Bill is a thirty-year coaching veteran and Director of The Boothby Institute. He has been a coach, consultant and trainer to CEOs and the executive teams of health care delivery organizations, businesses, school systems and non-profit organizations. He is a key partner in the New Horizons Academy.

Here, in his own words, is some of his story...

"I discovered the power of loving-kindness bass-ackwards as I was trying to understand where violence came from in our society. Upon the rape of one of my children, my immediate response was to want to kill. (This beautiful child, now forty, is well and is a continuing inspiration to me.) The irony of wanting to solve damage with damage hit me immediately. In my search for understanding, I met a man who’d been damaged in his youth. He admitted to me – in a maximum security prison in Somers, Connecticut – that he had killed and raped. He also, at the end of a very long day, told me he was sorry that my daughter had been raped.

I am the recipient of loving-kindness from a person who has done great damage and, regardless of any good I might have done, I am capable of great violence."

But the written word can't do justice to Bill, his story or the things he talks about in this episode so for once, I'm just going to say this...

Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever's happened in your past and whatever is going on for you now, please listen to this, I think you'll be glad that you did. :-)

What you'll learn in this show:

• For once I'm not going to try to summarise what you'll learn from this show, you'll feel whatever you're meant to feel. So I'll just leave you with my paraphrase of something that Bill said "You're either coming from loving kindness or 'other'... that's all there is."

How to flow when life is full of baby vomit and sleepless nights ...with Victoria Groom

 This week, I'm talking to Victoria Groom, the Flow Coach. Victoria he helps people to kick the control habit and to surrender to the flow of life.

Victoria successfully distracted herself from purposeful living for many years! She spent time in a publishing career and investment banking recruitment before 'finding' life coaching 8 years ago.

In April 2014, at the age of 41, Victoria had her first child, a daughter called Annie-Rose and amongst the usual challenges of new motherhood were breastfeeding problems, failure to thrive, tongue tie and food allergies. She feels very blessed in later motherhood, not least for the lessons in Flow it has brought!

She has been featured in Woman's Own and is currently writing a book called The Flow Paradox: How to Lose Control and Have it All, running The Flow Experiment and contributing to a forthcoming book on motherhood.

Today we're talking about falling into an effortless ebb and flow in pregnancy and new motherhood, which is often the time that it seems like the most impossible on earth (I know, I've been there!)

What you'll learn in this show:

• As we recognise that everything is constantly moving and changing, it becomes easier to see that times of 'ebb', the times that life feels slower and less 'productive' or we need to rest more, life isn't passing us by, we're still in the flow of life.

• We can notice the way life flows through all of us but in particular with our children, and instead of trying to fight, control, change or resist the way things are flowing, we can notice, experiment and move with it. That's a much easier and more enjoyable way to parent and to live!

• As we get back in connection with ourselves and the world around us, we can fall back into the natural rhythms of our alignment with everything around us in all kinds of ways.