Speaker 1: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast, the fortnightly podcast that talks about self-aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. If you want to be a better leader and a better work colleague, then join me, your host, Nea Thomas, as we talk to today's Knowing Self-Knowing Others guest. Hi listeners. Today I'm joined by Dr Ketan Kulkarni, and, Ketan, it's really nice to have you here. We haven't spoken for a little while. Listeners, if you don't already know, Ketan and I have done a little bit of work together already. You may have seen our article Go Live on LinkedIn in January 2023. I guess we came together because we had an interest in self-awareness, but coming at it from very different angles. We realised that our interest in self-awareness and health care was a commonality. If you're looking for our article, it's Thoughts on Self-Awareness for Patient Health and Well-Being. Ketan, welcome.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Thank you so much, Nea. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I think we're much looking forward to all the wonderful talk we're going to have.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Ketan is a physician by trade, but a physician, an author, an entrepreneur and lots of different things. Ketan, please do introduce yourself.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Yeah, thank you again for having me. You're right, i have that identity of a physician and one of my roles is being a physician and trying to take care of my subspecialty patients. But that's a great starting point, because a lot of us just only identify with the patient and identify with our one role or one profession or one job. But I think that's really not so true, because nobody is just one thing. We are more than one thing, and my journey or summary so far has been the connection and identification with those different facets of my interest and experiences in life, so that becoming a physician, becoming an entrepreneur, looking at broad opportunities and developing something that can make the world a better place.

Speaker 2: 2:14

becoming an author Brian contributes some of my thoughts and feelings and ideas that can hopefully positively impact the world. becoming a life coach and then a finance coach to try and positively impact people's perception about money and business and investing and so on and so forth. There's a few other things in the making too. So my journey has been all about this journey of discovery and I think I'm quite excited for what's going to come.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Amazing And one of the things that you mentioned is that you're an author and listeners. I actually have Ketan's book here. I know we're not visual at the moment, so this is the book. Did you hear that? It's there.

Speaker 1: 3:02

I'm more than halfway through the book now and I really like the style and the way that you talk. You really tell it like it is and I like that style of sort of laying bare all of the important things that we need to consider in life and actually sometimes we go down the rabbit hole of focusing on things that aren't really important. But I think this book is really good in terms of bringing you back to this is what's important to you in life, and one of my favorite lines so far is on page 75. When your mind, body, values and everyday life are all in sync, great things begin to happen, and I love that. I read that and I got to that page and it was like boom. That really was an amazing phrase And I think that really leads us into self-awareness and it's about once you have a knowledge and an awareness of yourself. You have an understanding about what those things are great for you and how you make great things happen in your life.

Speaker 2: 4:08

Yeah, i mean you named it very right. Well, first of all, i appreciate all the feedback and the work you've done for reading through it and I much look forward to all your thoughts and critique and comments once you're done.

Speaker 2: 4:17

But, I mean, that was the whole purpose of writing this book that when I was going through this process myself, i couldn't find one resource that put it all out there as it is. We looked at hundreds and hundreds of resources and articles and it was like, okay, somebody talks about quantum awareness, somebody talks about subconscious mind, somebody talks about gratitude, somebody talks about habits and emotions and coaching models. So we say, well, this is kind of crazy, right? We cannot expect one person to go through all these resources. It's all there. There's the ancient wisdom, there's the modern science, there's the mathematics. But then how do we try to put it together in simple language as is? And thus the book was born, and it took us two years to summarize all the evidence.

Speaker 2: 4:59

And the purpose was this that some people misinterpreted that maybe in the beginning, that this was just meant for physicians, by physicians, but that's. Nothing could be further from truth. It was really coming at a life from an angle of a professional. Most professionals are busy, they're well-trained, they always have stuff that they wanted to, they want to get at, they want to have fulfillment and success. But what does it all mean? And that's why we tried to lay the book in that format that we first tried to identify the problem, present a limited self-model and then dwell on the self-awareness piece which I know is your top favorite, and then talk about the awareness model and then really suggest the idea that that's going to lead to outer excellence in the form of success and happiness and fulfillment.

Speaker 2: 5:43

So you're right, i mean that line is mind-blowing, because it's always been mind-blowing. I think life sort of follows to how we are internally and how we are aligning ourselves And I forget that all the time. Just yesterday I was unhappy. I think the idea of the book was that we would have a resource. We would keep talking about it, everybody could use it as a coffee table resource, everybody would have an aha moment on a different page and different times and different pages. So it was really we tried to write it as a resource that could be read and read it and it could be a companion for life, sort of idea. And then it's a work in progress. We envision expanding the work, inviting other people to contribute and sort of see how it goes from there. So it's been really fascinating.

Speaker 1: 6:28

Listeners, we will make sure that there is a link to the book in the show notes so that you can go and buy your own copy. But this takes us very nicely into our question about what is self-awareness and how do you define it.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Yeah, i think this is fantastic And you know, i mean I just want to sort of remind our listeners again to kind of take a peek at our article, because I think we tried to really bring those ideas here And the angle that we took on this was really based on ancient wisdom And some people, i think, erroneously call it Eastern philosophy, but I think it's a global philosophy, right.

Speaker 2: 7:05

I mean, it's been known for centuries and millennia that we, as a human, are our own conscious awareness that is then aware of the mind, body or the emotions or the thoughts or the brain or whatever it is Like. We often erroneously assume that we are our brain, or we are our intelligence, or we are our emotions or thoughts or even our body because we dwell in it. But I think the ancient wisdom, unanimously when we were reading and trying to interpret it, suggests that we are our conscious awareness That is then aware of our brain or intellect, or thoughts and emotions and our body. So I think the idea of self-awareness to us is identifying that gap. It's not about separatism.

Speaker 2: 7:50

I think it's about connecting but recognizing that you are the driving force and then integrating and putting it all together And then that kind of nicely segues into people who want to do advanced spiritual work and look at super conscious states of awareness and so on and so forth. That's a whole separate topic, I think. But we came at it from the angle that this conscious self-awareness is accessible to everybody and whatever we put our attention to is going to grow. And then, if we keep bringing ourselves back to that center place or grounding or whatever what you want to call it, of being self-aware and simply asking the question, like it doesn't have to be a six month retreat in the middle of some nowhere. I think it's about just okay, what am I thinking today? Why am I doing this? What does my body tell me? What is my emotion looking like? Why am I racing and writing my hundred paper or whatever it is that you are pursuing and chasing? Is it truly your authentic goal? So, once we start building on it, literature would suggest or data would suggest that it's going to keep growing and you will feel this expanding awareness.

Speaker 2: 8:52

And one of the modern scholars I really like is Eckhart Tolle and he's put it beautifully. I mean, he talks about the present moment and it's so intricately related to self-awareness. And being in the present moment is such a powerful thing that we all constantly forget. I mean, we kind of do our work and forget about being in the present moment and being able to objectively just witness whatever is happening. It's easy to say that don't react positively to a positive thing that happens and don't react negatively to a negative thing. It's very difficult, I think it needs to sort of one has to really build the self-awareness and build the capacity to do that.

Speaker 2: 9:29

So that was our take on it that let's present self-awareness as an evidence-based fact, as somebody who we truly are, in a fashion and format that's accessible to everybody. Let's try to debunk the myth that self-awareness is some form of awakening that's only accessible to advanced monks or spiritual people or the ascetics or whoever it is that are very advanced, spiritual, truly trained people. We really thought that was not true and a lot of ancient literature backed that. It's always there. It's like something hiding in the background, it's dormant and you have to sort of feel it, nourish it and bring it to the forefront. That's why, in the second part of book 2, we really tried to focus it on self-awareness and build all the models around it because, simply speaking, we didn't find a better way. That was almost like the ultimate truth or the holy grail. We figured out that it has to all center around self-awareness.

Speaker 1: 10:24

And I think, the beauty of it is.

Speaker 2: 10:26

There doesn't have to be one way to define it In your work. I've been following some of your work and you've approached it very differently, but it still doesn't change the essence of it. It's something that's like a universal truth or an unchanging constant, if you will.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Yeah, i think you're right that even though we come at it from a different direction and we have different thoughts about it, there are still lots of commonalities in our thoughts, ideas, knowledge about self-awareness and where it fits in the world. And one thing I wanted to clarify that when you're talking about us an hour, but Ketan wrote his book with a colleague, dr Francis Yu. So even though Ketan and I wrote the article together the book I'm afraid I can't claim co-authorship of this as much as I would want to.

Speaker 2: 11:12

You never know, that might be next in the cards, right.

Speaker 1: 11:15

Hey, who knows Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:17

Sorry, i should have mentioned that Francis Yu is a great friend and colleague and he is so amazing that he can acquire so many roles. He's been a coach to me, he's a mentor to me, a friend and a listener. Sometimes you're ranting and venting out and you're planning your ideas and it's been pretty phenomenal. He has his very focused on, or his area of expertise is very focused, of course, on holistic healing, but on the inner excellence piece And that's lean, his sort of crux of training. He is kind of double trained, eastern and Western trained physician, and he has a lot of interest in what they call the ThoughtWorks. So that was a really good mix.

Speaker 2: 11:56

I first came at it from the angle of outer excellence in the form of success and finance and fulfillment and all of that. Soon we realized that well, you can't have one without the other And pretty much you are going to have outer excellence only after in an excellent. So it was a very clear segue that oh, let's kind of find the problem, let's talk about inner excellence and how it's accessible to everybody, and then that will automatically lead to outer excellence. And I mean so many times we test the hypothesis or ideas presented in the book and so far, so good. I mean, we apply it to different people, different even critiques.

Speaker 2: 12:32

So they come at it and they say, well, i don't agree with this. But then, when you walk them through the model, they say, well, yeah, that kind of makes sense. So it's very gratifying to prove it again and again and again, and because I think it's not, as you probably agree, it's not something we invented. I think it's something we've understood and accessed and now presenting to other people. So it's sort of universal truth, if you will, in a simple language. But we have all these amazing things already there. How can we access them to live the best of life we can and create the best we can and contribute the best we can?

Speaker 1: 13:07

What are your thoughts on the relationship between self-awareness and leader effectiveness? And maybe this takes you back to more of your physician role, because I guess you will have worked in hierarchical organizations where that structure is very pyramid shaped And you will have seen those leaders and, with your knowledge of self-awareness, how does that all affect together?

Speaker 2: 13:29

My gosh. I mean you have a lot of body of work in this area. So it's kind of preaching to the choir kind of thing, but you know you're 100% right. I mean, my journey around this did start there. So let's first face the fact that we know that the latest data from physician burnout space is like 50% to 60% physicians in all specialties, all age groups, all categories in North America are burnt up, which means they feel emotionally exhausted, they're depersonalized, they're disconnected. So imagine that, right, i mean, the magnitude of the problem is massive. right, you got 1.1 million physicians in North America and the chance is one in two that you're seeing somebody, if you're on wealth, that they are not interested in their work.

Speaker 1: 14:12

I mean, that's a big problem right.

Speaker 2: 14:14

And then the data translates similarly in the job dissatisfaction and burnout rates in all other major professions we looked at right. I know a number of engineers and lawyers and everybody else, So I think the battle is big and huge. Like this is probably one of the biggest problems we're gonna face in 21st century, along with climate crisis and hunger, is that people are burnt out and they're unhappy and they're unfulfilled And, no matter how many priorities they buy, they're still. And there's so much disgruntled behavior that I traveled all over different conferences across the globe presenting all my research And I had the opportunity to meet a lot of global experts And I've said this on many podcasts. When I would ask, well, how is it going? They're like, oh my gosh, it's so busy and it's crazy.

Speaker 2: 15:00

But they never say this is great, i'm doing great. I mean you want that. This word expert is feeling and doing great. So, quite likely, if you just follow the trajectory, that's where you're gonna end up, and I thought that's not okay, that you wanna be very productive but also deeply fulfilled, whereas there would be the rare 2% people that would say, no, i'm really happy with my job. And that started that question as to why is this happening.

Speaker 2: 15:24

And then, several years ago, i had this opportunity to do some longitudinal leadership training that really sort of got my wheels spinning. This was probably starting in 2017 into 18. And I had a lot of different workshops and courses I did. I did executive leadership certification, i did some advanced leadership courses And I think that introduced me to coaching and then I became a coach. But all that to say that the idea that all of these people knowingly or unknowingly were presenting was centered around self-awareness, because that's what it's all about. I mean, if you look at crucial conversations book, it kind of says well, you should kind of rationally think about it and level the ground and manage your emotions and consider the alternative point of view. But how will you do that without self-awareness? It's impossible.

Speaker 2: 16:11

And that's why conversations don't work because people's emotions run high and they cannot deal with it. So that's where that kind of breaks down occasionally in terms of lack of success. And they say it again and again if you're not able to manage your thoughts and emotions, this is not going to work. Or if you look at any other leadership theory, like the Theory U or any, there's so many leaders to talk about, but I think they come at it. Sometimes they mention self-awareness, sometimes they don't, but they all come at it from that angle. I mean we see so much in sort of these complex organizations called the universities or hospitals or whatever. A lot of people have been in those leadership positions by default or by promotion or by this and that, but often they're not trained leaders And now it's changing.

Speaker 2: 16:54

I mean, a lot more leaders are getting trained than they're very self-aware leaders, so they have their own style and the expectation is others morph to that style And that doesn't work. We know that highly productive teams don't like to be directed, they like to co-lead, i mean. So that comes back to the idea of what does a leader really mean, and we presented some of those ideas in a book that by leadership we are really talking about first being able to lead yourself and grow and then have that growth mindset and have the ability to be transparent and vulnerable and kind of establish some goals and vision and vision. The biggest role of a leader is to bring out the best in other people. So if you're just kind of leading other people and telling them what to do soon, there's a discount And we see that right. I mean, recently I was asked to sit on an international committee that was looking at an intensive care unit and how they were functioning And within 10 minutes it was obvious that there was a big disconnect between the leader and the people in that country and hospital And it was like, well, you're not going to fix it until you actually fix the fundamental problems, that people are just not cohesive. The leader was very not self-aware and came down to coaching the leader, and you first need to get the leader coach to see what their blind spots are and how they're affected. The sad part is that we often see in movies you got this kind of gruff, powerful bull in the China shop person that gets the work done, but there's a big price to be paid at the end of it And probably there's a lot less achieved as a result of that. So not to say that we want decision analysis, i think you have to be very efficient.

Speaker 2: 18:29

I had the privilege of being trained by the likes of Janis Tain. She's a big Canadian international leader And she said the way they're on meetings I mean, this is a person at international level negotiations around relationships, like those are big things. I mean they're confidential, they're big things. But she was talking about the process. She said, well, you got a one hour meeting. When do you think we've made a decision? And people like, well, you need the last 10 minutes and this blah, blah, blah. She said, no, by minute 20, we've made a decision By minute 30, we are on the process. Nobody waste time You got. How do you conduct meetings? And it was phenomenal.

Speaker 2: 19:05

She said well, it doesn't matter who's the boss. Like they have so many ground rules on meetings, you have to be prepared. It's like she was joking. I think you have to be bright, brief and gone. You got your two minutes and you got to present what you said and you have to present it in such a sinker, otherwise nothing will get done, whereas if you ask so many people I talk to so many university colleagues from different places and they're like, oh my gosh, the meetings and nothing happens. So that means we're just kind of going perpetually on the topics and not solving the problem.

Speaker 2: 19:32

So I think the idea of self-awareness is universal and so applicable to leadership that we need to really and I think we say that in the article right We need to bring it down to a level that people feel that it's accessible to them. I think that's the challenge, that how do we present the ideas and break it down in a format that's easily accessible and people connect with it. So we're doing some recent work. You might have seen the videos We're doing the animation videos around the concepts in our book. But the idea of that is to bring it down to school level, because I think that's one of the things we are not at least, i didn't learn it. How do we learn to manage our thoughts and emotions? It comes down to that, right, i mean. The fundamental problem is that most people are not even aware that that's an option.

Speaker 2: 20:20

You know like. Do you grow up as an adult and become a coach? You know how many people do that.

Speaker 1: 20:25

It's interesting that you're talking about self-awareness being so fundamental to so many different things that we think about and talk about, and I keep coming back to self-awareness, whether you're talking about humble leadership, cooperative leadership, inclusive leadership, if you don't have self-awareness at the base of that, none of the other things can build.

Speaker 2: 20:47

No, no, they don't. And you're so right. I mean, one of my favorite sides of leadership is the visionary leaders. You know they have the big board as the vision board And you know they're inspiring and motivating. But again, you know, i mean, great visionary leaders are so self-aware. Right, they know that that's not their strength. I can't do that. So they find somebody to deal with the marketing or they find somebody to deal with the IT side of things And they find some blood, this and that, and they're even willing to have their ideas challenged. Right, i mean, it's not like it's a fixed goal. They're willing to morph And you know, some of the best mentors and leaders I found were much more open to that than others, and a lot of them are very good listeners. You know they can listen out and still direct. So I think there's a lot of work that can and needs to be done in the area, right? I mean, more often than not, i think I find that leaders are not trained in self-awareness, and that's a big challenge.

Speaker 1: 21:45

Do you think effective leaders can be found at all levels of organizations And why do you think that? What's led to your view? Yeah, because 100%.

Speaker 2: 21:54

I know. I think when you get to the leadership chapter in that book, i think leaders have nothing to do with titles and positions And it's a state of mind in my opinion. I think there are all levels. They're grassroots leaders, they're grassroots level leaders, top tier organizational leaders. I mean so many times we see a woman or the person on the street that's helping out everybody in the summer and giving lemonade or whatever else. We've got a person just a couple blocks from here. In the summer he'll have ice cream for the little kids because he lives very close to the water, so he'll have cream for the little kids and he helps out all the older people. Like he's himself 70, but he's quite fit, so he helps out a lot of older people. So I think that's a fantastic example of a leader. And then you've got some stellar organizational leaderships, but I think they're at all level And I think the reason why they're at all levels is hey, well, of course I don't think leadership has got anything to do with titles, although we're commonly misled to believe that.

Speaker 2: 22:51

I think it once again goes back to the self-awareness that people who are driven by their mission or vision or passion or a purpose, they will go above and beyond to do more things. I mean that's one of the fundamental like the physician cohort is definitely I don't even know the word like they're cerebral gear to delivering good patient care. So they will do the right thing, no matter what is at stake, and that's been. You can see, on negotiation committee that's been argued that the administrators know that they're not gonna just ignore the patient and walk away So often that works against them. And not to say that you must deliver excellent patient care, but that's, it's a balance, right? I mean it's something that you cannot place value on. You cannot say that your attention to the patient was worth $6. You have to pay full attention.

Speaker 2: 23:39

And so that gets me to the idea of non-tangible aspects of leadership. I don't think we love metrics, right? Because I've used this example a million times. Like a net worth of $5 million is indisputable, it's easy to measure. Somebody's got $5 million, okay, nobody questions it. But how do you measure these metrics of leadership? Oh well, that's a good leader. What does that mean? Like people have these non-tangible metrics. They're self-aware, they have well managed emotions, they are very good listeners, they are engaged, they're motivating, they're inspiring, they're positive impact on the thing, they're always optimistic. They're problem solvers. It's so difficult to measure these aspects right And I like Simon Sinek's work in this regard. He says nobody wants the most competent, like the ideal person is the most competent and the most self-aware person, but I think he gives the example of Navy SEALs. They will often end up with the most reliable and moderately competent person because of these intangible aspects And I depend on that person when pardon my language like the shit hits the fan, when it's terrible, who can I depend on?

Speaker 2: 24:46

And I think that's a fundamental issue that it's being human. I mean, you know we almost need to find new terms right, it's being a human leader. That. Who can I really trust when it's gone really wrong And, for example, at a personal level, it goes back to your inner circle or your coaches up interest, like we are all going to make mistakes and it's not going to be good. So who do we really trust when that happens? I think that's something really important to address.

Speaker 2: 25:10

So, I think this topic is worth the whole conference.

Speaker 1: 25:13

Yeah, most definitely. Do you think leaders at the most strategic level of organizations have greater self-awareness than leaders at other levels of organization?

Speaker 2: 25:26

Well, i wish that was true And I think it should be true, but then that would take an entire culture shift there where we bring, like the legend request or self-awareness at the forefront of our culture. I think you'd have to shy away from what they call the KPIs the key performance indicators and take it more around knowledge and vision and vulnerability and transparency Globally. Whenever I've interacted with people I think I've often found that a lot, but I think some of the key organizations I've found that is, some of the big, big businesses, like a friend of mine has been working at Microsoft for like 20 years and he will not move no matter what somebody offers to.

Speaker 2: 26:09

Now that is something That means that he's very engaged with his team and the high level leadership and really make sure that people are engaged and they know the vision and mission and then they are really sort of part of a high performing team.

Speaker 2: 26:23

So he's been there for 20 years. but then people often argue, like when I'm invited to business school for a talk, they will say, well, yeah, but business says it's easy to measure because their ultimate outcome is their dollar output. I mean, say you made whatever 10% profit, it gets much harder in, like healthcare system or you know old age homes or you cannot place value on providing good service or value on patient experience or challenges that you face working with a large team. So I think it's something that we have to work on as a global community and accept that. you know that's at the forefront, that we require high level leaders to be very self-aware, and I think there's ways to do it. I mean there's unfair and 360 feedbacks. there's continuous assessments at all levels. There have to be yardsticks in place as to what you're going to do if somebody is not performing at an optimum level or there's too many complaints.

Speaker 2: 27:19

A lot of times what happens is you got a toxic leader. People complain, complain, complain. Nobody listens. People wake it up to that person at times. That's not the solution, You know. we need better solutions, like the Google's of the world and the Microsoft's of the world employed. It's not about letting go of people. It's about a behavioral change that, well, this is what the expectation is, and you're going to have to pull up yourself to train to that level. So I think it doesn't have to be punitive. I think it has to be more around convincing them about the value of all these concepts of leadership so that they can grow into the right type of leader that the organization needs. So I think that's I see it as a as a culture shift challenge.

Speaker 1: 27:59

I think you're right that when you have organizations where something tangible like money or how many units of a product have you created, that is more tangible and that's easier to measure. But when you work in public sector organizations, public administrations like health, local government, how do you measure if an organization and their leaders are effective? What? what are you seeing? So you're seeing the change in the community, but I think that staff turnover within an organization is pretty indicative of whether people are happy in that organization and whether they're sticking around. Because, like you said, your friend has been around in Microsoft for 20 years. Well, there's obviously something good happening there.

Speaker 1: 28:42

But when you have other organizations, maybe a healthcare organizations, where people are leaving after 18 months of of employment, two years then a conversation needs to be had. Yeah, for sure. What do you think is an effective way to develop self-awareness? So you've mentioned 360s and various supervisions and coaching. What is your go-to, if you have to say the one that you found that's most effective? and if you had somebody who was really lacking in self-awareness, where would you send them first?

Speaker 2: 29:19

Yeah, i think that's a fantastic question, i mean, and I think it's a very deep question, and I and Francis talk about this all the time. So the linear coaching models would say that you know, you always got to start with the fact and then you look at your thoughts and then emotions, and then actions and outcomes, and you constantly go through that one model. But I think in our book, you know, we try to present a broader model because, for simply for the fact that some of us are thinkers, some of us are feelers and some of us are more physical, i mean, you know that's or some of us are more sort of holistic. So I think different things work for different people, right? I mean, if you're a thinker, you could start with the why. You know, say, okay, i'm getting stuck in this rabbit hole, let's back off. You know, start with that why. And the more you practice you know, the more the shorter your reflex time will be to center back on awareness. But if you're more of a feeling person, you could say, oh, i'm feeling bogged down, and then she's set, or whatever, or a plethora of positive emotions. You could say, well, wait a minute, which of these emotions am I paying attention to. If you're a more physical person, i found that they find breath work more useful, or they just find standing still for 10 seconds more useful. Some people do the you know, the fist. Or some people do a tensing the body exercise. Some people count to 10. Like, the counting to 10, i think, works because it suddenly stops your flight and fly fight response and shuts everything down and makes you focus. I think that's a self awareness exercise. Or, you know, do two depth deep breaths, or five deep breaths, or you know, one minute of mindfulness. I think these are all self awareness exercises.

Speaker 2: 30:50

People have given different types of names based on whatever group they're catering to. So, you know, i think all of them work and that's why some of the stuff we mentioned in the book was sort of we didn't want to make it too confusing there, so we didn't talk about all these different sectors. But I think my answer would be that whatever two or three anchors you find work for you, we should all develop. The more we develop those anchors, the quicker we'll remember to get to them and say okay, well, wait a minute, this is not working, i need to. For some people it's a two minute break. You know they go down the hallway and walk, or some people go walk back and forth for 10 minutes and they kind of cool off and come back. For some people it's fresh air. Whatever works for you, if you develop those mental triggers over time, they will be ready to serve you when you need them.

Speaker 1: 31:36

And I think that's a brilliant place to end our conversation. I will say that you have inspired me to start thinking and putting down on paper what are effective ways to develop self-awareness that people are talking about And, as you mentioned at the beginning, i have a three layer model of self-awareness, so what I'm trying to do is to pin some effective mechanisms to these three layers, and really that came to me as I was reading your book. I had a light bulb moment and I thought I really need to write this down, so thank you very much for that.

Speaker 2: 32:09

No, that's perfect. Maybe that's something we can talk about, you know afterwards. Yeah definitely That's a perfect collaborative opportunity that would, i think, have pretty strong impact on our job.

Speaker 1: 32:19

I think you're right. Yeah, most definitely, Because people are looking for ways to develop their self-awareness And when people don't live and breathe it like you and I do, sometimes these tools and techniques are not as readily available to them, which is why one of the reasons you've written your book Listeners we will make sure that there is a link to the legendary quest Ketan and Dr Francis used book in the show notes And we will make sure that we can link you to Ketan on LinkedIn and anywhere else where you can find him and make that connection. Ketan, it's been such a great conversation. I really hope that we'll be able to work together in the future because I think that with your scientific and your view about the world, with my research and maybe even Dr You, we can all come together and put our heads together, and three heads are better than one. That's been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker 2: 33:14

Problem. That was great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 33:22

Thank you for joining me. Your host, nia Thomas, at the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast. After every podcast, i'm going to be doing a top takeaways review of the things that I've learned from my discussions with guests, which you can find on my website, knowingselfknowingotherscouk, linkedin, tiktok and the other main social media sites. Rates, reviews and recommendations from you are the best way to get the word out about the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast. Open your favorite podcast app, find the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast, take a listen to some episodes, give it some stars and write a little review. A little word from you means a big deal to me. Make sure you bookmark the Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast on your favorite podcast player and tune in to the next episode in two weeks' time. The Knowing Self-Knowing Others podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Podcasts, stitcher, good Pods Podchaser, amazon Music Podcast Index, podcast Addict, pocketcasts, deezer Listeners. Rachele Open, gabrielle you.