The Life Itself Podcast

In this episode of the Ordinary Poeple walking an extra-ordinary path
Podcast, Life Itself Co-Founder Sylvie Barbier is joined by Jamie Bristow a leading expert on inner development and contemplative practices in public life.

Ordinary People is a podcast series that delves into the lives of individuals who have defied societal expectations and embarked on extra-ordinary paths despite their seemingly ordinary backgrounds. Join us as we dive deep into their lives, uncovering their motivations, beliefs, practices, and moments of transformation. We demystify hero worship and share accessible narratives of real individuals who have transcended societal expectations and norms. Each guest delicately navigates the balance between introspection and worldly engagement. Listeners are offered empowerment, kinship and inspiration for embarking on their own extra-ordinary journey.

Jamie talks about his journey from his troubling teenage years to teaching mindfulness to politicians. Jamie Bristow opens up about his troubling teenage years led by the dislocation and adaption of new cultures while their family moved between the UK and the USA. Exploring what led him to move away from his advertising career to being a mindfulness practitioner and teacher. Jamie’s life story highlights the importance of meditation, faith, and resilience in leading a mindful life. 

About Jamie Bristow (2023)

Jamie Bristow is a leading expert on inner development and contemplative practices in public life.

For eight years, he was Director of the Mindfulness Initiative and clerk to the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness. In 2023, he joined the Inner Development Goals team to lead on public narrative & policy development. Jamie was formerly Business Development Director for Headspace and has a background in psychology, climate change campaign communications and advertising. A teacher of insight meditation, his mentors have included Rob Burbea, Stephen Batchelor and Christina Feldman. 

Learn more about Jamie Bristow and his work here: https://www.jamiebristow.com/

About Sylvie Barbier

Sylvie Barbier is a French-Taiwanese performance artist, entrepreneur and educator. She co-founded Life Itself to build a wiser future through culture, space and community.

The Once Upon a Time podcast series, shatters the myth that extraordinary lives are reserved for a select few. Join us as we dive deep into the lives of seemingly ordinary people who are walking extra-ordinary paths, uncovering their motivations, practices, and moments of transformation. We demystify hero worship and share accessible narratives of real individuals who have transcended societal expectations and norms. Each guest delicately navigates the balance between introspection and worldly engagement. Listeners are offered empowerment, kinship and inspiration for embarking on their own extraordinary journey.

In this episode of the Life Itself Podcast, Rufus Pollock sits down with Professor Joseph Henrich to continue the discussion on the study of cultural evolution.

In this second part of the conversation continuing from episode 3, Rufus Pollock and Joe Henrich discuss the implications of cultural evolution in relation to modern challenges. They explore the potential for intentional experimentation in creating cultural norms that promote trust, cooperation, group cohesion and a sense of community and belonging. 

Rufus and Joe touch upon the idea that Western societies might be running on old values and norms cultivated by historical religious practices. They discuss the need to find ways to renew and revitalize these values, potentially by experimenting with intentional communities that incorporate elements of shared meaning, trust-building, ritual and cooperation. The talk moves on to discuss the idea that by allowing a variety of intentional communities to form and observing which ones thrive, societies could potentially find ways to address current challenges and promote positive cultural evolution.

In this episode of the Life Itself Podcast, Rufus Pollock sits down with Professor Joseph Henrich to continue the discussion on the study of cultural evolution.

In this episode the significance of family structures and the church takes center stage in their role towards shaping human societies. Joseph explains that different kinship networks influence behaviors, trust, and cooperation within societies and how the Catholic Church played an unintentionally role in shaping Western societies by implementing rules against cousin marriage and polygyny. These rules inadvertently fostered individualism, trust in non-kin relationships, and analytic thinking. These cultural shifts and networks of horizontal connections led to the development of "WEIRD" psychology – Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic, a topic discussed in Henrich’s latest book. These cultural transformations resulted in the development of different psychological traits that help to explain the remarkable economic success, innovations, and current challenges faced by Western societies.

This conversation forms part of the Cultural Evolution: A New Discipline is Born Series.

In this episode of the Life Itself Podcast, Rufus Pollock sits down with Professor Joseph Henrich to continue the discussion on the study of cultural evolution.

In this episode they discuss the innate human inclination to develop and learn from culture and to transmit this knowledge across generations. This conversation emphasizes that our success as a species is attributed not only to individual intelligence but also our capacity to expand upon ancestral wisdom.

Join us in the conversation as Joseph shares insights around the pivotal role culture and social bonds have in the development and continuation of vital skills and ideas. Wider factors such as group dynamics, environments, and competition are further discussed along with the impact of cognitive processes on cultural transformation.

This conversation forms part of the Cultural Evolution: A New Discipline is Born Series.

In this episode, Rufus Pollock sits down with Esther Montmany for part 3 in their mini-series on Conscious Parenting.

Esther Montmany has spent more than 20 years developing a unique approach to conscious parenting and education. She has worked with Mauricio and Rebecca Wild at their legendary school in Ecuador and led the children's program at Plum Village summer retreats as well as starting several initiatives of her own.

In this episode, Esther and Rufus explore the question, what are basic needs?

About Esther

Esther Montmany is an inspiration to all who have ever felt that perhaps society could work differently. She has lived in a wide range of intentional communities, from Scotland to India to Ecuador. Her deep interest in education as a process of inner growth, in harmony with others and with nature, means she has devoted her life to understanding human wellbeing and development. Having used her knowledge to educate her own children, she now creates gatherings to help families give to their own children the chance to grow with confidence and develop their potential. Over the past five years she has worked closely with the Plum Village Community, participating actively in the children’s program at the summer retreat for families.

About Rufus

In this episode, Rufus Pollock sits down with Esther Montmany for part 2 in their mini-series on Conscious Parenting.  

Esther Montmany has spent more than 20 years developing a unique approach to conscious parenting and education. She has worked with Mauricio and Rebecca Wild at their legendary school in Ecuador and led the children's program at Plum Village summer retreats as well as starting several initiatives of her own.  

In this episode, Esther shares with us how to set up a positive environment for a child, drawing on real life examples. 

About Esther  

Esther Montmany is an inspiration to all who have ever felt that perhaps society could work differently. She has lived in a wide range of intentional communities, from Scotland to India to Ecuador. Her deep interest in education as a process of inner growth, in harmony with others and with nature, means she has devoted her life to understanding human wellbeing and development. Having used her knowledge to educate her own children, she now creates gatherings to help families give to their own children the chance to grow with confidence and develop their potential. Over the past five years she has worked closely with the Plum Village Community, participating actively in the children’s program at the summer retreat for families.  

About Rufus  

In this episode, Rufus Pollock sits down with Esther Montmany who has spent more than 20 years developing a unique approach to conscious parenting and education.  

Esther has worked with Mauricio and Rebecca Wild at their legendary school in Ecuador and led the children's program at Plum Village summer retreats as well as starting several initiatives of her own. 

In this episode, Esther shares with us how she became interested in developing a conscious style of parenting, her journey in developing Conscious Parenting, and offers insight into what Conscious Parenting looks like in practice.  

About Esther  

Esther Montmany is an inspiration to all who have ever felt that perhaps society could work differently. She has lived in a wide range of intentional communities, from Scotland to India to Ecuador. Her deep interest in education as a process of inner growth, in harmony with others and with nature, means she has devoted her life to understanding human wellbeing and development. Having used her knowledge to educate her own children, she now creates gatherings to help families give to their own children the chance to grow with confidence and develop their potential. Over the past five years she has worked closely with the Plum Village Community, participating actively in the children’s program at the summer retreat for families.  

About Rufus  

Rufus Pollock is joined by Dr Jeffery Martin. Jeffery is a founder of the Transformative Technology space, a serial entrepreneur, and a social scientist who researches personal transformation and the states of greatest human well-being.  

In this episode, Jeffery discusses Persistent Non-Symbolic Experience, more commonly referred to as Fundamental Wellbeing. He discusses his research and key findings, and the protocols he has developed and tested to help people obtain "fundamental wellbeing" in a rapid, secular, and safe way. For notes, further resources, and to listen as a podcast, head to our website: 

About Dr Jeffery Martin:  

In this episode, Rufus Pollock sits down with philosopher, practitioner, and spiritual mentor, Dr. Thomas Steininger. Dr Steininger offers insights and reflections from over 30 years of spiritual practice and cultivation of emergent, co-conscious "We" spaces and practices. Rufus and Thomas explore emergent dialogue, the victories and shadow sides of individuation, and the integral and metamodern movements.

Rufus Pollock sits down with Professor Joseph Henrich to discuss the study of cultural evolution. Joe gives an insight into how the discipline has emerged and the interdisciplinary nature of the field. He discusses some examples of areas of interest within the field, such as understanding innovation and  institutional evolution, scaling and cooperation. Rufus and Joe finish with a brief consideration of where on the "cultural evolutionary tree" we are today, laying the ground for a potential future follow up.

This conversation forms part of the Cultural Evolution: A New Discipline is Born Series.

On November 11th 2022, crypto giant FTX collapsed into bankruptcy. In this episode, Stephen Diehl and Rufus Pollock explore what happened, what went wrong, and what we can learn. They look back on the past 6 months in the crypto industry, examining other prominent crashes, namely Terra Luna, Celsius and Voyager, and Three Arrows Capital, and their contagion effects.   

Stephen and Rufus then look at what remains of the crypto industry. What’s next to fall?   

Over the past few months we have been sharing episodes centered around the theme of 'social transformation'. In this final episode of the mini-series, co-hosts Eilidh Ross, Theo Cox and Nathen Fitchen reflect on the series, sharing why we embarked on this project, stand out moments, and key takeaways.   

In the latest episode of our Making Sense of Crypto & Web3 series, we talk with blockchain researcher and expert Samer Hassan. Samer is an academic at Harvard and Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Spain focused on decentralized collaboration. In this episode we talk about decentralization both pre and post blockchain, why platform monopolies like Facebook and Google are so ubiquitous and whether Web3 could help replace them with something fairer, freer and more participatory.  

Learn more about our Making Sense of Crypto & Web3 project here: https://web3.lifeitself.us/ 

Regenerative Finance (ReFi) is about combining web3 finance tools with regenerative purposes like tackling climate change or cleaning up the oceans. In this episode of our Making Sense of #Crypto and #Web3 series, Rufus Pollock and Jeff Emmett discuss the promises and pitfalls of ReFi for providing public goods and nourishing the commons.  

In a previous episode, Collective Action Problems & Climate Change, Steven Diehl and Rufus Pollock discussed the utility of web3 in tackling collective action problems and climate change, using KlimaDAO as a case study. In a follow up to this conversation, Rufus and Theo from Life Itself Labs sat down with Marcus Aurelius and 0xy moron, two core members of KlimaDAO, to discuss the KlimaDAO model, its inspirations and its aims. 

This is part 1 of a two-part sit down with Klima. Keep your eyes peeled for part 2!

Episode #7 of our ongoing deep dive into #crypto and #web3 with Rufus Pollock and Stephen Diehl. This week we’re exploring the thesis that Bitcoin (and crypto more generally) is an anti-authoritarian force and can help undermine tyranny.

In this episode of our Making Sense of #Crypto and #Web3 series, Stephen Diehl is joined by economist and data scientist, Matthew Ranger, in a discussion on crypto assets from a macroeconomics perspective. 

You can learn more about Matthew and his work here:

https://www.singlelunch.com/

In this episode of our Making Sense of #Crypto and #Web3 series, Rufus Pollock is joined by activist, journalist and author Cory Doctorow. Cory outlines the problems he sees within the web3 space; economic, technological, and ethical.

You can learn more about Cory and his work here:

In this episode of our Making Sense of Web3 series, Rufus Pollock speaks with Pia Mancini on Open Collective, steward ownership and exit to community. Pia Mancini is a democracy activist, open source sustainer, co-founder & CEO at Open Collective and Chair of Democracy Earth Foundation. 

You can learn more about Pia and her work here: 

Just what is Web3, why are people so excited about it, and how likely is it to really change the world? In this episode, Life Itself co-founder Rufus Pollock talks with Rich Bartlett and Stephen Reid on the promises, possibilities and pitfalls of Web3.   

Sustainable wellbeing is an obvious organising principle for society: that we should live in a way that enables future generations to enjoy being alive as much as us (or more). Yet this ethos is not truly at the heart of either the environmental movement or the well-being movement – or society as a whole. Why is that? And can that change?

In this episode, Rufus Pollock talks with Liam Kavanagh, Lead of Life Itself Labs. We explore what sustainable wellbeing is: as principle, as a movement and as a political strategy. Finally, we look at why this is an approach whose time has finally come.