Reframing leadership growth starts with a simple distinction: skill is not the same as having the bandwidth to use it. Sustainable performance depends on capacity: energy, mood, and emotional regulation, not just capability. Coaching and community accelerate that growth. How do leaders protect capacity under pressure? What habits actually restore it? How can we turn invisible inner progress into visible results? These are some of the questions we explore with our guest Rachael Edmondson-Clarke in episode #106 of “Poder aprender.”

We unpack the difference between capability (knowing what to do) and capacity (having the energy and psychological safety to do it). When capacity is depleted, thinking, learning, and action suffer, so teams need environments that feel safe, not just policies that say they are.

We highlight the role of networks and long-term coaching: being challenged, seen differently, and kept on track. Consistent, bi-weekly coaching and supportive communities are not “nice-to-haves”; they are scaffolding for real change.

Restoration isn’t a reward; it’s an input. We explore “base vs. elite” targets (inspired by Bryan Johnson) to keep recovery habits alive even on chaotic weeks, think micro-moves like squats while brushing your teeth, so progress stays sustainable.

Not all progress is visible. Inner shifts often precede outer results. We discuss mindfulness as “keeping things in mind,” how identity anchors practice, and why leaders should trust slow, steady change that later becomes noticeable to others.

These are the topics of episode #106:

• Capability vs. Capacity
• Burnout Reframed
• Restoring Capacity Inside Work Cultures
• Emotional Intelligence: The Five Social Needs
• Sustainable High Performance: Restoration as Input

¡Sigan aprendiendo y acuérdense de practicar bien!

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Rachael Edmondson-Clarke: https://www.ellevar.co.uk

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Sitio web: https://www.poderaprender.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poder.aprender

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@poder-aprender

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Sitio personal: https://www.walterfreiberg.com

Today I have a very special guest from the UK.

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She's a coach and she works in leadership.

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She has a lot of experience in corporate and she has a lot to share in terms of learning

and we are going to have a very fun conversation.

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Welcome Rachel to 'Poder aprender.'

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Walter, thank you so much for having me on your show.

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I'm super excited to be here and to talk all things personal development.

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A little bit, I'm going to say, healthily obsessed with that.

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So I'm super excited for our conversation today.

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Thank you.

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That's wonderful.

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And would you introduce yourself?

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Would you share a little bit about who you are and what you've been doing in the world?

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Of course, of course, yes.

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So I'm the founder of an organization called ellevar.

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We specialize in leadership development and I guess really it's a lot about helping people

with behavioral change.

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Behavioral change to feel better, to be better and to love what they are doing.

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I've had the business for the last 10 years, but prior to that I had some senior roles,

senior leadership roles in corporate.

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We partner with some high profile brands, with some professional athletes and lots of

senior business leaders.

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I also have a passion for speaking.

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So last year I was regional president for the Professional Speaking Association in the UK

and Ireland.

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And it would be remiss of me not to mention that I'm a mum and a wife, in fact the other

way round, let me do that the other way round, a wife and a mum.

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My wonderful husband Alan, my uh two gorgeous boys, they're nine and seven now and I'm a

bit of a country girl at heart so when I've not got my head in a personal development

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book,

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or podcast or something like that.

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will find me swimming in a lake out on my mountain bike or riding a horse if I can.

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That's beautiful.

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And that's another short passion of both of us.

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I also like speaking.

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I used to be a Toastmasters.

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I'm not in the organization anymore because there's no Toastmasters in Uruguay.

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I'd probably I be participating, but I used to be a member in Argentina and that was so

much fun.

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It is, it is so much fun, so much fun.

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Just an amazing community is I think one of the biggest things that I've taken away from

being part of that.

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We're going to be talking about personal development.

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I think one of the things that I was really reflecting on last week, so I did a keynote to

a large conference last week and on the way there.

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I was reflecting just how many people had helped me get to that place.

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And, you know, there were lots of people.

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There was the lady that helped me with my outfit.

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There was people that would help me in terms of my own mindset for it.

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People who'd helped me think about the structure of the thing.

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People who had actually said, yes, it's okay to share these materials, right?

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There would be so many people.

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And I think when it comes to

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personal growth, personal development, having that network of people that can support you

is so important.

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Yes.

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And that network, and I would say that even to start with, like that openness and that

willingness to learn and that receptivity.

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And that's wonderful what you're saying.

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This is not something that you did on your own.

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It was not just by reading books.

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And I know that there's people who get a lot of value from books.

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I love personal development books.

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And it's not the same as having like additional support,

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and the presence of somebody, an expert, somebody who is really there and can help you

become the person you really want to be.

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Oh absolutely and you know I know you coach as well Walter and you know I stand here as

somebody who has had and continues to have a coach in my life and I have done consistently

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for the last 10 years and when I say consistently that means meeting with my coach every

two weeks.

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Also have another coach that I sometimes work with as well so on some specific things and

mentors as well so yeah I think it's so important to have people that will challenge us,

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help us see things differently, reflect and yeah yeah kind of keep us on keep us on track.

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Yeah.

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And talking about learning and skill building, I know that you talk about capacity versus

capability.

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That's one of the things that you talk about.

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And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how this applies to leaders and to learners in

general, in terms of managing their energy and not just their time or the skills they

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have.

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So it massively impacts, I think, so much of...

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particularly in the corporate environment which is where I operate a lot.

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A lot of training courses and things will be around helping people to gain the capability

or the skill to do things.

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So a very simple example would be helping leaders to have the skills and the capabilities

to have difficult conversations or giving and receiving feedback for example.

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And where the capacity comes in and this is what I think is so crucial and fundamental to

any

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leadership development and in fact any development per se, so leaders or learners, is if

we haven't got the capacity to be able to meet the demands then that's going to feel very

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uncomfortable and the way that we show up is going to be very different.

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And by capacity,

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yes, that's the mood, energy, our ability to deal with and our bandwidth to deal with

stress.

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But it's also how are we resolving or maybe even regulating the emotional stuff that's

going on for all of us, because we don't operate in a vacuum and other people and other

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things are likely to trigger us emotionally.

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And that will impact on things like our cognitive capacity,

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to think clearly, to process information, to be able to take on board new things and to

learn to feel safe enough.

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So, you know, if that capacity is depleted, we'll often have a greater negative bias and

so it will impact all of those things.

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So it has a huge, huge impact.

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Hmm.

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So there's a difference between knowing how to do something and having the skill and

having the capability versus really being able to do something about that in terms of,

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because I need to have the capacity, the energy and being in that state that is conducive

to taking action.

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I love that distinction.

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That's beautiful.

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Yeah.

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And so often, you know, in the corporate environment in particular, there's all the

courses that will focus on helping people to have the skills and the capabilities.

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But where is the conversation around how are we making sure that people have got the

capacity to show up and to be the leaders that they want to be?

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And, very often corporations will have leadership behavioral frameworks that they'll be

expecting leaders to operate in a certain way.

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But are they truly equipping those leaders well?

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And are they providing the right sort of environments where people can show up at their

best?

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Because people don't think psychologically safe or trusted or engaged.

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They feel those things.

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You know, the right environments for people to be able to feel safe enough to be able to

learn or to take a risk or to try something new is critical.

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And I think when we focus on how people feel in their capacity, it enables those two

parallel outcomes that are often seen as distinctive or different.

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And that is one, it helps people to perform at an individual level.

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And you know so from an individual performance to be able to do that but also it creates

the cultures then as well that organizations so often want.

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Yeah, it becomes a good example for the others and it's like, starts being more contagious

and people start picking up on those things.

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Even when they don't want it, it's because they, what's, what they, they see around.

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That's so wonderful.

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And I know that you also, you combine neuroscience and behavioral science in your

coaching.

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And I'm curious about like how you are using these tools

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as a coach to help people manage or work with their capacity and working on their needs.

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Well think first of all I need to put a disclaimer out here to say I am not a

neuroscientist but one of the things that I have done over the last 20 years is I have

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been healthily obsessed as I said at the beginning with understanding the practical

psychology, the things that we can apply to make a difference to the quality of our lives

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and our experiences and to help

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us put us in a better position and a better place to be more resourceful to you know be

able to better influence what is happening and you know and kind of where we're taking

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ourselves because ultimately without getting too heavy you know the world is a you know I

think is an increasingly uncertain place to be.

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I think we're a very interesting point in terms of humanity and where we are with all of

that but the one thing that I do know that we can have control over is how we choose to

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respond to the things that are happening around us and yeah and how we show up in that so

I think that's first thing just to say in terms of a disclaimer and just to answer your to

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answer your question which

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forgive me, see if I've remembered this correctly, I think was, how do you apply that

behavioral science and neuroscience to the work that I do?

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Wow, okay, that's a big question.

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So there's lot and I think for me, a big part of this,

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So I am a certified health coach and I also work with Professor Chris Beedie who is a

professor of Cognition and Neuroscience and also of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford

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and Kent University here in the UK.

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And a lot of the work that we do, and this has been a huge part of my own learning and

development, is remembering that it's not just the brain operating by itself, but it's

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actually our bodies as well.

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And what is happening will affect us.

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And so having good neurobiological strategies to help people to be able to have the energy

to show up well and that simple stuff like your grandma told you, you know, am I sleeping

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well?

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Is it regular?

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Am I getting the nutrition?

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I hydrated?

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Am I getting daylight in nature and movement?

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You know, simple stuff that so often we either don't

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that or we allow life to run away with us that we kind of forget some of our biology that

is fundamental for us to being able to have some of that, some of that the energy and the

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capacity and the resources and to be able to manage our mood well to show up in the best

possible way and then I guess from an emotional point of view and an emotional side you

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know side of things I think

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you know, kind of whether that is...

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reframing, whether that is looking at where we're focused on, what meanings we're choosing

to attach to certain events, are we telling ourselves stories, language which I know is

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huge in your area of work, like what's the language that we're using, because that can be

incredibly evocative and can it can intensify or dissipate how we are feeling about

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certain things, so being mindful and we have we have patterns and habits of language, so

watching what we're doing.

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With all of that, I think can be some enormously useful regulation reframing strategies

but ultimately with emotions if we can, looking at how we resolve those and that's not

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always possible, you know, it's not always possible to resolve those emotional things but

you know where we can if it's something how can we fix it and if it's someone that's upset

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us in some way how can we maybe talk to them to resolve the issue.

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I don't know that's, I've tried to, yeah, bit of an overview.

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But also try to be tangible in how I've answered that question.

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That was great.

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Yeah, that was wonderful.

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And I appreciate that you mentioned reframes and that's something that we often do as

coaches.

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We help people to reframe their reality.

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And there's a very common way of seeing burnout and is connected to burnout that's

connected as something around time management, like a time management problem.

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And I know that you, with the work that you do, is help people to frame it differently.

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And you help leaders to think where this comes from.

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Can you tell us more about that?

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The reframes you help people to do around burnout?

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It's interesting, isn't it?

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Because I suppose in working with a lot of senior leaders as I do, this is something I get

to see quite a bit of.

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And I think in some ways, high achievers are potentially more susceptible to this.

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And, you know, it's looking at maybe what's happening and what's going on.

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So how much of the burnout is due to...

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How much of it is due to workload versus habits?

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We were just talking about habits around all the things your grandma would have told you

to pay attention to.

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And how much of this is habitual regulation?

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So...

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I had a situation myself with burnout where I thought I had worked my way to the ideal

job, been through college, university, into the corporate world, worked my way up and I

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can remember the afternoon that it happened.

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I was in my glass-fronted office, I was preparing to go into the boardroom and instead of

walking out the door I found myself lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling tiles.

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And I had collapsed.

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Couldn't think, I couldn't breathe which was absolutely incredibly frightening.

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And it was because of some of these habits that not over weeks or months, but in some

cases over years, I'd let creeped in, know, so I had crept in.

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So habits like of just working more and more, for example, just getting through from that,

you know, let's get to the weekend.

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Let's just get to the next holiday.

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Let's just get past this project and then telling myself that it would all be okay.

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You know, I was distraught.

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some of those things that we were talking about like your grandma would tell you to do I

was disrespecting that and I felt enormously guilty because I was neglecting the most

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important relationship in my life at that time as well and at some point you know and this

is what happened to me in my my case body just went time out that's that you like you

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ain't gonna do anymore, I'm putting you on the floor and I often describe that moment a

bit like like being slapped around the face with a great big wet fish I don't know...

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It was almost like life was just going, you've got to wake up.

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And I think this is one of the challenges with burnout is that we is particularly with

high achievers.

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Kind of go, I'm a bit stressed.

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I'm okay.

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I'm getting on with it.

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And we push on until the point that we and we just don't realize sometimes that we are

going to, you know, we're going to run into that, run into that wall.

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And so in terms of how I help clients, it's actually a real mix.

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It's not just, it's not just the reframing.

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There may be certain things,

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that the reframing is helpful for but it's also about looking at the biology and what's

going on biologically for them as well and where you could and where you can replacing

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some of those habits and because it's clinically predicted you know if you are if you are

in a situation

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where you are not regularly restoring your battery.

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If we think about our phones, you know, I think we often pay more attention to making sure

these things are charged up than we do ourselves.

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You know, if you aren't regularly restoring yourself and if you aren't able to get

resolution on those things that are emotionally triggering you.

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Then you've got to look at really healthy ways to regulate that and not for too long

either because otherwise it's clinically predictive of...

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you know, reduce cognitive capacity, increase negative bias, poor performance,

disengagement from work, substance abuse, which I say, and people might think, not me, but

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actually how many people do we know that need coffee to get going in the morning and then

a wine to relax at the end of the day and, you know, be able to switch off?

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And, you know, so it is, it is clinically, and then it is clinically predict out of a

predictive, sorry, of burnout or departure.

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from an organisation.

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So you've really got to pay attention to...

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you know, not just the, you know, the reframing is exceptionally useful.

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But it's also about addressing some of those underlying causes as well.

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And in doing so, increasing people's bandwidth to be able to deal with what's going on.

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I think sometimes people go, it's the workload.

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And in some cases, it might absolutely be the workload.

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But we all know that...

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something that comes to us one day when we've not slept well or when we're really hungry,

we don't have the bandwidth to deal with that thing in the same way that on another day

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when we feel fully restored we can cope with it so much better.

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So that's a long answer.

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I'm gonna...

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Good to hear your answer.

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we don't have the capacity, basically.

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It's like, right.

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You've got the full picture, yeah.

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Yeah, and maybe it's like, because we don't have, we don't use external chargers or a

battery as a phone or a computer.

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It sounds like we have unlimited battery or that we don't need to recharge ourselves or

that is not depleted.

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And that's not reality.

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That's not what happens in our lives.

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No, absolutely.

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And, you know, it is...

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it's not always easy and it's not always part of cultures in organizations as well.

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So I will work with senior leadership teams under immense stress, challenge and change.

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And it will be about helping ensure that they have got some of the right habits and

knowledge and understanding of the importance of stuff like this.

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So that perhaps instead of sitting on Zoom or a Teams meeting, if they can, they take the

call on their

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on an old-fashioned telephone when they can get outside and get some daylight and get a

little bit of movement in while they do those things.

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So it's not always about having to stop to restore, sometimes it's about how can we

integrate that restoration within the culture of the workplace and within the habits that

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we have.

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And back to what we said right at the beginning which was the importance of community to

help support.

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That's when this becomes really powerful because at the point where you go, I can't take a

moment to go and get my lunch or to get a drink or to have a wee or to, you know, I don't

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know, go for a walk around the block.

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That's the moment when you must.

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And when you've got people around you that are like, hang on a minute, you've been sat

there a while or have you been out today?

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Right, come on, let's take this outside in a nice way.

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Right.

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is that it becomes super helpful.

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Yeah.

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And I believe that it's also true for us as coaches.

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Sometimes when we are doing most of our work, some coaches, I know I'm one of them that

who work mostly online, who meet with clients online.

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And I've heard that there are many other options available.

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And I heard of coaches who, well, there's the option to, depending on how we design our

work, we can meet in person and we can meet with clients on the phone.

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We can arrange to meet with clients by walking, doing what I, this year I learned that

there's a term for that, doing a walkie session.

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You're doing a walkie session.

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So you're walking, your client is walking and you don't even have to be in the same place

in the same city.

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And there's, there's things that happen also when we are in terms of what happens during

conversation of when we are

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having a conversation while we are walking or while we're seated.

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And that's interesting as well.

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Hugely so and I often find that if I'm feeling a little bit stuck or I'm needing to

re-energize myself we know that by standing up we get more oxygen to the brain and often

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I'll be doing coaching session so I will be the coachee and I need to think about this

differently so I'll stand up and I'll start to just like move my body and shake around a

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little bit just to like okay like just get moving and so...

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Another coach and a dear friend of mine, name's Leslie Roberts, she's written a book which

is all about coaching outdoors and just the benefits of that because, you know, again, if

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we think about restoring ourselves and that restoration...

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nature, daylight and movement will all be exceptionally restorative.

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So will the social aspect of being with a coach of somebody that you trust and that you

know is looking out for your best interests.

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So all of that is massively restorative and you able to restore in these different ways

all while doing the same activity.

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Hmm.

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And talking about speaking about trust, I wonder about the concept of confidence.

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And especially when we are talking about a group setting or leader can be also leadership

in other contexts.

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I am thinking in our community and...

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What's the connection or the interrelation between

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leading coming from from this doing this leadership work from a place of calm and

groundedness versus being from more agitation or excitement and yeah from trying to impose

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authority.

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This is such a powerful question that you asked me and it sort of sent me into a bit of

deep reflection here really because when we can steady ourselves and we can ground

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ourselves, others feel that.

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And I think that allows us to lead from...

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a better place, a better place in terms of clarity, of being able to connect better, being

able to listen better, ask the right questions.

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And so I think that calm and groundedness

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that we can bring as leaders, whether as you say it's community or in a group or

leadership setting, doesn't matter, you can be the leader of your, you know, leader in

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your family.

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Being able to come at it from that place allows us to be far more open and responsive in a

positive way to what we are being presented with.

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And so, and I think the confidence question, or thing is an interesting one, because we

won't necessarily always have that confidence.

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We may need to be looking instead for the courage to do the thing or to, you know,

sometimes it's just the courage to show up and, you know what, I'm going to be present and

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centered in me.

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And I'm going to trust that that's enough, that I'm enough, that I can then respond and

dance elegantly with whatever shows up.

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So I think sometimes we kind of wait to feel confident, but actually that's the wrong

thing to look for.

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I'd say look for the courage instead.

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It's not a requirement to have to be confident, to feel confident.

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We can tap on courage.

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Absolutely.

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There's so many leaders that I work with in really senior positions who will still like,

and I suspect that they are viewed as very confident and very sure of themselves.

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And yet actually, when you realize that, as you will know, Walter, from working with lots

of different people, we're more similar than we realize.

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And they too have things that they doubt about themselves or that they're not sure about.

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You know and so yeah remembering that and I think being aligned to our values what we care

about most and staying true to that I think really helps with that groundedness and how we

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show up.

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Hmm.

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Can you tell us more about the role of emotional intelligence when we are learning to

influence or to engage with teams?

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And this is a broad question.

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This is a oh gosh yeah no okay so when we're looking to engage with teams well I think I

mentioned this earlier and that is that people don't think engaged they feel it so if we

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can understand what it is that enables people to feel engaged that is what you know that's

super helpful and and if

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So one of the things that Professor Chris Beedie always talks about in the work that I do

with him, because I think this simplifies things in an enormously helpful way, and that is

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that the things that trigger us as emotionally as human beings can be boiled down to

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five social needs that we have as human beings that have been part of our evolutionary, um

you know, involvement.

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And those five things are we need to feel included,

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we need to feel we have an element of certainty, we need to feel that we have autonomy, we

need to feel that we're fairly treated and we need to feel valued and that we belong or

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that we have that sense of status.

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And whenever either one or more of those needs get triggered, that's when people start to

feel...

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emotional dysregulation and things don't feel good.

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So being able to understand they're the things that are likely to trigger people, how can

you help people to feel more engaged?

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Well it is about how you help them to feel like they're included, like they have the

autonomy to you know not micromanage.

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It's meeting all of those social needs because they're

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the social needs that as we were evolving as human beings, those ancestors of ours that

prioritized those needs were more likely to survive.

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And so when they get triggered, albeit that if we're not included in the team, I don't

know, get together, it's probably not going to be life threatening to us anymore.

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We still get triggered in that way because of our biology and how we've evolved as human

beings.

289

Yeah, I trust that that's helpful to listeners to maybe think in terms of those five

social needs and how you can, know, as a leader if you're meeting those needs of your

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people then things should feel pretty good.

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And in your experience, what's the one that's typically neglected?

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Like from those five, if you had to say like this, typically this is something that you,

you maybe you want to pay more attention because that's something that you might be

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neglecting.

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What would that be?

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So it really does vary.

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It really does vary depending on the individual and the situation.

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But you could easily imagine a scenario whereby...

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there's not clarity around the role or what's happening in the organization or the project

or what we're working on.

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And you can see how that would trigger somebody.

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You could also, I think, see quite easily how some people might be feeling like they're

micromanaged or they don't have the autonomy to be able to approach the work in the way

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that they would like to approach the work and get that work done.

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And it would be triggering.

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Can imagine how some people may feel that they deserve promotion or some form of

recognition and if they're not getting that that it's triggering them from that status or

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that attachment or belonging perspective so yeah there's you know there's

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it doesn't take much imagination to start to see.

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And if we were to take an example like an organizational redesign, so whereby people's

roles are at risk and they might be completely redesigning the structure and the team, my

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gosh, it's possibly going to trigger every single one of those.

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And really challenging then for a leader in that kind of, I've got that happening with one

of my organisations that I work with at the moment, and very challenging for the leaders

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to be able to provide that certainty and to enable people to feel like they've been

treated fairly and to let them know that yes, they are valued and this isn't a personal

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reflection, but it's actually to do with the business and where the business is heading

and what's right for the business and it's about the role, it's not about them personally.

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Or that you know there's some important conversations to be had to allow some of those

messages and things to be managed well.

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That's something that a leader can learn, right?

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We can get better at.

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Oh gosh yes.

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It, it, it, it, it's,

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interesting to me how many people fall into leadership roles because they're particularly

good at the discipline that they do and so they all so the next progression the natural

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progression is then to look after a team doing that particular technical skill or you know

ability and and yet actually leadership takes a whole nother set of of skills and some

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people yes of course will be naturally good at it and you know for others it can be really

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tough, it can be really tough.

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But absolutely can be learned.

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That's good news.

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That's great.

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And let's say in our audience is they're listening right now and they feel exhausted.

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And at the same time, they want to reach something.

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They have high aspirations.

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They're ambitious, either on their professional goals or their learning goals, personal

goals.

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And what's one small thing something they can try

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to keep high performance and make it sustainable at the same time?

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What a great question.

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I love that question.

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I love that question.

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And I'd love to know what you think about this as well.

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So I think, so I really identify with this.

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I identify with this personally as well, just to be like, it all out and lay it bare.

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And there's a, if you'll allow me, there's probably a couple of things that I'm going to

share that I found enormously helpful.

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Yeah, please.

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So one is that you must prioritize that restoration.

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So restoration is not the reward for getting the job done or for the project concluding or

for achieving the thing.

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Restoration is a key input to you being able to perform well to get to that end result.

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So restoration is not the reward.

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It's a critical input.

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that's the first, a lovely story very quickly of one of my clients who, he is a big,

really keen cyclist.

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And he messaged me the other day to go, oh my, Rachel, I get it.

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I get it.

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Because I'd encouraged him to be a scientist of himself and to, you know, just to see what

difference it made when he got out on his bike and then came back to the work instead of

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pushing through all the work and then going out on the bike.

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And he was like, my God, I came back and I was so much more efficient.

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I was so much, I was so much more creative and I had more clarity and all of the rest of

it.

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He's like, I get it.

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I get it now.

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It's not the, you know, the restoration is not the reward for doing the thing.

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It's a key input into it.

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So that would, that would be, that would be one thing with that, with that restoration.

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Something I found enormously helpful, which I've learned from Bryan Johnson is, is to

have, is to have

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base level targets for your restoration and elite targets.

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So one of the things that I think can be enormously, particularly if you're a high

achiever, you're like, I'm going to go to the gym four times a week.

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That's going to be me, you know, like, and I'm going, and if I don't go four times a week,

I'm feeling a bit disappointed with myself, right?

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So the whole idea is we don't, we, we don't just have one target of like, I got to go to

the gym four times a week.

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Have base level targets.

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targets that even when we are in those days where we are paying the price because it's a

critical project deadline, we're away from, you know, we're traveling away from home or,

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you know, like, like it's like there's a, there's an intense period of time.

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You can still hit those base level targets.

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They are so easy that you can do it.

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So instead of going to the gym, base level target might be, I'm going to do squats while I

brush my teeth

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in the morning, you know, because I know every morning I'm going to brush my teeth.

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I can absolutely find time to do those squats, for example.

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So it's having these base and elite targets so that, you know, when you have what Bryan

Johnson would call a bubble wrap day, which is when you can absolutely do, you know, fill

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your boots on all of the stuff or a bubble wrap week, you can do all of those things.

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You can do your elite targets.

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But the thing is bubble wrap days are few and far between for most of us.

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And most of the time we're like out in the wild, like just trying to hack our way through

life, make things happen.

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And so then it's about, well, okay, if I can hit elite some of the time, you know, but

mostly that I am making sure I'm always hitting my base level targets, then I know I'm

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staying on the right trajectory.

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And that's been enormously helpful for me in terms of

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one: not kind of punishing myself if I'm not getting to do these things.

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And two, just making sure that I'm, you know, always staying on the right track.

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And the third thing I'll say, and then I will shut up, the third thing is just that, the

third thing I've learned that I think's been enormously helpful is sometimes things just

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take time and don't completely kill yourself off

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for some fabricated timeframe that you just made up that you said, well, I wanted to

achieve this by, I don't know, in the next six months or by that year or what have you.

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And, you know, so long as you are continuing to make progress and move forwards and it's

aligned with your values and who you most wanna become, keep going.

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Walter, I'd love to hear what you've got to say about that.

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I love that.

383

And I appreciate that you quote Bryan Johnson and I follow him and I really like what he

shares and that's so much great stuff.

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And you asked me about my opinion, my take on this.

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Would you like to hear it?

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Love to hear it, yes!

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I totally agree with what you said.

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And as you were starting to share your answer, I was thinking, first I thought my answer

would be something like doing less or trying to focus on minimizing or doing like less

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things, focus on the most essential things that would be in line with what you share about

prioritizing.

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And then I was thinking also maybe what...

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is important to me is to remember who I am and what is deeply important to me.

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And this is connected to the work and we as coaches, we are very deep into personal

development.

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We get coaching and we, we did explorations around that.

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And sometimes we forget, we know who we are and we just forget.

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And one of the meditation teachers, and I'm really into meditation and spiritual growth,

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One of my teachers, the way he translates mindfulness, this is Buddhism.

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He says, mindfulness is keeping things in mind.

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When you're practicing mindfulness of the breath, you are keeping it in your mind.

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So you're keeping it present.

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And I think that a big issue many times is that we forget just what's really important to

us.

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And I really like what you say about like this.

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having different targets.

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And I can tell you examples in terms of my meditation practice in terms of the amount of

time and then to the different types of progress.

404

Um, Because I had times, I remember the first meditation course that I did, was a silent

retreat.

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And at the end, it was very intensive.

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Those days, the past and now retreats, 10 day retreats.

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And at the end, you are encouraged to continue the practice two hours a day, one hour in

the morning, one hour in the evening.

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And most people after maybe they do that for a week or two, and then it's like, it's not

sustainable anymore.

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And they say, okay, I'm not meditating anymore.

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I just can't do it.

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And it becomes this thing all or nothing.

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And it took a long time for me to learn that I could also meditate for five minutes or 10

minutes, and that was available to me.

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So that's something that I tried and it can be humbling, like in terms of.

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But I'm like an experienced meditator.

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How would I set up for less than two hours or one hour or 30 minutes?

416

And still that was very helpful to remember that I'm a meditator and that's something

important to me and who I am, my identity and who I want to become and the type of

417

progress that I want to make.

418

And the other thing that is also connected to meditation and it's also connected to many

other learnings is that

419

and this is also related to what you say at the end.

420

There's progress that it's not visible.

421

It's not immediately visible.

422

And I think that's the case with meditation.

423

And sometimes I was attached to the seeing something fancy or that I would be, I don't

know, beaming light or what.

424

And there was the progress that

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on the meditation practice, like when you are on the cushion, when you're doing the

practice, and then there's the progress that you're doing in your life.

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Like the way you relate to things that happened and the way you're being.

427

So it took time for me as well to recognize that there's the inner progress and there's

the outer progress.

428

And now I also put this into practice in my coaching practice.

429

And that's helpful to,

430

in the work that I do with others.

431

Because sometimes it looks like, this person is not making progress.

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Maybe that's not like, that's not what we see on the outside.

433

Maybe there's things going on moving inside.

434

Absolutely, absolutely.

435

You articulated that so beautifully and I've just finished working with a Chief Executive

Officer of a company here in the UK.

436

We've just been coaching together for six months and we've been talking just around how

many of those shifts

437

people are seeing it externally now but you know it's him remembering and trusting as well

that through some of those external practices things have changed internally and when our

438

internal world changes like everything changes that is yeah you put it across much better

than I did but that it is it's that combination of being able to do the practice and do

439

the thing.

440

But then it also shifts things inside as well.

441

So the same way I guess I feel like I came in here and was talking about the importance of

biology alongside the neurology.

442

It's also about what's the changes on the inside as well as on the outside.

443

It's all whole.

444

Yeah.

445

Rachel, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you would like me to ask you, that

you want to share more about before completing this conversation?

446

Only that I'd like to ask you a question.

447

Is that okay?

448

good.

449

Yeah.

450

So, Walter, given the things that we've been talking about today, what would be your top

451

thing or takeaway for the all like what's your main thing that you would want to leave

people or your audience with from today because you've got so much experience and in some

452

different fields to me so I'd just be really interested to know yeah kind of what would

yeah what if there was one thing that people were remembering or taking away from our

453

conversation today what do you feel is most important.

454

Thank you for asking that and thank you for asking me a question.

455

I, my takeaway would be the distinction that we brought and how you develop that on

capability versus capacity, keeping that in mind, being mindful of that in our learnings,

456

in our work, in our relationships, at home.

457

That would be.

458

That would be my takeaway.

459

And I love how you connected this with lifestyle practices, with simple practices as our

grandma might recommend.

460

And that sometimes we are not doing that, me included.

461

Sometimes we neglect those practices from time to time.

462

None of us are perfect oh you know it's like and and and if I may be if you may indulge me

one question more you know you've talked about your meditation and mindfulness practice

463

but from a restoration point of view what other what other habits do you have that you

know that really helped to restore you

464

Oh, you have to tell to share something.

465

I'd like to share something around this.

466

I'm using a Whoop band.

467

You know that, so Bryan Johnson uses and endorses this band.

468

And you know what's been interesting to find?

469

When I practice meditation, my recovery is 5 % more.

470

increases by 5%, like from 0 to 100%.

471

And that varies from person to person.

472

And that was very encouraging to me.

473

So you asked me about other practices, but I wanted to share this because you know that

that was meaningful to me.

474

And when I find like more reasons to do what I want to do, it strengthens it.

475

Like maybe I have this meditation practice I started with.

476

the meditation practice because I wanted to deepen my spiritual practice and I have

spiritual goals and I wanted to put that into practice.

477

And I know that's important to practice meditation.

478

That's not the only thing.

479

And when I know that that's also helpful in terms of my recovery and even by this data,

that was like encouraging.

480

Like that was okay.

481

So that's one reason more you have to continue doing this.

482

So don't stop it because there's value in this and look, even the body is responding to

that.

483

So meditation for sure, that's something that helps me.

484

and

485

well...

486

I really like music and I play the piano.

487

So sometimes for me, listening to certain types of music, relaxing music, or playing the

piano or singing, that definitely, those are things that fill my cup.

488

They help with recovery and restoration.

489

And having conversations with people like you, with the growth oriented people, that's

also very restorative.

490

Yeah.

491

start another podcast with you playing and singing with the piano, I think that would be

absolutely amazing.

492

And I'm so excited to hear about the Whoop band because, yeah, I have read about them.

493

I know a little bit about them.

494

And so it's, but you're the first person I've met that is using one and just that whole,

you raise such a valuable point that we've not talked about, which is like, what are we

495

recording and measuring and keeping our eye on?

496

And the Whoop band will really help you

497

to do that and you know where maybe you just need to fine tune or tweak things but I just

love the fact that you now know that you are 5 % more productive, efficient when you are

498

doing that.

499

That's so cool!

500

I love it.

501

right.

502

Yeah.

503

And I have to say that I learned that also through a podcast because there's like a great

podcast that I'm a fan of that's called Superhabitos and that's from Argentina.

504

And it's all about productivity and personal development.

505

And I remember I learned, heard them for the first time in 2022 and I remember they were

already using the Whoop band, Maybe they had been using that for a couple of years and

506

they were inspired by someone else who had used it.

507

And so I was, I heard

508

their episodes and for a couple years until I got mine and I really like it.

509

And you know, this one of my systems to being held accountable and I have no problem with

being held accountable.

510

Is that being held accountable?

511

Being hold accountable?

512

Yeah, no, yeah, no, being held accountable.

513

Yes, you said.

514

Yeah.

515

and that's one of the systems that I use and I have no problem with that.

516

And I'm okay with whatever it says.

517

Sometimes like if you don't have a good night's sleep, the data will not be nice.

518

And that's okay with me.

519

And that's good information that I can use.

520

Yeah.

521

I was going to say we haven't actually explained what the Whoop band is, but yes, it is

like a personal tracker.

522

It tracks things like, you know, your sleep and your movement and all sorts of...

523

Oh, we didn't do that, did we?

524

So sorry to everyone that doesn't know what a Whoop band is.

525

I think they were particularly designed for elite athletes originally.

526

So I think it's the brand of them.

527

Yeah.

528

not, I'm no elite athlete and I still use the band because, know, this are, and now that

lately they've been catering to more like a general population and that's something that

529

we can use, that's, it was at the beginning, it was more used by mostly by elite athletes

and now it's more like widespread and it's great.

530

I love it.

531

So Rachel.

532

You have something to share with our audience.

533

They want to get in contact with you, learn more about you, or is there anything that

you'd like to share with them before completing this conversation?

534

Well, it's always so wonderful to hear from people.

535

So if you are listening in and you would like to get in touch I would really love to hear

from you and you've got all my contact details on my website, which is

536

http://ellevar.co.uk/ And you can reach me there on WhatsApp, on LinkedIn on all the usual

social media channels And it'd be great for you to pop in and say hello I'd love to answer

537

any questions or clarify anything that we've talked about today

538

and it'd just be great to connect and be in touch.

539

So thank you, Walter.

540

It's been such a pleasure.

541

the name.

542

It's like to rise up in Spanish, elevar.

543

Yeah, yeah.

544

Thank you.

545

It was great having you Rachel and yeah, let's stay in contact.

546

I would love that.

547

Walter, thank you so much.

548

I've loved the conversation.

549

And yeah, thank you.