Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott J. Allen, Ph.D.

Are You Grounded or Not? with Paul Crick

• Scott J. Allen • Season 1 • Episode 316

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Paul Crick is grounded in, and informed by, the principles, wisdom and practice of the martial art of Aikido, which he applies as a powerful discipline for mastering his craft as a seasoned, transformational coach. Through this lens, he supports leaders and teams to carve out their own distinctive path to success.

With over two decades of hard-earned personal and professional experience working internationally as a consultant and coach, Paul specialises in enabling clients to navigate uncertainty and periods of intense transition and growth, amplifying clarity, confidence and impact at moments that matter most.

Developing leaders and teams from the inside out, and helping people work together more effectively at scale, are areas where he consistently excels.

Paul’s international corporate consulting experience spans the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. He has worked with senior leaders on organisational transformation programmes across Fortune 500 and FTSE 250 companies, public sector institutions and voluntary organisations.

Paul’s coaching philosophy is grounded in GRACE, providing a confidential, judgement-free space in which individuals and teams can explore, think and grow.

As an accredited coach, he blends an eclectic mix of evidence-based tools and practical psychology to support lasting transformational change.

Quotes From Developing Leaders and Leadership

  • “If you’re not grounded in your body, if you haven’t got that alignment between mind, body, and your physiology, then it becomes difficult to create and stand up for something.”
  • “Acceptance is facing up to the reality of what’s coming at you and figuring out how to redirect that energy in a way that restores harmony.”
  • “Find the practice that works for you. Grounding can look very different for different people.”
  • “When your actions, presence, and values align, that’s coherence.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

  • The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. 

About  Scott J. Allen

My Approach to Hosting

  • The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope t


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Scott Allen: [00:00:00] Okay, everybody, welcome to Practical Wisdom for Leaders. Thank you so much for checking in wherever you are in the world. Today I have Paul Crick and we are gonna have a really fun conversations. It's, it is a topic that we have not discussed on this podcast today. And I'm excited about that. I think what I would love to do, Paul, is maybe say hello, talk a little bit about yourself and then we will jump in.

So what do listeners need to know about you? 

Paul Crick: I usually start slightly humorously by saying I'm a recovering management consultant. I. I had the privilege of working around the world doing a management consulting role for the likes of PricewaterhouseCoopers Capgemini and laterally, IBM, which took me to go and do some fabulous projects with some amazing clients.

And as I say I managed to do that all over the world, so that helped me develop an international [00:01:00] perspective. So I think that's me professionally. In 2020, I got the opportunity to finally set up my own business, which I now do which is the Elevate Partnership. And the Elevate Partnership is all about helping individuals and teams be brilliant at what they do.

And I love doing that. And I guess the only other thing I would say is I'm a student of music. I'm a student of Aikido and I'm a lifelong fan of Liverpool Football Club, so perhaps that's a good place to start. 

Scott Allen: I love it. Okay so what are some of your favorites when it comes to music?

Paul Crick: The, I don't want to turn your audience off because, my, my natural home is progressive rock 

Scott Allen: Doug, that's not gonna, that's my one of mine as well. Let's go. What do you got? What are some of your favorites? 

Paul Crick: I started, I was carried into the house as a baby and put into a cot with a record player under it.

So I started with Herp Albert and the new seekers and the King's College choir. And various artists that would lull [00:02:00] me into sleep. So I think it just crept into my DNA and I think the first serious album I bought with my own money was Abba's Voyage. No Abba Arrival, which I absolutely love. I still love it to this day.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: But then for some reason, I think as you grow up you discover that certain things are cool and certain other things aren't cool. 

Scott Allen: Yes. 

Paul Crick: And there was a certain amount of peer pressure, but one of my, one of my best friends at the time, his sister was into Genesis. Okay. And so he, and so was he.

He played me all the Genesis albums and I, that was it. I was gone and I was hooked. And then my first live gig was to see Judas Priests supported by Iron Maiden, before Iron Maiden were ever known. Wow. And again. Live. That's how old I am, Scott. Live music is very much in my blood. And then my musical taste disappeared down the progressive rock, heavy rock and it's broadened ever since.

That's me. 

Scott Allen: So progressive rock. So we're gonna go, yes. Rush Jethro Thompson, St. Floyd. 

Paul Crick: The usuals? [00:03:00] Yes. I'm blessed to see Pink Floyd in 1981 do the wall at Earl's court. Oh, 

Scott Allen: wow. 

Paul Crick: I think I was about 17 and that's I think that still is a top five concert. So 

Scott Allen: Paul, I am jealous. I am, I probably have that bootleg somewhere.

Paul Crick: Yes. It got released it got, it actually got mastered into a CD over in this country. So it is actually available beyond a bootleg. And then I guess the other highlight was seeing Genesis do their final concert in Rome. Wow. On the 2007 tour, I know they came and did. Did the the other tour, which I also got to see but the Rome one was spectacular.

Half, half a million people in the circus Maximus watching Genesis do their thing. So yeah, 

Scott Allen: suppers ready 

Paul Crick: indeed. Unfortunately they didn't do that there, but I have seen them do it in time and yeah. All good. 

Scott Allen: Fun story. One of my favorite metal songs ever is Defenders of the Faith by Judas Priest.

Oh, 

Paul Crick: marvelous. 

Scott Allen: Heavy duty into Defenders of the Faith. So I had a Judas Priest phase and I have [00:04:00]tickets to see Rush in three locations this fall. 

Paul Crick: Three. You're gonna go see 'em in three. 

Scott Allen: Yes. I'm gonna see. So I've seen them several times but and. It was hilarious. Jethro Toll released an album, it might've been 72, thick as a Brick.

And the album it came and you would open it up and there's a newspaper in there, and Ian Anderson and crew wrote this just hilarious. Just mockup of a city and a town and it was a newspaper. And so I actually sold that years ago. And so this fall I went on eBay and I rebought that album because I got a record player and I just got Pink Floyd a version of the album, the original pressing that had the posters and the postcards in it so we could geek out on music.

We 

Paul Crick: could, I think. I think there's other things we have. 

Scott Allen: Yes, 

Paul Crick: absolutely. 

Scott Allen: Ought to attend to. We could talk about Roger Waters and David Gilmore and leadership or, I just was at Abbey Road with my, my, my [00:05:00] daughters, and we could talk about Paul and John and George and Ringo and kind of the leadership challenges they had.

Today we're talking about Grace. Yes. And I have never talked about this topic on this podcast, and I'm really excited, Paul, to just understand a little bit better how you think about the concept. So take me into your world when it comes to this topic of grace. 

Paul Crick: So I think Grace has been a, an evolution of an idea that has took.

Took the seed was planted in 2007. So I was doing a, I was working as a management consulting. I was in, in that sort of highly intense environment of, 75 plus hours plus travel, working with clients that didn't always want you to be there. Doing a variety of different projects, trying to help them build, trying to help them grow, trying to help them rectify some of the challenges that they were having, whether that primarily at a processing level, process level, and also [00:06:00] in a marketing sort of customer service environment.

And I got back to the Hilton Hotel on Edgewood Road in London. And it was a rainy night and I picked up the evening standard on the way up through the lobby up to the room. I was tired, but I, it was more than tired. There was something not quite right. So as I walked in through the paper on the bed and then sat down and looked at the wall and it's got this sort of classic flock wallpaper, which isn't necessarily my immediate taste, but it grabbed my attention and I looked at it and I was ambushed by this question, which was simply, is this it?

And. The answer was because if it is, it sucks. And I can't tell you why. And that really was the seed of it all. That that, that started it. And to add to that, as I sort of flick through the evening standard, waiting for the sort of standard club sandwich and beer to arrive as rim service.

Before I got to the TV listings, there was a piece of distress advertising at bottom left hand corner. And it was an advert for a [00:07:00] workshop and it said, get the life you deserve. Free seminar two hours, London, this location on two, two nights, hence. And I just went, that's for me. I'm going.

Wow. And I did. I went and it started this whole journey of transformation that's taken me, the seminar was basically in introducing the idea of new linguistic programming. Okay. Which has, it's people who are pro ats, people who are quite happily to sh happy to shoot it down, that took me into that world. I had a lot of breakthroughs in terms of certain moments of realization and epiphanies about things I'd learned and I'd assumed and I'd not really questioned. That took me into this space of. Really starting to unlearn some of the things that I'd taken on board through conditioning that, that I guess we all do as we as we move through our journey in life and we make decisions about what do I still want to hold onto or how do I want to think [00:08:00] about things differently?

And and I. Had been to several events, which took me in by now. I was certified in various aspects of neurolinguistic programming. I got to be a trainer. I then decided to actually set up a business that was all about helping peoples using these tools. But then I got to a point where these tools, when I met certain clients with certain challenges, they didn't deliver.

Results. What really annoyed me was some of the community, not all of the community in NLP would say that's your client. And I would think that doesn't sound right. 

Scott Allen: Yeah, 

Paul Crick: clearly there's a gap in my knowledge and my skills. I wonder what that is. And then I went down. The root of energy psychology that took me into studying psychotherapy and seven different modalities of that.

Which gives you a skillset and a toolkit that allows you to see and understand yourself because there's [00:09:00] always research and research. 

Scott Allen: Yes. 

Paul Crick: And to apply that and then to clear some of the fog or some of the dust in the attic to then say, oh I see things a bit more clearly. And I guess the, one of the final pieces of the main part of the jigsaw came when I took up martial arts, and particularly the martial art of Aikido because that is a martial art that is unlike others in that it's not competitive.

And it's not a striking art. It's not about defeating your opponent. It's literally translates as best you can from Japanese. Into English, into harmony, spirit way. 

And the idea from a Marshall perspective is don't win the fight. Stop the fight. 

From a philosophical point of view, it's how do you take the energy that's coming towards you and redirect it in a way that restores harmony so your opponent isn't harmed and the world around you and you aren't harmed?

No. And everything goes back to the [00:10:00] condition before. Yeah. Which becomes. Which becomes really interesting when you take those principles off the mat and into team situations, into company situations, and you show people certain things because people aren't necessarily aware of somatically, how they respond to pressure.

When pressure can be simply. Something as simple as someone disagreeing with an idea in your meeting. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Paul Crick: Or someone someone assigning you an action. And that culturally you are not allowed to speak out and say, yeah, we have a proposal. We need to work this weekend. Everyone's assumed, everyone's available for working, aren't you?

To say no is like a political fa or a career fapa. When really you've got family commitments and actually you want to not lay down the law, but you want to set a boundary that says, hang on, there's a boundary between my personal life, my working life, and actually I've made personal [00:11:00] commitments.

So that creates that, that sematic reaction in the body. And as you dip into the world of. Of, of what that looks like and how Aikido translates off the map, then that's where Grace really came from. And of course by now I was certified as a coach and like all good coaches we need our own personal framework, we can stamp with authority.

But I was looking for one, I wa well, no, I wasn't looking for one. One sort of came to me, I started working on, so if I take all these tools, what would that produce? As a framework? And I knew there was a somatic component because if you look at neurophysiology, if you look at the science of somatics, then the body and the mind are interrelated in, in, in ways that science confirms.

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Paul Crick: A heart communicates more with our brain than our brain communicates with our. Heart, there's all kinds of science. Look at the science of mindfulness. So you end up with this conci thinking that says if I pull these strands together and [00:12:00] connect these dots, what I'm able to do is create a lens that's slightly different from other lenses.

But in reality, it's just a different door to colored door to the same room. 

And this is my door. And if you want to come through it, these are the sorts of things I can help with. And I have a framework. And the framework is called Grace. And all good frameworks, it's a mnemonic. Yeah.

So G is for grounding. That's the start. It's not necessarily a start point, but it's a, if you're gonna introduce it. That makes sense. R is for resolve. So given all the ups and downs with goal setting theory, and some parts of it work and some parts of it don't work and depends on the context.

Then Resolve is an approach that sort of takes into account things like intention, holding onto goals lightly. Not losing sight of them, but not gripping them so tightly that when it, when you've either achieved the goal and that's happened, you get this sense of emptiness.

It's that wasn't what I imagined it was gonna [00:13:00] be. Or you hold onto it so tightly that you fail. 

The A is for acceptance. This is about how you meet the world. And this is, there's a lot of where the Aikido comes in. It comes in across all of it, but acceptance is facing up to the reality of on the map, you'd face up to the reality that I've got my chief instructor with a knife and a sword coming at me fully committed.

And I need to figure out how I'm gonna redirect that energy in a way that. Doesn't, I don't get hurt. He doesn't get hurt. And the thing ends. So it's acceptance of self. 

Scott Allen: Yeah, 

Paul Crick: it's acceptance of other, so we're always kind to people who are like us. We're always compassionate towards people who are like us.

But what about people who are different to us? What about people who hold different ideologies, have different ideas? Can you hold your arms open wide enough to be curious enough? To want to listen, to, want to learn, to want to do that. [00:14:00] So acceptance of other becomes an important component of that. And particularly when we're working together in an organizational setting, in a team context.

And then there's acceptance of the system. So a lot of we are part of systems. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Paul Crick: Systems within systems. And some of those things are givens. And a lot of the problems we have with life is because we wish it was different, and we fight against it. Instead of looking at how can we do that now, it's important to say that there's a privilege element to that because if you're stuck in a raw, a war zone, then.

Grace doesn't really hold up. Usually you are talking about physical survival. And those Tess that, so I think it's important to acknowledge that this is all very well-meaning and sounds great. But if someone's, if you're in an acute situation where there is a threat to life, then all bets are off to a greater degree having sorted.

Grounding, resolve and acceptance out, you end up with [00:15:00] create and in consulting, what we used to do a lot of was we used to copy and paste, which is a form of creation. 

We are often reminded that the thinking that got us here is not the thinking that's gonna get us out of here to where we need to get to, to solve the challenges.

The gnarly and naughty challenges that we can't solve individually, we can only really solve together. So that means we need to think differently. But to do that takes courage. 

If you're not grounded, if you're not grounded in your body, if you haven't got that alignment between mind, body, and your physiology in you.

Your spirit for want of a better word. Then it becomes difficult to create and stand up for something and say, this is what I believe in. This is what I stand for. Who else is with me? Who else is wants to explore this? Who else wants to disagree with me? So that I can shape this into a stronger, more coherent, more well-rounded proposition that stands up.

And then the last piece E is [00:16:00] embody it, which is how do you. How do you do something consistently? How do you fall in love with a process that says, I'm gonna do something consistently every day to develop the muscle that I need to develop? That helps me bring grace into being, 

It's a long answer to your question.

Scott Allen: No. I love it. I love it. And I loved that phrasing, fall in love with the process. How do you embody it? It's a part of you, it's who you are, right? 

Paul Crick: And it's, it sounds simple. But it's not, getting up consistently. So I find it amusing that in the, in, in the sports world, and we love the sports world we loved learning the lessons of the sports world.

And we bring people in who are, epic elite athletes, and how do you do what you do and how do you develop this winning mindset and how do you do that? And yet it's almost as the saying goes, people want the view from the top of the mountain, but they don't necessarily want to climb it.

Scott Allen: Yes. 

Paul Crick: And yet the sports person has done that. So in, in sports, it'll be a [00:17:00] case of train every day. So it'll be train, and then compete. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Paul Crick: In business it's the opposite. It's compete compete. Should we have an away day? Do you think we should do some training?

And then 

Scott Allen: let's see if we can fix all of our alignment, groundedness in, 

Paul Crick: in the, in, in three days. In three 

Scott Allen: hours. And, 

Paul Crick: And I was blessed. I got to do I got to train consultants around the world in, in those things. And we would do things like, we would look at, take a topic like emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is, it's what every leader needs. And you do the classic here's a presentation on emotional intelligence. Here's the flip charts. Here's the slides. Okay. Now you're gonna break out and do a do an exercise, which is a role play and you're gonna video it.

So everyone goes, Ooh, video, you know that's gonna make it. And then you're gonna do the feedback and that's great. And then you come back into the room af for the plenary session, which is, so any questions? What was easy? And everyone's looking at the watch going, is it lunchtime yet? And then one or two questions, and then we go, right Next topic.

Because the assumption is now that we've [00:18:00] taught emotional intelligence. Then people are emotionally intelligent and that's true to varying degrees. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: And yet when we all sit back and think about it, it's a lifetime practice. The you will never master, you'll just get better at 

Scott Allen: No, you'll never, as a parent of three teenagers, I'm, I have a kind of.

Simulation. It's a 24 hour, seven day a week, 365 day a year simulation that is designed to test my emotional intelligence and develop. 

Paul Crick: And I think that's true of every parent. I, people say, oh, I'm not really a good coach. And then you just say, how many of you got kids in the room?

And you go, no, you're fine. You're doing coaching. Great. 

Scott Allen: Of, of the elements here in grace, are there spaces where you feel people struggle [00:19:00] the most? What stands out for you as something that, this tends to be something that has to be a daily practice. This tends to be something that, that.

Doesn't come naturally. I was just, I just had a conversation this morning with a gentleman in Thailand. His name is Peter. The episode released last week for listeners. So have a listen to that. But it, when everything is seducing you, and I don't mean that in a sexual way, but our rate of.

Activity and organizational life. Our rate of what's coming at us 24 7, 365, 7 days a week. It's just you're on quote unquote, and we're being seduced into that kind of system one way of being from conman standpoint, just autopilot. What do you see is the most challenging aspect of this for the leaders that you're working with?

Is it even that they value this? It. Can that [00:20:00] be part of the challenge sometimes that they just don't even see how this will help them get the next widget out the door, so to speak? What's your experience? 

Paul Crick: I think that's a good question and I think I think the good consulting answer would be, it depends.

The honest truth of it is when you are making change like this, that is. Transformative. What you're really doing is you are looking at a change of identity. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. Yeah. 

Paul Crick: You are. You are. Look and the story that goes with that, the narrative that we tell ourselves, that, and I give you an example.

It's a silly example in some ways. And in others it illustrates the point as well. But many years ago, I used to smoke 40 cigarettes a day. 

Now I look at it and go, what on earth was I thinking? But it was partly peer acceptance. It was partly something, a way of alleviating whatever anxieties I thought I had.

And it used to be in the office where I worked so that my boss would swing by with a couple of other people and say, I'm going for a cigarette. Do you wanna come [00:21:00] with me? 

So it was an opportunity to go and have a cigarette to be in the halo of my boss at a time in my career when I was. Pretty immature and wanted to step up and wanted the markers of success, of a job title, more money, that kind of thing.

Yep. And consequently to be in his orbit was a thing of some description. 

Scott Allen: Sure. But 

Paul Crick: there was a day when I'd given up smoking for the first time and he swung by the desk and he said, do you wanna come for a cigarette? And I said, no. He paused and it was as if I'd developed two heads. He was very gracious about it.

Yeah. But you could see the light go on. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: And that's a moment when the narrative has changed to, to say, I am changing a behavior that means I am not the person, quite the person I was yesterday. 

And the story that goes with that [00:22:00] is. Is different. 

So take a very simple example.

Sometimes I when I was coaching internally at IBM, we would finish, I would deliberately finish coaching sessions 15 minutes early to give people 15 minutes to either digest what was discussed in the session. And occasionally someone would say, so what do we do now? And I said why don't you go for a walk?

Why don't you just go out, step outside. Get some fresh air, walk around the block and then come back in, and then whatever's next go to what, whatever's next. But they couldn't do that because the narrative unconsciously was I need to move from diary appointments to diary appointments, back to back, be busy, be visible, all that kind of thing.

So it's just simply ha, it's partly having the awareness that you're doing it, and then even if you have the awareness, it's the courage to make. What is practically a small step, but actually [00:23:00] from a narrative and identity shift is huge. 

Scott Allen: Yeah, 

Paul Crick: so I, I gave up alcohol five years ago primarily because I knew if I did, I'd.

I performed better on the mat doing the Aikido, and it became, it started to become a serious thing. It was becoming, and still is a daily practice. It was helping my mental health, it was helping my clarity, it was helping all sorts of things physically, and therefore giving up alcohol meant I need to behave differently around it.

When people would say, do you wanna come to the pub? And all of a sudden it'd be like, Ooh. That's a different narrative. How do I handle that? And for some people that can be quite difficult. 

It's smoking, 

Scott Allen: it's similar to the smoking. 

Paul Crick: So I use those as example because people understand it and get it.

But I think there's awareness of what am I doing and what do I need to unlearn and why? There's a self-awareness thing. But then perhaps more [00:24:00] importantly, it's this narrative identity shift that says. Emotionally on the inside. If you think of interception, the feelings I have inside my body are uncomfortable.

And I wanna project them somewhere else. And that whereas what I really need is the support in that moment to say, you're okay. You're good. You haven't got two heads. It's great. You're making this decision. Come with us anyway. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. Yeah. 

Paul Crick: And that simple scenario doesn't really exist enough. I sense and I'm sure there's thousands of pockets of practice where it does and if it does, fantastic.

Scott Allen: You used some words here that really courage, awareness, identity. I think of your story of sitting in the Hilton and there's an awareness internally in that moment. Of this isn't what. This isn't it? This isn't what I'm here to do. This isn't, [00:25:00] or it may be it was, but I'm not feeling it any longer.

And so you have the courage to go to this course and just, it lets to explore that. And see what else is out there and begin to think about, but that's a, that identity shift, that's a process. I've been in therapy for 17 years with my doctor, Dr. Phil. He's incredible.

He's not the doctor Phil, but he's my doctor Phil, and he is awesome. And we reflect sometimes about some of the conversations we had before my son was born who is now 17 and it. It's fascinating. It really is an interesting experience to look within and look within, honestly, over these different stages.

But I had a moment a year and a half ago, no, it wasn't a year and a half ago, it was probably three years ago, where I just felt differently about, I was a professor management professor job for life. But is this. What I want is this how I wanna spend my time anymore. And but that [00:26:00] identity shift, it, it took two years of talking with Phil, talking with mentors, talking with my wife to even start to get comfortable about the notion of do I make a change? But it's that consistent daily commitment and that practice that I think is a part of that. And it takes some takes courage to quit drinking when.

Everything around us in our culture is telling you otherwise.

Paul Crick: Yeah. And I think, depending on how you use alcohol, whether it's to numb up. Or whether it's just to be social, then have fun. And I'm not, it's not a judgment, it's just a choice. Grace is not a behavior we manufacture in the moment.

It's something that emerges as a natural consequence of the choices, discipline, and awareness that we learn to cultivate over time. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. Yeah. What else should listeners know about Grace? What else comes to mind? 

Paul Crick: It's cultivated through deliberate practice and therefore one of the things that I [00:27:00]try to encourage is to find the practice that.

Works for you. So it's not about being prescriptive and saying, you should do this, you should do that. And it's about what appeals. So if we take grounding for example, there's many different ways you can ground. For some people it's yoga. For some people it's going for a run. For some people it's spending time with the kids.

For some people it's been out in the garden, gardening, hiking, whatever it is that takes you back into that state of coherence. 

Scott Allen: Love it.

Paul Crick: When your actions and your presence and your values align. Then it's that practice and it's that willingness to use it. And, it's a diff different horses for different courses.

So it's not being, it's not saying this is the new management thing that we need to do and everybody needs to do it and everything will be better. It's saying, here is a way, because when we look at, we know grace when we see it. 

Usain Bolt, Simone Biles any elite use Wang on the piano. We know [00:28:00] it when we see it, but what belies that grace and that fluidity and that alignment and that coherence is all the things you don't see. 

Which is the grit and the grind and the tears and the blood, the sweat, and the sn of doing the daily practice of the failure that lead you to the point where grace can emerge.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: And to do that. So it the framework is really something that gives you an input to work on as a consistent practice to then create conditions where Grace May emerge. 

As you and I would perhaps recognize it, 

Scott Allen: but it sounds like a keto for you was one of those. Grounding activities that, that began to become more of your identity and more of it was just a grounding, it was a grounding experience.

Correct? 

Paul Crick: Absolutely. And I think one of, one of the things it gives us, it's a hands-on practice. 

And [00:29:00] what we live in a, we live in a time when we are. Intentionally or otherwise, more and more disconnected. 

Through our devices, through our agendas, through the way our culture views what you and I would've, going out and socializing to meet people that, to find a partner, you know, that has a different hue to it today than it did when you and I were first doing that.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: And therefore disconnection. So having a hands-on practice. Hands on leads us to co-regulate and co-regulation is the thing that we learn first. If you go and look at Dr. Ed Tronick's still face experiment with the mother and the baby. The mother interacts with the baby and the baby is responding.

It's, and it's two nervous systems becoming one. 

Scott Allen: And, 

Paul Crick: and they are interacting and it's pleasurable and there's a clear state of joy where there's an [00:30:00] alignment. The nervous systems are clearly, and then the mother takes, looks away, takes her attention away, and then just looks at the baby with a blank face and within a.

Split second, the baby detects that. And the thing, there's two things to it. It's one seeing that as a fascinating process and seeing it, but it's also recognizing that it doesn't just happen when we are babies. It happens now. 

Scott Allen: Oh yeah.

Paul Crick: And our nervous system responds to that. 

Scott Allen: It's happening in the workplace all over the world right now.

Paul Crick: All over the world. And that's why for me, the opportunity to bring grace as an idea and as a practice. For those that are open to, it feels important enough to actually make a stand where I'm willing to change the i my identity and narrative and say, no, this is me. This is what I stand for, and this is what I believe and this is what I, I want to bring into the world.

Whereas, when I left consulting, leaving that a bit like you and your experience of. The transition from academia is, it's [00:31:00] like I would introduce myself as yeah. I'm I'm a former management consultant, and it's kinda yeah, now I've turned that into, I'm a recovering management consultant because it's on 

Scott Allen: the airplane and someone's what do you do?

I don't know. Yeah. 

Paul Crick: I'm making it up as I go along, just like you are, 

Scott Allen: but 

Paul Crick: No. I'm not making, yeah. I'm happy. 

Scott Allen: And more and more if I am not engaged in some of those grounding activities. I think for some people it's their faith or their spirituality. I think for a larger percentage of, at least the western world in the United States, Christianity has decreased in numbers in recent years.

And I think regardless of how you feel about different faiths. Going somewhere on a Sunday, hearing a good message, reflecting, being in community. There's something important there. There's something very important there. And I think that 

Paul Crick: was, if that crowns you, 

Scott Allen: yeah, 

Paul Crick: that's great. 

Scott Allen: That's 

Paul Crick: great.

And who am I to [00:32:00] deny or even to be arrogant enough not to open up and listen to that. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Paul Crick: I think. For me, I've taken a secular approach. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Paul Crick: Because it's simply because I want to reduce friction. 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: I want it to be something that is used to navigate tension, power, and uncertainty and to be concerned with a lived experience rather than a doctrine.

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Paul Crick: And 

Scott Allen: I love how you say, look whatever. It could be a hike, it could be yoga, it might be meditation. What is it that grounds you? Because if you're with a leader who is embodying what you've spoken about, they in my imagination, are gonna be more likely to be intentional, mindful, they're gonna be more likely to be working from a place of that.

That groundedness versus a [00:33:00] ping pong ball or a pinball. Just moving all, just all over. And to your point about the nervous systems communicating, again, just visualize right now the individuals in positions of authority around the world who are not displaying grace embodying that concept. The impact that has on their teams 

Paul Crick: and wider communities.

Scott Allen: Exactly. Exactly. And it's tragic and there's a lot of individuals right now who are stuck in that space with that authority figure. And I think we share in a lot, how do we better prepare people to serve in these roles and serve in these roles in a healthy way so that, again, when you look at some of the data on engagement numbers around the world and retention numbers around the world, it's, there's a lot of opportunity for us. There really is. So as we begin to wind [00:34:00] down our time, Paul, what for you is the practical wisdom in this conversation? If you were to distill it down for listeners, what are one or two things that you just want people to leave with?

Paul Crick: I think the first would be to think about where you are in this moment. Are you grounded or not? It's not a judgment, it's not a value judgment. If you're not grounded, it's okay to fall off the horse. We all fall off the horse. The question is how quickly do you get back on it? Or can you get back on it?

And there are practices, a whole range of practices that you can do to support learning how to get back on the horse more quickly. The second I would say is then to have the courage to develop however, smaller practice, [00:35:00] even if it's only for 60 seconds. To say I'm gonna do this. One thing that I know is gonna be slightly different and make me different going forwards today than as a person moving through life, moving through uncertainty in a way that is permanently different to the way I used to do it yesterday.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: And. The third thing would be if you find that difficult, then find your support, whatever that is, and whoever that is 

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: To help you through that. 

Scott Allen: Yep. And like I said, that's been one of my greatest gifts is having mentors, Phil, my wife, others who help me in that space. All of us need that support system, whether it's a coach, but an individual to help us [00:36:00] live into that.

Embody that. 

Paul Crick: And you don't need a, you don't need a ton of people. You just need to find, my wife for me. Absolutely. To borrow a quote she loved me back to life. My, my dojo. Gave me discipline and gave me, I, I belong at home, obviously, but it gave me somewhere to belong.

Scott Allen: Yeah. 

Paul Crick: Yeah. And when we have those two things, and I know from past episodes of the podcast, the idea of mattering, the idea of belonging and being seen and heard are so powerful. Really powerful. And my encouragement would be, go find that. 

Scott Allen: Yep. 

Paul Crick: Whatever that is for you. Yep. 

Scott Allen: Paul, so good to meet you, sir.

And you know what? I really appreciate the conversation. A small part of me wishes we could have just geeked out about music the whole time. Maybe another time we'll do that, 

Paul Crick: that would be fun. 

Scott Allen: But there also is, some of [00:37:00] what you just discussed shines through in people's music as well.

Like you, I loved how you were speaking about some of the individuals you named a little bit ago because that. When we're in that space it transmits right? It doesn't, it transmits as a parent, it transmits as a leader. It transmits as an artist and it transmits and it's felt in others.

And I, I appreciate the conversation, sir. I appreciate the work that you do. Have a great evening and thank you. We'll do it again. 

Paul Crick: Thank you so much, Scott. 

Scott Allen: Be well.