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The Mind Canvas – a conversation with author Juan Campoo
28 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of the Independent Minds host Michael Millward is captivated as Juan Campoo explains inner acceleration model and his book The Mind Canvas.
The most important possession of any human being, says Juan is their mind, yet very few understand how it works and how to manage its different moods.
Juan explains to Michael how by learning how to ask the right questions anyone can manage their mind and improve their performance at work and at home, as well as enhancing their mental health.
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Find out more about both Michael Millward and John Couper at Abeceder.co.uk
Travel
Juan is originally from Argentina, but now lives in the Netherlands.
If you would like to visit either Argentina, or the Netherlands the best place to make your travel arrangements is The Ultimate Travel Club, which is where you can access trade prices for flights, hotels and holidays. Use my offer code ABEC79 to receive a discount on your membership fee.
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Transcript
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster.
Introduction to 'The Independent Minds' Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abisida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Overview of Zencastr
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, the managing director of Abisida. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the independent minds is made on Zencaster. Zencaster is the all in one podcasting platform on which you can produce your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, YouTube.
00:00:50
Speaker
It really does make making content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zancaster, visit zancaster.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code ABACEDA. All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencast is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading, and subscribing to. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Meet Juan Campo and Inner Acceleration
00:01:29
Speaker
Today, my guest independent mind is Juan Campo, the creator of Inner Acceleration, which is a way of improving sustainable outcomes by accelerating the development of the emotional intelligence of an individual or a team. Juan is based in the Netherlands. When I visit the Netherlands, I make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because that is where I can access trade prices on hotels, flights, and all sorts of other travel-related purchases. There is a link and a membership discount code in the description. Now, let's make that podcast. Hello, Juan. Hello, Michael. Good to be here.
00:02:11
Speaker
Real pleasure that you are here. Thank you very much. Please could you just ah give me a potted history of who you are, where you came from, and how you ended up as the creator of Inner Acceleration. So, yeah. Thank you. I come from Argentina now originally. I've been living also in Chile, different parts of South America before I came into the Netherlands 10 years ago. When I came to the Netherlands, I made a shift in my career from marketing, business development, sales, ah to working with people, through people, for people. It's been more than 12 years more or less that I took my first certification in coaching and I never stopped. Every year, at least one, two certifications to understand um the the inner world of people, the mindset, the psychology,
00:02:57
Speaker
the emotions, but also the dynamics between people in teams and organizations and cultures. And yeah, long story short, here I am having been a consultant, a trainer and a coach, culminating in this evolution of my of my approach, of my experience into the concept of inner acceleration. So it sounds as if you found your purpose and then have developed your expertise in that purpose to get to the point where you can create something like inner acceleration.
00:03:30
Speaker
That's exactly right. and And not just the certifications,
The 'Why' Behind Actions
00:03:33
Speaker
right? It's also, once you are on the inside, right? Working as a as a consultant, you see what works and what doesn't. What I've seen is that there is ah such an emphasis on teaching people, ah teaching them what to do and how to do it. It's perfectly fine. And there's a whole industry, right? Billions and billions. The thing is that what happens after those trainings, where people are being empowered to act in different ways, is that behavior doesn't stick. A big part of that is because the focus is on what to do and how to do it, but not on who is doing it and where from that behavior is coming from, right? There's inner dynamics where behavior is born that most people are not aware of. They're not the not, what is it? What's influencing my emotions and my behaviors?
00:04:20
Speaker
So that's why is that when you focus on that part, the outer change, and therefore the outcomes that come from that different behavior is a much more natural consequence. People knew what to do. And they knew how to do it. But they didn't understand why they had to do what they were being asked to do, or why it was important. I suppose the foundation part of any type of activities is that why are we going to do this? What is the benefit? yeah Why am I the person who's going to do this? Why will other people want me to do it? Where does the desire to create the behavior come from? If you talk to trainers, it's like, well, what is the training outcome? What is the learning outcome?
00:05:07
Speaker
Whereas from what you're saying is it's like in our acceleration is well What's the reason for achieving or wanting to achieve that learning outcome? Why do we want to do it? What's why is this important? And it's paradoxical, you're completely right. It's paradoxical because without understanding the why, and that's a very subjective thing, the chances that you get the outer outcomes, those trainings or trainers are talking about, are quite reduced, you know? It is by someone getting the why that they allow themselves to try to get into engagement action.
00:05:45
Speaker
trial and error, and creativity. The funny thing is that when they focus on the why, preparing leaders or people to to be better communicators or influencers, they think that the why, and they focus on the why, that is the bigger picture, right? The why for the company, the why for the team, why is this important? what How is this linked with strategic priorities, for example, right? yeah The part that most miss And I had put most time in my trainings that creates that transformation for people where they allow themselves to try things and they even start wanting to do things and to dare to do things is the internal why, right? That what's in it for me or how is this safe for me? How is this going to benefit me? How is this in line with my goals and strategic, let's say, or personal leadership?
00:06:32
Speaker
the things that are important for me, that the the place that I'm going in my career, in my life, the kind of person that I want to be. yes right So for example, and and one specific thing is, why would I do this if it goes against this principle of mine? yeah That's a part of the why. right It's not just why should I do it, but why would I do this? It doesn't make sense. It scares me. I cannot do it. It goes against who I am at my core. There's so many layers of that why they're being missed. And again, that question, why takes us to that inner world that needs to be developed, accelerated and gone deeper too.
Modern Management vs. Traditional Styles
00:07:06
Speaker
I'm remembering about how as HR professionals, we're always looking at ways to improve or increase the engagement of employees with their employer, with their brand, with their purpose of the organization in which they work in.
00:07:22
Speaker
And one of the challenges that I think lots of organizations face is that although we talk about engagement, we then try and engage with our employees with a management style that often has its roots in the 18th or 19th century, the command and control, where lots of people go to work to be told what to do. You do what you're told because that is the way to be successful. and listening to you talk there I'm thinking yeah but how often is the question why asked at work toddlers two-year-olds three-year-olds four-year-olds are constantly asking why why are we doing this why are we doing this why are we doing this and eventually parent gets the point because I told you so and that seems to be
00:08:18
Speaker
what happens at work an awful lot is that the reason why we do this is because so I told you so but what you're talking about within our acceleration how much of a change in management styles is required in order to facilitate inner acceleration to make it possible you can have people learning how to do it but creating the environment to do it requires managers to also rethink how they interact with their employees, how they engage with their employees.
00:08:56
Speaker
Well, definitely at the end of the day, you know, culture is being created every day or maintained every day yeah through the behaviors and the lack thereof, right? Of everyone who are the, at the first line of creation or influence of a culture leaders, yeah starting with ah the top leadership and downwards, every person in a position of leadership, whether it's a supervisor of an operational team, it doesn't really matter. They have this granted authority that creates a dynamic where people are looking and people are looking at those examples, right? We are always an example, we're always showing an example now.
00:09:32
Speaker
How good is that example and what is it creating? So if you start always with this interventions, training, expanding, evolving leaders, it's better because you start with less people that will have a snowball effect. Just by osmosis, just by people seeing that example, you will start people that are ready and ripe for the change to follow and align with a new culture, with a new way of doing things in the company. So at the same time, you have a smaller population of leaders than you have regular professionals, right? Yes. So it's also smarter. But even if you had all the money in the world and you had to start somewhere, always start with the leaders for the first
Empowering Employees
00:10:14
Speaker
reason I explained, it of course. But most what is not being said that much is that still you have to work with with the professionals. And the reason why I'm saying this is if you look at all the trainings that are being given, these sales skills, soft skills,
00:10:27
Speaker
Whatever it is, it's basically giving them the tools to do what they're being told to do. What I'm proposing is that you empower psychologically your people so much by them understanding how their psychology and their their emotions and and and behavior work. that you give them the power over their own motivation engagement. If someone understands what is the psychological and health risks and career risks of not being engaged, they will start wanting to be engaged. If someone understands and really feels the risk of having a burnout and what leads to a burnout,
00:11:09
Speaker
What are their attitudes, types of decisions and behaviours that lead to that? They will be intrinsically motivated to try to not fall into a burnout, to change their behaviours and mindset, to live a more sustainable, healthy life, which then manifests in the team, of course, in their performance. So it's about giving people the information to be able to understand all sorts of various different aspects of working life and life in general. And then you empower people to make the the decisions for themselves as to, will impact how that issue will affect you. But in order for people to be able to make that decision, that informed decision, you need to provide them with the information to form the basis of that decision.
00:11:54
Speaker
They have to have the information. Yes. Now who has to give that information? I don't think necessarily you have to be the one as a leader to give them that or organization. You know that then you have the coaching method, right? Where you ask them well-prepared open questions for them to come up with those conclusions themselves, which is incredibly more powerful than if you tell them like, this is what's going on. You have to have this information. Do you understand that? Do you see why we need to go in this direction? And by doing that, you can ask questions like, hey, what do you understand about our current financial situation in the company? Yeah, we're not doing so well. Well, how bad do you think we're doing? Well, not that bad. Well, we need to correct that perception. You know, you share one or two more things, allowing the person to come up as possible with their own insights. That's why it's called insight, not outside.
00:12:41
Speaker
We don't shove it into their minds. It's better if they see it, because if they see it, any idea or insight they have is prefiltered. They see it, they believe it, they want it. That's why it's much more easy to create intrinsic motivation by coaching someone into seeing the things we need them to see. ah Instead of saying, you shouldn't be doing this and so talking so aggressively towards the secretary, you could ask them, why do you think is it unacceptable? Right. right What is the consequence of? If you were him, her, what would you feel? when how you When have you felt this? And then they see something and they basically then practice empathy, yes social skills in their minds, which creates complete engagement and commitment to the new behavior, to the new new culture you're trying to propose.
00:13:27
Speaker
When we talk about inner acceleration and the way in which people achieve this, well, it is not the same way as you would learn a new skill. Because in a new skill, somebody shows you what to do, what you're talking about. is something which is you provide the situation which enables people to understand the situation from their perspective, what is important to them, what they value as well as what other people are likely to value as well and hopefully exactly then they work out a way that means everything comes together in a constructive way you know rather than
00:14:08
Speaker
operating in isolation from everybody else. Just the mere process of inner acceleration I suspect is likely to improve teamwork and collaboration and cooperation just because people have gone through this type of process. Definitely. And you explained it very well, ah but understanding both the the inner side, but also others. And only with that understanding, then you can choose consciously different behaviors that influence the team, others, stakeholders. And it definitely changes everything. like
00:14:41
Speaker
I was in a leadership training, given a leadership training a few years ago. There was this engineering director of ah this a software company, SAS company. He was a conservative and um yeah very focused on his own thoughts, very sure of what he thinks the where the world is and the rules and the procedures and all that. and Very little self-reflection. The plan of that training was not to go deeper into inner acceleration. And in the pause, in the break, we had 15 minutes. I saw that he was really disengaged from the training. I said, what's going on? You're kind of fighting, fighting the training. And he told me this. No, look, I've been through these trainings. I know how it works. This is not like that. You know, my company is different. My industry is different. Everything is different. You don't know.
00:15:23
Speaker
yeah Okay. And I say, can I ask you five questions? I give myself the challenge to come up with the most transformational five questions, open questions I can ask. Within five to 10 minutes, he ended up writing a review on LinkedIn. It said, this has been by far the best leadership training I've ever been in. My whole world view has changed. And then he became for the rest of the training days, very humble, very self-reflective, very collaborative with the with the rest of the leaders in the group. But also it had an effect in his team because yeah, he became a more humble person who listens, who cares, who challenges his own perception. It's brilliant when that sort of thing happens on a training course. You've got somebody who doesn't want to be there. And then something happens where you can see the penny drop and they then become very committed to what is that you are or the training you're providing, which is brilliant. Congratulations. Part of me is sort of thinking that that individual has been through a program and has had an experience, a conversation with you, which has changed their perception.
00:16:27
Speaker
that individual who's in a leadership role then goes back into the workplace. One of the things I've often thought is that we can spend a lot of time, energy and money on training people who are in leadership roles. But we don't train or we don't invest as much in the training of the people that they are going to be leading. yeah And you can end up with a clash because you've got this person who's returned from some time away with a new idea, which creates conflict with the people who are in the team because they're not actually familiar with the approach that they the leader has learned. So you end up with a clash of cultures in some ways.
Communicating Inner Acceleration
00:17:12
Speaker
How would someone who has been through inner acceleration learnt about it come to seeing the value of it for them and others? What is it that they should do in order to then communicate the benefits of it to the people that they're leading? That's a great question. And indeed this is a problem in the industry and the normal solution would be, and that's what is being offered is, okay, buy more trainings, right? For your people or all those kinds of things. Now um what I developed is the following.
00:17:45
Speaker
It started when i with one-on-one coaching, and now it's moving into into the B2B as well, is this ah methodology. and Once you understand how your body works, your mind works, your emotions work, ah through the model, we which I haven't talked about, the Mind Canvas model that I introduced in my book, that is a key component of accelerating inner development. this if you If you are able to simplify your mind and emotional intelligence in one image, And that's what i what I give people in the trainings. Then it allows you not only to understand, be aware of and manage yourself, but also be aware, understand and manage others, right? Or influence others. Let's say your team, going back to your question. And the beautiful thing is, if you look at my coaching sessions, I are quite long, about an hour and a half, sometimes even longer, because it's not just coaching, it's also training. um but So my philosophy is to give the people I coach or train,
00:18:42
Speaker
the ability not just to change or transform themselves, but to understand how I did it with them. That's the power of the model. You can intuitively understand how I took you from being in a negative perspective or self-oriented or any of those limiting things towards a more empowering, constructive, connecting, collaborative mindset and behavior. Once you see that, it's easier to then do that with others as well. Because it's all about the quality of the questions you ask yourself and you ask others. And this model helps you see what quality of questions you're asking yourself and others. So for example, you you see that for yourself and instead of telling your employee after training, hey, you know, look, this model and it works like this and you should do that.
00:19:26
Speaker
you just Let's say your employee comes and is demotivated, right? Instead of trying to do a pep talk, you just say, look, are you aware of what you just said to me that that you don't know what to do, for example? Yes. Great. So what is the opposite of that? What would you like is instead to know what I have to do? Great. And what is more more motivating? Did I tell you that or that you come up with yourself with it? So within certain limits, of course. Oh, do I get to do it? Well, if why not? You know, I mean, let's untap your potential for creativity, for engagement. What would you like to do within the the the scope of what we're trying to do here as a team in this area? Oh, wow.
00:20:10
Speaker
To give that power, that delegation of creativity, problem solving, just by asking questions to see what the other comes up with, it starts empowering. And then let's say that you follow that conversation with a series of beautiful questions. The person comes up with a series of things that would motivate them to be engaged and to deliver value to the team. Then the question is, my friend, before we go from this conversation, do you remember how you came to me? Yes. Do you remember the words you were saying and how was that making you feel? Yeah, what do you learn from that? By the way, what changed your energy in this conversation? Yeah, when you asked me this question. ah And why is that question so important? Because, great, that opens up my mindset. Awesome. You see how you can do this for yourself in the future? Next time you feel like this, instead of saying this to yourself, ask those kind of questions to yourself.
00:21:01
Speaker
So you teach them to fish instead of giving them the fish. yes And every conversation becomes an empowering coaching conversation for them to learn about their own psychology, their own inner workings, once you understand it so simply and intuitively. I get it. I like it. I like it a lot. I have to admit, I like it a lot. You mentioned there your book, The Mind Canvas, which forms which is the first thing that you think you did to present your ideas and that The Mind Canvas forms in many ways the starting point for the journey into inner acceleration. I will put a link in the description to where people can get that book.
00:21:38
Speaker
That's the starting point. And then we move on to the various different other ways in which we can make inner acceleration work for ourselves as individuals, for the people that we lead, for the teams that we lead. And it's, it sounds as if the whole process is about collaboration. It's about asking the right questions in the right way at the right time, but you don't always have to constantly be thinking of new questions. What do you mean by that? It sounds as if there are foundation questions to get an inner acceleration conversation with yourself started. And if you if you've got those questions, then those will naturally start to develop the other questions that you need to ask yourself. This is not necessarily an approach where I'm asking question 34. No, no, no. You're you're totally you're totally right.
00:22:34
Speaker
Now this is something, yeah, it's very um organic in many ways because it focuses on, answering that question of why am I doing this? Why do I want to do this? And that's the important part, is getting to the why. We all have days when we can be very, very focused on, I know exactly why I'm doing this, why it is important. And we all have days when, you can say, oh, they're the down days. They're the days when you want to stay at home. They're the days when you're feeling demotivated. That's what, do I have to go into work type of thing?
00:23:11
Speaker
When you can understand the ways in which you can ask yourself questions to get yourself out of that negative mindset and back into the mindset, you know, it's difficult, but why am i why did I decide I wanted to do this? Why did I decide this was important to me? Yes, it's difficult to date. Yeah, I'm not having a good day, but this is why this is important to me. Finding the questions, you can ask yourself to get you back on to the point where you are rekindling your motivation, your focus and the types of activities that you want to be involved in.
00:23:55
Speaker
Well, definitely. And this question, why is one of the different, let's say, types of conversations you can have or depths or levels of conversations you can have, which is about motivators drivers. You might have all the drivers and you'd be very conscious of the reasons why you did this in the first place, why it would be fine to go back to work. But there's also, let's say that you see that and you have a bunch of new negative beliefs or self-limiting beliefs. So yeah, I want to go, yeah, it's a great job for me. Yeah, it's paying for my bills and making it empowering me to make an impact in society. Let's say, I understand that. It's just that a week ago, something happened that changed my belief system around my ability or my whatever, right? um The risk of going to work or working so many days a week, maybe a baby was born, maybe you're you're thinking of having a baby and suddenly things change.
00:24:49
Speaker
And you have the belief that if if you keep working like that, you will have either burn out. It's just a belief, a perception, right? That might be the problem of the motivation or the confidence ah problem. Or it might be just a thought. So it might be that instead of any belief or a value, you're having an image of going and having a meeting that you are going to have today with that person that you do not want to see because there's a huge problem and you are scared of interacting with that person or offended by or angry about. You can very simply through the power of your mind canvas shift
00:25:26
Speaker
the image shift the one thought that is causing that. ah So for example, if my problem is I don't want to go and be exposed to that manipulative person. Well, of course, if your focus is that person is manipulative and I will have to work with her and there is no change or other opportunity, I'm going to be demotivated. But if I think, how would I like that relationship to go from now on? Instead of manipulative, how would how would I like us to treat each other? And what are the things that I could do to influence that right away today in this meeting that we do have? What would that mean for my engagement and feelings every day? What would I mean for the team? What would I mean for whatever is important for you? You know, because fear and worry is just imagination used in a very disempowering way.
00:26:11
Speaker
I'm going to remember that. What you're saying is that the emotions that we have, if we reframe them, can be turned around. In a second. That's the power of the mind cameras. Exactly. That's what I develop in my book. And it doesn't need a day, a week, a a month. it It takes a second. The moment you shift the awareness, that that what you're thinking, how you're thinking about it, or what are the the stories you tell yourself about the things you're thinking about, everything shifts in a second. That's why it's so fast. And I'm not talking about negating a thought, I'm talking about transforming it.
00:26:47
Speaker
Allowing your mind, your higher self, your higher mind, your consciousness to see how you were unconsciously thinking about something in a negative biased way or self-oriented way. Seeing how that unconscious choice of thought was causing your emotional states. your behavior or lack thereof. And the impact that that behavior or lack thereof is having on others and your team and results. Once you see that the the higher self sees the consequences of that cascading effects of that thought process, automatically you're transformed because your brain's between it chooses always the best option between options, right? If if your brain sees that thing leads to this, Oh my God, I'm creating my own misery, my own demotivation and the continuation of this conflict with that person.
00:27:36
Speaker
I don't want that. It's incredibly clear. When you say that the brain ah automatically selects the best option, ah immediately I thought, actually, I think it selects it selects the easiest option. And that isn't always the most positive option. Interesting that you say that and I know why you would say that, then I will tell you this. It depends on the quality of the options that you have. If the options are equally important, valuable, yes, ease is one of the most important variables to to make a decision on. If you would have something that is, ah like you you tell me, Michael, how many times have you done something in your life that takes risk years of work and it was not easy, but you've done it.
00:28:17
Speaker
You could have not studied what you studied or started company, right? But you did it in many ways because you had two options and it was not the easiest one. But you thought of, I could create my company. I could do this. I could put all the hours that I put in this podcast. It's not easy, is you know it but but you did it and you continue to do it every day. So yeah, ease is one of the variables. But if you are conscious thinking of variables, you can ah your your brain will choose the one that will bring the most, of course, with the least amount of effort ah and and and and money, that's for sure. But you you ah have have to take that space between you and your thoughts yes to come up with a bunch of alternatives of behavior, decisions, attitudes, and the brain will always choose the best, the most sustainable, efficient, effective, ecological, but the brain will always choose win-win if he has the options for a win-win.
00:29:13
Speaker
ye Yeah, it has gone extremely fast, but the why for doing the independent minds is that I like to learn and I've certainly learnt day one. Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. It's been great. Thank you, Michael, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the managing director of Abisida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Juan Campo, the creator of the inner acceleration model and author of The Mind Canvas. You can find out more about both of us at abisida.co.uk. There is a link in the description.
00:29:51
Speaker
The description also includes links to various webshops where you can buy the Mind Canvas. If you are listening to the independent minds on your smartphone, you may like to know that 3 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and post telecom solutions from three and the special offers available when you quote my referral code. That description is well worth reading.
00:30:27
Speaker
I must also give a shout out to the team at matchmaker.fm who introduced me to WAN. If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests, or if like WAN, you have something very interesting to say, matchmaker dot.fm is the place where great hosts and even greater guests are matched. There is a link and a membership discount code in the description. If you have liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by a procedure is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you very much for listening and goodbye.