‘I can’t give you anything that you don’t already have.’
This statement is important, and this podcast explores this and the uncomfortable edges that surround it.
I was a guest on Matthew Eatwell’s Empowered Living Podcast. I managed to get hold of the raw Zoom footage, hence the video.
If the work of Soul Biographies is interesting to you, this delves deeply into its very nature.
“I don’t know.
But I know that I don’t know.
I love that I don’t know.
That I can never know for sure.
So I’ve stopped looking to understand you.
Or convince you.
And now, finally, I can see you.
I am a glorious ignoramus.”
I appear to have described myself as a Glorious Ignoramus, and Matthew named the episode – Nic Askew The Glorious Ignoramus. I can live with that, given its deeper meaning. Ignoramus as a Latin word translates as ‘We Don’t Know’. And we don’t, not for certain.
You can download the podcast on Matthew’s website HERE. Might be better suited for the longer listen whilst walking a dog, or yourself.
There is a great deal here, and it gets progressively deeper.
This is Matthew’s Description of what is to come: Pressed for a Bio, Nic often forwards his poem The Glorious Ignoramus. ‘I don’t know. But I know that I don’t know. I love that I don’t know. That I can never know for sure. So I’ve stopped looking to understand you. Or convince you. And now, finally, I can see you. I am a glorious ignoramus.’
In this podcast we explore the state of ‘not knowing’ and how this allows us the freedom to just BE who we really are and to truly SEE SOMEONE without any expectations, needs, or requirements for them or things to be other than they are. Nic guides us briefly through his Inner View Method that he uses to facilitate this process with a camera.
We also look at the dilemma coaches face when it comes to ‘marketing’ ourselves (“I can’t give you anything that you don’t already have?!”) and if in fact, marketing is less about the words, tools, techniques, things we do and more about the STATE behind the words.
If we can learn to speak from a state of ‘authentic presence’, without the need to justify ourselves to the world, without wanting something from the world, then life can start to work and flow through us in service of the greater good.
We also chat about, amongst other things, TED talks, Simon Sinek, Sting’s guitarist and Nic’s latest exploration – The Point of Us – a collaborative project of films, words and experiences of people laid utterly bare (metaphorically speaking).
Nic also shares some of his other poems, and plays us out with some live music too.