<![CDATA[GRACE Works]]>01978ba4-edd4-571f-90ef-4de421ee1aebTue, 01 Sep 2026 14:28:27 +0000Captivate.fmPaul Crickhttps://artwork.captivate.fm/15653b05-ada0-46bc-a91b-55c95adb0a6e/db1a7025-38ae-4e24-9bbf-72ab12d78c3c.jpgGRACE WorksPaul CrickPaul CrickYou can usually tell when pressure has started to change you. The conversation that would have taken ten minutes last year now takes three emails and a meeting. You are shorter with people you like. You catch yourself listening for the end of someone's sentence rather than the sense of it. GRACEWorks is a podcast about our capacity to relate. To each other, and to ourselves, and particularly under pressure, whether that pressure arrived by accident, came from outside, or is something we have quietly done to ourselves. If you have built something, you will know a particular version of this. You hired well. You meant to step back. And still the hard calls land on your desk, everything comes back to you, and the business keeps growing while leadership feels increasingly stretched. That is rarely a talent problem. What usually happens is that complexity grows faster than the ways people have learned to work together. The organisation has not yet learned to carry what growth is asking of it, so you carry it instead. Underneath that sits an older and simpler question, and it is the one this podcast is really about. How do people become more capable together? Not how to become a better leader, or a tougher individual, or a higher performer. How do we cultivate, between us, the capacities that let us think, decide, disagree and carry more than any of us could alone? Trust, judgement and shared responsibility are not installed. We grow them between people, usually under pressure. Each episode is an unhurried conversation with someone who has thought seriously about that. What trust actually rests on. How people learn. What happens to judgement when the stakes rise. How we find our way back to each other after we have got it wrong. Organisations turn up often, because they are one of the richest places to watch human beings under load. But they are the laboratory here, not the subject. The subject is always human. This is not motivation. It's not productivity hacks. And it's not another mindset podcast telling you to push through. Your plan and pitch deck say one thing. Real life seems to say something different. These conversations sit with that gap rather than trying to talk you out of it. If more decisions return to you than move away from you. If you are tired of managing pressure by brute force. If success has come at the cost of ease, meaning, or your health. If you want to build something that can carry more without losing what made it work in the first place. And if you would rather hear people think out loud than be told what to do, this is for you. Hosted by Paul Crick. Twenty years alongside organisations of every size, many more practising Aikido, and a long habit of watching closely and being slow to assume. GRACEWorks is part of The Elevate Partnership. Questions before answers, mostly. Find an hour and come and think alongside us.https://graceworkscollective.substack.com/falseepisodichttps://feeds.captivate.fm/graceworks/nopodcastSomething Good Will Come From This with Barry AdkinsSomething Good Will Come From This with Barry AdkinsBarry Adkins was an ordinary engineer who liked being at home, right up until the night two police officers and a man in plain clothes appeared at his door. This is the story of what a father does with the worst thing that can happen to him, and the walk that turned unbearable grief into a mission.

In this conversation

Barry lost his son Kevin to alcohol, then walked fourteen hundred miles across three states with Kevin’s ashes in his backpack, telling the story at every school and church that would have him. Two decades and two hundred thousand listeners later, he still says he is not the right man for the job. We talk about the ordinary life he almost took for granted, the 4am moment that gave him a mission, the trick of counting in small chunks when the road is too long, and the forgiveness that took years and had to start with himself. It is a conversation about making something good from the unthinkable, and about how the people most worth listening to are often the ones who never set out to be heard.

About Barry Adkins

Barry Adkins is a speaker and prevention advocate, and the author of Kevin’s Last Walk. After losing his son Kevin, he walked from Arizona to Montana to raise awareness of alcohol and drug harm, and has since spoken to hundreds of thousands of students and families. His latest project, the Million Mile Challenge, invites others to tell their own stories and walk their own miles.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• The Million Mile Challenge — millionmilechallenge.com

• Kevin’s Last Walk (book and website) — kevinslastwalk.com

]]>Barry Adkins was an ordinary engineer who liked being at home, right up until the night two police officers and a man in plain clothes appeared at his door. This is the story of what a father does with the worst thing that can happen to him, and the walk that turned unbearable grief into a mission.

In this conversation

Barry lost his son Kevin to alcohol, then walked fourteen hundred miles across three states with Kevin’s ashes in his backpack, telling the story at every school and church that would have him. Two decades and two hundred thousand listeners later, he still says he is not the right man for the job. We talk about the ordinary life he almost took for granted, the 4am moment that gave him a mission, the trick of counting in small chunks when the road is too long, and the forgiveness that took years and had to start with himself. It is a conversation about making something good from the unthinkable, and about how the people most worth listening to are often the ones who never set out to be heard.

About Barry Adkins

Barry Adkins is a speaker and prevention advocate, and the author of Kevin’s Last Walk. After losing his son Kevin, he walked from Arizona to Montana to raise awareness of alcohol and drug harm, and has since spoken to hundreds of thousands of students and families. His latest project, the Million Mile Challenge, invites others to tell their own stories and walk their own miles.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• The Million Mile Challenge — millionmilechallenge.com

• Kevin’s Last Walk (book and website) — kevinslastwalk.com

]]>8bc08fe7-d0ed-440f-be95-daa399f6f800Tue, 01 Sep 2026 15:20:00 +010030:38falsefullThe Aliveness I Didn’t Know Was a Thing With Yvonne MooreThe Aliveness I Didn’t Know Was a Thing With Yvonne MooreYvonne Moore was not an artist four years ago. Then a marriage ended, her father died, and one restless evening she watched paint pour across a canvas and felt something she had no idea was even a thing. This is a conversation about coming back to life in your fifties, and being able to say exactly how it happened.


In this conversation

Yvonne spent her forties with the big house and the big job, quietly asking whether this was all there was. She now has far less of that, and far more life. We talk about the aliveness she found in paint and mess, the truth that only shows up once she stops trying to control the painting, telling intuition from avoidance, and why she has renamed her first solo show an invitation rather than an exhibition. It is a conversation for anyone who suspects it might be too late to become someone new, and hopes it isn’t.


About Yvonne

Yvonne Moore is an Irish artist who came to painting in 2022, in her mid-fifties, after a season of upheaval. Working largely with acrylic pouring and abstract landscape, she paints for what she calls aliveness and truth rather than technique, and is preparing her first solo show. She is refreshingly clear that if she can do this, plenty of other people can too.


Resources mentioned in this episode



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Yvonne Moore was not an artist four years ago. Then a marriage ended, her father died, and one restless evening she watched paint pour across a canvas and felt something she had no idea was even a thing. This is a conversation about coming back to life in your fifties, and being able to say exactly how it happened.


In this conversation

Yvonne spent her forties with the big house and the big job, quietly asking whether this was all there was. She now has far less of that, and far more life. We talk about the aliveness she found in paint and mess, the truth that only shows up once she stops trying to control the painting, telling intuition from avoidance, and why she has renamed her first solo show an invitation rather than an exhibition. It is a conversation for anyone who suspects it might be too late to become someone new, and hopes it isn’t.


About Yvonne

Yvonne Moore is an Irish artist who came to painting in 2022, in her mid-fifties, after a season of upheaval. Working largely with acrylic pouring and abstract landscape, she paints for what she calls aliveness and truth rather than technique, and is preparing her first solo show. She is refreshingly clear that if she can do this, plenty of other people can too.


Resources mentioned in this episode



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>3bad3beb-7f04-44a0-bb21-fe20947cb402_GOWjlddMq5Tue, 18 Aug 2026 17:02:03 +010040:35falsefullOpen The Aperture with Teri PruittOpen The Aperture with Teri PruittTeri Pruitt has spent thirty years in the wings, eighteen of them on Wicked, making a live show land the same every night while nobody in the audience sees the effort. In this conversation, we follow her from a girl who was always someone's little sister to a woman who has made a craft, and now a business, out of the disciplines that keep a team alive under real pressure.


In this conversation

What does a lifetime of deliberately invisible work teach you about ego, pressure, and worth? Teri and I talk about why backstage was the first place she got to be herself, how you hold continuity and aliveness at the same time through the work nobody sees, and why she now insists on taking the work seriously without taking herself seriously. There are two stories you won't forget: a ringing phone in ancient Rome and a goat tail carried across a Broadway stage like a torch, and each carries a real lesson about care and repair. You'll leave with a cleaner way to think about your own team: hold the goal tightly, hold everything else, including yourself, lightly.


About Teri Pruitt

Teri Pruitt is a Broadway wardrobe professional with more than thirty years in live theatre, including roughly eighteen years on Wicked. She is the founder of Open the Aperture, a consultancy that brings theatrical solutions to business problems, taking companies backstage to learn how live performance handles pressure, teamwork and repair. Her talks run from a brown-bag lunch to a keynote, and they are funny before they are instructive.


Resources mentioned in this episode

Open the Aperture / Teri Pruitt

Teri on LinkedIn

YouTube — “Behind the Magic of Wicked with Teri Pruitt” 



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Teri Pruitt has spent thirty years in the wings, eighteen of them on Wicked, making a live show land the same every night while nobody in the audience sees the effort. In this conversation, we follow her from a girl who was always someone's little sister to a woman who has made a craft, and now a business, out of the disciplines that keep a team alive under real pressure.


In this conversation

What does a lifetime of deliberately invisible work teach you about ego, pressure, and worth? Teri and I talk about why backstage was the first place she got to be herself, how you hold continuity and aliveness at the same time through the work nobody sees, and why she now insists on taking the work seriously without taking herself seriously. There are two stories you won't forget: a ringing phone in ancient Rome and a goat tail carried across a Broadway stage like a torch, and each carries a real lesson about care and repair. You'll leave with a cleaner way to think about your own team: hold the goal tightly, hold everything else, including yourself, lightly.


About Teri Pruitt

Teri Pruitt is a Broadway wardrobe professional with more than thirty years in live theatre, including roughly eighteen years on Wicked. She is the founder of Open the Aperture, a consultancy that brings theatrical solutions to business problems, taking companies backstage to learn how live performance handles pressure, teamwork and repair. Her talks run from a brown-bag lunch to a keynote, and they are funny before they are instructive.


Resources mentioned in this episode

Open the Aperture / Teri Pruitt

Teri on LinkedIn

YouTube — “Behind the Magic of Wicked with Teri Pruitt” 



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>b7469bb3-ecbb-4484-8eca-2471ea0bb923_GOWjlddMq5Mon, 20 Jul 2026 16:02:16 +010043:47falsefullThe Power of Softness: Paula Jones on Strength, Horses, and Doing LessThe Power of Softness: Paula Jones on Strength, Horses, and Doing LessPaula Jones spent twenty years in human development before a horse taught her how little of it she had lived in her body. This is a conversation about softness as strength: meeting your work, your people, and yourself with only the effort the moment actually needs. Try the cup exercise while you listen. You will feel the argument before you can explain it.


In this conversation

Paula came to horses thinking she was learning to ride, and found a mirror instead: how fearful she was, how reactive, how absent, despite all the training. Out of that came the practice she now teaches to leaders. We get into why a felt experience changes people when information cannot, why a spooked herd goes back to grazing while we run our stories for years, and the harder problem of making change stick once someone returns to an organisation that will happily digest them. Paula's answer is not motivation. It is structure and practice. You will leave with one small, physical thing to try, and a question worth sitting with: where are you using far more effort than the moment requires?


About Paula Jones

Paula Jones is co-founder, with Ellen Coomber, of The Softness Revolution, where she helps leaders, founders, and creatives trade striving for a softer, more sustainable way of working. Her path runs through more than twenty years in coaching and human development, an academic background in language and behaviour, years in Japan studying budo, and a deep apprenticeship with horses, including equine bodywork and ongoing study with master horseman Mark Rashid. She is co-writing a book, The Power of Softness.


Resources mentioned in this episode

  • The Softness Revolution — softnessrevolution.com
  • The Power of Softness (book and 6-week online programme) — thepowerofsoftness.com and softnessrevolution.com/book
  • Contact Paula — paula@softnessrevolution.com
  • Instagram — instagram.com/softnessrevolution
  • Mark Rashid, horseman and martial artist (“Softness Bootcamp” clinics)
  • Happy Dog Ranch, Colorado (horse sanctuary)
  • The Masterson Method (equine bodywork)
  • Brené Brown — “Knowledge is rumour until it lives in the bones”

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Paula Jones spent twenty years in human development before a horse taught her how little of it she had lived in her body. This is a conversation about softness as strength: meeting your work, your people, and yourself with only the effort the moment actually needs. Try the cup exercise while you listen. You will feel the argument before you can explain it.


In this conversation

Paula came to horses thinking she was learning to ride, and found a mirror instead: how fearful she was, how reactive, how absent, despite all the training. Out of that came the practice she now teaches to leaders. We get into why a felt experience changes people when information cannot, why a spooked herd goes back to grazing while we run our stories for years, and the harder problem of making change stick once someone returns to an organisation that will happily digest them. Paula's answer is not motivation. It is structure and practice. You will leave with one small, physical thing to try, and a question worth sitting with: where are you using far more effort than the moment requires?


About Paula Jones

Paula Jones is co-founder, with Ellen Coomber, of The Softness Revolution, where she helps leaders, founders, and creatives trade striving for a softer, more sustainable way of working. Her path runs through more than twenty years in coaching and human development, an academic background in language and behaviour, years in Japan studying budo, and a deep apprenticeship with horses, including equine bodywork and ongoing study with master horseman Mark Rashid. She is co-writing a book, The Power of Softness.


Resources mentioned in this episode

  • The Softness Revolution — softnessrevolution.com
  • The Power of Softness (book and 6-week online programme) — thepowerofsoftness.com and softnessrevolution.com/book
  • Contact Paula — paula@softnessrevolution.com
  • Instagram — instagram.com/softnessrevolution
  • Mark Rashid, horseman and martial artist (“Softness Bootcamp” clinics)
  • Happy Dog Ranch, Colorado (horse sanctuary)
  • The Masterson Method (equine bodywork)
  • Brené Brown — “Knowledge is rumour until it lives in the bones”

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>6ba4f247-43e9-41ca-9286-d705c1d7951a_GOWjlddMq5Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:36:25 +010037:47falsefullHow We Have The Order Backwards With John HibbsHow We Have The Order Backwards With John HibbsMost people are taught that business exists to make money. John Hibbs spent years proving the order is backwards. In this conversation, he traces the line from a Guernsey childhood and a failed personal training studio to a model where people come first and money comes last, and makes a quietly radical case that love, not fear, is the better basis for building a company.


In this conversation

John tells the story of the client who told him, to his face, that he was no good at running a business, and the two ideas that changed everything after: measure what matters, and treat business as humans helping humans. He walks through The Monergy Flow, the model he drew on his kitchen blackboard. He names the decision gap, where leaders know what is wrong and still do nothing. And through CoEfficient’s work with Mind, he shows why mental health at work is set by conditions, not by support services added at the bottom of the cliff. It ends where the best conversations do, with a question he still cannot answer.


About John Hibbs

John Hibbs is an entrepreneur, certified company director and co-founder of CoEfficient, a data platform that helps organisations measure leadership, culture and workplace mental health. He is the creator of The Monergy Flow, works alongside Mind through the Workplace Partnership, and lives in Guernsey, next to the beach.


Resources



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Most people are taught that business exists to make money. John Hibbs spent years proving the order is backwards. In this conversation, he traces the line from a Guernsey childhood and a failed personal training studio to a model where people come first and money comes last, and makes a quietly radical case that love, not fear, is the better basis for building a company.


In this conversation

John tells the story of the client who told him, to his face, that he was no good at running a business, and the two ideas that changed everything after: measure what matters, and treat business as humans helping humans. He walks through The Monergy Flow, the model he drew on his kitchen blackboard. He names the decision gap, where leaders know what is wrong and still do nothing. And through CoEfficient’s work with Mind, he shows why mental health at work is set by conditions, not by support services added at the bottom of the cliff. It ends where the best conversations do, with a question he still cannot answer.


About John Hibbs

John Hibbs is an entrepreneur, certified company director and co-founder of CoEfficient, a data platform that helps organisations measure leadership, culture and workplace mental health. He is the creator of The Monergy Flow, works alongside Mind through the Workplace Partnership, and lives in Guernsey, next to the beach.


Resources



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>981b5ab2-c7c7-4564-80d1-69ea1524309a_GOWjlddMq5Fri, 19 Jun 2026 16:53:03 +010038:10falsefullLearning to Live in the Uncertain with Ana BugaleteLearning to Live in the Uncertain with Ana BugaleteMost of us treat uncertainty as something to endure — a gap to get through on the way to solid ground. Ana Bugalete has spent her adult life arguing the opposite. Raised in post-communist Romania on a single rule — stay safe — she left at 23 and never really stopped moving. This is a conversation about what she found in the space between: not a void, but fertile ground.


In this conversation

Ana traces a line from a Romanian childhood, where the only sanctioned path was a diploma and a job you held for life, to a way of living built almost entirely on trusting the next step without seeing the whole staircase. We talk about intuition as a form of intelligence rather than a party trick; about why scaling a business so often kills the essence that made it worth building; and about the costume your own success can harden into. She finishes on the question she’s genuinely sitting with: in the age of AI, what is the human edge — the part of us that can’t be codified or replaced? You’ll leave with a different relationship to not knowing.


About Ana Bugalete

Ana is a brand and culture strategist and the founder of Intooit. She helps founders find and articulate the essence of why their business exists — the work beneath the logo. Romanian by origin, she has built her life and practice across Jordan, Amsterdam, Bali and, now, the coast of Oaxaca, writing in real time about the questions she’s living through in her series The Space Between.


Resources mentioned




GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Most of us treat uncertainty as something to endure — a gap to get through on the way to solid ground. Ana Bugalete has spent her adult life arguing the opposite. Raised in post-communist Romania on a single rule — stay safe — she left at 23 and never really stopped moving. This is a conversation about what she found in the space between: not a void, but fertile ground.


In this conversation

Ana traces a line from a Romanian childhood, where the only sanctioned path was a diploma and a job you held for life, to a way of living built almost entirely on trusting the next step without seeing the whole staircase. We talk about intuition as a form of intelligence rather than a party trick; about why scaling a business so often kills the essence that made it worth building; and about the costume your own success can harden into. She finishes on the question she’s genuinely sitting with: in the age of AI, what is the human edge — the part of us that can’t be codified or replaced? You’ll leave with a different relationship to not knowing.


About Ana Bugalete

Ana is a brand and culture strategist and the founder of Intooit. She helps founders find and articulate the essence of why their business exists — the work beneath the logo. Romanian by origin, she has built her life and practice across Jordan, Amsterdam, Bali and, now, the coast of Oaxaca, writing in real time about the questions she’s living through in her series The Space Between.


Resources mentioned




GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>3eb73194-5779-47d5-bce1-d08086884e12_GOWjlddMq5Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:38:27 +010046:54falsefullThe Corporate Sage: Rich Strilowich on the Spiritual Path Nobody PlansThe Corporate Sage: Rich Strilowich on the Spiritual Path Nobody PlansRich Strilowich spent more than forty years in corporate technology before retiring and writing The Corporate Sage. In this conversation, he traces the long, unplanned arc from IBM punch cards to the Trappist monks and mystic saints who eventually convinced him that his career was never separate from his spiritual development — it was the terrain on which it happened. A quiet, honest conversation about what it actually takes to stop living two lives.


Rich describes himself as a lifelong seeker of truth — someone who was always asking what was underneath the surface, long before he had language for it. What started as an introverted engineer's desire to get over his fear of public speaking became, over thirty years, a full immersion in energy healing, somatic therapy, Eastern and Western contemplative traditions, and eventually the question that became his book: Is your corporate career your spiritual path?


About Rich Strilowich

Rich Strilowich is a former IBM executive and the author of The Corporate Sage: Gracefully Integrating Spirituality for Authentic Leadership. After more than forty years in corporate technology — spanning software development, programme management, P&L leadership, and HR. He now coaches others navigating the intersection of their professional and spiritual lives. He is based in the United States.


Resources



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Rich Strilowich spent more than forty years in corporate technology before retiring and writing The Corporate Sage. In this conversation, he traces the long, unplanned arc from IBM punch cards to the Trappist monks and mystic saints who eventually convinced him that his career was never separate from his spiritual development — it was the terrain on which it happened. A quiet, honest conversation about what it actually takes to stop living two lives.


Rich describes himself as a lifelong seeker of truth — someone who was always asking what was underneath the surface, long before he had language for it. What started as an introverted engineer's desire to get over his fear of public speaking became, over thirty years, a full immersion in energy healing, somatic therapy, Eastern and Western contemplative traditions, and eventually the question that became his book: Is your corporate career your spiritual path?


About Rich Strilowich

Rich Strilowich is a former IBM executive and the author of The Corporate Sage: Gracefully Integrating Spirituality for Authentic Leadership. After more than forty years in corporate technology — spanning software development, programme management, P&L leadership, and HR. He now coaches others navigating the intersection of their professional and spiritual lives. He is based in the United States.


Resources



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>cab15703-d121-4eaa-b4b8-36fec7cdc3f6_GOWjlddMq5Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:21:32 +010046:41falsefullThe Writing That Makes You Irreplaceable with Erica Holthausen The Writing That Makes You Irreplaceable with Erica Holthausen A former attorney who gave away her suits and moved into a school bus. A decade of writing grant proposals that slowly buried her own voice. A TEDx talk built on a grandfather's refusal to just answer the question. Erica Holthausen has taken a winding road to her work — and that's exactly what makes her good at it.


In this conversation, Erica helps independent consultants find what she calls their bold, insightful, galvanising idea — the perspective that makes their work genuinely irreplaceable rather than competently interchangeable. This episode traces how she got there: the New England farmer who taught her to sit with not knowing, the two years defending securities clients when she'd wanted to save the world, the jump into the Audubon Expedition Institute with everything she owned on her back. We talk about what years of persuasive writing does to your own voice, why the content treadmill is mostly a sophisticated avoidance strategy, and why AI — paradoxically — makes a genuine human point of view more valuable, not less. One of the sharper conversations we've had on this podcast about what it actually means to say something


About Erica Holthausen Erica Holthausen is the founder of Catchline Communications. She works with independent consultants to help them articulate the one perspective that makes them irreplaceable — and then build a body of writing that actually serves their business. Before any of that, she was an attorney, an environmental studies student living on a school bus, and a grant writer. She gave a TEDx talk on the power of not knowing.


Resources mentioned:



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>A former attorney who gave away her suits and moved into a school bus. A decade of writing grant proposals that slowly buried her own voice. A TEDx talk built on a grandfather's refusal to just answer the question. Erica Holthausen has taken a winding road to her work — and that's exactly what makes her good at it.


In this conversation, Erica helps independent consultants find what she calls their bold, insightful, galvanising idea — the perspective that makes their work genuinely irreplaceable rather than competently interchangeable. This episode traces how she got there: the New England farmer who taught her to sit with not knowing, the two years defending securities clients when she'd wanted to save the world, the jump into the Audubon Expedition Institute with everything she owned on her back. We talk about what years of persuasive writing does to your own voice, why the content treadmill is mostly a sophisticated avoidance strategy, and why AI — paradoxically — makes a genuine human point of view more valuable, not less. One of the sharper conversations we've had on this podcast about what it actually means to say something


About Erica Holthausen Erica Holthausen is the founder of Catchline Communications. She works with independent consultants to help them articulate the one perspective that makes them irreplaceable — and then build a body of writing that actually serves their business. Before any of that, she was an attorney, an environmental studies student living on a school bus, and a grant writer. She gave a TEDx talk on the power of not knowing.


Resources mentioned:



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>e26bec55-ee8c-498d-a735-74de3e47e971_GOWjlddMq5Sat, 06 Jun 2026 17:49:35 +010043:58falsefullFinding Your Voice with Jennifer HamadyFinding Your Voice with Jennifer HamadyJennifer Hamady found her voice before she remembered finding it. Her first word was sung. So when she lost it at music college — not through illness but through instruction — it wasn't just a professional setback. It was the loss of the oldest companion she'd ever had. This conversation follows the thread back.


In this conversation:

Jennifer and Paul explore what it means to rediscover something that was always there — in the voice, in the body, and in the self. This is a conversation about the damage that instruction can do when it

displaces intuition; about the kind of witnessing that sees things fixing can never find; and about what it might mean to arrive at your own sufficiency without needing to earn it first. Jennifer's forthcoming

fourth book argues that the hunger to be special is the very thing that keeps us from recognising we already are.


About Jennifer Hamady:

Jennifer Hamady is a voice coach, psychotherapist, and author working at the intersection of performance and psychology. Her company, Finding Your Voice, works with singers, speakers, and

professionals across industries. She is the author of three books, with a fourth currently in progress.


Resources mentioned:

• Finding Your Voice — Jennifer's work and books:

• The Art of Singing

• The Art of Singing Onstage & In The Studio

• Learning To Sing

T.S. Eliot — 'Little Gidding' from Four Quartets: 'And know the place for the first time'

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Jennifer Hamady found her voice before she remembered finding it. Her first word was sung. So when she lost it at music college — not through illness but through instruction — it wasn't just a professional setback. It was the loss of the oldest companion she'd ever had. This conversation follows the thread back.


In this conversation:

Jennifer and Paul explore what it means to rediscover something that was always there — in the voice, in the body, and in the self. This is a conversation about the damage that instruction can do when it

displaces intuition; about the kind of witnessing that sees things fixing can never find; and about what it might mean to arrive at your own sufficiency without needing to earn it first. Jennifer's forthcoming

fourth book argues that the hunger to be special is the very thing that keeps us from recognising we already are.


About Jennifer Hamady:

Jennifer Hamady is a voice coach, psychotherapist, and author working at the intersection of performance and psychology. Her company, Finding Your Voice, works with singers, speakers, and

professionals across industries. She is the author of three books, with a fourth currently in progress.


Resources mentioned:

• Finding Your Voice — Jennifer's work and books:

• The Art of Singing

• The Art of Singing Onstage & In The Studio

• Learning To Sing

T.S. Eliot — 'Little Gidding' from Four Quartets: 'And know the place for the first time'

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>83aab5f7-05ec-4036-ae0d-f89a12cb5e3b_GOWjlddMq5Sat, 06 Jun 2026 11:21:54 +010040:58falsefullThe Science of How People Actually Learn with Dr Julia Phelan The Science of How People Actually Learn with Dr Julia Phelan Dr Julia Phelan has spent twenty-five years studying why learning fails — in schools, in companies, in the leadership workshops we keep running and the leadership behaviours that keep not changing. This is a conversation about the knowing-doing gap: what creates it, what sustains it, and what it would actually take to close it. Expect less comfort than you arrived with.


In this conversation:

Julia grew up in England, born in the US, the youngest sibling in an academically accomplished family who found her own way by zigging. She ended up at UCLA, doing a PhD in educational psychology, and has spent the decades since building a body of work — and a company, To Eleven — dedicated to applying learning science where it's most needed and least applied: in the organisations that spend the most on training and get the least back.


What makes this conversation distinctive is that Julia doesn't deal in abstractions. Every argument comes with an example — the zoo trip, the ice cream shop, the 16-year-old forced to watch conference etiquette videos while bagging groceries. The critique of learning styles isn't a debunking for debunking's sake: it's a redirect toward what the evidence actually supports. And her final reflection — that teaching is a discipline that doesn't get the same deference we give to medicine or engineering — is one of those observations that's easy to agree with and hard to sit comfortably with.


About Dr Julia Phelan

Dr Julia Phelan is an educational psychologist, learning scientist, and founder of To Eleven, a consultancy that applies evidence-based learning design to corporate training, leadership development, and educational technology. She holds a PhD from UCLA, where she spent over a decade as a researcher. She writes on Substack and is most easily found on LinkedIn.


Resources mentioned in this episode:


GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Dr Julia Phelan has spent twenty-five years studying why learning fails — in schools, in companies, in the leadership workshops we keep running and the leadership behaviours that keep not changing. This is a conversation about the knowing-doing gap: what creates it, what sustains it, and what it would actually take to close it. Expect less comfort than you arrived with.


In this conversation:

Julia grew up in England, born in the US, the youngest sibling in an academically accomplished family who found her own way by zigging. She ended up at UCLA, doing a PhD in educational psychology, and has spent the decades since building a body of work — and a company, To Eleven — dedicated to applying learning science where it's most needed and least applied: in the organisations that spend the most on training and get the least back.


What makes this conversation distinctive is that Julia doesn't deal in abstractions. Every argument comes with an example — the zoo trip, the ice cream shop, the 16-year-old forced to watch conference etiquette videos while bagging groceries. The critique of learning styles isn't a debunking for debunking's sake: it's a redirect toward what the evidence actually supports. And her final reflection — that teaching is a discipline that doesn't get the same deference we give to medicine or engineering — is one of those observations that's easy to agree with and hard to sit comfortably with.


About Dr Julia Phelan

Dr Julia Phelan is an educational psychologist, learning scientist, and founder of To Eleven, a consultancy that applies evidence-based learning design to corporate training, leadership development, and educational technology. She holds a PhD from UCLA, where she spent over a decade as a researcher. She writes on Substack and is most easily found on LinkedIn.


Resources mentioned in this episode:


GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>26713f4d-5b94-48ce-83f7-c9e31fa6f7bc_GOWjlddMq5Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:18:02 +010039:20falsefullQuiet Disruption, the Bankrupt Lens, and What Is Mine to Do with Sue HeatheringtonQuiet Disruption, the Bankrupt Lens, and What Is Mine to Do with Sue HeatheringtonWhat if the people changing the most are the ones making the least noise about it? Sue Heatherington has spent the last seven years carrying a phrase — quiet disruptor — and watching what it does to people who've never thought of themselves that way. This conversation goes beneath the phrase, into the formation that produced it, and into the question Sue is still sitting with at this stage of her life.


Sue Heatherington traces the line from a hillside farm in Kent, through a decade as an NHS chief executive, to the rewilded valley in South West Wales where she now lives and writes. We talk about being marked by difference, the limits of single-disciplinary thinking, what she means by “be more poet,” why she thinks our current lenses on work and leadership are bankrupt, and the question she's sitting with right now that has no answer yet.


Sue is the writer of Quiet Disruptors: Creating Change Without Shouting. After more than a decade as an NHS chief executive and a career that crossed health, education, and consultancy, she now lives in a forty-acre rewilded valley in South West Wales with her husband Steve. She's the host of the Be More Poet podcast and the co-founder of Waterside Voices.


Resources mentioned in this episode:



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>What if the people changing the most are the ones making the least noise about it? Sue Heatherington has spent the last seven years carrying a phrase — quiet disruptor — and watching what it does to people who've never thought of themselves that way. This conversation goes beneath the phrase, into the formation that produced it, and into the question Sue is still sitting with at this stage of her life.


Sue Heatherington traces the line from a hillside farm in Kent, through a decade as an NHS chief executive, to the rewilded valley in South West Wales where she now lives and writes. We talk about being marked by difference, the limits of single-disciplinary thinking, what she means by “be more poet,” why she thinks our current lenses on work and leadership are bankrupt, and the question she's sitting with right now that has no answer yet.


Sue is the writer of Quiet Disruptors: Creating Change Without Shouting. After more than a decade as an NHS chief executive and a career that crossed health, education, and consultancy, she now lives in a forty-acre rewilded valley in South West Wales with her husband Steve. She's the host of the Be More Poet podcast and the co-founder of Waterside Voices.


Resources mentioned in this episode:



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>75d42148-5f78-456e-8f76-c0542cebec93_GOWjlddMq5Sat, 16 May 2026 14:49:17 +010045:56falsefullSuccess Is An Inside Job with Gloria RibeiroSuccess Is An Inside Job with Gloria RibeiroGRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>f820c1f1-9893-42f3-b895-21bd208a03d5_GOWjlddMq5Fri, 08 May 2026 14:34:46 +010035:59falsefullWhat They Don't Train You For with Richard AndrewsWhat They Don't Train You For with Richard AndrewsWhat They Don't Train You For

This is a conversation about the gap between how we manage people and how we actually care for them. Richard Andrews has spent decades in recruitment and coaching — and this is not an episode about talent pipelines or competency frameworks. It is about what happens when someone treats you like a person. And why that turns out to be the most effective thing of all.


Richard brings a perspective shaped by thirty years at the uncomfortable intersection of business incentives and human welfare. He has watched recruitment reduce people to CVs, seen high-performing leaders destroy their teams with unchecked anger, and coached executives through the slow discovery that self-compassion is not a weakness — it is a working condition.


He also raises a question that stopped me short: we train people extensively for their careers. We give them almost nothing for retirement. For a third of their lives, they are on their own. In this conversation, we explore what changes when organisations — and coaches — decide to take that seriously.


ABOUT RICHARD ANDREWS

Richard Andrews is a coach and outplacement specialist with three decades of experience in recruitment and career transition. He has worked with individuals at every level — from executives facing redundancy to young professionals navigating their first roles — with a particular focus on the behavioural patterns that create lasting change. He is based in the UK and can be reached at ricbandrews@gmail.com. He also writes on Substack.


RESOURCES MENTIONED

  • Viktor Frankl — Man's Search for Meaning (the 'space between stimulus and response')
  • Patrick Lencioni — The Advantage (humble, hungry, smart)
  • Ethan Cross — Chatter (4,000 words per minute of self-talk)
  • Brené Brown — self-compassion and 'you can't love anybody more than you love yourself'
  • Jonathan Haidt — The Anxious Generation (social media and young people)
  • Simon Sinek — Leaders Eat Last (the leader who speaks last)
  • Richard's Substack
  • Contact ricbandrews@gmail.com



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>What They Don't Train You For

This is a conversation about the gap between how we manage people and how we actually care for them. Richard Andrews has spent decades in recruitment and coaching — and this is not an episode about talent pipelines or competency frameworks. It is about what happens when someone treats you like a person. And why that turns out to be the most effective thing of all.


Richard brings a perspective shaped by thirty years at the uncomfortable intersection of business incentives and human welfare. He has watched recruitment reduce people to CVs, seen high-performing leaders destroy their teams with unchecked anger, and coached executives through the slow discovery that self-compassion is not a weakness — it is a working condition.


He also raises a question that stopped me short: we train people extensively for their careers. We give them almost nothing for retirement. For a third of their lives, they are on their own. In this conversation, we explore what changes when organisations — and coaches — decide to take that seriously.


ABOUT RICHARD ANDREWS

Richard Andrews is a coach and outplacement specialist with three decades of experience in recruitment and career transition. He has worked with individuals at every level — from executives facing redundancy to young professionals navigating their first roles — with a particular focus on the behavioural patterns that create lasting change. He is based in the UK and can be reached at ricbandrews@gmail.com. He also writes on Substack.


RESOURCES MENTIONED

  • Viktor Frankl — Man's Search for Meaning (the 'space between stimulus and response')
  • Patrick Lencioni — The Advantage (humble, hungry, smart)
  • Ethan Cross — Chatter (4,000 words per minute of self-talk)
  • Brené Brown — self-compassion and 'you can't love anybody more than you love yourself'
  • Jonathan Haidt — The Anxious Generation (social media and young people)
  • Simon Sinek — Leaders Eat Last (the leader who speaks last)
  • Richard's Substack
  • Contact ricbandrews@gmail.com



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>7da23632-a161-45c0-ab8d-e6d3b1821ad1_GOWjlddMq5Thu, 07 May 2026 18:53:10 +010047:06falsefullWhere GRACE Begins - Introducing The New GRACEWorks Podcast Where GRACE Begins - Introducing The New GRACEWorks Podcast Where GRACE Begins

What if the real advantage isn’t more hustle but GRACE?

In this opening episode of GRACEWorks – Conversations on the Edge Beyond Performance, host Paul Crick introduces the heart of the podcast: a space for thoughtful, human conversations about leadership, creativity, and life when pressure stops working and presence starts to matter.

This is not a podcast about productivity, optimisation, or pushing harder. It’s an invitation to slow the conversation and listen more deeply.

In this short solo episode, Paul explores:

  • Why performance culture leaves so many high achievers quietly depleted
  • What grace looks like in real life, not as an ideal but as a lived capacity
  • How presence replaces pressure in moments of leadership, creativity, and friction
  • Why grace often reveals itself at the edge — between reaction and response
  • What this podcast is here to explore, together

GRACEWorks is for leaders, artists, thinkers, and doers who are successful on paper — yet sense there’s another way to live and lead that is more grounded, embodied, and whole.

Each episode offers spacious conversation rather than quick answers, and lived wisdom rather than surface-level hacks.


🎧 Subscribe to GRACEWorks to receive future episodes exploring:

  • The cost of performance
  • Grace in leadership and creativity
  • Embodied resilience
  • Friction, failure, and quiet courage
  • Practices that sustain rather than exhaust

If you’re ready to explore what becomes possible when pressure gives way to presence, you’re in the right place.

Welcome.

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Where GRACE Begins

What if the real advantage isn’t more hustle but GRACE?

In this opening episode of GRACEWorks – Conversations on the Edge Beyond Performance, host Paul Crick introduces the heart of the podcast: a space for thoughtful, human conversations about leadership, creativity, and life when pressure stops working and presence starts to matter.

This is not a podcast about productivity, optimisation, or pushing harder. It’s an invitation to slow the conversation and listen more deeply.

In this short solo episode, Paul explores:

  • Why performance culture leaves so many high achievers quietly depleted
  • What grace looks like in real life, not as an ideal but as a lived capacity
  • How presence replaces pressure in moments of leadership, creativity, and friction
  • Why grace often reveals itself at the edge — between reaction and response
  • What this podcast is here to explore, together

GRACEWorks is for leaders, artists, thinkers, and doers who are successful on paper — yet sense there’s another way to live and lead that is more grounded, embodied, and whole.

Each episode offers spacious conversation rather than quick answers, and lived wisdom rather than surface-level hacks.


🎧 Subscribe to GRACEWorks to receive future episodes exploring:

  • The cost of performance
  • Grace in leadership and creativity
  • Embodied resilience
  • Friction, failure, and quiet courage
  • Practices that sustain rather than exhaust

If you’re ready to explore what becomes possible when pressure gives way to presence, you’re in the right place.

Welcome.

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>c9e51f94-2952-457f-acb8-afbf95e1116f_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 17:18:31 +010004:37falsefullThe Possibility Inside Dialogue with Nick ReganThe Possibility Inside Dialogue with Nick ReganWhat becomes possible when we stop advocating our positions—and start thinking together?

In this episode of the GRACEWorks Podcast, I'm joined by Nick Regan, founder of Skillful Collaboration and an experienced team coach whose work centres on dialogue as a lived practice rather than a conversational technique.

Nick’s journey into dialogue began later in life, after a 30-year career in engineering and global corporate environments where “conversation” was constant, but true dialogue was rare. What he discovered changed not only how he works with teams, but how he understands collaboration itself.

Together, Paul and Nick explore dialogue as a space where people think, listen, and learn together—and where something wiser can emerge between them.


In This Episode, We Explore

  • Why dialogue is different from discussion, debate, or decision-making meetings
  • How habitual conversational patterns limit collaboration in teams
  • The Four-Player Model (Move, Oppose, Bystand, Follow) and how it reveals hidden dynamics
  • Why “skillful conversations” are a more accessible entry point than “dialogue” in organisations
  • The courage required to interrupt unhelpful patterns—including the power of saying no
  • How teams can build psychological safety through shared norms
  • Why collaboration is not an event, but a daily practice
  • What gives hope for the future of how we work together


About Nick Regan

Nick is a team coach, facilitator, and the founder of Skillful Collaboration. Originally from Yorkshire in the UK, Nick trained as an engineer and spent nearly two decades working globally in the automotive sector before transitioning into leadership and team development work. He has lived in the Netherlands for over 20 years with his French wife and their three sons, an experience that has shaped his appreciation for multicultural ways of listening and being. Nick trained with the Academy of Professional Dialogue, a UK-based charity dedicated to bringing dialogue into schools, prisons, communities, and organisations for the benefit of society.


Links & Resources


🎙️ Leave Paul a voice message for the GRACEWorks Podcast

Share a question, reflection, or story. Your message may appear in a future episode.


👉 Speak your message here:

https://www.speakpipe.com/GraceWorksPodcast

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>What becomes possible when we stop advocating our positions—and start thinking together?

In this episode of the GRACEWorks Podcast, I'm joined by Nick Regan, founder of Skillful Collaboration and an experienced team coach whose work centres on dialogue as a lived practice rather than a conversational technique.

Nick’s journey into dialogue began later in life, after a 30-year career in engineering and global corporate environments where “conversation” was constant, but true dialogue was rare. What he discovered changed not only how he works with teams, but how he understands collaboration itself.

Together, Paul and Nick explore dialogue as a space where people think, listen, and learn together—and where something wiser can emerge between them.


In This Episode, We Explore

  • Why dialogue is different from discussion, debate, or decision-making meetings
  • How habitual conversational patterns limit collaboration in teams
  • The Four-Player Model (Move, Oppose, Bystand, Follow) and how it reveals hidden dynamics
  • Why “skillful conversations” are a more accessible entry point than “dialogue” in organisations
  • The courage required to interrupt unhelpful patterns—including the power of saying no
  • How teams can build psychological safety through shared norms
  • Why collaboration is not an event, but a daily practice
  • What gives hope for the future of how we work together


About Nick Regan

Nick is a team coach, facilitator, and the founder of Skillful Collaboration. Originally from Yorkshire in the UK, Nick trained as an engineer and spent nearly two decades working globally in the automotive sector before transitioning into leadership and team development work. He has lived in the Netherlands for over 20 years with his French wife and their three sons, an experience that has shaped his appreciation for multicultural ways of listening and being. Nick trained with the Academy of Professional Dialogue, a UK-based charity dedicated to bringing dialogue into schools, prisons, communities, and organisations for the benefit of society.


Links & Resources


🎙️ Leave Paul a voice message for the GRACEWorks Podcast

Share a question, reflection, or story. Your message may appear in a future episode.


👉 Speak your message here:

https://www.speakpipe.com/GraceWorksPodcast

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>79cf5115-53cd-4ca7-ba0e-d5b50429519d_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 15:18:31 +010027:48falsefullThe Voice That Holds: - Sara Starling on Grace, Silence, and the Power of StoryThe Voice That Holds: - Sara Starling on Grace, Silence, and the Power of StoryThere is a kind of voice that doesn’t just speak, it holds.

In this episode of GRACEWorks, Paul Crick is joined by award-winning British voice artist and storyteller Sara Starling for a spacious, reflective conversation about voice, silence, and grace as lived experience.

Sara traces her journey from early childhood encounters with sound, through her formative years as a BBC sound engineer and announcer, to building an international voiceover career and, more recently, creating Bubbling Toad Stories — a storytelling project born from a dream, friendship, and a deep desire to bring light and safety into a heavy world.

Together, Paul and Sara explore:

  • The emotional labour of voice and why silence matters
  • How stories become “medicine” when we meet them at the right time
  • The difference between performance and presence
  • Creativity as an act of listening rather than pushing
  • Grace as acceptance, embodiment, and inhabiting the moment fully

This is a conversation about attention, imagination, and what it means to become more fully yourself, without force.


Key Themes

  • Voice as an embodied, emotional instrument
  • Silence as craft and emotional intelligence
  • Storytelling as service and connection
  • Grace as acceptance, letting go, and presence


About Sara

Sara Starling is an award-winning British voice artist whose work spans television, radio, animation, commercial and corporate narration for global brands. She is also the creator and narrator of Bubbling Toad Stories, a magical audio storytelling world for children and families.


Explore Sara’s Work

🔗 Voiceover work: https://sarastarling.co.uk

🔗 Bubbling Toad Stories: https://sarastarling.co.uk/bubbling-toad-stories/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/britishfemalevoiceover/


🎙️ Leave Paul a voice message for the GRACEWorks Podcast

Share a question, reflection, or story. Your message may appear in a future episode.


👉 Speak your message here:

https://www.speakpipe.com/GraceWorksPodcast

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>There is a kind of voice that doesn’t just speak, it holds.

In this episode of GRACEWorks, Paul Crick is joined by award-winning British voice artist and storyteller Sara Starling for a spacious, reflective conversation about voice, silence, and grace as lived experience.

Sara traces her journey from early childhood encounters with sound, through her formative years as a BBC sound engineer and announcer, to building an international voiceover career and, more recently, creating Bubbling Toad Stories — a storytelling project born from a dream, friendship, and a deep desire to bring light and safety into a heavy world.

Together, Paul and Sara explore:

  • The emotional labour of voice and why silence matters
  • How stories become “medicine” when we meet them at the right time
  • The difference between performance and presence
  • Creativity as an act of listening rather than pushing
  • Grace as acceptance, embodiment, and inhabiting the moment fully

This is a conversation about attention, imagination, and what it means to become more fully yourself, without force.


Key Themes

  • Voice as an embodied, emotional instrument
  • Silence as craft and emotional intelligence
  • Storytelling as service and connection
  • Grace as acceptance, letting go, and presence


About Sara

Sara Starling is an award-winning British voice artist whose work spans television, radio, animation, commercial and corporate narration for global brands. She is also the creator and narrator of Bubbling Toad Stories, a magical audio storytelling world for children and families.


Explore Sara’s Work

🔗 Voiceover work: https://sarastarling.co.uk

🔗 Bubbling Toad Stories: https://sarastarling.co.uk/bubbling-toad-stories/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/britishfemalevoiceover/


🎙️ Leave Paul a voice message for the GRACEWorks Podcast

Share a question, reflection, or story. Your message may appear in a future episode.


👉 Speak your message here:

https://www.speakpipe.com/GraceWorksPodcast

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>9d2f4cab-1a46-46ff-b746-17cc55626251_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 14:18:31 +010029:41falsefullGrace, Presence & the Spirituality of Leadership with Alice CrozierGrace, Presence & the Spirituality of Leadership with Alice CrozierIn this episode of the GRACEWorks Podcast, Paul Crick is joined by leadership coach Alice Bea Crozier for a deeply grounded conversation about leadership, presence, and what Alice calls the spirituality of business.

Together, they explore how high-achieving leaders can integrate ambition with awareness — without abandoning performance, rigour, or commercial reality. Alice shares her own journey from fast-paced corporate life to a more integrated leadership approach that honours both drive and depth.


This is a practical, secular conversation about nervous system awareness, values-led leadership, and why grace is less about softness — and more about presence under pressure.


Key Themes & Topics

  • What “the spirituality of leadership” really means (and what it doesn’t)
  • Integrating ambition and awareness without rejecting success
  • Why high performers struggle when pace suddenly slows
  • Leadership under stress: fight, flight, freeze and reset
  • Grace as presence, patience, and a learnable leadership skill
  • Values-led decision making in real organisational contexts
  • Why self-development isn’t a tick-box exercise
  • Small, practical practices that create real change over time


About the Guest

Alice Bea Crozier is a leadership coach working at the intersection of performance, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness. She supports leaders and teams to integrate ambition with alignment helping them lead with clarity, presence, and humanity, even under pressure.

Connect with Alice

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicebea-crozier
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imalicebea



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>In this episode of the GRACEWorks Podcast, Paul Crick is joined by leadership coach Alice Bea Crozier for a deeply grounded conversation about leadership, presence, and what Alice calls the spirituality of business.

Together, they explore how high-achieving leaders can integrate ambition with awareness — without abandoning performance, rigour, or commercial reality. Alice shares her own journey from fast-paced corporate life to a more integrated leadership approach that honours both drive and depth.


This is a practical, secular conversation about nervous system awareness, values-led leadership, and why grace is less about softness — and more about presence under pressure.


Key Themes & Topics

  • What “the spirituality of leadership” really means (and what it doesn’t)
  • Integrating ambition and awareness without rejecting success
  • Why high performers struggle when pace suddenly slows
  • Leadership under stress: fight, flight, freeze and reset
  • Grace as presence, patience, and a learnable leadership skill
  • Values-led decision making in real organisational contexts
  • Why self-development isn’t a tick-box exercise
  • Small, practical practices that create real change over time


About the Guest

Alice Bea Crozier is a leadership coach working at the intersection of performance, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness. She supports leaders and teams to integrate ambition with alignment helping them lead with clarity, presence, and humanity, even under pressure.

Connect with Alice

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicebea-crozier
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imalicebea



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>fb8654ca-069a-4fc2-bd1e-bad723c7c55a_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 13:18:31 +010030:29falsefullThe Quiet Power of Performance And Embodied Grace With Jayne StoreyThe Quiet Power of Performance And Embodied Grace With Jayne StoreyWhat happens when effort gives way to presence?

In this episode of the GRACEWorks Podcast, Paul Crick is joined by Jayne Storey, performance practice specialist, author, and founder of Chi Performance, for a deep, reflective conversation on grace, embodiment, and the limits of striving.

Drawing on nearly four decades of Zen meditation, Tai Chi, martial arts, and applied performance practice, Jayne explores why many high performers struggle precisely because they are trying too hard — and how the body, when trusted, knows how to move us back into coherence, flow, and quiet confidence. This is a conversation about performance not as force, but as alignment; not as control, but as receptivity.


Key Themes Explored

  • Why trying harder often undermines performance
  • The difference between striving and sincere aspiration
  • What the body knows before the mind does
  • Grounding, hara/dantien, and embodied awareness
  • Grace as something received, not achieved
  • Why silence and inner quietude are essential to creativity and leadership
  • The limits of mindset-only approaches to performance
  • Awe, wonder, and the deeper layers of “flow”
  • What sports, music, and leadership reveal about human potential


About Jayne Storey

Jayne Storey is a UK-based performance practice specialist whose work integrates Eastern contemplative disciplines with modern performance demands. She has worked with golfers, swimmers, tennis players, musicians, and business leaders to help them access more natural, embodied states of excellence.


She is the author of:

  • The Athlete’s Ascent
  • Breathe Golf
  • Connected Golf


Further Links

  • Jayne Storey (Speaker & Author): 🔗 https://jaynestorey.com
  • Chi Performance (Coaching & Practice): 🔗 https://chipractice.com
  • Jayne Storey on LinkedIn: 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayne-storey-6a0b3519/

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>What happens when effort gives way to presence?

In this episode of the GRACEWorks Podcast, Paul Crick is joined by Jayne Storey, performance practice specialist, author, and founder of Chi Performance, for a deep, reflective conversation on grace, embodiment, and the limits of striving.

Drawing on nearly four decades of Zen meditation, Tai Chi, martial arts, and applied performance practice, Jayne explores why many high performers struggle precisely because they are trying too hard — and how the body, when trusted, knows how to move us back into coherence, flow, and quiet confidence. This is a conversation about performance not as force, but as alignment; not as control, but as receptivity.


Key Themes Explored

  • Why trying harder often undermines performance
  • The difference between striving and sincere aspiration
  • What the body knows before the mind does
  • Grounding, hara/dantien, and embodied awareness
  • Grace as something received, not achieved
  • Why silence and inner quietude are essential to creativity and leadership
  • The limits of mindset-only approaches to performance
  • Awe, wonder, and the deeper layers of “flow”
  • What sports, music, and leadership reveal about human potential


About Jayne Storey

Jayne Storey is a UK-based performance practice specialist whose work integrates Eastern contemplative disciplines with modern performance demands. She has worked with golfers, swimmers, tennis players, musicians, and business leaders to help them access more natural, embodied states of excellence.


She is the author of:

  • The Athlete’s Ascent
  • Breathe Golf
  • Connected Golf


Further Links

  • Jayne Storey (Speaker & Author): 🔗 https://jaynestorey.com
  • Chi Performance (Coaching & Practice): 🔗 https://chipractice.com
  • Jayne Storey on LinkedIn: 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayne-storey-6a0b3519/

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>9f28276a-7156-46ca-9928-39c21888f6f6_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 12:18:31 +010057:31falsefullGrowth Mindset, Presence, and the Quiet Power of Grace with Leigh AshtonGrowth Mindset, Presence, and the Quiet Power of Grace with Leigh AshtonWhat if growth mindset wasn’t about doing more—but about where you’re standing when you act?


In this episode of the GRACEWorks Podcast, Paul Crick is joined by Leigh Ashton, a sales and leadership coach whose work bridges growth mindset, mindfulness, embodiment, and grace. Together, they explore how presence changes not only performance at work, but the way we live our lives.


Leigh shares how mindset work inevitably spills beyond the workplace—shaping how we relate to failure, ambition, boundaries, creativity, and rest. Drawing on decades of experience in sales leadership, NLP, and embodied practice, she offers a grounded, practical view of mindfulness that even the most hardened “alpha hustlers” can relate to.

This is a conversation about slowing down without losing edge—and about how grace emerges when head, heart, and gut begin to work together.


Key Themes & Takeaways

  • Why a growth mindset is not a technique, but a place you operate from
  • The deep overlap between growth mindset, mindfulness, and presence
  • How fear of failure quietly limits both work and life ambitions
  • “Emptying out” as a leadership practice: creating space to truly listen
  • Why relentless hustle creates chaos—and undermines decision-making
  • Practical, micro-practices for grounding in high-pressure environments
  • Setting boundaries as an act of leadership, not rebellion
  • Grace as openness, receptivity, and intention—not perfection


About Leigh

Leigh Ashton works with sales professionals and leaders to develop growth mindset, presence, and psychologically grounded leadership. Her work integrates mindset principles, NLP, embodiment, and real-world leadership experience—always with an emphasis on practical application rather than theory.


Find Leigh:


🔗 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/leighashton1/

🔗 https://www.sales-consultancy.com/


GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>What if growth mindset wasn’t about doing more—but about where you’re standing when you act?


In this episode of the GRACEWorks Podcast, Paul Crick is joined by Leigh Ashton, a sales and leadership coach whose work bridges growth mindset, mindfulness, embodiment, and grace. Together, they explore how presence changes not only performance at work, but the way we live our lives.


Leigh shares how mindset work inevitably spills beyond the workplace—shaping how we relate to failure, ambition, boundaries, creativity, and rest. Drawing on decades of experience in sales leadership, NLP, and embodied practice, she offers a grounded, practical view of mindfulness that even the most hardened “alpha hustlers” can relate to.

This is a conversation about slowing down without losing edge—and about how grace emerges when head, heart, and gut begin to work together.


Key Themes & Takeaways

  • Why a growth mindset is not a technique, but a place you operate from
  • The deep overlap between growth mindset, mindfulness, and presence
  • How fear of failure quietly limits both work and life ambitions
  • “Emptying out” as a leadership practice: creating space to truly listen
  • Why relentless hustle creates chaos—and undermines decision-making
  • Practical, micro-practices for grounding in high-pressure environments
  • Setting boundaries as an act of leadership, not rebellion
  • Grace as openness, receptivity, and intention—not perfection


About Leigh

Leigh Ashton works with sales professionals and leaders to develop growth mindset, presence, and psychologically grounded leadership. Her work integrates mindset principles, NLP, embodiment, and real-world leadership experience—always with an emphasis on practical application rather than theory.


Find Leigh:


🔗 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/leighashton1/

🔗 https://www.sales-consultancy.com/


GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>26ac09ce-6ac9-4dde-a0a2-15b8e2cdb502_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 11:18:31 +010031:19falsefullSheryl Green Talks About Boundaries, Burnout, and the Courage to Put Yourself FirstSheryl Green Talks About Boundaries, Burnout, and the Courage to Put Yourself FirstGRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>1f6c30cf-094f-4b11-8ea1-9f91f5f8c52f_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 10:18:31 +010031:55falsefullFrom Perfection to Presence: Music, Flow, and Learning What Really Matters With Patrick BoylanFrom Perfection to Presence: Music, Flow, and Learning What Really Matters With Patrick BoylanIn this wide-ranging and deeply human conversation, Paul Crick is joined by Patrick Boylan—musician, educator, and co-founder of MuseFlow—to explore why so many talented people become “recovering classical musicians,” and what it takes to reclaim creativity, flow, and joy.

Together they unpack the hidden costs of perfectionism in classical pedagogy, why learning by rote often fails to compound real skill, and how failure—when designed into the process—is not a bug but the engine of mastery.

From music and martial arts to leadership, consulting culture, and embodied learning, this episode explores how we learn best when we feel safe enough to experiment, imperfect enough to grow, and grounded enough to stay present.

This is a conversation about music but also about leadership, identity, and what it means to become fully human again through practice.


Key Themes

  • Why perfectionism undermines creativity and learning
  • The difference between repetition and the right reps
  • Flow state as a bridge between pressure and presence
  • Learning through failure, iteration, and just-in-time practice
  • Music as meditation, embodiment, and human connection
  • What leadership can learn from musicians, athletes, and artists


About the Guest

Patrick Boylan is a professional musician and educator based in Los Angeles, performing regularly as an accompanist, jazz pianist, and piano-bar artist. He is the co-founder of MuseFlow, a music-learning platform designed to invert traditional pedagogy by putting sight-reading, flow, and learning through doing first.


Links



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>In this wide-ranging and deeply human conversation, Paul Crick is joined by Patrick Boylan—musician, educator, and co-founder of MuseFlow—to explore why so many talented people become “recovering classical musicians,” and what it takes to reclaim creativity, flow, and joy.

Together they unpack the hidden costs of perfectionism in classical pedagogy, why learning by rote often fails to compound real skill, and how failure—when designed into the process—is not a bug but the engine of mastery.

From music and martial arts to leadership, consulting culture, and embodied learning, this episode explores how we learn best when we feel safe enough to experiment, imperfect enough to grow, and grounded enough to stay present.

This is a conversation about music but also about leadership, identity, and what it means to become fully human again through practice.


Key Themes

  • Why perfectionism undermines creativity and learning
  • The difference between repetition and the right reps
  • Flow state as a bridge between pressure and presence
  • Learning through failure, iteration, and just-in-time practice
  • Music as meditation, embodiment, and human connection
  • What leadership can learn from musicians, athletes, and artists


About the Guest

Patrick Boylan is a professional musician and educator based in Los Angeles, performing regularly as an accompanist, jazz pianist, and piano-bar artist. He is the co-founder of MuseFlow, a music-learning platform designed to invert traditional pedagogy by putting sight-reading, flow, and learning through doing first.


Links



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>53f12870-7b4a-44eb-b5a0-34860290d0ea_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 09:18:31 +010001:02:48falsefullWhen Pressure Reveals Us: Learning to Respond Rather Than React With Rachel AlexandriaWhen Pressure Reveals Us: Learning to Respond Rather Than React With Rachel AlexandriaWhat if difficult conversations don’t go wrong because of what’s said — but because we lose ourselves before we speak?

In this episode of GRACEWorks, Paul Crick is joined by Rachel Alexandria for a grounded exploration of self-rescue under pressure. Together, they look at how the nervous system responds to conflict, why inner panic narrows our choices, and what it actually takes to stay present when conversations feel charged.

This is not an episode about communication or confidence hacks. It’s about recognising the moment we tighten, pause, or disappear, and learning how to stay.

A calm, practical conversation for leaders, professionals, and anyone navigating complexity with care.


Guest

Rachel Alexandria

Former psychotherapist, coach to high-performers, creator of the Self-Rescue System™, author of Woman Overboard

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>What if difficult conversations don’t go wrong because of what’s said — but because we lose ourselves before we speak?

In this episode of GRACEWorks, Paul Crick is joined by Rachel Alexandria for a grounded exploration of self-rescue under pressure. Together, they look at how the nervous system responds to conflict, why inner panic narrows our choices, and what it actually takes to stay present when conversations feel charged.

This is not an episode about communication or confidence hacks. It’s about recognising the moment we tighten, pause, or disappear, and learning how to stay.

A calm, practical conversation for leaders, professionals, and anyone navigating complexity with care.


Guest

Rachel Alexandria

Former psychotherapist, coach to high-performers, creator of the Self-Rescue System™, author of Woman Overboard

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>90b06d2c-7241-4e99-8c11-9a1d5b28e9f5_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 08:18:31 +010043:58falsefullMastery and Surrender: Leadership Beyond Control with Dr Jonathan ReamsMastery and Surrender: Leadership Beyond Control with Dr Jonathan ReamsIn this conversation, Jonathan Reams and Paul explore leadership as an inner practice rather than a performance of control.

They examine the paradox between agency and surrender, the limits of knowledge as information, and the slow, embodied work of developing emotional resilience. What emerges is a different model of leadership — one grounded in presence, attention and the capacity to sit on the riverbank rather than being swept downstream.

This is a conversation about learning to see.


Key Insights

1. Leadership begins earlier than we think

Research suggests traits associated with leadership emerge in early childhood. Yet development remains possible — if we are willing to engage the work consciously.

2. Knowing is not the same as information

Modern culture reduces knowledge to data and facts. But deeper knowing requires sustained attention and presence — not simply conceptual understanding.

3. The danger of downward assimilation

When leaders learn new models, they often reinterpret them to fit existing assumptions. Nothing truly changes. Real development requires noticing more — not just relabelling.

4. Emotional resilience grows through slow learning

Jonathan describes an eight-week process focused less on content and more on cultivating the capacity to observe triggers, bodily responses and underlying fears. Change comes through repetition and depth — not hacks.

5. Control is often an illusion

Rather than controlling the environment, leadership maturity may lie in regulating our relationship to thought, impulse and reaction.

6. Co-regulation precedes self-regulation

We learn presence through relationships. The ability to sit with another human being without an agenda may be among the most advanced leadership capacities.

7. Swimming upstream matters

In a culture driven by speed and distraction, cultivating depth can feel counter-cultural. Yet many are quietly doing this work.


About Jonathan Reams

Jonathan Reams is a leadership scholar and practitioner whose work bridges consciousness studies, emotional resilience and adult development. Formerly an academic and editor of Integral Review, he now focuses on scalable practices that cultivate deeper awareness and collective sense-making.


Links

Jonathan Reams: www.jonathanreams.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-reams-08bb2/

Substack: https://jonathanreams.substack.com/



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>In this conversation, Jonathan Reams and Paul explore leadership as an inner practice rather than a performance of control.

They examine the paradox between agency and surrender, the limits of knowledge as information, and the slow, embodied work of developing emotional resilience. What emerges is a different model of leadership — one grounded in presence, attention and the capacity to sit on the riverbank rather than being swept downstream.

This is a conversation about learning to see.


Key Insights

1. Leadership begins earlier than we think

Research suggests traits associated with leadership emerge in early childhood. Yet development remains possible — if we are willing to engage the work consciously.

2. Knowing is not the same as information

Modern culture reduces knowledge to data and facts. But deeper knowing requires sustained attention and presence — not simply conceptual understanding.

3. The danger of downward assimilation

When leaders learn new models, they often reinterpret them to fit existing assumptions. Nothing truly changes. Real development requires noticing more — not just relabelling.

4. Emotional resilience grows through slow learning

Jonathan describes an eight-week process focused less on content and more on cultivating the capacity to observe triggers, bodily responses and underlying fears. Change comes through repetition and depth — not hacks.

5. Control is often an illusion

Rather than controlling the environment, leadership maturity may lie in regulating our relationship to thought, impulse and reaction.

6. Co-regulation precedes self-regulation

We learn presence through relationships. The ability to sit with another human being without an agenda may be among the most advanced leadership capacities.

7. Swimming upstream matters

In a culture driven by speed and distraction, cultivating depth can feel counter-cultural. Yet many are quietly doing this work.


About Jonathan Reams

Jonathan Reams is a leadership scholar and practitioner whose work bridges consciousness studies, emotional resilience and adult development. Formerly an academic and editor of Integral Review, he now focuses on scalable practices that cultivate deeper awareness and collective sense-making.


Links

Jonathan Reams: www.jonathanreams.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-reams-08bb2/

Substack: https://jonathanreams.substack.com/



GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>9cfab9f1-c54c-4b68-9e61-1d07cc9c1e87_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 07:18:31 +010056:44falsefullThe Death of the Ego and the Future of Leadership with August TurakThe Death of the Ego and the Future of Leadership with August TurakAugust Turak has lived a life shaped by counterintuitive choices — from humble beginnings in Pittsburgh to Zen monasteries, corporate boardrooms and building businesses rooted in service.


In this conversation, we explore ego, surrender, depression, purpose, leadership and why authentic transformation is far more confronting than most people realise.

This is not a discussion about performance. It is a discussion about what must die for something deeper to live. You might think that morbid but it isn't, it's hopeful and achieveable.


In this episode:

  • Why much of life is counterintuitive — and how leadership demands paradoxical thinking
  • The terrifying nature of disillusionment and dismantling the ego
  • Why surrender is not a conscious decision, but something that happens when you are “completely fought out”
  • The difference between giving up and surrendering
  • Why depression may be linked to the absence of meaningful sacrifice
  • How great salespeople and leaders succeed by forgetting themselves
  • Why profit is a measurement — not a purpose
  • How culture change begins with selflessness and shared mission


August Turak is an entrepreneur, author and speaker who integrates ancient spiritual wisdom with modern leadership practice. He is the author of Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks, Brother John, and Not Less Than Everything, and writes on leadership, service and purpose.


Links

YouTube: @RealAugustTurak

Website: Augustturak.org

Books: Available here in Hard and Soft Covers

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>August Turak has lived a life shaped by counterintuitive choices — from humble beginnings in Pittsburgh to Zen monasteries, corporate boardrooms and building businesses rooted in service.


In this conversation, we explore ego, surrender, depression, purpose, leadership and why authentic transformation is far more confronting than most people realise.

This is not a discussion about performance. It is a discussion about what must die for something deeper to live. You might think that morbid but it isn't, it's hopeful and achieveable.


In this episode:

  • Why much of life is counterintuitive — and how leadership demands paradoxical thinking
  • The terrifying nature of disillusionment and dismantling the ego
  • Why surrender is not a conscious decision, but something that happens when you are “completely fought out”
  • The difference between giving up and surrendering
  • Why depression may be linked to the absence of meaningful sacrifice
  • How great salespeople and leaders succeed by forgetting themselves
  • Why profit is a measurement — not a purpose
  • How culture change begins with selflessness and shared mission


August Turak is an entrepreneur, author and speaker who integrates ancient spiritual wisdom with modern leadership practice. He is the author of Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks, Brother John, and Not Less Than Everything, and writes on leadership, service and purpose.


Links

YouTube: @RealAugustTurak

Website: Augustturak.org

Books: Available here in Hard and Soft Covers

GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>a96669bf-7652-4243-8cef-e212f5c45dda_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 06:18:31 +010001:19:40falsefullThe Meta Resource — Dr Bruno Cignacco on the Business Case for CompassionThe Meta Resource — Dr Bruno Cignacco on the Business Case for CompassionDr Bruno Cignacco has spent thirty years inside the international consulting world, and he has come to a quietly subversive conclusion: profit is not the starting point of a successful company — it's the output. In this conversation, the author of The Art of Compassionate Business makes the case that compassion is not soft, not optional, and not separate from the bottom line. It might just be the bottom line.


In this conversation, Bruno names the obstacles that keep compassion out of most workplaces — fear, busyness, rigid rules — and is unusually willing to call each by its actual name. He distinguishes accountability from micromanagement (the two are constantly confused), and explains why companies that treat employees only as economic units will keep haemorrhaging the people they need most. The conversation closes on a line worth carrying: kindness compounds. So does its opposite.


About Bruno

Dr Bruno Roque Cignacco is an international business consultant, TEDx speaker, and author of The Art of Compassionate Business (Routledge, 2nd edition). He has advised hundreds of organisations across thirty years of practice, and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK. He is also a Master Life Coach and Master NLP Practitioner, and was named in 2024 by World's Leaders Magazine as one of the world's most transformational leaders changing the face of business.


Resources


GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>Dr Bruno Cignacco has spent thirty years inside the international consulting world, and he has come to a quietly subversive conclusion: profit is not the starting point of a successful company — it's the output. In this conversation, the author of The Art of Compassionate Business makes the case that compassion is not soft, not optional, and not separate from the bottom line. It might just be the bottom line.


In this conversation, Bruno names the obstacles that keep compassion out of most workplaces — fear, busyness, rigid rules — and is unusually willing to call each by its actual name. He distinguishes accountability from micromanagement (the two are constantly confused), and explains why companies that treat employees only as economic units will keep haemorrhaging the people they need most. The conversation closes on a line worth carrying: kindness compounds. So does its opposite.


About Bruno

Dr Bruno Roque Cignacco is an international business consultant, TEDx speaker, and author of The Art of Compassionate Business (Routledge, 2nd edition). He has advised hundreds of organisations across thirty years of practice, and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK. He is also a Master Life Coach and Master NLP Practitioner, and was named in 2024 by World's Leaders Magazine as one of the world's most transformational leaders changing the face of business.


Resources


GRACEWorks is a podcast for leaders, high achievers, and thoughtful humans who sense that success alone is no longer enough.


Hosted by Paul Crick, each episode explores what it means to lead, live, and work with GRACE especially when we find ourselves under pressure of some sort or another.


Through honest conversations, lived experience, and reflective inquiry, GRACEWorks invites you to move beyond relentless striving toward clarity, presence, and alignment.


If this episode resonated, you’re warmly invited to explore more conversations, reflections, and practices at GRACEWorks and to share this episode with someone who might need it.


© 2026, The Elevate Partnership Limited. All Rights Reserved.

]]>4fcbad10-4867-43e3-b16b-b791ac31d07b_GOWjlddMq5Wed, 06 May 2026 05:18:31 +010033:05falsefull