Malcolm Stern: 0:46

So welcome to my podcast, Slay your Dragons With Compassion, which I'm doing in conjunction with my friends, John and Sandra Wilson, at online events, and I've had some wonderful guests on, and mostly it's been people who I've been friends with for a long time, and what I've discovered is that everyone has got a story to tell. It's not what I've discovered, it's what I see all the time in therapy groups, and I know today's guest is an old and dear friend. Nicholas Janni has an amazing story, lots of amazing stories to tell, but let's see where the dialogue takes us, shall we? So, nicholas, welcome to our podcast.

Nicholas Janni: 1:23

Thank you, Malcolm, really looking forward to our conversation, lovely.

Malcolm Stern: 1:27

And the theme is basically Slay your, your dragons with compassion, which is, um, how do we overcome the adversities that befall us, that we even build on it and become more as a result of it. So that's the, that's the theme of the podcast, um, and you don't have to sort of stray into areas that are not necessarily comfortable, but I know that you're a straight talking man, so let's see how we, how we roll with that. So I think, um, we've known each other for a lot since our kids were tiny. So that's um. It's been 30 years, so, yeah, long time. And um, and you were an amazing drummer. I think that's one of the most extraordinary things. Let's, let's start there. I was going to start somewhere else, but I just remembered that you played with kodo um and, uh, it looked like you may have become a professional musician. You're certainly a very accomplished musician, but it's not who you are now. Perhaps you could give us a little bit of input about your time basically on an island, isn't it, with playing with these master musicians?

Nicholas Janni: 2:27

Sure, yeah, I often think that if I had another life I would be a musician, and there were times early where I regretted that I was not going to become a professional musician until my other path kind of became my real path, became clearer. Um, and actually coda was after I'd already spent six months in west africa learning this drum, the djembe, where I'm kind of semi-professional with that and that said, there's a huge gap between that and professional. So, um, you know, from a on my teens onwards, I knew I had a, I could play, you know, I had a decent sense of rhythm. And then the african thing started. I was in geneva, I was in a theater company the only time I was an actor and we'd come to an end and someone said you have to go and see this african, it's his first time out of africa and he's a master.

Nicholas Janni: 3:36

So I went to his concert and he was playing solo, playing this drum, and it completely blew me away. I mean it, I. I remember he, he played like faster and faster, and each time he he accelerated, he screamed, and I remember it was like he was going up a ladder and I can remember that literally by the time he'd finished every cell in my body was open To the point where because anyway, I was already deep, deep, deep into body work that made me find out how to contact him, write him and say can I come and study with you?

Nicholas Janni: 4:23

wow and he never had a white person with him and he was the real deal. I didn't realize that even among African masters he was a very high master. So I went and I lived with him and his family in very primitive conditions no running water or anything and he gave me lessons every day and after a little while he was also. He went to play at marriages or baptisms every day, pretty much every day, and quite soon I became his accompanist. So we would be the only two men, 50 to 100 women. I was obviously the only white person.

Nicholas Janni: 5:09

I had to be a metronome for him and there was singing and one by one women would come in front of him and he would go into incredible kind of improvisation and they would go into semi-trance state. Then they'd go back into the group and then the next woman would come. So I did that for five or six months and when I came back I played, I practiced a lot and I did concerts. I made two CDs, but mainly I used it in my work. I think you may have experienced that.

Malcolm Stern: 5:50

It's going to come to that. We had a very interesting.

Nicholas Janni: 5:52

I'm a very potent agent of helping people really open their body.

Malcolm Stern: 6:00

Yes.

Nicholas Janni: 6:00

I remember, sorry, go on.

Malcolm Stern: 6:04

In the late 80s, early 90s, and I remember you saying to me after this workshop you thought you were inviting me along to be the jukebox and I realized that actually your drum was your magical tool which would help transform energy. And I know that sounds a bit sort of woo, woo and new agey, but I actually experienced that something comes through, as you've spoken about with the masters you've studied with. Yes, comes through that. So you've got that as a very lovely parallel to what you're doing now. And I was really impressed that you won the Business Book of the Year Award with Leader as Healer, and I've both been in groups with you. But I've also been in your groups because I recognize that you had something to teach me and I think, well, I think definitely the most powerful moment I ever had in my attending workshops was in a workshop with you where we went into intergenerational trauma and the first time I accessed my grief about my daughter's death, truly accessed it, so the tears were flowing.

Malcolm Stern: 7:04

You created a space that was there is something about space holding. That is quite extraordinary and you do do that, and the beauty is that you do that in the corporate world at a pretty high level and you're also able to straddle the sort of personal development world. So you've got a broad task and it'll be very easy to sort of go well, lead receiver. What's what's that all about? But actually it's all about the fact that you have experienced this and are bringing it through. Perhaps you could say a little bit about that, that book, and what that meant to you well, let's touch a bit about the intergenerational trauma oh yes and how I've?

Nicholas Janni: 7:43

uh, because you know, my father was jewish and italian and and lived in a very well-to-do family in Milan, and as the Second World War approached, they were starting to really hit the Jews hard and his father agreed to an operation. This was my father's story. His father agreed to an operation that he knew would kill him, so it was a kind of way out, whoa yeah. And then one day my father and his mother were told in two hours' time they're going to take your passports, you need to leave. I get very moved, so they fled and, you know, he eventually ended up in England and married my mother, who was not Jewish, and became a world-famous film producer.

Malcolm Stern: 8:42

He was. In fact, we were at an evening that I put on with Terence Stamp, that's right, and your dad had produced Far From the Madding Crowd, exactly.

Nicholas Janni: 8:51

And many others, yeah. However, he had completely buried his trauma and while he was alive, we had a very fractious relationship. He buried his Jewishness and particularly after I was 16 and I had a big spiritual awakening I mean, he really tried to destroy it. It was very threatening to him. So we had a basically a terrible relationship and then he died. Um, and what happened for me was the real breakthrough was one day I was walking in Milan with my wife who you know, who's Israeli by which time I'd really begun to open to the whole Jewish topic. And we were walking in Milan and it's an extraordinary, magnificent city and it suddenly hit me, magnificent city, and it suddenly hit me what he'd been through and I just started crying my heart out for him that's so beautiful.

Nicholas Janni: 10:03

I'm really touched hearing that and that really changed everything in my whole connection with him Also, because I mean, there was a whole other topic of him being so famous, the classic thing of a son feeling much less than and so on, all of that kind of healed to a large degree. And after that moment in Milan I just started having a huge heart open to him and really proud of him and fascinated by his journey. And ever since then I also felt him very with me in a way, you know, like I live in Puglia now and we have an amazing olive grove and I used to. It was very significant for me to start living here in relation to him and I actually it's getting very emotional again. After we settled in the house I used to occasionally walk into the olive grove and speak to him and actually say out loud Father, I'm bringing you home, because he was in exile in every way and he loved Italy. He never came back to Italy. So you know it's been a huge story.

Nicholas Janni: 11:29

And then, of course, I trained with thomas hubel and really learned how to work with trauma personal and intergenerational. So it's become a big part of my work. Also with corporate leaders. You know I worked with two african and chief executives, very, very successful people, and we I mean I also learned a lot through working with them as we uncovered those layers, until we really hit in the body the point of how slavery was sitting in their system and the agony of that, and it was an extraordinary process. One of them had never considered that he might be affected by that.

Malcolm Stern: 12:16

Wow, yeah. So it's funny, because I've heard you talk about your dad before, but never at this level and this depth, and what I'm really hearing is that you found something that most people don't find, I think, when there's a sort of sense that our parents haven't done the right thing by us, whatever we think that ought to be, it's a place that shuts down and lives in resentment absolutely, which is how I was when he was alive yes, but it's beautiful that you experienced it and then also that you're honoring him to this day and that you have taken up residence in his native land, which I think was pretty extraordinary as well for you.

Malcolm Stern: 12:52

Yes.

Nicholas Janni: 12:53

Yeah.

Malcolm Stern: 12:54

So, and I think you know you've talked about intergenerational trauma and of course, you introduced me to Thomas Hubel as well and I also did some work with him, and his work was profound around intergenerational trauma and perhaps you could tell us a bit more what that actually means, and perhaps you could tell us a bit more what that actually means?

Nicholas Janni: 13:11

What it means, or what I came to understand viscerally through Thomas, is that almost every culture is it's like we're walking in waist-deep water, but we walk as if we're dry, and that waist-deep water is all the imprints of what the group, the tribe, the culture, has been through in every way and got closed down because it could not be felt. You know, for instance, that most people who were in the camps, the Holocaust camps, just went mute, yeah, so the whole thing got frozen but it got passed down. I mean, that's the most obvious example. Second, third generation Holocaust family members who are walking around in terror. Well, they weren't in the camps, yes. While they weren't in the camps, yes.

Nicholas Janni: 14:13

Or African-Americans who are walking around with a profound sense of I can't sit at this table, I don't, I'm not, it's not right for me to sit at that table, or whatever. Or in the case of the other client, her grandmother would never sit with her back to the door of a restaurant, you know. So we realized in her that she is carrying a fundamental level of terror. So, and we know from lots of research as well that it's. I mean, psychologists have known this a long time, but it's becoming clear through research as well that trauma is passed down through the generations. There's a beautiful picture in my book of a man carrying a suitcase in the dark kind of, and you see his back and the phrase the words are hurts are passed down through the generations until someone is ready to feel them. That says it perfectly.

Malcolm Stern: 15:23

It does it, funnily enough that also. I'm not a bible basher, but there's a wonderful line in the bible the sins of the parents are visited on the children, generation after generation, until I can't remember the bit of it, but it basically so. We've got quite a profound truth there, haven't we? Yes, if people can get through their trauma, they can stop.

Malcolm Stern: 15:42

It's almost like carrying this luggage around exactly carrying it around, and so that's been your work and I know that was your work in the personal development field. We both taught at Fintorn together and places like that. But what I'm fascinated by is how you've managed to straddle the divide and to create and I've met some of your clients and I know that you were held in really high esteem and you do do things that are going to be off the wall for some people. I'm not saying they're off the wall at all, I'm just saying they could be perceived as being a bit lightweight. They're certainly not that.

Nicholas Janni: 16:17

No, well, first of all, first of all, I you know, people are people. So if you're working I don't care who I'm working with the ceo of 300 000 people is a human being and he or she is carrying exactly the same yes, inner architecture as anyone else. So I have you know. Once you understand that, then it was more about me gaining the confidence which took, you know, it took quite a long time and is ever evolving. But, you know, I'm also, as you can, as the book is evidence of I can explain things very coherently. So, first of all, I can make a very strong and very simple case for why we need to look at all the emotions we've frozen if we want to be in high performance, for instance. I mean, it's, it's very simple and it actually gets simpler and simpler. So, and also, that's only one pillar of my work, because my work has two pillars awakening and healing and I can, you know I can explain it all very persuasively. And once there's enough cognitive agreement, then we get into the experiential work.

Nicholas Janni: 17:49

And that's where real change happens and we do deep somatic work and the biggest obstacle often in that particular part of the journey is the emotional. For good reason, people are very, you know, I work with people who haven't cried for years. Yes, it's safe enough where actually tears can flow and it's all about safety and permission. There's no judging. If someone hasn't cried for years, they're not bad. It's because they've never been held so like to go through a whole well of absolutely, absolutely getting rid of any kind of judgment.

Nicholas Janni: 18:35

And what I noticed the more I work and also, as you know, as we both hold as the kind of people who do deep work, we have to be constantly doing our work absolutely. And I'm doing that, my own healing work and awakening more than ever actually, and I'm finding in the work I'm doing, which is mainly in the corporate world, I'm both fiercer and more loving than ever, and it's a winning combination. Yes, I no longer have any fear of what people think of me, so I will say things exactly as they are, but with a lot of love yes, I think that's a very interesting combination.

Malcolm Stern: 19:16

And um, joanna macy has just died, I know I followed that yeah and she was she. She said that she'd spoke about the path of the lover and the warrior. She embodied that and that it I'm saying that's absolutely it yeah.

Nicholas Janni: 19:31

So you put me in any boardroom and I will have no fear and I will get through to most of the people and of course, there'll be some people who just have a no, okay, it's too much. Yes, but that was the same. You know, I brought a very radical approach to theatre to England and I taught acting for 20 years, including at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and a lot of the students there were like wow, this is incredible, because it was so strong and so embodied. And there were others who like no way. Okay, fair enough, and that's how it is not everyone.

Malcolm Stern: 20:12

I mean doing real development is a choice yes, well, I've watched your progress over the years and I can actually see that you hold a space where anything can happen without getting, without you losing your center, and I think that's the skill we have as group leaders. I think can be in the room, people know it, and then you can go deeper. Yes, we've also said something very important as well about um that if you win people over at a cognitive level, there's then more space for you to do the deep emotional work, exactly, or they?

Nicholas Janni: 20:46

Yes, and it's not. Of course we should say as well, when I'm speaking to a group, cognitively there is a whole transmission going on. That's way beyond the cognitive as well.

Malcolm Stern: 21:04

So this is something you've stepped into a lot, and your book has probably blasted you into this realm in a bigger way. I don't know what impact that's had and what what inspired you to write Leader as Healer.

Nicholas Janni: 21:18

Yeah, before Leader as Healer, I called my work presence, core presence, authentic presence, and I think probably around 2000, 2001, 2001, I don't remember exactly somehow that those words dropped in leader as healer, um, and I started to kind of talk about it a bit with people. I even spoke the words to a couple of CEO clients wondering what they would think, and they got a huge. I got a very positive response. I was talking about it more and more and eventually a colleague of mine, who's a very well-known consultant and a huge supporter of mine, said you really need to write a book on this. So I'm not a natural writer and it was quite a long drawn out process, but I wrote the book, um, and then my publisher put it up for the business book awards and, to my astonishment, I I knew I was a finalist in the leadership category. There were 14 categories. So we went to this black-tie dinner thinking, you know, we're just going to a party, basically. And come the leadership category. I thought, you know, I didn't expect anything. But I won that category, which was already beyond any expectation. Um, they're all business categories, obviously.

Nicholas Janni: 22:54

And at the end of the evening the head judge said you know, it's been my task to read all 14 winners and choose the book of the year. I'm gonna get emotional. And she started talking about the book she chose and I was like no. And then she said this is the book everyone should be reading. Wow, the business book of the year is Leader as Healer.

Nicholas Janni: 23:26

So it was a very momentous moment professionally and it has made a huge difference in many, many ways, internally as well. I mean, when I give speeches I never have any notes. I never did. But now it's just like I open a chapter of the book and not that I repeat, but it's kind of organized things in internally. No, I get. It's also given me a you know, obviously a new level of credibility and respect and it's talked about regularly on linkedin or I meet people and they and they, out of the blue, they say I have your book by my bedside. Best Best of all, recently another CEO man I know was flying business class BA to India and he had my book on the table and the head of the cabin crew came by and said oh, my goodness, that's my favorite book. Wow, isn't that lovely, what?

Malcolm Stern: 24:30

an amazing story you know.

Nicholas Janni: 24:32

So it it's had more impact than I could have possibly imagined, yes, which is lovely. And when I look at it now which I do occasionally first of all, the publisher did a beautiful job with the photos and when I read the text, I'm like, yeah, this is good, which is not always the case when you read what you've written.

Malcolm Stern: 24:53

So yeah, I think sometimes we get inspired. I mean, the first two books I wrote took me four years to write, and Slay your Dragons with Compassion, which was inspired by my daughter's suicide, took me seven months yeah, it's a beautiful.

Nicholas Janni: 25:07

I was just exactly loading everything I needed to download yeah well, I just submitted a new book to the publisher oh yes, you mentioned that, yeah co-authored with amy fox, who you know who's the dear friend and it's a collection of shortish pieces by both of us which took us a month to get together, or a little bit over a month, um, and we're very excited by it. It's really strong for the, for the leadership world as well, very strong, uncompromising writing. So it's lovely because I wasn't up for going through torture of writing a whole new book.

Malcolm Stern: 25:50

No, I tried a few times after my book and I just thought I can't do this.

Nicholas Janni: 25:53

No, I've just had two years to write Leader, as Healer, you know.

Malcolm Stern: 25:58

That's pretty good. So you have your legacy book there. Yeah, that's what you've been teaching and what's your trajectory going forward. What do you see yourself carrying on? Or just carrying on with what you're doing?

Nicholas Janni: 26:15

So one of my highest offerings, I see, is that I run transformational coaching programs for people who work with senior leaders and it's a six month online program and, um, the first cohort.

Nicholas Janni: 26:32

Some of them are now continuing on a second level with me and it's really transforms their work I mean radically transforms their work, because they're used to working at a high cognitive level and I'm coming from no, no, no, no, we're going to show, I'm going to show you how you can feel the entire interior of your client and it's amazing the effect that it's having on their work. So I understand that I will keep doing that, that I have a. I have a vision of creating also a kind of quite exclusive program for very high-level CEOs. There would be a year-long program or some, co-led with people like, like Amy and other people, and then also beginning to think about a few people I might train very intensively who will carry on my work. Other than that, to keep looking for organizations who really want to engage. It's quite difficult with some of the bigger organizations because they want to and then they don't. It's too much.

Malcolm Stern: 27:50

Well, I guess they get threatened a little bit by some of them.

Nicholas Janni: 27:52

They get very threatened, even though they understand the value of the work.

Malcolm Stern: 27:57

I'm just wondering whether part of that threat would be you'd be working intensely with one of their key people, who would then realize that he was in a container that didn't fit him any longer.

Nicholas Janni: 28:08

Yeah, that happens a bit, but not as much as you might think. Actually, most people get inspired to try and change where they work.

Malcolm Stern: 28:17

Yeah, so you travel over quite a lot of the world doing what you do, and how is that for you? Sort of like getting out to different cultures and sort of managing people, because they're going to have different mindsets as well. That's what I found, for example, when I was working in China. It was almost like I had to find a different language to be able to work with them.

Nicholas Janni: 28:41

Yeah, I did used to travel a lot doing the work and, generally speaking, I quite soon discovered that the kind of level of work that I was bringing was genuinely universal.

Nicholas Janni: 28:57

So, although there are, of course, cultural differences, there is something that's way beyond culture and just human. It's like, if you look at all the mystical traditions, they kind of speak with one voice about the core journey of awakening. And also really now, where I meet what you're saying is when I teach at the IMD business school, which is one of the world's top business schools, and I typically have a group of about 40 senior leaders and I'll have Japanese and a lot of Saudis and Europeans and occasionally Americans. So there I have really a multicultural group and there I, you know, I find the kind of point of language that I also used to find when I was traveling that if I was in India, someone would come up to me and say do you know you're teaching the Vedanta, and when I was working a lot corporately in Israel, people would say you know you're teaching Kabbalah. So that proves my point in a way that there is something universal there really is in the human journey. I believe, I see, I more than believe.

Malcolm Stern: 30:19

You know it because I see is very much the work that you're doing, that I'm doing and a lot of our friends are doing Very much alchemical work. It's bringing through. It almost feels like mysticism, but it isn't. It's just allowing another layer to come through and to be fed by yes, nestle. They say for four keys to running a group show up, be present, trust the process and get out of the way. Right, yeah.

Nicholas Janni: 30:46

And I see now in the work that it is going deeper and deeper. And it's going because from a very, very young age and the exposure I had to different teachings, I always knew the body was right at the core and in a way, what I'm doing now is going deeper than ever in in the body and even the subtle body and I've begun to see or think of some of the work is actually recoding. It feels sometimes like someone's whole system, on a way beyond cognitive level, is starting to recode and I feel it in myself sometimes as well which means that the whole experience of reality starts to shift and there's no way you would ever think yourself into that or even predict that before it's happening, because it's always new. But the whole notion of recoding that's why at Matrix we call our podcast Recoding the future I think it's very profound it is you just made me think about.

Malcolm Stern: 31:59

I've got a woman who's she's a professor and a doctor in one of my groups and she's self-proclaimed autistic and she certainly exhibits those behaviors yes he explained to the group was that they're wired differently. Now I'm wondering if that you have the capacity to help rewire people's mindsets I think it's very close and I don't think it's about rewiring their mindsets.

Nicholas Janni: 32:24

I think it's about rewiring their whole nervous system at quite a surprising level yes um, I don't, yeah I'm. I personally don't really work much with mindsets.

Malcolm Stern: 32:41

I mean I, I get that, I address them if they're there yes because actually most people's mindset.

Nicholas Janni: 32:48

You know, I think we have an incredibly distorted version of reality most of the time if we're talking about mindsets.

Malcolm Stern: 32:57

Yes.

Nicholas Janni: 32:58

And most of those mindsets come from disconnection. I mean, my whole work is about. I sometimes say to groups we took the USB out of our body, our emotions, our intuition, transcendent stillness. So what we're going to do now is we're going to put the USB back in. It's a good metaphor.

Malcolm Stern: 33:21

It's a good metaphor and one that, again, if it's understood, then you're not going to be seen as doing something weird.

Nicholas Janni: 33:26

It's difficult to argue with that. People don People understand. You know, I say to a corporate group do you know how it? You remember how it feels when your body is really alive and open? You know how that feels? Yeah, yeah, we know that. So what percentage of each day do you have that? It's somewhere between 5 and 10%. So then my next comment is but you understand what we've normalized, that we have normalized living in a very small version of reality.

Malcolm Stern: 34:08

It's really interesting because it's. I think I've often had little insights into the fact that I am not just this lump of flesh and bones, but it's almost like it's. So it feels like sand slipping through my fingers when I try and nail that and get more in touch with the transcendent part.

Nicholas Janni: 34:29

Ah, no, that's very core for me. Yeah, I hear that you know, like that, in the jewish mystical tradition they have this beautiful metaphor of you open the page of a book and you have all the black letters and there's a white page. So for me, the access to the white page which anyway is infinite is quite regular, and it's always kind of there if I shift my attention and that's part of my teaching as well because we're basically only living in the black letters. And even with the body, malcolm, you, you know, it's things that are so obvious, like okay, so you live less than 10 percent of your time, really, with an awake body. When do you have your best ideas? Oh, when I'm exercising.

Malcolm Stern: 35:27

So come on yes, it's there, come on, it's there and I guess also it's threatening.

Malcolm Stern: 35:33

I Come on, it's still there and I guess also it's threatening. I remember I was running a group once with quite a high-powered CEO this was a personal development group and his wife had brought him along and he really sort of got into it and started crying and he was applauded by the other members of the group for letting his vulnerability be shown and his wife said if he did this in the boardroom he's dead and and that that's we're looking, probably 25 30 years ago, but I'm wondering how true that is now that, no, it's just well.

Nicholas Janni: 36:02

In some boardrooms it would be true, but there is a shift happening yes there is. I mean I'm. I know in my clients and I hear from my senior coaches of the people they're working with it's getting less and less easy for senior leaders, when asked how you are, to just say I'm fine, really.

Malcolm Stern: 36:24

Yeah.

Nicholas Janni: 36:24

And you're hearing much more. I'm struggling, I'm lonely, wow. And also, you know, I did a business podcast last week and the presenter started with the words we are in a time of radical uncertainty. Okay, do we all agree? How can anyone disagree? I don't agree, yes. So let's look at what this means. And you know, one of my starting points in corporate is always einstein's question is your mind your master or your servant? Because in 95 percent of people it's the master. So if you're trying to navigate radical uncertainty with an operating system in which your mind is your master, you're not going to even progress one inch. Now I'm also realizing more and more that because of my time in the theater, in the artistic world, radical uncertainty is the foundation. I mean I used to teach actors to stop trying to know what was going to happen the next second. So the core of the creative process is radical uncertainty. I live very comfortably with radical uncertainty. I always have In a group holding a group. Let's see what's emerging.

Malcolm Stern: 37:54

yes, I'm just wondering whether you ever because I know that what I experience a lot is is a very positive projection from the people I'm working with and I get flattered and honored and blah, blah, blah and then once in a while, the whole thing twists and you have someone who really wants to break you for daring to step into that territory. I wonder whether that's true in the environments you work in also.

Nicholas Janni: 38:18

With groups that I'm, you know like. I have a core group. I have people who train with me at different levels and I'm generally known as the leader who, in those groups, is not afraid to show my vulnerability.

Malcolm Stern: 38:37

As you've done here.

Nicholas Janni: 38:38

And get hugely respected for it.

Malcolm Stern: 38:41

Right.

Nicholas Janni: 38:43

So I'm aware of that projection. It's a huge topic. It's a huge topic, but also I think we have to understand that when we lead a group, we're going into a function and that function has energetic, even metaphysical, contours. Like thomas used to say, you're getting a loan of energy. So I think we also have to be super clear when we step out of that function, we're coming back to all our humanity and our vulnerability and I think if we're not clear about that, we're on tricky ground. It took me ages to, because it's very tempting to be why can't I be this brilliant all the time?

Malcolm Stern: 39:28

no, that's not the full humanity of who I am no, well, I'm, I'm in great respect to the work you do and I and I think you're reaching the parts that that people like me can't reach in the, in the output we have. Um, because my work is much. I do some corporate work, but mainly I'm in the personal psychotherapy field um, but I I think what I'm hearing is that is the optimism that that there is a sea change out there as well, and that some people are open, even though they have sort of you know, positions where they feel they've got to protect themselves from being too visible in their desert, in their anxiety or fear, and actually what I'm hearing is that you create a safe place for that to emerge also. So we're coming towards the end of our podcast. I've really enjoyed the conversation.

Malcolm Stern: 40:20

I've learned things I haven't heard before from you as well, and I loved particularly how you were around your dad I think that's a wonderful story there of his suffering, your resentment at how he was then the understanding of his suffering, and resentment at how he was then the understanding of his suffering and the forgiveness and the let go, which is a lovely little journey all of its own as well. So thank you for for bringing some of that vulnerable stuff here, and the question I always ask at the end of the the podcast is what's the particular dragon you've had to slay? What obstacle have you had to overcome in order to be who you are?

Nicholas Janni: 40:56

The feeling of being worthless.

Malcolm Stern: 41:01

And again that's.

Nicholas Janni: 41:02

Not good enough.

Malcolm Stern: 41:03

Yes.

Nicholas Janni: 41:05

Yeah, because that was installed in me and my family ecosystem.

Malcolm Stern: 41:13

So presumably that's you've transcended, that, you've gone past that, not 100%.

Nicholas Janni: 41:19

Yeah, it's a dragon that still can. I can notice it, I think it'll be, I think we all have. I think we all have core dragons, to use your terminology. We'll just work with them at deeper and deeper layers.

Malcolm Stern: 41:39

That's lovely and I really appreciate that. Because a lot of people feel that worthlessness, it's almost considered not okay to talk about it. Well yeah, in some circles yeah.

Nicholas Janni: 41:56

Well, it's very lovely to see you and thank you. Yeah, thank you, malcolm, really love our contact, thank you and our connection we'll speak soon.

Malcolm Stern: 42:02

Thanks very much.