Transcript:
David, you are still developing this concept, can you share the mission and vision behind the Rethinkly brand and how the virtual world integrates into that mission?
Thank you for inviting me along and it's, it's lovely to take a moment to reflect on the product and kind of where it's come from and some of the history. It was originally designed for coaches. It was designed to replicate something I used to do with groups or individuals in rooms by bringing someone's story alive. So, you'd be able to see parts of yourself or systems that you're in. I get people to play them, and they'd magically come alive. And because of that, I'd always get insight, so I guess that's the mission. Originally for me it was how to get that kind of magic and insight online and enable people to do it remotely. I think since then I've kind of reflected on this recently and I think one of the things we love doing with the story with the software is we help improve people's lives. When I think about where it's been and around the world of mental health and working with young people and people with stress or whatever. So, and we know that that in turn increases performance. So, there is a connection there with the executive coaching but helping improve people's lives is right at the core. We create software, we're software creators and we know that we're in the world of visual representation of thoughts and feelings. We've always wanted the experience of using the software to be enjoyable, immersive and insightful. So, we also like the experience of working with us and with our Rethinkly team to be joyful and engaging. I think recent feedback shows that we achieve that.
Would you see Rethinkly as a tool? A way of using a virtual space or a method?
I think it's a canvas on which we can daub, and we can paint. I think it's a window to our imagination. I think it's a bubble burster of how we make up and see things. I think it's a reality check with various realities that we have. I think it's a personal movie maker. So, I can see the movie of me, and I think it's a visual storyteller. So, I think it's all that.
You've studied storytelling in the past. How has this influenced Rethinkly? Have you implemented that learning to help clients?
Yeah, I think so. I think what I've learned about storytelling is we're all storytellers. There is an approach by someone I met many years ago when I was studying. He said “people tell their stories in the first 10 seconds of meeting them.” By the tone of the voice, the way they are, their presence, we tell a story. Also we are storytellers, and we love nothing more than someone saying "Are you sitting comfortably" or “Once Upon a time in a land far away.” So, there is something about the story that also brings in magic. We access some material and this probably didn't come out of Andrew's interview. We accessed some material that's mystical, and transcendent. And that happens when you're sitting around the fire and a storyteller is telling a story and you disappear off into another world. Yeah. So that's what I learned from storytelling. So, I think also I learned in storytelling that landscapes matter how we see our world. I learned in storytelling about characters and the shape of stories.
Stories have certain components in them as we tell our story. So, I'm proud there is quite a bit of storytelling that's woven into the software.
Moving on to technology and how do you see the advancements in VR impacting visual methods in the future of personal development? Because Rethinkly i s one of the very few, or the only one.
As a kid, I loved Star Trek. And in Star Trek they have something called the holodeck, and in the holodeck. Basically, you can decide what world you want to go to. There is a beach or some simulation, and you live it, and these people turn up. I always think that holodeck's probably not far away, where you're really immersed in something that feels real. I think our technology is getting incredibly close to that. Now the amazing thing is that we can then use technology to connect with our imagination. How we imagine the world. We can also see how others imagine the world. I've always thought there's a significant opportunity to instead of saying to someone how are you today, show me what's going on for you today. It's like that cause I've just seen the image of it. So, show me, and technology we will do it.
I know that recently, Rethinkly had a collaboration with HULT EF. Can you share Rethinkly’s side on that and what happened during that collaboration?
Yeah, I think. This was important for us because, first, it's in the context. We'd only just learned how to deliver what is our workshop product. So, the workshop product that we originally called one to many, we realized that we could get a group, significant sized group online, all having an immersive experience, and the exciting thing is, and the crazy thing is we were the only people in the world doing this. I think we still are the only people in the world doing this. The amazing thing is that the connection we had enough of a connection with HULT to then take this concept to one of their clients and one of their clients had the courage and the imagination to say there is a fit, and that was extraordinary. I think that designing that and delivering that as the first in the world ever to happen was extraordinary, and that for them to be evaluated, as successful, it's now going probably into its fourth year and the other aspect of this is that whole now do it themselves. We did the original work on the design and showed them how to make the delivery. Now we've trained them to do the delivery so that they're autonomous in that. So, I think it's quite an incredible project that went from something totally unique and it has touched hundreds of women around the world and for some of them, I know it's been a life changing experience. So yeah, good project. Extraordinary.
You know. Well. I think the really interesting thing is one of the themes in that particular project was about engaging with wild woman. Now, if you want to do that, there's a lot of places where you can go on courses or workshops and find yourself facilitated in a 2–3-day workshop to engage with your wild part. I'm not sure many of those women would sign up for those kinds of workshops and here just here we gave them a short space of time. We gave some ideas of what it might be to connect with themselves, which is just beautiful. I'm very honored to be part of that process, so let's hope that it continues and that more people get to use it.
You did have a podcast recently, and you quoted “so much of coaching is reliant on words.” Can you expand on how Rethinkly visual worlds expands to a new way of coaching.
I'm dyslexic. So, I struggled with writing. I could remember at school, no one could read my writing, and I couldn't spell for toffee. Sorry, that's probably some strange old English term spelling. Anyway, I couldn't spell. I still can't very well express myself in the written word is something that's come very late in my life and I'm still learning a huge amount from it verbally. Expressing what's going on is also a challenge for some people. You may ask, “Hey, how are you feeling? Oh, I'm OK.” “Yeah. How was that? Oh, it's fine.” I think with some me, we say, tell what emotion came up for you when that situation happened? They probably got a repertoire of six or seven feeling words. And yet there's 500, maybe 1000 feeling words that we've got available, but they've they have learned 5 or 6. Get someone to express that emotion in dance or in music, or to splash some paint. It would come out very different. It would come out so beautifully expressive. So, we are rather trapped in or contained or limited by a requirement to respond verbally. Go to your therapist first thing therapist says, “So tell me what's coming up for you today.” So, using visual using metaphor, and using symbolism hIt helps us express a deeper meaning of the essence of something. It saves us having to write 3 or 4 pages of words. Maybe a bit of poetry could do it. Maybe some music could do it. Some art can do it, and Rethinkly can do it.
You created this platform in 2013. Looking back, what are you proud of and what were your biggest challenges, even challenges that you are still encountering today.
I'm really proud of the life changing impact it's had for so many. I know that that's happened. I'm proud of the work that we've done in mental health. I'm proud of the research that we've accumulated and the evidence. I'm proud we're still going. Some of the challenges have been around acceptability and adoption, particularly in the NHS. We keep saying we’ve given up on it, it’s been really hard to provide a service to the NHS and into the world of mental health because of the challenges around adoption. I think one of the other challenges is its beauty, is its weirdness, and the thing that gets in the way of people using it is its weirdness. So, one of the things we're constantly looking at is how can we make it's beauty acceptable and understood so people can get into it and enjoy the benefits of the insights that it brings. I think it gives us a window to our soul or what's going on for us, and it holds up a mirror in some way for some people, that's just wonderful. That's what they want. That's what they're hungry for. The other challenge is for some people, that's not what they kind of want, and they're really scared of. So, one of the challenges is to ease us into the process where we bring a lot of compassion and non-judgmental understanding around it in order for those people to also get to use it in some small way.
Of course, and I know that you and the Rethinkly team are looking to expand the knowledge of Rethinkly for more people to know about it for more people to be able to have access to join your workshops and to understand how to use this technology. How are you reaching this audience?
Podcasts like this or things like this. We know that for our workshop product, we can get many people on it. So, by recently we ran an Imposter Syndrome workshop. We're planning for more like that for people to come along and get an experience of the software. We also have a self-help product that's very easy to distribute. That means that people don't have to be committed to a certain time and place in order to enjoy the benefits of the product. So we've got more plans for getting that out there and on smaller devices.
Are there any more webinars coming out soon or workshops that people can join in?
There are more. We have some plans, and we should be publishing the details of those quite soon. There'll be Imposter Syndrome, Part 2 or repeat of it, but going deeper this time. We're just working on some other subjects to deliver more in the world of personal development for individuals.
Just one last question. I would really like to know what the future plans are for Rethinkly, the near future or long-term future plans. What exactly is the main goal right now for you and your team?
The main goal is to make the journey for coaches or individuals as easy as possible for them to have access to the software. That's our task, not something we've been brilliant at all the time, but it's something we can work on now. We want that when people see and experience the software they go “And how can I get that?” We've got to make that task really easy for someone to get hold of the software.
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