Exploring Interconnectedness: a mid-point pause

At this mid-point in the season, we’re taking a short pause, and asking ourselves the question - What does it mean to be human?

In this episode Naomi and Matt discuss the importance of understanding the human condition, the temporary nature of the term 'human,' and the ongoing quest for connection in an increasingly isolated world. They look back at some highlights of our conversations so far, and forward to more to come.

The podcast will be back in January 2026.

You can find us on Linkedin at

Matt Hall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-hall-msb/

Naomi Ward: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomi-ward-098a1535/

Interbeing is made by Making Stuff Better https://makingstuffbetter.com/ and produced by Emily Crosby Media https://emilycrosbymedia.com/ 

Transcript

This transcript was created with AI.

[00:00:00] Naomi Ward: Hello and welcome to series four of the MSB podcast and to our new name, Interbeing. 

[00:00:13] Matt Hall: In our previous seasons, we've explored themes like belonging, organizational health, and the future of education. 

[00:00:19] Naomi Ward: This time, we are returning to the source of what we do. Coaching and how the values of coaching can support people in schools to look both inwards, reconnecting with their own humanity and outwards to cultivating generative relationships with care and curiosity.

[00:00:38] Matt Hall: You might be wondering about our new name into being is a term coined by Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh. It describes the deep interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is in relationship constantly influencing and being influenced by everything else. 

[00:00:57] Naomi Ward: This thread of relationship of inter being colors, everything we're exploring this season, we are in conversation with voices we are drawn to in the world of coaching and with educators in international schools who are walking with us, reflecting on what's changing for them and the questions they're living into now.

[00:01:15] Matt Hall: We're not here to present coaching as the answer to everything. Instead, we want to have honest, open conversations about where coaching works, where it doesn't, and what possibilities lie ahead. 

[00:01:26] Naomi Ward: And this season is just the beginning. Inter being is also the name of our annual in-person gathering a space to explore these themes more deeply face-to-face.

You can find more about that in the show notes. 

[00:01:40] Matt Hall: As always, we are guided by curiosity and by the aliveness of the unfolding conversation between us. We ask everyone the same first and last question, but what happens in between is shaped by the people in the room, including you. 

[00:01:54] Naomi Ward: So thank you for being here.

[00:01:55] Matt Hall: Welcome to Inter Being

Lovely. Well, it's really nice to slow down today. Uh, we're kind of midway through the season and, uh, I thought it'd be really nice just to do a, a check-in, some reflections, some exploration of what we're learning before we dive back in and talk to some more people. Um, I don't wanna stitch you up, Naomi, but, but we ask the same question at the beginning of every episode, and because I've started speaking first, I get to ask you before you get to ask me.

Um. What does it mean to be human? 

[00:02:39] Naomi Ward: Well, it is really nice to slow down, and this is one of my favorite things, Matt, is talking big ideas with you. So, um, I, I'm looking forward to asking you this question as well, but what does it mean to be human? Um, for me is about remembering, I think, um. And I guess the context that's here for me today, 'cause I've been in coaching spaces this morning, is thinking about the context of coaching and, and what I, what I've witnessed today and what I felt personally today is to be human, is remembering the connections that have been invisibilized by whatever kind of.

Socialization or, or what we've learned or some messages that we've received. We sort of think this part of us isn't okay, or this isn't the right environment for this part of me. But I think to be human is to remember that we are intrinsically woven into the fabric of this world. It's almost about remembering our place.

Our size. Um, and just that, that just is,

and I see it again and again and I feel it again and again in coaching that often the moment that we experience in coaching is when there's a remembering of something that's weaving us in to something bigger.

I dunno what if what I said made any sense, but I'll throw it back to you. The same question and what you heard. 

[00:04:36] Matt Hall: Yeah, thanks. Yeah. That interconnected, that interconnectedness resonates. Um, and yeah, the remind, the reminding. Yeah. That's why sometimes coaching is. Well, not referred to, but sometimes people will say it feels like it was a spiritual process.

'cause there is something about connecting with the universal or something bigger that can happen in a coaching conversation. Definitely recognize that. Um, I was at the FE conference last week and Kathleen Nly, who's brilliant, did a keynote. It's actually the second time I've heard the same keynote 'cause um, it's so good.

She doesn't need to do any others. Funny, isn't it? Different bits stand out to you. The, when you like watching anything or hearing anything for the second time. The first time I heard it all, I remember her not all. I remember the thing that really stood out for me the first time I heard it was, um, the Theater of Ritual that happens in schools that really resonated as a.

Descriptor of what happens in schools. We do these things. We turn up, we put the kids there, we put the chairs like this. But um, to your question, the one that stood stands out has stood out for me and has stayed with me these past 10 days, is, um, human was always a temporary category. Um, and if you look at the history of the word human, it was invented to describe us at a certain stage in history.

But there was a time when humans existed, but the definition of humans didn't. Um, so yeah, humans, humans was al human, was always a temporary category. That's really resonated with me and I think it, yeah, definitely takes me in the same place as your thinking of that extent to which we are connected and to be human is to be connected.

Um, but is human also problematic? You know, has it caused damage our conceptualization of ourselves as separate and human, as opposed to integrated and of something else? Um, serves us really well at times to think of ourselves, of ourselves as a separate entity. So planet, systems, spirit, whatever. Um, and Kathleen kind of provoked that thinking, not too explicitly, but you know, to say it was only ever a temporary category implies that it.

Once didn't exist. And that again, at some point, maybe it won't exist in the future. Um, and that doesn't mean to say that the homo sapiens, you know, this is not munging, she wasn't saying homo homo sapiens would disappear. It was more, it was part, it was actually in the context of, you know, the rise of AI and what a AI is happening, the extent to, it's, it's forcing us to kind of reintegrate with something that's not ourselves, which in so many ways we do already.

I was talking with one of my daughters about what modern life would be like. What would humans be like if we had no technology, didn't have a wheel, didn't have toasters, didn't have ovens, didn't have pencils and papers. Would we still be humans? Um, did I, 

[00:07:51] Naomi Ward: so something about humanness is temporary. And what comes up for me is, yes, we are, you know, we, we are mortal and, and this is temp, this is temporary.

And there's also a broader temporality about poly crisis and

where we are heading. Um, and I. And I guess that, and it's, it's great talking to kids about this stuff, isn't it? Because we get so tangled up, don't we, in our cleverness and, and, and children have a way of, of pulling us outta that. 

[00:08:30] Matt Hall: Mm. 

[00:08:31] Naomi Ward: But I wonder if there was a time when we didn't have technology because, you know, is, is, is a, is a hand print on a wall, technology is a spear technology.

You know, we've, is that what separated us? Um, and, and I'm curious about your point, you know, that separation has served us because maybe, maybe that's something that's coming up, is that to be human, we've begun to understand it wrongly as being separated from something. 

[00:09:04] Matt Hall: Yeah. Quite, 

[00:09:06] Naomi Ward: we're all longing for this kind of, you know, pandemic of loneliness and so on.

Not, not everywhere. We're all longing for this. Connection. So that's pointing us to something that's unarguable. 

[00:09:21] Matt Hall: It is, isn't it? And I, and I, and you know, to go back to kind of the reason for this podcast and the framework or the context by which we have these conversations, um, yeah. That's what happens in coaching, isn't it?

Coaching is the coming together of two people. It's a, it's a reunification of something. Um. Or the unification of something. It might not be re but it's also to your first point, very often it is the reconnection to self. It's that, oh, I forgot, I thought that, or I forgot that was possible, or I forgot that, um, that I felt that way.

Um, and yeah, so if, if separation is the, is the source of pain, it's a little surprising that. People find coaching effective and powerful because it's, it's the opposite of separation. 

[00:10:17] Naomi Ward: It sure is. And it's, um, we can only know ourselves. We can only know, we can only learn really in relationship. Um, and schools are just the best places for learning relationally, you know.

All those little nudges and comments and learning alongside and incredible conversations. I mean, they're the most relational universes that we have. Also, in terms of the, the gorgeousness of the intention, which is just to learn and grow and become who you are, hopefully, um. So there's something deeply compatible about the intention of coaching us reconnection, and the environment of a school that sort of makes those two worlds really compatible.

Um, because there's already incredible listening and humanity and, um, and, and I just wonder sometimes we, we get in our own way. 

[00:11:32] Matt Hall: Mm-hmm. Mm. When I think about the speakers we've had so far this season, that's where I think Nobantu's work, um, on Ubuntu in coaching really resonates. You know, that idea that, you know, I am because we are, that it's kind of right there, right in the middle.

There's no space for separation or distinction or, um, it's, it's the central philosophy to that way of coaching. 

[00:12:00] Naomi Ward: Yeah, it, it, it makes anything else completely absurd. Yes, you might as well just have a really good laugh at yourself if you think you are. Um, if we could possibly be separate. Yes. Um, yeah. And, and that was all about very deep presence, wasn't it?

And being alive to what already is here between us, I think. 

[00:12:22] Matt Hall: Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:22] Naomi Ward: Versus let's try and get somewhere, which is often what coaching. And I'm not saying that's wrong. It's all, it's all, we're swimming in all of it, but coaching can have this sense of like being an arrow. Can we get from A to B? Can we get something done?

And, and we need that energy. But I think this season it's been quite balanced and, and rounded in exploring other ways like Nobantu  and, and, and the philosophy of Ubuntu, which she was very clear. This belongs to all of us, right? This is not. Something marginal. 

[00:12:57] Matt Hall: Yeah. Quite. 

[00:12:58] Naomi Ward: Yeah. 

[00:13:01] Matt Hall: So what next? 

[00:13:02] Naomi Ward: What next? So I would point to some of the conversations we've had that have deepened our learning.

'cause we, we always very selfishly do this podcast just 'cause we wanna, wanna learn stuff from, from amazing people. And I'm, I was very struck by Mai’s. Um, Mai Mahmoud's. Um, alignment of her faith with coaching and, and how she felt that had deepened just her, her self-awareness and, and, and had made it sort of coherent.

I thought, I thought that was, I don't think we've ever had a conversation about faith and coaching. Um, and, and she really, she really brought that to life, so grateful to me. 

[00:13:53] Matt Hall: Yeah, she really did. Um, and yeah, we've had some, some really interesting, interesting guests so far and I'd encourage anyone who's not listened to them all, you know, since, since early September to go back and, and check in.

Um, and we've got some really interesting guests to come, um, from a whole range of backgrounds. So I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season. 

[00:14:15] Naomi Ward: Absolutely. We're talking more about teams and, and the connections within teams. And we're talking also with a collaborator Bernice Houston, about the future of coaching and, and racial consciousness and coaching.

So yeah, we'll, um, be exploring more. 

[00:14:35] Matt Hall: Looking forward to it. Thanks, Naomi. 

[00:14:37] Naomi Ward: Thanks Matt.

[00:14:41] Matt Hall: Thanks for listening. If something in this conversation stirred something in you, a thought, a feeling, a question, we'd love to hear about it. You can find ways to connect with us and more about the inter being gathering in the show notes. This podcast is part of a wider dialogue, one that unfolds between us, our guests, and you.

So whether you're walking the dog, driving to school, or just taking a quiet moment for yourself. Thanks for being part of it. Until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and keep listening in. This is into being.