Between the Ears Podcast

Latest Episodes:

#35 What do I Value? Oct 22, 2026

Show notes

In this Question and Quote episode, Arnold Beekes asks: what do I value? He suggests making a list of three to five things that feel right to your heart brain, anything from your health to time with family to time for learning and growing. The reason it matters is that we are bombarded with choices every day, from what to eat and which supplements to use to what media to consume and who to engage with, and knowing your values works like a thermometer that makes those choices easier. The quote is “Sacrificing your enthusiasm for skill and money will sell yourself short.” Arnold says this applies to startups, medium and large corporations, and even charities and NGOs. When you start something you have an initial why and drive, then an article tells you that you need to scale, get bigger and win more clients. He says you can, if you love it, but if you don’t, don’t. His example is a cook with a small neighbourhood restaurant of five to ten tables, where the food is good, the community comes to talk, and the rent and salaries are paid. If that cook opens more restaurants, they will likely become more of a business person than a cook, miss the conversations with customers and spend their time hiring, firing and finding locations. If that is what you love, go ahead, but if you love cooking and your community, scaling is not a must, so don’t sacrifice your enthusiasm.

🔗 About Your Host (Arnold Beekes)
🌐 Website: https://bio.link/beekes
💪 Brain Gym: https://braingym.fitness
🧠 Brain Athletes: https://brainathletes.club
🚀 Innovation Athletes: https://innovationathletes.club
🎓 Join our Skool brain-fitness community: https://www.skool.com/brain-fitness-7070

Roy Coughlan · The Podfather Network — Editor & Promoter
Website: https://roycoughlan.com/
Virtual Assistants: https://va.world/
Private Networking Group: Learn about a Private Networking Group in 50 US States & 50 Countries with 700+ Members https://connectedleaders.academy
Brain Upgrade: https://brainupgrade.org/
The Authority Alliance: A Foundation of Experts — community for entrepreneurs, coaches, and thought leaders to connect, collaborate, and grow their authority together: https://theauthorityalliance.com/
EMF Protection: https://protectfromemf.org/
Health & Wellness: https://podfather.thefrequencyawakening.com/

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #Values #Enthusiasm #Scaling #ArnoldBeekes #SelfAwareness

#34 Responsibility Oct 21, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Arnold Beekes takes up responsibility, which links back to the starting point he shared a few episodes ago: you are good enough, and it’s not your fault but it is your responsibility. He lays out four ways to deal with it. First, you can accept responsibility for your well-being or refuse it, and refusing means “I’m a victim, it’s just the way I am.” Second, if you refuse, you become a pinball of other people and circumstances, your problems remain, and you feed a need for significance and attention. Fear often stops people from accepting responsibility, and they end up seeking relief rather than a cure, through drinking, partying, drugs, sex or porn. Third, you sometimes have to take responsibility for things that are not under your control, like a child kicking a ball through a neighbour’s window, where you are still legally responsible, which means balancing your own responsibility with letting go so you don’t feel powerless. Fourth, you take responsibility for what is under your control, which in the Stoic view is very little, but includes your thoughts, feelings and emotions. How you respond is the heart of your well-being, and if you focus on the cure you look at the cause and ask what you can do about it. Arnold’s own daily practice is to ask himself what went well, not what went wrong. The episode closes with a story of everyday beauty from Leicestershire, where 87-year-old Phyllis Day, who has Alzheimer’s, was asleep when a fire broke out at 11:30 pm. Her daughter Suzanne saw two half-dressed men ramming the front door on her doorbell camera and thought it was a break-in, but the neighbours had smelled smoke and run straight out. One of them was driven back twice by the smoke before reaching the bedroom, and they walked Phyllis out, one arm each. She was treated for smoke inhalation and made a full recovery.

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #Responsibility #Stoicism #EverydayBeauty #ArnoldBeekes #SelfAwareness

#33 What are you Most Excited about lately? Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

In this Question and Quote episode, Arnold Beekes asks: what are you most excited about lately? It can be small, moderate or big, as long as it excites you. He admits it isn’t an easy question, because we’re used to negatively framed ones like what frustrates you or what you hate. He invites you to write your answer down, since it may surprise you, and to keep asking yourself regularly, because it says a lot about you. The quote is from Osho and ties to responsibility, which Arnold will discuss in episode 34. Osho says that if one is miserable, one is responsible, but the miserable person never expects the responsibility and says someone else is making them miserable. Arnold calls letting go of that old habit the great courage to divorce misery.

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #Responsibility #Osho #ArnoldBeekes #SelfAwareness

#32 If you go out to a Restaurant, where do you go and what do you Eat? Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

In this Question and Quote episode, Arnold Beekes starts with a simple question: if you go out to a restaurant, where do you go and what do you eat? He won’t say what the answer means, but he believes it says something about you and how you deal with certainty and uncertainty, so it’s worth thinking about. The quote for this episode is “People who have nothing interesting to share often resort to complaining and criticizing.” Arnold points to social media, where most people criticize what others do, saying they would have done it differently or complaining about the weather, the food, the government or big companies. These people are responsive, he says, they react to others but don’t create anything or take any initiative to make the world better for everyone. His hope is that more people ask themselves: what am I doing, what can I contribute, how can I help? Every person has a role to play and can help make a better world for all.

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #Contribution #Initiative #ArnoldBeekes #SelfAwareness

#31 First Aid Kit for your Brain Fitness Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Arnold Beekes shares what he calls a first aid kit for your brain fitness, for days when your mood is low, your energy is gone and everything feels negative. You don’t have to do it all. He invites you to pick one or two items and apply them today, then try another on another day. The list: stop watching or reading the news and learn something instead, since you miss nothing and most of it is built to create fear; stop meeting toxic people and connect with inspiring ones, even if only through their writing or videos; stop focusing on the past or the future and be present now; stop being a victim and create something, anything, a drawing, a new dish or a photo of a tree in blossom; stop saying “that’s just the way I am”, because neuroplasticity means your brain can form new connections for the rest of your life; stop comparing yourself with others, whose pictures are often photoshopped and whose insides may not match the outside, and use your own uniqueness instead; stop consuming violence in horror films, thrillers and news; appreciate beauty, even a new leaf on a street tree or a cup you have ignored for years; and stop rushing, because nothing will happen if you take a nap and slow down. The episode closes with a story of everyday beauty from Germany, where volunteer teams use thermal imaging drones at dawn to find newborn fawns hiding in tall meadow grass before farmers start mowing. A ground team then carefully moves each fawn to safety, using grass or leaves rather than bare hands so the mother doesn’t reject it, and returns it once the mowing is done. Volunteer groups across Germany now save hundreds of fawns each season, and the method has spread to other countries.

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #BrainFitness #Neuroplasticity #EverydayBeauty #ArnoldBeekes #SelfAwareness

#30 Attention as One of the Most Valuable Currencies we have Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Arnold Beekes talks about attention as one of the most valuable currencies we have. Where your attention goes, your energy flows, and he argues that far too much of it is triggered by fear. Fear puts you in survival mode, fight or flight, and in that state you can’t be creative, find good solutions or get real insights, because great ideas need a relaxed mind. Arnold, who was born in the Netherlands and now lives in Paraguay, points out there are no tigers around, yet fear is still the main tool for grabbing attention. In his view it is used by governments to make people comply and by almost every business to sell, through fear of war, climate, oil prices, being too fat or having an old car, and he says around 95% of social media is fear based. His advice is to not engage with anything that makes you fearful or angry, and to stop filling every gap in your day with the phone. Eat without looking at your screen, talk to people without it, keep it off your nightstand, and when you drink your tea or coffee, just drink it. That pause feels ten times better than scrolling. He also warns against the “two screens” habit, watching TV while following social media, because it splits your attention. Instead, become the guardian of your attention, listen to your heart and to what your body is telling you, like the pain in your ankle you have been ignoring. The episode closes with a story of everyday beauty about Tyler Wiebe, a motorcyclist in Brisbane who was dragged under a car that stopped on top of his sternum, so he could not breathe and his heart could not beat properly. Two employees from a nearby business, Rob and Brian, ran out, called over their colleagues and kept trying to lift the 3,000 pound vehicle until it came up just enough to pull him clear. Tyler survived and later thanked his rescuers on Australian TV, calling them certified legends, saying he gets more time with his daughters and family because of them.

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #Attention #Presence #EverydayBeauty #ArnoldBeekes #SelfAwareness

#29 What are you Curious about? Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Arnold Beekes asks a simple question: what are you curious about? He points out that most of us were taught the opposite, with “curiosity killed the cat” as the classic example, and that school often rewards memorizing over real learning. If you were interested in pigeons, trees or the language of dolphins, you were told it was a waste of time. Arnold says curiosity is one of the most important parts of a healthy brain, a tool, a method and a way of being. Because many of us suppress curiosity the same way we suppress emotions, he asks you to take your time, keep your eyes, ears and nose open over the next few days, and notice what pulls your attention, like the tree flowering in the middle of winter that he can see right now and the questions it raises. The quote for this episode is “Most people only listen to what they want to hear.” Arnold links it to echo chambers and confirmation bias, where we surround ourselves with people and media that already agree with us. You learn far more from people who see things differently, and that doesn’t mean changing your mind every second, it means being comfortable saying “I don’t know for sure.” Once you have different points of view, you can form your own opinion, and the world needs your uniqueness.

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #Curiosity #ConfirmationBias #BrainHealth #ArnoldBeekes #SelfAwareness

#28 Inside Out Sep 18, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Arnold Beekes contrasts two fundamentally different ways of living: from the outside in, where you're constantly reacting to what other people say, what you consume, and what the world throws at you — versus from the inside out, where you start with what you notice and feel internally, and respond to the world from there. He makes the case that outside-in living means living someone else's life, always shaped by external triggers, while inside-out living means actually living your own. Arnold gets specific about how distraction functions as avoidance — the movies, the drinking, the endless scrolling we reach for precisely because we don't want to hear the inner voice quietly telling us we're unhappy at work, exhausted, or not using our potential. He uses a vivid image: trying to receive something with a closed hand that's already full — your brain works the same way, and when it's packed with other people's expectations and constant distraction, there's no space left to receive insight, intuition, or even proper sleep. His practical suggestion is disarmingly simple: when you eat, just eat. When you drink, just drink. When you walk, actually notice what you see, hear, and smell. It's a training process, not something that happens automatically. The episode closes with a genuinely lovely piece of everyday beauty: King's College Hospital in London has built a rooftop garden ICU, letting critically ill patients spend hours outdoors — fully connected to power, data, and medical gas — in a space designed by a three-time Chelsea Flower Show winner, with one patient awaiting a heart operation saying she'd want to be out there even in a thunderstorm.

Roy Coughlan · The Podfather Network — Editor & Promoter
Website: https://roycoughlan.com/
Virtual Assistants: https://va.world/
Private Networking Group: Learn about a Private Networking Group in 50 US States & 49+ Countries with 700+ Members https://connectedleaders.academy
Brain Upgrade: https://brainupgrade.org/
The Authority Alliance: A Foundation of Experts — community for entrepreneurs, coaches, and thought leaders to connect, collaborate, and grow their authority together: https://theauthorityalliance.com/

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #InsideOut #Presence #Mindfulness #PersonalGrowth #ArnoldBeekes #SelfAwareness #EverydayBeauty

#27 Q&Q — What Does Your Heart Say? Sep 17, 2026

Show notes

In this question-and-quote episode, Arnold Beekes asks a question that sounds poetic but is meant literally: what does your heart say? He points back to the idea of our three brains — head, heart, and gut — and explains that the heart brain genuinely communicates, not in a voice others can hear, but in one you can learn to hear yourself, with attention and appreciation. He pairs it with an old Zen saying: "When you walk, walk. When you eat, eat. When you sit, sit." Simple on the surface, but genuinely hard in a world where we're rarely doing just one thing — scrolling while eating, listening to a podcast while walking, watching a video while reading. His invitation is straightforward: practice doing one thing at a time, fully present, and notice what changes.

Roy Coughlan · The Podfather Network — Editor & Promoter
Website: https://roycoughlan.com/
Virtual Assistants: https://va.world/
Private Networking Group: Learn about a Private Networking Group in 50 US States & 49+ Countries with 700+ Members https://connectedleaders.academy
Brain Upgrade: https://brainupgrade.org/
The Authority Alliance: A Foundation of Experts — community for entrepreneurs, coaches, and thought leaders to connect, collaborate, and grow their authority together: https://theauthorityalliance.com/

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #QuestionAndQuote #Presence #Mindfulness #PersonalGrowth #ArnoldBeekes #HeartBrain #Uniqueness

#26 A Whole Being Approach Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Arnold Beekes challenges the mechanistic way we're taught to see ourselves — as a collection of separate parts that doctors and schools treat individually, rather than as a genuinely interconnected whole. He introduces his framework, which he calls MESPAS-X, covering seven layers: Mental (thoughts and beliefs), Emotional (signals from the body pointing to unmet needs), Spiritual (our energy and sense of interconnectedness as electromagnetic beings), Physical (sleep, nutrition, exercise, and the visible tip of the iceberg — our words and actions), Environmental (the two-way relationship between our surroundings and our behavior, including Benjamin Hardy's point that no amount of willpower overcomes the wrong environment), Social (drawing on the 80-year Harvard Study of Adult Development, which found health and happiness come down to good relationships, not wealth or fame), and finally the "X" — the magical, mythical, and metaphysical layer, representing everything science still can't explain, illustrated by the striking fact that humans can only perceive roughly 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. Arnold's core argument is that working on just one layer barely moves the needle — someone eating perfectly healthy but stuck in a toxic relationship will still feel lousy — so real change means addressing every layer, consistently, over time. The episode closes with a story of everyday beauty: Clint Brower, who watched his father and countless other American farmers develop Parkinson's disease after decades of pesticide spraying, and who left a tech career to build Greenfield Robotics — a fleet of autonomous, herbicide-free robots that slice weeds with precision instead.

Roy Coughlan · The Podfather Network — Editor & Promoter
Website: https://roycoughlan.com/
Virtual Assistants: https://va.world/
Private Networking Group: Learn about a Private Networking Group in 50 US States & 49+ Countries with 700+ Members https://connectedleaders.academy
Brain Upgrade: https://brainupgrade.org/
The Authority Alliance: A Foundation of Experts — community for entrepreneurs, coaches, and thought leaders to connect, collaborate, and grow their authority together: https://theauthorityalliance.com/

#BetweenTheEars #BrainUpgrade #WholeBeing #Mindset #PersonalGrowth #ArnoldBeekes #Wellbeing #EverydayBeauty

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected