Take New Ground

Conscious Endurance | Charl Kaschula

Conscious habit formation will empower your leadership and bring balance. In this episode, Laura-Jean Evens, a neuroscience coach and leadership development consultant, sits down with endurance coach and business leader Charl Kaschula to explore the powerful intersection between endurance sport, neuroscience, and conscious leadership. Charl shares compelling stories — from guiding a blind runner through the New York Marathon to navigating extreme endurance races — and unpacks how these experiences translate into high-performance thinking in business. 10 Key takeaways: - Performance is Not Linear (Growth comes from reflecting on both success and failure) - Rest & Recovery is power for your performance (Strategic pauses unlock creativity, clarity, and innovation) - Identity drives performance (Sustainable performance is rooted in belief, not pressure) - Visualisation builds confidence (Mental rehearsal is a powerful tool) - Progression feels motivation (achieving one goal also leads to the next big win) - Breaking big goals into small wins (makes impossible targets achievable) - Turning walls into doors (Strategically pacing yourself through the pain reduces the panic) - Pressure is a privilege (it's an indication of capability and aligned expectations) - Leadership is shared awareness (shared commitment, trust and clear communication) - Exercise and conscious breaks enable leadership resets Connect with Charl Kaschula [https://www.linkedin.com/in/charl-kaschula-aa015b36/] · Follow Laura-Jean on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraevens1/] · Follow Take New Ground on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/takenewground/] · Follow Take New Ground on X [https://www.takenewground.co.za/connect-with-us] · Follow Take New Ground on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/TakeNewGround/] · Follow Take New Ground on Substack [https://takingnewground.substack.com/]

Conscious Leadership | Alvin Lloyd-Peter

Leap into your future. Laura-Jean Evens, founder of Take New Ground continues to explore conscious leadership and what it truly means to live and lead with intention. In this episode, she speaks to Alvin Lloyd-Peter, founder of The Wisdom of Nature. After 25 years in complex corporate environments, Alvin discovered that some of the most profound transformations don’t happen in strategy sessions or boardrooms — they happen when we slow down, step outside, and let nature do the teaching. In our conversation, we explore how immersive experiences in nature help leaders reconnect with clarity, purpose, and their authentic selves. One of my favourite moments from this episode was when Alvin said: “In nature, we remove the boundaries that limit us. Suddenly we have a menu of possibilities and what once felt impossible becomes probable." Alvin shares the lessons his own experience of the transformative power of nature and gives examples of how this has helped executes leap into their own future. Alvin would love to hear how you've unlocked leadership through nature [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvinpeter/] · If you are considering a coached personal vision, please reach out to me [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraevens1/] · Follow Take New Ground on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/takenewground/] · Follow Take New Ground on X [https://www.takenewground.co.za/connect-with-us] · Follow Take New Ground on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/TakeNewGround/] · Follow Take New Ground on Substack [https://takingnewground.substack.com/]

Taking Conscious Breaks | Petro du Pisani

The significance of a strategic pause. In this episode, Laura-Jean Evens (an executive coach who enables leaders to recalibrate and re-author the next chapter) talks to Petro du Pisani - an award-winning podcaster (On-Change) and executive coach, focused on holistic life. She is writing a book on Conscious Breaks where she shares stories of transformation and reinvention. In this powerful episode, I sit down with Petro du Pisani, a former high-flying mining executive who stepped off the corporate treadmill to design a life more aligned with her purpose and values. Petro shares how she spent 25 years climbing the corporate ladder, only to realise that true success wasn’t about titles or perks — it was about living intentionally. She courageously took a year-long sabbatical to rest, reconnect with nature, explore coaching, and challenge herself with the Three Passes Trek in Nepal. Together, we explore: • The mindset shift from “busyness as a badge of honour” to intentional living • How conscious breaks (whether a few minutes a day or a full sabbatical) can help you recharge and find clarity • Practical ways high achievers can slow down without sacrificing impact • How tiny, consistent habits can build towards transformational change If you've felt the pull to redefine success on your own terms, this conversation will inspire you to pause, realign, and create a more meaningful future. Find out more about Petro and her book or podcasts [https://www.linkedin.com/in/petrodupisani/] · Follow Laura-Jean on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraevens1/] · Follow Take New Ground on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/takenewground/] · Follow Take New Ground on X [https://www.takenewground.co.za/connect-with-us] · Follow Take New Ground on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/TakeNewGround/] · Follow Take New Ground on Substack [https://takingnewground.substack.com/]

Welcome to Take New Ground

If you're a high flyer, you may be in a C-suite position and you're thinking, "is there an end to this road?" Or "what's next? What got me here might not get me to where I want to be." You might be in the hum of activity, overwhelmed by busy schedules, climbing corporate ladders, or raising families. You might be caring for ageing parents and find yourself sandwiched between two generations. You might be wanting to reinvent yourself and show up in the world in a more meaningful, purposeful way. Well, that's why we're here, and hopefully this unlocks something for you. We want to explore three different aspects. Firstly, in the professional space, we get locked onto one dimension of success. We think that we can put on hold our personal success if we just focus on our professional space. When in truth, it's not really possible. The two have to coexist. Success is holistic, mental, emotional, physical in all areas of our life, and how we show up in one area personally, we show up in the other professionally. So we're going to unpack this with some high flying executives who have walked this road and considered what legacy means or what's next. The second set of conversations that we're going to explore is how do you slow down? How do you push pause on this treadmill? How do you take a conscious strategic break? Whether that's a long break in a physical space like the Bush, the Bourg beach, but we're not really only talking about physical breaks, but actually how do you slow down? How do you take a break and pause and think about where you're at and how to bring restoration and rest into your life as well as productivity and contribution and how to balance these and still achieve what you want to achieve. And lastly, we want to look at what experts in endurance sports and professional sports have to say about how our minds and our attitudes fuel our functioning, the functioning of our bodies in business and in sports. We want to look at the underpinning neuroscience strategies that athletes use in terms of visual pictures of how they get to where they really want to be. So if you are any one of those or if anything has really jumped out at you, then stay engaged. This is why we're recording these conversations for you. I'm Laura Jean Evans. Welcome to Tech New Ground. Follow Laura-Jean on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraevens1/] · Follow Take New Ground on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/takenewground/] · Follow Take New Ground on X [https://www.takenewground.co.za/connect-with-us] · Follow Take New Ground on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/TakeNewGround/] · Follow Take New Ground on Substack [https://takingnewground.substack.com/]