Thank you for all your wonderful questions, they were a gift to me, and I hope some of my intuitive responses below, may be a small recompense. 

‘What is the shift leaders are needed to make to make a difference?’ 

To discover who and what their work and life are in service of? 

‘My question would be around inner leadership and how do we ‘allow’ more whilst ‘doing’ less?’ 

Great question – my future book “Working from source – and not from effort” will engage with this, but ‘source’ is not either inner or outer, but transcends that polarity. 

‘I’m curious about how we can support our business clients (even those working in disciplines like finance, which I say as a recovered accountant!) to see the value and importance of beauty’. 

Even accountants have both imagination and a heart! We just need to find out what truly matters to them, beneath the fear and the cultural habits. 

‘I think the beauty may be related to a kind of what we might experience as magical?’ 

Yes Lynn, if by magical, you mean that it comes by grace not by will power, but either way we need to be open and receptive to it. 

‘Beauty and Leadership…refreshing….why is so much in the sphere of coaching somehow rather ugly…?’ 

Perhaps because we as coaches and leaders have become caught up in mechanical, atomising, goal driven, performance centric ways of doing and being? 

‘I’m interest about the strong relation between leadership impact and Self-awareness’? 

Elisabetta – I wonder whether we might move from focusing on self-awareness, to awareness of all that flows through us and surrounds us?  

‘How come that those people in the world that emerge as leaders do not necessarily exhibit those leadership principles that we would like to see in virtuous and conscious leaders?’ 

It is easier to be virtuous and conscious, when you are not at crowded cross-roads of conflicting needs and pressures and projections – leaders need our compassion. 

‘What is the relationship between Beauty & Love within both leadership, and the coaching relationship?’ 

Beauty opens the door to love – and the love leaders and coaches need includes love for what is struggling to become – to come into being – to be birthed. 

‘How do we cultivate the awareness for Beauty(as you defined it) in our children (10yrs or older)? The educational system overheats the analytical brain(left hemisphere in our kids’. 

Cultivate what they love and our passionate to give, rather than what they want or acquire. You have beautiful and amazing children Steliana. 

‘I’m curious how the body, the field, our nervous system and artistry/skill/instinct are involved in your book?’ 

Wow – great encompassing question – I hope i have in my limited way, shown how all these connect, but do tell me when you have read it – I would welcome the feedback. 

‘I’ve been struck by the working from source rather than effort concept in the book. Any suggestions on how to tune into source on a daily basis? I’ve added it to my daily loving-kindness meditation practice and would love to be able to slip into this connection to source throughout the working day. Any suggestions?’ 

Let the wider and deeper world that holds you, do the work through you, stop and sense the many blessings that are just waiting for you to fully receive them – look out the windows, build in pauses, to breath and take in some aspect of Beauty that is around you or flowing through you.. 

‘The right and left brain is a little outdated, do you mean modes of processing, how do we move the processing from analytical and creative thinking and relational thinking and connect to being life and beauty centric?’ 

You are right we should avoid over-simplifying – but as I write in the book, I believe that Iain McGilchrist’s work on the two hemispheres opens up a rich understanding for us, in ways of moving our knowing from the  conceptual prison of atomistic and mechanistic thinking, to perceiving what the Daoist’s call ‘Li’ the patterns and web that connects. 

‘Roger Penrose suggests that beauty is a felt sense of coherence and ‘rightness’. he suggests that a good test for candidate physics theories is to ask if they have ‘beauty’. How do you define beauty?’ 

I love and I highly recommend your book Jean (Dao of Complexity) and do send me the full reference for this Roger Penrose quote – but I believe that the felt sense of coherence is the one of the gifts Beauty brings – and not what Beauty is. As I say below, I experience Beauty as a verb that connects what is previously disconnected, not conceptually, but at a deep heart level. 

‘How do you use systemic coaching to create a virtuous and conscious world? How do you transform the current leaders in the world to adopt your philosophy? This would be beautiful.’ 

I do not want to persuade anyone to adopt my philosophy, but walk alongside leaders and others, to the learning edge, where neither of us has an answer, but we know together a new response is needed. 

‘Can you explain how can we coaches entail beauty in our work?’ 

While apologizing for advertising – come on my Advanced Retreat in May in Sardinia, where I will be teaching this, also there are many practical tools in the book. 

‘It seems as if “everyone” is to answer the same coaching questions … and given the individual  responses, each individual is accountable to follow through with their response.   Your thoughts?’  

Coaches ask far too many questions, and in my experience deep generative dialogue is not built on questions and answers, but images, metaphors, feelings, half sentences, that we co-weave together. 

‘Beauty is Intrinsic in the Human Spirit. The key question is how do we embody beauty spontaneously?’ 

Perhaps we don’t embody it by trying too hard to embody it, but open to Beauty coming through us. 

‘Isn’t the first place of inquiry for finding and creating  beauty an exploration of the connection with ourselves and finding beauty within ourselves- both our small and big being?’ 

But who is the one that is connecting with yourself?  As I tried to say above – I experience Beauty as transcending the within and without, us and other. 

‘Doesn’t beauty just come from the feeling of connection to what we are a part of?’ 

Perhaps this feeling of connection is an outcome of beauty and love, rather than originated by it. 

‘Can we apply the concepts of truth, good and beauty, as pillars of individual wellbeing, to the organizations with the purpose of creating a new systemic organizational culture of collective wellbeing?’ 

Perhaps Truth, Beauty and Goodness are verbs, or streams rather than pillars. Maybe well-being flows between people and levels, rather than built from the individual up. I don’t think well-being is a possession or something you can own; it is always co-created. 

‘Does spirituality hold the key to discovering the true beauty of coaching?’ 

For many, but for some it is nature and some ecosystemic engagement, for others finding the Dao – you and I might calls these spirituality, but others might not. 

‘What if bringing beauty into our leadership and our coaching is as simple as bringing ourselves much more into those relationships? sharing /showing more of ourselves?’ 

Yes and … it is creating the space, for more of the coachee to come in and the space for the wider systemic levels we are all nested within, to be metaphorically more in the room.   Perhaps it is less about bring more of ourselves into these relationships, but more of what flows through us, including Beauty. 

‘The work involved in Leadership is complex with many moving parts and varying circumstances, how do you guide leaders to lead this complex dilemma, and maintaining a positive and beautiful self?’ 

We work a lot with polarities and how you find the transcendent third position and there is a whole chapter 13 on this in the book. 

‘How do you define truth?’ 

I am sorry I cannot give you a simple answer, but please do read the chapter on Truth in the book. Perhaps we should start by seeing it as a verb. 

‘I love how you see beauty and goodness in coaching — and in other humans who might have alternate visions for the world and themselves. How would you inspire leaders with alternate views to become more conscious and ethical? Or, how can we all join forces systemically and get the best out of “Hitler”-type leaders in this world?’ 

I believe every human has a longing for love and beauty, I don’t need to inspire them, just help them open the curtains, open the window – find their buried longing. 

‘This is fascinating and *feels* so right… I do wonder how many people we work with already feel a sense of misalignment between what (they believe) they have to do in the organisations they work for and their own deeper values.  Is there a danger that focusing on this individual sense of beauty will heighten this dissonance and drive increased anxiety while not changing the underlying context.  And if so, how do we help them to deal with that?’ 

If I open to Beauty, and do the beautiful and be the beautiful, then the organization will begin to be more beautiful- Frank Quante who spoke at the launch has made going through the airports where he is CEO a more beautiful experience  for those who work there and travellers. 

‘Are you familiar with the Singularity as defined by Ray Kurzweil “the point in time where machines will be smarter than humans” —  machines and humans will merge, one won’t know the difference. What is your prediction as to how it will go in this respect?’ 

Machines and A.I. are already faster and more knowledgeable than humans in left brain, mechanistic, atomistic conceptual thinking.  But the levels of knowing I include in my next answer, cannot be mechanised yet  – but who knows? 

‘I am intrigued by the concept of aesthetic intelligence and its connection to both conceptual and emotional intelligence. Could you elaborate on this, please?’ 

Maria – Jeremy Lent writes beautifully about Animate intelligence, which Cristopher Bollas might call “The unthought known” – between that and conceptual understanding is the intermediary realms of embodied knowing, heart knowing, and imaginal knowing – this is how I experience it. 

‘What Peter is saying resonates deeply. I get it, I love it. How do I build a solid vessel or container to sustain all of this within me and in connection to others?’ 

If we live our life as a river flows – what is the vessel?  For the river, it is the river-bed, which it is constantly shaping and being shaped by.  For us humans – what is the riverbed. 

‘Peter when are you going to publish your book of poetry? Tell us about when, where, how, why you write poetry. Is it different than your other writing? How do you connect your writing to beauty?’ 

My poetry is my paltry attempts to give words to the gifts that life keeps giving me.  I have been inspired by Daoist Chang Dynasty poetry that tries to let a moment of beauty  flow into words in a way that the poet disappears.  Perhaps one day my poetry will mature to a level worth publishing? 

‘Is 7 generations back enough?’ 

As far as you can connect Harriet, but not just intellectually, but embodied sensing and with the heart connection. 

‘What are the preconditions for the awakening of consciousness? Is it possible on the scale needed to shift the current trends?’ 

Being Awake – perhaps! If we each see more beauty, do the beautiful and become the beautiful there is a viral effect. Even if this is not true, it is a wonderful place to start. 

‘The message in your beautiful book (pun intended) resonates beautifully with ancient wisdoms from around the world, such as Ubuntu (Africa) and Ma (Japan), which encourage us to find each other. Was this intentional?’ 

Thank you Dumi, I have learnt a great deal from Ubuntu, Ma, as well as Thich Nhat Hanh’s ‘Inter-being’, and much from Daoism and Native American teachings and these are weaved through the book. 

‘Transformation happens through all of us individually and awakening consciousness in others who have less virtuous views for themselves and the world. How can we do this as grassroots efforts — and how can we coach the leaders in organizations and political leaders? How do we spread Peter’s message systemically and at all levels?’ 

Does transformation only happen through individuals? often it is the spaces between (what the Japanese call Ma) that transform the individuals – we need to learn how to transform the spaces that will transform the individuals. 

‘The message of ‘seeing beauty’ beyond our surroundings but seeing that we all carry beauty with us wherever we go and whatever we do.  My question is how do we see the beauty in all spontaneously, in the moment, and share this ability with others?’ 

There are a number of practices in the book, but opening the eyes and ears of the heart is central. 

‘Perhaps a philosophical question.  Nature is so beautiful, what is the need in the human that has compromised so much of our and other worlds, the juxtaposition of conflicting needs. And more than this how can we support and lift each other up to do and be better?’ 

The need in humans is to open our eyes, ears and hearts, so as to awaken to the Beauty beyond us, so we once again experience ourselves as a small part of nature. 

Thank you all who offered such great questions.