The Tom’s Life Lab Podcast

Episode 54 Presence in life & leadership series: Designing your presence

Many of us live in a state of constant hyper-responsiveness, always reachable, always reacting, rarely fully present.
In this episode of the presence in life and leadership Life Lab series, Tom reflects on how constant availability fragments attention, dulls experience, and impacts clarity. He introduces the idea of designing your presence; intentionally choosing when to be available, and when to be fully present where you are.
Rather than living on constant alert, this episode invites you to take ownership of your attention and return to yourself more often.
Life Lab Experiment:Choose a few intentional 30-minute windows each day to check notifications and respond to messages. Outside those windows, stay where you are and be fully present. When we stop being constantly reachable, we become meaningfully present.

Episode 53 Presence in life & leadership series: Building the muscle of presence

Presence isn’t something you either have or don’t have, it’s a muscle you can build.
In this Life Lab episode, Tom explores why staying present is hard in a fast, noisy world, and how we can gently return to ourselves without judgment. The episode includes a simple Life Lab experiment to help you practice presence in the middle of everyday life.
Life Lab Experiment:Once a day, pause and notice one thing- a sound, a smell, a colour, an emotion, or a sensation in your body. Focus on it for 10 seconds, acknowledge it, and acknowledge yourself for noticing.

Episode 52 Energy series: Learning to listen to your body

We spend most of our days in our heads: thinking, planning, solving and in the process, we often miss the signals our body is sending us.
In the final episode of the energy Series, Tom explores how your body communicates fatigue long before your mind catches up. Tight shoulders, shallow breathing, tension, fading focus - these aren’t random annoyances, they’re early warnings.
You’ll learn why ignoring these signals drains your energy so quickly, how tiny resets can completely shift your state, and how building a little more awareness into your day gives you more choice over how you respond.
This final Life Lab experiment invites you to pause, tune in, and adjust earlier, protecting your energy rather than constantly recovering it.

Episode 51 Energy series: The hidden drain of micro stressors

Most days aren’t ruined by one big stressful event, they’re worn down by lots of small ones.
In this episode of the Tom's Life Lab, Tom explores the idea of micro stressors: the emails, notifications, interruptions and task switches that quietly stack up and drain your energy without you really noticing.
You’ll learn why it’s not the size of these stressors that matters, but how they accumulate, how they show up in your body and attention, and what you can do to stop them building into something overwhelming.
This week’s Life Lab experiment helps you spot the small energy drains you usually overlook, and make simple changes that help you feel better and get more done.

Episode 50 Energy series: Pushing through

We’ve been taught to push through when things get tough, to power on through tiredness, brain fog, and fading focus. But does it actually work?
In this episode of Tom's Life Lab, Tom explores why forcing yourself to keep going when your energy dips often leads to slower work, lower quality, and deeper exhaustion. Rather than being a weakness, those signals of fatigue are your body asking for a reset.
You’ll learn why small pauses can completely change your state, how “pushing through” is often driven by fear, and a simple experiment that could help you get more done without burning yourself out.

Episode 49 Energy series: The hidden cost of never resting

Rest should be simple, but for many of us, it’s anything but.
In this episode of Tom's Life Lab, Tom explores why slowing down can feel so uncomfortable, especially for people who are driven, ambitious, and used to constant action. From the guilt that creeps in when we stop, to the false idea that rest is “doing nothing,” this episode unpacks how we’ve been conditioned to equate busyness with progress.
You’ll learn the difference between real rest and passive distraction, why your energy needs regular replenishment, and how small moments of genuine rest can actually make life and work feel easier.
This week’s Life Lab experiment is simple: one proper rest break every day. No multitasking, no scrolling, just rest.

Episode 48 Energy series: Boundaries create energy

In this episode of Tom's Life Lab, Tom explores the hidden cost of being “always on” and why constant availability is quietly draining our energy, focus, and mood.
As part of the energy series, he reflects on how easy it is to slip into checking messages, only to find work bleeding into evenings, sleep, and recovery time. What feels productive in the moment often shows up later as poor focus, low energy, and burnout.
This episode is a reminder that boundaries aren’t about shutting people out, they’re about protecting your ability to show up well. Real energy is restored when we create space to switch off.
🎧 Listen now and try this week’s Life Lab experiment:Notice when you feel the urge to follow a distraction. Track what triggers it, and observe what happens to your energy when you resist.

Episode 47 Energy series: Protect your energy

In this episode, Tom explores why feeling busy but depleted isn’t a time problem, it’s an energy problem.
As the first episode in the energy series, Tom reflects on how easily our energy gets drained by distraction, constant demands, and a lack of boundaries. Tom shares why protecting your energy isn’t selfish, but essential for presence, focus, and impact, and how small, intentional choices can radically change how you work and live.
This episode is a reminder that your effectiveness isn’t measured by hours worked, but by how you manage and protect your energy throughout the day.
Listen now and try this week’s Life Lab experiment:Audit your energy for a few days. Notice when it rises, when it drops, and what influences it without judgement.

Episode 46 Mindset series: Build your identity

Resilience isn’t just about surviving challenges, it’s about shaping your identity through them.
In this final episode of the mindset series on Tom's Life Lab, Tom shares a personal story about a moment of vulnerability at work and how it transformed his understanding of strength.
Strength isn’t the absence of struggle, it’s the decision to rise again. Each hard task, difficult conversation, or tough decision becomes a “brick” in the foundation of your identity. By consciously acknowledging these moments, you build evidence that you are someone who does hard things.
The Life Lab experiment this week: pick one hard thing you’ve been avoiding, complete it, write it down, and celebrate it. Over time, these actions stack up to reinforce a resilient identity that naturally leans into challenges.

Episode 45 Mindset Series: How gamifying hard things builds real resilence

Resilience isn’t just about pushing through, it’s about changing how you relate to difficulty.
In this episode of Tom's Life Lab, Tom continues on the mindset series, sharing a personal story from the early days of HEX, when repeated rejection started to take its toll. Instead of quitting, he turned rejection into a game, assigning points to every “no” and tracking them like a scoreboard.
What started as a coping mechanism became a mindset shift. By gamifying setbacks, Tom reframed failure as progress, reduced fear, and built the persistence needed to keep going until the yeses came.
This episode explores why making hard things playful doesn’t trivialise them, it transforms them and challenges you to run your own experiment this week.