Mind the Gap
Welcome to “Mind the Gap,” the podcast where ancient wisdom and modern emotional intelligence converge. I’m Michael Comyn, and with nearly 40 years of experience in emotional intelligence, I’m excited to bring you this exploration of how Stoic philosophy can illuminate our contemporary challenges. You might also recognise my voice from a different context—I’ve been the one reminding passengers to “Mind the Gap” on public transport across Ireland for the past 25 years. It’s a phrase that has taken on a new meaning in this podcast, as we explore the gap between our emotions and reality. In each episode, we’l...
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Living in Permanent Alert Mode
<p>Why do so many people feel exhausted even when nothing obvious is wrong?</p> <p>In this opening episode of Season 4 of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn explores what it means to live in permanent alert mode, a state of constant urgency driven by 24-hour news cycles, notifications, and global uncertainty.</p> <p>This episode looks at how the human nervous system reacts to modern life, why being informed is not the same as being emotionally overloaded, and how chronic low-grade stress quietly shapes our thinking, relationships, and leadership.</p> <p>Drawing on emotional intelligence, psychology, and neuroscience, Michael...
Coming Soon Season 4
<p>Season Four moves beyond reaction and into reflection. It explores what sits beneath our emotions, how we make sense of experience, and why understanding our inner world matters in everyday life and leadership.</p> <p>No quick fixes.</p> <p> No noise.</p> <p> Just thoughtful conversations grounded in emotional intelligence and lived experience.</p> <p>Mind the Gap. Season Four begins soon.</p>
The Pause Between Years
<p>In this special December episode of Mind the Gap, Michael reflects on the emotional landscape of the holiday season. For many, December is joyful and full of celebration. For others, it carries sadness, memory, and the quiet ache of missing someone who was here last year but is not here this year. Both experiences deserve space.</p> <p>Through the simple ritual of putting up and taking down decorations, Michael explores the silence that appears in early January, a silence that offers honesty, clarity, and a gentle emotional reset for the year ahead. Drawing on insights from emotional intelligence...
The Emotional Recession
<p>In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael reflects on a small moment in a bank queue that reveals a much larger shift in how we connect. As more organisations encourage us to use apps and digital services instead of speaking to real people, something subtle is happening beneath the surface.</p> <p>Drawing on recent research from almost seventeen thousand young adults, a global dataset of twenty-eight thousand people across one hundred and sixty-six countries, and long-term trends in emotional intelligence studies, Michael explores what experts are now calling an emotional recession. The conversation looks at how declining...
The Stories Others Tell About Us
<p>In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael explores how the stories others place on us can quietly shape the direction of our lives. A simple comment, a casual label, or a reputation formed years ago can become a route we follow without ever stopping to question whether it was ours to begin with.</p> <p>Using the quiet landscape of Limerick Junction as a metaphor for moments of choice, Michael reflects on how emotional intelligence and Stoic thought can help us pause, reconsider our direction, and choose a story that truly fits who we are today.</p> <p>...
Hearing What Is Never Said
<p>In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael explores the hidden layers of communication that sit beneath the words we speak. Tone, timing, silence and posture often tell the true story long before language ever arrives. </p> <p>Drawing inspiration from the first chapter of his upcoming book Between the Lines, Michael invites us to notice the subtle signals that shape our conversations and influence our relationships.</p> <p>This episode asks an important question. Are we responding to the words someone uses or to the meaning they are trying to express underneath? When we slow down and listen...
Hanlon’s Razor: It’s Probably Not About You
<p>We’ve all done it — assumed the worst about someone else’s actions.</p> <p>The colleague who doesn’t reply, the driver who cuts across, the friend who forgets. It’s easy to think they meant to hurt or ignore us. But what if most of it isn’t personal at all?</p> <p>This week, Michael Comyn explores <b>Hanlon’s Razor</b>, the simple rule that reminds us not to attribute to malice what can be explained by misunderstanding, distraction, or human error. Drawing on Stoic wisdom, emotional intelligence, and his own experience in live broadcasting, Michael reflec...
The Barriers in the Tunnel: How Limiting Beliefs Hide the Light Ahead
<p>There is a moment on every journey when the light fades and the world outside disappears. The train slips into a tunnel, and for a few seconds, it feels as if everything has stopped. Yet even in the dark, the train keeps moving.</p> <p>In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn delves into the quiet power of limiting beliefs, those inner convictions that tell us what we cannot do or who we cannot be. Drawing on Stoic philosophy, modern psychology, and emotional intelligence, he examines how these beliefs take hold, how they narrow our vision, and...
The Faces We Wear
<p>In this episode of Mind the Gap, Michael Comyn continues the journey through his book The Next Station Is… — turning from the tickets we carry to the masks we wear.</p> <p>At any given moment, each of us plays a role: the Hero chasing the next challenge, the Caregiver holding everything together, the Ruler keeping control, or the Seeker searching for something just beyond reach. Drawing on Carl Jung’s concept of archetypes, Stoic philosophy, and emotional intelligence, Michael explores how these faces shape our choices — and how they can quietly keep us from stepping off when life offers a...
Season 3, Episode 1: “The Ticket We Carry”
<p>In the opening episode of Season 3, Michael Comyn introduces The Next Station Is… — a new season of Mind the Gap inspired by his latest book.</p> <p>Standing on a railway platform one winter morning, Michael reflects on how so many of us travel through life on tickets written long before we learn to choose our own destinations. Drawing on the work of psychiatrist Eric Berne and the Stoic wisdom of Epictetus, he explores the “life scripts” we inherit — the quiet rules and expectations that shape our choices, our confidence, and the stops we miss along the way.</p> <p>This epi...
