Mindfulness and creativity with Peter Beresford

Welcome to the Pursuit of Learning Podcast. We hope to talk with experts from numerous backgrounds to gain wisdom that will help each of us grow: personally, professionally, and financially. Today we have Peter Beresford as our very first guest. Peter is a teacher, creator, and author of a unique book, The Trump Guide to Spirituality. In this episode, Peter shares his perspective on religion, spirituality, meditation, creativity, and more.Peter grew up in a Catholic background, practiced Catholicism until his early twenties. At that point, his critical thinking guided him to ask questions about religion and look at religions from a different perspective, Peter partially stepped away, leaning towards Buddhism. We dive into the conversation by talking about his transition in religious practices, his views on mindfulness and prayer, and the way Buddhism and mindfulness can help us improve our creativity. Peter has traveled extensively in Asia. He has worked in Korea, teaching English as a second language, and he has also completed a 14-month backpacking journey through Asia, working and traveling in quite a few countries. We talk about how these adventures and meeting people from different cultures shaped Peter’s life and the lessons he learned. Peter also talks about a genius trick he uses to maintain students’ attention while teaching through Zoom. Self-publishing a book can be challenging for an author, and it can be even more challenging when the book is related to a US President who is not only in office, but is in the midst of an election. That’s what Peter had to face when he was self-publishing his book, The Trump Guide to Spirituality. Peter shares with us how he came up with the idea, the intention behind this unique book, the challenges he had to face, and how he’s going to use the lessons he learned from this experience to make his future projects successful. We hope you enjoy this interview.