Do you have a big decision to make, Maybe you are in the middle of trying to make one, or perhaps you have some decisions coming up that are on the horizon. But here's the thing about decision making. We often give more weight to the big, shiny outcome, such as being on stage speaking at an event, than we do to all the hard work that gets us to that outcome. So I'm going to be sharing a really cool strategy that I was told during the week about how we can make much better decisions. My name is
doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of Behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is How I Work, a show about how to help you do your best work now before we get to decision making. I am so excited to let you know that I'm going to be doing a lot. I have show a live interview for How I Work at the Melbourne Podcast Festival and
I would love to see you there. So the event is on Saturday, July thirty one at two point thirty in the afternoon, and I am going to be interviewing Breakfast Radio Extraordinaire Christian O'Connell. So in case you haven't come across Christian or don't know about his background. He was Britain's best known and most awarded breakfast radio presenter, hosting his own top rating national breakfast shows and collecting
more industry awards than any other presenter. He was also the youngest radio presenter ever to be inducted into the UK Radio Hall of Fame. And then he moved to Australia when nobody knew him. Now cut to several years later, he is the very successful host of Gold FM's breakfast Show. Now, I am a huge fan of Christians. He is hilarious and insightful and such a brilliant radio host, so I'm so excited to be chatting to him. So we're going to be talking about what actually goes on behind the
scenes of breakfast radio. We're going to be looking at Christian strategies for overcoming mental health challengers that have plagued him in the very competitive world of commercial radio. We're going to be looking at Christian wore a death watch, which is a watch that reminded him whenever he looked at it, how much longer he had to live. And we're going to be talking about all things creativity, like, where do his ideas come from? Because he needs a
lot of them. He's on air live for three hours every single workday. So the show, it's going to be recorded at the Jam Factory in Melbourne in South Yarra's going to be super lovely and intimate, and I'm going to be hanging around after the show to meet listeners like you and have a chat and answer questions and I'm so excited to meet you. So search for a Melbourne Podcast Festival in Google and you can probably find
it that way. But the easiest thing to do is follow the link in the show notes and book your tickets today and all profits from the event are going to charity. Okay, now I have a very cool tip to share with you this week on the topic of decision making. Now. I'm working on a book at the moment, and I've been reaching out to past guests to see what strategies they've been having success with since I had
them on the show. And I heard a really cool and this week from John Zaratski otherwise known as Jay Z, who is ex Google. So we used to work at Google Ventures, used to be a designer there, and he's also the author of Best selling books, sprint and make time. So John or Jay Z calls this strategy the iceberg. Yes,
So this is where it comes from. When we're making a decision about whether to do something, so whether to take a new job, or work on a project, or you know, maybe accept a speaking engagement, we tend to focus on the part of the decision. There's kind of like the visible and exciting part. It might be you know, the glory or the praise we'll get for when we deliver the project, or you know, when we're volunteering, the thanks that we'll get at the end of the role.
So we essentially like focus on the glimmering peak of the iceberg that sits above the water. But the thing about icebergs is that most of them, most of the iceberg is hidden well beneath the surface, and that represents the bulk of the commitment. So the thing is, when we're trying to make a decision about something, we can't get to that exciting, visible, shining part without actually doing the rest of it, which generally looks like hard work. So, for example, something I have to make a lot of
decisions about accepting speaking gigs. Most speaking gigs that I do are paid and they are simply part of my job and I love them. But I also get asked to speak for free a lot. And you know, it's kind of easy to focus on the exciting part of that, of you know, being on stage and having an impact
and you know, getting good feedback after the gig. But the thing is a lot of preparation and hard work goes into and before every single speaking gig, which is really hard to remember at the time when I'm trying to make a decision. So certainly we want to think about the tip of the iceberg, but to use the iceberg, yes, we need to flip it, and we need to think about the full iceberg. You're not just saying yes to that speaking engagement or to that glory that comes when
you deliver the project. We are saying yes to the whole kitten kaboodle, which often means a whole lot of hard work. So you might want to reflect on, you know, what are some of the icebergs that you have said yes to in the past, And you know, when you're thinking about whether to say yes or no to something, remember to look below the surface and look at the full iceberg. So that is the Iceberg. Yes, tip, and thank you to jay Z for sharing that with me.
That is it for today's show. If you are enjoying How I Work, as I said, I'd love to see you at the Melbourne Podcast Festival. I hope you can come super excited to meet listeners of the show. And if you are not a subscriber or follower of How I Work, you might want to hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening to this too. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from dead Set Studios, and thank you to Martin Nimbuck who did the audio
mix and makes everything sound awesome. See you next time.