Hello there, it's Amantha. I'm currently on a break, so I've handpicked a bunch of my favorite episodes from the last year to share with you. Okay, on with today's best of episode. When you sit down at your desk in the morning, what's the first task that you usually find yourself seduced by? For most people, you sit down and can very quickly find yourself answering emails and before you know it, the day has taken off. But is
that really the best way to enter your day? What if instead you were to spend a few minutes pondering what you were going to release, what you were grateful.
For, and what you were going to focus on.
This just so happens to be the morning ritual of Michael Bungay Stainer. He's the author of The Coaching Habit, which has sold over one million copies worldwide, and spent twenty years as the CEO of Coaching, an innovation consultancy, Box of Crayons, and he's also the home of the two Pages podcast. He is a huge advocate for doing work that's not just good but great, which he covers in his new book How to Begin, which you can currently pre order ahead of its release in January twenty
twenty two. So how does Michael make sure that a new project is worthy of saying yes to? Why does Michael set goals in six week chapters? And why should you be creating an operating manual to use with new colleagues or clients. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. 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.
Hey Michael, So you've done so many podcast episodes over the years. How do you use those few minutes before you hit record, Like when you're trying to build really quickly with a guest.
You know, I scream at them and I say, if you don't perform at a really high level in this podcast, you're.
Dead to me.
That's what I do exactly. I'm like, I'm terrified about how this podcast is going to go. You know, I've got a couple of things I try and do, and it's varied over the years, But for the podcast that I have at the moment, I am trying to disrupt the usual conversation that people have, particularly authors, because if the author is on a bit of a podcast talk because they're talking about a boat. They're kind of locked and loaded into a couple of stories and a couple of key messages.
Yes, and I'm always.
Interested in trying to get something else from there. So my podcast is called two Pages with MBS and it's where brilliant people read the best two pages.
From a favorite book.
And I know my first ten minutes of that podcast is to try and get my audience to feel a connection to that person, and then the rest of the podcast is them reading the book and then us talking about the ideas and that. So in that before we hit record, I'm like, first of all, permission to permission to muck up because it is a produced podcast, so my producer can take out gaps and pauses and stumbles and the like. And then I say, look, here's roughly how the structure of the calls.
Going to go.
So you'll you'll you'll know roughly the kind of the milestones. You know, ten to fifteen minutes, we moved from your story to asking about the book, and then I go, look, I'm really interested in the slightly unexpected. So if you see a story, tell me the story. If there's a left hand turn you can take in the conversation. Take the left hand turn because I love trying to keep up with you and engaging with you in the moment.
Because for me, I'm trying to invite people in my podcast who the type of people who if you sat next to them at a dinner party, you'd be stoked. Sometimes you sit next to people and a dinner party or at a conference or something, and you're like, you know what, it was a perfectly pleasant conversation, but I'm not feeling totally nourished by it. And sometimes you get lucky and you sit next to somebody and you're like,
oh my god, you are so interesting. I'm trying to get people to be that person on my podcast.
That's so cool.
Now, if we went to start working together on a new project, I know that there's something really important that you would have me do and that you would do too.
Can you tell me what that is?
Yeah?
I call it building our operating Manual. So the origin of this comes from a guy called Peter Block, who if you're in the world of kind of organizational change and stuff like that, you may have heard his name, and he talks about something called a social contract, and the bottom line is it's good to talk about how we're going to work together before we talk about what
we're going to work on together. So this is a conversation that's helpful if you're you know, you have somebody new coming on your team, or you start working with a vendor or a contractor or or anybody. Really you got a relationship where you like, we want this to
be really good. The temptation is always to go, let's talk about the project, what needs to be built, what are we starting, what are our KPIs, and what are our c's or ocr or whatever, And that pressure to an excitement to get stuff done often kind of sweeps you into that type of conversation. And you're in the honeymoon of this relationship with this new person, just like you're awesome, and I'm awesome, and where awesome? This project awesome?
What could possibly go wrong? And the thing is something will go wrong everything, because it always goes wrong. It always goes off the rails a little bit. So I'm really enamored and try and have the discipline to have a conversation about let's let's talk about our operating manual.
And I've just got a few questions or and I don't ask all of them all the time, but a few questions that I feel like help us having a conversation to go, let me tell you how to get the best out of me, and I want you to tell me how to get the best out of you. So I'll say things like, you know, so, Amantha, when you've worked with somebody like me before in a project like this and it's gone really well, tell me what happened?
What did you do?
And what did the other person do? And then I'll answer the question myself. You know, when I worked on somebody like you and Mantha on a project like this and it went really well, here's some of the stuff that happened, and I'll go and when you've worked with somebody like me on a project that's kind of been a bit of a disaster or just kind of mediocre, what happened? You know, what did you do and what
did they do? And we're building up understanding about one of the contexts in which we flourish and one of the contexts in which we struggle. You know, a great one is and this is a question directly from Peter Block, how do you feel about the amount of power you have in this relationship. That's a really hard question to ask it it's it always takes people aback, but it's it's it's really good at kind of going how who has control here?
And how do you feel about that?
I love that.
I give you one one more question and we can we can ask me about it if you want another. One is when things go badly wrong or go off the rails a little bit, because they always do, what's your unilateral act?
How do you respond?
And you know I can always tell people, look, I'm not that great a conflict, so you'll move into you'll just stop hearing from me, and this is by and this is the way to pull me out of that. So we actually have a conversation about this is what I look like when I'm behaving badly or under stress, and here's how you can manage me best to get me out of that doom loop. And I'll get them to tell me the same.
That's really interesting.
So at invent here we have a very similar strategy. Whenever we have a new starter on the team, we get them completing We call it the OP on the one page operating Manual And yeah, for us the way we think about it, It's like software hardware, all that stuff comes with a manual about how to use it.
But I mean humans are far more.
Complex, but we don't come with a manual, and so we try to create one. So I'm really interested in those questions that you ask. Something else that we ask is what are your pief points, Like what are the things that just really frustrate you? And we find we get some interesting answers. What do you do though, if, like, if you're working with someone and maybe there like their insight into themselves and particularly you know, their shadow side
their weaknesses is not that good? How do you draw those responses out more effectively?
I'm not sure.
I try and do it in the moment because for me it is the process of having gone through this allows us to come back and have this conversation again. So more important to me then the answers is the fact that I've said this, by the way, we have these type of conversations when we work together.
So would you then have those conversations at regular intervals, like where you're not talking about the project and the work per se, but you're talking about the relationship and all the time relational things really all the.
Time, Like I would say, with you know, on my immediate team. So I kind of am part of two companies at the moment. I own a training company that's run by a CEO and I talk to her monthly but formerly on her performance quarterly. And then I have a little small kind of startup company where I have one employee, and with Ainslie every six weeks we'll have a conversation around has this going?
And it's not.
About the work, It's about how is it going for you as a human being? How has it going for me as the person who's your nominal boss. What do we need to do differently to do that? One of the questions that both with Shannon who's the CEO of Boxer Crayons, and Ainsley, who is going to of she
works at MBS dot works. One of the questions that is most powerful in this is what needs to be said that hasn't yet been said, because that just creates space for us to go, ah, you know that thing that's hard to talk about, or I've been looking for the moment to sneak it into the conversation and I haven't quite figured out how to say it because it's a bit confronting to me or a bit confronting to
you or whatever. What needs to be said that hasn't yet been said is just a permission to lay down the the the as yet unspoken, and that is a great cleanser and builder of resilience into into the relationships.
Oh, I'm gonna take that.
One that I stole it from somebody else.
I can't remember who, so steal away because it is it is a beauty. On another note, a man, I end my podcast at the moment. That's the question I always ask people, and it's great. Sometimes people go, I got nothing. Some people times people go, that was a good conversation, thank you, And some people go, here's the thing I really wanted to tell you.
I'm like, brilliant, and we'll have a bit more of a chat.
That's cool.
Now, I know that you think a lot about what to say yes to and what to say no to. I mean, why is that such an important thing that we should really think more deeply about.
Yeah, look, I haven't listened to absolutely every episode of everything you've ever on this show, Amantha Michael.
I'm very disappointed to hear that.
I've had to say no to that.
So I can say yes to having a life, but I can't be the first person to have mentioned this as just a foundational thing to get clear on.
And I believe that at a certain point in.
Your life you just get more opportunities than you can actually cope with. And there's a wiring that I certainly carried on or taken with me and other people might have taken it too, which is like when you start your career, you kind of say yes to a lot of things because you're just trying to build up experience and stories and to taste things.
It's like, do I like the taste of this? Can I do it?
You're trying to find that sort of sense of this is who I am in the context of work. Because I don't know about you, Mantha, but the first two or three years I spent working, I was just learning how to work. I was just learning who am I in the work context, because it was different from being a university student or whatever. At a certain point you can actually do, you know, technically, you can do more
than you actually have time for. So now it's about going, well, what are the choices that I can make that are thrilling to me? And important and that they serve a bigger goal. And in organizations, there is a hunger for people to be more more strategic. You know, they're like, we said, we need we really want people to be more strategic. And everyone's like, yeah, I need to be more strategic, and theyrey's like, hell, what does that mean? Because it's one of those anodyne words that gets bounced
around and can mean you know, everything and nothing. I think that one way to think about what does it mean to be strategic and therefore valued and therefore influential and an important person in a setting, in a context is to have the courage to say no to things? Who can say yes to what matters? And it's scary, and it's confusing, and it's fear of missing out, and it's what if I take the wrong choice, and the guilt and the anxiety that comes with making a choice.
But it's also an adult act and it is a choice to say, look, I'm committing to something that feels right. You can't control the outcome, but a full commitment to the process gives you a better chance of something amazing happening.
So what is your process for what you do say yes to?
Well?
It kind of happens on a range of different levels. So I have regular invitations to do things, you know, beyond podcasts or contribute to a project in one way or another. And for those short term, kind of shorter, kind of one off experiences, I have a number of different things. I kind of test one as I just do a kind of gut is it a hell yes or is it a no?
So people will probably know that from.
Derek Sivers, and I think he's actually got a book out called Hell Yes or No. Now it's just one really helpful way of going, look, just work with my gut instinctive says it hell yes or no. Second, I'll actually do a little test for criteria, so, you know, to take an example that we're living at the moment. For podcast invitations, I've got somebody in my team to do a tiny bit of research around you know, what's the podcast about? How many people listen to it?
Do I know them?
And there's a kind of a criteria I might say yes or no to there, and then there's a The third point is me. It's a bit more existential, Amantha. It's just me going why am I filling up my space? And what am I you know, kind of what am I running from? And why am I so uncomfortable with space and silence and you know, non busyness, and so part of it is just to kind of check into what the bigger, the bigger things are that I do. So I've got that as a kind of immediate response
to a request. Then there's a bigger context, which is what's the big project that I'm working on at the moment. So again, you know, Amantha, I stand on so many people's shoulders to talk about this stuff. But a writer called Kevin Kelly gave me the idea many years ago of figuring out your death date. So basically, with with statistical tables from actuaries, you can kind of figure out statistically and you're likely to die.
And I know my death date.
It's September fifteenth, twenty forty three, and Kevin Kelly, and you can look this up at kk dot org if you're interested in finding this article. You guys, look, you've basically got five big projects, one big project every five years. So twenty twenty one, twenty forty three, basically got five and a half four and a bit project left in me, which is quite sobering it's like to write a book.
And get it out into the world and really kind of have.
That be a thing. It's about a five year project. Maybe that's a bit long, but it's about right. It's a good useful rule of thumb. So for me, there's also the bigger picture around, So what's my worthy goal right now? That's the language I use around how do I set that big project that I want to commit to that feels like the best expression of something that lights me up, something that serves the world, something that stretches and grows me. And then against that it's as
complicated as it sounds. I work in these kind of six months six week cycles around. I do a burst of work and then I stop and I pause and I kind of reevaluate where I am and reorient and decide what the next six weeks are going to be. And that structure also helps me figure out what I'm saying yes to and what I'm saying no to.
Hmmm, wow, Okay, there's so much that I want.
To dig into there.
So it's like, because I'm I'm sort of an interesting point at the moment, and I know that your your new book, how to Begin really takes the reader through this. But I've my big project at the moment, which I guess a book is probably about a three year project, I find, and I find this when I talk to
writers of business books. There's kind of there's the year of research and prep, there's a year of writing and editing, and then there's a year of promoting it and you know, and obviously like you're still just up.
There's a six month period of self loathing in there as well, but that's often overlapping at the other parts, possibly longer than six months.
But it's three years. It's three years of self loathing. That's okay, that's right.
And so I'm at the part of the process where literally a week ago today I submitted the final draft of the manuscript to my editor and so now.
Thank you, thank you.
And it's weird because we're in lockdown in Melbourne, I think, where we've just passed two hundred and fifty days or something crazy.
Like world record.
I hear, I know, I.
Know, something to not be proud of. And I and someone said, hey, are you going to celebrate? I'm like, that hasn't even crossed my mind. But in the next few months they'll be editing and stuff. But I feel like the bulk of the work is done. If you like it, how I'm like, Okay, I've got quite a lot of free time because it took a long time to write seventy fous and words, and I'm kind of hunting around for what will that next creative project be that I'll sink my teeth into.
So how should I go about working that out?
Michael, You know, the first thing I would say is just to allow yourself sometime not to figure that out. I wish I could follow this advice as easily as I give it, because I'm not that great at doing it. But if this feels like it's done, and honestly, having written a few books myself, even having got that final draft into your editor, there's still quite an immersive amount of work to be done if you want to make it.
Part of your focus around well how does this book end up looking and going through the type setting and then getting it out into the world and then committing to marketing it and stuff.
So absolutely yes, and I acknowledge that definitely.
Yes, But I think for particularly for people who are smart, ambitious, and have a track record of success. So in otherwise you that we there can be a little bit of pressure to go right. Let's say it, I've had twelve hours off since I submitted my book. I should I should have my next project underway, and what's wrong with me?
I don't want to be slacking.
I don't want I'm trying to be a role model to my team here and a role model to myself. And I'm like, you know, what it is worth being fallow for a little bit to kind of go what matters to me now and to kind of open yourself up to the to the world to go, how can you bump into stuff that might spark you and have
you think about new possible projects. Because the process of kind of figuring out a project, I can talk about it, and I will talk about it in just a second, but there is an experience that it's like the recency effect, which is we were so influenced by what we've just recently done that sometimes it can be hard to shake
off what the next project might be. It's not just kind of like it's just it's almost it's kind of the same as the last big project that you finished, because you're still walking the valley of writing a book and writing a book about you know that particular topic. I read an article in The Guardian on the weekend
by Tim Minchin. It's an interesting article about ambition, about how he made his his name as a comedian and then stop being a comedian and people may not have fully noticed it, but he's like, I didn't want to get sucked into that label, and he's he talks about his ambition now to be unpigeonhole able, if that's that's even a word, And I personally admire that because it's like he's been a willingness to kind of slow down and go let me stay open to what shows up,
and let me stay open to what other projects might not just move towards success, but actually be something that stretches and grows you in an unexpected way.
We'll be back with Michael in a moment, hearing about why he recommends setting goals in six week chapters and how he gets himself back on track when he's not feeling his best. And if you're keen to consume more of the stuff that I'm putting out into the world, more tips and tactics and tools. I release a lot of stuff through social media so you can find me
on LinkedIn just search for Amantha Imba. I think I'm the only one there, and you can also find me on Twitter at Amantha and on Instagram at Amantha.
I you talk about.
Setting goals in six week chunks or I think you use the language six week chapters.
I believe that's right.
Can you tell me, like, why six weeks? Why is that a good amount of time?
Well, you know, people are learning.
I'm a bit of a magpie, so I'm always on the look at for other people who had good ideas, who've tested stuff, and I came to the region that went This is particularly helpful in the conversation of setting out a worthy goal. And this worthy goal, which is part of this book How to Begin, It's like you want a goal that is thrilling and important and daunting, so something that is a bit nerve wracking as you
take it on. You know, I was talking to Liz Wiseman the other day, who has a new book out, and she's like, it's like, you know how to start the project, but you don't know how to finish it, Like exactly, it's a goal like that.
So they kind of right weight to it.
And this isn't something that you've done before, you might not have done it technically, or you just might not have done it at this scale or at this level of ambition or something. So it's there's unknown, and it means that you can't just map out a you know, a three year project of a water fall going this and this and this and this. It is emergent. It's going to evolve. Even what might be the the the goal, the bigger goal that you have made change and evolve
as you begin to work on it. So this idea of well, here's another metaphor, it's not like you set you find your worthy goal and then you go right, I'll just type in the destination address into my Google Maps, and you know, it's like seventeen minutes, five corners eighteen
minutes if you stop at the coffee shop. You know, it's more like you're you're in front of you is a kind of misty valley, and on the on the other side of the valley is that kind of a peak, which you think is your peak, but you're not entirely sure, and you've got to find your way forward, and you've got to navigate your way through the wilderness that's in front of you to get to your destination. So you know, I can claim inspiration from something like orienteering. So you're
like map and compass. You're like, okay, this is where I'm trying to go. So you set your compass and you set a destination. I've got to get to that gum tree. And then you run to that gum tree and then you pull out your map and you reorient and you get your compass out you get to the next gum tree or rock or whatever. But it's the same pattern you see in things like Agile in terms
of how they think about working in bursts. They figure out what the important thing is, they work hard on it, and then they stop and they go, now, what if we've done this or we've tried to do this, where what feels most important now? And it also is a process talked about by the former chief tech officer of base Camp. And he's got a book called I can't remember what the book is called, but it's basically about
how they ship product in base Camp. And he says said, look, we tested it, and it seems that six weeks is long enough to make real progress on something, but short enough that if you've just been spent six weeks working on the wrong thing. The opportunity cost isn't that great, So you can get really committed to it, you can go far. And also if it's been a complete bust, it's only six weeks in the big scheme of things. So I was like, you know what, that's a good thing.
That's I'm going to steal that. So six weeks it is.
Now, can you tell me about the session that you did with Aaron Wig, which I believe was to help you find your way forward?
Yeah, Aaron Weed? So eron, how do we spell that? It's literally like a weed? Weed?
Got it?
So like not a flower but a weed, but she is a total flower. So two years ago or a little longer now, I stopped being the CEO at Box of Crayons. Now, this was a company that i'd founded twenty years earlier or thereabouts, and it had, to my surprise, grown into a pretty big, pretty successful learning and development company. But not to my surprise, I just found out that I was just wasn't a great CEO. Like I didn't suck, but nor was I really wonderful at it, and nor
was I super excited about that as a job. So how to coach. I kind of a higher or no. I kind of tapped Shannon, who's working for the company. I said, you're around next CEO. We spent a year preparing for the handover, and then on a certain date I stepped aside. She became CEO, and we had another year being coached to basically stop me screwing up the founder transition because founders always medal and their weird and their prima donnas and blah blah blah. So it's basically
to keep me out of the kitchen. So that all went pretty well. But I'm on the other side going, and you know, Mantha, this kind of connects to your you know, what's my next project question from earlier on.
I'm going, well, who am I? Now? What am I doing?
And you know, am I am I anything? Now that I'm not the CEO of Box of Crayons? And it wasn't exactly an existential crisis, but I was really struggling to figure out what the next thing to do because I had literally spent like fifteen years investing time and money and everything into being known as a guy who talked about curiosity and coaching and the coaching habit and all of that stuff, and now that wasn't my thing to talk about anymore. That was box of crownses and
I was going to be separate from that. So somebody mentioned Aaron Weed's work to me. She calls it the Dig Dig, and she's like, well, here's what happens over two three hour processes. You will tell her your story, she'll listen to it, and in real time, she will create your ecosystem, your kind of operating system using language it'll be you know, somewhere between one and five different words. And Amantha, I can't tell you how skeptical I was
about this. I was just like, you know, first of all, I'm a pretty good facilitator, and I'm like, okay, you're gonna have to be a really good facilitator because I'm very impatient with poor facilitators. And I'm not that good with the kind of woo woo stuff either. So I'm like, ah, man, this sounds like it's it's a combination of bad facilitatation and woolness.
But I was a bit stuck.
And you know, she actually there are two people who've gone through her process that I knew and admired. I was like, well, Okay, she's got she's got social proof that is actually of value to me. So I caught her up and we did this remotely because there was COVID times or maybe it wasn't maybe well it doesn't matter, did it remotely, and Manton, it was amazing because I was so sure what my three my words were going
to be. They're going to be something around possibilities and curiosity and coaching and questions and creativity and meeting a bit zany or whatever. And I just was like, I know, I know what this is about. And the three words that came back were actually none of the above. One was confidence, one was forward as in kind of looking
forward and progress. And the root word the kind of the core word, and my setup is power, particularly disrupting power kind of how do I how do I play a role to disrupt and decenter the norms of power that show up? And I was very excited to get those three words because I am, because they offered me a way out of the box that I built myself, the box of crayons kind of definition and cloak that I was finding it hard to shed.
And you know, the power word.
Became the kind of the origin of what the work that NBS do works is about, which is to help people be a force for change, where I'm like, I'm going to help other people give them the tools and the confidence and the resources in the community to claim power and disrupt power in whatever their sphere happens to be. So as yeah, it's super exciting. I was surprised, and
you know, I know, I actual. You know, Eron's just starting to launch a course now, I think, so if people are interested in their stay, can go check her out. I really recommend it.
That's so cool. Now, I want to know, if you're not working at your best, how do you get yourself back on track.
Well, the first thing I try and do is I just try not to beat myself up for not working at my best, because there's nothing more miserable than going.
What's wrong with me?
I'm not being able to work at my best And then kind of get into this Shane spiral of what you know, I'm a you know, I'm a privileged white man and I'm at my peak, which is not actually true, but let's pretend it is. And I'm like, why can't I grind it out or blah blah blah. So there's a way to be to be kind of kind about it. I try and follow the science, Amantha, and that means nap and go for a walk and get into nature
a little bit. And I'm not always convinced that I can tell the difference that it feels better, but I'm just trusting that actually I'm just the same as everybody else and that lying down and taking a twenty minute nap or going for a thirty minute walk outside is just going to help me help me get better. And you know, there's all the good stuff we know about, you know, make you know, doing the tasks that you feel that are appropriate to your level of energy right now.
So there are sometimes I'm like, man, I couldn't create a creative spark if if my life depended on that. So I'll said, I'm just going to go right, I'm just going to see if I can do forty minutes and get my inbox down to less than twenty eight thousand in box messages or something something like that. So there's there's a way of kind of setting context around that. But you know that, I think probably the final standard I give myself is just to go, well, what is
good enough? Because there I find what's really pernicious, Amantha, is a a driving level of quality that is not always required. So a big thing is just to go. If I had to guess what good enough was for this little piece of work right now, what would that be? And is that within reach?
Right now?
I've heard that you do something call and I hope I'm getting this name correct. That this not that exercise? Can you tell me about that?
I can? And sorry, I do do this. Yeah. This is also what I do is I forget some of the tools that my dispose.
Of until a podcast host reminds.
You, thank you, thank you, Mantha. You did it very very graciously as well. So one of my early jobs was in the world of kind of branding and particularly new product development. And you know, some a company would go, you know, Michael and your your organization, we need you to invent a new thing for us. But it has to be it has to fit with our brand. And the challenge is that it's really hard to get people to talk about what a brand is and what it
really means beyond just kind of the obvious. So you had to come up with a way of thinking about describing a brand. And I first came across as tool this not that in the context of describing a brand, and then I moved it into the world of personal development and self growth and self management. So here's how
I think about it. I come up with pairs of words, somewhere between five and seven pairs of words, and I'm trying to articulate what I'm like at my very best, and also what I'm like, not when I'm at my worst, but when I'm just when I'm off my game, you know, like I'm ten percent off my game or fifteen percent off my game. And I find that's a really helpful tool. So let me give you an example of some of
the pairs of words. Step forward, not step back, hold it lightly, not take it seriously, be generous, don't be greedy. And the way I manage it, Amantha, is if I'm feeling under stress, and I particularly feel this if like I'm I'm about to give a speech in front of a kind of important audience, or I'm having a meeting with somebody and it feels like there's a lot on the line and I want my best public version of
myself to show up. This is particularly when I use this tool, because what I will often do is I will notice how I am playing small or shutting down or kind of manifesting some of those behaviors that are in the not that column, and I'll need to go into the this column to remember what I'm like at
my very best. So as an example, I was down in Detroit, you know, the home of all the big car manufacturers, some years ago, and I was giving a talk and it was basically a whole bunch of senior folks from like all the big car manufacturers, and it was just like this gathering of alpha males. I mean, honestly, they were all six foot four. They all had white teeth and short gray hair, and gray suits and white shirts and red ties and really firm handshakes. And this
isn't my natural setting at all. And I could just feel myself shrinking because I'm like, oh man, these are my people, this isn't my audience. And you know, my usual speech or workshop thing is kind of a bit provocative, a bit performative, a very interactive, and I could just have I have all these.
Doubts, you know, like, oh man, this is bad. I should shut it down.
I should behave I should conform to what's going to be expected of me.
And then I noticed that and I.
Was like, oh, and one of my pairs of words is provocative, not sycophantic. You know, sycophantic meaning basically sucking up to somebody. And I could just feel myself becoming sycophantic, and I'm like, Okay, I'm going to remember that. Actually part of me at my best is to be a little bit provocative. And it kind of gave me permit and got me reconnected to how I wanted to be on stage with these people, how I wanted to be the best version of myself.
That's great.
Something I've noticed, like, you're so well spoken, Michael, And I've noticed when I ask you a question, I feel like you're sort of taking a deep breath in and then you'll like come up with these incredibly wise words.
What is your process?
I'm really I'm curious about what's going on for you, Like when you're sort of taking that breath in and then responding.
I appreciate you you noticing that.
You know. Some years ago I read a book called The Advice Trap, and the message and the advice trap is your advice is.
Not nearly as good as you think it.
Is, and I was like, you know, authors often write books for themselves.
I'm like, Michael, this.
One's for you. Your advice is not nearly as good as you think it is. And I've just tried to build a practice of, you know, taking it honestly, taking a bit of a breath to think, what's the best answer to this that I might be able to offer, rather than what's the first answer that comes to mind. Because I'm now, you know, I'm in my somebody once said that I'm in my early mid fifties. So I've just been around a long enough now. I just I know stuff, and I know alternatives, and I know options.
You know, I've just been around enough that enough settlement has sunk to the bottom of this particular lake, and I'm like, how do I how do I find an answer that feels most decisive right now, that could be of best service to the to the audience right now, rather than just the first thing that comes to mind.
I like that a lot.
My natural inclination when I'm being interviewed somewhere or doing Q and A off the back of a keynote or something is to feel that side silence. The silence is so scary. I feel like you're incredibly good. It's just been comfortable with that silence, and it's been interesting for me as interviewing you. And I mean, you know, we've we've met, we've hung in up before, but it's been a really interesting experience.
I'm as sign, Michael, thank you.
There's a great there's a great example of me sounding like I'm comfortable with silence whilst not being comfortable at all. A couple of months ago, I was on Brene Brown's podcast, which was.
A big treat. You know, I was super excited to get invited to be part of that, but I didn't know.
She didn't give me any preparation for what it was like. I didn't have an interview with a producer or anything, so I had no idea what we were going to be talking about. And forty minutes into it, forty five
minutes into it, she guys, okay, so coach me. I was like, oh my god, I'm coaching Brene Brown, trying not to panic, and I would ask Brene a question and there just be this silence and I'm not sure how long that it goes on for because I'm not that good at listening to myself and me, But it felt like it was like a twenty minute silence between me asking a question, who are answering at and inside my head is like, oh my god, fill the silence,
Fill the silence, ask another question. But you know, experience is like, you know what, just hold the silence because it's such a precious gift to give people a bit of space to think.
It.
Also, you know, if you asked a question and you take a beat or two to figure out a good answer and somehow shows a respect to the question and also gives a weight to the answer that might not come with a really fast response.
So true.
Now for people that want to consume more of what you are putting into the world, Michael, and also get their hands on a copy of How to Begin, what is the best way for people to do that?
Thank you? How to Begin.
It's pub date is January eleventh, But if you go to how tobegin dot com, you know you'll get access, you'll get ways to buy the book if you want that. You also there's a kind of free stuff and downloads, So how to Begin dot com is a place for the book. If you want a more general introduction to the work.
That I do.
MBS dot works is where you'll find my podcast two pages With NBS, We've got this wonderful, free, year long course called The Year of Living Brilliantly, which was meant to be a like a marketing thing, you know. I get people into this course and then I upsell them to stuff, but it's a terrible marketing thing because it's literally a year of brilliant teachers teaching people new stuff, like a new six minute video every week. So by
the time people are done, they're like, we're exhausted. There's just so much good work here that we don't want to buy anything. So terrible marketing idea, but a great course if people are interested in that.
Thank you so much, Michael.
I've just loved this chat. I feel like I've taken some and it's been one of those interviews where it's like I'm going to go back and listen to this like a few more times because there's yeah, I can't wait to share it with listeners. So thank you so much for your time.
Meanta, thank you, You're a wonderful host. It's like hard to believe this has been an hour. It's gone really quickly.
I hope you liked my chat with Michael.
I just feel like whenever I catch up with Michael, I learn so much.
This is one of those episodes where I will be going back over.
And taking even more notes.
How I work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios. The producer for this episode was Jenni Koda, and thank you to Martin Nimba who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound better than it would have otherwise.
See you next time.