Holly Ransom // Lifelong learning, leaving law and finding the leading edge - podcast episode cover

Holly Ransom // Lifelong learning, leaving law and finding the leading edge

Jul 15, 20211 hr 6 minSeason 1Ep. 153
--:--
--:--
Download Metacast podcast app
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episode description

Skipped #yaysofourlives this week as we’ve had some builders at home which don’t create the loveliest background noises for podcasting, but today’s guest well and truly makes up for the gap. It’s been probably nearly eight years since I first heard of Holly Ransom and started closely following her journey but today was the very first time I’ve had the privilege of chatting with her directly. If she’d been inspiring and influencing me from afar with her intellect, drive and leadership, her impact was tenfold in this conversation and I feel so lucky to be able to share that with some of you. Holly has about as much difficulty describing what she does as I do but that’s probably why we get along so well facing a lifelong inability not to try everything and anything (and all at once). She is a specialist in disruptive strategy, a private company director and advocate for social and economic inclusion, a businesswoman, a globally recognised speaker, podcaster and just this year also an author.


Starting with an Arts/Law degree for similar reasons as I did, Holly’s born flair for leadership and insatiable curiosity ultimately led her away from the law and into a constantly evolving career path with more accolades than I have time to list here. She was named one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women by the Australian Financial Review, she has delivered a Peace Charter to the Dalai Lama, interviewed Barack Obama on stage and was Sir Richard Branson’s nominee for Wired Magazine’s ‘Smart List’ of Future Game Changers to watch in 2017. In 2019 she was awarded the US Embassy’s Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Leadership Excellence. She won the Fulbright Scholarship to complete her Masters at Harvard University from which she graduated and has now poured the culmination of all those experiences into a fabulous book, The Leading Edge. I’ll let her tell you the rest herself in the most articulate and engaging words! I hope you enjoy


HOLLY'S NEW BOOK, THE LEADING EDGE


+ Follow Sarah here

+ Announcements on Insta at @spoonful_of_sarah

+ Join our Facebook community here

+ Subscribe to not miss out on the next instalment of YAY!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

One of the most powerful things for me in terms of setting my path was understanding how I liked to learn and building a learning environment that worked for that. So often I think when we talk about concepts like leadership, we put it on that's above my pay grade, that's only for people to run organizations of excise. Actually, each and every one of us is a leader every day, and those small moments are as important as the big movements.

Speaker 2

Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play, and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives They adore, the good, bad and ugly. The best and worst day

will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned entrepreneur whos wpped the suits and heels to co found Matcham and MATCHA milk Bark CZA is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt challenge, joy.

Speaker 3

And fulfillment along the way.

Speaker 2

Skipped yas of our lives this week, lovely people, as we've had some fielders at home which don't quite create the loveliest background noises for podcasting, but today's garest well and truly makes up for the gap. It's probably been eight years since I first heard of our wonderful guest today and started closely following her journey, but today was the very first time I've had the privilege of chatting with her directly, and I think you'll be able to

hear we got on like a house on fire. If she'd been inspiring and influencing me from afar with her intellect, drive and leadership until now, her impact was tenfold in this conversation, and I feel so lucky to be able to share that with some of you. Holly Ransom has about as much difficulty describing what she does as I do,

but that's probably why we get along so well. Facing a lifelong struggle not to try everything and anything and all at once, she is a specialist in disruptive strategy, a private company director, an advocate for social and economic inclusion, a businesswoman, a globally recognized speaker, podcaster, and just this

year also an author. Starting with an arts law degree for similar reasons as I did, Holly's born flair for leadership and insatiable curiosity ultimately led her away from the law and into a constantly evolving career path with more accolades than I have time to live here just a few of them. She was named as one of Australia's one hundred most Influential Women by the Australian Financial Review.

She has delivered a peace charter to the Dalai Lama, interviewed Barack Obama on stage, and was Sir Richard Branson's nominee for Wide Magazine's Smart List of Future game Changes to Watch. In twenty nineteen, she was awarded the US

embussi's Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Leadership Excellence. She also won the Fulbright Scholarship to complete her master's degree at Harvard University, from which she graduated just recently, and has now poured the culmination of all those experiences into a fabulos book, The Leading Edge. I'll let her tell you the rest herself in the most articulate and engaging words. I hope you all enjoy Holly Ransom, welcome to Seize.

Speaker 1

The Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. It's great to be here.

Speaker 2

Ah, it's so lovely to finally connect properly. We were just talking off there about how I've been fangirling you since around twenty thirteen, I think when we went to a conference together.

Speaker 1

Oh my gosh, you're incredibly generous in that, And as I was saying right back at you, I've been following your entrepreneurial career with the podcast and with your business as well, and it's just awesome. I love seeing other women in particular, but people winning and people who are prepared to back themselves. I get so excited every time I see success like that. So just couldn't be happier for you.

Speaker 2

Oh that's so kind, And I couldn't be happier for you and everything you've achieved, culminating in a new book that we'll get too shortly. But you also mentioned before my corporate refugee pathway and having escaped from law pretty quickly, and you escaped even earlier, avoiding the corporate stint altogether, which might make some people think that our law arts

degrees were a bit of a waste. Of time, but I like to remind everyone that nothing is a waste of time if you learn something, And I think it made an amazing launch pad for me with everything that's come since. So what did you think?

Speaker 1

Yeah, And it's funny. I don't know if it's the same for you, but sometimes it's I feel it's taken me time after my degree to appreciate what I got out of the degree in the sense of just the grounding in the law and how helpful that's been and running a business, being able to kind of get your head around contracts and just understand a whole bunch of that sort of stuff, perhaps more than I would have

if i'd done the degree. That ability to read an extraordinary amount of information and be able to pick out

the nugget Like that's what I feel like. I've got years and years of training in like how to work out what's matters and what is peripheral, which I think is very helpful in a lot of the work that I do, you know, where you're curating a lot of you know, I do a lot of work on stage where you're pulling together kind of an array of ideas and trying to help people make meaning of it, and I feel like probably the law degree was incredible grounding

in that. Yeah, I agree with you, Like I think the other thing is everything that happens alongside doing the degree. I mean, I'm grateful every day for the fact my vice chancellor at university on day one at our induction said, you know, if you leave with just a piece of paper, we've failed you if you don't go and study abroad and volunteer and get involved in student organizations and all of that. And I was probably the kid that took that too far the other direction, and you know, decided

to go and do everything outside the classroom. You know, I spent most of my life at UNI doing everything else, you know, volunteering and building businesses and you know, working overseas and doing bits and pieces. But for me, those years are such an incredible opportunity to explore and to play and to learn and to try. And I think that's what's amazing about that period of university. Alongside whatever

you study, it's that freedom that you get. And I hope people like really stretch the boundaries.

Speaker 2

Of Yeah, I don't think that freedom to explore has to end there either, But it's interesting that you said, it was only later that you started to see the benefits of that period of your life. And that's something I love to emphasize on the show through stories like yours, that the dots don't usually connect until much later on,

and finding your you know, finding your passion. It requires a lot of patience and trust that everything will eventually make sense, and you know, not to always be seeking answers when we're not necessarily meant to know them at the time, but to keep asking questions, which is something that I read in maybe page three of your brilliant new book that made me like, yes, less focus on finding the right answers, but totally focus on asking the right questions.

Speaker 1

And I love that piece about trust, you know, trusting yourself as well, and I think that's one of the biggest, most formative pieces of work we each have to do for ourselves, and I think for me, that's a lot of the story of my twenties is learning to trust myself, learning to trust that it is all going to be okay, learning to trust that opportunities will come again, learning to trust that, you know, I can find myself out of

a challenging situation. All those things that you've got to learn, and really you can only learn through trying and failing and having a go and all that sort of thing.

And I think that's absolutely critical. And I think to your point, the other thing is that preparedness to ask questions, which is a big flip from the world that we got educated in, you know, and the world as it was previously, which was a lot about the accumulation of answers, and now that we know there's a myriad of information,

we are saturated. It is such a noisy world. The key is actually the ability to be able to ask better and different questions and then to go on the journey of how do I go about finding new and better answers. But I think the quality of our questions and the preparedness to focus on that and big question askers is one of the most important things all of this. As young leaders can be mindful of building our capability on it's absolutely future critical skill.

Speaker 2

Oh well, if anyone needed a sneak preview of your incredible eloquence, they've had it before we've even reached five minutes into this podcast. So I wouldn't blame anyone for being a little intimidated by your intelligence and achievements, let alone once we start adding things like full Bright Scholar and Harvard Graduate nominee on Sir Richard Brandson's Smart List of Future Game Changes and the US Embassy's Eleanor Roosevelt

Award for Leadership Excellence, among many other things. Which is just the reason why I start every episode by asking our guest what the most down to earth thing is about them before we get into the story, to kind of break the ice and remind us all that you're human, even though I would insist that you're some kind of superhuman. So what is something really normal about you? Oh?

Speaker 1

I'm trying to think all my partner would say in answer to this question, because I feel like that's always a good indication of sort of what would they say if I either they were asked a similar question. Probably I love to bake. That probably surprises a lot of people. So my big no myst thing is cooking and I love baking. And I think one of the reasons I love that is because it makes me feel really close to my grandma I grew up. She's my favorite person.

She's ninety strong, and so much of my memories of her growing up and where I think our special bond started was in her kitchen, cooking and sharing recipes and all of that. So I think that's a really big one for me. The other one is I'm a little bit of a walking jukebox. I can't sing to save myself, but I have this ability to pick a word and just start singing. If I might have said it on the way ed to You just have the most eclectic range of songs, Like I'm never quite sure where they

come from. I don't know that it's a good thing, certainly.

Speaker 3

That's the other one is interesting.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's not in tune, but it's enthusiastic, let's put it that way.

Speaker 3

I love it. Well, that's very relatable.

Speaker 2

I think all of us have one of those things that we do even though we're like I see it place, but I just enjoy it.

Speaker 3

So I'm gonna do it anyway in.

Speaker 1

My happy place when I'm singing. So you can all deal with that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, amazing. Well, let's jump into the first proper section of the show, Your Way to Ya, where we go back to the very beginning of your life and make our way through all the chapters that it took to get you to where you are now, because I really think it can be so easy from the outside to assume that you've always known you'd end up here, demystifying leadership for others and living your purpose every day for those who might be a little earlier on in their journey,

or who were feeling very distant from their own driving passion, or who don't even know what that is yet, I think it's always helpful to remember that it was far from an overnight success for you to get here. And I'm sure you've been through many periods where you had no idea where you would end up or even where you wanted to end up. So let's start with your childhood and what led you to the law and then back out of it.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I can do my best. I mean, I grew up in Western Australia where we're both in Victoria now,

but I was born in the wild West. And I mentioned Grandma already, but she's pretty formative to all of this, because I think so much of my grounding of sort of what I admired as a young person, what I looked up to, came from her and my Grandpa, who are seventy years married this year, and just an incredible duo just got unbelievable, and the two of them I remember quite vividly, and it's a story I opened my book with like kind of I think each of us,

it's really interesting the first memory we have of ourselves, or the first thing that we can kind of recalls being formative, because there's something in that. I think there's a lesson and a nugget and our truth often embedded in that. There's something we meant to take and make from those moments. And for me, that was shopping with my grandma. I honestly can't remember whether I was four

or five. I was very little, and we were at the supermarket in Scarborough Beach, if anyone knows Perth really well, and we were going to the checkout. We were getting stuff to buy I think, just food for lunch. It was bread and milk from what I can remember, to go back and make sandwiches. And there was this man who, at that sage of my life, looked like a giant. He was like six foot five, just enormous comparative to

my statue. My grandmother is all of like four foot five or something of five foot maybe.

Speaker 3

It was probably a twelve year old boy.

Speaker 1

Your conception of like how things are in head, like anyone over the age of ten is so old when you're little, and everything like that, So you're absolutely right. I could have been. But he was tearing into this poor young girl that was on the checkout, and I remember her face going bright red. Obviously she'd given him the wrong change, and he was letting her know about it,

and it was mean and it was unnecessarily rude. And before I could even blink, my grandmother had inserted herself between this giant and this poor checkout girl looked like she wanted to melt into the floor, and she pointed her finger up at this man and she said, how dare you talk to that young lady like that? You apologize?

And I just saw this guy stop in his tracks, sheepishly, kind of like he truly stopped for a couple of seconds, kind of going I don't think anyone had ever challenged him like that before on how he interacted with people. And he sort of mumbled sorry, and sheepishly grabbed his things and ran out of the store. My grandmother proceeded like nothing had happened, right, She just paid for her groceries.

You checked the young lady was okay and then wanted out the door before she realized I was still like wetted to the ground, deer in the headlights, going oh my gosh, did that just happen? Like what did I just see? And I just said, Grandma, that was so brave, and she said, Honey, when you walk past it, you tell the world it's okay. And I didn't understand a lot of the power of the responsibility and the kind

of significance of what my grandmother said there. But what I have loved about her every day of her life is how she lives that and that's been an enormous

source of inspiration for me. And I think when I look at you, when you talked about how you made your decisions, I think so many times you can explain a fork in the road or why I chose to get involved in something or participate or say no or yes to an opportunity based on coming across something I couldn't walk past and going I've got to dig my heels in here. I want to do something. Can I make a difference? And that ran in parallel with what

do I need to do to build the skills? So when I don't walk past something I can make more of a difference. So who do I need to learn from? What skills and capabilities do I need to understand in order to be able to do that? But I think for me anchors back to that moment of that idea each and what I love about Grammar is it is those little moments too. That is an interaction a lot of people would have been silent in. That is an

interaction where it's really easy to be a bystander. And one of the big things I'm passionate about is so often I think when we talk about concepts like leadership, we put it on someone else's that's above my pay grade,

that's only for people to run organizations of excise. Actually, each and every one of us is a leader every day, and those small moments are as important as the big movements, and we need to really take responsibility for the way that we show up in those whether it's thinking about our own carbon footprint, whether it's thinking about you know, the values that our household runs with, the way that we show up for our friends, let alone our teams

and our work and our community. So I think for me that's a big part of it and you know, Grandma's always said I was born in perpetual motion. I think I've always had this just level of energy and vigor that comes with that. I think the way that it's been grounded and anchored has been in that kind of formative experience I had with her.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's fascinating, and it's really interesting that you said that we can all be leaders in big things, but even in the really small interactions per day, including just not like one of the things that if anyone who's not a lawyer probably hasn't done this in as much depth as we have, but is looking at acts versus omissions. And sometimes I think if we feel like if we don't act and we're not required to act, that that's fine,

like we haven't been part of the problem. But actually sometimes witnessing evil and not doing anything about it is just as bad as perpetrating it. So acually doing little small things in your life, you know, that can be as big a leadership as someone who, say, the school captain, and who becomes president or who is leader of their

club or you know, whatever it is. I think leadership doesn't have to be the being the top or the first or the leader you know that having a title, And I think that's one of the questions I wanted to ask you next, because you have been a super high achievers throughout your life. You were school captain. I was going to ask if you think people are born leaders, but it sounds like you feel like leadership can go into every part of your life in the day to day small things.

Speaker 1

Yeah. Completely, I think everyone is a leader, and I think one of the things I'm passionate about is helping people to realize their sphere of influence and to connecting with their purpose and passion because I think really what we need each of us to lead is to be anchored in what makes us light up, What is it that we want to be in the world. Who do we want to be for other people? What is the

change that we want to see? And once we've got that purpose and direction, you know, I think our ability to then influence, even if that is about who you

want to be. Like, I know some people who are just all about they want to be a source of positivity and hope for everyone, and they're focus in every interaction they're in with everyone is about how do they bring that light, how do they bring that encouragement, how do they be that champion for someone else, Just as much as I know other people who've got the life goal of, you know, being a leader of a country, or setting up their own company that's going to change

the face of the world, or going and doing you know, aid work overseas or whatever it might be. So I think for me, absolutely each of us is born with everything that we need to be able to lead and to make the change that we want to see in the world. I think one of the challenges is the way that our society is structured and the messaging that we get and what's rewarded and incentivized and not encourages some of us and discourages others, and so some of

us who don't get that enthusiasm. And I often think that, you know, particularly about friends of mine who are really creative, we're so gifted in just the out of the box way that they can see the world. I'm excited that I feel like their skills are finally being acknowledged and talked about as being as critical as we know they

are to the world in future. We keep talking about creativity and innovation, but when I think about the messaging they must have got in most of schooling environments where you know, this is how you do things. It's largely a rope learning curriculum. Creativity is not something you can make a career out of. I go, oh my gosh, think about all those creative leaders that we discouraged. We've

now got to help re encourage and re energize. So I think a big part of it is actually that for some of us, the kind of default environment of society reinforced that you're a leader and that your skills and capabilities are well served to go and lead, and some of us didn't get that messaging. And I think it's time we corrected that recognition and that balance, because I don't think that's right.

Speaker 3

Oh my god, I totally agree with you.

Speaker 2

And I think even as someone who happened to probably operate and go through a system that favored my particular interest and strength, I still was very clearly able to see how that disadvantaged so many other people. And it just happened that all the subjects I like were you know, scaled up, and that all the things that I was interested were rewarded all the time. And then yeah, I often noticed that.

Speaker 1

And the flip of that. So if I can ask you you know, is that when you kind of default, it's very hard to choose to off the well worn path, right, So to do what you did and go, Okay, I've been very successful at university. Everyone's got this idea of where I'm going and this path is kind of almost trodden ahead of me, and then you're going, Actually, that doesn't light me up, that doesn't feel aligned to my purpose. I'm going to step off that and do something different.

That's the flip. I think for people, we've been encouraged because they feel this pressure to live out their purpose a certain way. And I think being true to yourself at acknowledging is it mine or is it a purpose someone else has given me or projected onto me is so important. I don't know if that was part of your story, but I can imagine that being challenging.

Speaker 2

Oh absolutely, and it was just it was a whole I'm exactly like you in terms of that perpetual motion thing. If I'm moving forwards, I'm gratified to a certain extent, regardless of whether I actually cared about the direction I was going in. I was like, I'm going fast, So it doesn't really matter where I'm going because I'm getting rewarded and promotions and like people are patting me on the back and telling me I'm successful.

Speaker 1

That feels good.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it feels.

Speaker 2

Good, Like even if you don't really like the day to day of it, it still feels good because you feel like you're you know, society thinks that you're doing something worthy with your time. And so I think, like, now, that's why I'm so fascinated in that whole productivity hamster where that you can get on because busy and productive are really gratifying. And I reckon, you can go decades before you even realize whoa, this is someone else's idea

of what life is about. And it did take a whole lot of unlearning, yes, and detaching myself from those metrics, those like measurable financial metrics that in the end, it turns out, aren't what lighted me up, but that it did take, I reckon, like a five year re education of myself to allow myself to embrace this totally different pathway.

Speaker 3

And now I think I'm just.

Speaker 2

Getting to that stage where I'm like, oh, okay, I've totally let go of that old way of measuring myself, but I'm happy every day and I feel like I'm doing what I meant to do on this earth. So it takes a really long time, which is why I'm fascinated for you as well. How you ended up finding and forging the pathway to deliver the messages on leadership that now you are delivering to exactly where they need to be and exactly in the way that they need

to be done. But back at school, like, how did you start to figure out what that pathway was going to be for you? How did you even decide on law arts? Like in that system, you know, what is your decision making process about your future? Did you feel that you were getting drawn into the typical successful intellectual pathway, Like that's what I felt. I just did it by default almost.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think a combination of both really, So one of the reasons I chose so I did a law arts degree, but I majored in economics and I did a minor in politics, and I think at a very ultruistic level, And it's actually one of the reasons I picked the UNI that I did and structure the degree the way I did, because they let economics be a social science and so I could study it under the arts faculty. And for me, the reason I wanted to do that was at a basic kind of altruistic level.

If you if you want to change the world, I thought, well, you need to understand the existing political, legal, and economic structures. Like I've got to have a grounding in this. You can't change something until you understand it. And there's a lot of reasons and history and vested interest in things the way that they are, and there's also a lot

of blind spots. You know, there's a lot of people who just can't see that it's not working, whether it's not working for certain groups of people or certain parts of our society. And so for me it was a want to understand that. But to be honest, I really didn't enjoy university. I enjoyed that period of my life because of everything else I did. I found the way that we learned really traditional. I'm a kinesthetic learner, so I learned through doing. I learned a billion times more.

And that's why I'm so grateful for that line. My vice chancellor empowered me with by going and starting a micro finance project and helping getting involved in small NGOs and being involved in my local council on the Youth Advisory Council and doing projects there and starting my own business and dabbling in that and seeing what I could do, and then you know, the corporate opportunities. I was lucky enough to get working from some incredible leaders, but for me,

that was my playground. And I think one of the most important things if I could go back and empower myself with something even earlier and something I hope might resonate for listeners. One of the most powerful things for me in terms of setting my path was understanding how I liked to learn and building a learning environment that

worked for that. If I had tried to sit in the classroom and absorb that way, I would have made it out the other side, but I never would have understood the things about myself have developed, the clarity of the way that I thought I wanted to contribute to the world, all that sort of stuff, as I did by virtue of going out and dabbling and playing in the way that I did. So I think that's one of the biggest bits of advice, is the learning outside

the full walls of the classroom. How can you put yourself where lightning might strike, where you might meet a mentor where you might discover your purpose, or you might go, oh wow, could that person be a co founder of a business with me? Or jeez, that's a community issue we're not doing enough about. How about I try and do something. I think for me that that was the pivotal part alongside the kind of learning journey inside the classroom.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I totally agree with that, And I think one of the most interesting things I tend to hear now is people sort of feeling like they don't know what their purpose is or even what they really enjoy, which I can identify with because back when I was starting to think maybe law isn't for me, I actually didn't know what else I was interested in because I had not had any time to continue extra curricular activities or

hobbies or anything like that. But then when you ask them or what are you doing to explore your passions? Like what are you dabbling in? Or are you giving anything new or red hot crack, often their answer is no, And it's like, well, unless you're trying new, weird things all the time, how are you actually going to have any data points to figure out, you know, what else you might like. But I think the flip side of that is people like you and I who do tend to love exploring everything.

Speaker 3

And I was the same.

Speaker 2

I spent so long overseas doing committees in the Northern Territory, like so many doing nexus like at the League, we strordinary women like, there was entrepreneurship, politics, international policy, like there were so many different things that interested me that being multi interested is almost It's never obviously a burden. It's a great thing and it's wonderful to keep your options open, but it makes decision making very very different

does because you are so excited about everything. So did you have an idea back then about what you are like what you're doing now? Was that the end point of I am trying to do all these different things to culminate in a leadership position. Did you know then or are you still just definitely not throwing things out there to see what's stuck?

Speaker 1

And you know what's fascinating? And I really resonated with what you were saying earlier about kind of the plan And you know that one of the things I was fascinated by. And I remember going and having so many conversations with mentors about in my early twenties when I was studying my degree and trying to work out what this degree was going to lead to and what I was going to do with it. Was how like, how did how did all these people that I admired put

it together? Like did everyone have this plan that had just been perfectly carved and kind of they walked their way through it. And I was convinced, you know, when you have this hypothesis that you're wedded to. I was wedded to this idea that they all had a plan and I was just missing the plan, and so I had to find a way of working out how to

craft the plan. And then what was really fascinating to me was that everyone I would talk to, they were like, oh, I never planned for this, Like my plan was to go and do X, or I didn't even have a plan. I just took opportunities or you know, whatever it was. There was this inability in any way for me to get validation of that hypothesis, and so eventually I.

Speaker 3

Abandoned that well yet to let it.

Speaker 1

But it's true and I think about it, you know, I was reflecting on it the other night because I'd hit it was sort of ten years since I've met a particular friend and we were talking back over what was happening a decade ago, and never in my wild as dreams would I eve envisage doing some of the stuff that I'm doing now having had some of the

opportunities that I've had. And I'm kind of convinced now I've almost gone one eighty on it, and I'm really of the opinion you need to have like a strong sense of direction in terms of being angry it to a purpose. And I loved what you said before about like just being happy every day. That is one of the biggest signs for me in terms of the indicators of am I living life right? If I wake up

and I'm excited about the day. I used to have this quote written actually on my mirror from Steve Jobs that said every day for thirty three years, I got up and I looked in the mirror and I asked myself, do I love what I'm going to go do today? And if the answer is no, for too many days in a row, I knew something had to change. And so I think that notion of do you love it? Are you happy? Is probably one of the biggest indicators. So that notion in strong sense of direction, but loose

hold of the reins, like being open to opportunity. I think it's so critical for young leaders like us and those listening to this, particularly now because we are talking about you know, I think when I graduated from high school was we're going to have ten careers over the course of our last lifetime. Now we're talking to year twelve's about the fact they're going to have eighteen. There are careers that don't even exist yet that are going to be a part of our lifetime and our experience.

We've got to be up for that learning, unlearning, relearning journey you touched on before, and so the idea of having a plan, like things are not going to exist as they do right now, and that's exciting. We live in such a dynamic time, so I think a lot of the skills that people in our parents' generation, our grandparents' generation used to kind of guide their careers and things like that don't work as well for our generation. I hate the question, and I actually think it's a really

crap question to ask people. And I'm sure you've been asked a million times. I know how I have, Like, tell me where you see yourself in five years as a crap question unless we are genuinely talking about, like, you know, a looser definition of impact, because the notion that you know you can step through a career ladder or things are as static as they might have once been. Where in our grandparents' generation often they took a job and worked thirty year career for the one organization, or

they worked in the same industry. We can have so many lateral moves and creative ways of applying our skills, and so I think we need to be a lot more fluid. But that means building different support. We need to be really clear on our purpose and our values because that's what guides our choices, and we need to make sure we've got really great people in our support structure who we can use as sounding boards as these choices come up, who want the best for us, but

can be those sounding boards. So mentors and sponsors and people that can be those support people to navigate all those different decisions. I think that's more important now than maybe it might have been before. Oh.

Speaker 2

Absolutely, Like anyone who listens to the podcast regularly will feel like I've briefed you on what to say, because that is pretty much everything I believe about life in one paragraph.

Speaker 3

I totally agree.

Speaker 2

And I often say, you know the why, once you find your why, that generally stays consistent, and that represents purpose and values and beliefs and all of those kinds and needs day to day and what you want.

Speaker 3

But the how is going to change.

Speaker 2

And as long as the why is staying the same, it doesn't matter that the iterations of the how change chapters, chapter, and fact. That's the exciting part that you never started. And if I was the same.

Speaker 3

In five years, I'd be concerned totally.

Speaker 2

I think I hadn't evolved in five years time, while the world's like moving so quickly around you.

Speaker 1

We're such kindred spirits. I say that all the time. I love that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, And I also think something interesting about the being happy every day thing. That is what old me didn't understand before I did have this big re education of, you know, changing the metrics that I used to measure my life. Old me didn't even ask that question what was I happy or how was I feeling day to day? Because everything was macro. It was what are my titles?

What is my job? What are the box TICKI things at this level that sound fancy but what is the point in like earning x amount or having this title, or making partner or whatever, if day to day it cost you your joy? And I think too many of us make at the decision making point of our lives. We make the macro decision and don't think on a micro level what does that mean day to day? If I got to hate that, I'm probably gonna hate that.

Speaker 1

Like I find it so interesting that you talk about old me and you made I want to be really clear with listeners to I didn't get this right the whole way through. I have only kind of honed this view of the world by getting it horrifically wrong. You know. It was diagnosed with depression in twenty thirteen and had to completely go about resetting and recalibrating everything I thought I knew about myself and how I showed up in the world in the sense of reframing my relationship with

vulnerability shifting. And this is probably the biggest change in my life. Managing energy, not managing time one of the most powerful concepts I've gotten my head around changing the values I was to your point, around the metrics, like what am I measuring myself on? I'm measuring myself on values.

Now I'm measuring myself on how good our job I'm going about, you know, delivering my impact on And I think one of the bravest things we can often do is being prepared to walk away from people and things that no longer service, you know, those toxic environments that want us to be a certain way under a certain version of us. That we can do and we can

achieve it, but it's slowly eating us. It is chipping away at who we are and our joy to your point, and our energy, and nobody, nobody gets that right to do that to you. But that's your agency. Only you can set those boundaries and work out what that looks like.

So for me, as much as that is, you know, the worst thing I've been through personally, it's also the best thing because if I was not living life in a sustainable and healthy and holy stic way, and I wouldn't be where I am now if it weren't for the recalibration that I had to go on there. And I'm a much better person and leader and partner and everything, I think for the fact that I went through that.

But if you can avoid kind of the burnout when I look at it, and I go, there were warning signs I should have seen there was a way to be making these decisions earlier than having to hit a wall first and then work out how to rebuild. So I'd really to your point, people can start thinking about

the filter criteria for their choices now. Don't wait for one of these kind of challenging life situations or difficult moments, or for it to all just be too much all of a sudden, in whatever that might look like for you. You can start making those different decisions now.

Speaker 2

Although interestingly, with you mentioning before about your big hypothesis on successful happy people who are thrilled with their lives now, yeah, looking back for me my theory now, particularly from doing what two hundred episodes of this podcast, the one consistent theme, which is like Unbreakable as a hypothesis, is that it's the shit bits that get people there. It's not the good bits where things work out and they make good decisions and they just wake up going, oh, yes, this

is where I'm meant to be. It's actually those breakdown moments, and maybe not a full breakdown, even though of course as atypes we have to even high achieve at breakdown, so of course we go like a full A plus burnout. But almost everyone has found that those formative moments are the tougher ones where you do get it wrong, but that's what guides you back to wear like, onto the right track again. And you can't know those limits unless

you push yourself to them. And I think that that's part of the thing that you need to embrace about the journey is it's not going to be rosy and great, and it is going to involve bits where you like, I don't this is.

Speaker 3

Not what I want.

Speaker 2

But that's just as valuable as data for where you do want to end up as figuring out what you like. What you don't like is valuable to know because some people have no idea of either thing, and they're just coasting along doing what they're doing, just because that's where you get on autopilot, because you're not trying lots of different things and getting feedback and going, okay, what less

of this, more of that. It's just do more of what feels good and less of what feels bad, and keep trying until you kind of get closer and closer. I feel like it's just constantly tweaking until you get more and more on an even pathway, but it takes lots of distractions and fearing off paths to get there.

Speaker 1

I think the other thing too, what you're talking about is that it's also a journey. It's not a destination that idea of you don't ever fully arrive. Life is not static. It's dynamic, and so circumstances and situations and opportunities are always changing. And so it's also getting comfortable with the idea that this is a constant ebb and flow that you're just rebalancing and recalibrating. And one of the most important things you can do is learn how

to check in with yourself, whatever that looks like. You know. For some people that is, you know, mindfulness and kind of deep breaths or yoga or meditation. For others it's a lot more kind of journaling and they have a framework for how they kind of reflect on things and make sure they're calibrating in the right way. But whatever it is, I think having some way of cutting the noise out for yourself and really making sure that you're making a decision that's right for you and not one

that's right to your point. The pressures, the noise, what other people are saying, the distractions. I think that's really important because the only things that like those distraction pulls from our white and the more that we can try and find tools and anchors that can keep us coming back to it and have that accountability, we'll all make choices at times that stray us away from them. That goes without saying, but yeah, I think just having those strategies is really really powerful.

Speaker 2

And so from that sort of big recalibration and aha moment, it looks like the five or six years since then, since the you know, twenty fifteen ish, has been enormous for you, So founding Emergent, then co founding Energy Disruptors, going back to UNI, to Harvard of all places, as a full Bright scholar. Nonetheless, if you haven't heard of the full Bright scholarship, it's the pinnacle of the academic world.

You're actually our first Harvard graduate on the show. So I'd love to know what that actually is like versus what we think is like from like Leli Blonde. You've interviewed some incredible people, you have a podcast, you've just published a book, Like I feel like once you do change your energy towards your purpose and the things that make you feel good. I think when I look back, I wouldn't have even aimed for some of the things I do now because I just couldn't have conceived of

the fact that they'd be possible. So how has that snowboard for you? What would you describe as what you do now and what you want to do next, and how all of that has come about, and how you're seizing your ya now.

Speaker 1

Oh, big question, that's a huge question. I know.

Speaker 3

Sorry, there's like eighty five times.

Speaker 1

And I completely agree with the whole notion of not even being able to conceive of certain goals. It's sort of extraordinary sometimes when you look back and yeah, I think that's one of the most important things I could say as an a type. And I know this will resonate,

Like we're very good at setting goals. The thing we've got to be so mindful of is that we don't become so fixated to those goals that we miss the opportunity that looks slightly different or that's a little bit you know, colorful or creative, or doesn't quite have the packaging the way that we thought it might be, because that might be exactly what we were meant to say yes to and golf and do. So I think that's become a really important one for me, just leaning into

kind of saying yes to working out. One of the things I love about what I do now and it sounds like it's exactly the same for you, is I love everyone I get to work with. I really enjoy the work that I do and the diversity of it, and that brings me so much joy, getting to work with great people on projects I'm passionate about every single day. And that's not something I could have said about life

at different points of my journey so far. And it's also the really and I don't know if you have this the same way, but one of the things i'd stress to listeners too is it doesn't stop people from coming and still trying to tell me that I should be doing something different. I hear that multiple times a week. A lot of people still want to project their wants for me or their belief in what success looks like.

You really should go off and run this sort of company, You really should be running for office, you really should be doing those sorts of things. And so I just remind people too that You've got to really be mindful of the energy that you let into your orbit and just understand that that's kind of safeguarding your truth, particularly when you're choosing to march to an unconventional beat, which is definitely I think the story of my career so far.

I'm not really boxable, which is something I find as a strength, but it's also a challenge when you're interacting with a lot of people who like to be able to go, oh, so you do X, because really I

do a whole myriad of things. I'm lucky enough to be a host and a moderator and a curator of content for incredible programs and organizations across the world, and I'm fortunate enough to get to do a lot of leadership development work, and weirdly enough, and I'm now a writer, which is something I never thought I would be saying about myself. Yeah, that one's very weird. I'm trying that on the size at the moment. That doesn't quite sit

right yet. So a whole multitude of things, and I love that because I think the heartbeat of when you think about things that you love, they've often got common threads to them, and one of them for me is I'm insatiably curious, and so having diversity of the things that I do, so I'm always interacting with different sectors and problems and minds is something that just means I'm

constantly stimulated. And when I think, and it sounds like something you were talking about before, when when you know what's happening next, it's almost when I worry, I'm exactly the same. That's why I was saying, oh, my, such kindred spirits when you said that, because I think for me, the dynamism and the diversity and the pace and the change is what keeps me at my best. It's not

everyone's choice. Some people I deeply admire because they are such technical experts and they're obsessively brilliant or focused on a particular part of the puzzle, and that's awesome too. But for me, I think being able to know what lights me up, not just in terms of, you know, what my purpose is and kind of who I enjoy working with, but also the dimensions that I need in my day and in my week to be at my best.

That's one of my favorite things. And so at the moment, you know, I just only graduated last month because of COVID. I started over at campus at Harvard, then finished online because we were obviously cut short the pandemic, I had to leave the US when they closed campus. We just spread the coronavirus. So I finished the last year of

the degree online. But one of the things I'm passionate about is this whole leadership development leadership movement that I'm launching with the book and with a whole series of things that will come out in the next little while. And I just want to invite more people to come on this journey of evolution and growth and building these skills and seeing what we can do together because we need it. We desperately need it.

Speaker 2

Oh how exciting. I can't believe you're a harve A graduate. What does that feel like?

Speaker 1

Do you know what's weird is it doesn't feel real yet. And I think because it was all online, there was never really a sense of closure. Like theragination was sort of like watching a YouTube video and because God bless them, they don't think of us in Australia and the time zone here, so it was like at three am Australian time, So I just like prop the laptop open on the bed and that was about it, but I.

Speaker 3

Think not a pretty so I think in that way.

Speaker 1

And I'm sure so many of your listeners can resonate with this, right Like, it feels like such an extraordinary, privileged and first world problem to be talking about, you know, a graduation not going the way that you might have

envisaged originally. But I think for each of us, milestones and achievements and challenges all took on a different form to what we might have been used to in the last twelve eighteen months, and that's a recon Like, I'm one of those people that quite likes to bookend things. So you know, you start something, you do it, well, you finish it, Okay, cool? What meaning am I making of that? What amuff to do next? So the only reason I say that is because in not that it

didn't happen over there. I care less about that, But in my mind mentally, I don't feel like I have closure on that chapter as such.

Speaker 3

Yeah, totally my.

Speaker 1

Partner through year surprise graduation last weekend, which was really wonderful and I think in many ways that helped achieve that moment because it was bringing together so many of

my favorite people here. But yeah, it sort of doesn't quite have the level, Like I wasn't living over there for two years because that got cut short, and I've kind of been in a hybrid world of studying, doing night shift and working and what have you, So it probably feels a little bit different, which I'm sure everyone who's graduated at university or year twelve or achieved anything in their lives in the last twelve eighteen months and sort of hasn't been able to celebrate or hasn't even

been able to gather with people and have that acknowledgment can resonate.

Speaker 2

With Yeah, yeah, totally, And I think it is hard, particularly when you are insatiably curious. Acknowledging milestones is very difficult because then suddenly your brain's like a new one, like yeah, okay, tick, I've done Harvard, but like what's next? And so it's even harder because without those big sort of momentous events or acknowledgments, it's like you couldn't close the chapter before, but let alone without these events, it's

even harder to do that. And I found with my book coming out, it came out well when we're in stage four, so there were no bookshops open, so I still feel like it's not really out there. So when I see mine, I'm like, oh my printed that.

Speaker 3

At office works.

Speaker 1

That's nice.

Speaker 3

It still doesn't feel like a real thing.

Speaker 2

But how would you say, because of that whole like changing your metrics of measuring your life and also being someone who might fall into the trap of like going to the next goal very quickly and not sort of celebrating and acknowledging that, how would you now describe your relationship to success versus happiness versus progress and dreams.

Speaker 1

It's such a good question, and I think it's something that there's been a lot of people who've helped me reframe, Like I've found Carol Dwex work on growth mindset around celebrating effort versus outcome to be one important reframe in terms of just I'm always proud as be Like the book. I mean, it's due out this month. I have no idea how it will go in the world, but I'm so proud of the product I'm putting up. And that's the part I choose to be proud of because all

I can do. I can't control how people are going to re to it, but I know how many hours went into that in terms of the interviews, the writing, the finessing it, and I believe it's got great value for a lot of people in it and so I'm proud of that. And I think one of the other things really good mentor of mine Lane Beashley, who many of you know from her surfing prowess. She used to tell me a story that she's won seven world titles and there's one that she doesn't remember because she didn't

stop and celebrate it. And so her lesson to me, and this is probably some wisdom she passed to me. And I think it was twenty fourteen when we'd had sort of a big success with the G twenty and I sort of wasn't coming up for her and keeping going. This is sort of all in that period where I was still recalibrating, is making sure in whatever way it looks like for you, because everyone's different on how they like to celebrate, how you make a marker of something.

And she used to say to me all the time, like, how long do you think your head and body are going to keep up with operating at the intensity, with having the energy. If when all that energy achieves something that you're really excited about, you don't stop and celebrate and go, ah, that was awesome. You know that self reward, not for anyone else's purpose, but your own right to say, wow, I'm really proud that all those hours produced that or did that. Isn't that great? So I think that's really

helped me to kind of reset in that regard. And so for me, like last weekend was so beautiful because it was time with all my favorite people, just this wonderful energy in the room. That was all I could have ever asked for for a celebration. And so for me, it was never about collecting a piece of paper. It was just about having some sense of closure, and I think that went a long way to helping me achieve it. But I think, you know, I'm a type stuff is hardwired,

Like I will always be someone that has goals. I will always be someone who wants to do the best of everything I set my mind to, right, Like I've always got to want to do things well. I think the thing that you get a healthier relationship with is just having a more holistic definition of success. So a lot of people, I think, kind of go the one dimension of success is career, it's title, it's pay packet, it's whatever. It's not the incredible relationships I've got with

the people that I love and care about. It's not how healthy my body is, it's not what we talked about before and how happy I am every day. And I think when you start bringing those things into your definition of success, life just gets so much more colorful and wonderful. And it doesn't mean that being the best at what you do and however you choose to ply your talents and your craft doesn't matter. It always will,

but it matters in context. And I think when it becomes anchored in purpose versus the notion of kind of maybe more superficial metrics where they're more about I don't know, something you're trying to prove to the world or wanting validation off others, then that changes that success factor as well.

So I think mind's evolved quite a lot. I used to be someone previously who just want to to I think it was a volume game almost it was ticking the stuff off, and I don't know that it was ever focused too much on other than wanting to test how much I could do and whether I could do it. But I think now I'm much more about quality I'm much more holistic, and I'm much more about focusing on what's in my sphere of influence. I can control my effort, I control the way I show up, I can control

the way I treat people. And that's what I'm going to choose to value in terms of what I deem success to look like.

Speaker 2

Yeah, totally. I actually had Gary Vaynerchuk on the show the year before, and one of the things that I love about him is he is using his platform to really push this idea of a happiness metric, Like why would we measure our lives by anything else? It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't mean that financial metrics aren't important, Like we all have a livelihood, we all show a hierarchy of needs, and there's a reason why career is a factor in our lives. Doesn't mean throwing all those

things out. But if you put happiness as a measure before you put everything else, like everything else falls into place when you have all those needs of joy and family and connection, Like all those things come first, and then all the success metrics fall into place after that. It's like just flipping the triangle on its head, which I think is really really valuable. I love that, which is why very nice segue into the last section, which is your playta, and that's the part where I love

in your book. One of the chapters is go back to being four or something about remember who you were when you were faced, And.

Speaker 3

That's exactly what this is about.

Speaker 2

Czda is called Czda because YA is juvenile, and it reminds me of not taking life too seriously and going back to that inner child that I think there's something in the prologue or the intro that you said about how tragic it is that we lose that in social curiosity that we have with children. We also lose that unfiltered ability to find joy and to find joy regardless of what other kids are doing to find joy. Some kids love the sampit, some kids fucking hate us pit.

But you don't get filtered by social expectations about the sandpit. You just go in or you don't go in, dependent on what you like. And that's something I think we lose as well. Once we start to get expectations of norms of success and career, we stop making decisions based on what am I good at and what do I like, and we make decisions based on what other people think I should do, and then often people's big aha moment is just circling back to what you could have guessed

if you look at them as a kid. And I feel like that's this beautiful circle of life, which is why plata for me is remembering never to let go of that so I never have to come back to it again. It's just keeping close to that joy and not getting to the end of my life and thinking, even if I love my job, I don't want to get to the end of my life and think I just worked and died. Like there's a place for pleasure and activities that art maybe not productive at all, but that make you happy.

Speaker 3

So what's your plata? What do you do that's just for joy?

Speaker 1

Great question. I love that, and I love the focus that you have on It's one of the reasons I resonated with everything you're doing with the pods, because I think that absolutely is a heartbeat of the book and it's something I'm very passionate about. Both the curiosity and you see it if you're around a small kid, you know, if you haven't been for a little while, borrow one of your friends kids, go take them to the past.

Speaker 3

Plenty of them around right now.

Speaker 1

Listen to the why why? Why? Why does that happen? Why does this happen? You know, the need to understand and make sense of the world, and the unfiltered nature with which they ask questions, and the volume, Like it is sad what happens to us by the time we've become teenagers with how few questions we're asking. And then the other thing, to your point, is is just that playfulness, like it is amazing trying to get a lot of adults to play it is just it's so embarrassing. I

feel ashamed, you know, I'm not. I've got a certain way I need to show up in the world, and the inability to kind of be silly and be free is something that I think is unfortunate, a limitation for us. So, I mean, for me, I love running. I think I'm one of my freest is when I'm just out in nature kind of not even with the sense of direction. One of the things I actually like doing is running and just seeing where my gut wants me to go. When we get to a fork in the road, are

we going left from that? And just kind of going where I feel drawn on any particular day. I think one of the other things, like other side from loving cooking, one of the other big things for me is I love the theater, and one of the best things I've done and done. I mean, I love being I love

watching theater. But I also for a while during my Year of Fear I write about in the book, I did three hundred and sixty five days of doing things I was afraid of with my best friend, and I started taking acting and singing lessons, and ah, that was joyous. I had the most amazing teacher, and I think that makes a big difference. But the playfulness of singing and not being good at it, you know, but fully embracing

that and going with it. The idea of being thrown into a scene and taking on a character, I find that well fascinating. It's definitely one I don't have any form of professional skill set in and I resonate with that idea of doing something not for an outcome. But that was never the goal with any of that. I was never wanting to be an actress. I was never

wanting to be a singer. It was just that freedom to play and explore, but under the guidance of someone who could play with you or help you play, because often when we're stepping into something that is not familiar, it can feel really uncomfortable, so we need a little bit of guidance. So I regularly go to improv classes just because I love that. Oh my god, it's live, it's energetic, and it keeps me on my toes and

I learn and I discover things about myself. So they're probably some of the things I do just for just for the sake of it.

Speaker 2

And I think that's so important because I find personally and now I imagine even more so that you're the same.

Speaker 1

Is it.

Speaker 3

Like it's very very hard to try.

Speaker 2

Something new and not try and be good at it and not try and master it, because it's in our nature to want to do a good job at whatever we do. So I found it incredibly liberating to find platya's or plays to ya. I still haven't decided what the plural is of platia that I'm never going to care about being good at that I will let myself just do because they're fun and not care that I

look stupid. But that's really difficult, Like it's actually a mental exercise to be like, do not make an a type exercise out of this, Do not try and be an Olympic gymnast, like, do not set that expectation for yourself, because that kills the play.

Speaker 1

Then. Yeah, and one of the things my partner and I are doing now is we've embraced this idea of doing a creative date once a month and we alternate who picture. But the idea is that it takes us into a world. You know, we've gone to cooking classes, dancing, we've done that kind of class where you go and you learn how to paint. So all that sort of

stuff is we got to interact your theater. Like. The goal is it's kind of choose your own adventure, and each person takes us somewhere that's very unfamiliar and it is it's stuff that neither of us are good at, but we do it for the sake of the experience,

the shared learning and adventure together. But also because you realize quite quickly how easy it is to get in rhythm with life, and it's really hard sometimes to just go, I need to be more creative when we're such creatures of habit and there's so many demands on our time

and our bandwidth is so stretched. So one of the things we've found is that discipline of just doing it once a month, creating that night, that day, that couple of hours, whatever it is, to just have that time out and to have intentionally created space to go and

do something out out of your world. That I really encourage people, whether you're doing with a friend or a housemaid, or doing it for yourself like I used to go on solo creative dates, or I just take myself to a gallery or I take myself somewhere that I might be inspired. Well, I'm finding it incredibly beneficial this trying this idea on. I don't know where it originated from. I'm sure I should be giving credit to someone for it, but it's it's been a really great addition to my life.

So have a go, have a play everyone.

Speaker 2

It obviously came from this podcast. I love the idea of a year of fear too, because I think that is what holds us back so much, is our fear. But when you actually try or confront your fear head on, you realize most of the time you've just let it snowball in your brain, like you're not actually that scared. It's not nowhere near as bad as you think it is.

And I find the same with self doubt, like whatever scenarios are playing through in your head, once you actually do the thing, you're like, that was nowhere near as bad as my brain was letting me think, Like your brain will just take you out at all kinds of weird scenarios. But if you just confront your fear, you realize, actually, you're so much more capable than you think you are.

Speaker 1

Oh completely, we have this like apocalyptic version of what will happen if we do the thing we're afraid of.

And one of the things I always say to people when you have that fear, and this is a habit I sort of built through that year of conquering them day after day and working out how to make it a little bit easier for myself to do that, because some days are really intimidating, depending on the nature of the fear, is to ZiT down and actually write out, like your worst case scenario of what's going to happen

if you do the thing you're afraid of. Because one of the things you work out really quickly is you could be a soap opera writer in your free time if you wanted to oh we are so it's snowballs so quickly. We are so absurd. And you look at it and you read it and putting it down and writing there's something about anchoring our unconscious thought to our

conscious thought. You read it and you go, I'm being ridiculous, And then you have to give yourself a likelihood score between one and ten, like ten being likely, one being really low. And I found that whole year, I never got above a seven, and that was doing a whole myriad of things. And at the same time, when I write this stuff down, I'd be like, oh my gosh.

The fact I can laugh at myself, or I can make fun of or I can see how ridiculous I'm being about what might go wrong just made it so easy. It's so much easy to push through it.

Speaker 2

Oh my gosh, I cannot believe you just said that, because there is actually a chapter in the CZA book called Workshop Your Worst Case Scenario, which is right out like workshop the worst possible scenario. Write it down and just look at it and see how stupid it is. I cannot believe you just said that.

Speaker 3

That's insane. I love that.

Speaker 2

Well. I've got two booken questions for the end of the episode to wrap things up. But there's one that I forgot to ask, which is just a guilty pleasure question, and that is what was it like to interview Obama? Because I feel like that's an incredibly important question that there aren't many people you could ask who would actually be able to answer because they have interviewed him.

Speaker 3

What was it like?

Speaker 2

And speaking of fear, were you like shitting your pants? Were you decided like I would just be like what, I'm not even at words? Aren't going to come out like I might melt on the floor.

Speaker 1

It was funny, It was definitely. The preparation of the questions was probably the most stressful part because I was just thinking, I really don't want to waste this opportunity. You've got this incredible So I think it was actually less in the moment. I felt really calm, and he's very calming. He has a really calm energy to him. So the experience itself was unbelievable, and there is so much I can say about that. But I think two

things really strike me about Obama. One was I think because he's so he's such an incredible orator and we've all seen him like late night shows and be very cool, and he had an ability, unlike a few politicians, to kind of transcend demographics that we actually forget how extraordinarily academic he is. And sitting there as he'd unpack his decision making and his thinking and how his layered approach, you could just see how deeply he had considered the

world and his positions on things. And not that I should have ever not thought that to be the case, but it was really striking just how the depth of

his intellect and how considered a thinker he was. And I think the second thing goes to one of the things I touched on there, which is he had a really calm energy, which is not true of a lot of the politicians that you meet, where there's either a need to assert their presence or almost a need you feel for kind of some gratification back, like they want

to impress you or they want validation. He is just so secure in himself and there's a really calm energy that comes with that, And that was another thing that was quite striking about being in his presence, is it it was a very calm and centered energy, felt very grounded. Someone had clearly done the work to understand everything that they were about before they decided to do all the work around what they were about in the leadership role that they had.

Speaker 3

Oh my gosh, how fascinating.

Speaker 2

I'm sure that's all people say about you too, So one eighty flip back to the dumb stuff. Second last question is more guilty pleasure things that just make people yay.

Speaker 3

Does it get to know you better as a person?

Speaker 2

What are the three interesting things about you that don't normally come up in the interviews? And because you do have a very intellectual presence in the world, sparking meaningful political, social conversations on podcasts, in your book and everywhere else on the interwebs, what are some of the dumber things do you do? Dumb stuff like binge on Netflix?

Speaker 1

Oh yeah, you'll binge on Netflix, don't we My god?

Speaker 2

Okay, good now, But some people don't. Some people are so intellectual they're just like, I don't own it television. Oh no, Like okay, I can't relate, Okay, I.

Speaker 1

Need to zone out mentally. I'll quite often YouTube like sn L highlights and stand up Yes, love all that world. So that's one thing that doesn't really ever come up.

Speaker 2

I do the Graham Notton show highlights so much fun. It puts together groups of celebrities that you're just like, they're so randomly unconnected, like from totally different worlds, and they'll just be three of them on the couch together and each other.

Speaker 1

They pull out the most random facts about people and just flop them in, and the conversation heads in all these directions that you are you'd never otherwise expect. So that's definitely one, okay flip side though I have practically never seen any movies. I'm terrible. I do not have an.

Speaker 3

Okay.

Speaker 1

It's just like so whenever anyone mentions a movie, I might haven't seen it, haven't seen. I'm terrible. You don't want me on the pop culture section of a pop quiz.

Speaker 3

Because I forget good to know.

Speaker 2

I'll put you on like the geopolitical, like public policy. You gonna be on that team.

Speaker 1

That's probably two of them. And then I'm trying to think.

Speaker 3

That's a great one.

Speaker 2

What's something a partner would say about, like your sleep habits or is there anything weird you do around food?

Speaker 1

Or what would be the verdicts there? There could and probably be a couple. Oh, I think probably that I am pretty good at not sleeping, so.

Speaker 3

Well, that's not a surprise at all.

Speaker 1

No, I mean, I've been doing nightshift, so I was going to say it's probably a little bit tweaked at the moment because I've been doing nightshift with classes for the better part of the last year, so getting up at eleven and PM and having to go through to about four am, just for the last times with Boston. The time difference is not great for this part of

the world, so that's been challenging. So I think quite often I'll be up at random parts of the night and just so I'll do some of my best thinking. I think sometimes in the very wee hours of the morning. But I'm a bit all over the place, and I actually think, what's weird is I know I'm at my best when I'm like that. So I actually know that something's not right when I'm sleeping for a long period

of time. When I'm short of sleeping, I know that I'm healthy, which sounds really weird and counterintuitive, and it's not something I would say about everyone. It's just something I've definitely discovered in myself. If I need a lot of sleep, I'm running, I'm burning myself too hard, and I need to recalibrate my long nights would be a lower amount of sleep. So like probably a good amount

for me is like five to six. So if I'm in like the eight to nine territory, I know that I'm maybe not maybe mo working myself a little bit too hard and need to change the balance.

Speaker 2

That sounds very davinciesque, like I only need five hours and I operate perfectly. My brain just needs five hours, Like that's amazing, perfectly.

Speaker 1

I feel like that's I know I'm rolling.

Speaker 2

So my big breakdown was chronic fatigue. So if I don't get eight or nine hours, I am not a functional human being. Like I can literally close my eyes now and sleep. I can sleep anywhere anytime.

Speaker 1

That's incredible. Love that specialty. It's pretty great.

Speaker 3

It's pretty great.

Speaker 2

Yeah, And final question, what's your favorite quote?

Speaker 3

The one that I know it's a hard one.

Speaker 1

Well, I think I could pick a lot because I love quotes. I'm a words person, so quotes are sort of all over my life and all over my wall. But I think in asking that question, I've got to honor the one that's on the background of my laptop and has been there for probably fifteen years. Wow, And that is never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Speaker 3

I love that.

Speaker 1

One the saddest parts of the whole writing of the book Journey was actually discovering that that quote is probably not from Margaret Meade, which is what it's attributed to. You have to go take me so much backbinding, and one of the things that came back is she probably never said that, but I'm choosing to believe that it's Margaret's words. But irrespective of who said it, I love love that quote. So that would be my thing.

Speaker 2

Oh that's such a good one and a beautiful way to finish. Thank you so much, Holly. You have so much wisdom and knowledge. And I think I think everyone should go and buy the book. When is it out? What date is it?

Speaker 3

Officially?

Speaker 1

It's out on July twenty, so very soon now, and then all good bookstores are online where if you choose to buy your books, it's called the Leading Edge. So yeah, I would love to hear what people think about it and to start a new conversation about leadership and getting the best out of here.

Speaker 2

Well, I have just finished it and it is full of incredible knowledge and takeaways and very practical as well, lots of really interesting case studies and absolutely fascinating. So I'll make sure to put links to presale for now and then from July twenty to actual sale.

Speaker 3

Huge congratulations and thank you for joining.

Speaker 1

Thank you so much for having me. I've been such a pleasure against talk with you Era.

Speaker 2

What a woman. Just being around Holly makes me want to soak up the most out of life and create impact in my sphere of influence, as she puts it. I hope you found her as energizing as I did, and cannot recommend a read of her new book, The Leading Edge more highly. Link to presale is in the show notes now. As always, please do share any takeaways

or AHA moments with the episode. Take at Holly, Underscore, Ransom and myself so we can show our gratitude for Holly sharing her wisdom and continue to grow the neighborhood as far and wide as possible. I hope you're all having a wonderful week and are seizing your ya

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android
Open in Metacast