Michael Bungay Stanier

hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good Wolfe thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Michael bungay Stainer from Box of Cryans, which helps people and

organizations do less good work and more grade work. Michael has written four or been featured in numerous publications, including Business Insider, Fast Company, Forbes, and The Huffington Post. His new book is The Coaching Habit, Say Less, Ask More, and Change The Way You Lead Forever. If you value the content we put out each week, then we need your help. As the show has grown, so have our expenses and time commitment. Go to one you feed dot

net slash Support and make a monthly donation. Our goal is to get to five of our listeners supporting the show. Please be part of the five percent that make a contribution and allow us to keep putting out these interviews and ideas. We really need your help to make the show sustainable and long lasting. Again, that's one you Feed dot net slash Support. Thank you in advance for your help. And here's the interview with Michael Bungay staying here. Hi, Michael,

welcome to the show. It is so good to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to have you on. Your latest book is called The Coaching Habit, Say Less, Ask More, and Change the Way You Lead Forever. And the book really is a lot about the sort of questions that we can ask other people and the questions that we can ask ourselves that lead us to a richer way of life. So we'll get into that in a minute, but I'd like to start, like we always do,

with the parable. In the Parable, there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. What is a good wolf which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and he says, grandfather,

which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I love that you've structured your podcast around that parable, and it's such a wonderful kind of ritualized doorway to invite people through to start a conversation. I'm sure people have expressed wisdom far beyond what I can get to in terms of just a dichotomy of feeding kindness versus feeding hatred or your self obsession,

whatever it might be. I wanted to give it a twist, so um, you can you can pull me back from this and just go all right, Michael, that's a disastrous metaphor. You have another go at it, But you know, part of what we stand for a box your crams and through the book and the like, it's really just helping people rethink how they show up in their lives. And the choice we're presenting people is how do you stay

curious for just a little bit longer? And how do you give advice or in other words, be certain and be closed? How do you resist going to their just a little bit longer? And I'm not sure curiosity and certainty have quite the moral weight of be kind and be generous, but I do think that one of the things that can lead to a richer life is a willingness to stay open hearted to it, to be curious

about it. And really the essence of being curious is to be willing to ask a question or two and not rushed to the certainty that you know what's happening, in the certainty that you know you're right, the certainty that you're right and they're wrong, and a willingness to stay open to that conversation. I think it's just another one of those wolves that you can choose to feed or not feed in terms of how you live a good life, right, And I really like that in the book.

It's really where the book starts off to a large degree, which is about talk less and ask more questions. You know, let people come to their own conclusions and everything that you work on them with is going to be a lot more effective. And I certainly saw some of myself in that of cases where I could ask questions more and not, as you said, rushed to the answer as

quickly or what I think the answer is. And I really like the way you talk about how particularly people who work in a job, you know, we're we we tend to think of ourselves as being valued for our ability to have the right answers. Right. That's true in a job, but it's true in life as well. I mean, um, you know, when I put on my head about who I was thinking about writing this for the first person, the first type of person was probably a busy manager.

Somebody works and doing their best to do a good job and do great work. Um. But you know, truthfully, I'm like, I'm trying to write a book that actually works. If you're a human being and you interact with other human beings, and the thing is certainty is really comfortable. You know, our brain is wired to love certainty. You know,

there's a great neuroscience and we call it. I call it the neuroscience of engagement, which is how do you keep people engaged, you know, in a conversation you're having with them, in a way of working with them. And to know that you need to understand that. You know, five times a second, the brain is scanning its environment and asking one fundamental question, and the question is is it safe here? Or is it dangerous? And you know, the brain is all about survival, so it's like, is

it's safe, is it dangerous? Is it's safe? Is it dangerous? If it feels safe, you could say that it's much easier to access our higher natures. You know, our brains think better. We're more generous, we're more assuming positive intent, We're more better to live with the ambiguity. If it feels dangerous, we move into the amygdalaan to fight or flight, into that lizard brain. You know, we're like everything is black and white. The assumption is you're probably against me

rather than for me. And there are there are various factors that drive um the brain's reaction to any environment. You know, it makes it feel safe or dangerous, a place of risk or place of reward, and the four factors in the way I think of them are tribe. In other words, are we as it you versus me? Or is it you and me? Um? Expectation and that's connected to the certainty piece, like do I know what's about to happen? Or is it as the future unknown rankers?

Am I more or less important than you? And autonomy is are you making all the choices or do I get to make some choices here? And that second factor, the expectation or that certainty piece, it actually makes us feel safer if we know what's happening, if we're in control. The problem is it can make the other person feel less safe. So part of this more uh what do you call it? I guess I call it a more grown up life that you can choose your enabels on.

It is a willingness to give up a degree of certainty um in service of a bigger win, which is perhaps a deeper connection another person feeling more welcome, more honored, more respected, more empowered, all of that sort of stuff. But willingness to sort of sit in the ambiguity of asking a question rather than have the clarity and certainty of giving advice, even though your advice isn't nearly as

good as you think it is. Yeah, I agree. Before we go into what some of the questions are, there were a couple of things early in the book that I wanted to touch on, and the first one was you talk about something called the Cartman drama triangle. It's fantastic, such a great dynamic. It actually fits beautifully into the parable that you start the show with. So the Cartman

drama triangle created by Stephen Cartman. He studied with Eric Byrne, who Nerik Byrne is one of the founders of transactional analysis. And if you've never heard of t A transactional analysis, it's a excited, dated therapeutic model, I think from the sixties seventies, and it gives us language that might be familiar to some folks here. You know. It gives us like adult to adult relationships and parent child relationships, which is interesting enough, but it does feel very therapy esque

and kind of West Coast stuff. And when I first read into it, I wasn't that excited about t A. But then when I came across the drama triangle, I was like, oh, this is good, this feels applicable to life, and the basic way the drama triangle works is to say, look when things get dysfunctional, and things always get dysfunctional. You know it doesn't have to be you know, it doesn't have to be a car crash, but you know, when relationships just go off the rails of the a bit,

three basic roles play out. There's the victim, there's the persecutor, and then there's the rescuer. Victim, persecutor and rescuer. All three of the roles are equally dysfunctional. And you know, people, what I like about it is people immediately understand what the three roles look like and sound like, you know what the somebody playing the victim role looks like and sounds like they're kind of whiny, annoying. My life is so hard sort of thing. It's not my fault, it's

your fault. They did it to me, the persecutors at finger waggling shooky, I'm right, you're wrong. If anything gets done around here, it's because of me. If it doesn't, if it fails, it's because I'm surrounded by turkeys. Um. And the rescuer is the Oh, don't worry, don't fight, let me take it on, let me jump in, let me fix it, give it to me right. And you know, I mean, the rescuer sounds a little better than the other two, Eric, but honestly, it's just as broken a

role as as the other two. And there are advantages and disadvantages to both those roles and all three of these roles, and you can kind of guess what those are. You know. The victim attracts people, has no responsibility, but the price you pay is you annoy everybody. And you know, you feel like you're you have no power, you can't change anything in the system, and so on. And the truth of the matter is, we bounce around and we play all three of these roles all the time. I mean, Eric,

I'm sure you're like, oh yeah, I can. There are times when this is happening and I'm in this role and this is happening in another role, And even in a single conversation, you can be bouncing around and playing all three of the roles. But we do tend to have a default role, one that we most identify with. And if I got your your listeners to write down the role they think might be the one they play

most often, victim persecute a rescuer. My bed is that everybody listening in or them will have just written down the word rescuer because that's the one most people go to. And what's powerful about that is that people sunny see that rescue role what's not working for them? So you know, you asked me, so, how's it going being a rescuer, and they're like, well, I'm exhausted, I'm overwhelmed, I have my fingers and too many other pihs. I'm not getting

my own work done. I'm realizing that rescuers create victims and rescuers create persecutors, so they kind of unbalanced. The dysfunction that's showing up in some of these relationships you can track back to my own behavior. And when people see this, they're like, ah, all right, forget this whole coaching thing. How do I get out of the drama triangle? And I'm like, exactly, how do you get out of

the drama triangle? And one of the most powerful ways is to actually stay curious, to ask questions, to be supportive like that, And it's one of the it's not the only way, but it's one of the core ways of shifting out of the drama triangle by getting a little more curious and asking people questions so that they can solve their own issue, you know, and different roles

have different questions that work particularly you all. I mean, as an example, if you find yourself playing the victim role and the heart of being the victim role is this inside that. And there's only one way to do this, but you don't like the way it's being done, so you're feeling stuck. You know, you can't do much about it. This is the way forward. I don't like the way forward. But one of the best questions, and this is the second question in the book, is we call it the

best coaching question in the world. It's called and what else? And what else? And I know that feel is pretty small and simple to be the best coaching question in the world. But the reason is is this inside that the first answer somebody gives you, it's never their only answer, and it's really their best answer. The other powerful about it is that it's a great self management tool. So this is great for rescuers who like to jump in and fix things. That keeps you staying curious longer by

asking simply and what else? So asking and what else to untangle the victim role. It creates options, and when you have options, it's much harder to stay stuck in the victim role. Does that don't make sense? I mean, I know there's a bit theoretical perhaps, so I just want to make sure it feels grounded for people. Yeah, it does for me. And you know that idea about

and what else? You quoted from a book that I love, which was the Chip and Dan Heath book about making decisions, and and that idea that most people only consider two decisions in most cases, like if you're in a relationship, but should I stay or should I go? That's the that's the that's the degree in which we consider and that adding a third option to things makes your your

likelihood of success so much better. And I just have when I read that, that was just a big light that went on for me about always asking, you know, and I think the question and what else gets you there? You know it, Well, I don't know whether I should stay or should I go? Well, you know, is there another option? You know what else? Yeah? I agree. I think that's such a powerful question, both for ourselves and

for others. The statistics behind this are pretty cool and I mean, I love that you love that book because that those Hea brothers, they're just right good. They're really good. Yeah. Um. And the statistic is this, you know, most decisions as are study done in organizations. Most decisions were these kind of binary decisions is it this or not? Um? And

the failure rates really high. It's like more than fifty failure rate based on that decision criteria, which if you're wondering if that's good or not, is a worst decision rate than most teenagers. And there are there are a few people who make worst decisions than most teenagers. You know, their brains are completely regrowing, so you're batting lower than that.

That's not that great. Um. Adding just that extra option and what else is one of the driving forces for that drops the failure rate from I think it's like the mid low fifties down into the low thirties. So it really makes a big difference to how successful your outcomes are. Yeah, I agree. I think the drama Triangle Yours was not the first place I came across it, but when I did, I immediately recognized, um, how powerful

it was. And I think it is that inclusion of the rescuer as that third piece that really completes it for me, because I think I tended to see things more, you know, victim, perpetrator or persecutor or whatever the word we want to use is um. But the rescuer is a great addition, and the fact that it can be dysfunctional in its own way was a big learning for me, because yes, I fall into the rescuer category for sure. Eric.

It's a great insight um and worth almost lingering just a bit because most people get the first to the victim and the persecutor. But if that's all you have, you just have two people at logger heads, and I feel like those roles don't change. It's just me versus you. By introducing that third role, the rescuer, it becomes as much more dynamic and more subtle way of understanding the bouncing around that goes on. So here we are week two in our donation campaign and things are off to

a pretty good start. Our goal is to get to five of our listeners, which my public radio friends tell me is impossible. But we can do this. We can do this, but we need your help. We're better than public radio, right we don't even have commercials. Well we do now, well, yeah, yeah. We at least our drive is for like, yeah, We're going to keep this brief. The longest short of it is, the show costs money

to make. It takes an enormous amount of time. We've been paying those costs out of our pocket for about three years now. We really need your help to keep this show going. Our goal is always to bring you high quality content week after week that enriches your life. So please consider being part of the five percent that we need in order to keep the show sustainable. Chris

tell him where to go. We'd love you to go to one new feed dot net slash support and there you can see the Patreon page and make a donation on any level you wish to. And we really need your help. Thanks great rewards too. Yep. One of the things that you focus on is saying, hey, look, here's all these questions that you can be asking, but in order for any real change to happen, you actually have to remember to ask him in the best way to remember to do something or to do it consistently is

to build a habit. And we talk a lot on the show about habit and behavior change. A lot of the coaching work to do with people. Is is very much focused on that, and so you had a whole section in the book about making habits, and I wanted to just spend a little time on that because that's one of my favorite topics. And you say, to building an effective new habit, you need five essential components, a reason, a trigger, a micro habit, effective practice, and a plan.

Can you just walk us through those that are relatively high level? Sure? I want to do that, but I want to turn the tables for a bit, because I love that you're you're a fan of habits. I knew you would be and behavior change. But let me ask you, who do you look to as kind of the key people who have smart things to say about habit building or behavior change. I'm just curious to know, you know,

who might you have referenced before? Who do you kind of think is saying interesting things in the space My partner here, Chris and Kim Kardashian are really the main people, the main people that I turned to. Um, so I don't I don't know about Chris, Chris who whatever. Kim Kardashian Absolutely, it's just got something there. Yeah, Um, you know, I think probably some of the same people that that you've looked at like M B. J. Fogg. I think James Clear I've is an amazing writer about habits. We've

had both those guys on the show. Um, Charles do Hig wrote a good book about it. Um. You know, there's there's been a variety of different ones over time, but those are the top three that come to mind. Yeah, fantastic, Well that's useful. Collect provides context to me just setting out the insights I want to share and habit and you I feel like I stand on the shoulders of giants, or maybe just stand in the shade of the giants. Because um, because I think you know, the first thing

is about making the way. The language in the book is make a vow. In other words, do you know why you are doing this? Um, it's really hard just to create a habit because in theory that it's a good thing, you've got to find some sort of you know, emotional human real connection as to why you are up for the painful process of behavior change. And I love a name that you haven't brought up. A Leo Bboucher, the Leo zen Habits. I mean, he's just such a

nice guy and massively successful blog. I mean people should check out. There's Habits blog and his book Cards zen Habits as a beautiful book, I mean beautifully crafted and thoughtfully written. So he's doing something really interesting in this field. I mean, he's got that great book, the zen Habits Book, which is terrific, but he's also developing an app that's his latest project to help drive behavior change through an app that has the same elegance and kind of precision

that his writing and that his books have. Um And that's where I kind of got clear on the importance of his vow. That's setting the reason he talked about it in the context of giving up smoking and how he tried many times but until he connected that he was doing this for his wife and his children rather than for himself, he just kept trying and failing. So that vow really important part of it. And honestly, the Child Do Hig book is where I kind of first

hooked into that. Although speaking of Hooked, there's another good book by near Aisle is an odd named n. I. R. E. Y A. L is Court Hooked, and his book is about how people in Silicon Valley basically develop these gadgets and these apps and these technologies that kind of sucker us in you know, why do we want to check

Facebook all the time? So coming at habits from a kind of slightly darker place perhaps, But both of those guys talked about the importance of the trigger and the inside is this, If you don't know what sets you off, it's impossible to change your habit because you're already halfway through it before you realize you're doing it again. So you need to have the discipline to pull back and go,

what's the trigger that sets off this bad behavior? And therefore, how might I either avoid the trigger, or identify a new trigger, or repurpose this trigger to set up the next habit um you know, b J Fog of course, one of the things that he's brilliant for is this whole inside that if you're going to define a new habit, make it a small habit, make it a short habit, make it less than sixty seconds, because if you make it any bigger than that, it's a more complex action,

and your big brain and the power of the status quo will more likely kind of hack your best intentions to try and change your behavior. So, b J. Folks key, inside is the whole thing about if you define a habit, make it sixty seconds or less. In his writing and his work, he often talks about flossing and trying to build a flossing habit, which most of us have failed at,

which is because he has no teeth. I think last I checked that is I didn't know that it's a it's a it's a little known want one tooth, Chris. It's a little known fact, that one tooth. But that's his thing. He's just you know, his start of his habit was floss one tooth. Clearly that worked really well for that one tooth, but not for the rest of them. Um.

But you know. Another another example was like, instead of going, I'm going to go for a run in the morning, um, because I know if you're like me, come the next morning, you're like lying in bed going I'll just, I'll just I'm going for a run tomorrow morning. But this morning obviously not this morning. Um. And he'd say, look to find your habit not as go for a run, but to put on your running shoes and step out the door.

And I think that idea of starting small, whether it be you know, sixty two small or you know, very small, has so much power and in my experience, works so well, and yet we're so hesitant to do it. The reaction I get from a lot of people is, well, I should be able to do more than that, Like I can do more than that, or I'm never going to get in shape putting on my gym shoes, or you know.

So I think it's it's it's it works so well, and yet there's a lot of resistance to it, just given that it's a it's a longer, but more certain path. This is the problem with our brain is that it has convinced us that we're much smarter and more rational than we actually are. You know, that's saying the brain is the most important organ. Wait, who's telling me that? You know? The truth is we are this kind of twitchy, responsive animal that isn't nearly as smart as you think

we are. I mean this whole inside that and this is from the do Hig book that I think it's fort of our waking behavior is habitual now that you don't really think about it. We just react and we respond, and really our rational brain, what it's doing most of the time is just confirming the decision or unconscious brain

has already made for us. I mean, this stuff is very disconcerting if you look into it, which is, like, you know, our unconscious mind decides about a third of a second before our conscious mind is aware of it what we're about to do. So as you reach forward distraction nose, or pick up your coffee carp or grab a pencil to write down a note, your unconscious brain has already made that call. And then your conscious brain goes, yeah, okay,

I've reviewed that. Carry on right, So you would think that's why, that's why our rational brain goes, come on, look, I'm a I'm an intelligent adult. I'm a fully you know, a fully grown man. For goodness, say how hard is it for to get me to go to the gym? And the answer is it hard. Our habit tracks run deep and they run at an unconscious level. That's what a habit is. It's unconscious action. So it's you against

your unconscious mind. And not only is of your behavior habitual, but I remember reading a study that said of your brain activity happens in the unconscious part of the brain. So there you go. Now, now you understand the odds.

It's five percent versus no wonder you struggle the writer and the elephant right exactly back to the dawn and chip Heath metaphor so the other thing that you point out in the book, and I think it'll be the last thing we'll we'll say on habits and move on, although we could have the rest of this conversation and more on it is um you you talk about the one that's been floating around there forever, which is such a big myth, which is that it's twenty one days

to get all the new habit, I know, really annoying and uh and you know, for a while my line was somebody's just made that up and now it's on the internet, so now it never goes away to die, and that's partially true. But I actually found the origin of that just recently or fairly recently, and it's it actually dates back to the early days of plastic surgery, where a plastic surgeon noticed that it talk about three weeks for somebody to get used to a new nose

after they had their nose operated on. And somehow, weirdly that's got corrupted over time too. If you do it for twenty one days, it becomes a habit. Now everybody listening, you know, as well as I do just from your own lived experience, So that doesn't work. Um, it just depends on you, and it depends on the habit and depends on where you are with your life. The most recent number I've read, if you had to have a number, is that it's more like sixty four or sixty six days.

But the truth is, it's like, don't even set yourself. I should have this on to my boat by twenty one days. It's like classic, you show up, you do the habit. You show up, you do the habit. You show up, you do the habit, and you keep doing it till it is truly a habit. You know, you don't have to think about it. It just becomes the way you act. I also think on habits that take a significant amount of time and effort, that yes, they do become relatively habitual, and that our resistance to do

them is a lot less. Um, they're much much easier to do. But I think these things like going to the gym every day, or or going to the gym, you know, five or six days a week, something that takes a significant amount of time, regardless of whether it's habitual or not, and having it be habitual makes a huge difference. It's still not always easy, just because of the how crammed our lives are with stuff and how

how volatile our schedules can be. And so I think the idea that like, well, once I get to that point, you know, I'll never miss again is probably a little delusion all but there is certainly a point where the at least I've noticed, the level of resistance most of the time, you know, goes way down. It's it's much easier to do than it was in the beginning, but

it's you know, I wouldn't exactly call it autopilot. I love the way you put that, and the experience or the metaphor perhaps that works best for me is it's like meditating. Thing is you meditate for forty years, You're still not that good at it. You still get distracted, You still kind of you know, your mind wanders off until you realize and look, I'm I'm I'm just a bad meditator, you know. I try and do it. I do it a bunch of days in a row that

I forget. Um, I sit down on the cushion and I spend the whole time thinking about stuff, and I'm like, but part of the way of being gentle with yourself around that is it's the It's the waking up and realizing you've got distracted again is the very point of meditating. It's actually the moment of coming back that makes meditation work.

And I'm sure there's a thousand meditators listening to the story about to write angry emails to you and me about this, But for me anyway, there's just something about It's the waking up to realize it's time to come back again is where the learning slowly happens. And likewise with this whole habit stuff, you know, it's the bigger thing is you will fall off. You will fall off the bus or the train or whatever vehicle you want

to make your metaphorical habit. And in fact, I make the point in the book that's one of the final things, which is what's useful is to have a plan to know that you're going to fall off the rails and go So when I do fall off, what's my best guess about how I will fall off and how will I get myself back on the rails, Because of course I'm going to fall off. That's the nature of habit building. You fail until you get back and make it more

like order pilot. Yeah. I think that's the key insight to long term sustainable change is knowing how to be flexible and and and having to plan and knowing how to keep it going even when it's not perfect. You know.

The b J. Fog uses a great example that I like, he talks about you know that in his life, you know, he thinks of a you know, a habit is like a plant, right, And there's times in his life where he's just you know, watering the plant and giving it plant food and you know, talking to it and doing

all kinds of stuff. And then there's times like if he's on the road traveling, where his goal is simply just not to kill the plant, you know, like have your neighbor stopped buying water at least twice this week so the thing doesn't die, so that when I get home, I can, you know, And I think there's a lot that's really for me. That was where a lot of things in my life sort of turned turned the corner from being something that I do for a little while

and then I stopped for a long while. Then I do it for a little while, and I stopped for a long while into something that I do, you know, nine plus percent of the time, you know, year after year, was really recognizing that, like, Okay, I'm not going to stick to this perfectly, So what do I do when I can't? And how can I How can I just keep the habit alive enough that when I'm you know, when whatever the current challenge I'm facing is resolves, I

can kind of step step on the gas. Again, that's a bunch of metaphors about plants and cars, and your your show is based on that metaphor, right, which is about the wolf you feed. And you know, there's an obvious way about kindness or hatred that you can you

can fit that in. But for me, some of that more subtly shows up in this conversation, which is, how do you hold yourself to account when you're trying to build a new habit, when you're trying to be disciplined, and it can be very easy to be really hard on yourself to to feed the other wolf. And you know, it's one thing for us to be thinking about our behavior as we interact with others, but it's true for ourselves as well, which is, like, how do you hold

yourself firmly but compassionately to account um. And I do think that's the choice of a wolf to feed because your your other options are you cruelly hold yourself to account and you beat yourself up, or you kind of let yourself off the hook too easily. And there's something in the middle, which is that compassionate accountability, which can be a very powerful, gentle, persuasive way to be with yourself. We're fairly far into the interview and we've not even

gotten any of the questions yet. So the conversation is far more interesting than than than the book. I mean, the book is fueling the conversation, but it's good to talk about this stuff, yea. So let's go into the questions a little bit here for a few minutes before we wrap up. So the first question is called the kickstart question, and what I love about is I think it's a great way to start conversation with anybody. So why don't you tell us what that first question is

and why it's so effective? So let me start by saying that, you know, the purpose in writing this book was to write the shortest book I could that would still be useful. I don't know about you, Eric, I know you read a lot, but I find that too many books, either in the self help world or the business world, I feel like there's an awful lot of filler.

I know I read them all the time, so yes, I know, yeah, And I'm like, wow, you honestly, if you if, if I, if you're if you're a tough editor on this, what you'd have is a half blog post. Somehow you turned it into a children twenty page talk filled with dated stories about Southwest airlines. So I'm like, ah. So, part of the goal for me was like, Okay, how do I write a book that is short, readable, beautiful and practical. Um? And I went through all sorts of

versions of us. I mean, this is the book that almost killed me. I wrote four bad versions of this book before I finally got to writing a good version of it, you know. And one version was like, here are hundred and sixty eight questions that I think are awesome. I was like, wow, that's just a terrible, terrible walk, boring is overwhelming. How can you use that? And it all is to say, you know, we ended I ended up with seven questions because I tried five and that

wasn't enough. And I tried nine and that felt too many, so seven felt about right, and you're right. The kick style questions the first one in the book, and it comes from an insight that we spend too much time in conversation talking about the stuff that's not that interesting or not that borring, and we're kind of like, this is the warm up that's going to get us to the real conversation. But sometimes the real conversation never gets there.

And it's not to say that so called small talk is a is a bad thing, because it's the time when small talk is exactly the thing to be doing, you know, sharing stories about you, the love of your life, your kids, the sporting team, whatever. But um, there are also times where you're like, let's have a conversation about

something interesting, um, something personal, something kind of a little deeper. Um. And in the workplace setting it's even more origin because people are so busy they don't have time for the chick chat. Really, they want to If you're gonna have a conversation, let's make it a real interesting question about something that matters. And so this chick start question is the longest ramble to a question ever there is. Can I ask you what's on your mind? Michael, Yes, thank you,

thank you, and of course every listening. And that is the question what's on your mind? Um, which is both uh, it's power. I think it's open. You're you're inviting the other person to talk, You're not setting their agenda for them. But it's also implied in that is a but let's talk about something that matters, that's that you're excited about or worried about, or waking up at four o'clock in the morning about let's talk about that. Yeah. I think

it's a great question. I've heard variations on it about like you know, how to engage in conversation with people, um, you know that gets you past the small talk. And I've heard things that I'm like, I can't see me ever walking up to somebody I don't know that well and saying like what are you really excited about these days? Or you know, like those are just strange, you know,

But what's on your mind? It is a little bit more, you know, A I think in I can see in the work setting or coaching setting how effective it is. And I also think it's actually a question that you could use, you know, with with people in the world in in and not get quite the same strange looks. You might. It might be a slightly strange look, but certainly not like you know, what are you fired up about these days? Bob? I know, I'm like, Okay, now

I'm anxious. What if I'm not fired up about anything? And who are you anyway? And why are you asking me this question? What's in your mind does have a kind of h and it doesn't have a judgment built into it. It's just a curiosity about what's going on for you. And you know, honestly, if you walked up to a stranger and when hey, what's on your mind, they're actually still going to think you're slightly odd. Um. But you know, I got introduced to somebody the other day.

Somebody wanted to chat about something. And after we did the usual Hey, it's good to talk to you. I'm glad to meet you. Wonderful that Laurel introduced us. I wasn't able to go, hey, so what's on your mind? And it was a way for us just to go bang,

we're into the real conversation now. And so the next question we talked about briefly, um, and let's just throw it into kind of what's on your mind, that conversation happens, and then you know, and instead of jumping in with advice or solution or or whatever, then it's and what else?

So this is bringing yeah, yeah, I mean it's I want to say that the seven questions are there and you could almost follow them one by one and kind of go through the arc of a conversation, but they're really not design necessarily is a script like that that you know, if you've asked what's on your mind? You must ask and what's the real challenge for you or what you want? You know, it's like you can go

where you want. What I want for people is more about the can you stay curious just a little bit longer? Can you rush to action and advice and solutions and opinions just a little bit slower. It's not to say never give anybody advice, because that's that's ridiculous and impossible advice, you know, suggestion, But it's to say, how do you

stay curious a little bit longer? And you know, if we're into a conversation and um, and this conversation I had with this woman just a day or two ago is exactly this so much on your mind and she's like blah blah blah blah blah, and I was out great anything else and she's like, blah blah blah blah bla I get anything else, but bah blah blah. It was like this kind of kind of this rush of stuff that she's been thinking about. Some of it was, I'm going to say, kind of trivial, some of it

was more profound. Some of it got into a kind of self identity who am I in this world? Um? And what then happened is rather than me getting caught up in it because I knew a bunch of suggestions about a bunch of the stuff that she brought up. Some of it was productivity stuff, so how do you be a bit more productive? Some of it was do I hire a coach? And I know a bunch of coaches,

so I could give her advice on that. So it's part of me twitching with the kind of the desire to be useful to this person and give her the best bits of advice I could. But there's other parts of me going every time you do that, Michael, you kind of end up a sucking the life out of the conversation and be your advice isn't nearly as good as you actually think it is, So why don't you just slow down the rushans? And what I literally asked her was um, after that and what else questions, which

are the second question in the book. We literally went right to the third question in the book, which is the focus question. And I was like, Wow, with all that stuff going on for you, what's the real challenge here for you? And that's the focused question, what's the real challenge here for you? And and the way it's expressed like that is actually a deliberate choice, and it's not a kind of accidental collection of words, because I want to demonstrate how you can increase the power of

this question. That the least powerful version of that question is what's the challenge here? And if I'd asked you that should have kind of looked at me slightly oddly and repeated one of the things you'd already told me, because you're gonna get a you're going to get an initial reaction. I could have asked her what's the real challenge here? And she would have kind of scanned that the things you'd already told me and probably come up with something. So that's a better question. But I asked,

what's the real challenge here for you? And for you swings the spotlight away from the challenge and swings it onto the person who's dealing with the challenge, And it just makes for a more powerful, more personal, more learning conversation because now we're not trying to fix something so much as we're trying to help understand how this person is entangled in the problem that they're wrestling with and

getting to what's kind of driving them. So you get to a deeper place that much more quickly by what's the real challenge here for you? And those last two words for you are part of the sort of secret source here. Yeah, I think that does make a big difference.

And I love the way the questions you know, one through seven there is, like you said, it doesn't have to be a script, but there's there is an order that you can you can do them in and I just really found it a very helpful way to look at conversation with people and how to increase the depth and effectiveness of our conversations, right, And the magic of us is to come back to that and what else question, because you go, Okay, so wow, a lot going on here,

What's the real challenge here for you? And then you go okay to whatever their answer is, you go, okay, anything else, anything else? A real challenge here for you? Okay? Is there anything else? All right? So let me ask you again, what's the real challenge here for you? And you know, in a not very long period of time, you kind of dropped down a level or two to a more intimate, more personal, and more vulnerable and more useful conversation. Yeah. I agree. I really like the way

it was laid out. It wasn't easy read. There wasn't any fluff in it, so as someone who has to read multiple books a week, I appreciate that. And um, you know, I've really enjoyed the conversation also, and thanks so much for coming on my pleasure. You know, Erica is a great conversation. It is such a powerful metaphor a great story that you start and you invite people in through that lens, and I do think it sets up for it's such a great interesting conversation like the

one we've had. So thank you very much for having me my pleasure. And we will have links in the show notes and everything to the book, to your website. You've got a great download that lays out some of the advice on habits from different people, and I'll make sure I linked to that also because I found that really good and useful. Perfect. Thank you all right, take care, thanks, see you, thank you, see you. Guys. By If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making

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