I'll get a champce. Welcome to another installments show. It's Jumbo, it's Fatty Harps. It's he who hosts the show. But then who else would it be. I just made a new friend about five minutes ago. We'll see how the relationship develops in the next hour or so. So far, it's been pretty good. Hi Ian, Hi Craig. How are you doing today, mate? I'm good. I'm good, Thank you very much. What it's what time is it over there?
Is it?
Like?
I'm in Auckland, So it's three oh five on Saturday afternoon?
And now am I correct in thinking that you are the Auckland? Is it Auckland? That is the most advanced time wise in the world of any like you get to New Year's Eve, New Year's midnight on New Year's Eve before the rest of us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think there are some offshore islands that like to claim it, but so do we. So we're ahead of the rest of the world by a long.
Way, and not just in terms of times. That give me two pros and two cons. Not that you want to throw your whole country under, but what are two great things about living in New Zealand and what are perhaps two limitations or challenges.
Yeah, so it's a great country to live in because it has a reasonably unspoiled environment, so it's it's pretty clean and green, and the seawater is pretty not too bad, and the rivers are okay.
So it's a very very nice place to live.
It's got fantastic cuisine, nearly as good as Australia, and great wines, some of which are bester than Australia. So that's so it's a it's a it's a fantastic place to live. It's it's very enjoyable and it's very relaxed, just like Australia and so on.
So it's and it's not well, I guess the other thing about.
It, it's not overly hot, so we don't really have any desits we get to about, Oh, if it's thirty degrees, we're complaining like mad. So it's a very mild, oceanic type climate.
So a good place to be.
And if you could change one thing or improve one thing, if you're boss of the world, that was in your power to fix one thing that's a bit broken in New Zealand. Is that filled with dread that question.
No, No, I mean, I think one of the real limitations it is the time zones. So I work, for example, with someone in Hungary, and I just found out today we're changing time zone. So daylight saving ends, so it's fall, so we fall back, so we go back an hour. And so we used to meet eight o'clock, eight o'clock, and now it's eight.
O'clock seven o'clock for her or whatever it is.
So it's it's it's it's that's that's a bit of a challenge.
Really, How great is it though? Think about I mean, how great is it that you're however far away you are. I'm sitting in my bloody office in Melbourne. You're in Auckland in your office, and you and I can talk. We can see each other, we can talk clearly, there's no lag, there's no delay, we don't have to be in the same room. You can coach people anywhere in the world. You and I can both do a bloody keynote address to a group in America if we want. I mean, is it's pretty good, isn't it?
Yeah? No, it is absolutely brilliant. Yeah.
So I've got a few things kind of coming up they are, probably the nicest of which is doing a session for the BBC Book Club.
Wow.
So I don't know quite what it's going to be like, but yeah, only only thanks to the Internet. So yeah, no, it's obviously it's got some challenges and you know, there's a lot of issues around gen z and the Internet and social media and all that, but it's got wonderful, wonderful advantages as well.
Yeah. I did a gig. Gee what are we twenty twenty five? It would have been two years ago. I did a one off gig for Hewlett Packard. They were it was I can't even I think they booked me out of Germany. Believe it or not. Somebody follows my social media and my stuff and anyway, this lady who had a resonably senior role there, reached out and said, could you do an online workshop around whatever it was
with our group? And I went sure, And then so we organized everything and I probably should have asked, not that it made any difference massively to me, because I'm still sitting on my bum in my office in Australia. Yes, it turns out it was forty two countries and it was four and a half thousand people online at once, right, And I'm like, oh, all right, well I should probably put some thought into this, you know. And then but what was even cooler was it went really well. I
got really nice feedback. They were very happy, which is great. And then an hour or two later I got an email after the event and I saw the email come through and I went, well, this could be terrible or this could be good. And they said, that was really
well received. We've already got lots of positive feedback. Would it be possible that we do a twelve month gig with you, or a you know, like a contract with you where you come once a month and just do like a workshop on a different component of you know, whatever it is, workplace performance, you know, human behavior, psychology, whatever. And I went, yeah, So I did a year with and so once a month, I'm just sitting here and
I was. I went home one weekend my parents live in the country, and mum said, what do you do? What do you do this week? And I said, I spoke to four and a half thousand people in forty two countries at the same time. She's like, what do you mean, Like, my mum's eighty five, right, I mean that was like saying, oh, I just performed magic on top of the Sydney Opera House and then I flew down into the water under my own steam, like she
couldn't comprehend. Imagine, imagine you know, thirty years ago. I don't know how old you are, but thirty years ago, you know, ninety ninety five saying to me, saying to you, hey, mate, You're going to talk to a bunch of people in real time. You're going to be able to see as many of them as you want. There's going to be a four and a half, you know whatever. You're be able to talk to them. They can ask you questions in real time. Are you're not going to leave the house.
You can wear bare feet and a pair of footy shirts if you want, And you're going to get paid a shitload. And you go, oh, well, how long has this been around?
Exactly?
Exactly, No, the opportunities are endless.
Someday. It's an extraordinary time that we live in, very very enjoyable.
It certainly is. Now. Tell my awesome audience who you are, Give us the u bio, Give us the informal bio of who you are and what you do and where you've been yep.
Okay.
So I was born in Wellington, so about three hundred miles south.
Of Auckland, and grew up there and went to university.
And my father was a scientist and my brother had done physics and so on, and so I foolishly followed in their footsteps, and in my second year I failed everything outright and decided it was about time I should think about what I wanted to do rather than following in other people's footsteps.
So fortunately that year I went to a guest.
Lecture at the university that was given by a guy called Professor Tony Taylor.
And I was just in capture.
I just I was enthralled by what he said and I thought, hey, look this is really interesting, this is this is definitely what I want to do. And so in my third year of university I started doing psychology and I just loved it. And before that I'd been a bit of a failure. I've got dyslexia, and you know, I had lots of problems at school and all that kind of stuff. But once I started psychology, I was
kind of off. And I finished my degree and I did a year in social work and then I decided I wanted to do something else, so I managed to inveigle my way into a clinical psychology course. So I did that, So that's three years, and worked in prisons,
most doing therapy and assessment with prisoners. And then in about my third or fourth year of doing that, Professor Tony Taylor, the man that i'd originally gone to the lecture to, came and said to me, Ian, I'm organizing an expedition to Antarctica and we're looking for a field psychologist.
Have you done any ice work?
And I said at that point, well, I've chipped the odd bit out for a Gin and tonic, but apart from that, no, And.
He said, oh, that's not a problem.
We'll send you on a training course and wheel about it. So the next year I went to Antarctica, twelve.
Of us on the ice.
Designed to be halfway between a modern expedition, which is for pampered souls who live in warm, sheltered vehicles, and Scott Na Munston who were pulling their own sledges. So we actually had a little open vehicle traveled in those and we went a long way into the center of Antartica, where its breathtakingly hostile environment.
It's just staggering.
I mean, you just get a sense of well, I mean, I know Mawson was very famous in Australia for his work, and so you know, you just are in awe of these people who went in there and trudged over this incredible environment.
So I did that, and I wrote that up as my PhD. And then I worked in HR for a little.
Bit, and then I moved into management consulting and did that for some years, and then got thoroughly bored, found myself a job in Hong Kong. Was in Hong Kong for eight years, built a business and sold it there with a mate of mine, and came back to New Zealand about at the end of two thousand and established the Executive Coaching Center. So I mostly worked with senior execs.
So I'm kind of blending my organizational psychology, my clinical psychology, and my experience internationally together to help CEOs and senior execs. And I just love it, and I do that most of the time. I train other coaches, I write books, et cetera. Wow, you see, how's that is that.
A bit long?
No, that's bloody great.
I love it.
I've got I was listening with I'm going to say fascination and a little bit of envy. So that's that's a sin. I'm going to have to repent for that. That's my very Catholic upbringing. I'm going to have to repent for that and do some of the rosary later. But for now, I'll just I'll just feel guilty. Yes, please, okay, I want to I want it great. That's a bloody great intro. I want to ask a couple of things.
So you kind of intimated that you what was the first thing that you did that you were ship at at UNI?
So physics, space physics, and there wasn't one thing.
There was about eight I was shipped out.
Yeah, okay. Isn't it interesting the like the I guess, the occurrence that a lot of us do, or the real the fact that a lot of us do what we think we should do, not the thing we want to do. And when it comes to career anyway, like we go. Everyone thinks I should be a whatever like Dad was a granddad, was a mum, was a grandma, was a mom, and Dad would be very proud of me if I became a fill in the blank. It's not like, yeah, but one, what are you good at?
What are you passionate about? What do you want to do? Because it's a fair chance you're going to do a fucking lot of it for a very long time. Yes, unless you really want to be a doctor, which, by the way, if you do, that's amazing, well done. Don't try to become a doctor because mom loves doctors and you actually want to be a painter, like or you want to build homes, or you want to go to
Antarctica and be an adventurer. So what is that where we feel almost and I'm not I don't think parents are necessarily trying burst, but there's definitely an expectation or a hope that for us, we probably feel when we're younger, compelled to try to keep mom and dad happy and
to not disappoint them. How do we navigate that and how do you work around that with it not even as kids, but as older people like I remember when I was about twenty I'll shut up after this, mate, when I was twenty two or three and I was working in gyms, right yep. And my parents it's not like they are a bloody impressed that their buff ed's son was putting dumbbells back on the rack and vacuuming the gym floor and you know, cleaning the bloody JACUZI
I don't think that. I don't think they're bragging to their friends about that career path. But but I got to the point where I knew I wanted to build a business. And just for your FYI, you know, I set up the first personal training centers in Australia, wrote the first course all that kind of shit with a friend of mine. I wrote the course all of that, and so I kind of somewhat pioneered personal training in Australia. I say somewhat, of course it would have happened anyway.
But I was doing personal training in nine and eighty five six when no one had heard it, and I set up the first facility in nine ninety when there wasn't any right. But I realized early that I didn't want a job. Like I wanted to work, but I didn't want a boss. I didn't want to work in someone else's framework or structure. I didn't want to come in every day and someone would give me a to do list that didn't interest me. Yes, and it's not
like work's not good or bad? But for me trying to figure out, Okay, well you're twenty two or three four, you probably have to do this what you do now version of it that is worked for the next forty years or so, what do you want that to look like, Craig, And what do you need to do more of and less of? And like what for you? Not for mom and dad and not for like what is society or what's the bloody group think? But what might blow your
socks off? And what might be for you the intersection of making a few bucks and having fun and developing some skills and knowledge and maybe tapping into your passion.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
So psychology can tell us a huge amount about why we get into this, and it really starts at a biological level.
So the problem that humans have is that we have it.
We always have a very difficult berth because the birth canal is relatively small and our head is relatively big.
So we when we come out, we're not like a deer or a cat or whatever, where we're actually ninety a scent formed.
And you know, I'm sure you've seen all those films of the savannahs in Africa where the you know, the wilderbeast is born and immediately gets up and trots away. You know, we are completely and hutterly helpless for.
Years and years.
And what that means is that we have a very very strong dependency on other people. And it's not just that we want to please other people for much of our early life. If we don't get on with this other person, we die. It's as simple as that. It's life and death. So that starts us that that has two two issues. Two issues arise from that that are characteristics of humans. So we have we are incredibly social people. So we live in cities and we you know, we
go to work and we interact with other people. We are not we don't function generally, we don't function well.
If we're unless we're with other people.
So we have this incredibly strong social bond and that's fantastic, and that's one of the reasons why we're successful, because we can have teams and everybody's got a different skill, but we pulled together all that kind of stuff. Probably why we're also not doing pleasant things to the planets. But anyway, that's another story. So that's the plus side.
But the minor side is of course that this idea that we are dependent on other people and that if other people, if other people don't like us, or we do something that's terrible, something very very bad will happen to us is something that's kind of baked into our brain.
Wow, and it is. As you were talking about how we're social creatures, I was thinking back to what's his name, the sociologist Dunbar Dunbar's number. Didn't he come up with some idea that which I don't know if it's how true it is, but I think his idea was that humans best work in groups of one hundred and fifty give or take. Yes, you know, where we all kind of know who each other are and everyone's kind of
got their own role and yes, yeah, but yeah. And it's interesting because in some ways, like in Melbourne where I am and I live in Bayside Melbourne, I live on the main street. I can walk out the front, I say, one hundred people at the front, one hundred right, So there's this juxtaposition or this dichotomy that you can be in the middle of a million people and completely alone at the same time.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
And that's really something that's like that's more now than ever.
Yes, Yeah, so we are extraordinarily complex creatures, and you can see that because we have this very archaic, old, very deep drive to get on and be with people.
That's kind of where we live.
But of course life's much more than just those basic instincts, and so what happens for a lot of us is that either we get into just accepting that we're stuck with all of these people who live around us, or what we get into, well, I'm just going to separate myself off.
I don't want to be here. I'm going to do something entirely.
We kind of rebel against that fundamental idea that was initially baked into our brain.
And so what you.
See is, of course this funny kind of mix of people who love and hate other people. You know, it's that wonderful thing in organizations. You know, this would be a brilliant hospital if it wasn't for the staff.
Yeah, it's like church is great except for the people exactly exactly, and that really it's because we've got a big brain, which makes very difficult birth.
But we've got a very big brain, and it gets bigger and bigger.
We get into these this kind of questioning and this kind of issue very easily. Yeah, because we think and we know we think, and that is probably something that animals don't do.
They clearly think, but they don't know they think.
So this issue of consciousness enables us to reflect in a way that is enormously helpful, but it can be hugely destructive.
I'm so interested in that as a I don't want to go off at a tangent, but you know, thinking about thinking that metacognitive journey right, just like that, and then thinking about do dogs think, for example, And I'm like, well, I guess they, you know, they solve problems, they figure shit out. They exactly know that I know which person
go to and which person to avoids. So there's some kind of cognitive function of some shape, Like there's some reasoning, some rationale, there's some canine logic and deduction going on, so they must think. I'm sure they don't think in inverted commas the way that we do, but nonetheless there's
some kind of data processing and response, you know. Just one of the things I like my PhD is in a thing called meta accuracy and metapception, which is essentially our ability to understand what it's like being around us. So the question, like a really fundamental question at the core of my research is what's the Craig experience like
for everyone else? What's the inexperience like, you know, what's the inexperience like for Craig who's just met him for the first time and they're sitting down they're doing this thing right, Or what's the Craig experience like for the thousands of people who hear this, the one hundred and seventy five ladies that I had to chat to not yesterday morning but the day before at the bloody Height
in Chadstone near you know, what's that? And so I'm very fascinated with not only understanding myself, but understanding myself for others. Not from the point of view of oh do they like me? Am I popular? Am I? You know?
But rather going all right, like for me, trying to understand you and to listen to you and watch a bit of video with you on it and read some stuff about you, but at the same time come in being open so I can get to know you a little bit and then build a level of rapport and connection and in the moment kind of I don't know, enjoyment that if I was really unaware and I didn't have that lens of curiosity, I might not do and
I might not be able to do. What My long winded kind of door that I'm opening, like is just trying to understand that the way that I think is only the way that I think. Yes, yes, it's not the story. It's just my story about the story. It's not the thing. It's just my interpretation of the thing. But I feel like a lot of us travel through life thinking that our thoughts are the objective reality.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes exactly. It's there's a theory called the social construction of reality, which I'm sure you are familiar with, and that is exactly that idea that, of course we see the world through our own eyes, but we can never really know what it is that other people see and do. And we know, for example, with you know, human conflict and lots and lots of human issues, that people see things entirely differently. So you know, you give someone a elevender flower and they will tell
you what the genus of the flower is. You give it to a second person and they say that's my grandmother's garden.
Wow. And someone else goes that stinks, and somebody else goes, that's so beautiful, that's my soaper home exactly, and someone else goes, I've got analogy to that? Shit, can you get that out of the room?
Exactly right? Exactly right?
Like even the idea of when I do when I talk to bosses and leaders and coaches, managers, mentors, all of that, I often ask them, one, what do you
think it's like being around you? Not from a not to throw them under their bus, and not from a critical perspective, but literally just from an awareness and a curiosity perspective, because if you've got no idea, like if you're in charge of fifty people and you've got no idea how they perceive or experience or process you, Yes, then that's that's a problem for a range of reasons, perhaps the most important being if you've got no idea how you come across or how they see you, then
how can you build rapport and connection and trust and respect? Yes, yes, because you're just talking, you know. And then tacked onto that, theory of mind is trying to understand broadly how other people think and someone else's experience, not just how they think about me, but period how they think so that if I understand, because how people think to me, that's
almost like their language. Yes, and if I can understand, not necessarily, not necessarily agree with or endorse or support, but just understand or then I can build a bridge of communication.
Yes, yes, exactly right, exactly right.
So I'm an executive coach, and the fundamental principle of this kind of coaching is that we are not advisors. We're not here to tell people what to do. We're here to ask people's ask people questions. And that might just sound all a bit wet and hopeless, but actually it's hugely powerful because what I know about you, Craig, is that I don't really understand what your problem is. I don't really understand what the challenges are you're facing.
So unless I really listen carefully and I test out my understanding and I paraphrase and go back, is this what you mean, Craig?
Know?
Oh, okay, it's this what you mean?
And then if I work with you so that I'm not saying, well, I think you should do this, Craig, and then you'll say, well, get lost, Noddy, what will what I'm going to say to you is something like, well, actually Craig.
If this problem didn't exist, if you.
If you were able to float effortlessly through your PhD, what would you be doing And you'd say to me, well, that's really interesting.
Well, I'd probably get up.
In the morning and you know, I'd be energized, and I'd get on and write and I would go to my supervisor when I had something data. So we get you to talk about your future, not focus on the past and what's wrong.
And you know your mother was horrible or your dad was horrible, whatever it is.
We're really focused on what it is you want if you didn't have this impediment in place, And then once we can explore that, we can think about, well, okay, now we know what it is you want, what would it take for you to move just one step from where you are now to that goal? And so again we're not telling you what to do. We're trying to understand your world and exactly what motivates you. We're trying to see how you want to paint your the picture of your own future, and we're asking you to come
up with the idea. Now, if you're completely stuck, I'll give you some ideas, that's fine, But my first efforts are always to see if I can find out what you think would work. And the reason for that, Craig, is that if I tell you something, you're going to say get lost. If I suggest a whole.
Lot of things, they might or might not be wrong.
If you come up with a solution, you're going to be motivated to do it. It fits with your lifestyle, with your understanding with everything. So the chances of you succeeding with your own solution are huge. The chances of you succeeding with my advice is very small.
Yeah, I love it, and I also love the awareness and the humility that you have with that, right because you're not saying to anyone, Hey, everyone, I've got a PhD. I've got a master's degree, I'm an undergrad on this. I'm that I've done this, and so fucking hell, I'm great. Get on board. You're saying all I am is a resource.
And I say that to people all the time, even when people say to me, you change my life, which I get every now and then, which is very lovely but inaccurate, And I say, I really appreciate that, but I didn't because I didn't do any of the work. I didn't get up early, I didn't deal with the discomfort, I didn't make the decisions. I wasn't courageous. You did all of that. I'm just by the way. I've done the same thing for lots of people that got fucking
no results or not the same quality of results. And neither was that my fault, right, And so I'm not the answer and I'm not the problem. I'm a resource and at times I'm just a conduit towards advice and wisdom and insight and knowledge that none of it is mine anyway. I'm just I'm just like the pathway. I'm just pulling back on the curtain shit that's already there. And I think that that that idea of, or that
approach of. And this is what I've always tried to do with this show and with the people that I work with, is to go, hey, you're fucking amazing. Let's just see if we can find the key. Let's see if we can just figure out what you're doing. It's working, and it's not working. There's no self loathing in that,
there's just self awareness and acknowledgment. But we can't fix the thing that we can't see or we can't you know, we can't get better at what we're not doing, so what we need to do more of and less of.
So yeah, that's that's another fundamental principle of coaching that the client at any moment is just.
A few steps away from success.
And so when when they develop an action plan and they okay, we'll meet in the months and see how it goes, and they come back and they say, well, I completely failed.
You know, my reaction immediately is Wow, we're going to learn a lot today.
That's fantastic because now we know what doesn't work. So we're chipping away at what actually is unproductive and that will help us a great deal to work and to identify and to work and to find things that do actually work for you. Let's talk about why it failed, not exactly as you say, not in terms of whether you're a naughty boy and you should have.
Done your homework, but much more in the.
Sense of, you know, was the goal unrealistic or did you have other priorities? Is this not that important, or is this something that maybe you need some support from other people to get through, or are there some skills here that I could teach you which would really help you move forward, or can I suggest some reading whatever it is?
Yeah, I love it. And also I guess the fact in that, you know, even if five people turn up to you and they've got what seems to be the same or very similar challenge, right, You've got five different people, five different backgrounds, five different personalities, psychology, physiology, emotion, belief systems, experiences, blah blah blah, personal beliefs and values and whatever. Right then, And it's not like, oh, you're all grieving, okay, you're
all going through grief. Oh that's no good. Let me just I'll just I've got my filing cabital. I'll just grab the four Steps to Grief. It's an a four handout to recovering from grief or navigating grief. There's only four steps. It's one hundred and fifty bucks, by the way, and I'll just do a photocopy for each of you.
And now you're you know, obviously that's fucking ridiculous. And as ridiculous as that is, it's also kind of happening where people are selling almost like a generic solution to what seems to be the same issue you but it isn't really because every person It's like I was talking to somebody yesterday about career, right, and I said, look, well, look, the ideal career for me was to stop working for other people when I was twenty four. So I don't
have a holiday pay or sick pay. I haven't had a job or a boss for over thirty years, thirty five years. And it's very vulnerable. And some months I make great dough, and some months I make not much dough, And there's the I guess, there's risk, and there's discomfort, and there's uncertainty, and there's unpredictability. I love all that shit, but most people fucking hate it. So for me it's the perfect paradigm, and for others it would keep them
awake every night. So it's trying to figure out what it is for that individual.
Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly the essence of it. And what we know about coaching is that. And there are lots and lots of different schools of coaching and approaches coaching, and some you know, emphasize this, and some emphasize that and so on.
But what we know is that.
The single biggest success factor, by far is the quality of the relationship between you and the client. So what does that mean. That means the client feels heard. That means the client feels like you understand them. It feels like there's a degree of warmth and empathy and understanding and support, and that the agenda for the session is not you and you're a four piece of paper, it's me and what I'm struggling with.
Yes, yeah, I love that, And I mean and I always say this to people, you know, because as I told you earlier, you know, my background started in gym's right. My original degree was exercise science, and I started, you know, just doing all the shit that I did, and I ended up employing five hundred personal training as myself and had multiple gyms and all of that stuff. But I used to say to my trainers, Yeah, we need to understand anatomy and physiology and biomechanics and energy systems and
nutrition and fucking periodization and all these things. Right, but also at the same time, care about your clients, and don't pretend to care, because it's good pr actually care like that you being a good human and having compassion and empathy and awareness and kindness and over delivering and underpromising, right, you can still have a great career and make great dough and be an awesome human being. It doesn't need to be one or the other.
You know, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, no, exactly right. I mean, I think the thing that happens in coaching is that because people are finding their own solutions, they will only do that. They will only be prepared to look and to explore things one if they feel safe. So you're not going to laugh at them, You're not going to tell them what to do, you're not going to belittle them.
You're going to support them in this. But on the other hand, you're going to be you're going to challenge.
Them as well. So there's something called empathetic challenge.
So you know, I hear you are understand you, but look, I hear that what you're saying is you never have time to improve.
Is that right? Maybe maybe you don't want to improve. I don't know, tell me.
You know.
So, So it's not just all Mandy Pandy, you know, supportive kind of stuff, how great you are. It is understanding what the person wants and what they've come for and what they're paying for, and at times pushing them quite hard. But you can only do that from a position of trust. And support and understanding and empathy.
Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, because that's right. You might say to me, who I think is reasonably mentally and emotionally robust. You might go, hey, Craig, you know I reckon your ace, but you're kind of bullshitting yourself. You're bullshitting yourself, mate, because we've had this discussion thirteen times and here's the evidence. You go, so, and I go, yeah, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, You're right, I've got I could come up with bullshit, but it's bullshit.
But you couldn't say that to someone else, perhaps depending on the person of the day, the personality, the relationship. And that's the beauty of See, this is the thing, right, how do we get more of you? Though I don't mean this to sound I was thinking about it before, Like I was reading your bio I was written about you. I'm like, this fuck is the most qualified coach in
the world. I'm like, there ain't too many coaches that have got an undergrad of Masters and a PhD and the vast There are others, of course, of course, but you're a little bit of a unicorn. I mean, you would be one in a thousand. If there's a thousand coaches, there's probably one in a thousand that have got similar
qulls to you. Maybe it's one in a hundred, I don't know, so when and this is quite a maybe a bland kind of cheese sandwich question, but shout out to the cheese sandwichis if somebody wants a coach other than you, we're going to plug all your stuff later
so people can access you. But in general terms, it's like when people say to me, how do I find a good trainer, I'm like, I've got a bit of a list, right, which and it doesn't doesn't necessarily mean they've got to be super duper qualified, by the way, But if somebody says, ian I would love to work with someone, what are the things that I should look for in a coach? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's a great question.
And my answer to that is always, well, how did you find your dentist? Because the important thing about the dentist is you wouldn't want to go on to the internet. You wouldn't want to look for the cheapest dentist in the city. You wouldn't want to look for the best looking dentist or et cetera, et cetera. What you'd wanted to do is go and talk to a few people and say probably two things, how are your teeth and what are you thinking a dentist?
So what?
And that's exactly the same process for a coach. What you need to do is talk to a few people and ask them one what are they like? And how are you like them? Have you got challenges like them? And if they have had a coach and they've got challenges like you and it's being useful, then that's the place to start.
Yeah. I also think like I used to say to people, even people who came to my facilities, right because we didn't have members or memberships. Everything was appointment based, and I would say, look, don't sign up for anything. In fact, you can't sign up, so don't worry about it. And they'd be like, I go, no, there's no memberships, there's
no contracts. If you do one session with me or one of my trainers and you don't like it, not only do you not have to come back, I'll give you all your money back, right, And people are like, I go there, so I don't want you to be here unless it works for you. I don't want to twist your arm. I don't want to leave you or manipulate you into a contract or some kind of financial obligation that you're unhappy with. And that works for me.
So how about we do this. How about you do a session and if you like it, or if you think it's worthwhile, or you think it's a good investment, then do another one. And if you don't, don't. And then if you end up doing five hundred or five or none, and people are like really, I go, yeah, of course, like we did the opposite of hard selling, Like there was nothing manipulative. And there were times when, if I'm being honest, people will do a session and
not because it was bad. They're just like, I get it, but I think, I think I would rather just join a gym and do my own thing. And more than a few times I said, great, where do you live? And then I would point them towards a gym where they could go and get a regular gym membership and do their own thing. And also more than a few times those people came back and went, I actually hated it.
I think I want to work out with a trainer, and yeah, it's like I think if you have to leverage people or coerce people or manipulate people, you must be fucking terrible at your job.
Yeah, and I have exactly the same in my terms and conditions. It basically says, if you're not satisfied with the surface with the service, I'll refund your money.
Yeah, agreed.
So yeah, and exactly this.
I do have some work, mostly with senior leaders, where we do an assessment and they plan out this kind of things they want to work on, and then we have a contract for a year where we work on those things. But obviously they can still withdraw at any time. So I totally agree with you this. You know, learning is about feeling comfortable, is about knowing that you're addressing your issues you're not.
It's kind of going back to the beginning of the conversation.
You know, I think at then, the beginning of my life, I was living out my father's ideal and not that you said it at all, and I don't really even know whether it was his ideal, but it was what I thought is I considered to be his ideal.
So you know, it's exactly that issue.
It has to be about you and what you want, and of course what you want isn't necessarily such a simple thing.
Because you know, we're all.
There's lots of forces on us, and there's lots of expectations, and there's different drives and we can have conflicting motives and so on.
So but absolutely it's about your agenda and.
If you're not comfortable, and if we're not making progress, then we're wasting both about time.
How often somebody that you work with, or even somebody you just talk with like they want a certain thing. This happened many times with me with clients but also myself, where I thought I wanted a thing and then I got to the top of that mountain and I went, ah, I'm on the wrong mountain. I think it's that one over there, and it's not that where I got was bad. And by the when I say mountain, I'm not being grandiose.
I just mean I did the thing that I wanted to do, or I got the thing I wanted, or I achieved it, or I ticked that box, or i'd lost that weight, or I built that muscle, or I built that brand, or I earned that whatever it was. And I think there's this kind of human thing that we think when we get this external result that there will be this internal reality or shift or response that's going to be somewhere in the ballpark of Nirvana and we're like, ah, that wasn't it.
Yeah, yeah, So a couple of comments is one of the things I don't like about the coaching profession is this idea that everybody should have three or four coaches and they should talk to them for fifteen minutes, and they should on the basis of that, they should pick. Now, I really hate that kind of thing. It's kind of I see it as almost sort of forced selling, and that's not me. I don't feel comfortable. Come and see me. I'm happy if you don't like it. I won't charge
you anything for the session. But I hate being in some kind of competitive sort of process with other people. So yeah, I mean that's just kind of me. And fortunately, you know, ninety nine percent of my clients are you know, they come as a direct referral and so they want to they want to be here. So of those people, so I do very badly in the sales pitch. I'm deeply hopeless. I did five pitches for an accounting firm a little bit last year, and I didn't get a single client.
Well, that kind of makes me happy and sad or I'm sad that you didn't get it, but I'm kind of happy that you shit at that, because I'm the same like I have on my Instagram. In the last thirty days, I've had three million people, three million views, right, so I have a lot of traffic. Yes, yes, But I hate it when I've got to put up a post Melissa who runs my life, and we'll probably edit this shout out to Melissa, I fucking hate it. I'm going to call you, doc because you deserve it, because
you're a PhD doc. I hate it when I've got to go, hey, everyone, I've got a new mentoring program because it starts on April twenty eighth, bah blah blah. And I'm like, and I'm not doing anything wrong or bad, but I'd rather I'd definitely rather just say something silly or fun or something interesting, like I'm not but I
think that you know, and like, I don't know. This is probably a dumb perspective, but the fact that I'm still insecure at times, the fact that i still feel like an imposter sometimes I don't mind that because it keeps me grounded. I feel like the moment that I think I'm ace, I'm in trouble.
Yeah. Yeah.
And that's a really important part of coaching, which is really this idea that we often come to to a coach or a therapist or a counselor or whatever, and we kind of have this idea that we hate this emotion and we just want to get rid of it.
And very often that is just completely impossible. You know. It's a bit like.
Making a you know what's sometimes called a dead person's goal. You know, I'll go to the gym every day, i won't eat chocolate again, I'll never have another drink, all that kind of stuff, and they're really really difficult, and that actually if we are in a very different mindset where we actually say, well, this impostor syndrome actually has some advantages. You know, it's not not an all bad thing. Actually, it keeps me on my toes.
And when it happens, I'm going to start talking to it and I'm going to say, hey, mister, mister big doubt, I want to listen to you for a while.
But let me tell you now, I'm not going to listen to you for two hours. You're going to have you say.
You can remind me about things, you can caution me about the risks. You can warn me that I better be prepared and that I better know what I'm talking about. But after that, I want you to go away. So this whole idea that emotions are not something that are good and bad to be accepted or rejected. Emotions are just the carpet we walk on. This is the fundamental aspect of being human.
But the thing about them is that they are because they're neither good or bad.
If we can start to just say, well, okay, yes that's me, I'm like that, I get angry or I et cetera, et cetera.
Once we've started to be aware of it and accept it, then we're.
On the road to change. If we hate it, we tend to make it worse.
You can't punish yourself out of anxiety.
Oh that's so interesting. And also I guess like I can simultaneously feel not good enough while knowing intellectually I am yeah. Yeah, So those things can coexist. You know. It's like I can I've said this before on the show, but I can get up and I'm about to do a presentation and part of me is like, well, this is the day that you're going to fuck up and everyone's going to realize that you've just been really lucky, so far good at this, and today you'll be exposed
for the dud that you are. Right, there's that, and then there's my prefrontal cortex that's going, well, you know, you've this a lot, and you get paid pretty well and people ask you to come back, so you're not fucking terrible, so shut up, yes.
Yes, yes, that's right.
And a lot of coaching is helping people to bring that dialogue out in the open because whilst that whilst you know, mister big failure is there chirping away in the background, it's very difficult to do anything about it. So there are lots of really interesting things. One a very simple technique is called the talking back diary, and it's worth anybody doing it. And you just get a bit of paper a screen, draw a line down the middle, and you put in a critic on one side and
in a coach on the other. So what's my inner critic saying, well, you're lucky and they're going to find you out today? What is it? So you actually make it explicit and clear and direct, and when we do that, we transform our lives because we are no longer driven by these unconscious or semi conscious feelings and things.
We can be deliberate, we can be explicit, we can choose. We're free from all of that stuff that holds us back. And you know, but of.
Course I'm just as neurotic as you mate, so and I'm still working on it.
I'm not saying that I'm there by any means.
You know, we're all worksome, but you'll work.
Talk about my book soon, and you can you'll be able to see that I'm a neurotic over a jeeva.
That's all good, bro, that's all good. And that's why. You know, the person that I get on the show that pretends they've got all their shit together and they don't have any flaws or faults, well, firstly, that person's never getting on the show. Hey, you're great, you're great. We've got to wind up, but you're great. I'm going to get you back if you'd like to come back.
There's so much, so much we could talk about. Tell people about your books, if you've got a website where they can connect with you, and yeah, let's let's do the let's do the blurb because you definitely are worth connecting with.
So my website is Ian McCormick dot net.
So I'm a little bit hard to find in so far as Ian is the GAELICAI N and McCormick is mc c O R M I C gabe and I'm sure you'll.
Let people know.
And currently I've got three books out so one so they're all about coaching. So the first book is really about how coaches can improve by spending time after sessions reflecting on them what happened, what went well, what didn't go well, and how do I want to improve and doing that explicitly and systematically. So that book is called Reflective Practice for Coaches. The second book is called Schemer Coaching Overcoming Deep Seated.
Challenges, and it's really about.
So we were talking before about this idea that humans have these deep seated messages like we have to get on with, we have to please other people, et cetera. And it's about dealing with those kinds of challenges.
So, for example, I.
Work with a lot of people who are accountants and lawyers and so on, and they work in an environment of huge pressure where the demands are vasked, and so many of them suffer from what we call unrelenting striving. Nothing is good enough next year. You know, a lawyer recently said, you know, the end of the year is a little bit like the rock rolling down to the bottom of the hill, and it's it's you know, I'm back where I started. I've got to start rolling it up,
et cetera. So that kind of syndeme. And the third book is about the idea that most professionals spend a huge amount of time and effort in money every year developing themselves their skills and abilities.
But actually, and if we just take psychotherapist, there's been a lot of research done.
Then if we take a a look at client outcome, So how well do your clients do, and we look at how many years of experience you've had and how.
Much profession therefore how much professional development you've had, et cetera. The correlation between those two is zero zip.
Wow.
You but your therapist is just as likely to be effective three years out of clinical psychology school as thirty years.
Wow. That's super interesting.
But of course that's on average, and not everybody's like that. So how do you actually.
Progress in a profession, how do you actually really learn.
And get better and better?
And I look at some examples and history and some so I look at, for example, at the Top Gun so the you know the movie, and top.
One percent of all naval aviators. So I love that.
Yeah, But the interesting thing about what they did there was they had a school that actually practiced the principles and.
Not they didn't know that this is what they were.
Doing, but they actually practiced the principles of something called deliberate practice.
And that's what the book's about.
Love it. Well, Doc, it's been great. We're going to get you back. Thank you so much for being part of the You project. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday. Well say goodbye our fair but for the minute, thanks for your time, thanks for your brain, and thanks for your energy.
Well, thank you. You're an easy man to talk to. Just delightful. Greg, Thank you, thanks for the opportunity, pleasure.
Thanks Doc,