Speaker 1: She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2: I'm tiff. This is role with the punches and we're
Speaker 2: turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go
Speaker 2: to court, and don't. My friends at test Art Family
Speaker 2: Lawyers know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution.
Speaker 2: Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in
Speaker 2: all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples,
Speaker 2: custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements
Speaker 2: and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so
Speaker 2: reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
Speaker 2: test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Mark Lebaska, I thought
Speaker 2: you were never coming back to the show where you've been, bro,
Speaker 2: I feel.
Speaker 1: Very new us today. This is like starting all over again,
Speaker 1: so we might need to see if find some things
Speaker 1: in common and just connect a bit before we start
Speaker 1: to talk to each other years ago. Yeah, well, how
Speaker 1: have I been? I like not to use the word good,
Speaker 1: how have I been? I've been? Jeez, what's the word?
Speaker 1: Running around? A bit like a blue ass fly, but
Speaker 1: with good things going on? Good?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it's interesting that our very last
Speaker 2: podcast would flipped the flipped roles and i'd you know,
Speaker 2: put you, put you in the hot seat, and then
Speaker 2: you fucking disappeared off the show for a few years.
Speaker 1: The ship out of me, mate, and a shout out
Speaker 1: to my brother in law's partner Jane, who sent me
Speaker 1: a lovely notes and listening to that podcast you did
Speaker 1: with Tiffany and it was bloody, full on and good
Speaker 1: on you for saying what you did. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: oh wow, but I listened to that. I actually listened
Speaker 1: to it when I was on the on the bus
Speaker 1: traveling around Sri Lanka because I'd gone off to Shreelank.
Speaker 1: I listened to the whole thing and it was like, wow,
Speaker 1: we no wonder you're on holidays mate. I reckon, and
Speaker 1: I reckon it took me. It was about thirteen day holiday.
Speaker 1: I reckon it took me because I'd finished in towns
Speaker 1: Well on the twenties. On the twenty first. In November
Speaker 1: twenty second, I was catching a flight back to Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Twenty third, we were flying to Sri Lanka. I don't
Speaker 1: reckon till about the twenty well. I actually yeah, later
Speaker 1: that month, i'd actually felt like I was on holidays.
Speaker 1: I think it was decompressing still, so I was running.
Speaker 1: I was running around like a blue ass flight that stage,
Speaker 1: but disappearing at my own ass at the same time.
Speaker 1: So things feel a bit better. Then we've had a
Speaker 1: bit go on. We've had a I end up taking
Speaker 1: two months off, by the way, so I didn't go
Speaker 1: back to work till February.
Speaker 2: And well done.
Speaker 1: And then our youngest got married in March. We we
Speaker 1: can have a bit of a chat about that if
Speaker 1: you like. That was quite interesting, and then we sort
Speaker 1: of back into it again. And now I've got a
Speaker 1: bit of time at home and it's interesting because we've
Speaker 1: still got a good bit of work on, but it's
Speaker 1: not as hectic as it was last year. And then
Speaker 1: your little voice goes will come on you should be
Speaker 1: doing more, and I'm like, no, we're not. Really. Just
Speaker 1: enjoy the fact that you want more time in Melbourne
Speaker 1: and you're in Melbourne. So yeah, it's been been an
Speaker 1: interesting little ride and I have missed these and I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: I want to know what was it like for you
Speaker 2: listening to that episode of yourself, Like was it different
Speaker 2: in any way? Like sometimes we're not because you often do.
Speaker 2: We often have those conversations, but quite often I'm in
Speaker 2: the hot seat, and when I listen back, I enjoy
Speaker 2: listening back because it's almost, well it's not almost. It's
Speaker 2: a bloody coaching session. Or sometimes you'll ask some pointy
Speaker 2: questions or you'll probe a little bit, and I love it,
Speaker 2: and I love re listening just because I sometimes I
Speaker 2: perceive things differently around myself, or I come up with
Speaker 2: new questions to ask myself. What was your experience listening back?
Speaker 1: So, first of all, thank you, because it was a
Speaker 1: in some respects of coaching session. I reckon for me,
Speaker 1: what didn't happen when I was listening to it. There
Speaker 1: wasn't any shame or fuck did I say that? Or
Speaker 1: should have I said that? It was like, no, this
Speaker 1: was a point in time where I had some choices
Speaker 1: to make. They were you cannot talk about it, and
Speaker 1: you can internalize it and we know what happens with
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, or you can respect the help
Speaker 1: that you're getting from someone else to create a supposed
Speaker 1: to do that. So look, I was sort of sitting
Speaker 1: there going, yeah, this is pretty cool. I'm really happy
Speaker 1: that I'm saying these things. They may some people may think, oh,
Speaker 1: geez mate, you're supposed to be good at this stuff
Speaker 1: and you sound like you're fuck an unraveling yourself. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. And then secondly, it's just a reinforcement, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're in when we're in these conversations, I think
Speaker 1: that I'm here and I'm present and all that, but
Speaker 1: there's nothing better than listening back to it. And I
Speaker 1: think I've listened to it three or four times since then.
Speaker 1: It's not just like I better listen to it because
Speaker 1: you know, I want to check in on what I said,
Speaker 1: just in case I get any blowback from anywhere. It's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I go back and listen to it again. In fact,
Speaker 1: i'm doing an immunity to change. Next week with someone's
Speaker 1: taking me through it, I'll have a listen to it
Speaker 1: again because I think for it's like a Seinfeld episode.
Speaker 1: To me, I've watched Seinfeld episodes twenty times, but I
Speaker 1: always picked something new up. So it was a great
Speaker 1: look for me. It was a cognitively releasing conversation, and
Speaker 1: the more that I listened to it, the more that
Speaker 1: you feel that cognitive load reducing. But also you then
Speaker 1: look back and go, how was it helpful? Well, very much.
Speaker 1: At that time I made the decision. I was sitting
Speaker 1: on the bus to go, you're not going back to
Speaker 1: work till February, and I didn't. Don't you excellent?
Speaker 2: Good? I love that. I love it, and I reckon
Speaker 2: like coaching wouldn't exist as a thing if we didn't. All,
Speaker 2: including coaches, require a different perspective at times, and you can't.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's ways, there's different ways to get a
Speaker 2: different perspective, and definitely going for me, that traveling experience
Speaker 2: was a huge shifting perspective. That's an immediate one. You
Speaker 2: get somewhere else and you're like, oh wow, I'm outside
Speaker 2: of the echo chamber of the world I lived in,
Speaker 2: and now I see and feel and understand everything very differently.
Speaker 2: And I think even as coaches, we can know things,
Speaker 2: but we're inside the things we know. And so that's
Speaker 2: and like I said, when I am in the conversations
Speaker 2: with you answering the questions, I have a different experience
Speaker 2: than when I and it could be the same day.
Speaker 2: I could listen to it the same day or the
Speaker 2: same week and hear it differently. As an observer of
Speaker 2: the conversation when I'm not in the moment. I went
Speaker 2: back not that long ago and listened to the very
Speaker 2: first episode with doctor Bill, who's now my therapist, and
Speaker 2: when that would have been good two or three, a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago, I guess, or three years ago.
Speaker 2: And when I listened back now to some of the
Speaker 2: really pointy parts of that conversation where he was probing,
Speaker 2: I was listening and I was just cringing, going, ah,
Speaker 2: you didn't. I didn't feel at the time like I
Speaker 2: was deliberately dodging questions. But when I listen back now,
Speaker 2: it almost makes me cringe how much it felt like
Speaker 2: I could see myself square squirming where that wasn't the
Speaker 2: experience in the moment so interesting?
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. And it's a very different experience to I think.
Speaker 1: The first thing with all of this stuff that we do,
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things early just to digress a little,
Speaker 1: was just to start to hear your own voice. I
Speaker 1: never listened to you, but that's a very surface level,
Speaker 1: ego driven thing. You sound like a like Je's mate.
Speaker 1: You've got a bit of a lisp there, and you
Speaker 1: say you've got Bogan words but then it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's really get past that and get to what's actually
Speaker 1: being said rather than the way that it's coming out.
Speaker 1: So there's always that look. For me, it was it's
Speaker 1: a big thanks because you chose I think we'd had
Speaker 1: a conversation and you'd run me and you're like, you
Speaker 1: are right, and I went no, not really, and then
Speaker 1: you're right, right right, and then you went right, I'm
Speaker 1: going to do something about that. So there's a huge
Speaker 1: thank you to you for that too, because one of
Speaker 1: the easy things for any of us to do when
Speaker 1: we get some engrossed in our own shit is to
Speaker 1: choose to look away when we notice something with someone
Speaker 1: else that we have built a relationship with. So that
Speaker 1: was a really important time for me, and I think
Speaker 1: it's leading into this immunity to change. I'm going to
Speaker 1: do with that next week. Alex is based in Perth.
Speaker 1: I said, I just sent her a message and said, look,
Speaker 1: I need to do it. I see at the moment
Speaker 1: because I reckon, there's some shit going on that I
Speaker 1: need to dig a bit deeper into. And I think
Speaker 1: it started back in that conversation, which would have been
Speaker 1: October last year.
Speaker 2: Isn't it interesting how we shift and change and then
Speaker 2: we have to we happen I have to do, then
Speaker 2: we can revisit things. And so like a process like community,
Speaker 2: to change is in the ever evolving process like self
Speaker 2: personal development, personal growth, healing, adapting, overcoming, whatever you want
Speaker 2: to call it. It is an ever present, ongoing thing
Speaker 2: that shifts and changes. And I don't know that fascinates me.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we look. That's the nature of this work is
Speaker 1: it's not linear, and it never ends, and you know
Speaker 1: there'll be times. When I was talking at a conference
Speaker 1: up in cansa Cutle of Togo for the Australasian Marine
Speaker 1: Pilots Institute about life design and work life balance, and
Speaker 1: I do this activity where I get people to do
Speaker 1: this perspective line five most important things, five moderately important things,
Speaker 1: five least important things. And I actually shared my sheet
Speaker 1: up on the well, you know, most important, health, family connection,
Speaker 1: purposeful work, financial security, and there was something else in
Speaker 1: there moderately important, travel and some other bits and pieces
Speaker 1: least important. The toilet roll thing wasn't fucking don't just
Speaker 1: leave the fucking cardboard there. You give that to your
Speaker 1: dashounds because they love that, you know, people who don't
Speaker 1: wave to me and acknowledge me in this tiny, skinny
Speaker 1: streets of Brunswick. When I let them through, I bought
Speaker 1: these things up. You can see the people in the
Speaker 1: room just going straight away. Fuck. Those things get me
Speaker 1: all the time. And what I you said to them
Speaker 1: in the end is these are the things that punch
Speaker 1: you in the face and like and you know about
Speaker 1: that because you're a boxer. My mess to them was,
Speaker 1: we tend to wait to get punched in the face
Speaker 1: or knocked out before we do something about that stuff.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have people around you who were
Speaker 1: I'm going to say prepared to give you. You know, my
Speaker 1: parents used to just do a little flick on my
Speaker 1: ear every now and again. The fuck that hurt, but
Speaker 1: it was done for a reason. You mightn't have liked
Speaker 1: it at the time. But so thanks for flicking my ear,
Speaker 1: because I don't think you quite punched me in the face,
Speaker 1: but you just wake me up. And that's got me
Speaker 1: to where I am now about doing this thing next week.
Speaker 1: We had our review with our business advisor this week
Speaker 1: to myself, Allison mal and you know the other thing
Speaker 1: for me, we had a really really successful year last year.
Speaker 1: If you want to look at success, you know, we
Speaker 1: talk about the material things. It was the biggest year ever,
Speaker 1: like by a long way. But I said, I can't
Speaker 1: do that again. But what I haven't been able to
Speaker 1: do is say to Alison, what will be acceptable? Because
Speaker 1: I'm the financial faborite and if and a bit corporate
Speaker 1: in the brain still even after eleven years. So you go, well,
Speaker 1: if I don't do that number again ever failed. But
Speaker 1: when I look at where financial security sits in that
Speaker 1: top five, it's number five, and my health and my
Speaker 1: connection and my family is number one and two. And
Speaker 1: I think those things both suffered last year because number
Speaker 1: five was really number one.
Speaker 2: Is it about the underlying stuff beneath, or the metaphorical
Speaker 2: stuff beneath the idea of financial success slash security? More
Speaker 2: so because we we all seem to be driven by
Speaker 2: it and to it, which drives us further away from
Speaker 2: the more important things, which is connection and community and people.
Speaker 1: Well, well, so here's the thing. I've just had some
Speaker 1: convoys recently with some clients about this. There's the tangible
Speaker 1: and the intangible. So the tangibility of that financial pieces,
Speaker 1: I can see it on. I can see it in HubSpot,
Speaker 1: in our cram, I can see it in our and
Speaker 1: our balance sheet, like it's there. It's like a KPI.
Speaker 1: Whereas you know, do we keep a KPU? Once a
Speaker 1: month the whole family gets together, we pick a theme.
Speaker 1: I love this. Allison set this up. So it's us
Speaker 1: and the kids and their partners, eight of us well
Speaker 1: this Sundays. This month's theme is retro month for a meal.
Speaker 1: So you've got to have you have starters, you have
Speaker 1: the main and accompaniments, and then you have dessert. So
Speaker 1: this is called the retro one. So what we're doing
Speaker 1: on some people might really relate to this, and others
Speaker 1: be like, what the hell are those? We're doing the
Speaker 1: main Allison and I and we're cooking what's called porcupine
Speaker 1: meat balls. And I can remember to if you wouldn't
Speaker 1: this year two but as a kid, if we didn't
Speaker 1: have them two nights a week, which is like a
Speaker 1: bit of mints right up into a ball with a
Speaker 1: bit of rice in it and fucking tomato sauce. But
Speaker 1: my point is this, we don't keep a I don't
Speaker 1: keep a KPI. Shet on how often we get together
Speaker 1: the intangibilities of those things are more about how you
Speaker 1: feel and not what you're measuring. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a challenge that in that space for me, but for
Speaker 1: all of us to go. You know, if I can't
Speaker 1: if I can't measure it, I can't manage it. And
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to eat my own dog food here
Speaker 1: at times and go. I talk to people a lot
Speaker 1: about the intangible stuff that then drives the tangible, and
Speaker 1: I think I think the reason why that sits with me,
Speaker 1: like you explained before, is it's easy to see. But
Speaker 1: with the intangible stuff, I think that build up over
Speaker 1: the year to get me into that November place of gone,
Speaker 1: I'm disappearing at my own ass. I don't have a
Speaker 1: KPI sheet that said, you know, I was getting a
Speaker 1: bit burnt out, or I was getting a bit stressed,
Speaker 1: or you know. Ultimately the goal was to The goal
Speaker 1: wasn't the disappear of my own ass. It wasn't the KPI,
Speaker 1: but but it was a feeling of a time. So
Speaker 1: I think there's something in I think there's something in that,
Speaker 1: But there was also the thing for me like this
Speaker 1: earlier this week, is just asking the question and asking
Speaker 1: for permission, and again as a financial frabic saying to Allison, well,
Speaker 1: what's the number? She goes, this is the number, and
Speaker 1: then I look at it and like, how oh, I
Speaker 1: haven't I haven't not hit that number for about the
Speaker 1: last seven years. So what the fuck am I? What
Speaker 1: am I worried about? There? So it's it's an interesting
Speaker 1: it's a real conflict. And I think this will be
Speaker 1: part of what happens when I go through next week.
Speaker 1: Is this conflict about what am I trying to prove?
Speaker 1: What any of us trying to prove? What's acceptable? And
Speaker 1: then what are the trade offs and what are you
Speaker 1: prepared to trade off? And I know we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before. It's not about what you want to do,
Speaker 1: it's about what you don't want to do. And I
Speaker 1: really clear I don't want to have another year like
Speaker 1: I had last year.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And we still did wonderful things, we had holidays and stuff,
Speaker 1: but no, not doing it.
Speaker 2: I've been I just wrote down the work on my notebook.
Speaker 2: I just wrote down the words. That's interesting because I
Speaker 2: was thinking, as you were talking of how much reflection
Speaker 2: I've been doing. I've made a lot of changes to
Speaker 2: this year, and I feel that that constant, like intrusive
Speaker 2: thought of oh you bet not you better? You should,
Speaker 2: you should say yes to more things, you should put
Speaker 2: you should be a bit flexible there. It's like, no,
Speaker 2: you've you've you have this year having a day off
Speaker 2: here to do specific work, put your clients on specific days,
Speaker 2: and don't bend and twist every time someone needs a change,
Speaker 2: you bend over backwards to get up and make it
Speaker 2: in there. And you know, like always saying yes to things.
Speaker 2: But I've not, so I've been noticing and observing a
Speaker 2: lot more without changing or actioning things. And from a
Speaker 2: I guess, oh, that's interesting standpoint, when it's frustrating. It's
Speaker 2: like I'll see where I might have an emotional reaction
Speaker 2: to something or a bit of conflicts come up for me,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, that's interesting, But also I'm in charge
Speaker 2: of that. I feel like that, why do I feel
Speaker 2: frustrated and angry by that? You know when really it
Speaker 2: doesn't it doesn't need to matter, no, and we won't.
Speaker 1: Be how I'm with this And this isn't just in
Speaker 1: regards to your relationship with your clients, Like you picked
Speaker 1: a really good topic here, is how how much how
Speaker 1: much we had driven to comply, conform, to fit into whatever.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways we do that is we
Speaker 1: say yes. Now, that's not just in work situations, that's
Speaker 1: in family situations. Certainly, I see it a lot when
Speaker 1: I talk to my clients, particularly those are in like
Speaker 1: volunteer community stuff like sporting clubs, and they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm the president of the netball
Speaker 1: football club because I couldn't say. And then I'll be
Speaker 1: putting the canteen roster together, and then I'll be working
Speaker 1: in the canteen and then I'm cooking the meals on
Speaker 1: a Thursday night. And if you sort of got above
Speaker 1: all of that stuff, the conflict between belonging but also
Speaker 1: getting some time to yourself and being able to say, hey,
Speaker 1: what can't I do? Because I've kept saying yes to things?
Speaker 1: And usually the things that you're not doing then are
Speaker 1: the thing that things that are in that first box,
Speaker 1: which is what's most important to you. Lost a bit
Speaker 1: of connection to myself, not not doing as much with
Speaker 1: the family, seem to come home a little bit jaded
Speaker 1: all the time, can get a bit short with the kids,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be I can kick the dog, kick
Speaker 1: the cat, whatever I do. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it stems from, you know, the need to be
Speaker 1: needed and to be wanted and to be accepted, to
Speaker 1: feel like I'm contributing to the fear of saying no,
Speaker 1: and what might happen to all of those things and everyone.
Speaker 1: I think everybody goes through that at some point in time.
Speaker 2: I just noticed something in the background. Is that is
Speaker 2: that new? That statue of the.
Speaker 1: You're so it's not it's not new, So like it's
Speaker 1: very quickly what you're talking about that people see this
Speaker 1: in video or do they just know you're.
Speaker 2: Going to have to describe it. I don't have to
Speaker 2: describe That little monster behind.
Speaker 1: Me is a Scott. This is actually an art. It's
Speaker 1: a piece of art. This is a sculptured metal robot
Speaker 1: which looks very much like the robot on the front
Speaker 1: cover of my first book.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, is it? Is it the same one?
Speaker 1: I'm walking I'm walking through the streets of Fremantle one
Speaker 1: Saturday morning, after having spent a week there doing work. Jeez,
Speaker 1: before COVID and I walked past his art gallery and
Speaker 1: this thing's steering me in the face. From him.
Speaker 2: Shit, it looks exactly Mark's had this made.
Speaker 1: It wasn't open at the time, so I was going
Speaker 1: to open at ten o'clock or something, and I was
Speaker 1: walking around pretty early, so I went back and I
Speaker 1: like to the lady, I see that robot and this
Speaker 1: is before I had the robot tatoo on my arm,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that really looks like the robot off
Speaker 1: the front of my book. And she was a bit like, yeah, whatever, dickhead.
Speaker 1: I said, Look, I'm just going to go and have
Speaker 1: a chat to the financial controller because I asked her
Speaker 1: what the price was and it wasn't cheap and made
Speaker 1: by a local perf sculptor, and sure enough I got
Speaker 1: the Okay. So old mate Frankie as we call him,
Speaker 1: just like the other frank He he sits in my
Speaker 1: office here. He has sat out in the lounge room
Speaker 1: for a while as a as a as a sort
Speaker 1: of a stand for pot plants. But I think he
Speaker 1: was I got the sense that he wasn't overly happy
Speaker 1: with that. So he's now in here with me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's just one of those things people. Jeez, that's
Speaker 1: just that's that's just sort of had that happen, but
Speaker 1: you go, well, I don't know. It happens for a reason.
Speaker 1: So he's I take him every now and again if
Speaker 1: you'll come into the room in the Melbourne programs he
Speaker 1: sits in the corner and people. So he's made out
Speaker 1: of meddle, really is he. He looks big, you know,
Speaker 1: he's big.
Speaker 2: Be up to your chest, wouldn't he.
Speaker 1: He's probably bigger than a little Alison that you referred
Speaker 1: to as one time you referred to.
Speaker 2: Projected it upon me, just.
Speaker 1: A bit over five foot tall. And look the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about him, he can be used and you wouldn't
Speaker 1: do it because he'd get flogged in the day. But
Speaker 1: the way he set up there is on the back
Speaker 1: of there's a key and you can open up behind
Speaker 1: his head and that that mouth there could be like
Speaker 1: a letterbox. But no, he's he's he's near and dear
Speaker 1: to me because it's sort of the business and the
Speaker 1: robots and the humans and and you know the craziness
Speaker 1: of how much he looks like old mate on my arm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you go, look at you observing things and we've even
Speaker 1: got what about little Jerry. There's he turns one on Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Little Jerry held up in a ball, the boss.
Speaker 1: Poor little bugger, he's I shouldn't say the poor little bugger.
Speaker 1: I say I feel for the others in the family,
Speaker 1: the other four, because he's come in like an absolute hurricane,
Speaker 1: Old Jerry.
Speaker 2: Do he get all the attention?
Speaker 1: It gets a bit, not all of it, But he's
Speaker 1: coped the cup of floggings because I think they just
Speaker 1: had when he first came in. And this is maybe
Speaker 1: a lesson here for people when you first get introduced
Speaker 1: to a new group of people, don't do what Jerry did.
Speaker 1: He just ran around and terrorized them all.
Speaker 2: Jerry's a dog, by the way, one.
Speaker 1: Year old piebald, long haired, miniature daccent. Yes, so there
Speaker 1: you go. Hmm.
Speaker 2: You mentioned something that we were going to discuss potentially
Speaker 2: before and I can't remember something success? What was that topic?
Speaker 1: And not my not my idea. I'm going to I'm
Speaker 1: going to I'm going to give credit where credits due.
Speaker 1: But it's something that now and I'm talking to a
Speaker 1: lot of people about and everyone should think about this
Speaker 1: and the difference between what I call interrogating success and
Speaker 1: celebrating success.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: So I was talking to working with a client up
Speaker 1: in New South Wales, and before we work with the client,
Speaker 1: each of the team members had it half an hour
Speaker 1: with me and we're just having a chat about things,
Speaker 1: and a guy with number of dave a great fella.
Speaker 1: He just said, look, I just wonder if we'd be
Speaker 1: better off if we interrogated our success more. And I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: that you mean celebrating success and he's like, no, I reckon,
Speaker 1: there's a bit more to it than that. What come
Speaker 1: to mind for me at the time, one of the
Speaker 1: things were very good at all of us, whether it's
Speaker 1: personal stuff, work stuff, whatever it is. If we do
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of the things well and one percent
Speaker 1: not so well, we interrogate failure like it's a real commission,
Speaker 1: so that one thing will you know, lessons learned. Some
Speaker 1: people call it, others call it the post review, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But we tend not to focus on what's
Speaker 1: gone well. And then this idea of the celebration of
Speaker 1: success versus the interrogation of success. Most of what I
Speaker 1: hear in organizational life is oh, we celebrated our success.
Speaker 1: Now that was usually in the form of a morning tea.
Speaker 1: And this is still nice because there was a coming
Speaker 1: together in an acknowledgment. Cupcakes, cup of tea, your favorite
Speaker 1: late whatever it might be. You sort of get together,
Speaker 1: you have a bit of a chat, someone says a
Speaker 1: few words, everyone claps, and then off we go. Now,
Speaker 1: I think there's a place for that as an acknowledgment.
Speaker 1: But the interrogation of success, when I think about that,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking more of this is more forensic, this sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. So, so from some really cool words from Dave,
Speaker 1: whether I've got to now is created a little template
Speaker 1: which is for people to interrogate forensically, interrogate the success
Speaker 1: of the work they've done. Now, what we tend to
Speaker 1: do here if we go back to the tangible and
Speaker 1: the intangible, the things we can see on a KPI
Speaker 1: sheet and the things that we feel more. The way
Speaker 1: I've breaken this up is into four columns. So the
Speaker 1: first column is what's the thing. What was the program?
Speaker 1: What was the projective work? What was it that you
Speaker 1: were doing? Goes in the first column. The second column
Speaker 1: is interrogating this success from a technical perspective. So what
Speaker 1: were the processes, what were the procedures, how did we
Speaker 1: follow what did we do really well? Around the more
Speaker 1: technical aspects of what we're doing, because those things are
Speaker 1: really important. If you don't have processes and you don't
Speaker 1: have some of that sort of direction and some order
Speaker 1: and things, that will be chaos. But we're usually really
Speaker 1: good at capturing that stuff. And then the next column
Speaker 1: is what were the human factors? And this is the
Speaker 1: intangible stuff and getting people to start to think about
Speaker 1: what happened between us. I love there's a great ted
Speaker 1: talk by a lady called Margaret Hefferan about chickens called
Speaker 1: It's time to Forget the pecking Order at Work, and
Speaker 1: she talks about I don't give too much away, people
Speaker 1: should will go and watch this. She talks about the
Speaker 1: difference between great teams and good teams. And one of
Speaker 1: the things she talks about in there is it's not
Speaker 1: just about the bricks, It's also about the mortar. And
Speaker 1: the bricks are what I've talked about first the technical stuff,
Speaker 1: but to hold the bricks together, you need the mortar
Speaker 1: and the mortars of the people stuff. It's what happens
Speaker 1: between the people. So I would encourage people, whether it
Speaker 1: be a whether it's something for them personally or it's
Speaker 1: something in their work, is starting to think about like
Speaker 1: properly forensically interrogating it so that you pick up the
Speaker 1: things that have go on well and you can replicate them.
Speaker 1: The fourth column is simply called the outcome. So what happened?
Speaker 1: What happened when we had this project? What did we
Speaker 1: do well technically in the bricks? What did we how
Speaker 1: did we come together and create that mortar to hold
Speaker 1: the bricks together? That's people and people who are listened
Speaker 1: to this will realize that we've done some good work,
Speaker 1: but it was hard because the mortar wasn't The mortar
Speaker 1: didn't hold. It held for a bit, but then it
Speaker 1: crumbled and then the bricks all fell fell down. So
Speaker 1: I want people to start to think about again, compliments
Speaker 1: and cutos toda David, to think about, do you spend
Speaker 1: too much time on the one to two to three
Speaker 1: percent that didn't go right interrogating failure, and not enough
Speaker 1: time on the ninety nine to ninety seven to ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of things that went really well in interrogating success. Now,
Speaker 1: we're not hard wired to do that. You know that
Speaker 1: we're looking for danger, we're looking for survivor, we're looking
Speaker 1: for things that might make us look bad. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of research out there now to say if
Speaker 1: you focus on the things that have gone well, particularly
Speaker 1: the mortar things, what happens between people. You focus more
Speaker 1: on that, people will do more of it. It will
Speaker 1: become the natural thing, and then the bricks hold up.
Speaker 1: So it's a really interesting conversation to have in a
Speaker 1: business world because we're not built that way. And also
Speaker 1: from a personal perspective, I guess as we all grew up,
Speaker 1: we very rarely we might have been said good game,
Speaker 1: good job, well done, but that's like maybe a bit
Speaker 1: of cupcaking stuff, rather than tell me good job mark
Speaker 1: as a twelve year old playing cricket because of this
Speaker 1: thing that you did, like be more specific, Am I'm
Speaker 1: making any sense to you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I love that, like, because there is a difference between
Speaker 2: just good job and the I guess the dopamine you
Speaker 2: get from that. It's like, oh that feels good. That
Speaker 2: feels good, but you're no better off for it. Really,
Speaker 2: it's not sustainable. Why was it good? When people when
Speaker 2: people reach out about particular episodes, they're like, that was
Speaker 2: such a great I'm like, oh what about it? What
Speaker 2: about it? Did you enjoy? Was it the information was
Speaker 2: it was it the style of conversation like it's because
Speaker 2: for me, I feel chuffed when people reach out and
Speaker 2: go that was so awesome. But I feel actually like
Speaker 2: I can get some value myself for growth and replication
Speaker 2: if I know what it is that somebody liked, or
Speaker 2: if they just or if they just want to invest
Speaker 2: in the relationship and what to be like, Hey, I
Speaker 2: liked that. I've got no feedback, but I just felt
Speaker 2: like reaching out and connecting with you on it and
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really good and it's a great
Speaker 1: time to get curious. Often when people will do that
Speaker 1: to me, I'll send them back a note and hey,
Speaker 1: I just can you just tell me a little bit more?
Speaker 1: What was it in particular that you really liked about that? Oh,
Speaker 1: I might be hey, if we're not interrogating success and
Speaker 1: they're coming back and get on, hey that was really shit,
Speaker 1: Well can you tell me why that might have been?
Speaker 1: But I think we've got to open ourselves up, because
Speaker 1: it's great to be told that I really like your work,
Speaker 1: but I actually think it's incumbent upon people like us
Speaker 1: to go back and challenge those people to go will
Speaker 1: tell me a bit more about that because sometimes not
Speaker 1: Sometimes it can be just like yeah, I just want
Speaker 1: to say that because you know, I want to feel
Speaker 1: like I can build that relationship. I think there needs
Speaker 1: to be in order to build a good strong, thick
Speaker 1: line or another person like build strong relationships. My view
Speaker 1: is this is that you've got to be prepared to
Speaker 1: share a little bit more. You've also got to be
Speaker 1: prepared to be curious enough if you haven't shared more,
Speaker 1: if you're the receiver of the feedback to ask the question,
Speaker 1: tell me more. I like those three words, tell me more.
Speaker 2: It's also a valuable prompt for them because I don't know,
Speaker 2: we don't always think about why. And then like someone
Speaker 2: might say that to me and I walk away and goo,
Speaker 2: good question. Why why did that land with me? And
Speaker 2: then you know there's those tiny little bits of introspection
Speaker 2: that you learn from.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I agree, And look there's also a I think
Speaker 1: there's just a there's a laziness. I think too well done. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really liked what you did. I you know, fill
Speaker 1: the gap in help someone to make sense because you
Speaker 1: know that data. You keep talking to people. That's why
Speaker 1: I love coaching for strengths stuff there's a place for
Speaker 1: all sorts of coaching, but coaching for strengths in the workplace.
Speaker 1: Talk about you continue to coach for strengths, help someone
Speaker 1: with their career, kill that something's going to stuff their career,
Speaker 1: but you'll see that they'll get it. You'll get like
Speaker 1: a twenty five percent uplift in their effort and productivity
Speaker 1: if you continue to focus in on the things they
Speaker 1: do well. And as you said before about you, we
Speaker 1: never end we incrementally improve at that thing, but knowing
Speaker 1: that we're going to be acknowledged and appreciated for it,
Speaker 1: it keeps it front of mind for us as well.
Speaker 2: I love the clarity around things too, like what what
Speaker 2: what am I good at? And why do people say that?
Speaker 2: And what makes that? And how is it better? And
Speaker 2: what do I enjoy? Like there's so many and maybe
Speaker 2: I've landed in this place because of all of the
Speaker 2: conversations and curiosity and hunger I have for understanding people
Speaker 2: in the world and the outcomes and what And sometimes
Speaker 2: it almost makes my head explode because they go, well,
Speaker 2: there's so many aspects to everything, correlation and causation of
Speaker 2: everything that it's and answer doesn't exist and I often
Speaker 2: find these days my mind goes straight to all of
Speaker 2: the tiny little nuances that might exist outside of the
Speaker 2: realm of what someone's presenting. And now I've lost my
Speaker 2: completely lost my train of thought of exactly what I
Speaker 2: was going to say about that, so.
Speaker 1: That it'll come back to you at some point in
Speaker 1: kind you've been But know what, I don't believe you
Speaker 1: are chasing perfection. So a good example of why you
Speaker 1: shouldn't chase perfection.
Speaker 2: Oh well, I was talking about the idea of clarity
Speaker 2: and understanding. I started the course yesterday and and for
Speaker 2: speaking because I was finally like, I want to I
Speaker 2: want to learn more about what I don't know, Like
Speaker 2: when I stepped into the world of podcasting that I
Speaker 2: knew nothing about. I did it blind and naive, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I'll do this. I don't know how
Speaker 2: what it is or how people do it, but it
Speaker 2: seems like, you know, I love communication, conversation and connection
Speaker 2: and this will give me all of that and experience.
Speaker 2: So started this course, and what I really enjoy about
Speaker 2: it it is picking apart my own thoughts and ideas
Speaker 2: and getting and understanding well, actually, like who am I
Speaker 2: as a speaker? Slash content maker or provider, like what
Speaker 2: what are people? Where do I land? What is my
Speaker 2: philosophy that people connect with both their perspective of mine
Speaker 2: And some of the little activities we did just brought
Speaker 2: so much clarity and it was like, oh, it's really
Speaker 2: nice to have a framework that's just me. Like there
Speaker 2: was they went across like speaker archetypes, which I always
Speaker 2: think that these questionnaires of personality profiles and everything, so
Speaker 2: it can be I'm like, oh, you just answer questions
Speaker 2: and then you're this, and sometimes it's I just think
Speaker 2: it's hard to maybe trust. But this we got these
Speaker 2: speaker archetypes and then it kind of talked about and
Speaker 2: it just landed and I went, oh, that's really nice
Speaker 2: to know you have this central platform of going oh,
Speaker 2: I'm so I don't have to be like that or
Speaker 2: them or what this person says or how they say
Speaker 2: it or do it. And it was nice.
Speaker 1: I like that, that's great, and look, I think the
Speaker 1: big thing there is Look I call it corporate crystal ball,
Speaker 1: and we get people and we get them profiled, then
Speaker 1: we put them in a box, but we don't talk.
Speaker 1: Usually I say the lazy leadership consultant gets you to
Speaker 1: feel that out before you come into the room, and
Speaker 1: then you spend about forty minutes on it, just to
Speaker 1: fucking fill some time in and then they put you in.
Speaker 1: Oh well you're you're a high d mark, so well,
Speaker 1: don't know how you're going to get on with Tiff.
Speaker 1: He's a high see and you don't underst and why
Speaker 1: things are going on now, And all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we're in a.
Speaker 2: Box deaf, not a high sea mate. I'm so far
Speaker 2: from it, I.
Speaker 1: See, can't get out of that box. And I guess
Speaker 1: my point is this, if there's if we take away
Speaker 1: the laziness of filling some time and we do it,
Speaker 1: and we give some reason as to why we're doing it,
Speaker 1: so you who are going through this really important program
Speaker 1: can make sense of it. Because there was a what
Speaker 1: I heard in you say, then here we go again.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like they've been able to help you
Speaker 1: make some sense about why you're doing that activity, which
Speaker 1: which goes deeper than the laziness of what I think
Speaker 1: happens in a lot of these programs that we go to.
Speaker 1: It's like just get them in the room, get their money,
Speaker 1: and do the work. Now, let me ask you this question. So,
Speaker 1: how many candles on your birthday cake? Now?
Speaker 2: Very soon, in under a month, there'll be forty two. Wait,
Speaker 2: so they have a fibergate on and when I'm on
Speaker 2: them out.
Speaker 1: So google this up right now? How many days has
Speaker 1: it been since your birth? The day you were born,
Speaker 1: your day to birth? How many days has it been?
Speaker 2: Days old? I'm asking chat GPT because they're my vest
Speaker 2: mint nice shadows me and shadows shadows tells me everything.
Speaker 2: I am fifteen thousand, four hundred and thirty days.
Speaker 1: Old, So let's have a talk about this for a moment.
Speaker 1: So how many days old?
Speaker 2: Fifteen thousand, four hundred and thirty And.
Speaker 1: When did you start the program?
Speaker 2: Yesterday?
Speaker 1: So you were fifteen thousand, four hundred and twenty nine
Speaker 1: days old. Then yeah, yep, at fifteen thousand, four hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty nine days old, you've you've started a new thing.
Speaker 1: M The reason I want to talk about this, I
Speaker 1: think sometimes we'll be like, well, you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: forty two or I'm fifty eight, and like there's nothing
Speaker 1: they know new things for me to try, and I can't.
Speaker 2: The way that I'm a world class pianist too, By
Speaker 2: the way the last year class, what pianist the end.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you've got the three sort of syllables
Speaker 1: in there.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I act like a bit of a penis, though
Speaker 2: you said it.
Speaker 1: Up me one of the ways for me to cope.
Speaker 1: On March seventh this year, which was the day of
Speaker 1: Zoey's wedding, my youngest got married to lovely Tommy. There
Speaker 1: a beautiful couple was I said it. I went to myself,
Speaker 1: how long have I been on this earth and this
Speaker 1: is the first time I'm going to do this thing.
Speaker 1: This is a new thing for me, and I sort
Speaker 1: of kicked off my speech, said, look, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I was going down this I was so frigging
Speaker 1: emotionally rollercoasting that day out playing golf with the boys
Speaker 1: in the morning, felt oh good, every now and again
Speaker 1: I'll have this like, how the fuck am I going
Speaker 1: to be this afternoon? I spent about an hour and
Speaker 1: a half to if in between everyone leaving to go
Speaker 1: to the wedding and me hanging out where the girls
Speaker 1: were to than be in the car listening to a
Speaker 1: lot of Bob Dylan, but also contemplating stupid things like
Speaker 1: how many days old am I when I'm going to
Speaker 1: do a very new thing today? And I asked the
Speaker 1: question at the wedding like I wanted people to think
Speaker 1: about when was the last time you did something brand new?
Speaker 1: As I said, I'm now twenty thousand and five hundred
Speaker 1: and something days old and today I'm doing a brand
Speaker 1: new thing. And the brand new thing I was doing,
Speaker 1: I said, I get to walk my beautiful daughter down
Speaker 1: the aisle on one of the happiest days of her life.
Speaker 1: I don't think we think about this enough. Just get
Speaker 1: people to think about it out like what stops you
Speaker 1: from doing something new whatever it might be. But and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be new at work or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I just want people to think about that. TIF.
Speaker 1: I think it's now you've started something new? Yeah, ever
Speaker 1: done it before? I think there's a level of excitement
Speaker 1: that comes with that. There's absolutely I said, I was
Speaker 1: excitedly terrified on the day because you know, you're sort
Speaker 1: of like, oh, am I going to cry and I'm
Speaker 1: not well. In the end, I cried and I walked
Speaker 1: it down the aisle with Allison. But who cares, Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter, does it?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: No, So I just think that's something for us to
Speaker 1: all think about, like you're not you're never too old,
Speaker 1: and what's the thing that you want to do that's
Speaker 1: new and maybe what's the thing that you might even
Speaker 1: be it's not your choice. It wasn't my choice to
Speaker 1: do that new thing, but you still want to do it.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite weeks on the ten week coaching program,
Speaker 2: I'm just finished week nine of the second one at
Speaker 2: the moment. One of my favorite weeks is the topic
Speaker 2: of and it always I feel like it kind of
Speaker 2: blindsides people. They're never expecting it and they're like, oh oh,
Speaker 2: and it's fun, So how much fun? Like do you
Speaker 2: plan this simple question do you plan fun for your life?
Speaker 2: Is how often do you plan for Mark to have
Speaker 2: fun for the sake of fun, novelty, just for the
Speaker 2: sake of it, just to feel your soul? And then
Speaker 2: we go into the science of fun and the fact
Speaker 2: that it's very bloody selfish and to not have fun
Speaker 2: because then you're a shitty version of yourself taking that
Speaker 2: shitty version into interactions with other people. Like it's just
Speaker 2: such a simple thing, but just the question, the look
Speaker 2: on people face is when I first asked that question,
Speaker 2: is always oh oh fu a why are we talking
Speaker 2: about fun in this kind of in this course about
Speaker 2: you know, mindset and getting better and optimization and blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. What do you mean fun? There's no time
Speaker 2: for that. I'm busy trying to get better and.
Speaker 1: Fix things and not looking like I'm being selfish.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if you take those last three letters off
Speaker 1: that word, as we always say, self time and having
Speaker 1: a bit of fun and doing that is is important
Speaker 1: if you're going to be able to show up as
Speaker 1: best you can in other settings, you're better find some
Speaker 1: ways to have fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what then the trick is always I reckon.
Speaker 2: There's there's a bit of a balance for novelty, Like
Speaker 2: novelty is a part of fun. And what's difficult is
Speaker 2: we lean so much on structure and routine to implement things,
Speaker 2: so it's this ever evolving thing. It's like, oh, that's cool,
Speaker 2: you can implement fun, But once that's implemented and becomes
Speaker 2: a routine, then you're back to square one.
Speaker 1: Back to that thing of the tangibility and the intangibility,
Speaker 1: Like you know, you can't it's hard to plan fun.
Speaker 1: Sometimes fun happens in the moment, Like we're going to
Speaker 1: we've got the Comedy Festival on here now, so we're going.
Speaker 2: To see Luke McGregor.
Speaker 1: Bloody, Hello, we are going to McGregor. But we're going
Speaker 1: to you know, we're going to like over five nights
Speaker 1: going to different shows and like that's sort of planned
Speaker 1: fun because you know, you come out of that feelingly good,
Speaker 1: but there'll be some unplanned fun in that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well I love that. Yeah, I'm going a
Speaker 2: few shows this year.
Speaker 1: How we do when you're going to get going, don't you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got another podcast shortly, but I want to
Speaker 2: keep chanting. It's not fair. It's not fair. Mark. These
Speaker 2: don't disappear for another few months.
Speaker 1: It's been four months. We'll catch up again, I'm sure
Speaker 1: before four months is up, and have another conversation and
Speaker 1: we might interrogate some of the success we've had over
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: It sounds good, right, like got well, she said, it's
Speaker 2: now never.
Speaker 1: I got fighting in my blood. Got it to your
Speaker 1: goody cost, gotta gotta cost, got it to