Speaker 1: We unlock out greatness by working on the hard things. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Michael
Speaker 1: Bungay Stanier on the show. Michael is the founder of
Speaker 1: Box of Crayons and as the author of the best
Speaker 1: selling book The Coaching Habit, with over a million copies sold.
Speaker 1: He was a Rhodes Scholar and in twenty nineteen was
Speaker 1: named the number one Thought Leader in coaching. Michael has
Speaker 1: a master's degree in philosophy from Oxford, a law degree
Speaker 1: and a BA with Highest Honors from the Australian National University.
Speaker 1: His latest book is called How to Begin. I invite
Speaker 1: Michael on the show because I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: his work in coaching, and as I get more into
Speaker 1: the coaching profession, everyone seems to be talking about Michael.
Speaker 1: He's just such a good guy and he's funny and
Speaker 1: really thoughtful about coaching principles. In this episode, I talked
Speaker 1: to him about how to begin When we set goals.
Speaker 1: The most popular framework that often comes to mind is
Speaker 1: the idea of smart goals. Instead of starting with what's measurable, though,
Speaker 1: Michael urges us to start with what's important. He shares
Speaker 1: his criteria for identifying what a worthy goal is, as
Speaker 1: well as advice for how to stay committed to that
Speaker 1: worthy goal. We also touch on the topics of coaching, empathy, change,
Speaker 1: and community. So, without further ado, I bring you, Michael
Speaker 1: Bungay Steinier. How are you most of medium? Personal ughs.
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to this for so long. Me too, actually,
Speaker 1: me too, and been wearing your shirt as well, astanding shirt.
Speaker 1: Thank you for it just for this occasion. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I get trumped on shirts very often,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I've been trumped and I have nothing.
Speaker 1: I got my masonry cap to you. Where do you
Speaker 1: live now? I live in Toronto, Canada, Like I'm Australian originally,
Speaker 1: but left Australia thirty years ago and wandered around England
Speaker 1: for a bit and then the US for a tiny bit,
Speaker 1: and then twenty years ago, twenty one years ago, I
Speaker 1: guess came up here. We're literally, we're literally like four
Speaker 1: days away from celebrating the Box of Crayons, the company
Speaker 1: I founded. It's our twentieth birthday on July fourth, So
Speaker 1: I'm pretty amazed about that. Because I'm not a natural
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and I have a company that's somehow twenty years
Speaker 1: old and still doing good in the world. Is surprisingly wonderful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: huge congratulations. Tell people a little bit about what is
Speaker 1: Box of Crayons. So Box of Crayons is, it's a
Speaker 1: learning and development company that has a focus of helping
Speaker 1: cultures and people move from advice driven to curiosity lead.
Speaker 1: And the way we practically do that is we give
Speaker 1: managers and leaders and contributors the skills to be more
Speaker 1: coach like in the way that they interact with the
Speaker 1: people around them and they lead their teams. For years,
Speaker 1: I had felt that coaching was this really powerful technology
Speaker 1: that just wasn't making much impact in organizations because it
Speaker 1: was all a bit woo woo and a bit touchy
Speaker 1: feely and a bit life coaching and a bit kind
Speaker 1: of unattached to the busy realities of a manager and
Speaker 1: she's trying to make stuff happen. She doesn't have time
Speaker 1: for the come down and hang out in my therapy
Speaker 1: couch and we'll do coaching together. I was very driven
Speaker 1: to kind of unweird coaching and just make it an
Speaker 1: everyday way of showing up and being with each other
Speaker 1: with curiosity at the heart of it, love that you'd
Speaker 1: been at this game a long time, you know, and
Speaker 1: so like, let's go back to the fifties here, who
Speaker 1: did you train with? Who are some of your mentors
Speaker 1: in the field or people that just inspired you? You know. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I got my first sense of what this is about
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager, because I would find myself
Speaker 1: in conversations with my teenage friends, and you know, they're
Speaker 1: full of the usual angst of teenagerhood, and I just
Speaker 1: would notice that I was a pretty good listener to people.
Speaker 1: I'd be, you know, sitting somewhere and be listening to
Speaker 1: them unfolding their tailor vow. I had this moment going,
Speaker 1: I do not know whether this is helpful or not,
Speaker 1: and whether I'm getting everybody's way by doing this, or
Speaker 1: whether this is actually you know, helping move the things along.
Speaker 1: So I went to my local youth crisis counseling someone
Speaker 1: called youth Line in Canberra in Australia, where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and so I got trained to be a crisis counselor
Speaker 1: as a teenager, so kind of a classic Rocharian training
Speaker 1: fundamentally being taught there's more to their answer than you think,
Speaker 1: and don't trust their first answer. It's just the start
Speaker 1: of a conversation. And don't rush in with advice, because
Speaker 1: being present to them is actually part of what's powerful.
Speaker 1: And so I spent quite a few years in my
Speaker 1: university years doing crisis counseling and then moved into the
Speaker 1: water consulting. And that was when coaching was becoming a thing.
Speaker 1: You know. I was in London at the time. I
Speaker 1: was looking over the ocean and there's a rise of
Speaker 1: coaching in California. And of course if you're in London,
Speaker 1: you're like, it's probably woo wo hippie stuff. It's teptical,
Speaker 1: cynic called London is now. We don't really believe in that.
Speaker 1: But I was intrigued and I started talking to some
Speaker 1: of my consulting clients as maybe I'm coaching you, maybe
Speaker 1: this is what this is. And then when I moved
Speaker 1: to Toronto in two thousand and one, I trained with CTI,
Speaker 1: the Coach Training Institute, and build a practice and then realized,
Speaker 1: funnily enough, I didn't actually love coaching. It was a
Speaker 1: real shock because I was like, oh my goodness, I
Speaker 1: really thought this is everything my life had been leading
Speaker 1: up to was this kind of moment of building a
Speaker 1: coaching practice. But I realized I was I wanted to
Speaker 1: have a little more impact than that, and actually I'm
Speaker 1: better as a teacher and better as a provocateur rather
Speaker 1: than being a coach or at least having a coaching practice.
Speaker 1: So I shifted my focus a bit after that. Oh
Speaker 1: I love that, And well, you wrote this book The
Speaker 1: Coaching Habit, so you obviously love at some point teaching
Speaker 1: coaching to other aspiring coaches. Yeah, well, well it was
Speaker 1: part of the mission to unwird coaching, and I was
Speaker 1: actually trying to teach coaching to people who weren't coaches.
Speaker 1: If you're only inner circle, and I was part of
Speaker 1: this for sure, where you're already a coach, you've already
Speaker 1: you've already subscribed to the faith, and you're like, I
Speaker 1: love coaching. It's amazing, I'm all in for it. I
Speaker 1: self identify as a coach. Well, there's everybody else. It's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know coaching. It's a bit I don't get it.
Speaker 1: It's a bit black box, it's a bit mysterious. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if it's really for me. And those are
Speaker 1: the people. I really wanted to write the Coaching Habit
Speaker 1: for people who had this very clear vision in my mind.
Speaker 1: It'd be like a person would walk into an airport bookstore.
Speaker 1: She would flip through the books there, she'd pick up
Speaker 1: the Coaching Habit and she'd go, oh, I could probably
Speaker 1: read this on a flight, and it would just say, look,
Speaker 1: here's what coaching is. It's staying curious a little bit longer,
Speaker 1: rushing to action and advice a little more slowly. It's
Speaker 1: seven good questions and if you know how to start
Speaker 1: building that into a habit, so you do it more
Speaker 1: rather than less, actually going to shift the way that
Speaker 1: you lead and you interact with people. I love that
Speaker 1: in a way, you kind of put the source code
Speaker 1: of coaching there, Like do you ever fear all these
Speaker 1: coaches that aren't accredited at all, but they call themselves
Speaker 1: coaching and charge like millions of dollars? You know, like
Speaker 1: they'll get mad at you. They're like you're making You're
Speaker 1: telling them it's too easy, you know, like you're kind
Speaker 1: of you know, like I'm the penn and teller of
Speaker 1: the coaching world. They're revealing the exactly It's like a
Speaker 1: I love that. Yes, it's like a magician saying, oh,
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, we're supposed to keep that accredited program. Yeah, exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: I quite excited if that's what I'm doing, because I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of artificial mystery around what coaching is. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think there is skills of being a
Speaker 1: coach that do take time, and they do take training,
Speaker 1: and they do take presents, and they do take experience
Speaker 1: and nuance. And I can see the world of coaching
Speaker 1: the number of coaches shrinking and the quality of coaches increasing,
Speaker 1: because I do think there's a way that soon our
Speaker 1: AI is in our home. You're Siri or whoever will
Speaker 1: coach us. You know, I'll sit in my office and
Speaker 1: I'll go, hey, sirih, can you coach me? And Sirial
Speaker 1: go shaw, Michael, you know, it's been a week since
Speaker 1: you last as for coaching, But what's on your mind?
Speaker 1: And I'll go, oh blah blah blah blah blah, and
Speaker 1: Syrial go right, yeah, you talked about that before. What's
Speaker 1: the real challenge here for you? Michael? And I'll be like,
Speaker 1: ah blah blah blah, blah blah, and she goes exactly
Speaker 1: and what else. And I think it can be script
Speaker 1: led in form by AI, because a lot of what
Speaker 1: coaching is is creating the space to think and the
Speaker 1: space to be heard. And you don't need super magic
Speaker 1: tricks for that. You need the discipline to shut up,
Speaker 1: to ask a good question, that shut up and listen
Speaker 1: to the answer. And AI is excellent to that, and
Speaker 1: the discipline to try and be present with the other person.
Speaker 1: And actually AI can do that really well as well.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the time you don't
Speaker 1: really need a coach. You just need the structure of
Speaker 1: coaching to help you make progress. And I think there
Speaker 1: are times where you do need a wise guide, a
Speaker 1: wise teacher, a wise provocateur, and that's something that probably
Speaker 1: AI can't get to. And I think there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of people out there trained or even you know, not
Speaker 1: formally accredited, who are wonderful coaches for that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. The human element is important. I don't know
Speaker 1: how the value you see of empathy in coaching. You know,
Speaker 1: some people kind of think you should keep your emotions
Speaker 1: out of it. Coaches differ so much and so widely
Speaker 1: in their own style, their own personal style. It's hard
Speaker 1: to kind of standardize humans. So my thought, I mean,
Speaker 1: you can empathize at two different levels. I suspect one
Speaker 1: is you can kind of empathize with the situation. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I've been there, I've done it. I
Speaker 1: know what you Oh. It's awful, isn't it. And I
Speaker 1: don't think you need much of that because you know,
Speaker 1: most of the people I've ended up coach when I'm
Speaker 1: going to add hop gun coaching, I've never done something
Speaker 1: like they did. I mean, one of the great culminating
Speaker 1: moments of my professional experience was we've been using our
Speaker 1: training in Microsoft and being a kind of key part
Speaker 1: of their shift from a know it or culture to
Speaker 1: a learn it or culture led by Sachan Adela and
Speaker 1: a few years ago at their big sales conference in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, I coached their then head of sales on
Speaker 1: stage in front of five thousand Microsoftians if that's the
Speaker 1: right work. It was great. It was so exciting. And
Speaker 1: so I'm just asking Jp some of these questions, and
Speaker 1: I'm talking about it because he talks about it freely
Speaker 1: on his podcast and stuff, so I know it's not
Speaker 1: quite confidential, and I've never been ahead of sales, and
Speaker 1: you know, I've done sales for my tiny company and
Speaker 1: I was terrible at it. So I'm like, I know
Speaker 1: nothing about the sales thing. I know nothing about what
Speaker 1: it means to lead an organization of one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty thousand people. But what I do have empathy for
Speaker 1: is the human being. And Martin Buber talks about two
Speaker 1: types of relationships. I hit relationships and I vow relationships.
Speaker 1: I hit relationships. You know, they're kind of more transactional
Speaker 1: and you kind of lose a little bit of humanity
Speaker 1: in the exchange. And I thou relationships when you're present
Speaker 1: to the other person. And I think that one of
Speaker 1: the things that coaching can do is to be empathetic
Speaker 1: and present to the humanity of the other person. So
Speaker 1: I think that does involve emotion. And I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm classic over intellectual, straight white guy. I'm not actually
Speaker 1: that great at being connected to my emotion. But I
Speaker 1: really try to go you know that sounds hard, or
Speaker 1: that sounds exciting, or I'm thrilled or I'm disappointed, or
Speaker 1: I can feel how sad you are. That that doesn't
Speaker 1: require any expertise. It just requires a willingness to be
Speaker 1: human in a moment. I love it being human in
Speaker 1: the moment. That's a good title, book title. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: not a good book to I like it. A good quote,
Speaker 1: a good quote. Well, your your latest book is called
Speaker 1: how to Begin? Start doing something that matters. It's it's way,
Speaker 1: it's about way, way more than that. But he gets
Speaker 1: them in the door. It gets them in the door
Speaker 1: to begin, and then they realize, wow, this is also
Speaker 1: how to like finish as well. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: smartles in the field of positive psychology. Phrase smartkles is everywhere, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you say sparkles are dumb, So I mean you
Speaker 1: say that. What I know you mean is smarkles can
Speaker 1: be dumb. But can you can you elaborate a little
Speaker 1: bit more than that provocative statement, mister provocateur. I know
Speaker 1: I've got that whatever it is that wiring in my
Speaker 1: brain which is like how do I wind a little
Speaker 1: bit me too? It's like make them curious before you
Speaker 1: actually start teaching them anything. And I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: raise some eyebrows. So I started writing this new book,
Speaker 1: how to Begin, and it wasn't meant to be a
Speaker 1: book about goals it was meant to be and other
Speaker 1: attempt to try and crack what does it take to
Speaker 1: change individual behavior, because you know that's the goal for
Speaker 1: so much of us, which is like, how do I
Speaker 1: shift and how do I be differently and act differently
Speaker 1: so I can I can grow as a person. And
Speaker 1: anybody who's tried any of that ever, which is like
Speaker 1: everybody listening to this podcast goes it's hard. It is
Speaker 1: so hard to shift human behavior. I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and see if I can write
Speaker 1: another book to try and illuminate some corner of that.
Speaker 1: I wrote a draft of it, sent it out to
Speaker 1: some friends, and one wrote back immediately going, I've read
Speaker 1: some I've read sixty pages of your first draft. This
Speaker 1: is a terrible book. I don't even know what it's about.
Speaker 1: And I've read the first sixty pages. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: but he said, look, there's one phrase I really like,
Speaker 1: we unlock out greatness by working on the hard things.
Speaker 1: And that felt resonant and powerful. We unlock out greatness
Speaker 1: by working on the hard things. So then the question
Speaker 1: came to me, like, so how do you figure out
Speaker 1: what the hard things are for you to put your
Speaker 1: attention to, not only so you can do the hard things,
Speaker 1: but that you can unlock your weakness as part of that.
Speaker 1: And that's what took me to, well, how do you
Speaker 1: set the goal? How do you find the target for yourself?
Speaker 1: And then suddenly I went, you know what I've been
Speaker 1: talking about or being taught smart goals for the thirty
Speaker 1: years of my career. It's not just in positive psychology
Speaker 1: that this is the thing that's everywhere. Honestly, I'll go
Speaker 1: into a crowd and I go, what's the one word
Speaker 1: you associate with goals? And the crowd yells back in
Speaker 1: unis smart goals? And I'm like exactly, And then I
Speaker 1: got well, who knows what this is the thing? Who
Speaker 1: knows what smart goals stand for? Because it's an acronym.
Speaker 1: One are the five words, And everyone's like um, yeah, ooh,
Speaker 1: and all sorts of words come out. And here's one
Speaker 1: of the things about smart goals. This is the kind
Speaker 1: of the surface irritation. Nobody can quite remember what the
Speaker 1: acronym stands for. It's like trying to remember the seven
Speaker 1: dwarfs you can make good progress, and four of them
Speaker 1: if you think you've got the fifth one. You have
Speaker 1: no idea what the sixth and the seventh one. I
Speaker 1: don't know what back called. And the answer is bashful.
Speaker 1: By the way, that's the one nobody can ever remember.
Speaker 1: So one of the things about smart goals is, and
Speaker 1: I've seen the table of this, it's like three or four,
Speaker 1: maybe five actual credible alternatives for every single letter in
Speaker 1: the acronym. But here's the real irritation for me around
Speaker 1: smart goals. Most of what that is about is about
Speaker 1: tiding them up. It's about making them neat and making
Speaker 1: them containable, making them specific, making them measurable. And there
Speaker 1: is a place for all of that. And when that
Speaker 1: is the place that you start. If you don't have
Speaker 1: the right goal, it doesn't matter how smart the goal is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I always say it's like polishing a turd.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't have to do that. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to give people a framework of how to think about
Speaker 1: a goal that actually was like, how do you find
Speaker 1: the right goal? How do you find something that is
Speaker 1: important to you, important to the world to help you
Speaker 1: learn and grown. There's a place for tiding up once
Speaker 1: you get clear on what that goal is. But when
Speaker 1: you start with smart goals, You're you're you're starting with
Speaker 1: how do we measure this rather than what matters? I
Speaker 1: get the point that you were making, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it'd be good to outline for people what
Speaker 1: a worthy goal is. You talk about thrilling, important and daunting,
Speaker 1: and as my mentor Abraham Maslill put it, what's not
Speaker 1: worth doing is not worth doing. Well, that's his version
Speaker 1: of you can't polish a turd and you know, get
Speaker 1: something better than a tur That's that's Maslow's version of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. You know, I haven't heard that before,
Speaker 1: but you know, Drucker says the same thing. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like, there's the worst and doing really efficiently the
Speaker 1: thing that should never be done at all. So yes,
Speaker 1: I So when you think about a worthy goal, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: so smart's not going to do it for me? What
Speaker 1: what what's my take on it? How do you how
Speaker 1: do you build a goal that has a resilience and
Speaker 1: a resonance and a power that will keep people going
Speaker 1: on it? Because one of the things that I need
Speaker 1: to be true about myself and trugue about other people
Speaker 1: that I bumped into or coached was there's a lot
Speaker 1: of abandoned goals. There's a lot of I'm going to
Speaker 1: do this, and then you know, news resolutions are the
Speaker 1: most obvious case in point, but there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of you know, there's a graveyard of good
Speaker 1: intentions that haven't been followed through on. So how do
Speaker 1: you create something that has a power and a clarity
Speaker 1: and something that has intrinsic and extrinsic motivation so that
Speaker 1: you're more likely to stick to it when things get hart?
Speaker 1: And so just as you said, I'm like, I think
Speaker 1: there are three elements to it. Thrilling and important and daunting.
Speaker 1: So let me just explain what each of those are. Thrilling,
Speaker 1: really good place to start. It's like what lights you up,
Speaker 1: what gets you excited, what speaks to who you are
Speaker 1: now and who you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker 1: You know, what makes you kind of rub your hands
Speaker 1: together and go that would be pretty cool. I don't
Speaker 1: even really understan and what it's all about. I can
Speaker 1: feel the kind of quickening of my blood when I
Speaker 1: think about that as a possibility. And it's a really
Speaker 1: great place to start. And one of the things about
Speaker 1: focusing on thrilling is it is a countermeasure against obligation,
Speaker 1: because a lot of us inherent our goals well, like
Speaker 1: you know what, whether it's an explicit thing like at
Speaker 1: work you're told what to do, or more often it's
Speaker 1: a kind of internally learned story. You know, when I'm
Speaker 1: this person at this age doing this thing, I really
Speaker 1: should be doing this, I really should be doing that.
Speaker 1: It really this should be the next thing. And you're like, ah,
Speaker 1: my heart sinks a little bit when I think about it,
Speaker 1: but it feels like the thing I should do. When
Speaker 1: you start with thrilling, you're like, forget that, Just do
Speaker 1: the thing that makes you kind of you know, quickens
Speaker 1: your blood a little bit. But I don't think it
Speaker 1: can be just about thrilling, or at least the goals
Speaker 1: I want to help people set aren't just about what
Speaker 1: you want. I want them to in some way serve
Speaker 1: the world, you know. Jacqueline Novograt's author of A Wonderful
Speaker 1: Could a Manifesto for a Moral Revolution. She has a
Speaker 1: ted talk about this as well. She has a wonderful
Speaker 1: phrase in this book. She says, what if we could
Speaker 1: give more to the world than we take? And I
Speaker 1: think that is a magnificent call to action. What could
Speaker 1: we give more to the world than we take that?
Speaker 1: I just think if I could help more people do that,
Speaker 1: that makes our world a better place. Now, sometimes your
Speaker 1: goals are going to be in the context of the
Speaker 1: work that you do, and sometimes it's just in the
Speaker 1: context of the life that you live. But important is
Speaker 1: all about saying, how does this go beyond me and
Speaker 1: what I want? How does this contribute some way to
Speaker 1: the bigger picture. Now, what's interesting is thrilling and important
Speaker 1: have at tension with each other. They're not additive to
Speaker 1: each other. They're in a complex relationship with each other,
Speaker 1: and the excitement is in the tension. The excitement is
Speaker 1: figuring out what's the best tension between them. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the things about a smart goal is
Speaker 1: they tend to be additive. Let's make it specific and
Speaker 1: measurable and additive, Whereas I always think more interesting systems
Speaker 1: are where you've got a few principles, that of trying
Speaker 1: to find the right balance against each other. So thrilling
Speaker 1: and important, And then the final one is daunting and
Speaker 1: daunting is how does this keep you learning and growing?
Speaker 1: How does this take you to the edge of who
Speaker 1: you are and invite you further along the path. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know they saying you can't teach an old dog
Speaker 1: new tricks. You know, when I was younger, I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe that's true. But now I'm like, now I'm kind
Speaker 1: of getting to be an old dog, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: damn it, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
Speaker 1: So I will keep learning and I will keep growing.
Speaker 1: And you know, you'll know the you'll know the literature
Speaker 1: better than me, which is that you know, one of
Speaker 1: the true indicators of aging well is a willingness to
Speaker 1: keep learning. So how do you keep growing? Because it's
Speaker 1: actually you can imagine a worthy goal which is thrilling
Speaker 1: and important, but it actually is no longer daunting. It
Speaker 1: kind of keeps you busy, it keeps you fulfilled, but
Speaker 1: it also keeps you plateaued. You're no longer finding the
Speaker 1: of who you are and who you might be. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I think what you're looking to do is articulate
Speaker 1: a goal for yourself. And this is a big goal.
Speaker 1: This is not just you don't have twelve of these,
Speaker 1: you have this is the goal that I want to
Speaker 1: put time and attention to and you're looking to fine
Speaker 1: tune the best combination of thrilling and important and daunting
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah. Yeah, I think these three can come apart.
Speaker 1: What if you're a thrill seeker and you get bored
Speaker 1: really easily with something like, yeah, this is important daunting,
Speaker 1: but I've lost the thrill for it, you know, And yeah,
Speaker 1: that can be tough for a lot of people who
Speaker 1: say that they, Oh, I'm doing something important and darting.
Speaker 1: What more would I want? And they kind of they
Speaker 1: could feel guilty that it's not thrilling, right, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Right, I do. And the other thing,
Speaker 1: if you're doing important and daunting but not thrilling, meaning
Speaker 1: it doesn't speak to who you are, I feel that
Speaker 1: that's a short path to burn out. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are doing really significant work,
Speaker 1: you know, they're like they're making the world better. It's
Speaker 1: they're stretching them and it is exhausting them. And because
Speaker 1: there's none of that kind of internal feeding that happens
Speaker 1: because they're being nourished by the work that they're doing,
Speaker 1: it is just it's just exhausting, and that's only sustainable
Speaker 1: for so long. Yeah. Yeah, well that's that's very true.
Speaker 1: It also gets at the harmonious passion versus obsessive passion
Speaker 1: distinction and positive psychology and vol I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know that distinction. Yeah. Harmonious passion is when what
Speaker 1: we're engaging in really feels in wine with who we are,
Speaker 1: really passionate about it in a way that doesn't burn
Speaker 1: us out, and we know when to stop and we're
Speaker 1: flexible to move on to other things in life. But
Speaker 1: obsessive passion is something we do almost compulsively and like
Speaker 1: we have to do it, and it does lead to
Speaker 1: burn out very quickly. Yeah, yeah, that's really helpful. I
Speaker 1: didn't know the distinction, but I immediately shine some light
Speaker 1: and stuff. I get that wonderful, wonderful And so you
Speaker 1: say the magic's in the drafting. Yeah, okay, what does
Speaker 1: that mean? What does that mean? Well? Look, when I
Speaker 1: wrote the Coaching Habit, I'll get to an answer here,
Speaker 1: but just a minor detail. In the Coaching Habit book,
Speaker 1: there are seven questions, and one of the questions is
Speaker 1: the focus question. And the focus question, So what's the
Speaker 1: real challenge here for you? And the power of that
Speaker 1: question is it says the first challenge that shows up
Speaker 1: is never the real challenge. It's never the only challenge.
Speaker 1: So stay curious as to what the real challenge is
Speaker 1: because if you're able to go, look, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what's the real thing that needs to be
Speaker 1: solved or figured out or worked on here. That is
Speaker 1: the powerful intervention figuring out what the real challenge might be.
Speaker 1: And the key learning there is be patient, be curious,
Speaker 1: and don't accept the first answer as the real answer.
Speaker 1: And so often we get we get seduced into thinking
Speaker 1: that the first answer is the real answer. It rarely is.
Speaker 1: I think the same can be said about goal setting.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the reasons that goal setting
Speaker 1: can be disheartening for people and a bit disappointing is
Speaker 1: often it's a one and done first draft. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: pretty good, and I'll go with that. And I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of the you know, the so called where
Speaker 1: you can use SFD so something first draft. You can
Speaker 1: use whatever word you want for the s you know,
Speaker 1: the family friendly one is stormy or I like an
Speaker 1: lermot he says crappy first draft, and that's what I
Speaker 1: tend to go with. It's like, look, a first draft.
Speaker 1: Just assume it's a crappy first draft. And I can
Speaker 1: tell you know, we are both writers, we've both written books.
Speaker 1: We know that, like, we're pretty good writers. And our
Speaker 1: first draft is always a bit crappy. It's always a
Speaker 1: bit disappointing. This idea of trying to take what's in
Speaker 1: your brain and then you put it down on paper
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh my godness, that's nothing. That's nothing
Speaker 1: like the genius thing that's in my head. And it
Speaker 1: takes writing and rewriting to make it strong and tight
Speaker 1: and crisp and kind of resonant. And I just want
Speaker 1: people to go, look, your first draft, brilliant start, but
Speaker 1: it's crappy. And that's that's the paradox. Crappy first draft
Speaker 1: is the perfect start. And I want people to say,
Speaker 1: look a second and then a third draft will shift
Speaker 1: your worthy goal. So you need to have some structures
Speaker 1: to actually go, here's how you work it and rework
Speaker 1: it to actually get a goal that is optimized for thrilling,
Speaker 1: important and daunting for you. You say, before you move
Speaker 1: on to action, you have to understand what it means
Speaker 1: to commit, And you're saying it's not just saying yes
Speaker 1: to worthy goal? What else is it? Well? How to
Speaker 1: Begin book has going of three parts to it. The
Speaker 1: first part is about how do you figure out the
Speaker 1: worthy goal? So what scale do you play out? How
Speaker 1: do you find thrilling important and daunting? How do you
Speaker 1: move through a drafting process so you end up with
Speaker 1: something that feels pretty good for you? And if you
Speaker 1: get there and you're like, I've got with you all
Speaker 1: and I like it, it's kind of it's it's got
Speaker 1: engine ticking over nicely. The temptation is to launch into action,
Speaker 1: and I think this is where sometimes we just move
Speaker 1: a little too quickly, and a pause and a reflection
Speaker 1: on what it truly means to commit can be really powerful.
Speaker 1: And you know, the work that's really influenced me on
Speaker 1: this is the book Immunity to Change. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know that work. I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1: So Bob Keegan and Lisa Layhy, who are educational psychologists
Speaker 1: at Harvard, and they have a debt in their work
Speaker 1: to a leadership writer called Ron Hypez who talks about
Speaker 1: technical change versus adaptive change. And this is my attempt
Speaker 1: to build on that work and try and make it
Speaker 1: a little more accessible and simpler to it. Here's the
Speaker 1: metaphor that I heard first from Bob Keegan and Lisa Layhey.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're trying to make progress and we've got our
Speaker 1: foot on the accelerator. What we don't realize is at
Speaker 1: the same time, we have our foot on the break.
Speaker 1: And until you actually go, how do I take my
Speaker 1: foot off the break? It doesn't matter how hard you're
Speaker 1: pumping the accelerator, you're not going to make progress. So
Speaker 1: how do you figure out what the break is and
Speaker 1: whether you've got your foot on the break or not?
Speaker 1: And what they're really talking about is do you understand
Speaker 1: how committed you are to maintaining the status quote? Because
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's become really apparent
Speaker 1: is I wrote this book and I thought, through my
Speaker 1: own knowledge of change and change management, is we are
Speaker 1: far more committed to the status quote than we realize.
Speaker 1: Even as we're frustrated, even as we're irritated, stressed, overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: railing against it, we're getting something from it. And there's
Speaker 1: a way that we're maintaining something that gives us something
Speaker 1: in return. So this is what commitment means to me.
Speaker 1: You ask yourself two big questions. The first is this,
Speaker 1: you ive identified you're worthy goal. The first question you
Speaker 1: ask yourself is this, Let's say I said no to
Speaker 1: this worthy goal. You know, I walked all the way
Speaker 1: up to it, and now I walk back from that
Speaker 1: and go, I'm not going to do it. What are
Speaker 1: the prizes and punishments of that decision? What's the prizes?
Speaker 1: What you get from not taking on this worthy goal?
Speaker 1: And what you'll discover is what you get is you
Speaker 1: get to maintain predictability and status and expectations of yourself
Speaker 1: and expectations other people have you, and the relationships and
Speaker 1: money and time. There's a bunch of stuff that doesn't
Speaker 1: yet put at risk. You get to maintain the way
Speaker 1: things are justice they are. But what the price you
Speaker 1: pay for not taking on your worthy goal is manifold.
Speaker 1: It's what you imagine the impact of your worthy goal
Speaker 1: would be. It's what I would get as being part
Speaker 1: of the world around your worthy goal. It's about not
Speaker 1: having that impact that you dream of, not having that thrilling, important,
Speaker 1: daunting thing that you wanted to work on and that's
Speaker 1: really powerful and that doesn't get done very often. Which
Speaker 1: is this idea of how committed. Am I to the
Speaker 1: status quo? What's at risk if I take this on?
Speaker 1: And that's kind of the next variation of the question. Now,
Speaker 1: imagine fully committing to doing this worthy goal. You're like,
Speaker 1: I am up for it. I'm pushing all my chips
Speaker 1: into the center of the table here. I'm going for,
Speaker 1: first of all, what are the prizes of doing Now,
Speaker 1: what's the prizes of pursuing this? And you can imagine
Speaker 1: that the impact and the nourishment and the success and
Speaker 1: the growth for you, but also what's at risk? What's
Speaker 1: at risk if you fully commit to this, and there
Speaker 1: will be a price that will get paid. There is
Speaker 1: stuff at risk, and a lot of it is how
Speaker 1: you see yourself and how others see you, and where
Speaker 1: you're putting your time and money and effort and energy.
Speaker 1: And it's really about weighing up the consequences of making
Speaker 1: the choice. That's what I mean by making the commitment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense. My friend Mark Manson
Speaker 1: calls it about not giving a fuck so that you
Speaker 1: can have focks to give for the things that you
Speaker 1: care about. Yeah, well, I think that's exactly right. This
Speaker 1: is what I found so powerful about Ron Heifitz's work
Speaker 1: about adaptive change versus technical change. Sometimes we're naive about
Speaker 1: how change happens because I think there are two types
Speaker 1: of change, technical change, or as I put it, talk
Speaker 1: about it in the book simple Change. So easy change
Speaker 1: is a kind of additive process. You know, you're like,
Speaker 1: I need to figure something out. So you listen to
Speaker 1: a podcast and you watch a YouTube, and you read
Speaker 1: a book, and you practice a bit, and you're not
Speaker 1: that good to start off with, but then you do
Speaker 1: it again and you're better, and then you do it
Speaker 1: again and you're better, and then you get to where
Speaker 1: you want to be and you're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I went from A to B and it wasn't too bad.
Speaker 1: I learned how to do that. And we do that
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, we have a pandemic and
Speaker 1: then most of us go, all right, I've got to
Speaker 1: learn how to do stuff from home. So you learn
Speaker 1: how to set up a ring light, and you turn
Speaker 1: how to plug in a microphone, and you learn how
Speaker 1: to stare at a camera so you're not looking down
Speaker 1: that lends rather than off to the person. You learn
Speaker 1: all this sort of stuff and you adapt and your change.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like downloading a good app on
Speaker 1: your phone. You're like, this makes me a little bit smarter,
Speaker 1: a little bit more efficient, a little a little better
Speaker 1: who I am. But there are sometimes when you try
Speaker 1: and take on change, and frustratingly, even though you know
Speaker 1: how to do this in theory, in practice, you're like,
Speaker 1: I just can't get going on this. And you've read
Speaker 1: the books and you've listened to the podcast, and you've
Speaker 1: joined Masterclass, and you've joined Creative Live and you and
Speaker 1: you've hired somebody, and you're like, I can't learn anymore
Speaker 1: and I'm still stuck. And you've got you've downloaded every
Speaker 1: app that's possible, and none of them are making a difference.
Speaker 1: And when you're dealing with that, you're really dealing with
Speaker 1: hard change. And hard change isn't additive. Hard change is transformative.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of an app. You kind of need
Speaker 1: a new operating system, you know. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: you plus versus you two point zero, or present you
Speaker 1: versus future you. They're all kind of metaphors for the
Speaker 1: same thing, which is an adult development. You get to
Speaker 1: the top of your s curve and it takes something
Speaker 1: to take you to break through and leap to the
Speaker 1: next phase of development. And when you're restling with a
Speaker 1: worthy goal and you're having this moment of commitment, you're
Speaker 1: actually thinking to yourself, this isn't just additive to its additive,
Speaker 1: I've already be doing it. This is going to be
Speaker 1: transformative in some way. This is unlock my greatness. By
Speaker 1: working on the hard things, I'm unlocking my greatness. So
Speaker 1: I've got to get clear about what's at risk here
Speaker 1: so that I can take on what hard change really means. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of this sounds a little solitary you talk also,
Speaker 1: So that's why I think it's important to bring the
Speaker 1: idea that you can't travel this path of self actualization alone, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is the role of other people in this journey?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said that, because I think I'm
Speaker 1: wired to be a bit solitary about this stuff. I
Speaker 1: don't know whether it's again, you know, I'm like, I've
Speaker 1: got the kind of loan mail here, kind of striding
Speaker 1: over to the offer on the horizon, which is like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to conquer the world by myself, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: it turns out every time I've had success, I've I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of people around me. I mean, as
Speaker 1: I reflect on getting to twenty years at Box of Crowns,
Speaker 1: I'm like, even though I'm the founder of that, there
Speaker 1: are just I'm just one small dot of paint in
Speaker 1: that story, in that picture. There are so many other
Speaker 1: people whose energies and opinions and contributions have shaped what
Speaker 1: that is. You just can't do it alone. Rather than
Speaker 1: defining specific roles, because every worthy goal is different. It
Speaker 1: might be about your family, or your community, or your team,
Speaker 1: or your business or your country. I mean, who knows
Speaker 1: what scale you're playing at, what level of change you're
Speaker 1: thinking at. Basically borrowed an idea that I take from
Speaker 1: North American indigenous wisdom, which is calling in the directions,
Speaker 1: And like that when they call in the directions at
Speaker 1: the start of a meeting, they caught it the north,
Speaker 1: or they called it the east and the south and
Speaker 1: the west and the north, and each direction has an
Speaker 1: energy and a color, and a totemic animal and an
Speaker 1: archetypal energy and archetypal role. So East is calling in
Speaker 1: the fight or the warrior. It's about having backbone, It's
Speaker 1: about having boundaries, it's about drawing the line it's about
Speaker 1: pushing back South is about calling in the healer or
Speaker 1: or the lover sometimes, and that's about compassion and healing
Speaker 1: and shelter and renewal and vulnerability and messiness. When you
Speaker 1: call in the energies of the West, that's the teacher
Speaker 1: or the magician, so that's about learning and about knowledge.
Speaker 1: And then when you call in the North, that's the
Speaker 1: ruler or the visionary, and that's about calling in ambition
Speaker 1: and looking to the horizon and a ruthlessness as well.
Speaker 1: I think, and I think it's useful when you think
Speaker 1: about your worthy goal, You're like, what energies do I
Speaker 1: already have for this worthy goal? When energies are worth
Speaker 1: me calling in? And partly it's about developing the capacity
Speaker 1: within yourself, but sometimes you just need people around you
Speaker 1: as well to do that. You know, when I think
Speaker 1: about what I'm on work I on at the moment,
Speaker 1: I'm often quite good at visionary kind of ruler energy,
Speaker 1: and mostly good at teachery energy. But I'm a bit
Speaker 1: I'm a bit deficient and lover energy and warrior energy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm like, I don't have the backbone that
Speaker 1: I would like to have. I don't have the compassion
Speaker 1: for myself that I would like to have. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: I need some of those people around me to remind
Speaker 1: me of who I am, to make me feel okay
Speaker 1: about it, to kind of encourage me to be braver
Speaker 1: and bolder about the finding boundaries for myself. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: where do you get that from? And sometimes energy can
Speaker 1: be just in one person, but sometimes you want a
Speaker 1: collective around you going this is where I get this
Speaker 1: sense from, so that I can feel more complete in
Speaker 1: the project that I'm working on. Yeah, I love that
Speaker 1: it's just you. An interesting cut to not have a
Speaker 1: lover or warrior energy. I have some of it, but
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what's it's And I think you
Speaker 1: have your moments, but when you're doing something that is
Speaker 1: on your own edge where you're learning to be that
Speaker 1: your vulnerability has become more apparent. And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's just times where I roll over too easily,
Speaker 1: I say yes too easily, or or I don't ask
Speaker 1: for the help that I really need or I really want.
Speaker 1: And that's why I have people around me to kind
Speaker 1: of go Michael, I mean, I have a mastermind group.
Speaker 1: I've been part of for years, and I have a
Speaker 1: phase in every single project I work on where I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's hopeless, I can't do anything and it's so hard
Speaker 1: and I'm making any progress. I don't even know what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. And after fifteen years, I go, Michael, you
Speaker 1: do this every time. This is exactly how you always
Speaker 1: are at this stage. Just be nice to yourself. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right, I do do that,
Speaker 1: and there that they're that kind of healer or lover
Speaker 1: energy for me just to go, Michael, just just calm down,
Speaker 1: just be nice. Yeah, good good, good good. Well there's
Speaker 1: the oh there self compassion there that your friends can
Speaker 1: instill in you so you can and start internalizing its
Speaker 1: right hopefully. Yeah. Is there like a threshold here where
Speaker 1: like passed to some point of the journey that is
Speaker 1: qualitatively different, because I know you say that the journey
Speaker 1: is not straightforward. Is there a threshold at all of
Speaker 1: the journey where something feels different? Well? I think, I
Speaker 1: mean it's a very archetypal question. You know, the hero's
Speaker 1: journey is all about it. You're so archetypal. You are
Speaker 1: so archetypal, darling sochetypal let me tell you, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: heroes journey is like the hero here's the call. She
Speaker 1: doesn't answer the call, she hears the call again, she
Speaker 1: finally answers the call. She crosses the threshold and she's
Speaker 1: and the commit and it's happening, and a journey has begun.
Speaker 1: And I do feel that, you know, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of writing which is like, the hero's journey is not
Speaker 1: the only journey, and it's patriarchal, and I'm like, you
Speaker 1: know what that's That might be true, but it's also
Speaker 1: a really good archetype and a really good pattern of
Speaker 1: journeying that lots of people recognize. And I do, and
Speaker 1: I do think there's a moment where you commit. There's
Speaker 1: a moment where you cross the threshold. And now it
Speaker 1: gets interesting because now you now you face the doubts
Speaker 1: and the trials and the tribulations of taking on this
Speaker 1: worthy goal where you've got something that is on the
Speaker 1: edge of what's possible for you because you've chosen something
Speaker 1: thrilling and important and daunting, and you've fine tuned it
Speaker 1: to make sure it's all of that. And so you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't really know how to do this like daunting
Speaker 1: means you know how to start, but you don't really
Speaker 1: know how to finish. So we have a community of
Speaker 1: people who are working on how to begin worthy goal,
Speaker 1: and tomorrow is our monthly meeting with them, and I'm
Speaker 1: coaching three of them around that. And I'm coaching them
Speaker 1: around this is the misery of being as part of
Speaker 1: the journey. This is when you're in the in the valley,
Speaker 1: in the shadow and you're like, I'm doubting myself. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do too much, I'm trying to do too little.
Speaker 1: And so I think the bigger answer here is the
Speaker 1: magic is actually in undertaking the journey, because you do
Speaker 1: all that work to set the goal, and then it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of almost misdirection because and you might
Speaker 1: know this research you probably do, which is if you
Speaker 1: spend too much time visualizing your outcome, visualizing your goal,
Speaker 1: it's actually demotivating because the brain is not that good
Speaker 1: at telling the difference between inside and outside. That's the
Speaker 1: amazingness of our imagination. If you over visualize the success,
Speaker 1: your brain goes you got it. I can taste it.
Speaker 1: This is amazing. Everybody relaxed, Everybody stand down because we've arrived. Actually,
Speaker 1: the power is to notice the gap between where you
Speaker 1: are now and where you think the goal might be. So, yes,
Speaker 1: you're unlock your greatness by working on the hard thing.
Speaker 1: It's not by winning the prize. And so now you
Speaker 1: start the journey and you're trying to navigate, and there'll
Speaker 1: be moments where you get somewhere and you're like, I
Speaker 1: need to pivot, I need to change direction, I need
Speaker 1: to tweak the goal. It turns out it's not that
Speaker 1: mountain at all. It's that mountain next to it over there.
Speaker 1: But it's a process of you're in the journey, and
Speaker 1: what I hope is more people stick with the journey. Now,
Speaker 1: there's obviously a place that sometimes you're like, it's not
Speaker 1: a bad idea to abandon something that's not working. But
Speaker 1: if you've gone through the drafting and you've actually kind
Speaker 1: of optimized for thrilling, important and daunting, if you've found
Speaker 1: people around you, if you figured out how to travel
Speaker 1: so you're traveling in small steps rather than trying to
Speaker 1: do too much too fast, then there's a better chance
Speaker 1: for you to say, this still matters, So how do
Speaker 1: I keep going even though this is turning into a
Speaker 1: bit a difficult part of the journey. Yes, you remind
Speaker 1: me of that was that was a good soliloquy. That
Speaker 1: one was good. No, you remind me a little bit
Speaker 1: of Gabrielle Odingen's research n YU. She calls it when
Speaker 1: you fantasize too much about something, she calls it indulging.
Speaker 1: She calls it the indulging stage of the goal attainment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you got me thinking about her research on that
Speaker 1: and her model. You must have heard of her WHOOP model.
Speaker 1: I don't think I have. What's the WOOP model? There
Speaker 1: we go that you're like archetypal disco dancer, and that
Speaker 1: is a very small ven diagram overlap. I'm loving that. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm a hip hop hip hop The answer, I don't
Speaker 1: know about disco anyway. That should that should? I asked?
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true, that's a fair point. That's I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not in my hip hop gear right now.
Speaker 1: I do suggest that our listeners google the WHOOP model
Speaker 1: of goal attainment, because it's a whole thing that you
Speaker 1: can even download the app. WHOOP stands for wish outcome
Speaker 1: app obstacle and plan wish outcome obstacle and plan, and
Speaker 1: the wish part is the emphasize is important not to
Speaker 1: get too stuck on that stage where you start to
Speaker 1: think that you've obtained it already by indulging. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's h she's doing great work and
Speaker 1: it seems very much in line with what you're talking about. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: what's like kind of in here with the end of
Speaker 1: the journey? Which I want you to set me straight
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't even say such words, right? Is there
Speaker 1: ever an end to the journey? How should we be
Speaker 1: thinking about the journey and thinking about the actual moment
Speaker 1: of goal attainment? Is there ever such a moment? Can
Speaker 1: you can you kind of help me think about this
Speaker 1: in a way? Well, look, I don't. I don't touch
Speaker 1: on that so much on the book because truly in
Speaker 1: the book, I'm like, can I get you? Can I
Speaker 1: get you going? Because how how the journey plays out,
Speaker 1: you know, it can depend on a lot. But I
Speaker 1: think if you're lucky, you you do get to cross
Speaker 1: it across the line and say that I'm done. Like
Speaker 1: writing the Coaching Habit Book was a worthy goal for me.
Speaker 1: It took me years and I finally got the book
Speaker 1: out in the world, and that was a moment and
Speaker 1: I came really close to, you know, ignoring whatever advice
Speaker 1: I give other people, which is, damn it, jim, stop
Speaker 1: and celebrate, stop and actually go well done well. And
Speaker 1: actually there's just there's so much to be said in
Speaker 1: terms of don't just celebrate the big final finish. But
Speaker 1: it's like, keep celebrating the small milestones along the way,
Speaker 1: because it is it is no small thing. You're both
Speaker 1: doing the work, you're unlocking your greatness and you've reached something.
Speaker 1: And if some people are wired like me, which is
Speaker 1: like quite future oriented, and I come close regularly to
Speaker 1: miss missing the celebration, I'm like, oh good, but who
Speaker 1: cares onto the next thing? Never be satisfied, and if
Speaker 1: you want to call them back, the bigger journey never ends,
Speaker 1: at least I hope not. Which is like you're constantly
Speaker 1: going what's thrilling, what's important and daunting from me? And
Speaker 1: you live a life where you're on that edge going
Speaker 1: I'm exploring who I am and what this world is
Speaker 1: and how I contribute to the world. But I do
Speaker 1: think that you know, Kevin Kelly, founder a Wired magazine
Speaker 1: and a great writer and thinker. Really. He has a
Speaker 1: blog post from a while back at kk dot org
Speaker 1: which is figuring out your death date. It's like, here's
Speaker 1: when you die, and you can do it with kind
Speaker 1: of actuarial tables, and he'll tell you roughly kind of
Speaker 1: actually specifically, according to actuarial table, statistically, this is when
Speaker 1: you die. And that's interesting. But I thought what he
Speaker 1: said that next was most interesting, which is each big
Speaker 1: project takes about five years. Now, according to my death date,
Speaker 1: I've got about twenty one years left. It's like September
Speaker 1: twenty forty three is when I'm allegedly up for it.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, it's twenty one years after. That's
Speaker 1: like four big projects. You know, she's carefully Michael. You
Speaker 1: know you've got some big things ahead of you. What
Speaker 1: you want to do that feels that right combination of thrilling,
Speaker 1: important and daunting. Oh man, well, I wish you all
Speaker 1: the best luck of the world needs it. The project
Speaker 1: you've done so far are really great. And you say,
Speaker 1: you say, quote lean Locker greatness by working on the
Speaker 1: hard things, not by winning them. So I hope you
Speaker 1: keep working. That's my coaching session for you today. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. I'm writing it down. Thank you, write it down,
Speaker 1: take notes, and I'll hold you accountable. But it was
Speaker 1: a real honor for me too, as someone who's trying
Speaker 1: to get more in the coaching world myself, and I'm
Speaker 1: creating this form of coaching calling self accusation coaching. I'm
Speaker 1: really learning a lot from you, and I really appreciate
Speaker 1: your your humility and curiosity. It's really wonderful. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being on my show today. You know what,
Speaker 1: it was a thrill to be on the show. I've
Speaker 1: been wanting to be a guest here for so long,
Speaker 1: and so this is a culmination of something important for me.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go ahead and celebrate this. Thank you.
Speaker 1: But was it daunting? What was it daunting? It was
Speaker 1: a little daunting. I mean I've done a lot of podcasts,
Speaker 1: but I felt more daunted by this podcast and I
Speaker 1: have for any for quite a while. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what this is this? I want to show
Speaker 1: up as best I can for this podcast. Good. So
Speaker 1: we got the trifecta thrilling and dating wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 1: you heard. I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 1: at the Psychology podcast dot com or on our YouTube
Speaker 1: page The Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos
Speaker 1: of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so
Speaker 1: you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such
Speaker 1: a great supporter of the show, and tune in next
Speaker 1: time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.