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The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
00:00:07:01 - 00:00:33:21
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Moon Moonshot podcast. It's episode 233. I'm your co-host, My Passions. And as always, I'm joined by Mr. Mike is in Finland. Good morning, Mike. Hey, good morning, Mike. Good morning, listeners. Good morning, viewers. Good morning, members. Mike, We are diving back into a brand new series. We're actually halfway through the boy. Do we have an action packed episode ahead of us today?
00:00:33:23 - 00:00:59:05
Unknown
And I'm going to say, Mark, I'm a little proud of choosing the work of Michael Bungay Steiner. He's a smart, creative chap, and I think he's got a lot to teach us, as we saw in the last episode around how to coach and mentor others and part of building any good business project product, you name it, it takes the exchange of ideas.
00:00:59:05 - 00:01:36:24
Unknown
And I think this book today from Old MBAs is right on the money. Yeah, that's right. And this is book that we're diving into today is the advice trap be humble, stay curious and change the way you lead forever. Mike, if there was ever a maybe I've said this before in the show, if there was ever a subhead to one of our books that we cover on the show, I think Michael Boom Guy Stanier might be taking it here because in the advice trap almost, I'd say an extension to the book that we covered last week, which was the coaching habit, is really diving back in to really getting the most out of your team,
00:01:37:00 - 00:02:04:02
Unknown
your colleagues, your workforce. And I think today the difference that we're really going to explore is how to really ask questions that drive, I think, impact as well as engagement amongst the team and figure out a way of really bring out the best in those around. You don't think? I think that's a big part of it. And I think this is like if you subscribe to a growth mindset where learning and resilience is part of your practice.
00:02:04:05 - 00:02:49:13
Unknown
Well, I think what this book does and it's closely related, it takes it into the exchange of ideas and how to collaborate together. So the premise that we're going to explore together today, I think is going to be all about the idea of curiosity and advice and embracing change and doing things differently. I mean, if you think about the Apple campaign, think different, this book is all about that kind of stuff, and it's going to give us some clues on how we can discuss, talk, create, brainstorm with our colleagues, with our teammates in a way that is not only great for the pursuit of a better idea and a better self, but I think better
00:02:49:13 - 00:03:12:24
Unknown
teamwork and most importantly, helping those around you. And if there was ever a silent way to become a great leader, it is empowering those around you, said Mark, I am ready to dig in. Mm. Empowerment. Getting those around you on the same page. I mean, this is music to our moonshot years. So I'll tell you what else is music to my ears?
00:03:12:24 - 00:03:34:04
Unknown
And that's Michael Stanier himself. So a note of the chit chat. Mike why don't we hear from NBC and the future of what podcast? Who's going to bring to life three of the key themes from the book and help us understand each other. What's the simple way for people to understand empathy? Because empathy and sympathy are obviously not the same thing.
00:03:34:04 - 00:03:53:15
Unknown
And I feel like I feel like in our organizations, we're pretty good at the sympathy part, you know, I'm sorry you feel that way, like blah, blah, blah. So how would you explain the empathy piece and any suggestions on how to practice that as a leader? Yeah, well, you know, people know my bias from listening to us. So the last 45 minutes.
00:03:53:15 - 00:04:20:19
Unknown
But I am committed to curiosity being this essential leadership behavior. And as I did this work and figured this stuff out and wrote this book, I saw three leadership characteristics emerging from leaders who were deeply based in curiosity. There was empathy, there was mindfulness, and there was humility or being humble and each one of those gives you access to greater knowledge.
00:04:20:21 - 00:04:45:13
Unknown
Empathy is greater understanding of the other. Mindfulness is greater understanding or humility is greater understanding of the situation or know of you. And a mindfulness is a greater understanding of the situation. When you when you're more mindful, you're more in the moment, you get to see more, you get to notice more. You're actually a little better connected to the truth.
00:04:45:15 - 00:05:20:02
Unknown
When you're empathetic, you actually get to understand a little bit more about what's going on for that other person, and you're a little bit more connected to the truth. When you're humble, you get to see more about who you are in all your messy glory, and you're a little more connected to the truth. And when you have the three of them, you have this kind of combined way of seeing reality that makes you smarter and wiser and less easily triggered and less easily kind of push down patterns of behavior that no longer serve you with some mindfulness, humility and empathy.
00:05:20:04 - 00:05:42:10
Unknown
And then how do you go about practicing or implementing these three things as a leader or as an employee? Are there any? I don't know, honestly. I don't know simple things, but just practical things. Well, I feel like I'm banging the drum, so forgive me if I keep saying the same answer, but I do think by staying curious longer, these three things open up for you.
00:05:42:15 - 00:06:04:06
Unknown
Because when you're curious longer, you actually get to understand that other person a bit more. You stop just going yet? Okay. Shut up, Jacob. Let me just tell you the ideas when you're curious longer, you get to find out what's really going on and say a little more grounded. What's going on. When you're curious longer, you actually get to see what drives you and who you are as a leader.
00:06:04:06 - 00:06:35:13
Unknown
So you get that kind of humility of being your feet on the ground. You have that connection, curiosity, curiosity, curiosity. Max It's interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, in order to be curious together, when we want to work on something, think about something, discuss something. Sometimes time is our enemy, like the rush and the reaction and just trying to get it done before close of business.
00:06:35:15 - 00:07:07:12
Unknown
And it's really interesting to put this idea of curiosity forward. And he touched on those things that we've got up on the screen here. For those of you that are watching. And what I love is that these three areas empathy, humility and mindfulness have to be almost the direct opposite of what we see. So much time is cast as the iconic leader behaviors, so much time they are squashed.
00:07:07:18 - 00:07:41:13
Unknown
But going Rambo predator types who are barging and pushing things forward and in a rash, never resting. But I think what you see here, it's like the starting point to all of this curiosity is create time and space, take a breath, look around to see how people are doing. Be aware of the dynamics, perhaps in a room or a call or a meeting like this is almost the groundwork.
00:07:41:13 - 00:08:18:13
Unknown
If you want to entertain the curiosity piece, if you want to search for a better way of doing something, just rushing to the same old conclusions without the some sort of deeper work, it's yeah, you're never going to get a difference that you have to look to these things. And what I think Mark is, these are three things that you can remember, even if you want to kind of selfishly be great yourself, then the first thing you do is abandon that preoccupation and make those around you.
00:08:18:16 - 00:08:51:03
Unknown
Right? And I think these three things, it's a very good start. Yeah, I think you're totally right. And I think these three areas and the awareness of others humility, awareness of self mindfulness, awareness of the situation, obviously, and this is coming at it from a leader perspective, but I quite like the idea that actually this is true for any interaction, situation, collaboration, or even just appreciation of the moment in your life.
00:08:51:07 - 00:09:12:17
Unknown
You know, when you've got a very tough day ahead or you're running late and you know, the busses is, you know, running through a puddle and you're getting soaked, whatever it might be, I think this has a really real extension into not only how to be better with others and obviously the theme of the book is advice, The advice Trap.
00:09:12:21 - 00:09:54:09
Unknown
How do you provide advice to others? How do you advise take on board advice yourself? I think the extension here could be how do we stay curious outside of business as well, and actually take time to appreciate others around us? How do we appreciate the situation as an opportunity to practice? Maybe our mindfulness practice, our humility when we're referring back to ourselves, reflecting on how we reacting to certain things, Maybe it's through journaling and so on, but as well as the empathy piece, how we looking at others, how do we take care of them, how we patient with them rather than reacting immediately and thinking the worst about people?
00:09:54:11 - 00:10:29:08
Unknown
What do you think of these three? Empathy, humility and mindfulness is the hardest to do at work. Hmm. At work, I think. Oh, that's an interesting one. As you're thinking, I'll read out the subheadings. Empathy is awareness of others humility. Awareness of your self. Mindfulness is awareness of this situation. Which do you think is the hardest of the three?
00:10:29:10 - 00:10:59:00
Unknown
I think the hardest me is the awareness of others. And the reason being that there is a selfishness, but I think comes with being in a working situation. You may. I don't necessarily mean I don't wanna get fired, so therefore I'll throw the people under the bus. It isn't I'm not going to that extreme. But I think what happens quite naturally with work is there's a self-preservation angle.
00:10:59:03 - 00:11:16:20
Unknown
You want to make sure that you are delivering the best of your abilities. And sometimes what that can lead to is a dismissal of somebody else's request. Erica To put that to put an example into a situation, somebody might come up to you and say, Hey, I've got this idea and I really need to run it past someone.
00:11:16:22 - 00:11:38:16
Unknown
No, sorry, I'm too busy right now. I've got a deadline. Well, hey, I don't really understand this process system mind. It's going to take a couple of hours. Do you mind helping me? Well, no, sir. I've got my own deadline. I think the awareness of others and maybe that the situations that they themselves are in is probably where there's a real struggle.
00:11:38:16 - 00:12:07:21
Unknown
Perhaps because you are, you know, pretty distracted, I suppose you could say, with the jobs that are already on your plate. And as we've talked about in the past, a lot of the time when it comes to deadlines, they aren't real deadlines. We can move them. Ideally, you can think about the work, think about the situation, reflect on it, come back to it later and likewise with the self, with humility.
00:12:07:21 - 00:12:39:05
Unknown
I think there's an there's work that we're all always doing, trying to understand ourselves, recognize certain behaviors that I think and I want to hear your point of view, Mike, that empathy is probably the hardest one within the office just because of that alignment. Yeah, I think you're right. So I'm trying to think of like we've basically got to get all three of these practices working to unlock curiosity as per Michael Bingo.
00:12:39:05 - 00:13:06:12
Unknown
Stainer So let's play this out a little bit. Like I think my go to on humility is don't be the first to speak and listen to understand, right? Not to be trying to argue a point. So I think that would be a really good starting point for habits around humility. Don't be the first to speak. Ask a lot of questions, be reluctant giving advice too quickly, you know, that kind of stuff.
00:13:06:14 - 00:13:33:10
Unknown
Just understand, you know, and listen to others will tackle empathy last because that one seems like it's the tricky one, Mike, that you've successfully an awareness of the situation to rethink Pnb's is going there. I think this is understanding as a leader. Obviously you remember the the theme and the angle that may be coming from here is how to show up as a leader.
00:13:33:12 - 00:14:03:05
Unknown
I think awareness of the situation is the whole pie rather than focusing just in the immediate slice. Yeah. Okay. Well, what are the the quarter deadlines that we need to hit? What are the goals that we have in place from either a KPI perspective or revenue perspective? I would say that the mindfulness piece, the awareness situation is taking a step back and being able to, as we've referenced in the show, work on it, on the business rather than in the business.
00:14:03:07 - 00:14:25:18
Unknown
And from a helicopter perspective, being able to see where all of your teams are working, the work that is moving forward from a high level perspective, perhaps more so than really getting into the guts because as a leader, you don't really have time to do that. I think that's where he's coming from with this mindfulness angle, with this mindfulness space.
00:14:25:18 - 00:14:55:12
Unknown
Yeah. So I would present a couple of things you can do there. So imagine that we're at the start of a meeting and you want to like be aware of the situation before arriving in that meeting. I would say, do we have the right people in the right place at the right time? This conversation like a little checking, right.
00:14:55:14 - 00:15:16:19
Unknown
Does it feel right to have these attendees talking about this subject right now? This has to be a quick check and that might reveal. Do you know what? Maybe if we have these people in the room, that doesn't really serve the objective of the meeting, or maybe it's the other way round in order to serve the objective of the meeting or the goal of the project.
00:15:16:19 - 00:15:45:04
Unknown
Actually, we really do need to grab some people. So rather than just showing up and sort of scrambling and bootstrapping your way through the meeting, you can, regardless of whether it's your meeting or someone else's. I mean, what a palliative if you are organizing a meeting. And I came to you and said, Hey, I know what you're trying to achieve and I think we need to have this meeting, but I'm wondering, surely we might need to get Joe and Jane in the meeting as well, because they're pretty involved in this and they might have some good ideas.
00:15:45:06 - 00:16:13:13
Unknown
Now, you might say, I thought about it, but here's why I didn't. I'll be like, okay, Oh, good. Or you might be like, That's a great idea. I didn't even think to get them involved. So that's, that's I think some good mindfulness happens. Let's go off to this rather challenging one of awareness of others. You know, I think the greatest trap to fall into here is thinking, well, if I just ask them how they're going, then I'm checking it out.
00:16:13:15 - 00:16:59:01
Unknown
But I think we can do a bit more than that. If you want to be aware of how others are feeling, thinking what? What little habits do you think? What little practices do you think we could use with folks to truly understand where they're at? Well, I think there was obviously the bill that we heard from members in the coaching habit, which is and then so this idea of really active listening, really getting into similar to the Toyota five whys, what is the issue why is that the case turning more let me know and this idea of really diving into potential problem or the root cause of potential challenges that an individual or a colleague
00:16:59:01 - 00:17:33:20
Unknown
might be facing. I think it all starts it probably starts there. This idea of active listening. Yeah. And so the to continue on that theme, they're not often the hardest thing is the icebreaker right so coming back to this idea of just not asking how you're doing, one of the things I would like, like I like to do is, is I would not kind of go off to someone directly and say, How are you feeling?
00:17:33:20 - 00:18:02:04
Unknown
Are you okay? I think that's a little too direct and you're just going to get. Yeah, I'm fine. You know, you're not going to get like I like questions that are not definitive in their answer. Like, yes or no. I like deliberately asking questions. How did you feel about X, Y, Z? Or I'd be interested to know what you think about this and see where they go.
00:18:02:06 - 00:18:23:16
Unknown
And then you come in with your five whys. And this is like a12 punch back because I ask the reason why. Tell me more. What else? How come can you help me understand that? But I think the most important thing is to ask people have I think or feel about a thing, and then you can talk about the team or even themselves if that is appropriate.
00:18:23:18 - 00:18:53:14
Unknown
And I think that's how you start to at least hear from them, how they're doing. I mean the other big one Mike is non verbal gestures, right. Mhm. Mhm. The idea of really being able to read people's reaction, not only reactions and it's a lot easier to do obviously that in real life unless you're expressive like you and me Mike, I think our viewers can probably tell what we're thinking by are facial animations.
00:18:53:14 - 00:19:16:22
Unknown
They're both, but our listeners might find that a little bit harder to do. And I think there's a lot that we can glean from this idea of reading people isn't men. Yeah, I mean, a lot of what that is, this idea of reading the room, right, that you've probably heard about. So imagine if you've done your little mindfulness practice before the meeting to say, Hey, right people, right place.
00:19:16:24 - 00:19:38:00
Unknown
And then you're like, okay, I'm just going to listen and learn for the first half of the meeting that listening and learn move. Since you are beautifully to read the room, do you not busy trying to like be the smartest person in the room. You're just listening and watching and like, what do you think some of that tells for a person that's disconnected or not feeling good in the meeting?
00:19:38:06 - 00:20:24:15
Unknown
What would you look for? Well, I mean, from person experience, anybody who's probably got a laptop in front of them and they're sitting opposite you and like this, like this and you can't see them. Yeah, that's probably a big alarm bell, right? Yeah, that's a big one, I think. Yeah. I think distraction I think probably those again, going back to your idea of locking in the attendees, trying to encourage everybody to have either something to say or to take some kind of involvement because I think there's been a lot of times that we've probably all been on course where maybe even ourselves we sat there and maybe not really needed to contribute anything.
00:20:24:17 - 00:20:47:07
Unknown
And I think that's another big I wouldn't say alarm bell, but another area where I think we can improve when it comes to collaborating with others is trying to encourage active participation. Sometimes, you know, a simple tip from those businesses who work remotely always have a camera. Something as simple as that encourages breaks down that barrier, doesn't it?
00:20:47:09 - 00:21:07:15
Unknown
It really does. So look at that. Some practices of empathy, humility and mindfulness to get the curiosity in the meeting going. That's got me curious. And I tell you, there's a bunch of curious cats in our community. They might be A-listers, they might be viewers, but we call them. And boy, do we have some members on the go right now.
00:21:07:15 - 00:21:56:10
Unknown
My these members are coming back to us week on week and really working hard on embracing their best selves. So please welcome Bob Marshall in Ken, Dietmar, Martin, Connor, Rodrigo and Lisa said Mr. Bond Yeah, Paul and Cowman, Joe, Christine and Samuel, Barbara, Andre, Eric and Chris, Deborah Lasry, Stephen Craig, Daniel, Andrew, Ravi and Evette, all of our annual members, but also on those heels are Karen, Raul, PJ and Nick, Lara, Ola Ingram, Dirk and Emily, Harry Karthik and Casa and Marco, Jess, Roger, Anna Rau, Nick, Len, Eric, Diana and Wade, Christoph and Denise, Laura and Smitty, Corrie, Gail Bertram and Daniela.
00:21:56:12 - 00:22:26:18
Unknown
Mike Nelson, Dan Antonio, Vanessa and Zachary, all of whom are our members of the Moonshot show and therefore Mike are recipients and receivers of the Master series. They are lucky devils and do they get a whole additional second podcast just for them? And we in a record that master series next week, I think What topic did we come to agreement on for the next episode of the series?
00:22:26:20 - 00:22:53:08
Unknown
Well for all of whom are thinking wow, these guys and really talking about, you know, building good working habits with colleagues, understanding how to read others. Essentially, I wish they'd come to do a show on relationships. Well, good news listeners, and particularly for our members, because we have an action packed master series episode recording next week on good Relationships.
00:22:53:11 - 00:23:13:00
Unknown
There we go. So whether it's personal or professional will guide you there and you can only get access to that if you're a member. So head over to mentioned studio, become a member and enjoy all that cosmic karma, Enjoy all the good stuff and you'll be on the path to not only being your better self, but you'll be able to embrace hard and easy change.
00:23:13:02 - 00:23:42:07
Unknown
And I'll tell you what, we've got some thoughts from Michael Bungay. Staying is the mark. Why don't you let it rip? Let's play this next clip from Michael. Okay, stay it. Let's hear now about the idea of easy versus hard change. One of the things you mentioned, the book that I love is at the beginning you talk about change and how there's easy change and there's hard change and changing something like this, this type of behavior, Taming of the Advice Monster.
00:23:42:11 - 00:24:06:16
Unknown
Yeah, that's a hard change, right? It's not just something you just figure it out overnight. Well, it depends. So let me talk a little bit about this whole idea of just change stuff. You know, the coaching habit came out and was a surprise hit, went on and sold lots of copies. And it means that there's lots of people who read that book and went, This is great.
00:24:06:18 - 00:24:25:14
Unknown
It's practical. Seven good questions. I can use these and they start using them and things get better for them and for the people that they're managing and they're leading. So that's wonderful. And of course there's a small percentage of people, maybe a larger percentage. I hope it's more who read the book and grow. This book sucks. I hate this book.
00:24:25:16 - 00:24:54:01
Unknown
You suck, Michael. Coaching sucks. Your book sucks. You know all of that. So there's always there's always the people who are not fans, and that's fine as well. And then there are a number of people, you know, and probably tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands who've read the book and gone I Like it, just can't do it, even though it seems straightforward enough because it's just can you add seven good questions to the way that you work?
00:24:54:01 - 00:25:19:07
Unknown
Can you stay curious a little bit longer? But that sounds like it should be relatively easy to pull off. But for lots of people it's not. And you know, this concept of easy change, hard change, that's me trying to again time make more simple concepts that are out there. And previously, like Ron Heifetz, talked about adaptive change and technical change or technical changes.
00:25:19:08 - 00:25:41:07
Unknown
Easy change. Adaptive change is hard change. Bob Keegan and Lisa Lahey And immunity to change. You touched on this, this work as well. Easy change is when you basically go, look, I'm just kind of additive. I'm refining what I already do and taking the seven questions which lots of people can do and adding them to how they show up.
00:25:41:09 - 00:26:02:14
Unknown
That is easy change, that's additive change. And that's one way of taming the advice monster for some of the people. Just like, you know what, to just do that thing. Ask anyone else a bit more often and good things will happen. But for some people it's like, I can't it just adding the thing doesn't work because I can't seem to add to the thing.
00:26:02:16 - 00:26:31:02
Unknown
And this is hard change and hard changes when you realize that you can't just add. You need to kind of transform, You know, the metaphor that I sometimes uses. Easy change is like downloading an app on your phone. Hard changes when you need a new operating system. Pretty powerful stuff when you hear him talking about getting a whole new operating system, when is it where do you start?
00:26:31:02 - 00:26:59:00
Unknown
When you when you identify that? Like where do you begin processing that? Well, I think it would be natural when one hears that, pretty easy to understand metaphor to feel intimidated. Wow, that sounds like a lot of work. I'm going to have to change everything. I'm going to change the way that my mind works by creating this new change.
00:26:59:02 - 00:27:39:02
Unknown
So I think that's, first of all, a fairly understandable reaction that people may well have. But I think they build on that there. Mike, is the fact that you can break it down, you can break it down into what NBS refers to as those easy changes and incorporate them slowly into your life. You know, we've obviously covered a lot of different areas on the show with regards to habits, routines, creating ways of working and ways of thinking that we can start, you know, right away and then see the benefits years down the line or hopefully sooner.
00:27:39:04 - 00:28:10:18
Unknown
I think for me, the way that I react and interpret what Michael was just breaking down for us there is that change is possible no matter how big it is, even if it is the biggest change possible you can do it with. But it takes effort. Yeah, and it's a meta matter and mega theme of the show is like this ancient wisdom of we vastly overestimate what we can do in a day, but we vastly underestimate what we can do in a year.
00:28:10:18 - 00:28:51:14
Unknown
If you look at atomic habits from James Clear and you look at the compound effect from James Hardie, these books celebrate just banging away at it day after day and let that beautiful consistency go start small thing. We have that from Tim Ferriss. We hear that from James Clear as well, Like why does dieting fail so many is that they expect to lose enormous amounts of weight in a very, very short time so we can reconfigure ourselves and just pause for a moment when we're working with others rather than telling them what to do, ask them what are the big challenges they face.
00:28:51:14 - 00:29:20:24
Unknown
Right. And as they're telling you, I mean, it's almost like don't even conclude on some advice until you've done why five times aloud the Toyota. Right. And then bring out another book that we really loved was Kaizen. You know, this continuous improvement and this this little infographic that you've got on the screen here for our viewers is following those quality coaching principles.
00:29:20:24 - 00:29:49:08
Unknown
And to me is that anyone who you are just helping as a friend or as a colleague or they formally report to you, it is really as simple as you have to stop by establishing what are the things that have to be addressed until you both are in a strong agreement that this is priority one. There's no use entertaining solutions.
00:29:49:08 - 00:30:29:20
Unknown
I think at the heart of any coaching is having the person that's receiving the coaching feeling empowered to nominate the thing that's keeping them up at night or the thing that they want to improve the most. And then it becomes a question of how if I was to establish, I think I want to improve a particular thing, it's then my that you can come in and start helping me see possibilities and being curious for longer, as NBC would say, like until I mean, I will use the doctor patient analogy until the patient has had the chance to embrace the diagnosis.
00:30:29:22 - 00:30:55:17
Unknown
You don't prescribe the medicine right? Why does getting people to stick with their protocols talk to a physio and you ask them, okay, what's your greatest challenge? I wish my patients were to adhere to the programs that I give them and tell them to do these stretches and exercises and like half most majority of them don't stick to it.
00:30:55:20 - 00:31:19:12
Unknown
Another thing you'll hear a doctor say is I prescribe a diet or medication, and that's hard to get people to adhere to. I think you can only get the adherence and the sticking with it if they embrace it. And to me, that is at the heart of this until you've asked a lot of questions, you cannot jumping to problem solving until you know what the problem really is.
00:31:19:12 - 00:31:44:08
Unknown
And it's admitted, it's acknowledge it's accepted in all its ugliness, and particularly if it's a problem like, okay, I'm cool with it now, now I want to solve it now I know it's there. I want to get on to it. What's what's being like when when you think about easy and how change Mark in your experience, what are the things that you feel are in the easy bucket?
00:31:44:08 - 00:32:12:16
Unknown
And one of the ones that are more challenging, I think the easy buckets. Well, no, let's start with the hard bucket. Oh, I think the hard bucket is he's a little bit more oriented. The things that I think are a lot harder for a lot of us to come to terms with is similar to what you've just said under are coming to terms with how much we can actually get done ourselves.
00:32:12:18 - 00:32:41:15
Unknown
I think the big difficult changes come with acceptance, accepting the fact that you know what, that the thing I really wanted to finish today, I don't think is going to work. I've been sidelined. It's so funny, something that I constantly am battling with overambitious time planning. Yeah. Yeah, me too. You know, you look at the deadline and there's there's a lot of easy habits, which are easy in a minute.
00:32:41:17 - 00:33:03:06
Unknown
There's a lot of easy habits to try and set yourself up as, as best as possible to hit those big targets. And there's big deadlines. But I think for me, when it, when it's really challenging and difficult and when I'm trying to make that big, hard change is coming to terms and accepting the fact that, you know what, this this isn't going to be possible.
00:33:03:08 - 00:33:31:21
Unknown
Sometimes that might even, you know, for the drawbridge up and say, you know what, that means no to everything else. And that's obviously a huge other lesson. And we can spend an entire moonshot show on Mike Power and the ability to say no. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think coming to terms with that really raises questions around one's worth one's drive and ability to dedicate themselves to the team.
00:33:31:24 - 00:34:03:07
Unknown
Am I pulling as hard as everybody else? I think really coming to terms and accepting that is a big blocker for a lot of us, I think. And going back to NBC's idea around empathy, humility and mindfulness, I think that plays a big part. Now I think about those, let's call them easier changes. Those I think come in the form of quite simple small kind of day to day almost mantras, habits that you gradually take off.
00:34:03:07 - 00:34:27:23
Unknown
And obviously our regular listeners and viewers will probably already be copying you and I with some of our patterns. But the of getting your to do list sorted in the morning before opening up emails making sure that you have a clear almost time blocked day so that you know to the best of your ability you can hit those targets and those things that you want to try and engage.
00:34:27:25 - 00:34:56:23
Unknown
But at the end of the day, those difficulties are still going to arise. Sometimes you pick up the phone and it's not necessarily thing you thought it would be and now your day has changed. So it's so interesting that what you said that brings us right back to a growth mindset where you are prepared to accept the fact that there will be hardship and setbacks, but those are all necessarily necessary parts of growth.
00:34:56:25 - 00:35:18:06
Unknown
You don't go to the gym and expect your muscles to get bigger without having some sort of big weight day, upper body dying, and then the next day you wake up and you're like, oh, so, so right? Because you've got to push. You've got to like technically break some of those muscle fibers because it's when they grind back, that's the soreness that they grow that bigger.
00:35:18:06 - 00:35:52:06
Unknown
Mark. That's the beauty. And it's just like a life. If you tried to launch a business and it failed, oh my gosh, that is like almost the prerequisite for a successful launch because you have a clear list of Here's what I'm not doing. I learned from my last one. Right? But so many times when we're faced with self-doubt and hardship, which I think are some of the greatest enemies that we face in life, is that we allow them to be a sort of permanent judgment upon us.
00:35:52:08 - 00:36:17:04
Unknown
And I think that embracing small, consistent, regular change, continuous improvement, great mindset, this is the way we tackle the big hard things. You break them down step by step, right? Step by step by day, and you'll be in a good place. Yeah. All of this is I mean, we've already covered a lot of stuff here and covered, you know, understanding others.
00:36:17:06 - 00:36:39:19
Unknown
We've covered, you know, easy and hard change. And if for a moment now you're thinking, okay, how do I keep track of all of this? Mike, There is a destination on the Internet. There is a place where you get show notes and you get all these goodies. Where is this place for this moonshots podcast? Well, conveniently for all of our viewers and listeners, we've named that destination.
00:36:39:19 - 00:37:08:03
Unknown
After this show, you can pop along to WW dot moonshots dot i o you can get access to our archive of show 233 not even including all of them all series you can get access to shownotes you've got transcriptions as well as frameworks and helpful reading all accessible via my moonshots dot. I want a destination to go and check out Place to Be.
00:37:08:03 - 00:37:37:04
Unknown
And I think if you're feeling curious about that, then you're going to love this next clip because it's NBC's Michael Bungay Steiner, the man himself, talking about curiosity. That's right, Mike, let's jump straight in. Back into MBAs and the idea of curiosity for layers of curiosity. I think the first one is joyous exploration. Yeah, this exploration is what most people think of when they think of curiosity, basically tinkering, exploring, playing like it's fun.
00:37:37:06 - 00:38:03:00
Unknown
Yeah. And then there was a second layer, I don't know if I know them in the exact order. The second layer was deprivation, sensitivity. Ooh, it's in the deprivation sensitivity, stage of curiosity. Or these were these were characteristics, I think, of curious leaders, deprivation sensitivities. When you understand that there is something that you want to know and you don't know it and you recognize that there's a gap and you try to close the gap, right?
00:38:03:03 - 00:38:31:04
Unknown
Then there was another one, which was stress tolerance, because a lot of people forget that sometimes being curious is stressful. Yeah. When you're learning something new, it totally is. Yeah, it can it can be tough, you know, like writing a book about a new topic or test or just sitting in a place of ambiguity and uncertainty. Yeah, this is one of the seductions of advice giving is it just feels good because you're creating certainty and you're creating direction and you're creating authority and you're creating status.
00:38:31:04 - 00:38:51:08
Unknown
It it just feeds a whole bunch of things that our media, our lizard brain really loves. So even though you like this, advice is wrong and I'm solving the wrong problem, but I feel good about it as opposed to going, you know what, I'm being curious. I'm giving up power because I'm empowering other people. I'm not sure about where the conversations going.
00:38:51:08 - 00:39:16:25
Unknown
I'm not sure about what the answer is. You have that uncertainty and discomfort of ambiguity for sure. Yep. And then the one that I missed on here and these were actually I would the greatest potential to innovate inside of an organization have these four characteristics joy, exploration, deprivation, sensitivity, stress, tolerance and openness to people's was the nice one.
00:39:17:01 - 00:39:38:21
Unknown
So that's at least that's how I tried to look at curiosity is explaining it in those in those four yeah I like what I like about that is the richness of that definition because you can imagine and as you think about curiosity for whoever's listening in at the moment, it's a kind of it will be some combination of those four things, depending on the circumstances.
00:39:38:21 - 00:40:11:18
Unknown
Yeah, I will say this. I think research from Liz Wiseman, who of course wrote multipliers and is generally just she's just generally awesome and she just looking this up in the book myself because I want to get this right. She did a little research around the key characteristic to multiply leaders, the ones who kind of have an exponential, deeper, greater effect on that through their leadership than others.
00:40:11:20 - 00:40:49:01
Unknown
And she says, of the 48 behaviors assessed, multiply and diminish a leaders against, I found that intellectual curiosity was the characteristic that most distinguished multiply leaders from the ministry leaders. But it really supports Todd's work as well around high performance has the ability to in have the capacity for curiosity. I what I like so much about this, Mark, is he's essentially making the case for those leaders that empower others are the ones that create is multiplier effect.
00:40:49:03 - 00:41:25:05
Unknown
And the way that they do that is intellectual curiosity. And I think what we're really talking about is this theme of creating time and space to ask better questions, to create better ideas. And the thing is, it's not just a game of chance. You can actually facilitate this and this chart that you've got up here is perfect map because it's really basically a playbook to create curiosity and to not just make yourself look good, but to make those around you shine.
00:41:25:10 - 00:41:58:04
Unknown
Look at this. Serving as a sounding board test a tentative path. Expand the frame of reference, provide process guidance, generated substantive ideas. These are all ways that you can get involved. And so I think this is the call to arms that we have for our listeners, viewers and members, is that you don't have to just turn up to a meeting and hope there will be some creative thinking, some curiosity might be a chance for you to make a real difference in the business.
00:41:58:06 - 00:42:33:04
Unknown
You can actually be the protagonist and serve as a sounding board to others in expanding the frame of risking reference, asking What if? How might we dream big? Say, Hey, everything feels like 10% better, let's go that ten times better? What does that look like? Right? These are the ways to create that spark and that curiosity. But I think the key connection here is that there are actual studies have been done in which demonstrated that this curiosity is a form of great leadership because it empowers those around you.
00:42:33:06 - 00:43:00:20
Unknown
And this totally reframed being like the Rambo style manager, right? Lead us. I think one of the key areas that really comes to my mind with this idea of curiosity is you've got to cultivate. And I think maybe this is coming back to Patrick Langone as well. This idea of creativity needs to be fostered in an area where nobody is judged.
00:43:00:22 - 00:43:38:14
Unknown
You have to have a situation, an environment where those around you feel comfortable enough to share their ideas. Sometimes, you know, I've been in situations myself where you kind of sitting there thinking, I think this is an idea, but maybe it's been dismissed already. Yeah, or maybe this doesn't align to the brief correctly. I'm not quite sure. So what happens if there's a chance that great idea is lost in space, creating that environment where all answers are interesting, celebrated How good would that be?
00:43:38:17 - 00:44:18:07
Unknown
Where you can create and cultivate ideas because curiosity boundaries don't exist? Well, he obviously uses trust as the underlying foundation for everything else. All the success that's going to come in a in a team, it's going to start with trust. And I just my experience as well, my I if you want to foster that you look at it capitals work on creativity Inc he speaks a lot to these kind of places and you know the next pillar in lane Stoney's work is once you have the trust, you actually have to be able to have the tough conversations if you can do so without judgment.
00:44:18:07 - 00:44:49:25
Unknown
So people really get to the nuts and bolts of an issue without being defensive or accused jittery. I mean, this is this is like key stuff. And like too often we just we see teams just struggling with it totally. Yeah, we really, really do. And I think some of that, Mike is is down to people dismissing those ideas sometimes particularly maybe in big organized actions, there's a chance that people have been burnt before.
00:44:50:01 - 00:45:21:02
Unknown
You know, they've come up with an idea, maybe their management or team have dismissed it. So I think that's again another demonstration of the importance of being a leader who celebrates and welcomes new ideas and has the capability to not dismiss them, shoot them down in a way that then demotivate your team, because at the end of the day, if you are at the receiving end of, you know, a little bit of guidance to say, hey, that idea, it's not going to work.
00:45:21:02 - 00:45:41:12
Unknown
I don't understand why you came up with this. It's possible that that individual won't do it again. They can come next, come with an opportunity to be berated for a suggestion. Yeah, I think the good news is this clip that we've got NBS is doing far from berating of us. I think he's giving us a little inspiration. So why don't you set up our final clip?
00:45:41:14 - 00:46:06:06
Unknown
Look, there's one more piece of advice that's coming straight from me as he's coming back to us with the host of Paradigm Shifting Books. This time, Mike, we're going to end on a high note and now we're going to find out where success comes from. Pretend that you were sitting one on one with someone that was just starting off in their career and they asked for advice.
00:46:06:06 - 00:46:41:18
Unknown
They asked for advice as far as what is success and how can I be successful? What advice or how would you approach that question? I would say success comes from you continuing to ask that question because it is a changing thing and one of the ways to live a good life is to keep asking yourself, what does success mean for me?
00:46:41:20 - 00:47:04:19
Unknown
Because your start down a path which you think is the success you're after and you might it may be the right path, it may not be the right path, but if you keep stepping back to go. All right. But for me, what does success look like? It allows you to keep reorienting and keep reconnecting to kind of what what matters most.
00:47:04:21 - 00:47:37:05
Unknown
Because what can happen is you ask yourself at the age of 18, does success look like for me? And then you spend the next 30 years working towards that and then you become a 48 year old person going, Turns out this wasn't the success I was looking for. And but you've got a lot of sunk cost, which is like, I got money and spouses and commitments and houses and all sorts of stuff that I thought I wanted.
00:47:37:05 - 00:48:03:02
Unknown
I'm not sure I do. It's just really worthwhile going. Look, the secret to success is continuing to ask yourself, what do I really care about? Because as you grow, it too will change and evolve and shape. And the more that you can trim your sales to to catch the wind of what success really means to you, the truer the journey will be.
00:48:03:04 - 00:48:29:06
Unknown
Oh, some wise old wisdom. Keep asking yourself, what does success mean to me? I mean, this is where my practical mind goes. I it might sound a little bit off the charts, but I have my own. Okay. As I review them once a week, I have mantras where I state my year goals and I listen and repeat those every single day.
00:48:29:08 - 00:48:56:25
Unknown
And he's absolutely right. They change. They change. But just even surfacing your dreams, hopes and ambitions, let alone having clear, precise, measurable goals, giving voice to what you dream of being and how you wish to live. Life, to me is the greatest empowerment that you can take, and it doesn't cost you anything. And there's nothing stopping you from doing here, whether it's a journal, whether it's a mantra, a meditation.
00:48:56:25 - 00:49:24:18
Unknown
These are all things you can, you can totally do. And I think the scary thing is how infrequently people do not ask the question, What is success look like for me right now? Where do I really want to be at the end of the year? Personally Professionally, my health, my relationships and like giving those expressing those, talking about those with others.
00:49:24:20 - 00:49:59:03
Unknown
I mean, how on earth are we going to stay on track if we're not working on that stuff? Yeah, I think the key takeaway for me is this idea that success is subjective. Yeah, we've heard from Jim Carrey where he says, I wish everybody in the world would get exactly what they wanted because then they'd realize that not what they want it to go right from Matthew McConaughey as well, where he, you know, really calls out the fact that success from, you know, a job perspective for him was not necessarily what Hollywood was trying to give him.
00:49:59:05 - 00:50:33:11
Unknown
I think we've heard time and time again that one of the disciplines that we've got to have in our life is to try and take ownership of how we interpret success, how we utilize motivation to get to the point where we're comfortable with the situation. Maybe that's from a professional perspective, from a relationship one or financially. I think, you know, NBC is making the case for me that it can be subjective and that really what it takes is reflection and work on myself.
00:50:33:13 - 00:51:01:02
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Which I'll tell you what, that's what I think we do every day when we record this show together. And I hope our members, our listeners and viewers too, and totally into it. So we covered a lot of ground here. What, what's your homework assignment? And my this week's a tricky one might because actually I think all four areas were very, very well they got my curiosity going, shall we say.
00:51:01:04 - 00:51:26:18
Unknown
I think though, the idea of easy versus hard change is going to be something that maintains a little bit of gravity within me, though. And the reason why I say that is because it's very, very easy for me to dismiss change as something that's a little bit too challenging. So therefore I might put it on the backburner or try and dismiss it entirely unrealistically, which, Mark, I got to say, this is hilarious.
00:51:26:18 - 00:51:57:00
Unknown
This is a guy who grew up in in England, came to Australia. He's traveling all around the country with his wonderful wife on all these adventures. And you're saying change is hard? Oh, my gosh, man. And. And this is it, isn't it? It's it's ironic. There's there's subjectivity there to make this change of noticing opportunities to grow and mix things up again as no obstacles, but instead things to be celebrated.
00:51:57:03 - 00:52:19:17
Unknown
And I think that's something we probably said every week, something that I really try and take away and actually work on again. What about you? When it comes to the advice trap and the work we've heard from Michael Bowen, guys, Tanya, today. Oh yeah. Oh boy. I mean there's so much to like here is a it's it's a bit hard to know where to start I think.
00:52:19:19 - 00:52:42:00
Unknown
I think I really loved that first clip of empathy, mindfulness and humility to kick things off and to create the space for curiosity. The more I can do and harness all the talent and others, I'm so I'm going to work on that. So my next call, I have a call in 90 minutes, so I'll try and use my NBS advice.
00:52:42:03 - 00:53:12:04
Unknown
Well, Mark, Mark, I want to say thank you to you. Hopefully we're getting to avoid the advice trap. You and me, and thank you to you, our listeners, our viewers and our members too, because today we started in show 233 the work of Michael Bungay Senior once again. And it was the advice trap. And it starts by escaping the advice trap by using empathy, mindfulness and humility, reaching out to understand others.
00:53:12:06 - 00:53:44:02
Unknown
And the second step was to really quantify easy versus hard change and know what we're signing up for and be prepared to do the hard stuff. And if you want to change yourself and transform others, bring your curiosity. Create the time and space for better questions, for reframing so that those around you can truly flourish. And as we ask ourselves one thing every single day, if we want to avoid the advice trap and be the best version of ourselves, we need to ask, What does success mean to me?
00:53:44:04 - 00:53:58:10
Unknown
Ask this question. You'll unlock your potential. You'll be the best version of yourself. And when in doubt, come to the Moonshot podcast where you can learn out together with us here at a place where we are shooting for the moon. All right, that's a wrap.