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“The more that we can notice fear, the less it will drive us. And the more choice we’ll have... less held back by fear, more able to show up fully, to connect, to dream and achieve what’s possible.”
At some point in our lives we all get scared – of making the wrong decision, of not being a good parent, or that everyone will figure out we’re just making it up as we go.
I’ve spent years helping leaders work through fear, stress, and uncertainty. Now I’m making a podcast about how they face their fears and come out stronger.
It’s for founders, leaders, and business owners who feel like they’re constantly fighting uphill and not finding the balance they need to be effective at work and present at home.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:00:22]:
I'm Sally-Anne Airey, and welcome to Fearless Forward, the podcast that asks leaders how they've faced their fears. Today, I'm in conversation with a productivity expert who specialises in transforming how organisations approach work, change, and challenge. Grace Marshall consults, speaks, and writes in this field and has authored 3 books. Starting out in the world of marketing, she soon realised she was in the wrong place. What she now calls a midlife crisis in her mid-20s led her to quit and rethink her direction. She started a family, qualified as a coach, and in 2008 founded her own coaching business. In 2012, she published her first book, 21 Ways to Manage the Stuff That Sucks Up Your Time. At the same time, another guest on this podcast, Graham Allcott, was writing his own book on productivity.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:01:16]:
He and Grace met on Twitter, found synergy in their approaches, and Grace became the first female Productivity Ninja with Graham's company Think Productive. She's since trained thousands of professionals from all over the world and every kind of organisation to adopt new ways of working, to replace stress, overwhelm, and frustration with success, sanity, and satisfaction. Along the way, Grace authored 2 more books, How to Be Really Productive, which explores the key to meaningful results and sustainable work-life balance, and Struggle, which reframes struggle as a normal and potentially constructive part of living and working well. More recently, through her podcast, What the Fear, Grace has been exploring a concept she now calls high-functioning fear, which she says often hides in plain sight, Showing up as busyness, overthinking, people-pleasing, perfectionism, or relentless productivity. So Grace, tell us about high-functioning fear.
Grace Marshall [00:02:25]:
So high-functioning fear is a term that I coined to describe something that I was starting to see and notice, like in myself and the people that I work with. Initially, when I started talking about struggle, so I often talk about how our instinctive approach to struggle is, if we boil down to it, it's one of fear. It's usually like, how do I fix this? How do I get rid of it? How do I avoid it, get over it, get away from it? Anything other than, like, just being in the struggle. And the more that I started having these conversations about what fear looks like, the more I realised it doesn't always look like fear. It doesn't always feel like fear in ourselves, but it also doesn't look like fear to other people either. That in work, often high-functioning fear, it might look like, I'm getting on with my work. It might look high-performing, it might look productive, it might even look strategic. It might look like I'm the most capable person, I'm getting on with it.
Grace Marshall [00:03:27]:
And yet, if on the surface it looks like high performance, underneath, if what's driving us is fear, then it has a way of distorting us, limiting us, changing us, and driving us in a particular way. So, so that's where I started coining the term high-functioning fear, where, where fear doesn't look like fear, but actually, if we dig underneath, it is fear.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:03:53]:
So fear doesn't look like fear. So let's go there for a moment. What does fear look and sound like?
Grace Marshall [00:04:02]:
Yeah. So, if you think of the classic sort of fear responses, most people would think of fight or flight, but there's actually 4. There's fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. So, for example, fight might not look like, especially in a work situation, it might not look like I am ready to have a punch-up. It might just look like I need to work my way through this. And so, it might look like drive. It might look like hustle. It might start to look like overwork.
Grace Marshall [00:04:30]:
Like, I need to, you know, it might start looking like I need to prove myself. And so, I'm going to work hard at everything, push harder. It might start to look like I'm going to take control. I'm going to stop trusting other people. I won't delegate. It can start to look defensive. So it might be I'm in a meeting, somebody says something that I don't agree with, and I start to see that as opposition rather than a differing opinion. Or something doesn't go to plan and it feels like a liability.
Grace Marshall [00:05:03]:
Those are the subtle ways that fight energy can feed in. And a lot of people I work with, especially high-achieving people, they often recognise that one. They're like, oh yeah, okay, I get it. You know, it's when I start pushing harder, that's when, you know, maybe that fear is in play. On the other side, you've got flight. So, that might look like avoidance, withdrawal. It might look like classic procrastination, like I just keep putting that conversation off. It can look like email ghosting.
Grace Marshall [00:05:37]:
You know, that email that sits in your inbox and you think, yeah, I need to think about that. I'll come around to it. Or maybe if I leave it alone, it'll go away. You can always wish, right? Yeah, exactly.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:05:49]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:05:51]:
Or it can just look like, you know, that sort of moment where you go, I could say something here, but maybe I won't. Yeah. Maybe it's just not the right time. And so we hold back, we stay small, we shrink a little bit, and just that kind of keeping our head below the parapet. That's flight. Now, freeze is the really interesting one because if you are an animal in the wild, You freeze and play dead so that the danger passes you by. But at work, if you stay really still, that's probably going to get you noticed. So freeze can look a lot like busyness.
Grace Marshall [00:06:30]:
It can look like, I've got so much work to do. I haven't got time to deal with that thing that feels like a challenge, difficulty, conflict, whatever it is. You know, I'm busy with the day-to-day. And that kind of busyness is almost like a stillness in motion. It's, you know, I'm just busy. There's nothing to see here. I'm just doing my emails, going to my meetings. I'm getting on with my work.
Grace Marshall [00:06:50]:
Like, nothing to see. That's basically high-functioning freeze. And then the slightly lesser-known response is the fawn response. And this is kind of like if you imagine an animal in the wild turning around to its predator and saying, Hi. Please don't eat me. I'll be your friend. That's basically the fawn response. So it's our people-pleasing tendencies.
Grace Marshall [00:07:16]:
It's where we become overly accommodating, where we say yes to things we probably should have said no to, or where we tell people what we think they want to hear rather than what we actually think or what they might need to hear.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:07:29]:
Hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:07:31]:
And so these are kind of, I guess, you know, how we've evolved as human beings to, you know, play out fear in a very sort of high-functioning world of work, but also in life as well. You can start to see where those patterns might come into play. And when I introduce this as high-functioning fear, when I'm speaking in keynotes or working with teams, often there is this resonance and people start to go, oh yeah, I can see where it comes out in me. I can see where it comes out in each other. We can start to see where what we think is just getting on with the work could actually be fear at play.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:08:06]:
Yes. And also, less productively, where, you know, we might leap to judgement or the fight response, I suppose. Um, I wonder if we can understand and recognise the fear behind it, we might be a little more understanding, be a little more, you know, compassionate, see the whole human being, you know. I wonder if I might from a personal point of view, come back to this word you used, stillness, or still. Because in my work, stillness is something I cultivate. So when you use the word still, I'm like, really? Tell me more. And I wonder if I might share, there's a storey I write about in my book, actually, years and years and years ago, where I inadvertently discovered the power of standing my ground, which at the time I think was simply me freezing and being extremely still and saying nothing other than looking at this person directly back. And the thing is, it worked.
Grace Marshall [00:09:18]:
Hmm.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:09:19]:
So I'm curious about freeze. I'm curious about all of these because I wonder if there are aspects of them that might Sometimes actually be useful.
Grace Marshall [00:09:29]:
Oh, absolutely.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:09:30]:
And if we can deploy them consciously, even more so. At the time, the storey I've just told you was just me freezing, um, but very still. And I, I— that way back then, I think, was where my curiosity about the power of stillness started. Um, so please, could we explore that a little more? For my sake as much as anything, to understand where you're coming from here.
Grace Marshall [00:09:59]:
Oh, absolutely. I'm so glad you mentioned that because you're right. All of these things can be really helpful. So sometimes, you know, sometimes the helpful response to fear is to push through, you know, and other times pushing through might just be fear driving us. Um, sometimes a helpful response is To freeze, to stay very still, like you say, to stand my ground. And other times, freezing is me, you know, basically being frozen by fear. It's the being paralysed by fear. So, yeah, absolutely.
Grace Marshall [00:10:34]:
It can be like, it's not that one thing is necessarily right or wrong. It's, it's an almost a, you know, it's about getting to know what that fear actually is.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:10:45]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:10:46]:
And whether it's something we are, like you say, consciously choosing, or whether it's the fear that's driving us. So, for example, you know, standing your ground might actually be unconsciously choosing not to run away. And it could be unconsciously choosing not to fight you and also not to run away. So therefore, I'm going to stand my ground.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:11:09]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:11:10]:
And I don't think that is necessarily freeze. I think that's a different thing. And the thing that makes me think that it's different is, is what you said about being curious. Um, because one of the things that— one of the things I wrote in Struggle was the difference between fear and curiosity. And I often find, for me, curiosity is like the antidote to fear because it's a different way of seeing things. So fear will say, danger, don't go there. So it seeks to focus your attention away from the thing. Whereas curiosity goes, oh, that's interesting.
Grace Marshall [00:11:50]:
Let's take a closer look. So then you kind of go, okay, I'm gonna, in your case, be present. I'm gonna stand my ground. I'm gonna pause and go, what is actually going on here?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:12:04]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:12:04]:
So the difference might be in how we see things. So fear is like a very narrow, driven sort of focus. And if you think of the biology of fear, it's designed to keep us alive in a genuine life-threatening situation, a physically life-threatening situation. So if there is a bear that is standing down the street from you and looking at you and ready about to charge, fear will give you that very narrow focus that goes, don't look at anything else. Right? That it doesn't matter if the sun is shining, it doesn't matter that there's juicy berries on the tree over there. There is a bear. Like, drop everything else. What you need to do is quick.
Grace Marshall [00:12:44]:
Do I grab something to defend myself? You know, does that bear got a limp? Do I think I could win this fight here? Or where's my escape route? How do I hide? How do I make myself safe? So it's all about protection.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:12:57]:
Mm-hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:12:57]:
And you have a very narrow vision and very fast reactive decisions. So one of the things we often get with fear is, I call it black and white thinking. Like, things are either all good or all bad. You're either for me or you're against me. And that kind of narrow thinking is designed to help us make really quick decisions. We don't want to be making lots of very small, nuanced, you know, considered, thoughtful, oh, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. It's like, no, bear. Make a quick decision.
Grace Marshall [00:13:30]:
And so your brain will sort things. into generalisations. It will sort things. It won't be like, well, that's— I agree a little bit with that, but not with that. It's like, you're arguing with me, you're against me. Okay. That is, that's kind of what I'll go to. Whereas actually, your example of, I'm going to stand my ground here and I'm going to be still, I wonder if that's almost a case of, I'm going to create some space Rather than feel like I have to react, I'm just going to create some space.
Grace Marshall [00:14:03]:
I'm going to slow my brain down and allow myself to go into that curiosity space of what is actually going on here.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:14:13]:
And I think at the time, I remember fairly clearly that I did have that thought, but probably slightly less politely expressed in my mind.
Grace Marshall [00:14:24]:
Yes.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:14:26]:
And I was thinking, you know, with the bear, I'm no expert, and grateful to say I've never been in that situation. But even then, as I understand it, sometimes in front of a bear it can be quite helpful to stand your ground, can't it? So, I mean, different ways.
Grace Marshall [00:14:42]:
Right.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:14:43]:
And I suppose the thing with fear is that it narrows our view, doesn't it? As you said, you know, black and white thinking. It closes down the brain for very good reason.
Grace Marshall [00:14:54]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:14:55]:
From a genetic perspective, absolutely. But, you know, we do have this cognitive processing capacity, don't we? The prefrontal cortex that has developed since then.
Grace Marshall [00:15:08]:
Yes. Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:15:10]:
Where we can, if we choose, in many situations— not all, but many— choose to pause, open up the mind, so to speak, engage all of the parts and decide the best way forward. Tricky though, isn't it? When we're, you know, if our inner stability is not at its, you know, strongest in any, on any day, in any moment, difficult to do that.
Grace Marshall [00:15:39]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:15:42]:
And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, Grace. Perhaps, if I may, from your personal perspective, you know, in those kind, any of those situations that you've described, what have you found helpful? to be able to respond in the way you want to?
Grace Marshall [00:15:59]:
So I think what I found really helpful is, first of all, when to start noticing fear. Because like you say, if we don't notice it, it will drive us and it's almost like we're on autopilot. And your point about the sort of different parts of the brain is key to that because our limbic brain, the part of our brain that will, you know, fire up really quickly with that defence mechanism, that is the bit that will come in first. You know, it is programmed, it's designed to react quickly. So whenever we are triggered by fear, for example, that will come in first. And yet, if we can notice it, even just the act of noticing and naming— so one of the things I often talk about when I'm working with teams and with individuals, you know, I talk about email rage. It's like road rage, but with email. And everyone has that reaction.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:17:02]:
We all know what that's like.
Grace Marshall [00:17:03]:
We know, exactly. And in moments of email rage, your limbic brain, your instant sort of fight-or-flight reactions will be like, how dare they? I wanna either start keyboard warrioring, start typing, or I'm not even gonna go there. I'm just gonna leave it alone, bury it. Email ghosting. And even just noticing and naming that and going, okay, I'm experiencing email rage right now. Do not press send. Do not hit reply. Like, that's not gonna make anything better.
Grace Marshall [00:17:34]:
The act of noticing and naming itself brings the rest of your human brain back online. It brings that prefrontal cortex back online. And then you can start to deal with this situation. You can start to look at it with your whole brain rather than just with your limbic brain.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:17:50]:
Mm-hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:17:51]:
And the time when I think was really pertinent for me, and this goes back to when I, I guess, probably when the idea of high-functioning fear first started sort of lodging itself in my mind, was actually a really personal situation. So it was a time when my husband and I were in a marriage counselling session, and we were recounting an argument. I can't even remember what the argument was about, but we were going, you know, going through this argument of like what I said, what he said, what I was doing, what he was doing. And the counsellor, just in a moment, as my husband was sort of describing things from his perspective, she just went, that sounds a lot like panic.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:18:36]:
Mm.
Grace Marshall [00:18:37]:
And I looked at him, and I looked at her, and I was like, are we hearing the same thing here? Like, he is cold, he's calculated, he's being very unreasonable, but, you know, he is very put together and in control. That does not sound like panic to me. And he replied, yeah, that's exactly what it feels like.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:18:59]:
Gosh.
Grace Marshall [00:19:00]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:19:01]:
What an insight.
Grace Marshall [00:19:02]:
I know. And so, you know, what I was experiencing from him, to me, did not look like panic. But what it felt like to him was panic. And then she asked him, so, if you're feeling panic, what helps you to feel safe? And he was like, I think it's physical touch.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:19:27]:
Oh.
Grace Marshall [00:19:28]:
It's like a hand on my shoulder or a hug. Like a, you know, a way of saying, you're safe here, or, you're safe with me.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:19:41]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:19:42]:
Now, if I don't see that as panic, If I just see it as we're in an argument or he's misunderstood me again and I want to, you know, justify and explain or defend or argue, that is not going to come across as, you're safe with me. That's going to come across as, I'm attacking him.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:20:06]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:20:07]:
And if I think that he's attacking me, the last thing that's on my mind is, let me give you a hug.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:20:17]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:20:18]:
Right?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:20:19]:
Indeed. Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:20:22]:
And so that, I think that was the moment when I realised that fear doesn't always look like fear.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:20:30]:
That's so interesting, Grace. And what I'm hearing is with that insight, something shifts, right? So in that moment, When you saw his fear, when you put words to it, or between you, you all put words to it, what changed for you?
Grace Marshall [00:20:55]:
So it's a little bit like— and I'm not comparing my husband to a toddler, but if you think of toddlers, when a toddler has a tantrum about socks, It's never about the socks. It's like they're overtired or something has happened. It's basically fear at play. It's, you know, they're panicking about something, they're having a meltdown. And the key to that is you don't argue about the socks. You kind of tend to, what are their needs right now? So, if that is a need for safety, if that is a need for You know, how do I restore that sense of safety for you? How do I meet you in that place of panic? And so, for my husband, you know, in this situation, it's like, it's not about any of the things that we are arguing about. In that moment, if I see what he's going through as panic, my priority isn't to justify or explain or defend, My priority is, how do I make him feel safe?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:22:08]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:22:09]:
So, if he was visibly panicking to me, if he was hyperventilating, it might be, hey, it's okay. It might be that hand on his shoulder. That's what I would naturally gravitate towards is, you know, let me, let me give you that physical touch. Let me show you and help reassure you that you're safe here, that there isn't a bear. Like, I'm not a bear and we— there isn't a bear. And, and that is what shifts when we start to see fear as fear. We stop feeling like, oh, we have to defend and attack, um, and we start going, oh, hang on a minute, this person doesn't feel safe. How do we restore safety?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:22:48]:
Yes. And the quality needed to be able to do that Is what?
Grace Marshall [00:23:00]:
That's a good question. Quality. There is definitely a pause in there. There is definitely a moment of going, whoa. Hang on a minute. And there is something about catching that moment. The noticing, the naming helps you to sort of hold it there to go, what is this? So even just naming, like we said earlier, naming email rage. Like, I'm experiencing rage.
Grace Marshall [00:23:51]:
Naming panic. That, I think what that does is it helps you to be present, and it helps you to connect, actually. Because if I name it, not just to myself, but I name it in the room, yeah, the moment the counsellor named it, my husband felt seen. So it was presence for him and it was presence for me. So I think there is something about when you're in that situation being able to— if you can name it for yourself, that's great, that helps you to be present. If you name it with or for the other person, it helps you to connect with them. It helps you to both kind of be present in that moment.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:24:37]:
Yeah. And I guess behind that, you know, the capacity to be able to pause and name something, to see beyond the behaviour to the human being.
Grace Marshall [00:24:49]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:24:50]:
I wonder, isn't that quite simply love?
Grace Marshall [00:24:55]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:24:56]:
Compassion. It's like a capacity, quality. I know from my own personal experience how incredibly difficult that can be when emotions are heightened, other emotions other than love and compassion.
Grace Marshall [00:25:14]:
Yes. Front and centre.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:25:16]:
And, uh, oh my My goodness, then in my experience, one might dig pretty deep.
Grace Marshall [00:25:25]:
Yeah, yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:25:26]:
But, uh, I have found— No, Grace, please continue.
Grace Marshall [00:25:35]:
And I think that's why curiosity, I find, is like that sort of switch for me. Um, because sometimes to jump from fear to love can be quite hard.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:25:45]:
Indeed. Yes, absolutely.
Grace Marshall [00:25:48]:
So, like, fear— to jump from fear to curiosity, to, like, jump from, like, I'm trying to get away from this to, oh, what's going on here?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:25:56]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:25:56]:
I find curiosity then enables that sort of— it's like the gateway into compassion.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:26:04]:
Oh, fantastic indeed. So I wonder if we could train our mind to, as soon as it detects threat, Of some kind, instead of doing any of those things that the brain would automatically want to do, instead be able to say, hmm, what's going on here? And even that can be in a split second, can't it? And the answer might still be to run for your life.
Grace Marshall [00:26:29]:
Exactly.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:26:30]:
But at least ask the question.
Grace Marshall [00:26:32]:
Exactly that.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:26:35]:
Yeah, marvellous. Well, that's a very helpful food for thought. Um, for all of us, I think, Grace. And, you know, your life— you've written many books. Uh, Struggle, you've referred to a couple of times in this conversation. Again, you know, looking at this language, I'm wondering, as you wrote each of these books, were they helping you answer your own questions at that stage of your life?
Grace Marshall [00:27:03]:
Mm-hmm.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:27:04]:
If you can cast your mind back, do they help you in writing to think things through?
Grace Marshall [00:27:10]:
Oh, yeah. So, writing for me is how I connect the dots.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:27:14]:
Mm-hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:27:16]:
Yeah, it's how I— it's a thinking tool for me. And this goes back to when I first started my coaching business. You know, I always said, like, my business was like my middle child in terms of the orders. Like, my first child came first, then my business, and then my second child. So, it was like my middle child business. I was growing this business alongside 2 kids.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:27:38]:
Mm-hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:27:40]:
And so, practically speaking, at that stage in my life, there were not that many options for me to go out and market my business. So, writing was my primary way of getting out there. And so, I started with newsletters and blogs, and then found that actually, writing is how I figure out what I think. And I put that out there, and I hear back from people, and then I refine my thinking in that way. So, my first book, 21 Ways to Manage the Stuff That Sucks Up Your Time, was very much a— it's a tiny book. One of my friends affectionately calls it a toilet book.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:28:23]:
Very useful.
Grace Marshall [00:28:24]:
Yeah, exactly. She literally kept it in a basket in her bathroom, and it's the sort of thing you could pick up and just read for a couple of minutes and get something useful out of it. And it was perfect for that particular time, of juggling business and family. Like, I haven't got time to read a long time management book, but I have got time to pick it up for 2 minutes and go, oh, yeah, that's a different way of doing things, or, that's a good idea, I'm gonna try that. So, it was very much a small, handy, useful book in that way. And for me, I guess, you know, it's not about— I've often kind of gone, it's not about time management. And in fact, I would never have set myself up as being a time management expert because I am naturally disorganised.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:29:09]:
Really?
Grace Marshall [00:29:10]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:29:11]:
Gosh, for some reason I'm surprised.
Grace Marshall [00:29:13]:
Yeah, naturally disorganised. And in fact, I resisted time management, and, you know, when productivity is my niche, for a long time. Um, but actually it, it kept finding me, um, because my clients were in a similar boat to me. They were juggling business and family, so they were like, How do we do this? And the more I dug into it, the more I wrote about it, spoke about it, the more I realised, maybe it's not so much about being organised. That may be one element to it, or one way of looking at it. But actually, what if we started looking at this as, how do we manage our relationship with time, rather than how do we manage time itself?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:29:53]:
Hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:29:53]:
And that's what that book really was about, was like 21 ways just to manage the stuff that sucks up our time. 21 ways of, like, looking at something differently. And for me, it was, like, how do we get the stuff done that we want to, and that we need to, when things aren't necessarily all controlled or controllable? So, very much from a position, at the time, I think there were a lot of your classic time management texts, were typically written by, I'm going to say, written by men, middle-aged men in offices with doors and secretaries, and probably a wife at home that did all the domestic stuff. I know I'm generalising.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:30:41]:
It's quite a picture.
Grace Marshall [00:30:42]:
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, if you are a man or a woman at home, juggling, you know, unconventionally, you're trying to run a fledgling startup business, which doesn't have 9-to-5 hours. You've got maybe childcare, school runs, nap times, trying to sort out the boiler, your mother-in-law's popped around, you know, all sorts of, you know, different, you know, the stuff of life, basically. And things aren't neatly compartmentalised into, here's my workspace, here's my home space. How do we do it then? And that, I think, is the space that I was in when I wrote that book, 21 Ways.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:31:28]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:31:29]:
And then, How to Be Really Productive, I guess, was my— it was an invitation. It was an invitation from Pearson, a traditional publisher, to go, you know, what would your book on productivity be, Grace? So, So, initially, it started off as very much like another series book. It was part of, like, I think Brilliant Productivity was what they asked me to propose on. And I thought, if I was to write a book on brilliant productivity, what would I want to put in it? And actually, the proposal that I came up with, they came back and said, that's more than what we would put in this particular series, but we want you to write that book. So, let's give it another title. Let's work on that and write the book that you want to write. And the first chapter of that was, basically why productivity isn't just about getting stuff done. And, you know, it was, you know, actually, my, I guess, my approach was like, it's so much more than just getting stuff done.
Grace Marshall [00:32:25]:
It's about our relationship with the work, and it's about our relationship with how we get that work done.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:32:32]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:32:34]:
So, I often say, for me, productivity isn't just about getting stuff done, it's doing good work in a way that feels good, that does us good, as well as the good that we're doing out there in the world.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:32:46]:
Yes. So far more holistic than it at first sounds.
Grace Marshall [00:32:51]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:32:52]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:32:53]:
And, yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:32:54]:
And Struggle.
Grace Marshall [00:32:55]:
Yeah. And, and then Struggle basically came about from, um, coaching conversations, um, colleague-client conversations where people were like, Okay, Grace, like, I've done the whole Productivity Ninja thing. I'm, you know, I'm getting my inbox to zero. I've got my second brain up and running. I've got these systems in place. I feel like I've got a good handle on the productivity thing, but I'm still struggling. What's going on?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:33:23]:
Hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:33:24]:
And again, my curiosity kicked in and went, okay, tell me more. And what they meant was, Grace, you helped to fix my productivity struggles before, can you help me fix struggle?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:33:37]:
Aha.
Grace Marshall [00:33:38]:
And the more that I dived into it, the more I thought, hang on a minute, there is— maybe not all struggle is there to be fixed. And actually, what might we see? What more is there to this picture if we don't just see it as something we need to fix? And the more I had those conversations, it was like, hang on a minute, this thing that you're struggling with at the moment that you feel like means you're not good enough, or you need to get over it, or whatever it is, you see it as weakness. I'm seeing it as growth. I'm seeing it as like, you're maybe someone who's going through a transition period or transformation. It's like, actually, I'm growing to the next part of my— the next iteration of my business, or my next era, as we would now say in Taylor Swift language. Yeah. That actually often what feels like struggle can also be maybe the gateway to innovation, creativity. When the conventional route is blocked, that's when we become open to the unconventional.
Grace Marshall [00:34:47]:
So often struggle is where we discover, we explore, we create something new. It can also be the birthplace of our best work. It's like it can be where we are growing, where we're learning, where we're transforming. And it can also be where we develop stronger relationships. So, in relational struggle, in relational conflict, I wrote about this this week actually. There was a friend of mine was involved in a leadership sort of fireside conversation. And she said one of the learnings, one of the lessons she's learned as a leader is She said, I used to think that as a leader, conflict meant that I'd done something wrong. I got something wrong and therefore we've got conflict.
Grace Marshall [00:35:32]:
And she said, now I think conflict means that we're growing.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:35:39]:
Hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:35:39]:
And that way of thinking about it means, like, if I think of conflict as I've got something wrong, then my mindset is going to be one of, like, either, oh, I wish I hadn't, you know, regret. It might be, I don't want to face that I've done something wrong. So that might then come out as blame, shifting the blame, or deflecting, or hiding, or shame. Whereas if I think of this as, oh, it means we're growing, Hmm. then I'm more likely to lean in. I'm more likely to listen more than I defend.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:36:16]:
Or prove.
Grace Marshall [00:36:17]:
I'm more likely to go, what's really going on here? I'm more likely to see my fear, um, and also see their fear as a protection strategy, and then be able to dig underneath that to go, okay, so what are we protecting here? What are our needs? And then, you know, meet those needs or speak to those needs. And in that, we can find that those places of potential disconnection can actually be the strongest places of connection.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:36:52]:
Oh, yes.
Grace Marshall [00:36:53]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:36:53]:
Yeah. And such a powerful way of looking at it, if we can just take a moment. And, you know, what I'm hearing here, Grace, in all of your work is your desire, your need perhaps, you know, to make sense of things. You know, stuff happens. You want to figure out what's going on, right?
Grace Marshall [00:37:14]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:37:16]:
And as you put it, you know, your relationship to it. And it's the relationship that holds, I suppose, perhaps the answers, or at least some insight. And there's a definition I once heard that I now use quite a bit. I heard it first from a friend of mine, Max St. John, actually, who works in the NV, nonviolent communication space, and calls his work, healthy conflict. And the definition that I heard from him was conflict occurs when we reach the limits of our understanding. So your idea there of growth, same thing, right?
Grace Marshall [00:37:53]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:37:54]:
You know, we've reached something— there's something here we're not quite getting, wrapping our heads around. It's showing up in all sorts of, you know, perhaps not massively helpful ways right in this moment. You know, how can we do this better? How can we listen better? What are the needs that are not being met? And so on. So no, goodness me, conflict is not only normal, it can be immensely helpful if we just, you know, if we can be with it.
Grace Marshall [00:38:19]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:38:19]:
So sitting in the struggle, and you talked about this earlier in our conversation, being in it, I think you said. Being in the struggle. Now I think we understand that, don't we? Cognitively, yeah, yeah, okay, being in the struggle, yeah, sure. And we're laughing because, of course, Of course, the reality is a lot harder. So when you're working with people, how do you support them to be in it?
Grace Marshall [00:38:46]:
Yeah. So there's an analogy that I often find really helpful to share, and that analogy is one of a tunnel. So when we're in a tunnel, our instinct is, how do we get through this or get out of this? We talk about light at the end of the tunnel as a sign of hope.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:39:05]:
Indeed. Lovely metaphor, isn't it? Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:39:07]:
And, but what that does is it kind of like, just looking for the exits. It's almost like, ah, wrong turn, go back the way we came, or keep ploughing on, there's light at the end of the tunnel, let's just get through it. And the analogy I use is, what if we were to shine a light in the middle of the tunnel?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:39:27]:
Hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:39:28]:
What might we see instead? Because maybe there's some work to be done in that tunnel. And in fact, maybe there's some treasure to be found in that tunnel. And so rather than seeing light at the end of the tunnel, how do I get through this or get away from this? It's how do I shine a light in the middle of the tunnel?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:39:47]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:39:49]:
And there's a framework that I share that's very playful. So the full title actually of the book Struggle is The Surprising Truth, Beauty, and Opportunity Hidden in Life's— I'm going to say shiftier moments if I'm going to keep the language clean. You can guess what what the actual word is, um, and most people do. Um, but basically my framework plays on those shiftier moments, and it's called the 3 Shifts. So the first shift is Ooh Shift.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:40:25]:
Recognising it's there.
Grace Marshall [00:40:27]:
Exactly. It's like recognising it, naming it, noticing it. And Ooh Shift is basically about going, I'm in a tunnel. It's not where I would have chosen to be. I don't particularly like it here. It's dark. I'm scared. All of those things.
Grace Marshall [00:40:45]:
But as you're naming it, you're not running away from it. Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:40:49]:
And you're not panicking. Obviously, as I say the word panic, I'm thinking of the storey you shared with us earlier. But in the sense that you're not running away, you're not seizing up.
Grace Marshall [00:41:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. You're not letting fear drive you. You're noticing the fear, and you're kind of going, okay, I'm experiencing that fear. So it's like, oh, shift, something's gone wrong. Oh, shift, this hurts. And just noticing. Then the second shift is, what is this shift? And that's where we bring in that curiosity.
Grace Marshall [00:41:26]:
It's like, what is this? What's actually going on? And, you know, there can be, What's fear telling me about this? What's the storey that fear is telling me about this? And what other storeys might there be? What else could it mean? So the storey in that, that storey that I told you was, you know, he, you know, either he's misunderstood me, I need to set the record straight, or, you know, we're disagreeing over this, I need to win. This is an argument, you know, or I need to take control. You know, those are the things that fear is telling me. Whereas if I can spot those, I can then start to get curious of like, what else could it mean?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:42:10]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:42:11]:
You know?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:42:11]:
I'm thinking, you know, as you say that, you know, the need to be right.
Grace Marshall [00:42:17]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:42:17]:
What would— how would it feel to be wrong about this? Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:42:21]:
Yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:42:22]:
Not quite— not as bad as it might at first sound.
Grace Marshall [00:42:25]:
Yeah, exactly. And what if If right and wrong are like the black and white answers, what's all the colour in between? What else could be going on here? I remember having, like, an email rage conversation with a colleague. I mean, we actually, as a team at Think Productive, we all get on really well. Like, I'm really privileged to work with some really lovely people. So, we don't have conflict very often. But on this occasion, it was just all going wrong. It was getting derailed. It was your classic, like, like email after email, it was getting worse.
Grace Marshall [00:43:01]:
And, and, um, at one point we went, we need to take this offline. We need to actually have a conversation because it's, it's clearly not helping. And we teach this stuff, you know, so it's like, walk the talk.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:43:14]:
Hang on a minute. Yeah. Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:43:17]:
Um, and when we had this conversation, I— there was a point where I just blurted out, well, my fear is this. And my colleague went, oh, my fear is this.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:43:30]:
Aha.
Grace Marshall [00:43:31]:
And the 2 things were not opposing. They were different points on the map, but they were not like one or the other. It wasn't a zero-sum game.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:43:44]:
Gosh. So when we can actually identify our fear and voice it, we might just find that we have more in common. than we at first assumed.
Grace Marshall [00:43:54]:
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and so when we start to get curious like that, that's when we start to open up possibilities.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:44:03]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:44:03]:
So in that relational conflict situation, we open up possibilities beyond just who's right and who's wrong. We start to find out more about needs rather than just like, here's the solution I'm presenting. In other situations, if your struggle isn't necessarily involving another person, it might just be, I'm struggling with this project that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, or this piece of work, or just like, business is hard right now. Those kinds of things, often, I find struggle is where we innovate, where we do something new because the old has stopped working. And so, what is this shift? It might not be, this is just a problem or an obstacle I need to get over. It might be, What's the possibility here? What's the invitation? What could this be a catalyst for? And when I was writing Struggle, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who's a chemist, and she said, Grace, remember in chemistry, like, a catalyst is essentially an irritant.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:45:08]:
Aha. I'd forgotten that. We tend to think of it in quite a positive way these days, don't we? But that's so interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:45:16]:
So, like, that thing that's irritating you, what if that could be a catalyst for change?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:45:23]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:45:24]:
So, that's one of the things, like, you know, it's a little mantra that kind of— and it's an earworm that will come in now when something's really irritating me. And when I notice that irritant, I'm like, okay, catalyst, irritant, catalyst, irritant. Okay, what can this be an irritant? You know, what can this be a catalyst for?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:45:40]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:45:42]:
And so, those are all different ways that we can start to get curious.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:45:46]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:45:46]:
What is this shift? And then the third shift is holy shift.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:45:55]:
I think somehow using shift rather than the original word shit, and I'm just going to say it, somehow makes it even funnier.
Grace Marshall [00:46:07]:
Yeah. And like in the book, it is holy shit. But actually, it was And funnily enough, it came out of a talk I did when I was kind of launching the book on a book tour. I went and did a talk at Sunday Assembly.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:46:26]:
Lovely. Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:46:28]:
And about 5 minutes before I was about to start, they said, oh, by the way, Grace, we have kids in the audience. So just, you know, Like, keep it clean. I'm like, oh, okay.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:46:43]:
Quick rethink.
Grace Marshall [00:46:45]:
Exactly. So, you know, again, like creativity. You know, what do I do with this? I can't do what I was about to say. What do I do instead? And, and so that's where I came— I started saying shift instead of shit, and it works really good.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:47:02]:
Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:47:03]:
Um, and that's like, yeah, that's the holy shift moment. It's the, it's the revelation. It's the Discovery. It's where we— it's that turnaround where that difficulty gives way into discovery, where that potential disconnection becomes the place where we build a stronger relationship. It's that truth, beauty, and an opportunity hidden in the shiftier moments. And I talk about that being like the treasure where we find that our tunnel isn't just a tunnel, it's a cave. Where, where there's treasure to be found.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:47:37]:
Um, can, can you share with us a time when, perhaps not necessarily step by step consciously in the moment, but nevertheless you experienced this path for yourself?
Grace Marshall [00:47:59]:
Yeah. So, let me share with you one that I think, yeah, I think a lot of people will be able to resonate with. So, making mistakes. We all make mistakes. It's part of being human. And you know that, like, in your head, but when you feel it, it's a very different thing. Yeah. So, there was one, yeah, basically, one particular occasion where I had been working alongside our MD, Elena, to bring on board a really big client, so, a big household name.
Grace Marshall [00:48:44]:
And we'd gone through several rounds of meetings, proposals, and we were at the point where they were like, yeah, I think we want to work with you. But could we just see you in action first, Grace? And I was like, yeah, that's fine. Now, let me look at my diary and see what's coming up. Most of what I do when I'm speaking, when I'm working with organisations, it's an in-house workshop. So, it can be a little bit awkward to bring somebody external to sit at the back of the room.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:49:17]:
Quite, yes.
Grace Marshall [00:49:19]:
Yeah. So, there aren't that many opportunities. But there was one particular one coming up. It was like a networking event. I think it was women in banking and finance. And I thought, oh, that'd be perfect, because they've got different people from different organisations. I can get them added to the guest list. They can come along.
Grace Marshall [00:49:36]:
So, I sent them the details, and I said, does that work for you? If it does, I'll connect you with the organisers. And they said, yes. So, I introduced them to the organisers, said, they'll send you all the joining instructions. I'll see you there. And the day before this event, I was on the train heading to another gig, an in-house one, opened up my laptop, looked at my emails, and I saw an email from this client saying, really looking forward to seeing you today, Grace. I haven't had the joining instructions through yet, so if you could just forward them on just so I know I'm going to the right place, that would be great. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait. What's going on? It's not today.
Grace Marshall [00:50:17]:
It's tomorrow. And so, I start going through my emails and look at the history. And I realised that very first email that I sent them, the link was correct. The details on the link was correct, but in the body of the email, I had written the 18th instead of the 19th.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:50:40]:
Oh, shift.
Grace Marshall [00:50:41]:
Yes.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:50:42]:
Been there, know the feeling.
Grace Marshall [00:50:44]:
Yeah, you know the feeling, right?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:50:46]:
Oh, indeed, yes.
Grace Marshall [00:50:47]:
And we're a productivity company. Like, these are the kind of details that we're supposed to get right. We're supposed to be making life easier for our clients. So, I'm, you know, so that's that oh shit moment. So, what's the fear storey going on in my head at the time? There's definitely, yeah, there was a part of me that was like, Um, can I get away with not mentioning this? Could I just say, oh no, I think, I think we've got the dates mixed up. It's tomorrow, not today. So sorry. And hope that she doesn't, you know, work her way through the history and go, hang on, Grace, you made a mistake.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:51:32]:
Mm-hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:51:32]:
Like, there was definitely like that flight instinct was, can I, you know, can I keep my head under the parapet here? Um, there was a fight instinct in there of like, hang on a minute, the organisers were supposed to send the joining instructions. If they had, then it would have been blatantly obvious. Um, you know, there's that, like, that feeling of wanting to shift the blame.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:51:54]:
Mm-hmm.
Grace Marshall [00:51:55]:
Both of those storeys were playing out in my head. Um, what I actually did was, okay, I need to— I, well, I, yeah, I need to own up. So, I picked up the phone and, yeah, I phoned her, didn't get through, left a voicemail that basically says something along the lines of, I'm so sorry. I made a mistake. It's not today, it's tomorrow. I really hope you haven't set off yet, and I know you will have made arrangements to come today. Is there any chance you can still make it tomorrow? And then when I put the phone down, I thought, oh, I'm gonna have to tell Elena this. Like, my MD.
Grace Marshall [00:52:36]:
And, and I was like, oh, that's the only— so I sort of sent Elena a message saying, this is what's happened. And it was like, it was a cringe moment. It's a breath-hold moment.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:52:46]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:52:47]:
You send it off and you don't know how— what the response is going to be. Um, and Elena actually was the first person to reply, and she replied with, oh, Grace, You're human.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:53:02]:
How very kind.
Grace Marshall [00:53:04]:
I know.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:53:05]:
That's a marvellous response. Yeah, yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:53:07]:
It is. Yeah. And in that moment, that's where I could viscerally feel the difference between fear and, I guess, like you say, love. Yeah, she responded with kindness. And for me, what it felt like was You know how when you can have— sometimes you have a dream when you're falling?
Sally-Anne Airey [00:53:30]:
Yes.
Grace Marshall [00:53:30]:
Yep, that's kind of sinking feeling. And when she said greater human, it's almost like she caught me. It was that kind of, I guess, that version of hand on my shoulder of going, it's okay, you're safe.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:53:45]:
And I'm hearing in my mind, I feel seen, I feel heard.
Grace Marshall [00:53:50]:
Yeah, yeah.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:53:51]:
Isn't it?
Grace Marshall [00:53:51]:
It's that.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:53:52]:
Yeah. Marvellous.
Grace Marshall [00:53:56]:
And yeah, that's the difference. That's that holy shift moment where you can kind of go— and she could have quite easily replied with like, oh no, what's going on? What are we going to do? And kind of, that would have been reasonable. And it would have been meeting, I guess, focusing on the problem and fixing the problem. But what she did was meet me as a human being first. And then, okay, let's look at the problem together.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:54:25]:
Yes. Oh, that's such a good example, Grace. I really appreciate you sharing that. And so much wisdom and incredibly helpful tips in this conversation, which, in, as you know, is called Fearless Forward. So I wonder, as you look at where you are now and everything you've achieved, which is a great deal, when you look to the future, what does fearless forward mean to you?
Grace Marshall [00:55:04]:
I think for me, the less part of it is an ongoing work. It's, um, I wrote a piece years ago and I called it 2 and a Half Words That Will Improve Your Productivity. And the half, the half word was -ing. You know, it's not like I have achieved, it's I'm achieving, like I'm growing. And, and I like to think of that less as an -ing, you know, it's It's not about a static, this is less than what it was. It's, it's an ongoing thing. And by that, I mean, the more that we can notice fear, the less it will drive us. Yeah.
Grace Marshall [00:55:56]:
The more choice we have. So for me, it's about an ongoing journey. Of noticing, catching fear, switching it up for curiosity, asking myself those questions, being able to create a different possibility. And the result of that is we will be less driven by fear, less held back by fear, less kind of narrow-visioned and limited by fear. Less needing to protect ourselves out of fear, and therefore more able to show up fully, to connect fully, to, you know, to kind of dream and achieve what's possible, um, to take those risks, to trust more, to build, you know, workplaces and teams and organisations and societies that are less driven That's what it means for me.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:57:00]:
Grace, thank you very much.
Grace Marshall [00:57:03]:
Thank you so much for having me.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:57:05]:
One of the strongest moments in this conversation for me was the reminder that when we can see fear in ourselves or in someone else, we might be able to move beyond our desire to be right and instead ask, What is needed right now? What makes this challenging is that fear doesn't always look like fear. Sometimes it looks like getting on with it, performing well, staying busy, taking control, saying yes too quickly or saying nothing at all, and that's what makes it hard to spot, particularly in people who are highly capable and especially in ourselves. These fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are not bad responses. They're human responses. Sometimes they're necessary, and sometimes they're old reactive strategies that aren't really helping. Notice it, says Grace. Name it and get curious. Because if fear can hide inside apparent competence, Then a lot of what we reward in working life may not always be as healthy as it looks.
Sally-Anne Airey [00:58:26]:
Thank you for listening. Fearless Forward is edited and produced by Rob Lawrence. I'll be back with you in 2 weeks for our next conversation about how leaders have faced their fears. To be sure of catching it, go to fearlessforward.org or subscribe to my weekly bulletin at skillfulleaders.com.