190: The Commitment to Create with Michael Bungay Stanier (Momentum Book Club)

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

To kick us off, I figured yes, we could talk about your book the Advice Trap. But as I reflect on all this craziness happening with the Pandemic, I'm actually curious. It seems like the Advice Trap has just magnified since the day your book launched, and even all the planning and writing that has gone into it. We suddenly find ourselves in a collective societal advice trap of sorts, where every everyone is giving advice and sending emails and setting up zoom calls. What's your take on that? Does it have any relation to the messages in the book, or are they two totally different things?

Look, we're in a pandemic. Advice is flying thick and fast. Yet you've written a book called the Advice Trap. How does that work? Well, I'll tell you how it works.

And let's start with brain and brain science. And I am no neuroscientist, but I've read enough to pretend that I know a little bit about neuroscience. So that's what I'm doing right now. And here's what I know for sure. Our brains hate uncertainty. I mean, we've just got that primitive part of our brain, our lizard brain, that just is so sure that uncertainty is its enemy. And you know what? It's got good reason for it. It's got historical reasons for it. Because the DNA that we have that comes from our ancestors comes from people who, on balance, have played it safe, haven't walked into the dark cave questing for the interesting treasure that's in the cave, but have gone. I'm not sure what's in that cave. Why don't I play it safe and not get eaten by whatever animal might be lurking there? So we just have a wiring that is Instinctive and primitive and unconscious to say, on balance, avoid uncertainty. And when there is uncertainty, you have a physical response to it. A physical response to say, oh, yeah, you're feeling the uncertainty of it. So at a time like this, we want to get advice and we want to give advice. And the truth is that that can be absolutely an appropriate response. You know, when a building is burning, you don't want somebody going, hey, how do you feel about smoke? You want somebody to go, here's the exit. Let's leave down by these stairs. Let's be clear and decisive around that.

There's also a way that the brain wants to overcorrect, to think that advice is the right answer all the time, both to give it. This is how I create certainty in my world, is by telling people what to do. There's also danger that our brains are really hungry to be told what to do. Regardless of whether that's good advice or the right data or the right information. It's like any guidance will do. I don't really mind if it's right or wrong. Just give me guidance.

So I think there's the way that I'm thinking about managing myself through this pandemic. One of the ways, one of the principles that I'm holding is how do I find the right balance between the light and the dark? How do I find the right pathway between not swirling into a kind of circle of anxiety and.

Kind of flapping around, which affects me, but it also affects those that I work with and live with, lead and the like. But equally, how do I not spend too much time going, oh, this is amazing. The whole society is being reinvented. And I can pivot in the. You know, not in a. Well, in a Jenny Blake way, but in other ways as well. And this is going to be great. And look, capitalism is being reinvented. How thrilling. There's a way to say, look, for each of us, we want to try and find the balance between the light and the dark, whatever that means for us. We want to be grounded in realistic optimism. And I'd make a connection back to that. To, say, part of how you might want to show up in the way you engage others and engage yourself is a balance between certainty and curiosity. Because.

Certainty may be calming to our little amygdala, our little lizard brain, but curiosity is what generates possibilities and options and alternatives. It's what creates the space to figure out where we should really focus and what really matters. It's a way of making sure that we don't become herd animals and kind of too sheep like and just follow whoever's shouting the loudest in the moment. And so.

Part of the key message of the advice trap book is actually not advice is bad. The key message is us having advice giving as a default response is the thing to look out for. And in a time like this, that tendency to want to give advice and get advice is really strong. So it's useful just to be alert to the dangers of that.

I love what you described in terms of balancing the light and the dark and the problem solving with balancing coaching. It reminded me in my early coaching days when I was 24 and I started managing, I became a team lead at Google. The part of the, I won't call it negative, but part of the feedback I got is my team said we wish you had manage us more. You ask these big open ended coaching and they said they wanted a little more of concrete guidance. And so it was just interesting that early in my career I erred so far on the side of coaching, which if I'm being honest, it's the part I really enjoyed. But in a time like this, no.

Really, I did not see that coming.

But okay, mps but now it's true that there are moments that somebody needs to if the building's on fire, you need to be told what to do and it needs to be clear. And we have seen a lot of, I think effective corporate communications, not all of it, but saying, okay, we got to batten down the hatches. We need to keep the company alive if we even have a chance of bringing any of you back. And so there has been a lot of that rapid, clear decision making.

Yeah, I mean different companies have to pivot and change at different rates. And.

If you're a solopreneur or a small business, in some ways you have more flexibility because you've got less infrastructure to haul around. You don't have to suddenly go, how do I get 200,000 people to work at home? But equally you probably go, how do I? I don't have six months cash reserve either, so how do I manage that? So you have to respond in different ways.

Right. It was interesting, even as a podcaster, noticing all these podcasts were so disor. Oh no, I'm in my closet. And I'm thinking, I've been in the closet for years with this thing. But you're right. Then I'll see companies with the big cash reserves are getting a billion dollar credit line so they can make it through. And I'm like, oh, wouldn't that be Nice.

You're also in your own pivot in progress. And you're somebody that I've always respected. We talked a lot on the last conversation about pivoting out of the CEO role. And I've heard you say it's hard not to want to roll up your sleeves and dive back into Box of Crayons during this time. What's it like for you personally asking this question, what's next? And not having answers? And meanwhile the world is like getting shaken up in a snow globe.

Yeah. So.

I left Box yous Crayons about nine months ago and I really left about four months ago when Shannon, the new CEO, effectively.

Literally and metaphorically kind of marched me off the premises and said, that's it, Michael. Stop hanging around. You're just annoying everybody. I was like, okay, fair enough. And it is true that there's one small, tiny part of me that keeps wanting to be invited back in to save the day at Box of Crayons. But luckily I look at Shannon and her team and in fact, the whole of Box of Crayons, I'm like, honestly, I probably couldn't even get a job there anymore even if I applied. They're doing a great job. And that does leave me free to.

Think about what I'm trying to do now. And I mean, you've heard me talk about this, Jenny, kind of offline with other people. And I had always planned for this to be a time of reflection and a kind of reinvention. This book came out six weeks ago. I did a TedX talk that came out six weeks ago as well. And those are the two big projects that I was working hard on. And I always knew that once I got over that there'd be this moment of kind of collapsing face down, exhausted, but also going, now what? I'm not the Box of Crayons guy. I've not got a key thing that's taking my time and attention now. What?

And the hardest discipline for me is to not fill my life up with stuff.

I'm just really used to having an over scheduled life. And I've also used to kind of slightly complaining about my over scheduled life. But clearly I'm hopeless at listening to myself because I tend to be committed. I like that kind of sense of, wow, there's a lot going on and I've got these cool projects.

I think that's your next scheduling trap.

Yeah. And you know, over the long weekend that we've just had, I read like three or four books. I'm a fast reader and, and Some books were short, but I read a lot. And honestly, it was so good. But I was like, I literally came up with at least two ideas of new things that I could launch. I was like, oh, I could do this. Oh, I can see how that's a book. Oh, it's a podcast, it's an online course. It's a little ecosystem. It's cool. I don't. I bought the URLs, I did all of that. And then I was just sitting there going.

You'Re just absolutely falling for this again.

You have even the glimmer of free time and you're like, oh, I've got some ideas to fill up your free time. So part of the discussion I had with Ainsley, who's a woman who I work with on the MBS work site now, is just to say, look, we're just trying not to relaunch anything new. We're trying not to fill up my calendar for this year, for the next nine months at least, just to.

Give something interesting the chance to emerge. Because I just think the longer you stay in a place of uncertainty.

You're choosing to be in that kind of meandering state.

You're more likely to trip over stuff, you're more likely to find stuff, you're more likely to bump into new teachers and new collaborators and new ways of seeing the world. And if I'm having good ideas now, which I think I probably am, it might be really interesting to have see what ideas I'm having in six months time. And honestly, if I'm not having good ideas in six months time, I've already had some good ideas now, so I'll just throw them into my little ideas folder and then come back in in six months time. Go. Which of these feels most interesting?

I love that. And I love the noticing around the impulse to fill time even with ideas.

It's. I mean, it's embarrassing in a way because I'm like, you know what I'll do? I'll try and fill my schedule. So don't do that, Michael. And then come the time I'm like, oh, look, I'm trying to fill up my schedule. It's like, damn it, I know what is wrong with me?

There's like this magnetic polarity to the calendar where it's like, why? It's like this super strong magnet and stuff keeps flying toward it. You know what I mean?

Totally. It's so honest to leave it open. Part of me, Jenny, is just going, I'm not totally sure how to behave with a empty Day in front of me. It's like, do I do email? Do I just muck around? Do I lie on a sofa? Do I hire somebody to fan me and feed me juice and martini? I mean, what do I do? I don't know how to do that. So there's, there's a way of trying to learn indolence.

Oh yeah. And not have guilt about it and not think, oh, I should be producing right now or.

Right.

There's something wrong with this state.

Right. I mean, one of the books I read on the weekend or reread was Austin Kleon's book We will get through this or get through this I think it's called. And he's fantastic. He writes to creatives. His first book is Steal like an Artist, which is fantastic. Then show your work. And then.

His latest book, about a year old, is called Keep Going. And part of his thing is around keep space open, keep doing the work and keep the space open for input. Because without input they be no output.

I agree 100%. I've been thinking about that a lot lately of this. I get so many little pings and I'm so bad at responding to them. But if I did, I wouldn't have the output that I have, the ideas that I have. And I will just point out I don't even know if zooming through three books in a weekend counts as relaxing.

Oh, but I see. I love, I love reading. I really missed reading.

And I have about 200 books somebody bought, I don't know who, but are yet to be read. Yeah. So I'm like, you know what? Part of my job now is to go through some of these books and go.

Which are worth keeping, which are worth.

Consuming, which are worth tossing.

I think I heard from Ryan Holiday or Nassim Taleb, I can't remember. They call it an anti library. It's all the books you haven't read and that there's great value in that too.

Right.

They still serve a function. And the perfect book will come at the perfect time. And I'm with you. That is heaven on earth is just open free time in a good book or five.

Yeah. You know, I'm married to a woman who did a PhD in literature and a master's degree in library science. So we are both great readers. So sitting together and companionably reading is actually great.

Sounds incredible. And Congratulations on your 10,000 plus day anniversary with your beautiful wife.

Thank you. I know. Amazing, isn't it? Almost 30 years together. Impossible for somebody who's so young as me.

But that's right.

How can it be true? No, it's so amazing. I loved seeing the photos in your newsletter recently. It was just a really nice personal touch. And for everyone listening, you can go to MBS Works if you want to subscribe. Michael is the best. I want to open it up to momentum now. Megan is. You should just keep me around. I'll be the one fanning your ego. You know what I mean? I'll just.

I feel that I can't help it.

You've helped me so much so, you know, I feel like half my job on the Pivot podcast is just making my guests blush. And if I do that, I've done something.

Okay, I'll let you know if that happens.

Yeah. Okay, let's open it up. Megan will go first, and then Leanne all the way in Australia will go next.

Hi, guys. So I had multiple questions before coming on, and then so much of what you just said, so resonated with the idea folder and all the books that I haven't read yet. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one.

So I am just now moving into formally coaching as a business, and it's something I had been planning on doing at this time before this time actually happened. So your books, the Advice Trap and the Coaching Habit have been incredibly helpful in helping me to focus. And there was.

One thing that I read when reading the Advice Trap that I wrote down, and I was wondering if you could add to, which is the statement, coaching is subtraction.

And you like my little pun there.

That is. What. In what context did I say that? Like, desperately trying to remember how I. When, when or how I wrote that.

You know, I don't. I don't know. I just remember this. I just love the statement so much that I wrote it down.

Okay, so perfect. So coaching and subtraction. So to frame the answer, no idea why I wrote that or what context it appears in the book. But let's take this as a creative mom. I don't. And I'm going to just spin off here for a moment, which is. I'm not sure if people have come across or they know the name Brian Eno. He's a big music guy, particularly in the 70s, where he produced a lot of hit records like Talking Heads and.

Phil Collins and a whole bunch of great artists. Anyway, he has a little pack of cards called Oblique Strategies. And you see people reference this occasionally, but when the band was feeling a bit stuck or a bit boring or a bit kind of devoid of inspiration, he would pull out his oblique strategies pack and issue them a challenge, and it would be a provocative statement and they'd have to do something with it. And coaching and subtraction feels like an oblique strategy for me. I'm like, okay, well, the first thing I'm going to do in the kind of classic lazy coach way Megan, is to ask you, what does that mean to you?

I guess to me, I took it as getting through all of the extraneous noise and getting to the heart of the challenge.

I love it. So I think that's really powerful right at the start. What else? What else does it mean to you.

To remove all of the unnecessary.

Caveats or.

Added language and just ask the question.

Beautiful. And if I'm pushing you and I said, and what else? What else could coaching and subtraction mean to you? What would it mean?

Maybe get away from.

Just get to the heart of the one on one conversation at just being two people and subtracting all of the others. That might play in the coaching of the ghost, as you say.

Yeah. So awesome. I love that. And you know, I mean, Megan, you know what I've already done here, but just.

Everybody else listening in. But just to make it explicit, this is a classic coaching judo flip where somebody goes, how do I do this? Yeah, that's a great question. Look, I've got some ideas, but you go first and then you go, oh, and what else? And what else? And what else? And look what Megan came up with, honestly. And do you think that her answers to herself or my answers to her will stick and resonate the most strongly? Honestly, it's her own answers to herself. So I love that. I do think that if I had to guess the context I wrote it in, Megan, it would be around effectively using less words as a coach. You know, too many coaches have too much of a lead in to their questions, have too much explanation about why they're asking the question, have just too much.

Opinions about answers. I mean, there's a way, there's a place for you to show up and give advice and be that wise person. That's part of why they hire you. That's part of your role. But I just think there's a lot of extraneous words with a lot of coaches as there is in life. Like with too many, too many books, too many podcasts, too many. This is like, could somebody edit this, please? So I do think there's something about that.

Here's perhaps a deeper level which I might offer up about what coaching and subtraction is and it's a bit of a leap. But for me it is also about.

Removing the masks you wear and the games you play. I know that when I'm at my best when I'm coaching, it's me showing up as me as best I can without being caught into the games around status and control and looking good and having the answers. In fact without getting kind of caught up in the three advice monsters, you know, tell it, save it and control it. Which can really kind of warp my style. And you know, it's one of the realizations I had that when I did coach I suddenly realized that I preferred coaching on the phone to coaching in other ways. Because even though I'm not much of a phone guy most of the time, whenever I showed up in person, I start playing these weird games about, you know, who I am, you know, look, look at how I'm dressed, look at my self deprecating humor, look at my, look at me looking wise and thoughtful as I listen to your answers. I'm like, I'm playing these levels of performance which I'm like tired by my own performance. So I think there's something about how do you meet the person.

Wholeheartedly and for me that means often, you know, willing to embrace this sense of empathy and humility and kind of mindfulness, being in the moment with them. And I think there's probably something around that too, around coaching and subtraction.

Thank you. That was so helpful and I do appreciate the coaching judo mind trick.

Because I think especially as I'm just moving into this, there is that tendency to want to over communicate what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And just kind of knowing to get to the heart of it is going to be very helpful moving forward. So thank you for that.

It's a strong anxiety for coaches in general, not just new coaches, but lots of coaches to constantly want to prove that they're adding value.

And people most often do that by talking too much. And I think the best way to check is if you're adding value is to ask that learning question at the end of a conversation where you go, what was most useful about this? And what if I, if we could do one thing differently next time we meet and talk, what should we do differently? And you co own and you co create responsibility for these conversations being useful but you forward and you surface the learning act so you make sure that there's something to be said. The other question that I have started using particularly with my teams that I manage, the people I Manage is at the end of not every meeting, but many meetings, I will ask what needs to be said that hasn't been said as an opportunity for people to talk about the stuff they kind of been wanting to talk about. But it's a bit awkward or they've only got a half inkling about it. And it also gives an opportunity to.

Figure stuff out.

That's great. I love that one.

I love that, Michael. Thank you. And as well, coaching of subtraction, I find the same thing, that voice, there's something really powerful about nobody having to worry about how they look staring into the little video screen. And you inspired me. At the end of all of our momentum calls, we talk about what's one insider? Aha. What's one next step? So I love asking this.

Did we lose you again, Jenny?

We did.

Oh man, my Internet is cutting out.

Well, good thing it's inspired her so much that she accidentally put herself on mute.

Probably not, no. That's the universe saying, you're talking too much. Leanne, over to you. Leanne all the way in Australia, host of First Time Facilitator.

Hey, Michael. Hey, Jenny. These are the first words I'm saying today, so apologize. Apologies if my voice is a bit cracky, but yeah, I was so cool to listen to that conversation. Around the magnetic calendar, I'm certainly finding that I think I should have more time right now, but every day is really booked out. Hey, Michael, I've got to just. This is more of a tactical question about your LinkedIn content strategy. I love my best question. So as a. Yeah, yeah. As a viewer, it looks like you're just on the fly, walking around when we could walk around the streets. Walking around the streets of whatever city you're in, just having a chat and shooting these questions. I would love to know behind the scenes, are you. Is it on the fly? Have you just thought of a moment, thought of a question in the moment or are you batching content? Are you quite strategic with the way that you ask these questions? What's your approach to this?

Yeah.

So first of all, awesome podcast, by the way, Leanne. I mean, for the people listening in, if you aren't subscribing to Leanne's First Time Facilitator podcast, you really should because it is top notch. So it's really great. And for me, if you're a coach, I really think that facilitation brings a lot of the skills of coaching.

To light in terms of working with the group and vice versa. So I know that one of the reasons I'm a good coach is actually because I'm a great facilitator. And so part of why you should listen to Leanne's podcast is because knowing how to facilitate actually makes you a better coach as well.

So I have. So the starting point, Leanne, for these little videos is a commitment to create big and small this year. That's my kind of one of the three commitments I have.

The three themes of the commitments of the year is to be exuberant, to be a host, and to create big and small. Those are the three kind of ways I'm trying to navigate my way through the year. So I'm like, okay, I need to create big and small. What does that mean? Well, part of it's like, okay, so how do I. What am I good at creating? And I am pretty good at doing spontaneous, fast on the fly video. So part of it's around. How do I try and make creating as easy as possible for me? Well, one is to play to my strengths. So I bought a little camera called the DJI Osmo Pocket. It is super cute. It's tiny. It looks like a big cigarette lighter almost. It's got a little camera head on top. It's got a gimbal, so it actually stays steady. So it's like a steady cam. And it shoots in ridiculously high quality. I mean, at 4k if you want that. So it's a really great creative tool for me. I can carry it in a pocket. And I've got a reminder in my calendar to shoot a video every day. Now, some days I don't shoot. I haven't shot. I didn't shoot a video the day, the last two days, but I did shoot one literally four minutes before I got on this call. So I'm like, okay, I've got the rest of the afternoon booked out. I haven't shot a video for two days. I need to shoot a video. So I went out to my little deck porch thing out there. I'm like, okay.

What do I need to talk about? I just got off the call from Rona, who is my financial advisor.

I don't know if it's a good time or a terrible time to be a financial advisor at the moment.

Somebody once said that war is long periods of boredom with short periods of intense excitement. I think if you're a financial advisor, it's kind of that at the moment. And I just had a quick conversation with her about something and I was like, she is so calming and relaxing and makes me fret not very much about money at all. I feel nourished by her. So I'm like, great, that's it. So.

I've got a couple of simple rules around my videos, which is like more than 30 seconds, less than 2 minutes. Make it personal, make it a sense of. This is Michael here speaking to you. And start with a tiny bit of a story. So literally, I just shot a video that goes, hey, I was just on the phone with this person, it's fantastic. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Actually, it's about somebody else. I've just been on a call with my friend Neil, Neil Pedrico, who wrote the Book of Awesome, which some of you all know in the happiness equation. And this kind of uplifting call with him. And I was like, neil, he's awesome. He makes me feel this, he does this, he's like that. It's great. So it made me think about being nourished. So here's my question for you. What nourishes you? So the meta message here is don't get caught up in the video or the questions or anything, but get caught up in the process, which is.

What plays to your strengths. Now, remember, I'm old, so I've been practicing this stuff for years. So I've been practicing doing some of this stuff a long time and it's just got easier for me over time. So if you look at stuff that I create or Jenny creates or Leanne creates and go, I could never do it like that. Well, honestly, none of us could when we started. We're all a bit ugly. If you go back and look at old videos of me on YouTube, you'll be as embarrassed as I am, but that's fine.

So it's about A, a commitment to create. B, there are times where I will start a video and I'm like, oh, I've just trailed off into nothingness. I'll need to reshoot that. But because they're each shooting a minute or two long, even if it takes three takes, which is really the most it ever takes, it's taken me no more than 10 minutes.

Then I just need to remember to post them on LinkedIn, which is honestly the more pain in the backside part of this process for me because I have to write it up and you have to put hashtags and you have to copy tag some people and it's all a bit of a pain. And I don't have a strategy for how I post them. I literally go into the bucket where I've outsourced, put topping and tailing Them so that it's got a little intro and an outro. Somebody Tugbar in Turkey does that for me and she throws them back in the thing and I just pick one and I download it and then I upload it onto LinkedIn.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. And I just thought you had the new iPhone, so it's actually really cool that you've got something that you have in your pocket. And yeah, I've heard of the gimbal as well.

Yeah. And it's less than. I think it's like 2 to 300 bucks for this little piece.

Um, I'm trying to use my phone less just because I'm hopelessly weak willed. So this gives me a sense of freedom. And honestly, Joy, I love, I love this little camera. It's really thrilling.

Nice one. I would love to see you on TikTok.

I. Yeah, I'm 40 years too old for TikTok, but Gary Vee would say, get over it and get back on it. So we'll have to see.

Awesome. Thank you, Michael.

Yeah, sure. Leanne, great question.

Hopefully my Internet will stay with us. Great question, Leanne. And I will also say I was inspired seeing Michael. He brought this camera to a conference that we were both at earlier in the year. Way back in the good old days when people could gather in person.

That's right.

But I saw him pulling so many people aside and that could work too. Even for those of you more introverted, it almost gives you a reason to go approach people and just say, hey, will you come be part of this project? And so he was actually, I think it created a nice break for everybody involved for Michael and for the people that he pulled aside. And I don't know, do you remember, Michael, how many videos you got out of that two day weekend?

Oh, yeah, probably 15.

Because I was shooting videos for just my Best Question series, but I was also shooting videos for the Year of Living Brilliantly series as well. So it's like 15, you know, everybody's anxious. It was like, wait, what? I mean, not everybody. Some people are like, oh yeah, sure, I'm a media. No, whatever, I'll jump in. I'm happy to do it. Some people are practiced at it, but most people are like, oh, I don't know what to say, I don't know how to say it. I don't know how to hold myself. And mostly you just go, look, relax, just hang out, chill out, talk to me. You know, when I'm filming it, I'm looking them in the eye and I'm nodding My head like a maniac going, this is amazing. And that's. That's enough to get people filmed. And.

So much of this.

The work that you put out in the world, if you choose to do that, you always keep asking yourself the question, what's good enough? And different types of work has different types of standard. Like, my videos don't have to be very good. They don't have to be fully eloquent. They don't always have to even make full sense. I'm going to be like, it's good enough. Pump it out there. And then other stuff, like if I'm like, the book you write and you rewrite and you rewrite and you rewrite and you rewrite because that has a more permanent quality.

I'm all for. Is this good enough? Listeners can tell from so many podcasts. That was a great question. Thank you again, Leanne. And thank you, Michael, for sharing some of your behind the scenes. Alexandra, do you want to go next?

Sure, I'd love to. Hi, everybody. I have a question for Michael. I was curious to know.

Because curiosity is such a big part of the advice trap. How does that really tie into creativity for you?

I also work with leaders a lot, and.

We work in museums, actually, and do leadership workshops in art museums.

Oh, great.

I find that curiosity is one of the focuses that we do, but I find that when we. Because it sounds like a creative thing and there's vulnerability involved, I get a lot of resistance from leaders. And how do you address that? And how can creativity become a more natural part of this process?

Yeah.

So you're right. There are words that arrive with a whole bunch of baggage in this world. Coaching is one of them. Creativity is one of them. Curiosity is one of them. You know, coaching arrives with baggage because whereas people like us all know what it means, most people are like, I don't know what that means. Sports coaching, is it executive coaching? Is it life coaching? You know, it's all a bit. It's all a bit scary because it's unknown. Curiosity and creativity, you know, come with. These are childish things, and I put them away because I'm a. I'm an adult now. And I think probably creativity is particularly scary for people or just not accessible for lots of people because they're like, look, I'm trying to run a. I'm trying to get. Raise a family and have a job and run a team and have a P and L bottom line and.

Start a business and serve my clients. Who has time for creativity amongst any of that stuff?

Curiosity. So Let me come back to creativity while I think about an answer and make something up. Curiosity.

I think with all of these things, coaching, curiosity and creativity, they're all processes. And one of the things that used to be true, may still be true, is that when people try to explain coaching and effectively sell coaching to people who might be interested, they spend a whole lot of time explaining how coaching works.

And most people just don't care. Like, they don't really care about curiosity or creativity as a thing in itself. What they care about is an outcome. So how do you make my life better? By whatever process? You know.

If somebody said to me, say, michael, what's coaching? I wouldn't explain. I'm making this up right on the spot. So it just may not work at all. But let me try it. I'd go, you know, how do you ever get that feeling that sometimes you're a little bit stuck in your present life and you're thinking to yourself, I just know I could do more and I could be more if I just had the chance?

And hopefully they say yes. If they say no, then there's no point in carrying on this conversation. But let's say they say, yeah, I feel that. Wouldn't it be great if there was somebody like a guide who could help you take the first steps to actually taking that journey, to actually doing more and being more? And they're like, yeah, Wouldn't it be great if they actually were the people who not only started the journey with you, but walked the whole way with you so you didn't feel lost and you didn't feel lonely and you didn't feel confused, but you saw the finish line and you crossed the finish line. Wouldn't that be great? And they're like, yes. And you go, well, that's what I do. I help people start the journey and finish the journey so they can do more and be more. Like, that's amazing. How do you do that? And I'm like, I'm glad you asked, so here's how I do it. And then you get into a conversation about how you show up as a coach, but all of that, and of course, I've just made that up. So they may not work at all, but there's a way that what that's doing is you're just speaking to.

Something that somebody is struggling with and is real for them. And you're like, I can help you with that. If this rings true for you, I can help you with this. And with curiosity, it's a really hard sell to say Be more curious. Everyone's like, sure, okay.

I'm not anti curiosity, but I'm not entirely sure why I should change the way I'm living my life and behaving at the moment to do something differently. And you're like, have you ever found that moment where you're working really hard, but you just know in your heart of hearts that you're not really working on the right thing? Yeah, you know, yeah, I've had that moment. I don't know why the hell I'm working on this thing. But have you also ever had that moment where you're like, you are working on the right thing, but you just think to yourself, I'm sure there are better solutions to this, but somehow we're stuck using the same old solutions to this problem. They're like, yeah, yeah, wouldn't it be great if you could get really clear on the challenge that really matters and the answers that could really solve that challenge? Wouldn't that be great? They're like, yeah, well, that's what I do. I unleash curiosity to make sure that we're working on the right problems and we're coming up with the best answers. So you can see that structure that I'm using there. You know when and you know when and you know when. And wouldn't it be great if. Well, that's what I do. You know, that got taught to me by a guy called Michelle Neray N E R A Y years ago. And you don't have to use that exact structure, but what's inherent in that structure is a commitment to understand the struggle the person you're seeking to serve is up against or people, you know, plural. And until you do that, you get obsessed with your own process and your own, your own labels rather than going, I'm solving something that's important. And so when I think, I mean, and in the advice trap book, right at the back, there's a kind of three circle diagram that shows how curiosity can serve individuals and teams and organizations to be more, have more impact and have people who are more engaged as a result of that.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. That's very helpful. And I think.

The mind shift for me of really focusing on.

You know, when wouldn't it be great if really addressing.

The struggles that my clients are now having and then present them with a benefit result, a solution, and not focus so much on the middle part of the process, which is what I do. They don't. Maybe that's a little too intimidating for them. When we really get into the nitty gritty of it, but really focusing on what they're struggling with, with and the solution that I can offer them.

Yeah, perfect.

Great. Thank you.

My pleasure, Alexandra.

I'll also give a plug for Alexandra. She made an incredible pivot of free virtual museum workshops, which is really cool. So, Alexandra, will you give a quick plug for your website in case anyone wants to check it out?

Oh, absolutely. Thanks, Jenny. Yes.

I recently launched this business and was actually ready to go live in middle March, which was not good timing with all the things that are going on in the world right now. So I did a quick pivot and I'm offering all month long free virtual museum tours. Really essentially workshops that go through this process where we practice emotional intelligence by looking at art and talking about it. And it's every Thursday this month. And you can find out more by visiting my website, which is museumable, which is the word museum plus A.

So thanks, Jenny. Guys, check it out if you're interested.

It's perfect for everybody who is homeschooling right now as well.

So maybe that's so just to play with that. I mean, you could do something. Alexander, I'm making this up entirely about your business, but let me have a. Let me just make something up and have a go. You can just ignore it after I'm done. You know how museums feel like they should be awesome because they're full of all this cool stuff. But you know how in actuality, whether you're online or visiting, in reality, they're all a bit overwhelming. There's too much stuff, you don't know where to go. There are too many people.

And, you know, even when you find the good stuff, you don't even really know what to do with it. You kind of look at it and go, all right. And then you're off to the next thing because you can almost feel like you're just ticking the boxes of the museum visit. But wouldn't it be great if a museum trip change the way you saw people and change the way you saw yourself? Wouldn't it be great if a museum trip actually changed, made you smarter and more effective in the work you did? Well, that's what I do. I use the power of museums. I make them less weird and I make them about building a better life, not just looking at pretty pictures on a wall.

Absolutely, yeah.

Yes. I actually have a museum education background, so I definitely understand the struggles of the visitors. And that's actually why one of the things that inspired me to start this business was that I wanted to make the art in museums more relatable to everyday life and to learn things from it and to have that space where there's not so much distraction and noise all the time, to really just have a bit of a timeout and to really bring what you're seeing into your actual life. And yeah, I think, I think that's really great what you've said just then. So thank you for that.

That's just me making stuff up, but that's part of that piece around. If you build something, you've got to create the journey for people to understand how this can really help them.

Yes, absolutely.

Cool.

We were all saying chat. We were like, good thing this is recorded.

Get this transcribed.

Awesome. Usma, let's try over to you.

Okay, let's try one more time.

Perfect.

Okay, perfect. So thank you very much for this. And I actually am also new to momentum and also very new to this pivot into coaching. I'm an oncologist, so I take care of patients with cancer. And of course there's a lot of ambiguity and adversity, co creation of hope and then all the lessons that I've learned. I wanted to put it out as a, you know, as a coaching skill. So that was my whole big core message and my 25 years of strength. But with this pandemic, it just opened doors to so many different opportunities. So my question is.

Should we stick to what our core strength is in this time or just of kind get kind of sidetracked by another opportunity that may also be looking appealing?

It's really hard to tell because nobody knows what the hell is happening right now. So first thing I just acknowledge is.

At the best of times, that is a hard business decision. Do you change target or do you stick with what you've got? I like.

What'S his name, Jim Collins, who wrote Good to Great. I really liked his metaphor of explaining how you figure out what to pursue, which is he goes, bullets and cannonballs, bullets and cannonballs. And he says, your bullets are effectively your small ideas, and you should fire bullets to help figure out what your main target is going to be. It's a kind of range finding process. So you should be testing ideas in small ways, just going, is there something here? Did people like it? Do I like it? Because, you know, there's all that. That weird moment where you come up with this great idea. You go, this is brilliant. I'm going to launch it. And then you turn out that you don't even like doing it. That's what happened to me with building A coaching practice. I was like, last, I get to build my coaching practice. I don't actually like having 30 people I coach every day. It's too much.

And then once you figure out what your target is, you fire your cannonball, you commit to it. And Jim Collins would say, look, people either don't fire enough bullets, they just have an idea and then they go for it without really testing it or testing other ideas against it, or they don't have the courage to fire the cannonball. They don't kind of commit to the, to the actual experience and go, this is it. This is my idea. And one of the reasons that Boxer Crayons, I think, ended up being a success as a company is we really committed to the cannonball. I mean, we weren't as fast or as courageous or as focused as history will make us look because, you know, at the end we had this position which is we teach 10 minute coaching to busy managers. And it was really clear and really different and really stood out. And it was our cannonball. And it's not our vision anymore for a company, but it grew the company for quite a while.

So I think, Uisma, there's a question of going. It's hard to tell at the moment what's a bullet and what's a cannonball. And maybe you want to test. The other resource that I would point you to is a book by my friend Alexander Osterweilder and he got a brand new book out today called Invincible Companies. But it's not that book that I want to recommend to you. You. It's called, helpfully enough, Testing Business Ideas. So there you go. It's about as explicit as you could possibly want. And Alexander and his team create big visual books that are super practical. They're basically exercises for you to work through. So if you want to be more robust in how you think about what your business ideas are. Testing business Ideas by Alexander Osterwalder, which is O s T E R W A L D E R might also be a useful resource for you.

Thank you. That definitely seems like something that's going to give a little bit more structure to the distracted thoughts.

Yeah, for sure.

Thank you so much. And I love a good book where we have so many awesome book recommendations. Michael, we are approaching the end of this combined book club podcast and I'd like to throw it to you. What needs to be said that hasn't been said?

Oh, look at you kind of doing a Michael on Michael. Come on.

You planted it at the start. How could I end without it?

Let me ask you this, Jenny. What? And I'll answer the question as well. But what are you discovering about yourself that has surprised you in this top sheet over time?

Such a good one. Wow. This is the circular course of two coaches talking.

It's an infinity loop of questions. I love it. Yeah. I can't wait to hear your response as it relates to the podcast. I guess to your point of what is good enough? It's been an incredible challenge. I used to be very overwhelmed just getting a weekly episode out, and I have to say, I'm having so much fun with this daily challenge. I'm not saying I'll do it forever. And a lot of people are like, don't burn out. It's a marathon, not a sprint. But there is something that got activated in me. Like, all of a sudden, there's wind in my hair and there's momentum around the podcast and there's this challenge to think every day. What can I offer? What's helpful during this time, especially when no one has any answers, myself included? And so talk about. You know, I thought I was releasing perfectionism around the podcast before, but doing it daily means 10x ing the systems and the speed and also 10xing releasing perfectionism. So it's been a really fun challenge of something that I never, ever thought I could do, and certainly not for a month plus, which is the current streak. So, yeah, I guess that's brilliant. I guess I'm learning how invigorating it feels to have big challenges sometimes and not all the time. Certainly the podcast. It's the one thing I can do right now, as I've shared on several of the calls I've been in with you. But there's something that is invigorating about challenge, and I think that's a helpful reminder for all of us around resilience, which is that, yes, a lot of days it feels like the sky is falling, and yet there is this rise. There's energy, there's adrenaline, there's momentum. There are things within this that we can harness. Speaking of domains, I saw I auto renewed. I have this domain called ridethewildtiger.com and it just renewed. Given our attention to animal kindness here in Momentum, I would probably never do anything with it publicly, and certainly not now that Tiger King is such a phenomenon. But I do feel like we're all riding the wild tiger in a proverbial sense, and there's something fun about that, even when amidst the massive uncertainty and anxiety.

Nice answer. That's really helpful for me to Hear. And I think probably others to hear as well.

Thank you.

All right, let me answer my own question.

What am I discovering about myself.

And what has.

What needs to be said that hasn't been said? They may be the same or different.

Yeah.

I am.

Just so. So I am learning that.

So Marshall Goldsmith, who Jenny and I both know because we're part of this Marshall Goldsmith group together, he said for many years that one of the key lessons he had to be a successful coach was about making sure you got the right clients. Because his business model was, you pay me a huge amount of money for a year's coaching, but only if you make progress. If you don't make progress, you don't pay me. So he basically is important for him to find the right clients who would make progress because otherwise he's wasting his time and wasting everybody's time and he's not even getting paid for it. And that's a helpful reminder. And one of the.

Things. So I effectively manage two people at the moment. I'm managing. That's an overstatement of the word Shannon, who's the CEO of Box yous Crayon. So I have a more formal, if you like, bored relationship with her. So I talk to her formally once a month. And I work with Ainsley, who's part of MBS works, and we talk every day. And what I notice is I am really good managing people who are self directed, ambitious, smart.

Who accept responsibility and accountability because my leadership style is one of empowerment and trust. So I will push them, I'd encourage them to stretch. I will give them resources, I will invest in them.

And I've also had people who I've tried to manage in the past who are less like that. And it turns out I'm not a very good leader of those type of people because I'm not as good at going, right, let's buckle down, let's have accountability conversations. Let me nudge you to the next level.

One of the things that I'm learning is that piece around, if I manage somebody, they need to be the right fit for my style of leadership or else we both lose.

What needs to be said that hasn't been said. This is a kind of generic piece of advice and it may not even resonate for most of the people here, but I will say that, that.

There is value in protecting.

The tone of your brand at a time like this. So Jenny's a perfect example of somebody who's come out going, you know me as Jenny Blake. Let me do things that make you Know me and love me even more as Jenny Blake. So I think, you know, doing the podcast all the time and this work just allows her to build credibility and status and love and commitment that will pay off.

Sooner rather than later. And when this kind of, when this dip is over and we're on the upswing again, she will harvest the brand equity that she's building at the moment. And I think there are other people at the moment who look and sound a bit.

Scared and brittle and desperate and noisy and.

Who seem to be damaging rather than enhancing their brand. So for all of us here, because we all have a presence and a reputation, I'd just be asking you, so what are you doing that allows your brand to be better loved by the people you're seeking to serve?

That is so powerful. Michael, thank you. And thank you for the kind words. That really means a lot. And my take on this too is when I'm not sure it's better to be quiet. I think what you described as those that where it is coming across.

In a skewed way, it's almost like they feel like they have to say something. And this idea, oh, something is better than nothing, but not necessarily so. I'm always trying to wait till for a genuine call to be moved. So I just love that you.

Wow.

So glad I asked your brilliant question.

It pays dividends.

There we go.

Thank you. Before we officially sign off, what I love about Momentum is that we love a good link and we love a good resource. So we've been keeping track as we go. These will all go in the show notes@pivotmethod.com podcast but is there anywhere you wanted to direct listeners right here at the end, including your potentially new podcast, if it's still happening?

It is. It launched today. So I have a new podcast called we will get through this. So classic example of Michael not following his own.

Speaking of filling up my time, that filled up quite a bit of my time, but it was a piece in the moment and the first three episodes dropped today. So we will get through this. Michael Bungay Stanley, you'll find me on most of the podcast platforms and then if you're going to a single place for me, MBS works because there you find doorways to the books and all the resources in the books and the year of Living brilliantly, which is this year long program with 52 interesting teachers and so on. So yeah, MBS works.

Awesome. Michael, thank you so much for another illuminating conversation. Thank you Momentum, for being here live during this call. We are getting better and better as we go. And thank you Pivot Podcast listeners for being here. It means the world world.

Thanks Jenny.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.