346 - Power, Confidence and the Courage to Speak Up with Matthew Hill

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hadnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Matthew Hill, and we speak about power and confidence, how they are learned, expressed, and shared through the way we listen, question, and how we show up in conversation and get prepared for challenging conversations and debates that we have amongst us to really practice what we preach. Stay tuned. And don't forget to scroll down to the show notes to find out more about my guest and to subscribe to the show if you enjoy it. Thank you for listening. Matthew, welcome to the show.

It's lovely to be here.

Thank you for joining me on the daring topic of power and confidence.

Power and confidence.

Woo! Not small words.

No, it's, uh, yeah, we probably shy away from those or have a rather fixed view of them, I think.

Yeah. And I think there's so, so much baggage that we bring into the conversation, just thinking about what is our relationship to power and confidence. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? And before we dive into it, I always open with the same question and don't want to jump it. When did you start calling yourself a facilitator? Actually, do you?

Do you know? I do. I do. I do. So first, I had to learn some stuff before I, uh, was given that badge.

Mm-hmm.

And they put it on my shirt. So I, I did a couple of, couple of stories. So I was at an HQ of a rapidly expanding firm and realized the resources, the rewards, the love was not going to the HQ. It was all going to the field. So I had to go out into the field. I was given 3 choices: India, Lebanon, or the Czech Republic.

Hmm.

India, an ethnically Indian woman went out there and got very ill, so that might have finished me off. So she got that job. Lebanon, they wanted a French-speaking woman. I had the alluring curves, but not the language. So we had to pass on that. And Czech Republic came in, and that became my second home.

Hmm.

And so, I was there for 5 and a half years, doing all sorts of things. A thing called leadership. So supervision, management, leadership. sales, anything and everything. So that was my blossoming and my blooming. So that's why I did my stuff. So I came back home and someone said, you know the Czech people's soul, their ducha?

Mm-hmm.

And I lied and said yes. And we started there. I wouldn't have called myself a facilitator at that stage. I was, uh, probably a sort of know-it-all friend. Then one of the people I worked with said, well, you've done lots of soft skills. Why don't we turn that into training? And so we did ever more and more and more amazing and brilliant management and soft skill courses. And I was, it was sort of broadly there. And then I became an expert in a couple of things within that, particularly presentation and communication. So, and then I also do some other stuff as well. So mediation, and that really is the essence of this thing called facilitation, the sort of the, you know, what's within that. So that's when I called myself a facilitator.

So if I understand correctly, facilitation is when the trainer meets the mediator.

It is in my case. It is in my case. It is in my case. Yeah. So I approach the— mediation is normally resolving conflict. So, you know, you go into the university room, there's normally something to be sorted out. Now, the idea— what's the idea? It's to bring something out of the people and to deal with their issues. So I think the key thing, it's not about me, it's about them. So it's dialing down the me, it's accessing more of them. That's the essence of the share of the power or the focus.

Yeah. And although I could go down the rabbit hole and ask everything you've learned from working in Czech Republic, But I would, uh, well, I'd say why don't you do one thing?

Why don't we just do one thing? So a lot of people say the Slavic Central European slice are so awfully negative, and it was true if you did a word count, they were more negative. The problem nu was the most frequent word, you know. We can't do that, we must do that, we used to do that, didn't work. And I learned to interpret that because a word is just a label.

Mm-hmm.

For you and me, good has a different meaning. For you and me, quality has a different meaning. For a Czech and me, go ahead, action, millionaire have very different meanings. So they would do all this sort of no, can't, mustn't, shouldn't. What they were really doing is asking a decent leadership question, which is, are you for real?

Mm.

And it took me a while, but I learned that, all right, they're just, they're just stress testing a new idea.

That's good.

That's not bad. It's good. It sounds negative, but it's, it's totally good. Are you for real? Was the essence of it. So in the Czech Republic, when you're doing business out there, Czechia, as it's now called, they might be negative or push back. They're just saying, are you for real? Or are you just another tourist coming in to exploit us?

So basically the first pushback would be, oh, we cannot, we've done that already. And then If you're really in it for real, this means, okay, so let's see how we can do it better, how we can learn from the past, how we can bring them in. And that's where the facilitation bit comes in.

And also, you're accessing communism. You couldn't be public— sorry, you couldn't be private in public. So you had to hide your skills. So there was that as well. So You know, are you for real? Can I trust you? Here's my secret ability. So that was a survival mechanism of the nasty 40 years of the Soviet Union where you couldn't laugh in public and everyone was very strict with their children. Because, you know, a private joke told publicly and everyone loses their benefits.

Yeah. Thank you for, yeah, highlighting that because I think it's a nuance that we often forget. the cultural baggage that comes when working with groups, especially abroad or multinational groups, because—

Yeah, totally.

And as you said, the different understandings of the different meanings of the same words.

Yes. My, yeah, I mean, I used to do this test. If I said there's half an hour of work and I want it by next Tuesday, and I'll do a multicultural group, multiethnic group, whatever, and you'd get this enormous range of when would you start, When would you have it drafted? When would you have it perfect? When would you deliver it? So deliver it next Tuesday. Well, I want it done by next Tuesday. The Keeney, the Swiss Keeney, would have it started immediately and ready on Monday. Some people would start it 5 PM on Tuesday. And you think, you know, so we, we just, we do it from our own culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's worked 100 times before. You've got to stop. And go, it's not my culture. There are other things going on here.

Yeah. And then all it takes is just a bit of curiosity or asking the question or being open and being aware that it might need alignment.

Alignment. I'll just, you know, when will you start or what's the first thing? That's always quite a good one.

I remember I was once, I was doing research in Namibia and—

My wife was born in Namibia. Sorry to interrupt. There you go.

So I spent 6 weeks there, right? Yeah, 6 weeks. And I was prepared. So you're gonna have a laugh. I was about to leave on a weekend trip with new friends that I made. So me, the German, they said, okay, we're leaving at, what was it? I don't know, 10 AM. Me, the German, all packed, waiting in front of my hostel at 10 AM.

Nice.

And when nobody showed up at 10:30, I called. Oh yeah, we will be there now. And half an hour later, I called another time. Oh yeah, now, now, we are coming now, now. And then I realized the distinction between now, now, now, and just now. And we'll be there now means we're about to leave home.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The beginning of the beginning.

Mm-hmm. And, um, In that moment, I found it very frustrating.

It's, it's a difference. It's a difference. And I live my life. Namibia is— but, but what a fantastic place. There's no rush in Namibia. It's a big place.

Yeah.

Yeah. I actually got married there. How about that?

Oh, beautiful. In Windhoek?

No, no. Up way up north. Oh, actually, there's a quick story. There is a quick story.

Okay.

Efficiency and effectiveness.

Mhmm.

So we got married way up north. It's a huge country. It's so big, the map comes in 2 parts. So a friend of ours trained in America, then Lisbon, then Johannesburg, and then went into Windhoek, rented a car, whizzed off. Mr. Dynamic. He looked at the map, made the map right, continued. It was only when he stopped for petrol or gas, the woman said, what are you talking about? This is the south of Namibia. You want the north of Namibia. So he had to turn around and drive for 24 hours, including get stopped by the police. He was a trained negotiator, so that, that got him out of that. Just amazing. So I used to do this thing in terms of leadership. Was he an efficient driver?

Mm-hmm. Yes.

1,800 kilometers in 24 hours will never be done again. Was he an effective driver? Not so much.

Yeah, I learned a lot about distances in the atmosphere and nuances, so many nuances. Anyway, anyway, so what struck me in our exploration call was how you approached or how you got to the topic of power and confidence. And I think you spoke about air quotes, regular people. And maybe it is how you have traveled the world that informed you, or growing up in the UK. So what is your interest in power dynamics in groups? And what is— let me ask it differently— what is the obstacle of really stepping into power and confidence?

Okay, well, there's quite a lot going on. So the start, the obstacle we'll come back to, but the start of it is Why didn't someone tell me what I needed to know when I needed to know it? So that is the motivation of a lot of coaches, a lot of trainers. Yes. The obstacle, I think, is that you think you have a fixed quotient of, uh, power and/or confidence, inner and outer, based on your birth.

Mm.

So if my mother and father weren't If I'm from this economic group, if I'm in these circumstances, this town, this class, this industry, this whatever, I've got very limited options. And I think it was true 500 years ago. As you were born, that's how you died. There was no such thing as social mobility or self-improvement. But that's not the case now. That's not the case now. So I believe, and I've worked with 11-year-olds going from small school to big school. I've worked with people leaving the care system, the social care system, which is absolutely brutal.

And you'll see— In the UK, you mean?

In the UK.

Mm-hmm.

In the UK. And I mean, I, I love that some of the naughtier boys, uh, it's great fun for half a day, but you have to be a saint for longer than that. But, you know, and it's a challenge. It is a challenge. But I absolutely believe everyone can go back through the magic of hypnosis and have a beautiful childhood. that anyone at just about any age can pick up. These days you really can just do anything you like. You can pick up any old skill you like. And there are some basic stuffs for power, confidence, and ability which can mend the broken heart and can get you on a track to what you want to do. And maybe you have to find your own motivation to start because it's— I think a lot of people are Addicted to some very unfortunate things, which takes them away from what, uh, needs to be done. But really, it is a beautiful thing. We can, on a slightly different level, we can turn our car into a university. You can learn just about anything from 100 YouTube videos or listen to Uncle Matthew, and you'll be able to read very fast in half a day.

And it's an interesting— so yes, knowledge nowadays is as abundant and accessible as It's ever been.

Yep.

Right. So it's at our fingertips. So I think it's not the knowledge, but it's the knowing-doing gap, the application of the knowledge. And then I wonder, you spoke about the happy—

And then that. Yeah.

And you spoke about the happy childhood and it's the restrictions we build very often around ourselves. Who am I to? Speak up in a meeting, share an idea in a workshop, admit that I don't know in a training.

Lovely.

Oh, all of these are for me signs of power dynamics and confidence.

Yeah. Oh, well, yeah, there's no— or persona. There are complicated people who can't keep their mouth shut. You know, there's lots of different dynamics, you know, in terms of the— and I believe in finding the superpower to whatever you've got.

Mm-hmm.

If you are on the spectrum, if you are introverted, if you are easily triggered, let's find the superpower, the ability rather than the disability. I can't, I mustn't, I shouldn't. Let's find the superpower. Let's just break through and do that. They're very good. And of course, you know, a lot of comedians were, had a tough background. Uh, a lot of trainers were relatively introverted. I was fairly introverted. I would call myself an adapted introvert. And I believe a lot of the best writers or leaders are sort of introverted, or a lot of their time is spent solo. And so it really is that crossover. And there's some mechanical methods to get you started. One of my favorite things, I did a blog fairly recently, add one sentence. So if you're an American, it's keep it down to one sentence because they've had show and tell. But for you and me, it's add one sentence. So in any inter— I live in London, it's very busy. No one makes eye contact. Everyone, you know, the positive is respect other people's space. The other things, we're terrified of getting mugged. But if you just add a sentence to every encounter, it will become second nature. And suddenly you will be speaking up, you'll be speaking your truth, you'll be critiquing and adding and participating. It's a muscle. It's a habit.

But tell me more about that, because if I want to play the devil's advocate, you add one sentence, you start speaking to strangers, you start speaking your truth, and then you're the victim of the cancel culture.

Okay, well, we've been there as well. We've been there as well.

You get all these negative comments. So how do you—

Let me add in a caveat before the lawyers get involved. It's not about you. It's not about you. It's about the audience. So one of the greatest exercises, there are many, many different forms. Here we, okay, listeners and viewers, here's one thing. Everyone do this on Monday. If you listen to people talk honestly about something personal, you will work out what their values are. So if they are a super woke aggressive, an aggressive hyperactivist, then you know not to listen. to speak your truth. If they are on the rational end, then you can be rational. If they're emotional, you have been warned and you can interact that way. If they're artistic, creative, problem solvers, whatever it is. So I think it's listening. You know, I used to do a lot of intercultural thing, which is, you know, don't joke first, shut up first and find out what the tribe is, what the values are. So Listening to someone for their values, drivers, trigger points, and then moving on from there in terms of dialogue, discussion, speaking up, and so forth. And then you will be speaking and adapting to their language and their values, and the chances of punishment are much reduced.

It reminds me of the ground rules of influencing skills.

Yes.

And then wonder about integrity. So do you adjust? Is it just form that you're adopting?

Well, what is integrity? Integrity is staying close to your values, but you could also say, so here we go, there's for longer term, if it's 5 minutes, if it's transactional, integrity falls away to diplomacy and survival. If you're stuck on a desert island, you might as well go for integrity and negotiate the difference, reconcile the differences, the Socratic method, the, uh, the Cartesian method, the mediation method, and negotiate the— the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and get something which is collaborative and mutually beneficial. But short term, If someone's got a barking dog, just say, I like dogs, and go away. I mean, it doesn't have to be true. So I think there's a difference between the transaction where we style switch, we are diplomatic.

Mm-hmm.

Diplomats are professionals who lie for their country, and no one judges them except when they get it wrong. Whereas a proper professional engagement is about, I don't know, purpose, And having some sort of overlap of values, or that's not particularly possible.

And then it depends on the purpose of the interaction. And yeah.

Well, let me give you an example of something we have to reconcile. I do a lot of mediation with people who are not very nice. And you wouldn't choose to socialize with them. And the stuff they're saying is like, wowee, that's pretty strong. So there, it's not about becoming friends. It's not agreeing with them. It's really representing their point of view, which you don't have to agree with. So you're going from drama to facts, or damage, really, damage to essence. And then, so the job becomes representation of a point of view, and maybe a bit of a separation from the damage, so that you can represent them in a way which will give them the best result. So is that integrity? Yes. Uh, you're interpreting the undigestible into something usable. You're doing them a big favor and they will benefit in terms of an outcome.

And then at different layers, um, how easy or how can you defend someone who's— you don't agree with?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But again, you, you make it mechanical. I don't have to agree. I quite enjoy— I mean, I am in dialogue with some fairly extreme people, not in the mediation, but in other stuff through the Socratic method stuff. Some really extreme people. I absolutely don't agree with them. That's not the point.

Mm-hmm.

It is to try and get their case. There's a certain thing we won't, we won't blow up the internet by mentioning it. And I've yet to see a huge thing. It's a global thing. I've yet to see someone put the case on a bit of A4, put the case on one page. And I often ask people to do that. And what I get is nonsense. And so I've tried to do it myself. So it's not my position, but I've tried to be, you know, walk a couple of kilometers in their shoes and put a sort of working document down. It's an amazing exercise. It is an amazing exercise.

I can imagine that there's a lot to learn and that there are a lot uncomfortable. And maybe that's why most of us shy away from it, that there might be trigger points that, speaking about our unresolved childhoods, trigger points that we don't control, and then we become emotional, though we don't want it.

Yeah.

There might be the fear of, oh, maybe they're having a point or agreeing or finding things in ourselves that we Don't want to see. Yeah, pretty good.

Very good. Very good. Yeah. No, exactly. It's very good. If we are participating, the vulnerability, the openness is maybe we, we are traumatized. Well, our trauma comes out. We're triggered. We're changed. We're changed. We move towards the dark side. There's, there's lots that can happen. There is lots that can happen.

And is it something that you I'm not sure whether this is more of a personal hobby that you have, or whether it's something that you also bring into your work, because I can imagine that especially in the professional— well, in this world in general at the moment, having these polarized conversations and learning to listen and to sit with someone else's sometimes maybe outrageous opinion, especially in the workplace, is important. Yeah.

So mediation, it is the day job. In leadership, it's quite fun to work with people and to practice something. Or, you know, they've got a leadership issue and guess what it is? So I would just rehearse or articulate the other side. So it's a rehearsal space, and I'm going into the values of their bête noire. And then they're dealing with that. And so that is a messy rehearsal for a better performance later.

So what is your advice or your best thing to do when finding yourself in a conversation with someone with an outrageous opinion?

Yeah, well, the Socratic method, and I've gone horribly wrong, but so I can tell you how it doesn't work. Someone's coming in and they— Quick, which I won't go into the content. I just said I had to really behave. I went to a posh London hotel. I've gotta behave myself. Gotta behave myself. Gotta behave. Within 5 minutes, I found myself—

Pink elephant.

Pink elephant. Don't think of your, your childhood front door. And I found myself, oh, I've done it again. And so I used methods. One other thing I said, so if I gave you, oh, the plus 10, minus 10. So if you like the polarities. So I said, okay, so what I find is my method is a +10/-10. You know, there's sort of the extremes. You can't really do something, so you've got to moderate it to start with. You do +7 to -7, and then you can start to find commonalities and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this person said, I'm not +10, I'm +100. So you immediately go self-protection mode. Thank you. Get me out of here.

I'm not sure whether I get it with a +7/+10.

So, um, you're for or against Abortion. Brazilian deforestation.

Yes.

I, uh, I like cheap beef, or I like teak. You're on one side. I'm an environmentalist. You're on the other side. If you are fully there or fully there, you can't speak. You are too different. The gap is too large. There is zero commonality. If you can acknowledge part of the other side, if you can acknowledge part of the other side, then you're plus 7, minus 7. You've gone from a 20-point gap gap to a 14-point gap. And you can continue. If we were mediating a divorce, I would say to them, can you write down 3 things which are positive about the other person? If they can't, we're not really going to start very well. If they can, if they can separate the separation from the value, we can do something.

Hmm.

So that's the idea. So it's about So any position, and this is the key thing, if you look at, I don't know, Trump. I came foul of people, uh, absolutely everything about Trump always is totally wrong and evil. That is the position of a lot of people.

Mm-hmm.

Well, it's not true. You don't like what he's doing. You have a difference of opinion. That is true. That's +7. But where they are emotionally is plus 100. Waste of time. It's a waste of time for them. They're wasting a lot of energy.

And then how much of that is really the opinion or the trigger and hence actually our nervous system overload?

Okay. So we— there's a lot of things going on there. I think it's programming. So the algorithms of social media are giving you more of the side that you're on. Very articulate people are giving you all the arguments only for one side. Most people are not disciplined enough. I think it's Ground News which gives you this base. There's a French version called Mediapart.

Mm-hmm.

Which gives you the, the balanced view. Most owned media is biased. A lot of the algorithm will just give you the one side. So people are just— have just been flooded on Trump. They've been flooded for 16 years with monopoly points of view. So if he could bring peace to the Middle East, he'd still be wrong, as we've seen recently. So, you know, that's the thing. So it's just a sort of predisposition to be extreme on one side.

And I get that.

So to me, it's like you've got 2 positions. Fine. There is a cost and there's a benefit. There's a good and a bad, to be judgmental, but on both sides, you have to acknowledge the weakness of your own case. and the strength of theirs, then we can have a decent conversation. So my point generally is we've got polarity in the world or in the classroom. And we're not solving any problems. And those 2 things are connected. And you become a better influencer if you can navigate this simple game. My side is not perfect. Just stop pretending it is and get on with it. And their side has merit. Of course it does, or else they wouldn't Yeah.

And I, I would like to shift from the politics to the boardroom.

Yes.

Or the classroom.

Yeah.

Where there is still very often stubbornness of, I know how it's either on career path of people or bonuses or the investment strategies or What is there your advice on navigating these polarized conversations?

Well, if we look at, there's one simple thing, which is these deeply held views are fairly non-negotiable, certainly to start with. But if you see them in a particular way, and this is what, how I dealt with the American blowup recently with me, if you split it out into someone's character Someone's purpose and their content. Instantly, you've gone from 100% opposite to you to actually two of those two out of three are quite reasonable. So seeing the potential character, which can be kind, generous, articulate. There's an example here. So the majority here we go. The majority of people we go Nigel Farage in the UK, a horrible disaster. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, well, stop it, stop it, stop it. He's charismatic, he's popular, he's a brilliant communicator. So you've separated out the positive. Has he got the answers? Well, I don't think anyone's got the answer. So he hasn't got the answer. He'd be Prime Minister if there was a— if there was an election tomorrow. There isn't an election tomorrow. I don't think he wants to be Prime Minister.

And now we're back into politics.

Okay, so let's go into Make an acquisition or don't make an acquisition. There, the identity is, my name's Steve and I'm a tough CEO. And so the identity of his tough, steak-eating, macho man thing means whatever he chooses, yes or no, he's going to stick with it. So a lot of people won't change their mind. So there we get into negotiation or sort of peace negotiations. You've got to build the golden bridge of retreat, or you've got to write that person's victory speech for them changing their mind. So that's ego and identity. Or, you know, and the steps to that are, what are the pluses and minuses of your position? There are no minuses. Of course there are. But if you, you know, the coaching idea, if someone says it themselves, then they are, they are likely to own it or at least acknowledge it. If people are, especially ego people, if they're, if they're told it, they can reject it instantly.

I think most of us.

Yeah.

Who wants to be told?

Yeah. But the Socratic method, here we go. If you, let's have a half an hour chat, and if you can change my mind, I'll buy you a drink and say thank you. And that's quite a fun pattern interrupter. Actually, it was a German guy in Prague who spent 2 hours at a communications agency Talking about all the mistakes he'd made. A lot of the Czechs would go, he's showing weakness, slabby mouge, weak man, not good. And what he was really doing was just softening it up that we could all see the other side of us and the other side of them. And it was brilliant. And that facilitates an honest conversation. There are 4 parts to any debate: good, bad, good, bad. Here we go. You know, reconciliation, collaboration, decision-making, whatever it's gonna be. Just, you know, the idea that, that nothing's perfect. There's no perfect position. There's no perfect action. Everything has risk. Everything is very complicated. As you say, so you mentioned baggage, which is our own experience and hurt and needs and the other person's. It's gonna be, it's gonna be messy.

Yeah.

But it's about, it's about living with your decisions. And it's within my thing, it's about having robust debate, the Harvard thing, be very tough on the problem and be very mannered with your opposite number.

And what I hear, and maybe that's what makes me, that's what I stumbled upon, is it sounds as if there's a lot of meta skills needed to get there, right? Because When I think of a heated debate between 2 alpha humans, there is ego. Yes, there are emotions that very often nobody's aware of. There is the inner child stepping into the driver's seat.

Yeah, very good.

And there's lack of self-awareness. There's lack of this pause button. Oh, let me listen to them. So what are the meta skills, the, I call it soft skills? Yeah, yeah.

I don't mind the word soft skills. Some people think that diminishes the whole thing. No, it is respect. I think we've got to do it with respect, that Harvard idea of respecting the person, looking at their LinkedIn profile, looking at their CV and going, wowee, they have sacrificed, worked hard, and achieved a lot. There's a performative idea with You know, 2 people at the, at the microphone, and that's very specific. I don't think that's the case mainly. We see a lot of that on YouTube and we think it's normal. I don't think that is normal. I think most people are less skilled than that, less real-time than that. And, and, and the idea is, you know, also if you just put out the, the punchline, you can use Socratic methods. Are you ready for this? Let's just stress test that for a second. What would it take to disconfirm you of your deep current belief? And if they can't answer you, then they haven't done enough work. And here's another one. Can you argue— just to show everyone that, you know, you're a fully rounded superhuman— can you argue, take a minute to argue the other side of this?

Mm.

And if they can't, again, they haven't completed the preparation. So there are some quite fun ways.

Um, it's—

there used to be the chair thing. So in coaching, I think you did the chair thing. So what do they think? Sit in the chair and just feel it, feel it, feel it. What are they— what are they feeling? What are they thinking? So it's an empathic positional exercise. Like, a lot of the Socratic thing is, you know, the +10, -10. You can do it physically.

Yeah.

Why have you chosen +5? Justify it. So there We're going from their headline or the conclusion, and we're going back to their workings. I'm fascinated. How did you get to that position? Please inform me and enlighten me. Bub bub bub bub bub. Hang on. Really that one? So space. Do you really slow down with space? Do you really believe that? So we have to go from certainty to doubt. That's the wonder. If everyone's certain, we get nothing. If everyone goes for doubt, then we get something.

And isn't this something that is the certainty that is encouraged, supported in our air quotes professional work environment? Totally.

Totally.

So, and then it's an entire cultural shift that needs to happen where doubt suddenly is allowed. And so—

Yeah, yeah, totally, totally, totally. Well, it's the German tailor, you know, measure twice and cut once. Whereas everyone is sort of competitively alpha. Alpha, there is a, there's quite a specific time for alpha behavior, and that is crisis and deadline. Then directness and alpha and all the rest of it is, is wonderful, even if it's wrong. Directional movement is better than no movement. And it's better than a, you know, should we sit down? I had a, I was flying to Frankfurt and the pilot came on and said, there's 2 perfect storms arriving on Frankfurt Airport. We have to divert. He did it in such a way that no one complained at all. And I thought, my word, he's gone from certainty. It's a morning flight. We've all got afternoon business. We've all just had our afternoon business canceled. There's a huge personal cost to everybody. But he made safety more important than our business meeting. And he did so in such a way that we all changed from our, I've got, I've got, it's at 3 o'clock. It's at 3. I've gotta get to my 3 o'clock. I'm only here for my 3 o'clock. We got the team. Yeah, fair do. Wasn't a single complaint. I thought, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

And this is a beautiful example to come back to our initial hook with the power and confidence.

Yes.

Right? So that's a calm confidence in a position of power that convinces everyone. What is it that— what's the difference between this genuine confidence power and maybe sometimes directions that come out of fear?

Okay. Yeah, something. I mean, okay, the, the pilot is using his or hers— let's not make assumptions— experience and expertise and qualifications and time in the seat. So that's professional power. And they're using their personal power. They've done a lot of communication, which is the add one sentence.

Mhmm.

And so they've got that. And then you've got this fear-based, amplification Which is a sort of mechanical animal power. It's a sort of natural human— human as an animal aggression or something. It's primitive. It's primitive. And that has value. You know, on the streets of New York, that has value. And there's the realm, isn't it? So, the pilot is within a professional realm. If someone was freaking out as a passenger, they're not in the professional realm, they're in the animal realm. survival realm. So then you get into your Maslow and the rest of it.

And now I wonder, I think in our exploration call, you said that everyone can learn power and confidence.

Exactly. So we move from the fixed to the learnable.

Yeah. And when I think of a pilot, we have prestige, we have money, we have status, we have privilege.

Okay.

How about someone who didn't grow up with privilege? And I wonder, because I think very often when we think of the abuse of power or the kind of harsh communication and directive and micromanaging, it comes from a space, and that's my hypothesis, of insecurity. Totally. Totally.

Well, quick one on that. Imposter syndrome is often with highly able people, but that sort of crappy, uh, style is often lesser people. I think you've got to— you've got to make it— there's a switch. I don't think it can be done externally. You've got to be— you've got to make this flip. I can. And you've got to take the first step. So the childhood trauma is something happened to me and I was humiliated, I was embarrassed, I was hurt, it was a failure, and I mustn't do that again for the next 73 years. And so that's what we're all fighting. We're all fighting our sort of programming.

Mm-hmm.

At the same time, you take someone— there's a guy called Gerry Robinson who was somehow 7th of 12 Irish kids brought up in utter poverty in Ireland in a greenfield. He became CEO of a very important group in the UK and an absolutely extraordinary guy. Not a good looker, tiny guy, lovely voice. Super bright. He made a choice himself to flip out of his script, his trajectory, to do something else. I should think there were some other influences. I guess he was adopted by a teacher, promoted by the village. There was that sort of— there was some sort of rescue coaching sponsorship, something. But he went for it. He went for it.

Mm.

And there was probably a lot of pain along the way. Like Oxbridge, these ex— you know, elite colleges. the grande école in Paris or Oxford or Cambridge or whatever, when you don't fit in, it is brutal.

Mm-hmm.

So there is a lot of pain along the way. It's how much do you want it? I think anybody can— I mean, privilege is an interesting word. Everyone triggers on that word. I think just, okay, like appropriation, just appropriate the right stuff, peeps. Privilege, get some.

Yeah.

You haven't got it. Get some. And you get back to anyone can learn anything. So build up your quotient of knowledge, practice it, and get experience. And anybody can do it. Anybody can do it. It starts— not to get too Jordan Peterson— make your bed, clean your teeth, one extra sentence a day, 10 YouTubes a week. Practice, practice, practice. Read, turn off the TV, get physically fit. watch your diet, get on with it. You can change your circumstances in a year.

Only if you see it.

So, very good, very good, very good.

So for instance, what I realized is when I— most people reach out because they want to be on my podcast are middle-aged white men. I worked with a few PR agencies and now I told them that I am not accepting any more middle-aged white men for now. Because I realized—

I'll go, I'll go, I'll go.

I'll be very transparent here. Because I wasn't aware until I became aware. And now the more I reach out to those who might not have grown up with privilege, colored mostly, I realized that I sometimes have to really convince them to get on the podcast. Brilliant minds, lots to say. And I don't think that they would say about themselves that they have no confidence. I think it is not seeing it and not stepping into because we didn't grow up with the opportunity we might have.

Very good. Very good. I made the joke Americans have show and tell. And so they just get on with it. So I think there are the norms of performance. You know, posh kids have manners.

Hmm.

It's behaviorally pumped into them at a fairly early age. I think there are cultural differences. I think we are— I was in France the other week, and we were doing a presentations final. So I'd coached these people a lot over months. And there were the 2 people from Asia who found it— I mean, they did a decent job, but they seemed to find it excruciatingly painful. So I was thinking, looking at what you've just said, they're just asking a question. How's this going to go down? Will I be judged? Is this going to be bad for me? I would have thought that's where— that's where the 2 people I was working with— I thought, I thought that's where, that's where we were. They did okay. They did okay, but they didn't seem to enjoy it. What do you think? What do you think? Is this— are we doing a middle-aged, middle-class, white activity? Is that what we're doing?

You mean right here on the podcast or in the trainings we deliver?

Oh yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, I mean, you know, I've trained in Africa, I've trained all sorts of places, uh, trained in the Middle East. You know, learning is different, different, um, And I think the—

and I believe that by traveling so much and by having lived in different countries, we might be unconsciously also more inclusive. Or, and I think this has been for me very often the case, I have traveled a lot, I lived in different countries and realized that actually we're all not that different. It's going to be fine. And I think there are biases always. And sometimes I have the impression that the more we look, the more we see. So I'm not saying that there is an answer and that I think if we're too careful, it cannot be the solution either, but at least to recognize that there are some who act differently. And especially when we're in group dynamics as trainers or facilitators, that there are some who Who haven't learned to step into their power and confidence.

Delegates or trainers?

Delegates.

Yeah, totally, totally, totally. But, you know, it's an interesting point you make. I mean, if we go back to right now, you and I are close enough culturally that I have a near enough understanding of what you mean to respond in a way that's relatively meaningful to you. If I come from a totally different place, there's no such guarantee.

Mm.

So, I— one imagines just safety. Again, Maslow low. Do I want to be destroyed? Do you remember Zelenskyy's chat with Trump? But he misunderstood one of the words, and it was just— it was, like, painfully awkward. It was just third-language English versus understanding. And it was a quick— it was a fairly rapid-fire thing. I mean, yeah, he did not enjoy that day. So one imagines there's a sort of a basic protectionist idea going on there.

Interesting. And then also the consciousness, just the awareness that someone might not speak their native language and that there might be the possibility of misuse of certain words.

Totally, totally, totally.

And then it's— and this brings us to another layer of power and confidence, speaking your own native language.

Absolutely, absolutely. So I've got a theory, you can shoot it down, and I'm sure you will. I work with a French bunch who have been taught, uh, by their tough parents and tough teachers that perfection is the minimum. And I've been— and there's an English group as well who have been taught that foreign languages are for foreigners. That's a— that's an exaggeration. And so the French English just won't start. So I come in with this hypothesis, which everyone listening will hate, and you will hate also, that we just do bad Fronglish. And we, you know, like Esperanto, we do Fronglish, bad Fronglish, malheureusement, and we get on with it. And I was quite, I was quite enjoying it. I found it massively liberating. I think everyone else found it quite irritating. But it really goes for perfection and therefore nothing. murdering a language and therefore progress. It doesn't end there, but it starts there as a method, which was quite fun. So an idea of approaching a cultural difference from getting stuck in and being totally forgiving.

Mm-hmm.

And having a laugh. So what we— I met this Moroccan woman, and it was quite funny. I said, when do you— when you first met your husband, we were getting on like a house on fire. I said, What was your first impression of your husband? They met in business school. And she said this phrase, why don't we just say what you think it means? He goes, oh, I thought he was a mover across the floor. What do you think she meant? Because I got it wrong, which was quite funny.

By—

First time she meets her man, who they get married and have 3 kids. She thought he was a mover. What does that mean? What do you think?

Someone who moves on? Someone who's not committing?

Okay, that was— that's meaning number 7. Okay. I thought he was a smooth Italian operator.

Which is the exact opposite.

A mover, moving in on. She meant he was a muscular bloke who could move your piano. She meant the literal—

A literal.

We love and laugh, and you can play with that all night long, as we did. He's a mover. Can you pass the salt mover? It was so funny. It was so funny. So to me, misinterpretations can be funny or informative, and they are totally listening for values.

Yes.

Right. That's what's on your mind. Right.

Yeah. And I think especially in the context of learning and group conversations. Yeah, to build on initial misunderstandings brings so much depth.

Um, at school, our language books had in the back, one word translates as one word. That is a big lie. And with what we're talking about, it's the nuance, it's the subtle, it's the alternative meanings.

And what I, what it brings up for me, this conversation is the importance of psychological safety.

Yeah.

Because if we, if we trust that we have the permission to get it wrong, if we have the permission to speak Franglish, to make it up, that the permission not to be perfect, And trust that people will respect us for our efforts.

Yeah.

Then we can learn from all of that and we can have the most difficult conversations.

Bingo. And it is, it is tough. It is tough. It is tough. A perfectionist does not want to be imperfect. An OCD person does not want to have a scruffy office. It is difficult. It is difficult. It is difficult. But once you start, it is, can be, it can be amazing. I thought you meant that, but you meant that is actually a building block of understanding. It is a positive.

And it's also interesting when we are speaking about inclusivity and privilege, how the words we're using might exclude people. And I'm thinking of one example where we had, I was hosting a community, so we had online events around facilitation. And one workshop was around The container, creating a container together. And in facilitation, a container is the safe space, or is the space in which things happen, the dynamics happen. And one of the participants at some point unmuted and said she was fascinated by our enthusiasm for containers and then shared what she knew about the history of shipping containers.

Wow.

Yeah, which was for me such a revelation. I mean, it was a very awkward situation and at the same time showed everyone very quickly how easy it is to lose people and to exclude them unconsciously by not being clear on what the language we're using and how to use it.

Yeah, but I would tend to play when I'm a facilitator. and someone uses something in a different way, I will often just explore the end of the root of their meaning.

Mm-hmm.

And everyone knows what's happening, and they also know I'm just going to the end of this cul-de-sac, this street, and then I'll diplomatically say, and we can always say, we can also say that this word could be interpreted as this, and then we will go the other way. So, Stella Ting Toomey talks about face. There's some brilliant stuff about face giving, face continuation, and face saving.

Mhmm.

And we can do lots of work around that, which I think is very important. So psychological safety and the rest of it and inclusion. The quickest way to have a bad training is to humiliate or to just have people have this huge hormonal reaction and therefore just not try again. Um, yeah.

And, um, I would be curious of your opinion because, um, I, I had the revelation about this small, how small words can make a big difference. I was in a, um, I was in a seminar and said something that was wrong in a classroom in front of a teacher I clearly wanted to impress. And his response was, yes, Miriam, and have you thought of? And then said the exact opposite. And the epiphany was that yes doesn't mean I agree, or yes, that's correct. But yes, I hear you.

Yeah, yeah, you exist.

You exist. I acknowledge that you said something. And then the and made me lean inwards. And I could really listen to the response. If you had said, no, that's wrong, let me explain you, I would have shut down in humiliation.

And those, that's the structure of hypnosis.

Mm-hmm.

That's the structure of hypnosis when you glue. So he made your words a truth, and then he put the word and, and therefore that suggested that the next thing was also a truth. That's hypnosis.

And how, and the, so the feedback when I share that in my training, I didn't know that it was part of hypnosis, was that People might, if people only half listen and then they will confuse it and they will believe that the first part was also right. What is your stake on it? Or what is your approach on helping people learn and keeping the safety of, yeah, building on each other, keeping face, saving face?

No, saving face. I would never, I would stress test. This is Socratic. I would stress test someone. Some come up, you know, blah, therefore this. And again, okay, so that's— I don't believe it, but it doesn't matter. So let's just try and make it work. Try and get the internal logic of this idea to a decent place. Might not be my place, our place, but it is a place. If we can get a truth, a conclusion, a change out of that, then we've had a little mini lesson which may or may not be on the topic And everyone's happy. And then again, you back away and go, right, back to this. And that's okay. And that's okay.

And even that might be different to do in different contexts, right? Because in a society where facekeeping is very important. Yeah.

And it's surprising the number of places. I mean, Britain is fairly face-ish. You know, we think of Asia, you know, Japan or whatever, but I mean, They're delicate souls in the UK, uh, so you've got to be a bit careful. You're in the Netherlands where it's, uh, a bit of brutality goes down well.

Yeah, and I'm German living in the Netherlands, so it's full-blown force.

Matthew, there's a mistake on the, the 7th slide.

Oh yeah, thank you.

You know, thank you. Oh yeah, no, I just— and still I'll, I'll say some rude words, but in the silence of my head, it's all good.

Yeah. Yeah. What remains your facilitation challenge?

Remains, uh, well, my own triggers, my own sensitivities. Um, I'm still irritated by people. I mean, quite funny, when I'm on a leadership program and people are fairly obviously showing behaviors which are not leadership behaviors, I can be fairly annoyed. Uh, so I have to sort of overcome that. Actually, I'm going to a university on Friday where these people are very— you mentioned privilege. Very privileged. And I think they think it's an honor for me to share my wisdom with them.

Mm.

So I have to overcome some preprogramming and try to get engagement. Now, what's the deal? What's the deal? What's the deal? I have a lot to share. That's not me. I've stolen it all. I have a lot to share and so little time. There's less money, there's less time, there's less attention. And so forth that I have to often compromise. So what's Friday? Friday's a half day. I won't make much of an impact. If I had those guys for 2 days, we'd really do something. They're great people, slightly painful sometimes, but they're great people. And in 2 days you could do it. In half a day you can't do it. So, you know, the resource and opportunity and all this.

Yeah. And I would love to come back to the juicy bit, the first part of your answer, because that's interesting. So, A leadership group where you realize that these leaders, they're lacking some leadership skills. And how upfront? Because I think there are two opportunities here, thinking that, okay, they're leaders, they can deal with stuff. Would you be upfront and confront them with it? Or how would be your approach?

I have tried, but—

And how do you know which Where do they fit? Because sometimes they can very well deal with confrontational statements, I have realized, and sometimes it doesn't go down as well.

No, no, exactly. But, you know, you've got your, yeah, I mean, you know, you've got your conflict types. You can avoid, accommodate, compromise, compete, collaborate. You've got your complainers. We've changed an educational thing, which is, this is a whole philosophical point in the UK. We flipped the educational to the teacher is the, is the jug and they are the glass and you're gonna fill them up.

Mm-hmm.

So there's the transfer idea. We flipped the idea to a model I don't really agree with, which is everyone is a beautiful high potential individual who is gonna type Shakespeare on a typewriter given enough opportunity, and they're gonna do it in their own way, which is where we are in the UK educational system at the moment. And I, you know, you and I probably have our own ideas about what actually works. And it isn't that. It isn't. So, I mean, I do loads of exercises. And I think you've just said it earlier on today. When it goes wrong, you learn more. When it goes right, you know nothing. I mean, I do lots of exercises. There's some great ones. I love it. Leadership exercise where you do this thing where listening and quietness wins. And so a lot of alpha and all this sort of stuff comes in, and they mess it up. So the most competitive people mess some of these more subtle exercises up.

Can you share an example exercise? I'm very curious.

Okay. So there's one where you drop a ball like a juggling ball. Oh, so you don't drop it to start with. You say, "Let's pass it round between each other." It's quite a famous. You can look it up on YouTube. Pass it round within each other. Da da da da da. And there's a there's a pattern that you do. It's quite arduous. You do that again. Right. What's your timing? It's two minutes. Right, take off 30 seconds. Da da da. And you get it down to an insane amount of time. So here we go. So the alpha—I mean, I did this in Prague a couple of years ago, and it was a perfect example. Alpha boy. No, what we're doing? You go there. You da da da da da da. Bossy. Me me me me me. Zero listening. Everyone was demoralized, and they're doing it all. And the initial success reinforced the alpha. I've got this. I've got this. I'm right. I'm right. Double down. Double down. Double down. It's a trick exercise. So early success will equal fail. You will not go for the, the final climb. You have to be slow and slow at start, learn what it's really about, get the secret, and then you'll be okay. And it can be literally the quietest person will give you the answer. And that happened, and it was quite a funny thing. Okay, so you, you were talking about a big game, Bob. Did you win? No. And all this sort of— so did someone tell you the answer? No. Yes, they did. What do you mean? That person over there, they told you the answer 2 minutes before I stopped the exercise. And it's quite fun. So there's another one. There's another one. You have these cards. There's 50 cards and you hand them out. And some people are much crueler than I am. And if a quiet person, there's about 5 cards which are the real ones, which have the answer. If it's owned by a quiet person, everyone gets quite stressed and everyone's competitive and they all want to win and they don't ask everyone what's on the cards. And therefore, they lose. And of course, and so I'll do this for an hour and then relieve everyone from the pain of all of this thing. Some of my crueler colleagues will go on for 4 hours. And it's the same thing that once the patterns set in, the patterns have set in. And they fail. So they draw it out for 4 hours and then make them fail. It's tough. So it's just really reinforcing it. Inclusion. It's get over your own unconscious bias. That person is short or quiet or third language English or whatever else it is. They won't know. Now, that's an assumption which is ridiculous. Have you looked at the setup of the game? Anyone can have the answer. Anyone can know. Anyone should be included. And you've got time to ask. You've got— and what about some listening skills? It's not about doing, it's about reflecting, it's about listening. And so it's quite fun. So these things are designed to catch out the, the privileged, the dominant, the spoiled, and to emphasize the point of inclusion. So that's why I particularly like some of those exercises.

So basically, if you're walking into a space and you can sense that, then instead of speaking it out, creating learning environments, activities where they figure it out themselves.

Yeah. Rather than labeling everyone to start with, which is sort of falling into what they're doing. Yeah. I'll tell you what, that's something, isn't it? You've got to stop stereotyping yourself. I mean, I, and I love it. I— there was, there was one drawing exercise which was extraordinary. There was this guy from a long way from Europe, and we did this drawing exercise. A lot of people have this self-limiting belief, I can't draw, I can't draw, I can't sing, I can't draw, I can't dance. So we got this guy to do it, and it was pretty horrible. I said, okay, let's just do it again. And he got better. Do it again. He got better. By the 5th one, it was Michelangelo. He really, he'd gone from ridiculous to really good. I think I've got the piece of paper somewhere. And his 4th iteration was perfect. And I thought, that is, that's what it's all about. That is what it's all about. A bit of guidance, a bit of coaching. And he really, he— what about shaving the finger?

And it's interesting. I once read an article about raising children. And the trap many parents fall into is that when children draw something, they would look at it and say, that's amazing, instead of saying, I think you can do better, and ask them to do actually a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth revision.

Brilliant.

By the fifth revision, they're like, oh wow, this is amazing.

Very good. Very good.

Learning this early on as a child, and then we don't grow into this, I cannot draw, because we know that we can improve.

Very good. Well, this culturally, this is tough love versus generalized encouragement.

Hmm.

So the stereotype in Paris, the little keenie comes home with an exam result of 97%, and tough dad said, no supper for you. Get up and find out where you lost the 3. And in America, in Little League, someone does something completely average, and dad said, you're amazing. Which is more effective in terms of learning? I mean, you could counter it and say, which is more effective in not having someone medicalize and take tablets later? You could argue it the other way as well.

Yeah. And then what is more effective in learning and then generating confidence? Yeah. All of that.

But I'll tell you what, yeah, I mean, there's loads of little tricks. I quite like the numbers thing. So I did it on another podcast. Let's just see. How many of these have you done?

346.

So how many podcasts are there in the world?

About 3 billion, maybe.

Okay. I've got some good news. I think it's about 5 million. It's lesser. How many are active? How many active podcasts?

Maybe 20% of that.

Yeah, it's about 400,000. Yeah, I think it's 10%, about 400,000. How many people have got to episode 300?

Not so many. I, not so many. My podcast is amongst the top 5%.

You've got it. You've got it. You've got it.

Numbers game.

So I quite like working out winning numbers. So you are top 5% for podcasts. That is insane. That is insane. And if you can build it, and anyone can find those numbers, anyone has got some numbers when they can put down on the page, which are incredible. numbers. Anyone has, anyone has.

And then the interesting fact is when you then look into how many people are actually listening to it, right? And how many of those are listening until the end, right? These numbers look very different suddenly. And so the question is, what do numbers mean and what do we make them mean?

And here we have a sex difference. Men just look at the number. A man can look at his post and just watch the numbers go up and he's a happy man. Women, I think, go a bit deeper and think numbers are often vanity. It's the action that matters.

Yeah, then being too humble and saying, oh yeah, not so bad, so many listeners per week. And I shifted that. Yeah, yeah. Lesbians win. I shifted that, sharing the 5%.

Totally, totally, totally.

Because why not? It's true. Yeah.

It's amazing. It, and it's, there's the coaching thing, isn't it? You can achieve a lot less than you want in a day, and you can do just about anything in a year.

Yeah. And I think focusing on what works well and communicating that is much more effective in life, in relationship and business.

Oh, yes and no. Um, are we doing, are you saying, uh, advising on good behavior Is better than avoiding pain?

No.

No. So that would be in the same category of advice, teaching? What are we talking about?

I think when I'm looking at how to improve myself, then yes, I can try to learn skills that I'm— I don't have developed or whether I'm not talented in, or I can look at what's actually working well. And double down on that. So it's basically the 80/20 rule.

Very good. Very good. Very good.

And that's what I mean.

That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what is necessary? What is necessary? Very good.

Yeah.

Well, also delegation. We don't have to do everything.

Yes. Yeah. Delegate what you're not good at. I think that's what many solopreneurs, freelancers get wrong.

Totally, totally, totally. Well, it's Adam Smith. Division of labor. One man can make 12 pins, 2 men can make 144 pins.

Yeah, yeah. And I think as a freelancer, solopreneur, we should focus on doing what we are best at and what we enjoy most.

Very good. Well, I quite like the also the, you know, the €300 an hour. You want to be paid €300 an hour, do €300 an hour work and delegate the €20 an hour work. to someone and pay them €20 an hour.

Yeah, yeah. And it feels scary at first, I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

To do this.

What do you know, the old, oh, give it to me, be quicker if I did it myself.

Yeah. And such a leadership management pitfall as well.

I've heard some stuff by proud, probably working-class Brits. I probably shouldn't say that phrase. I would never give someone Something to do that I couldn't do myself. So you think, okay, that's a very limited horizon.

Yeah, because you want to hire those specialists that are actually better than you are.

Portrait photographer, uh, social media blurb writer, uh, personal trainer. Yeah, you can't, you can't do all that yourself. Yeah.

I'm—

I've done it, people! I've, I've talked her to a standstill. What a great victory.

I was, uh, now I'm pondering between, um, I have a— I looked at my notes and there's a big, um, I see NLP, and you also spoke of hypnosis.

Yes.

So I want to squeeze in one, one intermediate question before asking my closing question. What's the role of NLP in your training? What has it taught you?

Well, NLP, I, I've morphed it into one of my books, which is how to use words to influence, like Super Copy. Mm-hmm. Uh, so on a practical basis, it's multiplied my returns in the using of words. So that's Keen at Speech's That's training, that's writing, that's inviting people. And so it's, it's been an extraordinary, effective thing. And I love sharing it. I love sharing it. Although I'm gonna tell you something insane. I've written 10 books. It's the one I'm least keen to share. And I, you're gonna think I need psychological help because it's too good. And that sounds like, yeah, that sounds like ego or mad or something. It is so rich. You need to understand the context, and it's so powerful you could easily misuse it. But that's the thing. So it totally changed my life. Totally. I did it years ago with Richard Bandler, one of the co-founders, and it didn't work, and it didn't work, and it didn't work, and then suddenly it did work.

So what's the magic? Neurolinguistic programming, for those who are not familiar with NLP.

Yes. So we get back to the idea. So you've got the surface structure of words, And you've got the hidden structure of words. You've got the conscious mind, and you've got the unconscious mind, and you've got the mind and the body continuum. So, if I was to hypnotize you, which is illegal, and if you're driving, it's dangerous. But if I say, go back, or this summer, we all had a nice summer, didn't we? Yeah. What was the nicest panorama you saw? Stop driving now. See what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. And you would go there. People do this in different ways. And you will feel the emotions, the chemicals, the muscles, the mind, the body, the memory will all come back and you will be there. And so that is part of it. So it's getting into a resource state, accessing the things that you have experienced in a very useful way, programming your unconscious mind, cuz that's where you're gonna actually go. Um, having confidence, uh, being a brilliant influencer and communicator. Just noticing more stuff. I mean, when you did the and yes thing, you just, you can notice that structure. It's quite funny. And then you said, and yes.

Oh, and yes. Yes.

Remember where the student gets it? Student goes on. NDS.

NDS.

That'd be, that'd be something else. So there's, there's some powerful ideas or embedded commands. What did Bill Clinton say? You, like me, want to be president. So he's put in a command, like me. It's, it, I tell you, you go to the cinema after you've done an NLP course and you'll get twice as much from any, any dialogue-based film. You know what they're doing there? You know what they're doing there? You can quite be, you become, your partner will get very bored with you, but it's good fun. It's good fun.

And how dangerous is it in, because we spoke before about the performative and those who have lots of confidence, but maybe not so much to say. And then they get into these polarized conversations with lots of confidence and lots of power, and then lots of rhetorics and NLP. And I guess then we end up with Trump.

Well, hang on, that sort of went off a cliff at the end. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. I'm a great salesperson. I will end up with a lot of crap in my house. I'm a great salesperson. That means I'll buy more. I'm a great influencer also means I will be influenced. So there is actually a balancing mechanism where theoretically, the more brilliant a communicator I am, the more sensible I am. So the idea—

I like that.

Okay, so if you're, if you're selling, you're looking at these micro signals and you're totally excited by them.

Hmm.

If someone is selling to you, you are generating micro signals. You forget that it's you, not someone else, and you're excited by them. So the joke is any good salesperson, their house is full of rubbish, the sort of rubbish that they've been sold. So the idea is, you know, a writer reads a lot of books. So I— so yeah, the Trump thing was maybe a bit of a red herring at the end. Great communicators, I think, appreciate the danger of communication. But if someone is evil, we have this, you know, these sort of— the left-of-center brigade think everyone's lovely.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, we're not. There's 8.5 billion people. There are plenty of sociopaths and psychopaths and evil people. And so anyone can take anything and make something very bad and horrible out of it. And so that's the, that's the problem. I mean, if you look at, I don't know, spamming or these, these, the scamming that goes on for old ladies, there's a lot of nasty stuff that goes on. I mean, and that's based on hypnotic language.

And then I wonder whether it's, yeah, even more important. It's funny, I had, um, Mike Parker on the podcast recently who is, um, doing liminal coaching. He's, he calls it guided, guided, um, relaxation. Yeah.

Instead of hypnosis, which is, I think, illegal in the UK. I, I learned with Paul McKenna. He was the number one guy in the UK and used to do all these programs. But there was, there were, he'd do some regressions, and I've done regression training, which has been extraordinary. Are you ready for this? We did a regression training for Tony Robbins, 16,000 people in a room, and we went down to the bottom. And to hear 16,000 people crying, I don't wanna ever hear that again. It is possible. Of course, probably a percentage of those were somewhat damaged by that. So I think hypnosis is actually illegal as a performative idea, not as a therapeutic idea at all, but as a performative idea. Yeah.

That's because wouldn't it be then important to actually teach or to make aware, um, people, maybe even kids, Of NLP and the power of these hypnotic methods.

Totally.

So that we can be aware when we're being manipulated.

Totally. Yes, a protective mechanism. Well, the number one rule in life is protect yourself. We wouldn't be here if we hadn't protected ourselves whilst crossing the road. So fear and caution are there for a reason. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And then we are back at where we started with when you're not— yes, we can all protect ourselves if we are aware of what exists and how to protect ourselves. If we are not even aware that these kind of things exist.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cautious consciousness.

What is the advice you would give your younger self?

It's funny, but that's almost the thing. One of those hypnotic things was, we did this exercise, this guy, what's his called? McLendon. And he takes you back. He takes you back. It's a hypnotic thing, which I won't do. And you go through, there's this town and blahdy, blahdy, blahdy, blah. And there's a distant figure. There's a distant figure coming towards you. And everyone cries their eyes out. It's the younger you. What do you say? And you are properly in there. You are meeting your younger self. So on a practical level, on an emotional level, it's going to be all right. It might be tough in places. Just keep going, mate. You'll be all right. So on an emotional level, keep driving forward. Don't worry about them. Don't take some of the people in your life too seriously. On a practical level, network like a crazy person. Add a sentence. Store what is important somewhere or learn how to remember it. I learned memory techniques. way too late. Learn memory techniques a lot earlier. Learn speed reading a lot earlier. Yeah. You know, what you, what you put out, you get back. Just the, the, the, the general stuff. But yeah, don't wait forever to get your soft skills and practice them.

Yeah. As I'm writing a book, what would be your advice for me to bookwrite?

Oh, oh, oh, oh, very good. It's not about you. It's about one person, the avatar of your reader. So what are their values? What's their purpose? What's their outcome? What's their gap? What's their need? What's their lack? What's their deficiency? And how much can you achieve in 173 pages? Where do you want them to start? Where do you want them to finish? And then it's one voice. Whose voice is it? Is it your voice? Is it your professional voice, your social voice, your female voice, your mother voice, daughter voice, sister voice, whatever it is? So work out what your voice is. And then I quite like, this is a very basic technique. You'll have something much better than this, which is just to go, okay, just brainstorm. What do they need to know? And then you filter that. And those are the chapters. Within that, what's important? And then, and you can literally write the whole book that way. I'm, you know, that's it. That's a, it's almost a mechanical way. I've done that in a classroom. Should we write a book? And in half an hour, we've written certainly a fairly decent scheme, which you could then certainly with AI, you could just put in prompts and then half an hour later you would have a book.

Yeah.

So that's quite fun. You cannot edit your words yourself. You need a lot of people to process what you're doing, and writing the book is the least of it. There's plenty more that goes on.

Thank you.

There you go. Is it your first book?

Yes.

Okay, give it a go.

Well, I wrote academically in my previous life.

Yeah.

Um, and now I ditched the idea of writing pop science and I'm writing a business novel.

A business novel? Okay.

Fiction.

A mate of mine, Norrie Sinclair, when I wrote my first novel, he wrote a fiction which was about the 2008 crash. It was really good. And this came from nowhere. Norrie was a Was a good bloke, a mate down the pub, and he wrote this thing. I was totally surprised. Did it in total secrecy. Very good. It was number 1 in France for a year.

Yeah, it's incredible. You learn so much from fiction anyway. You can be blunt. And I think there's so many books already about leadership and psychological safety and emotional literacy. So—

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And sorry, the— also, it's the person on the telly Or the person who's got the huge brand sells all the books and you don't. No, very good. Now, William Boyd, Brazzaville Beach, that was novel mystery and mathematics, I think. And it was this really interesting, I can feel my brain getting bigger, read.

Interesting.

So that's nice. That's nice.

Yeah, I got, um, very inspired by the Phoenix Project. Okay. Also a business novel. The first part reads like a thriller about a guy trying to solve an IT launch disaster.

No, but, or The Tao of Coaching, was that the first one? A sort of novelized book on coaching?

Maybe, yeah.

Yeah, that's great. Sounds brilliant.

Yeah, yeah, it's a—

Are you self-publishing or are you getting a publisher?

I would love to get a publisher. Because I'm writing not only a novel, I'm writing a choose-your-own-adventure.

Here we go. Here we go. So it's very complex.

It's very complex. And I think it's so off-road.

Yeah. Well, gamified.

Yeah.

What happens next? A, B, or C.

Exactly. So yeah, leaders want to take their own, they don't want to be told, they want to take their own decisions. Go ahead, do that.

Yeah. That sounds good. So is that a paper thing or is that a sort of interactive?

I'm writing it with the software that is used For video game design.

Perfect.

Because on paper, yeah, on, on a Google document doesn't, doesn't work anymore.

It's too complex. Linear, not linear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Work in progress.

Very good, very good, very good. I've taken a year off. I used to write a book a year. Taking a year off.

Yes. Maybe. Thank you, Matthew. Anything that you wanted to say that you didn't say?

No, I think we're good. If anyone wants to reach out, they can ping me via this place. Always interested in your rude or constructive comments or anything else. All good. All good. But yeah, thanks, Dan. That's been fun. That's been fun.

Thank you.

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