Writing a Book in Public: Accountability Calls with Gustavo & Myriam - Episode 1

We are doing this, Gustavo.

It seems that we are live, so yes. Hello everyone.

Hello. We are writing a book, as you just said, but not together.

Yeah, we're writing a book together, but we're writing different books, right? That's it. And not actually together, but we're gonna be helping each other, like, write our own book.

Yes, we realize that it's a difficult journey. You have already written a few books. I have written a thesis, but I realize that it's nowhere near as complex.

I think a thesis is a bit worse, but well, you know, it's perspective.

Yes. So we are each other's accountability partners. I'm looking forward to where this experiment will go.

Me too. And I think that some people are curious what's— what are our books about, but also maybe there are people that are considering or being considering, because you know how it is, for many years writing their own book. And maybe they can get some insight to the process, some tips, and also maybe blow some bubbles that people think when writing a book is easy and then you're going to become a millionaire and stuff like that. No.

What? Yeah, people don't read books. I hope we're not the only one who—

So, Myriam, what— why are you writing a book then? Like, uh, I know I ask you this question, but I have— I always take notes, so I'm gonna check.

Yes, I give the right answer whether you took the right notes.

No, no, right. I want to see because my mind always changes, so probably yours too. Yes.

And funny enough, I, um, I was pregnant with this book for 2 years already. And, uh, so the idea, the idea that I want to write a book is very old. I always wanted to be an author. Um, and then 2 years ago, the idea emerged that the title of the book will be Unprofessionalism. And the last 2 years I took notes and I thought about it, and I think back then I started to write maybe the first 2 or 3 pages, and then it was— it never became a priority. And I think that's what has changed. I now realize that if you want to write a book, it has to be the main priority and everything else has to come next. And before I tell more about the content, why are you writing another book? What book and why now?

Why now? Why not? I always say it, but people say, why? So I'm going to build on your metaphor. So in my case, I feel that I was maybe not necessarily divorcing, but taking some distance from my previous book. So to speak. So a lot of the work I do or have been doing for the past few years has to do with culture and teamwork. But I want, without necessarily starting from scratch, take a different perspective. So I'm reflecting that because of my wife's job, we moved to a different state. Usually in the past it was because of my career. And now our eldest son, who's 25, now is living on his own. He's still in Chicago. So I'm still a parent. But from a distance, if you know what I mean. I don't see him that often. So I— that's exactly the take that I want for my book. I'm going to talk about from a perspective what I learned helping people have conversations, difficult conversations. Some were easier than people thought, and most of the cases that was the outcome. And it's going to touch a little bit on culture and teamwork, but the focus is going to be about a Conversations. There are conversations that get us stuck. There are conversations that move us backward. And then my book is about what I call forward talk, conversations that are future-oriented and help us solve problems, not create bigger ones.

Beautiful. And I love how it's, it's just, it seems as if it's just the right time for you to write this book. And I love how you say that you needed to divorce from your old one first before starting a new project. Um, and funny enough, for me it's also a new topic. So I've now published over 300 podcast episodes, and I have the impression that everything that I could potentially say or think about facilitation I have already said. And many people approached me asking, when are you publishing a facilitation book? And just the thought of sounding like a broken record, putting everything that I continuously say or have already said into a book just bored me so much. So for me, it was very clear that if I write a book, it's not about facilitation. And somehow still for me, unprofessionalism is everything that I have learned through facilitation. So it's more about the future of work where I realized that the concept of a profession and hence being professional is totally outdated. Because back in the day, a profession was a an occupation that was protected, um, it was very difficult to attain that. So you have to study and you have to invest time and money and effort, and in exchange you get status, financial rewards, and all of that. Um, but nowadays you cannot protect the profession because knowledge is available at our fingertips. So what is— why would we need the concept of a profession and hence professionalism, the protection of it, in a world where we have occupations that didn't exist before, are not even professions?

Mm-hmm.

And where this kind of protection is actually hindering innovation. and growth and not protecting it. So I believe that our concept of professionalism is not only outdated, but it's actually a threat. I think it leads to burnout, it leads to imposter syndrome, it leads to all this, oh, I'm not good enough. And suddenly we are even competing with AI. They will always be the most professional compared to us if we are looking at the polished and the perfect. So yeah.

What about the masks?

Oh, thank you. Yes. So the— which immediately gets me into learning about this book writing process. So The masks is a way to— I think it's an outcome of being so obsessed with professionalism that if we're working in corporates that try to defend this professional identity, and why that is an entire different topic, then— Let me do this again. Where do the masks come in? The masks come in that everything is moving so fast. When we're doing our jobs, we're all just winging it. And apparently it's not okay to admit that we are just winging it, that we don't know yet, that we are doing something new. So everyone tries to pretend as if they figured it out. So wearing a mask, pretending as if we are also professional, whereas like a duck under the surface, we're just paddling, trying to look cool on the surface. And I think it's dangerous and it doesn't help us. And it would be so much healthier if we would just admit we're figuring it out. We're not supposed to know because everything is new. And let's collaborate and ask for help. To face these new challenges that the world of work throws at us. I need to work on my elevator pitch.

I would say that if we have an elevator pitch, why do we need a book?

I love that.

Well, yeah, it's something that we are forced to come up with a headline, but then stories cannot be summarized. So the more you summarize the story, like AI, it keeps— it basically erodes all the emotions, and then it's just one sentence. So it's a challenge finding that balance, right?

It is. And what I just realized, I have the impression that my elevator pitch was much better a week ago when I actually didn't have— I had already less of content. So I think when you just start a book, the elevator pitch is so easy because you have a very clear idea what you're going to write about. At least that was it for me. And now— This last week feels a little bit as if I went into a million rabbit holes. And hence I have a much broader picture of the complexity that I'm about to enter, which makes the elevator pitch much more difficult. Yeah. How do you—

But who are we pitching to? Are we pitching the book to ourselves?

Yes.

To the publisher, to the readers. Sorry, you're going to ask a question.

Yeah, I was wondering, how do you stay focused on the topic that you're writing about?

I don't know. I come back. I think that writing should be exploratory in nature. And I think that one has so many ideas that sometimes if we would try to stick to consistency, Then it becomes like a book in which you're going to be repeating your stuff. It feels like a trial in which the lawyer starts by stating what happened, then they prove it, and then they come back and repeat it. So, and that model, I don't think it's that attractive for book. In my case, I'm working from gathering experience, so I'm trying to reconstruct what worked right.

Yeah.

So I know you always have a plan or some kind of approach, but after the facts, like, if you have to rewrite that, what actually did it work? And sometimes there are things that we haven't considered that work. For example, the word intolerance. I think it's very critical as I continue to work on conversations because we don't tolerate— going back to perfectionism— mistakes.

Right?

But on the other hand, if we don't make mistakes, how are we going to learn? So the experimental mindset drives you to it. However, you don't want to make mistakes with things that you are good at because you already know how that work gets done. You mentioned AI. I'm fascinated that people are trusting AI, especially the early versions, even if it's misinformation, even if it hallucinates, whatever, than they trust experts. And if you, let's say you're a designer and you're being paid for and you come up with a design that's not perfect, you're unprofessional. But then AI crafts an image that has spelling mistakes or write the wrong word and people still post it.

Yes.

And well, it's AI. So like, I'm— so for people, it's better to show that they're using AI, even if the outcome is sucks, right? But for them to be seen as, hey, I'm at the top of the curve. However, they accept mistakes from AI that they wouldn't tolerate from humans.

Yes. And I am very interested.

Yeah, kind of paradox there.

And I wonder, I wonder for how much longer, because now as everything is new, so I think if it's Nearly perfect. They're already, it already blows the mind of many. And maybe the tolerance will reduce because I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, we were so tolerant vis-à-vis technical glitches.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, the tech doesn't work so much. No problem. Oh, your microphone doesn't work. Oh, everything was fine. 2 years into the pandemic, There was no tolerance for that.

Mm-hmm.

So I wonder whether we will also get used to AI and that. And what I also find interesting from what you said, yes, more and more people are happy to show to the outside that they're using AI and showing off like that. But on the other hand, I have the impression that they would rather ask AI for help than their colleague. You said they trust AI more than an expert. That's shocking. But hopefully AI has accumulated a lot of knowledge so that it comes very close if we're asking the right question. But why is it that we lost the humility, connection, humanness to walk to the other office to say, hey, Do you have a moment? Can I ask you a question?

Because we're expected to have it all, to know it all, to have all the answers. So I think that one thing that happens, and you know this as a facilitator, if you are working in a— I run open workshops and then I run workshops for specific organizations or teams. When you have people that don't know each other and you send them into a breakout room, people open up because they don't fear judgment. And also, if they think that you're an idiot, who cares? I'm not going to see that person. Maybe anytime soon while my team member go. So people open up in public spaces in terms of conversation. They're more vulnerable, more open with strangers than with people that know them well. And because when people know you, they expect something, right? So they expect that Miriam should write a book about facilitation. They expect that Gustavo should write a book about culture or teamwork. That and that basically is the biggest challenge the world is facing. So we need to use the mask that people want to see, not the face that we want to show.

Yeah, that's beautiful. That's tweetable. It's a beautiful sentence. And I wonder whether it's reversible, because as a matter of fact, it is not working. People are burning out, and there is this hunger and thirst for more authenticity, for more for putting down the mask. And that's what I— so talking about learnings from the process, I first started to just write down, just to download every, all of my stories, everything that I connect to unprofessionalism and mostly also my experience was never done before. which was from the outside highly unprofessional, doing something that I don't know how it works, never done before, and asking people to lean into something they've never done before. And then I realized, oh, if I'm talking about unprofessionalism, what is actually the meaning of a profession? What is professionalism? What have scientists said about that? What is the sociologist debate? And suddenly I opened this can of worms. That after 2 days I had to step back from it. I'm like, okay, I'm going in the wrong direction. I'm not writing a thesis.

The doctor in you.

I'm not here to, yeah, to review this sociological debate on professions and professionalism and the role of technology. And then—

but a tad of that wouldn't hurt, right? Don't lose—

Exactly. But what is the right balance? Because we all stand on the shoulders of giants. And I think it's important to put it into context when we speak about professionalism. Where does it actually come from? And I think that's where my elevator pitch just now went so wrong because the last few days I only thought about Professions, professionalism, and what has changed over the last century?

I think that maybe a good lens is to consider the evolution of work. So I think, not that you need to, I'm saying that it's important for me to understand the evolution of professionalism. We need to understand how work has evolved, but also that connection to our identity, because everything in life comes back.

It's a circle.

humans started working for a salary because they needed to make a living, right? And then as they progress and work become less about survival, more about growing, and you could move from one place to another, then if you progressed, it means that you were smarter, more sex, richer, whatever, blah, blah. But now we're coming back and AI is a little bit of, we don't care if we can replace jobs, we're gonna do it, right? Boom. Like, yeah. So that means like, is will your Is your identity that tied to work, or is work going to become again like a way to make your ends meet, but then you have more time that you can dedicate to do what really matters to you?

Yes. Yeah, and I think the work, the salary came also with specialization, right? That we don't have to barter. I give you my time if you give me your bread.

Yeah.

So money was an easy way to face that. And then maybe with AI doing all the repetitive, boring work, we can come back to the creative work and what actually brings meaning to us. And I think for that, we have to to look at what are we expecting also from people who do work. Because especially in the— that was— I had this light bulb moment yesterday where when we think that being professional means being polished, being perfect, having figured it out, replying immediately and flawlessly, having all the answers. If this is professional, then AI is better at all of that than any human. This would mean that AI is the most professional of all of us, which sits wrong, right? There's— even if I speak it out, it's like, no, AI cannot be professional because professionalism is also about intuition. It's about staying in the ambiguous. It's about Distinguishing the relevant from the irrelevant. It's about emotional intelligence and all these things. And all these things are about being human, not being perfect. So for me, the new professional—

Can you digress a little bit there? Because I think that in my lens, professionalism is more about the expectations about what being professionals are. And I think that, for example, having AI working 24/7, that's an expectation that some people want about humans. I don't know if your employer or the society really wants people to be more emotionally intelligent. We, we know that it's important that becoming self-aware, the many things that are going to help you becoming creative, more successful. But I don't know that's necessarily the— when they say that you're not being a professional.

Yes, exactly. And that's where it went wrong.

Yeah.

That, yeah. And I was thinking of the perfect state, but yeah, where it went wrong is because we expect all of that. And that's why if we then push it further, AI would perfectly fit that. But this is not what we thrive for, what we want to thrive for. Yeah.

Yeah, the point is who defines what professionalism is today or has been and might be in the future so you can then present the antidote.

Exactly. And I think today it's just, as you say, and you are the expert of that, I think it is defined by the culture within organizations. And I think And this leads me to another tangent and rabbit hole, which also links to the origins of what profession is and professionalism is. It's a kind of protection of the uncontrollable. So if I'm afraid of AI, technological advancement, everything that I cannot control, of all this uncertainty, What will I do? I will create structure, standards, rules that I would expect everyone to follow, and then put the label professional on it, which then quickly leads to these very rigid boxes in which employees have to conform.

Um, Mm-hmm.

in order not to lose control. Um, so I think this can also quickly lead into an intergenerational problem where you have the youngsters who, um, who come in, they have all the technological knowledge, they might confuse, often confuse information with knowledge. I have access to information, hence I know, hence I have the expertise, which is not true. And the older ones who do have the expertise but not the access to AI, maybe because they don't have the technological skills. So older generations want to control and younger generations want to thrive and want to burn down all these hierarchies and— Rules.

Yeah, I was thinking when you were talking that the paradox of professionalism is while they try to set the bar high, they actually lower the bar. So on one hand, when you want people to conform to a standard, how high is that bar? And basically you're saying, oh, if people reach this standard, we're good, but they can go further and you're basically hindering that potential. But also, you mentioned the idea of protection. So the, you know, the saying, no one got fired for hiring McKinsey. So that's being professional. You just go for the proven solution, even if it's not the best. But that's being professional. No one's gonna attack you because you did the right thing.

Yes. The, um, so low risk.

Spanish. It is. Yeah. Sorry.

Yeah, the low risk, but only at first sight. It's low risk, but just from the, from the outside. So hiring McKinsey, nobody gets punished for that because it seems like the safe option. It has a quality stamp.

Mm-hmm.

But it is the, at hindsight, or if you look behind it, it's the more risky choice, because what are the opportunity costs? What are you not doing? The person who sets the standards doesn't know what could be. They're setting the standards and the rules with what they know today and not what they could be knowing tomorrow.

Thank you.

Thank you for making sense of my book, Gustavo.

I'm just repeating what you said with different words. So one thing that I've been intrigued about, I've been doing research about why people avoid conversations, right? Because that's one of the biggest things, that conversations that never happen or they happen at a very superficial level. And I thought there was going to be plenty of research on it. And there's not. There are some hints here and there. But one really interesting insight I want to share is that on one hand, you know this, that people haven't— most people have not, and leaders in particularly, been taught on how to facilitate or how to have those difficult conversations. But the other part is many were taught actually not to have them.

Hmm.

So many people were saying, you know what, when you're— you talk about younger generations, you know what, don't speak up, don't do this, whatever, it's gonna go away. Let's wait until— so we have a big mistake, instead of addressing it, don't worry, it's gonna get fixed, or we can discuss it in 3 months from now, and then it's too late. So there's a tendency that either intentionally or not, our peers, our leaders teach us not to address And I can perfectly see that, and I can see how it starts at school.

And I wonder what your theory is. Why is that? And why is there no research about it?

I don't know. There's research for so many things that I couldn't— I spent hours. I'm going to still— I have some people helping me. I'm still doing, but I know. I don't think, first of all, we realize that it's a problem. People— I mean, of course, people like you and me, because of the work we do, we know, right? You want people to get into addressing things, but many people don't, right? And on their hand conversations, you mentioned school, let's go into higher education, let's talk about a workplace, they're always power-driven. There's an expectation that there's someone that knows better. So those are the ones who dominate the conversation. And we kind of engage with their narrative, their cadence, their perspective. So In school, people are not taught to think. They're taught to learn. To your point, getting information. Elementary school, they're better, but in the end, the process is, you know, you need to learn history, you need to recite poems, you need to learn math formulas. You know, like, it's about acquiring knowledge.

Yeah.

And say, to think, university— no offense there, Doctor— but you know, in a lot of academia, there are people that want to— they have their standing, their reputation, their identity tied to their knowledge, so they don't necessarily create a conversational environment. Yeah, they ask people for questions, which is different. That's another corner, right?

Yes. And then I wonder, I see different layers here. One is the moment that we have access to all this information, The conversation is not about the knowledge or the information. The conversation is about the experience, the perspectives, the nuances.

Mm-hmm.

And I think a conversation becomes difficult, not because we have different points of views, but because of the stories we are telling ourselves about the different point of views, because identity that we attach to it. And that's what we see with all the polarities at the moment in terms of politics.

And we go back to intolerance, right?

Yes.

If you don't tolerate someone who's different, thinks different, whatever, why would you engage in that stuff? And of course, politics is extreme, but then in our workplace, you want to do this, I want to do the other thing, And it's not a life or death situation, but our narrative turns it into a narrative.

And I would even go a layer deeper. I don't think that it's the tolerance about the other person. I think it's the tolerance about ourselves. So if I don't respect myself, if I don't believe in my self-worth, then I will feel attacked whenever someone challenges my idea. Because I will take it personally. And only if I have established the self-confidence, self-worth, and tolerance in myself, then I can open up and listen to the other one.

You said that you're going a level or layer deeper, and I feel attacked by Miriam.

You are so superficial with stuff.

But you know, the, the, the— I'm role-playing, but exactly that. Yeah, yeah. It feels that— that's a good point. I love it. Yeah. And I think that we don't tolerate ourselves. Sorry, go ahead.

No, maybe I'm just repeating. I think when we think of difficult conversations, we're always thinking of the others and not about ourselves.

That's a good point. The other day I posted something like, and it's something I have a— I don't know if it happens to you, but I try not to respond on LinkedIn too much because people are always the sort of perfectionism, perfectionists. They're always looking to their side. So if you ask a question like, hey, have you gone to the North Pole? They say, well, but you also should explore the South Pole.

Right?

Like, so that day I was talking in the context of many times people avoid conversations because they get stuck, to your point, in worst-case scenarios. And usually the worst-case scenario is connected to someone else. The person is not going to like it, they will react, they're going to attack me, blah, not about ourselves. So I asked, wait, what if instead of doing that drama inside your head, why don't you consider the What's the best that can happen? So think about— so we have the comment, well, maybe we— and people start saying, well, but I always run all the scenarios, all the possible scenarios before and after, and I script the conversation. And I say, but that's not— we don't need to do that because the conversation is face it, face the other person, go with it. Like, you cannot prepare everything ahead. You can clarify your thoughts, you might set up the tone, but you cannot script life.

Yes, and it's interesting. There's so many to look at from this because, A, I think, yes, the moment we start to script, it's like in a workshop, right? When we have too much of an agenda, then we get married to it. And then we want actually, we want to deliver it and we're no longer open and nimble to follow the flow because we don't listen the same anymore. So then very quickly it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I'm preparing all these worst-case scenarios, I might not even see the option to go down the best-case scenario because I haven't prepared that.

And also it could trigger, right? Because you think when Gustavo says this, he's going to start getting mad. And the moment I said that word that you say, oh, you know, I saw—

Like an automation.

I knew that was going to happen.

Yes.

And then I ask you, do you want tea or coffee, right?

You always put me into boxes. You're so binary. Yeah.

You mix them both.

And then I think another thing, and you have kids, so you might have more information about that. But from what I observe in ways of communication, when I was young, we got the phone and we called someone. And we had instant live, unprepared and unannounced conversation. Nowadays, very rarely we actually talk live on the phone. And I think especially the younger generation, almost, it's almost entirely over instant messaging and then even disappearing messaging.

Mm-hmm.

So you have, And when you message instead of speaking live, you always have time to prepare your script. You always have time to think about what you're saying next. You have time to interpret what the other person was saying. So to have a difficult conversation face-to-face in real time, I think, is something that requires training in having real-life, even happy conversations in the first place. Wow. Yeah, I wonder whether something has changed here. A muscle that's getting lazy.

Definitely. Yeah. So what are— we talked earlier about the learnings. What have you learned so far? What have you more than learned? Because learning something feels like something lofty. What have surprised you? during this journey since you started writing? What was the, oh wow, that was cool, oh wow, I didn't know that?

One was the complex— so there's one very practical one is how do I best store my ideas so that I have one single source of truth with all the quotes that I might want to use, all the resources that I, and the ideas. And I now decided that I will use only Notion to store all the ideas and all the quotes. And then I have my to-do list with things that I want to research more. So these are the 2 things that I'm using. And I write in a simple Google Doc. And I think my— so that was a practical learning. And my biggest writing learning was I did the beginner's mistake and I'm so— I resent myself so much from it and I feel so ashamed. I started writing the introduction, the thing that I know I'm supposed to write the last. So intellectually, I knew all of that. And somehow I got, oh, let me write the introduction to give the big picture view. And then I got lost in all these stories and nuances. And then suddenly the introduction was 12 pages long. And I'm like, oh, maybe I can already— break the first chapter out of it, and then suddenly I totally lost myself in it. So what I did yesterday, the entire day, was to put everything aside and to think just about the structure.

Mm-hmm.

So these are all the key ideas that I want to tackle. What is the best way and the best flow Um, and then I wrote introduction, and then I wrote in red letters, do not write anything, and then chopped it off.

Hmm.

Um, so yeah, I created so much noise in my head and so many rabbit holes, um, and dead ends. That was Quite stressful, actually.

Well, if you're not getting lost, it's because you're not writing. So if you're ready— if you're getting lost, good job. People always say it, and I learned that over time, that it's best to write the introduction at the end because the introduction serves like the preface and the summary and whatever, and helps you connect the storytelling. However, in this book, I wrote my introduction, but not at the very So I wrote many outlines. I developed the first part, then I drafted the second one. And when I started seeing like whatever, so then I came back to the introduction that it's not gonna be the final one by any means, but at least I have something that every time I— so instead of having an elevator pitch that's one sentence, one paragraph, and feels like, oh, boring, the introduction is what energizes. So I put a story that connects to something that happens to me, that happened to me like 30, 40 years, whatever years ago. that was really interesting and challenging at that time. And I didn't think, and I crossed the line, and everything went bad but ended super good. And so I don't know if I'm going to use this story, but that emotion keeps me writing.

I love that.

So you don't make mistakes, just follow your heart.

Yeah. And I thank you for the But this, because it also reminds me that the first, so when I first started, I booked this beautiful Airbnb and I spent a week just writing. And I was so in the flow and all these kind of stories of myself were flowing out. And I promised myself that I wouldn't do any research. I just download whatever I know. And I felt so good about it. And then suddenly I started with, oh, let me do some research about this and some research about that. And then I open all these can of worms. And then I get, I fall in love with their ideas. And I think, this is what I should also include in my book. And suddenly I'm writing a different book without even noticing it. And then yesterday I had to bring myself back and like, and that's why I'm so grateful that you reminded me of the mask. Because this is what I'm writing about. I'm not writing about the origins of professionalism.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that was my big learning. What was yours?

I set up everything in Notion. I'm still using Notion. I have the— I replicated— I have 4 sections: ideas, sources, draft, and edits, right? And of course the draft and edits are going to go back and forth, but I use the outline across the 4 sections. So instead of having— because I started putting a lot of links and quotes and whatever, and then finding content is hard. So I replicated the same structure of what I'm editing and writing for the sources, for the research. So I have— it's easier to find, right? Um, one thing that helped me, because I was writing— I usually use Notion to write my articles because it helps me. I love it. I— it's connected. I have a lot stuff. But I also use it with team members, so I get notification stuff. So it was becoming this distraction. And then I bought Ulysses, which is an app that's more clean, and I'm using that to write. So the research, the structure in one app, the actual writing, it's kind of in something that has no— almost no AI connect, no interruptions, no messaging, nothing. So when I'm writing, so Clean slate.

I love that.

And go ahead, please.

No, I interrupted you.

No, we're not. We're just talking, so it's good. I love interruptions. We don't need— they're good. Interruptions are good. I mean, when they are coming from a good place, you know.

Yeah, usually it's when I get excited about the conversation. It's rather the opposite of being disrespectful. I was actually surprised that you write in Notion. I wouldn't have thought of it as a kind of writing tool. For me, it's only for short text or for stuff that I share or knowledge management. And I do see, I would be curious to hear how you're using AI and maybe this will be our next conversation.

Sure.

Because I also realized—

I even, yeah, I use it more like a, it's weird. I love when it comes to writing, Notion has for refining text, the results are better than ChatGPT, but I also use Claude. So sometimes I have Claude and ChatGPT competing against each other and see which comes with a different kind of a version or whatever. And I use them for brainstorming. So I have ideas, and for example, the model— I'm creating a model. So I have the 2 dimensions. Now imagine that you're thinking about professionalism versus unprofessional. What are the 5 dimensions that you want to compare one versus the other? So you have a— even if you don't use it, but at least a structure for you to develop. And it's good to iterate and ask the model, the AI, to come with 5 models, and then 7, and then start like I always let them do the stuff. I always tell them, don't give me feedback, don't comment. So just pull whatever you have. And then I ask them, what's the criteria I need them to evaluate the options? So for example, which one is easy to tell the story? Which one could resonate with people? Which is going to look more original or less? Oh, whatever. So kind of, yeah, that kind of comment. Same with human beings. I never follow their advice. I use their information as input, but never like a Yeah. It's easy to fall in because the way they structure the recommendations are like, oh, it makes so much sense that people tend to follow it. I always am thinking that I'm not going to follow their advice. I'm going to take what are they thinking. And then one thing that when it comes to the idea itself, you mentioned something enough in our previous call or during one of your newsletters, but that you were writing something and then you gave it to AI. And basically your ideas were killed, right? And that's something AI like aims for efficiency. And we cannot write— I know that we need to go to the point, we're so much into the obsession, but if you write and you go too much to the elevator pitch, then you lose nuances, you lose richness, you lose the stories, you lose everything.

And the reader.

And that's what people want to read.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And this was actually— there's even a part B to that. So usually I use AI to either to really, as you said, to smoothen sentences and to avoid language mistakes. And then to help me to structure. So for the outline of the book, I love to iterate and say, yeah, and this is missing, that is missing. Then I would ask What do you see what is missing? So that's a kind of nice back and forth where I constantly also challenge ChatGPT. And in this instance, I put the text in stream of consciousness. Okay. And then it deleted everything. And then I asked, why did you delete that? And it actually came with a few reasons. And first I said, okay, you don't understand. And being in conversation with AI about the reasons why I deleted it, I then realized that actually it also had a good point. I'm like, yes, it distracts from your key idea. And if you leave all of this in, you're basically writing a book about this other thing. I'm like, that's actually a good point. So now at least I have, I can still decide whether I want to leave that in, but I also have this kind of critical view of, hmm, maybe it indeed goes too much into the granularity and maybe I can take some of the ideas and put them somewhere else instead of this massive tangent. So that was an interesting experience actually.

Beautiful experience actually, I love it. For me, the best thing that AI has is not what it can create for you, but what it can generate within you. So I coach, feedback is a critical element of the work I do with teams. And usually when people are receiving feedback, they realize I already knew that. So it's not that it's something new, but basically puts things into perspective. So it kicks your butt, so you move into action. It helps you clarify thoughts. So, you know, and, and for me, it's a good mirror to help you understand where you try to go, what's missing. For example, I want to start each chapter with a story. So AI writes a story. The stories look good. You can publish the book with that. They're really good. I polish them, but they're not my stories.

Yeah.

And they're very And it's not— even if I observe exactly the same situation, I wouldn't narrate the story that way.

Yeah.

Because it's focusing on what happened versus the emotions behind it, the mindset, what were the frictions, why. So I want to tell the story from a why point of view, not just about what happened. Less action, more what was going inside the people, because that's, at least with the readers, whoever they are, I want to connect there. I want to go into the root cause. I like to dig deeper and people connect to, not to the story, but why I tend to do something similar myself, right? That kind of—

Yes, and I think if it's only if it's your own story, you connect the emotion to it. And especially speaking about the difficult conversations, you do need the emotions. Otherwise, the conversation wouldn't be difficult.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And, you know, as a facilitator, you have stories in which you were part of the story, but also there were stories in which you were more of an observer, even active. But so there are different stories.

Yeah.

One thing that it comes to books, that's a problem, that we talk about human behavior from a very cut-and-dry aspect. So many professors, I'm not going to name them, talk about the dangers of doing this at work or, or making mistakes, whatever, but from a place they never have to go through that. So many people have never run a team, have never had to have a conversation that either requires firing a lot of people or challenging, you know, they never went through that.

Yeah.

They observe it. And I observed a lot of conversation, but also during more than 20 years I've been in the trenches running teams. I was a CEO, so I've been there and I felt the emotions and the pain and the real problem of people being put under pressure.

Yeah, and it's, it's a very subjective and personal process because the way how you stand in the fire and deal with it will be very different for me. And it Because it brings up all of our family history. How did we grow up? How did we handle difficult conversations and conflict in our families? Do we lean in? Do we enjoy it? Do we avoid it? Are we afraid? That's where all these stories come in.

Mm-hmm.

So what's next, Gustavo? What will we talk next time about?

Yeah, we're wrapping up. We need to continue conversation on love, and hopefully people enjoy. For me, one thing that's important about the accountability partnership, right? The other day I woke up at 4 for whatever reason, and the first thing that came to mind when I was grabbing a glass of water was, oh, what would Miriam tell me if I tell her I haven't written a page? And not from guilt or whatever, you know what I mean? It feels like a— I don't know, I don't use the word disappointment. But I think that when you engage in a kind of a commitment with someone, no, so one thing is writing a book, and that's it. But the moment you make it public, the moment you send an email, you post on social media and say, hey guys, I'm writing a book, that commitment immediately has, you know, like, sets your own expectations. And the moment you and I say, hey, let's explore an accountability partnership, a writing partnership, then we all feel that, hey, I need to— if Mira needs help, I'm going to be 24/7 available to support her. But I also need to do my work because I don't want her to do the work and lagging behind.

So yeah, it's cool. Yes. And I think it's what is I have the impression that I actually have deleted more pages than I've written, which is also progress. Because I think productivity, and I'm thinking of Cal Newport's book, Slow Productivity, where he says for a knowledge worker, the concept of productivity actually doesn't really make sense. Is it really about the number of pages we've written or is it the clarity that we found? But yeah, it's very difficult to quantify.

Totally. I think that because of the work we do, we can rationalize procrastination really well. And I was thinking, I haven't touched my computer. Yeah, I touch it, but not for my writing stuff, but not the book. But then I realized that I was stuck on the idea. There was something that wasn't there. And today I sat down for, I don't know, 4 hours in a row, and now I'm— oh wow, I'm ready for a conversation. It was a meter of progress, and I deleted a lot of content I had. Daniel Pink says that writing is editing or something like that. I don't want to misquote him, but he said that writing is about what you get rid of, right? He always said that when you're writing the introduction of an article, I always Keep this in mind from him. Write whatever comes to mind, then write the article, and then delete the first part, and the intro is going to be there waiting for you.

Yes. Yeah. So maybe that's what I was doing over the past week.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you, Gustavo. That was a delight and has brought much clarity. See you soon. Thank you for listening.

Absolutely. Yeah. Take care.