Good Life Project - Beyond Coaching, What Really Matters: Michael Bungay Stanier

Episode Date: October 10, 2016

Today's guest, Rhodes Scholar, Box of Crayons Senior Partner and bestselling author, Michael Bungay Stanier, has a bone to pick.It's about coaching.But, he's not just talking about coaches, he's talking about every person who finds themselves in regularly helping others move forward, from parents to friends to colleagues and, yes, actual coaches.In his latest book, The Coaching Habit, he makes a bold proclamation, maybe it's time to spend less time talking and more time listening and asking the 7 simple questions that'll unlock a stunning amount of connection, revelation and elevation.But, here's the thing, Michael and Jonathan are old friends, so it takes them a while to get to these ideas. Along the way, they dive deep into Michael's personal journey, the wacky world of self-help/personal-development, and Michael shares a "technology" that incites accelerated growth and change that's remarkably powerful and has used and validated in giant organizations. In This Episode, You'll Learn:5 unspeakable truths about coaching.The 7 questions that change everything.How we live a good life, show up and do meaningful work, and transcend the self-help yadda yadda.Two types of envy and how to use the good type as motivation.How to get clear on the question – 'What do you want?'When to fire cannon balls and when to fire bullets.What the boldest coaching question is that a coach can ever ask.Mentioned in This Episode:Connect with Michael: Box of Crayons | LinkedIn | TwitterThe Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay StanierGood to Great by Jim CollinsEight Irresistible Principles of FunChip and Dan HeathUnmarketing.comPeter Block Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Jonathan. I'm seriously jazzed. We're about a week away now. I know, I know, you've been hearing me talk about my new book, How to Live a Good Life, for a handful of weeks now in the start of every episode. And there's a reason for it. I've been asked recently, why did you write it? And the reason I really wrote it is because I want it to matter. We're at a point in the world where there are a lot of people suffering. There are a lot of people who can't figure out how to stand in their potential. And I would love for the book to become a tool to help you move from a place of stifled potential, of stifled identity, of not really understanding how to get what you need out of the world, to feeling like,

yeah, at least I have some guidance. And then I actually have something to do. The book gives you something to do. And that is what really matters to me. So if you're interested in learning more, you can download the first chapter completely for free. You don't need an email or anything at goodlifeproject.com book. If you pre-order before the 18th, the publication date, also all sorts of really fun and cool bonuses. And you can help us plant trees in our quest to plant 10,000 trees, a good life forest. So again, more info at goodlifeproject.com slash book, or just click the link in the show notes today. Now on to our show. Can you just stay curious just a little bit longer and rush to advice and action just a little more slowly? And it's going to make such a

big difference for everybody involved. I've known this week's guest, Michael Bunga-Estainger, for quite a while now. And he's got a new book out called The Coaching Habit. And at first, I'm kind of thinking to myself, well, you know, I'm not really a coach. Maybe this doesn't really apply to me. And I started talking to him about it. And then I actually read it. And I realized this is not a book for coaches. In fact, it's a summary of his entire philosophy, pretty much of life. And what he's done is he's essentially taken the seven most important questions that anybody could ask pretty much anybody else when you're looking to be of service in a really powerful way and share them in the order that it's most intelligent to ask them also. This is actually an astonishingly powerful tool, not just for coaching, but for being in a relationship with anybody, for mentoring, for guiding, for helping, for playing any sort of leadership role.

I found it really powerful. But this conversation is not all about the book. We do touch on it towards the end. This conversation goes deep into some really powerful ideas around how to get the most out of life, around how to build things, around how to handle adversity. And we also share a little bit of intersecting backstories. So Michael is one of my favorite people. He's insanely wise and funny and humble.

And I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did recording it. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

Flight Risk. We're hanging out here at Good Life Project HQ on on the upper west side of manhattan which is awesome thank you very much bright shiny orange table very bright it's designed to create happiness i feel happy thanks man i came in sad i don't know why i'm happy it's kind of a gray day outside it's like the antidote it all works man, man. And we've known each other, what, do you even remember how we met? Was it through Pam

or something like that? Probably Pam Slim. She's the great connector. Right, she's the connector. All, like, every relationship in some way points back to Pam Slim.

She's the Eve of this generation. It's like everybody comes to her. I'm ninth generation Pam Slim. That's how I describe myself. Four degrees of separation, ninth generation, twice removed.

That's right. Yeah. But a long time. It feels like we've kind of walked paths together for quite a while. It does, right? Yeah. It's so interesting to sort of like. We were so young when we met.

We're gray and bags under my eyes. You have gray. At least you have hair. Yeah, it is. It's so kind of fun just to see how there's sort of a group of us that I kind of see as sort of moving into the world in a similar way and around a similar time and how everyone's really just kind of gone off and done similar things in one way,

but also really profoundly different things in a lot of different ways. Well, I think what's interesting in part is watching us find focus. I mean, that's one of the cool things about you. Yeah, tell me more about that. What do you mean by that? You know, Jim Collins, he's written 18 books, all that stuff. They're all like the same title. They're good to great, goodish to greatest, the road to goodness via greatness.

I mean, they're all kind of the same, but he has a gift for metaphor. And when talking about strategy he was saying look the way you figure out what to do is you fire bullets and then you fire cannonballs bullets are kind of low risk experiments tested out trying to find where the target is but then when you find the target that's when you fire the cannonball and i think his point is for too many people they fire the cannonball too early they're like here it is i've got an idea i'm just going to commit everything and then that's kind of miserable or they never have the courage to fire the cannonball they never go oh i've got the target this is the thing

i'm just too scared to to commit and i look you know i've seen all sorts of iterations jonathan fields show up there's jonathanfields.com where you had that slightly scary photo of you, kind of like overly intense eyes going on under stubble or something. And then you did the writers, the writing tribe piece. And there's been other things that you've kind of like. There's been a lot of iterations. Yeah, you've done a bunch of things. And then it just feels like with Good Life Project, you've found a home.

Like you've found a center. And I like you found the center and i know you you can't help but experiment around that and do cool yeah sub brands of that but it feels like in in glp there's a something you've landed there and i love that and i feel that's the same with other people we know who've done they're kind of like i tried a bunch of things but they kind of they circle circle circle and they seem to be landing on something important to them yeah i i think i agree with that and i love that analogy also the jim collins analogy i never really um heard it said that way but it makes it so visual and makes it so much like oh well yeah of course right and then and it seems like you've done the same thing also in a certain way with box of crayons and sort of like the

bigger brand and the the body of intellectual property built around it. Yeah. Well, that's true. I mean, I kind of stumbled into this whole thing accidentally. I mean, a mutual friend of ours, Scott Stratton. So I don't remember if you remember what Scott did before he became the unmarketing guy. He was the video making guy. Video guy, right? He kind of created this cool video about time, which, you know, was a bit cliched, but hugely successful. Right.

It's a massive viral hit. And I was like, well, I've met Scott Stratton. If he can do it, I can do that. Shout out to you, Scott. We love you. Yeah, we do. Exactly. We do love Scott.

So I did this little video called The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun. And it was a little animated. And it just kind of blew up. And it got tweeted by Tim Ferriss, which was like a little starstruck moment. Is that still up, by the way? Can we link to that? Yeah, that's around somewhere. Because that was one of the first things that I remember seeing.

And I was like, oh, this is just awesome. And I started sharing it like crazy. Right, right. So that kind of accidentally pushed me into this whole world of self-development and self-help because I actually created that because I'd been inspired by another guy called the strategic coach. I can't remember his name, but he's basically called Dan Sullivan. Dan Sullivan, yeah. And I saw Dan Sullivan speak, and he said, look, here's the way to become successful, one route. It's about how you identify yourself.

And he said, said look pretend you're a dentist you start off claiming to be a dentist okay there's nothing wrong with that but you are your profession then you shift to becoming an entrepreneur who practices dentistry and that's actually quite a radical shift because you understand that it's about marketing and selling and building a business not just doing the technical skill. And then you're like, I'm an entrepreneur who creates intellectual property around dentistry. And when you create intellectual property, then you're able to scale. Then you're able to have more impact. And I was like, oh, that's great.

Oh, if only I had intellectual property. Oh, man, I seem to have signed up to give a talk. I was giving a talk to some coaches in Toronto. It's like getting in a car. Yeah, I was giving a talk about why people should create intellectual property and i didn't have any ip on my own so in about in about 20 minutes i sat down and i just wrote this thing called the eight irresistible principles of fun that's one of those things where you go that was a that was lightning in a bottle so that was just like that one of those channeling moments yeah it's just

20 minutes where i just went bang and i was like that's pretty good it's amazing because when you look at it it's like oh this he must have been working on this for a long time. No, I spent 18 years trying to recreate that moment. Nothing. Nothing. I'm like, how about this? No, no, it's almost the same, but it's not nearly as good. Yeah.

Yeah. So we started off in that space. And Box of Crowns came along as a name, which was really, again, I was given a, this is how I work, under panic. I'm giving a talk to a bunch of coaches about the importance of branding. So I invented Michael's three laws of branding. And my company name failed all three of my own laws. So I'm like, oh, no. I've got six weeks to come up with a better name.

And I went through a bunch of them. I was going to call myself espresso coaching at one stage because i'm like espresso it's like italy and chic and right ciao bella energizing exactly kind of endless effortlessly cool all that stuff the hipster thing guy so i email my friends like okay espresso coaching what do you think and they're right back going you know when i think of espresso i think it's expensive bitter doesn't last very long stains your teeth drunken by pretentious people i was like okay that's not it that's not what i was going for but then when box of crayons showed up i was like again it was like oh that's that's just a great name yeah but you know we've gone through a whole bunch of things trying to go are we doing doing self-help? Are we not doing, are we doing business focused?

And now we're just landed in this place where we're a training company. Right. Again, surprising because I'm pretty skeptical of most training. And we're really focused on giving practical coaching skills to busy managers so they can coach in 10 minutes or less. Yeah. And this is completely personal. So because it's a personal curiosity for me. Well, I never saw that coming in a JLP interview.

No, but it's about me, man. Not you. I want to benefit from what, from what you just said, because, you know, you said it's personal development, you know, it's, it's self-help. Yeah. And it's funny because when I actually think of you, those aren't the, the, the words that I associate with. I think of you, I'm like, okay, really smart business process, sort of like mining and and revealing human potential but and within the context of work right are you and what's interesting is so with good life project i've kind of started to step into this umbrella of

like quote uh personal development self-help and i really struggle with that moniker. And you just sort of like own that as you. Are you comfortable with that? Not hugely, just because it's such a, there's so much bad stuff in this space. You know, stuff that's kind of mushy or pastel colored or just, so what I want, what I love is stuff that has rigor, but stuff that has lightness as well. I want a joy and a lightness and a fun to it.

And so here's a story that probably sums this up. So five or six years ago, I was coaching. I was part of the ICF, the International Coach Federation. I went to speak at their big national meeting. And I came up with this thing called the five unspeakable truths about coaching and it was all about this I'm going to talk about the dark side of coaching because when you get together these conferences and while there are many wonderful you know people who are coaches and who I know and I love and we know and we love you know Karen Wright everybody

else these conferences I found overwhelming because it was a little kind of self-congratulatory about how wonderful we all are look how enlightened we are and it didn't feel like there was that quite enough people doing the work to mind the mess which is the interesting place so we did this thing called the five unspeakable truths about coaching you know things like you know, I hate my clients. I get bored by my clients. I don't know what the hell I'm doing some of the time. Not that this is the whole truth.

It's just some of the truth some of the time. Yeah, the unspeakable part. Yeah, and that whole Jungian piece about the gold is in the dark. You know, when you find a way to embrace the shadow side, you become more whole. You know, that Jung quote, I'd embrace the shadow side, you become more whole. You know, that Jung quote, I'd rather be whole than good. I love that. You know, it's like Brene Brown and all that sort of stuff about embrace the vulnerability and the messiness of it. Anyway, long story short, we had a little bit of a tempest in a teacup with the ICF because they weren't happy about that whole process.

The board got up and walked out halfway through. It was a bit of a mess. But that to me, when this self-help stuff is not at its best, it's when it doesn't have the willingness to look hard at itself, but also treat itself with lightness and a sense of humor. But on the other hand i mean when it comes down to it we you me lots of the people we know and love are in this business of going how do we how do we live a good life yeah you know how do we show up and do live a life that has meaning to us but also has impact in the world it makes a difference and yeah you want you kind of want it to transcend the the self-help ghetto because that can be a bit

of a less rewarding place to get stuck with you know and and maybe that quote ghetto exists in almost every profession but it does seem that the the self-help um world the personal development whatever name you want it has a reputation um for for a certain type of person a certain type of approach and what's interesting for for me is i've i've always just felt like i'm so not that person and and if that that person and that approach resonates and actually you know like touches down and help somebody else god bless right you know but it's just it doesn't resonate with me as an individual who i am or my lens on the world or the approach that I bring to problem solving and serving. So I've always, and it was interesting, my overlay is that, well, the entire industry has that particular association.

I don't really want to be associated with it. Right. And I had to get comfortable lately with the idea that when it comes down to it, I've been, what I started to realize last year was that, if you look on my LinkedIn, entrepreneurship and strategy are the things where I have all the endorsements. But what I realized was that, yeah, I do like entrepreneurship. I like making things. But what I really love about it is that it's a stunning canvas and gauntlet for revealing and expressing and improving the human condition.

And so I'm really just using it as a lever. Right. You know, but what I'm really interested in is human potential. And when it comes down to it, that means I'm part of this world. I just, it's the idea of I'm trying to get comfortable right now of carving out my own definition within that space. So who the, in that space, who are the people you admire and who seem to transcend? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. There's sort of two ends of the spectrum. I'm

very science-based, but I'm very spiritually open. I'm not super metaphysically wired, but so what I'm drawn to always on the one end of the spectrum is applied positive psychology. Right. Very, like I'm constantly devouring papers, academic papers and talking to researchers and practitioners because I love to see science validated processes that have replicable outcomes. That's awesome. Right. You know, I'm less interested in, hey, let's, you know, try this thing where I, you know where it's worked here and there, but there's no validation. Then the other side of the spectrum, and I'm curious where you fall with this also, so I want you to answer the same question, is thousands of year old Eastern philosophy.

Buddhism is something I'm very drawn to. found is that my experience has been increasingly as i know more and more about each is that a lot of positive psychology is fundamentally just the scientific validation of buddhist practices that's why the dalai lama is going yeah let's test this stuff yeah and if it's if you show me it's scientifically wrong i'm happy to change my mind on it right which is what i love about it's not like this is the gospel you shall follow follow right so how would you answer that same question so the thing that rings my bells are elegant models that have been shown to work so and i get pulled in all sorts of places like you know i love the periodic table this is weird but it's like for for years I had the periodic table as my shower curtains, just because I just love the elegance of it. It's like, I just love how it works. It's like,

how did you figure all that out? It's amazing. But then you look at things like, and I love models that work with the complexity of the human condition rather than reduce it to here are the eight steps. So when I think about change, for instance, there's an approach to change in this world called positive deviance. Chip and Dan Heath talk about it briefly in their book. The guy who started it, I mean, it's a great story. He was leading a nonprofit, I think, in Asia somewhere. It was all about trying to deal with impoverished children.

He's American. The Americans have done something to annoy the government, whichever government it was, and they basically went, right, you've got six months to sort out impoverished children or you're out. He's like, oh, man, we've been here for 40 years. We haven't made a dent yet. What are we going to do in six months?

But here's what he did. He went around to the various villages and he just weighed children he just weighed them and what he found was in every village there were some kids who were not malnourished so not malnourished and that's so weird why why do these kids somehow flourish when others struggle and what he found was that the parents of those children were doing things that were deviant from the norm, but positively deviant. So as far as I can remember, they washed their hands more. They fed their kids five small meals a day rather than two big meals a day.

They fed them crabs that other people didn't consider food, just stuff like that. And his insight was within any system, there's always some people who are flourishing when others are struggling. What are they doing and how do we get them to teach the others? And what I love about that is it's data driven. You find the people who are flourishing and then you figure out what are the levers that they're pushing. so a model like that to me deals with the complexity of the human condition is both is data driven and it treats people as adults rather than people being cheap being fixed yeah you know there's a writer i love called peter

block and he once said look he my work is to give people responsibility for their own freedom. And I love that phrase because it just speaks to how often we hand that freedom over to somebody else to decide for us, whether it's our organization, our boss, fate, whatever you want to do. But to actually say, how do you take responsibility for your own freedom and that positive deviancy approach just feels like that's about stepping forward to human potential yeah that's a long i don't even show what the question was anymore but that's my but it's it's so interesting and i i that approach resonates with me so strongly is it back years ago back and when i was in the health and fitness world i got really fascinated by you know everybody fails in this world. Right. You know, everybody joins a gym.

The number one reason is always to lose weight, and everybody fails, you know, like almost everybody. Right. And you start at a place of failure, and then you maintain it the whole time. Right. You never succeed. You know, and everybody's, like you said, trying to fix somebody who's broken, and very often saying saying like, okay, I am going to profess to you that this is the answer. You just be quiet, do what I say. And when I was doing a whole bunch

of research in that space, there was a research project that was done. My recollection is between University of Pittsburgh and maybe Tufts or something like that. I can't remember. Called the, I may butcher this. I think it was the National Weight Control Registry. And their whole approach was, we're not going to study like all the failures, the exact same thing. They said, we're going to look for people who have lost, I think it was a minimum of 60 pounds and kept it off for five years or longer. And then we're just going to put thousands of them into a database. And same thing, what are you doing differently right than other people and they started to see the patterns emerge right you know and that to me is such a fascinating approach to

really focus on that rather than look at every you know try and figure out what everyone else is doing wrong just like the people like the few outliers who are somehow doing something different and you know it's that's been a really i mean i think it's seth godin you know who who you know occasionally has a little rant about people emailing going can you be my mentor he's like come on people you don't need a mentor or at least you have mentors all around you yeah find the people who inspire you provoke you slightly annoy you make you go damn it why am i doing that and then rather than be kind of deflated by their success or or limited by envy go fantastic what does that teach me how do i find see what they're doing and be inspired by that you know everything from like scott stratton

doing movies early on i mean i i voraciouslyiously, you know, there's that Tom Peters thing. He goes, don't suffer from the not invented here syndrome. Embrace stolen with glee. You know, I'm forever looking at people and going, oh, I love how you did that. I mean, I walk into GLPHQ and I'm like, okay, I just need to redo my entire office now because this is elegant and beautiful and spacious and you got carpet that makes me just want to lie on the carpet and curl up because it's kind of gray and warm and beautiful so there's all these moments where you go uh if you if you look for it you can see these moments of inspiration where you go I can do

that I can step into I could try that I could do my own spin on that. Yeah. Well, and Austin Kleon, right? Steel like an artist. It's all the same stuff. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Av it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. You brought up the term envy though. I want to actually. I want to dive back into that because I think it's such an interesting concept. And my experience is that envy is always labeled as evil. Right. I saw a paper, I want to say a year or two ago, that broke out envy and said actually there are two types of envy.

There's what I believe they call benign envy and malicious or benevolent envy. Yeah. I can guess where you're going with this. It sounds fascinating. Depending on how you respond to envy, it can either be massively destructive and paralyzing, or it can be an astonishing source of motivation. Right, exactly.

Yeah, I think that's great. You know, there are definitely people I look to and I go, I'm never going to be quite there because that just feels too much, too far. But gosh, why don't I try? You know, it's that whole you swing for the stars, you hit the moon or something like that. But I do think, you know, one way I think about this is so one of the things that I do to make a buck is to speak. And I love speaking. I love speaking in front of crowds.

Most of the time, I don't get too fretty about it. But then there are times where I'm like, you know, I'm going to like, yeah. I'm like raising my hand. Yeah, like I've been there before and I will be there again too. Some audiences I'm cool with. Some audiences for some reason freak me out. Yeah, I get it. And one of the things that I do as much as I can is I shake the hands of as many people as I can as they come in the door. And everybody goes, oh, it's so amazing.

You're a keynote speaker and you touch other people. You're amazing. And I'm like, honestly, I'm just doing this for my own sake because what this does is it reminds me that everybody here is just a human being and they're just doing their best. Some people have had lucky breaks. Some people haven't had lucky breaks, but they're all just here to go where normal. And that's part of the balancing thing for me when I look at people who've flourished for one thing or another. I'm like, oh, man, I've been doing my podcast for 10 years and this person's on a podcast and six months and they're the number one.

I'm like, you know, he's probably just a normal person. He's probably just tried something interesting and different and he probably just fired a cannonball here where I've just been firing bullets. So, okay, get over yourself, Michael. Now, what can I learn from this? What can it provoke me to think differently about how I show up in the world? Yeah. And I'm mostly wired the same way. So it's

cool to hear you say that as well. Although I have to say my response to speaking when I don't feel comfortable in a room is the exact opposite. I just completely hide out behind stage. I'm like shaking and trying not to throw up. So yeah, we're wired a little bit differently there. I don't think there's a human out there who just looks around and never has this emotion of, man, I would love to have like that or be that or do that. And I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I think it's all about what does that do to and for you? Like, how does that, what's your response to that? Does that disable or empower you?

Well, I think one of the things to be thinking about is sitting with the question, so what do I want? Because one of the things that I notice is I get triggered by some people who are doing stuff and I'm like, oh. And then I'm like, actually, when I think about it, I don't actually want that. I've just got an initial visceral reaction to go that's the thing i want yeah and it's it's a really hard powerful question to sit with which is what do i want i mean i so you know i run a small training company and i went away to this conference a couple of years ago and it was like okay you're at this level here's how you get a 5x that level and i came back going, this is all. I can see it.

Because, you know, I'm one of these kind of bright, shiny, oh, it's a vision. I've got it. So I'm like, I got it. And I came back to my wife, who's my business partner. I'm like, Marcel, this is fantastic. I see how we're going to get to become a $5 million company in the next three years. We're going to pull this lever and execute on this and blah, blah, blah. And because she's been married to me for 25 years, she's like, A, I hate it when you go the next three years we're gonna pull this lever and execute on this and blah blah blah and because

she's been married to me for 25 years she's like hey i hate it when you go away and you have time to think because that's a nightmare for everybody else nightmare but secondly and she's so good at this she's like okay fine that's great michael but is that what you really want? And I was like, oh, I don't know. What? Oh, I don't know if that's what I really want. Oh, I probably don't want that. Wait, oh, what do I want? I've sat with that question now for a year.

What do I want with a box of crayons? And because, you know, I can actually see a path where we just keep growing the revenue and we scale up on impact a bit and scale up on vast amounts of wealth a bit. But I'm just not that driven by that. So that makes me then go, okay, what are we trying to achieve with this company? And sitting with that miserably difficult question, wonderfully provocative question, actually helps, I think, get you clear on the kind of benevolent envy.

Because once you get clear on what you want, then you see people who have some version of that, and you go, that's what I can aspire to. Rather than if you're not totally clear on that, that's when you go, oh, I just want what you've got because it looks bright and shiny and interesting. Yeah, and sometimes even worse, I would love to see you fall. Right.

Which I think it gets really dark. Right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think that happens a lot. So I'm curious now, as you've been sitting with this question, well, what do I want? You know, like, okay, you and I are wired so similarly in that. And I work with my wife also.

Right. And I'm the crazy out there. I just saw the coolest thing. And she's like okay let's have a real conversation i'm gonna get stuff done right you just calm down okay so so now you've been sitting with this question for a while now where's your head at so 20 20 years ago maybe maybe 15 years ago i I did some work around the kind of personal vision. What's the impact I want to have in this world? And the phrase that I have never come up with a better

one or a smarter one for me anyway is to infect a billion people with the possibility virus. Now, that resonates really well for me. I mean, I still get chills when I say it. I don't say it often enough. It's what I'm just remembering here. But it has grandiose ambition. I mean, how do you touch a billion people? I have no idea. That's a seventh of the entire population of the world. But what it means is to do that, I have to get out of the way.

I have to create stuff that just is able to be passed along and spread and kind of ripple out into the world and then the possibility virus for me is connected to that piece about giving people responsibility for their own freedom because I can't make decisions for people I don't want to make decisions for people but I guess what I wanted my heart is for people to have the courage to see that they always have a choice that moment of going you can't control your circumstances you control your response to that and then to make the most courageous choice possible for them so that's the personal mission that has really kind of influenced different things that I've done different projects that

I've taken on and I think where I'm at at the moment, so we serve corporations mostly at the moment with Box of Crayons. What's clear for me now is I've got to kind of pull myself away from the focus on the corporate work. There's other people who can come in and do, run that part of the business. So not shut it down, but just you personally start to shift your focus. Shift my focus. And my task this year is to find disruptors that inspire me. So I have this wonderful mastermind group, my brain trust, as we call ourselves. And we've had this luxury. We've been together as a little group for 10 years, there's six of us. So Jen Loudon, Mark Silver, Eric Klein, Michelle Leisenberry Christensen, and Molly Gordon. And so we now all know each other so, so well.

It's fantastic and annoying because they're like, ah, you can't pull that one on us. We know exactly what you're doing here. And so we did our annual retreat back in March. And the thing that they helped me get clear on is i want box of crayons to be a disruptive force for good that's that feels good to me that feels interesting to me but i don't know what disruption means and i don't want to just grab the first thing so at the moment i feel like i'm back to that firing bullets metaphor yeah it's like a i need to fire some bullets to go all right what

what what is interesting in disruption where could i play and where could i be most useful i mean it's it's so interesting as soon as i said that all sorts of interesting education people started showing up you know connections to people here it's just like this little wave of people doing cool stuff and they and i have you, I was a teacher briefly myself. I have three grandparents who were teachers. I have a brother who is a teacher. I'm like, oh, I'm basically a teacher when all we do is we as a you. So part of me is drawn to that, that.

But I'm trying not to be suckered into thinking that the first thing that shows up is necessarily the thing. So it's the title of your book. It's like uncertainty. It's like when you're able to sit with the ambiguity, the longer you can sit there. The better the stuff comes. Well, the more you give the chance for the real thing to emerge. And so that's what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to sit with the ambiguity and hope something emerges. Yeah, it's so powerful. It's so powerful also just that you're aware. It's like you have this meta capability of sort of zooming and understanding that this is actually where you are. Right. You know, and that it's not comfortable and that's okay. And in fact, that's the gateway to the answers I'm really looking for. Because the stuff that's coming up immediately, it's decent, but it's probably not it. It's seductive. Because part of me is like, oh, this is cool. And I'm not ignoring it. I'm talking to people.

But my job is to explore at this stage. Because I'm easily seduced by the bright, shiny object thing that shows up. And I've just learned to sit with it for a little bit. Yeah, I love that. Two things really jump out at me also. And this is a little freaky. So just in the last year, cause I've been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of work on, you know, like what's my why as well. And the two words that I keep landing are, are inspire possibility, which is, you know, a more ambiguous version of, you know, the effect of billion people with an

possibility of us. But, but I, same thing. And thing. And when I think about what we're actually doing with the project, fundamentally, we do create courses and stuff like that and events which are designed to actually hold people's hands and introduce them to process. But I don't think that's actually the thing that stops people. My increasing experience, I'm curious what you think about this too, is that the real barrier in people's lives

is that they just don't believe that a different state, a different way to be in the world is possible. And until you actually shift that belief, you can have all the process in the world. You can read all the books in the world, go to all the courses, all the trainings, all the events. But until you shift that belief, nothing will work because you don't, you'll never actually do anything with it. Do you know the immunity to change work? No. Have you come across that? Oh.

So let me talk about that briefly because I love this stuff. So this is a book that came out maybe five or six years ago from a couple of Harvard professors in kind of education psychology, Lisa Leahy and Bob Keegan. Bob Keegan's written a bunch of books, all of which are completely unreadable, until he wrote this one, which is awesome. And here's the key idea. There's two types of change. There's technical change and there's adaptive change technical change you read the book you watch the youtube video you practice a bit you get the hang of it and you master it cool adaptive change is that stuff you keep trying to do you keep getting feedback on you read all the books then you read more books then you watch more videos and for some reason you just can't crack

it because it's not about additive and just learning a new skill it kind of you need rewiring to kind of get to the next level so keegan and leahy have this process called immunity to change which is just so powerful at helping you figure out what's getting in your way the way they put it is you've got your foot on the accelerator but it also feels like you got your foot on the brake but you don it is you've got your foot on the accelerator, but it also feels like you've got your foot on the brake, but you don't even know you've got your foot on the brake. So let us show you how to put the foot on the brake. So I'm going to take you through this process and I'll give you an example. This is somewhat past in my life, but it will bring it to life. So the starting point is you try and figure out the one big thing you're looking to

change, the one big thing that will make the difference. And they say that giving it the spousal test is a good way to do it. So if you go to your spouse and you go, hey, I was thinking I should work on this. They go, for God's sake, I've been telling you for 10 years to do that. Of course, that's what you should be doing. How is that not bleedingly obvious? Okay, point taken. I get it. All right. So four or five years ago, for me, the big thing was trying to build a team, build a team that worked. Now, technically, did I know how to build a team? Of course I did. I had read every book.

I've actually written courses on it, taught courses on it. I still had just this lousy track record of actually having a successful team that worked. So that's the starting point. There's five columns. That's the first column. The second column is you list all the things that you do that are contrary to that big goal that you have set yourself. It's a humbling, by which I mean not, oh, I'm humbled to get the award, just that I'm an idiot, embarrassed about it. So for me, it would be like, I work in a very small building, so nobody can physically be in the same room as me. I hire people who are in

different countries, so I can never talk to them in the same time zone. I don't give people clear briefs. I fire them because they disappoint me when they can't read my mind about what I wanted. I don't give them any coaching or support. I don't set a vision for the company about where we're going or why we're doing this. I just give them stuff, random stuff. And I said, this is a long, embarrassing list. And I was like, it's so embarrassing. Then, and this is where it starts getting interesting, you kind of flip things around. So you go, okay, imagine you are getting the opposite of that. You're doing all of those things that you're currently not doing. What would you be worried about? Okay, so I don't at the moment set a vision. What if you really were setting a clear

vision for Box of Crayons? What would you be worried about? Well, I'd be worried that, A, I wouldn't have a vision. I wouldn't know where the hell I'm going. Secondly, if I created a vision, nobody would actually care or follow me, or they'd think it was a ridiculous vision okay at the moment you don't give anybody responsibility for running a project you have to run them all yourself what if you gave somebody full responsibility for a project what would you be worried about i'd be worried they'd make a mess of it i'd be worried i spend my whole time holding their hands and wiping their bottom and kind of looking after them. I'd be worried I get no time.

I have all these other worries. And so it goes. So now this is really interesting. I'm starting to see where my worries are around the success. And then the one, two, three, fourth column is where you start going. So if that's what you're worried about, you are committed to avoiding that worry. So what are your competing commitments? This is a little bit abstract. I don't set a vision for the company. Why are you worried? Why would I be worried about it? They wouldn't follow me or I would have no

vision. So what are you committed to? I'm committed to never setting a vision for box of crayons. So it's like, this is not a noble vision, a competing commitment. This is an embarrassing competing commitment. Okay. I competing commitment okay i don't give people responsibility for a project what if you did i'd be worried i'm spending my whole time looking after them rather than doing my own work what are you committed to i'm committed to always putting my own work in front of anybody else's now as you go down this list you start seeing that my espoused goal to build an awesome team i have all these competing commitments never set a vision always put my own work in front of others spend no time with anybody else never have an awkward goal to build an awesome team, I have all these competing commitments. Never set a vision,

always put my own work in front of others, spend no time with anybody else, never have an awkward conversation about accountability. I'm like, well, no wonder I'm not building a team. And so then the final column is you go, okay, what if you broke those commitments? What would happen? What's the really bad stuff that would happen? And for me, I have a really familiar pattern it'd be like okay i set a vision nobody follows me the business crumbles my wife leaves me the house i get evicted and i end up dead in the pavement drinking at the age of 49 you know so i'm like well no wonder i don't want to build a team because i can see where it lands it ends up with me an alcoholic in a gutter somewhere no reading a book is going to fix that. And then what you start doing is you start building little tests

that challenge the underlying commitments and the assumptions about the doom that's going to happen. And you start breaking the system down. It's a really elegant way to suddenly uncover why you keep trying to do stuff and you never quite get there. Yeah, that is so powerful. I can't wait to dive into that. Yeah, it's outstanding.

And I'm really skeptical of this stuff because most change stuff, not worth the paper it's written on. But that stuff is resonant. It seems like such a logical process, too, when you actually think about it. It's funny, I've asked a number of people the question when somebody, there was a scenario where somebody was sort of arming themselves with a particular argument that was absolutely stopping them from doing all the things that similarly they professed them to want to do. And God knows I've probably done that a million times myself, right? So I'm not pointing my hand up as anybody else out. And for some reason I turned to them and I said, well, I said, if this is your normal pattern, I'm just, I'm really curious.

If you keep doing it, it's obviously serving some purpose in your life. What is that purpose for you? That's it. You're getting to the same thing, which is what's the deeper commitment you're getting to? Yeah. And I just kind of, you know, like we'd left the conversation and blew it off. But the person didn't blow it off. Right. Person went deep into trying to answer this question and it triggered, it set off a series of things that were really astonishing that I don't think either of us saw coming and I didn't entirely intend just in my question.

Yeah. Well, I think that, I mean, that sounds a very similar experience to what this immunity change process, what's brilliant about the immunity change process process it's just got a rigor to it yeah yeah absolutely like okay column five this is what this is what you're answering and it's what's brilliant is it it fools people like me so like i am really good because i'm a trained coach etc etc at avoiding hard conversations. I'm like, I'm slippery. It is like I can do self-deprecation. I can do pseudo deep thinking. So it sounds like I'm struggling with something. So you're like a therapist's worst nightmare, basically. I'm like, you just try and pin me down.

You're never going to catch me. And the first time I did this immunity change process, I literally spent time hiding under a blanket. I'm like, I have no idea how I'm telling you this stuff but somehow you tricked me into revealing this and what and this was 15 minutes into this conversation what just happened that's amazing so that's part of what's brilliant about it is because it feels rigorous in a process you can't trick the system yeah yeah i love that the second thing that i want to circle back to was this notion that we started a conversation talking about you throughout the Boulder Good to Great guy.

Jim Collins. Jim Collins. The idea of the cannonballs and just the small shots. And what's interesting is that you've built what, from the outside looking in, appears to be this. It's rocking and rolling. You're phenomenally successful. It's a respected company. You're phenomenally successful. It's a respected company. You're a respected person in your field.

And so you're, you've got the cannonball. Right. Right. And at the same time, you've now hit a window where you're like, it's time to actually go back. Right. You know, because it's not, there's no there there. And I think that's one of the big jarring things that really freaks people out is that,

you know, you don't just stop like at some point you actually have to go back to that place where you don't know what's next or else you just end up going sideways and then you become miserable yeah oh do you think that's true for everybody i mean i know that is true for me i know that i'm restless and if i hit a plateau you know in an earlier book i wrote i was like the difference between good work and great work and good work is your job descriptions, getting things done, and that's important. But great work is that next step into work that has more impact and more meaning. Yeah. I don't think it's true for everybody. I would like to believe it's true for everybody, because I would like to think that everybody's wired for growth and everybody's wired. But I think it's also, it's probably good that in a weird way, I wonder if

life is easier if you're not wired that way, because you can be, you can come to a place of being content probably with greater ease. I'm not wired that way. And maybe just, you know, it's the bias of who I surround myself with. Most of the people that I interact with on a daily basis are not wired that way either. And I wonder too, how much, if you're at a place, there's a really slippery slope between being wired for contentment and being wired for complacency. So I think that's a really useful distinction because I was just thinking the same, which is there's a way you can plateau and you become complacent is a good word but i think there's also something to say are you able to have the wisdom to be content rather than you know blowing up your own happiness and and having the wisdom to discern between those is so huge so hard and so important because

i bet you there are times where i've shot myself in the foot going, I'm too happy. We can't carry on like this. Screw it up somehow. Make it difficult for yourself because I like the struggle. And so part of it is around that piece around understanding how your own patterns collude in making your life more miserable than it needs to be and yeah i know i you know i know i have restless blow things up syndrome so i

have so many people around me going focus michael no focus no michael focus no michael focus no okay go off and do that in a little sandbox you can do that right but don't don't leave this alone don't blow what you got stop stop medley right yeah i i mean it's i so agree with that it's there are definitely times i felt that way as well and from the outside in too i think sometimes there are times where we blow things up just because we're getting to a point where it feels too good and we're not comfortable feeling that good. Yeah. And I think the opposite is also true.

There are times where we should blow stuff up, but we don't because we're comfortable. It's a bit like buying low and selling high. Yeah. You know, you take your best guess. But I think what's important is you're mindful about the choice that you're making. And you go, I may be wrong because you can never be right all the time. But I be wrong but this is the gamble i'm going to take and i'm going into it eyes wide open yeah being intentional i think is the key yeah and again like you said that absolutely doesn't mean that you can choose right man that would be so much again being intentional that

means i get the right like i choose right i get to win yeah Wow. That would be so cool. Sadly, it's not the reality. I want to make sure that we squeeze it. You and I can just jam on this stuff for a long time. We're going Tim Ferriss on people. We're just going to have a nine-hour podcast. Let's do it. Your latest work, you've got a book out on questions. I have.

It's called The Coaching Habit. I wrote it for really thinking about the busy manager, person in an organization, trying to do their best, committed. They like their work. They like their team. But I'm kind of feeling a bit overwhelmed, trying to do too much. And that whole piece around trying to do more great work rather than just trying to get the good work on. So, yeah, it's got to focus on seven essential questions and kind of the mechanisms of making them a habit. Yeah. One of the things I love about the approach also is that you take, you know, like the quote coaching. Yeah. And you're like, you know what? This is really, let's just break it down.

Let's demystify it. Let's deconstruct it. Let's unfancify it. Yeah. And you know what? You could accomplish a huge percentage of what the entire process is about if you just know seven questions so peter block who's this guy i love is a role model for me an intellectual role model and when probably the peak one of the peak moments of my professional career is he write a blurb for my

very first book so excited because i was like i was even less known than i am now so complete nobody but somehow because he's a grumpy old guy somehow you got him in a good mood and he wrote this little blurb for this first book called and he says look coaching is not a profession it's a way of being with each other and i was like oh i didn't even know i believed that but that's the thing it's just like every i'm not really trying to create coaches. I just want people to be a bit more coach-like in the way they show up and they interact with people, which fundamentally is just, can you just stay curious just a little bit longer and a rush to advice and action just a little more slowly.

And it's going to make such a big difference for everybody involved. Yeah. I, I, I love that. It's like, you're all coaches. Yeah. You don for everybody involved. Yeah. I love that. It's like you're all coaches. Yeah. You don't know it. Right. But you all have the ability in some way, shape or form in like a child's life or a friend's life.

Right. Everybody, every day. It's not about sitting down saying, let's have a session. It's just about when you interact with everybody, every day on any level. Right. You have an opportunity to make a difference. And very often the biggest part of that is not by saying this is what you should do, but by doing the exact opposite.

I did a podcast with a guy yesterday, and he was like, oh, let me tell you this story because, you know, I read your book, and my daughter came into the bathroom this morning, six-year-old, and she's crying. And he's like, oh, parent, you know, responsive. But he's like, okay, rather than comfort her, I'm just going to ask her how she's doing. So ask the kind of question, you know, what's on your mind? She's like, oh, I want to wear short sleeves, not long sleeves. And he's like, okay.

But then, you know, the second question in the book, and I boldly go, it's the best coaching question in the world. And it's simply, and what else? Because the first answer is never the only answer. So he goes, oh, remember that. He goes, and what else? It's like is never the only answer so because i remember that he goes and what else it's like i really want summer to be here and it's like oh i know and then and then he went okay god that's so good but he's gonna i'll ask one more time and what else and then she told him the real thing which he he kept private to you know for her privacy but he was like it completely changed everything i didn't have to fix anything. She just needed to speak out loud this final thing.

And honestly, best moment of yesterday. Even telling me the story of just how that three-minute interaction with his daughter shifted from his normal parenting style just to a different experience. Yeah. It's so powerful to just think. I mean, it's so powerful to just think i mean it's funny like the first two questions which you just shared yeah like what's on your mind and and tell me yeah you know like what else if you just ask those two questions you know if you just found opportunities to yeah continually ask those i mean what an like a stunning difference right how would that change

your your daily experience and how would that potentially change your relationships with others and how might it help them in a way where you thought you were being really helpful before, but you really, that's not what they needed. Yeah. That word helpful is a really interesting one because we, so many of us, I'm pretty much sure there's a hundred percent compliance for people listening to this podcast. Helpful people, they have good hearts. They want to try and assist the people around them. But so often, sometimes there's a place for giving advice. It's just a lot less than people think.

You know, if you can be present, if you can ask a question, if you can really hear their answer, if you can help them speak what's going on for them, what's in their heart and in their head, that can be so much more useful than you trying to fix the first thing that they happen to mention, not least because the first thing is never the thing. It's just the first thing that happens to come up.

Yeah. I wonder often if, you know, we're really looking to be expressed, not fixed. Right. And that's the opportunity that we're taking by trying to fix all the time. Well, I think that's, yeah. And. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. the thing that as i've been thinking about this, part of it's also just connecting back to uncertainty. Because when you're giving somebody advice, it's a far more comfortable place to be. Sure. Right? I'm in control of the conversation. I'm the smart one in the conversation. I know where this is going. I'm adding value in inverted commas.

So you just feel good about yourself, even though your advice is probably wrong, or it's not very good. And it's probably not going to be listened to. And it's probably not going to be acted upon. At least you're clear about what's happening. When you ask the question, you step into a place of more ambiguity. Was that a good question? Was it the right question? What are they going to say? Will I know how to handle what they're about to say? What if they come with some crazy answer that I don't know what to say about? Oh, I don't even have control of the conversation anymore. Now they have control of the conversation.

It's a harder place to sit. But to what we said before and what you say in your book, you know, that place of being able to sit with ambiguity can serve you and others better. Yeah, that's one of those things you just threw out also really just like hit me, which Being able to sit with ambiguity can serve you and others better. Yeah. That's one of those things you just threw out also really just like hit me, which is what if I ask the question and then they say what's on their mind and I don't know how to respond. Right. Like I don't know what to do next.

Right. For somebody who's genuinely wired to help also, that's like a terrifying thought. It is. Right. It totally is. And, of course, you're able to say, you know, you know wow yeah you don't have to know what to do you can just sit there going well that's i i wouldn't even know what to do and i think a lot of that but that's i think a lot of the thing that helps right it's just you know like i'm i'm here with you exactly that's in

that is i feel the enormity of whatever this thing is and i get it you know and they're like you get me that i just wanted to be heard i wanted to be expressed thank you i think that's huge i love that there's also an interesting backstory with this book right yeah this is the book that almost killed me and it has to be said that because i know a bunch of people who listen to this are writers and I've probably had books published or thinking about trying to publish a book and the like and so this is my my fifth book so honestly I was like I know how to write books now I'm pretty good at it you know I've got four books none of them were awful to write I mean they're all awful in their way you

know you start off and you think you got an idea and then you write this first draft and it's terrible. And you're like, that's okay. I read somewhere the first drafts are always terrible. So then you write a second draft, that's terrible as well. You're like, oh, that's worrying. And fourth draft, it's still pretty bad, but you're getting better at it. But finally you get there. This book, I wrote four versions of this book before I wrote a fifth version that worked. And part of it was the misery of trying to work with my publisher so I had a I for do more great work I had a fancy New York publisher and they did a nice job of it and they're like keen to get me to write my next book and I'm keen to get them to publish my next book so I pitch it to them and they're like nothing about that and I went okay

and then uh I I hired an agent and that was a bad mistake as well. It didn't work at all. Another messy time. What I found, Jonathan, is that at a certain point, I completely lost the plot because the publisher was going, so we love it, but we don't love it. We love you, but we don't really love it. So we don't know what the book is you should write, but it's whatever, it's not this. So I was then in this position

of going, okay, why am I trying to write the book that I think that they want to read, even though they don't know what it is. And even though they don't really publish business books, which is what I'm trying to write. So I just was, I was just lost. You know, I was wandering in the wilderness writing bad books. And I finally, I had this moment of realizing what was happening because I have this, I get kind of suck it into trying to please authority. It's one of my little hooks. I was like, oh, done it again. So in December, what is it? 2014. I was like, okay, I've got back to the vision of what this book is about. And I kind of gave them an ultimatum.

I'm like, at this stage, I'm past really minding what your decision is, but it's either a yes or a no. You've got to let me know. And they were like, it's a no. I'm like, well, how dare you? Don't you know who I am? And then I was like, okay, well, that's fine. And I rolled up my sleeves and I'm like, okay, what now? And I remember us going for a walk around here and talking about it about this time do I go do I try and find another publisher because you know I know enough people to get

an introduction to an agent or a publisher to make something happen but I was like no you know what I'm going to self-publish it and I self-published a couple of books before but this time I was like okay okay, what would it be to self-publish as a professional rather than as an amateur? Because I think it's relatively easy to self-publish as an amateur now. You know, there's so many good things. You can get a PDF, upload it, design a cover. You're going to get an okay book through Amazon or any of the other kind of publishing things.

But I was like, we're going to self-publish it. And honestly, totally fantastic experience. Such a good experience. I'm now kind of frothing at the mouth. Self-publish. Self-publish everybody. Everybody. Yeah, it's really good.

Yeah, and it's a beautiful book. Thank you. And well-designed, beautifully edited. And I think that's one of the big things is that, like you said, the world is flattened when it comes to publishing. We all have access. We all have keyboards and computers and whatever WordPress you want. And we can all easily save it as a PDF and upload it and basically pay a little bit of money and get it listed as a book for sale.

And at the same time, because of that, the volume of stuff that's a quote book for sale now is vast, absolutely vast, which makes it that much more important that if you're going to take this path, you treat it like a professional. And you're like, I need to, same way it would be if I was working with a publisher, I need an editor, I need a copy editor, I need to – same way it would be if I was working with a publisher. I need an editor. I need a copy editor. I need a designer.

And we need somebody – and really say like this book is going to be indistinguishable from something that would be put out. And that I think is a huge difference maker, especially when you're self-publishing in the nonfiction and prescriptive nonfiction world. Fiction world, I think the expectations are still really high also, but at least e-books in the fiction world tend to take off a lot more easily. For sure. So if you have a killer story, people are more forgiving. Whereas in the nonfiction and prescriptive nonfiction, it's because it just catches fire.

So it's so much harder to have that catch fire in the e-book form, at least. You really have to differentiate yourself. I mean, it's funny. We were talking about that immunity to change piece and building a team. How terrible I was at building a team. And so, you know, I actually built a fantastic team. I actually asked for help. And this goes against my instincts because I've got two things. One is I can do everything.

I've got that in my head. And secondly, I'm cheap. So it's a terrible combination. I'm like, huh, I could hire somebody to build a space shuttle, but, you know, I could probably figure it out. How hard is it to build a space shuttle? So, you know, I asked Seth Godin, and he introduced me to his editor. Catherine, fantastic. It's a brilliant job.

I did some research and found a Canadian award-winning designer and I hired him. I'm like, this is an award-winning designer. I'm like, you know what? My book is going to deserve an award-winning. And then I met, and this was really a critical piece for us. There's a company called Page Two Strategies. They're based out in Vancouver. They're two people from the publishing world who've set up to help people self-publish as professionals. That's the phrase I've got in my own head. And what they did was helped navigate the broader field. So if you're looking to go beyond just getting the book on Amazon, but you want to think about distribution and you want to think about sales cycles and you want to

think about the audio book that goes with the e-book, you want to think about sales cycles and you want to think about the audio book that goes with the ebook you want to think about the the launch that's where the air expertise comes in and so for me it was just such a pleasure to go wow i've got this highly functioning team of people who are all experts in their own way i'm actually trusting them which is like an amazing thing to watch myself do and now i have this book where I go, there's not a single piece of this book that I don't love. I love it. I just, and I don't hate it because that's what sometimes happens by the time you finally get to the end of your book. You're like, honestly, I never want to see this book again. The glimmer of love I had for this

book has been crushed by the publishing process, but that hasn't happened to me with this book. I love it. So I just want to reiterate your point, which point which is you know if you want to self-publish and if you're in that kind of particularly in that non-fiction piece you want to ask yourself am i doing this as an amateur as a professional and they're both good answers you just want to be clear what you're up for because if you're going to you know there's that what is that quote it's like i think it was napoleon he said look if you're going to take rome take rome you know it's like cannonballs if you're going to take rome take rome you know it's like cannonballs if you're going to fire a cannonball fire a cannonball and that's what it felt like we did with this book is we we fired a cannonball on the self-publishing piece and it

and it that was just such a good thing yeah i love it it's so cool to see thanks yeah especially after like i remember a conversation we had feels it feels like a couple of years ago, going back, where you were, like, in the weeds big time. Weeds. I was dreaming of being in the weeds. I was in the grate under the sewer that leads to the trickle that leads to the weeds. Right. And to see that, you know, you actually, you found your way out and that you actually stuck to something that was, like, you felt like this is the thing. And I don't really care if somebody else validates it externally

and says it fits with the thing that they want to put into the world. This is the thing that matters to me and that I want to put into the world and I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to do it at an astonishing level. And that's, so it's so cool to actually see it out in the world and then to read it and realize this is awesome and then just see it make a really big difference. You can't be fooled by thinking that people actually know.

It's so easy to hand authority to other people. So I'd gone through this whole process and I was on track with this wonderful piece. And then this other publishing house associated with the big management association, they heard about it. They got interested. And they're like, yeah, it sounds fantastic. I was like, oh, wow, that'd be cool. Publishing through them, I get a huge database blah blah worth the conversation so i send it to this uh person who goes great i'm the head of the editing unit i send it to one of my editors i get this feedback going you know the tone's not very good and the structure is not very

good and i'm really not sure you got got enough substance here. So we might be interested, but it would need a complete rewrite. I was like, that's hilarious because I have been through all that and you have no idea how pleasurable it is to hear this and just go, dear Bob, you know, honestly, I think the structure is fantastic. I think the tone is spot on and I'm just delighted with how this book is going. So I guess we won't be working together. Send. I'm not entertaining with how this book is going. So I guess we won't be working together. Send. I'm not entertaining the moment of doubt because I've got so clear on what actually I want for this. I love that.

It's so cool. So I think we have to kind of come full circle. We've only been gone three hours. Into the evening hours. So the name of this is Good Life Project. So if I offer that phrase out to you to live a good life, what comes up? I would say that, you know that question we asked about what you want? It's about answering that. What do you want?

Because as soon as you land on that at a truly deep way, you know, at a heartfelt way, this is what I want. That's what gives you permission to pursue that. And a less good life is when you haven't got clear on what you want yet. So you're chasing rabbits that aren't the rabbits for you. Hey, thanks so much for listening. We love sharing real, unscripted conversations and ideas that matter. And if you enjoy that too, and if you enjoy what we're up to, I'd be so grateful if you

would take just a few seconds and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out. You can actually do that now right from the podcast app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the reviews tab and take a few seconds and jam over there. And if you haven't yet subscribed while you're there, then make sure you hit the subscribe button while you're at it. And then you'll be sure to never miss out on any of our incredible guests or conversations or risks.

And for those of you are awesome community who are on other platforms, any love that you might be able to offer sharing our message, which is be so appreciated. Until next time, this is Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

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You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.