The One You Feed - How to Tame Your Advice Monster and Become a Better Listener | Michael Bungay Stanier

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

In this episode, Michael Bungay Stanier, author of the bestselling The Coaching Habit, discusses how to tame your advice monster and become a better listener. Michael shares the surprising story of self-publishing after multiple rejections, and discusses core coaching principles like staying curious longer and asking better questions. He explores paradoxes in coaching, including balancing humility with confidence and being both fierce and loving. Michael also reflects on personal growth, integrating one’s shadow side, and maintaining perspective after achieving extraordinary success. ⁠A Weekly Bite of Wisdom:⁠ Want to go deeper with the ideas we explore on The One You Feed? Every Wednesday, Eric shares a short, practical email that turns insights about mental health, relationships, purpose, habits, and personal growth into simple practices you can use right away. You'll also receive our Weekend Podcast Playlist featuring a recap of the week's episodes. It's free, takes about a minute to read, and is enjoyed by thousands of readers each week. Sign up at ⁠oneyoufeed.net/newsletter.⁠ Exciting News!!! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life is out NOW! Order today!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Key Takeaways: The 10th anniversary of “The Coaching Habit” and its journey from rejection to self-publishing. The philosophy of coaching and the importance of asking good questions. The concept of taming the “advice monster” and the value of staying curious. The paradoxes in coaching, such as balancing confidence with humility. The significance of recognizing and integrating one’s shadow side. The role of presence and deep listening in effective coaching. The importance of being fierce and loving in relationships. The challenges of personal growth and the internal conflicts we face. The unpredictability of success in writing and the nature of creative work. The idea of holding outcomes lightly while caring deeply about one’s work. For full show notes:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you enjoyed this conversation with Michael Bungay Stanier, check out these other episodes: Starting Well to Finish Well with Michael Bungay Stanier The Coaching Habit with Michael Bungay Stanier By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed, and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! This episode is sponsored by: ⁠⁠⁠Brodo Broth⁠⁠⁠: Shop the best broth on the planet with Brodo.  Head to ⁠⁠⁠Brodo.com/TOYF⁠⁠⁠ for 20% off your first subscription order and use code TOYF for an additional $10 off. ⁠⁠Quince:⁠⁠⁠ Refresh your wardrobe with Quince by going to ⁠⁠⁠Quince.com/feed⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Shopify – The commerce platform that helps you build, grow, and manage your business all in one place. Start your $1/month trial at shopify.com/feed. David Protein bars deliver up to 28g of protein for just 150 calories—without sacrificing taste! For a limited time, our listeners can receive this special deal: buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to www.davidprotein.com/FEED ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Aura Frames⁠⁠: Named #1 by Wirecutter, you can save on the gifts moms love by visiting AuraFrames.com. For a limited time, listeners can get 25 dollars off their best-selling Carver Mat frame with code FEED. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout! ⁠⁠Rocket Money⁠⁠ Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at ⁠⁠rocketmoney.com/feed⁠⁠. ⁠⁠Taskrabbit:⁠⁠ When life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get fifteen dollars off your first task at ⁠⁠Taskrabbit.com⁠⁠ or on the Taskrabbit app using promo code FEED. Taskers book up fast, especially for same-day tasks, so book trusted home help today. ⁠⁠Hello Fresh⁠⁠ – Get 10 free meals + a FREE Zwilling Knife (a $144.99 value) on your third box. Offer valid while supplies last. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The more you can realize how little you actually know about the person, about what's really going on, about what's really hard for them, about what the context really is, the more you can realize how unlikely it is that the advice you've got is the advice that they're actually looking for. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.

We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good world. Most of us have what Michael Bungay-Stainier calls an advice monster, the part of us that can't wait

to weigh in, fix things, and offer the solution before the other person has finished talking. Taming it, he says, comes down to one big change. Stay curious a little longer, rush to advice a little more slowly. That idea sits at the center of the coaching habit, the best-selling coaching book of the last 25 years, now in its 10th anniversary edition. His conclusion, after a decade of teaching it, I need to know almost none of the content to be helpful. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Michael, welcome back. Eric, how nice of you to invite me back? Clearly your memory is going, because you can't remember how bad I was the last time, and you were persuaded to bring me back. The last three times,

because as I was saying to you before, you are a four-time guest. which is pretty rare company. I don't know if it's company you want to be part of or not, but it is rare company. So, yes, we had you on in 2016, 22, 23. I've had you more recently than that. You might be a five-time guest. Well, maybe. What's happened in the last two or three years is we've gone from knowing each other through podcast to actually becoming friends and companions. So, I mean, we've had lots of great conversations about your book, which I'm super excited about, and what it means to a book and what it means to try and sell a book and all of those things. And we're also connected through Jay Klaus' community, the lab. So I think we've just kind of deepened our

friendship a little bit over the last number of years, which has been lovely. Yeah, that was a way of saying I've seen way too much of you later, wasn't it? All right. I hear you. I hear the subtext. So we are going to be talking about your book called The Coaching Habit, Say Less, Ask More, Change the way you lead forever, which is in its 10th anniversary. You came on in 2016 and we discussed it. And is it the best-selling coaching book of all time? Is that a true statement? Well, it's the best-selling coaching book of this millennia, which is the most dramatic way I can put it, which is like of the last 25 years. It sold a million and a half copies or thereabouts, which considering it got turned down by a regular publisher and I ended up self-publishing is pretty fantastic.

You self-published that? Yeah, yeah. I did not know that. Wow. I had another book published through a New York publisher called Do More Great Work. And then I bought them this idea for this book. And I literally wrote six or seven versions of the coaching habit, which I kept going, we like you, but not yet go in and have another go at it.

And eventually I was like, okay, so, you know, you've beaten my confidence up a bit, but I'm really sure that there's something here. So here it is, take it or leave it, because I can't take this back and forth anymore. Pretty confident that they were going to take it because, you know, the previous book had sold 70 or 80,000 copies, which is pretty good. Yeah, very good.

And they said no. And so I was disappointed. It's the polite way of putting it. And I licked my wounds for a bit, but then went, you know, I'm really going to, I really think there's something here. So I'm going to self-publisher. So I found a designer and I found an editor.

And then I connected in the end with a hybrid publishing company called Page 2 that have done my book since then. But yeah, I self-published it, which has meant not only has it become a bestseller, not only does that make me feel very smug, but it's also financially more lucrative for me as well. Like I earn three or four times the amount of money as a result of that, which has been life-changing. That is a classic example of, you know, there's that old Taoist story, right? the farmer and a horse, right? Many people know it, right? It's basically like something good happens and everybody says to the farmer, oh, congratulations.

He's like, well, you know, I'm not sure, maybe. And something bad happens and they're like, oh, is this terrible? And he's like, maybe. And the point is it just keeps going. Yeah. And that's a classic example of like, okay, the book got turned down by the publisher. I've just been beaten about the head for a year. Yeah.

It's a pretty low point. It's pretty easy to conclude. I just don't have it. This isn't any good. I don't. And then, bam. I mean, that is, that is such a great story. Yeah. It's one of those great ways of trying to navigate life, which is when do you keep going and when do you give up? Yeah. And it's really helpful to understand, A, there are times where it's been great to keep going. Like the coaching habit book seems to say, keep going, keep betting on yourself. Right. But it's also, there are times, in life where you're like you should take a hint and you should actually know when to quit.

And one of the things that I've been sitting with is trying not to figure out what's the right answer. Do I keep going or do I not keep going? It's actually going, what's my bias? Like, what am I inclined to do in a situation rather than what's the right answer in this situation? So my inclination in general is to keep going too long. Like I'm I'm a stick with it rather than a quit early sort of person. And, you know, that bet pays off regularly. And also that cost me time and effort and money and relationships as well because I've stuck around too long and it hasn't worked out.

So the wisdom for me in the story is know your bias. And as you come to a crossroads, consider what you're called to do and then consider your bias and go, what's this telling me? What's my bias telling me? And do you need to shift your decision at all when you become more conscious of what your bias is? Yes, 100%. I refer to it as tendency. What's your tendency to do in a situation?

And knowing that can be really helpful. For me, I have a tendency to go along to get along. So if I think I should say something, I will talk myself out of it very, very easily. So I have to overcorrect a little bit. I have to give a little bit more weight to the say something side. Because that's my bias. I know what I will naturally gravitate to. And learning that about ourselves is so helpful. We talked on your podcast recently about this idea of like, how do we hold ourselves accountable while being kind? And when I work with coaching clients often,

that's one of the early things I'm trying to figure out. Does this person have a tendency to just run themselves into the ground with negative self-talk? Okay, I need to correct the other direction. is this somebody who just doesn't take enough responsibility for what they do? They're like, oh, I'm doing self-care, so it's fine that I didn't do the thing. And you're like, okay, so we're trying to move you more into that kind of conscious middle. Yeah, I think that's what a good coach or teacher does, right? They know. And so doing it for ourselves is really valuable.

That's a great insight. It's a paradox, really, Eric, which is like, it's like trust your inner voice and don't trust your inner voice. which is like get better at tuning in to what's going on and what your intuition is saying and what your body is saying. There's so much wisdom in doing that, but also be skeptical about what's going on, which is like, you know, it's like when your brain tells you that your brain is your most important organ and you're like, but wait, what organ's telling me that? So it's more deeply trust yourself and become more skeptical about the stories you tell yourself.

hold both of those things. Yeah, I could not agree more. I could not agree more. Every time I have somebody on who's like, trust your intuition, I'm like, well, okay, but, like, yes, and there's a little more to it here than that. Okay, we have failed to do the basic premise of the show, which is probably fine. Most listeners are like, do I really need Michael to talk about the parable for the fourth time? They're going to get it whether they want it or not.

And those of you that are new, here you go. This is what you come for, the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild, and they say in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second.

They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, one wins. Right. And the grandparent says the one you feed. So talk to me about that parable through the lens of the coaching habit 10 year anniversary. Well, what comes up for me, Eric, is an inquiry about how do you keep showing up as the best version of yourself, you know how which is at the deepest level what coaching is about i mean coaching presents as i let's get together and figure some stuff out because you feel stuck and you want to make progress but at a deeper level it's like how do i bring out the very best in someone and there's an obvious answer which i suspect you've heard more than once on this pod which is like i try and feed the good wolf and i try not to feed

the bad wolf but there's something about the power of just recognizing the two wolves because they're just both there and me. Nobody wins. My wolves will be fighting forever. Yeah. Like I have both of these wolves and I have part of me that is kind and generous and thoughtful and all the things that I, you know, I would overtly aspire to be. And I just recognize the parts of me that are malicious and avaricious and self-centered. And self-centered. and insensitive and power hungry and status worried and all of that sort of stuff. They're more kind of, let's call it the more venal side of me.

And it's just like they both coexist. And I'm less about, these days, probably less about trying to find a victor. I'm more about just seeing the two wolves and going they are both true about who I am. and I'm never going to have one win over the other, which is great because I don't want the bad wolf to win over the good wolf. And I'm probably a little one-dimensional if the good wolf wins over the bad wolf. My goal, and this is kind of getting into, you know, Jungian shadow work.

And I think of people like Dan Siegel's book Mindsight or Debbie Ford's book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, is to see what's true about my shadow self. claim it for myself, not so that I become bad, but so that I recognize that those are parts of who I am and I'm actually less likely to be triggered by that or have that behavior leak out because I'm in denial about it. I'm trying to integrate in all the kind of messy catastrophe that I am. And there is an energy in some of those less ideal parts of ourselves, I find. Right. There's energy there that can be used.

But I love the fact that you said that because that's the thing to me about the parable ultimately is I just think it normalizes the fact that like this is going on inside all of us. And of course it is. Of course sometimes you want to be good and other times you want to, you know, walk out a whole foods with an entire shopping cart of groceries without paying for that. Like that's just completely normal. Right. Well, maybe that was a high. That's a very specific example. Exactly.

If you're listening, if you're an Amazon employee, please disregard that. I mean, one of the most powerful exercises I've ever done for myself comes from this Dark Side of the Light Chasers book that I mentioned. And I had noticed that I was in a mental battle with a former boss of mine. Now, I'd quit this job, I'd moved to a different country, and almost the whole time I didn't think about that job, but occasionally this guy would enter into my mind, and I'd just get head up.

You know, I just kind of imagine the back and forth where I would finally crush him and belittle him and prove my worth and his belittling. And I did this exercise, and point one is you think of your nemesis, your villain, and you write down all the things that, just you just hate about them just drive you crazy you know so I'm writing this guy is status obsessed he's money driven he controls the power he doesn't like people uh he's small-minded all of these

things and it was it felt pretty good writing all these down because I'm like these are all true I'm pretty sure about it but then the second step and the powerful step is you then kind of cross out that person's name and you go I am I am power obsessed I am status driven I am money hungry. I don't care about people. I only care about my own self-aggrandizing. And there just was this truth to writing this down as I named and claimed and owned

all these aspects about me, which I just couldn't but deny, but I just had spent my whole life kind of pushing them into my shadow, just pretending that they weren't part of who I am. And, you know, I can't promise us It works like this for everybody all the time. But in that moment, kind of in a bound I was free.

Yeah. I have just never thought about this guy again in the same way. I mean, he's shown up once or twice in conversations or whatever, but I just don't get head up about it. I'm like, look, wherever he is, I hope he's doing fine. I'm totally happy never to bump into him ever again in my life. I don't want to meet him or talk to him, but I'm no longer, I'm no longer distracted by him. I have two things to say that. First, is head up an Australian expression?

Oh, I don't know. It feels British to me. You know, my dad was British and I lived in England for a while. So I think it might be... Might be British, yeah. But it's sort of Anglo in some way. Yeah. It's a great phrase. It's not one I would normally use. The second one is you were saying that I was thinking about one of my most common arguments in my head that runs very often. And it has to do with the guy who's editing this podcast right now. Chris. who most of the time is a perfectly reasonable and enjoyable human being. But when it comes to certain music that he should like, he doesn't.

And I spend an inordinate amount of time in my mind. I don't know why I even bother. I argue in my head with him to convince him. And I'm realizing now maybe this is a problem I need to deal with. Yeah, maybe you've got some shadow work to do around your... Chris does let me know about your taste of music. and actually it's not that great. So I'm kind of on Chris's side on this one.

No, trust me, you would not be. You would not be. All right, moving on. All right, the coaching habit, I'm going to make a couple statements about it. You can feel free to disagree with them if you want. But in general, I think it was a book that normalized that having conversations with people in which we're trying to bring out the best version of themselves is a thing that can happen in a whole lot of situations without the fancy name life coach in front of it.

I think that's one of the things you wanted to do. And then the second is that you primarily made it around asking the right questions. Yeah. Coaching is in its most basic is a form of asking questions so that others can help find their way to the answer. Is that generally correct? Yeah, I mean, I agree, and I'll give you my exact language around how I think about it. The goal was to unweared coaching for normal people. I had trained as a coach.

I could see the power of this as a technology. But coaching still has this, but back 10 years ago, certainly had just too much woo-woo and mystery and black box. And I was like, look, there's a whole bunch of people, managers, parents, teachers, sports coaches, who could benefit from knowing how to do this. And I just want to make it easy and accessible for people. So unweirding coaching was kind of the big goal.

And then in terms of naming a single behavior change, I was hoping to create, it was helping people to stay curious a little bit longer. So I would, that's obviously really closely related to the ask good questions. But there's a way that staying curious longer, it is not necessarily only about asking questions. It's about staying present. It's about taming your advice monster. it's about creating more space, it's about staying a bit more silent and listening a bit more deeply.

There's more to it than just a good question. But in the end, the book says, look, let me give you seven good questions. Let me give you some tips on how to ask a question well. And that's going to carry you a long way down the path. I've often said that depression hates a moving target, but there's a cruel irony in there because moving is one of the hardest things to do with depression. And similarly, when we most need a therapist, it is often when we have the least ability to sort through the complex mess of finding one, which is why I'm such a big fan of what Alma is doing.

They've made the search part simple, because that's often the thing standing between us and getting help. Alma has a directory of over 26,000 therapists, and you can filter by things that actually matter to you, like specialty, identity, life experience, therapeutic approach. And critically, you can put in what insurance you have, and it will show you therapists who take that insurance. Over 1 million people have found care with Alma and 95% connect with a therapist within a week. If you've been thinking about starting therapy or getting back to it, I'd recommend checking out Alma. Get started at helloalma.com slash feed. That's H-E-L-L-O-A-L-M-A-com slash feed.

You confess in the 10-year edition that you originally had 108 questions in the book. I assume that was one of the ones that got rejected by that publisher. Rightfully so. That was like the third draft where they're like, go away and write another version of this book. And I'm like, okay, what if it was 100? I like the number 108. And yeah, it was a shocker. It was a terrible book.

That was one of the rejected versions of it as well. So, you know, I spent years really playing with the questions and trying to figure out the order and figure out which of the seven, you know, should it be five, should it be nine, should it be some other number? Yeah. Which of them, in what order do I teach them? Yeah. There was a lot of playing around with a lot of scraps of paper where I kept writing things down and moving them around. Well, I think questions are so fundamental in questions we ask ourselves, the questions we ask others. I think you are a person who more than anyone I know may have really taken that on board.

I mean, I believe I was part of a book where you captured collections from, I mean, you might have called them smart people. I'm not throwing myself in that category. Yeah. But so questions of clearly something you really believe in. And in this 10th anniversary, there's a new chapter. And one of the things in that chapter is you call it coaching question architecture. Yeah. And so I want to get to that in a second. But before we get into sort of that semi-technical discussion, how might we think about coming up with our own good questions?

Yeah. Starting with a, what if I asked a question rather than offered up an opinion and advice, a suggestion, a solution, you've already won. That's already a fantastic start, particularly if it's a genuine question, not a fake question. because sometimes people have gone, oh, questions are good, but let me offer up this piece of advice disguised as a question. So they go, hey, have you thought about, which isn't a question at all, it's just advice with a question mark attached to the end. But the first thing to know is, look, if you can just ask any good question

or it's any question, that's probably helpful a lot of the time. So celebrate that. Then there are just some basics around questions that are good to know, which is it's good to know just the difference between an open question and a closed question. And lots of people listening already know this, but a closed question typically will get an answer yes or no or maybe or I don't know or I don't care. But it's kind of a question that often leads to focusing of the conversation. And they have a place.

There's a way that a closed question can create understanding or create commitment. So it's not that you should never use to close questions. But if you're trying to get a conversation rolling, a closed question will typically have you doing a lot of the work. And an open question, you know, it requires a person to give you more than a one or a two-word answer. So that's helpful. The second kind of basic, really, essential to understand is shorter questions tend to be better than longer questions. I'm in trouble. Go on.

Exactly. You and your polysyllabic approach to life. the more cognitive lifting somebody has to do to understand your question, the harder it is for them to come up with a good answer. So one of the things that I see people do is sometimes I feel the need to set context, create a big build up, you know, explain where they went on their family vacation two years ago as part of the lead into it, and eventually get to a question. And quite often, I mean, I sort of say, look, pretend you're James Bond. You know, in a James Bond movie, the action starts the first second the movie starts i mean james bond is jumping off a damn or beating somebody up

or in a car or something it's on so you should get to it fast the other thing that people sometimes do is they kind of do like a drive-by questioning approach which is like here's 19 questions i've thought of i'm just going to ask you all of them and hope one of them sticks and that can be kind of overwhelming So one of the things that can be really powerful is just shortening a question. So if you want to lead up phrase to it, the phrase, hey, just out of curiosity is a really good one. It actually softens the impact of a question that might be difficult. And then just make it a short question, hey, just out of curiosity, what's hard about this for you? Hey, just added curiosity, what do you really want in this moment?

Hey, just added curiosity, if we're going to say yes to this, is there anything we need to say no to to make that choice a bolder one and a clearer one? Hey, just out of curiosity, what was useful for you in this conversation right now? One of the questions in the book is, I call it the most powerful coaching question in the world, it's just three words, it's and what else, because their first answer is not necessarily their only answer, it may not even be their best answer. So, you know, and what else is an incredibly powerful coaching question. But yeah, make a choice whether you want it to be closed or open, keep it short.

That's a really good start. And then ask any question that comes to mind. Well, you did something impressive there. You actually illustrated your point by working in five or so of the seven coaching questions in the book. That was very good. if we were to say, hey, AI, take Michael's advice on asking questions and apply it to Eric's approach to podcasting interviewing and give him a grade, I'm pretty sure I'd be in the D range. Yeah, I mean, the upside would be your interviews would be like 17 minutes rather than an hour-long thing. It's like, everyone's like desperate.

We're like, we just stop talking, Eric, and just get to it. Shut up for crying out loud. I'm sure there's people who think that. I'm sure there are. at 12 years in, I'm not saying I can't grow and change, but I got a little... Old dog. Yeah. I hear what you're saying.

I got a little bit of style at this point. Those are all really good rules. And I was thinking a little bit earlier about something that you say at a later point in this new chapter, which is that what people want beyond an answer are three interrelated things, to be seen, to be heard, to be encouraged. Yeah. And I love that you say beyond an answer. because you're not precluding that people actually do want answers.

Right. I think that we often get into this either or with this. Either I need to see here and encourage and validate or I'm over here giving advice, you know, stepping into solution. And there's some research out there that seems to show that the most useful conversations are where both occurs. Not advice, not advice, but something beyond. simple validation. And that's what I love about what you're bringing here is it's a way to see,

hear, encourage, validate, and I don't love this word, but I'm going to use it, challenge. Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, it's interesting you say there's research out there saying, look, the best conversations have a, have a mix of this. I've got a slightly different point of view. Okay. The best conversations are the ones that are actually helpful to the person, who you're having the conversation with. So ask them how you can be most helpful. Because it will depend. Like there's sometimes where people will come to you

and they're like they do not want a coaching question. They just want you to tell them where you put the tea bags because they can't find the tea bags. So they're like, where are the tea bags? What's the real challenge here? Yeah, exactly. How do you feel about tea? And I like, stop with the coaching questions.

Just tell me where the tea bags are. And there are other times where they're like, they just want you to, they don't even want you to ask a question. They just want you to say, man, that sounds like it's hard. Man, I can see why you're struggling with that. Wow, I'm so impressed that you're able to sit with this and try and figure this out. There's not even any questioning involved. There's just a kind of a presence to the struggle or a presence to whatever's going on with you.

So, you know, the definition I have for coaching is, can you stay curious a little bit longer? Can you rush to action and advice giving a little bit more slowly? So it doesn't preclude giving advice. That's one of the things that drives me nuts around coaching, which is like you can never give advice. I'm like that feels like it's a selfish decision. What you're trying to do is to be as helpful as possible

to the person who you're serving, who you're in conversation with. And partly you can understand that from what they want. You can ask them, hey, how can I help? It's actually another one of the questions in the coaching habit book. How can I help? What do you want from me? And sometimes the more subtle insight here is when they tell you what they want, you don't have to say yes.

You can say yes or no or maybe. Like I could say, hey, Eric, how can I help you here? And it's like, tell me the answer to this thing. And I'm like, okay, he wants the answer. I've got an answer. I will make sure he gets an answer, but I don't have to give it. to him right away. So I might say, and this is a script people can steal, I go, hey, Eric, I hear you a challenge and I hear you want an answer. I've got an answer I want to share with

you for sure. I've got a couple of great answers. But before I give you what I'm thinking, let me ask you, what have you figured out already? Like, what do you know to be true? What do you think the real challenge is here for you? And I will get that other person to do the work. I will stay curious longer. And then I'll bring in my advice and my solution, because I've made a promise that they'll walk out of here with the solution. I just don't need to give that as the first thing. Check in for a moment. Is your jaw tight, breath shallow? Are your shoulders creeping up? Those little signals are invitations to slow down and listen. Every Wednesday I send weekly bites of wisdom, a short email that turns the big ideas we explore here in each show,

things like mental health, anxiety, relationships, purpose, into bite-sized practices you can use the same day. It's free. It takes about a minute to read, and thousands already swear by it. If you'd like extra fuel for the weekend, you also get a weekend podcast playlist. Join us at one you feed.net slash newsletter. That's one you feed.net slash newsletter and start receiving your next bite of wisdom. All right, back to the show. What I found in coaching people was at a certain point, people are like, I hired you because

I don't know what to do for crying out loud. What should I do? And if I just keep being like, well, you know, I'm going to ask you this. I could sense a frustration, which is like, I don't know. Help me. And I love what you said, which is you're going to get it. I have some opinions. But hang on a little bit longer.

So when somebody comes to you, go, man. That sounds like a real problem. What have you already figured out? And what else have you figured out? Great, what other ideas have you got? And how else are you thinking about this? This is brilliant stuff. I love it.

So having seen all of that, what do you think the real challenge is here? I mean, really, for you. Great, what else is the challenge? So what do you think the real challenges? If that's the real challenge, what are your first ideas about this? Oh, I love that. What else could you do? Oh, that's interesting.

What else could you do? Oh, man, is there anything else you could do here? Okay, you've got some great options here. I've got one or two I can add here. maybe this and this. Now you see all of that. What is it that you want to do? Oh, you want to do that?

Oh, okay. So what's the real challenge here for you in getting that done? And, you know, if you're listening to this, you can imagine all the other things that are saying on the other side. What I've learned is I need to know almost none of the content to be helpful. And I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. You know, over the years, because I've been, the book has been out for 10 years,

but I've been teaching this for 15 years. I've taught this in a lot of different countries around the world. I have coached people in more than 30 languages, none of which I speak. So I will say to somebody, like I used to work with Nokia. So I'm up in Lapland, northern Finland. It's like, you know, there's a Finnish joke which is like, how can you tell the difference between an extroverted Finn and an introverted Finn? Well, extroverted Finns look at your shoes when they're talking to you,

introverted Finns look at their shoes. But I was sitting in Lapland and I said to them, what's on your mind? And this engineer from Nokia told me in Finnish what was on his mind. And I go, that sounds like a thing. What's the real challenge here for you? And he explained it to me in Finnish. I go, great. What else? What else is a challenge here? And he would say a bit more. And I go, great. Anything else here is a challenge? And he would explain the other aspect of it in finish. I go, great. So knowing that, what's the real challenge here for you? And he would go, oh, wow. And honestly, that already was revelatory to him. I had no idea what was the details of being said. I could tell that it was a real thing. I could tell he wasn't play acting. I could tell we were

having a real conversation. But I don't need to know the details to be of service. And in some ways, that is one of these kind of counterintuitive insights around almost how to tame your advice monster, is the more you can realize how little you actually know about the person, about what's really going on, about what's really hard for them, about what the context really is, the more you can realize how unlikely it is that the advice you've got is the advice that they're actually looking for. Before we hit the record button, we were talking about change and we're talking about your new book and this idea that when you realize how hard it is to change yourself, you should realize how minuscually impossible it is to try and change somebody else, even if they want to be changed.

You have to allow that agency to stay with them. Yeah, that is all very good advice. I've spent 10 years going, I get the irony of me giving advice on how not to give advice. I'm sure you've gotten that before, but, yeah. I want to go into a couple of paradoxes that you bring up that are about the coaching mindset or about being a coach. The first one you say is be confident and be humble. Right.

I think if there was a single lesson I've learned over the 10 years of talking about the coaching habit and teaching the coaching habit, it's just this power of the being of a coach or the being a coach-like versus the doing of it. Because the book, the first book is all about the doing of coaching. Here are seven questions. of asking questions. This chapter is about the being of coaching and how being a role model can be incredibly powerful. You know, when people are working with you, Eric, partly they're there for the wisdom that you bring and the questions that you ask, partly they're there for you. They see who you are

as a man, as a human, as a person who's had this life and had this journey, and you're role modeling something for them in the way that you just, you are in the world. When I think of the people who, who are powerful role models, and I think you're one of these people, Eric, they have this way of embodying a presence that they bring. And when I think about the self that they bring to the world, there's this idea of this humble curiosity, sorry, this humble confidence. What I mean by that is by humble, the metaphor I'd use is they've got their feet on the ground. You know, there's actually a connection between humus, which is a word for ground, and this idea of humility, which is like, when you're humble, you've just got a kind of clear eye on the strengths

and the weaknesses and the complexities and the messiness and the glory of you. I know the things that I'm really good at, and I know the things I'm not really good at, and I'm pretty grounded in that and I'm pretty relaxed about that. I hold it lightly. And this humility allows people to be less brittle, less vulnerable to what's going on. In part, because I kind of imagine they got not just their feet on their ground, but their toes in the mud. They're grounded like that, literally and metaphorically. And the confidence is a kind of coming back to a sense of self-belief about the value of who you are and the value of what you do. You know, I sign my emails with a short phrase, which is, you're awesome and you're doing great. And I kind of stumbled across it by accident.

I was facilitating something. And in a moment of inspiration, I got people to look at each other and go, hey, now say to your partner, you're awesome and you're doing great. Super awkward the first time the group had to do that. I think we're in England, which only made it worse, because that's not what they say in England. But I got them to do another three or three. four times over the hour and a half. And by the end, they were like, you are awesome and you are doing great. And they were high-fiving and some people were hugging and it was great. And there's something in that phrase, which is fundamentally, you know, you're a person of value.

Fundamentally, you have, I'm trying not to be cheesy North American here. I'm trying to tap into a real sense of all, which is like fundamentally, it is amazing who you are, that you are alive in this moment, the miracle and the glory. of it all. And you're doing great just as a recognition about whether it's going well for you at the moment or whether it's going bad for you, you're probably doing your best. You're probably showing up with as much courage and as much fortitude and as much grit and all of those things as you've got. So keep going. You're awesome and you're doing great. And this idea of humble confidence is this kind of holding both of these things, which is like, man, I am a messy and flawed here.

human being, I'm also awesome and I am doing great and they are both true. 100%. Humility is a big thing in AA because it's in one of the steps. Yeah. Humility is often thought of as thinking less of yourself, but the understanding I always got is the one that you use. It's like kind of knowing my strengths and my weaknesses. Yeah.

And I actually find that that humility allows a certain kind of confidence also. I think so. These feed each other. Yeah, exactly. They're best. Yeah. Exactly. And so I really like that one.

Be light and be grounded. Let me say if I made one just final thing around the humility piece, just picking up on what you said, which is it can show up in kind of two ways that are slightly corrupted to this meaning that you and I are talking about. One is this sense of effacement. You've got to belittle yourself. You're like, you're lesser than. And then there's the whole humble brag thing, which is like, look how amazing I am. And I'll just casually mention that. And those feel like slightly corrupted versions of this sense of humility,

which is this kind of understanding and comfort with the complexities that we have. Yeah. And I think you also said it in that just recognition, everybody's a mixed bag. We are a mixed bag. Exactly. It's like we've got two wolves fighting. Imagine. Imagine.

All right. Be light and be grounded. Yeah. if the humble confidence is about how you show up, be light and be grounded feels to me like a way you manage process. You manage the way you show up and you do things in the world. And particularly in coaching conversations, I remember going to a coaching conference many years ago and being really struck by the lack of humor in the room. There was just this kind of slight self-importance and dourness and unwillingness to see the absurdity of it all. And also in kind of coaching and in these kind of interactions, there's a way that things can feel and get a little abstract and highfalutin.

And there's something about the very best of process, which feels like it is grounded in the moment, it is grounded in reality. it's grounded in a practicality around, we're trying to figure some stuff out so you can get some stuff done. And there's a lightness to it, which is there is a playfulness and there is a humor, and there is a kindness,

and there's a kind of crinkling of the eyes, which is like, even in the toughest time, the ability to have this kind of gift lifting towards the light feels like it can be extremely powerful. and, you know, an ability to go, or it doesn't have to be all serious and it doesn't have to be all grinding it out and grit and getting things done. And it can't be trivial and it can't be just like, let's crack another joke. But there's this way of trying to navigating the way you interact with somebody with both lightness and a sense of groundedness can be really powerful.

Speaking of lightness, this may be the least flamboyantly dressed I have ever seen you. Is there a wardrobe change for 26? Did I catch you on an off day? What's going on? I think you kind of caught me on an off day, I think. I feel like I've let myself down and I've let you down as well. Go change. Go change.

It's like I'm not wearing any trousers. Does that help? That does help. It does help. Yeah. Particularly for Joe in the engineering booth. He's paying much closer attention. All right.

Be fierce and be loving. Yeah, so I think of this as the paradox you bring to relationships with others. You know, I'm saying in a coaching conversation, but I'm really thinking of this in any relationship that you care deeply about. So this may be you as a parent or as a child of parents or for your closest to friends or for the people you have a coaching relationship with. You're like, how do you show up for this person? what's the fullest expression of holding the relationships that they feel seen and heard and encouraged?

And I think it starts with this kind of love, which is, my job is to want the very best for you. You need to know that I am on your side. I see who you are and all your complex messiness. And like my heart is full for that. You know, I heard a Tibetan nun once teaching from a stage saying, you know, when she moved, moves when she comes into a large room, when she's on a stage, when she's presenting, she tries to imagine her sense of love enveloping the entire room. So she's holding everybody in that space. I'm like, I love that. I'm not that good at doing that, but I love that idea.

So it's like I am full in on this person. You know, even with all the things that I can see are complicated about them, you know, I'm unreservedly on their side. And then the fierceness comes from, if that is true, what needs to be said and done so you show up with a degree of ferocity for the sake of love to support them in a way. And it comes from my own, my own shit really, which is around how often I have kind of whipped out or not stepped up to say the thing, to hold the thing. to hold the thing up, to say the truth, to challenge, because it felt too hard. And then I kind of convinced myself that actually being nice was actually the thing that they wanted from me. And having this sense of a ferocity for the sake of kindness and love allows you to be an

extraordinary person in somebody's life. Boy, this does seem like one of those paradox that is pretty challenging. Yeah. Right? Because back to our thing before, you know, somebody may not want you to be fierce on their behalf. Right. In different relationships in my life, I have found that it's a really tricky balance because I do sort of, I just have sort of an improvement bent to my mind. Right.

Yeah. In general. I can always see like that could be better, that could be better, that could be better, that could be better, which can translate into you could be better. could be better, you could be better. And that can be helpful. Right. But it also, I know, has made certain people in my life, like, leave me the F alone. I mean, and I'm not even necessarily voicing all of that that much. Right. There's a way I am that it's some subtle disapproving. It's just, this is a really interesting one for me that I sort of am right in the middle of that paradox in general in a lot of different ways. I agree. None of these paradoxes are easy to master,

I think. And this idea of the fierce love and the fierceness in particular, Eric, one of the questions that I think can be helpful is, for whose sake am I genuinely being fierce in this moment? It's a great question in general with coaching or asking questions. Because sometimes you can find yourself as a coach formally or informally asking questions that are more helpful for you than they are to the other person. I can't imagine such a thing. Often why questions are those. So why did you do that? And you're like, what you're actually doing often in that moment is you're trying to find out more data so that you can come up with a better solution to offer them an opinion. And actually, why questions are actually not often that helpful for people,

because, you know, A, they're ambiguous. They're like, are you judging me? I, you know, it's like, why the hell did you do that? Are you just trying to find out data for you? Are you looking for justification? You know, the why questions can be, can be complicated. So this sense of fierceness, you know, I don't think it translates into, so I'm just going to tell you every idea I've ever got for you to get better. That explains your first seven failed marriages, Eric. It's two, but okay. It is both in a sense of like, I'm saying this because of my love for you rather than my frustration with you. And it's really worth sitting with going. It's like, am I saying it or not saying it? What's really going on here behind why I'm hesitating to say it or I am saying it?

That is a great question, yeah, for whose sake? For whose sake? Yeah. And then there's also something in this kind of, in some ways, connects us to the final paradox, which is you've also got to not care what they do with this. If they're like, let me give you this piece of fierce love and now I'm expecting a change, that is part of the complication. But, you know, that famous quote around, look, the secret to my happiness is I don't mind what happens.

It was like, I'm going to give you this, and I don't mind what happens. You know, this is your life, you're an adult. You get to hear it or not hear it. You get to act on it or not act on it. But, you know, even as I say all of these things, just to keep coming back to the point you're really making, which is this is a tricky thing to navigate. It is absolutely a tricky thing to navigate. Yep. And so is care and don't care.

There's that quote from Krishna-Murdy that you just mentioned. There's one from the third great patriarch of Zen. which is a fancy title. He probably had a name also, which is the way is simple for those who don't have preferences, something like that. And I'm like, okay, yes, 100%. I agree with you.

Directionally, you're spot on. And you know what? I've got a whole lot of them. No matter what I try to do, I've got preferences. I've got cares. And so this idea of caring and not caring is another one of these, I think these paradoxes here also could be called lifelong questions or lifelong pursuits because I'm in the middle of it with the book.

You and I've talked many times about this book and the marketing of it and what I expect out of it. And I care deeply. I mean, there are a few things outside of the people in my life that I've cared about more in some ways. Right. And I've got to disconnect from caring about what happens at a certain point with it. And that's a really tricky, that's a really tricky thing.

And I think for me, one of the core challenges is that I recognize the deep wisdom in the Buddhist advice like that about clinging, craving. That's what causes suffering. I get it. I see it clearly. Yeah. And it also seems that that actually, you may have just unlocked the whole, the whole game there. What I mean is that I always also feel like it's very natural to have desire. It is.

But this idea of care and not care is a subtler lens by which to look at desire versus good or bad. Yeah, I mean, like you perhaps, like I'm ambitious for a bunch of things that I do. Like I've got things that I would be thrilled if a new book or a new course or or whatever happens to, it happens to scale a height that I've set for it. And I keep trying to remember, look, so what I care about, therefore, is taking my best guess at what I can do to try and influence this, because I can't control much of it, but I can do things and ask, be brave and try and pull some stuff off

that increase the odds. And I can care deeply about, you know, about the quality of the book I produce and the quality of the podcast I go on and all of that stuff. And I can notice myself caring about where my book is on Amazon, which is like, oh yeah, I do actually care about where it is on Amazon.

But I am just trying to hold that thing lightly. Because I'm like, you know, I'm doing all I can in the process and the outcome, it works. works or it doesn't work or it kind of works and, you know, notice the delight or the frustration or the sadness and try not to get overly entangled in it. But, you know, all of this is like a lifetime of spiritual growth as much as it is about top tips on book marketing. So what is it like if you're open to talking about it? Like you had the coaching habit a decade ago sell a million and half copies. Nothing you've done since has hit that level of commercial success. What's it like?

Nothing I've done since has hit 10% of that level of commercial success. So how do you work with that? Because obviously you know what's possible on one level because it happened, right? And so I'm kind of already like, well, God, who knows what's going to happen? I mean, but you've had a success that's really big. And then you've had since then, by any measure, you're successful because you get to do what you do as a living as a way of life. And how do you work with that? Well, a few ways. One is, and this is a phrase you and I have talked about, is the phrase, I've already won. And I'm like, man, I have already won. I've had this book that has given me financial freedom. I've been happily married for 30-some years.

I have my physical health. Four-time guest on the one you feed. I should have led with that. I have two brothers that I really like and their families I really like. I got to be present with my dad when he was dying. I like my mom. I mean, I've just like, I've crushed it. So one is like, I have already won.

The second is all the four or five books that I've written since then, I am proud of as part of my body of work. So I'm like, look, I've created things that I think are great and helpful and useful. And, you know, partly my job is not to try and replicate selling a million and a half. My job is to use the best stuff I can, to market it for a while as best I can, and then to let it go. And then part of it is just processing a bit of sadness and frustration that I can't figure out. how the hell you sell books even though I accidentally did it once. You know, we're doing this for the coaching habit launch.

We've got this campaign. It's inspired by a guy called Brandon Sanderson who did this thing called the Year of Sanderson in COVID. Not only did he write the four books that he was obliged contractually to write, but he wrote another four books and then he launched it and did a Kickstarter. His Kickstarter raised $45 million, which is like ludicrous. It's the most successful Kickstarter of all time. But he kind of did this Kickstarter campaign. So we're doing a Kickstarter campaign around it.

And I'm quietly confident that I won't be raising $45 million as part of this. But I am so delighted by the experience I have in creating these different levels. One of the levels we get to send people a box every quarter with a new little booklet I'm writing and some treats in it. and it's trying to be present to the joy and the fun of it. And I was talking to Jill, who is the person on my team leading this. And I was like, maybe I should be reaching out to this type of person and trying to get them interested in the book. And she's like, you know, this whole campaign is for people

who are already, really for fans, who are already fans of the book to help them go deeper and make new kind of connection. around this. Our job is to be useful and have fun. That's our job for this year. And so it's really helpful for her to pull me back to remembering actually what this is about, which is to have fun and be useful. And that allows me to care deeply and care less about the fact that, you know, I got my book royalty statement the other day. And the coaching habit in a quarter had sold, you know, a bunch, made a ton of money, really exciting to see that number.

The most recent thing I published called The Do Something That Matters journal had literally sold zero copies and had lost money. So I had the whole spectrum. And I was like, that's fascinating. Both of these are true. I've remained disappointed that maybe it was your book

before that one, how to work with almost anyone. That is still a brilliant title. That book should have sold. I don't understand that because, A, it's a great book. It's a great title. And who doesn't immediately read that title and be like, oh, I get that. Exactly.

Of all the titles I've ever come up with, I thought that was the best title. And I feel the same, which is like, oh, I really thought that was going to take off. I mean, the coaching habit, let's be honest, that's not a great title. I mean, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's no how to work with almost anyone. I feel the same.

but it just goes to show which is like you know the coaching habit was the best title i came up with at the time and it's worked yeah there's other stuff i look at titles and i'm like that was a good title that's not a that's a less good title yeah but i thought how to work with almost anyone was a was a stonkingly good title i really thought it was going to take off yeah and it's it's sold pretty well but it hasn't it hasn't come close to the coaching haven't well that's pretty high yeah pretty rare air you know yeah i mean what is it like you know probably like one 10th of 1% of all books ever sell that much or less? It's smaller than that.

Yeah. Something I realized the other day, which is like, I'm currently basically a one-hit wonder. And you know what's great about that? I've had a hit. Yeah. So I'm like, the alternative is being a no-hit wonder, and that's the more likely outcome. So being a one-hit wonder is a mark of pride for me. Before you check out, pick one insight from today and ask, how will I practice?

this before bedtime. Need help turning ideas into action? My free weekly bites of wisdom email lands every Wednesday with simple practices, reflection, and links to former guests who can guide you, even on the tough stuff like anxiety, purpose, and habit change. Feed your good wolf at one you feed.net slash newsletter. Again, one you feed.net slash newsletter. People who've had a big hit, it's a big deal. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And some of those one hit wonders in which I will throw you into the category of have produced a lot of great work around it.

Dexie's Midnight Runners are a great example. Come on, I mean, classic. Huge. I mean, that guy could probably retire 30 generations of his family off of that song. Exactly. Never had anything else that even got close. Exactly. And yet the rest of that record and the record before it are genius.

Right. They are so good. Oh, that's an example. As an example. Fun fact, my friend Kate lives on the street where they filmed the video for Come on Eileen. Here's another fun fact about a hit. Aha, take on a massive signal. Who doesn't love the Swedes.

That song, it's kind of like the coaching habit. They rewrote that thing like eight times. Yeah. I mean, they just kept working on. I heard that. And you hear the one at the end, you're like, I heard that podcast as well. I thought it was so good, which is like, oh, no, we launched it and it crickets, and then we launched it again and crickets. And then we launched it a fourth time and it took off and became nuts.

Yeah, I found that really inspiring. It's just sort of the like, you just don't know. Keep working on what you work on. They loved the song. They cared about the song. They thought it was good. They kept trying. Yeah.

Now, again, for every one of those, there's a hundred stories of like, I kept working on the same song. and it sucked to begin with and it sucked at the end. Or even it didn't suck, but there's just no audience, you don't find your audience for it. Exactly. Because, you know, coaching habit success, it's a really good book. In fact that I had to rewrite it six times for this publisher, made it an even better book.

It landed at the right time just to Unwired Coaching. It's very readable. It's a really short book, and it has a lot of word of mouth. That can explain some of it's success, but the magic fairy dust. Yeah. That got sprinkled on it is really what's amazing. And you can't replicate that.

You just got to get lucky. To more magic fairy dust for all of us. I agree with that. Thank you, Michael. It's always a pleasure. Eric, this has been great. I expect a slightly upscale satorial approach next time we talk. Exactly.

Well, I'll see you in 10 years for the 20th edition of the book. Of coaching habit. Yeah, exactly. And celebrating the 10th year edition of yours. Oh, yeah, that will be 10 years. And we're exactly 10 years apart. Interesting. All right. That's good. I like that. I like that symmetry. Thanks, Eric. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don't have a big budget, and I'm certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better, and that's you.

Just hit the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text with the episode. link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.