244: The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

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1. 00:00:00 - Okay, Mike, we're back.
2. 00:00:01 You went to a summit for new media,
3. 00:00:08 which is very vague and interesting and ethereal,
4. 00:00:14 but I saw you posting about it,
5. 00:00:15 so that seemed really cool.
6. 00:00:16 I saw you posting a bunch of sketch notes about it,
7. 00:00:18 so that seems cool.
8. 00:00:19 Any interesting thoughts about the new media summit?
9. 00:00:22 Like real quick before we get started.
10. 00:00:24 - Okay.
11. 00:00:27 - So it used to be the newsletter marketing summit.
12. 00:00:31 That's what it was launched as last year.
13. 00:00:34 This year, it was rebranded to the new media summit,
14. 00:00:37 and I like this conference a lot.
15. 00:00:40 - Okay.
16. 00:00:41 - It's a little bit different.
17. 00:00:42 It's not a pure creator conference,
18. 00:00:45 so there are a handful of independent creators there.
19. 00:00:48 There's also a lot of people who run very, very big companies.
20. 00:00:55 Sam Parspoke, he's the one who founded the Hustle.
21. 00:00:59 Cody Sanchez was the closing speaker this year.
22. 00:01:04 She's the main street millionaire and contrarian thinking,
23. 00:01:08 and really, really big audiences, big names.
24. 00:01:13 She's got seven, eight people who follow her around
25. 00:01:16 all the time in our constantly recording her
26. 00:01:18 to chop it up into media, like one of those people.
27. 00:01:21 - Alex Hormozi style, but she was amazing.
28. 00:01:27 The stuff that she shared from the stage
29. 00:01:28 was really, really good.
30. 00:01:30 I think it's interesting, though,
31. 00:01:31 because that particular conference,
32. 00:01:33 what that broad range of people gives you
33. 00:01:36 is a wide range of perspectives on lots of different things.
34. 00:01:41 Like the very first speaker was this person
35. 00:01:43 who was talking about how they're using AI.
36. 00:01:45 I think I talked a little bit about this in the pro show,
37. 00:01:47 but just real briefly, using AI to create
38. 00:01:52 a digital clone of themselves
39. 00:01:53 so they never have to create short form video content ever again.
40. 00:01:57 But then there's a lot of people from the same stage
41. 00:01:59 who are like, yeah, you can't just automate your content.
42. 00:02:04 You have to be the one who makes it.
43. 00:02:06 So you get a lot of differing opinions
44. 00:02:08 and nobody's like right, per se,
45. 00:02:11 because AI is the point that the initial speaker made
46. 00:02:16 was that you can sit on your high horse,
47. 00:02:20 about, I'm not gonna use AI for stuff,
48. 00:02:22 but he's like, the AI revolution is here.
49. 00:02:23 So you may as well figure out how to use it.
50. 00:02:27 So it's like, there's a through line there,
51. 00:02:30 which I think is really valuable,
52. 00:02:32 which is a little bit different
53. 00:02:34 than the echo chamber that you get
54. 00:02:36 at some very niche events.
55. 00:02:39 So there's a lot that happened at that event,
56. 00:02:42 and there's a lot that I still need to process
57. 00:02:45 because I got back just a couple of days ago
58. 00:02:48 as we record this.
59. 00:02:49 And I did take the sketch notes,
60. 00:02:51 so I wrote about those in my newsletter.
61. 00:02:54 And yeah, I've got a lot of wheels still turning,
62. 00:02:59 but I do like this event a lot,
63. 00:03:01 and I would recommend if people are interested
64. 00:03:04 in any sort of marketing, media, promotion,
65. 00:03:08 it's a good event.
66. 00:03:11 And it was in Austin, Texas,
67. 00:03:12 so I ate lots and lots of great barbecue.
68. 00:03:15 - Great barbecue?
69. 00:03:16 Yeah, for sure, yeah, for sure, barbecue.
70. 00:03:19 All right, well, that's awesome.
71. 00:03:20 All right, well, I guess without further ado,
72. 00:03:22 I mean, we should move into a follow-up.
73. 00:03:24 I did your PKM quiz, okay?
74. 00:03:28 So that was my only follow-up item that I had to do
75. 00:03:31 because there was nothing from the last book
76. 00:03:35 for me for follow-up.
77. 00:03:36 So yeah, so the quiz,
78. 00:03:39 just real briefly, initial thoughts on what it gave you,
79. 00:03:42 did you feel like it was helpful?
80. 00:03:45 What sort of insights did you get, you know?
81. 00:03:49 - I mean, like, I don't know if I got many insights
82. 00:03:52 out of doing the quiz on my side,
83. 00:03:54 other than it made me think about the way I use Obsidian,
84. 00:03:57 or the way I don't use Obsidian.
85. 00:03:59 So it's like, that was good.
86. 00:04:02 I really kind of went into it going like,
87. 00:04:04 I wonder how Mike's gonna use this stuff.
88. 00:04:06 I wonder how Mike's gonna use this stuff.
89. 00:04:07 And I'm still trying to figure it out.
90. 00:04:09 That's why I ask, like I put something together.
91. 00:04:11 I think this could be useful,
92. 00:04:12 but I'd like to know if it's useful.
93. 00:04:15 - Well, I mean, there is a,
94. 00:04:17 like the thing you have with Obsidian,
95. 00:04:19 so where this, I think adds a lot of value is,
96. 00:04:23 people who use Obsidian are very committed to Obsidian.
97. 00:04:26 Like, they love it.
98. 00:04:27 It is like a tool, you know, it is their tool of tool
99. 00:04:30 if they've chosen the Obsidian.
100. 00:04:31 So I think you've got that going for you
101. 00:04:34 that no matter what you put out,
102. 00:04:35 and I don't mean this in a way of like, don't try,
103. 00:04:38 what I mean this is like, no matter what you put out,
104. 00:04:40 people are gonna find it valuable.
105. 00:04:41 The people who care about Obsidian are gonna find it valuable.
106. 00:04:43 But I agree with you, like, what do you wanna say?
107. 00:04:48 And how do you wanna say it?
108. 00:04:49 And like, it would be also interesting, like,
109. 00:04:53 can you give me rough numbers you're willing to share?
110. 00:04:55 Like, did you get 100 people that filled it out?
111. 00:04:57 Did you get 50 people that filled it out?
112. 00:04:58 Like-- - Oh man, to be honest,
113. 00:05:00 I don't even know, I'd have to look.
114. 00:05:02 I can do that quick.
115. 00:05:04 - Yeah, you don't have to.
116. 00:05:05 Like, you don't have to.
117. 00:05:06 I'm just curious, it's like,
118. 00:05:07 that's an interesting thing too.
119. 00:05:10 I think it was a cool idea though.
120. 00:05:11 Like, so hopefully, and I know it's gonna turn into something,
121. 00:05:14 but like, regardless, I think you should learn from what you,
122. 00:05:19 whatever you got this year,
123. 00:05:20 put the thing out and then do it again next year,
124. 00:05:21 and then do it again the next year,
125. 00:05:22 and then do it again the next year.
126. 00:05:24 - All right, yeah, I can't tell you actually,
127. 00:05:26 because when I go to score app,
128. 00:05:28 it says that the site cannot be reached,
129. 00:05:30 so that's not correct.
130. 00:05:31 (laughing)
131. 00:05:33 We'll solve that problem later.
132. 00:05:36 - Yeah, but yeah, I am trying all sorts
133. 00:05:39 of all sorts of stuff.
134. 00:05:41 I want to experiment a little bit more.
135. 00:05:43 - That's good, no, I liked it.
136. 00:05:45 - I did it, I had a couple action items,
137. 00:05:48 so one was to consider the feed deck app
138. 00:05:51 that we talked about, I think last time in the Pro Show
139. 00:05:54 as a test flight, and the test flight is live.
140. 00:06:00 - And I'm using it.
141. 00:06:02 - Are you? - Are you okay?
142. 00:06:02 - Yeah, yeah, I told you I was, right?
143. 00:06:05 Did you see my feedback on the test flight?
144. 00:06:08 I said just do that. - I haven't logged in
145. 00:06:09 on the test flight, so I've been on vacation,
146. 00:06:11 and then I went to New Media Summit.
147. 00:06:12 This is my first day back as we record this,
148. 00:06:14 so I haven't had a chance to get caught up yet.
149. 00:06:17 - I sent you some feedback
150. 00:06:18 that just some really quirky things.
151. 00:06:20 I can't remember what they are,
152. 00:06:21 but you can't enter F in, right?
153. 00:06:25 It pulls up the filter thing, right?
154. 00:06:27 So if I try to type Frank, it'll pull up the filter thing
155. 00:06:31 automatically, 'cause it's like a shortcut key
156. 00:06:34 that's super hard coded.
157. 00:06:36 I was like, "Well, can I do lowercase F or bigger?"
158. 00:06:39 But that's not the point.
159. 00:06:41 My point wasn't to call it flaws.
160. 00:06:43 My point was to say, "It's cool.
161. 00:06:45 "It sucks in exactly what you want it to suck in,
162. 00:06:47 "and it puts it in a timeline
163. 00:06:49 "the way you want it to put it in a timeline."
164. 00:06:50 - Yeah, so I tried to do Gmail style keyboard shortcuts,
165. 00:06:57 so really easy shortcuts for everything.
166. 00:07:01 I remember having that chat with Claude,
167. 00:07:04 and it wanted to use command F or something,
168. 00:07:06 and I was like, "No, just make it F."
169. 00:07:09 So I didn't know why I didn't think about that.
170. 00:07:11 Yeah, obviously, if I have a shortcut in the app
171. 00:07:14 that uses the F key, you're not gonna be able to enter F
172. 00:07:17 when you're creating your list, I'm assuming, right?
173. 00:07:20 - Yeah, it definitely used F,
174. 00:07:22 but I didn't write the letter F on anything.
175. 00:07:26 So it was just like, it's goofy stuff
176. 00:07:28 that when you're making it for you,
177. 00:07:31 and you're having fun and just goofing around,
178. 00:07:34 you just don't find that stuff, and when I get that, yeah.
179. 00:07:37 - So for people who are interested in that, by the way,
180. 00:07:41 it's a very limited test flight.
181. 00:07:44 I'm not gonna make it open to everybody,
182. 00:07:46 but if you want access to it, I guess the first thing
183. 00:07:51 to do would be to join the email list,
184. 00:07:52 I'm gonna open it up to people on my email list pretty soon,
185. 00:07:55 I think, but essentially what it is is,
186. 00:07:59 and I didn't think anyone would ever want this,
187. 00:08:02 but I have my super note nomad that I really love,
188. 00:08:06 and I wanted to set up a relater workflow
189. 00:08:09 that used my super note nomad.
190. 00:08:11 So the only app that really works well
191. 00:08:13 on the super note nomad is Instapaper,
192. 00:08:15 Readwise Reader, kind of, but not really.
193. 00:08:17 So I wanted to build something
194. 00:08:20 that had an Oliver Berkman style,
195. 00:08:22 all these things are in the river,
196. 00:08:23 you just see something you like,
197. 00:08:25 and you send it somewhere to read later, okay?
198. 00:08:27 That's what it is, it's a timeline,
199. 00:08:29 a chronological timeline that pulls in Macedon,
200. 00:08:32 blue sky, sub-redits that you are subscribed to,
201. 00:08:38 specific YouTube channels that you're subscribed to,
202. 00:08:42 and RSS feeds, RSS, yep.
203. 00:08:44 And then you can, from the keyboard,
204. 00:08:47 you can apply filters, so you can see just the things
205. 00:08:50 that match the criteria, hence the F-keyboard,
206. 00:08:52 the F-key, that causes conflicts for Corey,
207. 00:08:57 and then you hit the S-key and it sends it to,
208. 00:09:00 it was Instapaper, but I think I added a couple others
209. 00:09:02 before I opened up the test flights,
210. 00:09:03 like Readwise Reader or, what's the other one, Pocket?
211. 00:09:07 Are you using Readwise Reader, by the way?
212. 00:09:09 - No, I stopped using Readwise.
213. 00:09:11 - Okay, so what's the one that you're using?
214. 00:09:13 - No, I'm just using your system.
215. 00:09:16 - So Instapaper, right?
216. 00:09:18 - No, I'm not sending it anywhere.
217. 00:09:20 I'm just reading it out of yours.
218. 00:09:22 - God, okay. - I'm consuming it
219. 00:09:23 out of yours, yeah.
220. 00:09:25 - Okay, well. - Which I'm liking it.
221. 00:09:26 - That's cool. (laughs)
222. 00:09:28 - Yeah.
223. 00:09:30 - So yeah, that's what it is,
224. 00:09:31 and I gave it the name Feed Deck, I don't know why,
225. 00:09:35 just sounded kind of cool. (laughs)
226. 00:09:39 So yeah, that was my first action item.
227. 00:09:40 The second one was to read Walden.
228. 00:09:42 I started reading Walden, dude, I do not like this book.
229. 00:09:45 (laughs)
230. 00:09:47 The first chapter is 90 pages long,
231. 00:09:50 and there's some funny stuff in there, funny,
232. 00:09:54 like there was one specific quote
233. 00:09:55 that I was reading it at the pool,
234. 00:09:57 we were on vacation, I just cracked up laughing,
235. 00:09:59 and then I read it out loud to everyone who was nearby,
236. 00:10:01 and they left the same way.
237. 00:10:05 But other than that, like,
238. 00:10:06 I'm not getting anything out of this book.
239. 00:10:09 So I think I'm probably not gonna finish this one,
240. 00:10:13 but I attempted it.
241. 00:10:16 The other thing I have to mention here,
242. 00:10:18 this isn't actually an action item, but--
243. 00:10:19 - Hold on, time out.
244. 00:10:20 - Okay.
245. 00:10:21 - I'm proud of you for attempting that,
246. 00:10:22 because I told you last time.
247. 00:10:24 - You did. - There's no way.
248. 00:10:26 Like, there's no way I'm even going after that one,
249. 00:10:28 so I'm proud of you for attempting.
250. 00:10:30 Good job, put it on the shelf, or throw it in the trash,
251. 00:10:33 or donate it to the library, just get rid of it.
252. 00:10:35 It's gone, get it out of here.
253. 00:10:37 Okay, no, do your-- - All right.
254. 00:10:39 The other thing that I want to mention here real briefly
255. 00:10:42 is that starting April 6th, Rachel and I
256. 00:10:47 are going to be leading another life-themed cohort.
257. 00:10:50 So this is gonna take place in the library,
258. 00:10:52 which is my private PCAM community.
259. 00:10:55 I made some changes to the library,
260. 00:10:57 so depending on when you are listening to this,
261. 00:11:00 you may or may not actually be able to join it.
262. 00:11:03 I closed enrollment for the library,
263. 00:11:06 and I'm gonna open it basically
264. 00:11:07 when we do one of these cohorts.
265. 00:11:09 And I have heard a long time ago
266. 00:11:11 that I should close enrollment,
267. 00:11:12 but I kind of put it off as like,
268. 00:11:13 that just feels arbitrary.
269. 00:11:15 But then I realized something.
270. 00:11:17 And that is that it's a much better experience
271. 00:11:21 for people who join the library
272. 00:11:23 when they join at the beginning of one of these cohorts,
273. 00:11:26 because there's a whole bunch of people there
274. 00:11:28 that are new, they're all posting about,
275. 00:11:30 "Hey, this is who I am, what I'm hoping to get out of it."
276. 00:11:33 They're all going through this stuff together,
277. 00:11:35 and those are the people who really
278. 00:11:37 get more out of the experience.
279. 00:11:39 So I think that's what I'm gonna do,
280. 00:11:40 is I'm gonna basically just close it
281. 00:11:41 and then open it periodically
282. 00:11:43 when I do one of these cohorts.
283. 00:11:46 So the life-themed cohorts,
284. 00:11:47 practical PCAM cohorts, stuff like that.
285. 00:11:49 The life-themed cohort is the next one's gonna happen,
286. 00:11:51 it's gonna start April 6th.
287. 00:11:52 So probably about a week before that,
288. 00:11:54 I will open up enrollment to the library again.
289. 00:11:56 And if you want to join or join the wait list,
290. 00:12:00 if it's not currently open,
291. 00:12:01 just go to library.practicalpkm.com.
292. 00:12:04 The cost for the cohort, by the way,
293. 00:12:06 I don't charge a bunch of money to join the cohort,
294. 00:12:09 you just need to be a library member.
295. 00:12:12 And the cost of the library,
296. 00:12:13 the pro tier, which is the one that has access to the cohorts,
297. 00:12:16 I'm selling it $49 a month, but you pay quarterly.
298. 00:12:19 So it's $147, you will not find another cohort
299. 00:12:22 on the internet for $147.
300. 00:12:27 So you join that and then you can cancel at any time
301. 00:12:31 after that, but you get access to everything,
302. 00:12:32 not just the live cohort,
303. 00:12:34 but all my courses, life HQ, all that kind of stuff as well.
304. 00:12:38 Wonderful.
305. 00:12:39 All right, you ready to get into a book?
306. 00:12:42 Let's do it, let's talk about the coaching habit.
307. 00:12:45 All right, so the coaching habit is our book for today.
308. 00:12:48 This book is by Michael Bungay Stanier.
309. 00:12:52 The full title of the book is The Coaching Habit.
310. 00:12:54 Say less, ask more, change the way you lead forever.
311. 00:12:58 The book is from 2016 and it comes out of the work
312. 00:13:03 that he and his team do with managers
313. 00:13:07 and helping managers think about how to coach.
314. 00:13:09 And then there is a consulting firm called Box of Crayons
315. 00:13:14 that is referenced a lot of times in the book
316. 00:13:17 that plays the name ever for a consulting firm, by the way.
317. 00:13:20 It really is a cool name.
318. 00:13:21 I actually went and looked up Box of Crayons
319. 00:13:22 just 'cause I was like, man, this has to be a cool place,
320. 00:13:25 which they've got like a million and a half coaches.
321. 00:13:27 If you look at like their list of coaches,
322. 00:13:30 it's crazy how many they have.
323. 00:13:32 But that's where this book comes from.
324. 00:13:35 And the book essentially is this idea of,
325. 00:13:41 okay, if we're going to lead people,
326. 00:13:42 if we're going to coach people,
327. 00:13:44 if we're going to get into these interactions with people,
328. 00:13:47 it's what it says on the tin.
329. 00:13:49 I mean, it's, hey, you're talking too much.
330. 00:13:52 You're trying to solve too many problems.
331. 00:13:55 You need to just ask people more questions.
332. 00:13:58 Not to like go too far too fast,
333. 00:14:01 but I mean, it's seven questions.
334. 00:14:04 And the whole book is structured around these seven questions
335. 00:14:07 and an introduction and a conclusion.
336. 00:14:09 And it's a very straightforward book.
337. 00:14:11 It's a very cookie cutter,
338. 00:14:14 but I don't mean it in a bad way.
339. 00:14:15 Like it's, I mean, the chapters are very cookie cutter.
340. 00:14:18 Like they are people like cookies.
341. 00:14:20 Uh huh.
342. 00:14:21 Yeah, I mean, like it is, it is exactly like that.
343. 00:14:24 If you read the first chapter,
344. 00:14:25 you know what you're going to get in the rest of it.
345. 00:14:27 Mike, one of the things we didn't talk about
346. 00:14:29 before we started the recording was,
347. 00:14:31 I think this book would be best to take as in like the,
348. 00:14:35 you we lumped together the question masterclass little chunk
349. 00:14:38 and the chapter, right?
350. 00:14:39 Like so we just treat those as all as one thing.
351. 00:14:41 Okay.
352. 00:14:42 - I agree.
353. 00:14:43 What I'll do if you're okay with it
354. 00:14:44 for the recording is I will just bundle it all
355. 00:14:49 under the questions.
356. 00:14:51 So like the kickstart question,
357. 00:14:53 the all questions and et cetera.
358. 00:14:54 Okay.
359. 00:14:55 - Yeah, that's great.
360. 00:14:56 'Cause that's really what everything's structured around
361. 00:14:58 is these different questions.
362. 00:15:00 But that is kind of the gist of the book.
363. 00:15:04 It is not a long book at all.
364. 00:15:07 It is a very quick read because a decent chunk
365. 00:15:11 of each chapter is like you thinking through these things.
366. 00:15:15 And I can't remember for the life of me right now.
367. 00:15:17 It's like when this happens instead of I will.
368. 00:15:19 And you actually think through this kind of like mechanism,
369. 00:15:24 you know, that way you're practicing
370. 00:15:26 at the end of each chapter.
371. 00:15:28 So with that being said,
372. 00:15:30 I don't have anything else to say to intro to book.
373. 00:15:31 I don't know if you want to do anything else
374. 00:15:33 to intro the book.
375. 00:15:34 We can move right into.
376. 00:15:35 - Well, I can share a little bit of history
377. 00:15:38 that I have with this book.
378. 00:15:39 - Okay.
379. 00:15:40 - So I was recommended this book
380. 00:15:42 when I took the integrator position
381. 00:15:45 at the digital marketing agency
382. 00:15:48 because I had different people
383. 00:15:51 who were heads of different teams
384. 00:15:53 that I was responsible for leading and coaching
385. 00:15:57 on a regular basis.
386. 00:16:00 And so the intention was I would read this book
387. 00:16:03 and that it would help me become a better leader
388. 00:16:08 for the people on those teams.
389. 00:16:10 I think that happened,
390. 00:16:14 but also I feel like the situation
391. 00:16:19 that I walked into was a little bit difficult.
392. 00:16:23 So it wasn't as simple to apply
393. 00:16:26 as he makes it sound in the book.
394. 00:16:30 Okay.
395. 00:16:31 There were definitely some things people were,
396. 00:16:36 I don't know how to explain it.
397. 00:16:37 Like they had some condition behaviors
398. 00:16:42 which were in contrast to the principles
399. 00:16:45 that were taught in this book.
400. 00:16:47 So when I started, when I went to apply this stuff,
401. 00:16:49 I found a lot more resistance than I had anticipated.
402. 00:16:53 - Interesting.
403. 00:16:54 - I don't know if that is just general,
404. 00:16:57 like if you were to take this
405. 00:16:58 and start using this in your academic university setting,
406. 00:17:02 okay, if you're gonna have the same sort of experience
407. 00:17:05 or if there is a situation where you can really apply this
408. 00:17:10 as easy as he's going to make it sound.
409. 00:17:13 But my thought is that that is possible.
410. 00:17:17 - Yeah.
411. 00:17:18 Yeah, he gives, as you're talking about that,
412. 00:17:20 he gives like examples or like further like videos
413. 00:17:23 and stuff that you can follow
414. 00:17:25 or you can go to his website and look at
415. 00:17:27 just to clear, make sure everybody knows
416. 00:17:30 and make sure Mike knows.
417. 00:17:32 I did not have a chance to go do those things.
418. 00:17:34 So I read the chapters,
419. 00:17:36 but I did not go into the extension stuff.
420. 00:17:38 Mike, I don't know if you did or not.
421. 00:17:40 Go into the things on his website.
422. 00:17:44 - No, I did not.
423. 00:17:45 I actually tried to get to one of the resources
424. 00:17:48 that he mentioned somewhere.
425. 00:17:50 I don't remember if it was,
426. 00:17:52 I don't remember if it was just like mentioned
427. 00:17:54 and passing in the chapter
428. 00:17:55 or if it was one of those official things
429. 00:17:57 that he had at the end.
430. 00:17:59 But it actually now just forwards
431. 00:18:02 to like a big general CTA,
432. 00:18:06 which isn't necessarily connected to the coaching habit,
433. 00:18:10 which I guess is kind of to be expected
434. 00:18:12 'cause I don't remember when this was written,
435. 00:18:13 but it was several years ago.
436. 00:18:15 - 2016, right?
437. 00:18:16 So in this is one of the things I think about,
438. 00:18:18 if you ever write a book
439. 00:18:19 and you're gonna link people out to something,
440. 00:18:22 you've just signed yourself up to maintain that
441. 00:18:25 for a really long time and or forever.
442. 00:18:28 So it's like that's a big, that's a big burden, if you will,
443. 00:18:33 or a big responsibility that like,
444. 00:18:35 I never thought about that until, you know,
445. 00:18:37 until right now until we start talking about this is like,
446. 00:18:38 "Man, if you link people out to a resource,
447. 00:18:40 that resource has to exist then."
448. 00:18:42 Or you look kind of silly, so.
449. 00:18:44 - Yeah, so one of the best versions of this,
450. 00:18:47 I think is Jenny Blake, free time.
451. 00:18:52 It's one of the books on the visual bookshelf behind me.
452. 00:18:55 She's got like this toolkit that she mentions in her book.
453. 00:18:58 And she maintains that toolkit,
454. 00:19:00 but she doesn't maintain the specific resources
455. 00:19:03 that she mentions in the book.
456. 00:19:05 Those are free to change.
457. 00:19:06 That was actually the inspiration for me
458. 00:19:08 when I built out the starter vault for Obsidian,
459. 00:19:11 because I have my YouTube channel,
460. 00:19:13 I talk about these Obsidian workflows.
461. 00:19:15 I'm working on a video right now,
462. 00:19:16 for example, on templates and surprise, surprise,
463. 00:19:19 all the templates are available inside
464. 00:19:21 of the Obsidian starter vault.
465. 00:19:23 But that way, if any of those templates change,
466. 00:19:27 I just update the template, throw it in there.
467. 00:19:28 I don't have to update the specific video on the page
468. 00:19:31 and update all the copy on the page.
469. 00:19:33 I did some of that stuff initially,
470. 00:19:36 but that's, I think, a better way to approach it is,
471. 00:19:38 like a collection of these things
472. 00:19:40 that you can just maintain the collection.
473. 00:19:42 - That's super smart, yeah, super smart.
474. 00:19:44 All right, Michael, let's get into it.
475. 00:19:46 Let's get into the introduction,
476. 00:19:47 which is not called introduction in this book.
477. 00:19:49 It is a statement where the author tells us
478. 00:19:53 that we all need a coaching habit.
479. 00:19:56 So you need a coaching habit.
480. 00:19:58 So the nature of this book is basically just
481. 00:20:00 to ground the motivation of the book,
482. 00:20:01 why I wrote this book.
483. 00:20:03 He refers, and one of the things that we're gonna see
484. 00:20:06 throughout the book is a refer to social psychology,
485. 00:20:09 or refer to management, a refer to Harvard Business Review.
486. 00:20:13 And like, he's going to refer to a lot of research
487. 00:20:19 that's like part, sometimes academic research,
488. 00:20:22 and sometimes just management research.
489. 00:20:25 You know, like different things that are done
490. 00:20:26 for publications or whatever it might be.
491. 00:20:28 You find out fairly quickly that like,
492. 00:20:31 there is a researcher on this team.
493. 00:20:33 So like, this makes sense why this research
494. 00:20:36 was like naturally there.
495. 00:20:38 Like they're, you know, like, oh,
496. 00:20:39 we already did this research.
497. 00:20:40 I'm putting this into a book.
498. 00:20:42 We already did this research.
499. 00:20:43 I'm gonna include this into the book.
500. 00:20:44 So he's motivating the book.
501. 00:20:48 He's telling you about his company, Box of Crayons,
502. 00:20:50 and basically trying to drive home.
503. 00:20:53 And essentially what he talks about
504. 00:20:55 is he talks about the fact that the reason
505. 00:20:57 you need to build this coaching habit
506. 00:20:59 is to get out of or break through these three circles.
507. 00:21:04 So circle one would be creating overdependence,
508. 00:21:06 where people are overdependent on you to do things for them.
509. 00:21:10 Circle two would be getting overwhelmed.
510. 00:21:12 And that like, no matter what you do,
511. 00:21:16 like you're gonna get overwhelmed.
512. 00:21:17 And this, the coaching habit allows you to kind of like
513. 00:21:22 do what you need to do and focus,
514. 00:21:25 and help your team focus as well.
515. 00:21:27 I guess is the way I'm trying to say.
516. 00:21:28 It's kind of a you and the team thing,
517. 00:21:30 which is a little bit different one.
518. 00:21:31 And then the other one is becoming disconnected.
519. 00:21:34 And essentially it's the idea that like,
520. 00:21:36 the more and more we get into this,
521. 00:21:38 the more and more we kind of feel,
522. 00:21:41 you know, disconnected from that work
523. 00:21:43 or we get distracted from it.
524. 00:21:47 So those are the three reasons
525. 00:21:48 why we say we need this coaching habit.
526. 00:21:50 I can't tell you that like, I thought any one of these
527. 00:21:53 was like overwhelming and dramatic, but good.
528. 00:21:56 Like I get it, like that, that's,
529. 00:21:59 these are things managers have to deal with.
530. 00:22:01 And these are things leaders have to deal with.
531. 00:22:02 So, okay, I'm in.
532. 00:22:04 - Yeah, the vicious circles never really resonated with me.
533. 00:22:08 The thing that I resonated with most in this beginning section
534. 00:22:13 was that the essence of coaching lies in helping others
535. 00:22:16 and unlocking their potential.
536. 00:22:18 I mean, my life theme, talked about the life theme
537. 00:22:19 cohort a little bit earlier.
538. 00:22:20 Like, life theme is a personal mission statement.
539. 00:22:23 And mine is, I help people multiply their time and talent.
540. 00:22:26 We have a bigger dent in the universe.
541. 00:22:28 So yes, I'm in, let's coach.
542. 00:22:29 - You are a coach, right?
543. 00:22:32 So what does Mike do?
544. 00:22:33 He coaches and he does a bunch of other stuff,
545. 00:22:35 but he also, but he also coaches.
546. 00:22:37 - One thing that's worth mentioning here,
547. 00:22:39 there's a note I have here that you can coach someone
548. 00:22:42 in 10 minutes or less.
549. 00:22:43 So coaching isn't like, it has to be a 60 minute session.
550. 00:22:47 You can do this in bite size little chunks,
551. 00:22:49 which I think is an important point to keep in mind
552. 00:22:51 as we go through the rest of this.
553. 00:22:53 - Yep, now I have this kind of called out as another section.
554. 00:22:57 I can't remember how exactly he structured this,
555. 00:22:59 but you get to the seven essential questions right away, right?
556. 00:23:03 So in this, you need a coaching habit.
557. 00:23:05 You get to the seven essential questions.
558. 00:23:07 Mike, you can correct me if it was its own chapter or not.
559. 00:23:09 I don't remember if it was its own chapter or not
560. 00:23:12 as we're working through this.
561. 00:23:15 - So the outline I've got here is the,
562. 00:23:19 how to create a coaching habit, right?
563. 00:23:22 And then there is a short section on how to create a habit.
564. 00:23:28 We should probably talk about that briefly.
565. 00:23:30 And then there's the,
566. 00:23:33 the mind map gets weird then because there's the questions
567. 00:23:37 and then there is the question master class.
568. 00:23:40 And so there's like the first question
569. 00:23:42 and then the question master class comes immediately after that.
570. 00:23:45 It's usually just a couple of pages
571. 00:23:46 and then it goes on to the next one.
572. 00:23:48 So like--
573. 00:23:49 - Yeah, so I didn't even,
574. 00:23:50 I didn't even acknowledge how to build a habit section, right?
575. 00:23:53 Like I was just like, oh yeah, okay, how to build a habit
576. 00:23:54 because he hits on, you know, clear and BJ Fogg
577. 00:23:58 and he hits on the things that need to be hit on there.
578. 00:24:01 So those were kind of old hat to you and I
579. 00:24:04 who have read about those a lot.
580. 00:24:05 But if you're interested,
581. 00:24:07 he does, I think hit the big names in the,
582. 00:24:09 in the habits base there.
583. 00:24:10 - Well, I think it's worth calling out
584. 00:24:12 because he's got five essential components
585. 00:24:15 to build new habit, which that, you know,
586. 00:24:17 I could take your leave.
587. 00:24:18 But he does have his new habit formula
588. 00:24:20 and this he references in all of the question master class stuff.
589. 00:24:23 I'm not sure if he picked up on that.
590. 00:24:25 - Yeah, yeah, okay.
591. 00:24:26 - So he, he says, when this happens, dot dot dot,
592. 00:24:30 that's the first part.
593. 00:24:30 Instead of dot dot dot, I will dot dot dot.
594. 00:24:35 And so that's the framing he uses
595. 00:24:37 for all the question master class stuff.
596. 00:24:40 I think it's all of them, right?
597. 00:24:41 - Yeah.
598. 00:24:42 - It is, it's definitely all of them.
599. 00:24:43 They're all the same.
600. 00:24:44 - Okay, yep.
601. 00:24:45 - Yeah, so we'll probably reference that
602. 00:24:48 when we get to those question master classes.
603. 00:24:50 But that's probably all we need to say
604. 00:24:51 about how to create a habit.
605. 00:24:53 - Okay.
606. 00:24:54 And then, and then the, the seven questions,
607. 00:24:56 just to hit them here and then we'll hit them in each chapter.
608. 00:24:58 But they're the kickstart question,
609. 00:25:00 the all question, the focus question,
610. 00:25:02 the foundation question, the lazy question,
611. 00:25:04 the strategic question, the learning
612. 00:25:07 and then the learning question.
613. 00:25:08 These are the seven questions that he says,
614. 00:25:11 allow you to coach effectively
615. 00:25:12 and that basically are part of the coaching habit
616. 00:25:17 as we, as we work through this.
617. 00:25:19 So, overall in terms of the introduction chapter
618. 00:25:22 in motivating me to care about this, good.
619. 00:25:25 But I'll clearly stay that like,
620. 00:25:29 I was in to begin with, right?
621. 00:25:31 Like, I mean, a lot of what I do is coaching.
622. 00:25:33 So like, he didn't really have to motivate me very hard in this.
623. 00:25:37 I think the bigger thing that he did in this is,
624. 00:25:41 he established a reason why I should listen to him.
625. 00:25:46 Like, when I got done reading this,
626. 00:25:49 I, or this first introduction section,
627. 00:25:50 I said, okay, this guy's worth me paying attention to
628. 00:25:54 and we'll see how this goes from here.
629. 00:25:55 So, did it like, change anything in like my existing thinking?
630. 00:26:01 No, but it like, it solidified the first part of the book for me.
631. 00:26:05 - All right, ready to talk about the questions then?
632. 00:26:07 - Yeah, okay.
633. 00:26:08 So, the way Mike described it a little bit,
634. 00:26:10 we've talked about a little bit.
635. 00:26:11 So, it's gonna be, there's a question master class,
636. 00:26:13 we're not really gonna talk about that all that much,
637. 00:26:15 but this exists for each of the next chapters.
638. 00:26:17 It'll say question master class
639. 00:26:19 and it'll say ask one question at a time
640. 00:26:20 and then it'll work through when this happens instead of,
641. 00:26:23 I will, but they're super short, right?
642. 00:26:26 Like, so they are not long at all,
643. 00:26:28 they really are meant to hit a point.
644. 00:26:30 The example of this, I'll give it to you in this first one.
645. 00:26:33 The example of this is, here's your new habit.
646. 00:26:36 When this happens, after I've asked the question,
647. 00:26:39 instead of adding another question,
648. 00:26:42 and then another question and another question,
649. 00:26:43 I will ask just one question.
650. 00:26:45 So, his master class is ask one question at a time
651. 00:26:47 and that's how he works through that.
652. 00:26:49 The meat of the chapters or the meat of each of these sections
653. 00:26:52 is really the kickstart question
654. 00:26:54 and then it'll say, in which you discover
655. 00:26:55 the power of the opening question
656. 00:26:57 and it gets the conversation happening fast and deep.
657. 00:26:59 Like, that's the meat of these chapters.
658. 00:27:01 So, Mike, I'm gonna push us in that direction,
659. 00:27:04 but feel free to like, yeah, feel free to call us out
660. 00:27:07 on any of the stuff that comes out of the question master class.
661. 00:27:10 >> Yeah, and I think the thing we really should hit on
662. 00:27:12 for each of these is what the question actually is,
663. 00:27:15 'cause there's a specific question for each one of these.
664. 00:27:18 >> Yep, okay.
665. 00:27:19 All right, great.
666. 00:27:20 So, number one, the kickstart question.
667. 00:27:22 When we discover that the power of an opening question
668. 00:27:24 and it gets the conversation started.
669. 00:27:25 So, just to not bury the lead, what's on your mind?
670. 00:27:31 So, the kickstart question is what's on your mind?
671. 00:27:35 And he said, the reason why this is gonna be
672. 00:27:37 an effective question is because it's gonna get you
673. 00:27:39 out of small talk.
674. 00:27:39 So, he has these like clever little quippy things,
675. 00:27:42 the small talk tango, the ossified agenda,
676. 00:27:45 and the default diagnosis.
677. 00:27:46 And he's saying, this quick start question,
678. 00:27:48 what's on your mind gets you out of those?
679. 00:27:52 And he's by no means saying that those things are terrible,
680. 00:27:55 the small talk tango, the ossified agenda,
681. 00:27:57 the default diagnosis, but he's saying, get to it.
682. 00:28:00 Like, there's a reason why you're meeting.
683. 00:28:03 Just ask the person, what do you wanna talk about?
684. 00:28:05 Like, what's on your mind?
685. 00:28:06 Like, what's going on?
686. 00:28:08 So, he breaks down the three things trying to overcome.
687. 00:28:11 I like the idea that in this section,
688. 00:28:13 he calls out the fact that there's coaching for performance
689. 00:28:16 and coaching for development,
690. 00:28:18 and that those two are two different things.
691. 00:28:21 Coaching for performance is about addressing
692. 00:28:22 and fixing a specific problem.
693. 00:28:24 You're doing this wrong, let's address that.
694. 00:28:27 And then coaching for development is like,
695. 00:28:29 here's just an opportunity to get better,
696. 00:28:31 or here's an opportunity to grow,
697. 00:28:33 or here's an opportunity to whatever it might be.
698. 00:28:36 And I like that he calls out the last thing,
699. 00:28:39 and then I'll turn it over to Mike.
700. 00:28:42 He talks about the three P's,
701. 00:28:45 and he's got a three P model
702. 00:28:47 that's projects, people, and patterns.
703. 00:28:49 So, there's the project, which is the content of a situation,
704. 00:28:54 the stuff that's being worked on.
705. 00:28:55 There are the people, okay, are we talking about the people
706. 00:28:58 around what's being worked on?
707. 00:28:59 And then there's the patterns, it's like,
708. 00:29:00 we're looking for behaviors or ways to work.
709. 00:29:03 So, if you think about starting this off
710. 00:29:04 as what's shown in your mind,
711. 00:29:06 he said expect to get something about a project,
712. 00:29:09 something about the people,
713. 00:29:10 or something about the patterns of things that are happening.
714. 00:29:13 And that's essentially the nature of this first chapter,
715. 00:29:17 and this first key question for us.
716. 00:29:20 - You hit everything that I had in my outline.
717. 00:29:24 Yeah, the big thing for me, I think,
718. 00:29:25 was the two different types of coaching.
719. 00:29:27 And I could probably do a better job
720. 00:29:29 of asking myself what kind of coaching is necessary
721. 00:29:32 in this specific situation.
722. 00:29:34 I think I tend to default towards the coaching
723. 00:29:37 for performance where the focus is the problem to be solved
724. 00:29:41 instead of coaching for development.
725. 00:29:44 So, I don't have an action,
726. 00:29:44 I'm associated with this particular chapter,
727. 00:29:47 but if I did, that's what it would be.
728. 00:29:49 - Yeah, I think one of the biggest things
729. 00:29:51 that came out of this chapter for me was,
730. 00:29:53 I would have never been able to say this on my own,
731. 00:29:56 but like, small talk tango, ossified agenda.
732. 00:29:59 So, that's probably the most confusing one.
733. 00:30:02 Basically, it's just this report of what we've done,
734. 00:30:05 or what we're going, and it's like so boring.
735. 00:30:08 Like, all we're doing is going through the agenda.
736. 00:30:10 And then the default diagnosis is basically,
737. 00:30:11 we don't actually think about what's going on,
738. 00:30:13 we actually just try to solve the default issue.
739. 00:30:17 I think those three things,
740. 00:30:18 where the most important things that came out of this to me,
741. 00:30:20 is the what's on your mind doesn't assume anything.
742. 00:30:26 It actually has the person that you're trying to coach tell you,
743. 00:30:30 and I think this, as a professor, surprise, surprise, right?
744. 00:30:33 Like, I talk a lot, so I am comfortable talking a lot,
745. 00:30:37 but it reminded me, it's like,
746. 00:30:38 "Cory, shut up, let them tell you what's on their mind."
747. 00:30:41 And that was the big takeaway for me.
748. 00:30:44 I'm ready to move on to two, if you are.
749. 00:30:46 - Yeah, let's do it.
750. 00:30:47 The second, I mean, just kick off the second one.
751. 00:30:49 - Yeah, dude, you could probably just go back and forth
752. 00:30:51 with this one if you wanna tackle it that way.
753. 00:30:53 - I'm great with that, yeah.
754. 00:30:54 - Okay, cool.
755. 00:30:55 So the second question is the aw question, A-W-E,
756. 00:31:00 and it literally means, and what else?
757. 00:31:03 And this one, I think, is pretty brilliant.
758. 00:31:06 There's different reasons for impact that he talks about
759. 00:31:10 in here, where you create more options
760. 00:31:12 that can lead to better decisions.
761. 00:31:13 You win yourself.
762. 00:31:15 Actually, that one is messed up in my outline.
763. 00:31:17 I need to fix that.
764. 00:31:18 You buy yourself time,
765. 00:31:20 but this is something that I recognize I fall into,
766. 00:31:24 is once I feel like I've gotten enough context,
767. 00:31:27 it's going to problem solving mode.
768. 00:31:29 - Me too.
769. 00:31:30 - And so this is where one of my action items comes in,
770. 00:31:32 is to start asking this when I'm doing coaching specifically
771. 00:31:36 in the library, because I wanna start doing
772. 00:31:38 a couple different types of coaching.
773. 00:31:39 One, I do want to offer some individual one-on-one coaching
774. 00:31:43 for specifically people in that creator business accelerator
775. 00:31:46 who want the additional help.
776. 00:31:47 But I also have this hot seat coaching in there,
777. 00:31:50 where basically you can book a free 30 minute
778. 00:31:54 coaching call essentially on the Pro Tier,
779. 00:31:57 if you're willing to let other people show up,
780. 00:31:59 and they're kind of like silent observers in the chat,
781. 00:32:02 and then I can share that,
782. 00:32:04 the results of that coaching call,
783. 00:32:06 like the video and the audio I can publish
784. 00:32:08 via the podcast, the private podcast feed, stuff like that.
785. 00:32:11 So other people can benefit from it.
786. 00:32:13 - That's great.
787. 00:32:14 - And I feel like this is something that will help me a lot
788. 00:32:19 in terms of being a better coach
789. 00:32:21 in those two specific scenarios,
790. 00:32:24 and to avoid the advice monster,
791. 00:32:27 which is that urge to always give advice.
792. 00:32:30 - So this is something that you just,
793. 00:32:33 the last comment that you said,
794. 00:32:35 "I like this guy's style."
795. 00:32:37 In terms of like the small talk tango,
796. 00:32:40 the advice monster, it's creative,
797. 00:32:44 but it doesn't push it too far.
798. 00:32:46 Like it's not like he was trying too hard.
799. 00:32:48 I just like the style of the way this book was written.
800. 00:32:51 And I think that works out.
801. 00:32:53 I think you brought up all the good points
802. 00:32:55 in terms of working with other people about the aw question,
803. 00:32:58 but I think you can use the aw question internally too.
804. 00:33:01 Oh, like I'm working on a new project, and what else?
805. 00:33:04 Like, okay, I'm thinking about this thing,
806. 00:33:05 and what else, and what else, and what else.
807. 00:33:07 And it's like, this can really reveal some stuff.
808. 00:33:11 You know, so you think about creating a life theme.
809. 00:33:13 Oh, you know, this is what I think my life theme,
810. 00:33:16 and what else?
811. 00:33:17 Oh, well, I'm really interested in this as well,
812. 00:33:18 and what else, and then you refine that down.
813. 00:33:21 Like, what a good, good thing to ask.
814. 00:33:26 I don't like it's called the aw question.
815. 00:33:28 I actually don't, that's the biggest part of it I don't like,
816. 00:33:31 but I'm not willing to like knock it because of that too much,
817. 00:33:34 because the and what else makes so much sense
818. 00:33:37 that I think it works out really well.
819. 00:33:39 Yeah, there's one other thing from this that I liked,
820. 00:33:41 which is that binary choices typically have a failure rate
821. 00:33:44 of over 50%.
822. 00:33:46 So what this question naturally does
823. 00:33:48 is it gets you to consider the other options that are available.
824. 00:33:52 So the more options that you have,
825. 00:33:54 I feel like the more likely you are to make a positive,
826. 00:34:01 or accurate, good decision.
827. 00:34:04 Yep.
828. 00:34:06 All right, let's move on to three.
829. 00:34:09 In the third chapter, it's called the focus question,
830. 00:34:12 in which you find out how to stop spending so much time
831. 00:34:15 and effort solving the wrong problems.
832. 00:34:18 I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.
833. 00:34:21 We can work in this all day long.
834. 00:34:24 And if we're looking at the wrong thing,
835. 00:34:26 you know, what are we doing?
836. 00:34:28 We're trying to solve the wrong problem.
837. 00:34:29 This gets me to one of the interesting nuances
838. 00:34:34 of this book.
839. 00:34:36 He pitches this book as the coaching habit,
840. 00:34:38 and everything is wrapped around coaching.
841. 00:34:42 My thing is like, I think these questions are just good.
842. 00:34:46 Like, I think they're just good, interesting questions.
843. 00:34:50 So if you think about like the kickstart question,
844. 00:34:53 and you come into it as like, what's on your mind,
845. 00:34:56 I can ask this to me, right?
846. 00:34:58 Like if I think about the all question,
847. 00:34:59 I can ask this to me.
848. 00:35:01 And if I think about this, this third question,
849. 00:35:03 the focus question, which is, sorry,
850. 00:35:06 I buried the lead on what the actual question was,
851. 00:35:08 is what's the real challenge for you?
852. 00:35:10 Oh, I can ask this to me.
853. 00:35:12 Like, this is pitched as a coaching book,
854. 00:35:15 but it's, I think, more than that.
855. 00:35:17 Like, I almost think like pitching it
856. 00:35:18 as just a coaching book is a disservice
857. 00:35:21 to the possible value of these seven questions
858. 00:35:24 and their application.
859. 00:35:26 And I didn't realize that until like,
860. 00:35:31 I went through it the second time.
861. 00:35:32 Like as I was prepping for the show,
862. 00:35:33 I was like thinking about like the different questions.
863. 00:35:35 I was like, oh, this is like way more
864. 00:35:37 than just a coaching book.
865. 00:35:38 Like this is, or at least these questions are way more.
866. 00:35:41 Anyhow, so what does this question ask you?
867. 00:35:44 What's the real challenge here for you?
868. 00:35:46 It's a solution to the proliferation,
869. 00:35:49 I can't say that proliferation, proliferation.
870. 00:35:52 You and I are both having trouble with words anyway,
871. 00:35:54 of challenges.
872. 00:35:55 So that's when like you get into there
873. 00:35:57 and people are just like spewing off,
874. 00:36:00 this is wrong, and this is wrong, and this is wrong,
875. 00:36:02 and this is the problem, and this is the problem,
876. 00:36:03 and this is the problem, and you like redirect them
877. 00:36:05 and you say, hey, what's the real challenge for you?
878. 00:36:08 Like, yeah, you're listing all these negatives,
879. 00:36:10 but what's the real challenge for you?
880. 00:36:12 And then he said it's a solution
881. 00:36:14 to what's called the coaching ghost, right?
882. 00:36:17 Where basically they're like off on a tangent,
883. 00:36:22 talking about some mythical person,
884. 00:36:25 and or like some like thing that's not really relevant
885. 00:36:28 and it brings them back into, and he quotes here,
886. 00:36:33 I think I understand what's going on with so-and-so,
887. 00:36:36 this ghost person, but what's the real challenge here for you?
888. 00:36:39 Right, so you're not just venting about somebody else,
889. 00:36:42 and then the last one would be abstract comments
890. 00:36:46 and overgeneralizations.
891. 00:36:48 It brings it back to the person who you're coaching.
892. 00:36:51 The key phrase here, he would say, is for you.
893. 00:36:56 And he said that when you add the for you into that question,
894. 00:36:59 it completely changes the nature of the question
895. 00:37:02 because then people stop doing all of these general things
896. 00:37:06 and they start actually giving you their take on it.
897. 00:37:11 And then you can actually be actionable on it.
898. 00:37:14 Again, I think, I mean, I'm gonna say this the entire,
899. 00:37:17 I think this is a really solid, like under,
900. 00:37:20 like I see how this is applicable.
901. 00:37:22 I see how it's applicable to me
902. 00:37:23 and to the people that I'm coaching.
903. 00:37:25 Like I think it's really, really cool.
904. 00:37:27 Yeah, and this is interesting because the key here,
905. 00:37:31 you mentioned the question,
906. 00:37:32 which is what is the real challenge here for you,
907. 00:37:35 but the key is for you.
908. 00:37:37 So if you are coaching other people,
909. 00:37:40 I think it's real easy to eliminate that part
910. 00:37:43 and be like, oh, well, I know what the real issue is.
911. 00:37:47 I know what the real challenge is.
912. 00:37:48 No, it's for that specific person.
913. 00:37:51 What is the challenge that they are facing?
914. 00:37:54 And I like this because the problem at hand,
915. 00:37:58 you mentioned usually isn't the real problem.
916. 00:38:00 It could be a symptom, it could be a secondary issue,
917. 00:38:03 it could be a ghost of a previous problem.
918. 00:38:05 I love the definition of that.
919. 00:38:07 Or it could be a half-baked solution
920. 00:38:09 to an unarticulated issue.
921. 00:38:10 Can't tell you how many times I saw that.
922. 00:38:14 (laughs)
923. 00:38:15 Yep.
924. 00:38:16 So yeah, this book is brilliant in its simplicity
925. 00:38:20 and it's easy to look at it.
926. 00:38:21 And especially when you read through some of this stuff
927. 00:38:23 and you see the questions that they're sharing,
928. 00:38:27 like this could be a 2000 word blog post.
929. 00:38:29 And maybe it could.
930. 00:38:31 And in fact, a lot of the design of the book,
931. 00:38:33 it's not very long.
932. 00:38:34 You can crank through this book pretty quick.
933. 00:38:37 Real easy, real easy.
934. 00:38:38 But applying it is much more difficult.
935. 00:38:42 I feel like this is the perfect approach for a book
936. 00:38:47 like this, where it's giving you some formulaic stuff
937. 00:38:50 to actually go apply.
938. 00:38:52 And you really just got to have a simple framework
939. 00:38:54 that you can follow, get some mileage with it,
940. 00:38:56 and then tweak it for yourself.
941. 00:38:58 Yep.
942. 00:38:59 All right, I'm ready to head to the next one.
943. 00:39:01 All right.
944. 00:39:02 Next one is the foundation question.
945. 00:39:05 And this one is, what do you want?
946. 00:39:10 One of the things that I really like about this section
947. 00:39:13 is that in an adult to adult relationship,
948. 00:39:16 he defines this one,
949. 00:39:18 is one where you are able to ask for what you want,
950. 00:39:21 knowing that the answer may be no.
951. 00:39:26 I mean, this sounds so obvious,
952. 00:39:29 but I can't tell you how rare this is.
953. 00:39:34 I don't, it kind of boggles my mind
954. 00:39:38 because I am a very,
955. 00:39:41 I don't know, I don't feel like I'm a jerk about things,
956. 00:39:46 but I also have no time for people
957. 00:39:48 who are not gonna be direct.
958. 00:39:51 And I actually was in a mastermind group with some people.
959. 00:39:57 And one of them said, you know,
960. 00:40:00 I just appreciate how direct you are.
961. 00:40:02 And it was when I was like, okay, we're all thinking this,
962. 00:40:05 so I'm just gonna say it.
963. 00:40:06 You know, I forget what the specific thing was.
964. 00:40:09 It's like, we're all here as business owners
965. 00:40:13 in this mastermind group.
966. 00:40:14 And no one wants to just say the thing
967. 00:40:17 that's gonna let us not waste the next 30 minutes.
968. 00:40:20 Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.
969. 00:40:22 I don't know, I don't understand that,
970. 00:40:24 but it's true, especially when you are working
971. 00:40:27 with other people and you're trying to coach them,
972. 00:40:31 you can't be a jerk.
973. 00:40:33 You know, you have to consider the relationships
974. 00:40:36 and things like that.
975. 00:40:37 But I feel like establishing this as the baseline
976. 00:40:42 is like the very first thing you need to do
977. 00:40:47 if you're going to be in a coaching relationship.
978. 00:40:50 And I just appreciate the fact that he called that out
979. 00:40:52 because I feel like everyone on the surface would be like,
980. 00:40:57 oh yeah, I understand that.
981. 00:40:58 But then you get in one of these coaching calls
982. 00:41:01 and you feel like you're walking on eggshells.
983. 00:41:03 And you really don't know what you can say,
984. 00:41:05 what you can't say.
985. 00:41:07 Let's just set the parameters.
986. 00:41:10 And it's just to make everything else so much easier.
987. 00:41:13 Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
988. 00:41:16 He makes some interesting distinctions in this section.
989. 00:41:19 So I'm gonna bounce between,
990. 00:41:21 this is one of the ones where I'm actually gonna
991. 00:41:22 bounce to the master class part.
992. 00:41:24 So he calls out Simon Sinek, he calls out the five wise guy.
993. 00:41:30 I can't remember who wrote the five wise.
994. 00:41:33 Do you remember or not?
995. 00:41:34 Okay, so I remember the principal,
996. 00:41:37 I'm blanking on who it was though.
997. 00:41:39 And he basically says, okay, why questions are okay?
998. 00:41:43 Like they're fine.
999. 00:41:45 But you really need to ask what questions
1000. 00:41:46 and my seven questions are what questions, right?
1001. 00:41:50 Like, you know, and he calls out that,
1002. 00:41:52 it reframes it to, I guess more doing, right?
1003. 00:41:58 And less about like the root of the thing
1004. 00:42:01 where then no action happens
1005. 00:42:02 and it actually becomes a, well, you know, what do you want?
1006. 00:42:06 Because now we're gonna actually turn that into doing
1007. 00:42:08 or, you know, like, and I just thought
1008. 00:42:11 that was a really interesting call out
1009. 00:42:14 and distinction to make.
1010. 00:42:15 Because I'd always heard about like the five wise
1011. 00:42:17 or start with why or, you know, whatever it is.
1012. 00:42:19 It's like, that's important, but at the same time,
1013. 00:42:22 we also need to move to action.
1014. 00:42:23 And when we're trying to coach
1015. 00:42:24 and we're trying to coach for development,
1016. 00:42:25 we're trying to coach for performance,
1017. 00:42:27 we do need to move to action fairly, fairly quickly.
1018. 00:42:30 So I thought that was good.
1019. 00:42:32 - Yeah, agreed.
1020. 00:42:33 And then the other thing with this is that
1021. 00:42:36 he mentions that five times a second,
1022. 00:42:37 your brain is scanning to see if it's safe.
1023. 00:42:40 And there are different ways that your brain reads
1024. 00:42:43 different, reads any situation.
1025. 00:42:45 And the foundation question actually builds
1026. 00:42:47 on all four of these.
1027. 00:42:50 There's the tribe, which is really, are you with me?
1028. 00:42:52 Are you against me?
1029. 00:42:53 There's the expectation, do I know the future or don't I?
1030. 00:42:56 There's the rank, are you more or less important than I am?
1031. 00:42:59 And then there's autonomy, do I get a say or don't I?
1032. 00:43:02 - Yep.
1033. 00:43:03 - I don't think there's necessarily anything
1034. 00:43:05 I'm gonna apply with that.
1035. 00:43:07 But it is kind of interesting.
1036. 00:43:09 When he explains those, you can kind of see
1037. 00:43:14 the origin of some of the, like the motivations behind
1038. 00:43:19 maybe some of the ways that coaching conversations
1039. 00:43:23 have played out in the past.
1040. 00:43:24 And I feel like that is gonna be implicitly
1041. 00:43:27 the valuable thing going forward with this is,
1042. 00:43:30 and is maybe a little bit unique about this book.
1043. 00:43:35 You don't just like apply all of these seven questions
1044. 00:43:40 and all of the different ways that he gives them to you
1045. 00:43:43 in this book, you have to, as you put them into practice,
1046. 00:43:46 like the way that they get implemented
1047. 00:43:48 is very personal, is very unique, I feel.
1048. 00:43:50 So even though he gives you the exact words to say
1049. 00:43:52 for some of these questions, like the way that it gets
1050. 00:43:54 manifested is different for every single person
1051. 00:43:56 that's gonna read this.
1052. 00:43:58 And so after you read it, you start to recognize the patterns
1053. 00:44:04 from previous conversations that you've had.
1054. 00:44:09 And then just recognizing that I feel sets the stage
1055. 00:44:13 for the next one to be better.
1056. 00:44:15 And so it's kind of a great situation here
1057. 00:44:19 in terms of gaining benefit from having read this.
1058. 00:44:24 - Yeah, and I think this ties back in
1059. 00:44:28 to the master class part of this
1060. 00:44:31 because you described it.
1061. 00:44:34 There's a difference between somebody who knows
1062. 00:44:35 the seven questions and then who's somebody who's good
1063. 00:44:37 or is a master at incorporating these into coaching.
1064. 00:44:42 And by no means will you get that from reading this book.
1065. 00:44:45 Like you will not go from knowing the seven
1066. 00:44:48 to mastering this just by reading this book.
1067. 00:44:51 But he does introduce you to trying to advance
1068. 00:44:55 in your development through the when this happens
1069. 00:44:59 instead of I will.
1070. 00:45:00 Because what it's forcing you to do is it's forcing you
1071. 00:45:02 to think about the times when it's happened
1072. 00:45:05 and what you've done and then what you'll do differently
1073. 00:45:09 and why you would do those things.
1074. 00:45:11 So it's like, he's pushing you towards
1075. 00:45:13 that becoming more master without everybody kind of knowing.
1076. 00:45:17 And I don't remember if you call it out or not
1077. 00:45:19 in the intro or the conclusion with everybody knowing
1078. 00:45:21 like really like the way you become a master at these
1079. 00:45:23 you apply the seven questions a million times, right?
1080. 00:45:25 Like you apply it 10,000 times with a bunch of people
1081. 00:45:28 and then you get better at it.
1082. 00:45:30 - Yep.
1083. 00:45:32 - The only other one that would come out from this chapter
1084. 00:45:35 I thought this was like a more meaty chapter was
1085. 00:45:37 he talks about the difference between wants and needs.
1086. 00:45:40 - Oh yeah.
1087. 00:45:41 - And really driving home that like wants
1088. 00:45:44 are these surface requests, they're tactical.
1089. 00:45:46 Essentially like, oh, I want you to solve this problem
1090. 00:45:49 for me, right?
1091. 00:45:51 Where needs go deeper and it helps you like understand
1092. 00:45:53 more about what's happening.
1093. 00:45:55 Well, okay, you want me to solve this problem
1094. 00:45:57 but like there's a need back there.
1095. 00:45:59 You need more skill in this area.
1096. 00:46:02 Oh, so if I'm gonna coach you,
1097. 00:46:04 it's really not about solving this problem.
1098. 00:46:05 It's about helping you get the skill you need
1099. 00:46:07 to where you don't have to come to me next time
1100. 00:46:09 for that thing, you've got what you need to do that.
1101. 00:46:13 And I thought that was a really valuable distinction.
1102. 00:46:16 - Yeah, there's also my favorite quote of all time
1103. 00:46:19 from George Bernard Shaw,
1104. 00:46:20 which says that the single biggest problem
1105. 00:46:22 with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
1106. 00:46:25 - That is taking place, yep.
1107. 00:46:27 And it's a good one, that's a really good one.
1108. 00:46:29 - All right, you ready to go to five?
1109. 00:46:30 - Let's do it.
1110. 00:46:31 - All right, we're getting comfortable with silence now.
1111. 00:46:34 All right, this is the lazy question.
1112. 00:46:36 And I don't know if he doesn't call this one out as closely
1113. 00:46:40 or if I had like a mental block
1114. 00:46:43 because like I don't have a statement here that says,
1115. 00:46:46 the lazy question is, you know, blah, blah,
1116. 00:46:48 like I do for all the other chapters
1117. 00:46:49 but I might just miss it.
1118. 00:46:50 - I do have that one, it's a how can I help?
1119. 00:46:54 - I got it later in the chapter
1120. 00:46:55 but I didn't grab it like when I was reading it
1121. 00:46:58 and I've done it for everything else.
1122. 00:46:59 So it's how can I help?
1123. 00:47:01 And the basic reason why it's the lazy question
1124. 00:47:06 is because you then don't have to try to figure out
1125. 00:47:10 how you can help.
1126. 00:47:11 You are allowing them to tell you
1127. 00:47:14 exactly what they want you to do to help.
1128. 00:47:16 And then you can make the choice
1129. 00:47:18 about whether or not that's the right thing to do
1130. 00:47:20 or whether you're gonna do that.
1131. 00:47:21 But it's this idea of like,
1132. 00:47:24 it takes the ambiguity out of it.
1133. 00:47:26 And there's a statement he makes in there,
1134. 00:47:29 too much of a day is spent doing things
1135. 00:47:31 you think people want you to do.
1136. 00:47:33 More dangerous is when you're only slightly wrong.
1137. 00:47:36 So it's like, oh, I was really close to helping you
1138. 00:47:40 except I was off by just a little bit.
1139. 00:47:42 And this one actually makes me cringe a little bit
1140. 00:47:46 when I think about this one because it's like,
1141. 00:47:48 how many times am I trying to help a student
1142. 00:47:52 or trying to help a colleague?
1143. 00:47:54 And they're like, yeah, but you're close.
1144. 00:47:59 But no, that's really not what I need.
1145. 00:48:01 And it's like, I really just wish
1146. 00:48:02 I would have said, all right, how can I help you?
1147. 00:48:04 Like, what do you want me to do?
1148. 00:48:06 And then I can tell you whether I can do that or not,
1149. 00:48:08 or I can tell you whether that's appropriate or not.
1150. 00:48:10 And I just think, again, it's just another really,
1151. 00:48:13 really good question.
1152. 00:48:14 I don't know if you wanna talk about the seven dwarfs
1153. 00:48:15 or the Cartman Triangle or not, but...
1154. 00:48:18 - Well, the drama triangle, I think, is good.
1155. 00:48:20 And the major point, which I think is pretty profound,
1156. 00:48:23 is that if you just offer help unsolicited,
1157. 00:48:28 what happens is you elevate your status
1158. 00:48:30 and you lower the other persons.
1159. 00:48:32 - Yeah, yeah.
1160. 00:48:33 - So the drama triangle, he mentions, has three roles.
1161. 00:48:35 Victim, persecutor, and rescuer.
1162. 00:48:38 So if you are trying to honestly help someone,
1163. 00:48:45 and you are proactively offering help,
1164. 00:48:49 it can actually backfire and work against you.
1165. 00:48:53 So this was a little bit of an aha moment for me,
1166. 00:48:56 when I read this the first time,
1167. 00:48:58 was recognizing like, well, I'm trying to help them.
1168. 00:49:02 I'm setting this all up so that they can be successful.
1169. 00:49:05 Don't they appreciate this?
1170. 00:49:06 And I get it now.
1171. 00:49:08 No, they don't, because I'm not giving them the opportunity
1172. 00:49:11 to ask for the help themselves or to do it themselves.
1173. 00:49:15 I am becoming the rescuer and elevating my status
1174. 00:49:19 and they're feeling like I'm speaking down to them
1175. 00:49:23 and all that kind of stuff.
1176. 00:49:24 So when you ask, how can I help,
1177. 00:49:28 or a more direct version he says,
1178. 00:49:30 "What do you want from me?"
1179. 00:49:32 You're allowing them to initiate
1180. 00:49:35 and say exactly what it is that they want you to do.
1181. 00:49:38 When they do that, then you have four different options
1182. 00:49:44 for responses that are available to you.
1183. 00:49:46 You can say, yes, you can say, no, I can't do that.
1184. 00:49:50 You can say, I can't do that, but I can't do something else.
1185. 00:49:52 Or you can say, let me think about it.
1186. 00:49:56 And I feel like while this seems overly simplified,
1187. 00:50:02 it is 100% true.
1188. 00:50:04 And so really, as I'm thinking about this,
1189. 00:50:07 I'm realizing that I make stuff way too complicated.
1190. 00:50:12 And I should really just be asking them,
1191. 00:50:14 okay, so what is it that you really want me to do here?
1192. 00:50:17 And then we can go from there.
1193. 00:50:19 Instead of trying to read minds and fill in the blanks.
1194. 00:50:22 You said it before and then you just reminded me
1195. 00:50:24 of it right here.
1196. 00:50:25 There's something in this book that's like the beauty
1197. 00:50:28 of the simplicity of it.
1198. 00:50:30 Like there's just something there that like, I mean,
1199. 00:50:33 it might turn other people off.
1200. 00:50:34 And other people might say, like, I could see us reading
1201. 00:50:37 a similar version of this book and saying like,
1202. 00:50:39 well, this guy's just way off, right?
1203. 00:50:40 Like, absolutely way off, not hitting any of the things.
1204. 00:50:42 But in this one, it's like, there's a beauty
1205. 00:50:44 in the simplicity.
1206. 00:50:45 So I mean, I'm resonating so far, but question six.
1207. 00:50:51 Is that yours or is that mine?
1208. 00:50:52 I think it's yours.
1209. 00:50:52 - That's me.
1210. 00:50:53 - So question six is the strategic question,
1211. 00:50:57 which is if you're saying yes to this,
1212. 00:51:00 what are you saying no to?
1213. 00:51:02 That's pretty brilliant.
1214. 00:51:03 And I like this approach.
1215. 00:51:04 This is something I think that I kind of naturally think
1216. 00:51:07 about a lot, but I like the way that he packages this.
1217. 00:51:11 There's a whole section in here where he talks about things
1218. 00:51:15 that are true, but useless.
1219. 00:51:16 And I love this.
1220. 00:51:17 This is actually one of my action items from this.
1221. 00:51:20 It's a good, busy, work smarter, not harder.
1222. 00:51:23 Be more strategic.
1223. 00:51:24 Those are all true, but useless statements.
1224. 00:51:26 So I want to actually ban, it's a good, busy.
1225. 00:51:30 - That one hit me too.
1226. 00:51:32 The exact same one hit me.
1227. 00:51:33 - Yeah, I feel like I end up saying that way too often.
1228. 00:51:39 Talk about how there's two types of no's.
1229. 00:51:41 There's a no of omission, and then there's a no of commission.
1230. 00:51:45 So no of omission means that I'm not gonna do this
1231. 00:51:48 just because I didn't think about it.
1232. 00:51:52 And I feel like if you find yourself getting overly busy,
1233. 00:51:57 this is the one that happens a lot.
1234. 00:51:59 You're not actively saying no, I'm not going to spend time
1235. 00:52:03 with my family, I'm not gonna sit down and eat dinner,
1236. 00:52:06 but you will, if you just continue to respond
1237. 00:52:08 to the emails that show up in your email inbox.
1238. 00:52:11 Then there's the no of commission,
1239. 00:52:13 which is where you actively, intentionally say,
1240. 00:52:17 no, I'm not going to do these things.
1241. 00:52:20 But the key principle here is that,
1242. 00:52:24 you are constantly saying no to things.
1243. 00:52:27 And so if you are,
1244. 00:52:32 this question is really just designed
1245. 00:52:33 to get you to recognize that.
1246. 00:52:35 And if you don't like the fact that you are saying no
1247. 00:52:38 to certain things, then maybe you should stop saying yes
1248. 00:52:42 to certain things.
1249. 00:52:43 - Yep, yep.
1250. 00:52:45 - Mentions that a yes is nothing without the no
1251. 00:52:47 that gives it boundaries and form.
1252. 00:52:50 And I think that's a pretty profound statement there.
1253. 00:52:56 We really need to be specific
1254. 00:52:58 and we really need to mean it when we say yes to things.
1255. 00:53:03 We can't just make yes the default.
1256. 00:53:05 It has to be the exception.
1257. 00:53:07 - Yeah.
1258. 00:53:09 The tie between stopping thinking did just,
1259. 00:53:14 yeah, I'm gonna say yes to this,
1260. 00:53:15 but like with every yes, there's a no,
1261. 00:53:16 with every, like they're attached together,
1262. 00:53:18 they're linked together.
1263. 00:53:20 'Cause I don't ever think about all the no's
1264. 00:53:23 that go along with my yes's and like that's a huge,
1265. 00:53:27 that's a huge one.
1266. 00:53:27 I would love to make that an action item.
1267. 00:53:29 I just don't know how.
1268. 00:53:30 Like I don't know how to make that an action item of like,
1269. 00:53:32 okay, every time I say yes,
1270. 00:53:33 do I have to like go into obsidian
1271. 00:53:35 and write down all the corollary no's
1272. 00:53:38 that are gonna come along with this?
1273. 00:53:39 That would work, but I don't think I'm gonna do it.
1274. 00:53:41 Like, but I think that would actually be
1275. 00:53:43 a really effective strategy before I would say yes
1276. 00:53:45 to any new thing.
1277. 00:53:48 Well, I think one of the ways that you can make sure
1278. 00:53:52 that this is working is just to like keep a log
1279. 00:53:56 of the things that you actually say no to.
1280. 00:53:59 Yeah.
1281. 00:54:00 My focus co-host, David Spardt,
1282. 00:54:02 has even created an app for this called the no list.
1283. 00:54:05 The no list, yeah.
1284. 00:54:07 So I think that's a good, a good barometer maybe
1285. 00:54:11 for if you're achieving balance with this,
1286. 00:54:14 but the other thing I wanted to mention
1287. 00:54:18 with this is like yeses,
1288. 00:54:20 the way you were describing this,
1289. 00:54:22 I felt like it very much was in alignment
1290. 00:54:25 with the way people say yes to too many things
1291. 00:54:30 is sort of the way that people have too many priorities.
1292. 00:54:33 They're probably correlated, you know?
1293. 00:54:36 And I remember when I read essentialism by Greg McKeown,
1294. 00:54:39 he actually defined priority
1295. 00:54:42 and it's like the first or prior thing.
1296. 00:54:44 It's singular, it's not multiple.
1297. 00:54:46 So all of these task managers, for example,
1298. 00:54:49 to have the multiple levels of priority,
1299. 00:54:51 they just drive me crazy because that's not
1300. 00:54:55 what that word means.
1301. 00:54:56 That's actually impossible.
1302. 00:54:58 If you have more than one priority, you have no priorities.
1303. 00:55:01 No priorities, yep.
1304. 00:55:02 Yeah, yeah, okay, the last thing I'll pull out of this,
1305. 00:55:07 this chapter was he gets into strategy a little bit here
1306. 00:55:11 and I like, you know, get my attention raises
1307. 00:55:16 anytime somebody says like,
1308. 00:55:18 okay, here's this concept called strategy.
1309. 00:55:20 And if you were gonna listen to anything about strategy
1310. 00:55:22 or if you were gonna read one book on strategy,
1311. 00:55:24 I always go, huh, if somebody's willing to make
1312. 00:55:27 like that strong of a statement,
1313. 00:55:28 like this is the thing to do on this.
1314. 00:55:30 And he talks about Roger Martin and A.G. Laffley's
1315. 00:55:33 playing to win.
1316. 00:55:34 Mike, have you read that book?
1317. 00:55:35 Do you have that book?
1318. 00:55:37 I think I have that book, but I haven't read it yet.
1319. 00:55:40 Okay, and so I put that in my list of,
1320. 00:55:44 okay, like at some point when I'm interested in strategy
1321. 00:55:47 or when I wanna go strategy more,
1322. 00:55:49 if this guy's saying it's, you know,
1323. 00:55:50 and again, he's built up this credibility with me.
1324. 00:55:54 I would not do this with just like every random person.
1325. 00:55:57 I'm not Mike Schmitz.
1326. 00:55:58 I mean, I'm not just gonna say like,
1327. 00:56:00 somebody recommends a book to me
1328. 00:56:01 and I just go out and buy it.
1329. 00:56:02 Like, sorry, like that's crazy.
1330. 00:56:05 But he then calls out,
1331. 00:56:07 they break strategy down into five core questions.
1332. 00:56:10 Winning aspiration and they're all,
1333. 00:56:13 well, sorry, four out of the five are what's
1334. 00:56:16 and one is a how.
1335. 00:56:17 Yeah.
1336. 00:56:18 So what's our winning aspiration?
1337. 00:56:20 What impact do you wanna have in the world?
1338. 00:56:21 Where will we play?
1339. 00:56:22 How will we win and then what management systems are required?
1340. 00:56:25 Like, I just think those are interesting questions
1341. 00:56:28 around strategy that this seems to check out, right?
1342. 00:56:32 Like, oh, okay, that would be an interesting book to read.
1343. 00:56:35 If we're gonna look at those five questions
1344. 00:56:37 and we're gonna analyze those from a strategy perspective,
1345. 00:56:40 I think that would be a cool book to read.
1346. 00:56:41 So I added one to the possible reading list
1347. 00:56:45 for a bookworm down in the future,
1348. 00:56:47 but not anytime soon.
1349. 00:56:49 All right.
1350. 00:56:50 All right, our last question is chapter seven.
1351. 00:56:54 It's the learning question.
1352. 00:56:56 And this question is very, very simple.
1353. 00:56:58 What was most useful?
1354. 00:57:01 All right, so, you know, when you get done,
1355. 00:57:03 you ask the what was most useful question.
1356. 00:57:05 Here he's talking about a concept called double loop learning
1357. 00:57:09 where basically you learn the thing
1358. 00:57:11 and then you kind of like relearn it or make connections
1359. 00:57:15 in my world.
1360. 00:57:16 And I think he talks about,
1361. 00:57:18 he uses this language as well.
1362. 00:57:19 But like, we would think about this as a reflection.
1363. 00:57:21 So we're gonna come in and it's like, okay,
1364. 00:57:24 you just did this design project.
1365. 00:57:25 You just did this report.
1366. 00:57:27 You just did whatever.
1367. 00:57:27 Let's reflect on what you learn.
1368. 00:57:29 Like, let's consider the things that you got out of this,
1369. 00:57:32 what could have gone better, what could have gone worse.
1370. 00:57:35 If you know anything about like agile scrum
1371. 00:57:38 and the sprint process and all of that stuff,
1372. 00:57:41 you have this intentional building session
1373. 00:57:43 at the end of agile scrum that is like lessons learned
1374. 00:57:47 and you're going back through this.
1375. 00:57:49 So he talks about it in terms of double loop learning.
1376. 00:57:53 And then he also talks about it in terms of like the ages model
1377. 00:57:56 where you have attention, generation, emotion and spacing
1378. 00:58:00 where this creating and sharing
1379. 00:58:03 and then revisiting different things
1380. 00:58:05 is one of the things he'll bring back in.
1381. 00:58:08 I think the last thing I'll say about this one
1382. 00:58:10 is that it helps in six different ways.
1383. 00:58:14 I'm not gonna go through all six of the ways
1384. 00:58:16 that he said that this, what was most useful helps.
1385. 00:58:19 But I liked this.
1386. 00:58:20 Like I thought this was good, you know, feedback, judgment.
1387. 00:58:24 It personalizes it.
1388. 00:58:25 I think this question is more effective
1389. 00:58:27 if I'm being very, very, if I'm being very critical here
1390. 00:58:31 and I don't mean that in the bad way.
1391. 00:58:33 What was most helpful, what was most useful for you?
1392. 00:58:36 All right, like, so if you added the for you there,
1393. 00:58:39 I think that makes that question stronger.
1394. 00:58:40 So what was most useful for you?
1395. 00:58:42 - Yeah, I like that.
1396. 00:58:45 He also mentions the OBT, the one big thing
1397. 00:58:47 which is worth remembering.
1398. 00:58:50 I think this is a cool concept.
1399. 00:58:51 So I do something a little bit different
1400. 00:58:54 but sort of related when I bring my book notes
1401. 00:58:58 into obsidian is I will force myself
1402. 00:59:01 to write a three sentence summary
1403. 00:59:03 of the entire book at the top.
1404. 00:59:05 Which is really just, okay, I've gone through all this stuff.
1405. 00:59:08 And even when I bring those things over,
1406. 00:59:10 I've reread all my notes.
1407. 00:59:12 There's a lot here.
1408. 00:59:14 How do I condense this down into something
1409. 00:59:16 that is like the elevator pitch version of this
1410. 00:59:19 so that it has a much better chance of sticking around.
1411. 00:59:25 I feel like it's easy to,
1412. 00:59:28 if you're gonna do a coaching call, for example,
1413. 00:59:30 or coaching meeting, even if it's a 10 minute meeting,
1414. 00:59:34 you may have a lot of notes that you've taken.
1415. 00:59:38 And at that point, you've got this list of notes,
1416. 00:59:42 you stick it in notion or something,
1417. 00:59:44 so you've got a record of it.
1418. 00:59:45 We can follow up on all these action items, right?
1419. 00:59:47 But people will not do anything with it.
1420. 00:59:52 You will have the same conversation the next time around.
1421. 00:59:55 - I've been there.
1422. 00:59:56 - Yeah, I've been there.
1423. 00:59:57 - Yeah.
1424. 00:59:58 So I feel like, again, pretty brilliant,
1425. 01:00:01 as we're walking away from this,
1426. 01:00:03 what is the one big takeaway
1427. 01:00:07 that you're gonna do something with?
1428. 01:00:09 And if that was the only thing that you took action on
1429. 01:00:12 from the whole coaching call,
1430. 01:00:13 but you did that every single time you had a meeting,
1431. 01:00:16 how different would your meetings be?
1432. 01:00:18 - Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
1433. 01:00:22 Okay, so Mike, this is where I need to ask you
1434. 01:00:26 how you wanna handle this every,
1435. 01:00:28 use every channel to ask a question.
1436. 01:00:30 - Yeah.
1437. 01:00:31 - I didn't get a lot on this, I get it,
1438. 01:00:33 and I understand that essentially it doesn't have
1439. 01:00:37 to be a one-on-one face-to-face kind of meeting
1440. 01:00:39 where I'm asking you these questions verbally,
1441. 01:00:40 I can do this via email.
1442. 01:00:42 I didn't get much other than that.
1443. 01:00:44 Like, don't ever hesitate to ask a question,
1444. 01:00:46 it's basically my takeaway from this last master class.
1445. 01:00:49 It's like, just ask, always ask,
1446. 01:00:52 always ask no matter how you need to ask.
1447. 01:00:53 - So this is, you know, the when I, instead of I will,
1448. 01:00:59 the format I have for this is when I get an email message
1449. 01:01:01 it triggers the advice monster.
1450. 01:01:03 Instead of writing out a long, thorough answer,
1451. 01:01:06 I will ask one of the seven questions.
1452. 01:01:08 I think that encapsulates it perfectly.
1453. 01:01:10 So he's given us these seven questions,
1454. 01:01:11 and I think in certain scenarios,
1455. 01:01:14 you could just work through all of these seven questions
1456. 01:01:18 in a single session.
1457. 01:01:20 But the brilliance of this is that he's assuming
1458. 01:01:25 you're gonna have regular back and forth conversation,
1459. 01:01:27 whether it is via email or via Slack
1460. 01:01:31 from people that you work with on a regular basis,
1461. 01:01:34 and they are going to ask you for things.
1462. 01:01:37 And based on the context, you can use one of these seven
1463. 01:01:42 questions to kind of flip the script
1464. 01:01:46 on the way that that conversation is going
1465. 01:01:49 and make it a much more productive conversation.
1466. 01:01:52 So this is, again, brilliant.
1467. 01:01:55 I'm overusing the word brilliant, but this is great
1468. 01:01:57 because I remember when I was in the digital marketing agency,
1469. 01:02:04 there's, I don't like the term managing from below,
1470. 01:02:12 but that's really what it kind of is.
1471. 01:02:15 You're not trying to manipulate the people above you,
1472. 01:02:19 but you recognize that there's people in positions
1473. 01:02:24 where they're focused on their objectives
1474. 01:02:26 and they're the boss, so they just ask for things.
1475. 01:02:29 And it's kind of, you may agree with things
1476. 01:02:35 in certain scenarios, but you kind of don't understand
1477. 01:02:38 how it impacts the person that you're making
1478. 01:02:40 that request to on a day-to-day basis.
1479. 01:02:42 If the CEO asks you to do something,
1480. 01:02:45 even though we've all agreed, we're only gonna check
1481. 01:02:48 our Slack messages a couple times a day,
1482. 01:02:51 once in the morning, once in the afternoon,
1483. 01:02:52 so we can focus on the important work.
1484. 01:02:54 If the boss asks me for something,
1485. 01:02:56 I feel like I gotta get back to him right away.
1486. 01:02:59 So it's like all the norms, all the conventions,
1487. 01:03:01 all the rules get broken unless you've really got a culture
1488. 01:03:03 that's reinforced that stuff.
1489. 01:03:05 And no, this is the way that we play by,
1490. 01:03:07 the rules that we play by and everybody plays
1491. 01:03:09 by those same rules.
1492. 01:03:11 So if you find yourself in a position
1493. 01:03:14 where it's like they're asking me to do this thing
1494. 01:03:17 and it feels like I want to do this thing
1495. 01:03:21 because they're asking me to do it,
1496. 01:03:22 but also this isn't really the best use
1497. 01:03:25 of my time, energy and attention right now.
1498. 01:03:29 Sort of the way out of that is to just throw it back at them
1499. 01:03:34 by asking one of these questions.
1500. 01:03:37 So I feel like this short little section
1501. 01:03:42 for most people who are not at the top
1502. 01:03:45 of the organizational chart,
1503. 01:03:48 this is where you get the most benefit
1504. 01:03:51 from this entire book.
1505. 01:03:53 'Cause you can instantly start doing this.
1506. 01:03:56 - Yeah.
1507. 01:03:58 Okay, so we go to the conclusion,
1508. 01:04:00 or so we're in the conclusion right now,
1509. 01:04:01 like so now we're officially properly in the conclusion.
1510. 01:04:04 And he says words here that I think are very, very valuable
1511. 01:04:07 and I think he said them before,
1512. 01:04:10 but they stuck more with me here
1513. 01:04:12 where he's talking about training managers
1514. 01:04:15 to be more coach-like and I think about management
1515. 01:04:19 and I think about managers
1516. 01:04:20 and I think about managers getting burned out
1517. 01:04:22 and managers being like, all I do is go to meetings
1518. 01:04:25 and managers being, all I do is solve other people's problems.
1519. 01:04:27 All I do is put out fires.
1520. 01:04:28 All I do is all I do is,
1521. 01:04:30 and I can't help but think, Mike,
1522. 01:04:32 that like if you do this,
1523. 01:04:35 he says the real secret sauce here is building curiosity.
1524. 01:04:38 Okay, like that's a way to perspective on this.
1525. 01:04:42 You're really teaching people how to solve their own problems
1526. 01:04:46 and you're teaching people to get better
1527. 01:04:48 at solving their own problems
1528. 01:04:49 and you're coaching them to then go do that,
1529. 01:04:52 which means this gets you out of the,
1530. 01:04:55 I've been putting out fires all day
1531. 01:04:57 and it gets you more into the,
1532. 01:04:58 I've coached and taught people how to put out their own fires.
1533. 01:05:02 I've coached and taught people how to bring me solutions
1534. 01:05:06 to where now as manager or as leader,
1535. 01:05:08 my job is to make the final decision
1536. 01:05:10 because the person can't,
1537. 01:05:12 like for whatever reason, whether they're role
1538. 01:05:14 or you know, whatever it is, they can't
1539. 01:05:15 or they realized in their solution after they've solved this,
1540. 01:05:19 they need me to do this, like they need my help
1541. 01:05:22 to go and solicit to the people above me
1542. 01:05:24 or whatever it might be.
1543. 01:05:26 Like, I just can't help but think that it's like these
1544. 01:05:29 and I don't know if these seven questions
1545. 01:05:31 are the best seven questions in the world,
1546. 01:05:33 but I can tell you like, I see the logical chain.
1547. 01:05:37 I see the argument here that says,
1548. 01:05:39 the reason why this is so effective
1549. 01:05:41 is because it puts more of the agency
1550. 01:05:46 on the people to do their own thing.
1551. 01:05:49 It takes them less on depending on me
1552. 01:05:53 and that's what I wanna do as a coach.
1553. 01:05:55 I wanna make you better at doing the job
1554. 01:05:59 and then I can do my job more effectively
1555. 01:06:01 and I'm just like, I mean, I know, like I was just like,
1556. 01:06:05 oh my gosh, this just makes sense.
1557. 01:06:08 Like this is like a, like this is cool.
1558. 01:06:10 Like I like this.
1559. 01:06:11 So like that was a big thing that came out
1560. 01:06:13 of the conclusion for me.
1561. 01:06:15 - Yeah, there's five different points
1562. 01:06:17 that you mentioned many coaching conversations have
1563. 01:06:20 and this I think really articulates the pain
1564. 01:06:24 that a lot of coaches, managers, leaders will experience.
1565. 01:06:29 Too much baggage, too much certainty,
1566. 01:06:31 wander off path too quickly,
1567. 01:06:33 work way too hard to get back on the path
1568. 01:06:35 and exhaustion at the end.
1569. 01:06:38 I've felt that for sure.
1570. 01:06:40 And I think the seven questions that he gives you here
1571. 01:06:45 plus using every channel to ask a question,
1572. 01:06:50 this is addressing the major issue
1573. 01:06:53 that you were just describing,
1574. 01:06:55 where if you are in a management position,
1575. 01:07:00 let's just say you're maybe not even a business owner.
1576. 01:07:05 Like there are people that you work with,
1577. 01:07:07 but if you have trouble delegating,
1578. 01:07:09 it's probably because you feel like you can do it better
1579. 01:07:13 or you can do it quicker than it would take you
1580. 01:07:16 to give it to somebody else to do, okay?
1581. 01:07:19 So step one is recognizing I can't do all this myself,
1582. 01:07:24 I'm going to delegate it.
1583. 01:07:25 What happens when you start delegating it though
1584. 01:07:28 is that people have questions
1585. 01:07:31 and that's where the advice monster stuff
1586. 01:07:33 is really easy to fall into.
1587. 01:07:36 So what he does here is I think he gives you
1588. 01:07:41 the quickest, most efficient way to navigate that
1589. 01:07:47 to the point where you are now no longer required
1590. 01:07:51 to do the thing, because that's really hard to do.
1591. 01:07:56 But if I were to summarize all of the advice in this book,
1592. 01:08:00 it's basically don't offer advice,
1593. 01:08:03 just ask questions, just ask these questions,
1594. 01:08:07 ask these questions all the time.
1595. 01:08:10 And then at the end of this section,
1596. 01:08:11 he talks about how you do need to find your own questions
1597. 01:08:14 and find your own voice.
1598. 01:08:15 But the real secret sauce he says is building
1599. 01:08:17 that habit of curiosity.
1600. 01:08:19 If you are trying to affect organizational change,
1601. 01:08:23 this is what you do.
1602. 01:08:25 This makes the biggest impact.
1603. 01:08:26 Is you build that habit of curiosity
1604. 01:08:28 and you empower the people to do the things
1605. 01:08:31 that you need them to do.
1606. 01:08:33 And if they need help, you let them ask for help
1607. 01:08:36 or you use that question, how can I help you?
1608. 01:08:40 What is it that you want me to do for you?
1609. 01:08:42 You know, that sort of thing.
1610. 01:08:45 But you don't just jump in, superman,
1611. 01:08:47 try to save the day because that just makes it harder
1612. 01:08:50 and it's gonna take longer to get to the point
1613. 01:08:52 where things are actually clicking.
1614. 01:08:55 - Absolutely.
1615. 01:08:56 Did you see at the end of this chapter
1616. 01:08:58 where he basically gave the bookworm reading list?
1617. 01:09:01 - Oh, I don't remember that.
1618. 01:09:02 No.
1619. 01:09:03 - He's like, if you could read a book on self-management,
1620. 01:09:06 blah, blah, blah, blah.
1621. 01:09:06 - Oh, yeah, I did see that.
1622. 01:09:08 - If you could read a book on organizational change,
1623. 01:09:09 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like,
1624. 01:09:10 and I was like, well, this is pretty much the bookworm shred.
1625. 01:09:14 That one bookworm shred, that one.
1626. 01:09:15 Or, you know, it's the, we should read that one.
1627. 01:09:17 We should read that one.
1628. 01:09:18 We should read that one.
1629. 01:09:19 Like, I just, I mean, it just, it doubled down,
1630. 01:09:22 tripled down, whatever you wanna say on the whole,
1631. 01:09:25 you know, this guy speaks our language.
1632. 01:09:27 Or, sorry, I shouldn't speak for both of us.
1633. 01:09:29 This guy speaks my language.
1634. 01:09:30 And I'm, I was a fan of what's going on here.
1635. 01:09:34 So, all right, Mike, I'm good.
1636. 01:09:36 I don't have anything else.
1637. 01:09:37 Is there anything else you wanna say about this one
1638. 01:09:38 before we move to action items?
1639. 01:09:40 - Nope, let's do it.
1640. 01:09:41 - All right, so action items.
1641. 01:09:42 I'm only gonna take on one action item from this book.
1642. 01:09:46 I want to take on more,
1643. 01:09:48 but I don't think that is a healthy thing
1644. 01:09:50 for me to do right now.
1645. 01:09:51 So, what I'm going to commit to is I'm going to commit to,
1646. 01:09:55 I wanna post these seven questions
1647. 01:09:58 and then probably Terra, the Terra model,
1648. 01:10:01 'cause I thought that was interesting.
1649. 01:10:02 I, like, just thinking through that one
1650. 01:10:04 and what it would mean.
1651. 01:10:06 Somewhere where I'll see them.
1652. 01:10:08 So, it's probably gonna be like on my desk at work,
1653. 01:10:11 or to, like, the bottom of my monitor,
1654. 01:10:14 because I just kinda wanna keep these things
1655. 01:10:16 rolling through my brain.
1656. 01:10:18 Like, I want to keep these questions rolling through my brain.
1657. 01:10:20 I coach students, I mean, not surprisingly, all the time.
1658. 01:10:24 I mentor students, I advise students, I coach students.
1659. 01:10:26 I did not wanna get into that conversation today
1660. 01:10:29 about what's the difference between coaching
1661. 01:10:30 and mentoring and advising and leading.
1662. 01:10:31 Like, I didn't wanna get into that.
1663. 01:10:32 Like, I just kinda wanted to let that ride.
1664. 01:10:34 But, like, these things,
1665. 01:10:37 these are things I do all the time.
1666. 01:10:39 And then, I think what's gonna happen
1667. 01:10:40 is if I make these more visible,
1668. 01:10:43 and then I use that kinda minimum product,
1669. 01:10:47 or minimum usage principle,
1670. 01:10:50 okay, I just ask this question.
1671. 01:10:52 And if it's there for me, it's like, okay.
1672. 01:10:54 How can I pop that question off to that student
1673. 01:10:57 and just see how it works?
1674. 01:10:58 And just see how it plays out.
1675. 01:10:59 So, that's what I'm committing to.
1676. 01:11:00 I'm gonna post the seven questions,
1677. 01:11:02 and I'm gonna kinda see, do they influence my interactions
1678. 01:11:07 with people that I coach, lead, mentor, advise?
1679. 01:11:09 That's the one I'm committing to.
1680. 01:11:10 What about you?
1681. 01:11:11 What are your action items?
1682. 01:11:12 All right, so I've got two.
1683. 01:11:14 The first one is to start asking the aw question,
1684. 01:11:18 which is, and what else?
1685. 01:11:20 And specifically with the different coaching scenarios
1686. 01:11:24 where I offer some sort of coaching inside of the library,
1687. 01:11:27 but I feel like there's probably other places
1688. 01:11:30 that I can use that as well.
1689. 01:11:33 But those specifically are the ones
1690. 01:11:34 that I want to address.
1691. 01:11:36 And then the other one was to ban
1692. 01:11:39 the true but useless statements,
1693. 01:11:41 specifically, it's a good busy.
1694. 01:11:43 Never wanting to hear myself say that again.
1695. 01:11:46 I said it like multiple times while I was reading this book
1696. 01:11:48 and I was like, ah, all right.
1697. 01:11:50 It's gonna frustrate itself.
1698. 01:11:51 All right, style and rating, it's my book.
1699. 01:11:54 I will start, Mike, you're not going to be surprised
1700. 01:11:57 by this one.
1701. 01:11:59 I am actually just trying to figure out
1702. 01:12:01 like how I don't give it a five.
1703. 01:12:05 Like, I just think this is a really good book.
1704. 01:12:08 It was concise, it was valuable.
1705. 01:12:12 I immediately see how it's going to impact my life
1706. 01:12:15 and I immediately see how it's going to be useful.
1707. 01:12:18 I by no means think these are the seven best questions
1708. 01:12:22 that have ever been asked in the history of the world.
1709. 01:12:24 I just don't think that's true.
1710. 01:12:26 But that wasn't my goal.
1711. 01:12:27 Like my goal wasn't going into this book
1712. 01:12:29 to thinking like, oh, he's gonna tell me
1713. 01:12:31 the seven questions that will change,
1714. 01:12:34 change the world and revolution.
1715. 01:12:35 No, it was a, how do we become a better coach?
1716. 01:12:38 And then he said, here are seven questions
1717. 01:12:40 that make you a better coach.
1718. 01:12:40 And I think the guy hit the nail on the head.
1719. 01:12:43 Like I think these are seven questions
1720. 01:12:46 that if you use them, no matter how you use them,
1721. 01:12:49 no matter how much you use them,
1722. 01:12:51 they will make you a better coach.
1723. 01:12:53 In terms of the style, I liked his writing style.
1724. 01:12:58 Like it didn't, by no means bothered me.
1725. 01:13:01 I thought it was clean.
1726. 01:13:02 I thought it was clear.
1727. 01:13:04 I understood what he was saying.
1728. 01:13:06 I think the biggest, how do I say this?
1729. 01:13:09 The biggest complaint and/or rub I have with the book.
1730. 01:13:12 But it's not even that big of a complaint.
1731. 01:13:14 So I don't even like using that word.
1732. 01:13:17 I didn't really think the like question masterclass thing
1733. 01:13:22 was structured well or organized well.
1734. 01:13:25 Like I thought that was like clunky and kind of weird.
1735. 01:13:29 I was fine with it.
1736. 01:13:30 It didn't distract me from the book.
1737. 01:13:32 I saw what he was doing after like the first two
1738. 01:13:34 or three of them. I was like, okay,
1739. 01:13:36 I get what we're doing now.
1740. 01:13:37 We're tying back into that habit thing
1741. 01:13:38 and we're gonna go from there.
1742. 01:13:40 But I just thought that could have been done better,
1743. 01:13:43 but it's not enough for me to knock it down a point
1744. 01:13:46 or even a half a point or anything like that.
1745. 01:13:48 So for me, this book's a five star book.
1746. 01:13:51 If you're interested in coaching yourself
1747. 01:13:54 or you're interested in coaching other people
1748. 01:13:57 or you're in a management role
1749. 01:13:58 where you interact with people a lot
1750. 01:14:00 and help them through coaching type situations,
1751. 01:14:03 I think the book is too easy to read not to read it.
1752. 01:14:07 Like I think you should just pick it up,
1753. 01:14:10 give it a shot and see what pieces of it
1754. 01:14:12 you can implement in your coaching strategy.
1755. 01:14:16 What about you? What's your thought?
1756. 01:14:18 - All right.
1757. 01:14:19 Well, I think I'm gonna meet you at the five stars.
1758. 01:14:25 I feel like this is a very applicable book
1759. 01:14:30 for just about anybody in the bookworm audience.
1760. 01:14:33 You don't have to be a manager.
1761. 01:14:36 You don't have to be a coach.
1762. 01:14:39 I think that he talks about this early on
1763. 01:14:43 about how you need a coaching habit.
1764. 01:14:45 That applies to everybody.
1765. 01:14:47 And if you're a parent,
1766. 01:14:50 if you're involved in a non-profit organization,
1767. 01:14:54 like a church or a ministry,
1768. 01:14:56 I mean, there's so many ways
1769. 01:14:59 you can apply these principles.
1770. 01:15:01 He makes it really easy to take the principles
1771. 01:15:05 from this book and start getting immediate benefit from them.
1772. 01:15:09 I mean, this book could have been,
1773. 01:15:11 I feel like a lot longer.
1774. 01:15:13 He could have dove a lot deeper into the philosophy
1775. 01:15:17 behind each one of these questions.
1776. 01:15:19 He kept it short, he kept it concise.
1777. 01:15:22 He's a very engaging writer.
1778. 01:15:24 He tells a lot of funny stories.
1779. 01:15:25 He's got a self-deprecating sense of humor.
1780. 01:15:28 Like there's one story in here.
1781. 01:15:30 I think it's maybe the conclusion where he talks about,
1782. 01:15:34 yeah, 'cause talk about how many coaching conversations
1783. 01:15:37 are harder than they need to be.
1784. 01:15:39 He goes camping and he gets lost.
1785. 01:15:42 And he's been walking for hours and he sets up camp.
1786. 01:15:46 Then he finds somebody stumbles onto his campsite
1787. 01:15:48 and he realizes that he's gone like a couple hundred yards
1788. 01:15:51 from where he parked his car
1789. 01:15:54 'cause he lost his way.
1790. 01:15:55 Like, I don't know, it's a really interesting read.
1791. 01:15:59 I think even if you have no interest in the topic,
1792. 01:16:03 you might still enjoy reading this one.
1793. 01:16:06 Yeah.
1794. 01:16:06 And I think that there's just so many ways
1795. 01:16:09 that this can benefit your life that it's worth the time
1796. 01:16:14 that you would invest to read it.
1797. 01:16:16 Again, it's pretty short.
1798. 01:16:18 I don't know.
1799. 01:16:20 Do you think you could probably finish it
1800. 01:16:21 in like two, three hours maybe?
1801. 01:16:23 Oh, yeah, if you're any kind of a normal to speedy reader,
1802. 01:16:28 you can easily do it in a couple hours.
1803. 01:16:30 Yeah, it's packaged really cleanly.
1804. 01:16:33 It's really easy to pick up and crank through it
1805. 01:16:40 and I feel like it's time well invested.
1806. 01:16:44 There's not much fluff, there's not much filler here.
1807. 01:16:49 We talk sometimes or I talk sometimes about people
1808. 01:16:52 and they're like signature books,
1809. 01:16:54 the book that they were born to write.
1810. 01:16:56 It feels like, and he's got other books out there
1811. 01:16:58 so maybe he would disagree with this now,
1812. 01:17:00 but I feel like this is the one, you know?
1813. 01:17:04 You can tell this is a signature book.
1814. 01:17:11 So yeah, and it's like the coaching habit.
1815. 01:17:15 If you were to ask someone,
1816. 01:17:19 I wanna get better at coaching.
1817. 01:17:20 What book do I read?
1818. 01:17:23 It's right there in the title.
1819. 01:17:25 It's kind of unique.
1820. 01:17:26 I don't think there's many that you could do that.
1821. 01:17:27 There's a handful, I think, over the course
1822. 01:17:30 of all the books that we've read for a book where it's like,
1823. 01:17:32 well, I would recommend this one for someone
1824. 01:17:35 because they're approaching this specific way.
1825. 01:17:38 This is like the cleanest.
1826. 01:17:41 I need help with X, what do I do?
1827. 01:17:43 And then you read this book and it gives you an instant upgrade
1828. 01:17:50 to the leadership coaching conversations that you have.
1829. 01:17:55 Yeah, even if it's not something that you feel like
1830. 01:17:57 I need to address this problem in my life,
1831. 01:18:01 I think anybody benefits from reading this.
1832. 01:18:03 - I agree.
1833. 01:18:05 Mike, did you recommend this to us?
1834. 01:18:07 Did this come from you or did I just randomly find this one?
1835. 01:18:10 - You came across this and when you came across it,
1836. 01:18:12 I was like, oh yeah, I did read that book.
1837. 01:18:14 That would be really good.
1838. 01:18:15 So I sort of forgot about it for a while.
1839. 01:18:18 But this is one I completely fell into and man, am I glad I did,
1840. 01:18:21 right?
1841. 01:18:22 Whatever recommendation engine put this in front of my face,
1842. 01:18:24 I am grateful for it because I just think this is a great book.
1843. 01:18:27 Okay, so let's put the coaching habit on the shelf.
1844. 01:18:32 Mike, you have the next book, What's Next?
1845. 01:18:34 - I do.
1846. 01:18:35 The next book that we are going to read is gonna be interesting.
1847. 01:18:40 It is The Science of Storytelling by Will Store, S-T-O-R-R.
1848. 01:18:45 And I'm not sure if you've looked at this one yet.
1849. 01:18:47 Have you?
1850. 01:18:48 - I have not.
1851. 01:18:49 I haven't had a chance to look at it yet.
1852. 01:18:50 - So it's basically a, it's a book,
1853. 01:18:55 but it's essentially a creative storytelling class.
1854. 01:19:00 So I think this one, this could go one of two directions.
1855. 01:19:09 This could be either just like way over our heads
1856. 01:19:12 and we didn't know what we got into when we started this
1857. 01:19:15 because who takes a creative storytelling class?
1858. 01:19:20 At least with like Matthew Dixon's story worthy,
1859. 01:19:22 it's like, hey, you should just get better at telling stories
1860. 01:19:24 'cause this will benefit your everyday life.
1861. 01:19:31 But also like, I think that's a really cool premise.
1862. 01:19:35 If you've got someone who has taught
1863. 01:19:36 like a master class version of something
1864. 01:19:38 and then they wrote a book about it,
1865. 01:19:40 that's kind of cool.
1866. 01:19:42 Yep.
1867. 01:19:43 - I'm excited for it.
1868. 01:19:44 I like different styles of books, so I'm excited for it.
1869. 01:19:48 - All right, what's up with that?
1870. 01:19:49 - I'm up after that, this is the six types
1871. 01:19:53 of working genius by Patrick Lencioni.
1872. 01:19:58 This is a book from a couple years ago,
1873. 01:20:00 but Mike mentioned earlier when we got it,
1874. 01:20:04 when we were talking about what my next book would be
1875. 01:20:07 that basically this seems to be where Lencioni has gone.
1876. 01:20:10 Like that's like kind of his bread and butter now,
1877. 01:20:12 what he's really focusing on.
1878. 01:20:13 So I think this will be fun, the description of it,
1879. 01:20:18 where he basically talks about these six different types
1880. 01:20:22 of people that you would work with
1881. 01:20:25 and the model for ranking them and stuff.
1882. 01:20:27 I think it sounds like an interesting book,
1883. 01:20:28 so I'm excited to branch into this one.
1884. 01:20:31 - I am a big fan of Patrick Lencioni, by the way.
1885. 01:20:34 Five Disfunctions of a Team is like one of my favorite books
1886. 01:20:37 of all time, and I know some people have like PTSD
1887. 01:20:41 from that being brought up in their corporate environments.
1888. 01:20:44 I've heard stories of people who are like
1889. 01:20:47 their leadership teams, bring a whole like boxful,
1890. 01:20:53 these books to a meeting, like you people are dysfunctional
1891. 01:20:55 here, read this, like that's not what it's about.
1892. 01:20:59 - But Patrick Lencioni's style is just so interesting.
1893. 01:21:03 - And I've never read any of, I've heard about him
1894. 01:21:06 and I've heard he writes like good books,
1895. 01:21:07 I've never read any of his books though.
1896. 01:21:09 - So most of his books are fables.
1897. 01:21:11 They're like, even the Five Disfunctions of a Team,
1898. 01:21:14 it's a framework that he's teaching there,
1899. 01:21:17 but he teaches it through a narrative, through a story,
1900. 01:21:20 and then at the end he kind of ties it all together.
1901. 01:21:23 So this will be interesting.
1902. 01:21:25 This is a little bit of a diversion, I feel like,
1903. 01:21:29 because he's just straight up productivity book style,
1904. 01:21:32 teaching us the framework, but.
1905. 01:21:35 - All right, Mike, do you have any gat books for,
1906. 01:21:38 between now and next time?
1907. 01:21:40 - Ooh, yes, actually I just finished one.
1908. 01:21:45 I didn't finish Walden, but I did finish,
1909. 01:21:49 I did finish predictable profits by Stu McLaren.
1910. 01:21:54 And Stu McLaren is the guy behind membership.io,
1911. 01:21:57 so he's kind of a membership guy.
1912. 01:21:59 And pretty cool profits is really all about like,
1913. 01:22:02 you're trying to start a membership community
1914. 01:22:04 and he talks you through everything
1915. 01:22:06 that you might possibly want to know.
1916. 01:22:08 The part of this that really I liked though,
1917. 01:22:11 was the fourth part, which is,
1918. 01:22:13 okay, you've got your membership set up,
1919. 01:22:15 like how do you deliver the content
1920. 01:22:20 or the coaching, whatever, in that membership
1921. 01:22:23 in a way where your members get the most out of it.
1922. 01:22:27 That was really good.
1923. 01:22:28 It definitely went along with some of the stuff
1924. 01:22:31 that talked about in the coaching habit here.
1925. 01:22:34 And really it couples with something I picked up
1926. 01:22:37 at the new media summit,
1927. 01:22:39 which is that people don't want information,
1928. 01:22:40 they want transformation.
1929. 01:22:42 Like he talks about, you don't want a whole bunch of courses,
1930. 01:22:46 you want simple frameworks that you're leading people through
1931. 01:22:48 and you want to deliver results as opposed to,
1932. 01:22:51 hey, there's more stuff that you can do.
1933. 01:22:54 And it's really got me thinking about changes
1934. 01:22:56 that I want to make to the library, so.
1935. 01:22:59 - Well, in that statement right there,
1936. 01:23:01 I didn't put it together the first time you said it,
1937. 01:23:03 but people don't want information,
1938. 01:23:04 they want transformation.
1939. 01:23:05 Man, I see that with my students all the time too.
1940. 01:23:08 Like they don't need another class
1941. 01:23:09 where somebody's a lecture in Adam and mare, mare, mare,
1942. 01:23:11 like they want to be better at what they're thinking,
1943. 01:23:15 they want to have a new skill.
1944. 01:23:16 Like that's a really cool phrase.
1945. 01:23:20 So thanks for that one.
1946. 01:23:21 Okay, so mine would be next, it's homie.
1947. 01:23:26 Sojourners and strangers.
1948. 01:23:28 Again, it's a theology book.
1949. 01:23:30 They're gonna be theology books
1950. 01:23:32 until the end of April.
1951. 01:23:34 I'm slightly behind on my theology books right now
1952. 01:23:37 because of all the other things that are happening in life,
1953. 01:23:40 but you know what, we're just gonna keep plowing.
1954. 01:23:42 We're gonna keep pushing through
1955. 01:23:43 and everything's gonna go.
1956. 01:23:44 So Mike, if I'm boring you with all of my doctorate
1957. 01:23:48 and theology books, I'm sorry,
1958. 01:23:50 but that's where it's gonna stay.
1959. 01:23:52 It's gonna stay away. - It's all right, it's all right.
1960. 01:23:54 - Okay, so thanks for listening.
1961. 01:23:57 If you are interested in more of what we do,
1962. 01:24:00 we recorded a slightly longer pro show before this show.
1963. 01:24:04 It was, we were talking about using LLMs
1964. 01:24:08 and using AI to create cool things
1965. 01:24:10 and how we've been exploring that.
1966. 01:24:12 So if you're interested in that, you can check that out.
1967. 01:24:16 It's through our Patreon membership.
1968. 01:24:18 You go to patreon.com/bookwormfm
1969. 01:24:20 or you can go to bookworm.fm/pro.
1970. 01:24:23 $7 a month, not only do you get the additional content
1971. 01:24:27 that we throw in the front of the show,
1972. 01:24:29 but you also get a bootleg that's released right after,
1973. 01:24:32 so we take the live recording and we dump it down
1974. 01:24:35 and we turn it loose quickly.
1975. 01:24:38 You get a wallpaper, a bookworm wallpaper,
1976. 01:24:40 and then Mike has generously offered us
1977. 01:24:42 his reading masterclass from the library.
1978. 01:24:45 So you can take that, Mike, I forget how many hours that is.
1979. 01:24:49 It's like two or three hours, isn't it?
1980. 01:24:50 Something like that. - Yeah, it was
1981. 01:24:52 almost three hours, I believe.
1982. 01:24:54 - Yeah, so you can take his reading masterclass as well
1983. 01:24:57 for that.
1984. 01:24:58 But if you're interested in supporting the show,
1985. 01:25:00 it helps with servers and websites and all of those things
1986. 01:25:03 and memberships to different things,
1987. 01:25:04 but we would greatly appreciate that.
1988. 01:25:06 And to those who do support us, we thank you so much.
1989. 01:25:09 - All right, so Corey is too modest.
1990. 01:25:11 The Pro Show, he built a plugin that takes Obsidian Tasks
1991. 01:25:15 and puts them in Omnifocus, but there's a really cool,
1992. 01:25:18 super awesome, special feature
1993. 01:25:22 that you'll have to listen to the Pro Show to get.
1994. 01:25:23 Corey, I'm gonna put you on the spot here.
1995. 01:25:25 Are you willing to share that plugin
1996. 01:25:27 with the people who join the Bookworm Pro membership?
1997. 01:25:31 - I am 100% willing to share that with them.
1998. 01:25:34 The other thing this will let me do
1999. 01:25:35 and this will tie into the Pro Show stuff,
2000. 01:25:38 it'll let me talk to LLMs and Claude
2001. 01:25:41 about how you post a plugin publicly, right?
2002. 01:25:45 Like, that'll be fun too.
2003. 01:25:48 Or I'll get the demo with some other people
2004. 01:25:51 before I post it publicly, so that'll be fun.
2005. 01:25:53 - All right, well there, you heard it here first, folks.
2006. 01:25:56 If you want Corey's awesome plugin,
2007. 01:25:58 then sign up to support the show, we'd really appreciate it.
2008. 01:26:02 - Here's what I'll tell you,
2009. 01:26:03 if we get one new member, I will put it on the community,
2010. 01:26:06 I will submit it to do community plugin.
2011. 01:26:09 Let's see if it can become a community plugin.
2012. 01:26:11 - No, I think you should just throw it up in the Patreon.
2013. 01:26:13 - Oh yeah, okay, I can throw it in the Patreon for sure.
2014. 01:26:15 Yeah, absolutely.
2015. 01:26:16 - All right, cool, so Bookworm.fm/Pro,
2016. 01:26:19 if you're reading along with us,
2017. 01:26:21 pick up the Science of Storytelling by Will Store
2018. 01:26:25 and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.