#597 How thinking inside the box will lead to more opportunities for your squiggly career.

0:00Hi, I'm Helen. And I'm Sarah. And you're listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we borrow brilliance from things we are watching at home or reading on the way to work or talking about with each other. Just random things that inspire us and help us think about different ideas that you can put into action with your career. And today is one of the slightly more, I don't know, left field, I don't know what to call it. What are we borrowing brilliance from today sarah a box a box a box it will make sense when we get tell us a bit more about the box so people know where we're going with it well um the more sort of conventional answer is a box and a book maybe a box and a book okay so david epstein who wrote range um who's been on the podcast before yeah um has a new book out uh he doesn't write books very often actually he's not someone who churns them out all the time maybe like us i was about to say who are you comparing to the people that have produced three books since 2020 yeah there's reasons for that but anyway um but he doesn't write he you know he i can't remember when rage came out but it would have been a little while ago now um and he's always really thoughtful and well researched and his new book is called inside the box how constraints make us better and so you know there are some people you think whatever they write i would always read and i feel like he is he is one of those people yeah it's a good question actually who are those people amy edmondson linda gratton yeah adam grant i do i learned to say i do lead to all those people um because you know that's what you're kind of what you're interested in adam morgan who will come on to today i'd always read anything he'd written um but the idea of the book is that constraints can work for you and actually help to make you more creative and he starts off by saying actually you know like you know matrix where it's like, imagine there is no spoon.

1:52Imagine there is no box. Did she say imagine there is no spoon? Yeah, from Matrix. Spoon? Is there a spoon in the Matrix? Yeah, she, you know, the bendy spoon. Okay, I've got a nine-year-old who's got quite into Matrix and I feel like I might have got quite... That's so funny. Because normally people say, like, red pill, blue pill when they're talking about the Matrix. That's like a next level. The spoon thing is quite... I feel like that is quite a big moment in the film. Definitely. so we'll get distracted this is where this is where our podcast goes off the rails okay no we'll go back to the box okay right first of all so i'm matching there is no box yes i got it um which i have to say i find quite appealing like at least on the surface i'm like endless options blank piece of paper infinite you can you can do what you want go where you want and actually I think what people find is that when that is their context actually it can end up being demotivating it can be overwhelming and there is an example in the book of like a tech company where they did have like endless resources yeah um a lot of the people I think were like x Apple or they'd all come from this place and they kind of came up with this company got magic in it um that I'd never heard of but they were like they got all these brilliant people so much investment and sort of just couldn't couldn't produce anything because it was almost just like they could just do whatever they wanted um and that constraints actually can be quite helpful is it like you know when you're at the supermarket and there's like too many too much too much choice and then you get like the analysis paralysis thing and people can't make the choice whereas much easier if you just got a couple a couple of variants to pick from yeah and i think the interesting thing in the in the book if you do read it is there are loads of stories and examples of when constraints have made people more creative um and i think if we're thinking like well why why should we care about this like why does this matter in the context of our squiggly career you and i talk a lot about i think creative thinking which is something that is relevant in all of our roles feels like it's more important than ever and if we want to get better at creative thinking how we approach constraints is one way one way to do that have some questions and reflections on this um because i'll share some fun examples i've got some fun examples before we get very practical okay do you want my questions reflections first okay questions first um my reflections are um that creativity in the context of squiggly careers is super useful because if you're going to have a career as individual as you are which is what we want we want people to kind of let go the idea that there's only one way to succeed I think then you working out what matters most to me and thinking creatively about the different ways you can get to that is really really important you you can create more choice and I think that leads to more resilience so I think it is a it's a super important skill in a squiggly career um my question was do you think so I was thinking when you're talking about the box and I was thinking about okay the box in the context of because I'm hearing you saying actually some boxes can be good yeah and so I was thinking oh but are there good boxes and bad boxes because I was like oh if I felt boxed in so I might feel boxed in if I was micromanaged or if I was under I don't know under so much pressure I didn't have time to be creative or and then I was thinking oh some are are there some good boxes, so constraints that serve you, and are there some bad boxes, so constraints that are hard to overcome?

5:31I've not read the book, so I was just wondering whether you'd come to any conclusions on that. So he doesn't talk about good and bad boxes, which may or may not surprise you. He didn't go, well, there are bad boxes and good boxes. I think he might argue that particularly your, actually maybe both examples, it you can't change if you're being micromanaged right you can't change your manager that's a that's a constraint that you've kind of got to live with yeah and you talked about time pressure and again usually you can't create more time and so it would be almost being like well I this box is the reality so it's actually like how do you respond how do you approach that rather than feeling like because I could feel boxed in or I could try and think creatively within the box i'm in kind of within that box it's an interesting one isn't it because i'm like i'm someone who loves a blank piece of paper so i don't want to be boxed in or put in any box i like the idea of kind of starting from scratch but then when you do think about it i think there are two ways of thinking about constraints one that we've explored a bit more before with adam with adam morgan which is constraints that get imposed on you which are both your examples there so typically time money people and when those constraints come your way they're not things that you would choose but how you respond matters so that's where we've talked before about being stubbornly adaptive using things like propelling questions and statements that's episode 256 and i would just say for listeners we will link to that in the pod sheet so the pod sheet comes with every episode uh you we post about it on the squiggly careers page on linkedin you can find it on our website amazingif.com but we will link to it there and put it in the show notes as well um and i am a massive fan of adam's work it's really influenced us and i think it's it's super useful um and a good example of something that really creative that came out of a constraint imposed on someone uh that is in the book is you know dr zeus yes um green eggs and ham which we're going to talk about so that book came from a bet from their editor bennett surf i'm going to say as a pronunciation bet him 50 that he couldn't write an entire book using 50 different words so green eggs and ham has got 50 distinct words repeated throughout the book sam i am yeah i mean i've read that oh my god really took me back the old green eggs and ham um but that became one of the best-selling children's books of all time only 50 words sorry 50 distinct words so the book is longer than 50 words but it's the same 50 words repeated which i think when you do read it out you're like like, all right, we're still on the old green eggs and ham.

8:11Like, yeah, said Sam, Ham, Graham, yeah. But the point there, and apparently I think that was quite a kind of famous publishing example, is that constraint wasn't... Led to creativity. Led to creativity. That resulted in a book that you can remember having not read it for a long time, like amazing. Millions of people have read. And so there are these constraints that sort of come your way that you probably not expected. Then I think, and I found this the more interesting part part of David's work, probably because it was newer to me and I feel like it's less explored, is constraints that you choose.

8:45So this is you making a decision as part of how you work to actually impose constraints on yourself, which I think I've thought about a lot less because I've thought a lot about, you know, how do you respond, but less about, oh, do I want to give myself some constraints? And my favourite example was Virginia Woolf, so another publishing example. She read, she'd written a book and somebody had critiqued that book and said uh feels like it's a bit out of sync with like where the world is right now and actually she agreed with it and agreed that it was almost like too neat this book was kind of too neat and started imposing her own creative constraints like almost like refusing to write in certain ways she started doing all these different short stories and she went on to them write some of her most I think sort of pioneering work like probably no surprise because you'd sort of started to do all of this and so that's the sort of the framing for our conversation today I and I had to work quite hard I've had to think about this quite a lot of like how might I then start to apply some constraints to myself so that I can think more creatively about my squiggly career that was sort of my own well that's nice that's a we should probably call the podcast that okay I can't remember what I called it but yeah constraints, creating constraints to think differently about my career development or something.

10:10Yeah. Okay. So this is what we're going to do. Yes. Um, and yeah, it's interesting. Like some podcasts we research and very quickly, you know, exactly what you're going to do. I think I came up with about five different versions of like, how do we, how do we make this useful? Um, which is good. It's like, it's good to, good to explore. So what I have done is I have taken the five skills that we talk about in the squiggly career and then added one because I wanted to do learning because I wanted to add in learn like a lobster is like a uber skill taking a skill I have made up a constraint that then you and I are going to play with and be like oh we've created the constraints that I'm saying I've created it and then said okay well what would you what would you choose like what would you do so let's see let's see okay see if this works so I'm going to start with learning as our sort of master skill before I go to the five skills um and I've tried to make every constraint different so that if you're listening you can then also start like playing around with you know different different ones that you might want to have a go at so with learning you've got 50 pounds to spend on something to support your learning this month what will you invest in um before before i answer that i think we should do this with our team like they've got a whole month to do it and to see who kind of makes the 50 pounds not as a competition but like creatively you can't spend more but ideally you also don't really spend less you know like You'd want to spend as close to£50 as possible.

11:32I kind of like who's learned the most from what they've... The biggest return on your learning£50 investment. Yeah, yeah. I feel like it would be really good. Oh, my answer might not be very good, but I'd enjoy it. I would, I'd buy a book. It's like on a topic that I was really curious about. So I'd actually really enjoy it. I'd go physically to the bookshop as part of my£50. I'd go physically, open mind. And I would go and buy a book in the business and self-development section, but one that I've not got. and that would cost me probably, I don't know. £20? Yeah,£15 to£20. So I'd do that, read.

12:06That's the first part of my month because I've got a month, right? Yeah. So I'm going to read that beginning and then I'm going to spend the rest of my money taking somebody who's an expert in the area I'm reading about out for lunch. And I would basically take... I had not even considered going out for lunch. But I would take what I... I'd make it like a learning lunch. you know like you're an expert in this topic that i've been reading about and i'd and i would read with that in mind like what questions have i got that i could talk to somebody about and then i would because i would enjoy you have to choose your restaurant depending on yeah how much money i love all of that i would love i'd be like okay so i've got 30 pounds so i'd be looking for a set menu yes somewhere central maybe tapas and probably let the other person know like you can't can't have the wine please could you just please we've got 30 pounds or whatever to spend you've got some choices to make we could have a glass of wine this is a constrained lunch we've got two lots of tapas and a glass of wine or no wine before lots of tapas you could eat some more food so yeah but i would actually quite enjoy like the even just talking about the creativity of like what's the book who's the person where are we gonna go yeah i would i would really enjoy that now would that be be a very enjoyable learning experience but could somebody make the 50 pounds go further in terms of learning potentially.

13:24But I would, yeah, that would be what I would do. What about you? I would, actually not dissimilar to you, but I would go to something like an event. My starting places are How To Academy, Intelligence Squared, 5x15. Yeah. They're ones that I go to. And I would try and go with someone. How much are the tickets? They are varied depending on basically how famous the person is typically. um renee brown's probably not in budget no but yeah they probably she probably wouldn't do any of those but you know they're probably 20 pounds 25 pounds so i think i'm hoping that i can get two tickets and then i would go with somebody i haven't factored in things like coffee like you know like i know coffee's allowed no coffee's allowed bring a bottle of water so i need to make sure it's one some of them would be less than that some of them might be more like 15 pounds but because you do want to have a chat i was thinking i do want to have a chat with that person afterwards and you sort of need to factor in like the the coffee well i feel like i wouldn't expect this to happen but i feel like you're the one that's stretching the budget i normally expect it to be me um but i think the what would be fun about doing that one as a team is being like you know like who could get closest to the 50 yeah and then just everybody also sharing like whatever they i definitely think we should do this as a team activity that's a good one so that's a good constraint also shows you how you can be quite playful with constraints have fun with constraints but now we're going to go through the five skills so i'm going to start with strengths which you'll be happy about yes um because you always like oh no it's me who likes starting with strengths you like starting with values i'm happy about any strength you can make stronger you always want to start with values and i always want to start with strengths so i'll explain that with a little bit more because this is ongoing ongoing thing so we wrote a book called the squiggly career which includes the five skills succeed in squiggly career which we're going to about now.

15:13And Sarah and I are in a continual debate about which skill comes first. I mean, it's not like a particularly emotive debate. It's more of a funny thing now. And I always think values should come first because I think that that is the heart of a squiggly career is knowing what motivates and drives you and everything builds from there. And I don't think Sarah disagrees with some of what I'm saying, but your perspective, I think, is that strength is just an easier place to start. You can kind of make momentum more quickly. And actually, when someone's about to invest in their career, that is not a bad thing for somebody.

15:41So in the book, Sarah won, but in every session I ever deliver for companies. I can't believe you do that. Every time. Every time I start with values. Well, to be fair, I let people vote, so I start wherever people want to go. But yeah, to be fair, I put strengths first. It's fine. So you can only work on making one strength stronger for the rest of 2026. So for the next six months, which one do you choose? So making a strength spikier. super strength territory i find this hard so you're i think for this you have to start with the what do you want to be known for yeah um so if i think about that i think about well i want to be known for careers and career development i want to be known for creating clarity so being really clear in my communications in lots of different ways and i want to be known for being a bit of a catalyst you know somebody who takes an idea and kind of moves it forward and if i think about which one i want to make oh it's so hard because i'm so that's what i want to be known for Yeah, it is.

16:38It is really hard. I'm like, I want to be better at all of them. But I think the clarity one is interesting for me, just to think about where I'm communicating and what does, like, you know, being 10 % better on my clarity, what does that actually look like? And where am I maybe going backwards? I feel like actually sometimes with AI sometimes I think maybe I'm going backwards because sometimes I will communicate something I'll get an AI output and I'll send it and I'm like oh could I be clear I know your AI communication is very clear well maybe I should get some feedback though that's another thing maybe I'm operating with some assumptions so I think that I just think the clarity of communication thing is so important and it's so hard and I if I could get even better at it which I definitely think there's room for me to do that could have a like quite a big impact on the people that i yeah the ripples if i think about who i'm communicating with on a podcast in a newsletter on a platform to our team to our learners there's lots of places where me getting better at clarity could have a positive ripple effect that one it's a good one um i was actually saying to you last week that i know when ai when you used ai oh i want to play that game i really want to play that game and we were like well let's let's let's play the game um but i also think clarity shows up in lots of different ways doesn't it so it might it's interesting to think about like where is it working well where are your even better ifs um and i like your ripple effect thing of like actually if i got a lot better at this who else would it help yeah go on yours um mine was ideas okay so did you have to go through the same thought process as me that what do i want to be known you know to think what strengths i want to make stronger to just go ideas or did you no i just went ideas okay i could get there because that's one of the things you want to be known for yes and how did you filter how did you get to ideas over the other ones um energy and enjoyment okay so you'd get a good return on think more selfish than you're thinking less ripple effect and more internal ripples um yeah what do i what do i enjoy and perhaps what makes me which is perhaps slightly less selfish what makes me uniquely useful because I do think when I am at my best is when I am collecting and connecting dots in a way that I do think I can do that perhaps other people can't yeah um particularly I've spoken to Jim Collins recently for people who've listened to that episode where he talks about what makes a life and where people have the most impact and what they should be giving he kind of creates this connection as well around uh he actually used the word super strengths which I which I liked um and so i think for me it's something i think i've got that i don't always see everybody else finds easy to do um and i take a lot i do take a lot of like it gives me a lot of energy a lot of enjoyment um and it's also easy to forget when you know like the day-to-day can kind of get get in the way and stuff did having a constraint help you to answer that because i feel like you would have come up with that answer anyway no no i think i could i think i would have come up with that i I think you were making more of a choice there.

19:47Yeah. Whereas I suppose I didn't find that. You'd already just gone to an answer. Yeah. So I think, yeah, it's just a reflection on when the constraints help you. You've already got an answer. It's not really helping you. But if you've got choices that can make you, it could be a filter. Values. Yes. You've got 15 minutes a week. No more, no less. Yeah. To add more of one of your values, like into your work or your life, because we know we don't have work values and home values. so like how are you using that 15 minutes so i suppose here you've got to both choose a value yes and then choose how you're going to use that 15 minutes yeah which this one i do find i did find oh i've got to make some trade-offs here this one i found easier yeah interesting because i because i'm like 15 minutes that's the constraint that you're working with right so i've not got long and i know my values are just top of mind all the time because i kind of work with them so my values for context are freedom, grace, energy and achievement.

20:42And I thought, oh, what would make the biggest difference? 15 minutes. I would do a 15 minute freedom finder. This is what I'm going to do. I'm excited about this one. So this is basically me going in my diary. I would need to do this probably a week in advance because I think if I do it in week, it's really annoying for people. But I feel like sometimes I associate freedom a lot of the time with time. And so if my time has been taken up I feel like my freedom has been taken away does that make sense so my 50 minute freedom finder would be like going through my diary and working out how do I increase the amount of freedom so reduce the amount of time that's taken increase the amount of time I have to a choice and I've tried to do it without giving it that name but I find it really that constraint helps me think really creatively and I think I could communicate that to the team that that is what I'm going to do I think what I need to do is do it in advance because if you do it in week it's really annoying like yeah cancel meetings are important to other people whereas if I start to do it maybe like two weeks in advance it's easier to sort of move things around to create it and then maybe I could create some principles that mean that other people could work my freedom I'm very excited about the 15 minute freedom finder I think listening to you there that your answer to that one is definitely creative thinking you know when we were talking about like what are the what's the outcome from a constraint like that's made you yeah creatively and like come up with an idea and get quite excited about it um mine was slightly duller I think probably it's like I didn't come up with some sort of concept and something that got alliteration but mine was to spend 15 minutes reading like one article or something that I've printed off I often find And you know when people write an article and it's quite long, I really struggle to read them online and properly engage with it.

22:36And I think partly because you do get distracted by other tech, it's so easy to then just click on your emails, even though I don't have notifications and stuff. And so I have started, and I appreciate it's not very environmentally friendly, albeit I'm using recycled paper, so maybe it's okay. Yeah. You know, I print it off on my printer. Me too. And then I've now got a stapler again. and i staple it but i that 15 minutes needs to be spent somewhere other than my desk okay because i actually really struggled to focus for 15 minutes like sitting at my desk where i would do everything else yeah all the doing work yeah um and i do have other spaces i could go and sit what's the value learning learning okay learning um so my values are achievement ideas learning and variety and I feel confident that I always have 15 minutes.

23:27Yeah. Because it's only, it's in a week, right? So it's not like I have 15 minutes in a week and I don't even, I'm not even sure I'd need to diarise it. What I would have to do is have the article sitting there. Yeah. Stapled, like ready to go with my highlighter. If I showed you what I've done at the moment, because I was thinking about this, I printed off Linda Grattan, who has been on the podcast talking about 100 Year Life. um she wrote an article about like the words and language that we use for the times so I was like oh okay I really want to read that properly I printed it off hadn't got a stapler so now like there's just bits of paper floating around I'm sure you're on the half loves this just not looking oh he doesn't go in that room yeah it's not looking in the room I can see it I can send your picture um so that was one for me and actually I found that it's interesting that constraint made me then come up with something that feels really motivating yeah I don't think I've thought that creatively um but actually as i was going i've been like i said i've had a play with this idea in a few different ways i think sometimes you think creatively i think sometimes you think productively um and they can be two kind of different things differently about it ultimately i think i think i wouldn't want people to think you have to have an alliterative it's just that's just where my brain goes right but it's actually you've you you've come up with a solution that you wouldn't have come up without that with otherwise yeah otherwise um i like this next confidence yeah so i'm gonna say right but we're gonna we're obviously gonna say them um write two single sentences so one sentence on what your gremlin says when it's in charge of you and your reframe when you're in charge of your gremlin yeah so most people who listen i'm sure will have heard us talk about confidence gremlins before so these are beliefs that hold you back this might be fear of failure numbers presenting fear of getting found out not knowing enough we all got these we've all got these gremlins um but the constraint here is to be able to in a single sentence say oh i know i know what the gremlin sounds like when it's sort of shouting in my head that inner monologue that chatter as ethan cross would say and i know what it sounds like when i've kind of done that reframe um so it's a bit unfair because i'm going to ask helen to say this i've written mine and they're written and I can read them out so I know mine are a sentence but I think the constraint of having it as a sentence is quite a good discipline here like that constraint is quite helpful yeah um do you want to have a go yes I don't know if it's a full sentence but um so my confidence I have a confidence gremlin about um sort of saying saying no to things and it's it's come it's a combination of a confidence gremlin about needing to be liked so a feeling like well if I say no then they're not going to like me and then think I'm being difficult and also a confidence gremlin about a fear of failure and so what it sounds like is if I say no then it will never happen again okay so you know that's what the gremlin says so let's say someone comes to me and says oh Helen can you can you get involved in this can you be part of this can you create this thing and I can't and I go well no for whatever reason I say you know, time, belief about things, whatever.

26:37And then I think, oh, they're never going to come again. They're never going to, we're not going to get that work. I'm not going to get that opportunity. So that's negative, pessimistic when we're talking. If you say no, you'll never have that opportunity again. Unhelpful. The kind of reframe, the one sentence kind of reframe statement is saying no means I can do things that are bigger and better than I've done before. So, and I have to really say it and really, really like think and believe it, but I do believe it. So if I say no to some things, that means I can work on things and make them bigger and better than I've done before.

27:12And that is because I've got the time and the focus and the commitment. Like I'm not committing to everything. I'm being intentional about the things that I care about and commit to. And that gives me the ability to make them bigger, to improve them in a way that I've not done before. And so I want that and I do believe it, but I have to say it so that it sticks. And I think it is worth saying with this constraint, Helen just articulated those two sentences very clearly, back to your clarity point, because we have done a lot of work on gremlins and written a book about gremlins. So this won't feel easy, I don't think, to do.

27:51And certainly when I've done this work in rooms with people, this takes a bit of practising and you might need a paragraph before you can get to your sentence. Mine is conflict. So mine, when my gremlin is sort of shouting at me, it sounds like when people disagree with me, they think I'm not good at my job. So I almost feel like someone having a different point of view, I start to doubt myself like very quickly and being like, maybe this is not a good idea. Or probably even more so, maybe it's just a reflection on like me, like me not being good at my job. um whereas when I'm sort of in charge of my gremlin keeping that gremlin caged when someone cares enough to disagree with me it's an opportunity to learn and the reason that works for me is kind of two things one because learning is one of my values so oh it's an opportunity to learn you know like you I'm motivated by that and I like I do like the framing of somebody caring enough to disagree because I do think you have got to care enough to have a different point of you and for me that feels like much more positive framing than somebody thinking that you're not good at what you do also weirdly nicer to hear like i know this is about you and me and like our gremlins and what we're saying to ourselves but actually saying it outside out i'm like oh yeah i agree i agree with you yeah and so you might actually i think you might get some support by other people when you say your reframe statement out loud not only does it reinforce a more positive belief but i think it perhaps means that other people can even support what you're saying to The other thing you could do on gremlins, which I did consider having in here, is which gremlin, which one gremlin do you want to work on?

29:31Because I think often when you're first working on gremlins, I do hear people say a lot. I've got that one. I've got that one. And I've got that one. So the first thing that you might want to do is set yourself a constraint about which gremlin. And then you might want to do the kind of two sentences if you're sort of double constraining. Yes. Yeah. Right. Networking. I'm going to constrain you on networking. which I can imagine isn't super appealing for you. No, thank you. So reminder, networking, people helping people. And I've got a bit of an either or constraint here. So you can either focus on building two new relationships to support your squiggly career in your organisation or outside of your organisation, but you can't do both.

30:13Okay. Do I have to name people's names? No, no, you've just got to go. And I think probably for us, we were saying, you know we're in a smaller company that we worked in when we worked in massive companies this might feel a bit trickier if you're in a smaller company but perhaps maybe reflect on like where you are now but also perhaps when you were in microsoft or virgin well i'm going to go external um which is both the reflection on the size of the company and also the things that i want to learn and i won't name the people the i found the constraint quite helpful here because i could have done a spider map of people yeah i had like well this person this person i did think or who were the people that are most important.

30:49So it's connected to our PhD. And one of the people is the supervisor. I want to become like sort of best buddies with the supervisor for one of our PhDs because I just really want their buy-in and their support. And I think this is going to be really, really hard and I want their help. And so I just want to build a really strong relationship with that person. So that's one. And then the other thing is for Sarah and I, I think we think that the PhDs are only as useful as the people that benefit from the work that we're doing. And so I want to build a better relationship with somebody who is the editor of some publications that we would like our work to be featured in more regularly.

31:34I would like to build a better. I don't know that person very well at the moment. And I would like to build a personal relationship with that person that goes beyond emails. Watch out then. is what I would say. Welcome to my best friend, Gru. You can't escape me. I actually went inside. Okay. And I think I would have done it when I was in bigger companies as well, because I am, I'm sort of, I think probably over the last 10 years, naturally got clearer on, you know, what networking outside of an organization looks like for me as an introvert. And so I'm clear now on the curious conversations I want to have externally, like how I make those things happen and sometimes I'm actually not as focused internally as I think I could be and if I think about us in our company you do more of the day-to-day operational things but I always really appreciate time spent with people like in our team understanding what's on their mind or where they are and I and I I always like leading teams and I don't do that in quite the same way I did in big companies which is just different um but occasionally I think when I do have some of those relationships and those conversations I feel like hey I really enjoy it and I feel like I can be helpful in a different way to maybe some of the kind of the day-to-day stuff that we do and there are some people that I just have worked with more than others so there's just a couple of people in our team where I think I really want to think about how can I helpfully spend time with them whether they want to spend time with me it's a different question um but probably because some of our like the way our team has changed i think it will mean that that will naturally happen um and i think that that will be that'll be good for me so again it made me think i don't think i would have thought about that unless i've been asked that question yeah last one yes so this is um nearly last one actually i've got a sneaky a sneaky last last question but last one is future possibilities um and so here we're going to talk about two different activities that you could do on future possibilities scanning and scoping um and we're going to ask you to choose one to do in the next month so let's just um remind some of our listeners because we're assuming that everybody knows everyone knows our books and our work inside every activity um so just in case you don't so the scanning activity um and we talk about these in explore your progression possibilities episode.

33:59Scanning is go and find loads of job descriptions, look for themes and trends. You're not applying for those jobs. You're using those job descriptions as data for your development. And you're really trying to spot, well, what's consistent? What are the things that you would look for in any kind of job that you might want to do? So I think it's a very explorative, sort of thinking big, getting outside of your bubble type activity. scanning. Scoping is a mind map where you're mind mapping obvious, ambitious, pivot and dream possibilities, like as many as you can kind of come up with. You can even use AI and some prompts in AI to kind of help you help you do that.

34:41And I think often with that one, it's more about that, okay, if this is my mind map, so what more do I need to know and kind of who can who can help me? And it's so interesting when we talk about those two, or certainly when I talk about those two activities in workshops you often get like a 50 50 divide yeah some people are like i love scanning i love the freedom to just kind of be nosy and curious and then other people are like no i like the scoping i want a mind map and it feels it's probably a bit more action orientated yeah um so helen obviously i don't want you to leave i don't i don't want you to go and do anything is it's not about leaving right so exploring the possibilities exploring being curious about your career so which of those two if you're gonna do one in the next month which i was gonna say so there's sort of two constraints in there isn't there you've got to pick one and you've got to do it in the next month i would do the scanning um because i just i really enjoy it and i also think the scanning activity is very helpful for skills so you know like a lot of people think think about future possibilities i think they think think about jobs like what are the jobs that i want to do that's why i'm going to get curious about my career but i find scanning really useful for what are the skills that I need to develop like if I'm and to stay in my job like it's not about me getting curious about what jobs would I do beyond this one it's more what are the skills that I see popping up like the only like emerging skills like kind of like employability what are people who are recruiting now recruiting for and how can I use the job that I'm in to stay likes to stay employable and I just think it gives you a slightly different perspective on like skilled skill value and then I could do a bit like skill gap analysis and all the fun stuff that I do so that's that's the one that I would do I do the same um slightly different reasons actually more for the work that we do that's outside squiggly so we both do some like volunteering and some board roles some advisory roles and that's very different to like what you and I are doing day to day and so I always like scanning those kind of jobs actually for the ones that I couldn't do yet and it's always because of the time commitment and I'll see it and I'll think oh that sounds interesting and then it will say four days a month and you think oh okay interesting for a future moment um because I don't I don't ever anticipate a moment where we stop doing squiggly but I do really like having one or two of the things that are not that are not squiggly and that will obviously look and feel different over time and so I want to to your point on employability I want to make sure I'm staying relevant and my skills feel useful for when I look at some of those roles where I think oh I'd love to do that or a version of that or something a bit like that at some point in the future so I actually saw one recently for the BBC where I was like oh like that's a brand and we've worked for the BBC before and I and then I looked at it and I was like yeah that's a really big commitment and that's not right for right now but I find that scanning activity really helpful but I think doing it in a more structured way rather than just being like looking at one the whole point here is that you look at I would say at least what five to ten different descriptions yeah because if you're just looking at one it's like that's kind of too narrow and here we are trying to get everybody to zoom out so my final question yes because i think you've got to go constraint on constraint at this point constraint squared um is if you could only do like one of those there actually six one of those six actions which one would you choose definitely the hardest question oh it's so hard because i really like the values one my 50th and i'm really like no because i really like the learning one as well I want to spend£50 and go to lunch and talk.

38:31You want an individual and a team one, don't you, to get out of it? Can I? No, I mean, no. I am going to say, do you know what? I'm going to say the 15-minute Freedom Finder because the learning one is fun and I'd love to do it, but the Freedom Finder is going to make the biggest difference. There you go. That's my rationale for my decision. Which one are you picking? Constraint Squared. It is tough, isn't it? which is I think that's probably to your earlier point when you know that you have you know because you are choosing these constraints I think if it isn't hard it's probably not the right constraint yeah I think that's actually a really good filter um here for something we have basically made up um so I I also find it hard I can quickly like cross off a couple of them you're not bothered about that not bothered um I would probably go I think I'd go with possibilities okay with scanning yeah I think because in my mind I'm also thinking about you know like how AI will impact boards and what you need to know and I think I'll be I'll be interested to see how that's getting reflected in like job descriptions for like board roles yeah um so I think I'm motivated and just intrigued and interested and I think some of the other ones like you said you just feel like oh I would like to do that but maybe a maybe another point you know the um my conclusion from this conversation which is all about boxes is that actually I don't feel boxed in at all no you know I I think the if the constraints of the box then this conversation has expanded my thinking rather than contracted it I do wonder whether as well and there is a real mix of examples in the book um and there's loads it's a very sort of story based book if people uh like those kind of books uh I think there's a really big difference between constraints that are imposed on you versus constraints that you choose and I wonder whether because today we've really talked about the ones that you choose like you said you don't feel boxed in because actually you're you're playing you're exploring you're talking about them versus when someone halves your budget which you know happens to all of us or when suddenly you've got four weeks to deliver something and you thought you're going to have three months you're like actually that I don't think that ever feels as playful and you're in less exploring mode I think then you're in more about well how can we respond to this with some with like a helpful mindset because actually one of the things I was going to talk about today is I was like oh do we structure this around like mindset and then skill set which I think when you are responding to a constraint is probably what you need to do like how do I put myself in the right mindset and then I've got to stay open I've so curious.

41:17And then I need a skill set, which is a lot of Adam Morgan's work that we've often used to go, okay, that's how I find my way through this constraint. Whereas here, I think this feels like quite a different place to be. And one of the things that you might want to do as a team is we've talked here about like the skills around your squiggly career. I think you could also think about the work that you do, the projects that you have, and you might upfront want to experiment with like adding constraints into those. But we're going to do a podcast soon on friction. So we're going to explore that. We're going to explore that a bit more then.

41:49Yeah, I think when Sarah kind of, we were talking through this episode, I was like, oh, actually I think constraints, what they can do is they can create a little bit of friction. And I've been reading a lot around why actually having some friction at work can be really good for us, which hopefully build on this episode coming soon. But we hope you found that interesting and useful. I definitely recommend the book if you like David's previous work. and there are lots of fascinating stories in it. It's a really interesting read and I love lots of the examples. They've really stayed with me. So thank you so much for listening.

42:20We will put all of those questions in the pod sheet. You can get that from our website, which is just amazing. If.com, go to the podcast page and you'll find it there. Also, if you, whilst you're on the website, if you subscribe to the Squiggly Careers newsletter, which comes out every Tuesday, we put all of our weekly links to learn from there. So it's probably the easiest way to stay connected to what we create each week. That's everything for this week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm back with you again soon. Bye for now. Bye, everyone.