MICHAEL BUNGAY STANIER: The Problem With Having the Answers

25:19And the gift that you can give somebody is carving out this space. And they probably can't do that for themselves. You can help them get quiet and guide them through a process where they can then discover things that were in there, but everything was too noisy and too chaotic to be able to hear it. And that's a tremendous gift to give somebody, but very different than I have the answers for you, like a little FedEx package. Right. In the Coaching Habit 10-year anniversary, there's this new chapter about the being of coaching. And it was only by writing it that I came to realize that's kind of deeper appreciation I have for so often, and I'll say it again, people want to be seen and they want to be heard and they want to be encouraged, which is actually separate from have we solved this problem or not.

26:02Because sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. But if people go, I felt like I had a space where I could really be myself and figure it out. And people saw me and I was like, I feel encouraged for that. That's a real gift. But Megan, you're quite right. Our desire to really be helpful is a slippery thing. It can really entangle us. How do you think this applies to people who aren't professional coaches. Like, let's just say you're a, you're a parent. Yeah, I'm thinking about being a parent, man. Gosh, this applies, especially teenagers. If you have teenagers, if you know teenagers, pay attention.

26:39This is so helpful. I've watched you do this and your sister Mindy, and it's extraordinary. I wish I had had this information when I was raising you all. Talk about people that don't want your solutions. You know what I mean? Like they know they don't want it, but they do want to talk to you about it. It's such a weird dynamic. It's like, I want to talk to you about my problems, but don't give me any solutions. You're like, oh, what do I do? So I'm happily child-free. So I'm always a slightly wary to step into the, let me give you some good advice on about parenting because I've never done it, but I'm sure it's easier than it looks.

27:12I wish that were true. I mean, when I observe parents, particularly with teenagers, I'm like, okay, so we know teenagers and young people are having a hard time of it. They always have had a hard time of it. It feels harder now than before. We know teenagers are biologically designed to resist all advice from everybody. We know parents love their teenagers. And they're like, what I know is how to give you advice. And so they get locked into this vicious circle of like, I'm going to resist your advice. The only thing I've got is to give you advice. And so that entangling. So let me ask you, I mean, What have you learned around how to stay curious and hold space for the young people in your life?

27:55Well, it's interesting because what you're talking about with adults is really what we're hoping our kids can get to, which is they come to a place of being able to listen to themselves, to hear their inner voice, to hear God's voice within them, to have that kind of ability to tune in and ultimately to make good decisions from that place. And that's not a thing I think we're like naturally, like it's a skillset. I think we have to develop. I have two adult children who are out of the house now and I have three still at home. And my two middle ones are teenagers, 17 and 15. And the teenagers right now, you know, I'm, I'm like right on the cusp of them becoming adults.

28:36And I'm thinking to myself, I want you to learn how to take responsibility for your life. Like the solution to you being successfully an adult is not call mom for the right answer because like, I'm not always going to be here. You're going to be in situations where that's not practical. It would be weird. Like there's so many, you know, there's problems with it. Right. I want you to be able to like, learn how to answer your own questions and learn how life really works. And the best way to do that is one, I don't insulate you from the reality of life in ways that keep you kind of immature. And I think I also ask questions where you can discover the answers and reason your way there on your own, because that's a skillset you're going to need for life.

29:19And when I think about these questions, like I, you know, one of my sons is thinking about college and thinking about getting recruited for football. And, you know, there's lots of challenges with that. It's not going quite like he hoped it would. And there's a lot of emotions about it. He doesn't like my advice when I give him advice, but I think deep down he knows what to do. He just doesn't know yet, even more than an adult, he doesn't have that ability to create space to come to that self-awareness of what he should do. And so these questions, I think for parents like me who are inclined to give advice, which is probably all parents, it kind of gives us a track to run on where now the kids don't feel defensive.

29:58They don't come into the conversation defensive because it's not going to be, I disagree, what you're saying is wrong. That would never work, which is generally how the conversation goes. You're wrong, you don't understand, whatever. If you're not giving any advice and you're just creating that space, I think they come to their pretty good answers on their own. Yeah, I would guess often they do. And sometimes they don't because, you know. And that's okay too. They also have brains that are half built at that age. Yes, so true. I think so often that's why the question, how can I help here, can be a really powerful opening question.

30:35because when your young person arrives and they're in a state of discombobulation, you're like, I think I know what they need. And the answer is you don't actually know what they need because they haven't told you yet and they may not know themselves. So if you go, man, I can see you're upset. How can I be most helpful here? How can I support you in this moment? At a bare minimum, there's two things that they might say. One might be, I just need somebody to listen as I just go blah and get it off my chest. Like, don't give me any answers, but I just want to be able to say it so I feel seen and heard and encouraged.

31:11Or they may go, I'm really trying to figure this out and I don't know how to get to an answer. I'd like you to help me figure this out and give me your suggestions. And you're like, great, I've been given permission. Yep. And that's a big point, I think. When they give you permission, their willingness to listen to what you do have to say when it is time to give advice, if that time comes, is very different when they've said, I want your help to figure this thing out versus I don't. I don't know if that's true for the two of you, but I know there's times in my life I've gone to people and I've gone, look, I just want to speak this out loud just to hear myself say it out loud.

31:47And then the person's come in with advice and suggestions. And I'm like, I really, now I have to explain, now I have to be coached by you and I don't want to be coached by you. Or you've got me, you're giving me answers that are ridiculous and I thought of them already and I don't want that. I just want to be heard in this moment. But there are other times I'm like, help me figure this out. I'm stuck and I don't even know how to come up with an answer. Well, my wife, Gail, calls this, when I get into this mode, CEO mode. Right. Because for a large chunk of my career, I was a CEO. And the reason I became the CEO is because I had better answers than my peers and produced better results than my peers.

32:28And so after a while, it kind of goes to your head and you're not even aware of it. It's just like your default mode. It's my default mode. And so somebody shares a problem with me and I instantly try to fix it. You actually don't. I don't think this is true. That's because your memory's short. Maybe so. Michael, this is why God gave me a wife and five daughters, because they have had to beat this into me. Because it's not natural. But I think I'm better now. I think you're really good at it. I mean, I actually think you're better than mom at it. Sometimes mom is like, I'm here with my answers, you know, and you're like, no, just listen.

33:02She's pretty good too. But I think, I think you're really good at this. I think you've become better at like taming that advice monster and sitting with people in the discomfort of the moment and not presuming that what, it's kind of like, I'm not going to presume you need answers from me until you tell me so. And just having that be your default response, like empathy and creating space is actually the default instead of fixing the problem. That's great. Yeah, I agree. Honestly, sometimes the thing to say is, man, this sounds really hard. Yeah. Yes. And that's it. That's it. That's all you need to say, which is like, man, I can't even imagine how hard this must be for you.

33:47I mean, I really admire you for sticking with it. Yeah. You know, there's nothing there other than like, I think I get a sense of how hard this is. And I, you know. The worst thing you do in that moment is, oh, that reminds me of the time when I had an even tougher challenge. Oh, my gosh. It's the worst. You know, it's like. The one-upmanship. The one-upmanship of the problem. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think a lot of times we just want to be, like you said, Michael Seen. And sometimes the problems that people come to us with, and this is maybe less true in a professional capacity and more in a personal one.

34:19but they're not problems that have solutions. You know, like sometimes enduring or just it's outside of our control and you're just not going to be able to fix it. But what you can do is not leave that person alone in it. And what a gift that is when they're not alone. One of the phrases I've started to saying to people, not just young people, friends and the like, who are going through a tough time is to say, I'm team Michael. I'm team Megan. I'm just declaring that I'm on your side. I don't even know what that means. But I just want you to know that I am with you. I'm team stew. I'm to whoever that person might be.

34:58It's like, I love you and I want the best for you. And I don't even know how to be or I can't think of anything to do. So I'm just trying to be with you in this moment. And it's killing me because I like to fix things. We all like to fix things. We all like to move through the ambiguity and the discomfort and the mess and the sadness and the grief and the anger that might be there in a moment. But if you can have that capacity to sit with it and go, even in this uncomfortable moment, I'm team hired, there's something really generous about that. One of the things I think I've also been a late bloomer on is empathy.

35:36And part of it is, I'll use this as an excuse, but maybe it's an explanation, but I'm an Enneagram 3, which means that I will sacrifice almost anything in the name of efficiency and productivity. So emotions are oftentimes very unproductive and kind of get in the way. They're a little messy. A little messy. Hard to schedule them. Inefficient. Can't schedule them. But the one thing that I've done in trying to practice what you teach, and ever since I read the book first back in 2017, is to be more empathetic. And this creates space not only for the other person, but for me to feel what they're feeling.

36:13And I wonder if this is true for you. And I just find myself more easily moved emotionally and more choked up when other people are sharing their struggles. And I would never, ever do that as a way to manipulate them. It just kind of naturally occurs. But it's also very useful because then people are feeling like they're not suffering alone. Yeah. I mean, out of curiosity, do you know what the Enneagram 3 evolves towards? Yes. In health, it goes towards the high side of six, which is loyalty and friendship. Got it. Very community-oriented. Yeah. Because I'm a classic, waspy, middle-aged man, so I have limited access to my feelings.

36:56It's really frustrating because I keep working at it and I'm like, I'm sure there are feelings down there somewhere. I'm just trying to get there. My wife is much more attuned to how she feels, so she goes up and down a bit more and I'm kind of more of a steady base around that but like you I'm trying to be present to the other person and there's something in that presence that allows me to kind of be connected to emotions and it might be and I'm just saying this out loud I don't know if it's the truth it might be because I'm like I'm actually out of my own head because I'm trying to be there with that other person and getting out of my own head allows perhaps more access to some of the other stuff that's going on in my body.

37:37I think that's 100 % right. You know, I think if you think of the word sympathy or empathy, you know, they both have to do with a sharing of emotion. You know, you may share a common knowledge base, but to have similar emotions, you know, then I think people feel seen and heard in a very important and special way. Like they're not crazy. Like this is hurtful or it's sad or it's joyful or whatever it is. But to have somebody, you know, there's this verse in the Bible that I love. It just says, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Right. I think that's so powerful. I remember one time I was in therapy, and this was probably in my 20s.

38:18This is a long time ago now. And I remember that the therapist. Come on, not that long ago. Just a couple of decades and change. But thank you. But I can remember the therapist cried when I shared a story. And it had never happened to me before. Wow. And it felt very like, you know, we were breaking some kind of third wall. You know, it's like you're supposed to be detached and not. I mean, you hear people talk about their sad stories all the time, whatever. It was so meaningful to me that my story meant enough to her that she actually cried. Like, I just felt so seen in that moment. And it was so validating that like, oh, I'm not crazy.

38:58I haven't made this up. I'm not being dramatic. this other person who is like in a clinical setting is so moved by that story that they I mean I literally don't even remember what the story was that I was telling like I don't know I don't remember all these years later you know but but what I do remember that's the moment yeah seen and heard you're like the details come and go but that sense of like oh somebody got me somebody got me that's yeah that's what resonates and you know I think we feel like we can't do that in a professional setting. Like this makes sense in therapy and it makes sense like in our friendships and with our families and whatever, that feels sort of like in bounds.

39:37Yeah. But as someone who's been leading a team for a while and I think we need more of that, more humanity in the workplace. More heart. More heart. I've had so many things happen in people's lives personally as a boss where everything from a family member literally being murdered to hard diagnoses to divorces, to addiction, to like every, all the big stuff, you know, and most of that I was aware of and other people were not, you know, there was some reason they needed to share that with me or I became privy to it, but they, their colleagues were not aware of that. And very often as a boss, you know, if you're, if you find yourself in a position of leadership, you may very well be privy to some of the most personal and painful moments, certainly joyful to, you know, babies and weddings and whatever else, but the most painful moments of someone's life.

40:29And if you're willing to ask questions and be in that suffering, you're probably one of the few people that will be in that with them. And we don't think about that very often because that's not business, but it is business because we're in the business of whole people. Let me offer up some questions because I wrote a book called How to Work with Almost Anyone. Oh, good. Yes. And it's really about how do I connect better with the other person so we bring out the best in each other and the kind of key tactic at the heart of this book is have a conversation about how you want to work together before you get cracking on the work because almost always in a work setting the work is the thing so everybody's like it's an urge you know it's a priority it's urgent it's a crisis or it's just exciting or whatever let's do the work that's what we get measured on and that's what my job description says but that moment of going hey let's talk about how you and I best work together before we get on with the work can be really powerful.

41:26And there are five in the book, but there are three questions I'll mention now. The first question is, what's your best? And it's actually asking, when do you shine and when do you flow? Because actually people make up stuff about you right away in terms of who you are and how you work. If you can actually say, look, let me tell you when I'm at my best. And if you know when I'm at my best and I know when you're at your best, there's a good chance we're going to try and figure out ways to be at our best because we both win when that happens. The second question that might be helpful is called the good date question, which is what can we learn from past successful working relationships?

42:03Like when I've worked with somebody like you and it's been really great, what happened? What did they do and what did you do? And what does that tell us about what we should do? And then the flip side question of that is the bad date question, which is what can you learn from past frustrating relationships? When you've had relationships, when we've been in this kind of situation and it's been really annoying, you know, and it's frustrating and irritating, and it's just been deeply mediocre. What happened? You know, what did I do? What did the other person do that made that dysfunctional? And just sharing some of that information, it doesn't get down to that level of revelation around, you know, this is the trauma or the challenge I've got right now, but it is very much about how do I really see you as a person?

42:48How do we bring out the very best in each other and being able to share your answers around some of that can be really helpful.

43:00Okay. I have like a real live case study. Are you ready? Yeah. So I have just hired a new executive assistant. Her name is Mika. She's wonderful. She's been with me for, I think, five or six weeks at this point. She replaced an assistant that I had for four years before that, who four years before that had been working with our company. So eight total years in the company. And my previous assistant left to have her third baby. She's going to come back in a part-time capacity, but not as my assistant. I adored her. We were very close. Like, you know, it's been like a real point of grief that she's gone because I just, I was so close with her.

43:33And I know that if I want to have as good or better of a professional relationship with Mika, my new assistant, I've got to really invest in that. But I'm a little at a loss because the other relationship happened so long ago and it was so much of it was so easy because she'd been here a long time before she became my assistant that I'm like, tell me what to do because I want this to be. That was a little bait for you, by the way, that you catch that. No, but seriously, like I want to make that relationship even better than the previous one that I had. but it's not altogether intuitive past the just normal teach you how to do things, share my preferences, all that kind of stuff.

44:16So I've got some ideas on what you could do, but before I share some of my thoughts, what, I mean, as you listen to yourself, how would you coach yourself on this? See, now I know. See what I'm doing here. Now I know. I see what you're doing. Well, I would say that there were some real things that Elizabeth and I did early on. So Elizabeth was the previous assistant that made our relationship great. You know, we spent a lot of time together. We traveled together some, we did a lot of events together. There was just a lot of in-person time. Hours spent together. Hours spent together that helped us to learn each other.

44:53And I think that that can't really put that in a book. You know, some of that that you have to have to do. So I think having more time in person is really important, which is a little bit contrary to how we naturally work, like in a more remote capacity. But I think that would be one thing. I think maybe identifying what the things were that were great about the relationship with Elizabeth and saying, these were the things that Elizabeth was really great at. And here's why she was great at them. And I don't want you to have to figure this out. I just want to tell you, you know, like let's have a shortcut to knowing that because we spent a lot of years figuring that out.

45:30So those are a couple of things. Let me ask you this, Megan. In six months' time, let's imagine that this relationship has gone south and it has not ended well and it's been disappointing. Disappointing for her, disappointing for you, frustrating because you can see the potential now, but it just hasn't worked out. What's been your role in this not working? Well, that's easy. It's probably the role that I always have, and that is abdicating, where I sort of expected her to read my mind or expected her to just get me, you know, quote unquote, in ways that she would have no way to do. Like, that's not accessible.

46:10It's an unreasonable expectation. and that I didn't do a good job of communicating what I needed or wanted or why, providing enough context so that then she kind of developed an operating model for my world that would help her to then in real time make decisions and things like that, even if the situations were different because she would have kind of principles in mind. I think if I withhold myself or expect that through some osmosis, she could immediately be where Elizabeth was after eight years, that's a real setup for failure. So how would you coach Mika to work with you knowing that that could happen?

46:51That's a great question. You should be a coach. Yeah, you should be a coach. Are you taking clients? I'm feeling it out, you know. I think there's something here as well. I think there might be something here. I think I would coach her to ask me why, you know, when I ask her to do something, well, why do you want to, why did you ask me to schedule that appointment in the afternoon as opposed to 10 o 'clock in the morning? And then I would say something like, well, I really like to keep my days as open as possible and concentrate the appointments at the end of the day so that I can, when I'm writing or when I'm doing creative work, I can kind of stay in that headspace.

47:26If I have to pop out for half an hour, it really is disruptive. You know, those kinds of things. I want to come back to this. I got one more question for you. How long did it take Elizabeth to become all knowing or doing the perfect assistant for you? Probably one to two years. Got it. How long are you giving Mika to get to that same standard? Yeah. Another week. Just another week would be about right. Exactly. 48 hours maybe. Yeah. I think that probably the story that I've told myself, and by the way, it's going great. There's no problem. So I should say that unless Mika, you're listening. She's like, oh gosh, am I in trouble?

48:02No, not at all. I think when Elizabeth and I began the hiring process, because we knew she's having this baby. And so we're going to have to find a replacement. I think in my mind, I probably thought, okay, we've got a 90-day onboarding plan that's very well thought out with a whole handbook that Elizabeth has made. Like, you know, I mean, like 90 days, let's go. You know, like, we'll be good to go. And that would be like saying, I've been married to my husband for 16 years, just about. And that would be like saying, you know, if he died tomorrow and I married somebody, how long do you think it would take you to have the kind of marriage you have with Joel after 16 years?

48:36I've got a 90-day onboarding plan. 90 days. It'll be great. It's like, this is insanity. But these are the assumptions that we have that are not examined. And they set us up for failure, right? They do. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. So a year or two would be realistic. I think you could say, I mean, a year or two. You do have more data now about you and about processes and stuff. So it may not take a year or two. But it doesn't feel like 90 days is a fair burden or whatever. It might be going like, I expected, I mean, I know with my assistant, she was good enough right away, but she started getting great in the second year of us working together.

49:16That feels reasonable. But there's something about pulling back occasionally and just going, how's this working? Yeah. How are we doing? Yeah. How's it working for you? How's it working for me? one of the questions that I found most helpful, particularly if I'm the more senior person in the relationship, is what needs to be said that hasn't yet been said? Because there's often a kind of a, should I mention this? Maybe I won't mention it because it could be a career limiting move. And it's a way of just kind of surfacing some of the stuff that's going on. This is projection because this is how I do it, Megan, so it may not be right at all for you.

49:53But I find And I get more bang for the buck, not out of how do we keep amplifying what works, but how will we avoid us colluding to not make this work? And so I say, let me tell you how I will screw up this relationship. I'll start off great. When you get my attention, you'll feel fantastic because I'm good at being present in the moment. But at a certain point, I'll become a bottleneck. the way I respond to bottlenecking is becoming more distant and more passive. You'll start thinking it's about you. It's not really not about you. It's really about me, but I'll encourage you to think that because that will make me feel better about myself.

50:36Are you in my email inbox right now? I've seen it. I have. I've seen it. I've got it up here. It's a nightmare. Yeah, right. It's a mess. And then I go, so here's how you need to manage this with me. and here's what I expect from you. And I will call them mostly on a lack of courage and actively participating in this relationship. I'm like, this is your job. Doing the stuff is great. I just expect you to get better and better at that, make some mistakes, but you'll get the hang of it. But learning to manage me, that is the hardest of all things because I am slippery and I'm elusive and I'm the boss and I'm charming and I'm skilled at self-deception because I'm a coach.

51:18So I can make it sound like things are happening when they're not happening. So if you can, you can figure me out, you are crushing it, but we need to work at that. And I make that the conversation. I love that. This is so good. You know, it's, it's funny. This is, you know, I spent a lot of time in the world of AI. And one of the things that a lot of my clients have complained about, and I've seen it myself too, is that AI can just be so flattering. And every idea you have is - What a thoughtful question. Yeah, what a thoughtful question. And so I wrote some instructions and I taught my clients to do this too, to give the AI permission to push back, to challenge my assumptions, to point out inconsistencies in my arguments.

51:58And the experience has gotten so much better. But it's interesting, what sometimes is invisible to me in a human relationship is much more apparent to me in an AI relationship. But they're really the same. Garbage in, garbage out. If you don't give each other permission, it's just not going to work. For instance, this is very tactical, Megan. I go, if you send me something requiring my sign-off or whatever, there's a chance that I will bottleneck it, which will mean it'll vanish into my email or to-dos and I'll just not act on it. So the way I'd like you to do this is send me the thing, say, I need your feedback or whatever on this by this date and this time.

52:45And if you don't send it by then, I'll assume you'll have signed off on it. Yeah, I have a negative option. I like that. Yeah. It just is a way that we can both manage one of my foibles in a way that I'm I'm like, no, I've set this up. I missed my opportunity to give feedback. And I basically trust you that it's going to be good enough. And almost nothing I do is earth-shatteringly important enough that if something bad happens, it's just annoying rather than anything else. So coming up with these little things to go, here's how we're going to manage my slipperiness. I love that too because it's very honest.

53:19It's like instead of pretending like best-case scenario, just like in marriage, we're not going to pretend best-case scenario. We know we both are going to exist a lot of time and stress and like life happens and all that. So let's solve for the version of ourselves that's not like we're on vacation in Turks and Caicos and it's amazing. Let's solve for the version of ourselves that is everyday kid issues, you know, this, that and the other thing. And figure out how we want to solve for the challenges that come up there. that just feels so much more realistic and also hopeful because like, if you can do that, you're golden.

53:56And I think about my clients that struggle with personnel issues and it always feels like it's the other person. Yes. And it's not spoiler. Well, go back to that question that my coach asked me so many years ago and I still use today. What was it about your leadership that led to this result? Yeah. Yeah. Brutal, brutal question. Brutal question. That's like the nuclear question. But I asked a similar question, right, with you, Megan, going, if it doesn't work, how have you, what's been your role in the failure of this? The good thing about that, though, the version of your question that's better is that it's kind of forward-facing.

54:31Yeah. So there's no shame involved. Like, what was it about your leadership? Well, you could go to a place of shame real quickly. But when you say, you know, if it is to fail, what will you have done or not done to lead to that? Well, that's different. It hasn't happened yet. You can still fix it. Yeah, I love that. We could just keep going forever. This is so great. This is where I wish we had a three-hour show. I know. Alas. Alas. Here we are at the end. Okay. We have three standard questions that we always ask at the end of the show. I have three standard answers I always give at the end of a show.

54:58Oh, good. I can't wait. So let's just see if my answers and your questions match up. Fantastic. And if they don't, we'll let people just be confused. So we have this concept called the double win, which we're really advocates of not only getting for ourselves, but our clients getting and our listeners getting, which is to win at work and succeed at life so that life can be all-dimensional. So here's the first question. What's your biggest obstacle in getting the double win? My biggest obstacle is, I don't even know why I'm saying this, but it's something about my inability to access grief and anger.

55:41I've got other things like I like to work too much. I mean my head too much, blah, blah, blah. But there's something about wanting to more fully integrate my head and my emotions that is part of the work for me to do to become a more complete human being. And I think when you are more integrated at a level, you get to show up in life for the double win. Yeah. We've never had quite that answer. We haven't. That's a really deep, thoughtful answer. Very thoughtful. Okay. How do you know when you personally are getting the double win? Like when you are winning at work and succeeding at life, how do you know?

56:21Well, my measure is what I call banter. So it's a playfulness between me and people, a kind of laughter and teasing and a lightness and a jokiness. The relationships that mean the most to me are ones where they have this banter at the heart of part of it. It's part of my Australian and kind of British upbringing. It's that kind of dry, sarcastic British and Australian and sense of humor. And so if I've got that level of playfulness and laughter and banter in my life, things are going really well. I love that. That's a great diagnostic. These are not your typical superficial answers. No, listen.

57:05Okay, here's the third one. Is there one ritual or routine that helps you do what you do? Look, the most important thing that allows me to do what I do is less a routine and more just the ongoing presence of my wife, Marcella. We've been married 30 years. She's just definitely a person who sees me and gets me and annoys me and encourages me. And I've got small routines, like everything. I journal a bit. I have a coffee. I work out. I do all the kind of stuff that you might expect. But really, it's the ability to be in a room with her is the thing that matters most. Beautiful. I love that. I might start crying.

57:51Yeah. Seriously, that makes me. Wow. Well, Michael, gosh, every time I'm with you, I just wish we had greater proximity because I know we'd be fast friends if we lived close together. And we are friends. We're the same. We are. But not I'm around the corner and Nashville friends. Yeah. Although you might want to consider moving here because apparently everybody and their brother is. Yeah. I've heard that. But I've heard Nashville is like expanding at the rate of knots. Yeah. Well, I just want to thank you for what you do. I just think you're an amazing human and you write really interesting books.

58:25And there's so many questions that I wanted to get to. In fact, I wanted to talk about how to begin, but we'll have to save that for another podcast, another book he's written. But thank you. It's been a real pleasure. I really love this conversation. Thank you. Same. And thank you for the coaching. I feel like I should write you a check. well you were the one you were the one all those years ago that said to michael you should read this book and you should talk to him about it because i'd actually knocked on on the door a few times going do you want to come on a podcast and the like and i hadn't got through the gate keepers okay well you were the one who opened this relationship up all those years ago so this is a reciprocal thing we have going then paying back her dad thanks for being with us

59:17I have to say, and I think I say this a lot, but that was a phenomenal interview. Not because our questions were so good, but he was so good as a guest. I just love having great conversations with people. And part of what's fun about doing the show is we are only interviewing people that we really, really want to talk about. Like we're not just trying to fill holes in the calendar. Like we are. Right. We're having conversations with people whose work has been really meaningful to us in some way, and his certainly has. I mean, I think I was reminded of this again, having learned about him first in 2017, I think, just preparing for this interview.

59:51I was like, gosh, his way of seeing the world and interacting with people is so different than my default way of being. I really need that. I need that challenge and that paradigm shift. And his humility is really arresting. where you feel like you're talking to somebody that really gets you and gets the situation. He's just such a good model for listening. So some of my takeaways, like I had forgotten all those seven questions. I use some of them. Like the one, and what else? That's what I use routinely in my own coaching practice. And I just find that when you're having a conversation with somebody, and particularly when it's emotionally intense, that they present to you the outside of the onion.

1:00:37And you have to be patient to peel back the layers because, and he makes the point in the interview, the presenting problem, as they like to say in therapy, is not usually the problem. And you have to kind of get to the root of it. And I think realizing that people are not just going to bare their soul immediately. It's going to be a process of progressive revelation. Well, in part because they're discovering it along with you. That's right. It's not necessarily that they're withholding. It's that they don't know. And part of the gift that you can give people is a place to peel back those onion layers.

1:01:10So they have the process of self-discovery with a witness, which is very different than trying to do that on your own. It's like kind of impossible, you know, if you've ever tried. I mean, it's like why so many of us go to therapy and why we have coaches and why coaching is so valuable in general is it's really hard to come to greater self-knowledge alone, you know? So true. And, you know, I was reminded again, as he was talking of our good friend, Daniel Harkavy's book, Becoming a Coaching Leader. Yeah. And sort of his paradigm is that a good leader in an organization is a good coach. And when you take that plus Michael's methodology, you really see a different way of leading your team that, and this is, I felt this for a long time.

1:01:54And that is that my role as a leader is not just to help the team get things done. And obviously we have to get things done. We have to make money. We have to stay in business, all those things. But even more importantly, because I see myself as a steward, is that I want them to become something they're not. I want them to become, to realize more of their potential. And the only way that happens is through coaching. And if you think of the best coaches you've ever had in your life, there were people who saw something in you that you couldn't see for yourself. Right. And you had to rise to the occasion.

1:02:24Yeah, absolutely. I was really struck by, I think, as I said at the beginning of the interview, just that visceral reaction I had yesterday as I was preparing and watching his TEDx talk about wanting to jump in and the kind of patience and the kind of self-awareness and I think emotional regulation that it takes to not give advice. because in order to do that, you have to sit in the tension. You have to not prove your value or worth. You have to sort of tolerate the chaos sometimes because a lot of times on the way to an answer, it's pretty chaotic. And that can all be uncomfortable, especially depending on your history and how you're wired and all of that.

1:03:08That it's really a thing. Like listening is not passive. It's like the most active thing you can do. And it requires an incredible amount of sort of self-governance, self-regulation, self-awareness, all those things. And if you do it and you do it with intention and presence, it's an unbelievable gift. It's probably the biggest gift you could give anyone. It is. And I think I feel the tension, particularly in a professional relationship where somebody's paying me to be their coach. I feel the tension to add value. Right, me too. And so you're asking questions, you're not quite sure where it's going, where I feel like I've got a pocket full of frameworks and systems and other things that I could share that would add value.

1:03:50And so it feels risky and it is risky, but to have the courage to kind of be in the present, to ask the questions and be hopeful that something comes out of it that's going to be useful. And it usually does. It's usually beyond what you could have concocted, you know, in your pre-session preparation. Yeah. And it's probably too with teens too. I'm not in the middle of the battle like you are right now, but I've seen you lead your kids in this way. And I think it's fascinating to me the conversations that you have with them, or I should say it this way, the things that they're willing to bring to you that in previous generations, I don't think the kids would have done that.

1:04:31Because they would have felt shamed. Right. Or they would have felt like it was out of bounds. Right. But they share with you some deep, powerful stuff. Yeah, they do. And I think I've had to learn it the hard way, you know, because you just get really shut down as a parent with teenagers and probably young adults to some degree. I feel like my young adults are better than my teenagers this, but they discount your answers very quickly. Like those are not properly valued in the market of teenagers. And so it's not a good strategy. Even if you're right, it's not a good strategy.

1:05:19it is. I also see a lot of application though. We didn't really talk about it in marriage. Yeah, for sure. Because I think that, you know, Gail and I have been married for 47 years now and we've evolved to the place where I think we're really good coaches for each other, You know, and mostly because we're not giving advice. And that's really the hardest relationship to receive advice in. Because you just get so familiar with each other that you're like, okay, I know what she's going to say. And you like complete each other's sentences and just - It's like the curse of familiarity. Yeah, exactly.

1:05:54And to stay curious and to approach it as though, well, maybe I don't know everything about her. Well, especially if you accept the idea that we're always growing and evolving, or at least we're evolving in some way forward or backward, I suppose, but like, we're always changing, you know, we're not, it's not like you hit 50 years old, for example, and you're just done at that point and nothing ever changed, you know, hopefully not. The coaching habit is the book. And this is useful for anybody in any situation. It's a really a book about relationships, but particularly if you're trying to be helpful to other people as a leader or as a boss or as a coach or a therapist or anything.

1:06:34Mentor. Mentor. I just recommend this book to you. You'll enjoy the read. And the one thing I love about his books, and he actually explained it at one of the masterminds that we're in together about why he writes short books. But this is a short book. It's an easy lift and you'll be delighted as you read it. So do you have any final thoughts, Megan? No, get the book. You'll be glad you did. Okay. And by the way, you would be a great help to us, if you want to know how you can help us, it's to rate and review the podcast. That'll help us get the visibility up so that even more people are invited into this conversation and can be exposed to the guests that we bring to you all.

1:07:11So until again, get the double win.