December 13, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of The Coaching Inn, Claire Pedrick hosts Sajni Lakhani, Abbi Buszard, Claire Gillespie and Duncan Skelton, participants in the mysterious Fax Club Experiment. They discuss the experience of writing anonymously, the power of community, and the journey of creating a book with complete strangers through 52 weeks of thought-provoking questions. We talk about the importance of stepping into the unknown, embracing vulnerability, and the way The Fax Club continues to impact on their personal and professional lives.
Contact:
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Coming Up:
- The Power of Eldership in Coaching with Bob Singha
Keywords:
The Fax Club, anonymous writing, community building, personal growth, leadership, vulnerability, creativity, book creation, coaching, transformation, thought-provoking questions, stepping into the unknown, authentic expression, deep connections, identity, status, supportive environment, reflection, personal development, collaboration
We love having a variety of guests join us! Please remember that inviting someone to participate does not mean we necessarily endorse their views or opinions. We believe in open conversation and sharing different perspectives.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, I'm Claire Pedrick and uh I want you to meet The Fax Club in this episode.
uh So here's the book, The Fax Club Experiment, a crazy idea, it shouldn't have worked,but it did, written by the 32.
(00:21):
It's a mystery, it's fun, ah it's deep, it's worth listening to.
There's so many insights in this episode about what is The Fax Club How do you risk take,make courage, step into something you don't know?
So much great stuff.
I absolutely recommend that you listen in.
(00:42):
And as one of our lovely guests, Duncan said,
The book would make a really great Christmas present if you don't know what to buysomebody.
So I'd love to hear what you think.
Over to The Fax Club.
(01:09):
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn,
And today around the open table are three fabulous people, Saj, Abby and Duncan, who havecontributed to the most extraordinary book called The Fax Club, which I absolutely
recommend you go get and put in your toilet.
(01:32):
For really good reason.
Not because it's not very good.
That didn't come out right, did it?
Not because it's not very good, but it's just the kind of book that you want to pick upand have a dip into for a very short period of time.
Because it is genius, but more about that in a moment.
But let's just meet you, Abby, Duncan, Saj Hello, welcome.
(01:55):
Bye.
Thank you for having us.
a real pleasure.
So let's start with uh you, Abby.
You've been on The Coaching Inn before.
I have thank you for inviting me back.
It mustn't have been too bad the first time around if I made it made it back into therepeat guests.
What's your story that got you to The Fax Club?
(02:16):
Oh, good question.
I think one of the things I didn't expect about being a coach, and maybe I should havedone, was how sometimes it can get really lonely.
And I think as coaches, we get quite good at finding new friends and different things toget involved in and tribes of people who are cher-er, not.
(02:42):
every characteristic books, one overlapping characteristic.
I guess I think curiosity is kind of part of my soul.
And so when I saw an email saying, do you want to join a really hard to join and stay inwriting club and buy a fax machine, I thought, yeah, no, I do actually.
Yeah, I really do.
Cause I like people and I like writing and I like crazy ideas.
(03:07):
I, I just, I, I wanted some
some great people in my life and I wanted some practice and writing practice in my life.
that's kind of, and I like saying yes to weird questions like that.
So, and that led me to these lovely people and you know, 30 other 30, no 29 other peopleand count and, and just the most unexpected and joyful experience really.
(03:35):
So saying yes led me to The Fax Club.
How amazing.
And what you said right at the beginning of that would make the most amazing opening lineto a novel.
Yes, I mean we have so many tendrils of shoots of ideas that I think that one isdefinitely on there as well.
So I'll go back and listen to it.
(03:56):
So Duncan, we will talk about what The Fax Club is in a moment, lovely listener, butactually I'm quite liking the suspense of not really knowing.
Duncan, what led you to The Fax Club?
Some similar themes actually here to Abby So I have been experimenting and practicing myown writing skills creatively and for me, it's an exploration of my own leadership, which
(04:25):
is uh the coaching work that I do is helping people in their leadership and so for me thework was in has been in uh Being opinionated about a bunch of topics
So writing is how I've been exploring that and giving myself permission to publish mywriting, just hit the send button.
(04:45):
This invitation just seemed like an open door on that, it was very serendipitously timed.
And it seemed like a no brainer, not least because, and this is gonna show up in ourconversations today, the fact that the membership of this writing program was anonymous,
which was a really interesting part of the context for this group.
So for me, it was about writing.
(05:08):
expressing opinion, practicing forming opinions.
And then the second part of this, which was as the writing program ended and we meteventually and chose to agree that we would produce a book, that in itself became a whole
experiment in my own leadership and the impact that I can create both intentionally andsometimes unintentionally by choosing to show up and take action in a group.
(05:35):
a really good case study in leadership for me.
I love that you didn't know each other all the way through.
I think that's very exciting.
So Saj, what was your journey?
What has been your journey into The Fax Club?
think there was a few years ago I saw a sign in the shop and it said collaboration overcompetition and I feel like that's really been something that has come through is like
(06:04):
this co-creation and this even like the decision of like how do we put our names in thebook do we reveal our numbers and this kind of true co-creation together and what I think
what brought me to The Fax Club in the first place was
I was in a very difficult position in my life.
was, was grieving a lot and some really difficult things had happened.
(06:27):
You know how sometimes when life just everything tumbles and it all happens at the sametime.
I was in one of those kind of situations in December, 2023 and I got the email and therewas just this full body yes of like, I don't know why, but I just need to say yes to this
weird invitation and sort of.
And then actually it was really a part of the healing process because there's somethingreally powerful about being seen and being able to show up anonymously in a world which I
(06:59):
feel is very highly transactional and quite disposable as well.
That community isn't formed through disposable connections.
Community is formed through showing up as you are week after week.
And I think the power of anonymity
the power that it gave us was to really show up and actually muse about what was reallygoing on for us without needing to over sanitize it or put filters on it and show up in a
(07:27):
kind of very Instagrammable perfect world.
And I think that's where that was the surprising thing about it actually is kind of thisability to just show up as we were and to not be fearing any judgment.
So that was, think.
I didn't know, I don't really know why I said yes, but it was this full body yes and thenkind of started to unfold that this was really important to me and almost like a lifeline.
(07:54):
So much risk and no status.
I've been doing some thinking about status introductions and how we can impact a group bysaying, I'm a very special person and these are all my special things.
And what I love is that you hadn't got a clue who anyone else was.
So who's going to tell us actually what it, what is Fax Club?
(08:22):
Go on, I'll have a go.
I'll have a go.
You two can chip in and tell me where I got it wrong or, you know, extra right.
Fax Club was, is, because it's still a thing, an experiment in thinking differently.
(08:42):
An experiment in slowing down and sitting with ideas and
an experiment in community and what happens when you don't know who the other people areor you don't have that kind of state those status markers to navigate the world.
(09:02):
So a context free place, I guess.
And the way it worked was the invitation went out 100 spots, were 100 spots, 100 peoplesigned up.
You had to buy a fax machine which
is surprisingly quite challenging actually actually, you know, buying it, not the mostchallenging part getting it to work super hard.
(09:26):
um Not the most technical, easy, technical kind of um thing to do.
And then every Friday at 5pm, a question arrived via fax machine.
And
uh the hundred people who were involved, we chose numbers for ourselves rather than names.
(09:48):
And then we sat with that answer.
We thought about it and tried to come up with a counterintuitive answer to the question.
And then we shared our answers in an online group under our just our numbers.
And we read each other's answers and responded.
And then we did that for 52 weeks and went on quite the journey.
(10:11):
And then at the end of the year, 32 of us were left.
kind of stayed the course, had answered questions, had kept going.
And then we met in London and learned who each other were for the first time and made aplan to make a book out of it all.
(10:32):
yeah, did I miss anything Duncan?
I mean, I did, because there's nuance upon nuance upon nuance that came from it, butthat's the bones of what Fax Club was is.
Just the long and the short of it, 52 weeks of receiving a bit of paper at your facts,sitting with it, trying to think of how you might approach it and what you want to share
(10:54):
about it.
And then getting stuck in reading other people's responses.
We had to give counterintuitive answers, right?
That was the...
which is hard, actually.
you know, and the learning to think differently and to, and then to read the kind of giftof reading everybody else's takes on the question really was this unexpectedly beautiful
(11:25):
understanding into different perspectives and different approaches and different ideas.
It was very, yeah, was very, the reading, I found the reading as
it as if not more illuminating than the writing so it was kind of a kind of a reflectivepractice to a degree and then but with a with a deep sense of learning built into it or at
(11:47):
least that's what i took out of it as well i think
Well thank you for writing the book so that we could all look at your counter-intuitiveanswers because it really is absolutely, totally inspiring.
Thank you.
as I flick through it I just go oh yeah and...
(12:08):
What about this?
And what about that?
What about something else?
So I'm just really interested.
How was it on that day in London to suddenly face to face with people who you'd had quitean intimate engagement with over 12 months and you didn't know their sight or their voice
or their name?
(12:29):
Yeah.
So I suspect again, we'll have some commonality here, but three, three different,different experiences represented here for me.
For me, there was definitely an excitement about getting to the venue.
Uh, and you know, you have that thing like, uh, having been through COVID and lockdownworking, uh, from the countryside remotely with all my work being virtual.
(12:55):
There is definitely a, energy and, an excitement and a.
hesitation to meeting groups of people for real, like, you know, the social skills piece,something that I intentionally have to spend time working on.
So you find a room, you kind of ask, this, is this the, the, The Fax Club?
And you whisper it, is this Fax Club?
(13:17):
Cause the first rule of The Fax Club was you're not allowed to talk about it.
And people nod.
So, you know, you're in the right place.
And for me,
is this, uh, this kind of this paradox of walking into a room full of strangers.
Cause you don't know who's who.
You don't know their names or anything about them, but in, in your back pocket, you've gotall these really personal stories and you're carrying 30 relationships with you.
(13:40):
And then you're trying to figure out who's whose story, whose relationship is whose.
Cause then, and, and like, I'm sort of indexing on numbers like, ah, you're number 13,you're number 43.
And now being at last being able to put a face to the number was incredibly special.
(14:02):
Thank you.
How was it for you, Saj?
It felt, again, I kind of share Duncan's feeling of walking into a big group of people,know, what's showing up and really, I think what it felt like to me was a great sense of
safety.
And that was partly the facilitation I thought was excellent of the room.
(14:25):
So it's worth mentioning kind of Claire Perry Lewis and how she held the space.
And she did all sorts of exercises with us.
to help us kind of really feel safe in ourselves.
And I think for me it was, again, it was this feeling of familiarity, but also deep trust.
It's like, okay, these people cared enough to show up week after week and they saw itthrough.
(14:51):
And so there was already like an inbuilt trust and an intimacy of...
the fact that, you know, these people we've all shared and of course through the course of52 weeks, we're all going to have our ups and downs.
And so we were able to show up in a space of no judgment and really see each other and beseen.
(15:14):
And then to me, it was just, I was buzzing afterwards.
I like, I feel like this group of people can achieve anything, you know.
It's so upside down, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's just completely upside down.
(15:34):
And as you're talking, can't, I mean, there's nothing to compare it to, is there?
Because it's just absolutely beautifully upside down.
There's something magical around getting to know people because of their ideas and theirwriting and their just the way they see the world kind of unencumbered by preconceptions
(15:56):
or, you know, expectations or bias or any of the things.
And those connections were really, you know, really surprising and amazing.
just, and I just think that it was, I mean,
terrified walking in to an extent and so joyful at the same time and just and I had thismoment of going oh wonder if I'll know anybody and I looked around the room and I did know
(16:25):
somebody and I knew Saj so we had met in 2018 at the Do Lectures so Fax Club being thebrainchild of David Hieatt and you know part of his
panoply of amazing ideas.
(16:45):
And Saj and I had got to know each other over a few intense days in Wales and a very longdrive back to London.
And so, and then as life happens and you drift and then to come back into that room andsay, oh gosh, this is someone I had connected with in real life before and have now not
(17:07):
known that I connected with her through her writing again and then to be part ofsomething.
I just think that's really.
Magical as well, actually.
I love that you got that added dimension you do that you actually I didn't know this.
So like we continue to learn about each other.
I didn't know you knew each other beforehand.
What was that like when you both went in and had that moment of recognition?
(17:29):
I mean, for me, it contributed to that feeling of safety that you described.
was like, yeah, well, of course I did it.
Like, this makes total sense.
She's like all those all the things that I thought this was about.
um So yeah.
How was it for you, Saj?
It was great and it was funny because then I messaged Abby afterwards and then I realisedthat we'd lost touch because we both basically had children at the same time as well.
(17:58):
So there's the extra dimension of like, there's a lot of what I was sharing in my writingis reflections on motherhood as well.
I remember feeling like this sense of real like sympathetic ears as well at times becauseI think...
you know, when you think about community, when you become a parent, you also you join thisother secret community of other parents where there's this like knowing smiles between
(18:22):
you.
And so I think there's like so many different fractals and dimensions in which communitycan really show up.
And like, I think that's an antidote to a lot of today's issues, is community like realcommunity like based on
longer lasting, which means, you know, also seeing through times of discomfort as well asnot, you know, it's not all just rosy as well.
(18:49):
Duncan you're pondering something I can see it.
Ha, it's very observant of you, of course.
Always pondering.
I was just listening and just thinking.
There is something for me around the intention that people showed up with.
(19:10):
because the intimacy that we've developed came through a year of staying connected andgoing deep.
And not just by answering a question and reading other people's answers.
For me, there's a very intentional part because of the online platform we use to post ouranswers to each other anonymously allowed you to comment and begin conversation.
(19:35):
And I was very intentional quite early on to get into conversation with people.
Otherwise, yeah.
And that's where the depth and the connection comes from.
And even at the start of our conversation, you think about the tone that we set and Saj'sintroduction, like the, the, the tone got set real quick with people being willing to
(19:57):
share like real personal stuff.
And it sets the tone and it invites that level of connection.
you
that appealed to me.
And so it was the conversations with strangers, just being able to sort of, you know,reply to and acknowledge and be witness and share and poke around and get into some
arguments.
(20:18):
It was that depth of connection and the anonymity and the sort of episodic nature of itmeant it was slow and very connected to such a point, the opposite of modern life.
How very exciting.
Claire.
Hello.
(20:38):
Tell us about your journey to Fax Club.
I saw the invitation, I think it was on LinkedIn, and I just thought, yes, that's, I'vegot to be in that.
I think I'd had a few years of not being in the best place.
um Life had thrown a few huge curveballs my way, and um I just wanted to be braver.
(21:05):
and I saw this invitation and I just thought yeah I'm gonna go for that and I want to bearound other people that are going to see that sort of invitation and go for it as well.
em I also wanted to improve my writing and consistency is something that I really strugglewith so that kind of concept that every Friday a question is going to turn up and I've got
(21:32):
to show up for it.
and be consistent for a whole year.
That was kind of daunting and exciting at the same time.
And you stepped in, didn't you?
You all stepped right in to the conversation there.
It doesn't sound like there's any audience here.
You absolutely were both feet into the game.
(21:57):
Yeah, I think so.
In conversation recently, there was a question came about, how did you choose to answer?
uh That got me thinking, because I realized I'd been very, again, very intentional in howI was answering.
So ideally, because it's writing, I would see the question.
And if it was a question that I felt strongly about, I would challenge myself to actuallynot write for a few days, just to let it sort of sink in and think around it a little bit.
(22:26):
that was ideal.
And then there's this piece around, uh, when I have my answer, do I try and post first?
Cause there's some tactics and for the rule followers, like the part of the story wasearly on, we would vote on each other's answers and which are that, which, whichever
answers got the most votes would go into the book, which is not how it played outintentionally.
(22:51):
So there's the idea of like, if I'm going to
uh, be tactical.
If I post early, maybe that'll get most visibility and more chance of getting voted.
I was deliberately holding back from reading other people's answers whenever I could,cause I didn't want to pollute my own answer.
And then occasionally there were some of the questions I just couldn't get into.
(23:12):
I couldn't find a way into them at all.
So I'd sit and then I'd read a bunch of people's answers and, and be inspired by howthey'd found a way in.
And that sort of like be mapping out like where, are the spaces these answers come from?
And then where, where is the space between those answers that I can write into as a, to,force myself to, to practice taking an opinion or following a thread.
(23:36):
Like how do I write into the spaces between the answers here?
Duncan you're so sneaky.
mean, I love it.
Like it's like they're like the planning and the plotting.
I mean, I'd love to say I had like a plan like that, but I agree with you on carryinganswers around with me because some of those questions like they followed me around for
weeks.
(23:56):
I'll be honest.
And I would have them in my journal and I look at that or on a post-it note or an hour andI'd just be like, where are you?
um
come on, I'm ready for you.
And then of course they would emerge, you know, when I was doing something else orinspired by something else or something.
(24:16):
But I think for me, the process of answering was one of emergence often.
But I do agree actually, having said I didn't do that, sometimes when it was tough tohave...
the bouncing off of other people's ideas.
think that's why it's so the community element of is so amazing because you realize youcan create something new or create something different from the either the intersection of
(24:42):
other people's ideas or the things that they don't say or the reading in between the linesreally gives em gives kind of offshoots of opportunities, which I really love.
Yeah.
Let's give our lovely listener an opportunity to hear some of the questions that I want toknow, team.
(25:04):
What was your favourite question?
It's not a favourite question, but it's a question that influenced me a lot.
I guess.
It was...
I can't remember which week it was, but it was the question about Bitcoin, basically.
(25:27):
And I remember until then I'd been on the fence about whether to invest or not, and itexplained to me the theory of debasement, and I thought, oh, hold on, there's something
really important here that kind of clicked and I understood, and then...
decided to take a leap and start to kind of invest a little bit.
(25:48):
I remember that was an influential question, right?
Because it actually influenced my behaviour in quite a big way.
Has anyone got their finger in the page and can tell us what the Bitcoin question was?
It was one of the longer questions.
So occasionally the questions would come through and it'd be like one line on a fax.
And I would have a reaction to having waited an entire week for six words.
(26:12):
And then, and then occasionally a question would come through and it'd spit out like threepages of text with so much context and backstory and you're kind of reading through all to
get to the one question at the end.
Nice.
I remember it being a bit of supposition really.
Essentially we don't know anything at all about the person that invented Bitcoin.
(26:33):
that's question 12.
Can you read it out to us or is it very long?
Okay.
person no one knows.
So lovely reader, lovely listener, that is a really, really good reason to go buy thebook.
The book's called The Fax Club Experiment, available from wherever you get your books.
(26:55):
Exactly.
your favourite question?
I think for me, bizarrely, the favourite ones were the ones that I really, reallystruggled to do because they, because I learnt so much from them.
I think not all of them are questions, some of them were tasks and I found the tasks somuch harder than the questions because like Duncan, the question I could ponder, I could
(27:20):
rewrite, I could spend the whole week sort of thinking about it.
But the task, was that immediate, oh, I really don't want to do that.
And just all those feelings that it kind of brought up.
the one was really seemed quite simple.
was go into your local coffee shop and ask for a 10 % discount.
(27:43):
But oh, wowzers, that just made me feel so uncomfortable.
And I could hear my head straight away go, I'm not doing that.
um
Yeah, and it was fascinating then seeing people's answers because not everybody had doneit, but some people had and then you would see and go, okay, they did it and it was all
(28:06):
right.
ah And then other people hadn't done it, but were giving answers as to why they hadn'tfollowed through on the task.
ah even now, I'm not saying I'll never do it.
I am yet to ask for a 10 % discount if I go for shop but I will do one day.
(28:27):
So yeah, for me it was the ones that I found really really hard and uncomfortable.
And I love the fact that you took the big risk to step into the unknown and then you wereinvited to take more risks.
Abby, Duncan, what were your favourites?
I have a few.
(28:48):
think one of mine, I really like the reflective ones.
I think the ones that caused me to think about something that I maybe already knew, butfrom a different perspective.
And one of those that jumped out was question 39.
So that's about reverse engineering success.
And the question was not a full page, so I can read it now.
(29:08):
Think back to one of your biggest successes, reverse engineer why it went so well.
What was the most counterintuitive thing that you did?
And I think that one, I love that because the prompt, because that even had the promptabout counterintuitive thinking in it, in its kind of question.
because questions that maybe I'd asked myself before or that I'd reflect on, because I wasbringing this new lens to them, this kind of thought around, you know, I definitely will
(29:36):
have thought back to stuff in my life and thought, well, how did that, why did that work?
And what did I learn from it, et cetera?
But I'm not sure I would have.
added that overlay of what was the counterintuitive bit that made it successful.
And so I feel like it, it both peeled a layer off me and taught me something about myself,but it also caused me to look at myself from a different perspective too.
(29:58):
And so there was something very valuable in that in the self learning and I just, and Ilove the depth of learning about other people's cause I did really, you know, I love the
anonymousness of the community, but I also
wanted to know about people are so nosy.
And I just feel like those kind of questions, they really do give you a very, like, thin,pointy insight, but very deep insight into the people.
(30:23):
And I was just, you know, by that stage, that's what's that question 39 to say, you know,we've been around, we've been together in a group for a long time.
And I was just, you know, I wanted to add to the little pictures I had of each number inmy head with some details.
And I feel like that was a
as a good detail to know about them.
(30:43):
My goodness, there's a whole other conversation, isn't there, about your fantasy peopleand the real people.
Duncan, what was your favourite question?
So I think I'm sort of Claire.
I noticed that there was, there were some types of question that for me were very cerebraland cognitive and allow me to sort of go on a thought journey, which was interesting and
(31:09):
revealing.
uh I definitely had the biggest reactions to the ones that invited us to do something likeasking for a discount in coffee shop.
Another one was writing letters to people, um to be honest and actually tell them what youhave not yet told them.
It's the doing pieces that I felt the greatest resistance to, the invitation to be boldthere.
(31:35):
And what I liked about that was, so David comes from, he's the co-founder of the DoLectures.
He's all about doing.
He says talk is cheap, right?
Action speaks.
volumes.
And again, there's this paradox for me with the coaching work, uh, which is that doing isreally the focus of everything.
(31:56):
And actually I focus with people more on the being like how are you being as a way ofgenerating the energy and coming from that place in support of doing.
And if you can shift how you're being and how you're thinking, you create ton of newoptions for how to do stuff.
So this focus back to doing felt counterintuitive for me, because I've been sort ofpulling away from that.
(32:17):
And actually there's some like avoidance and resistance that I feel in doing some things.
So it's kind of nice to, to, to put myself back in the coaching seat, if you will, createmore empathy for the people that I work with as well.
There's the doing things that got me.
So you just opened up a beautiful window into the impact it's had on the rest of your lifenow you're well all the way through and now so what's different how do how do people
(32:52):
experience you differently now?
And so there's a bunch of stories from the 32 of us around this.
um And for me, there's this sort of mild surprise because like the family members didn'tknow what was going on until we published the book because we weren't allowed to talk
(33:15):
about it.
And so the sense of there's a lot of mixed reactions to that, which is interesting.
because you were loyal to something people didn't know about.
Yeah.
And it's surprising.
And then there's a rush.
(33:36):
So my mother-in-law had a read of the book and she went, this is brilliant.
Your number.
I'm making the numbers up to preserve anonymity and not spoil it.
But she's like, I read it.
And I knew immediately you were number 23 until you spoke about your husband, which youdon't have.
I had to, and then I figured that was obvious.
You were number 46 up until you started talking about your children, which you don't have.
(34:01):
So who are you?
Yeah, how interesting.
How are people experiencing everyone else differently?
Claire?
I think for me it was more after the book was done.
I think actually that day in London where we got to meet each other in person, I thinkthat was huge.
(34:27):
I had actually assumed that it was quite dominated by males.
And so it was lovely to walk in the room and see all these women.
Abby and me in particular, I had fallen in love with Abby as a number, but I didn't knowit was Abby.
So when Abby said it, I was like, oh, yes.
(34:48):
You know, we had uh similar values, everything Abby wrote.
I was just like,
I think you're fabulous.
So to sort of meet someone.
But I think the after bit of meeting and deciding to do the book and then throwing allthese strangers ultimately into a WhatsApp group and this real messy process of how do you
(35:15):
come together and collaborate and decide.
what this book is, what does it look like, how do we do it, how do we work together as a32 people, as a cohesive group.
That has been a huge learning piece for me.
And sometimes my confidence has gone through the roof and at other times the self doubtcomes in and I think, my goodness, what am I doing?
(35:41):
Why am I even involved in this?
And it's been a real roller coaster.
uh
Yeah, it's a huge project and I'm so, so pleased I got involved with it.
I'm so pleased you all got involved with it because it's just such fun as well as deep andall of the things.
(36:07):
Saj, how are people experiencing you differently?
Go on Duncan.
I want to ask Saj that because we've not been able to connect for a while.
I'm curious Saj, what sort of reactions did you get from your friends and family?
I had a funny reaction from my parents where they didn't really understand when I said tothem that I co-authored a book with 31 other people.
(36:30):
And then I kind of put the book in their hand and they were like, oh, this is cool.
So that was just a funny response.
think it's because it was like you said, you couldn't talk about it.
It was quite unexpected and it was a surprise.
I think for me, like personally, what's happened since being a part of The Fax Club.
and writing anonymously for 52 weeks is that I've then continued to write, actually put itonline on on LinkedIn on my website and and to like continue to write about things that I
(37:03):
really care about and things that I've been thinking about for like 10s of years andthings that I previously didn't have the courage to say out loud and I think that's what's
been like the most special and profound impact has been just to be able to like
show up and feel like what The Fax Club gave me was like a really good springboard ofconfidence to be able to sometimes say things that aren't necessarily counterintuitive but
(37:32):
they could also they could be countercultural or they they you know they could be maybefor me it's been difficult to always show up and to say these things and I think this gave
me like a good practice.
and also like a container of support.
Even though we haven't connected in a while, Duncan, I feel like you are one of the peoplethat also thinks about leadership in certain ways.
(37:56):
And so I felt like there was like this support group that I could dip in and out of.
Because, you know, I think one was like speaking to Hannah about it and like, one of thethings that I regret is not being more involved in the production of the book, but also it
was like summer holidays and children and.
work and life kind of happened and I really wish I could have showed up more in that phaseof it but at the same time like I don't feel like it's a judgmental group like I feel like
(38:23):
it's a very honest and open group and and very real and very cognizant of the fact thatpeople had different commitments and there wasn't this kind of
It's not like when you're doing kind of paid work and everyone needs to show up in thesame amount because you're all getting a certain amount of reward and that reward is being
split.
And so it was a very different feeling of like, actually I felt like I could come backinto it and leave and come back and ebb and flow, you know, with life, which was also
(38:53):
quite special because I don't think those containers and groups exist so much.
It's funny, isn't it?
It's like having an energy source, a new energy source.
I feel like m I've been plugged into this massive like power pack of people and brillianceand opportunity to show up for good stuff and for the things that really matter and to
(39:23):
lean on people when it's tough or, know, say
same search as me, like over the summer holidays, I just didn't have the capacity withmanaging the summer holidays, I'm running, keeping a business running to then really lean
into that like final editing phase.
Definitely went through this kind of imposter syndrome part of, oh, is this really, youknow, can I say that I co-authored this book?
(39:49):
And then have this little epiphany around...
counter intuitively like that's causing behaviour that's really damaging the wholeprospect because by not taking ownership of it, I can't then shout about it and like, be
part of it and really step into that kind of co ownership that gives has given so muchjoy.
(40:11):
So I kind of feel a bit like I've cheated the system around like, it's a bit like a booksprung like fully fully formed class going it does not feel like this for me.
But it
But it like it's, but then to know that like in the group your time for to really help,whether that's amplifying it or you know, if we'd had 32 people trying to do that phase,
(40:34):
it would have been an absolute car crash, right?
But and so it needed different, it needs different people to step up at different timesand own different things and really follow their own energy around it.
And I feel so lucky, you know, as soon as I
forward and went, yes, this you know, this is this book has my writing in, I've got, youknow, I'm contributing, I've got so much more to contribute to, but I just felt, you know,
(40:56):
like, I'd really like, plug the, you know, three pins straight into, you know, 31 otherpeople's brains and, you know, nervous systems, and it just, and it just continues to give
like that, I just think it's, it's kind of magical.
It's so beautifully laid out.
(41:17):
It's just lovely to look at and it's also lovely to dip into and it's very provocative.
So while the rest of the world are reading your book, The Fax Club Experiment written byThe 32, it does sound quite, that's very mysterious, isn't it?
So while we're doing that, what's next for you?
(41:40):
Gosh, we have a document somewhere in our shared Google Drive and I think it's got about40 different ideas on it at the moment.
So we're sort of trying to decide amongst us, which is always a bit of a messy process,where we go.
specific and clear.
(42:01):
The thing that we're doing immediately next is saying, as we run up to the holiday periodand the stress and pressure of what's the perfect gift to buy people starts to set in,
there's an offer here that there is a beautiful gift that we'll keep on giving, which isto send a copy of the book to your nearest and dearest.
(42:23):
And I think we're...
Yeah, great plug.
I love that.
I think there's a bit for me around like following our energy around it a little bit.
What I love about it is that the emergence or the possibility of what comes next and whatwe want to create together on it.
(42:46):
And I think that's, that is really exciting.
You know, I have like book clubs.
And bookshops are two things that I really feel are big opportunities for us and goingafter those two things, know, getting listings in indie bookshops, doing events in indie
bookshops, like talking to human beings about it and not just, you know, I ran a littleevent last week um with a few kind of family and friends and just asking people questions
(43:16):
is just, you know, and seeing their responses and maybe telling a bit of the story.
has been, you you get so close to it that you think, is this like a thing?
Or is it going to be of interest?
And then as soon as you start talking about it was as soon as you start asking peoplequestions, getting them to interact or kind of deep dig down a layer, it just creates
(43:36):
this, this kind of possibility between people and this, this understanding.
And I just think, you know, I think there's a reason that, you know, there's a few coacheswho showed up in Fax Club, because I think it is that, you know, that power of the
question and the
emergence and the presence that really collects.
We need to get you to the Malvern Festival of Ideas.
(43:58):
Yes we'll be there sign us up.
How do we get there?
Thank you.
I could talk to you all morning, evening, whatever time of day we're in, because it's justso fascinating.
But I just want to say to our lovely listener, The Fax Club experiment, as Duncan said,great gift for somebody.
(44:22):
52 mind-bending questions that bypass small talk and unlock authentic thinking.
It just is fun and deep and...
connecting and all of the beautiful words and it's not like any other book I've ever seen.
ah So that is massive promote.
I'll put the link in the show notes.
(44:44):
uh So lovely listener, you can go buy it because I think you might be curious to have alittle look inside.
So Claire, Saj, Abby and Duncan, thank you so much for coming to our virtual pub.
talk about your crazy experiment.
(45:06):
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.
you.
Yeah, it's been a real joy.
listeners for listening.
And honestly, we promote quite a lot of books on the show, but this is the one that youneed to go by.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for coming.
We'll be back next week with another episode.
Bye bye.
(45:27):
Bye.
Thank you.
Hello, I'm Claire Pedrick and uh I want you to meet The Fax Club in this episode.
uh So here's the book, The Fax Club Experiment, a crazy idea, it shouldn't have worked,but it did, written by the 32.
(00:21):
It's a mystery, it's fun, ah it's deep, it's worth listening to.
There's so many insights in this episode about what is The Fax Club How do you risk take,make courage, step into something you don't know?
So much great stuff.
I absolutely recommend that you listen in.
(00:42):
And as one of our lovely guests, Duncan said,
The book would make a really great Christmas present if you don't know what to buysomebody.
So I'd love to hear what you think.
Over to The Fax Club.
(01:09):
Hello and welcome to this week's edition of The Coaching Inn,
And today around the open table are three fabulous people, Saj, Abby and Duncan, who havecontributed to the most extraordinary book called The Fax Club, which I absolutely
recommend you go get and put in your toilet.
(01:32):
For really good reason.
Not because it's not very good.
That didn't come out right, did it?
Not because it's not very good, but it's just the kind of book that you want to pick upand have a dip into for a very short period of time.
Because it is genius, but more about that in a moment.
But let's just meet you, Abby, Duncan, Saj Hello, welcome.
(01:55):
Bye.
Thank you for having us.
a real pleasure.
So let's start with uh you, Abby.
You've been on The Coaching Inn before.
I have thank you for inviting me back.
It mustn't have been too bad the first time around if I made it made it back into therepeat guests.
What's your story that got you to The Fax Club?
(02:16):
Oh, good question.
I think one of the things I didn't expect about being a coach, and maybe I should havedone, was how sometimes it can get really lonely.
And I think as coaches, we get quite good at finding new friends and different things toget involved in and tribes of people who are cher-er, not.
(02:42):
every characteristic books, one overlapping characteristic.
I guess I think curiosity is kind of part of my soul.
And so when I saw an email saying, do you want to join a really hard to join and stay inwriting club and buy a fax machine, I thought, yeah, no, I do actually.
Yeah, I really do.
Cause I like people and I like writing and I like crazy ideas.
(03:07):
I, I just, I, I wanted some
some great people in my life and I wanted some practice and writing practice in my life.
that's kind of, and I like saying yes to weird questions like that.
So, and that led me to these lovely people and you know, 30 other 30, no 29 other peopleand count and, and just the most unexpected and joyful experience really.
(03:35):
So saying yes led me to The Fax Club.
How amazing.
And what you said right at the beginning of that would make the most amazing opening lineto a novel.
Yes, I mean we have so many tendrils of shoots of ideas that I think that one isdefinitely on there as well.
So I'll go back and listen to it.
(03:56):
So Duncan, we will talk about what The Fax Club is in a moment, lovely listener, butactually I'm quite liking the suspense of not really knowing.
Duncan, what led you to The Fax Club?
Some similar themes actually here to Abby So I have been experimenting and practicing myown writing skills creatively and for me, it's an exploration of my own leadership, which
(04:25):
is uh the coaching work that I do is helping people in their leadership and so for me thework was in has been in uh Being opinionated about a bunch of topics
So writing is how I've been exploring that and giving myself permission to publish mywriting, just hit the send button.
(04:45):
This invitation just seemed like an open door on that, it was very serendipitously timed.
And it seemed like a no brainer, not least because, and this is gonna show up in ourconversations today, the fact that the membership of this writing program was anonymous,
which was a really interesting part of the context for this group.
So for me, it was about writing.
(05:08):
expressing opinion, practicing forming opinions.
And then the second part of this, which was as the writing program ended and we meteventually and chose to agree that we would produce a book, that in itself became a whole
experiment in my own leadership and the impact that I can create both intentionally andsometimes unintentionally by choosing to show up and take action in a group.
(05:35):
a really good case study in leadership for me.
I love that you didn't know each other all the way through.
I think that's very exciting.
So Saj, what was your journey?
What has been your journey into The Fax Club?
think there was a few years ago I saw a sign in the shop and it said collaboration overcompetition and I feel like that's really been something that has come through is like
(06:04):
this co-creation and this even like the decision of like how do we put our names in thebook do we reveal our numbers and this kind of true co-creation together and what I think
what brought me to The Fax Club in the first place was
I was in a very difficult position in my life.
was, was grieving a lot and some really difficult things had happened.
(06:27):
You know how sometimes when life just everything tumbles and it all happens at the sametime.
I was in one of those kind of situations in December, 2023 and I got the email and therewas just this full body yes of like, I don't know why, but I just need to say yes to this
weird invitation and sort of.
And then actually it was really a part of the healing process because there's somethingreally powerful about being seen and being able to show up anonymously in a world which I
(06:59):
feel is very highly transactional and quite disposable as well.
That community isn't formed through disposable connections.
Community is formed through showing up as you are week after week.
And I think the power of anonymity
the power that it gave us was to really show up and actually muse about what was reallygoing on for us without needing to over sanitize it or put filters on it and show up in a
(07:27):
kind of very Instagrammable perfect world.
And I think that's where that was the surprising thing about it actually is kind of thisability to just show up as we were and to not be fearing any judgment.
So that was, think.
I didn't know, I don't really know why I said yes, but it was this full body yes and thenkind of started to unfold that this was really important to me and almost like a lifeline.
(07:54):
So much risk and no status.
I've been doing some thinking about status introductions and how we can impact a group bysaying, I'm a very special person and these are all my special things.
And what I love is that you hadn't got a clue who anyone else was.
So who's going to tell us actually what it, what is Fax Club?
(08:22):
Go on, I'll have a go.
I'll have a go.
You two can chip in and tell me where I got it wrong or, you know, extra right.
Fax Club was, is, because it's still a thing, an experiment in thinking differently.
(08:42):
An experiment in slowing down and sitting with ideas and
an experiment in community and what happens when you don't know who the other people areor you don't have that kind of state those status markers to navigate the world.
(09:02):
So a context free place, I guess.
And the way it worked was the invitation went out 100 spots, were 100 spots, 100 peoplesigned up.
You had to buy a fax machine which
is surprisingly quite challenging actually actually, you know, buying it, not the mostchallenging part getting it to work super hard.
(09:26):
um Not the most technical, easy, technical kind of um thing to do.
And then every Friday at 5pm, a question arrived via fax machine.
And
uh the hundred people who were involved, we chose numbers for ourselves rather than names.
(09:48):
And then we sat with that answer.
We thought about it and tried to come up with a counterintuitive answer to the question.
And then we shared our answers in an online group under our just our numbers.
And we read each other's answers and responded.
And then we did that for 52 weeks and went on quite the journey.
(10:11):
And then at the end of the year, 32 of us were left.
kind of stayed the course, had answered questions, had kept going.
And then we met in London and learned who each other were for the first time and made aplan to make a book out of it all.
(10:32):
yeah, did I miss anything Duncan?
I mean, I did, because there's nuance upon nuance upon nuance that came from it, butthat's the bones of what Fax Club was is.
Just the long and the short of it, 52 weeks of receiving a bit of paper at your facts,sitting with it, trying to think of how you might approach it and what you want to share
(10:54):
about it.
And then getting stuck in reading other people's responses.
We had to give counterintuitive answers, right?
That was the...
which is hard, actually.
you know, and the learning to think differently and to, and then to read the kind of giftof reading everybody else's takes on the question really was this unexpectedly beautiful
(11:25):
understanding into different perspectives and different approaches and different ideas.
It was very, yeah, was very, the reading, I found the reading as
it as if not more illuminating than the writing so it was kind of a kind of a reflectivepractice to a degree and then but with a with a deep sense of learning built into it or at
(11:47):
least that's what i took out of it as well i think
Well thank you for writing the book so that we could all look at your counter-intuitiveanswers because it really is absolutely, totally inspiring.
Thank you.
as I flick through it I just go oh yeah and...
(12:08):
What about this?
And what about that?
What about something else?
So I'm just really interested.
How was it on that day in London to suddenly face to face with people who you'd had quitean intimate engagement with over 12 months and you didn't know their sight or their voice
or their name?
(12:29):
Yeah.
So I suspect again, we'll have some commonality here, but three, three different,different experiences represented here for me.
For me, there was definitely an excitement about getting to the venue.
Uh, and you know, you have that thing like, uh, having been through COVID and lockdownworking, uh, from the countryside remotely with all my work being virtual.
(12:55):
There is definitely a, energy and, an excitement and a.
hesitation to meeting groups of people for real, like, you know, the social skills piece,something that I intentionally have to spend time working on.
So you find a room, you kind of ask, this, is this the, the, The Fax Club?
And you whisper it, is this Fax Club?
(13:17):
Cause the first rule of The Fax Club was you're not allowed to talk about it.
And people nod.
So, you know, you're in the right place.
And for me,
is this, uh, this kind of this paradox of walking into a room full of strangers.
Cause you don't know who's who.
You don't know their names or anything about them, but in, in your back pocket, you've gotall these really personal stories and you're carrying 30 relationships with you.
(13:40):
And then you're trying to figure out who's whose story, whose relationship is whose.
Cause then, and, and like, I'm sort of indexing on numbers like, ah, you're number 13,you're number 43.
And now being at last being able to put a face to the number was incredibly special.
(14:02):
Thank you.
How was it for you, Saj?
It felt, again, I kind of share Duncan's feeling of walking into a big group of people,know, what's showing up and really, I think what it felt like to me was a great sense of
safety.
And that was partly the facilitation I thought was excellent of the room.
(14:25):
So it's worth mentioning kind of Claire Perry Lewis and how she held the space.
And she did all sorts of exercises with us.
to help us kind of really feel safe in ourselves.
And I think for me it was, again, it was this feeling of familiarity, but also deep trust.
It's like, okay, these people cared enough to show up week after week and they saw itthrough.
(14:51):
And so there was already like an inbuilt trust and an intimacy of...
the fact that, you know, these people we've all shared and of course through the course of52 weeks, we're all going to have our ups and downs.
And so we were able to show up in a space of no judgment and really see each other and beseen.
(15:14):
And then to me, it was just, I was buzzing afterwards.
I like, I feel like this group of people can achieve anything, you know.
It's so upside down, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's just completely upside down.
(15:34):
And as you're talking, can't, I mean, there's nothing to compare it to, is there?
Because it's just absolutely beautifully upside down.
There's something magical around getting to know people because of their ideas and theirwriting and their just the way they see the world kind of unencumbered by preconceptions
(15:56):
or, you know, expectations or bias or any of the things.
And those connections were really, you know, really surprising and amazing.
just, and I just think that it was, I mean,
terrified walking in to an extent and so joyful at the same time and just and I had thismoment of going oh wonder if I'll know anybody and I looked around the room and I did know
(16:25):
somebody and I knew Saj so we had met in 2018 at the Do Lectures so Fax Club being thebrainchild of David Hieatt and you know part of his
panoply of amazing ideas.
(16:45):
And Saj and I had got to know each other over a few intense days in Wales and a very longdrive back to London.
And so, and then as life happens and you drift and then to come back into that room andsay, oh gosh, this is someone I had connected with in real life before and have now not
(17:07):
known that I connected with her through her writing again and then to be part ofsomething.
I just think that's really.
Magical as well, actually.
I love that you got that added dimension you do that you actually I didn't know this.
So like we continue to learn about each other.
I didn't know you knew each other beforehand.
What was that like when you both went in and had that moment of recognition?
(17:29):
I mean, for me, it contributed to that feeling of safety that you described.
was like, yeah, well, of course I did it.
Like, this makes total sense.
She's like all those all the things that I thought this was about.
um So yeah.
How was it for you, Saj?
It was great and it was funny because then I messaged Abby afterwards and then I realisedthat we'd lost touch because we both basically had children at the same time as well.
(17:58):
So there's the extra dimension of like, there's a lot of what I was sharing in my writingis reflections on motherhood as well.
I remember feeling like this sense of real like sympathetic ears as well at times becauseI think...
you know, when you think about community, when you become a parent, you also you join thisother secret community of other parents where there's this like knowing smiles between
(18:22):
you.
And so I think there's like so many different fractals and dimensions in which communitycan really show up.
And like, I think that's an antidote to a lot of today's issues, is community like realcommunity like based on
longer lasting, which means, you know, also seeing through times of discomfort as well asnot, you know, it's not all just rosy as well.
(18:49):
Duncan you're pondering something I can see it.
Ha, it's very observant of you, of course.
Always pondering.
I was just listening and just thinking.
There is something for me around the intention that people showed up with.
(19:10):
because the intimacy that we've developed came through a year of staying connected andgoing deep.
And not just by answering a question and reading other people's answers.
For me, there's a very intentional part because of the online platform we use to post ouranswers to each other anonymously allowed you to comment and begin conversation.
(19:35):
And I was very intentional quite early on to get into conversation with people.
Otherwise, yeah.
And that's where the depth and the connection comes from.
And even at the start of our conversation, you think about the tone that we set and Saj'sintroduction, like the, the, the tone got set real quick with people being willing to
(19:57):
share like real personal stuff.
And it sets the tone and it invites that level of connection.
you
that appealed to me.
And so it was the conversations with strangers, just being able to sort of, you know,reply to and acknowledge and be witness and share and poke around and get into some
arguments.
(20:18):
It was that depth of connection and the anonymity and the sort of episodic nature of itmeant it was slow and very connected to such a point, the opposite of modern life.
How very exciting.
Claire.
Hello.
(20:38):
Tell us about your journey to Fax Club.
I saw the invitation, I think it was on LinkedIn, and I just thought, yes, that's, I'vegot to be in that.
I think I'd had a few years of not being in the best place.
um Life had thrown a few huge curveballs my way, and um I just wanted to be braver.
(21:05):
and I saw this invitation and I just thought yeah I'm gonna go for that and I want to bearound other people that are going to see that sort of invitation and go for it as well.
em I also wanted to improve my writing and consistency is something that I really strugglewith so that kind of concept that every Friday a question is going to turn up and I've got
(21:32):
to show up for it.
and be consistent for a whole year.
That was kind of daunting and exciting at the same time.
And you stepped in, didn't you?
You all stepped right in to the conversation there.
It doesn't sound like there's any audience here.
You absolutely were both feet into the game.
(21:57):
Yeah, I think so.
In conversation recently, there was a question came about, how did you choose to answer?
uh That got me thinking, because I realized I'd been very, again, very intentional in howI was answering.
So ideally, because it's writing, I would see the question.
And if it was a question that I felt strongly about, I would challenge myself to actuallynot write for a few days, just to let it sort of sink in and think around it a little bit.
(22:26):
that was ideal.
And then there's this piece around, uh, when I have my answer, do I try and post first?
Cause there's some tactics and for the rule followers, like the part of the story wasearly on, we would vote on each other's answers and which are that, which, whichever
answers got the most votes would go into the book, which is not how it played outintentionally.
(22:51):
So there's the idea of like, if I'm going to
uh, be tactical.
If I post early, maybe that'll get most visibility and more chance of getting voted.
I was deliberately holding back from reading other people's answers whenever I could,cause I didn't want to pollute my own answer.
And then occasionally there were some of the questions I just couldn't get into.
(23:12):
I couldn't find a way into them at all.
So I'd sit and then I'd read a bunch of people's answers and, and be inspired by howthey'd found a way in.
And that sort of like be mapping out like where, are the spaces these answers come from?
And then where, where is the space between those answers that I can write into as a, to,force myself to, to practice taking an opinion or following a thread.
(23:36):
Like how do I write into the spaces between the answers here?
Duncan you're so sneaky.
mean, I love it.
Like it's like they're like the planning and the plotting.
I mean, I'd love to say I had like a plan like that, but I agree with you on carryinganswers around with me because some of those questions like they followed me around for
weeks.
(23:56):
I'll be honest.
And I would have them in my journal and I look at that or on a post-it note or an hour andI'd just be like, where are you?
um
come on, I'm ready for you.
And then of course they would emerge, you know, when I was doing something else orinspired by something else or something.
(24:16):
But I think for me, the process of answering was one of emergence often.
But I do agree actually, having said I didn't do that, sometimes when it was tough tohave...
the bouncing off of other people's ideas.
think that's why it's so the community element of is so amazing because you realize youcan create something new or create something different from the either the intersection of
(24:42):
other people's ideas or the things that they don't say or the reading in between the linesreally gives em gives kind of offshoots of opportunities, which I really love.
Yeah.
Let's give our lovely listener an opportunity to hear some of the questions that I want toknow, team.
(25:04):
What was your favourite question?
It's not a favourite question, but it's a question that influenced me a lot.
I guess.
It was...
I can't remember which week it was, but it was the question about Bitcoin, basically.
(25:27):
And I remember until then I'd been on the fence about whether to invest or not, and itexplained to me the theory of debasement, and I thought, oh, hold on, there's something
really important here that kind of clicked and I understood, and then...
decided to take a leap and start to kind of invest a little bit.
(25:48):
I remember that was an influential question, right?
Because it actually influenced my behaviour in quite a big way.
Has anyone got their finger in the page and can tell us what the Bitcoin question was?
It was one of the longer questions.
So occasionally the questions would come through and it'd be like one line on a fax.
And I would have a reaction to having waited an entire week for six words.
(26:12):
And then, and then occasionally a question would come through and it'd spit out like threepages of text with so much context and backstory and you're kind of reading through all to
get to the one question at the end.
Nice.
I remember it being a bit of supposition really.
Essentially we don't know anything at all about the person that invented Bitcoin.
(26:33):
that's question 12.
Can you read it out to us or is it very long?
Okay.
person no one knows.
So lovely reader, lovely listener, that is a really, really good reason to go buy thebook.
The book's called The Fax Club Experiment, available from wherever you get your books.
(26:55):
Exactly.
your favourite question?
I think for me, bizarrely, the favourite ones were the ones that I really, reallystruggled to do because they, because I learnt so much from them.
I think not all of them are questions, some of them were tasks and I found the tasks somuch harder than the questions because like Duncan, the question I could ponder, I could
(27:20):
rewrite, I could spend the whole week sort of thinking about it.
But the task, was that immediate, oh, I really don't want to do that.
And just all those feelings that it kind of brought up.
the one was really seemed quite simple.
was go into your local coffee shop and ask for a 10 % discount.
(27:43):
But oh, wowzers, that just made me feel so uncomfortable.
And I could hear my head straight away go, I'm not doing that.
um
Yeah, and it was fascinating then seeing people's answers because not everybody had doneit, but some people had and then you would see and go, okay, they did it and it was all
(28:06):
right.
ah And then other people hadn't done it, but were giving answers as to why they hadn'tfollowed through on the task.
ah even now, I'm not saying I'll never do it.
I am yet to ask for a 10 % discount if I go for shop but I will do one day.
(28:27):
So yeah, for me it was the ones that I found really really hard and uncomfortable.
And I love the fact that you took the big risk to step into the unknown and then you wereinvited to take more risks.
Abby, Duncan, what were your favourites?
I have a few.
(28:48):
think one of mine, I really like the reflective ones.
I think the ones that caused me to think about something that I maybe already knew, butfrom a different perspective.
And one of those that jumped out was question 39.
So that's about reverse engineering success.
And the question was not a full page, so I can read it now.
(29:08):
Think back to one of your biggest successes, reverse engineer why it went so well.
What was the most counterintuitive thing that you did?
And I think that one, I love that because the prompt, because that even had the promptabout counterintuitive thinking in it, in its kind of question.
because questions that maybe I'd asked myself before or that I'd reflect on, because I wasbringing this new lens to them, this kind of thought around, you know, I definitely will
(29:36):
have thought back to stuff in my life and thought, well, how did that, why did that work?
And what did I learn from it, et cetera?
But I'm not sure I would have.
added that overlay of what was the counterintuitive bit that made it successful.
And so I feel like it, it both peeled a layer off me and taught me something about myself,but it also caused me to look at myself from a different perspective too.
(29:58):
And so there was something very valuable in that in the self learning and I just, and Ilove the depth of learning about other people's cause I did really, you know, I love the
anonymousness of the community, but I also
wanted to know about people are so nosy.
And I just feel like those kind of questions, they really do give you a very, like, thin,pointy insight, but very deep insight into the people.
(30:23):
And I was just, you know, by that stage, that's what's that question 39 to say, you know,we've been around, we've been together in a group for a long time.
And I was just, you know, I wanted to add to the little pictures I had of each number inmy head with some details.
And I feel like that was a
as a good detail to know about them.
(30:43):
My goodness, there's a whole other conversation, isn't there, about your fantasy peopleand the real people.
Duncan, what was your favourite question?
So I think I'm sort of Claire.
I noticed that there was, there were some types of question that for me were very cerebraland cognitive and allow me to sort of go on a thought journey, which was interesting and
(31:09):
revealing.
uh I definitely had the biggest reactions to the ones that invited us to do something likeasking for a discount in coffee shop.
Another one was writing letters to people, um to be honest and actually tell them what youhave not yet told them.
It's the doing pieces that I felt the greatest resistance to, the invitation to be boldthere.
(31:35):
And what I liked about that was, so David comes from, he's the co-founder of the DoLectures.
He's all about doing.
He says talk is cheap, right?
Action speaks.
volumes.
And again, there's this paradox for me with the coaching work, uh, which is that doing isreally the focus of everything.
(31:56):
And actually I focus with people more on the being like how are you being as a way ofgenerating the energy and coming from that place in support of doing.
And if you can shift how you're being and how you're thinking, you create ton of newoptions for how to do stuff.
So this focus back to doing felt counterintuitive for me, because I've been sort ofpulling away from that.
(32:17):
And actually there's some like avoidance and resistance that I feel in doing some things.
So it's kind of nice to, to, to put myself back in the coaching seat, if you will, createmore empathy for the people that I work with as well.
There's the doing things that got me.
So you just opened up a beautiful window into the impact it's had on the rest of your lifenow you're well all the way through and now so what's different how do how do people
(32:52):
experience you differently now?
And so there's a bunch of stories from the 32 of us around this.
um And for me, there's this sort of mild surprise because like the family members didn'tknow what was going on until we published the book because we weren't allowed to talk
(33:15):
about it.
And so the sense of there's a lot of mixed reactions to that, which is interesting.
because you were loyal to something people didn't know about.
Yeah.
And it's surprising.
And then there's a rush.
(33:36):
So my mother-in-law had a read of the book and she went, this is brilliant.
Your number.
I'm making the numbers up to preserve anonymity and not spoil it.
But she's like, I read it.
And I knew immediately you were number 23 until you spoke about your husband, which youdon't have.
I had to, and then I figured that was obvious.
You were number 46 up until you started talking about your children, which you don't have.
(34:01):
So who are you?
Yeah, how interesting.
How are people experiencing everyone else differently?
Claire?
I think for me it was more after the book was done.
I think actually that day in London where we got to meet each other in person, I thinkthat was huge.
(34:27):
I had actually assumed that it was quite dominated by males.
And so it was lovely to walk in the room and see all these women.
Abby and me in particular, I had fallen in love with Abby as a number, but I didn't knowit was Abby.
So when Abby said it, I was like, oh, yes.
(34:48):
You know, we had uh similar values, everything Abby wrote.
I was just like,
I think you're fabulous.
So to sort of meet someone.
But I think the after bit of meeting and deciding to do the book and then throwing allthese strangers ultimately into a WhatsApp group and this real messy process of how do you
(35:15):
come together and collaborate and decide.
what this book is, what does it look like, how do we do it, how do we work together as a32 people, as a cohesive group.
That has been a huge learning piece for me.
And sometimes my confidence has gone through the roof and at other times the self doubtcomes in and I think, my goodness, what am I doing?
(35:41):
Why am I even involved in this?
And it's been a real roller coaster.
uh
Yeah, it's a huge project and I'm so, so pleased I got involved with it.
I'm so pleased you all got involved with it because it's just such fun as well as deep andall of the things.
(36:07):
Saj, how are people experiencing you differently?
Go on Duncan.
I want to ask Saj that because we've not been able to connect for a while.
I'm curious Saj, what sort of reactions did you get from your friends and family?
I had a funny reaction from my parents where they didn't really understand when I said tothem that I co-authored a book with 31 other people.
(36:30):
And then I kind of put the book in their hand and they were like, oh, this is cool.
So that was just a funny response.
think it's because it was like you said, you couldn't talk about it.
It was quite unexpected and it was a surprise.
I think for me, like personally, what's happened since being a part of The Fax Club.
and writing anonymously for 52 weeks is that I've then continued to write, actually put itonline on on LinkedIn on my website and and to like continue to write about things that I
(37:03):
really care about and things that I've been thinking about for like 10s of years andthings that I previously didn't have the courage to say out loud and I think that's what's
been like the most special and profound impact has been just to be able to like
show up and feel like what The Fax Club gave me was like a really good springboard ofconfidence to be able to sometimes say things that aren't necessarily counterintuitive but
(37:32):
they could also they could be countercultural or they they you know they could be maybefor me it's been difficult to always show up and to say these things and I think this gave
me like a good practice.
and also like a container of support.
Even though we haven't connected in a while, Duncan, I feel like you are one of the peoplethat also thinks about leadership in certain ways.
(37:56):
And so I felt like there was like this support group that I could dip in and out of.
Because, you know, I think one was like speaking to Hannah about it and like, one of thethings that I regret is not being more involved in the production of the book, but also it
was like summer holidays and children and.
work and life kind of happened and I really wish I could have showed up more in that phaseof it but at the same time like I don't feel like it's a judgmental group like I feel like
(38:23):
it's a very honest and open group and and very real and very cognizant of the fact thatpeople had different commitments and there wasn't this kind of
It's not like when you're doing kind of paid work and everyone needs to show up in thesame amount because you're all getting a certain amount of reward and that reward is being
split.
And so it was a very different feeling of like, actually I felt like I could come backinto it and leave and come back and ebb and flow, you know, with life, which was also
(38:53):
quite special because I don't think those containers and groups exist so much.
It's funny, isn't it?
It's like having an energy source, a new energy source.
I feel like m I've been plugged into this massive like power pack of people and brillianceand opportunity to show up for good stuff and for the things that really matter and to
(39:23):
lean on people when it's tough or, know, say
same search as me, like over the summer holidays, I just didn't have the capacity withmanaging the summer holidays, I'm running, keeping a business running to then really lean
into that like final editing phase.
Definitely went through this kind of imposter syndrome part of, oh, is this really, youknow, can I say that I co-authored this book?
(39:49):
And then have this little epiphany around...
counter intuitively like that's causing behaviour that's really damaging the wholeprospect because by not taking ownership of it, I can't then shout about it and like, be
part of it and really step into that kind of co ownership that gives has given so muchjoy.
(40:11):
So I kind of feel a bit like I've cheated the system around like, it's a bit like a booksprung like fully fully formed class going it does not feel like this for me.
But it
But it like it's, but then to know that like in the group your time for to really help,whether that's amplifying it or you know, if we'd had 32 people trying to do that phase,
(40:34):
it would have been an absolute car crash, right?
But and so it needed different, it needs different people to step up at different timesand own different things and really follow their own energy around it.
And I feel so lucky, you know, as soon as I
forward and went, yes, this you know, this is this book has my writing in, I've got, youknow, I'm contributing, I've got so much more to contribute to, but I just felt, you know,
(40:56):
like, I'd really like, plug the, you know, three pins straight into, you know, 31 otherpeople's brains and, you know, nervous systems, and it just, and it just continues to give
like that, I just think it's, it's kind of magical.
It's so beautifully laid out.
(41:17):
It's just lovely to look at and it's also lovely to dip into and it's very provocative.
So while the rest of the world are reading your book, The Fax Club Experiment written byThe 32, it does sound quite, that's very mysterious, isn't it?
So while we're doing that, what's next for you?
(41:40):
Gosh, we have a document somewhere in our shared Google Drive and I think it's got about40 different ideas on it at the moment.
So we're sort of trying to decide amongst us, which is always a bit of a messy process,where we go.
specific and clear.
(42:01):
The thing that we're doing immediately next is saying, as we run up to the holiday periodand the stress and pressure of what's the perfect gift to buy people starts to set in,
there's an offer here that there is a beautiful gift that we'll keep on giving, which isto send a copy of the book to your nearest and dearest.
(42:23):
And I think we're...
Yeah, great plug.
I love that.
I think there's a bit for me around like following our energy around it a little bit.
What I love about it is that the emergence or the possibility of what comes next and whatwe want to create together on it.
(42:46):
And I think that's, that is really exciting.
You know, I have like book clubs.
And bookshops are two things that I really feel are big opportunities for us and goingafter those two things, know, getting listings in indie bookshops, doing events in indie
bookshops, like talking to human beings about it and not just, you know, I ran a littleevent last week um with a few kind of family and friends and just asking people questions
(43:16):
is just, you know, and seeing their responses and maybe telling a bit of the story.
has been, you you get so close to it that you think, is this like a thing?
Or is it going to be of interest?
And then as soon as you start talking about it was as soon as you start asking peoplequestions, getting them to interact or kind of deep dig down a layer, it just creates
(43:36):
this, this kind of possibility between people and this, this understanding.
And I just think, you know, I think there's a reason that, you know, there's a few coacheswho showed up in Fax Club, because I think it is that, you know, that power of the
question and the
emergence and the presence that really collects.
We need to get you to the Malvern Festival of Ideas.
(43:58):
Yes we'll be there sign us up.
How do we get there?
Thank you.
I could talk to you all morning, evening, whatever time of day we're in, because it's justso fascinating.
But I just want to say to our lovely listener, The Fax Club experiment, as Duncan said,great gift for somebody.
(44:22):
52 mind-bending questions that bypass small talk and unlock authentic thinking.
It just is fun and deep and...
connecting and all of the beautiful words and it's not like any other book I've ever seen.
ah So that is massive promote.
I'll put the link in the show notes.
(44:44):
uh So lovely listener, you can go buy it because I think you might be curious to have alittle look inside.
So Claire, Saj, Abby and Duncan, thank you so much for coming to our virtual pub.
talk about your crazy experiment.
(45:06):
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.
you.
Yeah, it's been a real joy.
listeners for listening.
And honestly, we promote quite a lot of books on the show, but this is the one that youneed to go by.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for coming.
We'll be back next week with another episode.
Bye bye.
(45:27):
Bye.
Thank you.
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