December 24, 2025 • 33 mins
**BEST OF**
That beautiful leather-bound journal you bought with the best intentions? The one now gathering dust under a pile of books? You're not alone.
After 40 years of failed journaling attempts, Michael Bungay Stanier finally cracked the code to sustainable reflection—and it's likely nothing like what you've tried before.
Michael is the author behind the Wall Street Journal bestseller The Coaching Habit (which Brené Brown called "a classic"), with over 1.5 million books sold worldwide. Named the #1 Thought Leader in Coaching by Thinkers50, his insights have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company.
In this conversation, Michael shares:
- His surprisingly simple journaling breakthrough that eliminates the most common barriers to consistency
- A powerful weekly reflection framework that drives tangible results (not just empty introspection)
- The counterintuitive boundary system he uses to prevent work overload while maximizing impact
- Why he rejects popular "word of the year" goal-setting (and what he does instead)
Whether you're a serial journal abandoner or simply seeking more intentional reflection practices, Michael's practical approach offers a refreshing alternative to traditional journaling methods that actually sticks.
Key Quotes:
“One thing that is really helpful is just to know I don’t have to say yes right away.”
“I have failed to successfully journal since I was 16. I’m now 57, so I’ve been attempting to journal for 40 years.”
“If you just start asking yourself what you want day in and day out it just starts forcing a deep clarity.”
Connect with Michael via his website, Instagram, LinkedIn, or buy the Do Something That Matters Journal.
My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/
Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe
Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How I Work is having a little break over the
bestive season, so I have handpicked a few of my
absolute favorite episodes from the last year to play for
you in this best of series. I hope you enjoy,
and I will be back with new episodes twice weekly
from January twenty nine. You know that beautiful leather bound
(00:21):
journal you bought with the best of intentions, the one
now gathering dust under a pile of books. If you've
abandoned more journals than you care to admit, you're about
to discover why. After forty years of failed journaling attempts,
Michael Bungay Stania finally cracked the code to sustainable reflection
(00:43):
with his do Something that Matters journal and It's nothing
like what you've tried before. Michael is the Wall Street
Journal best selling author of The Coaching Habit, which Brene
Brown called a classic with over one point five million
books sold, was named the number one thought leader in
coaching by Thinkers fifty, and his insights have transformed our
(01:06):
leaders work worldwide. I am thrilled to welcome Michael back
to How I Work, where he reveals his deceptively simple
approach to journaling that actually sticks. His Monday morning ritual
that drives results and the unexpected reflection technique that prevents
him from drowning in commitments. If you've ever struggled to
(01:28):
maintain a reflection practice, this conversation might finally end your
journal graveyard collection. Welcome to How I Work, a show
about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm
your host, Doctor Amantha Imber. Michael is so prolific with
(01:51):
his work and is clearly in high demand all around
the world, so I know he would have to be
pretty good at saying no to work offers in order
to have overload. So this chat starts with Michael sharing
his very practical tips on how and when to say no.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I start by saying, it's just one of those skills
that a little bit like gratitude turns out to be
a silver bullet, or as close to a silver bullet
to happiness as you can get, even though silver bullet's
a terrible metaphor, so let's call it a warm, gentle
hug towards happiness, which is this gift of being able
to say no. And I mean, I'll tell you I
(02:33):
am not particularly good at it. I like unhappy people.
I like pleasing people. I'm the oldest child, so I've
got a strong sense of responsibility and show up and
do the thing. But at the heart of understanding no
is a commitment to what you're saying yes to. So
saying no is not just a look I'm just being
(02:54):
obstinate or selfish. It's I've got an idea of really
what matters, and my yes is meaningless unless my no
has some weight. And I'm going to just take a
rough guess here that there's not a single person listening
to this podcast or a single person participating in this podcast,
(03:14):
So that's you and me, Amantha, who's going The problem
with my life is I just don't have enough stuff
in it. The problem with my life is it's just
not crowded enough. Like everybody's got too much on the yes's,
and so every time we make a commitment without a no,
we're pouring water into a full glass and all you're
doing is getting the floor wet and you're not really
(03:35):
getting committed to the big thing. So I've done a
few things to try and build my capacity for saying no,
and a lot of it is structural stuff, so it's
actually not building my capacity for saying no. It's building
an infrastructure around me that allows me to say no
when there's parts of my body screaming to say yes.
(03:56):
So I'll give you an example. One of the things
that that's really helpful is just to know that, look,
I don't have to say yes right away. And in fact,
one of the core things I keep trying to tell
myself is, Michael, slow down the rush to yes. Every
yes is precious. Your default should be no. Your default
shouldn't be yes. Your default should be no. So slow
(04:19):
down the rush to yes. So just you know, in
some ways this it's just getting a little bit more
mindful about what are you committing to and how quickly.
What helps me do that is to have criteria about
what I'm saying yes to. And you know, it's you
won't have criteria for everything in your life that you're
saying yes to. But as an example, I get asked
(04:40):
to come and give keynote speeches on a regular basis,
and every time I get a little inquiry, one part
of my fragile mail ego gets stroked and I'm like, see,
i know I'm getting old, i know I'm over the hill.
I know like I'm fading from people's memory, but I
still got it, Like I'm still I'm still like a
(05:01):
person out there in the world. And what happens is
six months later, I end up in some god forsaking
part of the world and like the US or Canada
or wherever am I be going? What am I doing here?
Who's responsible for me giving this talk? And I'm like,
I am I said yes to this. It's my fault.
So here's how I work it for my speaking and
(05:21):
people can figure out their own kind of version of
this for whatever shows up for them. But I have
five plus one criteria for my speaking and the rule
is if they tick two of the boxes, I'll have
a conversation with them. So the five criteria is they
will pay my full fee. Now I live in Canada
and so the speaking fees in the North America are
(05:44):
ridiculously are I've tried to price myself out of the market,
so most people don't want to pay the money because
I'm like, my rack rate for a speech is fifty
thousand dollars, which is believe me, I know how stupid
that is. And when people go that's a ridiculous amount
of money and I'm like, hey, it is you should
find somebody else. But so this is me kind of
(06:07):
building infrastructure to make create kind of resistance to people
wanting to even ask me in the first place. But anyway,
my five grade here, pay my full fee. It's a
friend who's asking me. It's a cool organization, it's in
a cool location. It's more than a thousand people in
the audience. And if they're like, we've got two out
of five for you here, then I'll be like, Okay,
(06:29):
let me find out more about it. Let me find
out what's going on. So if I have a friend
calling up and going, hey, Michael, mate, come and speak
on the Gold Coast, I'm like, but I've got no money,
I'm like, okay, maybe. Or if it's you know, some
cool organization let's say Apple Say and they're like, hey,
come and speak. We can't afford to pay very much.
(06:50):
And it's it's in a terrible, terrible part of the country.
It's in Alaska in the middle of winter. But we're
going to have two thousand people there. I'm like, okay,
well that's two out of five of my criteria. So
I'll have a conversation with them and I'll see how
it goes.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So can I ask? Because I love that criteria and
as someone who does speaking and has to say no
for various reasons to quite a lot of speaking gigs,
how did you get to that criteria? What was your process?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I noticed all the things that made me sad when
I was giving a talk somewhere where I was like,
what am I doing? This is a terrible, terrible decision,
was like, I don't want to be in this place.
I don't want to be in front of this audience.
I conned myself that this would be useful in some way.
And so the plus one criteria is this. I go,
(07:41):
if this was tomorrow, would I be happy about it?
And that's a super useful criteria for me, because present
day Michael sells future day Michael down the river time
and time again. Future day Michael now looks back at
past Michael and go, you an a hole man? What
do you do sending me to this place? This is
(08:03):
a nightmare. So I try and bring future Michael and
present day Michael really close together, and I go, if
this was tomorrow, will I be out for it? And
if I'm like, oh, I can just feel in my
bones and I probably would be less excited than I
would then I'll do that. I'm playing with other criteria,
which is for this year, I'm going I want to
do ten in real life speaking gigs this year, so
(08:27):
I've only got ten to spend. You know what am
I doing. I'm speaking to a friend of mine, Mike mccallowitz,
the other day. He has a rule that he has
twenty glasses of wine to spend in a year. So
he's like, I'm not going to be drinking crappy wine,
and I'm probably going to be drinking good wine with
(08:49):
my wife, who's my favorite person in the world. So
when I'm out with Mike and I'm like, Mike, let's
have a cocktail, He's like, sorry, Matte, Like, you're a
good guy, but I'm not spending one of my twenty
glasses of wine with you because I've got other places
i want to spend that. And all of this I
think about understanding the opportunity cost and understanding there's a
limit to it, and setting these kinds of criteria. You're
gaming yourself in just making it easier to say no.
(09:11):
And when you say no, you create space and capacity
for the stuff that you really want to say yes
to now, if you're me and Mantha, what that does
is to create a certain amount of anxiety. Like this month,
i sat down with my fancy journal and I did
a kind of what's coming up in the month ahead,
and I'm like, ooh, I've got a pretty open month.
(09:33):
Like it's I don't have a single client engagement. I've
got a few podcasts that I'm recording, and a few
podcasts that i'm the host on and recording, and I've
got other commitments. But relatively speaking, I've got one small
piece of travel, which is an award ceremony I'm going to.
And part of me is like, this is exactly what
I've been planning. And there's one part of me that
(09:54):
goes my gors. This is it. This is the start
of something terrible. This is the apocalypse happening. See, you're
sliding even further into irrelevance. So part of it is
also some deeper work, which is around understanding a deeper
reason why you might be saying yes, which is to
feel important, to feel filled up, to feel over committed,
to feel busy, and knowing that for some of us anyway,
(10:18):
and for me, there's a degree of work I need
to be doing to go. I just got to get
used to building a life which is less crowded.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Now, Michael, you mentioned journaling, and I have heard you
say that you hate journaling. Can you tell me about
that and what has changed?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, it's more to say that I have failed to
successfully journal since I was sixteen, so I'm now fifty seven.
So I've been attempting to journal for as I used
to try and do it in high school. And when
I look back there, I'm like, I've got things like
bus tickets stapled into it. It's such a teenage boys
journal because there's absolutely no self reflection, there's no sense
(10:58):
of emotionalness. It's purely a kind of did this did
that sort of criteria and not even interesting things. And
I've tried most of the journaling formats because there is
something about creating a space where you stop and you
reflect and you're able to kind of be provoked and
think about the day. And I found I two types
(11:19):
of journalists didn't work for me. One is the kind
of artist's way just free float and just write whatever
comes into your head. That's just a bit too loose
for me. Equally, there's a type of journal which is
more of a planet thing, which is like, okay, right
down the day to write down your seventeen commitments, write
down your phone callse write down your vision, write down
your three values right down. First of all, I have
(11:40):
time for this, and secondly, it's too structured. I've got
a freedom driver that just makes me want to rebel
against things like that. So I have been looking for
a journal that allows me to make progress on the
stuff I need to do day to day. So it
makes me present and makes me focused for the day ahead,
but also provokes me to learn and to grow and
(12:04):
become a wiser, smarter person. So this is what people
like me do. I created my own journal. So I've
got something called that do something that matters journal, which
is so nicely set me up. You're holding it up
from the screen, and I've got mine in front of
me as well. And I find this one works for me.
It's it's three questions in the morning to check in
(12:24):
and one question in the evening or for the next
morning if you want to do that. So that's your
kind of daily movement making progress. You know the Progress
Principal by Teresa Marblay, which is like people find meaning
if they make small, regular progress and stuff that matters
to them. And then kind of start of the week,
end of the week, middle of the week, there are
(12:45):
more kind of provocative questions to help you stop and
lift your eyes up off the page and reflect on
who you are and what's going on to enable kind
of growth. So it's not just about the grind, nor
is it just about the deep self reflection. But it's
kind of combination of the two.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I would love you to talk about some of the
questions that each shows for the journal.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
I love questions. I love them. I mean, if I'm
known for anything, it's the Coaching Habit Book, which is
like kind of my curated seven best coaching questions. And
you know earlier versions of that book. I tempted one
version of that book, which is here in my favorite
one hundred and thirty two Questions. It was a terrible book.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
It was so bad.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I was like, oh my god, this is unbearable and unreadable.
It's turgent. But I do keep my ear to the
ground and collect great questions, and so the three Morning Questions.
And I'm really happy to give this because you don't.
I mean, i'd like to love you to buy a journal,
but you don't have to. You can just kind of
use these questions and buy a blank journal and just
use them yourself. The first three questions are, first of all,
(13:51):
what do I notice? And I asked that question, Amantha,
because I am a heady sort of guy, and I'm
often kind of a bit into the future and a
bit distracted. And what do I notice is a way
for me to try and be present. What's going on
in my head, what's going on in my heart, what's
going on in my ass? What am I seeing out
of the window in front of me, what am I feeling?
(14:13):
It's a kind of a call to be present to
the inner and the outer world that's there right in
front of me. The second question is what do I want? Now?
Deep cut fans will know that what do I want
is one of the questions from the coaching habit. And
actually I've always when I've been teaching the coaching your habit,
I've always said, this is the hardest question. It is
(14:36):
a hard question. But I heard somebody say, if you
just ask yourself what do I want? Day in and
day out, it just starts forcing a deep clarity about
what you're missing, what you're sad about, what you're longing for,
what's not working, what's calling you. And when we're talking
(14:57):
about what you want to say yes to, if it
stems from this deep awareness of what do I want,
that then makes the how to say no for instance,
a little easier. And the third question for the start
of the day is what's the one thing today? And
this question works for me because, again getting back to
(15:20):
our previous conversation, I love to be over committed. I
love a to do list that stretches to the near
horizon and is all read because I'm like eight and
a half years behind in my to do list, and
so I'm like, I'm going to remember what's the most
important thing today to do so that I don't go look,
I was busy today and I did ninety eight things.
(15:41):
I can say I did the thing today that moved
the project forward that matters most to me to make
sure that that worked because I made that choice. So
it's a reminder of focus on the important stuff. I
read recently, I think probably Oliver Berkman said you should
consider your to do list more like a menu than
a obligation, and I'm like, oh, that's so good because
(16:04):
I create a what's that jacket that ties you up,
you know jacket, a stray jacket. My to do list
can be a stray jacket, and what's the one thing
today can be a bit of a release from that.
And then the final question, which I tend to answer
the next morning but some people answer at the end
of the day comes from Austin Kleon who introduced it
(16:25):
to me, and it's what's the best thing that happened today?
And it's a gratitude question really in disguise, because it
forces you to go, well, what am I remembering and
celebrating and happy about from the day? And it's not
what did you do or what did you crush? Or
what boxes did you tick? Not every day is about productivity.
(16:48):
Some days are like, the best thing about today was
gazing out my window and noticing that spring is just
just whispering and arrival here in Toronto because we've been
digging out snow for months now or whatever it might be.
And for me, as somebody who is perpetually charging into
the future and not that good at kind of being
(17:09):
delighted about the present, it keeps bringing me back to
the present and being grateful and kind of actually, as
I get into my journal is building up a record
of all the good things in my life.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I was going to ask, do you look back on
your journal? Is that part of your ritual as well?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
It's not so much. That's just not part of what
nourishes me, and looking back, I have too many things
calling me forward in the future that make it that
met that hard. But even just this recognition of in
this moment, this was what was good about the day.
And it's true that occasionally I'll look slightly back in
the journal if I'm kind of like this morning, for instance,
(17:46):
it's Monday, the third of March here in Canada, I
spent like an hour reflecting on what I'm thinking about
the month ahead, and in part that was looking back
over February and going, what do I notice from February?
What happened? What am I celebrating. So there's a little
bit of that look back that happens there, but it's
not a kind of regular thing. Some people love to
(18:08):
kind of dig deep into their journals and flick through them,
and that's not for me.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
What it reminds me of is so my partner is
a very consistent journaler. You've probably seen that one sentence
a day journal where you write a few sentences over
five years and then every year is a different row
if you like.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I love that. It's so clever. It's such a clever construction.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
It is, isn't it. So I got usked both one
about nearly two years ago. Now I have written about
fifteen entries. He has written several hundred. And what's really great,
he's a very generous journaler in that he'll often talk
about what's happened in both our days. He'll be like,
I did this, and here are the key beats to
(18:51):
the day, and then A did blah blah blah that
it was funny. We were looking back on it last night,
and I was in such a lope for work, and
I remember just viscerally how that felt, just with even
one or two sentences he read out, and there was
something quite joyous in going, Wow, I've done a one eighty.
(19:13):
I feel completely different. And so I understand like that
some people don't like looking back, but I personally found
that so useful, just for that sense of progress over
the year.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
That's so good. I can absolutely see how that would
be great because I think It's true that we tend
to homogenize our past, kind of blend it all into going,
oh no, it was all seven out of ten. And
in fact there's ups and downs, and you'll forget those
unless you have an opportunity to reflect like that.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
That's so true. It's like some of the details that
were written there, even about Frankie, my daughter. I'm like,
that day just would have disappeared from my mind had
we not captured that one sentence that summed up that
day beautifully.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Clearly, the journal to buy here is the one five
year journal, But if you also like a second journal
in your life, you can consider. But I mean I
know that because when I was writing this journal, I
just bought all sorts of journals coming on what do
I like and what do people doing? And I think
that is one of the really good ones.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
We will be back with Michael soon, and when we return,
he'll be sharing his Monday morning journaling richual why he
rejects the popular word of the year approach for something
far more effective, and the monthly reflection practice that keeps
his work and life aligned while preventing burnout. If you're
(20:36):
looking for more tips to improve the way you work
can live. I write a short weekly newsletter that contains
tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally. You can
sign up for that at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha
dot com. I really like how you talk about weekly
(20:58):
and monthly rich for journaling, and I might add that
one sentence a day one does not include that, so
definitely don't get that one. But I would like to
talk about what you do at the beginning of the
week and what you do at the beginning of the
month that is different. So let's start with a weekly focus.
And indeed it even says weekly focus in your journal,
tell me what you do differently at the beginning of
(21:20):
the week.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I've tried to build in cycles into the journal, so
different rhythms that kind of ebb and flow through it.
So you've got your daily like Monday through Friday. Basically
you got these four questions that you used to check
in with at the start of each week. There's a
little section for you, like your weekly focus, and it's
just useful to look out ahead and go, well, what's
(21:42):
their week ahead look like, and what's beckoning and what's
calling me? And what do I need to know? About that.
And the other thing that I invite people to do
is at the start of the week to go deep
on a question. So, for instance, I you know, I
was writing my journal this morning and it's like the
go deep question, and there's sixteen weeks in the journal,
(22:02):
so there's sixteen different questions to provoke you around this.
And the question I answered is what are you loyal to?
So this is what keeps you there even when the
sensible thing is to leave. Loyalty can be what's required.
Loyalty can also mean sticking around too long. What's your
deep commitment? So you know, here's what I wrote email
boo because I'm like, I am trying with my assistant
(22:26):
to extract me from email, and I'm finding it very
hard to let go of that. Been too busy and overwhelmed,
and I'm committed to avoiding the hard things. So this
is like obviously I've been I was fueled up on
an espresso, so I was trying to go deep on myself,
which is like where is my loyalty? Which is part
of how I show up in the world. I'm a
(22:47):
good loyal person. I'm paying a price for that, and
I could have you know, depending on the day, I
could have gone somewhere else entirely, which is like, I've
got loyalty to my my fifteen closest friend because I'm
the one who will ring them up and chat with
them have those conversations. But for me to this morning,
it was really helpful just to go I've got a
deep commitment to avoiding some stuff or sticking with stuff
(23:09):
that feels too comfortable for me. That's a helpful thing.
And every sort of every week there's a kind of
new question to provoke you to go a little deep
and kind of shake you up a little bit. And
then the journal is also designed on a six week cycle,
which is something I stole from kind of lean production.
And the guys at thirty seven Signal, they're the ones
(23:30):
who wrote Rework.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
It's called Yeah it doesn't have to be crazy at
work or something like that.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
That's it Yeah, And I have a podcast called rework
as well. And so they run a sas technology company.
But they've always been quite contrarian around how they work.
They're like, probably most of common sense at work is terrible,
so what do we think is actually good? And the
way that they produced work is they do a six
week sprint and then a week or two to reset
(23:59):
and recalibrate and figure out what's next, and then they go, right,
here's what I'm working on for the next six weeks,
and they work that. And we've used that cycle in
a membership group we have, which is people working on
their big projects. We have six chapters a year, six
week chapters and breaks in between. So the journal reflects that,
(24:22):
which is like, figure out what your six week goal is,
what your big thing is for the six weeks, and
then go for that and commit to that. So you're
continually creating these layers of context for your daily check in.
You've got your weekly context, you got your six week context,
which helps you stay focused on what's the point of
all of this? What am I actually working towards?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Okay, so I want to talk about your monthly ritual
because you mentioned sitting down at the beginning of March
and thinking about things or reflecting on things. What do
you do each month?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Well, I do a few things. I try and remind
myself the rules I'm playing by, you know, things like
you're doing this for the joy of the work, and
you don't have to do anything you don't want to do.
You know how at the start of the year, the
bloom has gone completely off New Year's resolutions, Like everybody goes,
(25:16):
that's uncool. Now, don't make a New Years resolution, You're dead.
But everyone's like, I've got a word of the year. Well,
I've got to I've actually got to be in my
bonnet about the word of the year, because I think
a single word is typically a bit too simplistic, a
bit too vague, a bit too jazz handy. It's like
when you go and see corporate values and they're like,
(25:37):
here are five very banal things as corporate values, and
you know, what's the point of that? Honestly, some words
of the year strike me like that as well. So
my thing is to get two words for the year,
because two is more than twice as good because when
you have two words, they're in relationship with each other,
and ideally your two words want to be in tension
(25:57):
with each other, so there's a kind of push pull
around that. So my two words for twenty twenty five
one is autismal, meaning I want to create beautiful stuff,
you know, stuff that like an artist makes where you're
like there's a magic to them, and there's a there's
a uniqueness and a specialness to that thing. So I
(26:18):
want autismal. And then the second word is ballsy, meaning
I want to be brave and I want to be loud,
and I want to be courageous and I want to
go for it and I want to be ambitious. And
I really like how those two words don't fit that
neatly together. So I'm reminding myself of some of my
key things and my principles around that, and then I'm
(26:40):
reminding myself of what my key projects are because one
of the things I've learned is once I lose context,
once I lose the big picture, my life deteriorates into
emails and to do's, And so I keep needing to
find reasons to pull myself out and surface. And hence
the weekly and the monthly and the sixth weekly kind
(27:01):
of cycles, because they keep forcing me to hold a
wider perspective, going what is going on here and what
does matter to me? And what are the things I'm
trying to nurture, so you know, for this year, I
go look. One of my projects is change Signal, which
is a podcast in the newsletter about change management and
organizations and the key driver for that is a beautiful podcast,
(27:25):
a newsletter, and growing the audience for both of those things.
That's one of my kind of core projects. And then
another one of my projects is basically today, Amantha Mark's
the ninth birthday of The Coaching Habit. It came out
on the twenty ninth of February twenty sixteenth, which means
in a year's time, almost exactly, it'll be the tenth
birthday of The Coaching Habit, and we're going to put
(27:46):
out a special edition. It's a hardback. I'm I'm going
to write a new chapter. I'm going to do some
other cool things as part of that. So part of
it is around Coaching Habit ten. How do I set
myself up for a really successful, fun year in twenty
twenty six championing this book which has been a kind
of life changing book for me. And then one of
(28:07):
my projects is to be in the best shape of
my life. So I'm like, okay, so what does that
actually mean? And so there's a bunch of things around exercise,
and I have old man's knees, so trying to get
my knees to work, you know, and kind of other
kind of boring stuff around that. And my fourth project
of four is learn to love Toronto, because I've lived
(28:29):
here for twenty years and I've kind of fallen out
of love a little bit with the place. So I
need to get back into love with this place where
I live. And so part of it is me going
one of my key projects. And how does my month
look in terms of where I'm committed to these projects
or not? And what's in my calendar which isn't about
those four projects? And what shall I be thinking about
(28:50):
or doing about that?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I love that? How long? Like practically speaking, do you
sit down and think about these things every month? Like?
Is it just a quick half an hour a day?
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I was seventeen days. I spent the first seventeen days
of every month just planning the No, I'm kidding. I
spent an hour doing that this morning, because this is
what I did this morning around that, and so I
went to yoga, did a yoga class, went to my
favorite coffee shop, and just spent an hour sitting and reflecting.
(29:21):
I had my phone with me, so I was kind
of looking at calendar, looking forward, looking back. I had
my journal with me, so I don't spend a lot
of time. I don't write a lot. I'm a fairly
quick processor around some of that stuff, but an hour
is enough for me to feel grounded about, Oh yeah,
I know what I'm doing and I know why I'm
doing it.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
The final thing I wanted to ask is you like
to coincide with the launch of your journal. You put
out an e book that was fifty two brilliant questions,
and I love that as a lot of questions. I
would love to know one or two or three that
are like your absolute favorites that you find yourself coming
back to a lot.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah. It was such a funny excess because I was like,
I was just writing to people who I know in
the coaching world and kind of be ongoing what is
your best question? Why do you like it so much?
And it had a real mix. Some of them are
familiar ones the people have heard before, you know, things
like if I had no fear, what would I do?
And that can be really liberating, although I prefer a
slight version on that, which is, if I didn't care
(30:21):
about the consequences, would I still do this anyway? Because
I don't know how to get over fear, Like fear
is just part of you know, it's part of our
nervous system. So having no fear, I feel like it
feels like you're lobotomized. Yeah, no fear. But if you're
like I don't care about the consequences, what does that
look like? Can be really powerful. One of the questions
(30:44):
is what does it mean to be fully committed to this?
And for me that's particularly powerful. But you know, I
think perhaps the one that is the one that I
really love is from a guy called Frankie thorough Good.
And Frankie was this young guy in his thirties. I
had this kind of early wisdom to him. He's a
seeker and he's a questioner, and he's just accumulated a
(31:06):
kind of a grace and a presence to him which
I really admire. And his was the final question in
the book, and it was who do you love? And
who loves you? And you know, before we hit record, Amantha,
you're saying last year is difficult for work, but it's
fantastic on a personal level because you know, you're getting
(31:28):
married and you've found your person, and it is amazing
what that means when you find your person, when you
feel loved. You know, this year I get to celebrate
thirty years married with my wife, which is impossible because
I'm still young, God damn it. But I'm like, I'm
just very lucky to have somebody who I love and
who loves me. And as I sometimes say about marriage,
(31:51):
a good marriage is when you both feel that you're
getting the better deal. And I definitely feel like I'm
getting the better deal. So I really think we can
talk about productivity and efficiency and all of this and
self growth, but if you can kind of crack your
heart open and love somebody and be loved, those are
both learned skills, by the way, those are things you
can work on to get better at. That feels like
(32:14):
a really good question, Michael.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
It is always such a joy to chat to you
on microphone or off microphone. Thank you so much. You're
always such a generous and helpful shaer. So I thank you,
and I'm sure you'll be back for twenty twenty six
to talk about the coaching habit. I hope.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I hope so too, but that will be lovely. But
thank you, mother, You set me up. You make me
sound better than I actually am. So thank you for
such a lovely conversation.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I hope you love this chat with Michael as much
as I did, and I highly recommend his do something
that matters journal. If you want to check this out
or find out anything else about Michael, I will provide
a links in the show notes. If you like today's
jow make sure you get follow on your podcast app
to be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work
(33:01):
was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people,
part of the Kullen Nation.
How I Work is having a little break over the
bestive season, so I have handpicked a few of my
absolute favorite episodes from the last year to play for
you in this best of series. I hope you enjoy,
and I will be back with new episodes twice weekly
from January twenty nine. You know that beautiful leather bound
(00:21):
journal you bought with the best of intentions, the one
now gathering dust under a pile of books. If you've
abandoned more journals than you care to admit, you're about
to discover why. After forty years of failed journaling attempts,
Michael Bungay Stania finally cracked the code to sustainable reflection
(00:43):
with his do Something that Matters journal and It's nothing
like what you've tried before. Michael is the Wall Street
Journal best selling author of The Coaching Habit, which Brene
Brown called a classic with over one point five million
books sold, was named the number one thought leader in
coaching by Thinkers fifty, and his insights have transformed our
(01:06):
leaders work worldwide. I am thrilled to welcome Michael back
to How I Work, where he reveals his deceptively simple
approach to journaling that actually sticks. His Monday morning ritual
that drives results and the unexpected reflection technique that prevents
him from drowning in commitments. If you've ever struggled to
(01:28):
maintain a reflection practice, this conversation might finally end your
journal graveyard collection. Welcome to How I Work, a show
about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm
your host, Doctor Amantha Imber. Michael is so prolific with
(01:51):
his work and is clearly in high demand all around
the world, so I know he would have to be
pretty good at saying no to work offers in order
to have overload. So this chat starts with Michael sharing
his very practical tips on how and when to say no.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
I start by saying, it's just one of those skills
that a little bit like gratitude turns out to be
a silver bullet, or as close to a silver bullet
to happiness as you can get, even though silver bullet's
a terrible metaphor, so let's call it a warm, gentle
hug towards happiness, which is this gift of being able
to say no. And I mean, I'll tell you I
(02:33):
am not particularly good at it. I like unhappy people.
I like pleasing people. I'm the oldest child, so I've
got a strong sense of responsibility and show up and
do the thing. But at the heart of understanding no
is a commitment to what you're saying yes to. So
saying no is not just a look I'm just being
(02:54):
obstinate or selfish. It's I've got an idea of really
what matters, and my yes is meaningless unless my no
has some weight. And I'm going to just take a
rough guess here that there's not a single person listening
to this podcast or a single person participating in this podcast,
(03:14):
So that's you and me, Amantha, who's going The problem
with my life is I just don't have enough stuff
in it. The problem with my life is it's just
not crowded enough. Like everybody's got too much on the yes's,
and so every time we make a commitment without a no,
we're pouring water into a full glass and all you're
doing is getting the floor wet and you're not really
(03:35):
getting committed to the big thing. So I've done a
few things to try and build my capacity for saying no,
and a lot of it is structural stuff, so it's
actually not building my capacity for saying no. It's building
an infrastructure around me that allows me to say no
when there's parts of my body screaming to say yes.
(03:56):
So I'll give you an example. One of the things
that that's really helpful is just to know that, look,
I don't have to say yes right away. And in fact,
one of the core things I keep trying to tell
myself is, Michael, slow down the rush to yes. Every
yes is precious. Your default should be no. Your default
shouldn't be yes. Your default should be no. So slow
(04:19):
down the rush to yes. So just you know, in
some ways this it's just getting a little bit more
mindful about what are you committing to and how quickly.
What helps me do that is to have criteria about
what I'm saying yes to. And you know, it's you
won't have criteria for everything in your life that you're
saying yes to. But as an example, I get asked
(04:40):
to come and give keynote speeches on a regular basis,
and every time I get a little inquiry, one part
of my fragile mail ego gets stroked and I'm like, see,
i know I'm getting old, i know I'm over the hill.
I know like I'm fading from people's memory, but I
still got it, Like I'm still I'm still like a
(05:01):
person out there in the world. And what happens is
six months later, I end up in some god forsaking
part of the world and like the US or Canada
or wherever am I be going? What am I doing here?
Who's responsible for me giving this talk? And I'm like,
I am I said yes to this. It's my fault.
So here's how I work it for my speaking and
(05:21):
people can figure out their own kind of version of
this for whatever shows up for them. But I have
five plus one criteria for my speaking and the rule
is if they tick two of the boxes, I'll have
a conversation with them. So the five criteria is they
will pay my full fee. Now I live in Canada
and so the speaking fees in the North America are
(05:44):
ridiculously are I've tried to price myself out of the market,
so most people don't want to pay the money because
I'm like, my rack rate for a speech is fifty
thousand dollars, which is believe me, I know how stupid
that is. And when people go that's a ridiculous amount
of money and I'm like, hey, it is you should
find somebody else. But so this is me kind of
(06:07):
building infrastructure to make create kind of resistance to people
wanting to even ask me in the first place. But anyway,
my five grade here, pay my full fee. It's a
friend who's asking me. It's a cool organization, it's in
a cool location. It's more than a thousand people in
the audience. And if they're like, we've got two out
of five for you here, then I'll be like, Okay,
(06:29):
let me find out more about it. Let me find
out what's going on. So if I have a friend
calling up and going, hey, Michael, mate, come and speak
on the Gold Coast, I'm like, but I've got no money,
I'm like, okay, maybe. Or if it's you know, some
cool organization let's say Apple Say and they're like, hey,
come and speak. We can't afford to pay very much.
(06:50):
And it's it's in a terrible, terrible part of the country.
It's in Alaska in the middle of winter. But we're
going to have two thousand people there. I'm like, okay,
well that's two out of five of my criteria. So
I'll have a conversation with them and I'll see how
it goes.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So can I ask? Because I love that criteria and
as someone who does speaking and has to say no
for various reasons to quite a lot of speaking gigs,
how did you get to that criteria? What was your process?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I noticed all the things that made me sad when
I was giving a talk somewhere where I was like,
what am I doing? This is a terrible, terrible decision,
was like, I don't want to be in this place.
I don't want to be in front of this audience.
I conned myself that this would be useful in some way.
And so the plus one criteria is this. I go,
(07:41):
if this was tomorrow, would I be happy about it?
And that's a super useful criteria for me, because present
day Michael sells future day Michael down the river time
and time again. Future day Michael now looks back at
past Michael and go, you an a hole man? What
do you do sending me to this place? This is
(08:03):
a nightmare. So I try and bring future Michael and
present day Michael really close together, and I go, if
this was tomorrow, will I be out for it? And
if I'm like, oh, I can just feel in my
bones and I probably would be less excited than I
would then I'll do that. I'm playing with other criteria,
which is for this year, I'm going I want to
do ten in real life speaking gigs this year, so
(08:27):
I've only got ten to spend. You know what am
I doing. I'm speaking to a friend of mine, Mike mccallowitz,
the other day. He has a rule that he has
twenty glasses of wine to spend in a year. So
he's like, I'm not going to be drinking crappy wine,
and I'm probably going to be drinking good wine with
(08:49):
my wife, who's my favorite person in the world. So
when I'm out with Mike and I'm like, Mike, let's
have a cocktail, He's like, sorry, Matte, Like, you're a
good guy, but I'm not spending one of my twenty
glasses of wine with you because I've got other places
i want to spend that. And all of this I
think about understanding the opportunity cost and understanding there's a
limit to it, and setting these kinds of criteria. You're
gaming yourself in just making it easier to say no.
(09:11):
And when you say no, you create space and capacity
for the stuff that you really want to say yes
to now, if you're me and Mantha, what that does
is to create a certain amount of anxiety. Like this month,
i sat down with my fancy journal and I did
a kind of what's coming up in the month ahead,
and I'm like, ooh, I've got a pretty open month.
(09:33):
Like it's I don't have a single client engagement. I've
got a few podcasts that I'm recording, and a few
podcasts that i'm the host on and recording, and I've
got other commitments. But relatively speaking, I've got one small
piece of travel, which is an award ceremony I'm going to.
And part of me is like, this is exactly what
I've been planning. And there's one part of me that
(09:54):
goes my gors. This is it. This is the start
of something terrible. This is the apocalypse happening. See, you're
sliding even further into irrelevance. So part of it is
also some deeper work, which is around understanding a deeper
reason why you might be saying yes, which is to
feel important, to feel filled up, to feel over committed,
to feel busy, and knowing that for some of us anyway,
(10:18):
and for me, there's a degree of work I need
to be doing to go. I just got to get
used to building a life which is less crowded.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Now, Michael, you mentioned journaling, and I have heard you
say that you hate journaling. Can you tell me about
that and what has changed?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, it's more to say that I have failed to
successfully journal since I was sixteen, so I'm now fifty seven.
So I've been attempting to journal for as I used
to try and do it in high school. And when
I look back there, I'm like, I've got things like
bus tickets stapled into it. It's such a teenage boys
journal because there's absolutely no self reflection, there's no sense
(10:58):
of emotionalness. It's purely a kind of did this did
that sort of criteria and not even interesting things. And
I've tried most of the journaling formats because there is
something about creating a space where you stop and you
reflect and you're able to kind of be provoked and
think about the day. And I found I two types
(11:19):
of journalists didn't work for me. One is the kind
of artist's way just free float and just write whatever
comes into your head. That's just a bit too loose
for me. Equally, there's a type of journal which is
more of a planet thing, which is like, okay, right
down the day to write down your seventeen commitments, write
down your phone callse write down your vision, write down
your three values right down. First of all, I have
(11:40):
time for this, and secondly, it's too structured. I've got
a freedom driver that just makes me want to rebel
against things like that. So I have been looking for
a journal that allows me to make progress on the
stuff I need to do day to day. So it
makes me present and makes me focused for the day ahead,
but also provokes me to learn and to grow and
(12:04):
become a wiser, smarter person. So this is what people
like me do. I created my own journal. So I've
got something called that do something that matters journal, which
is so nicely set me up. You're holding it up
from the screen, and I've got mine in front of
me as well. And I find this one works for me.
It's it's three questions in the morning to check in
(12:24):
and one question in the evening or for the next
morning if you want to do that. So that's your
kind of daily movement making progress. You know the Progress
Principal by Teresa Marblay, which is like people find meaning
if they make small, regular progress and stuff that matters
to them. And then kind of start of the week,
end of the week, middle of the week, there are
(12:45):
more kind of provocative questions to help you stop and
lift your eyes up off the page and reflect on
who you are and what's going on to enable kind
of growth. So it's not just about the grind, nor
is it just about the deep self reflection. But it's
kind of combination of the two.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I would love you to talk about some of the
questions that each shows for the journal.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
I love questions. I love them. I mean, if I'm
known for anything, it's the Coaching Habit Book, which is
like kind of my curated seven best coaching questions. And
you know earlier versions of that book. I tempted one
version of that book, which is here in my favorite
one hundred and thirty two Questions. It was a terrible book.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
It was so bad.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I was like, oh my god, this is unbearable and unreadable.
It's turgent. But I do keep my ear to the
ground and collect great questions, and so the three Morning Questions.
And I'm really happy to give this because you don't.
I mean, i'd like to love you to buy a journal,
but you don't have to. You can just kind of
use these questions and buy a blank journal and just
use them yourself. The first three questions are, first of all,
(13:51):
what do I notice? And I asked that question, Amantha,
because I am a heady sort of guy, and I'm
often kind of a bit into the future and a
bit distracted. And what do I notice is a way
for me to try and be present. What's going on
in my head, what's going on in my heart, what's
going on in my ass? What am I seeing out
of the window in front of me, what am I feeling?
(14:13):
It's a kind of a call to be present to
the inner and the outer world that's there right in
front of me. The second question is what do I want? Now?
Deep cut fans will know that what do I want
is one of the questions from the coaching habit. And
actually I've always when I've been teaching the coaching your habit,
I've always said, this is the hardest question. It is
(14:36):
a hard question. But I heard somebody say, if you
just ask yourself what do I want? Day in and
day out, it just starts forcing a deep clarity about
what you're missing, what you're sad about, what you're longing for,
what's not working, what's calling you. And when we're talking
(14:57):
about what you want to say yes to, if it
stems from this deep awareness of what do I want,
that then makes the how to say no for instance,
a little easier. And the third question for the start
of the day is what's the one thing today? And
this question works for me because, again getting back to
(15:20):
our previous conversation, I love to be over committed. I
love a to do list that stretches to the near
horizon and is all read because I'm like eight and
a half years behind in my to do list, and
so I'm like, I'm going to remember what's the most
important thing today to do so that I don't go look,
I was busy today and I did ninety eight things.
(15:41):
I can say I did the thing today that moved
the project forward that matters most to me to make
sure that that worked because I made that choice. So
it's a reminder of focus on the important stuff. I
read recently, I think probably Oliver Berkman said you should
consider your to do list more like a menu than
a obligation, and I'm like, oh, that's so good because
(16:04):
I create a what's that jacket that ties you up,
you know jacket, a stray jacket. My to do list
can be a stray jacket, and what's the one thing
today can be a bit of a release from that.
And then the final question, which I tend to answer
the next morning but some people answer at the end
of the day comes from Austin Kleon who introduced it
(16:25):
to me, and it's what's the best thing that happened today?
And it's a gratitude question really in disguise, because it
forces you to go, well, what am I remembering and
celebrating and happy about from the day? And it's not
what did you do or what did you crush? Or
what boxes did you tick? Not every day is about productivity.
(16:48):
Some days are like, the best thing about today was
gazing out my window and noticing that spring is just
just whispering and arrival here in Toronto because we've been
digging out snow for months now or whatever it might be.
And for me, as somebody who is perpetually charging into
the future and not that good at kind of being
(17:09):
delighted about the present, it keeps bringing me back to
the present and being grateful and kind of actually, as
I get into my journal is building up a record
of all the good things in my life.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
I was going to ask, do you look back on
your journal? Is that part of your ritual as well?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
It's not so much. That's just not part of what
nourishes me, and looking back, I have too many things
calling me forward in the future that make it that
met that hard. But even just this recognition of in
this moment, this was what was good about the day.
And it's true that occasionally I'll look slightly back in
the journal if I'm kind of like this morning, for instance,
(17:46):
it's Monday, the third of March here in Canada, I
spent like an hour reflecting on what I'm thinking about
the month ahead, and in part that was looking back
over February and going, what do I notice from February?
What happened? What am I celebrating. So there's a little
bit of that look back that happens there, but it's
not a kind of regular thing. Some people love to
(18:08):
kind of dig deep into their journals and flick through them,
and that's not for me.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
What it reminds me of is so my partner is
a very consistent journaler. You've probably seen that one sentence
a day journal where you write a few sentences over
five years and then every year is a different row
if you like.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I love that. It's so clever. It's such a clever construction.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
It is, isn't it. So I got usked both one
about nearly two years ago. Now I have written about
fifteen entries. He has written several hundred. And what's really great,
he's a very generous journaler in that he'll often talk
about what's happened in both our days. He'll be like,
I did this, and here are the key beats to
(18:51):
the day, and then A did blah blah blah that
it was funny. We were looking back on it last night,
and I was in such a lope for work, and
I remember just viscerally how that felt, just with even
one or two sentences he read out, and there was
something quite joyous in going, Wow, I've done a one eighty.
(19:13):
I feel completely different. And so I understand like that
some people don't like looking back, but I personally found
that so useful, just for that sense of progress over
the year.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
That's so good. I can absolutely see how that would
be great because I think It's true that we tend
to homogenize our past, kind of blend it all into going,
oh no, it was all seven out of ten. And
in fact there's ups and downs, and you'll forget those
unless you have an opportunity to reflect like that.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
That's so true. It's like some of the details that
were written there, even about Frankie, my daughter. I'm like,
that day just would have disappeared from my mind had
we not captured that one sentence that summed up that
day beautifully.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Clearly, the journal to buy here is the one five
year journal, But if you also like a second journal
in your life, you can consider. But I mean I
know that because when I was writing this journal, I
just bought all sorts of journals coming on what do
I like and what do people doing? And I think
that is one of the really good ones.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
We will be back with Michael soon, and when we return,
he'll be sharing his Monday morning journaling richual why he
rejects the popular word of the year approach for something
far more effective, and the monthly reflection practice that keeps
his work and life aligned while preventing burnout. If you're
(20:36):
looking for more tips to improve the way you work
can live. I write a short weekly newsletter that contains
tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally. You can
sign up for that at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha
dot com. I really like how you talk about weekly
(20:58):
and monthly rich for journaling, and I might add that
one sentence a day one does not include that, so
definitely don't get that one. But I would like to
talk about what you do at the beginning of the
week and what you do at the beginning of the
month that is different. So let's start with a weekly focus.
And indeed it even says weekly focus in your journal,
tell me what you do differently at the beginning of
(21:20):
the week.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I've tried to build in cycles into the journal, so
different rhythms that kind of ebb and flow through it.
So you've got your daily like Monday through Friday. Basically
you got these four questions that you used to check
in with at the start of each week. There's a
little section for you, like your weekly focus, and it's
just useful to look out ahead and go, well, what's
(21:42):
their week ahead look like, and what's beckoning and what's
calling me? And what do I need to know? About that.
And the other thing that I invite people to do
is at the start of the week to go deep
on a question. So, for instance, I you know, I
was writing my journal this morning and it's like the
go deep question, and there's sixteen weeks in the journal,
(22:02):
so there's sixteen different questions to provoke you around this.
And the question I answered is what are you loyal to?
So this is what keeps you there even when the
sensible thing is to leave. Loyalty can be what's required.
Loyalty can also mean sticking around too long. What's your
deep commitment? So you know, here's what I wrote email
boo because I'm like, I am trying with my assistant
(22:26):
to extract me from email, and I'm finding it very
hard to let go of that. Been too busy and overwhelmed,
and I'm committed to avoiding the hard things. So this
is like obviously I've been I was fueled up on
an espresso, so I was trying to go deep on myself,
which is like where is my loyalty? Which is part
of how I show up in the world. I'm a
(22:47):
good loyal person. I'm paying a price for that, and
I could have you know, depending on the day, I
could have gone somewhere else entirely, which is like, I've
got loyalty to my my fifteen closest friend because I'm
the one who will ring them up and chat with
them have those conversations. But for me to this morning,
it was really helpful just to go I've got a
deep commitment to avoiding some stuff or sticking with stuff
(23:09):
that feels too comfortable for me. That's a helpful thing.
And every sort of every week there's a kind of
new question to provoke you to go a little deep
and kind of shake you up a little bit. And
then the journal is also designed on a six week cycle,
which is something I stole from kind of lean production.
And the guys at thirty seven Signal, they're the ones
(23:30):
who wrote Rework.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
It's called Yeah it doesn't have to be crazy at
work or something like that.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
That's it Yeah, And I have a podcast called rework
as well. And so they run a sas technology company.
But they've always been quite contrarian around how they work.
They're like, probably most of common sense at work is terrible,
so what do we think is actually good? And the
way that they produced work is they do a six
week sprint and then a week or two to reset
(23:59):
and recalibrate and figure out what's next, and then they go, right,
here's what I'm working on for the next six weeks,
and they work that. And we've used that cycle in
a membership group we have, which is people working on
their big projects. We have six chapters a year, six
week chapters and breaks in between. So the journal reflects that,
(24:22):
which is like, figure out what your six week goal is,
what your big thing is for the six weeks, and
then go for that and commit to that. So you're
continually creating these layers of context for your daily check in.
You've got your weekly context, you got your six week context,
which helps you stay focused on what's the point of
all of this? What am I actually working towards?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Okay, so I want to talk about your monthly ritual
because you mentioned sitting down at the beginning of March
and thinking about things or reflecting on things. What do
you do each month?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Well, I do a few things. I try and remind
myself the rules I'm playing by, you know, things like
you're doing this for the joy of the work, and
you don't have to do anything you don't want to do.
You know how at the start of the year, the
bloom has gone completely off New Year's resolutions, Like everybody goes,
(25:16):
that's uncool. Now, don't make a New Years resolution, You're dead.
But everyone's like, I've got a word of the year. Well,
I've got to I've actually got to be in my
bonnet about the word of the year, because I think
a single word is typically a bit too simplistic, a
bit too vague, a bit too jazz handy. It's like
when you go and see corporate values and they're like,
(25:37):
here are five very banal things as corporate values, and
you know, what's the point of that? Honestly, some words
of the year strike me like that as well. So
my thing is to get two words for the year,
because two is more than twice as good because when
you have two words, they're in relationship with each other,
and ideally your two words want to be in tension
(25:57):
with each other, so there's a kind of push pull
around that. So my two words for twenty twenty five
one is autismal, meaning I want to create beautiful stuff,
you know, stuff that like an artist makes where you're
like there's a magic to them, and there's a there's
a uniqueness and a specialness to that thing. So I
(26:18):
want autismal. And then the second word is ballsy, meaning
I want to be brave and I want to be loud,
and I want to be courageous and I want to
go for it and I want to be ambitious. And
I really like how those two words don't fit that
neatly together. So I'm reminding myself of some of my
key things and my principles around that, and then I'm
(26:40):
reminding myself of what my key projects are because one
of the things I've learned is once I lose context,
once I lose the big picture, my life deteriorates into
emails and to do's, And so I keep needing to
find reasons to pull myself out and surface. And hence
the weekly and the monthly and the sixth weekly kind
(27:01):
of cycles, because they keep forcing me to hold a
wider perspective, going what is going on here and what
does matter to me? And what are the things I'm
trying to nurture, so you know, for this year, I
go look. One of my projects is change Signal, which
is a podcast in the newsletter about change management and
organizations and the key driver for that is a beautiful podcast,
(27:25):
a newsletter, and growing the audience for both of those things.
That's one of my kind of core projects. And then
another one of my projects is basically today, Amantha Mark's
the ninth birthday of The Coaching Habit. It came out
on the twenty ninth of February twenty sixteenth, which means
in a year's time, almost exactly, it'll be the tenth
birthday of The Coaching Habit, and we're going to put
(27:46):
out a special edition. It's a hardback. I'm I'm going
to write a new chapter. I'm going to do some
other cool things as part of that. So part of
it is around Coaching Habit ten. How do I set
myself up for a really successful, fun year in twenty
twenty six championing this book which has been a kind
of life changing book for me. And then one of
(28:07):
my projects is to be in the best shape of
my life. So I'm like, okay, so what does that
actually mean? And so there's a bunch of things around exercise,
and I have old man's knees, so trying to get
my knees to work, you know, and kind of other
kind of boring stuff around that. And my fourth project
of four is learn to love Toronto, because I've lived
(28:29):
here for twenty years and I've kind of fallen out
of love a little bit with the place. So I
need to get back into love with this place where
I live. And so part of it is me going
one of my key projects. And how does my month
look in terms of where I'm committed to these projects
or not? And what's in my calendar which isn't about
those four projects? And what shall I be thinking about
(28:50):
or doing about that?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I love that? How long? Like practically speaking, do you
sit down and think about these things every month? Like?
Is it just a quick half an hour a day?
What does that look like?
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I was seventeen days. I spent the first seventeen days
of every month just planning the No, I'm kidding. I
spent an hour doing that this morning, because this is
what I did this morning around that, and so I
went to yoga, did a yoga class, went to my
favorite coffee shop, and just spent an hour sitting and reflecting.
(29:21):
I had my phone with me, so I was kind
of looking at calendar, looking forward, looking back. I had
my journal with me, so I don't spend a lot
of time. I don't write a lot. I'm a fairly
quick processor around some of that stuff, but an hour
is enough for me to feel grounded about, Oh yeah,
I know what I'm doing and I know why I'm
doing it.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
The final thing I wanted to ask is you like
to coincide with the launch of your journal. You put
out an e book that was fifty two brilliant questions,
and I love that as a lot of questions. I
would love to know one or two or three that
are like your absolute favorites that you find yourself coming
back to a lot.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah. It was such a funny excess because I was like,
I was just writing to people who I know in
the coaching world and kind of be ongoing what is
your best question? Why do you like it so much?
And it had a real mix. Some of them are
familiar ones the people have heard before, you know, things
like if I had no fear, what would I do?
And that can be really liberating, although I prefer a
slight version on that, which is, if I didn't care
(30:21):
about the consequences, would I still do this anyway? Because
I don't know how to get over fear, Like fear
is just part of you know, it's part of our
nervous system. So having no fear, I feel like it
feels like you're lobotomized. Yeah, no fear. But if you're
like I don't care about the consequences, what does that
look like? Can be really powerful. One of the questions
(30:44):
is what does it mean to be fully committed to this?
And for me that's particularly powerful. But you know, I
think perhaps the one that is the one that I
really love is from a guy called Frankie thorough Good.
And Frankie was this young guy in his thirties. I
had this kind of early wisdom to him. He's a
seeker and he's a questioner, and he's just accumulated a
(31:06):
kind of a grace and a presence to him which
I really admire. And his was the final question in
the book, and it was who do you love? And
who loves you? And you know, before we hit record, Amantha,
you're saying last year is difficult for work, but it's
fantastic on a personal level because you know, you're getting
(31:28):
married and you've found your person, and it is amazing
what that means when you find your person, when you
feel loved. You know, this year I get to celebrate
thirty years married with my wife, which is impossible because
I'm still young, God damn it. But I'm like, I'm
just very lucky to have somebody who I love and
who loves me. And as I sometimes say about marriage,
(31:51):
a good marriage is when you both feel that you're
getting the better deal. And I definitely feel like I'm
getting the better deal. So I really think we can
talk about productivity and efficiency and all of this and
self growth, but if you can kind of crack your
heart open and love somebody and be loved, those are
both learned skills, by the way, those are things you
can work on to get better at. That feels like
(32:14):
a really good question, Michael.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
It is always such a joy to chat to you
on microphone or off microphone. Thank you so much. You're
always such a generous and helpful shaer. So I thank you,
and I'm sure you'll be back for twenty twenty six
to talk about the coaching habit. I hope.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I hope so too, but that will be lovely. But
thank you, mother, You set me up. You make me
sound better than I actually am. So thank you for
such a lovely conversation.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I hope you love this chat with Michael as much
as I did, and I highly recommend his do something
that matters journal. If you want to check this out
or find out anything else about Michael, I will provide
a links in the show notes. If you like today's
jow make sure you get follow on your podcast app
to be alerted when new episodes drop. How I Work
(33:01):
was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people,
part of the Kullen Nation.
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