December 4, 2024 • 32 mins
Darren Finkelstein is the author of numerous books, his most recent being "No" Building a Life of Choice Without Obligation. This follows his book "The Accountability Advantage" about the power of taking action and the importance of discipline and accountability to ensure your goals are met.
In this podcast, we talk about the power of saying no so that you can focus 100% on your goals, dreams, and aspirations. We also discuss how to say it with elegance and empathy. We talk on how to say it with cultural sensitivity and whether different generations are more or less comfortable with saying no. (Sneak preview - we believe Gen X are better at saying no).
Darren also opens up the times he said yes, when he should have said no and the cost this had on his career and finances. Darren is truly an expert on the power of this tiny little word.
Darren and I go back over 20 years when we were both at Apple together and I really enjoyed connecting with him again as he brings real energy and ideation to everything he does.
Darren has a unique ability to reinvent himself every few years. He has been an entrepreneur, worked in some of the best technology companies, owned a boating business, accelerated the start-up of a new marina, and today runs his own consultancy.
Darren said after the podcast "You made that very easy for us to chat, with a bit of spark, a few laughs, and loads of examples and stories to make it land with the audience."
We indeed had fun and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it!
Darren has a special offer for all listeners. If you go to his website, www.NOthebook.com.au and use the discount code: take50 in the cart, you will get 50% off the RRP. This great offer also applies to his two book bundles. So check it out!
You can find out more about Darrent at his website tickthoseboxes.com.au and connect with him on LinkedIn.
In this podcast, we talk about the power of saying no so that you can focus 100% on your goals, dreams, and aspirations. We also discuss how to say it with elegance and empathy. We talk on how to say it with cultural sensitivity and whether different generations are more or less comfortable with saying no. (Sneak preview - we believe Gen X are better at saying no).
Darren also opens up the times he said yes, when he should have said no and the cost this had on his career and finances. Darren is truly an expert on the power of this tiny little word.
Darren and I go back over 20 years when we were both at Apple together and I really enjoyed connecting with him again as he brings real energy and ideation to everything he does.
Darren has a unique ability to reinvent himself every few years. He has been an entrepreneur, worked in some of the best technology companies, owned a boating business, accelerated the start-up of a new marina, and today runs his own consultancy.
Darren said after the podcast "You made that very easy for us to chat, with a bit of spark, a few laughs, and loads of examples and stories to make it land with the audience."
We indeed had fun and I hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it!
Darren has a special offer for all listeners. If you go to his website, www.NOthebook.com.au and use the discount code: take50 in the cart, you will get 50% off the RRP. This great offer also applies to his two book bundles. So check it out!
You can find out more about Darrent at his website tickthoseboxes.com.au and connect with him on LinkedIn.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
The most successful people in the world all have one
thing in common. They've learned how to think big by
developing a perspective of possibility. And the good news is
we all have the potential to apply the same strategies
to achieve amazing things in our work and lives. Hi,
I'm Rob Hartnett, and as your chief possibility officer and host,
(00:27):
I'm here to inspire you to become the star of
your world as a person of possibility through learning how
people from all areas of life are thinking big and
chasing down their dreams. That I'm back with my great
friend Darren Finckelstein. Now, Darren was on the show a
few years ago with his previous book. He's on with
(00:48):
his new book this time. I'm so excited to have
him on board. Darren, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thanks Rob for having me. Loved but love being on
your show.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You were fantastic last time, so we got you back.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thank you. I love that. Now.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
When we talked about last time, you were talking about
one of my passions which you continue to do, which
you'd stopped, which was about accountability. You know, because I've
got this philosophy leadership, accountability, discipline, right and your accountability
is so important and it continues to be a big
part of your life, and they would pick those boxes,
and you're very passionate about it.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Now you be building your business and doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You've had a stellic career through Apple and a lot
of corporate businesses. And you know disclaiming here, Darren and
I were together at Apple, so that comes up. That's
that's where we were together. But you've done so much
more than that, and I think that's my love about you.
You're so inspirational that when you left Apple, you were
in a right hand turn and build a build a
business in a passion, which is the marine industry for you.
(01:44):
And you built that up very successful marinas and the
whole thing. Then exited out of that and then you
built this other other business up. So you just continued
to reinvat yourself, which I love. But you've written a
new book and the book's really simple. I mean, the
title must have taken you long to come up with
because it's two letters, which is no, no, right.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
You can't even spell that wrong.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You can't even get it wrong. I can't even get
it wrong. You can't even get that wrong. But we've heard.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
You may have mucked up on the T shirt, but
that's we'll talk about at the moment. But you've got
the book No.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Now, I can't do it.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I thought it was a really strong book. What was
the reason for writing the book about no? Tell me
about that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah. Look, I coach so many C suite executives, senior managers,
their teams and individuals, and saying no is something that
we always seem to circle back to because we get
distracted by stuff. If we ultimately want to achieve our goals,
we want to have a laser focused and head in
(02:45):
that direction, do everything we possibly can to achieve what
we want to achieve. But when we say yes to stuff,
it can be often a distraction from what's really important.
And we've all got the you know, the the characteristic
of wanting to say yes to people because it's nice
(03:05):
to say yes, it's nice to help out others. But
when we do that, quite often we're actually not helping ourselves,
and that saying that, saying and no is an important
way to remove the distraction.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So often we do. You do find generally that we're
people pleasers. We like to not say no. We like
to avoid conflicts we like to take on more generally
no everybody. But so when you're doing your coachy, was
that something that I mean, you would imagine at the
C suite, You imagine that the leadership position that some
(03:39):
of those people would have learned to say said no
by now or at least know and had to focus.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
But clearly that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
You were still finding people finding it difficult to say
no or at least focused.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Was that right? Yeah, yeah, very much so, Rob. Quite
often the sea suites are you know, juggling lots of balls, right,
you know, and they're juggling balls between perhaps what the
shareholders want, what the board wants, and trying to make
that happen with their teams and the troops on the ground,
and that ability to say no is just something that
(04:12):
they felt really uncomfortable about because and you touched on
people pleasers. If look back to when we were kids, right,
I look back to when I was younger, and my
parents always instilled in me the importance of saying yes,
saying yes and being positive and having all the right vibes.
But what I was effectively doing was self sabotaging myself
(04:33):
because I'm pleasing everybody else by saying yes, yes, yes,
of course I can, but it's distracting me from what
I really need to do or I want what are
the things I want to do?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So that's the case, And Darren, I think you've hit
a really good point here because this is one of
the kind of loxy morons I'm finding of a customer
experience and customer success.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
And I work a lot with companies who want.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
To improve that, who want to get better at it,
who want to live there in PS scores or that
type of thing. And one of the things that the
guests instill this, we've got to be really customer, really
customer focused. But we say but by saying yes to everything,
And I actually think that, I think that's the wrong tactic.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
And I'm like, you can't be customer focused by.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Saying yes to everything, because you're just going to run
out of bandwidth if you found that as well. In
this kind of customer success, customers are are number one customers.
This customers that so everyone tends to bend backwards until
they're a burn out or they fall down.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, look, well I think that's the I've certainly found that,
and I think the problem with that is that people
don't know how to say no nicely. They don't know
how to say no in a way that is empathetic,
it's honest, it's heartfelt, it's all of those things. I
remember my dad used to say to me, it's not
(05:48):
what you say, it's the way you say it. So
if we can frame our nose in a way that
is more positive, we could get those people in customer
service to still work with the client and make the
I feel like they're being heard. They're being listened to,
and we as a company are listening, but we want
to focus in this area and get something right now.
(06:09):
Our old employee Apple does that beautifully. Go to an
Apple store right and go and speak to one of
the staff members there who will never tell you what
you're doing is wrong. I will show you another way
to do that exercise, and you get the answer you
want and you feel like you've been nicely redirected in
(06:30):
the right way.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I love that, darn.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's one of the examples I use with people is
I think Apple do it well, as do a lot
of really good lifestyle luxury brands. Is that you're not
you're actually not met with someone from customer service or
the technician you're met with conscierge, who is an underrated
skill in my view. The concierge slows you down, find
out exactly what you want and reader actually through the
(06:54):
right person over here and almost just really does that
place where they're saying, we stand you're in a rush,
but guess what, here's the timing app here's what I
can do for you've been slough you in here. They
really do that, yes, but no, in a really nice way.
And I think that's so. I always liked the way
you talked about that. In fact, I was with her.
I was with a colleague of mine this morning who's
(07:15):
a mentor. She mentors leaders, especially in the arts area.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
And they are such the people.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Please but I just love love being so people friendly
and so healthful. And she was, but they've got a
massive in that industry and the burnout rates really high,
and she was struggling with it.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Go and we understand that, why why are you why
are you burning out?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And they're like, oh, it's got so much work and
we've got so many venues, we're working. We got this,
got this, got this, And she said, but why do
you keep saying yes to these these venues and these concerts,
and they go, well, we'll have to you. Why could
we say na to an artist? And she says, well,
could you say to the artists, yes, we'd love to
have you in our venue, but we could fix you
(07:57):
in in June twenty twenty five and not trying squeeze
them in for December twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, absolutely, about realigning our priorities.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
As she was greeting with silence, right, and they were like,
we can do that, we can do that.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Is that right? So I got so we're saying yes,
but we're saying yes on our terms. Ah wow.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So you talk about the concierge, right, the concierge and
it you're right, it is totally an underrated position. But
there when they greet a client, they're going through this
checklist in their head of this criteria, trying to filter out,
get rid of that, get rid of that, keep that,
get rid of that, get rid of that, keep that,
(08:43):
and the ones they keep. Okay, who here is the
best person to be able to latch onto that and
explain it in the right way, and so they get
redirected to the right person, And that is such an
important role but it's creating that checklist is the similar
strategy to what I talk about in my book. We
need to get to a checklier. We need to have
(09:04):
a checklist in our heads of what's possible, what isn't possible,
What are the boundaries we want to work within that
we want to hold safe and we want to hold
important to us and be able to work within those boundaries.
But when we don't have boundaries, we say yes to
everything because we just want to fit in, we want
to be liked.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I like that the area of boundaries.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I like the templates and the checklist you have in
the book, and they're throughout the book, which I really like,
and I think you don't know you do the checklist,
you'll say, hey, here's how you can do on a
daily basis, which I think is really important. And one
of the ones I love that you put in is
number one, which was my number one as well, which
was values.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
I think they're so important.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I do come across people who are really stressed, and
nine times out of ten it's because they're compromising.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
On their values. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Can you talk more about why you let you came
to number one for values as well?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, values to us.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
To me.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Is like it's more where my integrity sits. And so
I can't take on doing a task and I can't
embrace doing a task if I try to bullsh it
in my way through it, it's just my heart's just
not in it. So if we can identify what are
our values right up front, identify those non negotiables, those
(10:26):
things that are really important, then we can make sure
we have a match on those, then we're moving forward
with something that aligns with us. And it's a bit
like you know, talking in my accountability sessions about why
New Year's resolutions fail. You know, we all have a
few Champagnes or whatever our liking is on New Year's Eve. Yes,
(10:49):
I'm going to run a marathon this year. You know,
it's just ninety percent of the time it doesn't happen.
And it doesn't happen because the task isn't aligned with
one of my values.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
You know, I'm saying yes to go to the gym
five times because my partner thinks I need to lose
some weight paths certainly not my case, but the idea
is that we want to make sure that the important
things don't get forgotten. We want to make sure that
we really stayed focused on the stuff that's true to us,
(11:22):
because we can't bullshit our way through this because we
just it's just going to come unstuck.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, and are you aware of the Are you aware
of what January nineteen is?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Is that no bell for it? Well, January eighteen should
ring a bell because that's my birthday and you know that.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
But January nineteen, nineteen to twenty US round nineteen is
what's known as International Quitter's Day and that's come from
millions and millions of data points from Strava. Strava which
is used by the cyclists and runners. You'ld saying is
if it's non Strava, didn't happen, right, Well, Strawa can
(12:01):
show you exactly what you just said, but they can
give you the evidence, which is year's day.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
The spike goes up January one, two, three, four, five,
it goes up, and then on about January nineteen, it just.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Falls off the cliff. All the data falls off and
people are out of town.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
But here's the thing though, which is interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I'd love if your thoughts on this one, because what
they've found.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Is, you know, within a week.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Those who are training with a buddy or a group
get back on the horse again.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Those who do not are never seen on Strava again.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Wow, Well that accountability and saying no, we're making people
aware of that.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Be intersted in your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, yeah, interesting. Well, you know, the whole basis and
the whole foundation of my accountability program is are my
seven steps and the seven steps of my road to accountability.
Step number six is about if you have an accountability partner,
somebody you commit to, we freakquency on a specific day. Right,
(13:01):
So it's not just yeah, we'll catch up, no, but Rob,
I'm meeting you on Monday morning at seven o'clock. Yes,
if we have that, our probability of achieving our goal
or our task skyrockets to ninety five percent, providing we've
done all the precursors to that. But ultimately, it's eyeballing
somebody meeting with someone on the you know, going for
(13:24):
a ride and meeting you on the corner of the
major intersection at six o'clock in the morning. I'll be there, mate,
I'm not letting you down. We're going to do it together.
You're not gonna let me down. I'm not going to
let you down. And now I might wake up a
bit of a headache thinking of all the reasons I
can't do it, But ultimately I've made a commitment to you,
and that's enough to get people to turn up and
(13:44):
then participate. And then when they've got their buddy, they're
working off each other, they're feeding off each other, they're
supporting each other, and you can achieve miracles that way.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, I think, I really you're so many great parts
of this book.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
No.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
One of the interesting parts that I like about knowing
how to connects. I was talking to one of the
major banks and they were saying to me that I said,
how do you know if a business is going to.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Make it or not?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Write a new business and they said, oh, it's really easy.
It's when the business owner or his board or directors
or founders come to us in about year two or
three and say, look, we've had to think about our business.
We've been looking at what we're doing, and we've decided
we're going to focus on these particular clients and we're
going to move away from this market. We're going to
(14:30):
say no to these clients, know, to this particular market,
No to this territory, no, this overseas market, whatever happens
to be. When they have the maturity to go, here's
what we're saying no to. The bank said, that is
nine times out of ten they've gone over the maturity.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Hup. It's actually documented in their data.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Interesting when they say no.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
When they start saying no, they know they've matured as
a business. They're looking at their data and they now
committed to something that have narrowed it down.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
The bank goes, great, happy, how much do you want?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Right? Well, you know where that decision that the organization
makes to review what's happened in the past, what's happened
in the first two or three years in your example,
get together to see what's working for them, what isn't,
what's really difficult, what provides in the most amount of
pleasure or profitability, et cetera. They will then soon realize
(15:19):
what the distractions are those things that they put a
bucketload of energy into and they're not getting the return from,
and they're the ones they want to cut. And what
I'm saying is the you know, the notion of saying
no is the basis behind that is to be empowered
to make the right decision for you in those circumstances,
(15:40):
rather than just going, oh, but we can't change the
way it's always been, we'll just leave it as it is.
What we're saying here is no, because no isn't a rejection.
It's a redirection towards what truly is important. And if
we can really understand the importance and the weight that
that has in our organization, you know, we start making
(16:00):
the right decisions for us.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I like that no, and it's a new redirection. I
tell you that I do. It's some of the workshops
I run. And this is why your books really resonated
with me. I do that the philosophy you keep, stop, start,
which I'm sure you're across. You know, what do you
want to keep? What do you want to stop doing?
What do you want to start doing? And I don't
know how if you've had the same experience as me
running and see workshops, I find that they do keep
(16:25):
really well. They do a massive list of start and
there's nothing in the stop column.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Oh they've got more than twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Right right?
Speaker 5 (16:35):
Who are these people? And I'm like, cool man, Look, people,
you cannot do that. You can't keep loading up, the
start keeping anything you're doing, and you're not going to
stop anything.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
No.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Really, it's the second wave of the brain storming, right,
which you know usually first wave for all the vocal
people talk right, and you want to.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Go that's get my way.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And then the second time you start get the kind
of more introverts start coming up and going, actually, we'll
surely does there any need to do that report.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
We've been there for the last three years.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
For the client who's never read it once now was
to tell you they do it, Oh, four days and
five other people involved. Ah, why we're gonna stop that? Oh,
put it on the stop list. But I find in
workship just getting people to put it on the stop list.
It's really it's almost like there's a magnet that's pulling
the marker.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Away, like and then when you try to try and
peel one finger at a time off it and you
just let core marks on it. I just can't right
all that stuff. You know, we're very possessive, right, We
take ownership of things, and we take it personally when
it's taken away from us because we see it as well,
(17:42):
hang on to stay. Maybe I'm not doing something right
instead of seeing it as an opportunity of realizing that
if we can just rid ourselves of that, we get
all this extra time to do this, and that is
what's important. But it starts with understanding what's important and
then removing everything that's not working in that direction towards it.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, I think that the whole area of purpose and
mission you speak really highly and really focusing down on it,
because I think people do have this fear of missing
out and I've got so much distraction right now. There
was something else I was going to ask you about
which I really liked in your book. You covered, you covered,
and full kudos for you for doing this. You covered
cultural challenges and generational and I think I've certainly the
(18:29):
work I've done in Asia especially and in Japan, there's
you know, you don't say no. There's a way of
saying that. A put it in a better way of it,
like your father, there's a way of saying no. And
so I'm glad you covered that. What led you to
extend the book in terms of covering off cultural challenges
with saying no?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, yeah, So for me, it was understanding that everybody's
circumstance is different and what gives me the belief of,
you know, my opinion on saying no, it comes from
a good place, but it's a place of somebody else.
(19:06):
It's a place in my case of you know, listening
to my dad's wonderful advice he gave me, and and
he was right in lots of things, but not in everything.
And we build our opinions based upon stuff, not necessarily
that we've created through our own experiences, but from what
we've inherited. And what we inherited comes from generational differences
(19:28):
and cultural differences. So we kind of need to understand
what those things are so we can actually formulate, mold
what our response is going to be. And you know,
I don't talk about giving responses in the book because
that is unique to individuals. But we need to be
(19:48):
realized that a standard response is not going to work.
Just because we did it in the past doesn't mean
we have to do it moving forward.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Inherit religion that I thought you really went into it
more than I've ever seen before, and I think that's
really admirable of you to do it, because there are
ways of doing it, and we have that. It's like
your father said, Yeah, sometimes it's not what's said, that's
actually how it's taken. Careful of that which I thought
you were really good at.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, thanks for man. Look, the old man had some
great advice and that's one of them. But it's just
it works in so many of my client scenarios that
I that I use to draw on on writing the book.
Every client is different. One standard way is not going
(20:40):
to work. We need to take those elements into account
for both the person who is saying the no and
the person who's going to hear the no right, and
so we can understand different perspectives and we can use
that to it in our favor when we put the
words together to craft the know.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
And what about generational?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
What did you find there between you know, it's veterans
to boomers, to Gen X, which you and I are,
to millennials to to Gen Z and then our jed alpha.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Was there any tread did you say? Did you just
say I was a gen X gen X?
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Wow, thanks, we look X. I love that even more. Yeah,
not not quite. From the boomer the boomer hangover. We're
sitting back now working at our retirement.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
According to the book, it's it's you know, we can
get caught up in trying to work out where we
fit in all of this, and the important part of
it is that we all think differently, and we think
differently because that's the generation or the peer group where
we've been surrounding ourselves with.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Understanding how each of those generations are going to pass
a message on and how they're going to absorb that
message is really key and just simply recognizing the fact
that hang on a sec I'm not talking to someone
of my vintage. I'm talking to someone who's young enough
(22:11):
to be my son. Well, are they going to need
to use a different tack to get It's just a
much strategy to do that right.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Well, it's interesting, you should say, because I'm loving a
lot of the gen Z gen Z's. I love the
way they're saying, the way they've said, no, if you
try and employ gen Z, the first thing I want
to know is what's the purpose of your business?
Speaker 3 (22:31):
And we're not going to just take the job for
the money. We actually want to know what does this
business do?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And what are you giving back?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
What are you giving back? And what's your what's your
purpose program? I want to be coached, I want to
be mentored. So I'm going to say no, if I
can't get that, if I can't grow as an individual,
then maybe you're not an organization. And they're pushing back.
I mean, you and I we've got our jobs. They
just having to get paid, man, just having to get
correct And.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
If you want to and if you want a me
to jump over a mountain, not go and jump over
the mountain. There's no no issue about that. One of
my first jobs with Rio Tinto. And try to tell
your kids about that. Now, what we're thinking.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
I was thinking about buying a house, That's what I
was thinking. It's different, right, and it was different. It
was a different circumstance, it was different back then.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
But I think that those side I think is funly enough,
I see it more in Gen Z that I do
in boomers and Gen XP.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, and you know, the the target audience for my
book is targeted more towards the the you know, using
means of this world where we're perhaps a little bit
more fixed in our ideas and we need to open
up and listen to some of the the methodologies and
(23:44):
strategies of the younger folk. But we're a bit closed
minded for that yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I do think though, when I was going through your
your templates and your strategies, you know, your lists and
things like that, very applicable for a couple of startup
I'm working with with some real gen gem with gen
Z going through who are growing and now they're running
at the growing pains and there and their market is
(24:10):
very big, and now they're trying to contract the market.
And so I've thought a lot of the stuff around
no for the leaders of those business was just as applicable.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Great, you know, you can jump on on my website.
You can download those templates for free.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Yeah, and just give us the website.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, tick those boxes dot com dot au cultick on
the Lincoln find the free stuff and it's in there.
You can download those templates from the book.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Briant.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Now, tell me something, though, What have you said no
to in your life that's been beneficial in the last
few years?
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Oh wow, So I wrote about the story where I
should have said no, which we've occupied quite a lot
of my energy at the time. For those people that
aren't aware, I was, you know, as a youngster, I
in a wonderful situation where my father in law was
(25:03):
really entrepreneurial and he wanted me to follow in his footsteps.
And this is before our days at Apple, this is
way before Apple today. And he wanted me to be
a business owner like he started off. And so he
was really keen for me to, you know, get out
of the corporate I was working for at the time.
(25:24):
I think it was Xerox at the time. Get out
of working for Xerox and go and set up your
own business. And of course I just was yes, Yeah,
I love to What a great idea. Oh and I
was enthusiastic as hell. I just wasn't ready for it.
And because I wasn't ready for it in so many
different areas, and I write about it in great detail
in the book. I should have said no to that.
(25:48):
I should have just said thanks for the offer, really
appreciate it. The faith you're putting in me is wonderful,
but I'm just not ready for it.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Perhaps I could be meant by you. I could don't
work in your business for a little while instead of
with Xerox and understand the you know, how it all works,
and I can then go and try a venture when
I'm feeling a little bit more confident. That's what I
should have said, yeah, Yes.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
It's a no, but it's a you can say no
but not be a no. It's like no to that way,
but how about yes to this way? Yes, Yeah, And
I think sometimes exactly we have to take it whatever
someone's given us. We just we think that's the only option.
And I think that's one of the really interesting interesting parts.
It's actually it's actually an interesting part of possibilities that
(26:38):
I'm working on at the moment. That possibilities isn't black
and white. Possibilities can mean different things. There are more
things than you think about.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
You know, if people think.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
About well like go to the business or I shut
down the business, where I start that or I do that?
And there's actually halfway and caught a ways you can
do stuff. There's way more choices we have if we
sit there thes or no right exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
But so I talk about it in the book and
when we look at you know, if I look at
my boundaries by design, that ten step framework that I've created,
the thing that's really important in that is for me
is to sit on something right, don't just give an
a media s decision. Yes, you know, I'm excited and
I'm motivated, like you know, anybody. But it's okay for
(27:21):
me to just go aus on it, sit and think
about it, maybe go home and do some spreadsheets and
do some stuff to get my head around the numbers.
Because I'm good at that sort of thing. I get
a lot of comfort out of that and then be
able to come back with the decision. But it's actually
to weigh up that decision and to look at my
checklist and see how it sits with my own values
(27:42):
and my own goals and my priorities, and then be
able to come back with a with a well considered,
sensitively delivered response whether it is yes or it's a no.
But just to take that time is okay. You don't
have to rush and make it decision.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I think he also is something that you talk about
a lot in the book which is a really important
part of our makeup and how our brain works, which
is it gives us autonomy.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
And I think autonomy is such a powerful word.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
It is you talk a lot about it, and the
fact that no gives you allows you to have autonomy,
And I think that's a really strong part because you know,
you're having worked through the David Rock's scarf model, having
worked in your own leadership institute. And the AE of
the Scarf model is autonomy, and it's such a huge part.
But people sometimes don't know how to how do I
gain a time in a situation which looks like someone's
(28:34):
telling me something or giving me, you know, a black
or white choice.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
You do actually have all time, And I love that's
in the book. It's covered on how to actually do
that and how to frame those conversations.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
So really good, Oh thank you for that. Look, you know,
practicing polite refusals in front of the mirror and going,
you know, playing out O scenario so you're actually feeling
comfortable delivering those words. And for God's sake, do with empathy,
do it with honesty, and just listen to yourself talk
(29:06):
to make sure that you're you're coming across with the
right intention.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yeah, that's it, That's exactly it. And I think it's
it's funny you're talking, you're writing this book. I know
because only one of our biggest competitors at the time
when you and rat Apple was Dell and and Michael
Dell was always well non for saying no and the
power of no. Michael Dell was non for saying no,
and just saying keep the main thing, the main thing.
And when I'm saying no, it means I can actually
keep on the focus. And he gets yeah started all
(29:33):
the time when he's running Dell computer like tons of stuff.
But his ability to say no, it was one of
the hallmarks of why he was he was successful. And
I think it's great that you've produced you know, a great,
a great little book. Now tell us more about where
can we where we find out where he misses the website?
But is there a website around the book as well?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah? There is, Yeah, you can you can head to
know the book dot com todau.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So it's not the Notebook, which that's a great movie,
but that's that's no the I Know the.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Book n O T G BAK. Alternatively, just go to
tick those boxes dot com do a you and you
can find the link to all of my books there book.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, you can see great great pictures of you, which
is fantastic. Mate.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Thank you so much for jumping on today. It's been
really good. It's been the lightning as always. Yeah, thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
No, no, gotcha, I thank you, thank you mate, thank
you for having me. I appreciate you wanting to share
with your with your audience the value in the book
no and saying those words that are carefully considered. And
I appreciate that, mate, thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It's all you know when I talk about possibility, possibility
is not possible? And do you say no a few
things right, because there's that important part.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
And I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
So much of what I've written in books and talk
about is one hundred percent a line to what you've
done in now two books.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
So I can't wait for the next one, which will
be your seven. It will be a six or seventy
next one, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Going to be.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
It's that'll be book number six, not that I'm counting.
It's funny. And I started all these books when I
hit the age of fifty. Yeah, so I'm a late bloomer.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, but you know that's when you do it. And
this is the great thing about you, as I love
as well. I've spoken about it as a fact. You've
done so many career changes, left hand turns, right hand turns,
but just kept it going and living life to the fall.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
So Brian, mate, thanks, thanks, thanks for being on fruciate it.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
It's a pleasure. Thanks for talking to me Rob, look
after yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the It's All
Possible Podcast. You can contact me at Rob at Robhardner
dot com or my website Robharder dot com, or on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Remember to check out the previous seasons and.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Episodes of the podcast and the show notes for more
details on this episode's guest.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
For more inspiration, remember to check out the.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
All Possibility Play This on Spotify, which contains a collection upbeat,
positive music I use for inspiration in my live performances.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Until next time, Live with passion and a perspective of ago.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
It m
The most successful people in the world all have one
thing in common. They've learned how to think big by
developing a perspective of possibility. And the good news is
we all have the potential to apply the same strategies
to achieve amazing things in our work and lives. Hi,
I'm Rob Hartnett, and as your chief possibility officer and host,
(00:27):
I'm here to inspire you to become the star of
your world as a person of possibility through learning how
people from all areas of life are thinking big and
chasing down their dreams. That I'm back with my great
friend Darren Finckelstein. Now, Darren was on the show a
few years ago with his previous book. He's on with
(00:48):
his new book this time. I'm so excited to have
him on board. Darren, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thanks Rob for having me. Loved but love being on
your show.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
You were fantastic last time, so we got you back.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thank you. I love that. Now.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
When we talked about last time, you were talking about
one of my passions which you continue to do, which
you'd stopped, which was about accountability. You know, because I've
got this philosophy leadership, accountability, discipline, right and your accountability
is so important and it continues to be a big
part of your life, and they would pick those boxes,
and you're very passionate about it.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Now you be building your business and doing that.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You've had a stellic career through Apple and a lot
of corporate businesses. And you know disclaiming here, Darren and
I were together at Apple, so that comes up. That's
that's where we were together. But you've done so much
more than that, and I think that's my love about you.
You're so inspirational that when you left Apple, you were
in a right hand turn and build a build a
business in a passion, which is the marine industry for you.
(01:44):
And you built that up very successful marinas and the
whole thing. Then exited out of that and then you
built this other other business up. So you just continued
to reinvat yourself, which I love. But you've written a
new book and the book's really simple. I mean, the
title must have taken you long to come up with
because it's two letters, which is no, no, right.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
You can't even spell that wrong.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You can't even get it wrong. I can't even get
it wrong. You can't even get that wrong. But we've heard.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
You may have mucked up on the T shirt, but
that's we'll talk about at the moment. But you've got
the book No.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Now, I can't do it.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I thought it was a really strong book. What was
the reason for writing the book about no? Tell me
about that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah. Look, I coach so many C suite executives, senior managers,
their teams and individuals, and saying no is something that
we always seem to circle back to because we get
distracted by stuff. If we ultimately want to achieve our goals,
we want to have a laser focused and head in
(02:45):
that direction, do everything we possibly can to achieve what
we want to achieve. But when we say yes to stuff,
it can be often a distraction from what's really important.
And we've all got the you know, the the characteristic
of wanting to say yes to people because it's nice
(03:05):
to say yes, it's nice to help out others. But
when we do that, quite often we're actually not helping ourselves,
and that saying that, saying and no is an important
way to remove the distraction.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So often we do. You do find generally that we're
people pleasers. We like to not say no. We like
to avoid conflicts we like to take on more generally
no everybody. But so when you're doing your coachy, was
that something that I mean, you would imagine at the
C suite, You imagine that the leadership position that some
(03:39):
of those people would have learned to say said no
by now or at least know and had to focus.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
But clearly that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
You were still finding people finding it difficult to say
no or at least focused.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Was that right? Yeah, yeah, very much so, Rob. Quite
often the sea suites are you know, juggling lots of balls, right,
you know, and they're juggling balls between perhaps what the
shareholders want, what the board wants, and trying to make
that happen with their teams and the troops on the ground,
and that ability to say no is just something that
(04:12):
they felt really uncomfortable about because and you touched on
people pleasers. If look back to when we were kids, right,
I look back to when I was younger, and my
parents always instilled in me the importance of saying yes,
saying yes and being positive and having all the right vibes.
But what I was effectively doing was self sabotaging myself
(04:33):
because I'm pleasing everybody else by saying yes, yes, yes,
of course I can, but it's distracting me from what
I really need to do or I want what are
the things I want to do?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So that's the case, And Darren, I think you've hit
a really good point here because this is one of
the kind of loxy morons I'm finding of a customer
experience and customer success.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
And I work a lot with companies who want.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
To improve that, who want to get better at it,
who want to live there in PS scores or that
type of thing. And one of the things that the
guests instill this, we've got to be really customer, really
customer focused. But we say but by saying yes to everything,
And I actually think that, I think that's the wrong tactic.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
And I'm like, you can't be customer focused by.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Saying yes to everything, because you're just going to run
out of bandwidth if you found that as well. In
this kind of customer success, customers are are number one customers.
This customers that so everyone tends to bend backwards until
they're a burn out or they fall down.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, look, well I think that's the I've certainly found that,
and I think the problem with that is that people
don't know how to say no nicely. They don't know
how to say no in a way that is empathetic,
it's honest, it's heartfelt, it's all of those things. I
remember my dad used to say to me, it's not
(05:48):
what you say, it's the way you say it. So
if we can frame our nose in a way that
is more positive, we could get those people in customer
service to still work with the client and make the
I feel like they're being heard. They're being listened to,
and we as a company are listening, but we want
to focus in this area and get something right now.
(06:09):
Our old employee Apple does that beautifully. Go to an
Apple store right and go and speak to one of
the staff members there who will never tell you what
you're doing is wrong. I will show you another way
to do that exercise, and you get the answer you
want and you feel like you've been nicely redirected in
(06:30):
the right way.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I love that, darn.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
That's one of the examples I use with people is
I think Apple do it well, as do a lot
of really good lifestyle luxury brands. Is that you're not
you're actually not met with someone from customer service or
the technician you're met with conscierge, who is an underrated
skill in my view. The concierge slows you down, find
out exactly what you want and reader actually through the
(06:54):
right person over here and almost just really does that
place where they're saying, we stand you're in a rush,
but guess what, here's the timing app here's what I
can do for you've been slough you in here. They
really do that, yes, but no, in a really nice way.
And I think that's so. I always liked the way
you talked about that. In fact, I was with her.
I was with a colleague of mine this morning who's
(07:15):
a mentor. She mentors leaders, especially in the arts area.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
And they are such the people.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Please but I just love love being so people friendly
and so healthful. And she was, but they've got a
massive in that industry and the burnout rates really high,
and she was struggling with it.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Go and we understand that, why why are you why
are you burning out?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And they're like, oh, it's got so much work and
we've got so many venues, we're working. We got this,
got this, got this, And she said, but why do
you keep saying yes to these these venues and these concerts,
and they go, well, we'll have to you. Why could
we say na to an artist? And she says, well,
could you say to the artists, yes, we'd love to
have you in our venue, but we could fix you
(07:57):
in in June twenty twenty five and not trying squeeze
them in for December twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, absolutely, about realigning our priorities.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
As she was greeting with silence, right, and they were like,
we can do that, we can do that.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Is that right? So I got so we're saying yes,
but we're saying yes on our terms. Ah wow.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So you talk about the concierge, right, the concierge and
it you're right, it is totally an underrated position. But
there when they greet a client, they're going through this
checklist in their head of this criteria, trying to filter out,
get rid of that, get rid of that, keep that,
get rid of that, get rid of that, keep that,
(08:43):
and the ones they keep. Okay, who here is the
best person to be able to latch onto that and
explain it in the right way, and so they get
redirected to the right person, And that is such an
important role but it's creating that checklist is the similar
strategy to what I talk about in my book. We
need to get to a checklier. We need to have
(09:04):
a checklist in our heads of what's possible, what isn't possible,
What are the boundaries we want to work within that
we want to hold safe and we want to hold
important to us and be able to work within those boundaries.
But when we don't have boundaries, we say yes to
everything because we just want to fit in, we want
to be liked.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I like that the area of boundaries.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I like the templates and the checklist you have in
the book, and they're throughout the book, which I really like,
and I think you don't know you do the checklist,
you'll say, hey, here's how you can do on a
daily basis, which I think is really important. And one
of the ones I love that you put in is
number one, which was my number one as well, which
was values.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
I think they're so important.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I do come across people who are really stressed, and
nine times out of ten it's because they're compromising.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
On their values. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Can you talk more about why you let you came
to number one for values as well?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, values to us.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
To me.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Is like it's more where my integrity sits. And so
I can't take on doing a task and I can't
embrace doing a task if I try to bullsh it
in my way through it, it's just my heart's just
not in it. So if we can identify what are
our values right up front, identify those non negotiables, those
(10:26):
things that are really important, then we can make sure
we have a match on those, then we're moving forward
with something that aligns with us. And it's a bit
like you know, talking in my accountability sessions about why
New Year's resolutions fail. You know, we all have a
few Champagnes or whatever our liking is on New Year's Eve. Yes,
(10:49):
I'm going to run a marathon this year. You know,
it's just ninety percent of the time it doesn't happen.
And it doesn't happen because the task isn't aligned with
one of my values.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
You know, I'm saying yes to go to the gym
five times because my partner thinks I need to lose
some weight paths certainly not my case, but the idea
is that we want to make sure that the important
things don't get forgotten. We want to make sure that
we really stayed focused on the stuff that's true to us,
(11:22):
because we can't bullshit our way through this because we
just it's just going to come unstuck.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, and are you aware of the Are you aware
of what January nineteen is?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Is that no bell for it? Well, January eighteen should
ring a bell because that's my birthday and you know that.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
But January nineteen, nineteen to twenty US round nineteen is
what's known as International Quitter's Day and that's come from
millions and millions of data points from Strava. Strava which
is used by the cyclists and runners. You'ld saying is
if it's non Strava, didn't happen, right, Well, Strawa can
(12:01):
show you exactly what you just said, but they can
give you the evidence, which is year's day.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
The spike goes up January one, two, three, four, five,
it goes up, and then on about January nineteen, it just.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Falls off the cliff. All the data falls off and
people are out of town.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
But here's the thing though, which is interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I'd love if your thoughts on this one, because what
they've found.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Is, you know, within a week.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Those who are training with a buddy or a group
get back on the horse again.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Those who do not are never seen on Strava again.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Wow, Well that accountability and saying no, we're making people
aware of that.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
Be intersted in your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, yeah, interesting. Well, you know, the whole basis and
the whole foundation of my accountability program is are my
seven steps and the seven steps of my road to accountability.
Step number six is about if you have an accountability partner,
somebody you commit to, we freakquency on a specific day. Right,
(13:01):
So it's not just yeah, we'll catch up, no, but Rob,
I'm meeting you on Monday morning at seven o'clock. Yes,
if we have that, our probability of achieving our goal
or our task skyrockets to ninety five percent, providing we've
done all the precursors to that. But ultimately, it's eyeballing
somebody meeting with someone on the you know, going for
(13:24):
a ride and meeting you on the corner of the
major intersection at six o'clock in the morning. I'll be there, mate,
I'm not letting you down. We're going to do it together.
You're not gonna let me down. I'm not going to
let you down. And now I might wake up a
bit of a headache thinking of all the reasons I
can't do it, But ultimately I've made a commitment to you,
and that's enough to get people to turn up and
(13:44):
then participate. And then when they've got their buddy, they're
working off each other, they're feeding off each other, they're
supporting each other, and you can achieve miracles that way.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, I think, I really you're so many great parts
of this book.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
No.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
One of the interesting parts that I like about knowing
how to connects. I was talking to one of the
major banks and they were saying to me that I said,
how do you know if a business is going to.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Make it or not?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Write a new business and they said, oh, it's really easy.
It's when the business owner or his board or directors
or founders come to us in about year two or
three and say, look, we've had to think about our business.
We've been looking at what we're doing, and we've decided
we're going to focus on these particular clients and we're
going to move away from this market. We're going to
(14:30):
say no to these clients, know, to this particular market,
No to this territory, no, this overseas market, whatever happens
to be. When they have the maturity to go, here's
what we're saying no to. The bank said, that is
nine times out of ten they've gone over the maturity.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Hup. It's actually documented in their data.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Interesting when they say no.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
When they start saying no, they know they've matured as
a business. They're looking at their data and they now
committed to something that have narrowed it down.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
The bank goes, great, happy, how much do you want?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Right? Well, you know where that decision that the organization
makes to review what's happened in the past, what's happened
in the first two or three years in your example,
get together to see what's working for them, what isn't,
what's really difficult, what provides in the most amount of
pleasure or profitability, et cetera. They will then soon realize
(15:19):
what the distractions are those things that they put a
bucketload of energy into and they're not getting the return from,
and they're the ones they want to cut. And what
I'm saying is the you know, the notion of saying
no is the basis behind that is to be empowered
to make the right decision for you in those circumstances,
(15:40):
rather than just going, oh, but we can't change the
way it's always been, we'll just leave it as it is.
What we're saying here is no, because no isn't a rejection.
It's a redirection towards what truly is important. And if
we can really understand the importance and the weight that
that has in our organization, you know, we start making
(16:00):
the right decisions for us.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
I like that no, and it's a new redirection. I
tell you that I do. It's some of the workshops
I run. And this is why your books really resonated
with me. I do that the philosophy you keep, stop, start,
which I'm sure you're across. You know, what do you
want to keep? What do you want to stop doing?
What do you want to start doing? And I don't
know how if you've had the same experience as me
running and see workshops, I find that they do keep
(16:25):
really well. They do a massive list of start and
there's nothing in the stop column.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Oh they've got more than twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Right right?
Speaker 5 (16:35):
Who are these people? And I'm like, cool man, Look, people,
you cannot do that. You can't keep loading up, the
start keeping anything you're doing, and you're not going to
stop anything.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
No.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Really, it's the second wave of the brain storming, right,
which you know usually first wave for all the vocal
people talk right, and you want to.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Go that's get my way.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And then the second time you start get the kind
of more introverts start coming up and going, actually, we'll
surely does there any need to do that report.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
We've been there for the last three years.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
For the client who's never read it once now was
to tell you they do it, Oh, four days and
five other people involved. Ah, why we're gonna stop that? Oh,
put it on the stop list. But I find in
workship just getting people to put it on the stop list.
It's really it's almost like there's a magnet that's pulling
the marker.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Away, like and then when you try to try and
peel one finger at a time off it and you
just let core marks on it. I just can't right
all that stuff. You know, we're very possessive, right, We
take ownership of things, and we take it personally when
it's taken away from us because we see it as well,
(17:42):
hang on to stay. Maybe I'm not doing something right
instead of seeing it as an opportunity of realizing that
if we can just rid ourselves of that, we get
all this extra time to do this, and that is
what's important. But it starts with understanding what's important and
then removing everything that's not working in that direction towards it.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, I think that the whole area of purpose and
mission you speak really highly and really focusing down on it,
because I think people do have this fear of missing
out and I've got so much distraction right now. There
was something else I was going to ask you about
which I really liked in your book. You covered, you covered,
and full kudos for you for doing this. You covered
cultural challenges and generational and I think I've certainly the
(18:29):
work I've done in Asia especially and in Japan, there's
you know, you don't say no. There's a way of
saying that. A put it in a better way of it,
like your father, there's a way of saying no. And
so I'm glad you covered that. What led you to
extend the book in terms of covering off cultural challenges
with saying no?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, yeah, So for me, it was understanding that everybody's
circumstance is different and what gives me the belief of,
you know, my opinion on saying no, it comes from
a good place, but it's a place of somebody else.
(19:06):
It's a place in my case of you know, listening
to my dad's wonderful advice he gave me, and and
he was right in lots of things, but not in everything.
And we build our opinions based upon stuff, not necessarily
that we've created through our own experiences, but from what
we've inherited. And what we inherited comes from generational differences
(19:28):
and cultural differences. So we kind of need to understand
what those things are so we can actually formulate, mold
what our response is going to be. And you know,
I don't talk about giving responses in the book because
that is unique to individuals. But we need to be
(19:48):
realized that a standard response is not going to work.
Just because we did it in the past doesn't mean
we have to do it moving forward.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Inherit religion that I thought you really went into it
more than I've ever seen before, and I think that's
really admirable of you to do it, because there are
ways of doing it, and we have that. It's like
your father said, Yeah, sometimes it's not what's said, that's
actually how it's taken. Careful of that which I thought
you were really good at.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, thanks for man. Look, the old man had some
great advice and that's one of them. But it's just
it works in so many of my client scenarios that
I that I use to draw on on writing the book.
Every client is different. One standard way is not going
(20:40):
to work. We need to take those elements into account
for both the person who is saying the no and
the person who's going to hear the no right, and
so we can understand different perspectives and we can use
that to it in our favor when we put the
words together to craft the know.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
And what about generational?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
What did you find there between you know, it's veterans
to boomers, to Gen X, which you and I are,
to millennials to to Gen Z and then our jed alpha.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Was there any tread did you say? Did you just
say I was a gen X gen X?
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Wow, thanks, we look X. I love that even more. Yeah,
not not quite. From the boomer the boomer hangover. We're
sitting back now working at our retirement.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
According to the book, it's it's you know, we can
get caught up in trying to work out where we
fit in all of this, and the important part of
it is that we all think differently, and we think
differently because that's the generation or the peer group where
we've been surrounding ourselves with.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Understanding how each of those generations are going to pass
a message on and how they're going to absorb that
message is really key and just simply recognizing the fact
that hang on a sec I'm not talking to someone
of my vintage. I'm talking to someone who's young enough
(22:11):
to be my son. Well, are they going to need
to use a different tack to get It's just a
much strategy to do that right.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Well, it's interesting, you should say, because I'm loving a
lot of the gen Z gen Z's. I love the
way they're saying, the way they've said, no, if you
try and employ gen Z, the first thing I want
to know is what's the purpose of your business?
Speaker 3 (22:31):
And we're not going to just take the job for
the money. We actually want to know what does this
business do?
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And what are you giving back?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
What are you giving back? And what's your what's your
purpose program? I want to be coached, I want to
be mentored. So I'm going to say no, if I
can't get that, if I can't grow as an individual,
then maybe you're not an organization. And they're pushing back.
I mean, you and I we've got our jobs. They
just having to get paid, man, just having to get
correct And.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
If you want to and if you want a me
to jump over a mountain, not go and jump over
the mountain. There's no no issue about that. One of
my first jobs with Rio Tinto. And try to tell
your kids about that. Now, what we're thinking.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
I was thinking about buying a house, That's what I
was thinking. It's different, right, and it was different. It
was a different circumstance, it was different back then.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
But I think that those side I think is funly enough,
I see it more in Gen Z that I do
in boomers and Gen XP.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, and you know, the the target audience for my
book is targeted more towards the the you know, using
means of this world where we're perhaps a little bit
more fixed in our ideas and we need to open
up and listen to some of the the methodologies and
(23:44):
strategies of the younger folk. But we're a bit closed
minded for that yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I do think though, when I was going through your
your templates and your strategies, you know, your lists and
things like that, very applicable for a couple of startup
I'm working with with some real gen gem with gen
Z going through who are growing and now they're running
at the growing pains and there and their market is
(24:10):
very big, and now they're trying to contract the market.
And so I've thought a lot of the stuff around
no for the leaders of those business was just as applicable.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Great, you know, you can jump on on my website.
You can download those templates for free.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Yeah, and just give us the website.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, tick those boxes dot com dot au cultick on
the Lincoln find the free stuff and it's in there.
You can download those templates from the book.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Briant.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Now, tell me something, though, What have you said no
to in your life that's been beneficial in the last
few years?
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Oh wow, So I wrote about the story where I
should have said no, which we've occupied quite a lot
of my energy at the time. For those people that
aren't aware, I was, you know, as a youngster, I
in a wonderful situation where my father in law was
(25:03):
really entrepreneurial and he wanted me to follow in his footsteps.
And this is before our days at Apple, this is
way before Apple today. And he wanted me to be
a business owner like he started off. And so he
was really keen for me to, you know, get out
of the corporate I was working for at the time.
(25:24):
I think it was Xerox at the time. Get out
of working for Xerox and go and set up your
own business. And of course I just was yes, Yeah,
I love to What a great idea. Oh and I
was enthusiastic as hell. I just wasn't ready for it.
And because I wasn't ready for it in so many
different areas, and I write about it in great detail
in the book. I should have said no to that.
(25:48):
I should have just said thanks for the offer, really
appreciate it. The faith you're putting in me is wonderful,
but I'm just not ready for it.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Perhaps I could be meant by you. I could don't
work in your business for a little while instead of
with Xerox and understand the you know, how it all works,
and I can then go and try a venture when
I'm feeling a little bit more confident. That's what I
should have said, yeah, Yes.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
It's a no, but it's a you can say no
but not be a no. It's like no to that way,
but how about yes to this way? Yes, Yeah, And
I think sometimes exactly we have to take it whatever
someone's given us. We just we think that's the only option.
And I think that's one of the really interesting interesting parts.
It's actually it's actually an interesting part of possibilities that
(26:38):
I'm working on at the moment. That possibilities isn't black
and white. Possibilities can mean different things. There are more
things than you think about.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
You know, if people think.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
About well like go to the business or I shut
down the business, where I start that or I do that?
And there's actually halfway and caught a ways you can
do stuff. There's way more choices we have if we
sit there thes or no right exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
But so I talk about it in the book and
when we look at you know, if I look at
my boundaries by design, that ten step framework that I've created,
the thing that's really important in that is for me
is to sit on something right, don't just give an
a media s decision. Yes, you know, I'm excited and
I'm motivated, like you know, anybody. But it's okay for
(27:21):
me to just go aus on it, sit and think
about it, maybe go home and do some spreadsheets and
do some stuff to get my head around the numbers.
Because I'm good at that sort of thing. I get
a lot of comfort out of that and then be
able to come back with the decision. But it's actually
to weigh up that decision and to look at my
checklist and see how it sits with my own values
(27:42):
and my own goals and my priorities, and then be
able to come back with a with a well considered,
sensitively delivered response whether it is yes or it's a no.
But just to take that time is okay. You don't
have to rush and make it decision.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I think he also is something that you talk about
a lot in the book which is a really important
part of our makeup and how our brain works, which
is it gives us autonomy.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
And I think autonomy is such a powerful word.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
It is you talk a lot about it, and the
fact that no gives you allows you to have autonomy,
And I think that's a really strong part because you know,
you're having worked through the David Rock's scarf model, having
worked in your own leadership institute. And the AE of
the Scarf model is autonomy, and it's such a huge part.
But people sometimes don't know how to how do I
gain a time in a situation which looks like someone's
(28:34):
telling me something or giving me, you know, a black
or white choice.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
You do actually have all time, And I love that's
in the book. It's covered on how to actually do
that and how to frame those conversations.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
So really good, Oh thank you for that. Look, you know,
practicing polite refusals in front of the mirror and going,
you know, playing out O scenario so you're actually feeling
comfortable delivering those words. And for God's sake, do with empathy,
do it with honesty, and just listen to yourself talk
(29:06):
to make sure that you're you're coming across with the
right intention.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Yeah, that's it, That's exactly it. And I think it's
it's funny you're talking, you're writing this book. I know
because only one of our biggest competitors at the time
when you and rat Apple was Dell and and Michael
Dell was always well non for saying no and the
power of no. Michael Dell was non for saying no,
and just saying keep the main thing, the main thing.
And when I'm saying no, it means I can actually
keep on the focus. And he gets yeah started all
(29:33):
the time when he's running Dell computer like tons of stuff.
But his ability to say no, it was one of
the hallmarks of why he was he was successful. And
I think it's great that you've produced you know, a great,
a great little book. Now tell us more about where
can we where we find out where he misses the website?
But is there a website around the book as well?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah? There is, Yeah, you can you can head to
know the book dot com todau.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So it's not the Notebook, which that's a great movie,
but that's that's no the I Know the.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Book n O T G BAK. Alternatively, just go to
tick those boxes dot com do a you and you
can find the link to all of my books there book.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, you can see great great pictures of you, which
is fantastic. Mate.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Thank you so much for jumping on today. It's been
really good. It's been the lightning as always. Yeah, thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
No, no, gotcha, I thank you, thank you mate, thank
you for having me. I appreciate you wanting to share
with your with your audience the value in the book
no and saying those words that are carefully considered. And
I appreciate that, mate, thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It's all you know when I talk about possibility, possibility
is not possible? And do you say no a few
things right, because there's that important part.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
And I love that.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
So much of what I've written in books and talk
about is one hundred percent a line to what you've
done in now two books.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
So I can't wait for the next one, which will
be your seven. It will be a six or seventy
next one, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Going to be.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
It's that'll be book number six, not that I'm counting.
It's funny. And I started all these books when I
hit the age of fifty. Yeah, so I'm a late bloomer.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, but you know that's when you do it. And
this is the great thing about you, as I love
as well. I've spoken about it as a fact. You've
done so many career changes, left hand turns, right hand turns,
but just kept it going and living life to the fall.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
So Brian, mate, thanks, thanks, thanks for being on fruciate it.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
It's a pleasure. Thanks for talking to me Rob, look
after yourself.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the It's All
Possible Podcast. You can contact me at Rob at Robhardner
dot com or my website Robharder dot com, or on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Remember to check out the previous seasons and.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Episodes of the podcast and the show notes for more
details on this episode's guest.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
For more inspiration, remember to check out the.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
All Possibility Play This on Spotify, which contains a collection upbeat,
positive music I use for inspiration in my live performances.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Until next time, Live with passion and a perspective of ago.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
It m
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.