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Stop Letting Your Snack Monkey Lead | The GrowthPro Edge · The GrowthPro Edge

0:00
Speaker: Welcome to the Growth Pro Edge.
0:02
Speaker: We're here to help scale your
0:04
Speaker: business, build stronger teams
0:06
Speaker: and sharpen your leadership
0:08
Speaker: skills.
0:09
Speaker: I'm your host Denise Killian
0:10
Speaker: with the Growth Pro Group and
0:11
Speaker: trainer.
0:12
Speaker: And today we're talking about
0:14
Speaker: that little voice in your head
0:16
Speaker: that can have a big impact on
0:18
Speaker: your decisions.
0:20
Speaker: The snack monkey.
0:22
Speaker: Matt White, author of The Snack Monkey Monkey, joins us to
0:25
Speaker: explore why we often know what we should do but still choose
0:31
Speaker: the easier option.
0:33
Speaker: We're taking that idea far
0:34
Speaker: beyond food and into leadership,
0:36
Speaker: business accountability, and
0:39
Speaker: growth.
0:40
Speaker: Matt, welcome to the Growth Pro Edge.
0:44
Speaker: Thanks for having me.
0:45
Speaker: Great Friday.
0:47
Speaker: Listen, I am so excited to have this conversation with you
0:52
Speaker: because when we first got to touch and I saw that the name of
0:55
Speaker: your book was the Snack monkey, I'm like, you've got me.
0:58
Speaker: Um, Uh, so let's get started by
1:01
Speaker: telling us a little bit about
1:02
Speaker: yourself.
1:03
Speaker: And then we're going to get into this decision making analysis
1:07
Speaker: that you've come up with.
1:09
Speaker: Okay.
1:09
Speaker: So I'm Matt White, I'm the author of The Snack Monkey How
1:12
Speaker: to Stop Eating a Whole Packet.
1:13
Speaker: Um, I'm not your usual author if
1:16
Speaker: there's such a thing as a usual
1:17
Speaker: author, and I'm definitely not
1:18
Speaker: your usual behavior like
1:20
Speaker: translation author.
1:22
Speaker: Um, I'm actually in cyber by
1:23
Speaker: day, so by day I work for Royal
1:25
Speaker: Mail in the UK in the cyber
1:27
Speaker: team.
1:28
Speaker: Um, I'm an ex GB power climber.
1:31
Speaker: Um, I'm now since we last spoke, I'm now officially on the road
1:35
Speaker: to national for discus for para discus because I've decided I'm
1:39
Speaker: going to take up discus because I can't be climbing anymore.
1:41
Speaker: Um I'm.
1:43
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not your usual person.
1:45
Speaker: I live in the UK, I live outside London.
1:47
Speaker: Um, no, I don't know any of the people that whoever's watching
1:51
Speaker: this is going to think that we Brits know everybody.
1:54
Speaker: When you say that you live near London.
1:56
Speaker: Um, I live near Poohsticks Bridge.
1:58
Speaker: For those people who have read Winnie the Pooh, I literally
2:01
Speaker: live three miles down the road from the original Poohsticks
2:04
Speaker: Bridge, which is so delightful.
2:06
Speaker: I think that was one of the first things I noticed when we
2:09
Speaker: talked the first time I was.
2:10
Speaker: Your background is so gorgeous.
2:12
Speaker: Where do you live?
2:13
Speaker: And you mentioned that and and how heavenly that you live next
2:17
Speaker: to the Hundred Acre Wood.
2:20
Speaker: I mean, there was literally
2:21
Speaker: earlier on, I was on a call and
2:22
Speaker: there was a deer, a baby deer,
2:24
Speaker: um, don't know what, what's
2:25
Speaker: what, whatever the term for baby
2:26
Speaker: deer is.
2:27
Speaker: Bambi was walking past my, um, my window, which was quite cute.
2:33
Speaker: And then my cat chased her or it, which was quite funny, but
2:36
Speaker: um, that's fantastic.
2:39
Speaker: Different, different life.
2:40
Speaker: Not everyone lives in London.
2:41
Speaker: It's not in the UK.
2:43
Speaker: No, not no. But uh, and, and not what you expect when you think
2:46
Speaker: about London or even outside of London, you don't realise it's
2:50
Speaker: quite that lovely.
2:51
Speaker: So, um.
2:52
Speaker: Well, Matt, I'm so thrilled to have you here today.
2:55
Speaker: Because when I read your book, I
2:59
Speaker: was fascinated by the title,
3:00
Speaker: certainly.
3:01
Speaker: And then reading your book, it was so interesting to recognize
3:08
Speaker: that, okay, it's not just me.
3:12
Speaker: But there's a lot of things
3:13
Speaker: within your book about the
3:14
Speaker: decision processes.
3:16
Speaker: So I kind of want to start with
3:19
Speaker: what exactly happened on that
3:21
Speaker: Tuesday night when you first
3:23
Speaker: realized that there was a snack
3:25
Speaker: monkey?
3:27
Speaker: So I and I don't want to ruin
3:30
Speaker: the book for anyone, but I
3:32
Speaker: probably realized it before
3:34
Speaker: then.
3:34
Speaker: But that was the point when
3:35
Speaker: everything kind of clicked
3:36
Speaker: together.
3:36
Speaker: Um, so for those people who haven't read the book yet, I
3:39
Speaker: used to be really fat.
3:41
Speaker: I was forty one inch waist and at five foot eight, I looked
3:43
Speaker: like tweedle dum or tweedle dee, whichever is your favorite.
3:46
Speaker: Um, I lost the weight.
3:48
Speaker: Not because I didn't know that I
3:51
Speaker: wasn't supposed to eat junk food
3:52
Speaker: and I wasn't supposed to eat a
3:54
Speaker: whole Domino's Pizza XL to
3:56
Speaker: myself, and I wasn't supposed to
3:57
Speaker: eat five Mars bars a day and all
3:59
Speaker: of that.
3:59
Speaker: I need to do exercise.
4:01
Speaker: But I did it anyway, even though I knew all of that stuff.
4:04
Speaker: And then that Tuesday night that I referred to in the book, it
4:07
Speaker: was like a bolt of lightning because I was reading, I read
4:09
Speaker: lots of other people's material.
4:11
Speaker: So just to confirm, I am not a doctor.
4:13
Speaker: I do not have loads of certificates on the wall.
4:15
Speaker: I call it out in the book.
4:16
Speaker: Um, but I read a lot of people's
4:18
Speaker: material and I take a lot of
4:19
Speaker: that.
4:20
Speaker: My brain kind of connects all of the dots.
4:22
Speaker: Um, and that Tuesday night, it
4:24
Speaker: just dawned on me that there's
4:27
Speaker: something, there must be
4:29
Speaker: something in my head that is
4:31
Speaker: making me say, I'm going to do
4:32
Speaker: it anyway.
4:33
Speaker: Oh, that just have one.
4:35
Speaker: It's okay.
4:36
Speaker: Or you don't need to worry about going to the other one.
4:40
Speaker: It's not just about food.
4:41
Speaker: Because the other thing I realized then was that you don't
4:44
Speaker: need to get up in the morning, you know, really early.
4:47
Speaker: You can watch that other episode of Netflix.
4:50
Speaker: You can watch the other episode
4:52
Speaker: of whatever, um, and or other
4:54
Speaker: other streaming stations are
4:56
Speaker: available.
4:56
Speaker: And, um, it just clicked and I realized I was reading some,
5:01
Speaker: some behavioral psychology stuff at the time.
5:03
Speaker: And in particular it was Daniel Kahneman and thinking Fast and
5:07
Speaker: Slow was one of the books I've just been reading.
5:09
Speaker: Um, and in that it talks about there being two systems.
5:12
Speaker: There's the system one, which is
5:14
Speaker: your fast, reflexive, almost
5:16
Speaker: primordial kind of, um,
5:19
Speaker: thinking.
5:19
Speaker: And then there's the higher
5:20
Speaker: functioning logical, logical
5:23
Speaker: brain.
5:24
Speaker: Um, and it dawned on me that my
5:26
Speaker: logical brain was being
5:28
Speaker: overridden by this little monkey
5:30
Speaker: on my back saying, go on, you
5:31
Speaker: can have one, one, one doesn't
5:33
Speaker: matter.
5:34
Speaker: And the reality is one doesn't matter.
5:36
Speaker: It's the one after that and the one after that, and the one
5:39
Speaker: after that that matters.
5:40
Speaker: And I, it just all kind of
5:41
Speaker: clicked into place that fateful
5:44
Speaker: Tuesday evening.
5:46
Speaker: It was about half past nine, actually.
5:47
Speaker: I think I talked about it in the book.
5:49
Speaker: Um, it was actually about half
5:51
Speaker: past nine, I think when it
5:52
Speaker: happened.
5:54
Speaker: And, you know, the book isn't really about food, right?
5:57
Speaker: That's the premise behind it.
5:59
Speaker: The snack monkey is the
6:00
Speaker: something we can all relate to
6:02
Speaker: because we have all heard that
6:03
Speaker: voice in our head saying, you
6:05
Speaker: can have two scoops of ice
6:07
Speaker: cream.
6:07
Speaker: It's fine.
6:08
Speaker: You can have.
6:09
Speaker: Right.
6:09
Speaker: Uh, or you can hit that snooze
6:11
Speaker: button another, you know, fifty
6:13
Speaker: seven times.
6:14
Speaker: Um, but it's not really just about food.
6:17
Speaker: It's, it's about how we make decisions.
6:20
Speaker: Yeah.
6:21
Speaker: It's the snack monkey has become
6:23
Speaker: like the framework for the
6:25
Speaker: behavioral.
6:25
Speaker: And it's really why my keynote
6:27
Speaker: when I do keynotes, it's why
6:28
Speaker: intelligent people make
6:30
Speaker: irrational decisions.
6:31
Speaker: And that's really what it's about.
6:33
Speaker: The food was the easy one because we've all done something
6:37
Speaker: around the food.
6:37
Speaker: Although now that I talk about
6:38
Speaker: it, the Netflix on Amazon one is
6:40
Speaker: even easier because everybody's
6:41
Speaker: done that.
6:42
Speaker: Um, but it started off with the
6:44
Speaker: food because you can, and I use
6:46
Speaker: food as the examples, because
6:48
Speaker: they're probably the easiest one
6:50
Speaker: to describe.
6:50
Speaker: And I used it for my weight loss, my behavior because I
6:54
Speaker: didn't lose, I did what everybody else does.
6:56
Speaker: I went on diets and I'd lose the weight and I'd put it back on
6:59
Speaker: and I'd lose the weight and then maybe not quite put as much on
7:02
Speaker: as I did before.
7:03
Speaker: And it never really it never really stuck.
7:06
Speaker: And it wasn't until I actually changed my behavior that
7:10
Speaker: suddenly since then, I've been, um, a thirty four inch waist for
7:14
Speaker: the last ten plus years.
7:17
Speaker: Right.
7:17
Speaker: And I've not, and I've never
7:18
Speaker: really had to diet and I never
7:20
Speaker: really have to do because the
7:22
Speaker: things that I put in place
7:24
Speaker: worked because I was aware of
7:26
Speaker: the, of the monkey, which sounds
7:28
Speaker: really weird when you just say
7:29
Speaker: it.
7:29
Speaker: Even me saying it's like I was aware of the monkey in my head
7:32
Speaker: that's saying, come on, you know, you can eat that.
7:35
Speaker: But it's true, right?
7:36
Speaker: Once you're.
7:37
Speaker: And food is a great example.
7:39
Speaker: But I was doing a cyber
7:40
Speaker: conference yesterday, literally
7:42
Speaker: yesterday.
7:42
Speaker: Um, and we were talking about phishing and the, the behavior.
7:46
Speaker: If it doesn't matter how much we all go through the phishing
7:48
Speaker: things at work, right?
7:49
Speaker: We got a choice.
7:50
Speaker: Everybody knows the things to look for, but you still click
7:55
Speaker: the link anyway.
7:57
Speaker: And that's because it's other things, right?
8:00
Speaker: It's it's five to five on a Friday evening.
8:04
Speaker: You're going on holiday tomorrow.
8:05
Speaker: You've got thirty things left on your to do list.
8:08
Speaker: You're not really paying attention to all of the things
8:10
Speaker: that you should be.
8:12
Speaker: You've had a hard day at work and it's stressful.
8:14
Speaker: You can't be bothered to come home.
8:15
Speaker: You can't be asked to come home and cook.
8:18
Speaker: It's a really, really nutritious meal.
8:20
Speaker: So you get a takeaway or you
8:22
Speaker: whack something, you know, in
8:23
Speaker: the oven that's really crap
8:26
Speaker: food.
8:27
Speaker: That frozen pizza, those things, right?
8:29
Speaker: It's those things, right?
8:30
Speaker: So but that's not you.
8:32
Speaker: You don't know.
8:33
Speaker: It's the other things take the priority.
8:36
Speaker: So your behaviors aren't what
8:38
Speaker: you should be doing in air
8:41
Speaker: quotes.
8:41
Speaker: Because obviously there is no right and wrong.
8:43
Speaker: It's just things.
8:45
Speaker: So I mean, the notion that we
8:48
Speaker: know what to do, we know, oh,
8:51
Speaker: hey, eat healthy, get a little
8:53
Speaker: exercise.
8:55
Speaker: You don't have to be as crazy as you and decide to be a climber.
8:59
Speaker: And now you're going to go be on
9:00
Speaker: the Olympic team for discus,
9:02
Speaker: right?
9:02
Speaker: We don't have to be quite that intense about it.
9:04
Speaker: But you know, we know the things to do.
9:08
Speaker: But yet why is it that we still do the opposite?
9:11
Speaker: Why?
9:12
Speaker: How is that monkey so good and
9:14
Speaker: making bad decisions sound
9:15
Speaker: reasonable?
9:17
Speaker: So there's a couple of things.
9:18
Speaker: One, if anybody's watched, ever watched Usual Suspects?
9:21
Speaker: Um, the film, you know, it says
9:23
Speaker: there's a line in that the
9:24
Speaker: greatest trick the devil ever
9:25
Speaker: did, um, ever did, was created,
9:27
Speaker: was convincing the world he
9:28
Speaker: didn't exist.
9:29
Speaker: Well, one of the things that I say at the start of the book is,
9:31
Speaker: and yes, when I said I don't create anything new, I stole
9:35
Speaker: that as well.
9:36
Speaker: The greatest trick the snack
9:37
Speaker: monkey ever achieved was
9:38
Speaker: convincing the world it didn't
9:39
Speaker: exist.
9:40
Speaker: Because if we don't know, it's there.
9:42
Speaker: We are fighting billion dollar food industries that are
9:46
Speaker: designed to make easy, tasty food that's really Moorish.
9:51
Speaker: Our lives are surrounded by you.
9:54
Speaker: Do something good.
9:55
Speaker: Let's go out and have ice cream.
9:57
Speaker: Let's go and have, you know, have a meal.
9:59
Speaker: You do something bad.
10:00
Speaker: I'm going to go and eat some ice cream.
10:02
Speaker: There's a lot of ice cream in my life, as you can tell.
10:04
Speaker: I'm going to go and eat some ice cream.
10:05
Speaker: I'm going to go.
10:06
Speaker: It's the same.
10:07
Speaker: We are programmed from such an early age by the environment in
10:11
Speaker: which we live, and there's things that we can do to become
10:15
Speaker: aware and to make it easier.
10:17
Speaker: But that's why food is a really good example, because you are
10:20
Speaker: fighting a billion dollar industry that I mean, um,
10:25
Speaker: Pringles, once you stop, once you pop, you can't stop.
10:28
Speaker: They are the perfect is something in science called the
10:31
Speaker: bliss point in food.
10:32
Speaker: It is the perfect blend of
10:34
Speaker: sugar, fat, and salt that makes
10:37
Speaker: things Moorish.
10:38
Speaker: It doesn't mean that they're laced with illicit drugs.
10:40
Speaker: It just means that they've got that blend just right for you.
10:44
Speaker: And they're perfect.
10:45
Speaker: I mean, everything about that, including the noise we are
10:49
Speaker: programmed that you can.
10:50
Speaker: And my daughter likes, um, like sprinkles.
10:53
Speaker: I'm not really a big fan, but
10:55
Speaker: even when she pops the lid, it's
10:58
Speaker: like something in my brain
10:59
Speaker: thinks I quite fancy some of
11:01
Speaker: those.
11:02
Speaker: So I walk over and I have some, much to her annoyance, because
11:04
Speaker: she wants it for herself.
11:06
Speaker: But the.
11:07
Speaker: I'm.
11:07
Speaker: It's like Pavlov's dog.
11:08
Speaker: I'm now programmed because we're in that environment.
11:12
Speaker: So that's why we don't do the
11:13
Speaker: right things or don't do the
11:15
Speaker: things that we know we should
11:16
Speaker: do.
11:17
Speaker: Well, that's one of the reasons.
11:18
Speaker: Other reasons.
11:18
Speaker: If you're stressed, if you're tired, the people that you
11:21
Speaker: surround yourself with, you know, my, my mum is a really
11:26
Speaker: good example for this.
11:27
Speaker: If I was when I was losing weight and I was trying to lose
11:30
Speaker: weight the old fashioned way by going to the gym, and if I
11:33
Speaker: phoned her up on the way home from work or something, she
11:35
Speaker: said, oh, you don't need to go to the gym today.
11:36
Speaker: You've had a hard day.
11:37
Speaker: You said you sound tired.
11:39
Speaker: It's like.
11:40
Speaker: Yes, emotionally.
11:41
Speaker: That's very supportive.
11:43
Speaker: I was married, so I didn't need
11:44
Speaker: my mum to give me that emotional
11:45
Speaker: support.
11:46
Speaker: But she was being a mum.
11:47
Speaker: Um, but the reality is what would have been proper support
11:51
Speaker: is to say I don't care what you do, get your ass down to that
11:55
Speaker: gym and work out.
11:57
Speaker: And I would have probably felt better actually in reality.
11:59
Speaker: But so there's all of these things.
12:02
Speaker: It's not just one thing.
12:03
Speaker: There's a whole cacophony of things that you can change, but
12:07
Speaker: it all starts with the awareness of that monkey.
12:11
Speaker: And you know, when we when we talk about this in business and
12:14
Speaker: leadership terms, you know, certainly the, the I related so
12:19
Speaker: much with the snack monkey in terms of, oh, I know I need to
12:23
Speaker: get my calls into the CRM.
12:26
Speaker: I'll do that after, after I have this next meeting, or I'll do
12:31
Speaker: that on Friday afternoon.
12:32
Speaker: Right.
12:32
Speaker: I don't need to do it right now
12:34
Speaker: or I need to have this hard
12:36
Speaker: conversation with this person,
12:38
Speaker: but I'm just gonna I'm going to
12:39
Speaker: wait.
12:40
Speaker: They they've had a rough day.
12:41
Speaker: I'm going to wait.
12:42
Speaker: Right?
12:42
Speaker: I'm going to put it off or making those decisions.
12:45
Speaker: Sometimes the stock market rears its head and you lean into it
12:50
Speaker: because like the Pringles pop or for me, it's the sound of
12:55
Speaker: champagne popping, right?
12:56
Speaker: That's maybe there too.
12:58
Speaker: I know that every time.
13:01
Speaker: Um, right.
13:03
Speaker: But, uh, you know, you, you lean
13:05
Speaker: into it because it's easier or
13:07
Speaker: it's going to make you feel
13:10
Speaker: better than having the hard
13:12
Speaker: conversation or doing the hard
13:14
Speaker: thing.
13:14
Speaker: And it's easy to lean into.
13:17
Speaker: It's more than just making it feel easier, actually.
13:19
Speaker: And by the way, there's a reason
13:20
Speaker: that I have a wine fridge in my
13:21
Speaker: office, so I'm all over the
13:23
Speaker: champagne review.
13:24
Speaker: Um, but the interestingly, so there's a couple, there's a
13:28
Speaker: couple of things.
13:28
Speaker: I talk about them in the book in a different way, but there's a
13:30
Speaker: couple of things.
13:31
Speaker: One, the second you plan if you
13:35
Speaker: don't do something because other
13:37
Speaker: things get in the way, you beat
13:39
Speaker: yourself.
13:39
Speaker: We all tend to beat ourselves up over it.
13:41
Speaker: If you've made the conscious decision, I'm not going to do
13:45
Speaker: this until I've done that.
13:48
Speaker: You've had agency, you've
13:49
Speaker: decided you've done something
13:51
Speaker: positive.
13:52
Speaker: You've ticked something off your to do list.
13:55
Speaker: You haven't actually ticked it off.
13:56
Speaker: But in your head, you've got the
13:57
Speaker: same psychological dopamine hit
13:59
Speaker: because it's like I've
14:01
Speaker: consciously decided I'm going to
14:03
Speaker: do that, then that's not the
14:05
Speaker: same as, oh, I forgot to do
14:07
Speaker: that.
14:07
Speaker: Oh damn it, I really needed to.
14:09
Speaker: It's a very different thing.
14:10
Speaker: And the second thing, which is fascinating is if you put
14:13
Speaker: something off, say, I'm going to do that Monday or I'm going to
14:17
Speaker: start next week, I'll start dieting next week.
14:20
Speaker: Right?
14:21
Speaker: I'll start regularly putting my calls into the CRM next week if
14:26
Speaker: they've they've scanned our brains as we think about the
14:29
Speaker: future us the tomorrow me.
14:32
Speaker: And it's like you think about a stranger.
14:34
Speaker: You think about yourself now or in the past.
14:37
Speaker: One part of your brain lights up.
14:39
Speaker: You think about yourself in the
14:40
Speaker: future, and the other part of
14:41
Speaker: your brain lights up because
14:43
Speaker: there isn't really the emotional
14:44
Speaker: connectivity to it in the same
14:46
Speaker: way, because it doesn't really
14:47
Speaker: exist.
14:48
Speaker: That makes it that much easier.
14:50
Speaker: You say about it makes you lean into it.
14:51
Speaker: It makes it easier to think, I'm going to do that.
14:54
Speaker: And you have this view.
14:55
Speaker: If you're anything like me, you
14:57
Speaker: have this view that next week
14:58
Speaker: I'm going to be a much better
15:00
Speaker: person.
15:01
Speaker: I'm going to be more disciplined, and I'm going to be
15:03
Speaker: on top of everything.
15:05
Speaker: And my world isn't going to be as stressed and my kids are not
15:09
Speaker: going to fight when they go out of the, you know, when they have
15:11
Speaker: to get up and go to school in the morning and we're going to
15:14
Speaker: leave on time and the trains aren't going to be delayed.
15:16
Speaker: It's a crock of shit, right?
15:18
Speaker: It's next.
15:19
Speaker: Next week's me is today's me
15:22
Speaker: with just the same things,
15:24
Speaker: right?
15:25
Speaker: It's just the way it is.
15:26
Speaker: But we it's easy for us to believe And I think that one of
15:32
Speaker: the key pieces that I talk about in the book, especially from a
15:34
Speaker: leadership thing, is it's just having the awareness.
15:37
Speaker: There are some times in the day
15:40
Speaker: that and some people are morning
15:41
Speaker: people.
15:42
Speaker: Some people are, you know, I met somebody that said that they
15:45
Speaker: were a lunchtime.
15:46
Speaker: They were lunchtime.
15:46
Speaker: They were a butterfly.
15:48
Speaker: They weren't an early bird.
15:49
Speaker: They were lunchtime butterfly because they flicked around for
15:52
Speaker: a couple of hours at midday and then they went back to sleep.
15:55
Speaker: Um, but whatever you are, I quite like that as a as a thing.
15:58
Speaker: Um, but whatever you are, there
16:00
Speaker: are times when in your day you
16:02
Speaker: are best suited to have that
16:04
Speaker: difficult conversation and
16:06
Speaker: difficult conversations.
16:07
Speaker: Got a dual, a double edged sword because you don't want to do
16:10
Speaker: something bad to make somebody else feel bad.
16:13
Speaker: Um, but the longer you leave it, the worse it gets.
16:19
Speaker: And so having the awareness and saying, okay, I know that I
16:24
Speaker: really struggle, but if I do, if I don't do it first thing in the
16:27
Speaker: morning, I'm never going to get in the way.
16:30
Speaker: So I'm going to set the meeting for nine o'clock in the morning.
16:32
Speaker: As soon as everybody is.
16:33
Speaker: We're just going to have it get
16:34
Speaker: out of the way, done to eat the
16:35
Speaker: fog.
16:35
Speaker: You know, there's there's that to do thing like eat the fog.
16:38
Speaker: It's that thing, do the really rubbish thing first thing in the
16:40
Speaker: morning, get it out of the way.
16:42
Speaker: But if you're not that person,
16:44
Speaker: if you're a person that it
16:45
Speaker: doesn't really work until the
16:47
Speaker: evening, do them at the end of
16:49
Speaker: the day, you know, because it's
16:52
Speaker: about you.
16:52
Speaker: And I know they're going to don't want to do it just before
16:54
Speaker: they go home.
16:55
Speaker: Actually, that's probably quite
16:57
Speaker: a good thing if you're going to
16:58
Speaker: have a hard conversation,
16:59
Speaker: because it means you don't have
17:00
Speaker: to spend the rest of the day,
17:01
Speaker: like pretending that they're not
17:03
Speaker: upset, have the hard
17:04
Speaker: conversation at the end of the
17:05
Speaker: day, and then they can go home,
17:07
Speaker: you know?
17:07
Speaker: So if it works for you, but it's about finding the where
17:10
Speaker: everything's about awareness.
17:11
Speaker: It's about having the awareness of yourself and the tasks that
17:15
Speaker: you can do of, of understanding.
17:18
Speaker: That's the best time for me to do this.
17:20
Speaker: That's the best way for me to do this.
17:23
Speaker: Because ultimately in leadership, if you can't be you.
17:26
Speaker: You can't lead others.
17:31
Speaker: I'll say that again in leadership.
17:34
Speaker: If you can't be you, you can't lead others.
17:36
Speaker: You've got to lead yourself
17:37
Speaker: first, and then you lead the
17:39
Speaker: other people.
17:40
Speaker: That is a powerful little gut punch, my friend.
17:44
Speaker: I never said that before, but I quite like it.
17:48
Speaker: Well, write it down.
17:50
Speaker: Um, I, I, I don't need to.
17:52
Speaker: It's recorded now.
17:53
Speaker: It's fine.
17:54
Speaker: There it is.
17:55
Speaker: But you should add that into your into your keynotes because
17:59
Speaker: that is, that is so true.
18:01
Speaker: If you are not being true to yourself, if you can't get your
18:04
Speaker: be who you are and get yourself together, how possibly can you
18:11
Speaker: lead other people?
18:12
Speaker: And before we get into the the recognize, interrupt and choose,
18:16
Speaker: which is I love that.
18:18
Speaker: How do you, you know, the snack monkey isn't the enemy.
18:21
Speaker: It's always going to be there.
18:23
Speaker: But what do you do to, to, to get over some of those issues
18:29
Speaker: before we get there?
18:30
Speaker: I do want to talk about, well, the favorite title of a chapter
18:35
Speaker: in your book.
18:36
Speaker: Um, but we've all been there as well.
18:39
Speaker: When you procrastinated and procrastinated and maybe not
18:42
Speaker: done the thing.
18:43
Speaker: Maybe it's the working out,
18:44
Speaker: maybe it's the eating, maybe
18:46
Speaker: it's the not putting your stuff
18:48
Speaker: into the CRM and you've beaten
18:51
Speaker: yourself up over it because, oh
18:53
Speaker: my gosh, I know I'm supposed to
18:54
Speaker: do it.
18:55
Speaker: I haven't done it.
18:55
Speaker: I haven't done it for three weeks.
18:57
Speaker: Fuck it.
19:00
Speaker: Right.
19:00
Speaker: The fuck it button.
19:02
Speaker: Let's talk about the dangers of the snack monkey can lead you to
19:06
Speaker: pressing that button.
19:08
Speaker: Yeah, the fucking button is.
19:10
Speaker: That was probably my.
19:12
Speaker: That's the one thing that I really toyed.
19:13
Speaker: Do I put it in the book?
19:14
Speaker: Do I not?
19:15
Speaker: Do I change it to the button?
19:17
Speaker: You know, all of those kind of things.
19:19
Speaker: But the reality is everybody I've ever described it to,
19:21
Speaker: they're like, yes, yes.
19:23
Speaker: Like that's, that's it.
19:25
Speaker: Because it's that moment where.
19:27
Speaker: And for me, it was, it was food,
19:29
Speaker: bad food, but it could be
19:30
Speaker: anything.
19:31
Speaker: So for me, with the bad food,
19:32
Speaker: um, you have the first bit of
19:35
Speaker: bad food and then that's not
19:39
Speaker: actually the end of the world,
19:40
Speaker: right?
19:40
Speaker: You haven't really fallen off the wagon or whatever you want
19:43
Speaker: to say because you've probably had an extra two hundred
19:47
Speaker: calories, which you can shift across the week or later in the
19:50
Speaker: day and all of that stuff.
19:52
Speaker: But mentally we all just think, fuck it, I'm now going to eat
19:58
Speaker: everything with sugar that I can get my hands on.
20:01
Speaker: The other one is when I and I, I do this as well.
20:04
Speaker: If I go like tonight, I'm going for, um, for Bryce a barbecue, a
20:09
Speaker: South African friend of mine.
20:10
Speaker: Um, and, uh, I've said, oh, I'm
20:13
Speaker: not really going to have a lot
20:14
Speaker: to drink.
20:14
Speaker: I'm pretty certain that two or
20:16
Speaker: three whiskeys in after and
20:19
Speaker: probably bottle of wine after a
20:20
Speaker: cigar.
20:21
Speaker: I'm just going to think, fuck it.
20:23
Speaker: And I've already preempted that by phoning my wife and saying,
20:25
Speaker: can you pick me up from Wayne's later on the way home?
20:28
Speaker: Because I know that the.
20:30
Speaker: I'm just going to have.
20:31
Speaker: Because I haven't got to knock because my car's here, my car's
20:34
Speaker: not going to be there.
20:35
Speaker: I don't need to worry about driving, so I'm just going to
20:37
Speaker: think, fuck it, I'm now.
20:39
Speaker: And in my head there is a little
20:41
Speaker: monkey standing with a giant red
20:44
Speaker: button, a bit like if you've
20:45
Speaker: ever watched Inside Out the
20:46
Speaker: Disney film.
20:47
Speaker: Like you'd imagine that there's that little monkey sitting in
20:50
Speaker: the background and just at the right moment, you hear this
20:52
Speaker: click, and then the alarm bells go and the people in your head
20:56
Speaker: are running around.
20:57
Speaker: Um, in reality, all that happens
20:59
Speaker: is you just eat more or you
21:01
Speaker: avoid doing more that says, fuck
21:04
Speaker: it.
21:04
Speaker: I'm now going to watch the entire season one.
21:07
Speaker: I'm not just going to watch one episode, I'm now just going to
21:09
Speaker: watch all of it.
21:10
Speaker: Now, the interesting thing is the flip side of that, which I
21:13
Speaker: don't talk about in the book, but if you're talking about in
21:15
Speaker: work, which is when you've done the button so many times that
21:19
Speaker: the Fuck It button becomes deadline mode, where you
21:22
Speaker: suddenly have the panic that now you've just got to get that done
21:27
Speaker: because you've got two hours and so your brain can't.
21:30
Speaker: There's a really funny YouTube video that someone.
21:33
Speaker: If you look up dead like brain
21:35
Speaker: and deadline mode and there's,
21:37
Speaker: there's this thing where the
21:37
Speaker: brain's like, oh, we've
21:38
Speaker: procrastinated too long and now,
21:40
Speaker: you know, we're now we can never
21:42
Speaker: do it.
21:43
Speaker: And it's like, it's okay, I'm going to engage that thing, you
21:46
Speaker: know, that thing you do.
21:47
Speaker: And the brain's like, I will engage deadline mode.
21:50
Speaker: And then suddenly everybody's so incredibly productive.
21:54
Speaker: But that's basically the button in the verse.
21:56
Speaker: Mhm.
21:58
Speaker: So there's everything.
21:59
Speaker: There is no good or bad.
22:00
Speaker: You said about the monkeys.
22:01
Speaker: Not a bad you know, the other
22:03
Speaker: character in the book is the
22:04
Speaker: captain, which is the system two
22:06
Speaker: that I spoke about right at the
22:07
Speaker: beginning, which is the, um, the
22:09
Speaker: captain plans ahead, has your
22:10
Speaker: goals, you know, everything's in
22:13
Speaker: balance.
22:13
Speaker: The captain says you should eat
22:14
Speaker: broccoli when you know, you
22:15
Speaker: shouldn't just have a plate of
22:16
Speaker: beige food, you should eat
22:17
Speaker: something green.
22:18
Speaker: Um, it's it's all of the thing.
22:21
Speaker: But the two systems are in
22:23
Speaker: competition, but neither one is
22:25
Speaker: right.
22:26
Speaker: So the button isn't bad because the button also leads to
22:30
Speaker: deadline mode because it's basically the same thing.
22:33
Speaker: I can't procrastinate anymore.
22:35
Speaker: Now I actually have to get my work done.
22:37
Speaker: When I was at, um, I had a job
22:39
Speaker: at, um, at KPMG many years ago
22:41
Speaker: and my line manager there said
22:43
Speaker: if you could convince yourself
22:45
Speaker: that every day was a deadline,
22:46
Speaker: you'd be so incredibly
22:47
Speaker: productive because for those six
22:50
Speaker: hours in the week, you can do so
22:52
Speaker: much work.
22:53
Speaker: The other thirty two, you don't.
22:56
Speaker: And that's that.
22:57
Speaker: It's and I've realized this now.
23:00
Speaker: Um, I didn't realize it then, but I've realized it now.
23:02
Speaker: And it's the it button in reverse.
23:05
Speaker: And, you know, I spent almost thirty years of my life as a
23:09
Speaker: broadcast journalist and you talk about deadlines.
23:12
Speaker: You know, you can't move those deadlines.
23:13
Speaker: The newscast starts at these
23:15
Speaker: times, you have to write, and I
23:18
Speaker: can't tell you how many times I
23:20
Speaker: am.
23:21
Speaker: My mind does better.
23:23
Speaker: And I lived in that environment
23:25
Speaker: for almost thirty years of
23:27
Speaker: constant, constant deadlines are
23:31
Speaker: quite addictive.
23:34
Speaker: And when I left, you know, yeah,
23:37
Speaker: when I left that industry, it's
23:41
Speaker: like, what am I supposed to do
23:44
Speaker: now?
23:46
Speaker: And I find myself, oh, I know I
23:50
Speaker: have this thing that I have to
23:51
Speaker: do and I have to prepare for,
23:54
Speaker: you know, those two days of
23:57
Speaker: being with this client and
23:58
Speaker: working hard and, you know, and,
24:01
Speaker: and maybe sometimes I will wait
24:03
Speaker: until the night before my flight
24:05
Speaker: leaves to do to get all of this
24:08
Speaker: stuff together.
24:09
Speaker: Right?
24:09
Speaker: Because there's just something in my brain that is addicted to.
24:14
Speaker: It's the dopamine hit.
24:16
Speaker: I have.
24:16
Speaker: It's the dopamine hit.
24:17
Speaker: It's like adrenaline sports.
24:18
Speaker: It's like anything else.
24:19
Speaker: My first book that I was going to write, um, because I was
24:22
Speaker: fortunate enough to be mentored by Neil Strauss, author of the
24:25
Speaker: game and, you know, um, and emergency and things like that.
24:28
Speaker: And the first book, when I first talked about him, I was going to
24:31
Speaker: call it was going to be called Baffle Them with Bullshit the
24:34
Speaker: Art of Lean consulting.
24:36
Speaker: Because I realize now Lean
24:38
Speaker: Consulting is just in time
24:39
Speaker: consultancy.
24:40
Speaker: And I'd worked out that I hope none of my future employers ever
24:44
Speaker: listen to this podcast.
24:46
Speaker: Um, because I worked out that you don't actually have to do
24:49
Speaker: the prep work and the less time you lead, you know, you do,
24:52
Speaker: you'd read the chapter before the, before the client.
24:54
Speaker: Well, first of all, we make sure you read the book.
24:56
Speaker: Then you'd read half the book,
24:58
Speaker: then you'd read the chapter,
24:59
Speaker: then you'd read a couple of
25:00
Speaker: pages.
25:01
Speaker: And before, you know, it's like,
25:02
Speaker: if you can guess what their next
25:03
Speaker: word is, then you can blag it
25:06
Speaker: and you can just BS your way
25:08
Speaker: through.
25:09
Speaker: Um, and I've basically made a career of doing that.
25:12
Speaker: I'd fake it till I make it.
25:13
Speaker: Done loads of loads of things like that.
25:15
Speaker: Um, and it's because of that dopamine hit because the first
25:19
Speaker: time I didn't prep and I got away with it, I was like, oh, I
25:23
Speaker: didn't realize it at the time.
25:25
Speaker: But then the next time I did even less prep and the next time
25:27
Speaker: I did even less prep.
25:29
Speaker: And now I don't do prep.
25:31
Speaker: Uh, well, for some things, you don't have a choice, but only
25:34
Speaker: because my boss is watching.
25:34
Speaker: But other than that, I don't do prep.
25:36
Speaker: Um, because it's like a, it's like an addiction.
25:39
Speaker: It's like gambling, which I also like doing.
25:43
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it's one hundred percent that dopamine gets in
25:48
Speaker: there and it's the, how long can I wait to do that?
25:52
Speaker: And can I get it done in this amount of time?
25:54
Speaker: Look at me.
25:55
Speaker: I'm amazing.
25:56
Speaker: Like really, really, what are you doing?
25:59
Speaker: I've worked with companies that have actually developed hero.
26:02
Speaker: They called them hero complexes
26:04
Speaker: where someone would come up
26:05
Speaker: because they realized that if
26:06
Speaker: you, if you were the person that
26:07
Speaker: came up just of a project's
26:09
Speaker: about to go live and you had to
26:11
Speaker: fix.
26:12
Speaker: Everybody cheered and said, oh, he's amazing.
26:14
Speaker: Oh, after.
26:16
Speaker: Over time people would then
26:17
Speaker: wait, how close to the to the
26:20
Speaker: deadline?
26:20
Speaker: Because the closer you get to even more.
26:23
Speaker: And so then they get it right now the deadline is gone and the
26:25
Speaker: project's gone live.
26:26
Speaker: And it's like, if I can fix it
26:28
Speaker: now, now I'm going to be really
26:30
Speaker: popular.
26:30
Speaker: But people wait.
26:31
Speaker: And so I know companies that have then had a real problem
26:34
Speaker: that where it's like, oh, we're going to wait.
26:37
Speaker: I had that fixed weeks ago, but
26:40
Speaker: if I tell it to you right at the
26:41
Speaker: last minute, it's like eBay
26:43
Speaker: sniping.
26:44
Speaker: I can never understand those
26:46
Speaker: people that bid like for weeks
26:48
Speaker: right at the start of the
26:49
Speaker: auction, wait for the last five
26:52
Speaker: seconds, make sure you're in a
26:53
Speaker: good internet connection, and
26:54
Speaker: then snipe on the last five
26:55
Speaker: seconds.
26:56
Speaker: It's exactly the same mentality.
26:58
Speaker: It's that yes, I'm right in the last minute and it works for
27:02
Speaker: everything in leadership.
27:03
Speaker: It's not about dieting.
27:07
Speaker: That's of course, to all of my clients.
27:10
Speaker: I genuinely do spend a lot of time thinking about it.
27:15
Speaker: It's all in my brain.
27:16
Speaker: I think about it a lot.
27:17
Speaker: But then the obvious if it
27:20
Speaker: wasn't there, you couldn't, you
27:21
Speaker: know, obviously if it wasn't
27:22
Speaker: there, then you couldn't blag
27:23
Speaker: it.
27:24
Speaker: So it's not that it's not the blagging is actually just
27:26
Speaker: recovering that information.
27:28
Speaker: It's background processing.
27:30
Speaker: There it is, there it is.
27:31
Speaker: The best happens with champagne
27:34
Speaker: and Netflix and all of the other
27:36
Speaker: things, you know, I mean, um,
27:39
Speaker: it's like, it's why admin had so
27:41
Speaker: much time.
27:42
Speaker: It's where all the ad agencies used to spend so much time
27:44
Speaker: smoking and drinking, right?
27:46
Speaker: It's because that's where the
27:47
Speaker: best, that's where the best
27:48
Speaker: creativity comes from their
27:50
Speaker: processing, right?
27:51
Speaker: It's, it's all good.
27:52
Speaker: It's all good.
27:54
Speaker: Um, all right, so we, we know
27:55
Speaker: that there's the snack monkey
27:57
Speaker: and we know that there's the
27:58
Speaker: captain, the captain is the
28:00
Speaker: logical one.
28:02
Speaker: And really we should be doing X,
28:04
Speaker: Y, and z in this order in this
28:07
Speaker: time frame.
28:08
Speaker: Here are the things that we ought to be doing.
28:10
Speaker: This is the choice that we should be making.
28:13
Speaker: The snack monkey can derail all of that.
28:16
Speaker: Um, we need both, right?
28:19
Speaker: So but some of us may need a stronger captain.
28:25
Speaker: So what's a you can help the captain do what?
28:29
Speaker: Can help the captain.
28:30
Speaker: You can help the captain.
28:31
Speaker: So what?
28:33
Speaker: What can you do to help the
28:34
Speaker: captain be a little bit
28:35
Speaker: stronger?
28:36
Speaker: There's a the the best one is
28:38
Speaker: people think it's willpower,
28:40
Speaker: right.
28:40
Speaker: Or motivation.
28:41
Speaker: Those things are limited.
28:43
Speaker: They don't last.
28:43
Speaker: You know, they're not finite.
28:45
Speaker: Every decision you make as a
28:47
Speaker: leader, and I'm going to talk
28:48
Speaker: about not necessarily willpower,
28:49
Speaker: but decisions, because willpower
28:51
Speaker: and decisions are roughly the
28:52
Speaker: same thing.
28:52
Speaker: But you're choosing one thing over the other.
28:54
Speaker: Every decision you make eats a little bit of your energy away,
28:58
Speaker: whether you realize it or not.
28:59
Speaker: And we do you think how many?
29:00
Speaker: It's why when you start learning to drive.
29:03
Speaker: You're driving.
29:04
Speaker: You know, your first few driving
29:06
Speaker: lessons are so incredibly
29:07
Speaker: difficult when you're learning
29:08
Speaker: anything new with lots of
29:10
Speaker: handling, because you are
29:11
Speaker: actually consciously thinking
29:12
Speaker: about every single thing that
29:14
Speaker: you're doing.
29:15
Speaker: You're making so many little decisions one after the other.
29:18
Speaker: It tires you out because your
29:20
Speaker: brain is actually your biggest
29:21
Speaker: muscle when whether you like it
29:22
Speaker: or not.
29:22
Speaker: It's, you know, it uses energy.
29:25
Speaker: The more decisions you make as a leader, the harder it is for you
29:29
Speaker: to make decisions that matter.
29:31
Speaker: So we switch to our system one brain, our snap monkey, and just
29:35
Speaker: pick the easy thing because Snap Monkey just wants easy and safe.
29:38
Speaker: And they've actually done tests with this.
29:40
Speaker: Um, with the famous one is with a judges and an Israeli um,
29:45
Speaker: parole board in the morning, the same kinds of cases got paroled
29:51
Speaker: as people got tired towards lunch, in particular after lunch
29:54
Speaker: in the graveyard shift where people are at their most tired,
29:58
Speaker: they all got just kept in prison because it was an easy decision.
30:04
Speaker: So if you're going to, you know,
30:06
Speaker: if you're going to go in front
30:07
Speaker: of a judge, do it first thing in
30:08
Speaker: the morning.
30:09
Speaker: Morning.
30:10
Speaker: Later in the day.
30:11
Speaker: Um, but it's because you're
30:13
Speaker: fresh and therefore you're,
30:14
Speaker: you're refreshed.
30:15
Speaker: It's why when you get to the end of the day, that's when it's
30:18
Speaker: difficult to tolerate your kids shouting at you or having an
30:24
Speaker: argument or your spouse doing something, or you can't be asked
30:28
Speaker: to cook the right food, or you get angry on the way home
30:31
Speaker: because someone cuts you up when normally it wouldn't bother.
30:34
Speaker: All of those things are because you're actually more tired, and
30:37
Speaker: more tired means you've got less willpower, you've got less
30:40
Speaker: discipline, and normally you've got less motivation.
30:44
Speaker: Now that sounds like it's a really bad place to be in.
30:47
Speaker: It's not because you don't need
30:49
Speaker: any of those things to actually
30:51
Speaker: achieve anything.
30:52
Speaker: People think you have to have motivation.
30:54
Speaker: You don't if you keep doing I mean, when I was in the GB team,
30:58
Speaker: um, the more.
31:00
Speaker: The only reason I actually got
31:01
Speaker: there wasn't the mornings I was
31:03
Speaker: motivated.
31:04
Speaker: It was all of the work I did
31:05
Speaker: when I woke up in the morning
31:06
Speaker: and think, Jesus Christ, I
31:08
Speaker: cannot be asked to get up and go
31:10
Speaker: and train, but I go and train
31:11
Speaker: anyway, because by the end of
31:13
Speaker: that training, well, probably
31:15
Speaker: halfway through the training
31:15
Speaker: session, I was motivated again
31:18
Speaker: because action leads to
31:20
Speaker: motivation.
31:21
Speaker: And it's the same in leadership.
31:22
Speaker: You don't want to have those
31:24
Speaker: difficult conversations, but
31:25
Speaker: once you start reacting the plan
31:26
Speaker: and you start on the motions,
31:28
Speaker: suddenly things take on their
31:29
Speaker: own momentum.
31:30
Speaker: You break the inertia.
31:31
Speaker: And then I don't want to say
31:33
Speaker: snowball because in real life,
31:35
Speaker: something will then stop it from
31:36
Speaker: happening, but will slow it
31:37
Speaker: down.
31:38
Speaker: But you'll at least have momentum.
31:40
Speaker: And if anyone's ever tried
31:42
Speaker: jumpstarting a car or pushing
31:43
Speaker: something, that first bit is
31:45
Speaker: difficult.
31:45
Speaker: And then the more you push it, the easier it gets.
31:48
Speaker: And it's exactly the same with
31:50
Speaker: trying to change or start
31:52
Speaker: anything.
31:52
Speaker: So that's the first thing.
31:54
Speaker: And the second thing is you can
31:55
Speaker: change the environment that
31:56
Speaker: you're in.
31:57
Speaker: You don't have to make it difficult for yourself if you.
32:01
Speaker: I said about it earlier, if you know that you're a morning
32:03
Speaker: person, make those difficult things in the morning.
32:05
Speaker: If you're a night person, do them at night.
32:07
Speaker: That's quite easy.
32:09
Speaker: But if you're a person that wants to go to the gym and you
32:13
Speaker: know that every time you get home first, you're never
32:16
Speaker: actually going to put your stuff on and then go to the gym, take
32:20
Speaker: it with you in the morning so it's in the car because it's not
32:22
Speaker: going to guarantee, but it's one less hurdle for you to go
32:25
Speaker: through if you have, if you don't have to get home and then
32:29
Speaker: get back out, it's easier to just go straight to the gym from
32:33
Speaker: a work perspective.
32:34
Speaker: You could do exactly the same
32:35
Speaker: things if you know that there
32:37
Speaker: are certain tasks you have to
32:39
Speaker: do, block your calendar out the
32:41
Speaker: night before to do it, or
32:43
Speaker: whatever time of day you're
32:44
Speaker: going to do it because you can
32:46
Speaker: change your environment, stop
32:47
Speaker: people phoning you, turn off
32:48
Speaker: teams.
32:49
Speaker: I'm, I'm one of those people.
32:51
Speaker: If I'm talking to you and then someone teams me or, you know,
32:54
Speaker: whatever messaging client you're using, I will I will be talking
32:57
Speaker: to you and I'll be over there and I'll still be talking to
33:00
Speaker: you, but I'll be looking at the pop up and everybody can see
33:03
Speaker: that I was doing it.
33:03
Speaker: So now I don't have the preview on my teams.
33:07
Speaker: It just says notification so I know it's there.
33:10
Speaker: So if I'm expecting something
33:12
Speaker: urgent, I could look at it and
33:14
Speaker: I'll say, look, sorry, I really
33:15
Speaker: need to look at this, look at
33:16
Speaker: it.
33:16
Speaker: But I don't just read it when it
33:18
Speaker: pops up because most of the
33:19
Speaker: stuff that comes up is absolute
33:20
Speaker: bollocks.
33:21
Speaker: I don't need to see it.
33:22
Speaker: Um, it's little things like that that you can put in place to
33:26
Speaker: make yourself more put your mobile phone away.
33:29
Speaker: If as a leader, put your mobile phone away.
33:31
Speaker: If you're in a meeting with someone, especially if it's
33:34
Speaker: someone who reports into you, if you know that you.
33:37
Speaker: And again, I know I'm a person that if my phone's there, I look
33:41
Speaker: at it, therefore I, but I sometimes I need just in case
33:44
Speaker: I'm expecting something.
33:45
Speaker: So I'll put it face down away from me so that I can't just
33:49
Speaker: touch it with my hand so that it's there if I need it as a
33:53
Speaker: psychological, a bit like a blankie when you're a kid.
33:55
Speaker: It's there if I need it, but it's not.
33:57
Speaker: I'm not constantly looking.
33:59
Speaker: I'm more present with people.
34:01
Speaker: It's little things you can do to
34:03
Speaker: change the environment, and the
34:04
Speaker: environment.
34:05
Speaker: Removes the friction, removes the need for motivation.
34:09
Speaker: It just it makes it easier for you and the habit.
34:15
Speaker: So that's then the next bit.
34:16
Speaker: I deliberately didn't go on to that because I hoped you were
34:18
Speaker: going to see that one.
34:19
Speaker: Yeah.
34:19
Speaker: So eventually, just like driving a car, if you do things
34:24
Speaker: frequently and how long it takes, there's, you know, some
34:26
Speaker: people say it takes sixty three days, some take.
34:29
Speaker: The reality is eventually, if
34:32
Speaker: you keep doing the same thing
34:34
Speaker: over and over again and some
34:35
Speaker: things, it's easier to get, you
34:37
Speaker: know, to become a habit than
34:38
Speaker: other things.
34:39
Speaker: Um, it will become a habit.
34:41
Speaker: And what the habit means is
34:43
Speaker: your, your main brain, it
34:45
Speaker: becomes automatic.
34:46
Speaker: The autonomic brain kicks over.
34:48
Speaker: So that could be, I heard the popping of, of a Pringles tin.
34:52
Speaker: I want to eat Pringles, right.
34:54
Speaker: Most people, if you hear I've got a guinea pig, I haven't.
34:57
Speaker: My daughters have a guinea pig.
35:00
Speaker: You're a guinea pig.
35:01
Speaker: Come on.
35:01
Speaker: It's.
35:01
Speaker: It's the least fun pet ever.
35:04
Speaker: But it is quite cute when it hears any salad or any plastic
35:08
Speaker: bag, because it associates that a plastic bag.
35:10
Speaker: If you're getting out some form
35:12
Speaker: of salad, it starts weeping at
35:14
Speaker: you.
35:15
Speaker: Like this.
35:15
Speaker: Weep, weep, weep, weep really loudly.
35:17
Speaker: It doesn't matter what it is.
35:18
Speaker: You could be opening up,
35:19
Speaker: rustling just a bag in a
35:21
Speaker: cupboard.
35:21
Speaker: But it thinks now because it's associated like Pavlov's dog.
35:25
Speaker: Um, we're the same.
35:27
Speaker: We've we've.
35:27
Speaker: That's just a habit loop.
35:29
Speaker: So for a habit loop, you have
35:30
Speaker: some form of trigger, some form
35:33
Speaker: of action and some form of
35:35
Speaker: reward.
35:36
Speaker: A lot of people that are giving up smoking is probably the
35:38
Speaker: biggest example of this.
35:39
Speaker: They switch to chewing gum
35:41
Speaker: because the habit is I need to
35:44
Speaker: do something with my hands or my
35:46
Speaker: mouth.
35:47
Speaker: Believe it or not, not.
35:48
Speaker: I need to smoke.
35:48
Speaker: I need to do something with my hands.
35:50
Speaker: Then the chewing the gum is enough and it doesn't actually
35:53
Speaker: need to have nicotine.
35:55
Speaker: The nicotine just helps the withdrawal symptoms.
35:57
Speaker: And then the reward is I'm doing something with my mouth.
36:00
Speaker: Therefore I can relax.
36:01
Speaker: That's that's the reward.
36:02
Speaker: So there is a slight dopamine hit.
36:04
Speaker: Um, you can't kill a habit once it's there.
36:08
Speaker: It's permanent, but you can change elements of it.
36:11
Speaker: So if there's a trigger.
36:12
Speaker: Now an example I use in the book I used to every day at about
36:17
Speaker: three o'clock, even now it still happens about three o'clock.
36:19
Speaker: I fancy a drink.
36:20
Speaker: I don't know why.
36:21
Speaker: It doesn't matter where I am.
36:22
Speaker: About three o'clock in the afternoon, I fancy drink, and I
36:24
Speaker: used to go down to the cafeteria and get a can of Pepsi.
36:27
Speaker: Well, actually, I wouldn't get several cans of Pepsi.
36:29
Speaker: I said one in the book because it made me look, um, but.
36:33
Speaker: And I'd just drink them.
36:34
Speaker: And when I went down there, I
36:35
Speaker: would chat with the lady behind
36:36
Speaker: the counter and we've had a bit
36:38
Speaker: of banter.
36:38
Speaker: And then I'd speak to somebody
36:39
Speaker: that maybe I walked down with
36:40
Speaker: someone from work, but actually
36:43
Speaker: I realised when I started
36:44
Speaker: looking at it that I didn't want
36:46
Speaker: a Pepsi, I wanted something to
36:50
Speaker: do.
36:51
Speaker: So at about three o'clock I would go and I'd have a chat and
36:54
Speaker: that's what it was.
36:54
Speaker: And I'd start.
36:55
Speaker: I bought sparkling water because to start with, I wasn't sure
36:58
Speaker: what bit it was.
36:59
Speaker: I knew it wasn't the sugar
37:01
Speaker: because I could test that easily
37:03
Speaker: enough.
37:03
Speaker: So I started buying fizzy water.
37:05
Speaker: So I bought a bottle of fizzy water from the fridge.
37:08
Speaker: So then I had something cold and
37:09
Speaker: wet, and I still had the
37:10
Speaker: conversation.
37:11
Speaker: And I didn't crave the Pepsi.
37:13
Speaker: So for a while.
37:14
Speaker: And then eventually I realised
37:15
Speaker: that actually it's just I get
37:16
Speaker: bored at three o'clock in the
37:17
Speaker: afternoon and my brain needs to
37:18
Speaker: switch off.
37:19
Speaker: So I go and make a cup of tea,
37:20
Speaker: or I'll go for a walk around the
37:22
Speaker: office or whatever it is, but
37:24
Speaker: the habit is still trigger or
37:26
Speaker: switch.
37:26
Speaker: Three o'clock something my brain is now.
37:29
Speaker: The action is I go for a wander round the floor.
37:32
Speaker: I literally floor walk and then the reward is ah.
37:36
Speaker: I got some time away from my desk.
37:38
Speaker: I switched off for a minute and I still got the dopamine hit.
37:41
Speaker: We can apply habits to pretty much anything if you want to.
37:46
Speaker: It's easier the bigger the reward.
37:48
Speaker: So classic scrolling, the doom scrolling on Instagram is great
37:51
Speaker: because you switch off, but you still get some dopamine.
37:53
Speaker: Especially if you're posting the
37:55
Speaker: stuff that somebody else has
37:57
Speaker: like that.
37:57
Speaker: Oh, every time you do that, you get a little dopamine hit.
38:00
Speaker: It's like playing a slot machine.
38:01
Speaker: Psychologically, it's the same
38:02
Speaker: as playing a slot machine in
38:03
Speaker: Vegas.
38:04
Speaker: You know, every time you wait to see if there's a. For me, it's
38:07
Speaker: currently my Amazon KDP page.
38:10
Speaker: Every ten minutes I'm like, oh
38:11
Speaker: no. Oh, I'll never sell right
38:13
Speaker: now.
38:13
Speaker: So it's the same basic dopamine hit.
38:16
Speaker: Um, but it's, it's the habits.
38:18
Speaker: You can adapt anything to a habit if you want to.
38:22
Speaker: Um, a really good one is if you want to learn another language.
38:26
Speaker: So if you want to learn another
38:27
Speaker: language and you've got a time
38:29
Speaker: in your, in your day, just block
38:31
Speaker: out and make it after two or
38:33
Speaker: three weeks of you every morning
38:35
Speaker: at nine o'clock or half past
38:37
Speaker: nine or whatever time you pick,
38:38
Speaker: you spend ten minutes
38:39
Speaker: practicing.
38:41
Speaker: It will quickly become a habit
38:42
Speaker: to the point where you don't
38:43
Speaker: have to think, oh, I need to do
38:44
Speaker: my, my, you know, my learning
38:47
Speaker: today.
38:47
Speaker: It will just happen.
38:49
Speaker: And the second that just happens, don't stop.
38:52
Speaker: Keep doing it.
38:53
Speaker: You'll embed that and then you can do the next thing, whatever
38:55
Speaker: your next task is on the list and turn that into a habit.
38:57
Speaker: It could be going to the gym on the way home from work.
39:00
Speaker: It could be drinking more
39:01
Speaker: champagne, probably less
39:02
Speaker: champagne, but it could be
39:03
Speaker: drinking more.
39:04
Speaker: I mean, that's a good habit to have.
39:05
Speaker: Um, but whatever it is, you can
39:07
Speaker: easily build a sequence of
39:09
Speaker: behavior around it to embed that
39:12
Speaker: in.
39:13
Speaker: One of the things I do from a leadership perspective is every,
39:16
Speaker: uh, every Monday I have a, it's a Monday night, usually on
39:20
Speaker: Tuesday, which is a thing because I, I've moved the habit
39:23
Speaker: because it used to be on a Tuesday at eleven and now it's
39:24
Speaker: on a Monday.
39:25
Speaker: I have in everyone from my team
39:27
Speaker: is in the office and we have a
39:28
Speaker: team meeting.
39:30
Speaker: I have had to make it a conscious.
39:32
Speaker: It's the only meeting I'm ever
39:34
Speaker: early for, or at least on time,
39:37
Speaker: because I'm always dragged from
39:38
Speaker: meeting to meeting to meeting to
39:40
Speaker: meeting.
39:40
Speaker: We're all doing it.
39:41
Speaker: And if I'm not dragged meeting to meeting, I'm probably
39:44
Speaker: distracted doing something else.
39:46
Speaker: That meeting, because it's for my team, is the one which I'm
39:49
Speaker: trying to build the habit to always be there on time, and I'm
39:52
Speaker: having to consciously do it.
39:54
Speaker: But it's eventually I'm hoping it will kick in that trouble.
39:59
Speaker: Is that because I'm only doing
40:00
Speaker: it once a week is going to take
40:01
Speaker: like sixty three weeks, not
40:03
Speaker: sixty three days to form a habit
40:04
Speaker: because I've got to do it sixty
40:05
Speaker: times.
40:06
Speaker: But I am consciously doing it
40:08
Speaker: because for my team are more
40:09
Speaker: important.
40:09
Speaker: I'm trying to demonstrate that
40:10
Speaker: they are from a leadership
40:12
Speaker: perspective, they're more
40:13
Speaker: important.
40:14
Speaker: Um, but you can, you can try to have all of these things.
40:17
Speaker: You can turn it to anything you want.
40:19
Speaker: You just have to be a little bit creative as to what you're
40:22
Speaker: trying to get out of it.
40:25
Speaker: So I think that the habit piece
40:26
Speaker: is really important when we talk
40:28
Speaker: about how do we get over the
40:29
Speaker: monkey, how do we kind of
40:31
Speaker: prevent the monkey from just
40:32
Speaker: taking full control of us all
40:36
Speaker: the time?
40:36
Speaker: So, uh, you know, the monkey is the new AI.
40:41
Speaker: I'm just saying, just saying,
40:42
Speaker: uh, that, you know, how how we
40:44
Speaker: can prevent that is, is the
40:47
Speaker: recognition.
40:51
Speaker: And interruption of that thing that has become a habit.
40:56
Speaker: That's not a habit that we want
40:58
Speaker: to have, recognize the trigger
41:00
Speaker: and then make the change and
41:01
Speaker: then take action to make a
41:04
Speaker: change and focus on doing that
41:08
Speaker: thing until that becomes your
41:10
Speaker: new habit.
41:12
Speaker: Yes.
41:12
Speaker: The downside of that piece is
41:14
Speaker: that you have to want to make
41:16
Speaker: the change.
41:17
Speaker: Oh, okay.
41:20
Speaker: That's the downside of it
41:21
Speaker: because it's, it's that knowing
41:23
Speaker: is not necessarily doing like on
41:26
Speaker: a cognitive level, a cerebral
41:27
Speaker: level.
41:27
Speaker: I know that I, that's the trigger and I know I need to
41:32
Speaker: change that thing in the middle.
41:34
Speaker: And I know that will lead to this thing afterwards.
41:38
Speaker: But you have to want it.
41:41
Speaker: And that's where the motivation and everything else.
41:44
Speaker: Like when I was losing weight, I, I kept telling people I was
41:47
Speaker: going to lose weight for years and I kept dieting and then back
41:50
Speaker: and then dieting and then back and then dieting.
41:52
Speaker: It wasn't until I was playing with my then two and a half year
41:58
Speaker: old that I was out of breath chasing her around the goal.
42:04
Speaker: I mean, that's not.
42:05
Speaker: And she wasn't exactly sprightly.
42:07
Speaker: She was a toddler, and I still.
42:09
Speaker: I was out of breath.
42:10
Speaker: And at that moment, I decided I want to lose.
42:12
Speaker: And then that's it.
42:14
Speaker: Everything.
42:14
Speaker: Now I am a type one personality.
42:16
Speaker: So once I've decided, then that's it.
42:18
Speaker: But everybody.
42:19
Speaker: So there's um, I'm a precision
42:21
Speaker: nutrition qualified coach and
42:23
Speaker: John Berardi that created
42:24
Speaker: precision nutrition talks about
42:26
Speaker: doctor Brady talks about change
42:27
Speaker: talk.
42:28
Speaker: When you talk to someone who he talks about a client.
42:31
Speaker: When you talk to someone, there are people who keep saying oh
42:34
Speaker: I'm going to do this.
42:35
Speaker: I'll start next week.
42:36
Speaker: Oh, I'm going to do this.
42:37
Speaker: And then those people that say,
42:38
Speaker: I'm going to do this, and when
42:40
Speaker: they don't frame it with a next
42:42
Speaker: week or in a bit or whatever,
42:45
Speaker: they are ready to change because
42:49
Speaker: it means that psychologically
42:50
Speaker: they're just like, I'm doing
42:51
Speaker: this.
42:52
Speaker: It doesn't mean they're going
42:53
Speaker: to, but it means they're more
42:54
Speaker: ready to.
42:57
Speaker: Okay.
42:57
Speaker: I feel like I've just blown your, you know, if you're an
43:01
Speaker: emoji, you'd have the little like mushroom cloud head emoji.
43:03
Speaker: Listen.
43:04
Speaker: No, you completely did.
43:05
Speaker: This is the second time you've blown my brain today.
43:07
Speaker: So the when we add the caveat of next week, next month, next
43:15
Speaker: year, tomorrow, we're never actually ready to do it.
43:21
Speaker: We haven't accepted.
43:22
Speaker: It's the thing.
43:23
Speaker: Yeah.
43:23
Speaker: That's our towel.
43:25
Speaker: Yeah.
43:26
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
43:27
Speaker: I'm going to watch for that myself.
43:29
Speaker: I mean, not that I talk to
43:31
Speaker: myself and I have voices in my
43:32
Speaker: head.
43:32
Speaker: I mean, I do.
43:33
Speaker: So when I tell myself that and
43:37
Speaker: it's and people don't, it's it's
43:39
Speaker: I did.
43:40
Speaker: That isn't what happened on that fateful Tuesday night.
43:42
Speaker: But it's one of those.
43:43
Speaker: Because I didn't do that until I
43:44
Speaker: did the, the precision nutrition
43:46
Speaker: coaching.
43:46
Speaker: I was like, oh my God, that that's it.
43:49
Speaker: Right.
43:50
Speaker: That's it.
43:50
Speaker: But now look, every time you've if you think back to every time
43:53
Speaker: you've ever planned on doing something and then suddenly
43:55
Speaker: you've done it, it's the same psychological that you mentioned
43:58
Speaker: the snooze button at the start.
44:00
Speaker: If you if you want to get up in the morning, set your alarm so
44:05
Speaker: that it can't snooze.
44:09
Speaker: Because the second you snooze, you're basically accepting, I'm
44:12
Speaker: not going to get up yet.
44:13
Speaker: I'll get up later.
44:14
Speaker: I'll get up in seven minutes.
44:15
Speaker: Weirdest time.
44:16
Speaker: Why doesn't iPhone timer default to seven?
44:18
Speaker: It's a decent amount of time
44:19
Speaker: ever, but I'm going to get up
44:21
Speaker: then, right?
44:22
Speaker: If you just turn off the snooze, the alarm goes off and you're
44:27
Speaker: going to get up.
44:28
Speaker: You might not get up that instant because we still have a
44:31
Speaker: moment when we're, you know, we're, we're coming too.
44:33
Speaker: But if you don't have the
44:34
Speaker: snooze, you won't be doing it
44:37
Speaker: later, right?
44:39
Speaker: And it's a different it gives
44:41
Speaker: you it gives you they call it
44:42
Speaker: agency.
44:43
Speaker: It's that conscious decision to act on the next thing.
44:47
Speaker: And if you now think of all of
44:49
Speaker: the things that you're doing
44:51
Speaker: now, all I am, I'm like those
44:53
Speaker: changes.
44:54
Speaker: It's like, that's what it is.
44:56
Speaker: Now then you need other things
44:57
Speaker: to help you to get to that next,
44:59
Speaker: the next bit and actually do the
45:01
Speaker: change.
45:01
Speaker: But people who truly want it's like those people who say, oh, I
45:04
Speaker: want to lose my.
45:05
Speaker: I want to quit my job.
45:06
Speaker: I want to quit my job.
45:07
Speaker: I want to quit my job.
45:08
Speaker: Oh, I know I'm going to look for another job.
45:10
Speaker: I'm going to look for not I'm looking for another job.
45:14
Speaker: I'm going to look for another job.
45:16
Speaker: It's always in the future tense.
45:19
Speaker: The second it's in the present, then it's going to.
45:23
Speaker: It's much more likely to happen.
45:26
Speaker: That's fascinating.
45:27
Speaker: And I am rethinking like even last night, I said, because I've
45:33
Speaker: been traveling a lot and I'm a little bit tired.
45:35
Speaker: I set two separate alarms for this morning because at some
45:41
Speaker: point my brain was like, did he not get up in that first one?
45:44
Speaker: So you're going to just need to have the two that are stacked to
45:49
Speaker: where that snooze is just going to be, right?
45:52
Speaker: You're never going to be able to get back.
45:53
Speaker: Like that is what I did to
45:56
Speaker: trick, you know, to force
45:58
Speaker: myself.
46:00
Speaker: There's a really great one.
46:01
Speaker: I saw it an adventure.
46:02
Speaker: I've never I've never actually seen one in real life, but I've
46:05
Speaker: read about them.
46:05
Speaker: There's an alarm that basically
46:08
Speaker: runs around the floor of your of
46:10
Speaker: your room.
46:11
Speaker: So you have to get.
46:13
Speaker: And it's the most annoying alarm ever.
46:15
Speaker: So you have to get up and turn
46:16
Speaker: it because once you're up, it's
46:18
Speaker: very rare that you're like, I'm
46:20
Speaker: going to go back to bed now
46:21
Speaker: because you're like, oh, I'm up
46:23
Speaker: now.
46:23
Speaker: So you're up, right?
46:24
Speaker: That's the button in a positive light because now you're like,
46:27
Speaker: oh, fuck it, I'm up now I'm just going to go and do whatever.
46:30
Speaker: But I mean, I'd love to see just how annoying that button is.
46:34
Speaker: Like that alarm is and how annoying it would be if it goes
46:37
Speaker: under the bed because you'd spend the next ten minutes just
46:41
Speaker: trying to get the damn thing, trying to get it.
46:42
Speaker: Yeah, but I mean, it's those types of things that.
46:46
Speaker: But that's a perfect example of the double alarms.
46:49
Speaker: You created an environment to facilitate you.
46:53
Speaker: It didn't guarantee, but it facilitated.
46:55
Speaker: It made it easier.
46:56
Speaker: It made it more likely.
46:57
Speaker: Right, right.
46:58
Speaker: And there's so that's, that's what it's all everything like in
47:01
Speaker: the book, everything I talk about, it's about that.
47:04
Speaker: What can you do a to be aware.
47:06
Speaker: And then once you're aware to make it that much more likely,
47:11
Speaker: not necessarily easier because no change is easy.
47:14
Speaker: You know, anybody that tells you
47:15
Speaker: that change is easy, they're
47:17
Speaker: just like trying to sell you
47:18
Speaker: something.
47:19
Speaker: Change is hard.
47:21
Speaker: And understanding yourself is can be quite, you know, one of
47:26
Speaker: the things that I, that I talk about is I, um, and it's
47:28
Speaker: actually not me again.
47:29
Speaker: I stole it from somebody else.
47:30
Speaker: David Goggins if I know for sure.
47:33
Speaker: Are you aware David Goggins um, he's an ex-Navy Seal, really
47:36
Speaker: famous ultra runner, arguably toughest man on the planet.
47:40
Speaker: Um, he talks about an accountability mirror.
47:43
Speaker: So in his accountability mirror,
47:45
Speaker: it was literally post-it notes
47:47
Speaker: around his mirror when he would,
47:49
Speaker: when he'd shave every morning or
47:51
Speaker: evening.
47:51
Speaker: But those, but they were brutally honest.
47:55
Speaker: So it's not I need to lose weight.
47:57
Speaker: It's drop five pounds.
48:00
Speaker: You know, it's not I need to do this.
48:02
Speaker: It's run that you know, it's
48:03
Speaker: really the way that I look at it
48:05
Speaker: is like if you write down
48:07
Speaker: somewhere.
48:08
Speaker: So you've got somewhere where you can look at morning, evening
48:10
Speaker: people talk about it with goals all the time.
48:12
Speaker: If you want to achieve your goals, write them down.
48:15
Speaker: If you want to achieve a change, write it down.
48:19
Speaker: Doesn't have to be a goal.
48:20
Speaker: The goal is just a big change, right?
48:22
Speaker: Right.
48:22
Speaker: So if you want to change Any, any achieve any change.
48:28
Speaker: Write it down.
48:29
Speaker: Write it down on your phone somewhere where you can see it.
48:32
Speaker: I like to think it's somewhere where you can see it regularly.
48:34
Speaker: Um, Post-it notes around.
48:37
Speaker: I mean, I sometimes have post-it notes on the wall above my desk
48:40
Speaker: if I need something to, to motivate me to or to keep me
48:44
Speaker: motivated, keep me in the ass, right to do something.
48:47
Speaker: Um, but having some form of visible cue to remind you.
48:52
Speaker: So until it's a habit, if he ever turns into a habit,
48:55
Speaker: something to give you that nudge to give you that kick, to give
48:58
Speaker: you that reminder.
48:59
Speaker: Um, because change isn't easy.
49:02
Speaker: And if you're trying to affect as a leader, you're not just and
49:05
Speaker: I do this at work, I've got this at work all the time.
49:07
Speaker: You're not just affecting your change.
49:09
Speaker: You're trying to affect change
49:11
Speaker: in your, your direct reports,
49:14
Speaker: their direct reports, anyone
49:15
Speaker: that you're mentoring, you know,
49:17
Speaker: it's quite a, you know, it's
49:19
Speaker: quite a difficult, tiring, you
49:21
Speaker: know, mentally, you know,
49:22
Speaker: mentally exhausting sometimes
49:23
Speaker: job, but it's also quite
49:25
Speaker: rewarding.
49:27
Speaker: And but it's all of the things you can do to nudge those things
49:30
Speaker: better and to nudge those changes, you have to just add
49:33
Speaker: them all together.
49:34
Speaker: It's little things.
49:35
Speaker: One thing I'll talk about
49:37
Speaker: something else I talk about a
49:38
Speaker: lot.
49:38
Speaker: The compound of lots of little
49:40
Speaker: things adding up to one big
49:42
Speaker: change.
49:43
Speaker: So small change, small change, small change might not feel like
49:46
Speaker: you're necessarily progressing in a big way.
49:49
Speaker: But when you look back and you
49:51
Speaker: add them all up, suddenly you
49:53
Speaker: are, you know, you've made a big
49:55
Speaker: change and that might be little
49:57
Speaker: change over a long period of
49:59
Speaker: time.
50:00
Speaker: It doesn't mean you have to stack them all up.
50:02
Speaker: Baby steps.
50:03
Speaker: Exactly.
50:03
Speaker: Yeah.
50:04
Speaker: Although baby steps is a bad example in my head.
50:06
Speaker: Because if you ever see a child trying to like, you've got to
50:09
Speaker: walk before you can run.
50:11
Speaker: Every toddler learns to run first.
50:13
Speaker: That is, doesn't learn how to
50:14
Speaker: stop, but it learns how to run,
50:16
Speaker: right.
50:17
Speaker: So I don't I don't really agree with that.
50:19
Speaker: You'll never hear me say, oh, you gotta, you gotta run.
50:21
Speaker: You know, to me, it's like you've got to run before you can
50:23
Speaker: walk because generally you have.
50:26
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
50:28
Speaker: And I think to me, the biggest in your book is so great.
50:30
Speaker: There's many aha moments, uh,
50:33
Speaker: similar to what I've had talking
50:35
Speaker: to you, um, that, you know, just
50:38
Speaker: ultimately growth, whether it's,
50:41
Speaker: you're talking about as a
50:43
Speaker: leader, developing your team,
50:45
Speaker: um, a growth of you as a person,
50:49
Speaker: um, your health choices, any of
50:51
Speaker: those things, growth fails the
50:54
Speaker: moment when the easier, more
50:56
Speaker: comfortable choice beats the
50:59
Speaker: better choice.
51:01
Speaker: Yes.
51:02
Speaker: And that's what the snack monkey is designed, right?
51:04
Speaker: So from a from a Darwinian evolutionary type view, that
51:09
Speaker: system one is designed to keep you safe and happy.
51:14
Speaker: Right.
51:15
Speaker: That's it.
51:17
Speaker: So it means that any time there is an easy, safe choice.
51:22
Speaker: Most.
51:23
Speaker: Now, there are some people that are the extreme right that this
51:25
Speaker: doesn't apply to.
51:27
Speaker: Um, if there weren't if there weren't those types of people,
51:30
Speaker: then we wouldn't have had, you know, the discoveries and the
51:32
Speaker: adventurers and all of the other people throughout history.
51:35
Speaker: But most people are the safe ones that have allowed the
51:38
Speaker: species to actually grow.
51:40
Speaker: And they don't take chances and they do everything.
51:43
Speaker: So at a at a truly foundational level, that's what the snap
51:47
Speaker: monkey is there to do.
51:48
Speaker: It's there to make you comfortable.
51:50
Speaker: It's not even happy, actually.
51:51
Speaker: It's comfortable and safe.
51:54
Speaker: Um, the trouble is that comfortable and safe normally
51:58
Speaker: means you're, especially in this day and age, you're avoiding the
52:01
Speaker: things that you should be doing and you're doing the things you
52:06
Speaker: shouldn't be doing.
52:06
Speaker: Because we don't get chased by dinosaurs or, you know, or any
52:10
Speaker: of that stuff.
52:11
Speaker: Um, anybody who's watching this is now going to point out that,
52:14
Speaker: yes, Neanderthal man technically didn't live at the same time as
52:18
Speaker: the dinosaurs, but it's a much better metaphor than, you know,
52:21
Speaker: being chased by an email monster or something, which is basically
52:24
Speaker: where we live today.
52:25
Speaker: And that.
52:26
Speaker: Well, that's what your phone is, right?
52:27
Speaker: We're being chased by your phone.
52:29
Speaker: That's the.
52:29
Speaker: But we're not being chased.
52:30
Speaker: We take it with us.
52:32
Speaker: Right?
52:32
Speaker: Right.
52:33
Speaker: We we hold on to it.
52:35
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
52:36
Speaker: Yeah.
52:37
Speaker: That makes it even worse.
52:38
Speaker: It's insidious because we take it everywhere we can go.
52:41
Speaker: Right.
52:41
Speaker: It's a I mean, and and I do it myself.
52:44
Speaker: So this is the although the.
52:47
Speaker: And there isn't that I have to stress at this point.
52:49
Speaker: It sounds like, oh, that's really bad.
52:51
Speaker: That's really none of the behavior that we're talking
52:53
Speaker: about is bad.
52:55
Speaker: None of it is wrong.
52:56
Speaker: And there are times when actually it is entirely the
52:59
Speaker: right thing to not go to the gym or to sit and switch off.
53:04
Speaker: And just if doomscrolling is your thing, then there are some
53:08
Speaker: times, some being the operative word that you can lean into it
53:12
Speaker: and you can do those things.
53:14
Speaker: It's not bad.
53:15
Speaker: the moralistic this is good.
53:17
Speaker: That's bad.
53:17
Speaker: Originally, when I did the cover for the snack monkey I had, I
53:20
Speaker: was going to have the snack monkey on one shoulder and the
53:23
Speaker: Capitol on the other, like the devil and an angel.
53:25
Speaker: But then I realized that that again, gives you that moralistic
53:28
Speaker: flavor because it's not bad.
53:30
Speaker: It's just they're both voices are there, and they're both
53:33
Speaker: there for good reason.
53:35
Speaker: And the decisions we make, you just need to be aware of in the
53:39
Speaker: moment, which is the better decision for you?
53:42
Speaker: Not right, not wrong.
53:43
Speaker: But one is normally better than the other.
53:46
Speaker: And I think that's the key thing.
53:47
Speaker: And it's the same whether you're
53:49
Speaker: talking about do I eat the, you
53:51
Speaker: know, the green thing or the
53:53
Speaker: beige thing that tastes really
53:55
Speaker: nice?
53:55
Speaker: You know, that's one maybe has been fried and dipped in and
53:58
Speaker: there's maybe it's been fried.
53:59
Speaker: Yeah.
54:00
Speaker: With, with some form of spice on it.
54:02
Speaker: You know, those, that kind of thing.
54:04
Speaker: Or it's the do should I have that conversation with that
54:09
Speaker: person today or should I wait?
54:11
Speaker: And sometimes Yes, waiting is the right thing to do.
54:15
Speaker: If they.
54:16
Speaker: If you've just heard that they've, you know, they've got
54:19
Speaker: some issue at home or that they're, you know, they even
54:23
Speaker: just they're not feeling themselves, whatever the reason.
54:26
Speaker: Right then.
54:27
Speaker: Yeah.
54:27
Speaker: Hitting them with a really crap
54:29
Speaker: discussion probably isn't the
54:31
Speaker: best thing.
54:31
Speaker: Not the right thing.
54:32
Speaker: Yeah.
54:33
Speaker: But there comes a point where you don't have a choice.
54:35
Speaker: So that's again, that's great in that moment.
54:39
Speaker: But it's about finding the what's better for you and
54:42
Speaker: whatever it is and you is not just you as an individual.
54:45
Speaker: It could be your company, it could be your team, it could be
54:48
Speaker: whatever you're doing.
54:49
Speaker: So it's about finding the better decision.
54:52
Speaker: And that's awareness.
54:53
Speaker: It's all awareness, which is a plus side, right?
54:55
Speaker: Because we all have that.
54:57
Speaker: We just have to practice and pay attention to it.
55:01
Speaker: Yeah.
55:02
Speaker: Well, yeah, pay attention even if it's happening.
55:06
Speaker: The awareness.
55:07
Speaker: Right.
55:07
Speaker: Be aware.
55:07
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
55:09
Speaker: Um, Matt, unfortunately, I could talk to you for hours and hours
55:13
Speaker: and hours, but we are coming to the end of our time.
55:16
Speaker: I want to make sure people know how they can.
55:19
Speaker: A get your book.
55:20
Speaker: B if they want to reach out to you.
55:23
Speaker: If they want to follow your
55:26
Speaker: amazing journey, uh, going to,
55:29
Speaker: to be a part of the Great
55:30
Speaker: Britain, uh, discus team, which
55:33
Speaker: is.
55:33
Speaker: Well, I haven't got that far just yet.
55:35
Speaker: That's my goal.
55:36
Speaker: But I'm putting it out there.
55:38
Speaker: Baby steps.
55:39
Speaker: I'm putting it out there, friend.
55:40
Speaker: I'm out there.
55:42
Speaker: Um, six years time Olympics.
55:45
Speaker: That's my that's it, that's it.
55:47
Speaker: So, uh, tell us how can how can people get in touch with you?
55:51
Speaker: So, um, the book is available on Amazon.
55:54
Speaker: It's Matt White, the snack monkey.
55:56
Speaker: Um, you don't need to put the
55:57
Speaker: how to stop eating the whole
55:58
Speaker: packet.
55:59
Speaker: Just.
55:59
Speaker: Matt white snack monkey.
56:00
Speaker: Um, if you want to get hold of
56:01
Speaker: me, LinkedIn is probably the
56:02
Speaker: best one.
56:03
Speaker: I've tried the whole I am on Instagram and I have tried
56:06
Speaker: TikTok a bit.
56:07
Speaker: I'm too old for TikTok.
56:07
Speaker: I've decided, um, I don't really understand it, but the God that
56:11
Speaker: was an old man statement.
56:13
Speaker: I am officially a dad with that one.
56:16
Speaker: Okay?
56:16
Speaker: But it's true.
56:17
Speaker: It's alright.
56:18
Speaker: So, um, LinkedIn is MC f white.
56:21
Speaker: Uh, Mike.
56:22
Speaker: Charlie Foxtrot white.
56:23
Speaker: Uh, again.
56:24
Speaker: Matt white snack monkey.
56:25
Speaker: Someone did this at the conference yesterday.
56:26
Speaker: It comes up as only one option,
56:28
Speaker: which is nice because there's
56:29
Speaker: lots of Matt whites, but
56:30
Speaker: there's.
56:31
Speaker: Who knew that Matt White snack monkey was so unique?
56:33
Speaker: Um, but reach out, have a conversation in particular, if
56:37
Speaker: someone downloads it or starts to use it on, on Kindle
56:41
Speaker: Unlimited, which is the worst.
56:43
Speaker: I had a rant on another podcast.
56:44
Speaker: It's the worst metric ever because you don't know how many
56:47
Speaker: people have actually started to read the book.
56:50
Speaker: You just have a number of pages.
56:52
Speaker: My book's one hundred and fifty eight pages.
56:53
Speaker: So does that mean that seven
56:55
Speaker: hundred pages means that that
56:56
Speaker: many people, you know, is it is
56:58
Speaker: it one hundred people have each
56:59
Speaker: read seven pages or is it, you
57:02
Speaker: know, is it six people have read
57:03
Speaker: the book?
57:04
Speaker: I don't know.
57:05
Speaker: So if you do read it on it,
57:07
Speaker: please ping me, ping me on
57:09
Speaker: Instagram, uh, ping me and I'm
57:11
Speaker: just the real snack monkey on
57:13
Speaker: Instagram.
57:13
Speaker: Ping me on whatever channel it was.
57:15
Speaker: Send me an email to Matt at
57:17
Speaker: snack monkey dot com, but it'd
57:19
Speaker: just be nice to know how many
57:20
Speaker: people are actually reading
57:22
Speaker: that.
57:22
Speaker: And if, if Amazon, if you're watching this, please change
57:25
Speaker: that buddy metric fix that is the most annoying metric ever.
57:28
Speaker: And it is a quick read.
57:30
Speaker: I read it, uh, on a plane.
57:33
Speaker: Um, you know, it's a, it's a quick read, but it is that, oh
57:38
Speaker: my gosh, oh my gosh, I get that.
57:41
Speaker: Yep.
57:41
Speaker: That's me.
57:42
Speaker: Like there's a lot of those moments.
57:44
Speaker: And then the aha of yeah, I've lived that.
57:48
Speaker: Yeah, I've done that.
57:49
Speaker: Okay.
57:49
Speaker: Here's, here's what I can do.
57:52
Speaker: And it's that recognition and the awareness is the first step.
57:55
Speaker: So in the book for anyone, if
57:57
Speaker: you do read it in the book, it
57:58
Speaker: gives you kind of captain's
58:00
Speaker: thing.
58:00
Speaker: So there's tasks at the end, which things which you can do
58:03
Speaker: and put into practice at the end of each chapter to, to try and
58:06
Speaker: help you make you know, realize and understand and but don't
58:09
Speaker: worry, there's not a test at the end of the book.
58:12
Speaker: Um, which I was going to put in actually, the first version did
58:15
Speaker: have a test at the end of the book, but I took that out.
58:18
Speaker: That's right.
58:22
Speaker: That's pretty smart.
58:23
Speaker: Um, listen, Matt, thank you so much for this conversation.
58:27
Speaker: I appreciate it.
58:28
Speaker: And, uh, I hope that everybody else is, uh, feels a little
58:34
Speaker: better about their, their minds and the conversations that their
58:38
Speaker: mind has with them.
58:40
Speaker: And, and then the recognition of, oh, that's why I do that.
58:44
Speaker: But then also, if I do want to make that change, here are some
58:48
Speaker: tools to be able to do that.
58:49
Speaker: So thank you for that, Matt.
58:52
Speaker: Thank you.
58:53
Speaker: Thank you for the invitation.
58:55
Speaker: Well, we hope today's
58:56
Speaker: conversation has given you some
58:58
Speaker: practical tools to help you
59:00
Speaker: sharpen your edge and accelerate
59:01
Speaker: your growth.
59:03
Speaker: If you're ready to grow your
59:05
Speaker: team, your business or yourself,
59:07
Speaker: contact us at the Growth Pro
59:09
Speaker: group dot com and set up a free
59:11
Speaker: growth call with one of our
59:13
Speaker: coaches.
59:14
Speaker: Once again, a special thanks to our sponsors In-bed Party Center
59:18
Speaker: Software in a global Betson SIM, Knox, Schaefer and roller for
59:24
Speaker: all that they do to help us bring you the Growth Pro Edge.
59:28
Speaker: And until next time, I'm Denise
59:30
Speaker: Killian with the Growth Pro
59:31
Speaker: Group.
59:32
Speaker: Keep learning, keep growing and
59:35
Speaker: keep striving for the
59:37
Speaker: extraordinary.