#302: Coaching Session: Overcoming My Delegation Problems with Michael Bungay Stanier

Jay Clouse [00:00:00]:
But the conclusion I've come to a bunch of times is like, actually what I have is a lack of courage, right?

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:00:06]:
Let me reframe it in a nicer way.

Jay Clouse [00:00:22]:
Hello my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. Today I'm welcoming back on the show Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael's written several books including the Coaching Habit, which may be the best selling coaching book of this century with over a million copies sold and more than 15,000 five star reviews on Amazon. This is the 10 year anniversary of the Coaching Habit. Actually I was introduced to it through Alt NBA. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend it.

Jay Clouse [00:00:54]:
Get yourself a copy at the link in the show Notes along with the Coaching Habit, Michael founded Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that has helped hundreds of organizations transform from advice driven to curiosity led the accolades continue. In 2019, he was named the number one thought leader in coaching. In 2023, he won the coaching award from Thinkers50, known as the Oscars of management. He was the first Canadian coach of the year. He's been named a global coaching guru since 2014. He he was even a Rhodes Scholar. And while we're talking about impressive things, Michael is a member of the Lab and has been on this show once before, way back on episode 82 talking about how to set a worthy goal. So what makes this episode different? Well, Michael heard me talk about some of the changes I'm trying to create in my business, knowing that I have a son on the way this fall.

Jay Clouse [00:01:46]:
And a few weeks ago he reached out to me and offered to do something I didn't expect a live coaching session with me here on the podcast. Here's what he said. Jay, your delegation issue is probably hard change, not easy change more tactics won't help. You already know the tactics. I can take you through a process that might help. It will uncover the foot on the brake even if you're pumping the accelerator. And we could record it and consider it for your pod Pod or not happy to do this with you. So yeah, obviously I'm going to say yes to that.

Jay Clouse [00:02:17]:
And he's right. The thing I've been struggling with is I know I need to delegate more. I've read books, I know frameworks. But something keeps pulling me back in, redoing people's work, second guessing the people I've hired, holding onto things I have no business continuing to hold on to. So I took him up on his gracious offer to See if we could knock myself out of the ruts that I've dug deep into my psyche. This is one of the most vulnerable and most useful conversations I've had on this show. I hope you enjoy it. We'll get to that full coaching session with Michael Bungay Sanier right after this.

Jay Clouse [00:02:55]:
Hello.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:02:56]:
Hey, Jay, how you doing?

Jay Clouse [00:02:57]:
How are you?

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:02:58]:
Michael, how nice to see you. I'm all right, thank you.

Jay Clouse [00:03:00]:
Nice to see you as well. I'm doing something different this time, which is because this is such a behind the scenes episode I've already started recording, just so people can get just like a full sense of what's going on here. But I did want to start and see how things are going in your world.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:03:17]:
They're going pretty well. I have fingers in too many pies.

Jay Clouse [00:03:23]:
Relatable.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:03:24]:
I just listened to your pod reflecting on the author gathering, and when you said, James Clear, fewer strokes, done better or whatever it is, I'm like, oh, so I'm the opposite.

Jay Clouse [00:03:36]:
More strokes, better touch.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:03:38]:
You could call me Michael Murky as opposed to James Clear because I'm like, too many things done in too much of a half assed way. But that's not actually totally fair because I've got some people on my team who are doing amazing, amazing stuff.

Jay Clouse [00:03:51]:
Well, I do feel like the superpower from you is you're so good at birthing ideas and then operationalizing people sometimes, like your audience, your community, but also your team around them, which probably is a good backdrop to this conversation. So to break the fourth wall a little bit here, Michael had texted me, said, Jay, your delegation issue is probably hard change, not easy change more. More tactics won't help. You already know the tactics. I can take you through a process that might help. It'll uncover the foot on the brake, even if you're pumping the accelerator. And we could record it and consider it for your podcast. And I said, please solve my issues.

Jay Clouse [00:04:30]:
And so here we are trying to solve my delegation issues.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:04:34]:
Well, I'm not sure I can necessarily solve it, but I think, who knows, it might turn into something interesting for you.

Jay Clouse [00:04:41]:
Let's try. Let's try. I could use it.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:04:43]:
Did that resonate when I said, you know, you already know the tactics?

Jay Clouse [00:04:47]:
Yeah. I mean, I feel like I could spend all day intellectualizing and I could spend all day writing out the perfect plan of what needs to happen, but here we are, you know, eight years into the business. My wife and I are the only full time employees. And as I joked at that retreat last week with my wife, And I being the only full time employees and having a sub 2 year old in the house, that means that the business has no full time employees.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:05:12]:
Exactly. Unless you consider your 2 year old as a, as a full time employee, which, you know, you could twist it to say, look, she's actually the full time employee. We're all working around her.

Jay Clouse [00:05:23]:
She's a full time something for sure. Full time handful. So it's very clear to me that I filled my plate before we had our daughter and then I didn't clear any of the work off of the plate, I didn't bring anyone else to the table and the plate got smaller and nothing has really changed in the last 20 months because of that. So, you know, I'm a fan of the idea that the, the system is perfectly designed to achieve the results it achieves and it's achieving these results and I'm no longer satisfied with these results.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:05:58]:
Yeah, I mean, Gage, what you're saying, how hard it is to run a business, even if you're footloose and fancy free, but to be a committed dad and a committed partner and to run a business, I mean, there just isn't a magic silver bullet to that. It is a messy, hard, difficult thing where it is impossible to do everything like you want to do it.

Jay Clouse [00:06:26]:
Yes. Affirmed.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:06:30]:
And I mean, there's a kind of good and bad to that in some ways, which is like, on the one hand, you're like, damn it, I would like it to be. I'd like to be able to do it all. On the other hand, it's nice to know it's not personal, it's not a J. Klaus failing. It is a systemic truth, which is this is actually near impossible.

Jay Clouse [00:06:51]:
Yeah. Well, for some more background, I just shared this in the community for the first time this week. I haven't shared it publicly. Maybe this will be the scoop we're expecting a second at the end of October.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:07:03]:
I didn't say that. Congratulations.

Jay Clouse [00:07:05]:
So we have about six months to change the system.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:07:10]:
Well, that's super exciting. And I can feel that flame of urgency just turned up a little, a little higher. Just when you thought it was already high, you're like, but wait, there's more. I thought I would try and straddle the line around teaching what I'm doing whilst also taking you through the process as well. So that kind of folks listening in and not just hearing the way, I can set this up for you and it might work, but they're also kind of like there's a framework around it as well, so is that okay if I do it with, like.

Jay Clouse [00:07:42]:
Absolutely, absolutely. Obviously, selfishly, I want to work through it, but I'm also serving the folks who are listening watching this. So anything we can do to make this applicable and remove some level of abstraction from them would be better.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:07:57]:
Yeah, sure. So let's start with just understanding these two different types of change, because change is not all the same. And a part of the pain of change comes from us collapsing easy change and hard change together and thinking they're the same sort of thing and the solutions are the same. And just to kind of acknowledge my intellectual forebears, this comes from a leadership academic, a guy called Ron Heifetz originally, and then that got taken up and developed by Bob Keegan and Lisa Leahy in a book called Immunity to Change. And so what I'm going to take you through is kind of my simplified and, I think, more accessible version of Immunity to Change and Heifetz's work. And it starts by just understanding easy change and hard change. Now, easy change, we know how to do that, and we do it all the time, and we're actually not too bad at it. And the basic pattern is, I'm here, I'd like to be here, I'd like something to be different.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:08:58]:
So I'm going to learn something, and I'm going to try something, and I'm going to get some feedback, and I'm going to learn some more. I'm going to try some more, I'm going to get some feedback, I'm going to learn. And you kind of go through these cycles of learning till you get to the place where you want to be, and you're like, oh, I've got the mastery that I want and need for this particular skill and this particular context. And, you know, when you're in the lab and you're encouraging us to run experiments, you're kind of saying you're pushing us into easy change. You're like, test this out, get some data, make some adjustment, learn some more stuff. If you need to learn some more stuff, try something else new and kind of move through that process. And so we do easy change stuff all the time. You know, we get a new phone, and we're like, oh, it takes me a bit of time to figure out how the apps are different and how the WhatsApp moves and the like, but you figure it out.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:09:50]:
You drive to a new destination, you're like, oh, I've got to figure out a new way of getting there. Oh, I did it. So that's Helpful. And what helps you make progress is easy changes, more information coming in. You listen to a podcast, you watch a YouTube video, you read a book, you pre order Jay's new book just to make sure you get that when you're ready, all of that good stuff, and then you use that information and that learning and make progress. Everybody's got that hard change is irritating because it doesn't work like that and we want it to. And the easiest thing for you, Jay, and for people listening to think about hard changes is all that stuff where you're like, I keep trying to do this and I keep being thwarted by it. And I don't quite know why this is proving quite so difficult for me, but I just can't get going on it.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:10:46]:
And it could be dealing with procrastinating on stuff or acting on stuff. It could be building a team, it could be writing a book. But you're like, I've done all this stuff, and I keep finding myself back where I was a week ago, a month ago, three months ago, a year ago. And the classic place you find hard change challenges is New Year's resolutions. You go right this year, for sure. I'm going to exercise, I'm going to eat well, I'm going to tell my spouse I love them. I'm going to write to my mom. I'm going to do all the things.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:11:23]:
And, you know, come January 21st, it's all going to hell in the handbasket. And the key thing to understand around hard change is more information doesn't solve the problem. So even as you go, Jay, I've got to crack this. What's the book? I haven't read about this. You've read all the books. What's the LinkedIn post saying? Seven tips to stop number three will blow my mind. You've read all of those. You know all the tactics.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:11:55]:
But we keep thinking to ourselves, oh, maybe there's just one thing I haven't found yet, and maybe that's going to be the key that unlocks it.

Jay Clouse [00:12:01]:
And I'll even say there's, like, some steps I've kind of taken this direction. You know, hiring my wife was like, okay, this might be a direction. Hiring some contractors in the business, that feels kind of like that. But where we inevitably run into issues is, I don't know. The story I tell myself is, maybe I'm not defining roles clearly enough. Maybe I'm not giving specific outcome ownerships to people and letting them kind of connect the dots. It's too dependent on me giving, like the breadcrumbs and the instructions and that's not working sometimes. It's just not giving people enough opportunity to do things and surprise me and impress me.

Jay Clouse [00:12:40]:
I just don't even give them that opportunity. So it does feel like the efforts I've made have had some outcomes, but diminishing and not absolute.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:12:54]:
So I'm going to take you through this process. It's a five step process and the heart of it is this insight. You get more out of the status quo than you realize. There are things that you benefit from the way things are right now that actually you have a commitment to that you might not even realize. And the purpose of this process is to start uncovering that commitment so you can just see it a little more clearly around. Oh, you know, it's not my tactics that are wrong. It's. I just haven't fully understood how sticky the status quo is.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:13:32]:
You know, I think of the status quo as basically it's got its cold, dead hands around your ankles and you keep trying to move forward and it keeps pulling you back. And this is with hard change. We're trying to actually see that more clearly.

Jay Clouse [00:13:47]:
You're saying there's something, there is a benefit to the way things currently are that I am holding onto. And that's the problem. I'm not willing to let go of something I'm enjoying about the status quo.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:14:00]:
That's right. And the starting point is to actually figure out what's the challenge, what's the goal that you're wrestling with, that you want to make a difference and you've just had trouble making the steps forward that you want and you've hinted about it and I know you and I have traded some text and stuff around it. But let's just linger here for a bit. I mean, how do you articulate that at the moment? What's the goal?

Jay Clouse [00:14:24]:
I think the goal would be that I have more time and space and really like brain space to spend working on things that I feel like I want to make happen versus time spent on things that I know need to happen. You know, it's kind of the classic on the business versus in the business. I'm spending too much time in the business and not enough time on the business.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:14:50]:
That's pretty clear. Let me ask you a favorite coaching question of mine just to see if there's somewhere to probe it a little bit. What's the challenge for you in working on the business rather than in the business?

Jay Clouse [00:15:03]:
I think it's that when I'm trying to create the Time and space to do sort of the harder, softer, thinkier work. Resistance happens, as it always does. And then I go to the underlying anxiety of all the little deadlines of like, well, it's hard to solve this problem right now. And I do need to write a newsletter before the Sunday. So maybe I'll just go work on that right now.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:15:32]:
Right.

Jay Clouse [00:15:33]:
And that's like, maybe the best bad outcome, because that's something that is uniquely me. But, like, the worst bad outcome is maybe I'll go answer some emails or maybe I'll go read some emails. Stuff that just doesn't really need to be me at all and feels urgent. And in the moment where I'm feeling psychological discomfort because I'm trying to do something hard and more important, this feels like productive procrastination. And there's so much of it all the time, and I'm so perfectly aware of all of it that it's very easy for me to delude myself into thinking that's where I should spend my time.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:16:12]:
I can really feel that tension around going, look, I can even see the game I'm playing with myself. I know how I can spin reading my emails. So it sounds like I'm doing some stuff, but it is pretty far down the food chain in terms of important things Jay Claus should be up to. But it has the illusion of work.

Jay Clouse [00:16:33]:
Yes.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:16:34]:
Yeah, maybe the delusion of work. So let's frame the challenge as I want more time working on the business rather than in the business. Does that sound like it's, like, real and tangible enough for you?

Jay Clouse [00:16:48]:
Yep.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:16:49]:
Great. That's step one, which is just getting clear on the challenge, and it's worth spending some time on that. So it feels like a really tangible thing. We know what we're going for here. The second step. And this is going to make you feel a bit bad. I should have probably said this before you hit record, which is like, this can go quite deep, quite fast. You only need to go as far as you want to go and whatever else.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:17:16]:
Okay, so tell me all the things you're currently doing and all the things you're currently not doing which are contrary to that very goal that you've just set yourself.

Jay Clouse [00:17:26]:
Well, let's try to disentangle this. I like organization, so I'll do one half at a time.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:17:31]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:17:32]:
Things I am doing are like the recurring weekly creative commitments I have. It's writing the newsletter, it's doing the podcast, recording for YouTube, making little things for LinkedIn and Instagram and all of that.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:17:49]:
Perfect. Yep.

Jay Clouse [00:17:50]:
It's hanging out in the community, which I've been reflecting on this and that probably is like some of the higher impact work I can do. But it's not really on the business work that's like fulfillment. Lately I've gotten a much better balance of taking care of my body and doing fitness. But that's like almost two hours a day, right?

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:18:11]:
Yeah. You've got amazing cheekbones. At the moment. I can't see you. Thank you. Gorgeous.

Jay Clouse [00:18:16]:
Been working on losing weight in my face.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:18:19]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:18:19]:
And those are the things I'm doing. It just feels like. It feels like mainstream.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:18:25]:
Keep going. I want a list. I want a list of all the stuff. Some of this will sound good. Some of it is like, tell me the embarrassing stuff that you're doing as well as the.

Jay Clouse [00:18:33]:
There's a lot of time where I just stare at the screen. There's a lot of time where I'm just like looking at a document and trying to psych myself up into doing some of the on the business work. Obviously answering emails is a big part of it. Scheduling calls, pushing buttons around in notion to feel like I'm super organized. The most egregious is when I actually have created time and space and then I'm just staring at the screen and then negotiating my way out of using that time effectively.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:19:02]:
Yeah. Got it. So frittering away the actual time you

Jay Clouse [00:19:05]:
have for frittering away and then trying to talk myself out. You and I have talked a little bit about how I just spun on this book title for a long time and now it's become a convenient hiding place to say, well, why should I work on this at all if I don't think that I have the title right? And I just argue with myself for hours. Gosh, where else am I wasting time here? I watch a lot of TV in the evenings. I can tell you that.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:19:30]:
I heard you say in the podcast about the author gathering, which sounded amazing by the way. You're like, oh, I'm not waking up early in the morning to protect my thinking time. I'm waking up when I hear the child cry.

Jay Clouse [00:19:42]:
So sleeping in. So those are things that I am doing, things that I'm not doing. I'm not doing meaningful writing on the book project, which is preventing me from submitting the next version of the proposal.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:19:55]:
Does that feel like working on the business?

Jay Clouse [00:19:58]:
It's the same type of long term generative work that on the business feels like to me. But I do also recognize that currently that project I think lives outside of the business.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:20:11]:
Got it.

Jay Clouse [00:20:12]:
Because I don't know that it has justified its existence yet as a business activity.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:20:17]:
Got it. Yeah. So you're not even wasting your time doing the other big project that's on your plate.

Jay Clouse [00:20:27]:
Yeah, I'm not creating new offers. I'm not selling my current offer. I'm not.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:20:34]:
Is that all working on the business rather than in the business?

Jay Clouse [00:20:37]:
I think so, yeah.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:20:38]:
Okay.

Jay Clouse [00:20:39]:
I think so. I think of a lot of the relational work that could be done as higher level on the business style work. Team building is the obvious one. Like hiring, delegating, empowering. That's not happening.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:20:54]:
Okay, so this is a good embarrassing list.

Jay Clouse [00:20:57]:
Yeah, yeah.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:20:58]:
And what I'm guessing to be true, and you said as much at the start, is like, you're not doing any on the business work. There's some of that happening a little bit, but this is really kind of targeting all the stuff where you're like, I made this public declaration, I want to work on the business, not in the business. And oh my God, here's a long list of stuff that I'm doing and not doing.

Jay Clouse [00:21:20]:
Yeah. And maybe to put a fine point on it, I had an interview earlier today with Nir, who was at the Richard near Eyal, and I had interviewed him back in 2023. So I went back and listened to that episode and a lot of times when I listen to some of my old stuff, I can tell how much I've grown. But I'm embarrassingly starting to feel like I'm almost in an intellectual time capsule of where I was two years ago. I kind of feel like I've plateaued in several areas of my life and world. So, yeah, that's kind of where I feel like I used to be striving and the wins were obvious, the progress was obvious, and now I feel like I've just been maintaining for a while.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:22:04]:
Got it. Let's move on to the next step of this process. And it's slightly counterintuitive, but it's this. All that stuff that you're currently doing that's contrary to the goal or not doing that's contrary to the goal, I want you to flip it and imagine you were fully committed to actually doing all of that stuff. And as you imagine that, and we'll kind of go through it, what I want you to think about is what anxiety would that bring up in you? What would you be worried about? So let's say, for instance, you're actively hiring people and bringing them on board and delegating work to them. What would make you concerned or worried about that?

Jay Clouse [00:22:48]:
I'm worried that I'm taking a financial risk that I don't know how to pay for.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:22:52]:
Right.

Jay Clouse [00:22:52]:
I'm worried that I'm not spending enough time giving them what they need to be successful. I'm worried that my life feels more like an obligation and there's more commitments that I have to live up to.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:23:09]:
Right. Obligations and commitments.

Jay Clouse [00:23:11]:
I'm worried that the micro level, like in the business stuff will fall through. Like, as silly as it sounds, it's like, will I still hit my deadlines for the newsletter? Will I still publish the podcast?

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:23:23]:
Right.

Jay Clouse [00:23:23]:
Do I have time and space for doing that?

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:23:26]:
So worried about not hitting those regular weekly kind of commitments you have around the micro stuff? Yep.

Jay Clouse [00:23:32]:
Yeah. Because the time required to do that feels like it's going to come from the time where I'm currently doing things that feel non negotiable.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:23:44]:
What else would you be worried about? If you used the protected time you put aside to go deep into the thinking required to be on the business, not in the business, what would worry you about that?

Jay Clouse [00:23:57]:
I'm probably a little worried that it won't even yield results. That there's not a there, there. There's not an answer that I will find. And not only will nothing change, but now I am just losing money faster, just burning through capital. I'm worried that that failure could be very public. I'm worried about how people would perceive that. I'm worried about being able to provide for the family. I feel like that's pretty, pretty exhaustive.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:24:28]:
That's a pretty good list and pretty powerful. How does it feel to hear yourself say that out loud?

Jay Clouse [00:24:35]:
It's true. It's honest. And it's not necessarily surprising because I feel like I ruminate on this a lot.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:24:41]:
Yeah. So we've gone through three of the steps so far. The first step is defining the challenge. Then you come up with this list of things you're doing and not doing. Then you imagine the stuff that you're currently doing. You'd stop doing that and you're doing the better thing instead. And also the stuff you're not doing, you're starting doing that. So you're getting clear on that.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:25:02]:
And you kind of just notice in your body and your mind and your heart what makes you anxious and worried about that. And you came up with a really great, honest, clear list around that. What you're seeing is the tug between present you and future you. Present you is J. Right now. Future you is this person somewhere. The best version Of Jay running the best version of creator science and holding that space. What you've surfaced is all the reasons why present you is kind of freaking out.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:25:39]:
Future you sets the goal, work on the business. Present you is like, oh my God, what are you doing? Future you Jay. Present you's job thinks it is to keep Jay safe, keep him away from the scary stuff. So present you has commitments to stop these worries showing up in your life. So what we're going to try and do is translate some of those worries you have is to what's the commitment that allows that worry not to show up. So one of the worries you had is if I did the thinking, there might not be any there there. I might not even know what to do. Can you find a way of articulating a commitment that what are you committed to that stops that worry arising?

Jay Clouse [00:26:30]:
I don't know. To make this more concrete, there's the book project. Right. And it's still kind of high level. And I feel like there's a great book there, but I haven't done the work to write it, let alone actually writing it. That work feels hard and I don't know if I can pull it off.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:26:51]:
Well, let me pull you back to the business stuff. Just because the book sounds like it's a big thing, but it's also slightly separate to that. Okay, here's what comes to mind for me. So let me just put this on the table. Might not be right, but as a starter for 10, when I have the space to do the work on the business, I don't really do it because I'm worried what I'll find there. I think that's what you said. One way of framing the commitment is I'm committed not to look at the reality of my business.

Jay Clouse [00:27:23]:
Let's put this in a hiring example. Let's say that I was willing to resource a role that was more full time or full time on operations. Yeah, let's say that's the thing I want to do. So you're saying a way to articulate that commitment is that I'm committing to not look at the financial result of that commitment.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:27:48]:
It's a little more broader than that. I think the way I think of these things tie together. So one of the things that you're not doing at the moment is hiring people and giving them a really good brief. Is that fair?

Jay Clouse [00:27:59]:
Yep.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:28:00]:
If you did hire somebody and give them a really good brief, what would make you worried about that?

Jay Clouse [00:28:06]:
There's a level of control that I have to give up for that.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:28:08]:
Right.

Jay Clouse [00:28:09]:
There's a level of access I would have to provide.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:28:12]:
Got it.

Jay Clouse [00:28:13]:
And I feel like there's also a certain amount of training that I should do to help that person be successful outside of the brief.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:28:24]:
So then you go, so what's this commitment to the way things are right now that keeps your foot on the brake? And if I was to guess, I'd say I am committed not to allow anybody else to work in the business, so I have to keep working in the business.

Jay Clouse [00:28:42]:
I think that's true. I'm definitely committed to not letting anybody else have full access to accounts, passwords, my calendar. I think that's actually probably a really big one, is I feel like I am so protective of my time that I'm worried I'll lose some of that control over my own time.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:29:09]:
So what you're uncovering here are these commitments that are actually almost in direct contradiction to the goal that you set yourself. I'm committed to work on the business, not in the business. I'm committed to give nobody the ability to work thoroughly in the business. You can see how they're intentioned to each other. I want to work on the business, not in the business. But if I don't give myself time to go deep on that work, I'd be worried that if I did do that work, there might not be any there there. I'm committed not to look at the reality of my business that is in direct contradiction to. I want to work in my business, not on my business.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:29:49]:
And so we're finding these deeper points of resistance, these anchors, these foot on the brake, even as you're wanting to work in the business. Is this making sense so far?

Jay Clouse [00:30:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely contradiction and tension there.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:30:05]:
One of the things that you do and you don't do, which is I make sure I hit all my weekly goals, the newsletter, the podcast, all of the kind of creative acts I do. If you didn't do that, what would you be worried about?

Jay Clouse [00:30:17]:
I would be worried that I'm breaking promises to my readers, my listeners, the audience generally, which I would worry would erode some of the trust and goodwill that I've built.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:30:30]:
Got it.

Jay Clouse [00:30:30]:
Which is the heart of the business, which would let the family down, and sky falls, house of cards caves in, and everything is gone.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:30:41]:
That's great. We'll get to the apocalypse in just a minute. Cause I love that you've gone there. That's part of this process.

Jay Clouse [00:30:49]:
We're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors, but then we'll be right Back to my coaching conversation with the author of the Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier. And now back to my conversation with Michael.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:31:06]:
So as I hear that Jay, I'm like, okay, so I'd be worried. I'd be breaking promises. Tell me if this lands. I'm committed to remaining the chief creator of creator science.

Jay Clouse [00:31:21]:
Yes.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:31:22]:
And you can see that that sets up a tension. I want to work on the business, not in the business. I want to stay the chief creator. I want to work on the business, not in the business. I don't want to look at actually how the business is going too deeply, just in case. I want to stay on the business, not in the business. I don't want to give anybody else access and autonomy and agency to really get cracking on the in the business stuff. So I've got space for that on the business stuff.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:31:46]:
And all of this is uncovering this deeper pattern where it just doesn't matter if, you know, the seven essential steps to delegate work or the five essential steps to stop procrastinating. You've actually got these deep commitments that are keeping you stuck. How's this landing for you?

Jay Clouse [00:32:05]:
Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's nonsensical to say that I want to spend less time in the business, but I'm also not willing to give people the autonomy and ability to take that off of my plate.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:32:21]:
I feel nonsensical is a little harsh, but it is deeply human, but also paradoxical that you kind of find yourself stuck like that. And I've gone through my own process around this. I mean, I think, like, for me, years ago, my goal was like, I need to hire people. I absolutely need to hire people to delegate because I'm doing all this stuff. And then I'd list down all the things I was doing and not doing, which is like, I am working in a tiny room so no other person can physically join me. I don't give anybody a good brief when I hire them, so I guarantee that they'll disappoint me. I don't have a vision for the company, so nobody knows why they're doing any of the things that they're doing. I don't coach anybody.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:33:08]:
Even though I'm a good coach. I don't coach anybody and help them do any better. It was this long, embarrassing list of things. And when I went down the things, what would I be worried about if I was doing that? I'd be like, I'd be worried that I'd spend my whole time wiping people's backsides and their runny noses. And I don't want to look after people. I'd be worried that I wouldn't have time to do my own work. I'd be worried that it would put the company at risk because it would cost too much money. So then when I articulated my competing commitments, it's like, I want to be free and I don't want to be bothered by annoying people.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:33:47]:
Okay, I want to hire a team. I also want to be free and not be bothered by annoying people. I want to hire a team. I also just want to do my own creative work. And I just kind of like, oh, I'm seeing these kind of deeper commitments. Let's go to the final step of this process. Just why this commitment has such a strong grip on you, which is like, imagine breaking one of these commitments that we've just articulated. What's the kind of, the worst thing that might happen?

Jay Clouse [00:34:15]:
Are we talking about the aspirational one or the one that's holding me back?

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:34:19]:
The competing commitment? The one that's holding you back.

Jay Clouse [00:34:22]:
So if I have the commitment that I will not let somebody else have full access, autonomy, agency within the business, if I break that commitment, mostly what I feel is fear and concern.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:34:37]:
What's the chaos that happened? What's the apocalypse? Break this commitment, they get access, and it all starts going wrong. What happens?

Jay Clouse [00:34:47]:
I think the deeper fear, it's not even like, oh, they're gonna download my email list or they're going to drain my bank accounts. I actually don't have that fear. The fear I have is that it won't matter. My life, work, flexibility won't actually improve. What if I take that leap? I hire this person, I'm putting money on the line and it doesn't work. And I find myself in the same situation, but now with more financial pressure than before.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:35:18]:
Yeah, yeah, got it. For me, when I think about the deeper commitments I've got, maintain my freedom, do my work. When I think about the catastrophizing that can happen with that, it's often I start losing money, the company goes bust, I get a divorce, I get kicked out of the house, I start to drink. In about six weeks, I'm in a gutter and there's an alcoholic, and it's gone hellishly wrong. And I'm like, this explains why I don't want to build a team. It's not because I don't want to build a team. It's because there's one part of me it's kind of Irrational. But it kind of has the resonance of a deep fear, a deep truth, which is like, it's the end of the world as I know it.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:36:07]:
It is a catastrophe for me. Like that.

Jay Clouse [00:36:10]:
That resonates. I don't quite go that far. Like, to me, the end of the line is like the business can no longer afford our lifestyle and now the business can't exist and I have to find a job. That's like the worst outcome, actually.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:36:27]:
Right, right. This is the more generous way of seeing this, which is like, you know, in some ways it's not. Oh, I just am hopeless at cracking on with this stuff. It's like I'm trying to. The worst outcome for me would I have to go and get a job and I'm back being a salaried person with a boss and I lose the freedom and you lose your partnership and you lose being able to parent at home and you lose your community. And there's actually something that says why I'm doing this is I'm actually doing my very best to protect the best of what I've got at the moment.

Jay Clouse [00:37:04]:
Yes, yes, yes.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:37:07]:
And you can understand why there's part of you going, better not to work on the business rather than in the business, because what might happen is the whole thing goes up in smoke and I have to become an employee and it's pretty hard to get a job these days.

Jay Clouse [00:37:26]:
Yes. And I probably wouldn't feel that way if the last 20 months of maintaining the status quo had measurable growth in the business. But that's not true. I see that I'm operating from a place of status quo is good, and I want to protect that. But in so doing, I'm actually not doing that. It's actually like a slow decline in a lot of places because I've been

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:37:53]:
maintaining that's the immunity to change process, or kind of my version of the immunity to change process is what you're trying to find is the explicit commitment that you're making. And then you're trying to articulate the competing commitments that keep you stuck. Your explicit commitment on the business, not in the business. That's kind of your foot on the accelerator. The competing commitments. Don't want to look at my business. Don't want to give people control, don't want to give people access, Want to stay the chief creator. Those are your foot on the accelerator.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:38:27]:
They keep you where you are right now. And the reason they have such a strong hold on you is because your fear is if I break those commitments, it all goes wrong. And it's a pretty tight system. It kind of keeps you bound up, it keeps you kind of wound around the axle. It can be hard to break. And the profound reason why just having more information isn't helpful at this stage. You've actually got to look at this dynamic you've got going on for you and go, how do I shift some of this?

Jay Clouse [00:38:58]:
Right? I feel like I don't know if you're heading this direction or not. But the conclusion I've come to a bunch of times is like, actually what I have is a lack of courage, right?

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:39:09]:
Let me reframe it in a nicer way.

Jay Clouse [00:39:12]:
I'm glad. I like this reflecting of my inner monologue to be like, you're kind of being a dick to yourself.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:39:19]:
It's. There are gentle ways to come to a similar conclusion. The first thing to say is like, of course you have a lack of courage. Everybody has a lack of courage when we're facing this immunity to change stuff, because we can imagine the worst of it happening. And whose blood wouldn't run a little cold if they're like, man, what happens if I have to, if this all goes up in smoke and I have to try and find a job that's scary for anybody. The suggestion to try and be braver is to run small experiments. So I know you've come across this idea before, but rather than trying to do the thing, I'm just going to keep trying to force myself to do the thing. You want to go, let me run some experiments to see if the things I am really worried about will actually come true.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:40:15]:
And when I think of my example, which is setting up a team, my fear was that box of crayons, this free spirited, lovely company that I set up just turns into this bureaucratic, gray, grinding kind of organization of misery. And it was my company, but I was still being ground up by the bureaucracy of my own damn company. And I was like, I was really fearful of that. So that's what I wanted to test. I'm like, well, is that true? Is that the whole truth? Is that definitely going to happen? And part of me knows, of course not. But part of me goes, yeah, but probably it's like I can feel the truth of that bad outcome. So running a small experiment, you want to set things up to say, look, I want to do some stuff just to gather data to see whether the really bad things that I'm worried about will actually happen. You want to be able to run it in a kind of time restrained way so it has a start.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:41:17]:
And a finish that you can understand. And you want to make sure that the experiment, if it doesn't work, doesn't have catastrophic outcomes. Oh, that experiment didn't work. And I now have to sell creator science that is not a good small experiment. But it's like, oh, I've got some data. What you're not doing is going back to that explicit goal that yourself and say I'm just going to try and do that more. You're now running small experiments to say what's a small experiment I could run and test to see if I think of it like I'm breaking up the ice of those patterns. So what I did for my team thing is I'm going to hire somebody and I'm just going to hire them on a really part time basis and for a short term project and I'm just going to see how bureaucratic that all became.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:42:06]:
And I was like, oh, you know what, I got some data. It wasn't too bad. And actually it was kind of the breakthrough that allowed me to build teams like Ainslie running MBS works or Shannon running box of Crayons. For me, it's been very liberating for me. So I'm wondering if that's enough for me to ask you, do any experiments come to mind for you in terms of what you could do?

Jay Clouse [00:42:28]:
Well, I actually have a team member who's always been fantastic. She's never let me down. She's never needed to be retaught anything. A lot of the times she teaches herself and what I just haven't historically given her is enough opportunity, enough of a brief to use your language. It's always been very task oriented rather than like outcome oriented or even giving her kind of like a lane to play within. It's all been very discreet things.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:42:59]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:43:00]:
So my thought is there's a world where this experiment is. I'm going to go hire like an operator who could be a full time operator person.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:43:11]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:43:11]:
There's another world where it's like I'm just going to try to lean on Izzy more and try to give her more opportunity and more lines to color within, you know, like just more space. I just don't, I just don't give her that.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:43:26]:
And that feels like a much more contained experiment. What would you be testing for? Like what's the data you're seeking?

Jay Clouse [00:43:36]:
The data I'm seeking is whether I feel like I actually got some of my own time back and whether the outcomes of what I gave up, not that they have to be as Good or better than what I would have done myself yet, but that I feel like there is reason to believe they

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:43:56]:
could be that you can see your way to good enough and possibly beyond good enough in terms of what she might produce.

Jay Clouse [00:44:03]:
Yeah.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:44:04]:
So I like that. A small experiment. What's another one you could do? I've got some thoughts, but I'm curious to know what you've got.

Jay Clouse [00:44:12]:
Well, one of the biggest arguments I make with myself when I think about putting more resources into the operations side of the business is that I've gotten really good advice in the past that your first hires should have a clear line to earning revenue and paying for themselves. And operations doesn't really feel like that unless it really stretches into sponsorship operations.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:44:35]:
Right.

Jay Clouse [00:44:36]:
And so it feels like, it feels like having an operator is almost like a necessary first step so that then that person can manage some of the more ties to revenue oriented activities within the business. But it's hard to feel safe affording that person knowing that it's uncertain that revenue will reflect having that in the business.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:45:01]:
So that feels like a big thing. Is there a way you can shrink down it to make it like, what's a small experiment that you could run that might test something like this?

Jay Clouse [00:45:10]:
I could probably set a goal for sponsorship revenue. In the newsletter we have inventory. What I have gotten is just extremely particular on who is allowed in as a sponsor or partner. So what I could do is say as part of your role, which she already covers sponsorship operations. I could say as part of your role, I want you to lead sponsorship conversations and I want you to secure sponsorships within this realm of who we would accept and see if she can do that.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:45:50]:
And what data are you looking for?

Jay Clouse [00:45:53]:
I am looking for revenue secured that I was not involved in securing.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:46:00]:
Nice. Or the potential that this is going to happen because that can be a cycle in terms of getting there, but a way of testing that going. I think there's potential here Again. And this is Izzy again, correct?

Jay Clouse [00:46:11]:
Yes.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:46:11]:
Yeah. Nice. I wanted to know if there was something, an experiment you wanted to run around the time you've put aside to actually think about the business, knowing that you're a bit slippery with yourself at the moment. You're like, ah, maybe I'll find something else to do so I don't have to look too hard at that.

Jay Clouse [00:46:31]:
It's true. I mean, the time that I have been setting aside, I've been earmarking for the book, which feels important, feels generative, but again, recognize it is actually in direct conflict with time. In the business or on the business. So maybe what I'll do, I have started getting up an hour and a half earlier than I was as of this week. So we have four days of data.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:46:57]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:46:57]:
And I've been using that time for the book. And maybe I don't have to take that to zero, but maybe I can pick a couple of days to say Monday when I wake up at six. That time before the baby wakes up is on the business time.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:47:12]:
So that sounds great. An invitation for you if you want it, is make it less time. Like make it smaller. Like the whole point of a small experiment is like just a little starter for 10. Like I was going, if I could get Jay to give himself 15 minutes per week of just a reflection on the business, just to say be there really thinking about the heart of the business rather than the anxiety around what there's no there there. That's not nothing to have that anxiety. So how do you step into it? So I was going to counter offer with something less time. But what feels about right for you? You've got a natural tendency to go big on this stuff.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:47:58]:
I'm seeing that.

Jay Clouse [00:48:00]:
I think it needs to be a little bit. A little bit more reflecting on this. I don't think I've been charitable enough with myself. There's a couple of wheels in motion, a couple of partnerships over the next two months that are decidedly like on the business ideas.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:48:17]:
Yeah. Cool.

Jay Clouse [00:48:17]:
And I feel some stress because the timelines are a little aggressive and I'm putting this on the same plate that I've been eating from for the past 20 months.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:48:25]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:48:25]:
And so just keeping the train running on that increased the volume on the like hum of anxiety that I feel on a general basis.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:48:34]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:48:35]:
And I do think the morning time is like net new time for me. It's coming out of like my TV bucket. At the end of the day. I just go to bed earlier, go to bed earlier, wake up earlier. Who had known? So I think that is right to say I'm going to take one or two of these new mornings that I've created for myself and apply that to the business.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:48:58]:
Love it. What are you testing?

Jay Clouse [00:49:01]:
I am testing whether that makes a difference kind of. I mean, both internally. And I want to feel like I am driving the bus and not simply a passenger to my past decisions. I feel like a passenger a lot in the business right now, which I guess you could reframe this as like the work feels more like a job than a business some days.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:49:27]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:49:28]:
And I want to Change my relationship to the business in that way.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:49:33]:
I have great empathy with you, Jay, on this. Perhaps, like you, I really treasure my control, my freedom behind that. And it's taken me a fair bit of time to figure out how to give some of that up and give that to other people at the same time. Sometimes I find I've somehow got trapped by my own decisions and my own business, and I'm like, I've lost control at the same time.

Jay Clouse [00:49:57]:
But you know what's weird? Maybe you have a reaction to this. I find that sometimes when I'm having the best results and having the most fun is when I've tricked myself into being a passenger for a period of time. It's when I. When I get ahead and I'm like, I know I'm going to be glad that I did this, and so I'm going to commit to it, and there's going to be a period in the middle where I'm kind of begrudging this, but this is the right move. So it's weird to separate these two things because one of the ways that I do know how to force myself into generative, real progress is to make decisions that are not totally irreversible, but, like, they feel like real commitments, because I know I'll follow through on them.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:50:40]:
That makes a lot of sense. I'm like, make that commitment where you're like, all right, this process is going to be challenging, but it's also freeing because I'm like, I'm absolutely clear what needs to be done by when. And I've now got a project I'm working on. Let me offer up one other possibility around a small experiment. There was something about, like, I don't like to give people control of my calendar or access to my email or anything like that. Is there an experiment to run around that at all?

Jay Clouse [00:51:11]:
I think the experiment would be that for some period of time, I don't book anything on my own calendar. Everything has to run through my team to book on my calendar because I need to test whether they would make the same decisions and discernments. Because if that is true, I could actually give up a lot of communication. A lot of communication ends in logistics and scheduling. And my fear is like, well, what if they. This is such a solved problem. It's so embarrassing to say out loud. So many people have done this and it's totally fine, but I just haven't been able to be like, hey, you have the authority to schedule things on my calendar, and I want you to handle this communication and sometimes take meetings and communicate on my behalf.

Jay Clouse [00:51:58]:
But if you do need to schedule events in the lab, partnership discussions, interviews, here are the parameters you should know and go ahead and do it.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:52:07]:
So I think the invitation is whether you can fine tune that and maybe even shrink that down. Rather than giving all the people all the decisions to all the stuff go, okay, with this person on the team, I'm going to give them permission for this decision and this amount of calendaring and whatever. And for this person, this decision and this challenge or anything like, make it smaller rather than bigger. You can always expand if it goes well. But it's a small experiment and the key emphasis is small, which is like little things. Test how it goes and if it keeps working, give them a bit more. And if it keeps working, give them a bit more. And the key thing here, Jay, is just, I think I said it before, but I'll say it again, which is you're running experiments to try and test the pattern, the stuckness, rather than I'm trying to work on the business rather than in the business.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:53:03]:
So you're coming at that goal kind of sideways.

Jay Clouse [00:53:05]:
Yeah, I see.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:53:06]:
And freeing up the pattern rather than going, okay, I understand the pattern, I'm just going to work on the business. Now it's running tests to go. Are all my deepest fears actually going to come true? Or can I kind of dissolve them, get them to loosen their hold on me?

Jay Clouse [00:53:20]:
These are smaller, more incremental steps than I was expecting you to give me. I was expecting you to be like, let's psych yourself up, take a moment of courage and make one of the decisions that will press things forward. Kind of kicking and screaming, but there's enough friction to go back that you'll press forward. And you're more giving me the invitation to make small, controlled, incremental experiments to loosen my grip.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:53:45]:
I'm trying to shift a deeper pattern rather than kind of like forcing you to kind of grit your teeth and go through something that honestly, you've already tried, that you've already tried the grit my teeth and force my way through it. And even when you've had short term results, you find yourself back in a longer term pattern. I'm trying to rewire your operating system a little bit rather than just download a new app onto the phone.

Jay Clouse [00:54:12]:
Okay. Yeah, I was thinking that I had to take a thing I was gripping very tightly and then totally let go. But it's more like, let's ease up on that and maybe at some point it'll feel more comfortable for you to let go.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:54:25]:
Yeah. Run the small experiments. Be kind to yourself, because where you're at is really human and really. It's really not a sense of. This is a failure of Jay Clouse. This is a. Oh, this is a deep pattern of mine, and this is something for me to work through to evolve and become the next best version of who I am. Rather than me trying to optimize current Jay Klaus, I'm trying to have you see future Jay Klaus and go, here's how you make steps towards that person.

Jay Clouse [00:54:56]:
Okay. I feel like this has given me some concrete next steps.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:55:00]:
I mean, let me ask you. I mean, what was most helpful for you here?

Jay Clouse [00:55:03]:
There's a couple of categories. There's a couple of buckets here. There's the bucket that I think is understated. And somebody listening to this might not have grasped that I want to call out, which is. My inner monologue has gotten a little unkind to myself.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:55:18]:
I see that.

Jay Clouse [00:55:19]:
I felt like there were. I don't know, just the way that you were, like, I see what you're saying, but let's reel that in a little bit a bunch of times. Was like, okay, I. I have taken this too far in terms of the severity of my inner monologue, and I should just be kinder to myself, recognize there's something to work on here. But I'm not broken or an idiot for not doing it this way. So that. That was helpful.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:55:43]:
Great.

Jay Clouse [00:55:44]:
Second helpful point was directly shining a light on the tension between what I want to do and what I'm not willing to give up.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:55:52]:
Right.

Jay Clouse [00:55:53]:
That was actually very explicit and illuminating.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:55:56]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:55:57]:
To say, no wonder you feel stuck. I do really like this foot on the brake, foot on the gas metaphor for those two things.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:56:04]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:56:05]:
Having this more context. Like, I'm in my own way, and these things are in conflict. So let's look at this and see how we can start to change this. Those are the biggest things, obviously, workshopping some of the small things I can do to give Izzy some more space and opportunity to try and take stuff off my plate. And not thinking about this as a binary 0 to 1, but more an incremental step.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:56:28]:
Yeah. It's a test. It's an experiment. You're gathering data to see if this works or not.

Jay Clouse [00:56:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. Obviously that speaks to me, so that's what I'll do. I feel like I've done a couple of cycles of that with Izzy, but those increments have just been so small. I've been so loathe to let Things go that they are experiments and they've all yielded good data, but it's just, like, so incremental and small that it's been a little too slow. And I've been thinking, like, let's go big then. But there's a spectrum. I can go a little bit bigger without going all the way to the radical side of letting things go.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:57:07]:
One possibility is you invite Izzy to tell you how much she wants to take on.

Jay Clouse [00:57:13]:
I've tried this. I've done this. And every time she's like, all of it. Give me all of it.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:57:18]:
I love that. All right. So it feels like there's that place of meeting somewhere which is like, how far are you willing to go? Keep it somewhat containable, because all of it's a lot. You're running an experiment, but that sounds like it's a real tangible thing to do.

Jay Clouse [00:57:33]:
Yeah. And if I reflect, I feel. It's weird, but I feel guilty giving people work to do.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:57:40]:
Mm.

Jay Clouse [00:57:41]:
There's something about especially work that I don't wanna do.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:57:45]:
Right.

Jay Clouse [00:57:45]:
It feels so hard to be like, this is your problem now.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:57:48]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:57:49]:
There's something that I just. Guilt is, like, the right word. I feel guilty passing things off.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:57:55]:
And that fits into that immunity to change process. Cause it's like, what's the stuff that you don't do? I don't delegate stuff. If you did delegate stuff, what would you be worried about? Well, I'd be worried I'd be a bad person and I'd be guilty for giving them all of this work. What are you committed to do? I'm committed to not delegate to people. I'm committed to not making myself feel bad and actually trust other people. So I was like, okay, I want to work on the business, not in the business. But I'm committed to not trusting other people. It's attention.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:58:28]:
And I really empathize because I've gone through that very same process and still have some of that myself. Yeah, that's part of the work.

Jay Clouse [00:58:36]:
Something else I've reflected on lately. I had another coach one time tell me he's like. I called him about this binary path A or path B decision, and the question he asked me was, are you running away from path A or are you running to path B? And he was very much in support of running to something, but he was very cautious of, if you're making this decision out of a place of running away from path A, that's a problem. And in the season where things feel hard and my relationship to the current business has a Little bit of tension. I've had some of this run away from energy. I recently was journaling and asked myself, if the business was generating twice as much revenue or doing twice as well, would I still feel the way I feel? And the answer was no. I would actually just be stoked. And I think that travels into this hiring world where it's like, if I built a healthier business that had more people operating within it and we were operating at a higher level, I would be stoked about that.

Jay Clouse [00:59:35]:
And so I should take that insight as more motivation to work towards that.

Michael Bungay Stanier [00:59:41]:
I mean, in your POD interview, talking about the author gathering, you know, one of your insights was, are you happy with this business in a season of non fruitfulness? It wasn't exactly the right. The right way.

Jay Clouse [00:59:57]:
Am I happy doing the losing version of this for some period of time?

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:00:01]:
Yeah, exactly. And you can still say yes to that and still find the losing version of it a crappy place to be. Like, they both exist. Accepting that, look, there'll be dips where it feels like more of a struggle than joyful. You can be accepting of that, really open to that, and still go, this is still a terrible experience.

Jay Clouse [01:00:27]:
Yes.

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:00:28]:
And you don't have to go, oh, I'm loving this losing season. This is excellent. I mean, that's weird. You don't want that. So these things can coexist, I think.

Jay Clouse [01:00:37]:
Yeah. So good. Okay. So helpful, Michael.

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:00:41]:
My pleasure.

Jay Clouse [01:00:42]:
Is there anything else that you wanted to say or we wanted to touch on here before I let you go and get started on my homework?

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:00:47]:
Well, the first to say is appreciate you going as deep as you did. That's a gift for everybody who's listening to that, for sure. I'll tell you something, that Ainsley, I mean, you know Ainsley because she's part of the lab as well.

Jay Clouse [01:01:03]:
She's great. However you found her, tell me how you did that.

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:01:07]:
Well, my most unexpected hire. Cause Shannon Ainsley's a great hire, is Shannon, who runs Box of Crayons, which is the training company based on the Coaching Habit book. And I hired her from behind the bar of my local pizzeria and she was finishing off her PhD. This is one of her jobs. I said, come and do a little bit of marketing for me to help me with this book. And five years later, she was the CEO of the company. Wow. So that turned out really well.

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:01:34]:
One of the ways that Ainsley and I manage our anxiety and kind of stress when things get stressful is to understand that your body leads your brain. So when Stuff is happening because, you know, stuff always happening. One of the things that we took from a guy called Ben Zander is to go, how fascinating. And you put your hands up in the air because it shifts your physical state and you go, how fascinating. And it puts you into a state of curiosity and it puts you into a state of this too will pass. So I'm not sure what your version of that might be, and it might even be exactly that, but knowing or perhaps getting a sense that, you know, there's been kind of hard moments for you over the last little while when you sense yourself kind of being beaten up or beating yourself up a little bit, just that shift to go, oh, look, how fascinating. Maybe in that space you're giving yourself, when you're working on the business and you're digging into it and you're finding stuff out, you get to go, oh, how fascinating. And it just maybe can add a little lightness to the moment.

Jay Clouse [01:02:43]:
I like that. I like that a lot. Michael, thanks for the help. When's the new book coming out?

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:02:50]:
The new book's out. It came out.

Jay Clouse [01:02:52]:
It is out.

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:02:52]:
Yeah, A couple of weeks ago. It's the 10 year anniversary of the Coaching Habit book. And yeah, we got across that starting line, finishing line, and it's pretty cool. It's got a. It's a hardback. There's an extra chapter in there about the being of coaching. There's illustrations through it. I know that was one of the things that you mentioned in your pod.

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:03:14]:
We've threaded a little graphic novel through it. So this is kind of cool visual experience in the book now.

Jay Clouse [01:03:20]:
I love that. Well, we'll link to that in the show notes. I would be surprised if listeners have not yet read the Coaching Habit. And if that is you, check it out. It's on my bookshelf. We'll have to meet up in person sometime and get a signature on it,

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:03:33]:
but I would love that.

Jay Clouse [01:03:34]:
Highly recommend, folks. Check it out. So thank you.

Michael Bungay Stanier [01:03:37]:
Thanks for having me on the pod. That's really nice of you.

Jay Clouse [01:03:39]:
Of course. Thank you. You did all the hard parts. All right, I have some work to do and I can report that since recording this episode, I have gotten better at giving things to my assistant and she's doing great. So I continue to press forward. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple podcast, podcasts or Spotify and letting me know. I see them. I see them all.

Jay Clouse [01:04:05]:
We're one away from 300 on Spotify. That would go a long way. We're getting close to 500 on Apple Podcasts. I read them all. Thank you, thank you, thank you to recent reviewers. Courtney, looking at you, those reviews go a long way to helping us grow the show. I also love comments on Spotify. I try to reply to all those as well.

Jay Clouse [01:04:21]:
If you want to learn more about Michael, visit his website at MBS Works. That's mbs.worksworks wrk. There's also a link to that and a Link to get 10 year anniversary edition of the Coaching Habit in the show. Notes. Thank you for listening and I'll talk to you next week.