Coaching for Leaders

Michael Hyatt: Win at Work and Succeed at Life

Michael is the founder and chairman of Michael Hyatt & Company, which helps leaders get the focus they need to win at work and succeed at life. Formerly chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, Michael is also the creator of the Full Focus Planner*.

Michael is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of several books, including Free to Focus*, Your Best Year Ever*, Living Forward*, and Platform*. His work has been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Businessweek, Entrepreneur, and other publications. He is the author with his daughter Meghan Hyatt Miller of Win at Work and Succeed at Life: 5 Principles to Free Yourself from the Cult of Overwork*.

In this conversation, Michael and I discuss the challenge that many leaders face in finding balance. While many of us are motivated by achievement, Michael invites us to consider the value of nonachievment. We explore where to start and the benefits of being a beginner again through hobbies and other activities, unrelated to our careers.

Key Points

There’s incredible power in nonachievement.

Many high-achieving people tend to have two leisure modes: feeling weird, unsettled, and distracted when taking time off — or vegging out on screens after exhaustion.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi advises doing something that’s not related to work at all to get you into a different mindset.

Beware the belief that your hobby is your work. Spending more time on a hobby that has nothing to do with work can boost confidence in your ability to perform your job well.

The challenge for high achievers in starting a hobby is that they must be a beginner again. Getting coaching to help get through these early stages can help.

Resources Mentioned

Bonus Resources: Win at Work and Succeed at Life

Win at Work and Succeed at Life: 5 Principles to Free Yourself from the Cult of Overwork* by Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

How to Transcend Work-Life Balance, with Scott Anthony Barlow (episode 315)

How to Reclaim Conversation, with Cal Newport (episode 400)

Finding Joy Through Intentional Choices, with Bonni Stachowiak (episode 417)

How to Sell Your Vision, with Michael Hyatt (episode 482)

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Raja Rajamannar: Quantum Marketing

Raja Rajamannar is Chief Marketing & Communications Officer for Mastercard, and president of the company’s healthcare business. He also serves as president of the World Federation of Advertisers. Raja has held C-level roles at firms ranging from Anthem to Humana, and has overseen the successful evolution of Mastercard’s identity for the digital age, from its Priceless experiential platforms to marketing-led business models.

Raja’s work has been featured in Harvard Business School and Yale School of management case studies, and been taught at more than 40 top management schools around the world. He is the author of Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow's Consumers*.

In this conversation, Raja and I discuss the reality that traditional advertising as we know it is ending. He also invites us to rethink how we’ve traditionally thought about customer loyalty. Instead of telling stories about our brands, we should be doing the work to create stories along with our customers.

Key Points

Organizations need to engage in permission-based marketing to be credible to consumers.

It’s helpful to think about relationships with consumers as affinity instead of loyalty.

Most of what we call advertising today is interruptive to consumers and a poor experience. It’s not entirely dead, but certainly heading that way.

Invite consumers into unique experiences by making the transition from storytelling to story making.

Create experiences that are scalable and economically viable and sustainable.

Smaller firms can seek out opportunities to create partnership that will help them make stories that are purposeful.

Resources Mentioned

Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow's Consumers* by Raja Rajamannar

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

How to Lead Top-Line Growth, with Tim Sanders (episode 299)

Serve Others Through Marketing, with Seth Godin (episode 381)

Where to Start on Subscriptions, with Robbie Kellman Baxter (episode 484)

If You Build It, They Will Come (Dave’s Journal)

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Shannon Minifie: Box of Crayons

Shannon is the CEO of Box of Crayons, the firm behind the best-selling books The Coaching Habit* and The Advice Trap*. Box of Crayons is a learning and development company that helps unleash the power of curiosity to create connected and engaged company cultures.

Shannon followed an unusual path to becoming CEO of Box of Crayons. Her career began in academia, a pursuit driven by her desire to be a part of conversations she thinks are important. In 2016, she embarked on a new path, starting a career in corporate learning and development. She brings to her role more than a decade of experience in education and in practicing incisive investigation.

In this conversation, Shannon and I talk about the word curiosity and the reality that not everybody thinks about that word the same way we do. We explore the distinction between troublemakers and changemakers and provide practical suggestions to inspire more curiosity inside your organization. Plus, we highlight many of the common barriers to utilizing curiosity well.

Key Points

Curiosity is a state, not a trait.

Nobody says they are against curiosity. But the truth is that they’re suspicious of it.

Four things tend to hold firms back from the benefits of changemaker curiosity:

Complacency: being used to the status quo.

Delusion: the belief that they are already good at it.

Environment: espoused values vs. what’s being done in practice because of real barriers.

The Advice Monster: too much a cultural reliance on advice-giving.

Resources Mentioned

Box of Crayons

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever* by Michael Bungay Stanier

The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever* by Michael Bungay Stanier

Related Episodes

How to Build Psychological Safety, with Amy Edmondson (episode 404)

The Way to Be More Coach-Like, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 458)

How to Build a Coaching Culture, with Andrea Wanerstrand (episode 501)

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David Sparks: MacSparky

David Sparks speaks and writes about how to use technology to be more productive. David is a past speaker at Macworld / iWorld and a regular faculty member for the American Bar Association’s TechShow.

David has published numerous books and videos on how to use technology including the MacSparky Field Guide series that includes videos and books on managing email, going paperless, and how to make a winning presentation. David is also co-host of the popular Mac Power Users, Automators, and Focused podcasts. When not speaking and writing about technology, he’s a business attorney in Orange County, California.

David recently released his Paperless Field Guide*. In this conversation, David and I review the key steps to managing a paperless lifestyle including how to capture, process, edit, and share documents. We share useful hacks to find data in documents, track changes, annotate PDFs, and much more.

Key Points

The goal of the paperless lifestyle is to provide sanity so you’re not spending time and energy managing paperwork.

Scanner Pro is David’s recommended app for most people who want to capture documents easily with optical character recognition (OCR).

Getting your documents into PDF format will allow them to be accessible for the future and also protect you from trouble with future software versions.

Decide on a personal syntax for how you name files. Including a noun, verb, and date can be useful to surface documents later.

Use “track changes” on Microsoft Word or “suggesting” on Google Docs for collaboration, review, and editing.

If you use a tablet and do lots of reading or document review, consider utilizing some of the newest features for annotation and markup.

Resources Mentioned

Paperless Field Guide* by David Sparks

LinkedIn Learning is a useful starting point for foundational skills on major software programs like Microsoft Word

Mac Power Users podcast

Related Episodes

How To Get Control Of Your Email, with David Sparks (episode 119)

The Way to Stop Spinning Your Wheels on Planning (episode 319)

Align Your Calendar to What Matters, with Nir Eyal (episode 431)

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Tom Henschel: The Look & Sound of Leadership

Tom Henschel of Essential Communications grooms senior leaders and executive teams. An internationally recognized expert in the field of workplace communications and self-presentation, he has helped thousands of leaders achieve excellence through his work as an executive coach and his top-rated podcast, The Look & Sound of Leadership.

In this episode Tom and I discuss the common challenge of both making sense to others and making sense of what others say to you. Tom invites us to follow a four step approach of sorting and labeling so that it’s easier for listeners to follow our thinking. Finally, we explore some of the common missteps in communicating with more clarity.

Key Points

The why behind making sense: it’s better for both the sender and the receiver.

There are four key parts to the structure of making sense to others:

Create a headline

Sort into folders

Label each folder

Transition with precision

Tom shared an example of two different ways to communicate a message about presentation skills, one without sorting and labeling, and one with it.

Common mistakes in making sense include the espoused number of items not matching the number of actual items, explaining the folders first before setting the stage, and not transitioning well.

Resources Mentioned

Sorting & Labeling by Tom Henschel (PDF download)

Subscribe to Tom's updates

Related Episodes

Executive Presence with Your Elevator Speech, with Tom Henschel (episode 316)

The Way to Influence Executives, with Nancy Duarte (episode 450)

Your Leadership Motive, with Patrick Lencioni (episode 505)

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Lesson 5: Share Useful Ideas With Others

Your system can be just for you, but it really shines if you share with others. In this lesson, how to bring it all together in order to leverage credible ideas.

Academy Applications Close Friday, March 19th

The Academy is a year-long cohort of participant leaders who work personally with me to create movement in their leadership development and organizational results. Discover more and submit your application by Friday, March 19th.

Resources

Readwise

Related Episodes

How To Create a Personal Knowledge Management System, with Bonni Stachowiak (episode 129)

The Way to Influence Executives, with Nancy Duarte (episode 450)

How to Get Noticed on LinkedIn, with Stephen Hart (episode 495)

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Lesson 4: Resurface What’s Relevant

Curation isn’t useful unless you benefit from all the work. In this lesson, how to get your best ideas to resurface to you at the right time.

Academy Applications Close Friday, March 19th

The Academy is a year-long cohort of participant leaders who work personally with me to create movement in their leadership development and organizational results. Discover more and submit your application by Friday, March 19th.

Resources

Raindrop

Coaching for Leaders Episode Library (free membership required)

Readwise

Obsidian

How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers* by Sönke Ahrens

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How To Create a Personal Knowledge Management System, with Bonni Stachowiak (episode 129)

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Lesson 3: Curate What’s Best

After you’ve captured ideas and resources, then it’s time to decide what is useful. In this lesson, systems and examples for how to curate.

Academy Applications Close Friday, March 19th

The Academy is a year-long cohort of participant leaders who work personally with me to create movement in their leadership development and organizational results. Discover more and submit your application by Friday, March 19th.

Resources

Raindrop

Drafts: Where Text Starts

Related Episodes

How To Create a Personal Knowledge Management System, with Bonni Stachowiak (episode 129)

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Lesson 2: Capture What’s Interesting

You need something to work with to generate credibility. In this lesson, you’ll discover the importance of capture and a few examples of where to start.

Academy Applications Close Friday, March 19th

The Academy is a year-long cohort of participant leaders who work personally with me to create movement in their leadership development and organizational results. Discover more and submit your application by Friday, March 19th.

Resources

PDF Expert

Raindrop

Drafts: Where Text Starts

Related Episodes

How To Create a Personal Knowledge Management System, with Bonni Stachowiak (episode 129)

Getting Things Done, with David Allen (episode 184)

Lesson 1: Immerse With Trusted Sources

The first step in enhancing your credibility is to immerse with the best sources. In this lesson, you’ll discover how to do this and why to filter for value, but not agreement.

Academy Applications Close Friday, March 19th

The Academy is a year-long cohort of participant leaders who work personally with me to create movement in their leadership development and organizational results. Discover more and submit your application by Friday, March 19th.

Resources

The Media Bias Chart by ad fontes media

Related Episode

How to Deal with Opponents and Adversaries, with Peter Block (episode 328)

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