How I Work

My guest today is Cyan Ta’eed. Cy is one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs, having co-founded Envato in 2006 and growing it to being valued at over $1 billion. Last year she tried her hand at chocolate (why not?!) and Hey Tiger is now one of Australia’s fastest growing purpose-driven brands. Oh, and in her spare time, she recently launched Milkshake.app, which allows users to make a free website for their Instagram profile all on their phone, instantly.

In this chat, we cover:

• How Cy went from spending four hours a day on her phone to just 15 minutes
• How Cy changed her mobile phone to make it less addictive
• The game that Cy’s family play on January 1, every year
• The five minute activity that Cy does every morning to set herself up for the day
• How Cy manages her energy levels as a self-described introvert who presents as an extravert.
• Cy’s approach to constant learning and development
• How and where Cy has found great people to work in her businesses.
• Cy’s strategies for overcoming Imposter Syndrome
• How Cy mentally prepares herself for stressful events
• Why Cy had an app on her phone that reminded her she is going to die 5 x per day
• Cy’s go-to apps and gadgets
• What happened when Cy had an eyesight-threatening ulcer and had to rest in darkness for several weeks.
• Balancing sprints with periods of rest

Find Cy on Instagram at @cyantaeed, check out her amazing chocolate social enterprise Hey Tiger and her most recent business Milkshake that allows users to create a webpage from their Instagram account.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My favourite tip from my chat with New York Times journalist Nellie Bowles is on her strategies for becoming a better writer.

You can find the full interview here.

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My guest today is Nigel Marsh. Nigel is the host of the internationally acclaimed podcast Five of My Life, the author of three books – Fat, Forty and Fired, Overworked and Underlaid and Fit, Fifty and Fired-Up and he is also the co-founder of Earth Hour and the founder of the Sydney Skinny. His TED speech on work/life balance remains the most viewed ever given outside of America with well over four million hits.

And outside of all that, Nigel spent many years in some very senior corporate roles. And that is how I know Nigel - he was my CEO at advertising agency Leo Burnett, which was my last role before I started Inventium 12 years ago.

In this chat, we cover:

• Nigel’s approach to giving great speeches
• The three things that matter most when constructing a speech
• How Nigel manages his nerves before presentations
• Why Nigel doesn’t like giving people advice - and doesn’t like other people giving advice
• The two skills required to be successful in corporate life
• How Nigel came up with the idea for his Podcast, Five of My Life
• How he prepares for his podcast and decides which guests to have on the show
• Nigel’s approach to social media and email

Check out Nigel’s podcast Five of My Life and find out more about Nigel on his website. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My favourite tip from my chat with Dr Catriona Wallace, Founder and CEO of high-profile FinTech and ASX Listed company Flamingo, is on her strategies for building connections quickly.

You can find the full interview here.

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My guest today is Doris Brett, also known as Doris Imber - my mum! As well as being my mum, Doris Brett has practised as a clinical psychologist for nearly four decades, and is also a multi-award-winning poet and critically acclaimed memoirist and writer. Her books range through various genres, including therapeutic stories for children, fiction, memoir and poetry. She even wrote a bread baking book back in the 80s.

Doris' latest book is The Sunday Story Club, co-written with Kerry Cue, about conversation being the new hot conversation topic. It taps into the global movement towards reclaiming face-to-face meaningful conversation and personal stories, rather than living our lives online.

In this chat, we cover:

• What happens in a client’s very first therapy session
• How Doris identifies patterns and themes in therapy sessions
• How to build rapport and trust quickly
• The impact of writing about trauma to help gain insight
• Questions to ask yourself to elicit stories that you haven’t thought about in years
• How to construct a great discussion question
• How stories can help us reframe our experiences around failure
• How stories can help us overcome procrastination
• How to construct a great story
• How to identify personality disorders in the workplace
• What to do if you are working with a Narcissist or Psychopath
• How to find a great therapist

Get your copy of The Sunday Story Club right here. And check out Doris talking about the book here.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My favourite tip from my chat with Jake Knapp was on the magic word he uses to get more control over his schedule.

You can find the full interview here.

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My guest today is Chris Guillebeau. Chris is a New York Times bestselling author and modern-day explorer, having visited every country in the world (193 in total) before his 35th birthday. You might have come across Chris’s work into side hustles because he is the author of The $100 Startup, Side Hustle and most recently, 100 Side Hustles. And his daily podcast Side Hustle School is downloaded more than 2 million times a month.

In this chat, we cover:* Why Chris starts his day with email* Why Chris has finally put on an email auto-responder after ten years of avoiding doing it* How Chris manages a daily release schedule for his podcast - and why he doesn’t batch the recording of episodes* How perfectionism can get in the way of success* The importance of daily habits* Why Chris didn’t find time tracking a useful activity* Using waiting time productively* Tips for better travel

Learn more about Chris here, grab a copy of his books, and check out his daily podcast Side Hustle School.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My favourite tip from my chat with Carman's Museli founder Carolyn Creswell was her annual self-improvement routine.

You can find the full interview here.

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My guest today is Marcus Buckingham. Marcus is the author of a stack of best-selling books, including First, Break All the Rules, Now, Discover Your Strengths, The One Thing You Need to Know, and Stand Out, to name a few. His latest book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Harvard Business Publishing, 2019) takes an in-depth look at the lies that pervade our workplaces and the core truths that will help us change it for the better.

Marcus has appeared on “Larry King Live,” “The Today Show” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and now leads People + Performance research at the ADP Research Institute and remains CEO The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC).

I was keen to get Marcus on the show as he is someone who challenges the status quo of how organisations operate, and I was keen to see how he had applied his advice in his own life.

In our chat, we cover:

• The four questions Marcus asks himself every week
• Why "do what you love" is bad advice
• Why “work-life balance” is an unhelpful concept
• How Marcus has reduced the amount of work he loathes and increased the amount of work he loves
• How Marcus reframed how he thinks about networking and mingling to find it more enjoyable
• How Marcus made firing people a less awful task
• Marcus’s process for creating great keynote presentations
• How Marcus thinks about the opening of his speeches
• Why the annual planning process organisations use is broken - and how to fix it
• Why Marcus thinks about work as a collection of projects

Find out more about Marcus via his website, get your hands on his most recent book Nine Lies About Work, and sign up to the Freethinking Leader Coalition.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

**Book your ticket for How I Work LIVE with Cyan Ta'eed on July 31, Melbourne**

This episode looks at the best types of breaks to take at work, according to science.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at [email protected]

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.