infinite pie thinking

Many of us are trying to find our way, or our direction. Many of us want to make a difference, many of us want to make an impact, many of us want to feel like we are contributing. Well, in this episode you will hear from a man who in mind is doing all of these things.

You will hear my conversation with Gus Worland, who I could describe as a presenter, radio host, a broadcaster on the Triple M radio station in Australia. I could say he is the Founder of the Mental Fitness Foundation Gotcha4life, but these are all titles, and as you will hear in this conversation, Gus is so much more than that.

I really enjoyed this conversation and I took a lot from it so I hope you do too. The whole point of these conversations is to share thought provoking stories and to realise that we all have something to offer others. That when we truly connect, we can make a massive impact, even if sometimes it doesn’t always feel like it, or we don’t realise it. This is not about comparisons, it really is about connections.

So thanks again to Gus Worland for sharing his time, his stories and his perspective on things. I recommend that you check out his new podcast “Not an Overnight Success” and go and take a look at the Gotcha4Life foundation at gotcha4life.org and see the remarkable work they are doing there.  

I also want to say a big thanks to you for taking the time to listen to some infinite pie thinking and my one ask is that if you know of anyone who would benefit from this episode, then hit the share button and send It to them. 

I would love to know what you took from the conversation, so you can reach out to me via -
the website - infinitepie.co.uk,
on instagram -  @infinitepiethinking and @al_fawcett
or LinkedIn with Al Fawcett , 
or of course you can email using [email protected]. 

It would be great to hear from you.

Charlie Sampson is an Executive Coach, Co-Founder of several other leadership and development businesses, author of the business book 'Even Better If' and as you will hear, so much more. Charlie shares his thoughts and perspective on Leadership, Management, Coaching and Communication and  where they overlap and where they differ. We explore how the lessons from his own background and experience, coupled with all his research and the working with others, has helped him to shape his passion and enthusiasm for supporting others to make an impact.

I loved our conversation around the value of being interested in others and their views, and the ability to explore and understand it, and about the importance of staying curious. Of course there was also the discussion around the quality of your questions;  how coaching and leadership is ultimately about communication; how you should look to work with people holistically as they are more than just their job title; about the power of responsibility and ownership and how that will make you stand apart; and how it is not about using time as an excuse, but learning how to use it effectively and to invest it wisely by having the right conversations at the right times. So a big thanks to Charlie Sampson for sharing his perspective on coaching with curiosity.

If you want to know more about Charlie than head over to sampsoncoaching.co.uk or the Business Coaching Academy and you will see a lot more about many of the topics we discussed today.

I would love to hear what you think and the action that you have taken, so reach out to me on Linkedin, or instagram or via infinitepie.co.uk . I would love to hear your stories. 

Alan and Emily Braithwaite are the husband and wife, co- founder team behind Yellow Tuxedo, the Digital Visibility specialists.

In this conversation with Al Fawcett they share the origin story behind the Yellow Tuxedo name, their guiding principles and how this applies to the business, the different skills and outlooks they bring to the party and how they communicate, collaborate and compliment one another. That and their love for watching Cobra Kai in their downtime.

If you want to know more about Yellow Tuxedo then you can head over to their website yellowtuxedo.co.uk or follow them on instagram @yellowtuxedo and the various other social media platforms.

If you want to know more about the Gift of Story then you can email us at [email protected]

For more infinite pie thinking stories and podcasts, then find us infinitepie.co.uk or follow us on instagram @infinitepiethinking

For the first episode of 2022, I am excited to complete another 'first' and host two guests on the podcast. Two remarkable people who have impacted my life in a variety of ways and I am now pleased to be able to call them friends.

I first met Craig Hatkoff and Irwin Kula a number of years ago when I was invited to New York to visit them as they hosted the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, an event they had Co-Founded.

This event and the meeting certainly had a profound effect on me and started me on a path of curiosity, exploration and a desire to want to know more. So, whilst in this conversation we start off discussing the concept of the whole co-founder relationship, you will soon see how this chat takes us off in a variety of directions, with lessons and ideas sprinkled throughout.

Take a listen and let me know what you think

If you want to see more about what we do at infinite pie and explore more podcast episodes, then you can head over to infinitepie.co.uk and take a look around. 

Zak Brown is the CEO of McLaren Racing and of course this means that he is constantly focused on high performance and performance improvement. 

In this Slice of PIE, I go back to episode 36, in which I spoke with Zak about what it would take to turn things around at McLaren to see them achieving the results that their history and their fans expected.

In this 5 minutes Zak summarises the power of getting things right when it comes to Leadership, Teamwork and Culture, and of course the impact of getting it wrong. 

From clear lines of leadership, clarity on roles, responsibilities, goals and how they will be measure, Zak outlines what was needed to help course correct. 

I hope this gives you something to think about and remember, you can always go back and listen to this or any of the full episodes, in which you will hear more about the mindset and mental side of performance improvement. I will posting these short slice of pie episodes regularly, so maybe it will help you explore your perspective and thinking each day, and these clips can help you to find ways to continue to improve your performance in whatever area you are focused on at the moment. 

Of course if you want any help or support with leadership, teamwork or culture, get in touch and I will be happy to discuss it with you. Or if you want to share your key take aways from previous episodes then you can also  reach out to me on via infinitepie.co.uk, or Al Fawcett on  LinkedIn, or follows us  @infintiepiethinking on instagram. It would be great to hear from you.  

In the meantime, remember if you improve your thinking, you can improve your performance

Welcome to another quick episode focusing on a key learning point from a conversation with one of the remarkable guests on the infinite pie thinking podcast with me, Al Fawcett. 

Today I go back to episode 33 with Emily Chang.  Emily has more than 20 years experience, holding senior executive positions focused on customer experience, busies strategy, change management and brand building for organisations such as P&G, Apple, IHG, Starbucks and now the CEO China of McCann Worldgroup. 

So I loved it when I asked Emily about the value of feedback.

I hope this gave you something to think about and of course if you want to hear more from Emily, you can always go back and listen to the whole episode. I will posting these short slice of pie episodes regularly, so maybe it will help you explore your perspective and thinking each day, and they can help you to find ways to continue to improve your performance in whatever area you are focused on at the moment. 

If you want to learn more about how to give and get effective feedback, then why not head over to infinitepie.co.uk and see how we can help with this, and a variety of other performance improvement skills and topics. Of course you can also reach out to me via LinkedIn, or follows us,  @infinitepiethinking on instagram, where we post content to make you think. You can let me know your key takeaways from the infinite pie thinking podcast and I will look to share them in the future.  

In the meantime, remember improve your thinking, improve your performance. 

Chris Brindley MBE joined me in episode 5 of the Infinite Pie Thinking podcast and shared his wealth of knowledge and experience on leadership, teamwork and culture. Chris worked in the banking industry for years, working his way up to senior leadership and Director roles, finishing as the Managing Director of Metro Bank and being voted Britain's Best Boss (amongst other awards). 

Chris now applies his skills and knowledge in the sports industry and is currently the Chairperson of the Rugby League World Cup Board and works to deliver sports and physical activity to the population of the North West of England. As a result he was aware and MBE in 2018 for his service to sport.

In this quick take away from the original conversation, Chris shares his perspective eon leadership and how we can create a collaboration culture in which everyone understands their role, and rather than just follow a process blindly, take responsibility and accountability for the part the play within it. 

I hope this gives you something to think about and of course if you want to hear more from Chris, you can always go back and listen to the whole episode. I will posting these short slice of pie episodes regularly, so maybe they will help you explore your perspective and thinking each day, and can help you to find ways to continue to improve your performance in whatever area you are focused on at the moment. 

I also hope you will feel free to reach out to me on over at  infinitepie.co.uk, or connect with me, Al Fawcett on LinkedIn, or follow  @infintiepiethinking on instagram, and let me know your key takeaways from the infinite pie thinking podcast and I will look to share them in the future.

Professor Damian Hughes specialises in creating high performing cultures within sports teams, businesses and organisations, is a best selling author and is the cohost of the very successful High Performing Podcast with Jake Humphrey.  Damian is now also the first returning guest to the infinite pie thinking podcast.

In our original conversation we explored a number of fascinating topics that relate to the mindset and mental side of performance improvement, so I was excited to get Damian back on, to dive deeper into areas like 'commitment culture', what it means to 'do the work in the shadows', how to develop 'feedback loops' and why they are important, and to actually understand how he defines 'high performance'.  However, I was also keen to explore what he has learned about himself since we last spoke.

There really is a lot to take from this one so I hope you enjoy listening to Damian Hughes share lessons from high performance.

If you would like to reach out and let Damian know what you have taken from this conversation you can find him on instagram @liquidthinker or via his website liquidthinker.com.

If you are working on your own goals and performance improvement and want to explore how our coaching support, workshops and seminars could help, then you can always reach out to us at infinitepie.co.uk, find us on LinkedIn, or instagram @infinitepiethinking (and if you share this episode use #infinitepiethinking as I would love to join the conversation).

Julian Dowe started his career as a professional footballer. As he was breaking junior goal scoring records in the Salford leagues he was playing in he became highly coveted by the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City and Leeds United. After a brief spell at United, he signed as schoolboy for Everton, then went onto Manchester City where he started training and playing with first team squad at 15.  After a period playing for  Wigan, he became the youngest British player to sign professional contract in Spain at age 18. There were a few more moves but a persistent knee injury saw him retiring from the game at 26.

But it is not just his time spent ‘in’ football that we are discussing today, but the time he has spent ‘for’ football. As Julian shares how he came up with idea and has developed the resource platform Football4Football.com  that supports players of all levels on what he calls the four pillars of the game.

I think this  is a fascinating story and I am sure that you agree, so I want to thank Julian for sharing it with me.  It wasn’t a matter of everything he touches turns to gold, there are lessons from success and from failure. There is spotting opportunities, and facing and overcoming challenges. There is learning from your own experiences and there is surrounding yourself with people who can provide their experiences knowledge, talent and skills. But most of all there is doing the work.

So thanks to Julian Dowe for taking the time to walk through his story, insights and perspective and the lessons that he has learned on how to continue to get better. Make sure you head over to Football4Football.com to check out what he is talking about.

There is a lot of lessons in this one, so take a listen and let me know what you think.

Of course if you  are working on your own goals and  performance improvement and want to explore how our coaching, workshops and seminars could help, you can always find more information, resources or just reach out to me over at infinitepie.co.uk, and on the various various social media platforms.

In the meantime, remember ‘improve your thinking, improve your performance’

So today I am speaking with Leidy Klotz, Professor at University of Virginia and author of the book Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less.

Leidy focuses on removing barriers between design and behaviourial science and we dive into what that means and how we can apply these principles into our daily lives, both on a personal and professional basis. It is amazing to explore the research that shows how many of us do not include the option of subtraction into our decision making process and the impact it may have if we did.

I want to say big thanks to Leidy for sharing his research and insights and it has really made me think about how often I am exploring how I can use subtraction in my decision making framework. It really is so easy to default into just adding things in all the time. I am sure that you will also agree that there is so much more to this than just taking things away, and as we discuss, it is actually the work involved in taking the complex and simplifying it, to gain real clarity on what you are actually trying to achieve before defining and deciding the appropriate solution and course of action. So, if you want to know more about all of this, I highly recommend that you go and check Leidy's book - Subtract; The Untapped Science of Less.

There are lots of ideas and lessons in this one, so take a listen and let me know what you think.

Of course if you are working on your own goals and  performance improvement and want to explore how coaching could help, you can always find more information, resources or just reach out to me over at infinitepie.co.uk, and various social media platforms.