The Fink Tank

As kids, we destroyed several hundred dollars worth of light globes while playing hacky sack in the hallway throughout our childhood.

The fact that our parents elected to allow the wanton destruction to continue says something about their attitude towards prioritising our growth.

It can be really challenging to cultivate the same level of compassion for mistakes (and encouragement for growth) when considering how we treat ourselves as adults.

In this episode of The Friday Fink Tank, we find gratitude for the way our parents raised us, and lessons for how to think about tackling challenges in the future.

We record the Fink Tank on Col’s farm. They have lots of animals. Sometimes they die. 

As someone fairly new to farming, Col still finds this pretty confronting.

Deakin, his 4 year old, is far less affected, because he’s never known anything different. 

He’s used to deadstock. 

When you’re operating a solo business, you have to get used to your deadstock. 

Awkward sales calls, rejections, failed projects. 

They’re the unavoidable by-product if you want successful sales calls and amazing projects! 

Nearly everyone is prone to dips in self-belief. Those who aren't are surely lying.

Oscillations in confidence can be crippling.

When starting a new venture, the road is often bumpy. When developing a new skill, it's rarely a smooth ascension to mastery.

Most of life's endeavours come with peaks and troughs. Sometimes there are good reasons for them.

Often there aren't.

It's particularly galling when a loss of confidence is THE ONLY thing that might actually justify the loss in confidence.

"Thanks a lot, universe! Why are we like this??" - Col, reflecting on his mental rollercoaster in the lead up to launching the Solo Program.

The facts might not really change. And we're still the same person. If nothing is materially different, why the dip in self-belief??? What gives??

It can be a circular and confounding pattern.

In this week's Fink Tank, we chat strategies for how to cope with this annoying human condition.

When he was fifteen years old, Formula 1 driver Daniel Riccardo learnt a *teeeny* bit about how to drive from Col, who ran a go-kart company at the time.

Is your professional life analogous to a world famous F1 driver’s early karting career? Or to his penchant for “doing a shoey” with champagne on the winner’s dais? 

Probably not.

But this gratuitous name-drop DOES have relevance when we talk about exponential growth curves (and Col gets to say the word “asymptote”).

Some growth curves deliver huge returns quickly. Like learning to drive a go-kart.

Some growth curves deliver success slowly. Like building a professional profile.

If you’re trying to establish a reputation, instant success is unlikely to land in your lap. It’s even less likely to deliver a crowd of adoring fans cheering for you to skol champagne out of a shoe.

You have to do the work. Consistently and diligently. For months. Years. Early progress might be slow or non-existent. It can be an unrewarding slog.

Stick at it. You’re at the start of a growth curve. 

—

We typically don’t discuss episode topics in advance of recording, as it can “let the fizz out”, as it were. Col’s failure to bring a bottle bubbles for a Fink Tank shoey for this episode is nothing short of devastating. Pathetic preparation.

This week's Fink Tank is all killer, no filler!

Err... sorry, I've just been handed a note. Apparently that’s, um, like, incorrect. 

Turns out this episode of The Fink Tank does, in fact, contain quite a lot of filler.

Filler words.

You know the ones. Um. Kinda, like, ya know, ummm, if that makes sense?

Communication is central to the success of nearly every job. Warren Buffet famously said you can increase your value by 50% by improving your public speaking skills... no matter your industry or role.

In this episode Col and I turn the microscope on ourselves and see just how well—or poorly—we measure up.

Some is killer, some is filler, and some is pretty bloody funny. How much of each? You be the judge.

The statute of limitations has expired, so I confess that on 4 February 2017 I beat up a motivational speaker in the Sofitel ballroom in Sydney.

I watched this clown of a presenter commit a litany of egregious public speaking crimes. The captive audience suffered horribly, and I knew I had to act.

“The standard you walk past is the standard you accept”

Not on my watch. 

This speaker, this MONSTER, did horrible things. 

Among other travesties, he:

⛵ told a long irrelevant story about the time he sailed a boat 

📖 read whole sentences off his own slides

🙅‍♂️ didn’t ask a single question

⏰ went 7 minutes overtime

Boring stories poorly told are bad, but they’re worse when the audience is given no context or reason to care. Reading slides is awful, but not as bad as going overtime, apologising, then ploughing through the last 5 slides uselessly at speed anyway, BEFORE LUNCH. 

So on behalf of an aggrieved audience, I administered some vigilante justice. 

I tackled him off stage and wrestled him to the ground, thumping his head against the corner of the stage to the delight of the front row. I hauled him back on stage and executed a textbook suplex to the whoops and hollers of the people at the back.

I dropped an elbow off the top rope as lesson to presenters everywhere that there are LINES. YOU. DO. NOT. CROSS.

In this Friday Fink Tank we talk about the responsibility you carry when you step onto a stage. 

And we share a couple of easy tools to help do a good job.

—

* The statute of limitations (7 years for most tortious offences under Australian law) only applies to civil cases. Repeatedly smashing a motivational speaker’s head against the corner of a stage could well be considered a crime.

* Fans of the amazing podcast “60 songs that explain the 90s” by Rob Harvilla will recognise that I have wholesale ripped off this entire bit from his Portishead episode from November last year. You’re welcome, Rob.

Ready for some Friday morning schadenfreude? After a triumphant first day's skiing in Japan, Col and me crash back down to earth, literally and figuratively!

We were lucky enough to be skiing before we started school. We've spent our whole lives being excellent skiers... in Australian conditions.

Imagine our shock when Japan exposed just how bad at skiing we can actually be!

It was a humbling and hilarious experience.

And it's similar to something we see in a number of work-related contexts.

Great on stage ≠ great on zoom

Amazing facilitation ≠ amazing keynote

Confident with people ≠ confident on camera

Skills can be incredibly specific, and it's useful to know exactly what you can do, *and* what you can't.

Where have you found your skills disappointingly non-transferable?? We'd love to hear about it!

PS We're not in Japan anymore, but it seemed a shame not to milk the opportunity for another episode!

The Fink Tank on tour, from the Hakuba ski fields of Japan! 🇯🇵⛷️🗻

Fighting the universe is a tough gig. It’s much bigger than you, and notoriously stubborn. 

What do you do when your great plan ISN’T a great plan for right now? Your ability to be flexible and adjust accordingly is key.

My favourite part of this episode - apart from recording it on a chairlift! - is when my mind blows at the 4:30s mark.

As usual, we laugh quite a lot.

Making The Fink Tank has taught us comedic lessons about willpower, frameworks, and accountability. 

It took MONTHS to get the Fink Tank up and running last year. A circus of self-sabotage left it languishing on the launchpad for months. 

This was entirely my fault. Col and I recorded several episodes, and after a few weeks of weapons-grade procrastination I had a couple edited and ready to go. Yet I couldn’t hit publish. The imposter syndrome and fear of judgement was crippling. Worse than I’d ever felt before.

Sometimes, to stave off the misery, I’d go to Col’s and we’d record MORE episodes, still having actually published nothing. In retrospect, Col displayed extraordinary patience during this time. Perhaps my obvious turmoil evoked pity rather than frustration.

Anyway, after we FINALLY published the first episode in June, we didn’t miss a week for the whole rest of the year. 

An absolute farce. Humans eh??

I learnt my lesson a bit faster this year. Having missed the intended start-of-Feb launch, I deployed a tactic I’ve learnt is more reliable than simply hating myself.

I loudly promised a room full of people - whose professional opinion matters - that Fink Tank Season Two would land today. Predictably I’m doing a late-night Thursday edit to hit the Friday deadline, but it’s here! Without a skerrick of self-loathing! 

In this episode we talk about the pitfalls of relying on motivation, and what we can do instead. META.

Shout out to Fink Tank fan Donna McGeorge for the nudge in January. It meant more than you know.

Podcasts come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

I *think* that’s how the saying goes??

After 6 months and 25 episodes, that’s a wrap on season one of The Fink Tank! We’re probably not committing to a lifetime, but we’ll definitely be back for season two in the new year.

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has enjoyed and engaged with this joyful sibling experiment! The comments, conversation, and wonderful feedback has been a delight. The consistent engagement from our “fans” has been particularly gratifying. THANK YOU.

On a personal level, making The Fink Tank has meant Col and I spend more time together, and we’ve both loved it.

It’s also drawn a level of consistency and commitment from me that, frankly, I’ve never managed before.

So this season finale is about the benefits of creating containers of accountability and commitment. If we’d planned to make weekly episodes indefinitely into the future, we’d probably have fallen off the wagon months ago. And maybe given up entirely.

Instead, we’re ending season one, taking a summer break, and will see you in the new year!