Beyond Busy #71 with guest Mark Leruste

Graham Allcott 0:04

Hello and welcome to another episode of beyond busy.

Here's like a weird thing to say when no one's busy running around right now. This is the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, and how people define happiness and success. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And this week, I'm talking to Mark Leruste. Mark was the country director for Movember, the charity campaign and he is now a speaker a podcast has a lot to say on living your values, living your authentic self and is really great thinker. So we talked about his journey with Movember. We talked about Instagram and marketing and putting yourself out there lots of stuff like that and I think this is a really good one for right now because it's I just I love the way mark thinks very top line strategic thoughtful and yeah, I think This is gonna be a really good one I think you'll get a lot out of it. So just before we get into the episode couple things I want to say firstly think productive are still running free webinars to help people who are struggling working from home so think productive comm forward slash w f h if you want to hear about that. We're also running all of our regular workshops still and we're running them all on zoom and actually on zoom and also whatever other tech you use in your business if it's not zoom, so you can find more about that I think productive calm. We've obviously seen a drop off in our own work. It's you know, month by month, it's it's actually been surprisingly steady up till now. But really, you know, starting to drop off at the moment. So yeah, if you are interested in productivity and helping your team then we can definitely help and we are poised to help so it's impressive calm if you want to find out more about that. Also, since the last one, I released this blog post I wrote a couple of weeks ago. It's called Tales from Holland, autism, Corona and all of us. And it's just a set of thoughts around how my son who has autism has found the last few weeks, very soothing, and a really nice environment for growth actually, like really seeing his conversational skills coming on a lot. He seems really happy and relaxed and, you know, free of a lot of the usual anxiety or there are definitely obviously some anxieties. There's a lot of stuff that he can't do that he would normally do. But yeah, I had a huge response. Well, I posted on LinkedIn also on medium. And yeah, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. But I'd love you to check that out. Let me know what you think. It's just called Tales from Holland, autism, Corona and all of us and I'll put the link to that in the show notes. You can also find on medium and LinkedIn. Yeah, go check that out. I'd really love to hear your thoughts on it. And the other thing is, I've finally launched the new grammar. caught.com so you can go and find that Grandma katako. And one of the things that's part of that is, for the first time ever, I'm going to be doing a personalised weekly newsletter, which is going to go out on a Sunday, the idea of it is it's like the blues buster, Sunday night email. So it just has some positive thoughts for the week ahead. And just hopefully, is just me kind of sharing ideas and just having a bit of dialogue with people. So if you want to sign up for that, just go to grandma got calm. We'll put the link to that in the show notes. We might even try and put in a little widget to sign up to the mailing lists on get beyond busy.com as well. I'll talk to mark about that. But yeah, if you want to sign up for that, the idea is that I'll just be doing a kind of weekly email out I'll let you know what I'm up to. And also just share some some thoughts for the week ahead. I'd love to get some signups for it's brand new literally just launched it last week with the new grammarly.com site. So check that out. So let's get into the episodes. This was myself and Mark actually recorded our old lives back in January in Camden. And it just, it was a really great conversation. I really enjoyed the conversation. It feels like such a long time ago now. It's just it's a weird thing how time seems to just be moving at a very different pace in this current COVID world. So, yeah, it just feels like a lifetime ago but really pleased to get this one out. So you join us in Camden, we black to meeting room, here's my conversation with Mark the roost.

Mark Leruste 4:39

Just I'm interested, because it's one of the questions I always get because I've got an online podcast course now. Yeah, I just got so people ask me questions. And I used to run the workshop and then I was like, I can't do this anymore.

Graham Allcott 4:48

Yeah. But I'm always to do that. That's how we first met, isn't it? You did that General Assembly? Yes. Remember now. So you'd had me on the unconventionally. Yeah. I was doing a talk at General Assembly and you had a book. You were signed book signing thing. Yeah. And you just came up with like, hey, yeah.

Mark Leruste 5:08

Yeah, no, you're right. Yes, I do that. Yeah. Big, big turnout. Yeah, I remember that. And then yeah, hundred percent. And it's, um, so so I was that I try and add stuff. Like, like resources. And I always get questions from people like, Oh, can you do a lapel mic on an H five.

Graham Allcott 5:24

But we're rolling. Anyway, that was a real nice. One of those like, Okay.We'll leave all that. And yeah, we mark the rooms. How you do?

Mark Leruste 5:33

Yeah, good. Really good to see you again. Yeah, like, and yeah, I appreciate you making the effort to comeall the way up to to Camden.

Graham Allcott 5:40

Yeah. And appreciate you making the effort when you've got a sick two year old and a very young baby as well. Congratulations.

Mark Leruste 5:49

Thanks very much. Yeah, we've got two or three, which I thought was was interesting until I spoke to a client of mine who said he had a four and a five. I don't know if that was brave. Yeah, no Yeah, that's right. I thought that was that was pretty brave. So you can do this and had head straight back there too. Yeah. can have it on the family. Yeah, basically just yet running back picking up my daughter and then yeah, it's been it's been interesting, interesting dynamic that kind of juggling the dad printer life thing, you know? Yeah.

Graham Allcott 6:25

Yeah, what you do because your partner is also self employed?

Mark Leruste 6:28

Yes, she runs a business because she was She's the founder of the School of conflict. And yeah, that's what she does. She basically tries to kind of tack not tagline but her belief is that you know, let's not make conflict a dirty word. So she goes and teaches people and like from the garden master classes to you know, working with with kind of hi clients around how do you embrace the idea of having difficult conversations, right, whether that's in the bedroom of the boardroom, or, you know, the office space or with your mates. We all avoid certain conversations, quality of stations determine the quality of life. Yeah, that's a bit for school. Yeah. So

Graham Allcott 7:02

so that has that worked with parenting. Yeah. People self employed. Yeah. It's like what what have you got strategy?

Mark Leruste 7:08

Well, yeah, so the good news is So, I mean, I could draw a whole list of like the good the pros and cons to them. The good news is that we're more flexible in the sense that for example, I don't even know what the paternity law is in the UK. And I had no I think, in theory, you could split it. Yeah. I think in the UK. You know, Reese, I'm pretty sure you could split it. And a lot of people do

write a lot. I read an article Actually

Graham Allcott 7:32

that's my understanding is they changed the law and then that's right. Know when I was taking it. Yeah,

Mark Leruste 7:35

I think it's about what is it? A week to two weeks I don't even know what people tend to take or three days. I don't even know these. Yeah,

Graham Allcott 7:41

I think two weeks is two weeks for like friends of mine. Yeah. always done two weeks. Yeah. But yeah, but I think you can split the maternity leave and paternity. That's right. You like That's right. You could have like, the dad has

Unknown Speaker 7:53

six months. Yeah, that's right. But unfortunately, a lot of people taken you and usually only get like at best six months for pails. faster. So from that perspective, because I was able to take about two months off, I mean, one and a half definitely off and then I've been part time back. So that's the good news. The other good news that if, like, for example, like right now my daughter's unwell I can call my clients or move meetings or stuff like that as like a hard commitment. Yeah, I can say hey, actually, do you mind if we move that next week? Any time of the morning off? That's pretty cool. The challenge is that if we both have an important say

Graham Allcott 8:33

what what happens on the day where you both

Unknown Speaker 8:36

Yeah, we actually we try and coordinate all calendars that we never say yes to a gig where we both have to be Yeah, yeah. We use use like a shared calendar for that like Google Calendar I know is very less sophisticated. I wish I wish I had a much more but no all we literally just say I forgot anything plans on this like giving a talk in Athens. I didn't give a talk in Athens a leadership conference in in May. Another TV show. Is it cool if I go for three days to Athens? seventh? The ninth of may? She goes, yes. And then I just book it. And then it's done. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And then the challenge if you haven't developed a product ecosystem and that you're only exchanging time for money, then then when you run your businesses is tricky, because you're not getting any income. Right? So that's why a lot of course, just before paternity leave because of that, I was like, I need to have some income when I'm when I'm away.

Graham Allcott 9:28

Right? Let's see, like, I'm gonna be away.

Mark Leruste 9:31

Yeah. Yeah, so I just I knew that was gonna be away for at least six weeks. Okay, so I knew that I couldn't book any gigs or read any work and I didn't want it to be honest. Yeah. Because when my first I launched when I basically when I went to start my company in 2016. About a month or two after we found out my partner was pregnant. So very quickly, in the early stage of my business, I also became a dad. Yeah, and and that was quite stressful because I had no processes in plays no systems. And so I was kind of half juggling, being on paternity, but also answering emails, you know, that kind of stuff. And then you were solo in the business of that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was tough on me. And it was exhausting. So I decided that this time around, I was gonna do things differently. And that's we were just talking about it offline. I managed to build an old team, just awesome people who just been helping out. And when I was able to step away from the business for six weeks, nothing came crashing down. things kept going podcast kept going out every week and that kind of stuff. So

Graham Allcott 10:30

nice. That's pretty cool. Cool. And what I've got loads, I want to talk to you. Cool. So let's start with I love you have this TED Talk, that talks about quests, but the opening two or three lines of that really made me laugh. And we were kind of talking just offline. Yeah. And before about Instagram and stuff. We'll come back to do you want to just explain the start of your Ted? Yeah. And the idea behind it because it really, really resonated with me.

Mark Leruste 11:03

Yes, I haven't I don't think I've actually talked about this much, because it's a great question. And I haven't been asked that that question. It's so just a background story on that. When I was invited to give a TEDx talk, I kind of panicked. And I was like, Oh, my God, come up with a talk. So I came up with a talk. And I had about five months before the talk to prepare this talk, right? And for about four and a half months, I just prepared this talk had this it was a completely different talk. Yeah, it was a completely different message. completely different. It was, if I remember correctly, it was something like that the premise and the through line was, what do you think now what you want is clarity. What you need is faith or hope it was like such a way. So did that prepare that talk and 21 days before the actual TEDx event, I had this crazy idea of I'm going to do 21 days to build up both to increase the awareness on social media about it, but also to test the material. And so I decided to test To give the talk once a day for 21 days, and going around friends and pitching them the talk and then getting the unfiltered feedback. Wow, I did that. So just round like friends house. Yeah. And episode. Yes. So the thing is I wanted to go and visit a new place never been in London. Yeah. See, see your friend hadn't seen in a long time and practice to get feedback. That was the idea, right? That was the idea. So I go off and I start practising this talk and it had stories of dragons. It was just, I mean, think about it. Now I'm cringing. And the more I give this talk, the more I realise this is a really bad idea. And you're getting so many different opinions from people. This works, this doesn't work. You should do this to do that. So with about 10 I think it was 10 days to go before it was it was April 2016 17. April 17th, April 2017 10 days to go, I go, I can't do this. I can't do this. So I scrapped the talk entirely. And I decided to go for this other talk a talk had given just a few days before to a group of entrepreneurs, which basically was about you know, we we've got to talk about the truth about being an entrepreneur like or starting a business. There's nothing sexy about saying that is horrible. It's actually super stressful and mentally draining. And there's a huge issue of mental health issue. You know, no one talks about that. Why do we not talk about this? So that's it came from like this real sounds bit. I don't know. I'm trying to use proper language. It sounds rubbish, but it came from the heart like he was talking. So I thought, let me work on that, as I started working on that. And I presented it to a friend called Mr. Shaw, I've got to get I've got to give him a shout out because the origin story behind that is he's the last one the last person who ever saw me step on stage in a theatre context at university in my first year, my brother him DOM and another guy, and they saw me do my last play and I used to do a lot of performing acting and that kind of stuff when I was younger, but then Stop. And he saw my talk. And he said, Can I be honest? It's like, yeah, it's like, it's boring. And it's not, you know, we need to put more of you in. And you can do that that started your talk would be such an exaggeration. Yeah. You know, because I talked about, you know, even offline, we were joking about, like, you know, pouting lips and, and he said, you can make that much more come alive. Yeah. And so that it was born on the hamster Heath. He was on the bench. I was one of the people I gave the talk. He gave me feedback. And so then I went back, and I wrote it, and it was this whole persona of all the things that you know, we're talking about all the things that really cheesed me off. yeah, that when I look online feel I'm crushing it. Yeah, I wake up at everyone. First of all, when you go over, like when you go around these kind of communities, environments, especially what they you know, fake it till you make it and don't let them see you bleed. Don't tell them you sweating it out. You know? Everyone's like crushing it amazing. Like how you doing? You know, they haven't made a single sale in 12 months, you know that 30 going through a divorce. No, these horrible things are happening. No one's talking about it. So there was that there was a whole thing about the fight. You know, I read a book called The 5am miracle. So now that and it was like, who gets up every day? You know, like I'm drinking the smoothie. Look how amazing I am and it just how fantastic.

Graham Allcott 15:16

So I drink a smoothie. I jump on a pod. That's it. Yeah, I go in this cold shower. That's why is my dream.

Unknown Speaker 15:22

Yeah, but I just thought I did that. And here's the thing. When I practice that bit on the lead up, nobody laughed. Hmm, yes. When I was practising it with friends before I got on stage, it was a bit like, it's been awkward.

Graham Allcott 15:35

I'm not questioning in the sense of no one's getting that this is.

Mark Leruste 15:38

I wasn't sure. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't sure that it's really Oh, yeah, that's right. But But when I got on stage on that TEDx talk, I remember. And my partner says, still, she says, There's still his day. When I got on stage, and I did that first line. You hear people laugh, and I was like, I'm gonna be okay. All right, is that from day one? It was Yeah, that was it. I was surprised by the reaction. But but they got it, they got that it was a joke. And then that's why the first part is very this caricature that literally the transition I say is, it sounds you know, it sounds funny, because it's because actually, it's real. You know, this is probably what I projected unconsciously. And I didn't want to, there's so many people, so many of us do that we kind of project this image because we feel we have to the Why are we doing this? You know, what are we actually seeking as a result of that? And then I'll go into the whole question. Yeah,

Graham Allcott 16:25

yeah. And then the other bit that I really liked was, as you sort of transition out of this, you know, crushing it winning entrepreneur, sort of character, you're like, someone on the lines of entrepreneurship. When did entrepreneurship become sexy? Yeah. And it's not sexy, and who in this room sort of feels sexy about and then you're like, I spend loads of my time. Just worrying Yeah. About how it's gonna go and alone. And, and alone. Yeah. And saying that you can't go to have a beer with your mates because you're worried about Where the business is at? And you've got to work on it more and Yeah, well, that sort of thing. So what was that, like? sharing that? And I'd love to just hear that.

Mark Leruste 17:06

Yeah. Well, so here's the thing. One of the weird things that's happened to me over the last, well, you know, four years or so the visitor really over the last eight years is I started going to this journey of coaching and writing newsletters and stuff. I've been a bit of a, I don't know how to put this in any other kind of way. But like one of one of my life kind of purposes, whatever we call it is, is normalising the human condition. And I've had a way of often if I feel something, if I experience something, then I share it by talking about it. And usually what's happened when I do that as people go, thank you for saying that. Because that's exactly, yeah. Yeah. Because Because I'm so tired of hearing this kind of facade and fake and actually, someone's saying, I'm struggling or I'm riddled with insecurities and doubts, and I worry and We haven't got time to go into but this was as a result of so many different things that happened. One of them was after I quit my job, Movember, right. So it was it was country manager at the Movember foundation. It was a very clear identity, right? When I was around two people saying, Oh, yeah, I've launched the foundation across, you know, a couple of countries in Europe and, you know, raised 2.8 million euros for men's health, like, it sounds cool. And it was an amazing Foundation, one of the best things I've ever done in my life. And I had this I've always had this hunger was like, well, I want to go do my own thing I want to, I want to go and try and make my own little impact. And when I left, I had this grand idea that when I would start my own business, it would be so easy, and that would smash it and I would get tonnes of clients make more money than if you ripped because they'd be going to the gym for like six hours, you

Graham Allcott 18:42

know, where do they come from?

Mark Leruste 18:45

I think good question. I think it was

I think it's like anything I think you project or your pains or your worries. onto an ideal scenario that could be sort of flip it.

Graham Allcott 18:57

Yeah. So here's all the stuff I don't want.

Mark Leruste 18:59

Yeah. And here All the problems I have in this situation, and I wrote a book years ago, cool, it's not you, it's me. Well, it started off as a blog post as a joke comparing personal relationships or ratios at work, that I wanted to get a new job, but I felt like I was cheating on my job, that I would be sneaking outside the office going, you know, I can't talk right now. Yeah, why did he buy me mails or I'd lie about going on holiday when I was going for job interview. So I wrote this kind of, you know, chicken tongue kind of article that went quite well and people were commenting and that was the premise of the book. And so there's this whole idea around in a relationship and then at work if I'm unhappy here it's because of the work not because of me not because of something shipped to me but because of the situation so some there's gonna be better out there. There's a combination as well with what I was seeing online and a lot of people project and look don't get me wrong people out there, I'm sure very successful, quote unquote, whatever that means to you. Financially wealthy, having great health, great relationships, and they living a good life. And I'm sure that's true. And I'm sure that exists. But what happens Is that especially when I launched my podcast in 2015, I was at a weird intersection I was working at back then I used to be a life coach. So I was working with these people who are unhappy in their careers or unfulfilled as business entrepreneurs, who aspired to become these celebrities, quote unquote, business successes, who I was actually interviewing. And my, my show is very much about the untold story of the journeys, who we that we perceive to be your glorified kind of thing. And I was hearing people saying to me, I

Graham Allcott 20:30

remember what you asked me, by the way, when I was on conventions, but I do remember feeling like, these are good questions, because they're a bit wonky.

Mark Leruste 20:37

Yeah, really. That's what that really Oh, the real conversation that that's what I was trying to get. Because I think everyone does the whole Tell me about your pitch, tell me how amazing you are and what your product does. But then people say like, what we know, you seem confident now. Was there a time when you actually weren't so sure, and then that's usually when you get great stories. So to come back to the question, so I'm sitting there going, wait a minute. These people and they're not as living the life that you think they are. And you want to have that life. And that's where I think that kind of picture was I need to be. I need to say something about this. So yeah, it didn't it didn't feel it didn't feel that I know it sounds weird and you feel that hard for me to say because I had already been expressing for quite a while some of the stuff that a lot of people don't say almost the point where I almost didn't stop doing that at one point because what happened is I quit my job in November and I've got a video never releases. It's somewhere in my files. I'm feeling myself because I just have a vlog I'm crying in my flat going What have I done? I've got a mortgage to pay Wow, I've got I've got money's running out of my bank account. Yeah. What the hell that I don't like it just completely going. Am I crazy was that I was I was over that stupid to think that I can do this. And that was happening while on The outside people thought I was smashing it and doing great to barbecues, my old colleagues like, oh, man, you must be so happy. Like, it looks like that's what you do. Like it was this awkward thing about like, but if I say I'm not, then I'm not going to attract. And I'm putting like, close my fingers tracked opportunities. And so eventually I cracked and I wrote an article and I said, Hey, here's an I took a screenshot of my bank account. And I'd like 76 pounds left somehow that I'd like to all of you who have misled into believing that I'm living the best life financially. Here's the reality, like I was because I was being invited to Google. I was doing all these amazing, but they weren't paying me back then. I wasn't making any money. It was very much like, it looks great. It feels great.

Graham Allcott 22:45

It's true. A lot of the stuff that I did Talks at Google A while ago, a lot of the stuff that looks really cool. Yeah. is also the stuff that they didn't pay

Mark Leruste 22:55

100% maybe because they know as well. Yeah. And I think these will line up because people would line up Like what my highest paid gigs would have never heard about companies like yours. It's all it's all. It's all kind of the background. So yes, that was it. But what's been amazing is that that TEDx talk came out, what, two years ago, probably three years this year. And I still get messages, like very rarely and I don't want to sound like I'm getting flooded. But I get a message once a while saying, Thank you for saying that I needed to hear that today. Or, at last, someone's saying a different truth, because I think the different truths of the journey than just, but then you also get hateful messages. Like if you go to the comments of my TEDx talk, you'll have like there's like one of them is it's the number one worst talk I've ever heard in my life. News. He doesn't want to be like, you get like all that but you've got to take it on the chin and just go cool. You know.

It comes with the territory

Graham Allcott 23:49

is like up. I haven't done a lot on YouTube in a long time. But just the vitriol and sort of the anger that people have when they comment on YouTube is just It's my worth and Yeah, I agree with you anywhere else.

Mark Leruste 24:02

Yeah, I agree with you. Like I literally I just released an episode with James Wilks, who's the producer of the game changer? The documentary on Netflix going yeah, there was kind of talking about. So I released the episode and this guy just starts going off on one basically going I am smoking blowing smoke up as you know, beep and I what my role is I engaged I do to engagement and I stop no matter what. So what I'll do is for example, I say with with it with each person. Yeah. Well, usually if I want, I don't get into troll conversations. If I get trolled. I'll get two answers in and then I stopped and I disappear. Because literally what I said I literally just said to him, thank you for taking the time to watch episode, you know, I love to hear that creating debate. Yeah, and I understand that we may not agree and I'm but I'm glad you get an opportunity to express and then he goes off on one. Yeah. And so just said cool. Appreciate it. We can agree to disagree. Next Time I invite you to you know, start your own podcast at your own show.

And then you know and then you go up and stop and then I'll come back Yeah, and then you just

write right yes, I can then go and like just you know crap all over your creative stuff. It's weird world Oh, like how people don't I never understood why why do people have so much energy and time to spend on just trying to bring people down? It's been it's bizarre.

Graham Allcott 25:28

So I'm, I'm going to take away from you that whole two comments and then stop thing Yeah, this is one of the many reasons why I don't do loads on social media is just like the hassle of having to deal with all that stuff. Yeah, but knowing that there's a little rule and then you can follow them you do

Mark Leruste 25:44

that? Yeah, I do that and I also for people listening when that kind of spit so I try and answer usually in a bit of chicken tongue fun. So because of that person who wrote down on my TEDx talk, the by far, the number one worst I've ever heard, and I said, I'm so glad I can came in number one and one of the things that but I'll try and do that but sometimes it hits home and it's it's very hard not to be reactive, like like some personal stuff like people will write personal stuff. So if it's really bad I'll just I'll actually just spam it or mark it for YouTube to kind of okay down yeah, but otherwise I'll just forget to stop. Yeah.

Graham Allcott 26:18

James Blunt on Twitter's Very good.

Mark Leruste 26:22

Very good. I've not been until he he jumps into conversations like, you know, I'm having you know, some beautiful is the worst thing that's ever happened to humanity and then you reply. That's what you thought until my next albums coming out. Yeah, he's

Graham Allcott 26:35

very good. I saw a great one where someone goes James Blunt has no voice, no songwriter, songwriting. Bezier no talent, can choose both disparate entities and no mortgage

Mark Leruste 26:50

is good.

Graham Allcott 26:52

Yeah, he's very good. But yeah, so but it's the whole thing. If you shared this stuff about, Hey, I'm worrying a lot and worried about money and You know, it's not sexy, and it's not cool ever. So you obviously worried at that time about portraying that negative energy because everyone's told, you know, portray success and then everyone all reacted to that. Yeah. Did you feel any negative consequences from that? Was it did you worry about that at the time? Did you feel that people? Yeah,

Mark Leruste 27:21

I think gauging

Graham Allcott 27:22

with you because you were saying, Hey, I'm not done. I think it

Mark Leruste 27:24

was more of, I think it was more of I think it's more of a fear that you project going, if I'm real, then I'll be rejected. I think I think it's a human. It's, I think it's a natural human kind of fear being built in a DNA around the way we evolve literally, if you were an outcast to the community, you wouldn't survive on your own and you certainly wouldn't reproduce yourself. So it's built in us to try and fit it in. And so if I tell you something that might not be what I make up to be appealing, attractive or in any kind of wait, I'm going to fear saying it. But what's what's been bizarre is You tend to attract or repulse people, the more you step into your, again, I don't want to use but like your message like what you stand for what you believe in, basically the more. For example, recently there was a Church of England article that published in the newspaper The other day that I read, where they declared that the only people who should have sex or heterosexual married couples. And I saw that, and it really made me mad. And so I posted this rant on Instagram. But that's a controversial take when you start taking a stand against an institution like the church. But what happened is that you then get some of my most engaged posts or when I am most passionate about what I speak about when I'm really going to make a stand when I take a dare to basically say something that might be controversial, or not liked and it's hard. Yeah. So just to come back to your question. I think what's happened since then is that people who come to my workshops people will hire me will bring me into the companies are going to give talks They know that I'm going to be real, and that's what they're looking for. If they're looking for someone who's gonna be much more kind of, I'm trying to put a judgement on that someone is going to be much more kind of like the six steps, six success, you know, smile and never show weakness and well, that I'm not that. So thank you. If anything, I've managed to position myself as to what to expect if you're gonna work with me, right?

Graham Allcott 29:23

I think and sort of, almost like filter those people out because they probably wouldn't be that. Yeah, what you do anyway. Right. So

Mark Leruste 29:29

I think that, you know, we need, you know, yeah, Baca talks about this, but we need different messengers for the same message. Yeah. And so someone else is gonna have a very different take on it, and it's gonna attract a different kind of community or people. Interesting.

Graham Allcott 29:43

Would you say? So that whole thing, I imagine something that everybody struggles with at work, that's Yeah. How much to put up themselves, and how to, you know, project one particular image to one group of people and then maybe there's some bleed into You know, I've now all sort of seeing yeses. And so that must mean i think it's probably one of those challenges. That's more. So if you run your own business, and it's based around you, but it's probably a pretty universal thing. There's Yeah. Do you think the answer to that is different? If you're a millennial, as you're a bit older or younger, and I know you've done a lot of

Mark Leruste 30:19

intergenerational manuals and stuff, and it'll be interesting question. So just there's two parts that one and one of the first one is, yes, I mean, there's, if you go on the website, you'll see that one of the things I keep on saying it's being yourself is good for business. Like I believe that being yourself is good for business. And that no one should have to be one person at home and one person at work if they choose to. I think we should all have the choice. Some people just like privacy, they don't want to necessarily, but if you like to go to work and

Graham Allcott 30:45

be a hard bastard,

Mark Leruste 30:46

yeah. That's the thing, isn't it? Well, some people like to be separate both like to say I'm on work. Yeah. And I'm off work and I'm just two different people. So so that's like the first part around like, 100% believe that being yourself is good for business. Because the truth is if you can, if you can bring your full self to work, and this is, you know, you can look at data and research, but if you can bring your full self to work, then you're going to be more productive, and you're going to be just a more human happier employee more engagement, you know, all that kind of stuff. So it impacts the bottom line of organisations. Now, the question about intergenerational dynamics, I think it definitely plays when you look at the five different generations that are now operating in the workplace. They say we've never had this many generations that once could be true, just because we're living much longer, but for kids used to work at 10 or 12.

Yeah, they did. Right. I think there were there were intergenerational dynamics before, just on a different scale. So I think it comes more natural now. Again, so I'm more of a specialist on millennials than any other generation. But when I look at manuals, I usually separate them into two different generations. So I call them the analogue millennials and the digital millennials. So I'm an analogue millennial. I'm born in the 1980s. So If you're born in the 1980s, you remember a world with no internet, remember that. So I grew up without any phones. I remember the first phone that came out, I remember the first sound of the internet making. I remember life before digital came in. But from my team, they're mostly born 1990s. So they're more the digital millennials, they only known radio life of being online and digital. So when you look at that, you also look at what the trend has been to be about, kind of I'm going to share what my breakfast I had for breakfast this morning, we start talking a bit more about mental health is becoming less of a taboo. So we start talking more about how we feeling online and suddenly, you've got a generation. And this is where I think often when I try to explain to companies, the content, the context behind millennials, it's the first generation where we were raised at one point in our life, to think that we're basically on a world stage constantly. And that no matter what we do, no matter what we say, is going to be relayed to like Friends on community online. And what's bizarre is that we've now become an in a society whereby we use social media to show people where we are, you know, before we take photos, I remember brother giving me this, this observation, my older brother, he's a Gen X 1980. And he said before we just take pictures to show people what they've missed. You know, like, Oh, look, we had this event, you know, right. Now we take photos to show where we are. It's kind of like, Oh, look at me, and look how amazing I am. And you'll see this. People listen to this. We will be guilty of it. I've been guilty of it. You're in a group environment. You know, you might be on your phone, you might not be really talking to each other. But hey, guys, group group selfie. Everybody jumps in your smile into the photo you see online, is every smiling and laughing, but actually, everyone's just in their own little bubbles. So what what older generations struggle with this idea of, of I don't want to be talking about feedings at work necessarily. I don't want to be Why is everybody talking about their problems and feelings and all this stuff. Now, I think there's a balance, I think if you operate, you know, as an if you've read one of Google studies, or called the Aristotle project, which is basically to understand high performing teams, and looked at the five different pillars that make high functioning teams and low, low functioning teams, and one of the most important things that need to happen in a high performing team is what they call psychological safety. Psychological, psychological safety effectively is to say that they do not fear repercussions for speaking out or talking about a vulnerability or talking about a struggle or a challenge. Which basically means if you're on your team, and you say, goes with the largest project, you know, Jackie me, you're going to be working on this, I want you to deliver this by then they can say, Grant, we've never done this before. We're gonna need more time, more resources, we need extra stuff, but they can raise their hand knowing that you're not going to shut them down. Make fun of them, will make them feel small. Yeah, yeah. So So psychological safety is like a really important thing. So you need to create a space where people have the opportunity to open up the world. Sometimes it goes a bit too far. And people might argue with me around this is what I feel like some people are using their online platform and talk about the feelings and emotion becomes almost an unhealthy in an unhealthy capacity. It's almost kind of I'm doing it because I need approval, or I need to have some form of recognition. And so I'm using it as a leverage. Almost like imagine if I told you as a leader, you need to show more emotions to be a more compelling and engaging leader. So I need to cry. Yes, that's right. That's right. I needed to cry bit more. Right. So you go there, and you're desperately trying to cry on us. And it's gonna it you're doing it for the wrong reasons. That make sense. Yeah. So I think that was a long winded answer, but it's it's an interesting dynamic, I think. Millennials and Gen Z have a more of a need to be open and expressive. And I think for genexus baby moves for sure. It's a much bigger challenge for them. Because they see that sometimes as being challenged, more normal being threatening, or being an obedient rights, it's kind of like, we need to understand why we need to do this. We want to ask context and questions around why does project matter? Why are we doing it this way that we could be doing it more effectively? So it kind of spills and feeds into different different dynamics at work? What do

Graham Allcott 36:26

you see around the levels of cohesion or unease between millennials and other generations at work?

Mark Leruste 36:35

Like anything in life? I think it's, it's a misunderstanding of the other. I think what happens when so I've got an I got brought in by a bank, one of the oldest financial institutions in the world, they own 10% of the world assets bring me in, to work around how to how to better lead and manage millennials in the workplace. And so I go in, you know, the first part of the work I do is is usually like an introductory talk and in the room, that's about it. I'd say 50 60% of baby boomers, Gen X, that about maybe 35 40% of millennials and the rest of Gen Z. And one of the first things I do usually my tours, do icebreakers. And I do kind of like a live and some people talk. And one of the first questions I ask is, you know, you know, so what, why are you here? Like, what are you hoping to get out today? Now, keep in mind the half the people in that room were told to be in that room. Because Because that leaders were like, you need to get some help on how to like, stop getting like, you know, firing people quitting because of leadership, whatever. And all of them were there because they were interested, right. First person stands up Gen Z. Well, they're probably like old generation Gen Z early, baby boomer. And he goes, Yeah, why? Why do we need to talk about millennials and we talked about millennials enough already in life. We really need to spend some time talking about millennials now. And then I had enough attention next month. Next man stands up Yeah, I never had a free sandwich.

And so starts popping right. But I love that. I love that because that means I know what I'm playing and I'm working with. Yeah. As opposed to try and destroy everyone come up like Yeah, and I stop, kind of play with it I go, right. I mean, seriously, should we have another blog about 30 avocado. But actually what happens is that you need that space for people to feel that they can vent and speak. And my biggest transformation that I can see is at the end of that talk, that they see each other in a completely different light. Yeah, they actually go Oh, wow. You know, because the cliche I'm super over, like generalising this but what tends to happen is that, you know, older Gen Z and baby boomers tend to go as Millennials are entitled lazy, unfocused and difficult to manage. That tends to be like the narrative, right? they they they they want to have like, my mom will send me these videos she find them hilarious, and I can see my funny of like cliched video, meals like I'm not going to show up at 10 today because I feel like I'm having a mental health day so we're just gonna go and it's like all these jokes about manuals so that's how they see the procedures like you know you don't want to work hard You don't know ethic you want to be promoted. After three months, you want to get an you know, salary increase, you want, beanbags, all this stuff. Meanwhile, in generalisation again, a millennials look at, you know, Gen Z and baby boomers as dinosaurs, and just completely archaic methods of working like, you know, look at you know, you you're a productivity expert, but all the different tools and apps and software's and hacks and blah, blah, that exists around the world to make a life easier. Why, why do we need to work hard, like you're crazy. And why are we doing that? That makes no sense like constantly questioning, so you get these two worlds clashing? So what my talk is my introductory talk that I gave is literally I go, let me explain to you the intergenerational dynamics. I go build equity about the different generations and then I go really deep in millennials, so that really managers all the managers and leaders can ask understand the complexity of what millennials would broaden, without to say Millennials are perfect, and they should get away with murder, but rather like, I don't think you quite understand what's happened to our generation. And I go through that, and then look at the stats, and like literally show them the difference between, you know, purchasing power amongst millennials, the, the tendencies and trends around we're going into the, you know, marrying later, we're getting on the property market much later, and how this is all affecting Barbara. And then I talk about the negative sides of the millennial, what's the cost of this generation that is that actually the heart and at the end, it's about building bridges. So it's kind of like what can you learn actually, from Gen Xers and baby boomers, what can you learn from millennials and Gen Z, reverse mentoring programmes, like, and you build that bridge that at the end, they literally go, Oh, I had no idea. And now I have a much better understanding of where you're at. Because if we can, if we can understand each other better, we can relate to each other better. Yeah. And I think that's always the problem. I always find that when I go into these situations where it's very kind of, and I usually get brought in because we have got a problem. managing these millennials as you go from the quote, conflictual approach from the get go. And when you understand that this again, people don't like this, but my one of my key messages I land is to say you've got a choice. Either you face the reality, and you adapt, and you evolve and you progress and you become a magnet for millennials. Or you're in conflict with reality, and you're going to struggle to be relevant in the next decade, maybe even the next five years. Yeah. And that's just the choice you have. And it comes down to things like this idea of having a long life career for 2030 years, being loyal to a company is over. That's done. So it's a bit like if you're going to generation love dating, and having real experiences going out as opposed to getting married and settled and having kids right away. That's what it is. Right? And so you've got to get them to kind of stop in conflict reality. Nice.