Graham Allcott 0:05
Hello and Welcome to Beyond Busy The show where we talk productivity, work life balance and defining happiness and success. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And in this episode, I'm talking to Charlie Davies. So before we get into the show, just a really quick reminder, there are some tickets available for my masterclass event in London. It is on Thursday, the 27th of February, and we're going to be at the business design Centre in his LinkedIn. It's a full day with me looking at all the core content from my book, How to be a productivity ninja and so if you want to start the new year, with more clarity and more control and really getting a good system in place, a good second brain to remember all the stuff that you need to be working on. And just some really good productivity habits then we're only just in the new year. It's February. 27th of the businesses I intend to in is in turn, you can get tickets at Eventbrite. So if you just go into the Eventbrite app, and just put in Graham Allcott productivity masterclass, you will find the event in there, a few more tickets left. So we'd love to see you for a full day, really revamping your productivity systems and bringing you up to productivity Ninja blackbelt standard. So if you're up for that, go to Eventbrite and find out more. And we'll put the link to that as well in the show notes, which is at get beyond busy.com. So let's get into this episode. Charlie does some really interesting work around helping people to get clarity around what they're working on to really test and scrutinise your ideas and really help you to get that level of focus and drive in what you're doing. I just think his works really fascinating. Love the way he thinks, and we're doing this one down the line, so Let's get straight into it. Here's my conversation with Charlie Davies. I am here with Charlie How you doing?
Charles Davies 2:10
Hello Graham. I'm good. Yeah. How's your day been? It's been okay. started quite early with a call to interesting person I might start working with in Vietnam or which which feels like someone who just found me online randomly and and it feels like a sort of delightful opportunity out of nowhere lovely. That's cool. And then and then I did just lock myself out of my studio run around in circles trying to remember where spare keys were and you know, you get that sudden like oh hang on so right so the keys inside and that's the key to my house which is where the spare key is which you realise you haven't scenario planned properly for these.
Graham Allcott 2:55
These things. I think this is one of the the sort of pretences of the working world is so you're on the phone call or the email to someone in Vietnam. And it's like, yes, I'm very clever, and I do all this stuff and it's great. And then three hours later, you're locking yourself out of your office. And isn't it funny how, how, as humans, we sort of have all these different sort of versions of ourselves. But no one ever really reveals the, the kind of calamity moments like locking your keys, apart from just now,
So you have a really interesting area of work, which so you're talking about that potential client in Vietnam, is that someone who is interested in your very clear idea stuff?
Charles Davies 3:46
Yes. There's a growing number of people actually who want to learn what I do and teach it to other people or bring it into their work with me. organisation so it's I guess in the past, I had a lot of people who would want to be clear about something. And so they come in itself starting new project, can you help me get clear on what it is, or I don't know what my life's path is, or I'm switching careers or something like that. And more and more now, it seems to be people who want it as a kind of, you know, coaching consulting tool.
Graham Allcott 4:28
Cool. So you're teaching people your process around having very clear ideas.
Unknown Speaker 4:33
Yeah. So how to be clear about what you're doing, like what it is, and then how to do it, and check that you're taking the right steps. And then what to do if you get stuck.
Graham Allcott 4:46
Cool. I've done your course. So yeah, you know, that's, that's maybe the first thing to say is that I found it really fascinating. And I suppose the the starting question Just as we sort of delve into this as a, as a sort of theme and a topic is, why do you think people are not clear,
Unknown Speaker 5:08
I don't think we were ever taught that it was useful to be clear, or taught how to do it. find that a lot of people who I work with have been conventionally successful. And they've gone to school, gone to university or whatever, started their business, made lots of money, got to the top of their game, won a bunch of awards or something, and then realised that they've never stopped to check if that's actually what they wanted. And I think it starts with you know, switching from math to English at school because the bell rings and then switching from English to sports because another bell rings or something. And that doesn't really teach you how to listen inside for you need. No doesn't teach you to start from there. And I think it's about what we think work is. You know that if you start from the idea that work is something that you just have to do. Or it's a job then there's not necessarily obvious that that should be anything to do with who you are or what you want. Yeah, I feel like it's everything about what's expected or what pleases a customer or something like that. And, and I think the root of my work is really starting from the idea that work is what you do to get what you need. You know, it's what you do to give what you need and be who you need to be starts from, from needs and knowing what they are.
Graham Allcott 6:59
So as you start in To get interested in this kind of work, yeah. How? How did you because it feels to me like there's, there's a whole bunch of people who are entrepreneurs or have a level of autonomy over what they do. And then the other, the other extreme, there's a whole bunch of people who they show up to work and it is just about them showing up to get money, or it is something that they have to do and they don't particularly love it. And there's probably a whole murky bunch of people in the middle who are a little bit of both. So, did you have a sort of strong desire to help the people who already had that sense of sort of purpose or autonomy or, you know, do you see this as a kind of wider thing where you want to really kind of help everybody else to see that work can be so much more than just showing up for the paycheck.
Unknown Speaker 7:56
I mean, to be honest, it just started from not knowing how to To go to an office every day, like I did. But I think I think work kind of got broken for me because I went to one of my first jobs was the as the features editor at the face magazine. And I my job though is basically to kind of find an interview and write about people who are amazingly creative, you know, and who were, you know, artists or video makers or people in fashion or you know, all kinds. Yeah. And then you just see like, oh, okay, they're doing their thing. You know, that. And they're working this way where they're, they're getting a lot done, or they're doing very powerful things, not by doing what they're told, but by doing what they can feel is right and standing for something and And it's very hard to go from that to like, showing up in the morning and just being told you should do this and this. And so I think I just needed to find a way to go to work every day where that part of me was taken into account.
Graham Allcott 9:21
Yeah, that feels like a really transformative experience. So were there particular people that you met or particular people that you were researching and writing about that really had a huge impact in that in that way?
Charles Davies 9:34
Yeah. I think specifically there, there was two. Two experiences one was quite a long time ago. Now. I think it's about 15 years ago, but I went to Moscow and spent a week with Ivanka Pavlov, who was the Svengali manager of tattoo the Pretend lesbian schoolgirl ban lesbians. Yeah. That was a long time ago. Like I said, I don't remember.
Graham Allcott 10:10
But there was all the things she said running through my head.
Charles Davies 10:13
That's the one. Yeah. And basically, it was this guy who his background was working as a child psychologist, a spin doctor, an ad man. And he'd studied mass psychology. And he just decided he would apply all of that to pop music. Wow. And kind of had the system and was like, Oh, I think I can make a band famous around the world just by doing these things and like thinking of what people are afraid of, and how can I make them fall in love with it? And and so it's just this sort of immersion in a totally insane way of working? Yeah. Where he'd like hired the top floor for hotels. In Moscow, and I'd set up a reality show there, where he was recording their next album. and ended up being that the reality show was about. He, he basically wouldn't get the the two girls the the pop band, he wouldn't tell them they have to show up. So like if they didn't want to show up for the reality show, he was like, well, that's just reality. And you know, the reality is they aren't they aren't here. And so, but he refused to do any of his meetings with a TV company anywhere than anywhere other than in the studio being filmed.
Graham Allcott 11:41
Wow. And so he sort of turned himself into the Truman Show, essentially, yeah. Or turned the people the, the executives from the TV company. Yeah, The Truman Show. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 11:55
And so I think when you've worked with someone who works that way, you're like, I don't know how to Go back to like, you know, lunch breaks and yeah, meetings and things. And he was the other one. He said there was two. So the other one was one of the last things that happened at the face was I got an email from someone who went to a school called the chaos pilots in Denmark. And she's a kind of activist entrepreneurial business school thing. And they've gone to Sarajevo, to steal a concert hall from the mafia to give it back to the youth of the city. And they said, Would you like to come and write a story about the magazine? And I said, I'd love to but the magazine just got got shut down. And they wrote back and said, That's okay. We'll buy your plane ticket just come out. And and I didn't have anything better to do so it just didn't make sense at all right? And went and basically met these five women who were sharing a flap that they found in Sarajevo and trying to put on this huge festival to try and do something positive for Sarajevo in, you know, it's quite difficult time. Yeah. And then and just being immersed in how they work together like in their flat they have this huge long roll of paper on one one wall with a big arrow on it. And at the far end of the arrow was like, you know, the event or whatever. And they're having meetings every morning and every evening to talk about what they've done all day. And they had sort of stacks of books about advertising and, and it just felt like a very well rounded like mode of operating or something that they was checking in on how they're all feeling that they're eating dinner together. There. Being very strategic about the kind of marketing and things but also very personal about what kind of work they wanted to do. And and so it was like finding a another, just another culture, you know another way of working. Yeah, we're like, okay, so work can be about what you want. And if you find a way of showing up, when you're free, then you can do amazing
Graham Allcott 14:26
things. And so can we just talk a little bit about the process itself? So you've got this blog post, which we'll put a link to in the show notes that says, How to have very clear ideas and introduction.
Charles Davies 14:39
Yes.
Graham Allcott 14:41
And I love that post. And it's very, like it's beautifully written, it kind of reads like a poem, which maybe we'll get on to poetry later as well. But can you just kind of talk us through what that blog post is about and just within that the process that you run people Through. And I've been through the grinder a few times of this on a couple of projects with you as well. But can you just describe what that process looks like?
Unknown Speaker 15:07
Yeah. So, the, the basic idea is that when you start a piece of work, it's to meet a need, you know, so you start a business because you want to earn lots of money or to prove yourself or to meet a social need, or to experiment with something or whatever it is. And, and, quite often, we just start without checking that we know what we need, that checking that we're actually sure what we want to happen. And, and then what that means is that we end up having to change course, you know, six months later or two years later or something like that. And, and actually, it started off with the face and being
Graham Allcott 15:57
an editor for
Unknown Speaker 15:59
people writing Stories editing stories working at what made a good story. Hmm. And I realised that there was a kind of set of common qualities, to what made a good story, that it would be something where people had their heart in it, you know, we weren't just going through the motions, it's something that was really alive in them. And it'd be something that I wanted to grow was kind of happening naturally. And it'd be something that made sense.
Graham Allcott 16:28
Maybe like, idealistic, but also practical.
Charles Davies 16:32
And, and I landed on this formula, really, this sort of set of ways of looking at a new project, the mean that you can see whether it's ticking those boxes or not. And and it's, it's kind of that you can you can start off looking at something just really emotionally. But then, you know, a few weeks later, you look at it really practically. And you realise, oh, it doesn't, it doesn't actually work. Or you can devote yourself something that's really practical. And then realise that's not actually what I want. Yeah.
And so for the clear ideas process, and what I do is I basically sit someone down, ask them what they want to get clear on. And then ask them to imagine that they're that they're already there. You know, that's actually happening. And they can kind of inhabit the idea experience, what it might be like if it's perfect. And then just ask them these really simple questions. And like, when you're there, what do you need? What do you want? What do you demand? What do you love? What do you wish for? What do you dream of? What do you live for?
And they're all basically the same question. But they nudge us towards these different angles to kind of looking at the idea in a practical way or a bit more emotional, a bit more idealistic or something. And and it's like taking a walk. Walk around the thing. So rather than just getting one angle on it, you get a kind of a feeling for the hole.
Unknown Speaker 18:09
I mean, that's the hook, the hook kind of thing. That's the beginning. Yeah, it's an easy way to explore an idea that you have. But really, it's about, like, clarity, being a practice clarity being just an inherent part of how you go about doing anything. So the clear ideas process gives you a way to explore it, but then also, to test it. Yeah. And so you can, like, you write a definition of this is the work I'm going to be doing. But then you test it to see whether it is actually what you want, is actually what you need to do. And then, and then you take that as your starting point, your kind of reference point is this clear idea. And there's all kinds of things you can do with that.
Graham Allcott 18:54
And I found it really interesting to in your course, that that testing part of it where You've written down a sentence saying, I'm gonna be doing this for this reason, and it's, you know, going to help me with this. And it's gonna help other people with this or whatever. And you write that down as it come in long form sentence. But then running through those questions of Is this what you want? Is this what you need? And you go through? And you getting people to, to kind of witness whether I was able to say yes to each of those questions. I just found a really interesting process because it's like, you can't you just can't really lie. Can you like it's, you know, if someone's asking you, is this what you really want? Is this what you really need and asking you these questions. You can say yes, but if you don't believe it, in your heart of hearts, it's really obvious to everybody else on the call, and you can kind of kind of visibly see the I don't think, you know, people would say on the cards, I think you're sure, actually Yeah,
yeah. And so that was a really powerful part of the process for me, I think. I know it's amazing, isn't it?
Unknown Speaker 19:57
It's just one of those things that I can just find Upon, yeah, by by doing this sort of over and over again, but is exactly that is that you, you can't lie. You can or you can but it's the horrifying thing is like, when you're going through that bit of the process, you realise like, oh, everyone can actually tell if you're lying. Yeah. Always, like, often they're too polite to say it. But they can actually tell. Yeah. And and what I think is happening in that moment is that like when you have you've written your your sentence, you know, I am starting a business that is doing this and this or such and such. And either that line that you've written, holds, everything holds all the information, in which case you can relax. Or it doesn't hold all the information, in which case you're holding on to a bit of it's still it's like it hasn't been captured by the line. So there's a bit of you that's like, Yeah, he had the idea. Sounds good. But I also need some time off. And it doesn't say that. And I think you actually hold on to that sort of physical tension.
Charles Davies 21:08
And so when someone says to you, you know, is this what you this is what you need, you know, does this line sum up everything that you need to be doing? If you try to say, Yes, it does. But there is that little bit of tension in you that still try and hold on to the other bit. You can hear it, you can hear the tension in someone's voice.
Graham Allcott 21:29
Yeah.
And you mentioned before about needs, and we do the work that we do to fill in need. Yeah. Do you think it's helpful to focus in on just one need? And I suppose the reason I'm asking that question is because if you imagine someone who's about to quit a day job and start a business, and they also care about work life balance, and this really comes to kind of a heart of beyond busy really, you know, I kind of feel like there's so many tensions between productivity and work life balance and how people define Success in that way. But when you're in that sort of situation, and you write down a sentence that might say something like, I want to run this business, I want to make X amount of money. And also I'm going to have every weekend off. And I'm going to probably work three days a week and still play tennis on a Thursday. And, you know, like, there's an inherent tension within that, even though that's the dream. And that's what you want the dream to look like. You kind of know that that's harder to achieve than working quite a bit harder and sort of losing a few weekends to get there. Do you know what I mean? I'm just kind of wondering if you think it's important to focus in on what's the primary need or objective or whether you can kind of balance those things or have a habit have a tension inherent within those things.
Charles Davies 22:44
So I think I think the most useful thing to say is that it's not this process of getting clear. It's not about inventing anything. So it's not like trying to craft I want my purpose for my business to be is such and such. I think it shouldn't be this, and this is just trying to uncover what you're committed to. Yeah, you know, uncover what's actually already in there that you've committed to. And so if you've committed to having all the weekends off and working three days a week and earning millions of pounds, then being truthful about that is what helps. And, and if you try to pretend that That isn't what your you've committed to, because you think it's a better idea to, to say, Oh, well, you know, I'm going to be working all the time, because that's what I should do and things like that. Then it's the tension between what's true in what you've actually committed to and what you think you should be doing. That actually makes the work hard.
Graham Allcott 23:46
But if you want to be committed to something that is perhaps less realistic. How does that work? I'm
Unknown Speaker 23:59
not sure So I really have much of an opinion about the content for people are getting clear on. So like, I'd never say, Oh, well it sounds like you know, you're committing to lots of things. And actually you need to be really realistic that you need to sacrifice some things. Because I honestly think, like people, people work in all kinds of ways. You know, people do all kinds of different things. And some people get very successful and play tennis on the weekends, you know, without giving up. And I, one of the things I say is that when the idea is very clear, the work becomes effortless,
Unknown Speaker 24:44
And I totally believe that to be true, like I see it again and again. The I think that the sort of secret weapon underneath, you know, the, the tool, the process of having very clear ideas and all the other bits and pieces that are there are great, but I Actually, it's about getting to that, that sort of secret weapon underneath, which is just being true. You know, being that, like, if you if you want to work very hard three days a week and do nothing on the others and somehow make that work, then then being true to that is actually what brings the success, I think.
Graham Allcott 25:27
But if you ended up with sort of as as you're kind of writing this out, you get this sense that there is a tension between being able to do both. Yeah. Do you encourage people to focus in on one of those needs? Did you see what I mean? Like it's not your judgement to make but if someone else has sat there thinking, I'm not quite 100% sure that this is going to be viable or that I can balance all of these different things. So what happens then It's, in a way I think it's never happened. Like, because you've already aren't asked, Is this what you need? You know, is this what you want? And so if people have answered truthfully, then the question of like, oh, but how do I balance all of this stuff will have come up already. Okay? Because what you're saying is, you know, how do I do all of these things when I don't want to be overwhelmed? Or how do I want? How do I do these things? When I don't want it to take 15 years before I get successful or something? Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, I think I mean, I yeah, it's funny. I don't quite recognise it or something. But then I think what can be helpful when there are when it feels like there are lots of things is its look at why you're doing anything in the first place. So it might feel like you have a whole list of 25 things that you definitely need, you know, like, I need to go to work at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Monday, and I need time out for 10 days, but I also need to make a million pounds and all the rest of it. It's almost like you've got a recipe for something. And, and if you just ask, okay, why do you want all of those things? Then you find out what the recipe is meant to add up to. Like, this is what I want my my work life to look like, this is what I want my life as a whole to look like, you know, this and this and this and this and this. That's nice. And, and it's like, if you go up a level to there, then you can then look at that list of things you have again. Yeah. And that will tell you already. So it's like, I don't have to tell you, I don't have to have an opinion on it. It's not I'm not a coach in that way, saying like, Well, I think you should be more realistic about these goals or something. But it's if you're looking like you know, I want to start a business that does this, but I also need this and I also knew that dah dah dah dah. And then you say, Well, why you know what you're trying to achieve by all of that. And, and it might be that, you know, the why the idea there is to be kind of relaxed in how I do work that is creative and fulfilling leave space for my life. And then if you start from there, you can then use that as a way to edit all the pieces. And so you could like, look at what you need out of these to do that. And you might realise, well, I don't need to play tennis. Yeah, you know, or I can play tennis once a month. It's fine. It's not actually that important. I was just attached to it. Or equally, you might find something that's missing. And be like, Oh, God, I mean, in order to light it's creating a Baba. I also need to, I need to go to more art can art galleries, and I forgot to put down. Yeah, yeah.
And it feels like within this work, there's a huge emphasis on the stories that people tell themselves. Yeah, I'm interested. If you have any The I guess, you know, thoughts or learnings about the most common stories or the things that you find, are holding people back in the highest frequency, if that makes sense?
Charles Davies 29:16
Well, I think a really interesting one, right? Is that in the questions, so the third question I asked, I was asked in the same order is, is what to demand? And I, you know, it can feel like particularly English thing, but it seems to be seems to be at least European wide that people feel uncomfortable about demanding things. And I think that's really common. Yeah. And I think that might come from the whole, you're meant to, you know, go to this class because bell rings and go to that class because the bell rings and you know, you do what's demanded of you, rather than walking around demanding that That's not polite is it? And but then the really interesting thing is, if you say to someone, you know, is this what you demand? Then they'll say no. And they might have said two minutes before I don't even know what this means this question wasn't mean to demand things. I'm not sure even demand anything. If you go, okay, you know, if you imagine you're here and you're doing this work, what do you demand? They always have an answer. Yeah. Because we do. But we don't like maybe don't think about it. That way. We don't like to think of ourselves as demanding. And and I think that just comes down to this thing that we all have our preferred ways of looking at things, our preferred ways of approaching stuff, like emotionally or intellectually or whatever it might be. Yeah, and and looking through that lens of being demanding is just a bit less common. And then if we do that it allows us to, to see what's actually in there. And I can't tell you how many times it's it's the most precious question to uncover uncovers the thing that you know, the other questions don't. Exactly because it's the one that people normally feel uncomfortable asking. So you find the neglected stuff there.
Graham Allcott 31:29
Yeah, it does feel jarring, doesn't it? It feels like it feels like oh, I'm really, you know, like, it's this jarring question, because it feels like I'm terribly sorry to be demanding stuff. even have this very strange attitude to all of that.
Unknown Speaker 31:44
Yeah. But then what occurred to me recently is, you know, someone's just said that this thing is what they need, right? Yeah, this is the thing that's needed. And this is the thing that they want, right? If it's what you need, and you want, why wouldn't you demand it? Yeah, you know? Yeah, that's the next step, you know?
Graham Allcott 32:06
So my dad always used to say as me if you don't ask you don't get. Yeah. And the thing that has always really interested me about your work as well as this thing that you do called identity yoga. Do you want to explain identity yoga because it feels like that that follows on from a lot of that conversation about narratives. It kind of feels like this. Yeah, just a huge amount of what I often talk about in workshops and keynotes, in terms of cumin, weirdness, you know, like, we're all we're all weird as humans and we all have all these assumptions and biases and identity yoga feels to me like a really good way to to figure some of that stuff out. So do you want just explain it a little bit?
Unknown Speaker 32:53
Yeah, yeah. So for me, this builds on things I learned with My friend Peter carnac, who does work on people's relationship with money. And he looks at that through the lens of identity of basically what whatever story you have about money isn't a story about money. It's a story about yourself. Because everyone has a different story about money, you know, someone will think money is security, someone else will think it's power, someone else will think it's evil, or whatever it is. And every, everyone can't all be right. And so the story shows you more about the person telling you and then the thing they're talking about and, and why learn from him was like a deliberate way of firstly noticing what stories you're telling about yourself about who you are, and, and then how to play around with them. So like, in his work, it would be about If I don't like to think that I'm evil, or don't like to think that I'm powerful, or whatever it might be, then I'll project that identity out onto money. And like kind of make it do the dirty work. Like, oh, I'm not demanding money is demanding, or whatever it might be. I'm not corrupt, money's corrupt. And and so if you notice that you're you're kind of holding a bit of yourself at arm's length. Yeah, then re identifying with it deliberately can be helpful can relieve a lot of tension, because you're not lying, you know,
Graham Allcott 34:43
and it's money is money always. Are you always projecting onto money? The flip side of how you see yourself Is it was a kind of opposite thing or is it sometimes a you know, the other side of that magnet kind of, you know, you like your view of money as the same as your view of you
Charles Davies 35:00
I think it's I can either be something that you don't want to be, and I'm trying to push you away. Or it can be something that you want to be, but don't believe that you are. So like money is powerful could go either way, you know, money is special, or Yeah, whatever it might be. But anyway, so this opened the door for me to looking at not just what am I doing, but who am I being as I as I do it, or how do the stories I have about me affect the choices I make? And and in practice, what it means is, like ideas when they're just floating around like we're talking about, you know, starting a new business is an idea or playing tennis every Thursday is an idea whatever. Those ideas become commitments when you say I am Right without lying, you know, without any resistance, you say I am playing tennis this Thursday, you know becomes like a commitment. I am starting a business becomes a commitment. And, and the point of identity Yoga is that it's very easy to make and break those commitments. So you can actually play around with what stories you tell about yourself. And so what happens quite often is someone will have an idea. They'll they'll sort of go through the curators process and they'll say, like, I've got this beautiful new idea for business. I'm going to open coffee shops where you can pet reptiles, and a good idea. And this is pretty good. I saw there's a there's a cat cafe in Bristol now. Well, that's what I was thinking because there's cat cafes. I think there's also dog cafes in different places. So yeah, I think maybe next, right, so pet reptile petting cafe an so you get this really lovely idea. And then I'll ask, like, Is there anything that stands in the way? And something will come up? Right? Like, ah,
Unknown Speaker 37:12
I feel embarrassed, you know? So like, you know, because no one's done a pet reptile cafe before and it sounds a bit silly. So even though it's what I need no one and I demand and all the rest of it, it feels like bit of an embarrassing idea. And so normally, that might just mean what do you do just so I won't do it because I don't want to be embarrassed. Or you kind of try and do it but you keep on sort of going a little bit astray or not going to the meetings it should or not, you know, sort of singing its praises to people because there's this bit of viewers worried about being embarrassed. And, and the identity Yoga is realising that there's a tension between two commitments. You know, there's the commitment to starting a reptile cafe. I know this is a super weird example. The commitment to it reptile cafe, but there's also this commitment to never being embarrassed by things.
Graham Allcott 38:04
Yeah, yeah.
Charles Davies 38:07
But it's actually just a matter of playing around with those commitments. So you can just try it, you can add into your idea, like, Oh, I'm gonna start a reptile cafe and be really embarrassed about it. And somehow just committing to that, so it's not happening and accidentally or against your will, but embracing it, it becomes fine. And you're like, Oh, yeah, well, I mean, I guess at least I'm awake. You know, I know what's happening when I'm embarrassed. I guess it means at least I'm doing something new. You know, cheese might be why you're starting a reptile cafe in the first place. And so, you can either take the thing that feels like it's difficult and just incorporate it in your idea or you can You can do the opposite and realise, okay, I'm, and I'm not being embarrassed. You know, you just commit to this other idea that I'm starting a reptile cafe and not being embarrassed. And you go like, Oh, yeah, actually, of course not. It's a reputable business, they already have cat ones. They already have dog ones, you know, make sense of a reptile one. Yeah. And so it's this weird thing where like, it almost sounds too basic to talk about it. But that, you know, you can say I am doing this or you can say I am not doing this. And noticing which one you're doing and noticing that you can choose which one to do. has a huge impact on how you how you show up and how you work and everything like that. Yeah. But I just to say like, it feels a bit random to kind of be just because we're saying things out loud, but I work a lot with cars. Like blank playing cards, so I have a blank blank card that says I am on it and one of the first not on it. And then other cards you write the bits of the idea on and you can basically move them around. She's I'm doing this and this by not doing this, or I'm doing this and this and doing that. And then and then something that can feel quite heady or theoretical or something. Just becomes like a fun stupid card game on the table in front of you.
Graham Allcott 40:26
I remember doing an identity yoga exercise, I can't even remember what the the content of it was, what what the thing was that I was struggling with. But the way you the way you worked with me on that was you said it was something like, you know, I just can't remember the thing, but it's something like I'm doing a book. Oh, yeah. And I want it to be successful or whatever. And then you kind of said to me, so that means your assumption is the book will lead you to Success. So why don't you flip that around and say I'm successful already? Yeah. And how does that feel? And so every every part of that sentence, you just, and we did this with the cards as well flip it around and just write down the opposite thing on the other side of the card. And, and all of that. And I think that for me was such a, such a powerful exercise because I think, like you say, we do, we do tend to just take those assumptions and take them to the stage where we say, Oh, well, because I'm going to be bearish. I'm not going to do this reptile cafe or whatever. But just being able to say, Oh, just think, you know, things like it. Like, I need more money so that I feel secure. Yeah. And then flipping around and saying, I am secure now. Yeah, you know, like some of those some of those opposites are things that we just pick, I guess, because of a bias is just don't think about right.
Charles Davies 41:55
Yeah. Um, I, one of the things that I've learned is that you can try on ideas. Right? The light, you're saying you know it, you can say I need to earn lots of money so I can be secure. And because you've sorted I need to the money thing first and then the security and can come come after. It's like you've told yourself, it would be impossible for me to say I'm secure now. Yeah. And actually, it's possible. And you can try on any, any idea at any moment, and you just see if it helps. You know, so it's like, what you're really saying is okay, for this project, if you're walking around with the story in your head, I'm not secure. Is that story helping you do what you need to do? You know, the answer might well be No, actually, it's stopping me from getting out the house. It stopped me from going to meetings, dah, dah, dah, dah. Yeah. And so you just go right. Well, if you try on the other story, I am secure. Does that help? I feel like oh, you Yeah, that really helps, you know, because in lots of ways I am secure, I've got this and I've got that and all the rest of it. And so it's this weird shift of instead of feeling like the job of these stories is to kind of contain you or be a way of sort of having this or true representation of what the world is. You just have to live inside.
Instead, it's like what stories are helpful. And so you can choose which stories to tell, based on which ones are most helpful.
Graham Allcott 43:36
I had a thing a few years ago, which was a story I was telling myself where I literally wrote this down, I think, as a new year's resolution or something, but my thing was, I need to grow the business or a certain level of money so that I could rock up and do the work that I loved, but wearing my brown corduroy trousers I had this kind of weird, so I was telling myself a story that was, no one's gonna respect your opinion until you're at a certain level of success. And at that point, you can be a total Maverick. And, you know, not have to wear a suit and just be yourself and not have to sort of fit into everybody else's boxes of what to wear or what to say what to do. Yeah. And I probably needed identity yoga a few years ago when I was having this thought and writing it down. But what ended up happening is just one day, I just decided to wear brown corduroy trousers to the gig. And so I just went and did a speaking kick and wore the trousers and sure enough, no one notice. In my head, it was like this huge, transformative moment, and everybody else was just the same as the speaking gig that Graham did last week. Very good suit, really. So it's funny those things, isn't it? Where I think Sometimes, I was just so unconscious that that was a bias or a narrative. I, you know, I literally thought about it as fact. Yeah. But there's so many things that we have like that, that actually when you really pick away at them and challenge them, it's it's pretty remarkable stuff.
Charles Davies 45:16
Yeah. And I think the risk is that you can associate a whole bunch of stuff with brown corduroy wearing grey. And then tell yourself that you can't be those things. Yeah. And you know, so like, you can't be a maverick until you've got your core toys on. Yeah. But then you've said that your route to getting to the point where you can weigh a corduroys is by being wildly successful. Right? And what if to be wildly successful? You need to be a maverick. Yes, thanks. And then you're screwed.
Graham Allcott 45:52
And the circle will never be fully formed.
Charles Davies 45:54
Yeah. And also it's it's insane.
Graham Allcott 46:03
It's funny because I look back. I know it's insane now, but what's interesting about it is, because that felt surreal. It makes me wonder whether everything else I think is actually insane.
Charles Davies 46:12
Yeah. I know. I think one of the other big things, you know, you're asking about what other sort of cultural things are sort of why, you know, yeah, why the stories. And, you know, all of us are brought up and kind of saturated in a culture that says, you know, if you want to be confident, you need to buy these trainers.
Unknown Speaker 46:34
You know, if you want to be relaxed, you need to go on this holiday. You know, if you want to be stylish, you need this hat or whatever it is, that it's like, you know, it's a specific advertising technique, right. It's a way of telling stories, that takes something that is limitless and always available to you to some aspect of your character, and then deliberately associates it to face it with an object that you don't have, and then says you have to buy this object in order to get that thing. Right. But the thing was always there. You know, the trick is telling you, you don't have it and telling you that you need the object in order to get it. Yeah. Which is that's identity yoga. Right? It's just it's like that. It's a, you know, a kind of playing with stories, a practice of playing with stories about who you are, that's been limited to the rooms of advertising agencies. Because they're perfectly happy to say yeah, no, you don't really your confidence isn't actually genuinely in the trainer. You know, there's not sort of physical psychic link between you know, the the plastic in the running shoe that will change what your mind is. It's a story. Yeah. And, and so maybe maybe like identity oak is really about us. democratising the kind of tricks that you might use in advertising, of realising that you can tell whatever story you like, Brian, I think
Graham Allcott 48:10
there's something really interesting there about how essentially advertising is trying to solve, trying to bridge the gap between sort of capitalism and consumer capitalism, right. So if you don't own any shoes, then you need a pair of shoes. And you don't really need to worry about whether you feel confident in those shoes or cool in those shoes. You just need to know that your feet are dry. Yeah. Because currently you have no shoes, right? Whereas when you have two pairs of shoes, three pairs of shoes already, the only way to sell somebody somebody more shoes is through a sort of consumer capitalism model where you like you say you're kind of identifying, you know, some kind of need and convincing someone that they have a gap that needs filling. Yeah. And I don't know. It's just something interesting around that. If you strip that back and say If we ended up if we miraculously magically ended up back in a sort of simpler lifestyle where everybody just had one pair of shoes, and everybody had just the food that they grew, rather than the food that they chose, and so on and so forth, you just kind of follow that through. Do you think everybody would be massively happier by that? And I guess what does that? Yeah. What is your answer to that say just about our own witnesses and narratives and stuff like that? Is that really huge?
Charles Davies 49:38
Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, we can play Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, the way like, so you know, behind my work, you know, I talk about it as being something that's useful. And I talk about ideas and being clear, and all the things because that's how we talk about it. Normally You know, and it feels like a directly I need this for my work, can you help me with my idea kind of thing but but behind it is, is what I've learned through through like Buddhist practice, and through, you know, all the other practices and things. But it's, you know, like this clarity really is at the heart of, you know, these ancient wisdom traditions. Yeah. And so what we're talking about really, you know, your question of like, will we be happier if we managed to only have one pair of shoes? I think it's really, I would say the question as if you know, the, your state of mind, you know, your happiness or your your fear or whatever it is, if you know that that's within your control and not actually On the presence or absence of, you know, objects or people or whatever, then then we would you be happier? And I think in that case, the answer is yes, you know, but it's not that we have to get the point where we only have one pair of shoes to get there, because that's falling into the same trap. Yeah, the point is just this totally mundane, sane thing, which is saying, like, of course, having a pair of shoes in the room, isn't the dictator of whether you're happy not or not. That's not how your inner weather system works, right? It's inside you. It's all inside you. It's not actually about the physical presence of other things, you know, there's not a reliable way of being happy or unhappy. Yeah.
And so, so, you know, so there's a sort of very practical end of my work, which is about you know, finding ways to say things Simply or finding a way to tricky bits of work and then underneath that there is this is you know genuine passion for just uncovering these things that are true and helpful and often hard to get to, if you're trying to read through kind of slightly esoteric literature or things in a kind of you know, religious jargon or a business jargon or whatever it is. When it comes down to what like what I've understood through through those practices is that like, if you want to be happy, then being loving is what makes that happen. That like if you if you are loving, or if you think of any moment where you were loving, you were happy and and you can choose to be loving or or you can forget to be loving And when you choose to be loving, then you're happy. And when you forget, and you're not. And, and I think that's the only thing. That's the only thing that actually influences our happiness in the end.
Graham Allcott 53:15
That's cool. I honestly think I think most, if not all, certainly, almost all guests on this podcast have really shirked from offering a definition of happiness, and you just kind of offered me one without me really. It's just like, wow, okay, and also one that really makes sense to me and really resonates as well. So that's pretty cool. And the only way to obviously, the only way to follow that is to ask you about productivity, right? So just in the last few minutes, I kind of feel like your approach to things must mean you have some interesting takes on on how you manage your time and attention how you think about productivity, how you define stuff. So, do you have a kind of a kind of summary of your own approach to how you do those things how you make sure that you're productive?
Charles Davies 54:18
It's really hard. Like I think I was brought up with all the usual ways of like turn up in the morning and sit at your desk. But it doesn't always work and I I've definitely tried working hard. But it's not enough. Likeand I'm, I know that if I'm not clear on what I'm doing, it's pointless. It's a total waste of time doesn't help. And, and I know that when I'm clear It, it just happens pretty much by itself. Yeah. And so it's almost like, I've found one bit of it. Right, which is, if I can get to the bit where I'm clear, then you don't need to ask me about productivity, because it just happens. Yeah. And if you ask me about the steps for getting clear, I can tell you those as well. You know, ask the questions like that we want to get clear on bob about all the things but the thing that I'm struggling with, I'm trying to work out is kind Something about like, creating the conditions for clarity. And, and like, I know I can, I could just say, Oh, well, you know, I don't need to create conditions. I am clear, I'm just shortcut for that. And do the identity or you know, I don't need any shoe special shoe. used to be called your trousers to be productive. I can just start and in a way that's true. And probably in the end, I'll find out that is true. That's just it. I just need to like go and clear and then start working. But at the moment, yeah, I'm still just trying to work out how that works.
Graham Allcott 56:18
And what are you thinking about in terms of the conditions for clarity? What does that what does that look like?
Charles Davies 56:23
Well, a few to know Mr. Wallace.
Graham Allcott 56:28
And no, I don't think so.
Charles Davies 56:29
Okay, anyway. I thought we might have mutual people in Brighton anyway. And Wednesday with friends of mine in in France, ended up went to Christmas end up staying for nine months. And long story mixed out in the countryside. There's not very much to do. Quite often in the morning, I'd wake up and have the chance to just lie there. And no, like, Oh, I don't need to do anything. And so could take a really long time to kind of Start moving. And in these spaces that were really quiet an empty poem started showing up. Like, I know, it's like, oh, I can actually listen to what's going on inside me well enough that I can notice a feeling. And then I can notice what words would capture it. And then I can successfully write them down in order. So the feelings fully captured in a poem. And so it's like, I found a trick for which basically how I write all my poetry now is not by going to front and lying in bed all day. But by noticing again, quiet and still enough to be able to notice a feeling and and listen to it all the way through and find the words and and so I think, I don't think I don't I found my way there without that kind of quietness and emptiness and space that I had there. And what I've managed to do with the poetry at least is to kind of bring it back. So that even if I've got a busy day, and there's 100 things going on, I can like I literally wrote a poem at the bus stop on my phone last week, Oh, wow. Okay, because it's like if you know, if you've got the habit, you know how to switch into that kind of clear mode, then you can just do it, you don't need any external conditions.
Graham Allcott 58:35
So I was thinking about the conditions being physical, like you need to turn off Wi Fi or you need to be in a certain place or whatever. So what are the what are the, I guess, this kind of psychological conditions that that you took back? Because like that, that's kind of what you're saying, right? is that if I understand that, right, is that you can be anywhere you can be a busy bus stop in the middle of a city. Yeah. And it feel like you have, you know, real peace and space?
Charles Davies 59:05
Yeah. I don't I don't know. I haven't really thought about it, but I think it's something I think starts with committing. Like, the reason I'll write a poem of bust up is because one, the sort of the hint of one shows up. And like, oh, there's something there that's worth listening to. Yeah. And if I commit to it, so I'm like, Okay, I'm going to I'm going to do this. Then it's that whole Hyde commitment that makes it possible. And it almost creates a kind of a poetry studio wherever I am. Like, not nothing else is. You know, it's like having a clear idea of like, I am writing a poem by standing at a bus stop and not getting distracted and not minding that I'm getting rained on. And, and in that moment, my attention is sort of single focused on it. And, and I think it's, I don't think it's a trick, I don't think it's a, like a productivity tool or something that makes a difference. I think it's just that it's something I really, really, really need. Yeah, you know, when I find a little something that's to be written about. It's like, they're so valuable, you know, the things that that come out when you're in that kind of quiet clarity. And, I know because of that, because I've written lots of them. So I know if it's, if it's on its way that is kind of more important than anything else. And so And so it's a it's not prioritisation in the kind of writing things on a list and writing 123 on them it's prioritisation as in just when something's more important you, you do it. Yeah. When it's so clearly the thing that you need.
Graham Allcott 1:01:16
And we're just we're just about at the our point. So I just want to come back to that. The bit slightly before that where you were talking about productivity being hard. And it being you know, messy sometimes, and I'm just really interested in that whole thing of I know how to get clear round ideas because I totally I'm totally with you on I think once you have clarity, and whether that's clarity on the big idea or clarity on the next physical step, you've got to take an ideally both but when you have that clarity, it does become your work becomes easier, right? Like you get that sense of momentum and Excitement because you feel like you're on the right path. Yeah. But when you have, so you have all the tools available to help you to do that. And then there are things where you are struggling with them. Yeah. Have you thought about what other tools you need? Or have you thought about? What else is going on there? Because, you know, theoretically like people would look at that in theory or on paper and say, you have everything you need.
Charles Davies 1:02:25
Yeah. I think the thing I don't have is enough of a community around clarity. Okay, like, back in the Buddhist world of things, they talk about Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, you come across this, where it's like a Buddha is is the person who represents love. And then Dom where is the teachings? Yeah, about it. And then the Sangha is a group of people who are Kind of learning or studying or teaching those, those teachings. And the idea is you need all three. Right? And so it says it's a bit like that, where, like, I can know what clarity what it means to be clear. And I can have all the principles of it. But sometimes it helps to have people to remind you. And, and it's not, it's not how I learned to go to work, you know, to sort of prioritise clarity and wait until the moment where you're clear and then act from there. And so, you know, my sort of natural work community, I guess, when I sort of arrived in, in the world of work was about, you know, productivity in the sense of like, you sit down and do as much as you can you go through a list until it's done. Yeah. And and I think through the work that I've done and the people that I've worked with, I have more and more of a community of people who Will, you know, ask me the questions. And he'll check that I'm clear before I do something. But I think just more of that and more of that locally as well actually, just it'll be nice in Bristol to just yeah, be working more with people where you have those reminders and you have that encouragement for the days where you don't have it in you to go through a process yourself or hold yourself through something.
Graham Allcott 1:04:30
Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. I kind of feel like we're at at the we're at an hour and five, so I should probably wrap it up. But that feels like a really nice ending, actually, because I feel like there's probably a lot of people listening to this who are solo, you know, solo fliers or, you know, in small teams and feeling isolated. And, you know, personally I work very consistently on my own but actually Yeah, like you've got me thinking there about how I sort of balanced that sort of need for my own sort of autonomous time versus actually maybe needing a bit more of that community myself as well. So thank you. I think that's a really, really nice note to end on. Before we finish it really good to just let everybody know how they can get hold of you how they can get your stuff, how they can read more. Just tell us what you have on the internet and in the real world that can help people.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:34
Yeah, so I have a website how to be clear.com. And you can see details about my work there. I do a lot of work with teams in organisations, getting them clear. Actually, one thing we haven't talked about is how teams work and how they can be clear. Yeah, and and so that's there. I go in and work with people as a kind of consultant or I work with people one to one, like I said at the beginning training people in this process so they can use it with themselves and with other people. And then also have Charles Davis comm where basically the only thing on there at the moment is my new book, which is called poems for meditation. And on Amazon, I have, I thought I was on the way to work, but I was on the way home, which is a new version of the dalai Ching I wrote a few years ago. And on medium, there's a publication called How To be clear. And there I've got everything that I've ever written about clarity.
Graham Allcott 1:06:41
Yeah, and I really encourage people to go and check out well, all of that stuff, but in particular, I think some of the stuff on medium is, is really great and really generous in the way that you share that stuff. And and you know, really think it feels like you feel think very deeply as you're writing stuff about what the reader needs, and sort of guiding readers through that process, so, so thank you for writing all of that and for sharing it with with us all. And yeah, really encourage people to go and check that stuff out. We'll put all the links to that in the show notes as well. Once evening looking like what are you up to later?
Unknown Speaker 1:07:19
Oh, I have I mean, a vocal improvisation group. And cool. Yeah, I'm talking about the big from the group, come around for dinner. And we're working out how to how to do that what we're doing with it next next year. Nice.
Graham Allcott 1:07:37
I'm also off to sing with the choir with no name, which is the homeless charity that I sing with as well. So we're both spending your evenings with some kind of attachment to singing and song which is great. Yeah. Charlie, thanks so much for being on beyond busy. Thank you. Bye bye.
Thanks again to Charlie for being on the show. Thanks also to mark Stedman, my producer on the show and podiums, our hosting platform. Thanks also to think productive, who are our sponsors for the show, and if you're interested in productivity workshops, training, all that kind of good stuff, go to think productive.com we can help you get in boxes to zero fix your meetings help you to become a productivity Ninja, and lots, lots more. So we're all around the world, think productive.com. And we'll point you in the right place. That's it for another episode. And we're back in two weeks time, I'm really starting to rack up a few in the bank here in terms of episodes. So that's always really a good point to start to sort of take a step back and think about who else I really should be getting on beyond busy so here's my little invitation to you. We're near Christmas and we're going to be making some plans for 2020. I'd love to hear you think should be on be on busy. So if you've got names if you've got just general kind of ideas of people you'd you think I can get, maybe it's people you know, maybe it's people that you don't know, but you think would just be the kind of dream guests will be on busy. I would love to hear your thoughts. So you can just email me at Graham at think productive. co. uk. We'd love to get your thoughts on that I've had in the past some really good suggestions from people and some of them have sort of come with intros, which is really great for me because it makes my job easy. But even if you don't know the person, if there's someone that you really think I should just get on the show, then I'd love to hear your thoughts. And the other thing I'd love is if you've got a quick minute, if you could just leave review, if you could just make sure you're subscribed, do all that stuff that really helps to kind of keep this podcast going and spread the words. And if you can't do any of that, just tell someone that you know, that you enjoy beyond busy and get them subscribed, that would really help too. So let's let's do our bit to keep these coming. sessions going and I'm certainly really loving. Just the kind of conversations I'm able to have through beyond busy and that the people I'm able to meet and get access to and all that kind of thing is really great. So love to continue that and really extend that over the next year. So any thoughts bits of help that you can give me with that? That'd be great. So Graham at think productive dot code at UK if you want to drop me a line. We'll be back in two weeks time with another episode. So until then, take care. Bye for now.
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