Graham Allcott  00:04

You're listening to Beyond Busy, the show where we talk, productivity, work life balance, and how people define happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And my guest this week is Christina Kisley, She is the founder of Kisley and Wild. She's got 30 plus years experience as a coach, as a growth catalyst. And just someone who really understands both business and collaboration and people. And I think you can really enjoy this episode. We are basically using for this episode, the audio from a free webinar that we put on a little while ago. And it was for World Kindness Day. So the topic that we're going to be talking about this week is the productivity of kindness. And this is a topic very close to my heart for reasons which will become more obvious at the end of this episode, I have a very special announcement to make at the end of this episode. So stay tuned right till the end, grab yourself a cup of tea or coffee, or a glass of wine depending on what time of day or evening, you're listening to this. And let's get into the episode, obviously, the wine is if you listen to this in the morning.

So my guest is Christina Kisley and we're talking about the productivity of kindness. And one of the things that I want to plug as part of this is a thing that we're doing together. Over four weeks, in January, we're going to be running together a thing called the Kindness Happening, and it's a limited zoom group, maximum of 40, places for zero places. So pretty small, little group. And the idea is we're going to be talking about kindness at work, kindness and its effect on productivity, and all kinds of stuff around that. So radical honesty, how to give feedback with kindness, you know, really talking about some of the the ways to have difficult conversations at work in a way that's kind and authentic, and really holds that person at the center of the conversation. So this is something that Chris and I have been talking a lot about just behind the scenes for quite a while, and we would love you to join us at the Kindness Happening. So it's happening in January. And the reasons for the Kindness Happening, by the way is that it's not a workshop. And it's not a focus group. It's basically a gathering. So it's bringing people together. Chris and I are gonna lead it. We're gonna have a fair amount of content to, to give to the group at the beginning. But really, it's about who else is in the room. And we've got some great people in the room, including my colleagues from Think Productive, and Hayley Watts and Grace Marshall, both people who've done this podcast before actually Haley's one hasn't gone out yet, but we've recorded it. And we've also got Magnus Wood, who is the founder of The Kindness Consultancy going to be joining us on week one's call and lots of other stuff happening. So it's going to be a really interesting way to reflect on how you deal with people at work. It's hopefully going to give you lots of practical tips and tricks, as well as hopefully just helping to build some momentum and a bit of a movement around this idea of kindness at work and being more human at work. So if that at all sounds interesting, then go to Eventbrite put in The Kindness Happening. And you'll find details and we've tried to keep the ticket price pretty low. And there is a little discount code, which I will give you at the end of this episode as well, with my special announcements. So if you want to do that, go to eventbrite.com and put in The Kindness Happening. And we'll also put a link obviously in the show notes, which is a getbeyondbusy.com and you can just jump straight from there to the Kindness Happening page. So let's get into this episode. This was originally recorded as one of our Think Productive free webinars. We also have some other webinars around the book that I'm releasing in January with Collette Heneghan called How to Have the Energy, all about nutrition and eating well to have good energy for work. If you want to sign up for those, go to thinkproductive.co.uk click on the free webinars tab. Those are happening on the seventh of December the 11th and 16th of December. So free webinars all around nutrition, Colette's a voracious reader of the science of foods and qualified nutritionist. She will have all the answers if you bring your questions to this free webinar. And we'll see you there. So here is last month's free webinar, which is myself and Christina. And we call this the productivity of kindness. I think you're gonna really like it and so let's get into it. Welcome, everybody. It's lovely to have you with us. We got 66 people joining us It's shooting up. And this is a very special, free think productive webinar for World Kindness day. So Happy World Kindness day, we're going to be talking about the productivity of kindness, and why I'm on a bit of a mission to spread kindness, more generally. I'll introduce Christina in a moment. So Chris is a friend and colleague. We've been working together quite a lot over this year, and just has some some incredible perspectives on kindness, I just thought it'd be really good to double check this and introduce you all to Chris and Chris's work. So those of you who don't know me, so I'm Graham Allcott, I'm the founder of Think Productive. And we have for the last decade or so been on this mission to help organizations to make space for what matters. So that is all about helping people to get their inbox to zero, to really think about productivity in a very personal sense. And to help them fix their meetings, I'm probably best known for the book, How to be a Productivity Ninja. And I also have two books coming out next year. So how to fix meetings with my colleague, Katie Watts, and how to have the energy which is all about nutrition and eating well to have the best energy for work, and also have a podcast called Beyond Busy. So if you're not into subscribing to my podcast yet, then go to your podcast app and subscribe to Beyond Busy just had Anne Bowden, the CEO of Starling bank on the podcast yesterday, which was great fun.

And one of the reasons I'm talking about kindness a lot today, and more generally, not just for World Kindness day is that one of Think Productive values, we have five values in the company, and one of them is trust and kindness are rocket fuel. So I'll be talking a little bit later about what that means and how we use that in practice. But let's start just by introducing Chris.

Graham Allcott 00:04

This is beyond busy. The show where we talk productivity, work life balance, and how people define happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I'm talking to the wonderful Eleanor Tweddell. She talks very passionately about her experience of redundancy, and how that led her to become the founder of Another Door, helping other people in similar situations. And she's just written a book called ''Why Losing Your Job could be the Best Thing that Ever Happened to You'. So we talked about her emotional journey through being made redundant and having string of successful roles in communications in various big companies, and then finding yourself on the the end of redundancy. And we talk about all kinds of redundancy coping mechanisms and things that if you're going through that right now, which I know a lot of people are, or if you're worried that that might be you in the future, I think will really help. And regardless of what you're working on, and you know, where you sit with that, right now, I think any of those big crisis moments, you know, COVID proves this battle. So redundancy is another one of those, any of those big crisis moments really help us to establish what's most important in work and life. So I think regardless of your situation, there's loads to take in here and a lot of wisdom and really interesting perspectives to take from lls so that you're gonna really enjoy this episode. Before we get into it. I just want to say very quickly that we are continuing our campaign of free webinars. And if you have been joining us on some of the free webinars that we've been doing through think productive, then thank you, it's been really lovely to have such a big turnout for each of the webinars that we've been doing. And we've got some coming up in December, which I'd love to just very quickly tell you about. So I'm launching a book with Collette Hannigan, it's called 'How to Have the Energy: Nutrition to Boost your Brain. And basically, the idea is Colette really helped me. She was actually on the podcast talking about this a year or so ago. And she helped me to really transform my own diet to just have really strong levels of energy, I stopped having that kind of 4pm slump in the afternoon. So really powerful stuff. And we were booked together about it. And we are basically re releasing that book, under a new name. So it's now going to be called 'How to Have the Energy'. And we are doing some free webinars to tell you more, we're going to tell you about the book and just give you tips and tricks to help you eat to have the best possible energy for work. And also, there'll be time for q&a. So if you've got questions about nutrition, about diet, about what to eat, what kind of things should be in your diet or not, and debunking some of the kind of bad science that's out there around nutrition, then Colette can help. She just is just a voracious reader on this stuff, and will definitely really help you with answering those questions. So the dates are the seventh of December, the 11th of December and the 16th of December, they're all kind of early afternoon. UK time. So also pretty good times if you're listening in the US and and also obviously in Central Europe and elsewhere to say if you want to sign up, then if you just go to the think productive website: thinkproductive.co.uk.

Just click on the free webinars thing at the top, and then you'll see those dates there. And that will sign you up to those free webinars. And we'll also put the link in the show notes where you'll find details of all our previous episodes and everything that we talked about in this episode with Eleanor. That's all to getbeyondbusy.com. So go to getbeyondbusy.com. And you can get the link straight from there to go ahead and sign up for those free webinars. Hope to see you there.

So let's get into this episode's really interesting conversation all about redundancy. All about how when one door closes another door opens. So the founder of Another Door: here is my conversation with Eleanor Tweddell.

Hi Graham, I’m looking to expand my network and it would be great if we can connect!

Steve is spending his afternoon collecting Linkedin connections like it’s Myspace.

I have had a look at your profile with interest and I feel that there may be some potential synergies between our organisations

Claire didn’t get the memo about the word ‘synergies’.

Hi Graham came across your profile. Really impressive background. Connect here

James is cut-and-pasting his platitudes

It's good to connect with you on LinkedIn. I ran across your profile and it looks like there are some synergies between our two companies so I wanted to reach out to you and introduce myself and see if you are open to talking?

Grab a time below:https://app.hubspot.com/meetings/scottie-rest-of-n...

Scottie not only wants me to connect so he can sell me stuff I’ve never heard of, but he wants ME to do the admin to set up the first call as well.

Max is the author of a book called 'Improvise, Use the Secrets of Improv to Achieve Extraordinary Results at Work'. And we talk improvisation, of course, we also talk about his love affair with Groupon, including how it led him to change his name. And some of the other jobs that he has done, which include being a stand up and a radio presenter and an author and a playwright amongst other things as well. So really interesting episode with lots of practical stuff, which will help you to be able to say yes, and to more of the difficulties or challenges that you face in the working world. So let's get straight into this episode. I've got a few bits and bobs I want to tell you about at the end, but let's get straight into it.

Here's my conversation with Max Dickins.

Graham Allcott 00:04

Hello, and welcome to our first post-Trump edition of Beyond Busy. This is the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, happiness and success, all the big questions for work and life.

My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show and on this episode, I am talking to the amazing Anne Boden and is the founder and CEO of Starling bank, one of the very few people that can say that they started a bank from scratch. We just have a really wide ranging, interesting conversation more of which in a moment. So just before we do that, a couple of quick plugs which only apply if you're listening to this on the day, this episode comes out. I am a part of World Kindness Day on Friday, the 13th of November, speaking in a couple of different events, so Think Productive are doing a free webinar, which if you just go to thinkproductive.co.uk. Click on free webinars at the top and you'll see the box come down for our session, “The Productivity of Kindness”. That's going to be with myself and Christina Kisley. So, come and be part of that. It's going to be 45 minutes long, it's free. We'd love to see you there talking about my ideas around how kindness has been really central to the culture, I think productivity, everything that we do, and also why I think it's good for productivity. And then immediately following that, I'm speaking as part of an action packed and quite frankly, ridiculous lineup for Kindfest 2020. If you want to find out more about that, go to Teamkind.org.uk. The tickets are five quid, so really cheap, accessible price, but the speakers include General, Captain Tom Moore, who's the guy that raised all the money for the NHS, as well as Caroline Lucas, the green MP, as well as Frank Turner and Billy Bragg singing, Helen Tupper of Amazing If who's been on this podcast before Dr. Ryder, Mark Gill from the BBC Radio One Life Hacks podcast. Just a huge lineup of speakers and it's all about kindness. So Teamkind.org.uk, if you want to find out more about that. That is Friday, the 13th of November, it's two till 7pm. UK time. See you there. So let's get into this episode.

This is Anne Boden, the incredible founder and CEO of Starling Bank and author of a new book called Banking On It: How I Disrupt an Industry. And we just have a really wide ranging conversation, we talked about her working class roots, how she dealt with money, why she's still frugal, we talk about productivity. She's got some amazing just hacks and surprises around email, which is definitely worth checking out. And of course, I asked her about Monzo. And the kind of ongoing feud, if you like, between Starling and Monzo banks, the two kind of most disruptive banks really, in the UK.

Really interesting episode, I think you're gonna really enjoy it. Here's my conversation with Anne Boden.

Graham Allcott 0:04

You're listening to Beyond Busy show where we talk, productivity, work-life balance, defining happiness and success, all the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show and on this episode I'm talking to Olivier Sibony. He is the author of a new book called "You're about to make a terrible mistake", described by Daniel Kahneman, the author of Thinking Fast and Slow as "a masterful introduction to the state of the art in managing or decision making. And surprisingly, also a pleasure to read." It's honestly one of the best business books I've read in a long time and really talks about biases, how biases distort decision making, what you can do to fight them. And just a really interesting episode. So we're going to talk about some of the nine traps of decision making. We talk about Olivier's background, as a director of McKinsey many his time in management consultancy, and a whole bunch of other stuff. He picks me up on my own biases around Brexit. Lots of stuff that is really interesting here, and I think you're gonna really enjoy this episode. Just before we get into it just worth quickly mentioning my weekly email, it's called "Rev up for the week", it goes out every Sunday evening. And the idea is that in your inbox on a Sunday, will land some kind of positive or useful thing for the week ahead. So "Rev up for the week£. If you want in on that, just go to grahamallcott.com. Fill in the little form on there. And that'll set you going and I'll be sending you something the next Sunday after you listen to this. Unless you listen to this in like 2083 or something I don't quite know how that works. But for now doing every week. There you go.

So let's get into this episode. So really enjoyed this chat with Olivier. And thanks to Ruth Killick for helping set this up. And here's my conversation with Olivier Sibony. Good morning, Olivier 70. How are you?

Graham Allcott 0:04

You're listening to Beyond Busy, the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, defining happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And in this episode, I'm talking to the CEO of Flow, former employee of Jack Dorsey and Steve Jobs, Daniel Scrivener. So before we get into the show, I just want to talk to you quickly about my Six Weeks to Ninja programme, which starts in November, still some tickets left. So if you go to grahamallcott.com, you can find out details there. Or just go to Eventbrite and type in Six Weeks to Ninja, it's an evening course, Thursday evenings UK time, so good for those of you in the US as well listening to this. And the idea is that we will spend six weeks going through all the main parts of my book, How to be a Productivity Ninja. So essentially all the main habits that you need to develop really good productivity practices. So if that sounds of interest, then just go to grahamallcott.com, you can find out more at grahamallcott.com. You can also find out more if you just go to Eventbrite and type into the search past Six Weeks to Ninja, you should be able to find me pretty easily from there. It's deliberately quite a small group. And the idea is that we're going to really create community around this. My I guess my experience over the years is there's there's an awful lot of people who have read How to be a Productivity Ninja and probably read other, you know, similar books around self help, productivity, time management, all that kind of stuff. And then just not implemented things. There's also a lot of books on my shelf I'm looking at right now that I've read that I haven't necessarily, you know, then implemented all the stuff in it, there's always a gap between what you've read, and then what you're actually doing and taking action on. So the idea of this six week programme is that we'll create some community around this, create some accountability around this, and actually bridge that gap. So get you to implement all the stuff that's in there. And you know, ultimately really turn you into a Productivity Ninja, someone who's able to do a lot of great work, do your best work and actually lower your stress levels at the same time. So if that sounds of interest, it's called Six Weeks to Ninja. It's at grahamallcott.com, or it's on Eventbrite. And I would love to have you with me for that course. By the way, if you want a little code for that I put this code out on my mailing list. The code is revved up, because my mailing list is called REVUP for the week. So if you wont one in on that if you want a 10% discount, because I'm feeling nice today. Just go put in REVUP R-E-V U-P at checkout, you get 10% off. I'd love to have you there. So check that out. And also before we get into the episode, I have to give a shout out to my beloved Aston Villa. I don't quite know what's going on. We're all keeping our feet on the ground but for wins out for in the Premier League. We go top of the Premier League if we win our gaming hand. It's kind of crazy. having survived by the skin of our teeth last year, but I'm absolutely loving it. It's a lot of fun. To be fair, I'm having more people ask me to gloat about it than I'm actually gloating. And I think the reason behind that someone was asking me today, oh, you must be just ecstatic and everything. And I think this is like a good lesson for life. Which is don't think you're as good as your wins and don't think you're as bad as your losses. So it's a football thing, but it's also a life thing. What's that quote? is a Albert Camus quote, which is all that I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football. There you go. Let's talk about this week's guests. I think you're going to really love this one. This is Daniel Scrivner. One of I think my favourite conversations for a while and one that in true Beyond Busy style got into some pretty deep, deep places as well. We talked about Daniel's mental health. We talked about his work ethic. We talked about working for Steve Jobs and Jack Dorsey and ringing the bell on the New York Stock exchange's square floated where he was head of design. We talked about investing and what it takes to build good startups. We talked about being humble, just all over the map with just really rich conversation from someone who has been there and done it basically and just had incredible experiences as a CEO as a designer. And of course, we talk about the geekiness of his current company Flow, which is a an app which will help you with your to do list and help you with collaboration and is really trying to be the market leader in terms of doing both those things have personal productivity app and team collaboration app. So check out Flow. It's really good and less Let's get into this episode one of my favourites for a while I think you're gonna really enjoy it. Here's my conversation with Daniel Scrivner.

In the last week, I’ve been reminded of the power of clarity. My company, Think Productive, have been writing and honing a new strategy for the business (pivoting, zooming, you get the idea). It’s been an interesting process watching ideas that felt clear in my mind get slowly clearer in the minds of the rest of the team — and some ideas that felt strong but hazy in my mind get developed a polished by the team into something better than my original idea.

My business, Think Productive, has been going through quite a big strategic review over the last few weeks. As you probably know, our core business has always been face to face training in the offices of our clients, so this year has required quite a big rethink. We've obviously moved a lot of stuff onto Zoom, but after a frantic few months during lockdown, and then a few months with most of the team on furlough, we've set aside September and October as the months to remodel the business for an online world dealing with the heady cocktail of pandemic, Brexit, and recession. It promises to be a challenging period, so we're determined to be ready. Ninja Preparedness!

Graham Allcott 0:04

You're listening to beyond busy, the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, defining happiness and success. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode I'm talking to Ray Sagayam. Ray is a senior leader in an asset management company so works in the city, and just has some really fascinating perspectives on resilience on money on success on dealing with people just so many really carefully considered bits of wisdom in this episode, I think you're gonna love it. So just quickly before we get into it a couple of quick messages. If you're a Beyond Busy Keno, and you're listening to this in the first day or serve release, you still have time to sign up for our free webinar on "How to Beat Procrastination... Tomorrow." It's on Friday the 16th of October 2pm. You'll find details if you go to thinkproductive co.uk click on the free webinars tab. And then you'll be able to find access to our free webinar on procrastination. If you want to get involved with that, check it out. And also there's a few other free webinars that are underneath that are happening over the next couple of months. So go and check them out. thinkproductive.co.uk and you'll see the free webinars tab at the top. Also, just to let you know, there's still tickets available for my Six Weeks to Ninja live evening course we're starting in November. So go to grahamallcott.com and go to find details for that. It's basically all of the contents from my one day masterclass that I usually do in London, but spread out over six weeks, gonna set you some homework to get you busy and just create a really good group who can hold each other to account. So if you feel like you want a productivity boost ahead of the end of the year, or in this very dark winter that we're about to experience, then that's the place to be so Six Weeks to Ninja, go to grahamallcott.com. And you'll find out more there. So let's get into this episodes. This is Ray Sagayam. I met Ray when I did some work for his company just about a year ago, and we talked about that a little bit during the episodes. Ray is just such an articulate, thoughtful, interesting leader just with a lot to say. And he honestly is probably the first person who coming into the episode had like two pages of really just brilliant bullet points. And I was like, really at a loss of how can I get all this stuff in the episode. And so you'll notice at the end of the episode, I actually just say to him, so anything else because I just knew that like loads of stuff that he hadn't got around to say yet. So just someone who really thinks about how to manage people really thinks about how he does his work, and just has some really great wisdom to share. So I think you're gonna really enjoy this one. Here is my conversation with Ray Sagayam.

Graham Allcott 0:04

You're listening to Beyond Busy, the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, and defining happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I'm talking to Fred Pelard. Fred is the author of a book called How to be Strategic. He is a former rocket scientist and also strategic consultant to some of the biggest brands in the world: Nike, Barclays, Ernst and Young, The Guardian, Tate sky, IKEA; the list goes on. So before we get into that episode, just a quick reminder that the tickets are on sale for my six weeks to Ninja, evening class. It's UK time, Thursday evenings, six weeks during November and December. And if you want to find out more about that, just go to grahamallcott.com; I'll put a link in the shownotes as well as getbeyondbusy.com. But I'd love you to come along basically, as a small group, the idea is that we will be going through some of the key chapters and therefore habits of my book, How to be a Productivity Ninja, all the stuff that you need to get organised, ready for the new year. All the stuff that you need to kick your productivity into shape. So if you want to be part of that Six Weeks to Ninja, the first time I've done it is basically taking all the stuff from my one day masterclass and putting it in an evening format. I'm really excited about doing it in this new format. And it's called Six Weeks to Ninja. So it's on Eventbrite if you want to just search it on there, and also just at grahamallcott.com. I'd love you to check it out. Right, let's get into the episode recorded as they all are these days, I used to really love doing them face to face. And then now they are all down the line, sadly, but recorded just a couple of weeks ago. Here is my conversation with Fred Pelard.

Graham Allcott 0:04

This is beyond busy. The show where we talk productivity, work life balance, defining happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, it's too for the price of one because I've got Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas. They are the authors of a book called Humour, Seriously, more of which in a moment. 6So before that, just a quick reminder that the tickets for my 6 Weeks to Ninja evening programmes have just gone on sale. So if you go to Eventbrite, you can just type in 6 Weeks to Ninja or go to the GrahamAllcott.com website, and you can see it on there. Basically, it's six weeks evening course UK time, Thursday evenings, and I'm going to be kicking your productivity into shape. Basically, deliberately small group, if you're interested in that, check it out. Eventbrite or grahamallcott.com. We'd love to have you there. I think there's a couple of the early bird tickets are still available. And there's a few of the full price tickets left. So go and check that out. So let's get into this episode. This was a lot of fun to do, I think you're gonna really enjoy this one. So the book is called Humour, Seriously. Why humour is a superpower at work and in life. And yeah, just such an underrated trait to really help you build relationships, build trust. And of course, you know, when you have relationships and trust, a lot of productivity comes from that. So I think it's a really important skill for anyone in business. So just a quick note about our guests. So Jennifer is a behavioural psychologist. She's an author, and she is the General Atlantic Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. And Naomi is also a Stanford lecturer, but is also a professionally trained comedian. She does improv and stand up and as well as work as a strategy media consultant, as well. So these are two very funny women, we had a really just a really fun hour on zoom, just chatting about this book, and talking about some of the real benefits to humour and you know, levity in the way that we speak and the way that we act and the way that we build relationships. So there's just loads to take away from this, some really interesting little tips and tricks. So let's get straight into the episode.

Here is my conversation with Jennifer and Naomi.

Graham Allcott 0:04

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Busy. The show where we talk productivity, work life balance, and how different people define happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I'm talking to a very special person, NK Chaudhary. He's the founder of Jaipur rugs, the first Indian guests that I've had on the show, and honestly one of the most inspiring leaders I've ever come across. So really, really excited to have him on the show more of which in a moment. So I hope you're okay, I hope you are well, it's feels like we're Yeah, like lockdown, again, is brewing. If you're listening to this in the north of England and lots of other places, it's already here. And yeah, I can kind of feel there's a bit of an anxiety, kind of driving people's thought processes at the moment, as people think about strapping in for it could be a very long, cold, stressful winter on lots of different fronts. So hope you're okay. And surviving that sort of imminent sense of doom that seems to be going around at the moment. If we do end up on lockdown for winter, then here's a lovely segue. Then there are some spaces still available for my six weeks to ninja online evening course. So it starts in November. Now if you go to GrahamAllcott.com, you'll see a pop up for that. And also just Oh, there you go. It'll pop up on my screen right now. GrahamAllcott.com/6weeks will get you directly to that page as well. And yeah, if you want to sign up for that, it's going to be a deliberately quite small little group. So there's going to be no more than 30 people. And I'm going to be walking people through all the stuff from my book, How to be a Productivity Ninja, and also spending a lot of time with you guys on implementing it all as well. So we'll have a whatsapp group for accountability through the weeks and making sure that people actually do the stuff that they are resolving to do as part of the programme. So if you're interested in that six weeks, and then just go to Graham allcott.com, and you find out more there. So let's get into this week's episode. So NK Chaudhary. I met back in 2012, I was on a study programme called journeys for change, touring around India, and talking to leaders and particularly social entrepreneurs. NK Chaudhary is the founder of Jaipur rugs, huge exporter of very high end beautiful luxury rugs. And his founder story is absolutely fascinating. We talked about it a bit during the episode. Basically, he kind of defied his parents and lots of other people in his life and worked across the caste system. So in India, there are various different castes of people. And there are very set expectations for what those people do, who they mix with, and so on. And the people who are deemed to be at the bottom of society used to be referred to and I think in some cases still are as the untouchables and Mr. Chaudhary made a very deliberate decision to work with those people to help them to install weaving looms, where they were so that they didn't have to travel and be exploited going to, you know, factories working 18 hour day, hour days, and they could basically work flexibly. And we toured around a few of the facilities of Jaipur rugs this year, we toured around a few different villages. And it's just absolutely remarkable what he has built, and his eloquence and just presence as a leader, just phenomenal. It's fair to say that English is not his first language. So this is a slightly difficult Listen, you might find it just takes a few minutes to just to kind of adjust to some of the pronunciations and, and to really kind of hook into this. But honestly, I would say just listen to it twice, because he is so inspiring. And I'm going to be doing some writing over the next few months particularly around heart in business and you know, kindness and leadership and a few topics around that. And it's fair to say Mr. Chaudhary is very high on my list of people to feature as a case study as part of this. So super inspiring. We reconnected a few months ago and I said I'd love you to come on and do the podcast and he said yes. So I'm just delighted and thrilled to have him on so let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Mr. NK Chaudhary

The science of gratitude journalling shows us that if you write a list every day of things that you're grateful for, what happens is your brain gets trained to look for the patterns during the day, making a mental note for when you next come to sit down and write it in the journal. This is sometimes called the 'Tetris Effect' - named after when you stop playing Tetris but see every brick and picture frame on your wall in the shapes from the game. I've definitely noticed a 'Tetris effect' with these emails - that I'm training my brain to see positive ideas and lessons in whatever else I'm doing, and it's getting easier to think of what to say each week. So, thank you for being here. It means I keep showing up too.

This week's wasn't so easy, though. Like seemingly most of the rest of the population, I watched 'The Social Dilemma' on Netflix. I wasn't going to watch it - I've interviewed Cal Newport talking about ditching social media for productivity reasons and I don't use much social media myself. I haven't been on Facebook for years, I've basically left Twitter although we still share the podcast and stuff there... Oh yeah. Instagram. I spend far too much time on Instagram. Shit. Not so smug now, Mr Ninja! I'm also a fan of Jaron Lanier's work, such as his books "Who Owns the Future?" and the catchily titled "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts, Right Now". They're both well worth checking out.

Graham Allcott 0:05

Hello, you're listening to beyond busy, the show where we talk productivity, work-life balance and everything in between. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this week's episode, I'm in conversation with Francis Briers. Francis is a fellow by Brightonian. He's client lead at FizzPopBang, so he has a lot to say about culture in organisations. He's also the founder of Wise Fool School and an interfaith minister. So we taught wisdom and faith and all sorts of stuff, as well as productivity and he's someone who's done 494 consecutive weekly emails. So just in terms of consistency of output and productivity. He's got loads to say loads of great tips. So I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation. Before we get into it, just wanted to talk to you about my new programme that I'm running in November. It's called Six Weeks to Ninja. You can find out Details at GrahamAllcott.com and it's basically a six week evening course where I'm going to take everyone through all the tips and tricks and key habits from how to be a productivity ninja so if you're a fan of productivity ninja if you've done some work with think productive my company before, you'll know how this stuff can really change your life actually, you know, and really just give you the the kind of backbone habits that will really up your game in terms of productivity. So if that's a tool of interest, go to Graham Allcott, calm, you should see a little pop up, come up on there with some more information about six weeks to ninja. There's also an event bright page, if you just go to Eventbrite and type in six weeks in nd you'll find it and it's really limited. So we're just going to do it for we're going to sell 30 tickets, and so it's going to be a fairly small and intimate little gathering of people, Whatsapp group to keep everyone accountable and through the weeks as well. And starting in November, so if that isn't enough, Thursday evenings UK time through November through to Christmas. Then go up to six weeks to ninja on the Eventbrite page or on grey market.com to find out more. So let's get into this conversation. So as I say, France is just really interesting guy. You know, we talk wisdom, faith, productivity, embodiment, all sorts of stuff. In this episode. We're down the line. Even though we're both in the same city recording this it was recorded a few weeks ago, when there was still some some fairly strong restrictions in place of that meeting. It just didn't feel like the right thing to do. So I'm looking forward to having a proper coffee and catch up with Francis when that feels like a bit more of a normal thing to do. But let's get into it.

Graham Allcott 0:04

Hello and welcome to another episode of Beyond Busy. This is the show where we talk productivity, work-life balance, how people define happiness and success. All the big questions for work and life. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I am talking to Eman Ismail. She is the founder of InkHouse. She's a young working mom, she's an entrepreneur. We talked about her journey, starting her business from scratch, and of course, why writing matters. Why is writing an important skill for business, how to get better at it, and really the benefits of thinking in a copywriting kind of way. So loads in this one, I think you're gonna really enjoy it. She's great company, great to talk to and you're gonna really enjoy the episode. At the end of this episode I will give you more details about my new programme Six Weeks to Ninja And lots of other stuff so stick around after the conversation. But let's jump straight in. Here's my conversation with Eman Ismail.

I started my business, Think Productive, at perhaps the worst possible time. It was the recession of 2008. At the time, we hadn't heard of Covid yet so it was set to be the longest recession in our lifetimes.

I'd never run my own business before, but I'd been running charities and departments of charities for a few years at a stupidly young age, so I felt ready. And no one whose opinion I trusted told me not to do it. Looking back I'm grateful for the lack of cautionary advice. There's something to be said for what naivity can achieve - you don't think about what's not possible, you just crack on.

Launching a business at any time is hard. Launching one that's about training, not competing at the cheap end of the market, at a time when budgets are going to be slashed or non-existent? I probably should have decided against it and done something else, but I just had a burning desire to take this work to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. I wasn't going to listen to all the inconvenient truths that meant the odds were against me, much as I was scared, worried and pretty skint for a long time getting it off the ground.

Graham Allcott 0:04

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Busy podcast. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for this show. This is the podcast where we talk productivity, work life balance, how people define happiness and success. All the big questions around work life. Before we get into this episode, I just want to do a quick swear word Parental Advisory notice the guest on this week's show has a book with a swear word in the title we're going to talk about that word a lot. And if you don't want to hear that for some reason, then please switch off now. I should also use this as the opportunity to apologise for all the other times I've sworn and all the other podcasts for have not made any reference to Parental Advisory doses. But I just thought it was probably worthwhile doing it given the nature of this one. So if you are still here and you have not switched off, then I'm very excited to say that this week's guest is Stef Sword-Williams. She is the author of a new book called Fuck Being Humble. And she's also someone whose work I follow for a while she has basically an events company of the same name. So we talk a little bit about that and some of the work that she's done all around the idea of self promotion and making it less icky and making it less like something that we don't want to do. And so we're going to talk about my own hangups with it, we're going to talk about why some people will find it tough, and also all the benefits of it. So once we really think about how we market ourselves, how we put ourselves out there, how we take this kind of risks, it can have some huge benefits for our work for our careers, all that sort of thing. So really interesting conversation that you're going to really enjoy it. I'm going to do a couple of notices in bits and bobs at the end. But for now, because this is a long one and it's a good one. I just want to get straight in So, here is the conversation with Stef Sword-Williams. Right, we are rolling. I'm with Stef Sword-Williams, how are you doing?