Beyond Busy

This week's guest is Dr Christian Busch. Christian is the director of the Global Economy program at New York University's Center for Global Affairs and has served as Deputy Director of the LSE’s Innovation Centre. Christian advises companies all over the world on how to foster creativity, innovation and luck. He's also the author of ‘Connect the Dots: The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck ’. In this episode, we talk about how to get luckier in your career and about biases, curiosity, productivity and much more. ✔ Links:Buy ‘Connect the dots: The art and science of creating good luck’:https://www.amazon.com/Connect-Dots-Science-Creating-Good-ebook/dp/B09QBWSPLR Follow Christian on social media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianwbusch/https://twitter.com/ChrisLSESubscribe to Graham's Newsletter:https://www.grahamallcott.com/sign-up Our Show Sponsors: Think Productive - Time Management Training:http://www.thinkproductive.com​​ Useful links:https://www.grahamallcott.com/links See acast.com/privacy for pri

This week's guest is Helen Sanderson. Helen is a professional organizer, the creator of The Home Declutter Kit and the author of The Secret Life of Clutter.We talk about our relationship with our team, the parallels between decluttering and productivity, why it's important to get clarity in everything we do and much more.✔ Links:Buy The Secret Life of Clutter:https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Clutter-Getting-letting-ebook/dp/B09JC47ZTMBuy The Home Declutter Kit:https://www.amazon.com/Home-Declutter-Kit-Mindful-Method/dp/1527206092Follow Helen on social media:https://www.helensanderson.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/helensandersonatministryofcalm/https://twitter.com/CalmFromClutterSubscribe to Graham's Newsletter:https://www.grahamallcott.com/sign-upOur Show Sponsors: Think Productive - Time Management Training:http://www.thinkproductive.com​​Useful links:https://www.grahamallcott.com/links See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest in this episode is Greg Hoffman. Greg spent many years in one of the coolest jobs in the world as Chief Marketing Officer for Nike. He's also the author of a new book about his experiences ‘Emotion by Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike’.In this episode, we talk about some of the marketing campaigns that took Nike to another level, the importance of emotion and empathy in business and why diversity increases productivity. Greg also talks about his experience of finding his birth parents last year and settles the debate whether Nike is pronounced "Nike" or "Nikey".Enjoy!Special thanks to Penguin Random House UK.✔ Links:Buy ‘Emotion By Design: Creative Leadership Lessons from a Life at Nike’:https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Design-Creative-Leadership-Lessons/dp/1538705591Follow Greg:https://www.themodernarena.com/https://www.instagram.com/ghoff70/https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-hoffman-1b196a25Subscribe to Graham's Newsletter:https://www.grahamallcott.com/sign-upOur Show Sponsors: Th

In this episode, we meet Olivier Roland, a French blogger and entrepreneur and the author of ‘The Way of the Intelligent Rebel’. The book has been a huge hit in France, and now the new English language translation brings his ideas to a wider audience.Oliver and I get geeky around learning how to develop your willpower and productivity to design a lifestyle to get you beyond busy, how to change your relationship with the news and lots more. ✔ Links:Buy The Way of the Intelligent Rebel:https://www.amazon.com/Way-Intelligent-Rebel-Yourself-Anything/dp/1788175174Watch Olivier Roland on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/c/OlivierRolandEnglishFollow Olivier Roland on social media:https://www.instagram.com/olivier_rolandhttps://twitter.com/olivierrolandenSubscribe to Graham's Newsletter:https://www.grahamallcott.com/sign-upOur Show Sponsors: Think Productive - Time Management Training:http://www.thinkproductive.com​​Useful links:https://www.grahamallcott.com/links See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out informat

This week, my guest is Monica Aldama, the star of the hit Netflix show “Cheer”. Monica is the multi championship-winning cheerleading coach for Nevara College in Corsicana, Texas. She's now put some of her brilliant leadership mantras from the series into a really wise and interesting leadership book.So in this episode, I talk to Monica about what it's been like to suddenly find herself in the centre of attention. We talk about her book “Full Out” as well as family humility and more. There are loads in this episode that I think will help you instil a winning mentality in whatever it is that you're doing. Enjoy!Special thanks to Little, Brown Book Group.✔ Links:Buy Full Out: Lessons in Life and Leadership from America's Favorite Coach:https://www.amazon.com/Full-Out-Leadership-Americas-Favorite/dp/198216591XWatch Cheer on Netflix:https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81039393?s=a&trkid=13747225&t=cp&vlang=en&clip=81566211Follow Monica on social media:https://www.instagram.com/monicaaldamahttps://twi

My guest today is Dave Linton. Dave is a former youth worker turned entrepreneur who started Madlug in 2015 with less than 500 quid, and the company has won hearts and wallets with its cool backpacks and logins. Each product sold allows the company to donate a similar item to a young person in the foster care system. In this episode, Dave explains why it's so important for kids in care to receive these bags. We talk about kindness, leadership, and meeting Richard Branson.Listen to the full episode to know more!✔ Links:Madlug:https://www.madlug.com/https://www.madlugyourbusiness.com/Dave Linton on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-linton/Subscribe to Graham's Newsletter:https://www.grahamallcott.com/sign-upOur Show Sponsors: Think Productive - Time Management Training:http://www.thinkproductive.com​​Useful links:https://www.grahamallcott.com/links See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest today is Sarah Ockwell-Smith, one of the world's leading parenting experts, having written 13 books and sold half a million copies. Her philosophy of gentle parenting is hugely influential in the motherhood WhatsApp groups of Great Britain and her latest book ‘How To Be a Calm Parent’ has as much to tell us about how to look after ourselves, as it does about how to look after our kids. In this episode we talk about how to be calm, self-kindness and why being a busy parent isn't actually something to be proud of. Sarah mentions seven principles of being a calm parent in her book. I asked her about the first one, which is everybody can be a calm parent or a calmer parent:The number of parents I meet who believe that you're calm or you're not, they kind of view calmness as a fixed trait. So they'll look and think, "well, other people are calm". I'm not calm. It's kind of not worth me trying. So they're very much in the fixed mindset that calmness is something you have or you don't have. And if they don'

My guest today is Matt Rudd. Matt is a writer, columnist and deputy editor of The Sunday Times Magazine. He's also the author of several books, his latest being ‘Man Down: Why Men Are Unhappy and What We Can Do About It’.In this episode, we talk about mental health, shared parental leave and taking paternity leave more seriously. We talk about the trap of busyness and why you're better off with a bronze medal than a silver one and much more. Matt's book 'Man Down' is entertaining and thoughtful just as you'll find Matt.Special thanks to Little, Brown Book Group.✔ Links:Matt Rudd at The Sunday Times:https://www.thetimes.co.uk/profile/matt-rudd?page=1Matt Rudd on Twitter:https://twitter.com/MattRuddBuy 'Man Down':https://www.amazon.co.uk/Matt-Rudd/e/B003VN5B20%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_shareSubscribe to Graham's Newsletter:https://www.grahamallcott.com/sign-upOur Show Sponsors: Think Productive - Time Management Training:http://www.thinkproductive.com​​Useful links:https://www.grahamallcott.com/links See acast.c

My guest today is Debbie Millman. Debbie was described by Fast Company as one of the most creative people working in business. She's the founder of the hugely influential podcast Design Matters. From 1995 to 2016, Debbie worked in leadership roles for Sterling Brands, leading influential projects for the likes of Burger King, Star Wars, 7up, and Campbell Soup.Her new book ‘Why Design Matters' taps into the brains of Tim Ferris, Brené Brown, Esther Perel and Malcolm Gladwell amongst many others and explores what it means to be creative and innovative in work and in life. In this episode, we talk about her pioneering work, who owns your logos, how to deal with internet pylons and much more.✔ Links: Debbie Millman:https://www.debbiemillman.com/Debbie Millman on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/debbiemillman/Buy the book "Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People":https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Design-Matters-Conversations-Creative/dp/0062872966Subscribe to Graham's Newsletter:

My guest today is Ranjay Gulati. Ranjay is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of ‘Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies’. In this episode, we talk about how to harness a sense of purpose to create a great team and the power of good storytelling. Ranjay also offers some leadership lessons from the Seattle Seahawks NFL team and Howard Schultz at Starbucks, and stay tuned at the end for a great story about Ranjay's mum as well. We discussed if people want to have a sense of purpose individually and also corporately:I think it's very clear that we're facing a meaning crisis in the world today. I mean you look at the data on great resignations or great reshuffle or whatever you want to call it. You look at mental health demands being placed on the mental health care system which is flooded. You know, I think people are going through a deep period of introspection. There's a lot of, kind of, all of us have been touched by death, illness and a whole range of things. A

My guest today is Sarah Stein Greenberg, the executive director of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, better known as d.school. Sarah has built her career on helping companies unlock innovation and creativity. She's also the author of a new book ‘Creative Acts For Curious People’.In this episode, we talk about how boredom helps you to be creative, the questions to ask instead of making small talk, how design can help you reframe your problems, ways to develop empathy and much more. It's a book chock-full of takeaways and the conversation is too. In the book, there are a whole set of practices and assignments that we teach all the time. And there's a set of those that are about really cultivating your ability to notice in new ways and to spot opportunities that are kind of hiding in plain sight.One of my favourite ones is called the derive. And the derive is like, if you are stuck on a problem or you just feel like you're lacking curiosity, the derive is just a fantastic approa

My guest today is James Routledge. James is a mental health advocate and author of the book ‘Mental Health at Work’. After burning out when his first business failed at the age of 24, he founded Sanctus who are on a mission to help companies invest in the mental health of their employees. In this episode, James talks openly about his personal experiences. We also cover some of the myths of mental health: how to manage boundaries, how to question some of the conventional narratives on mental health and more. I asked James what the motivation was to be very open about his own mental health: Well, I didn't for so long. I definitely didn't grow up being open about how I felt or articulating my emotions. I suppose for me now I've experienced the power and the transformational change of taking the time to become aware of how I'm feeling, articulate it and share it with others… …and I've seen the benefit of that. It's changed the course of my life and taken my life in directions that I would

My guest today is General Stanley McChrystal. General McChrystal led a stellar military career culminating in becoming the commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Since leaving the US military, he's founded the McChrystal group and has also written several books. His latest book is called ‘Risk: A User's Guide’.In this episode, we talk about different ways to think about risk, how he led an information-sharing revolution in the American Secret Service. He also tells us about a recent phone call to patch up his differences with Joe Biden and what it was like to get sacked, but in a kind way, by Barack Obama. I could have listened to Stan talk all day.✔ Links: Stan McChrystal on TED:https://www.ted.com/speakers/stanley_mcchrystalStan McChrystal on Twitter:https://twitter.com/stanmcchrystalMcChrystal Group:https://www.mcchrystalgroup.com/Subscribe to Graham's Newsletter: https://www.grahamallcott.com/sign-upOur Show Sponsors: Think Productive - Time Managemen

My guest today is Sarah Archer. Sarah is a speaking and marketing coach, as well as a playwright and comedy performer. Her podcast ‘The Speaking Club’ helps people to increase their confidence around public speaking and she has written a couple of books on the subject too! In this episode, we talk about authenticity, overcoming fear, how to measure your success and much more.Sarah spoke about how she learnt to deal with putting yourself out there:Detachment is something that I'm still learning about. I think the issue is around expectations. If you've got to manage your expectations and do it for the love of it, which is what I, you know, truly do it for the love of it. But you know, there's these sort of rags to riches stories about Edinburgh and it’s trying so hard not to take it personally when someone says something about your work, it's what we always do as human beings. We ignore all the positives and we just focus on those negatives. We need to sort of balance that out or just detach from it

My guest today is Emily Chang. Emily is the CEO of the McCann Worldgroup, China a 400 plus marketing agency based in Shanghai. She's held senior roles at Apple and Starbucks, and she is also the author of The Spare Room.In this episode, we talk about her making the move to work in China. She tells us the story of opening up her spare room to strangers, and why social legacy and living an intentional life really matter. She also shares stories about the kind leaders who've inspired her along the way and what makes her tick. And honestly, I could listen to her all day. It was such a treat to do this one.And, of course, we talk about what the spare room actually is:First of all, it's a euphemism. It's a euphemism for the thing that we each have to offer, you know, not everybody would love to open their spare room up and invite vulnerable young children, bring babies in and take care of them for the long term. For us, that's become an offer. It started off when I was single later, my husband and I, as a youn

My guest today is Ole Kassow. Ole is a social entrepreneur based in Denmark and the founder of Cycling Without Age, a global movement that brings together volunteers to provide outdoor cycle rides to older people who would otherwise be stuck inside. Ole has also spent a lifetime experimenting with different ways to bring kindness into the world of work.In this episode, we talk about his journey creating Cycling Without Age and growing it to become a truly global organization. We also talk about the importance of intergenerational conversations, his experiments in slowness, why kindness is good for business and how his dad inspired his playful spirit. I think you're gonna love this one.Ole starts by telling us how Cycling Without Age was created:So I come out of a family with a dad who suffered from MS. He was very quick in a wheelchair. Actually, I know firsthand how lack of mobility can cause social isolation, loneliness and depression. There was one particular guy who just caught my attention and spurr

My guest today is Nic Marks. Nic is one of the world's leading experts on happiness and the founder of Friday Pulse, a tool to help organizations find out how happy their people are at work. Nic also created the Happy Planet Index to show which countries have the happiest people, and he spent years thinking about how to be happy and the relationship between happiness and success.So in this episode, we talk about how to be happy. Nic talks about his mentor, a Chilean economist who changed his life, his five ways to wellbeing and much more. Nic starts off by explaining what Friday Pulse is for:And so I'm a statistician by trade. So I'm looking to create a measure that is useful for organisations and basically, our measure is happy weeks, which is “have people had a good week?”. That builds up into a metric for an organisation that allows them to track how every team, how the whole organisation is and it's very, very responsive. I mean, most organizations don't have a responsive people metric. Most of their

My guest today is Denise Nurse. Denise is the co-founder of the Black Founders Hub, a network for black entrepreneurs that started here in the UK but is now increasingly global. She is also a lawyer and entrepreneur, having started and then sold a really unusual law firm. Denise has also worked as a TV presenter for Sky Travel and on BBC's Escape to the Country and Watchdog.In this episode, we talk about race and how to encourage black entrepreneurs. The journey from starting and growing, to sell a business. And I think you're going to really learn a lot from Denise's outlook and energy. So let's get straight into it. Denise explains to us why is the Black Founders Hub: I am a black founder. My goal is to help support others in business and to find ways of creating success. So that's kind of why because instead of us all being on our own, if we come together as a collective, we know that peer networking works.There's something called the old boys club. That was the thing for a reason. So I just want

My guest today is Azeem Azhar. Azeem is a serial entrepreneur, a journalist, startup investor, technologist and is the founder of Exponential View, a weekly email with 200,000 subscribers including many of the leading lights in tech. His new book ‘Exponential’ is a fascinating look at how humans can learn to thrive in an age of accelerating technology.It really is a must-read for all of us right now. If we want to keep pace with the rapid changes happening right now and perhaps even more importantly, with what's to come. So in this episode, we talk about exponential technologies and it's not all about AI. Azeem talks us through what he calls the exponential gap.We also talk about the future of work, adapting to shifts in power, and whether he's optimistic or pessimistic for the future. We talked about what is the world of startup right now:Startups are super, super hard and the reason it's challenging is that no one knows the answer because you're building something that hasn't been built before. So not

My guest today is Daisy Dowling. Daisy has worked in senior leadership roles on Wall Street and has now left that behind to start workparent helping companies to best support working parents. She's also the author of ‘Workparent: Thrive in your career while raising happy children’. So, if you have kids or you're thinking of having kids this episode and Daisy's book are for you. We talk about how to support working parents, which organizations do it well, what to do if your boss isn't so understanding. We talked about the Zeigarnik effect, how to think about money and also what it was like to leave the Lehman Brothers just before it collapsed in the 2008 crash plus much more.Daisy talked about how to set up a dialogue between a manager and a working parent: (What do you think organizations can do to support managers to change those practices and to, and to really make it more of an embedded cultural response?) "So one thing I always advise managers to do and listen, most of the managers who I ta