Humans don't easily 'get' exponential growth - we've evolved in a linear world, and the pace of change we're facing now can leave us wrong-footed and disoriented. But Azeem Azhar argues that we need to get to grips with it, and fast, if we're to thrive in the modern world.
We also talk about synergistification, aligning your content creation and community to build your brand and your business (ok it's not a word, but it should be).
Insightful and intriguing, this is definitely not an episode to miss.
'Author-speakers... are often people who are true thought leaders, on a mission to share their knowledge. And yes, there are people who blog and there are people who post on social media and there are people who do podcasts.
But... to really achieve that thought leadership, visionary status, there's got to be a book.'
Speaking and writing go together naturally, but how can you make the most of both? Bobbie Carlton has an extraordinary breadth of experience helping writers and speakers - particularly women - be heard. In this conversation she explores the mindset and the tactics that lead to success on stage and on the page, including some genius tips for leveraging your book as a speaker and for promoting it more widely.
Grab a notepad and listen up.
'There's something about the writing process, the words on the page, just holding you accountable in some way to your thinking.'
Jodie Rogers has identified the real competitive advantage for today's organisations: the mental fitness of the people working there. But as she points out, it takes more than an elearning module on how to take an afternoon walk to unlock the benefits of a workforce that's not just avoiding mental ill health, but positively mentally fit.
She also talks honestly and thoughtfully about her own struggle to write this book - not just overcoming imposter syndrome, but rejecting the early, easy answers she came up with for a deeper, more rigorous self-interrogation. And all this against a backdrop of the pandemic coping with running a business, a family tragedy, and two small children not allowed out of the front door for 45 days during the Spanish lockdown.
Absolutely compelling listening.
We talk a lot on this show about the grind of writing business books, and indeed of business in general, but there's a lot of joy to be found in the process too. This Best Bits episode celebrates all those moments, from the creative peace of the early morning start to the excitement of the book launch. Wherever you're at, there's a bit of raw joy here to inspire you on your journey.
With joyful moments from:
Fill your tank and get inspired!
'We wanted to explore how books, which seem to be a real missing link in the corporate world, could be brought in and really used to enhance people's development... If I could step away from everything and invest in myself, what does that look like?'
If there's one experience common to pretty much every business sector in every industry over the last 18 months, it's screen fatigue. Which is a challenge for learning and development professionals who also care about wellbeing: sure, people need to learn new ideas and skills, perhaps now more than ever, but are another few hours staring at a screen for a webinar or elearing programme the best way to support that?
Leanne Hamley (and I'm right behind her) thinks that businesses are overlooking one of the most powerful, lightweight development tools of all: the book. Along with Kate Bowers, she has founded Wot the Book!, a subscription service, podcast and community dedicated to bringing brilliant books to businesses. She's also an author herself, and talks frankly about her own experience of writing a business book.
'Be a bit braver with what you define to be a business book, you don't need to follow a template.'
Why is B2B marketing typically so dull? Whereas consumer marketing is focused on creativity, engagement and originality, B2B marketing all too often consists of a features list.
Mark Choueke is here to change all that. His passionate call for bravery in B2B marketing is transforming the industry, and he applied exactly that same thinking to writing his business book too. Forget the templates and formulae, and write the book that only you can write.
Half an hour that will leave you feeling braver and more human, covering as it does marketing, writing, book proposals, Star Wars, grief and a gorilla.
Penny Pullan was talking about virtual leadership and running virtual events long before it was fashionable - now that the rest of the world has caught up, she's leading the way in making virtual and hybrid events (which are surely the future) not just possible, but powerful.
Most people at work have sat through interminable Zoom meetings over the last 18 months, few of us have experienced the kind of energy and engagement that Penny can bring. In this conversation she reveals some of the techniques she uses to inject vitality into virtual and also some of the potential pitfalls - it's all too easy to subtly exclude members of remote teams.
She also talks about her own approach to writing - highly visual and voice-based - and explains why her engineering background helps her see things differently in business.
Making Workshops Work was the winner of the very first 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge, over 5 years ago: it's been a long time coming, but it turns out to be the right book at exactly the right moment.
Earlier this year, I passed the 1,000-day mark in my #goldenyear running streak. In this week's episode, I reflect on what I've learned from building that habit, and what it's taught me about writing, resilience and when NOT to wear shorts.
A short episode this week, but I hope you'll enjoy it.
Much handwringing goes on over the impact of technology on young people. Many domestic disputes centre on the amount of screentime that should or shouldn't be allowed.
Robert Wigley saw the issue from two perspectives: as a father of adolescent boys, but also as a mentor and investor working with Gen Z entrepreneurs. The results of his research with both are fascinating, and reveal a more nuanced and optimistic story than we usually hear.
As a first-time author, he also discovered much about the process of writing and publishing which will be equally fascinating to other first-time authors!
'You don't have to have everything figured out when you sit down at your computer.... just start writing.'
Jackie Fast sees writing a book just like entrepreneurship - don't let fear stop you, break some rules, figure it out as you go along. And in Rule Breaker: Rebellious leadership for the future of work, she proves that that's the secret of success in the 21st century - the old playbook that so many of us have internalised just doesn't apply any more.
This is a fascinating reflection on her own remarkable journey from broke founder to MD of one of the world's most successful sponsorship companies, and how the process of writing a book mirrored that exercise in courage, exploration and action-taking.
"I don't care how big of a following you have, who your publisher is, what kind of marketing plan you put together, how big of an influencer you are: if you don't sit down and write, then there will be no book."
This is the game people, and this is how you do the work. Dre Baldwin didn't find basketball magically effortless, but he turned himself from high-school reserve to pro by doing the work, and now he teaches other people how to bring that pro mindset to the work that matters, whatever it is.
In this conversation we talk about basketball, writing, using the full range of social media channels (well, almost) and how books fit within a content publishing empire.
If you're looking for magic bullets and excuses this is probably not for you. If you want to be inspired and challenged - hit play.
'Taking an all-seeing, all-knowing, conquering, dictatorial approach to managing people is going to land you in a world of pain.'
Philip Levinson always dreamed of becoming a CEO, and thought he was ready. But when he got there he realised the truth: nothing can prepare you for this.
In Three Peaks Leadership he shares the lessons he learned, including the fact that leading at the highest level means not just surmounting the initial challenge of securing the role (the first peak), but embedding the changes for the long term (the second peak) and charting a course for the future, including your own exit from the role (the third peak).
He's disarmingly honest about the lessons he's learned in humility along the way, both in leadership and in writing this book....
'What elements of your imperfection are you going to bring to the table?'
That's the powerful question that strategist and storyteller Minter Dial poses about writing, but it could equally well be applied to leadership. Having all the answers is no longer what we need from our leaders: in a disrupted, uncertain world we need leaders who are willing to admit that they don't know everything and to show up as their whole selves.
This is a thoughtful, wide-ranging conversation and it is pure audio gold.
It's one of the great paradoxes of business books that they're written by experts, but the process of writing them is itself what builds expertise.
In this Best Bits episode nine recent guests reflect on how writing their book changed them - often in unexpected ways.
'This experience has taught me, like a lot of the work I do in life, that where you start isn't necessarily where you'll end up... the book we've written is much more practical and purposeful for our readers as a result of us really listening to [their feedback] and not being afraid to change our minds.'
Diana Marsland and Julie Nerney began their work on Own Your Day just before the pandemic hit, and with a hypothesis that they were pretty confident about. Over the course of the next year, everything changed: their rigorous research disproved their original hypothesis and revealed a different path, and their close collaboration had to shift online as lockdown hit. For some authors that could have been the end, but Diana and Julie found a way of working together that transformed those setbacks into a new creative energy.
In this conversation we talk about how management is changing and the issues faced by those with the Herculean task of translating strategy from the top into results on the ground, and also about those processes of research, pivoting and collaboration. The result is a masterclass for anyone wanting to write a book grounded in the real world, and particularly for anyone thinking about writing with a partner.
'One of the first principles to make progress in writing is to have the courage to be rubbish because all writing, literally absolutely all of it, starts rubbish.'
If his first book, Essentialism, was about prioritization, Greg McKeown's second book, Effortless, is about simplification. And this is no theoretical treatise: the truths behind the book were born out of a deeply traumatic personal experience, and Greg and his family's conscious decision to choose the 'lighter path'.
Profound wisdom about life and robust advice for writing that might just change your life (and your business book).
In our fascination with tech start-ups and big corporates, we might be tempted to overlook the family business. Keel Hunt describes Ingram as 'the quiet company' - 50 years young, still family owned, and still quietly partnering with all the other players in the book supply chain to innovate and do business better.
If you love books, chances are you'll have benefited from an Ingram service perhaps without even knowing it. And as books have faced the challenge of the digital revolution, it's perhaps down to Ingram rather than other flashier, more famous companies in the book supply space that the book industry continues to thrive, and in particular to their habit of asking: 'Why are we doing it this way?'
Keel Hunt also reveals some hard-won journalistic secrets of interviewing and research, and how you find 'the story that hasn't been written yet'.
'I think we're going to have another watershed moment... there's going to be business pre-pandemic and business post-pandemic. And I wonder how many business books are going to feel out of date.'
As a woman founder in publishing, Judy Piatkus is one of my heroes. Working from home long before it was fashionable, navigating caring for a child with special needs alongside the casual sexism of the 1980s, she quietly built up a pioneering company specialising in self-development. And along the way she transformed her own consciousness through the books she brought into the world.
Her story reflects many common themes of entrepreneurship, women at work, the digital revolution and the the power of books and of bringing people together.
'Productivity isn't just about efficiency.'
As a Productivity Ninja, Grace Marshall was used to helping people who were struggling - with overloaded inboxes, poor time management, any number of everyday productivity pits. But she noticed that in many cases there was a different kind of struggle going on, one that wasn't talked about so much, one that couldn't be solved with a shiny new system, one that could even hide beneath a frenzy of productivity.
Gradually she realised that this kind of struggle isn't a sign that something's getting in the way of the work, it IS the work. And so she started a new conversation about struggle - professionally and personally.
(It was a struggle. Naturally.)
'The hardest part is getting started, getting that first paragraph on the page. And once I've been able to do that, generally for me, my writing then flows from that.'
Clive Lewis has written 17 books, so he's learned a bit about organizing and communicating his ideas. He writes about the things that mean most to him - this time it's the toxicity of the workplace (which is itself of course a microcosm of society) and how to create more positive, healthy environments. [Spoiler alert: it often just comes down to speaking and listening.]
In this week's Extraordinary Business Book Club conversation we talk about the 'new normal' and the old issues at work, about empathy, diversity and inclusion, setting goals, getting started (and the difficulty of finishing), and the intoxicating power of words.
'The reason why I was able to write it in 12 weeks is that I mapped out my entire book, sticky note by sticky note... And then I was relentless. I just went one word per sticky note and built the whole thing.'
For someone who comes alive on the stage and accesses their flow speaking in front of an audience, the last year has been tough. But Frederique Murphy discovered that she could re-access that state of flow through writing her book, by delivering it as if to an audience, and the results were astonishing.
Astonishing results are something of a speciality of Frederique's, and in this remarkable episode she shares something of the science behind her approach to helping leaders break free of their limitations and achieve their full potential. (Spoiler alert: this also involves writing...)
There's also powerfully honest insights into the process of publishing, and the vulnerability that involves.
Instagram has had a massive impacting in shaping our culture over the last decade - it's redefined our measures of success and celebrity. It's easy now to see it as somehow inevitable, but in No Filter, winner of the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2020, Sarah Frier uncovers the backstory of the app - the philosophy of its founders and the complex relationship with new owner Facebook.
Along the way she also takes us behind the scenes of her own writing practice - the journalistic imperative to find the new angle, the colour-coded index cards, the plot-shaping, the late nights, the long showers, and the rosé.
A masterclass in business book writing and a fascinating glimpse into one of the defining forces of our culture.
'Everything is sales... the title should sell people on reading the subtitle, the subtitle should sell people on flipping it over to look at the blurb and the blurb should sell you on opening the book up and flicking through it. And if all those things occur in the right way, then the chances are you'll buy the book.'
John Williams is an ideas guy, and he helps other people make their ideas happen too. He's also a very experienced marketer and business book writer, and in this conversation he shares exactly how he knocked out a full first draft of his new book F*ck Work, Let's Play in just nine days...
Packed with practical inspiration for entrepreneurs and writers, this is a fascinating under-the-hood glimpse into the mindset and methods of someone who's succeeded at both.
'Everything is sales... the title should sell people on reading the subtitle, the subtitle should sell people on flipping it over to look at the blurb and the blurb should sell you on opening the book up and flicking through it. And if all those things occur in the right way, then the chances are you'll buy the book.'
John Williams is an ideas guy, and he helps other people make their ideas happen too. He's also a very experienced marketer and business book writer, and in this conversation he shares exactly how he knocked out a full first draft of his new book F*ck Work, Let's Play in just nine days...
Packed with practical inspiration for entrepreneurs and writers, this is a fascinating under-the-hood glimpse into the mindset and methods of someone who's succeeded at both.
Writing a business book is a particularly visible form of leadership - how do you find the courage for that? In this week's look back through my most recent Extraordinary Business Book Club conversations, I uncover the principles, tactics and Jedi mind tricks that enabled these authors to find the courage to make their voices heard.
There'll be something here that you can use too, to make yourself a little bit braver and a little bit more likely to succeed.
Learn from:
If there's a recipe for courage, this is it.