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?

Do you know what your company values are? Most people don't know. Or they can name one. Usually if I ask someone, they say things like "errrr.... equality..?....teamwork...?". You can immediately see the problem. These things are motherhood and apple pie - no one disagrees with them, but they're just so bland that they don't get you very far. They're perfectly good values or qualities, but so what? What changes as a result? How do they drive your behaviour as a leader or manager, or impact on the customer experience?

At my company, Think Productive, we have five values that we celebrate and hold dear. Our values are:

• Psychology Before Technology

• Practical and Playful

• Human, Not Superhero

• We Walk Our Talk

• Trust and Kindness are our Rocketfuel

Graham Allcott 0:05

This is Beyond Busy. The show where we talk productivity, work-life balance, defining happiness and success. All the big questions that relate to work and life and how we manage all of it. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. I'm the author of a book called How to be a Productivity Ninja and I'm the founder of Think Productive. So on this week's show, we're talking to Tameika Isaac Devine. She was the first African American female to be elected to her City Council in Columbia, South Carolina. She's also the mayor Pro Tem in Columbia, South Carolina. And she has you know, really been at the forefront of community leadership through some really difficult times in that state. So, we talked about the removal of the Confederate flag, the Charleston shootings, Black Lives Matter and just some really great perspectives on leadership. And how to make all of this stuff work, you know, family, her job as a as a elected official, her other job as an attorney, and you know all the various different demands that she has placed on a time and how she manages the whole thing together and does so just in such a just a really graceful way just to really integrity about her and really just enjoy the conversation. So let's get straight into it. This was recorded down the line just a few weeks ago. So here's my conversation with Tameika Isaac Devine.

Graham Allcott 0:04

This is Beyond Busy, the show where we talk about work, and all the questions that define how and where we do that work. We talk about productivity, work-life balance, how people define happiness and success, and much, much more. If you're new here, my name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. I'm the author of How to be a Productivity Ninja, and the founder of Think Productive. And this week on the show, we're talking to David Marquet. David is the author of the best selling book, Turn the Ship Around, has an amazing TED Talk with the same title, which we'll put a link to in the show notes. And he's also the author of new book Leadership is the Language. So we're gonna talk in a second to David, this is a pre lockdown conversation that we had earlier this year in London, when he was over here for a few days. So just get into it. Just to say, I hope you're enjoying the sunshine. It's a really lovely few days here in Brighton on the south coast of the UK. And also if you haven't been following me and my Rev Up for the Week, Sunday emails, you can find out more at GrahamAllcott.com were you'd be able to get details of how to sign up from there. And the Show Notes for this episode and all the others are at getbeyondbusy.com.

So let's get straight into the episode. This is a conversation about David's new book Leadership is Language, fascinating book about how language plays such a huge role in how we lead and in fact defines the style of how we lead so we talk a lot about that. We talked about his time as the captain of a nuclear submarine in the US Navy, and much much more. So I think you're gonna really enjoy David really just charismatic, inspiring, interesting guy with that. So many wise things to say so let's get straight to the episode. Here's my conversation with David Marquet.

've had a great reaction to the latest Beyond Busy podcast episode, with the highly passionate and compassionate David McQueen. I've known Dave a long time and he always brings his thoughtful A-game to everything he does. People really loved the little snippet of our conversation I put on my instagram where Dave talks about going in to Uber and doing a keynote where he starts by saying "let's face up to the truth: your boss is trash!".

I think the reason it resonated is that a lot of business culture is about hiding from the truth. In my travels through businesses I've seen some incredible cognitive dissonance over the years: Certain people getting an easier ride than others (or bad behaviour being ignored) because of their talent or status; brands that are clearly killing the planet high-fiving each other for saving it; impressive offices and meaningless awards hiding the fact that no-one there knows the answers either; people ignoring the notion that profitability is a driving force... There are countless examples where the truth is actively avoided.

Of course, truth is often hard to hear. No one likes to be the bearer of bad news, especially of personal bad news, like someone's poor performance, a change in direction, or conflict. That's where truth also needs kindness.

Graham Allcott 0:05

Hello again welcome back, Graham Allcott Beyond Busy The show where we talk productivity, work-life balance, happiness and success, life, the universe and everything, all that stuff. And on this episode, this is episode seven,we are talking to Amy Lee. Amy is a professional clown. So just to prove my, my devotion to be on busy after my recent illness, I'm sat in the shed on a Sunday afternoon. I really like I just don't work weekends like I'm very good at not allowing work to creep into my weekends. But I've had Roscoe our little boy or weekend we've been up at the SeaLife centre today running around and all that sort of stuff. And I've just got a couple of hours where he's with his mom, I'm down in the shed and I'm recording little voice bits for you. So here we are. This is Amy Lee. If you listen to the last episode with Matt From the songs and seven podcast, you'll probably already know that Matt is Amy's fiance, and that he proposed on his podcast on songs in seven. And you'll find a link to that in the show notes to the previous episode. And you know, it's just not often that you're sat in somebody's kitchen and you're having a cup of tea. So I was chatting to Matt and just kind of preparing for the interview with him. And then Amy piped up with the information that she is a professional clown. And I see some of this and we managed to arrange an interview. And it just felt like one of those amazing little things that just falls into your lap. From the very beginning of the idea of beyond busy as this podcast, I really wanted to interview people who had unique and interesting jobs and had kind of fun job titles and stuff like that, and I think to be seven episodes in and having already interviewed an internet musician, an Olympic gold medalist, an entrepreneur, a chief executive, it kind of feels like yeah, like I've I've ticked off some some good jobs. In these first few episodes, I sat down with Amy after my interview with Matt and Amy is Jasper from the clowning duo, Mauro and Jasper. And I'm sat here with Amy. And obviously the first question to ask is do you have a business card that says clown on it? So here's Amy.

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?

Graham Allcott 0:04

Hello, my name is Graham Allcott. Welcome to another episode of Beyond Busy. The show where we talk productivity, work life balance, defining happiness and success and much much more. On this episode, I'm talking to Dave McQueen, coach, contrarian, all around interesting guy and I think you're gonna really love this episode. We talk about Black Lives Matter, we talk leadership, we talk successes and failures in business, we talk telling hard truths to organisations and loads more. Just so much to take away from this episode. So I think you're gonna really enjoy it. Quick before we get into it, so I have just started up this mailing list in the last few weeks. I'm on week 10. And if you go to GrahamAllcott.com you can sign up there. We're now over 500 people it's it's been a really interesting journey of the last few weeks, just having the deadline every week to write something useful and positive. So it is called Rev up for the Week. And the idea is it's like one positive thought to take into the week ahead goes out every Sunday. If you want to sign up GrahamAllcott.com and you'll find the little form to fill in right on that page. And if you haven't yet subscribed to Beyond Busy, I'd love you to subscribe and also just to let you know that you can get shownotes previous episodes lots more at getbeyondbusy.com so just go to getbeyondbusy.com and let me know what you think if you want to drop me a line as well Graham (at) thinkproductive.co.uk. All right, let's get into this episode recorded in lockdown. I've got this list of there's probably about 15 people on the list who pretty much since I started Beyond Busy I've really wanted to have on and just for some reason haven't got around to tapping them up for episodes. They're generally people in my network, that I sort of know. Dave was on that list and we connected. So reconnected recently really over the video that Dave did, centering Black Lives, which we're going to talk about in this episode, which I just really loved and shared on my mailing list and elsewhere. So let's get straight into the episode recording lockdown. Here's myself and David McQueen.

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have a few more hours of feeling fully alert and on form each week? A few years ago, I was following all of my Productivity Ninja rules (of course!) but still finding I was less productive later in the day because I just had less energy. The familiar 4pm slump. I started working with a nutritionist I'd met, Colette Heneghan, to change all this. It worked and I'm still feeling the benefits several years later.

This weekend I've left my hometown of Brighton for the first time since... well, you know when. I'm writing this on a train (an actual train! Imagine!).

There are signs that things in the UK are (rightly or wrongly) beginning to open up. I can't say I'll be at the front of any queue for retail therapy, haircuts or a pint (I do all of these things from home, anyway!) but perhaps it's time to put some markers down. To get out of survival and existence mode and back towards some flourishing and forwards-momentum.

Graham Allcott 0:05

Hello, welcome to another episode of 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. On this episode, it's me it's me talking to Lawrence and Carlos, from the Happy Startup School. Really fun conversation to have. They're so thoughtful and grounded as people that I think they just bring the best out in their guests by just bringing a really nice energy to things. So yeah, really loved it really had a great time on there. And yeah, I think we had just over 100 people tuning in live to it. And we thought we'd just put it out as a podcast as well because it just, you know, seemed like a really good conversation to have right now. So just before we get into it, just to say hope you're well, the whole conversation really is all about productivity in a pandemic. And it talks a lot about some of the work life balance and definitions of success. You know, viewpoints within that, too. So it's very much on brand Beyond Busy this whole conversation. But it's really, you know, steeped in this weird, fuzzy, middle ground that we now find ourselves in. So, you know, lockdown rules are clear, everyone knows what they're doing. Everyone knows what they're not allowed to do. And in some ways, I find this current environment just like even more confusing, because it just feels like what we're allowed to do, again? What's one of the rules so if you're struggling with that, just know you're not alone. And it's at least some tentative steps towards, you know, some kind of economic normality that we might be returning to who knows. Just Taking it a day, a week and, you know, baby steps, time at the moment. So that's just the sort of nature of things but hope you are well hope you're surviving Hope everyone you know is, is okay too. A couple of quick things before we go into the episode. Firstly, just to say if you're listening to this because you are a regular, longtime Beyond Busy listener, and you don't know about my mailing list, then I have been setting up this mailing list over the last five, six weeks. It's called Rev up for the Week. And the idea is just to put some positive ideas in your inbox every Sunday night and just review up for the week. Are you ready for the week ahead? So if you're not signed up, just go to GrahamAllcott.com and on the homepage there you'll see a little form. In fact, I think it's pretty much at the bottom of every page on the site. So just fill in and that'll add you on to the mailing list. And then you'll get my Rev up for the Week emails. And also just to say that this episode is sponsored by Think Productive. So that's my company. And we run productivity workshops, both face to face in normal times, and also completely 100% virtually too. So if you're interested in that we have offices in the UK, in North America, Western Europe, based at the Netherlands and Australia, New Zealand. So if you are in or somewhere near one of those countries around the world, then had to thinkproductive.com, and find out more about how our stuff can really help. We've got a couple of really specific COVID workshops, we've got one called the Productivity Minjas Guide to Working from Home. We have one called Leading Remote Teams, which has actually been our probably most popular one over the last month or so where people are really starting to get their head around, what's the longer term remote working environment and look like and also one called supercharge your virtual meeting. So if any of that interests you along with, of course, how to be a Productivity Ninja, get your inbox zero all that other stuff that we do, then head to thinkproductive.com and we would love to help you out. Let's get into this episode. So this is we're using crowdcast for this, which is not a software that I've used before but it works really well. It's a Friday lunchtime, and I think you're gonna really enjoy this conversation. So let's jump straight in is myself with Laurence and Carlos from Happy Startup School.