← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Michael Bungay Stanier - #1 Coaching Expert | Why Smart People Give Terrible Advice
01:13:37
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- [00:00]
Scott Clary
Success story is a Square partner now your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. You know, I was just at Panther Coffee here in Miami last week. And beyond the incredible cortado, what struck me was watching them seamlessly handle the morning rush. The barista mentioned they've been using Square to manage everything from inventory to building their loyal customer base. It's so much more than just that little white card reader that we all recognize. Square knows that local businesses can be big businesses. And as things get more complex, Square meets you at every opportunity. So whether or not you're expanding, expanding to new locations, building a loyal following, even covering cash flow gaps, Square's powering all the behind the scenes stuff that matters. They knock out today's to dos and they unlock tomorrow's what ifs. If you're ready to see how Square can transform your business, go to square.comgo/success to learn more. That's square.com go success square. Meet you there.
- [00:58]
Michael Bungay Stanier
I've been playing in this world for many years now. When I first got a taste of it, I was a teenager. I volunteered at my local crisis support helpline for kids. Your advice My advice is never as good as I think it is, and it's often not the thing that is actually wanted in most interactions.
- [01:15]
Scott Clary
Today's guest has changed the way leaders coach, mentor and create impact. Michael Bungay Stanier is the mind behind Box of Crayons, a global company that's taught of thousands, thousands to shift from being advice driven to curiosity led be.
- [01:27]
Michael Bungay Stanier
The person who has the answer. That's how you prove that you're the smart person, the good person, the valuable person. Good advice has never been cheaper, faster, more accessible. We kind of attach a good degree of our sense of importance in the world as to being the person who has the answer.
- [01:45]
Scott Clary
He wrote the Coaching Habit, a book that sold over a million copies and is now considered the best selling coaching book of this century. He's a Rhodes Scholar, awarded Canadian Coach of the Year. But his real gift isn't just the accolades. It's how he helps you ask better questions, resist rushing into advice and find courage in the unknown.
- [02:01]
Michael Bungay Stanier
If you're attaching some sort of importance in the way, you can be most helpful, the way you can add value. Giving advice is probably not the thing to be hanging your hat on. Once you understand that this will be helpful for you to be more coach like that's a good place to start. One of the challenges with coaching is there's a lot of coaches in the world.
- [02:30]
Scott Clary
So Michael, I'm excited you're here. You've sold over a million copies of your book, the Coaching Habit, which essentially tells people to stop doing the thing they love most, giving advice.
- [02:42]
Michael Bungay Stanier
That's right.
- [02:43]
Scott Clary
And you've called people advice giving maniacs. So tell me what, what made you realize that our desire to help might actually be hurting?
- [02:52]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, you know, I've been playing in this world for many years now. When I, I first got a taste of it when I was a teenager and I volunteered at my local crisis support helpline for kids. So, you know, young people ringing up with, with challenges and we got some basic training on how to deal with those slightly, slightly scary phone calls. And one of the things I kept saying is like, first of all, the first thing they're telling you is just the first thing, it's not the thing. So your job is to stay present to them. Secondly, they're not actually looking for advice. I mean, sometimes they might be, but almost never are they actually looking advice. They're looking to be seen, they're looking to be heard, they're looking to be encouraged. They're looking for sympathy and empathy. And it was an early seed. And as I've had a career and had a life, it's just become increasingly obvious that your advice, my advice is never as good as I think it is. And it's often not the thing that is actually wanted in most interactions. And if you fast forward to where we are in 2025, where we have amazing, somewhat scary AI which knows everything, as far as I can tell, good advice has never been cheaper, faster, more accessible. So if you're attaching some sort of importance in the way you can be most helpful, the way you can add value, the way that you can maintain your authority and your status, giving advice is probably not the thing to be hanging your hat on because if it was ever there, it's going away fast. So building the muscle to be curious, now that's something that's a little trickier and a little more powerful.
- [04:36]
Scott Clary
Yeah, I think that is very tricky. I mean, I think the obvious question is why do we default to something that really isn't that helpful?
- [04:44]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, well, I mean, there's a couple of levels to it. The first is we have been trained all our life to be good kids, to have the answer. I mean, you know, you're a six year old in school and the teacher goes, does anybody know? And everybody sticks their hand up going, it's me, I'm me, me, pick me, pick me. And then, you know, we get a little More cool when we're in high school, but we're still trying to pass tests and same if we go to university. Like, there's this quest to be the person who has the answer. That's how you prove that you're the smart person, the good person, the valuable person. So it's just to say, look, we've had a lot of training to be told deliver the answer, but there's probably a deeper level there as well. We kind of attach a good degree of our sense of importance in the world as to being the person who has the answer. Now, in one of my books, the Advice Trap, I talk about the advice Monster. The advice monster, as soon as somebody starts it looms up out of the dark and goes, oh, you're going to add some value here. Just wait till you can interrupt and start telling them stuff. And the advice monster actually has kind of three faces, three facets, if you like. There's the tell it, there's save it and there's control it. And these are kind of just basically really core human drivers. So tell it is you need to have all the answers. You need to have all the answers to all the problems. If you don't, you're letting yourself down and you're letting them down. Save it is you need to protect everybody from everything. You need to make sure that nobody has a hard time, a difficult time, has an unsure time. You need to make everybody as absolutely safe as possible all the time. And control it is. You need to control the world. You need to make sure nothing unusual, unexpected happens. You need to fight off the future. You need to keep your hands on the wheel. And of course, all of these are impossible. You can't know everything. You can't save everybody. You can't control everything. But we've got deep drivers in ways that belief has served us in the past that keep showing up, going, look, well, look, I know I should ask a question, but maybe if I just tell them the stuff, maybe that will fix it faster.
- [06:51]
Scott Clary
So first of all, I want you to just tell me, for people that sort of have ever wanted a mentor or a coach, what coaching should be and why do they maybe get this icky feeling about it? Why do we have to unweird coaching in the first place? Is it because people are giving too much advice and not being curious enough? What's the issue with this industry?
- [07:13]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, it's a big word that everybody's heard of and not everybody's entirely sure what it means because it's actually changed and evolved over the years. So I think coaching does come with a whole lot of baggage. I mean, first of all, it can show up and it can all sound a bit woo woo and a bit kind of like I'm wearing a caftan and I'm lighting incense and I'm going to talk about their chakras and whatever else. And for a bunch of people, they're like, there's a bunch of people who go, I love that stuff, bring it on. If that's what coaching is, I love that. But there's a number of us, and I'm one of them who are like, look, I'm not that much into the woo wooness of it all. There's a second thing that baggage comes, which is like, it's a bit of a black box. Like nobody's quite sure what we're even talking about. Sometimes there's baggage because like, I had a really tough, mean sports coach who just shouted at me and made me do press ups and push ups in the mud. So there's a whole bunch of this. And they're like, well, what is coaching? What is coaching? And I think there are two ways that coaching can be really helpful. They can be really helpful in a formal sense, which is you bring somebody into your life. Typically you're hiring somebody and you're like, help me solve a problem, help me move from A to B. And one of the challenges with coaching is there's a lot of coaches in the world because there's no qualification. Yeah. The barrier to entry is simply, can you say the phrase I am a coach? If you can do that, you can kind of say, okay, I'm a coach now. So you know, there's some really brilliant coaches out there, but there's a certain amount of mediocrity in the profession. But if you get a great coach, they can help you figure out this and figure out how you're getting in your own way and figure out how to make progress on a project and figure out how to find a business model that will scale your business or find a way of showing up to help you be a better parent. There's all sorts of people who can say, I can help you solve a challenge. And if you can find a great coach that is really powerful and that tends to be, you show up on a regular basis, you have a conversation with them and you're like, here's what I'm wrestling with. And they're like, well, let me ask you some questions and let me teach you something and we can make some progress on that. I Have coaches. I have a couple of coaches at the moment for different parts of the businesses that I run. But part of what I'm really trying to champion is this idea that we can all be coach like, now. I don't want everybody who reads my book to become a coach. I mean, if they do, okay, that's fine. But I'm like, look, if you interact with other human beings, being more coach like can be a helpful way of showing up. Because being more coach like, stay curious a little bit longer, rush to action and advice, giving a little bit more slowly. I'll probably say this another nine times during this conversation because actually, if you show up and you're a parent and you're trying to raise your kids, staying curious is a really powerful way of being with them. If you're a manager and a leader and you're trying to grow your team, not just grow them in terms of they get stuff done, but grow their sense of confidence and competence and autonomy and self sufficiency, then asking questions can be a really powerful way of doing that. It's not the only way of leading. Part of the baggage that comes with coaching is like, what does this mean? I can never tell anybody anything ever again because I can only ask questions. I'm like, no, no, no. Like, advice is really powerful and useful in its place. Just most of us just lean on it a little too heavily. And it means that when, as a leader of a business, for instance, you do give guidance and you give advice, it's more likely to be useful and to the point if you've actually asked some questions beforehand.
- [10:53]
Scott Clary
I love that. And I think that that's actually, you know, if, like you mentioned, coach means different things to different people. And I think that, like my. My sort of layman interpretation of what you're saying is coach is synonymous with good leader like that. That's the way that I look at it. And the reason why I say that is probably that maybe there is a nuance or a difference. But the reason I say that is because a good leader, whether or not you look at them like, for example, as a co. Because I don't want to say that a manager in a company, they don't have the formal title of coach, but a good manager or a good leader in a company is asking questions and is delaying advice, giving and is being very curious and is enabling and empowering and letting people sort of come to their own conclusions. That's your definition of a. Yeah.
- [11:39]
Michael Bungay Stanier
You know, so I'd say it. I mean, I'm Basically agreeing with you. But the nuance for me is, I think a good leader, a good manager, a good parent, is almost always using coaching techniques and coaching skills as part of what they do, because it's not the whole thing. It's not the whole thing in parenting or leading or managing people, but it's a key part, and it's typically an underutilized part. I mean, there's a guy called Daniel Goleman who. He made the idea of emotional intelligence popular 25 years ago. He wrote an article for Harvard Business Review. It's called the Six Styles of Leadership. He said, look, there are actually six different styles of leadership, and each one has pros and cons, risks and rewards. Each one is appropriate in certain contexts, depending on what's required. What was interesting is, he said, look, most leaders use one or two, maybe three of these different styles. Great leaders know how to use all six of these different styles. Because if there's an emergency, if the house is burning down, you don't want to be going, how do people feel about smoke? That's not useful. What you need is clear direction if the house is burning down. So what's also interesting in that article, and I don't think much has changed, is that coaching was one of the least utilized forms of leadership. Even though you could see direct impact not just on culture, but actually on bottom line as well. It actually drove str strategy and culture.
- [13:09]
Scott Clary
I. I would assume that's because people don't actually know what coaching is. I think that that's the thing. They assume that coaching. Because you've mentioned, like, when you rush to give advice within, like, the first 10 to 15 seconds, that we are actually diminishing the person that we're trying to help. But if I was going to ask somebody, okay, what is your definition of coaching? They'd be like, well, when somebody's screwing up, I'm gonna. I'm gonna give them advice. Well, that would be the immediate answer to what is not the correct way to do it.
- [13:36]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, I mean, that's the. I mean, that's the. That's. It's just. Coaching is a slippery word. I mean, let's face it, it gets used in all sorts of different contexts. So, you know, there's. You're not alone in going, I'm just using coaching as an updated version of just telling people what to do. And that's why I love this kind of core behavior thing, which is like, can you stay curious a little bit longer? If you can do that, everything changes.
- [14:00]
Scott Clary
So what does that mean staying curious a little bit longer. So let's put it into a framer for people because again, this can this, this kind of coaching behavior, the way that we're describing it right now, this can be used for an employee you're hiring, if you're an entrepreneur, if you are leading a department in a business. I know that there's a lot of crossover in like family life. How you, how do you coach and raise your kids? So what is the, what is like the framework to do this properly?
- [14:26]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, in the coaching habit book, I basically offer up seven questions and I say, look, if you can integrate seven of these questions or even just some of the seven questions into the way that you work, that's going to help you stay curious a little bit longer. But the framework probably starts not with the questions just, but with an understanding and a belief that it's like this would be helpful, this would be helpful if I was doing that. Because if you don't think it's helpful, it doesn't matter how good the seven questions are, you're not going to use them. So when I'm talking to people in businesses in particular, I say, look, there are three vicious circles that managers and leaders, whether of a small company or a big company, that they typically face. And these are the three vicious circles. The first is an over dependent team. Like the more they come to you for advice, the more you give them advice, the more you give them advice, the more they come to you for advice, the more they come to you. And you just get to this thing where you're like, I mean, I hired some good people but they've lost all capacity to do anything without running it past me. It's really annoying. And of course they're saying, I was really looking forward to working with this person, but now I have to run everything through this other person. It's really annoying and a real bottleneck. And it's like control issues. And an over dependent team is a team that is not performing because you become a bottleneck. They've lost some of their confidence, they've lost their sense of autonomy and everybody's paying a price for that. That's the first vicious circle. The second vicious circle is just a sense of overwhelm. The more that ends up on your plate, the more you lose focus on the key stuff. The more you lose focus on the key stuff, the more ends up on your plate. Before you know it, you're like, okay, I've got emails d back to 1983, I've got texts, I Haven't answered. I got a thing from somebody the other day going, I've got 15,543 unanswered emails in my inbox.
- [16:18]
Scott Clary
Oh, my God.
- [16:19]
Michael Bungay Stanier
I know, exactly. I was like, I felt physically ill thinking about that. But, I mean, it's a pretty common state of affairs for most people that they're like, I'm never going to get to the end of all the stuff I have to do. You know, you go to bed, you've got that slight tremor of anxiety around, okay, I'm behind, I'm behind. It's like the White Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland. I'm late. I'm behind, I'm behind. And then the third vicious circle is a sense of disconnect. Like, Simon Sinek stuff. It's like you've lost the connection to the why of the work. The less impact you have, the more you kind of resign yourself to being a small cog in the wheel machine. The more you resign yourself, the less impact you have. And if you're listening and you're like, yeah, one or two or three of those resonate for me, the reason you might be interested in being more coach, like, is it can help you break through these three vicious circles. It can help you have a team that's less dependent. It can help you and those around you feel less overwhelmed, and it can help you find connection to the work that matters most. So you're going to have a purpose for the coaching before you actually do that?
- [17:28]
Scott Clary
Well, I think that, that. I was going to say that sounds, I mean, like, from anybody who's even hired one person, that sounds like a good outcome. Like, I think that we all fall into these traps.
- [17:38]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Exactly. And believe me, I'm. I'm teaching this because I have to learn it. I still have to learn it, annoyingly enough. So part of that's.
- [17:45]
Scott Clary
And I mean, people, I don't know if everybody knows, but you built a coaching company and then you actually exited this company. So this, you've had, like, frontline exposure to, like, the best and the worst coaching in the world.
- [17:56]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Look, I've done, I've played all the roles. You know, I've been an employee, I've started a business, I've run a business, I've exited a business, I've started another business. I consistently make all the mistakes, but it means that I've got some scars and some stories to tell around that. So once you understand that a, this will be helpful for you to be more coach, like, that's a good place to start. Secondly, there's perhaps a deep promise about being more coach like is to realize that when people are in conversation with you, partly they want a solution to a problem, but partly they want to be seen and they want to be heard. They want to be seen and heard as human beings. And when you're in advice giving maniac mode, you're actually kind of like, I'm just trying to process this stuff and get the work off my plate and get you out of my office or off my zoom screen. And there's a way that being curious a little bit longer is actually about human and humanity and about connection as well. So just to say those things as framework and then we get into the seven questions. So I'm going to rattle through them really fast. And Scott, why don't you tell me which one you want to double click on and we can go deep on it. All right, so the kickstart question is, what's on your mind? One of my beliefs about coaching is that if you can't coach somebody in 10 minutes or less, you don't have time to coach, which means you've just got to get into what the real stuff is as fast as possible. And what's on your mind accelerates you into that. Then there's the focus question. The focus question is, what's the real challenge here for you? This is really powerful because in most organizations and in life, people are really busy trying to solve the wrong problems. And if actually, if you are in business, if you realize that the most or one of the most profound changes in identity you can have is moving from the person who has fast ideas to the person who figures out what the real problem is, that changes everything. The third question of seven is the best coaching question in the world, or that's what I say. And it's a really simple one. And it's and what else? And what else? Because the first answer is never their only answer and it's rarely their best answer. But your advice monster doesn't want you to believe that. So. And what else? Honestly, if you had just one question to the mix, this might be it. The fourth question, the foundation question, is what do you want? It's really profound. Of all the seven questions, it's probably the hardest one to answer because what do you want? I mean, what you really want is kind of existential in some ways, but if you can help people figure out what they want, you can help them actually have a foundation for action. The sixth question, fifth question, the strategic question. If I'm saying yes to this what must I say no to? I mean, strategy is saying no to the stuff you want to say yes to. So that's a really powerful question. The seventh question is that the helping question, which is like, how can I help? I actually call it the lazy question because it sounds contradictory, because it's like, wait, how can I help? Aren't you just asking for more work? But one of the things that makes us overwork and jump in and try and fix things is we think we know what that other person wants and needs from us. But actually, one of the most powerful things you can do is just ask them, hey, how can I help? What do you want from me? And then the final question is the teaching question, which is what was most useful or most valuable for you here with the key insight being, look, people don't. Your job as a leader, as a parent, as a teacher, as a manager is to help people get smarter. And you got to know how people get smarter. And it's not by telling them stuff, annoyingly enough, it's actually by helping them have a moment to reflect on what just happened and have them extract the value from the moment. So that's a kind of rapid fire, kind of Skip through the seven questions.
- [22:00]
Scott Clary
HubSpot is a success story partner. Now think about listening to this podcast. Right now you're probably multitasking, you're probably catching 70 to 80% of what we're talking about. But let's flip that and imagine you're only catching 20%. That'd be crazy, right? It's really not a good use of your time if you only remember 20% of what we're talking about. But most businesses, most entrepreneurs are only using 20% of their data. All the most important details in call logs, emails, chats with their customers. It's just left floating in digital space, not being used. HubSpot, it gives you the access to those insights to help you grow your business. Because when you know more, you grow more. Visit HubSpot.com to get the full picture of your business today. NetSuite is a success story partner. Now, what does the future hold for business? If you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 answers. Bull market, bear market. Interest rates are rising. They're falling. Honestly, at the end of the day, we just need a crystal ball. But until then, over 42,000 businesses have trusted and future proof themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, invent and HR into one cohesive platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth, giving you the visibility and control that you need to make quick decisions. With real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next. If I needed this kind of business management system, NetSuite is exactly what I'd use. So whether or not your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges in your business and sees your your biggest opportunities. And speaking of opportunity, you have to download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. The guide is free for all listeners. That's netsuite.com Scott Clary indeed is a Success Story Partner. Now say you just realized your business needed to hire someone fast. How can you find amazing candidates fast? It's easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed Sponsor Job Jobs helps you stand out and hire fast. And with Sponsor Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster and it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, Sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Plus with Indeed sponsored Jobs, there's no monthly subscription, no long term contracts. You only pay for results. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a 75 dollar sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility. Just go to indeed.comclary right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Clary terms and conditions apply. If you're hiring, Indeed is all you need. I think that the question that a lot of people may have is okay, I have these seven questions locked and loaded for the next time somebody walks into my office. But how do I get somebody to feel comfortable enough to open up and be truthful? And actually, because you mentioned there's one question and what else? Which reminds me of almost like the five whys, right? You ask why five times and you you get past all these sort of cognitive walls that people put up, these mental blockers. But is there a practice? Or is maybe one of the questions meant to do that just to get people to be honest about their answers? So because they could just like and give you whatever they think that you want to hear, which is not going to Help you at all?
- [25:28]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, it's a big question. Let me talk about the seven whys and what else first? And then come. Because I think it'll lead to a more expanded answer. The seven whys is really a classic discipline, particularly in kind of the strategic thing to try and find root cause of stuff. Yeah, but why this? But why this? But why this? Oh, okay. We found the essence of what's going on. But I actually recommend most people, most of the time don't ask why questions. Because as soon as I start saying, hey, Scott, why did you do this? It's very easy for that to sound like, hey, Scott, why the hell did you do this? Why on earth did you do this? It's very hard to get the tone of why questions right in a way that doesn't sound like you're pointing a finger at them in some way. And also the why in most conversations is actually not that interesting. It's not that useful to actually making progress on the conversation. So most of those questions that you heard me list start with what? Because it's a little more open and exploratory and neutral as a word. Now the bigger question is around, so how do you get people to trust you? How do you get people to actually open up? And the answer is, well, it doesn't just happen. If you've had a two year relationship where you've just been telling people what to do and they're like, oh, I just heard this amazing podcast. So what's on your mind? You can imagine them going, have you been on a course? Have you been on a conference? You've been listening to that podcast again, haven't you? So it's one of those things that takes time. But the first thing I would say is context matters. So it depends a little bit whether you've summoned somebody into your office for a coaching session or whether you're just in conversation with them. And I think that one of the most powerful ways of framing coaching is not that it's an occasional one off, formalized event, but that it's an everyday way of working with people, an everyday way of showing up with people. Because there's no doubt that if I said, hey, Scott, I'd like you to come into my office in half an hour, I'm going to coach you. That's like a vaguely terrifying offer. What am I doing? What am I being coached on? That sounds like I'm being punished for something. I don't know how this coaching balaki works, what's going on here? Whereas if we're just in conversation and I'm like, hey, Scott, it's our one to one. What's on your mind? How can I help? And that person will meet you where they're at. So it's actually quite hard to resist somebody with genuine curiosity showing up with a kind of like, I'm here to be helpful. What's on your mind? How can I help? So what do you think the real challenge is here for you? There's a kind of genuine curiosity in that that is quite seductive, quite hard to resist. And there are times where people are like, yeah, I see what you're doing. I'm not falling for your games. I'm not going to be answering your questions. And then there's a conversation to be had around, well, look, this is the way I want to be managing now. I want to be leading with a bit more coaching. Or you can even say, look, it feels like we're a little bit stuck in this conversation. What does it take for us to go deeper and be more useful for it? And there may be other.
- [28:51]
Scott Clary
And you can actually just ask that.
- [28:52]
Michael Bungay Stanier
You can ask that, look, I've got three principles around coaching. Be lazy, be curious, be. Often being lazy is like, stop trying to do their work for them and solve their problems for them. But also it includes when you don't know what's happening. Ask them them all those things that are in your head.
- [29:10]
Scott Clary
Why try and why try and figure it out?
- [29:12]
Michael Bungay Stanier
A, you'll be wrong, and B, you could get them to tell you what's actually going on as much as they can. Being curious means taming your advice monster. And being often is to recognize that any interaction can be a bit more coach. Like, I mean, you know, as we finish this podcast or even right now, to the people who are listening, we can say, look, you know, we've been Talking for what, 20 minutes or something like that, maybe half an hour by now. And I'm like, so we've covered quite a lot in a short time because Scott's a great asker of questions. But as a listener, what's been most useful or most valuable for you so far? What do you want to remember from this podcast? Because we've got another 30 minutes at least to go. What are you taking away from it so far? And the reason I'm doing that, Scott, is I'm trying to clear people's cash so they've got more room for what's coming to them. Because at a certain point, people's brains get full. You're pouring water into A full glass. And so having a break about now and going, hey, what's been most useful? What's been most valuable? And people might go, the definition of coaching was great, or the seven questions were great, or the thing about trust was great. But what it's done is it's kind of processed, reworked, rewired the insight. And we're now opening up to a.
- [30:28]
Scott Clary
Deeper conversation because I can have my own curiosity. But because you've worked with this framework for so long, I would actually ask. Ask out of the seven questions, which is the one that is not brought up or not asked enough, that is probably the most powerful that you wish people would ask organically more when they're trying to coach and help somebody.
- [30:47]
Michael Bungay Stanier
All of the questions can really unlock something powerful. The strategic question is underutilized because almost everybody has too much stuff going on on. And it is quite scary to say no to the stuff that you want to do. There's something quite powerful in the strategic ways, particularly if you're running businesses where you're like, oh, maybe I'll just keep my options open. But strategy. What am I going to say no to if I'm going to say yes to this? If I'm going to be fully committed to this, what must I say no to? To make the. That actually a decision with some oomph to it. But actually, I think the one that shifts behavior the most is simply the question, how can I help? Or a variation on that, which is like, what do you want from me? And I'll rewind a few steps just to explain why I'm saying that there's a model of human dynamics that I love. It's called the Karpman drama triangle. And it says that, look, whenever things get dysfunctional, and of course in relationships, things always get dysfunctional, eventually three different roles play out. There's the victim, there's the persecutor, and there's the rescuer. So what I love about it is you immediately know what these roles look like and sound like. You know, when somebody's playing the victim mode, bit whiny, bit complainy, bit, oh, it's so hard. It's not fair. But there's a genius to the victim role, is that they attract people, trying to help them and fix them and save them.
- [32:22]
Scott Clary
Them.
- [32:23]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Then there's the persecutor mode, the persecuted mode. You know what that looks like? It's like the bully, somebody shouting more subtly. It's like the micromanager kind of like, let me control everything. Basically. It's like Look, I'm good. I'm surrounded by turkeys. If anything breaks around here, it's because I've got idiots left, right and center. If anything works, it's because I've miraculously pulled something out of the fire. There's something that's great about playing the persecutor role, which is like, you feel better than everybody, you feel superior, you feel kind of like you're the best person there, but it's a lonely, overwhelmed place because nobody likes you. When the whipping stops, everybody goes home and you feel like you have to do everybody's work for them because they're all useless. Just like with the victim. For all of the, oh, this is great. Because everybody comes and rescues me. It's an utterly powerless place to be because you're like, I've got no control, no power, no influence. And then the third role is the rescuer, which I appreciate sounds better than the victim and the persecutor, but trust me, it's as equally as dysfunctional as the other two roles. And the rescuer is like, let me jump in, let me fix it, let me solve it, let me help, let's not fight, let me give it to me, I'll take it on. And the advantage of playing that role is it's quite controlling. You got your fingers in everybody's pie. You feel helpful. You also feel like you're a martyr to the cause. Nobody appreciates how hard I work as I try and make everything work around here. But the price you pay is a you perpetuate the triangle. Because rescuers create victims, rescuers even create neighbors. Exactly. And also you're like so busy doing everybody else's work, you're exhausted, you're burnt out, you never get to your own important work. So that's a helpful framework.
- [34:10]
Scott Clary
I love it. And then if you ask that question and then it's shifting. So regardless of how dysfunctional this relationship is, it is shifting. If you want to be the rescuer, which just seems like a comfortable spot for people to fall into, it's not. So don't, don't, don't buy the hype. So then shift the how can I help? To something that's actually meaningful to the person as opposed to just turning them.
- [34:33]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Into a. I love that you got this so fast. Because how can you help? Is a way of. It's a self management question to control your rescuer tendencies. Because when I ask people of those three roles, which role do you identify with most? And I've done this with lots of people 90 to 95% of people will say, I identify as a rescuer, which I actually think is often the choice that a victim would make. But that's a whole other story. But if people go, look, I am a rescuer, that means I've got a tendency to jump in uninvited to try and fix things. Then that question, how can I help? Or what do you want from me? Is a way of slowing down the dynamic just enough so that you're not instantly pulled into the rescuer mode. And it comes with this key addition, which is when they tell you what they want, you don't have to say yes to it. You get to say yes, or you get to say no, or you get to say maybe, or you get to say, not that, but I could do this instead. But it's like, at least you get to hear a clear request from them and you get to decide what to do with that. Because if at the heart of this is, how do we build adult to adult relationships in our workplaces and our lives? Well, what's an adult to adult relationship? It's being able to ask for what you want, knowing that the answer might be no, and being willing to negotiate.
- [36:03]
Scott Clary
The difference, and that's a true relationship.
- [36:06]
Michael Bungay Stanier
I call that an adult to adult relationship. And it turns out as simple as it sounds. Asking for what you want, knowing that the answer might be no, and negotiating the differences, they're all hard things to do. But if you can step into that and asking that question, what do you want? Or how can I help? Is part of the equation of that.
- [36:24]
Scott Clary
You go through a framework. I've heard you speak about it before. It's a philosopher's framework, Martin Buber's framework on I, thou and I. It's it. And I think that this all comes down. I don't want to get too complicated on people who are listening, but I think this all comes down to building relationships with humans as opposed to, like, who they are as a human, as opposed to just what their function is in the job or. Or in life. Right. And can you explain. Can you explain that concept just at a very basic level and why it's important to use this concept to understand if we're treating somebody like a human versus a job title.
- [37:01]
Michael Bungay Stanier
The good news is I only understand it at a very basic level, so that that's the limit that I'll be to explain it, because Manbuva's a philosopher and a spiritualist, and I'm none of the above. But I think he just has this very simple Powerful way of saying, look, your relationships just fall into two different categories. Many of them are I it relationships, which is when that other person is a bit objectified, when you're trying to get something from them and you're trying to get something from you, and that's okay. But a more enlightened type of relationship is an I thou relationship, which is that sense of you both feel seen and you both feel heard and you both feel present and you both feel able to bring the best of who you are to that other person's presence. And it feels to me that that's aspirational. As much as 43% of my relationships are I thou relationships. But we so often work in contexts which kind of nudge us towards less humanity rather than more humanity. I mean, I think organizational work, you know, in many organizations you can feel a little bit of a part of a cog of a machine. You know, there's a lot of transaction that is going on and it's just very hard to forget your own and forget other people's humanity in the mix. And I think one of the the we touched on this right at the start, which is one of the less seen aspects of being more coach, like staying curious a little bit longer, is this sense of relational curiosity, of connection to the other person.
- [38:39]
Scott Clary
Is there a way? Because I think that, listen, we're talking about work, but I think that some people, even in relationships, it starts to become transactional and they forget the humanity. When you've been married to somebody for 30 plus years, I'm not sure I'd go that far.
- [38:52]
Michael Bungay Stanier
I think even when you're in, I mean, because if I look at most of my relationships, most of the time it's me aspiring to I thou relationships rather than me being in I thou relationships. Even with my wife, who I love. And you know, it's been 30 pretty great years. There are times where I'm like, you know, snippy and this, that and the other, and I'm like, is this an I thou moment? It's not an I thou moment, it's an I it moment. So it feels as much as an orientation to say, keep remembering that that's what I'm trying to get to. There's no doubt that some of these coaching techniques and leadership techniques, they work just fine in I it relationships. What I would notice is there are moments when you're coaching somebody or being more coach, like with them, the opportunity to kind of touch the I thou becomes easier, becomes a little bit closer. You know, I get like you know, one of the things that we talked about before we hit record was next year, 2026, the 10th anniversary of the Coaching Habit book. I'm really trying to figure out how to make it a better known resource for parents particularly. Parents are teenagers because you're in an I it relationship. It's parents and teenagers. It's like teenagers, their brains are melting and they're, you know, they're like rebelling against everything and they're, they're allergic to advice even as they struggle with all the hard stuff that young people are up against. And parents are like, what happened to my nice kid? You turned into this monster. And by the way, take my advice. Cause I think I know what you should be doing. And it's like it's set up for this kind of tough, tough passage. And I get, I mean, and I don't even have kids of my own. Like, these are just stories of their head. I'm happily child free, but cheering on all the parents. And I get emails regularly from parents saying, look, it turned out that me asking questions and then being quiet and being present and listening for an answer, that shifted something in the relationship. And for a moment, perhaps it's just gone a little closer to being an I thou relationship with that kid.
- [41:01]
Scott Clary
Talk about what transfers over from these questions and sort of these frameworks into like a personal relationship. Maybe all of it does, but is there any nuance? Is there any way that you do it differently? Is there any way that you, you. Because you can't be like, hey, come into my office to talk about our marriage or talk about, or talk about, you know, the fact that you're married.
- [41:20]
Michael Bungay Stanier
It might be the end of your marriage. Yeah.
- [41:23]
Scott Clary
So what do you do differently? What do you do the same? What carries over, what doesn't?
- [41:26]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, I think the what what's the same is this principle which is like, hey, can I stay curious about this person and what's going on? Can I resist the need to fix things? Because I mean, my best is this has been true for every single person listening to this podcast. You've had that moment when maybe your spouse or your partner or that romantic person in your life or maybe just a close friend, you're like, hey, this is what I'm up against. And they're like, oh, you know what you should do? And your heart sinks a little bit because you're like, you know, a, I'm not really looking for advice. B, your advice is terrible. This is A, now if I was looking for advice, it wasn't the advice you've just given me because this doesn't feel helpful at all. And often enough people just want to have somebody listen to them and challenge them and provoke them. There's a phrase I use, and I think this works in all these relationships that you have, that you can be more coach, like in a way of showing up that is aspirational and it is this, it is fierce love. So the love part for me means I want the best for them. I want them to be the best version of who they are. It's like part of my role as your husband, as your friend, as your boss, as your colleague, is to try and contribute to you being the best version of you. And a fierceness for me means a willingness to do and say what needs to be done as part of my commitment to that. That and also a willingness to not do and not say the things that need to be not said and not done as part of my commitment to that. So a fierce love might manifest itself in you going, look, I'm going to ask the question and be present to whatever that person says and not correct them and not give them advice, not give them suggestions. Or it might be to say, hey, look, this is the pattern I'm noticing and it doesn't feel like it's healthy. Or it might say, this is the impact your words have just had on me and this is how I feel sad or angry or embarrassed or whatever it might be around that because there's like a fierceness to say, look, it's hard, this stuff is hard. But my commitment to that person being the best version of themselves and therefore me being the best version of myself with them, in other words, I thou relationship relationships requires some of that. And if you've got that and you know that curiosity can take you a long way down the path for this, you can abandon the. I mean, the seven questions are great because they work in many contexts, but actually it's that essence of stay curious, stay present, help them be seen, be heard, have a fierce heart, an open, fierce love. That works if you're working with another human being.
- [44:20]
Scott Clary
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- [47:26]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Well, I would first of all invite people to say, look, you don't have to feel that you're coaching somebody, just be more coach like with them. So as soon as you're coaching, you say I'm coaching you. That can often come with that baggage we talked about right at the start, which is like, I'm trying to solve this, I'm trying to fix this, I'm trying to be valuable here. I'm trying to move you from A to B. And actually more valuable is your presence and your curiosity in the conversation. So it's like, how do I be more coach like, and you heard me say this before, but to say it again, which is like, so realize that you can be doing this all the time. You can be doing it at dinner, around a table, you can be doing it as you drive them from A to B. You can do it on a walk together. It's just asking a question, being present and listening to the answer. And I'd say if there's one thing that people could think about and look at is like just notice how fast you want to interrupt, how fast you want to offer ideas and opinions. I mean, there's a TED Talk around this, a TEDx talk called how to Tame youe Advice Monster where we get into this a little bit. If you want to kind of. This isn't a side Scott, but my favorite comment on that TED video is I tried to watch this but his trousers were too tight. So you know, people can decide whether or not they want to risk seeing me in too tight trousers to kind of watch me talking about the advice Monster. But it's like that's why if you're going to pick a question, it might be and what else? Or it might even just be silence because actually we're so keen to be helpful and so keen to add value and so keen Just feel like we're part of it. We just so often jump in with stuff that you don't actually need. You can just hold the space for them. I don't know, is this landing? I mean, I'm worried a little bit that I'm getting a bit too woo woo for people here. So I'm wondering how it's landing for me. You.
- [49:29]
Scott Clary
You know, it's so funny because you just mentioned like you were concerned that it was sort of like a two of a. An esoteric woo woo idea. I think that actually just shows how conditioned we are as humans to just jump in and give like this hard, tactical advice. Because like, we're talking about, we're talking about creating space for people to, to, to be curious, to talk about things that are actually important to them. That's how you build relationships. That's how, that's how you just become a better leader, a better coach, a better human being being. That shouldn't be woo woo. That should be the default operating system for most people. However, it isn't.
- [50:06]
Michael Bungay Stanier
And when I say stay curious a little bit longer, I'm not saying for a week and a half. I mean, honestly, if I can get people to stay curious for another 75 seconds, that would be a great win. And for everyone who's listening, who's going, yeah, but how do I give advice? I mean, what if I want to give advice? Well, first of all, there are some times when giving advice immediately is the right thing to do. Like when somebody comes and says, hey, Michael, where's the folder? We don't want to have a coaching conversation around that. I want to say, look, the folder's over there and the cubicle over there. Go get it. So there's a place. But if you're like, I've got some ideas and I want to share them, when do I best share them? Let me give everybody a script so they can use this exact script. Scott comes to me and goes, hey, Michael, how do I, how do I become a better podcaster now? Scott's done a thousand shows for this podcast. Been doing it for six years. I've been podcasting for 20 years. I haven't actually done a thousand shows yet, but I've been like, I'm older than he is. I've got.
- [51:05]
Scott Clary
No, no, no. 20 years is like you're one of the OGs.
- [51:09]
Michael Bungay Stanier
I had a podcast before anything called podcast existed. When the word podcasting came along, I had to rename my show to call it the Something Something podcast. So when Scott comes to me and says, michael, how do I be a better podcaster? Trust me, I've got a bunch of ideas just based on this interview alone where I could go. I can tell you a thousand, thousand things, but that's not the way to do it. So here's what I would say. Scott comes to me and says, how do I. I go, scott, great question. I've got some ideas and I'm going to share my best ones with you. But before I tell you what I'm thinking, what ideas do you already have? And you see, I'm just hitting the ball back over the net saying, tell me what ideas you've already had, because they always come with at least one idea. And Scott will give me his first idea. That's great. I like it. What else could you do? And what else could you do? And what else could you do? You see how I'm just using the and what else question here just to carry the conversation. I'm just keeping the curiosity space open longer. And if I feel like the energy is winding down a little bit, I'll go, is there anything else? It's Is there anything else? As a variation on and what else? And it's kind of a, should I shut the door or should I leave it open a little longer? Is there anything else? And it's got my go, well, no, that's about it. I'm like, look, I love all of those. Let me give you a couple of ideas of my own that I think can add and build onto your ideas, and then I will share my advice. So why this script works so well is a, you stay lazy. You help them figure out their own ideas. Because what's miraculous is when you go, what ideas have you already got and what else? They won't even realize that they've got those ideas. Saying them out loud, they're like, I had more ideas than I realized to solve this problem. Secondly, it shows you what ideas you already had that aren't worth sharing because they already had them. So you don't kind of repeat redundant or obvious ideas. You're actually figuring out what they already know. And thirdly, it means that when you do share your ideas at the end a, you're sharing something new and better, and you're suddenly saying, yeah, I still got it. I still have a few things up my sleeve that you don't know. So you're kind of reminding them that you've got some value and some wisdom and some perspective and all of that. So it's a much faster, accelerated way to get their Ideas out on the table and go, these are all great. I love all of them. Here are a couple from me. Now, of all those ideas, which ones are you most excited about it? Also, if you're in a working relationship, in particular, where you're the boss, it gets over. The boss's idea is always the best idea phenomena. What normally happens is when the boss says, well, I have an idea. I think we should do this. Everybody goes, that's a really good idea. I'm writing it down because I think we should do the boss's idea idea. And, you know, obviously, the boss's idea is not always the best idea.
- [54:03]
Scott Clary
We sort of gone through a lot of different questions that can help someone else. But I know that you also have a daily practice where you ask yourself questions. So, again, questions are the root of.
- [54:13]
Michael Bungay Stanier
I do a lot.
- [54:14]
Scott Clary
Success, happiness, fulfillment. What?
- [54:15]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm just. Like, I'm. I, I love a good question. Like, I've been collecting them.
- [54:20]
Scott Clary
No, no, I do too. Listen, it's. This is. The good questions have changed my life on the podcast and on.
- [54:26]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, yeah.
- [54:27]
Scott Clary
Um, but you have a daily practice where you ask yourself five questions. So three questions in the morning, two questions at night. So what are these questions and why are they so important? Because I'm. Listen, I'm, I'm not naive. I'm assuming that some of the questions that you ask yourself, they're also uncovering the same things you're trying to figure out in other people.
- [54:45]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, exactly. So the three questions, I, I, I journal in the morning, too. And, you know, some people journal for, you know, half an hour. I journal for five minutes, maybe. Some days a bit more, some days a bit less. But it's a way of me just kind of grounding myself in the moment. So the first question is, what do you notice? And that's trying to make me a little bit more present to just what's going on in my life. So what's in my head? What's out my window? What's in my heart? What am I feeling? Just kind of, what's the swirl of thing that's going around? Because I'm a bit of a heady guy, and I'm a bit of a kind of living in the future guy. And what do you notice is asking me to be present in the moment, right here, right now. So that's the first question. The second question is one from the Coaching Habit book, which is, what do you want? And I tell you what, this question annoys me every morning because it is a hard question to answer. I mean, you can answer it at a really superficial level, like I want my coffee, but really it's inviting you to go a little deeper, which is like, what do you want? What do you want in your life? What do you want in this day? What do you want in this week? What do you want in this? Whatever. And what I find is having to answer that question, kind of, for me anyway, five times a week basis when the same answers keep coming up. I'm like, I probably need to do something about this. And then the third question is, what's the one thing thing? So I still live a life of perpetual over commitment. I'm trying to get a bit better at it, but it's a long journey. I'll rock up to a day and I'll have somewhere between 10 and 40 different tasks to do, which are completely disconnected from the fact that my calendar is fully booked with other stuff that I've committed to do. And I'm like, I can't tell you how many hours of my life I've spent spent redating to do tasks and move it from three days ago to five days in the future, hoping with some magical thinking that I'll get it done. So what's the one thing to do? Is an encouragement to say, look, don't do 93 tasks and avoid the most important task. Do the one thing that will move your worthy goal, your great work, the thing that matters most to you. If you can only do one thing today, what's the one thing that matters most?
- [57:13]
Scott Clary
Most?
- [57:14]
Michael Bungay Stanier
So those are the three morning questions. And then there's a question designed for the evening. It turns out that I also answer yesterday's question in the morning when I'm doing that. But it is, what made today a good day? What made today a good day? And it's kind of a gratitude question. And I'm sure lots of people have heard that kind of gratitude is that silver bullet. If you can have a gratitude practice in general, your life is to going, going to get better. And there are questions related to it, like, what did I make progress on today? There's a book by a Harvard professor, Teresa Amabile, called the Progress Principle. And he said, look at work, people feel good about work if they make regular daily progress on something that matters to them. So I was like, you could make it. What progress did you make? But I wanted it to not just be about progress or productivity or efficiency. I'm like, of all the things that happened in the day, what are you celebrating? What are you grateful for? Because sometimes it's like the bin men came and I didn't think they were going to come and it means that we actually got to have trash cleared away. Or sometimes it's like my wife baked a peach pie. I only get one peach pie a year. And it was yesterday. So that was what made yesterday a great day. And so that, that point of reflection for the day.
- [58:42]
Scott Clary
So if we talk about, if we talk about sort of daily practices and the goal setting, something else that you, you help people with, what is an actual goal or what is a worthy goal? Because I think that's something that I think eludes people a lot. They don't. I've thought about this a lot, actually. How many people just sort of meander through life and they don't really even know why they're doing the things they're doing. And I see it a lot with entrepreneurs who are just trying to build a company because that's what Instagram said they should do, or they work a job because that's what their parents said they should do, or their guidance counselor. So what is a worthy goal? How do we, how do we quantify that?
- [59:20]
Michael Bungay Stanier
You're right. I mean, it's, it's a bit of a minefield walking into this whole goal setting thing because there's, there's a thousand things around it. Everything from. At a corporate level, you can start talking about okrs and kind of all of that sort of stuff. Stuff. People have been talking about smart goals forever. Nobody can ever quite remember what smart stands for. They're like, I think I can guess. But there's like two or three or four options for every one of those letters. And I'm talking about the bigger goals, the kind of, the bigger game that you want to be playing. And it's rooted with an article I read from Kevin Kelly many years ago in the context of something he calls his death clock. So suddenly everything turns a bit dark here, which is like you can calculate statistically your date of death. He gives a bunch of kind of actuary tables and a way of kind of like plugging in who you are, how old you are, how tall you are, what your body mass index is, a bunch of other things. And it will give you an estimated date of death. So for me it's, oh my God, it's like 2037. I can't be right. That feels too soon.
- [60:30]
Scott Clary
Oh My God, that's 12 years.
- [60:32]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Yeah, exactly. No, it's gotta be longer than that. Cause I'm 57 and I'm sure I'm alive into my 70s, but it doesn't matter. I've forgotten my date of death, but I thought what was really powerful, as Kevin goes, after you've figured out your date of death, here's the thing to say, it takes about five years to do a major project. Whether that's a book or a move or a family or something significant. Really, if you think of the whole thing, work in five year blocks. And that felt really powerful because I know looking at that, I was like, I've got about five big projects left in me. What are those five projects going to be? That's what I've given the language in the book, how to Begin Worthy goals. It's like, how do you do something that makes a difference? The three pillars of a worthy goal is, it needs to be thrilling, important and daunting. And I think this one might be useful for people. Thrilling means, does it actually light you up? Does it actually get you excited? Does it actually feel like it speaks to the values you have, the things that you care about? Does it make your pulse go a little faster? Does it make you rub your hands and go, I'd be totally up for that? Because as you said, I think it's so true. So often we inherit gold that we're like, oh, I should be doing this. But actually, there's no real thrill in that. There's just an obligation. So one of the tests of any goal you're setting yourself is, on a scale of 1 to 7, how thrilling is this for me? The second test, for me anyway, is it's important, meaning it contributes to the world. It gives more to the world than it takes. I'm all for people setting goals that are good for them, but for me, this world needs all the help it can get. And I'm trying to encourage people to take on goals that make their world a better place. You don't have to liberate India like Gandhi. It can be your family, it can be your neighborhood, it can be your work team, it can be your workplace, whatever you're defining your world is. But it's like, does it add to the general good? I do love that quote from Jacqueline Novogratz, and she has a TED Talk on this, which is like, can you give more to the world than you take? That feels like a really powerful place to stand. And then the third element is, is it daunting? In other words, is this going to stretch you and grow you? Is this going to take you to the edge of who you are today? And Crack that open so you can become the person you want to be tomorrow. This is the future you calling you. And so daunting is like, I know how to take the first few steps on this, but I don't really know how to. To get it to the end goal. And we have a little community called the Conspiracy, which is people working on their worthy goals. It's like books. It's going back to universities. It's recalibrating themselves as parents. It's building a halfway house for a murdered son. There's all sorts of really powerful projects working on, but they've all got these different three drivers, which is. It is thrilling for them. They care about it. There's a flame. It's important. It contributes to the world. And it's daunting. It is stretching them and growing them to make them the next best version of who they might be.
- [63:48]
Scott Clary
There's a little bit. A little bit of, like, self coaching involved in this, to be honest, because you can. You can coach other people all day, but if you're not helping yourself, sort of guide you and put you on the right path for your life, I mean, you're just gonna. You're gonna be wandering. So this is. This is about figuring out, like, really, like, why are we here? What are we doing?
- [64:07]
Michael Bungay Stanier
What are we working on? It's that really big question. Why are we here? What am I doing? What does a life of significance look like? And what can I do to have a little more of that significance? Because there's a lot going on for everybody. Everybody's got a lot on their plate. But as somebody once said, many of us live lives of quiet desperation. And one of the ways to move beyond that is to start going, what's the worthy goal for me?
- [64:35]
Scott Clary
You ask yourself these questions. How do you know when your answers are right and you should make. And you should take action on them?
- [64:42]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Oh, that's great. Well, here's how I suggest you do it. First of all, I think it takes a number of drafts for you to get closer to what your worthy goal might be. So the first thing you put down is probably a great start, and it's probably not your final answer. So one of the things that I suggest is, like, you keep going. How do I keep tweaking this to make it closer, more resonant? On thrilling, important, and daunting. But at a certain point, you're like, all right, this feels like it might be pretty good. And then you reach this moment where you're like, okay, I've declared this As a worthy goal, Do I do it or do I not do it? And what I suggest is that people look at both of those options, because those are both two real options, and ask yourself, what are the prizes and punishments of choosing this option? What are the prizes and punishments of not doing this? I mean, I've done all that work to define it, but one of the prizes and punishments, if I didn't do it, the prize is that the status quo maintains the same. You don't disrupt anything. You don't actually have people going, what the hell are you doing, Michael? Why are you doing this? Now you risk very little. The punishment is pretty much the same. The status quo remains the same. You remain the same. Nobody's expectations of you shift. You continue on the plateau that you're at, and then you look at the chance of doing it. What are the prizes and punishments of that? Well, the prizes are you become the next best version of you. You achieve this thing, you stretch and grow. You do things you don't even think you can do right now. Now the punishment is you fail. What's at risk is that this might not work. You might annoy people, you might be ostracized from your current community. This might cost you time and money, and it may not get you a result. There is risk involved in taking on a worthy goal, and you have to weigh up those prizes and punishments and go, I've looked at it as clearly as I can, knowing that, what's the choice I want to make? And then once you make the choice, find your people to do it with. Because it's really hard to do this by yourself. So you need to find travelers with you, people who bring different energies. This draws on kind of Native American wisdom and calling in the four energies. You need warrior energy, you need healer energy, you need teacher energy, you need visionary energy. And you will have some of that yourself, but you need other people to help you with that. And whether it's a coach or whether it's a community or whether it's your friends, whatever it might be, start the journey knowing that whatever you think is your worthy goal is going to change and evolve and morph a little bit as you begin the journey. Because it's just your best guess for now, of course.
- [67:42]
Scott Clary
But you still have the caveat, is you have to start.
- [67:45]
Michael Bungay Stanier
You're going to start. It's like classic hero's journey stuff, which is like, you know what, you hear the call, you have a choice. Do you cross over the threshold? Do you not cross over the threshold as soon as you cross the threshold and the hero's journey, which of course is not a gender thing, it's a male, female, whatever. You are changed as the hero and the adventure continues. By the time you return, you'll be a different person and the question is, do you answer the call? And to answer the call you have to cross the threshold.
- [68:16]
Scott Clary
I think that's the meaning of life. At the end of the day, you're not supposed to, you will never die the same person you were born. So you do have to go on these journeys.
- [68:24]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Exactly.
- [68:25]
Scott Clary
Okay, you have how to begin the advice trap, the Coaching Habit, which has over a million copies sold. You have, you've written other books on, on coaching and leadership. But next year is the 10 year anniversary of the Coaching Habit which is first of all, congratulations. I'm still on my first book journey, so I'm going to probably ask you some, maybe, some maybe, maybe we'll do a coaching session another time on, on the podcast and on how to write a book.
- [68:51]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Opinions about that for sure. One of which is you should almost certainly not write a book unless you really, really want to write a book.
- [69:00]
Scott Clary
It's a lot of work.
- [69:01]
Michael Bungay Stanier
It's a lot of work and it almost never works. I mean like the Coaching Habit is an anomaly because not only has it sold more than a million copies, but I self published it because it got turned down by a publisher. Yeah, bringing good stuff to the world is really wonderful like you do with this podcast. Writing a book is just another channel for content and it's worth thinking is the book the right format of all of that? But that's for another time perhaps.
- [69:27]
Scott Clary
Well, maybe, maybe, maybe for your 10 year anniversary you can talk about the life of a self published author. Because that's not easy. I know how difficult that is. But my question was first of all, what can people look forward to for the 10 year anniversary? But also, so let's go through, I'll list out all the things that I want you to drop for the audience and then you can go through them because I want you to drop a website and social so people can go follow. It'll be in the show notes too. 10th year anniversary. What can people look forward to for the Coaching Habit? And then after you just give some people some information as to where to go and what to look forward to. I want you to just give people one last sort of just. If they could only take away one thing from the Coaching habit, the most important lesson, what would it be?
- [70:15]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Great. Okay, so next year is the 10 year anniversary of the coaching habit and I'm stoked about it because it's a miracle that a book stays relevant for 10 years. So we're doing a hardback version, a funky kind of tweak on the COVID design. I'm really interested in excited by the fact that it's going to become an illustrated book. So there's going to be kind of a graphic novel experience as you read through the book and my friend Eric has designed this and it's just delightful. So that's going to be great. I've also written a new chapter about it and I'll talk about what that is in just a minute. If you want more about me and the stuff I do, the kind of umbrella website is MBS Works. So MBS Works and if you pursue the book tab, each of the books have a ton of additional resources, video teaching and downloads and other bits and pieces. And that's all free. So you're welcome to go and pillage any of the resources from the books. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram mbsworksnsta. That's the main other social I'm on. And you know, perhaps this is the thing to leave folks with. Scott When I was writing the 10 year anniversary edition, I was writing a new chapter because I wanted to add a little bit new content. I didn't want to wreck it by doing a director's cut of a book and make it worse, but I wanted to add a chapter and in the end the new chapter is about the being of coaching and we've touched on this a little bit. But one of the things that's become really clear to me over the last 10 years, which wasn't clear to me when I first wrote the book, is a lot of this idea of coaching is showing up and staying curious longer and using the seven questions and all of that good stuff. But when you're in that type of conversation with somebody, you're role modeling a way of being being with that person which is heart forward, heart centered, fierce love, curious present. People remember the conversations with you really. Not for the questions you're asking them, but for the way you're showing up for them. So we can get a little wrapped around the axle thinking about techniques of this stuff. But the real call for all this work is how do you keep showing up as this best version of who you are generous and present with?
- [72:45]
Scott Clary
Fierce love the last question I like to ask you've given a lot of advice, but if you could only pass on one piece of advice after all of your work and your life's work, if you only pass on one piece of advice to your kids, what would that piece of advice be and why?
- [73:00]
Michael Bungay Stanier
Here's what comes to me before you tell people what you think, ask almost always before I tell you, I'm just curious to know what do you think about this? And just always hear their point of view first because it is such a generous invitation. It gives you more context and understanding of what's going on, and it invites them into the spotlight to be the kind of the hero of the conversation.
- [73:36]
Scott Clary
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