Michael Bungay Stanier - #1 Coaching Expert | Why Smart People Give Terrible Advice

I've been playing in this world for many years now when I first got a taste of it when 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. Today's guest has changed the way leaders coach, mentor, and create impact. Michael Bungay-Stanier is the mine behind box of crayons, a global company that's taught thousands to shift from being advice driven to curiosity led. Be 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 are kind of attached, a good degree of our sense of importance in the world as to being the person who has the answer. He wrote the coaching habit, a book that sold over a million copies and has 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. If you're attaching some sorts 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 head 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. 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. That's right. And you call people advice, giving maniacs. So tell me, what made you realize that our desire to help might actually be hurting? Yeah, you know, I've been playing in this world for many years now. When 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 ring 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 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 you know, 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 sorts of importance in the way you can be most helpful or where 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 head on because that that if it was ever there, it's going away fast. So building the muscle could be curious. Now that's something that's a little trickier and a little more powerful. 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? 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 every stick's their hand up going, it's me, me, me, pick me, pick me. And then 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 say, 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, there's a, we've had a lot of training to be told, you know, 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 talking, it looms up out of the dark and goes, oh, you're going to add some value here. Just 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, is the tell it, they're 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 know, you need to make sure nothing unusual unexpected happens is 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 and ways that those that believe has served us in the past. They keep showing up, going, look, well, I know I should ask a question, but maybe I just tell them the stuff. Maybe that will fix it faster. 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? Because people are giving too much advice and not being curious enough, what's the issue with this industry? 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 the chakras and whatever else. And for a bunch of people, they're like, you know, 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 the woo-wooness of it all. There's a second thing that baggage comes with is like, it's a bit of a black box. Like, it's quite sure what we're what we're even talking about. Sometimes it's baggage because like I had a really tough mean sports coach who just made me shout at it and made me do press ups and pushups 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. There 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 yourself 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, 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 they 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 know, you show up on every 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. You know, 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 or 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 confidence 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. One of the, it's 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. 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 sort of layman interpretation of what you're saying is coach is synonymous with good leader. 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 coach, 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 coach. Yeah, you know, so I'd say 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 Goldman, who he kind of made the idea of emotional intelligence popular and 25 years ago, he wrote an article for Harvard Business Review. It's called the six styles of leadership. And 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. And 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 or 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? You know, that's not 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 strategy and culture. I would assume that's because people don't actually know what coaching is. I think that that's the thing they they assume the 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 to be like, well, when somebody's screwing up, I'm going to I'm going to give them advice. Well, that would be the immediate answer to what coach is not exactly to do. Well, I mean, that's the I mean, that's that coaching is a slippery word. I mean, that's basically it gets used in all sorts of different contexts. So, you know, 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. So, what does that mean staying curious a little bit longer? So, let's put it into a framework 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 employer 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? Well, in the coaching heaven 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 the framework probably starts not with the questions, just but with an understanding and a 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 you're not going to use them. So, what I'm talking to people in businesses in particular, I say, look, there are three vicious circles that managers and leaders, whether a small company or a big company that they typically face. And these are the three vicious circles. The first is an overdependent 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 into the 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 like, I was really looking forward to working with this person, but now I have to run everything through this other person is really annoying and a real bottleneck and there's like control issues. And an overdependent team is a team that is not performing because you become a bottleneck, they've lost some of their confidence, they've lost some of their sense of autonomy and everybody's paying a price for that. So that's the first vicious circle. The second vicious circle is just a sense of overwhelm. You know, 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. And before you know it, you're like, okay, I've got emails dating back to 1983. I've got texts. I have an answer. I'm going to think from somebody the other day going, I've got 15,543 unanswered emails in my inbox. Oh my god. Exactly. I was like, I feel 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 late, I'm behind, I'm behind. And then the third vicious circle is a sense of disconnect. You know, like someone's sending stuff, it's like, you've lost the connection to the why of the work. You know, 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. Well, I think that that also, I was just going to say that sounds, I mean, like for anybody who's even hired one person, that sounds like a good outcome. Like I think that we all fall into these traps. Exactly. And believe me, I'm teaching this because I have to learn it. I still have to learn it annoyingly enough. So part of that's, 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. 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've 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, that's a good place to start. Secondly, there's a, perhaps a, 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 going 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 and get into the seven questions. So I'm going to rattle through them really fast and start, 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 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 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 and 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. And 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 really 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. It's a it's of all the seven questions. It's probably the hardest one to answer because what do you want? I mean, what do you really want? It's 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? Right? If you 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 they're 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? I'm 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 inside being, your job as a leader, as a parent, as a teacher, as a manager is to help people get smarter. And you've 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. 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 and call logs, emails, chats with their customers, it's just left floating in digital space not being used. 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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, sponsor jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. Plus, with indeed sponsor 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 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility. Just go to indeed.com slash Clary right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Clary terms and conditions apply if your hiring indeed is all you need. I think 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 pass 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 bullshit and give you whatever they think that you want to hear, which is not going to help you at all. 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. Like the seven whys is a 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've 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. You know, 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 someone, 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. And every day 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 ballad, you know, blocky works. What's going on here? Whereas if we're testing conversation and I'm like, hey, Scott, it's a one-to-one. What's in 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 head 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 and you can actually just ask that. You can ask that. One of my thoughts, 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. All those things that are in your head. Why try and figure it out? Because 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 directionized at 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 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 ask your questions. But as a listener, what's been most useful or most valuable for you so far? Like, 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, oh, 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, rework, rewired the insight. And we're now opening up to a deeper conversation because I can have my own curiosity. But because you've worked with this framework for so long, I would actually 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. All of the questions can really unlock something powerful. You know, the strategic question is, is underutilized because almost everybody has too much stuff going on. And the, and it is quite scary to say no to the stuff that you want to do. So there's something quite powerful in the particular, particularly if you're running businesses where you're like, oh, you know, maybe I'll just keep my options open. But strategy, what am I going to say no to? And if I'm going to say, 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 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 carbon 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 is you immediately know what these roles look like and sound like. You know, when somebody's playing the victim mode, a bit whiny, a bit complaining, a 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. Then there's the persecutor mode. The persecutor mode, you know what that looks like? It's like the bullies, somebody shouting more subtly. It's like the micromanager kind of like, let me try, 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 in the 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 like 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, you know, 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, that does 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've got your fingers and 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, you perpetuate the triangle because rescues create victims. Rescue is even great, but yeah, exactly. And also, you're like so busy doing everybody else's work, you know, you're exhausted, you're burned out, you never get to your own important work. So that's a helpful framework. I love it. And then if you ask that question, then it's shifting, it's so regardless of how dysfunctional this relationship is, it is shifting. If you want to be the rescuer, it just seems like a comfortable spot for people to fall into, it's not. So don't, don't buy the hype. So then shift, shift the, how can I help to something that's actually meaningful to the person as opposed to just, yeah, turning them into, I love that you're 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, how, you know, of those three roles, which role do you identify with most? 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 you want for me is a way of slowing down the dynamic just enough so that you're not instantly pulled into the rescuer mode. And, you know, it comes with a key, 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 the difference. And that's a true relationship. That's an, 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 to, how can I help? Is part of the equation of that? You go through a framework. I've heard you speak about it before. It's, it's a, it's a philosopher's framework, Martin Boobers framework on I vow, and I it. And I think that this all comes in. 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 it for treating somebody like a human versus a job title? The greenie says, I only understand it at a very basic level. So that, that's the limit. And I'll be able to explain it, because me, a man who was a philosopher and a spiritualist, and I'm none of the above. But I think he just has this very simple, powerful, saying, look, your, 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 vow relationship, which is that sense of, you know, you feel seen, you both feel seen and you both feel heard and you feel present and you're both feel able to bring the best of who you are to that other person's presence. And, you know, it feels to me that that's, um, aspirational as much as, I don't know, 43% of my relationships are I vow relationships. But we so often work in context, which kind of not just towards less humanity rather than more humanity. I mean, I think organizational work, you know, in many organizations that you can feel a little bit of a part of a cognitive machine, you know, there's a lot of transaction that is going on. And it's this very hard to forget your own and forget other people's humanity in the mix. And I think one of the, we touched on this right at the start, which is one of the, the, 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. Is there, 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. 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 idol relationships, rather than me being in idol 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 idol moment? It's not an idol moment. It's an it moment. So it feels as much as an orientation to say, keep remembering that that's what I'm trying to, what I'm trying to get to. And there's no doubt that some of these coaching techniques and leadership techniques, they work, they work just fine in, in IIT 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 eye thou becomes easier. Here comes a little, 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 of teenagers because, you know, you want an IIT relationship? It's parents and teenagers. It's like teenagers, the brains are melting and they're, you know, they're like rebelling against everything and 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 because I think you should, 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 the 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, they shifted something in the relationship. And you know, for a moment, perhaps it's just going a little closer to being an IITAL relationship with that kid. Talk about what transfer is 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, because you can't be like, hey, come into my office to talk about our marriage? Talk about, or talk about, you know, the fact that you might be the end of your marriage. So what do you do differently? What do you do the same and carries over what doesn't? Well, I think the, 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, you know, maybe the your spouse or your partner or that romantic person, you're like, well, 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, hey, I'm not really looking for advice. Be your advice is terrible. If I was looking for advice, it wasn't the advice you've just given me because this doesn't, doesn't feel helpful at all. And you know, often enough, people just want to have somebody listen to them and challenge them and provoke them. You know, there's a, 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. You know, it's like part of, part of my role as your, as your husband, as your, 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. 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, 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 and not give them suggestions. Or it might be to say, hey, look, this is the pattern I'm noticing. Or it might be, 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 fiercest 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 vow 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 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 and open love, fierce love. That works if you're working with another human being. The HubSpot podcast network is a success story partner. Now a quick podcast recommendation. I've been listening to truth, lies, and work. They're in the HubSpot podcast network, just like success story. It's this husband and wife team Al and Leanne Elliott. They break down why people actually do what they do at work. So if you have a business, if you manage people, if you have to hire people at any point, you have to listen to their show. I just listened to an episode on why good employees suddenly quit. That's an issue that we all have and it totally clicked for me. One of the reasons I explained is why it's not usually about the money. It's about all these little promises that we as founders, entrepreneurs, managers, leaders, we break without realizing it. Like when you tell someone you just hired that they're going to learn all these new skills, but you just keep giving them the same tasks over and over and over again, it made me realize that I probably lost a lot of good people for dumb reasons that I never noticed. And hiring is one of the most important things to figure out. So if you manage people or if you just want to understand what makes your co-workers tick, it's worth checking out. Listen to truth, lies, and work wherever you get your podcast. Chipstation is a success story partner. 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Cancel anytime that's shipstation.com code success story. HubSpot is a success story partner. Now the future of business is happening right now and you don't want to miss it. That's why you have to be at inbound 2025. They are bringing together the brightest minds in marketing, sales, business, entrepreneurship, AI for three incredible days in San Francisco, the global epicenter of innovation and technological disruption. Picture this. You are learning directly from Amy Poler about creative leadership. You're getting AI insights from Dario Amote who's literally shaping the future of artificial intelligence. Here's what makes inbound special. It's not just the great key notes. You're going to dive into breakout sessions where you can immediately implement what you learn. And plus San Francisco's legendary startup ecosystem provides the perfect backdrop for networking with all these great entrepreneurs, decision makers, industry leaders, peers who are actively shaping the future of business. From September 3rd to 5th at the Moscone Center, you're going to be surrounded by forward thinking professionals who turn insights and ideas into breakthroughs. Don't just watch the future unfold. Be part of creating it. Visit inbound.com slash register to get your ticket today. For people that are adopting, they're listening to this. They want to adopt this framework just so that they don't do things the wrong way. What is the number one thing that people screw up when they're trying to coach and they implement this framework? What do they do wrong? Well, I would, 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, 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 and so 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 the table. You can be doing it as you drive them from A to B. You can do it on a walk together. This is a asking a question being present and listening to the answer. And I'd say if there's one thing that people could think about on and look at is like, just notice how fast you want to interrupt. And how fast do you want to offer ideas and opinions? I mean, there's a TED talk around this, a TEDx talk could have a 10 year advice monster where we get get into this a little bit if you want to kind of a, this is an aside spot. But my favorite comment on the TED 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 two 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 M1 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 to 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. It's just landing. I mean, you know, 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 you. You know, it's so funny because you just mentioned, like you were concerned that it was sort of like a two of 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. That that shouldn't be that shouldn't be woo woo. That should be the default operating system for most people. However, it isn't. And you know, when I say, stay curious a little bit longer. I'm not saying for a week and a half. I mean, honestly, if I get people to stay curious for another 75 seconds, that would be that would be a great wind. And for the everybody 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 sometimes 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 folders 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. 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. I've 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, no, no, 20 years is like, you're one of the OGs. I had a podcast before anything called podcast existed. When the word podcasting came along, I had to rename my show to call it for 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 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 goes, how do I? I go, Scott, great question. I've got some ideas that 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. I'm like, 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 M1 else question here just to carry the comments, 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? Is there anything else as a variation on M1 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 Scott might go, well, no, that's about it. I'm like, I love all of those. Let me give you a couple of ideas of my own that I think can add and build onto, onto your ideas. And then I'll 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 at my sleeve that you don't, 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, the boss's idea is always the best idea, phenomena. You know, what normally happens is like when the boss says, well, I have an idea. I think we should do this. Everybody goes, that's a really good idea. Let's, well, I'm writing it down because I think we should do the boss's idea. And you know, obviously the boss's idea is not always the best idea. 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, the questions are the of success, happiness, fulfillment. What? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just like, I love a good question. Like I've been collecting them. I do too. Listen, this is the good questions that change my life on the podcast and on. 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 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, and other people. Yeah, exactly. So the three questions I, I, I journal in the morning, two, 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 too. It's 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, 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, it is a hard question to answer. Like it, I mean, you can answer it in a really superficial level, like I want my coffee, but really it's trying to, it's inviting you to go a little deeper because I want you, what do you want? You know, 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 I'm having to answer that question kind of on a, on a, for me anyway, five times a week basis. When the, when the same answer is keep coming up, I'm like, I, I probably need to do something about this. And then the third question is what's the one thing? So I, I still live a life of perpetual over commitment. I'm like, I'm trying to get a bit better at it, but it's, it's a long journey. And so, you know, 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 suspend, I can't tell you how many hours of my life I've 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 you. If you only do one thing today, what's the one thing that matters most? 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 a kind of a gratitude question. You know, 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 going to go 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 Tareza Ramabale called The Progress Principle. They 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 happen in the day, what are you celebrating? What are you grateful for? Because sometimes it's like, you know, the bin men came and I didn't think they were going to come. And it means that we're actually going 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 it was yesterday. So that was what made yesterday a great day. And so that that point of reflection for the day. 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 whether 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? You're right. I mean, it's it's a bit of a mind field walking into this whole goal setting thing because there's there's a thousand things around it. Everything from a corporate level, we can start talking about okay hours and kind of all that sort of 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 trying I'm talking about the bigger goals. They 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 causes death clock. So it's suddenly everything turns a bit dark here, which is like you can calculate statistically your date of death. It's like he gives a bunch of kind of actuary tables in a way of kind of like plugging in who you are, how old you are, how tall you are, how what your body mass indexes, a bunch of other things. And it will give you an estimated date of death. So for me, it's like 2037. I can't be right. That feels too soon. That's 12 years. Exactly. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's going to be longer than that because I'm in 57. I'm sure I'm alive into my 70s, but it doesn't matter. I forgot my date of death. But I thought it 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, something significant. Really, if you think of the whole thing, work in five block, 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? And 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? And so 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. So 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? You go, I'd be totally up for that. Because as you said, I think it's so true. So often, we inherit goals that we're like, oh, I should be doing this. But actually, there's no real thrill on that. There's just an obligation. So one of the tests of any goal you're setting yourself is, you know, on scale of one to seven, how thrilling is this for me? The second test for me, anyways, it's important, meaning it contributes to the world. It gives more to the world than it takes. Because like 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 that make their world a better place. It doesn't have to, you know, you don't have to liberate India like Gandhi. It can be, you know, your family, it can be your neighborhood, it can be your work team, it can be your workplace, whatever your defining your world is. But it's like, does it add to the general good? And I do love that quote from Jacqueline Novigratz. 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? You know, this is the, this is future you calling you. And so daunting is like, you know, I know kind of how to, I know how to take the first few steps on this, but I don't really know how to get to the end goal. And we have a, 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 recalibating themselves as parents, it's building a home 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 as 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. 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 going to, you're going to be wondering, so this is, this is about figuring out like really like, why are we here? What are we doing? What are we working on? It's, it's, it's, it's that really big question, why are we here? What am I doing? What is, what does a life of significance look like? And what can I do to have a little more of that significance? Because you know, there's a lot going on for everybody. There's ever got a lot on their plate. But somebody once said, you know, 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? You ask yourself these questions. How do you know when your answers are right and you should make it and you should take action on them? Oh, that's great. Well, what I, here's how I'd 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 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 a lot of work to define it, but what are the prizes and punishments if I didn't at the prize is that the status quo maintains the same. You know, 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. No reason expectations of you shift. You continue on the plateau 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. The punishment is you fail. You know, that 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 your 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 your, you need to find travelers with you, people who, who bring different energies, you know, you know, you need, you need, you know, this, this draws on kind of Native American wisdom and calling in the four energies. You know, 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, but you still have the caveat is you have to start. You're going to start. It's like classic heroes journey stuff, which is like, you know what? You hear the call. You have a choice. 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. You know, 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. I think that's the, I think that's the meaning of life at the end of the day. You're not supposed to, you're not supposed to, you will never die of the same person you were born. I hope you have to go on these. Exactly. Okay. You have how to begin the advice trap, the coaching habit, which has over a million copies sold. You have written other books on coaching and leadership. But next year is a 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. I've got 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. It's a lot of work. 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 they got turned down by a publisher. Yeah. Oh, bringing, 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 that. But that's for another time, perhaps. Maybe, maybe, maybe for your 10 year anniversary, you can talk about the life of a self-published object. That's not easy. I know how difficult that is. But my question was, was first of all, what can people look forward to for the 10 year anniversary? But also, so let's let's go through all listed 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 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? Great. Okay, so next year is the 10 year anniversary of the coaching habit. I'm stoked about it. So it's a miracle that a book stays relevant for 10 years. So we're doing a hard back version, a funky kind of tweak on the cover 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, my friend Eric has designed this and it's just delightful. So that's going to be great. And 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 like 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, an Instagram mbs underscore works at insta. That's the main other social I'm on. And you know, you perhaps is the thing to leave folks with Scott. When I was writing the the 10 year anniversary edition, I was writing a new chapter for I wanted to add a little bit new content. I didn't want to wreck it by doing a direct as kind of a book and make it worse. But I wanted to add a chapter. And in the end, the chapter, 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 away of 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 are asking them, but for the way you're showing up for them. So, we can get a little wrapped around the axel thinking about techniques of this stuff. But the real core for all of this work is how do you keep showing up as this best version of who you are generous and present with 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? Here's what comes to me. Before you ask, 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 to 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.