#55 | Why We Need To STOP Giving People Advice & How/Why We Must Cultivate Meaningful Connections As Entrepreneurs w. AJ - Founder + Growth & Community Consultant for Startups

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Contras Founder Podcast. This show enables founders and entrepreneurs to become the masters of their minds so they can create massive impact with ease, enjoy the journey and avoid burnout. I'm your host, Alexi Patalis, a mindset coach for entrepreneurs and founder of multiple businesses. Thank you for listening and coming on this journey of mental mastery with me. In today's conversation, you'll learn why you should not give people advice and what you should do instead. My guest today is AJ, a growth and community consultant for startups. He's also hosted multiple founder retreats and is a founder and more recently content creator. In this episode, you'll discover why asking for help is the most powerful thing entrepreneurs can do. Practical strategies for deepening relationships and cultivating meaningful connections, as well as the power of coaching and how open-ended conversations and questions can foster a growth mindset. Without further ado, welcome AJ. One of the first questions I had for you looking through your career or journey, let's call it, because that's a lot more, a lot nicer way of saying it is really the amount of entrepreneurial endeavors that you went through. The first one that came up, which I feel like is the start of so many entrepreneurs journeys, is running a night out at university, etc. But going a little bit further back from that, when did you first know you wanted to be an entrepreneur, you wanted to start a business? When was that moment or set of moments? I can't pinpoint the moments. I remember by the time I'd got to university, I was like, I want to do this thing. But I'd been through so many different aspirational things before then. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be like, an investment banker, and then before that I wanted to play rugby for England, and then before that I wanted to be an SAS. There was this whole range of things. SAS was because my dad was in the army, and I love watching this, like, army-esque films, when they're swap-teap girls, and they take someone out of that, that is so cool. And then I started getting into rugby when I was like, young between the age of like 9 and 13, I was pretty good, and then by the time I got to secondary school, I became crap, and I was like, wasn't it? You're a nearest good, so that then dream left, and then I was like, cool, I want to make loads of money, and then I was like, I invest in banking, it's obvious. And then passed that, I didn't find it interesting, and I didn't go to Oxford study economics, because I wasn't good enough at it, and I just wasn't good enough for the stop. So then it was, I just sort of got drawn into the Steve Jobs aspirations that I assume other entrepreneurs do. And so then by the time I was sort of 18, 19, I was pretty keen on that, but my first business, or money-making project was I used to cut hair in my boarding house school, so I went to boarding school from the age of 18, and I just undercut the local barbers. And so everyone in the house just came to me and I did some terrible haircuts, specifically on myself as well, and I haven't been to the hairdresser since, so it's been about 14 years. You cut your own hair, really. It's such a funny thing you said that, because I also cut hair for my mates boarding school. So that was probably one of my first business ventures, alongside going to Costco, with my parents, you know, sort of during the holidays and grabbing a load of sweets and snacks, and undercutting our local news agents and shop. How much did you charge for your haircuts? I think at the time I was charging 10 to 15 quid at what age? How old are you? They were like 15, 16? Wow. Yeah. Oh, so the reason why, okay, and this is why I could charge these prices. This is brilliant. It's because the only reason people wanted to come to me and why it started is because you're only allowed to go to the school barber, and the school barber wouldn't give anyone less than like a number three, but it was cool in those days to have like a short back and sides, and something aggressive made you like the cool kid or someone who's like, right, like, how'd you get that? So it was more just like, it wasn't that they could get the hair cut anywhere else, but they couldn't get this hair cut. This aggressive, slightly more aggressive hair cut. And so I had all the quote unquote bad boys who would come to me and be like, give me that. That thing that you gave that other guy, they would all talk and so they'd come. The career ended when my housemaster walked in. He was talking about this phantom hairdresser. He was like, I don't know who's doing it, but when I find out, it's going to be big trouble. Blah, blah, blah. He walked in mid hair cut. I was like, he's like, can you come with me? I was like, oh shit. Yeah, I think the cheek's up. Fair enough. I charged three quid. Wow. It was like, how many were you doing a lot? Because mine was more like, I needed to keep it pretty small. Well, not as many as I'd like. I was having such a still travel time. I said, was this even though like the local barb at any chance like eight quid or something? And I was like, okay, it's just undercut them hard. And then also be really sick. So I had zero history as going ahead. And so I wasn't good at it at the start. That's for sure. There's definitely something in there I've been reading a book recently about how to make your offer so different, right? Or something that you just can't get that means that you can actually charge a very, very different price. So a higher price. So for example, like they were saying in this book, that's how you differentiate from competition. You're not in competition with anyone else. And therefore what you're offering is completely different and you can charge kind of whatever you want. I mean, at that time, I probably could have to a point. I mean, it's ridiculous that I was charging schoolboys who, you know, I mean, shouldn't have been spending that much on a haircut. But because they wanted it so bad and they couldn't get it from anywhere else I could. So I just can't find that in the real world. That's why you need restrictions, right? You need certain restrictions. And if you can find a way to open it up, that's a great way of doing business. Similar to the the sweets, if you had sweets, for example, that you couldn't get anywhere else, like they were American or they didn't sell them in the local touch up. Those were the things that would fly off the shelf. So there's definitely a lesson in in that in terms of business for myself. And you see that now in supermarkets, like big supermarkets, they some of them have this American goods shelf. I don't know if you've seen this, but they have like, like, like, charms. All these other things that are distinctly American, which is an interesting point that even that is being utilized by huge supermarkets. Yeah, and they hide it somewhere towards the back. So you have to walk through the whole supermarket and do that and then pick up stuff along the way. What was the book? Are you reading? The book is, and I really struggle to walk around with it because it's very not me, but I'm learning more and more the art of sales and realizing the, like, you have to engage with it. I've avoided it for a long time. It's the one part of entrepreneurship, which is probably one of the most important parts. You have to be able to sell. You have to be able to understand the psychology of sales. And I've understood it to a certain point. I've never used it in a way that, for me, the point is to reach as many people as I can that need what I need. And it's called a hundred million dollar offers by Alex Humozy. It was actually introduced to me by my spiritual coach, which a lot of people would go, "What's that?" And money complexes is a really, really interesting thing that I talk a lot about with my coach. And I don't think we need to go into it too much. But that book, I do really recommend people read it because a lot of sales books talk about. You can charge whatever you want. This is how you do it and create these amazing offers. The idea is to create a grand slam offer. But what it's actually done is it's all about delivering the service. In the simplest terms, you cover every single pain point of your said niche. And you have to niche down. You have to go as niche as possible and focus on that particular avatar. And then you have to think about every single problem that they come up that comes up in their life trying to get to their dream outcome. And what that's actually ended up doing is really reshaping what I'm offering. I'm not just coaching founders and giving them one-to-one sessions. I'm starting to build out content for them that is private that they can use. Because one of the pain points is with entrepreneurship, there's so much information out there. Now there's almost too much. Where do you find the information that's real, that's not just a LinkedIn post that is just kind of someone saying something to get clicks and whatever. Real valuable things all in one place. And then another one is for example, founder of treats. So I can't give founders' connection to other founders just during my one-to-one coaching. They get a certain connection with me, but group connection, where can I bring that, and how can I do that in retreats? And the podcast, this podcast, I, again, it offers something else, like an insight into my network or people that I've come across and founders in particular that I think are talking about, "foundership" in a very different way to other people. So the point is that actually what it's made me do is serve those founders and entrepreneurs in a much more impactful way, I think. And I'm still building that out, but it's, I don't know if you've read it or, yeah, with that, if you've got any of that from it. Yeah, I'm currently reading, or I have the audiobook of £100m on a lead. Yes, follow up on the book. And I've started with that, I haven't read £100m in a lot of times. Can I challenge you? Yes. So it sounds like you have really doubled down on these, at a certain archetype of the founder, let's say, like early stage, which you'll know, roughly between pre-season series, or maybe like purely seed stage founders, they're probably between this age, they probably have this many employees or something on their lives, right? They're all experiencing these sorts of problems. And so that is a really powerful place to start. However, what it sounds like you're doing is you're offering sort of three services in a way, well, actually many, many two. One of them's connections and the other one is learning. Yeah. And maybe the third one is problem solving. Of which learning, problem solving, quite interlinked. But then that then feels like the service you are thing is actually quite not scattered, but it's not one thing that's, all of your effort is on one thing, found out of treats and content. And like they can link, but they're two separate things. So how do you think about the balance? And like if you were to think, I deliver this value better than anyone else in the world, what part of the value you provided to founders is that? Yeah, it's good. It's a good, yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. I think just to clarify, are you talking about ultimately what I'm helping them with or the dream outcome essentially that I'm helping them get to the problem, the main problem that I'm solving? Yeah. Yeah. And I keep moving around. In the process, you'll see from this podcast by the time it's come out, probably nailed down the wording. But it's really the thing that I really am passionate about and that I believe that I'm helping people with through my coaching and through this podcast and through the retreats is to help founders and entrepreneurs grow their businesses. But in a way where they can actually enjoy the journey and do it with more ease, I work with a lot of founders and I've done this myself where I felt like everything had to be hard and I kind of made everything hard as well. And I see it and it was almost like a punishment to myself for various different beliefs that I had about not being enough for that this was the way to do it, etc. And I've learned that actually there are ways to do it with greater ease and a lot of people go. Of course, of course, you have to work hard. That's not what I'm saying, but you can do it with more ease and you can do it for the right reason. So I would say it's down to that. I help people grow and perform both in terms of their personal and their business in a way that they can also enjoy the journey and do it with more ease. And sometimes enjoying the journey allows you to perform better and other times performing better allows you to enjoy the journey more and I've seen that kind of flick between both. Does that? Absolutely. Hopefully that's succinct enough, but yeah, do it with more ease and enjoy the journey because why not? And I love working with ambitious people. I've met more and more now, I'm on this journey. I've met more people who the ones that really I'm drawn towards and I'm like, wow, I want that. Is the ones who can create massive impact and do it whilst they love their life and they enjoy what they do. And it, yeah, of course times get hard. I'm not saying that, but they do it with a lot more ease than grace than others. So if you had cuts 80% of what you were doing, what's the 20% that's left? I think the question you're asking, what popped into my head was helping founders become a master of their mind? And that can mean something very different to each person, but understanding the way your mind works and making it work for you is what I've found has completely has allowed that to happen, has allowed more ease and more joy in my life and other founders. So that sounds like it's most aligned with one-on-one coaching. Yes, yes. And that definitely is still the focus. That's where I see the most amount of impact. However, I think if you're asking for one to be discarded content is that this is important for me because in person connection and going deep into that individual's psyche and what's actually going on in their mind and how they can create a mindset to to get everything they want that I see as much more powerful. There's a lot of people making incredible content and it's so valuable. That's what got me on this path. I feel like it's an amazing introduction to something that you can work on deeper both with a group of founders on a retreat and one-to-one with myself or someone else. So yeah. A couple of them both in to how I define connection which is connecting to self and connecting to others. And I have a working theory which is you can only connect to others to the extent to which you've connected to yourself. And so you can't have one without the other or at least you're limited in one without the other. And so then you're helping people connect with themselves through the coaching and then the founder of retreats. You're helping them connect with one another. Yeah. I think that's a great kind of segue of time to be able to go into yours because what I notice come up is connection. Connection is huge for you and you'll do that through community. So what's been your kind of experience letting people who are listening, give them a little bit of background about how you've come across connection to be one of the most important things in connection in themselves and then connection with others. Firstly, what is that? What do you mean by that? Is it a good place to start? I'm going to try and share only experiences because I actually don't believe in sharing advice because I think advice is that helpful a lot of times. So I'm only working from my experiences. I have realised my life purpose around helping people better connect with themselves. Others in the past three or so years and that's a combination of me having connected with myself through practices like therapy, coaching, journaling, probably the three main corners, stone pillars of that. And I've been doing all of those for years and so that sort of consistent reflection has helped massively in terms of like understanding what's important to me, where am I strongest least most strongest held values and where I want to dedicate energy. And so to give you the back story, originally this purpose came from a place of scarcity. So I lacked connections when I was younger, specifically there like quite formative years between eight or nine and 18 really, but more like nine and fifteen. So first thing was I lost my dad when I was nine, I didn't know, three accident where he fell off a balcony at a dinner and then I was at boarding school from the age of eights. It was like an all boys boarding school and you're at school for most of the year. And I think those two circumstances combined led to a very lonely school period from nine to thirteen and which then kind of also bled through into my teenage years in secondary school. So generally just like quite lonely never really found my people at school. Then I left school and I was like sweet time to reinvent myself, classic gap year intention and I read a book called How to Win Friends Influence People by Dale Carnegie and it just felt like it was the perfect book exactly the right time but I needed it. It's traveling through Central America really found my groove found my voice and just realized how magical it was when you can connect with people on a deep level and feel authentic in doing so. And so that was like the first spark and then a university that was when like all the entrepreneurial things started like a time. chatbot that promoted discounts and events and students, this nightclub events company that you spoke about is actually still running today, which is a great flower delivery service at Valentine's Day, very from our agency, like a whole, like it's more festival, another nightclub event which failed drastically and lost me loads of money, various things. And then COVID hits when I left uni and I was going through NEP, which is a talent accelerator. It's now part of Founders Forum and that was all virtual, but NEP just didn't have enough resources to focus on creating a community experience. And so I just literally been like, "There's so much potential here for you to help us connect to cohort." And they couldn't do it. And so that's when I started Click, which was early stage entrepreneurs, it's all over Zoom, it was all around helping people connect with themselves and others under the sunbanner of entrepreneurship. And it was very scrappy. And there was just this magic there when we pulled together these people and there's all very valuable lines and they were going for a similar sort of thing in life and with this focus around entrepreneurship and crazy something from nothing. And it was just a little bit tricky. It was just amazing. You could feel the energy, like that was magic in the room. And then luckily, when Click, we were on board with a bunch of people, we greeted like 100 people in a couple of months and I had various facilitators running various groups and I would create all the content, the workshops. One person was called Peter Nixie, who joined and he was someone who I knew from LinkedIn. Like I have seen this person, this guy, and he'd been through my combinator back in 2007 with Dropbox and those founders. So he was kind of an OG founder. And he joined because he saw my LinkedIn posts around Click, starting and applications being open. And he very sorry and dipitately, he has written in his annual review that some of the best moments in his life came from communities, specifically founders and ICE, which are very similar towards communities. And so he then saw that some LinkedIn was like, "Well, I've just reflected on how the best opportunities come from these communities." So I'd obviously only give this a go. And he was 15 years old, senior, everyone in the room. So he was by far the oldest, but I had such an outline, which was such a blessing. Because A, he shared his wisdom, he was very low ego in it as well. Like sometimes someone like that comes into the room and they take the role of, "Oh, I'm here to share my experiences," but actually he was just another member and was just so grateful to be there. And then I applied for founders, roughly at a similar time that he joined and went really deep on this application because I realized that founders was just click while I had built seven years ahead and with a whole different breed of entrepreneurs, people who were too much later stage and they had that foundation and that base already made. And so I was like, "This is such an amazing opportunity." And I went really deep on this application and I was so excited about it. I had a bunch of interviews. I created a whole notion page, like a website pretty much. I recorded a YouTube video, I interviewed like five of them and there's all before my first interview with founders. And then they rejected me and they said, "No." And I was gutted. And I was working at L'Oreal at the time and building click early mornings and late evenings I hated L'Oreal because I was just doing like, admit like really boring tasks and click was like this, energy, like this magic. And so I lasted. I applied to founders then like three weeks of joining L'Oreal and then I managed to hold out for about five months and that was what I've done. And so I had enough savings to try and sustain myself, living in London for like three months I think and then I quit L'Oreal and it was like, cool, I managed to just try and monetize click and see if it works, which it almost definitely wouldn't have. And luckily then one of the founders of founders, very meta I know, saw that I left L'Oreal, got in touch from like, "Hey, I think we should have "out of the chat basically." And then I joined founders. And so then within founders I also experienced this magic, like this electricity that happens when you put people who have this shared value set who are going through these same struggles and who have this similar sort of shame and guilt around certain aspects of being an entrepreneur and you put them in the right room and you create this safe space that people can be very open, honest, vulnerable with each other and it's just so powerful. Like it changes people's lives and the amount of times that I've run out of treats and people have come up to me at the end of it saying honestly, like that was probably one of the best weekends of my life, like this has really changed everything. Thank you so much. Getting sort of that sort of feedback, just like I'm getting goosebumps now, thinking about it. - Yeah, me too. - And so then that is when I realized that this focus on connections was so powerful really lit me up and that's when I also changed from being rooted in this scarcity that I found it from, this lack of connections as low and less young and really striving for it to then I'm continuously, like I'm not obviously, I haven't completely fixed it or reframed it but I'm continuously reframing it to be more about this from this place of abundance. I've seen the magic of seeing the electricity, I've seen how powerful it can be and that's now what I focus on as driver. - Beautiful. There's so much in that, that was electric. That would felt like an amazing amount of connection, even just sitting here, I feel really connected to you and to your story and there's so much to unpack. The big question that kind of came out for me was, what was the difference between when you're at school where you're probably in an environment where you could connect but traveling was what actually allowed you to find this magic, to find this electricity, for the first time, what changed? Why was it different? - I was annoying at school. I had a chip on my shoulder, something to prove, wasn't specifically a popular part of, I had odd friends but again, none of them lifelong friends, I could get one good friend from my entire schooling years. And then I think I didn't find my griva school and then also once you built a reputation at school it's very difficult to change it, right? - Yes, yes. - You've got a character. - Exactly. - People have their perceptions of you. And then that then is the foundation for any interaction you have with someone. And so then leaving school, I was like, great, fresh start. Clean slate. - Yeah. - I'm gonna go and meet a bunch of people then know that before I get to set a hold on you first impression and that was just so energizing. And so that was then the trades and characteristics I lent into most was like, I'm gonna bring the energy and that is what we do. And I have luckily then also met my friends who I then went travelling with. I met him on this step here between the school university and we worked together at this hotel in Norfolk, where we were bartenders. We became best friends very, very quickly. And he is just such a. A clinic, he can like fun and energizing character. And so we sort of bounce up each other and we were just a dynamic duo, the whole way through traveling. And so then we just attracted lots of amazing people and just had loads of fun with it. - Yeah, yeah. And I guess for someone listening, 'cause this is probably quite exciting. It's exciting me. I feel pretty lit up just from listening to you. But what would not be your advice, but based on your experience, if you're feeling like that again, you're feeling a bit lonely. You're feeling a bit kind of, let's say, lost. Or whatever those things were at school, or someone is at school or someone is starting, it hasn't been able to take a gap year, a year off, et cetera. It feels this form of loneliness. What would you say to them? - Whoa. So if we base it off the same assumption that they maybe have. a perception that's been created with the people that they currently are connected with, and that is leading to the sorts of connective experiences that they would like or that fulfill them, it's really difficult. Like, so currently in my life, I have my relationships are amazing with everyone. that one person and I one person was my best friends from my earliest years like my longest standing best friends and something happened in the past two and a half years and I can't even tell you like what it is. I kind of a bit boys it and we've been through all of these stages together of life and sort of had waves of being really close and they're not bad as close and being really close again and honestly he has been like my My rock like my core my day one. He's my person for so so long and then when I joined founders and when I met Lara and my girlfriend At all it like everything started to change and it all started going downhill to the extent that Ended up like ascending letters to each other summarising like what the issue was the relationship and like everything is just broken down and I just don't know what to do like I'm stuck like all I want is to have this relationship back and I feel like I'm trying so hard and I'm just I'm not getting through it. Like it's not it doesn't want to it doesn't feel like he wants to try and probably is trying in its own way but we're not communicating so like no idea and If he was Listening what would you say? I mean, I've said this in so many different ways which don't really get any responses I would say I know he's going through a lot of stuff like I know he's struggling with life and work and He's chosen a really difficult path Similar to the path that we've chosen like he's an entrepreneur He's doing his building amazing products really high-end luxury products and He has poured his heart and soul into it and he just hasn't had the results yet and he's also Not living in the place that he wants to be and it's really like I can I would really struggle in his shoes and So he's been in that for a long time and So I like would recognize that Stuff must be super hard but otherwise case of like Like I love him so much and I'll do anything to like Just you just even like have a conversation like have dinner like I would literally do anything to have dinner with him and Not even chat about how she's just like you with him like I would literally do anything but Someone doesn't respond does someone to respond? They don't want to have you in their life than what can you do? Yeah, so then thinking about your original question. It's like how can you sort of find connection Find connection and just like maybe get a fulfillment from Relationships that maybe you're lacking the ones that you want especially because a lot of and I had this I have I had a lot of relationships had so many friends But I didn't feel connected to them you can have loads of people around you in a in a business But you don't like as a founder, but you don't necessarily feel connected to those people and there's a huge difference And obviously those connections are different with every single person, but How do you see the difference in terms of turning relationships that are just relationships and interactions into Deep connection That is the right question What are some of like the practical things that you've seen that you've just done because often it can just be like You've clearly done a lot of work on on yourself as well and understanding things So there's obviously going to be a personalized approach to it partly working on yourself But yeah, what are those practical things or things you've seen work for you? I think almost more powerfully with this is our part of what I think I didn't do So with him We had the most fun together With that was our relationship we would go on full days together We would do psychedelics together. We would just like anytime I saw him we would be so weird and we have best time and That I'd never laughed hard in my life than with him and I'd like I'd hope that it was the same for him, but I think We didn't balance it out with more vulnerable conversations and then like it's very easy to say be vulnerable with me Because there's no risk on you me to ask that of you But instead then this is what I practice within founders because Speaking of vulnerable candidly and from experience is one of the founders values and so I'm only speaking from experience now I Always tried to lead by example so every retreat I would push myself to Pour my heart out and speakers openly and fundamentally as I possibly could And that's something I didn't do with him and I Don't feel like I like really shared problems Slash Maybe I I did share problems, but they weren't received and I didn't get the sort of response which felt Which was like what I felt like I needed at the time and So then I maybe stopped going to him for specific kinds problems like let's say with my relationship with Laura Like we had loads of issues and are in volume one of our relationship as we lost core before our small break and then we got together in in volume one we had lots of challenges and I'd go to my cousin and my other best mate and we were sort of a bit of a trio for that period and Just sort of feedback a lot from them It didn't help me in this situation and so then I stopped going to them for feedback and So again for help and support and that then is a Like it's a given taken so you can't expect someone just Come to you for help and then You not reciprocated in a way that feels like there's a barrier unless it's like a therapist or a coach And it was like a very clear division right? It's a friend or someone they're trying deeply can make with that has to be that that give and take and I think and I think asking the help is one of the most powerful Strategies to connect in deep with someone Simon Sinek has an amazing Quote on this which is Around I'll butcher the quotes, but I'm sure people can find it which is around how asking the help is actually a selfless thing to do Because when we ask for help we Allow people the joy of giving us help. Yeah, right. Yeah, we love helping people. Yeah That's such an privilege. We like I've helped that person. I feel great by myself now And actually if you never asked to help there's almost rubbing that privilege from someone else beautiful and asking for help requires this certain level of vulnerability and So that's usually why there's a blocker and actually what we find it found it's Because the excuses I is usually I don't want to burn it burden that person right but what you're saying is Actually, it's they don't necessarily want to share that because it makes them feel vulnerable and Exposed exactly, but it is it's a gift Exactly and I do this in my coaching when this comes up I ask the question How does it feel when someone shares all their burdens with you? And they go oh it like feels great like as in obviously it can sometimes be a little bit a little bit heavy And it's a lot, but I feel so connected or I feel like I Can help and helping feels amazing I go so What's the difference with them? Why can't you allow them that as you said you're rubbing them of that feeling and it's like That's a huge realization. Yeah And I think this is a lot more like this is generalization, but it's more prevalent in men than women I think women go to one another for helping them often. Yeah, whereas men generally Well, actually I went to generalize it. I'll share about my own experience. I have in the past Wanted to always solve my own problems like be very independent Especially this loneliness at school, right? You learn that independence and most founders are like I can get a job done If I had a problem I'll solve it. Yeah, because we are because we built our and I this is my experience I built my identity on being a problem solver and always being able to solve other people's problems Therefore I can solve my own exactly. It's not true, but it blocks connection it blocks connection and therefore a deeper and also blocks being able to See your problems from a different perspective because you're in your problems. You're stuck in them. You can't Other people can give you that perspective. Exactly. Yeah, it's um and this is where Speaking from experience over advice is also super helpful because It's all well and good me asking you for help and being vulnerable with that But if you say you should do this you should do that. Why have you not done this? Why have I not done that half the time? I go I thinking A that vital doesn't actually apply on B, I don't like being told what it's to. And so, and I learned this through coaching, we are told what to do thousands of times a day, right? Whether it be on a video on the news or your friend, your family, anyone, because we are addicted to giving advice. And it comes from a good place, we really want to help, we all do it, but I have to stop myself. And coaching was, that was a huge realization of like, oh my goodness, I've found the technique to not give advice, just ask questions. Or as you said, share experiences. Because those are really useful as well. People go, oh, but like I've, I've been through this, share the experience. Don't give them, I guess you're saying the, what you think is an absolute answer. And there's a reason behind this. The first thing is that when someone has a problem, you interface, explain the problem in detail and in depth to you, you will never have all of the context around that problem. And so therefore, any advice you give is missing a whole load of context, which is a mixture between just maybe details around the problem, but also just the emotional impact that something has on someone. And so therefore, how could you ever give really accurate advice if you don't have all the context? You can't really. So therefore, the only person you can really help them are themselves, because they're the only person that can ever have all of the context around any problem. That's the first important part of it. The second important part is, as we said, we don't like being told what to do, whether to have agency. And so then if someone's able to help us in a way that we can find the answers for ourselves, then we take ownership over those answers and are far more likely to then act on them. As opposed to even like, I really think you should create this amazing offer for your business. And you should do it like this step one, two, three. I'm like, yeah, okay. Yeah, I could do that. But if you're like, cool, what are the steps and like, what could not be, what is a good offer? What is a bad offer? Like these open questions which help me work through the problem and look at it from different viewpoints, then means that I've come to the solution. I feel like I'm the one who is solving my own problem. Found your own answer. I found my answer. And I learned this at university. So I had a, I loved people's problems. I loved it. And this is what I was saying. I hadn't worked out how to get help from others at this point. But I loved helping other people. A lot of people shied away from, you know, they don't want to deal with other people's problems. And I get that. Some people don't have that same nature, let's say. But I loved it. And I loved hearing people and then helping them. And I noticed that particularly with a lot of the girl mates that I had at university, they would come to me for relationship advice. And they're like, oh, what do I do? This guy, you know, he's ghosting me. But then he said that he really likes me. And then this, and anytime I would default to, well, he's obviously, you know, like just, just don't, don't go back. Like, you know, like you know, don't, don't go back, right? Or just do this. And I would give them a straight answer. They'd be like, of course, you know, you're so right. Yeah. What would they do? They would go back. Right? But if I, and then I started doing something different with this particular girl mate in mine comes to my head because I was really, really close to her. And she was treated, you know, awfully for how incredible she is. And you know, almost too, too nice a soul would be taken advantage of. But I would ask her the question, what do you think you should do? What do you think? And it's the same as in my coaching, if I default to try and give them an answer, you can see that they're sort of not long. They go, yeah, and then they go, yeah, I'll do that. And then they don't do it. So it's the empowerment and actually the exposure once you've come up with your answer, for example, she would go, oh my God, what am I doing? I need to do X to completely just cut them off. And she was much more likely to do that. Didn't happen every time. We'd take a few more, but much more likely to have this aha moment. And we're actually not able to escape from our own, that was a belief. Like she created a, I don't know, in the scientific way, a neural pathway that just went, this is what I need to do. She could never get, so she could then never get away from the truth of what she knew was the right thing to do. Whether she went and carried on doing that as fine, but she would know that she had the answer, couldn't say she didn't have the answer anymore, which is very powerful, because then it's actually then just about the second part, awareness is first and then action. Then you actually have to do the thing, which is can be equally as hard. 100%. And the challenge of this is that people often come asking for advice. And that's because it's more difficult to solve around problems. Yes. Right. So she comes here and like, give me advice, help me with the thing. And then you flip it back on that and be like, what do you think you should do? Then someone has to stop and think and go, okay, we'll hear my options. This is how I feel about them. Like that takes a lot more energy and effort. So people just want the answer. 100%. So that's why they come and ask the advice. But then the tricky thing is, well, is that when a, someone comes asking for advice to go, I'm not going to give you advice. I'll share experiences and ask questions. Now, sharing experience is pretty foolproof. It's just a case of, here's my experience. Take from that way. Well, asking questions. There's also such an answer to it in that you can give advice with a question like, do you not think you should do this? It's a question. You're giving advice. Right. It's like, oh, um, have you thought about this? So advice? A frame does question. Yes. Close questions. Those are close questions. Open questions. Pretty much the, the only thing, the main thing I learned through my coaching course that I did was the difference between open and close questions. Open question is, you know, not a yes or no question or something that leads to one answer or two answers. It's generally like how questions, how could you go about this? How would you solve this problem in this situation or whatever? And then also like, actually, think about it. There's also an art to sharing experiences and people can share experiences as giving advice, which is also like really interesting and my mentor, Peter, so Peter, who was in click and who then he was pivotal in me getting into found this. So he'd spoken to the leadership of found is when author I'd been rejected. He was like, no, you should really hire a James a huge credit goes Peter and he has a very clear, let me test around sharing experiences, purely a sharing experiences, which is first person past tense. Has to be I has to be I did this. It can't be future. I would do that. That's not experientially. And present tense sometimes, but you then don't have the benefit of hindsight and whether something worked or not. And so first person past tense is a very clear, let me test someone actually sharing experiences. So there's an answer both of them and those combined then make us really effective at helping others. But then also you recognize it when asking for help. So we have these two sides of these equation, which obviously has a saying lead to commission. And so then if I give someone ask for help, now that I'm aware of the sort of support I give others through sharing experiences and these open under questions in a coaching style, I now have to be quite intentional about how I ask for help. So I say, this is a problem. I would really just love any experiences that you have that relate to this. Or I'd love to be coached on this. And so I'll only get a very specific people about being coached on something. Otherwise, if it's like a friend, I'll be like, cool, is it how you had a time which maps this? Like I don't want any advice. Please don't give me no advice. Yeah. That's really important while you just brought up there because that actually also for people listening, it puts it within your control, right? Your control in terms of you can go to anyone, but you place parameters around how they can help you. And that really helps both because it is also draining to be asked for advice because and you do feel, or I feel that when that happens, for example, in my coaching, when they do ask, when clients ask for advice, that's a lot of pressure. That's like, I have to get this right. And that feels really heavy. Whereas if you, if they're like, please quiz me around this or ask me questions around this and help me dig into this myself, that is so much as we're saying. So much more powerful, but also helps you as the person that is going and needs an answer to get that answer in a way that isn't going to be biased is actually. she's gonna be helpful for empowering and all these things. So that's a huge, that's really thank you, Peter, as good clarification and great way of putting it. (dramatic music) - And it builds an expectation in us because if someone says, "Can I have a voice?" And you go, "Yeah, here's some advice." And then it obviously will be, they probably go, "Don't go, do it." - But then like, "No." - "Well, the fuck didn't you do the thing?" I said, "You should do it." - Yeah, I was being drained of energy through that and drained of all the advice. And it was quite good advice, but it just doesn't matter. And it's really exhausting. So, and I actually, on that, 'cause the coach that I work with, Baskar, he's kind of coach, transformational, super spiritual, and just awesome human. But we were talking about this very recently. I brought up the challenge of a feel that sometimes I'm lured in, or my clients and my just want, founder clients, my just want my advice. And I'm sometimes giving too much of it. I feel that I'm giving too much of it. And we talked through it, again, he asked me questions and we went through it. And what we, the conclusion, he kind of came to after he's a lot older than me, he had a lot more experience in this type of stuff. And talked about teaching, the importance of teaching someone to fish. It's a similar thing. Giving them the tools, questioning them on what they think first, making them do the work themselves for all those reasons that we've just discussed. And then there's no problem with just giving them a fish at the end. Like, after they've done all this, whenever, and it could be in just like, this is a story I'm gonna tell you. Just tell them the story. And doesn't need to come to a particular conclusion. And I think actually kind of brings me on to the other thing that is coming up, which is that you don't always need to fill the space. Allow in conversations, some silence and some gaps. It can be really compelling. You want to fill the space. But I've noticed that when I, in conversations, whether it be with clients or friends that I'm helping, really sit in silence, let them try and fill the space. Because that's when the most incredible insights of their own will come up, especially in a world where we're on, go, go, go. So. - I feel like lots of these things are downstream from coaching, learning the skill of coaching. It's open under questions. It's giving people the space to answer their own ones and that's been one of the most powerful things I've learnt in the past couple of years. And again, I'm part of a thing which is called Run Yourself, which is actually Peter's wife's company. She's called Bika. She was the most sought after coach in Founders. Still is, but she doesn't coach one to one anymore because it's our platform. And it's about here coaching. And so you get linked up with someone. Let's say we're at the similar stage. Let's say we would probably be linked up as here coaches. And you come to a session. You have a structure of how you do an update. And then you decide who goes first. And let's say I'm coaching you first. It's a structure that's how I coach. And then it flips and then you coach me for the second half. And being coached is great, but actually the more valuable side of it is learning how to coach someone. - Yes, yes. This is kind of like the conversation we've had. Started with you flipping things straight onto me. And I thought, well, this is, I actually quite enjoy it. It's quite nice now. Like both sides, I've learned that through coaching founders that if they can build that skill and use coaching within their team, that's where I've seen the most amount of change. And as you said, and also not just changing their team, but also understanding of coaching for themselves. So as soon as I understood how coaching worked for myself, I could then, no, for others, I could then use it for myself and I'm better and realize that the parent, actually the simplicity of it, but as we're saying, it's just looking out for those trips that you can have at falling into giving advice and things like that. It's a skill, it's a constant skill. And I still after three to four years of coaching, I can fall into that trap of giving advice because there's still that urge. And that's where I think for me, just being self-aware came down to it, being present. People say, what does that mean? But noticing when I'm giving advice because I feel I need to help someone. I don't need to help that person. As soon as I let go of that, that it's not my responsibility, even though I am a coach, and it is my technical responsibility in that relation, coaching is all about that person in front of me. I just have to do my part, but it's ultimately up to them. And I realize that in my own coaching, depends how vulnerable I am, depends how much I'm bringing up, depends if that first thought that comes through my head, the really honest one, the one that I don't really want to and that I disregard straight away. If I bring that up, wow, it can be so much more powerful. But it's still, it's a skill, it's a skill we learn. We don't have too much longer left, I think, on the time. Is there anything in particular that you feel you want to leave people with? Yes. One thing that just came to mind is the word help has a lot of touch to it. If at least within my experience, I have associated help with a sort of, like a victim in a savior in a way, and a reframe that I discovered recently, or someone made it clearly recently is, we can transfer help and support out really simply. And actually it just takes away that extra level of vulnerability, extra level of helplessness, and not all the time when looking for help, we're not helpless, we would just like someone support something. So that is a quick thing that I'm trying to incorporate more. It's like reframe or just reword help at support. And the last thing is I interviewed an incredible coach recently. He's a leadership team coach, he's called Sam Knight. He's coach like the Nike leadership team. He does loads of start up. Retreats as well, and he is like top of his game. And he asked me a question, which I haven't been able to get out my head since our conversation. I'd love to throw you a thing, which is, what is something that you know to be true, deep down now, that you likely won't admit to yourself for other six months? What's popped into my head that I almost, in a sense, try to wriggle out of, so that usually means it's along the right lines, is that I have to be brutal around how I use technology, in particular, my phone. I think I have to drop so much of its use in order to get what I really want. I really want in life. And to expand on that, because I have done some thinking around it, I've been thinking around it for a while now that you've brought it up. But I keep using the excuse of, oh, and, and when. I'll get there. I'll get there. But to be more specific, it's a bit of a cliche, but the phones really do take us out of the present moment. And I feel like there where I, the phone is where I go to avoid any sort of discomfort, any discomfort though. And that's just boredom as discomfort. It doesn't need to be some deep rooted trauma, because I generally feel like I haven't had that, you know, much of the word, trauma very luckily. And I've worked through a lot, but it's, it's boredom. Boredom is a huge thing that I need to allow into my life in order for so much more abundance to come up. And based on this conversation, because I'm all about action, and that might be the next thing you were going to ask knowing what coaching is about, is I've deleted social, all the social media apps off my phone. I've done that. I, I feel pretty advanced in this, but I need to go one step, a few steps further. I've, I have my phone on Do Not Disturb. I've had it on Do Not Disturb for the past two, three years, and as I'm expecting an important call, change, change my life, but still actually WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a big issue. It's, there's always something that, when I delete the other apps, my focus goes on to something else, right? Or my, allowing to distract myself away from discomfort, whatever that is, is something else. So, WhatsApp and answering people, I think that, that is me trying to also get a full-time job. of connection, but it's not where I connect. It feels, I feel like for myself it's a form of if they connection, of course you get something from it, but you don't have a bit of a laugh in a WhatsApp group, but there's so much more I can get if I create more boundaries around that. So that'd be mine, what would be yours. Love that answer. Thank you for sharing. I am very similar to you and there have, I don't go on any social media, I don't scroll any feeds, but WhatsApp is the consistent, I don't come back to it. I have got connection from WhatsApp in some ways, but it's usually very intentional where it's like, hey, I'm just thinking of you really miss you, can I wait to in it? It's like, that is the lovely text to receive. And you immediately feel quite like, oh, actually, I really do want to see that person, I think I feel quite connected. It's sort of a precursor to meeting a person, I have your phone, I have your video call. My version is voice notes out of the blue when they're not expected. I love to send or if I receive one, just thinking about you, a friend of mine, actually on another level, not even particularly that close, but he sent me a postcard from Venice that he was at, I hadn't spoken to him in almost nine months, and I received this postcard, I was like, who the hell is this? This has come to the wrong place. I realized signed off Tommy, and he does that to people. And oh my goodness, I'm still buzzing, you can see I'm buzzing from it, and I haven't had to speak to him every day of my life through something like WhatsApp, but a voice note would be. Yeah, so powerful. No one has seen even the person anymore. And so that then shows us the impact of taking that little extra effort to write someone a letter. A thank you letter after an event that you've been to or someone's put some effort into something, or even just randomly, it's that for no reason can even be even more powerful. Just letting you know that you see that person, I tried to do that more, but that's actually something that I'm not going to try, I'm going to do more and send intention to do that based on this. I mean, so he the same, I've started writing more letters now, but actually, I love to dumb down it. But to answer your question, the thing that I am, I know to be true deep down that I probably wouldn't have missed myself for other six months. When he asked me this question, the original answer was I was living by the belief that if I just make enough content, then it will produce an outcome. And it will produce like a me creating a big audience, whereas that's that's not like it's like it's not granted. There is every possibility that I put out my goal for this year's put out of 300 videos. There's every possibility that I put out 300 videos and get barely any following. And really digesting that reality was tricky, but also then made me clear about why I'm doing, why I'm doing this big content push. It's just like for the love of it. And I wanted to learn how to build this content machine. But now, what do I know to be true? I won't remove another six months. I'm saying yes to too many things, and I feel as a society now, and it will come and bite me the ass. And I will then set a lot of learning, the skill of recognising when an opportunity isn't a hell yes for me. I get pulled in by things like money and like potential opportunity and like, oh, but if I do this work for this person, then maybe I can like run their podcast and their community has like even later stage entrepreneurs, like even more impressive people, but it's lots of maybe's and ifs and like what ifs. And none of them are really in reality. Quick excitement to make it feel like you can get there quicker. I went through that a lot, particularly when I was building my coaching business. And I stopped having all those meetings of possibilities. I enclosed them all out, but my diary is so much less full. And I've been able to create more personal progress in terms of business and also myself by carving that space out. Saying no, totally important. Yeah, saying no is so powerful and such a difficult skill to learn. Specifically, if like me, if anyone's watching people please, it's like it's really difficult to say no. And you seem like someone that's very excited by life and by people. And that is such an amazing gift and skill and but probably something that you are realizing that, yeah, there's a certain to be able to switch it on and then be able to switch it off at certain points. Because otherwise, you don't give yourself enough, but that's me, generalizing. I had one last question for we leave. We've talked all about connection and how important connection is. Seems like it's one of the most important things that's changed your life and the way you feel day-to-day, et cetera. Why are you moving from something deep personal in-person experiences that brought to you a lot of that connection to content? So I'd start off by saying that's me organizing retreats is very different from me participating in a retreat. I can see the magic and people come and tell me how impactful these connective experiences have been, but as the organizer, you're actually met with that present. You know, I get to have like the, I'm just here to learn about you and you're just here to learn about me and we can share experiences and we can share problems and whatnot. That is a blessing. And actually, when you're running retreat, there are very rare opportunities for that to happen. Despite, I love running retreats as well. I love providing that experience with people. However, now the sort of content I'm doing is like this. It's I get to sit down one on one and I get to just like understand someone that I get to ask them these open and big questions and I get really curious about them and actually I've never felt as connected to people as when I interact with them one on one. And so I, when I ask people to come on the podcast or the show, I say, look, this is the thing I love the most. I love connecting. I love going deep with people and so like, if I'm going to have these conversations with you anyway, it's not that difficult to set up a camera and some money to record it. And hopefully then it spreads the magic further than a retreat could. So I think there's like, there's depth and there's breath. So I receive the depth from having the person connection and then hoping that the breath goes out with these platforms. And the other person sitting in front of you as well, right? So if you have 300 video conversations with people, that's 300 people. You might only be able to do a few retreats with that many people. So I totally see that. So you're your advice to people who are creating content, but aren't having that deeper feeling of connection. Definitely to have any advice. But I'm not advised. Yes. I started this channel by like trying to create a video. I'm like, cool, I've done this community building stuff. Here's how you do it. The problem, this is how you design for this and this is how you do it. Whatever. It was just me and I'd write a script and I'd try and record it. And it just didn't fill me with as much energy. Like I didn't feel as connected to like me. And this is like, again, like, have you all of this, which I feel super privileged to be able to just focus on the thing that makes me feel most alive, which is also like requires a lot of freedom. It requires a lot of space, which lots of people don't have. But then again, as something that was been asked myself for months, it's like, when do I feel most alive? And I suppose this comes back to the question I asked you to start, which is, what is the one thing that's most impactful for your co-chee's and the founders and your community? And then also like the following question would probably have been like, when do you feel most alive? And there are so many things that we have opportunities to do, which aren't directly alive with that thing. And so I'm now trying to just double down get a super focused, get a super niche on the thing that makes me light up, which is this connection piece, which is this format of interviewing people and having these conversations. And so I won't do anything, I'll explain to anybody else I think. And yeah, it's such a blessing. I'm super grateful for this opportunity. I'm very, very lucky. But I haven't been creating content for long after, valuable life experiences, but I think that's how the approach starting it. And I think ultimately authenticity is going to shine through in the future of content, like it's so much out there, such as C. And so then the question I ask myself is like, how can I be most authentic with what I'm creating. And ultimately that will then serve me best and anything. I think people might need or might want. That's not something to approach it. Yeah. Beautiful. I have to ask from that in the most short concise way that you can what makes you feel so alive. What makes you feel most alive? Leading someone or people through a transformative experience. Beautiful. Thank you. Thanks for that. Thanks for that conversation. This was, yeah, magic, fun, electric, all those things you said earlier on, but I really appreciate your time. Fies, Fies. Thank you so much. So come you all this way. It's that one. It's not actually that far when there's a direct route, but. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Contras Founder Podcast. If you've found this valuable, hit the link in the show notes to find out more ways you can become a master of your mind and achieve the success you desire.