[00:00:00] Stephen: It's not every day you get to meet a ninja, specifically a productivity ninja. But today I had the pleasure of talking with Grace Marshall, productivity ninja by day, an author by simply being very efficient. So we talk about our new book Struggle, what goes on in our head when we enter the world of fear, our when mistakes happen. And today, one of those mistakes was me mistakingly confusing Jane McGonagal, the author of books such as Imaginable and Super Better, with her sister Kelly McGonagal, health psychologist and Ted speaker and stress expert. Shows that we're all a. You're gonna enjoy this Wow at Work look at Struggle with Grace Marshall. You're very welcome. 

[00:00:32] Welcome to the Wow at Work podcast Today my guest is Grace Marshall. She's a head coach, a chief encourager, and she's also a productivity ninja with Think Productive, and she's also an author. Grace's books include 21 Ways to Manage the Stuff That Sucks Up Your Time, How to be Really Productive, Achieving and Getting Results in a World Where Work Never Ends. And her latest book is Struggle, the Surprising Truth, Beauty and Opportunity Hidden in Life's Shitier Moments. She lives in Stafford, in the UK with her husband and two kids. And Grace, you are very, very welcome today.

[00:01:04] Grace: Thanks so much for having me, Steven.

[00:01:06] Stephen: An absolute pleasure. I just, just by even looking at the three, the name of the three books that you've, you've had, there's a real sort of scene that goes through the three of them there as well. It's all around time, productivity. Um, what brought you to the point of where here you are today in order of your third book on struggle, productivity and time. What was the catalyst that led you to here?

[00:01:29] Grace: It's a funny thing because I'm naturally disorganized, so I would not have picked time management as my thing. Um, in fact, I, I resisted it for a long time, but, um, I was in a position where I was raising, um, two kids alongside. Growing a business. So I often say my business is like my middle child. Um, and I was running a coaching business working with a lot of people who were in the same boats. They were juggling business and family and too much to do, not enough time. How do we fit it all in was the number one challenge that they were facing. And they kept asking me like, how do we, how do we do it Grace, or how do you do it? 

[00:02:04] And I got to a point where I just thought, do you know what? Just answer the bloody question. You know, even if you don't feel qualified, let's just start digging in and getting. And the more I did, the more I. You know what, it's not so much about time management. It's so much more about managing what's going on in our heads and our, our relationship with our work and our relationship with time itself. And so that's kind of what took me down the rabbit hole of, of looking into productivity. 

[00:02:30] And I ended up writing my first book the same year that Graham wrote How to be a Productivity Ninja. And that's how we ended up sort of meeting and getting together. We actually met through Twitter, um, of all places, but when, when we finally got together to have a coffee, we decided to join forces, and I became the first female productivity ninja

[00:02:48] Stephen: Great. So let, let's bring just for the listeners, bring it back to who Graham is and what Productivity Ninja involves, uh, and where that comes 

[00:02:56] Grace: Yeah. So, um, Graham Allcott founded the company, Think Productive, um, who is the company that I do most of my sort of corporate training and speaking with. Um, and he, he wrote the book, how to Be a Productivity Ninja back in 2009, I wanna say No, no, 2011. So 2009 is when the company started. 2011, I think is when he wrote the book.

[00:03:19] And you, I know that you had Elena Kerrigan, who is our MD on your podcast recently. So, um, so yeah, so, so we're all part of the same ninja family. And, and I guess when, when we talk about product of De Ninja, what we really, the mission that we're on is helping people to have a better relationship with their work. So to find ways of working with less stress and less overwhelmed and more playful, productive momentum

[00:03:42] Stephen: Oh, I like that. I like that because yeah, I, I was just talking to somebody about this, um, about this idea of finitude, like this idea that we, we never get to the end of all. The things that we have to do, whether it's, there will be emails that when you pass away will have to be answered by somebody else and it, it, uh, there is just no end to all of this. So you help people to be able to find some way of semblance of organizing this to, to take away the anxiety and the stress and the fear that we have around all that. Is it?

[00:04:13] Grace: Yeah, so we often talk about like, you know, what does it feel like to feel like you're surfing the workflow rather than drowning in it? So it's not about getting to the end of everything, it's about feeling like you, you've got a sense of, of control, of clarity. You've got a sense of movement and purpose that you're like, you're going in the right direction, that you go in the direction you wanna go in.

[00:04:31] Um, you know, and then it is, I guess it's a little bit of a cliche sometimes to talk about, you know, the journey rather than the destination. But I think that's very true for productivity. If you see productivity as like the end goal, then you find you're, you're never there. You're always kind of pursuing this myth of perfection. Whereas if you see it as a tool that helps you to, to on the whole do your best work, um, enjoy doing it and not have it consume you and take over everything, then that's a good thing.

[00:04:59] Stephen: I kind of like that idea too as well, because I. I was only talking about this last week as well. I know somebody who's really successful in their field, uh, really, really good at what they do, and they showed me their inbox and, uh, they had 120,000 emails there waiting to, and I just went from the outside you, you're extremely efficient at what you do and you, you look at, but I'm on the inside, I suppose. Yeah. Sometimes we're not as efficient as we want to be or whatever, or we just don't care or we just.

[00:05:30] I suppose it's hard on you cause Cause if you are seen as a productivity in Ninja and then suddenly you've gotta be seen to be super organized all the time too. And that's probably not always the case is it?

[00:05:39] Grace: Well, that's one of the things I like about the product of teenager approach is that it's very human. So in fact, one of the characteristics is human, not superhero. So yeah, the idea that we aren't gonna get it perfect and in fact perfect's the wrong thing to aim for. Um, and sometimes we will for the wagon. And sometimes you human beings are weird. We have weird quirks. We don't always do the thing that looks efficient. Your efficiency actually is what robots do really well. Um, so like, even when it comes to your, your inbox, you know, It's really interesting the conversations I have with people around the inboxes. Some people are like, do you know what? It doesn't cause me any stress anymore. I just go fishing for what I need and I leave the rest of it I flow down the stream and part of me is like, well, if that works for you, that's great.

[00:06:20] Where, you know, if it's not working and where it's not working for some people is that it creates a certain amount of uncertainty and anxiety. Feeling like I'm gonna miss something or I can't find the thing when I need it. If that's the case, then okay, I've got a better way of doing it for you. So that's when we can work together and go, here are some structures or some processes, some ways of putting things in place so that you have more clarity about what you wanna be focusing on. Like it's, it's always about where's your head? For me rather than, you know, does this thing look really tidy? Inefficient?

[00:06:51] Stephen: There's a really good, cause you, your book Struggle is brilliant and there's a couple of good quotes that you have in it, and one of them is from Peter Drucker, um, uh, what would we call a management behavior guru pretty much, or somebody in that field. Yeah. Yeah. And he says there's nothing surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. And I think that sums up a lot of where we've ended up in work, isn't there? We've sort of created roles and tasks that don't make sense. They're not efficient, they're not needed. 

[00:07:20] Grace: Yeah. Or we end up sort of pursuing like, how can I do this thing faster? How can I, you know, stuff more in, how can I make the most of, you know, get, get, get 15 things done rather than 12? And sometimes what we end up doing is we, we kind of, We pursue the feeling of activity, and that feels really good. Like you get a dopamine hit when you are able to tick things off and you feel like you're getting those done. But sometimes we end up going, hang on, am I just, um, am I just pursuing activity? Am I just going for busyness? Uh, does it actually get me anywhere? Am I even getting anywhere closer to my goals?

[00:07:51] Um, so yeah. So Peter Jocker talks, I guess, you know, that that quote gets us to think about effectiveness rather than efficiency. all the stuff that I'm doing efficiently does actually get me to where I wanna be.

[00:08:02] Stephen: Yeah, I always worry, not worry about it. I always think about when I go into a typical, like you go into a clothes shop and you see the sales assistant there and you know, there's probably not many customers when you look around, there's not many customers in the store and they're trying to look busy. They are, they're trying to fold somebody's jumper who, you know, who unfolded a jumper and they, oh, thank God they did that. But it's, it's the, it's, it's our inability to think, let's just let the person just stand in the store. Don't have to fill it up with what you just talked about, their activity that they have to look busy, even though there's no work to fill it with, you know?

[00:08:35] And I think there's a, yeah, we're, we're sort of caught up in that sort of cycle of thinking that if you don't look like you're working, you're definitely not working. And I suppose the, what's happened with the last two and a half years, the remote working has become to the forefront as well. If your boss can't see you, then he can't tell whether you're working and he's only hoping you're working. But the trust thing has become a huge thing with that. 

[00:08:55] Grace: And it's interesting cuz I see two camps on that. Like I see, I've seen a camp of people who've gone, oh, okay, we have to trust now. And, and like, I can't, I can't use busyness as a measurement of productivity anymore because I can't look out into a, into a, an office and see a whole lot really busy people. So I'm gonna have to find other ways of measuring productivity. And that's, you know, for a lot of people, that's been a really positive move cuz it's been moving towards, you know, let's look at results, let's look at impacts, let's look at what, what's different as a result of what we're doing rather than how busy we look. Which is great.

[00:09:30] But then on the other end, I also see, yeah, there's a whole load of software and technology now that can monitor your activity. Um, I, you know, I was speaking to someone a little while ago who was like, I'm doing something that requires me to think and my best place of thinking is away from the screen, but I'm having to like have my hand over here just moving the mouse a little bit because there's a piece of software that monitors activity on my laptop.

[00:09:56] And that's just like, that's just crazy cuz that's not gonna help, you know, make that person more productive. They're just having to play the game of, of visibility and FaceTime and present digital presenteeism, isn't it? Um, I dunno, have you seen this in, in some of the, the people that you work with, Stephen?

[00:10:13] Stephen: I've heard about it. I heard it begin to happen. Where there is sort of like whether there's facial recognition, keyboard recognition, you know, of how, you know, how many key strokes have we made per hour or whatever might be our per minute. Yeah, the, and any company that does that, you really have to question what's going on behind the curtain in the organization. There's lots of distrust maybe between the leadership and you'd always wonder, is the CEO under the same rules as everybody else? Does he have, you know, a keyboard tracker trying to

[00:10:42] Grace: Yeah. Yeah. Can other people log on and see how, you know, how busy he's being?

[00:10:46] Stephen: Yeah. And yeah, this is, this is huge. And, and I suppose one of the things that comes into your, uh, your book struggle is, is the whole idea of fear. Um, and, and how fear, like, you know, is, is, is a part of our experience of the way we live lives. Um, so we've got two things I think you, you spoke about, you talked about fear, and you talk about avoidance, which is procrastination. Yeah. Procrastination is probably a big thing about what you do when it comes to productivity is it?

[00:11:14] Grace: Yeah, it's it and, and I think, you know, understanding fear really helps with understanding procrastination. So procrastination as an avoidance activity. If you think about it, if you think about it from a logical perspective, it looks like self harm. It looks like, yeah, I'm just making life so much harder for myself. Why am I doing that? And, and you know, I know lots of people who beat themselves up about it and go, ah, I know I should just, you know, get it done and I'm making my life so much harder by putting it off. I can't help it. And, and it kind of goes around in a circle.

[00:11:42] But if you start to understand it from a fear perspective, If you think about the human response to fear is usually one of fight or flight. It's like if you know from a survival point of view, if a bear has escaped from the zoo and is charging down the street at me, my fight or flight instinct tells me either to pick something up to defend myself with or to run away and hide and make myself safe. And that is a really useful thing from an evolutionary perspective.

[00:12:10] It's less useful from an everyday work life stress perspective. So, um, I often say, you know, if, if you've ever experienced email range, you know, like with road rage, but with email so that you know, if you've ever experienced that, then that is your fight instinct kicking in. But at the same time, procrastination often is your flight instinct kicking in. It's like, this thing looks hard or it looks uncertain, or. I might not do a good job. I might, I might embarrass myself. I might, um, my identity, my professional reputation might be at risk here. Like that idea of sort of fear and uncertainty and risk, if there's an element of that. 

[00:12:50] Or even if there's an element of boredom. Cuz I think our Liz brain doesn't like being bored. So like, yeah. Any of those things will get, um, our, our sort of fight and flight instinct going, Ooh, that looks d. That looks like a threat. Let's not do that. Let's make ourselves safe over here instead. Oh, look, emails. Let's deal with, deal with emails instead.

[00:13:09] Stephen: I like that cuz it wasn't is Iron I talks about this. Um, I dunno if you've read any of his stuff about Ira, when he talks about the whole idea of that years ago when we were hunter gatherers, we used to hunt for food and, and. That's what we did back then. Now we don't hunt for food. We hunt in different ways. We hunt in the form of shopping and we hunt in the form of information.

[00:13:27] So two things that we, yeah, that we do. And I think he was saying something along the lines of that every time that you click on an email that, that, that bit, that unread email and you click on it, the desire to actually action out what's behind that email dissipates the minute that you click on the red, uh, the red button, and that's why we have so many unanswered emails. Our un actioned emails in our email box as well. There's something weird going on inside of

[00:13:50] Grace: Mm, I've heard, I've heard that even like the little red icon is there to mimic the, um, what looks like a red berry. Um, cuz if you're in the wild, you see a red be, it's like, oh, that might be food. So you pay more attention to it.

[00:14:03] Stephen: I know there's a lot of work goes into that. There's a lot of work went into it. I think, was it, was it Justin Rosenstein was the guy who invented the, uh, the light button for Facebook too as well, and they spent a long time deliberating on what that button should look like and what color it should be. Partly there's something in, in, obviously it's, it's the Facebook colors too as well, but they spent ages on that trying to deliberate how we can make this as effective as possible to click the word 

[00:14:26] Grace: Yeah. And the three dots, like the three dots that tell you, somebody's typing, you, that's, that's designed to create a, a sense of something's happening. Oh, I better pay attention what's gonna happen? And it so creates an open loop that your brain wants to close. So you sat there waiting, going, come on, come on. Give it,

[00:14:41] Stephen: Yes. It's very, very smart, isn't it? It's got that, what we call the maybe effects, that anticipation, dopamine buildup, that feels kind of nice. Almost like the feeling you have of being in the airport, waiting on your flight to go somewhere nice. Not knowing what the place is gonna be like as well. 

[00:14:53] Grace: yeah. Or like a slot machine. Yeah. Like the kind of gambling addiction thing.

[00:14:57] Stephen: Yeah. Yeah, they're very good. Yeah, very effective. And I think even though we're adults and we have a very, um, uh, you know, the human part of our brain is very good at being able to decide for what's right or wrong, true or false. We still get caught up in this, this addictive, um, actions.

[00:15:12] Uh, and that's why emails, when I, I, and I spoke about this before, when I think about when emails first came out, um, within the workspace you might get five, six emails, maybe a day less maybe. And on Friday you might have. You know, two or three and you'd never panic over the weekend. So you'd come back on Monday and that those two or three would still be there and they wouldn't really matter that much if they hadn't been answered or sent. And yet we live in a completely different world now where we're just bombarded all the time in all this information. It's really effective. 

[00:15:44] I love one of the things too, as well. In your book there, you talked about, uh, you mentioned, uh, Liz Gilbert, and she wrote a letter to fear. And I love this. I'm just gonna quote a little bit from this cuz I thought this was really, really nice. Liz, Liz had wrote this letter to, to her feeling of fear. Cause fear is something that we're never gonna escape, but it's gonna be part of our lives. And we either embrace it or under understand it's gonna be there and understand that it's probably trying to help us stop doing things that we shouldn't be doing. But sometimes it can be a bully that tries to stop us from being a fuller version of ourselves. And what Liz says is, I recognize that you are part of the family. This is her talking. I'll never exclude you from things, but your suggestions will never be followed. I really like that.

[00:16:27] Grace: Yeah, , and you know, and it's so, it's so smart as well, because if we try and ignore fear, It will shout louder. You know, it will find a way of, you know, getting, getting itself heard. whereas like just, you know, that whole acceptance piece, that whole recognition piece, um, and you know, in struggle I talk about the oh shit moment. And, you know, being able to just say like, oh shit, this is happening. This is scary or this hurts, or this has gone wrong. Because if we don't recognize that, we'll constantly be trying to look away from it. And if we're looking away from it, we can't see it for what it is and we can't see it for what it could be as well.

[00:17:05] Stephen: And then you also talk about Glen and Doyle. That talks about we can do hard things and it's like giving a message to the brain that sometimes we don't learn from avoidance and the things that cause us to struggle, they can be actually growing, you know, um, activities for ourselves. I kind of like that idea and I keep coming back that we can do hard things and I think it's something that should be shared with, with, uh, school students of the age of 13, 14, 15, 16, or whatever, you to know that life can be a struggle and will be difficult at times. It's not gonna all be plain sailing, but when you come across those difficult moments, we can get past them. We can do stuff that we think our, our, our brain says to Steve, you cannot do that. Avoid it. It's like the feeling that you might have got, um, on the very first time you stood up in front of a crowd of people and actually,

[00:17:54] Grace: Oh gosh. Yeah.

[00:17:56] Stephen: what? What was your brain telling you then?

[00:17:58] Grace: Do you know what? Um, I can remember. Um, being when I first started my, my coaching business, uh, so this is going back 14 years? You know, writing has always been a, a very comfortable place for me. So, you know, as a kid, I was the, I was the tiny kid with the thick glasses sitting on the edge of the playground with a big book, having a football kicked at my head like that, that was my childhood basically. So, You know, writing, blogging, that was a very natural place for me to start. But I was invited actually by my accountant at the time to come to a, a breakfast networking group. And because it, I was also new to the area, it was a really good way of just meeting people and, and getting to know people. It was, it was a bit of a challenge actually, to get up super early.

[00:18:45] I think it was like 6 45 we had to be there for, or something ridiculous like that, and, and, and you had to give a one minute talk about yourself, about your business. And the, the night before I did not sleep. You know, my brain was just going like, what do I say? What, what if I forget? What if I can't speak? And like anyone who knows me now knows that speaking is something I can do really well. Like, you know, in conversation. I love speaking. He, and. 

[00:19:09] But you, the things that happen in your head when you go, oh my God, I'm gonna be judged. Um, you know, again, that, that's a, that's a Libra thing. Because back in the day when we all lived in tribes, being rejected from the tribe was a life or death situation. So the lizer brain kind of sees social rejection in the same way that sees a life threat. Um, so, so yeah, it was interesting and, and I, I don't think I ever really got any business out of those breakfast networking groups, but what I did get was a lot of. At speaking, at talking about what I do, um, you know, so we did the one minute things. Occasionally you do a 10 minute presentation. So that was like my entry into public speaking. 

[00:19:51] And then when my first book came out, I realized, Hang on a minute. The best way to promote a book is to do some speaking. So that's when I started doing more of the kind of keynotes type, um, talks as it were. Um, and then, you know, as I got involved with Think Productive, started doing more workshops, you then get kind of teams going, oh, this is great actually we've got a, you know, we've got a customer conference coming up, or we've got a team conference and a staff away day. Can you do a, a small section on that? And so that's in how I ended up becoming. A speaker, I guess. Um, but I never, like if you talk to me when I was 13, 14, I would not have picked that as a career choice. Definitely not. I was, I was really shy, you know, you, I wouldn't have picked that as my, my thing, but, you know, it picked me

[00:20:35] Stephen: It's amazing the way that happens because as we said, when we talked about what goes on inside of our brain, the fear that tries to stop us from doing that, don't walk onto that stage. Grace, don't, um, think that people wanna hear your voice. All the different things that's going on, either from the, the, the lizard brain are from the chimp brain or whatever, you know, we wanna call it. It's incredible how we, we can override those things and that's why when it comes back to we can do hard things is such a really nice statement to be able to tell kids that. Yet the fear is there. And I know, um, Jane McGonigal talks about this as well. I think she's done some stuff. And in her books, she has talked about how you can embrace, um, stress. So the idea that when you walk out onto a stage and you're feeling that this is too overwhelming, you can actually use that stress to be able to help you in a situation. And she just uses, I think she uses one sentence. I'm really excited about this and it seems to transfer the stress into helping her presentation bring all the energy to the adrenaline and everything else is flowing through her body, the cortisol and that kinda stuff, to be able to impact her in a positive way rather than in a fearful way.

[00:21:37] Grace: And the beauty of that is you're changing the story. Like you're changing of the story of like what this means. So the thing that happens when we're, you know, when we step onto stage and we're, we feel those nerves, um, what often happens, we go, these nerves mean. I'm in the wrong place. I'm not cut out for this, you know, I shouldn't be here. I should, I should hide, I should run. Um, you know, and it is that story that we apply to it. Whereas what she does is go, no, no, no. These feelings are there. I accept and I'm, you know, I know that they're there. I'm not gonna avoid that, but what I'm gonna do is change what they mean. So these are the feelings that mean I'm excited. It means that they're preparing me.

[00:22:15] Um, and, and I, I've used exactly the same, um, thing with my daughter a little while ago, a few years ago, she was doing a lot of cross country running, and I remember one of her friends went, my legs, my legs are really jittery. They're like, you know, I can't keep them still. That, you know, they're sort of knocking. See that as your body preparing you for a race, like channel, that energy from your legs that's gonna go into the ground, you're gonna use it for running. This is your body preparing you for the race. And even just that change means that you're telling yourself this is okay. This, you know, it doesn't mean I'm in the wrong place. It means I'm in the right place. I, I can do hard things. I'm cut out for this. 

[00:22:54] So it, like you, you're channeling exactly the same energy, but rather than being nervous energy. Working against you, you're using it to you to, to kind of feed into that anticipation and excitement and adrenaline to get it working for you. Um, and I, you know, I watched that same TED talk and what I love is that, um, she said that biologically exactly the same things are happening. So your heart is pumping faster, you've got more oxygen going to your blood. You know your, the blood's going delivered to your muscles. But the one difference between the two ways of looking at it is that your blood vessels don't constrict. So if you see it as excitement, your blood vessels stay relaxed and they don't constrict, and it's the constriction that's bad for you is the constriction that leads to like heart attacks and things like that.

[00:23:42] So like even just by thinking of, so she calls it like making stress your friend, you're thinking of the, all these feelings of stress as like, no, this is, this is my friend, this is preparing me. That means that actually my body responds better to it. Um, and it's no longer, it's no longer destructive.

[00:23:59] Stephen: That's what we should be teaching teenagers. Yeah. To understand when they're doing that, you know, uh, presentation in front of the class or, you know, having that interview, it's normal to feel those. And those feelings, but if you use it as your friend, it becomes something different.

[00:24:13] Yeah, I suppose so when it comes, like, when we talk about fear and when it comes to the workplace, why, I suppose the question is, why is work not simpler? Why would all the tech that we've invented and all the, you know, the tools that we've provided, are we still finding that we're using words like, you know, battle when hard when it comes to the world of work? And why, why is working simpler? 

[00:24:35] Grace: it's fascinating, isn't it? Cuz I think I remember reading that, um, you know, there was a time where genuinely they thought that. The challenge of our day would be that we have too much free time. You know, what are people gonna do with all their free time? Because technology's taken over all the work and, and you know, like the reality is so different from that. And I wonder like, you know, after one lawyer, what's, what's happened there? And I think the answer probably lies in psychology rather than technology. Um, so yes, we come up with all this technology to help us do. Faster or better, but then we move the goal post to go, well, if we can do things faster, then surely we can go faster as well.

[00:25:18] And I think then we get caught up in, you know, in, in that like the dopamine trap we get caught up in, in trying to do things faster for the sake of it without really stopping and thinking. Um, and you know, and I think a lot of those stories that we tell ourselves as well, like faster is better, um, bigger is better, more is better. Um, you know, that like if. If there's nothing going on, there's something wrong.

[00:25:41] Um, you like, one of the things I talk about a lot is the, the addiction to busyness that, that, that we have. And logically, a lot of people I know get to the point where they go, yes, I know that being busy doesn't necessarily mean being productive. But then yeah, emotionally we still, a lot of us still like that feeling of being busy, not just for the dopamine hit, but for the feelings of like, I'm in demand, and I'm being helpful. Um, and so we, we find it really uncomfortable to be still. 

[00:26:12] Um, and one of the things I write about and struggle is, is why it's terrifying to rest and it's because like actually when you stop and when you rest, Everything catches up with you. You know, that conversation that didn't quite go well or that, that place where you go, I really don't like how I showed up there. Or, you know, that I snapped up my kids, or, you know, whatever it is. Like all of that stuff, like the emotional processing, that's when it catches up with you is when you stop. Um, and sometimes it's easier to just go, Jill, I'm just gonna go do the next thing. Do the next thing, do the next thing. So I don't have to do any thinking about it.

[00:26:47] Stephen: I love this because I think that we have a real. Um, aversion to rest and stopping when everything around psychology and the way the brain works shows us that the greater amount of time we give ourselves to be able to pause and to have rest, the greater the ideas are gonna be.

[00:27:06] When we are in a extremely stressed state, you cannot have that, uh, reptilian brain and you cannot have the prefrontal cortex where logic and rationality sits working in alignment. So you can't feel stressed and be curious at the same time. And you talk about this in your book very well, the importance of curiosity and curiosity happens in those downtime moments, doesn't it? In those moments where we stop, we just allow it to, uh, to be able to happen. I think Graham calls it what the three Cs? Is that the way he works his day of work?

[00:27:36] Grace: Yeah, so he has his zones, three zones of create, collaborate, and, and chill. Those are his three Cs? 

[00:27:42] Stephen: So he finds a way in his day to be able to use and we're, we're all quite different in the way that we work. So he finds that in the morning is a really good time to create, cuz that's, and I find that best for me as well, early in the morning. For the first, and I, I always find I've, I've only got about two hours, three hours where I'm very good at that creation, high focused work that I can do. And after that, really I'm better off doing admin and other kinds of stuff around the, uh, uh, the sides of things rather than trying to be deep. And I like the way he talks about, then he does the collaboration in the afternoon with other people, whether it's meetings and catch-ups. And then in the evening, no work, just chill. 

[00:28:16] Grace: Yeah, absolutely. And there was, um, so I, I spoke to, um, I spoke to a, an occupational psychologist called, um, Rob Archer, um, for my second book, had to be really productive. And one of the things he talks about is the wobbly line. So the idea that actually if you want peak performance, you need, um, you need Western recovery.

[00:28:38] So you can't, if you, if you look at any athlete, you wouldn't expect them to go straight from a race into the gym into another race. Yeah. That would just be like, it'd be unheard of. Um, whereas what you see them doing is they have their peak performance and then they have their rest in recovery, and that's what enables them to get that peak performance again. Uh, whereas for us, you know, in kind of working life, what a lot of people do is try and flatline it all and often say anything that has a flat line, well, anything that has life, a flat line is not a good sign. So instead of trying to flatline it all, like what does it look like for you to have those peaks and those recovery moments?

[00:29:16] Um, so for me, like a lot of my work, one week looks different from a next, you know, sometimes I'm traveling and getting caught up with trade delays and, and things like that. Sometimes I'm doing a full day intense session and I, I'm not even looking at my emails. Other days I'm at my desk. And so, For me to go kind of try and get, if I try and flatten it all out, it becomes really frustrating and it means that when I'm busy, I feel like, oh, I shouldn't be this busy. And when I'm quiet, I'm like, oh, I should be getting more done. And, and so you are always kind of going against, against the flow, if you like.

[00:29:50] Whereas for me to think about it as a wobbly line, it means okay, it's fine. I can have really intense times, I can have that peak performance and I can have the. And I can go with the slow. And if I find, you know, if I find myself with a slow week or a slow date, I don't have to feel worried or guilty about it. I can just really relish it and go, right, what's, you know, how do I wanna be in this space? What's the, what's the best way for me to experience this? And sometimes it is, it's, it's going to, it's sitting in a cafe with some friends, uh, or reading a book. And, and those are the times actually when I do get my best ideas. But you sometimes you have to allow that space for it to happen rather than force it to happen.

[00:30:28] Stephen: Because you talk about them. And, and the truth is, the brain is always constantly looking for stimulation. And we've probably made it even more so now with the advents of the tech that, that we use that is constantly pulling us towards attention, uh, and, and stimulation. And I always think about this like about if you'd been a hundred years ago and you brought a group of teenagers away into a field for weekends to do certain activities a hundred years ago, their experience of being in a field, and concentrating on the activities that were going, uh, that, that were gonna be presented in would be very different to a group of teenagers that arrived in the field and told that they had to leave their phones behind and just be present in the field. Well, not even just even, uh, teenagers, it's us too as well.

[00:31:08] So when the brain keeps looking for stimulation, we probably really struggle with the idea of rest and stopping and pausing, and. I was just gonna mention, I dunno, have you heard of Stag Stephan Sagmeister? Well, yeah, he's a designer. He's really interesting guy. He's Austrian, but he's based in New York as well, and he does a thing that every seven years with his company, even though they're so successful, the first time they did it was 1999, the company was really successful. They decided that he, he closed the company for a year. And he just goes off and he does other stuff. He pauses and he does that every seven years. And what he's saying pretty much about that is that he's actually taking stuff from his retirement. He says, I won't have this, this ability to come up with these ideas. And they're then, they're gonna be no good to me when I've retired. So I allow myself that pause. And even though it's affecting for many people, he's, he's, he's very successful at what he does. Um, hugely successful at what he does.

[00:31:59] Grace: And, and I think it's, you know, it's helpful to understand like, the way the brain works is, you know, when, when we're in, when we're that fighting flight instinct. One of the things that we get with that is narrow vision. You get kind of tunnel vision cuz you know, if you're being chased by a bag, you don't wanna see how blue the sky is, or you know, the, the horizons and dreaming and stuff like that. You just wanna go like, where's the escape route? Or where's the weak spot in my enemy? So that's why we get narrow tunnel vision. And that. Narrow focus can sometimes be really helpful, um, to get stuff done.

[00:32:31] So, you know, if you've ever been up against a deadline and suddenly you have this immense clarity and you get, nothing else matters. I just need to get this done. And all of a sudden, or the ideas fall into place, the words are right and you like, click, click, click, click, click done. You know, oh wow, that's amazing. How do I access that superpower again? Um, you know, that's that narrow vision. The problem is, Most of us these days have got more than one deadline. Yeah. More than one commitment. So it's almost like we're trying to hijack that narrow vision, but use it in loads of different places and we end up with like scatter gun and scatter brain and, and overwhelm and, and that's when it stops being helpful.

[00:33:10] Now our brain, I think, you know, there's part of our brain that is quite lazy. It's like if we've got routines and if there's a familiar route, it's like that's the easiest route to go down. Let's just keep going down there. It's not there anymore. So sometimes we don't come up with new ideas when we're in that tunnel vision space because it's just like, what's the quickest way out of this tunnel? That's what your brain's doing. So sometimes you have to kind of almost shut that.

[00:33:35] You know, one of the things I talk about in struggle is when the, sometimes it's not until the conventional roots is shut, that we become open to the unconventional. So, you know, if you can't take that route anymore, Then your brain goes, oh, okay, what do I do instead? And, and sometimes that's when you start looking to the periphery. That's when you start looking to, Okay, well what else is around here? Um, and where else can I go? And, and that looks interesting. And what if I can climb that tree and get over the hedge instead of trying to go through it? And so that's when we start to look for possibilities and go to the periphery. And that's always where our innovation comes from. So innovation very, very rarely comes from efficiency and doing things. Doing the same things, but but faster. It often comes from that kind of conventional root being shut and then all of a sudden we're, we we're being forced to look in the periphery and to see the different connections and the different paths.

[00:34:27] Stephen: I, I think that more companies should have, um, you know, the ability or space for downtime. A room where people can go and just sit and. Bruce Stacey calls it, um, monk time. I think he talks about this like, yes. Having, having an hour of been able to, or just time to be able to just, to do this. Like I, I got this like a lot of the time when I'm either designing, creating, or delivering workshops, um, I probably don't give myself enough time to be able to sit down and just to be able to read and contemplate and then find out where this brings me. And, and, and your, your, your book got me to be able to do that when I sat down to be able to read at that downtime where I was just concentrating on the book and nothing else. And I came across some really nice stuff.

[00:35:10] Um, I specifically, when you started to talk about, um, Keith Jarett's Cologne concert, this, this, which I love, it's for anybody who doesn't know, Keith Jarett is a piano player. He's a jazz musician, he is. And he would've been, started to come well known around about the late sixties, um, into the seventies. And he was doing a concert in Köln in 1975.

[00:35:30] Grace: So the story goes that, um, it was actually a, um, a German teenager I think, who managed to book him in to do this concert in the Köln Opera house. And he was gonna be, it was already quite groundbreaking to have jazz in the, in the opera house. Um, and he turns up for the rehearsal and he finds out that they've delivered the wrong piano. And the piano that he's been given is just, it, like it doesn't work properly. You, some of the black notes stick and the pedal stick and you know, some of the keys are missing and he's like, this is unplayable. Like, you know, I'm a professional. I you, I need my equipment. 

[00:36:09] And the story goes that he would have walked out if it wasn't for the fact that there was this like teenager who was just going, please don't go. Like, I've put this together. You know, it really needs to happen. And, and apparently it was out of pity that he stayed. But when he started playing, He couldn't play in his normal way because the piano wouldn't let him. So he had to play different keys in a different range. He had to like slam on the keys to get, like, get the sound to, um, to reach the back of the opera house.

[00:36:40] And um, and what happened was that he actually played the performance of a lifetime. And the recording of that performance became the best selling solo jazz album, best selling piano album of all time. Um, and that only happened because he couldn't do what he normally does.

[00:36:59] Stephen: I love that. Because when I read that bit, I said let's follow it up. So I checked out the album and I had never heard it and I'd never heard of it until you had, so my curious mind kicked in, which is always a good place to be. So my curious mind kicked in. So I went and checked it out and I began to listen to it and I went, oh my God, this is incredible. And you can actually hear Keith during that performance, you can actually hear him whooping. And he's, he's, he's in a state of joy. 

[00:37:27] And why I see that as so important. He was in a state of stress before this had happened. The wrong piano had arrived. And also I think in tandem with that, he had come down with some sort of tiredness or illness or something like that. He wasn't feeding a hundred percent. So his first option, his head was saying to him, let's not do this performance. I'm outta here. Listen, I don't need to do this. Okay, this won't be happening. Don't stress me. I'm not getting involved. But he did the exact opposite. He just went, well, well, let's do it. And he went into it with all the fears and anxieties that anybody would've had, must have been multiplied for him. He was in front of thousands of people doing this performance or whatever, you know. And he just, you can hear from him that something clicks inside. He goes, I'm doing something difficult, but it feels amazing. And this, and he got into flow. He does four parts, he does in that piece and it's absolutely incredible.

[00:38:15] And, uh, my curious brain looked into this. And then I looked into the teenager, her name is Vera Brandes. She was 17 years old at the time. But from her, being in that state of fear going, oh my God, I'm after screwing it up, this has all gone wrong or whatever. You know, I never ever want to get involved in any of this stuff again, she's gone on to, to produce and publish 350 albums since then, which I think is incredible. 

[00:38:37] So, you know, we can get caught in that state of fear where we go, let's avoid this forever and never go down this road again, are let's do it. And the two people, her and Keith, Keith could have said, I'll avoid this con uh, concert. And she said, I'll avoid this career, and neither of them did. 

[00:38:52] Grace: And I think it, it, it's beautiful, isn't it, when you're allowing yourself to jump into that unknown place. And I think particularly for those of us who are professionals, um, you know, we, we get hired. For what we know. We get hired to be the expert. And I remember reading that. It might have been Liz Gilbert or might have been a different author actually. It authors often say that once you've had a best seller, the next book you write is the hardest book in the world because you've got this like huge pinnacle of success that you're trying to live up to. But you, you, when you allow yourself to dive into that unknown and that risky place, what you also make space for is the possibility to be delighted and to be surprised.

[00:39:34] And, and so I love that. Yeah. You hear those. Whoops. Because he's like, oh, you know, it's not like, yeah, know what I'm doing. Here you go. This is gonna, this is gonna like blow your mind up away. It's like, this has blown my mind. You know? And it's like that whole experience of you, of, of learning and discovery in the midst of it.

[00:39:55] I mean, that's the joy, isn't it? So, you know, often of work, it's not just about nailing it and hitting it and going, I know how to do something. Let me do it for you and you pay me. It's like you, it's when we push ourselves, when we discover more, um, you know, that's often where the joy of work is. So, you know, I, I, I love that when we allow ourselves the risk of. Not knowing everything, of not being the expert. We also open up the possibility to be delighted and surprised.

[00:40:27] Stephen: I took out my, swear I was a musician, but I took out my keyboard last night. I've got a, a musical keyboard I hadn't played in a while, and I plugged it into my garage band here. And, um, I sat down it last night. Now I don't know really any chords when it comes to piano, and I was just experimenting with this sort of that was plinky plonking away on it. And I went, God, even with this in full fully tune, it works perfectly. It's got all this software that's connected to it. I'm still making terrible sounds outta this. And Keith with his, uh, you know, piano that didn't work, wasn't hitting any bad notes or bu notes, I just thought it was absolutely incredible.

[00:41:02] With that in mind, I, I always like to hear, um, have you ever had or done a presentation in summer? You didn't expect it to be, or it wasn't working out the way you thought it was gonna be, or the room wasn't what you expected or the venue wasn't, and but it actually, it turned into something quite different.

[00:41:22] Grace: Oh, good question. I mean, I've got, I've got some. I've got all sorts of sort of funny stories about places, and. I did a podcast interview recently actually, where it was, it was all, it had all been arranged between people and it was like, okay, let's, yeah, the podcast's gonna be, it's gonna be an interview on, on Struggle. Um, so here's the book. You read it and you know, and, and we'll talk about it. And then I turned up and the, the person in front of me wasn't the person who was gonna, who was the host of the podcast. But apparently it'd been, um, rearranged so many times. She was like, I don't wanna rearrange this anymore. I'll do it. So I'm like, okay, that's fine. And she says, I've read your book. I've got some, um, questions. Let me run them past you first and then we'll start recording. She started running past the questions. I'm like, this is the wrong book, And it turned out actually red How to be Really Productive. And um, and I was like, Ooh, I thought we would talk about Struggle. And she thought, oh, we can talk about that if you want. And I thought, do you know what you've put all of this effort into reading how to be really productive. You've got some great questions there. Let's just do it. Let's just talk about it.

[00:42:32] And so, you know, yes, I'm not prepared for that. Um, you know, when Im, because my brain was in, in Struggle mode, but let's just have the conversation and see where it goes. And actually that turned into a really good conversation. You know, and, and sometimes it is that, I'm gonna have to let go of how I thought it was gonna go, and I'm just gonna have to be present and trust that what comes out of my mouth is gonna be useful rather than have things already prepared.

[00:43:00] Stephen: I love that cuz the brain is expecting one thing, but the outcome or the way it's going to work out is completely trans or whatever. You know? I always think about this. I did a once, did a talk to a company, uh, they were a production company. They were working on a particular food product. And, um, I called down to them and I was used to do a talk in the canteen and they were all going to come into the canteen in, in where they worked. It was pretty much, it was a small company, but they had a small canteen. Um, and they said, we'll have it there. And then when we went to the canteen, the canteen was tiny, it was L shaped and it couldn't have fitted everybody into it. I couldn't do the presentation. So I said, what are we gonna do?

[00:43:36] And then they said, well, well, maybe we could do it on the factory floor. And I went, what? The floor, the factory where production happens. And they says, I said, oh, well, let's have a look at it. And we went downstairs and we found a blank wall. I took out my projector, I took it onto the wall. We stopped production. We got everybody, the lads off the forklift trucks and everybody around us, and we did it on the factory floor, and it was their place, it was their space. So they felt really comfortable with it, and it just became the most wonderful talk. From that moment of realizing that the space they had taught we could use is unusable. Suddenly I went into fear and. It just turned into this, this, this magical experience. I thought there was something lovely about that. 

[00:44:14] I also did a really nice, uh, presentation to, uh, um, a cinema chain, and they actually brought me to the cinema and they actually got me and I plugged it into the big screen and screen number three in the cinema. And they all sat in seats with popcorn and they, uh, did it, watched my presentation 

[00:44:29] Grace: I did one like that recently. Yeah, it was, um, it was for a company, but they've got a cinema in, in their, um, in the massive campus. And because they're a media company, so they had a cinema and it's like, oh yeah, that's perfect place. Well, and people were so comfortable it was. It was quite, it was a very different environment. It was quite chilled. And I was quite, I was quite glad it wasn't like last thing on a Friday, cuz they might have fallen asleep. Um, but it was, um, yeah, it's a nice experience.

[00:44:55] And, and it's often a surprise I think to kind of go right, what's gonna happen today? What's gonna be, you know, what's the venue gonna be like, what are the people gonna be like? Um, and I think if you hold onto tightly to this is how it's gotta be, you miss what's right in front of you. Um, and, and, and I think this happens not just with public speaking, it happens with like workplace conversations. It happens in meetings, it happens with emails where when people are going, and it has to be this way, what do we end up doing? We, we repeat ourselves, we share a bit louder, we stop listening and we think, oh, just, just get on with it. And, and again, it's that tunnel vision. Whereas one of the things that I. I guess I'm learning and I've learned to kind of keep reminding myself is when that happens, when, you notice the fear, like whether it's fear in me or fear in them, but then you activate curiosity to go, okay, what's going on here? And to be curious, you've gotta let go of what you thought was gonna be and be really present and just going, okay, like what? What's actually happening here? And it could be that, yeah, the person in front of me actually is really stressed. And they're not, they're not in the place to deliberate or analyze or whatever it was that we were planning to do. And maybe we just need to address what's going on for them right now before we move into something else. Um, because otherwise, you know, when we just repeat ourselves and we shout out loud and like nothing gets heard. 

[00:46:28] And, you know, it's, it's amazing. I've, you know, I've had that sometimes, actually, I dunno if you get this, but occasionally you, you get. The workshops that I do, the workshops that you do, it's, it's all about making people's working life better. It's all about giving them some, some ways of reducing the amount of stress they go through. But sometimes you get someone who is so stressed that they've turned up and maybe they've been told they have to be there, um, and they go, ah, I've got all this, all this, like stuff I should be doing instead.

[00:46:58] And, and I've come to realize, and then this, something I've learned over, over the years really is that it doesn't matter how brilliant. The stuff I have to give them is, it doesn't matter if I've got a magic pill that's gonna make their life infinitely better if they're not in the right place to receive it. You know, if they're just in that place of, I'm so stressed and you are trying to make me do something I don't wanna do. Then I could be giving them like the answer to life, the universe and everything on a golden plate. And they won't see it that way. They'll see it as you are trying to do something to like, it's that Liz brain like you are trying to make my life harder. Yeah. You are the threat and like, it doesn't matter how good your content is, if that person's not in the right place to receive it.

[00:47:40] Stephen: Remember years ago doing a talk, a mental health talk to an, or a very large organization, and it's, it's conversation that we would have about like, you know, about the importance of being able to speak and talk and about. The, um, uh, what are the elements of depression? And, and we talked about all the things about anxiety and all this kind of stuff, and it was one of these conversations where you really want people to be able to open up and talk and discuss what's, what they're experiencing and have this sort of free conversation flowing.

[00:48:06] But we did it in the, in, in the canteen, but the CEO of the organization came down and sat at the very front row, and from that moment he sat down. Nobody opened up in that. And I could sort of feel an air of, you know, everybody had a fear of saying things like, yeah, sometimes I feel stressed with work or whatever. Nobody was gonna say that because the CEO was hanging. So, um, yeah, it just shut down the whole conversation. Cause I could see everybody felt that little bit more sort of on edge, um, for whatever may be going on within the organizations.

[00:48:35] But I love this when we talk about this, like wrong turns is where the magic happens. And I suppose, uh, you speak about this in your book where sometimes when we come across things that may be seen as mistakes, sometimes they develop into something completely different. You talk about the Post-it note.

[00:48:51] Grace: Yeah, absolutely. So it's, um, one of my favorite stories, you know, from an innovation perspective in that Spencer Silver was, um, a 3M engineer who was trying to develop a super strong adhesive. Um, and I think it was gonna be for use in the aircraft construction industry. Um, and he was having a really bad day cuz basically what he developed was the worst glue ever. It was a really weak adhesive. So it would stick, but then it would unstick again. And you want your plane to hold together, don't you? So it's completely useless in the aircraft construction industry.

[00:49:22] But that weak said that he developed later on, turned into the glue that's on the back of the post-It notes. And, you know, so with like, when we talk about this from an innovation perspective, we can go, oh my goodness, that's genius. Like that post note would not have been invented if he hadn't have developed the wrong adhesive for, um, you know, for the blame. But what I find really interesting is that in the moment, on that day, it probably just felt like a really bad day. It didn't feel like genius. It's hindsight that makes it look like genius, but in the moment it looks like irritation. It looks like a wrong turn. You know, it looks like, oh, I can't get this right, you know. 

[00:50:01] And, and I think this is, I find this really encouraging. Because that thing that's like irritating you right now, that thing that feels like a curve ball or a roadblock. What if that is, you know, the thing that's gonna bring the magic? What if that wrong turn is precisely where the magic happens? Um, and, and one of the, you know, again, a side conversation in a, in a cafe on one of my slow days with a friend who is a chemist, and we were talking, I can't even remember why we were talking about it, but she said to me, Remember Grace, a catalyst is essentially an irritant. You know, in chemistry, a catalyst is an irritant. And I thought, oh yeah, so that irritant, that thing that's irritating you. What if that can be a catalyst for change? So instead of it just being like, this is a waste of time because it's not working, what if actually there's an element of genius and an element of magic in that?

[00:50:55] Stephen: So I suppose it's, it's the, it's the ability to be able to embrace the whole life. Uh, that involves struggle, that involves us sometimes going down the wrong road, which we think is, it is not necessarily the wrong road, but a road that we think may. Be the wrong road and embracing that. So how do you think we could, like what tips would you give to people for embracing struggle in our lives?

[00:51:16] Grace: So one of the things I talk about in the book is I, I call it my, my three shits process. Um, you know, for, for, for navigating struggles. So the first I mentioned earlier is, oh shit. Like, face the thing, acknowledge it, you know, name the fear, name the feelings, because if we don't, we can't even look at it. You know, we're gonna be constantly trying to look away. So start with Oh shit.

[00:51:39] Then, um, the next is, is what is this shit? So yeah, this is where we activate curiosity in the face of fear. So when we, you recognize that fear, we recognize this is a, an inconvenience, an irritation, whatever it is, but then go, okay, so that is what it is. What else could it also be like, what else is going on here? Um, you know, so fear will go shit, something's happening. Like, get out. Whereas curiosity will go, Ooh, something's happening. That's interesting. Let's take a closer look. And, and so it's that kind of mindset that we go in with and go, what am I noticing here? And what's different and what, yeah. And so giving yourself permission to explore it with curiosity.

[00:52:17] And when you do that, what will that will then lead onto is what I call your holy shit moment. So that's like, that's the, the post-it note moment. That's the, oh my goodness, this is a new thing. That, that's the innovation or, or, or the beauty or the opportunity that comes from that shitty moment.

[00:52:35] And it doesn't always. I would, it's not always an efficient process. It's not always about like, I've gotta work my way through all the three ships really quickly and get to the holy ship moment. Sometimes it takes a while and sometimes the, the, the struggle is just, is that, you know, things, you know, sometimes the work is in the waiting, like waiting is the work and it's, you know, allowing yourself that space. Um, but I guarantee you you'll get there that there will be something that comes out of that if you allow yourself to explore it with that sense of curiosity rather than with fear.

[00:53:06] Stephen: And we're moving ourselves into a different part for brain than when we're curious. I think we need more curiosity, more people in organizations to be able to ask questions. Why do we do this? You know, why are we going down this route? And it doesn't mean that we're stopping anything from happening, but we're, we're getting contemplation there. We're getting people to pause to understand why we do stuff before we do s. Do things and to think about it. And that brings us back to what we do in the state of rest too, as well, we need. 

[00:53:30] So we need more rest. We need more questions that involve curiosity. We need to be able to embrace, struggle and understand that it is part of our experience and it's a part of of life. And sometimes that struggle is trying to help you to be a better person at what you do, and that stress sometimes is trying to help you. Also, when we talked about the Jane McGonigal experience, trying to help you to be better at, whether it's doing a presentation, doing an interview, doing whatever it might be.

[00:53:54] Grace: And the story that we tell ourselves, the story that we tell ourselves about the struggle, about what it means, um, that's where the magic is as well. So if we see it as like, this means I'm in the wrong place, or there's something wrong with me, we shut down. Whereas if we see it as like, no, no, this means I'm in the right place because this is where I'm gonna discover something new. This is where I'm stretching, this is where I'm growing, this is where I'm learning like all sorts of magic things happen.

[00:54:17] Stephen: Well this has been magic. We've had a magic art together as well, talking about all of these wonderful things. Grace, this has been wonderful. I wanna say thank you so much for, um, for sharing your thoughts and sharing, uh, your insights, not into just productivity, but the Struggle. How can we find out a bit more about you?

[00:54:32] Grace: Uh, so gracemarshall.com, um, is is my website. So that's where you'll be able to find about me, about the work I do and also about the books.

[00:54:39] Stephen: Fantastic. Your website is brilliant, so when people log onto that, they're gonna see lots about you. Grace, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been an absolute pleasure.

[00:54:47] Grace: Thank you so much for having me.