Secret Diary of a CEO Favourite 5 Episodes of 2022
Graeme Kilgour
Head of Business Development at Raith Rovers Football Club| Host of the Whisky Stories Podcast | Creating Events & Hospitality Experiences
My Top 5 Episodes in 2022 from A Secret Diary of a CEO
Other notable episodes that haven’t made the cut; James Watt, Gary Neville, Richard Branson and Simon Sinek 1&2.
I don’t listen to Steve Bartlett religiously, I like to dip in and out and pick which podcasts to listen to. I’m much more interested in the podcasts with people who have a background in business and/or personal development.
James Smith Ep 174
This episode caught me off guard. I kind of knew who he was through his presence on social media. The perception I had built up based on some of the content I had seen him putting out wasn’t great in all honesty. Steven Bartlett describes him in the show notes as having a ‘no holds barred approach to fitness advice’. My thoughts were initially he was a bolshy fitness influencer shock jock who deliberately used shock factor to get his point over.
His demeanour and explanation on why he is the way that he is has completely changed my mind on him and thanks to having a long drive up into the Scottish Highlands, combined with me having exhausted all my other podcasts, I was ‘stuck’ with listening to James and Steven’s discussion. And I’m very pleased that happened.
The running theme throughout this episode is confidence. James has a very good approach to confidence and how it’s formed. “Confidence is not a personality trait”. He explains that everyone can work on their own confidence in all areas of their life. From his background in sales, he explains that he became aware that confidence is a relationship with failure. Doors being slammed in his face, phones being hung up when he was trying to sell were demoralising. But if he got 1 sale from 100 sales calls, he had the evidence to back himself.
He explains through his personal training career he uses pain points to really break through to someone’s real needs. Breaking through that the majority of his clients didn’t want to lose weight because they wanted a 6 pack, the core pain point was actually that they were unhappy and lacked self confidence because of how they looked. This meant he could get to the core of their issues and work on the very small basic stepping stones that anyone could take to begin the change process.
The main part I really liked and related to was the discussion on audacity. Audacity can sometimes have negative connotations. But having the confidence to ask difficult questions and not be worried about how other people think is huge when it comes to building confidence. He references a great experiment from Tim Ferris about asking for a 10% discount when buying a coffee. And goes on to quote Mark Manson with a quote I really like:
“People wouldn’t care what other people thought of them so much if they realised how seldom they do.”.
He has a lot of quirky little phrases that he used in this episode and it all connected very nicely. He explained his theory that anxiety predicts failure and confidence predicts success. If you are less anxious and a bit more audacious with a positive outlook on your expectations, then with small steps you can achieve a lot more than you can by sitting wondering about it.
For me it was a tossup between James Smith and Richard Branson for my number 5 slot. The Branson episode is definitely well worth listening to. But the way that my perception was changed and how much I was able to relate to him was the reason I decided to select this episode in my top 5.
Will Storr Ep 167
I had never heard of Will Storr before. I found this episode fascinating. Especially his breakdown of how we have become so self obsessed as a result of a culture of self love and a huge emphasis on self-esteem. This belief that we have become consumed by the importance of being our ‘authentic selves’ when actually there should be more of an emphasis on self-acceptance instead of self-love.
There’s a great discussion on decision making and the analogy I think many of us can relate to is how we can find ourselves in different ‘value systems’ during a week. E.g. on Monday morning we’re determined to be disciplined and structured in our quest to lose weight. But by the time we reach Friday we are much more relaxed and value fun and pleasure over the stricter values we held earlier in the same week.
“Change your environment instead of changing your self” is the advice Storr has for making personal changes. He goes on to explain about how a lot of our behaviours can be controlled by what is happening or going on around us in our environment. If we remove ourselves or change the environment then we can make more effective changes than if we try to change ourselves.
Story telling - What I loved the most in this podcast was the way Will Storr describes the importance and value in communicating through story telling. His idea that human beings think in stories and our brain needs the structure of a beginning, middle and end to process information. If we think and respond through feelings, then a story can evoke the desired emotional response. BUT there is a huge difference between just simply communicating information and telling a story that justifies the feelings. And in order to do this, it is essential that you know all about the story audience; who they are, how they feel about the world, their own values and what motivates and de-motivates them.
For me this is huge. Not only because I love telling and listening to good stories, but I have used story telling for years to engage with people to get my message over. Understanding the value of telling your story is a great skill to have. But the hardest part of telling a story is ensuring it is the right story for the people you are telling it to. Knowing your audience helps engage and you will know exactly how to trigger the desired feelings to get the outcome you want from telling the story. And Storr is able to back this up with an example from Nike who use story telling to engage emotionally with their customers through the story they tell in their marketing campaigns.
In Will Storr’s latest book - The Status Game - he argues that we are all motivated by status pursuit. He is clear that when he discusses status pursuit, he is not talking about being rich and famous. But actually that we all want to feel of value. In his breakdowns and explanation he talks about how status has evolved from days from living in tribes and how we have a need to feel a belonging and connection with our ‘tribe’. The more status that we had in our tribes, the chances of survival increased. And he believes that this remains true today -
“The more status that you earn, the better everything else gets.”.
His outlook on the status games that we play on a day-to-day basis was fascinating. It is true that a lot of this is something that we can do subconsciously and having listened back to this episodes a number of times, I’ve definitely become much more aware of the status games that I play and when I see someone else also playing them.
We each have our own status environments and anyone who tells you that they are not interested in status is lying to you. People can play different status games in areas like how much money they have, but others can also claim more status by highlighting how simple a life they live. It all depends on what ‘status game’ you are playing.
I would be doing the rest of the podcast an injustice by writing more on the remaining discussion about the positives and negatives of status and the status games that we play and how this has an impact on different personality types. It’s a fascinating episode and I’ve since bought Will Storr’s 2 books – ‘The Status Game’ and ‘Selfie: How We Became So Self Obsessed and What it’s Doing to Us.’
Rory Sutherland Ep 165
Rory sounds like a very likeable person which is what first kept me listening. Once again, he is someone who I had never heard of before listening to this episode. But the way he comes accross and his anecdotes from a massive career in marketing were fascinating. This episode get’s straight into it from the start. Steve often likes to pick into his guests backgrounds, history and upbringing. This episode jumps right into a fascinating discussion on ‘perceptual value’.
I think the reason that I really enjoyed this episode so much was because of Rory’s understanding of the psychological importance when it comes to marketing. He isn’t just an expert on marketing strategy and campaigns, he is a specialist in human behaviour. The discussion covers social behaviours like habit and copying when it comes to why people chose the products that they buy. Especially when it comes to recursive trends.
He uses examples from Uber on how they changed the perceptual value through adding the psychological aspect of being able to track your driver and be made aware when they have arrived to pick you up. And the EuroStar train being made more comfortable and enjoyable instead of being made faster. This then moves into interesting theories and anecdotes about the placebo effect when it came to medicines. Sometimes, pharmaceutical companies will make medication harder to take or pills larger to add the perception of how important they are.
But for me the big part of this episode that really struck with me was the discussion on signalling, status and telling a story (sound familiar…). Signalling and counter signalling is a fascinating subject for me. Having listened to this episode, I’ve become much more aware if it in myself and in others. Why is it the case that someone who has the desired image and status will be more likely to dress more scruffy than someone who is aspiring to have that status and image?
And this is what brought Rory on to his point about how a brand is a product of how they make people feel. If a brand is able to tell a story that can create emotional responses then they can add this perceptual value to their product much easier. He breaks it down that psychological improvements are much easier to make than rational improvements.
One of the great things about this episode is it really does make the listener feel like they are being given an insight to some proper insider ‘secrets’. But they’re broken down by Rory in such a way that it all sounds so simple and obvious. The simplest way of being able to have success like Rory has had in a world of marketing is to know people. Know and understand the people you are selling to. Know their behaviour, know their needs, know what they perceive as value and know how to communicate that to them.
His stories and anecdotes are incredible, examples of how Henry Ford invented the 2 day weekend for his staff so that it created more time for leisure which meant people would buy more cars, or how some travel company websites are deliberately slow to gather your search results to give us the perception and feeling that the best options are being searched for. It’s a fascinating insight into the ‘dark arts’ of marketing which in reality are just people being much more aware of human behaviour to know where and how to add value.
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Julian Treasure Ep 180
In this occasion I actually did know who Julian was. However, I didn’t recognise him by his name and it wasn’t until he was introduced as having one of the most watched TEDTalks of all time that I knew who he was. I’ve watched this TEDTalk plenty of times and even stopped the podcast episode to watch it again so I could remind myself of the context of the conversation.
I love communication, and listening to people like Julian is always great to gain insights on how we can all communicate better. There’s also nothing better than listening to someone with such an expertise on a subject and being able to relate to what they are saying as well as learning new things.
What’s nice about Julian’s story is that he doesn’t come from a story of real hardship through his upbringing. Not that there’s anything wrong with someone who has had to battle through obstacles in their early life to get to where they are today. But it’s nice to have a different story from someone who had a strong belief that all will be well.
Julian discusses the slight paradox he has realised through noticing the viewers of all of his TEDTalks in that his talks on listening have much less viewers than his talk on speaking. Which means “we are much keener to be heard, than we are to listen..”. And this theme of listening runs all the way through the episode. Everyone likes to feel heard. This can add value and belonging which is very similar to what Will Storr talked about in his episode about status to the group.
Content and delivery are the key factors for communicating. However, in this episode they discuss which one would be more valuable. If someone has a ‘boring’ voice, can they do something about it which would make their content much more interesting. But for some reason people take talking for granted, despite a need to talk and communicate a message in the most effective way, very few people outwith the performance industry will have had any vocal training at all.
Listening and speaking are skills.
Skills can be worked on and practiced all the time. But this isn’t something that is ever really taught at school level. This brings us back to a theme that’s been continuou throughout all 5 of my top episodes of 2022; listening helps us to understand the people we are communicating with. Listening help’s identify pain points, what issues we can help or problems we can solve for them. If you’re trying to sell something to someone then you need to listen to them to gain that understanding so you can communicate exactl what you can do to help them.
Julian gives plenty of advice and tips throughout this podcast on what anyone can do to develop their skills in speaking and listening. Exercises on breathing, how the breath we use in speaking works, recording and coaching yourself speaking and not filling silences with ‘umming’ and ‘Ahing’.
Humility and authenticity are very important traits that Julian insists prevents people from coming over as arrogant and knowing everything about everything. This takes practice, awareness and more practice. You have to be aware of becoming overconfident and arrogant and be comfortable enough to be yourself when speaking. This will help with audience connecting much more with you on a human level.
Knowing and understanding your values helps you to know how to be much more authentic when speaking. If you are aware of your own values and happy to challenge them then you will be able to communicate these values much easer. However, it’s really important to pick your own personal values and not those that you think should be your values. Julian shares his values with Steven and suggests we should all try an exercise where we sit down and reflect and write our values down to create our own route map.
Active listening is a huge tool to use when communicating. It’s one thing to be nodding along and keeping eye contact when someone is speaking to you. It’s another thing to actually be actively listening to them. Julian gives his 3 stages to active listening:
1. Reflection - repeat what the person has said e.g. “what I just heard you say is…”
2. Validation - provides empathy and ensures the person knows that you understands where that persons is coming from even if you disagree with their point, they are being heard e.g. “It makes sense that you would think that…”
3. Contribute - Only once you have shown that you have validated what the person has said, you can then contribute with your point based on what they have said.
I could probably write thousands more words on everything that is covered in this episode but you’d be much better listening to it yourself.
Sir David Brailsford Ep 115
Sir David Brailsford was someone who I had heard of and read a few things about before listening to this episode. He’s now become somewhat of a hero of mine after hearing him on this podcast. I’m not a cycling fan, but listening to someone talking about high performance and creating high performance cultures is fascinating regardless of what the sporting environment is.
I started listening to this episode during a walk home from work. I actually had to stop walking a couple of times to get my phone out and start taking notes on what he was saying. Eventually, I decided to stop listening and waited until I got home and took out one of my notebooks and began listening again from the start.
One of the key takeaways I have from this episode is creating the right environment for performance. And to get to the best performance out of individuals is to get right into the centre of their internal driving factors. Figure out what someone’s driving factors are and then you create an environment around the person to optimise their performance. It’s very easy to roll out the old cliche of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. But Brailsford really does emphasis putting yourself in the shoes of the performer and fully understanding them. Forgetting about preconceptions, and understanding what the best thing you can do as a coach to help the performer achieve everything they can.
When we think of Olympic Cycling or Tour de France Cycling team performance, we picture intense training sessions and athletes pushing themselves to as far as they physically can to get the results. This is probably an accurate assumption, but what Dave Brailsford explains perfectly is how he can find a way to get the athletes or performers to push themselves as far as physically possible by simply spending time with them to understand their personal and psychological drivers. He talks about the older methods of the stick and the carrot to get the best out of people, but he believes in just spending time with someone and listening to them can be much more impactful. Over a few weeks in different formal, informal and performance environments, he makes it his job to dig as deep as he can to get to know the personality and motivational drivers of his performers. What influences someone and what pulls and pushes them in their performance.
Brailsford discusses his CORE principles which he has used in his time from working with Steve Peters with the British Olympic Cycling Team and taken into his role at Team Sky:
His ethos on giving ownership to the performer is what really interested me. He discussed his ‘Kings and Queens’ principle which was all about taking the crown off the heads of the coaches and placing them on the athletes. This meant empowering them to make their own decisions about their own performances. Encouraging the athletes to perform for themselves, not for their coaches. In sport there is often a much more dictatorial and directive approach when it comes to coaching. By giving the ‘crown’ (ownership, responsibility and accountability) to the athletes, he gave them control of their own destinies.
There’s bee a big theme of emotion within all of these podcasts. The interesting thing about this one was how Brailsford tries to take the emotion out of the performance. If someone is too focussed on the end result e.g. winning, then they can allow the emotion to take control. Instead of focussing on the end result, he encourages his athletes to focus on the process and performance. Within this, we can all ‘control the controllable’ and put more of an emphasis on what needs to be done to achieve the goal rather than the emotions of achieving the goal.
And this brings the conversation on to his ‘Marginal Gains’ ethos. This is a very similar conversation to the one with James Smith about his ‘stepping stones’ ideas when it comes to making big changes to your life. Brailsford explains that major change isn’t sustainable, but if we can all get into the habits of doing the little things and making much smaller changes, then momentum will begin to gather much faster.
The highlight for me in this podcast episode is the fact that despite having achieved so much in his life and working with some of the top athletes in the world, his basic principles remain so simple that anyone can apply them to their own situations. This is summed up perfectly when he explains that a smile and being positive is a simple marginal gain that can begin to make a big difference to us all. Enthusiasm and positivity is essential and if people feel that change is becoming a chore, they will be much more likely to fail in achieving their goals.
There’s a lot more chat all about Brailsford’s way of making decisions, his health scares and the sacrifices he has had to make to achieve what he has. I would thoroughly recommend listening to this episode. It was released on 17th January 2022 and I’m certain that there is no coincidence in that. At this time of year we are all looking at making some changes for the new year ahead, reflecting and making new goals. For me there is no better person to listen to in order to align your goals, work towards change and make the small changes needed to achieve whatever it is that you are working towards.