Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:44: 10 quick wins…

00:02:53: … 1: pick a new tool to try out

00:06:32: … 2: a thoughtful thank you

00:08:07: … 3: so what now TED Talk

00:10:25: … 4: have a curious career conversation

00:13:19: … 5: ask for easy feedback on your strengths

00:14:28: … 6: Do someone a fast favour

00:17:16: … 7: assess your learning agility

00:18:35: … 8: add an additional active rest activity

00:23:39: … 9: each one, teach one

00:27:40: … 10: keep a "three very small successes" diary

00:30:50: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Every week we take a different topic to do with work, and we talk about ideas for action and tools that we hope would just create some clarity and maybe a bit more confidence and control in your Squiggly Career.

Helen Tupper: And every week, we try to take what you are listening to and turn it into tools that you can learn even more from, and there's quite a few.  If you are new to Squiggly Careers, welcome to the world of career support that we're offering to you.  It's quite a lot!  So, to make it simple, you can start with the PodSheets.  This is a one-page summary that has coach-yourself questions, it summarises the ideas for action we talk about, and it's got a few recommended resources, things you can read, watch, and listen to if you want to dive a bit deeper into the topic.  You can join PodPlus.  It is an almost every-week session, I mean that's my caveat, that sometimes we just can't quite make it work; but more weeks than not, it happens and it's 30 minutes, Thursday morning, 9:00am, and it's brilliant.  I did it for the first time last week after a three-week break, because of various things Sarah and I were doing, and I was like, "Oh, this is why I love PodPlus".

Sarah Ellis: I'm doing it this week and I'm actually looking forward to it.

Helen Tupper: It's great, it's so good, it's just a community of like-minded learners.  Sarah and I take the topic we've talked about and then everyone contributes their own ideas, their insights, their stories.  It is a really positive learning career community.  So, all the information for that is on our website, amazingif.com, and we will also put it in the show notes; but email us at helenandsarah@amazingif.com if you can't find that.  Also, follow us on LinkedIn, that sounded very direct, "Follow us on LinkedIn!"  The reason you might want to follow us on LinkedIn is because we put other resources there, so upcoming podcasts, if you want to ask questions or connect with people, @amazingif on LinkedIn is a good place to go. Sarah Ellis: So today, we are talking about ten Squiggly Career quick wins.  It's going to be fast and furious and very action focused.  So, we're recording this in mid- to late-November, and obviously we will have some year-end review, more reflective episodes coming your way.  But before we get to that point, we thought it might be helpful if you are listening to this in real time and you're thinking, well, what can I get done between now and whenever you're hopefully going to get a break towards the festive season in a way that feels realistic, is going to move you forward and give you some really good momentum. 

We've also had a go at guessing, I've wrote "outlining" here in my bullet points, but I think guessing is the right word; we've guessed how long we think each action would take.  We've done all these actions, so hopefully it's not a complete left field guess, it's based on some data, but we also wanted to make sure that they were genuinely quick, that we weren't suggesting anything here that was going to take you three hours to try and get done. So we'll go through each of the tools, we'll tell you how long we think it takes and we'll give you a couple of examples to get you started.

Helen Tupper: So, fast and furious, we will start with number one and number one, I feel like it's very Helen; Sarah's idea but I think it's very Helen one, is pick a new tool to try out.  And we think it's going to take about ten minutes, so not a massive commitment, but the reason you want to do this is because it's much better to play with tools than to be scared of them.  And sometimes I think the longer you leave them, the more fear gets associated with it, because everyone starts talking about them and then you're like, "I don't know how to use ChatGPT, what are they talking about?"  It all just feels a little bit scary and you feel left out and left behind by whatever people are going on about.  So, I think if you can have a regular "try a new tool out" thing, you don't even have to tell anybody. 

This doesn't have to be like a, "Helen's five tools she's tried out this week", it's just have a play. For example, Miro is a really good one.  If you haven't used Miro, I'm currently using Miro to do mood boards on my house.  I'm enjoying it greatly.  I've decided that I'm just going to do this and do that in the evening.  ChatGPT, a really good one, you can use it in so many ways.  You can use it for research, you can use it for shortcuts in your work.  Loop, so some people in our team have started using Loop, which is a Microsoft Teams kind of tool that integrates comms and things.  That sounds very boring but it's very useful.  Paper, so for example we've never used PowerPoint in any of our Squiggly sessions, we've always drawn models and frameworks and we always get asked what tool do we use. 

Paper is the tool, but there are so many.  And we did a podcast a while back actually, kind of AI tools and tech that can help your career development.  So if you're thinking, "I'm not quite sure where to start", then I would download that podcast and try out one of those tools.  Sarah, you mentioned Coggle recently.

Sarah Ellis: I had two experiences last week where, prompted by someone else, I then tried out a new tool.  So, I think that's the other way to approach this, look out for what you see other people sharing.  So, someone shared a Coggle with me and I was like, "What's a Coggle?" other than quite a cute word.  And essentially, it's a visual mind map, so not dissimilar from a Miro board.  So they would be good to try and compare and contrast and see which one you prefer.  But then you can share it with someone, and this person was preparing for an interview for a different podcast and saying, "These are the topics we think we're going to talk to you about, Sarah, how does this sound?"  So, I navigated my way around the Coggle and I was like, "Oh, this is fun". Then actually, you and I were in a meeting together where the person we were meeting had some sort of an AI plugin to that meeting that was taking notes for him.  So his point was, "Well, I often forget what gets talked about.  And so actually, it just records the meeting and I think summarises the action". 

And I was thinking, "Oh, that sounds useful", because I am a real sucker for sometimes writing things down, I have messy notes.  I sometimes put bits of paper in the bin that then three days later, I realise I really need.  And I was like, "This could be really helpful for me".  I don't think it would stop me using notes and scribbling things down and doodling and those sorts of things, but just have a record to come back to, to kind of go, "I think I committed to something in that meeting.  What was that thing?"  And so, that's one that I'm going to try out in the next week or so.  I'm going to work out how to do that for a Teams meeting, because we do that all the time, and just give it a go.

Helen Tupper: That is fireflies.ai.

Sarah Ellis: Oh, is that what it was?  Oh, Okay.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, so that one, I'm going to do that.  I had an experience earlier.  I was prepping for a podcast, an upcoming episode, and I was writing my notes and then I think someone came, a delivery person came, so I obviously got distracted, great old interruptions, and I came back, I could not remember where I'd written my notes, so I was like, "Is it on my phone?  Is it on a Post-it Note?  Have I thrown the Post-it Note away?"  And then I was trying to go through my emails, all the five places that I currently very inefficiently store notes.  So, I think fireflies.ai would probably be more helpful for me.

Sarah Ellis: So we think ten minutes, have a play, move on, come back to it the next week, see how you get on.  Action number two, a thoughtful thank you.  We reckon this takes five minutes, so even shorter.  Good question to ask yourself here, who has made a difference to you at work this year?  Or sometimes it's easier, I find, to ask yourself, "Who has made a difference to me this month?" because over the past year, I sometimes actually get lost in everything that's happened.  And just really think about what would a quick thoughtful thank you look like.  Is it a voice note; is it a WhatsApp; is it a card; is it a message; is it email?  Just basically saying the difference that they've made to you.  And we've talked before about this idea of the helper's high, and you're much more likely to help other people when you know the impact of your help.  And often I think we assume that people know they've made a difference to our day or to our week, and so often they don't. So recently, we've got an exciting project that we're actually not allowed to talk about just yet, coming up in February.

Helen Tupper: You tease!

Sarah Ellis: I know, it's very rare that we do anything like that, but I actually don't think we are allowed to talk about it yet.  And somebody made an introduction to get us started with that project.  And so, I did just leave her a voice note just saying, "Oh, I really appreciate it", and talked a bit about why it was so great and because she's so credible and this person was always going to listen to her.  And I honestly don't think we'd be doing this project without her making that connection.  And she left me a message back just being like, "Oh, this is the best thing that's happened to me.  I absolutely loved listening to this message!" hopefully because I'd just taken the time to do a thoughtful thank you.  S,o it doesn't have to take you long, but you will make the other person's day and it can be quick and really easy.

Helen Tupper: Idea for action number three is a "so what now" TED Talk.  So, we originally had this as a watch TED Talk.  I get the TED newsletter every week and there was one that was highlighted in their TED newsletter, which was all about how to make learning as addictive as social media.  And I was like, "Oh", and I watched it and I was like, "This is why TED Talks are great".  It was actually a very interesting presentation, all about how Duolingo is designed to democratise development.  It's very interesting.  But also, the speaker was great, so I think I learned as much about how to sell a presentation, how he came across on stage with his humour and his authenticity; I learned as much about that as I did about the content, and it's like 10 minutes, 15 minutes max of your time.

So watching TED Talks is great, but what's even better is "so what now" a TED Talk.  This is where you watch it and you just take an extra couple of minutes, that's all you need, and you ask yourself three questions.  One, what did I learn; what are the key messages I've taken away?  Two, so what did that make me think?  So maybe you're like, "Oh, I don't do that today [or] that could be useful for my team [or] I'd like to learn more about that", whatever it is, but you're just taking that learning that one bit further.  And then, three, now what action will I take?  So, what did I learn; so what did it make me think; and now what action will I take?  And it moves it from a kind of passive, but probably quite enjoyable learning experience, to something that's much more active and much more actionable, and it's just a tiny little tweak to how you watch a TED talk.

Sarah Ellis: So we're going to put a few links to TED Talks that we'd recommend, including that one that Helen just mentioned, just to get you started, because I do sometimes think, a bit like when you've got loads of podcasts, which obviously we know what that's like, there are lots of TED Talks.  And I do sometimes look at it and I'm like, "Oh, I just don't know where to start", and then maybe you don't get started at all.  So, as well as How to make learning as addictive as social media, we're also recommending 10 ways to have better conversations.  So, that's Celeste Headlee, who's been on the podcast, but her TED Talk is just one of those brilliantly specific, and she's funny, but she's also really practical.  I don't think you've watched many TED Talks that have all of those ingredients.  And then I've also suggested The anti-CEO Playbook, which back to Helen's point about how to tell a story and to sell a concept, there's something surprising and very endearing, I think, about that TED Talk, if it's not one that you've watched before.

So action number four, this is our longest one because we've said 30 minutes here, because I think it's quite hard to do this in less than 30 minutes, is have a curious career conversation.  And the reason this made the top 10 is I haven't done this for a while and I did two in one day a couple of Fridays ago, and it has already made a massive difference to my development.  A bit like Helen was saying, you know you get out of the habit of good habits, sounds like the wrong way around doesn't it, but you've got some good habits and you sort of lose them along the way; and that's definitely what happened to me with curious career conversations.  I was thinking, "I used to be so good at this". 

I'd always make time for it, it's definitely how I created connection, it helped me to come up with ideas.  And these two conversations really reminded me how important these conversations are. I think the reason they went so well, where I have got a bit better than perhaps I was in the past, I had thought beforehand, "How could this person help me?" not in a, "This is going to be really transactional, here's the agenda with all the ways you need to help me", but just more so that I could be focused and have a few thoughts in mind to prepare for the chat.  So I was just thinking, "Well, what am I intrigued by; what am I interested in?" 

And because I am someone who can fall into the nice-chat trap, particularly when I've not met someone before, because I get a bit more nervous, I'm more introverted when I've not met someone before, I can sometimes lose a bit of my focus.  So, just asking myself that question really helped. I met one person who was completely new to me, who I'd never met before, which was brilliant, though it always takes me a bit of recovery time afterwards, a real introvert of needing a moment alone afterwards; and then someone who I've worked with before, who I know really well, and that was much more relaxing and informal but actually just as useful.

Helen Tupper: And so for some people, this might come easy.  Like for me, for example, I'll be like, "Oh, I'll just get in touch that person, I've not spoken to them for a while".  But if you're thinking, "This is a great idea but I am not sure where to start, I don't know who to have these curious career conversations with", it could be someone you've worked with before, so maybe a different team in your organisation; maybe you've worked with someone on a project, for example, but you're not been that close to them; or, maybe a company that you used to work in and you haven't reconnected with that person for a while.  That's kind of where we get into this sort of territory of something called weak ties, which is another topic we've covered on the podcast. 

Very good for opportunities when you work your weak ties. It could also be somebody who does a similar role to you, but in a different organisation.  So in that situation, the point of connection is the work that you do, but the point of difference is where you do it.  And so you can often both help each other with that curious career conversation because you can say, "How do you approach this?  This is a problem we've got in our particular team, how does that look in your organisation?"  Even if you don't know them very well, it feels like you have a shared understanding because of the work that you do.  I think with these curious career conversations, finding those small points of connection, but not making them people that you work with directly on an everyday basis, is really where you learn the new knowledge, because they're in a different world of work to you. Idea for action number five is a lovely, quick, easy and very effective one.  This is a five-minute action, everybody.  It is to ask for easy feedback on your strengths. 

So obviously, there's lots of different ways that you can ask for feedback and some of them don't feel particularly easy, because they're probably part of an annual process that takes you ages to fill in.  This one is quick.  So, these are some fast feedback questions, what three words describe me at my best; when do you see me have the most positive impact; and, what's one skill I have that you see is useful in our team?  And I wouldn't recommend you ask one person all those questions, because they're sort of different perspectives on you at your best.  But maybe just start asking around, see how similar people's answers are. What you're really aiming for with your strengths is you want consistency, so you want different people in different places to see the same strengths, because that's what builds your brand, specifically the strengths you want to be known for.  And asking these questions just helps you collect more data for your development.  So, one a week, ask one of these questions to one person each week.  It is quick to do and you'll get a lot of insight about your impact.

Sarah Ellis: Idea for action number six, do someone a fast favour, so another five-minuter here.  How could you easily help someone else?  Could you teach someone a quick tech hack; could you do some curiosity crowdsourcing?  Share one thing that you're reading, watching or listening to that's helping you to learn more.  Hint here, could you give a review to a podcast that you really enjoy listening to and where it makes a really big difference when people review?

Helen Tupper: I mean, she's not said Squiggly Careers, but you know what she's thinking, everybody!

Sarah Ellis: I often think with fast favours, they're often something you've been meaning to do for a while, you either just keep putting off or you perhaps don't quite find the time for, but you'll feel really good when you do someone a fast favour.  And often it is just always quicker than you imagine.  So sometimes it could just be saying, "Oh, have you spotted this, or have you seen this?"  Somebody showed me on Teams last week, you know if you've got a Teams channel with lots of different people in, I wanted to @ everybody in that Teams channel because I think often if you don't @ people, it gets missed.  And do you know how you do it?  It literally is @ the channel, it's "@everyone", as in the word, everyone, which sort of makes sense.

Helen Tupper: Or you can just, like, @amazingif.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, but that doesn't work in every Team's chat, you see.  Here's a five-minute fast favour for you!  Well, it depends though.

Helen Tupper: I'm very sceptical.

Sarah Ellis: You're so sceptical,  oh my God!  Right, so that is so harsh, you didn't even let me do the thing.  You were like, you already don't believe her, because I'm better at tech than she is.  That bit is true.  So, if you @everyone, this is good advice.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, it's good Teams knowledge.

Sarah Ellis: And now, you see how much you've made me doubt myself now!  But anyway…

Helen Tupper: No, I'm sure you're right.

Sarah Ellis: Well, that does work, that bit I am right.  I don't know whether Helen's is also right, but I had tried @ the channel, and that hadn't always worked.  Maybe it's where the channel doesn't have a name, you know if you just put people in it, but maybe it's not named.  But if you @everyone, it does work.  I think we should move on from that!

Helen Tupper: Well, no, do you know what, on that fast favour bit and tech in particular, Sarah and I were in a room together last week, which you might be like, "Obviously", but not obviously.

Sarah Ellis: We're hardly ever in a room together.

Helen Tupper: Often, we work remote, we're hardly ever in a room together.  Actually there were a few times where we would get around each other's screen and sort something out quickly.  And I think fast favours, you can do them virtually, but it's that like, "Oh, let me just help you fix that".  And tech, I think, is a really good example, because everyone has got their little hacks, haven't they?  So, it is a useful one.

Sarah Ellis: I will try @everyone later!

Helen Tupper: I look forward to it.

Sarah Ellis: We're going to have to come back with a correction or something on the podcast when we're like, "When Sarah said… we have worked out that's half true", or something!  I think it does work.

Helen Tupper: You know when there's like a newspaper article --

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, that's what I was thinking, "Correction on last week.  When we said this, what we actually meant was this"!

Helen Tupper: I love it!  Okay, look forward to that, everybody.  Scintillating updates on the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Oh dear, gosh!  Number seven, everybody, is to assess your learning agility.  So, we have a new Harvard Business Review article coming out soon on this topic, which is really, really exciting because we are super-passionate about learning, and actually we believe that learning agility is a really important subskill within being a learn-it-all.  It's basically when you can succeed in first-time situations.  So, learning agility means that you take your past experience and you can adapt it really quickly to do things you've never done before. 

And in Squiggly Careers, that happens all the time.  So, the more learning agility we have, the more we can succeed as we squiggle into new positions, new projects, new places, for example.  And we have an assessment. This is probably a five- to ten-minute exercise, I would say.  Doesn't take you long to fill in.  It's got a couple of quick questions and then you get an instant score on your learning agility.  And then what happens, the reason it'll take you a little bit longer, is then you'll get an email which will have some more insights for you on how to increase your learning agility.  And so, between you filling it in, reading your score and then getting that email, it's ten minutes max, but it'll give you a really good insight into where you're starting from, and then you can dive into our article when it's out and read different ideas for action, which will help you to improve it.

Sarah Ellis: Idea for action number eight, which I think is my favourite, which is a slightly longer one; I would say on average 15 to 30 minutes, depending a bit on what you choose.  But the idea here is to add in an additional active rest activity into your week for one week.  So, we're not saying you have to commit to it forever, but we're just saying for one week, you need to add in some extra active rest.  And I say extra because I do hope everybody does something that they would classify as active rest already.  As a reminder, if you've not come across that term before, active rest is something that isn't work, but that fully absorbs your focus.  Basically, your brain doesn't have the capacity to get distracted by to-do lists or what you've not done, you know, you're fully in it, you're fully present and you're in the moment.  And this does look and feel different for different people. "Active" can be a tiny bit misleading. 

It can be exercise, but equally it could be painting, it could be playing a computer game, it might be gardening, it could be reading fiction.  As long as you're fully in it, it counts as active rest.  So hopefully, you're already doing some of this, so what you might choose is to do more of the same.  So, you could choose to increase the frequency from, say, once to twice a week, or twice to three times a week; or, you might choose to add in a different type of active rest.  So, Helen, what would this look like for you; if you were going to do this next week, what would adding in active rest look like for you?

Helen Tupper: Well I had a bit of failure recently with me attempting to do active rest.  I thought it'd be good for me and my children, which is origami.  It was disaster!

Sarah Ellis: It's really hard, we've all been there, really hard, too hard for kids, yeah.

Helen Tupper: It's really hard, they have a lot of tantrums, yeah, it's way too hard, so scrap that!

Sarah Ellis: Everyone's bought it thinking, "This is going to be a lovely activity to do with my 6-year-old", and then you realise, "Well, I can't do it so how can they?"

Helen Tupper: Yeah, exactly that.  I've got my 6-year-old just using a knife on the paper and I'm like, "That's not what you do.  That line's in the wrong place", and I'm trying to empower her whilst also controlling where the folds are going.  Yeah, that wasn't relaxing!  I instead meditate on my commute and I think what I need to do is not just use my commute.  So, Sarah and I went on a course earlier in the year, which I think it's fair to say I found probably more useful than Sarah, a mediation course.  We'll come to it.

Sarah Ellis: We'll come to it at the old end-of-the-year podcast!  It'll feature.

Helen Tupper: It's feature!  So, yeah, so I do meditation and I haven't got into a brilliant routine with it.  But when I do do it, I find it very beneficial, and I think I've basically stuck it onto my commute.  My train's about 40 minutes and meditation takes 20 minutes to do, but what I would like to do is do it every day for a week, not just when I'm on a train.  I'd feel a real sense of achievement if I did that, so I definitely feel better after doing it.

Sarah Ellis: That's a good one.  Initially, I was tempted to just increase something I already do, which is some exercise classes that are very local to me, but in some ways I thought, "Well, it's a bit of a cop-out" because I think I'd do that anyway.  So, I was trying to challenge myself to think, "What would some new active rest look like?" and I actually went for adding in non-fiction reading time into my day.  So, I read lots of fiction in an evening and that's already active rest for me.  So, I know that it works, I know reading works as active rest.  Once I'm in a book, I forget about everything and everyone else.  If I read at the start of the day, I'd never get any work done basically. 

But I tried it today. Obviously, I knew the podcast was coming and I'd thought of this concept before.  So I was like, "Oh, do you know what?  Actually, I'm going to sit in a different space, get this book out that I want to read and I'm just going to read".  I'd only got 15 minutes, so I was like, "15 minutes".  I actually set a timer on my phone, which is very unlike me, but that's because I genuinely had 15 minutes.  And I was away from laptops, I couldn't see any emails coming up, nothing like that.  Just sat and read for 15 minutes and then stopped and I was like, "Okay", and I feel better because of it.  Already you're like -- actually, I didn't quite want to stop because I was like, "Oh, I'm getting into this now", and then I think I'll be more likely to go back to it.  So, it was a good little experiment for me today.

Helen Tupper: I have a question for you.  What were you reading?

Sarah Ellis: Limitless.

Helen Tupper: Okay, got it.  And, did you feel good because you'd done it; was it like a sense of achievement, "Oh, I fit this in", kind of good, or did you feel good because your brain felt better because you were focusing on something other than work?

Sarah Ellis: Second one, I think.  My achievement value, which is my number one value, doesn't come from 15 minutes of reading, it comes from like projects that take three years, as you know!  But I think it was that I came away going, you know like you've worked your brain in a different way.  I think that's what it did, it exercised my brain in a different way.

Helen Tupper: I always find it really validating as well, when you spend those little times reading and then at some point in the week, that reading will have a relevance that you can't really predict.  And then you're like, "Oh, I read about this concept in this book called Limitless that might be useful".  I just love how your brain just stores it until that magic moment when it's useful.  But that only happens if you actually take the time to do a bit of reading, put some stuff in.

Sarah Ellis: I look forward to that moment.

Helen Tupper: When your brain sparks with your Limitless insight!

Sarah Ellis: I don't know if you do.  I don't know if you always do look forward to my voice notes, let's be honest!

Helen Tupper: I don't mind a voice note.  I put you on two times speed now.

Sarah Ellis: I bet you do.  I would know that you do that!

Helen Tupper: Number nine, each one, teach one.  This one might take a little bit longer, maybe 20 minutes, but what this one is all about is identifying something you've got expertise in, so you've got a lot of knowledge of that area; or experience in, maybe you've been doing it for a while.  And then just share it with somebody else.  This is sort of, I think, a very generous way of approaching a growth mindset, sort of taking what you know so that someone else can grow.  And I think the thing that stops people a lot of the time is confidence gremlins here because they think, "Well, how useful is this thing that I know?" or, "Other people know more than me about it". 

So, you really do have to hate your confidence gremlin and just think, "Who can I help with what knowledge I've got?" That could be in a one-to-one way, so I might be like, "Sarah, I've just read this book, I'd love to just share my insights with you for five minutes, because I think you might find it interesting", so that's one-to-one.  It could be a one-to-team thing.  So, that TED Talk that you watched where you did your so what now what, maybe you're sharing your now what's with your team, that could be quite useful.  Or it could be one-to-many, which would be you sharing what you know on a platform, a larger platform, could be LinkedIn, maybe a part of a WhatsApp group, for example, or presenting at an event.  And Sarah and I have done this in different ways recently.  Sarah, you had a very popular post that you shared on LinkedIn.  Would you like to talk about it?

Sarah Ellis: I also had one that was an absolute disaster!

Helen Tupper: Good to have a contrast!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, but the reason it was a disaster is because actually nobody wanted to share it, which was interesting.  So, one of the things I asked, I will talk about the disaster one, because it's relevant to the podcast, I asked people, "What podcast do you want between now and the end of the year?"  And people interestingly didn't want to comment on LinkedIn.  So I just got a load of DMs and emails.  And I was like, "Oh, that's interesting that people don't feel like it's okay to say, 'Oh, I'd like a podcast about this'".  But maybe the insight is because you need a podcast on challenges or knotty moments, you know, on something that's hard. 

So, I did it and I was like, "Oh, no one's responding to it, that was a bit of a waste of time".  And then I was like, "Oh no, they are, but just in a slightly different way".  So, I thought that was interesting.  So if you ever do have a podcast topic, you can just always email us, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com, if that's a better way to let us know what you want to learn and what you need from us. I did another one on the ten things I've learned from running Amazing If for ten years.  And actually, I really enjoyed doing that, that each one, teach one.  It's very rare that I will put things out more broadly.  So the one to many, I'm much more a one-to-one or a one-to-team person, particularly in terms of the things that I share.  But it was one of those things where I thought, "Well, if this is just useful for even two people who are starting up their own companies, I think there are some half decent words of wisdom here". 

Like if people test their ideas, if they get the right people around them, it's not even a, "Well, don't make the mistakes that we made".  I actually think I was talking about a lot of things that we got right, but some of them slightly more by accident than design.  If you can design these things into running a business, I think you'll be smarter and better because of it.  So actually, I really enjoyed that.  I suppose, given what we both do, I'm guessing we both enjoy each one, teach one.  You sort of have to find your way of doing it.

Helen Tupper: And I did one recently as well.  I went to a conference about a week ago actually, and there were lots of interesting talks.  And I'd actually committed to sharing before I went, which is quite a useful thing with each one, teach one.  If you're learning something new, if you learn it with the intent to share it, it does mean that you kind of listen to what you're learning in a slightly different way, because you're not just understanding it, you're sort of interpreting it and deriving meaning at the same time.  So, I shared all of my notes from the conference, but I really tried to think about it not just being a flow of notes, but how could I make those notes useful for other people that weren't there, and that was in my mind when I was capturing them.  So, it sort of reduced the work that I had to do afterwards.  But yeah, it's a nice, generous thing to do.  Give it a go with what you know so that other people can grow.

Sarah Ellis: Are you just now only talking in rhyming slang and/or inspiration?

Helen Tupper: I feel like I want to answer that in rhyming and I just can't, I'm just stalling in my head.

Sarah Ellis: Too tired now, too tired.  One to ten, we're nearly there, team!  So number ten, which I love this one because I think it's quick and easy, we reckon one minute a day.  First day might take you two or three minutes.  I reckon by day two, by day three, we're talking a minute a day.  Keep a "three very small successes" diary for ten days.  So by the end of these ten days, you're going to have 30 successes.  The important bit of this, when we say diary, is we do mean it in terms of writing stuff down, just because we know it really helps us.  We give ourselves more credit, we get it out of our brain onto a bit of paper.  You could do it in the notes section of your phone. 

I actually do use the notes section of my phone for when I do this activity.  So if I was doing this I would literally write one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten to hold myself to account to do the ten days, and I'd get my one, two and threes ready because I'd almost be like, "Oh, I need to fill that in". So, I tried it for today.  So, my "three very small successes" diary for today reads as one, I exercised and walked on a busy day; I had two conversations focused on building relationships beyond where we are as a business right now; three, ran a useful, and useful is one of our values at Amazing If, client session on career conversations.  And I know that it was useful because someone replied and went, "Thanks very much, that was extremely useful".  I was like, I'll take it.  It's short and specific.  And so that was just one of those moments where you just get played back to you that thing that you are hoping that you have been for somebody.  So, I mean, that took me probably a minute and a half to do when I was just sort of thinking, "Okay, what would my three be for today?"  Helen, what would your three be?

Helen Tupper: Oh, gosh.  I always think, when I'm reflecting on my three very small successes, if I haven't started the day with it in mind, I kind of have to go through my diary, so I think there's nothing wrong with that.  My three very small successes: I went to a session, I made time to go to a session for somebody's book who's launched today.  I think it's important to make time just to show up for other people, so I'm banking that one.  What else did I do today?  I did a session with one of our companies that we work with today, and that went down really well.  I feel like it's the third session in a series and I feel like I'm really connecting with that community, and that makes me happy because it's not just about content, it's also about connection, which I think is a big part of what we do.  I also, I know it's small, I did my to-do list today and I don't do my to-do list every day, but it was really broad.  It was everything from recording podcast intros to sending some emails and setting some clients up and some stuff I totally carried over from Friday.  I feel like I'm starting tomorrow better because I've done my to-do list today.

Sarah Ellis: Oh, I think that's a big one.  Most people would be ecstatic if they actually get through their to-do list.  But I think there what you heard is two different ways of doing that.  I just sort of sat and thought for a few minutes, whereas Helen was a bit more structured and just went back through her day.  It doesn't matter how you do it and as Helen said, once you've got into doing it, I think it's quicker and easier.  I think what this really helps with, it builds your optimism.  And we just know that when we're more optimistic, we're better at solving problems, we're better at spotting opportunities, and we're better at asking for the support and help that we need.  So, it just creates that positivity, but keeping it small just helps us to be specific and stops us skipping past our small successes.  So, I think we have more of these than we give ourselves credit for.

Helen Tupper: So we won't run through one to ten, because it is quite a lot and you've listened this far, so that's brilliant, you can bank that for a very small success today.  But what we will do is summarise them all in the PodSheet, so you'll be able to focus on which one you want to do and you'll be able to filter by time as well, so if you think, "Well, I'm going to try out one because I've got five minutes today", that might be a good way to get started.

Sarah Ellis: But that's everything for this week.  We hope you found those ten things useful.  Let us know what you put into practice and we'll be back with you again soon.

Helen Tupper: Some might say it was extremely useful, Sarah!

Sarah Ellis: Some might!  Bye everyone.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.