How to stay inspired and energise your day

Timestamps 

00:00:00: Introduction 00:02:09: Energize, by Simon Alexander Ong 00:02:22: Awakening your energy versus escapism 00:06:19: Turn into your own body and self 00:08:03: "You are both the sculpture and the sculptor" 00:10:03: Understand and harness your beliefs 00:13:21: Decluttering your life 00:18:33: Simon's life changing moments 00:22:09: 365 Ways to Have a Good Day, by Ian Sanders 00:26:40: How to catalogue your career 00:29:12: How to read Ian's book 00:31:01: Helen's three picks from Ian's book 00:31:22: No. 178: "Reach out to your heroes" 00:33:31: No. 198: "Record a laughie" 00:35:11: No. 210: "Follow the good coffee" 00:40:26: Final thoughts  

Interview Transcription 

Helen Tupper: Hello everybody and welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm Helen, one of your hosts, and instead of being joined by Sarah today, I have two guests with me for this special episode, all about ideas to inspire.  I wanted to bring onto the podcast two people that inspire me, two people that I love talking to, who have lots of practical ideas and insights that I think can help all of us with our careers, and so Sarah has given me permission to kick her off and bring them on.  So, first of all, you're going to hear me talking to life coach, Simon Alexander Ong, who has a new book coming out in April, so you can pre-order it; it's not ready yet.  But we are diving into his book, Energize, which is all about the art and science of energy management.  What Simon and I will talk about is how he got to a tipping point where he realised the importance of managing his energy, and then what he learnt through the journey that he's gone on, and has since gone on to help other people with as well.  So, there are lots of insights, Simon is so wise, I find him very calming to listen to, he makes me really want to invest in myself, to be better for myself to help other be better too, and I hope that's what you will get from listening to him.  Then, after I've spoken to Simon, you're going to hear my conversation with Ian Sanders, and Ian is a friend that I met on Twitter many years ago, I think over ten years now, when I read his book, Mash-up, and sent him a tweet to say how much I liked it, and then we kept tweeting and then we met, and now we support each other in our Squiggly Careers.  And his new book, 365 Ways to Have a Good Day, is full of stories and snippets and practical things that you can do.  So, you'll hear me and Ian talk about some of my favourite things that I read in the book, some brilliant little ideas for action, just to spark you, to inspire you, to give you some things to go and do differently, and I hope this is a really nice episode to just end the year with, to just give you that inspiration and a few different ideas for action for you to take into 2022.  So, we'll get started with my conversation with Simon.  Simon, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Simon Alexander Ong: Thank you for having me, Helen.  Helen Tupper: So, let's talk about the first part of the book, because it's structured in quite a few different parts, which I really liked.  I liked the structure and I felt like I was working through it in a way that was increasing my energy all the time.  And part one is about "Awaken", and the thing that really stuck with me from part one was when you talked about the difference between awakening your energy versus the idea of escapism, and sometimes how dangerous it can be when we fall into escapism.    You gave your own compelling story to start the book off about where you realised maybe that was what you were doing.  I wonder if you could share that start point, that story with us, and then why it's so important to focus on how you develop your energy, rather than fall into this escapism mode.  Simon Alexander Ong: Sure.  So, I grew up, Helen, in an environment in which I felt that the definition of success was my job title; be a banker, be a doctor, be a lawyer, be an accountant.  I chose the banking route after I graduated in the middle of 2007 from the London School of Economics, but unfortunately my timing was a little off.  It was the year before the Global Financial Crisis, and the company I decided to work with was Lehman Brothers.  So, I had entered this industry with the desire to earn good money, which was what attracted me to it, but what I didn't realise was the toll that it would take on my health.  And, all those stereotypes that we see in the films and we hear from friends who are in that industry, long hours, hard partying, it was very much present in my early stages in the journey of being successful in that career.  There was a moment at which I was invited to a party, and I remember saying to my now wife that, "I'm going to take the last train back.  Wait up for me, I'll take the last train home", and that was before I descended those stairs into an underground nightclub.  The reception on my phone went, I put in my jacket and my bag into the cloakroom, and entered a den of free-flowing alcohol and many people that I knew partying the night away.  Before I realised it, I was trying to hail down a taxi in the middle of the morning, totally forgetting that I was meant to take that last tube home.    That experience was pivotal for me, because I realised then that I was trying to escape a reality that wasn't me.  I was trying to escape a career that was more for others than for myself.  And what I realised at that moment, and I have done many times since then, is escaping is merely a defence mechanism; it's us trying to avoid facing the reality that we're in and facing the truth of something.  Brendan Burchard shared recently that, "Avoidance is the best short-term solution to escaping conflict, and the best long-term solution to ensuring suffering".  I realised that as long as I was escaping, my energy would always be suppressed, because the weight of what I had to face, but I didn't want to face, would always be on my mind.    I think it was the moment that I decided to do something about it.  That's when I took back control.  I realised that as long as I was escaping, I was continually carrying that weight of thought, but also being paralysed by overthinking about things that may or may not happen.  But the moment I started to take back control, and to bring more energy back into my life, that is when I felt empowered to take action.  So, while escaping can be great in the short term, it is not a viable long-term solution.  Helen Tupper: Your example there, your late nights and drinking, as part of that story as well, the escapism, I guess, could be somebody who puts off doing something and just spends hours scrolling on social media or, not that there's anything wrong with watching Netflix, but if you're using it as a source of escapism, you might not be confronting the thing that could help you to have more energy.  Do you think everyone has to go through a pivotal experience like you had, or do you think we can just get more attuned to whether we are investing in our energy, or falling towards escapism, more on a day-to-day basis?  Simon Alexander Ong: I think if we look at society, more often than not there tends to be some sort of pain or setback or personal tragedy that has happened in order for us to start thinking differently.  But I think for us to be aware of the need to make those changes earlier, it requires us to be aware of ourselves, because we can't change what we're not aware of.  So, what I started to understand is the importance of listening to our body.  There is so much wisdom in it, our body will often whisper to us that we need to get more sleep, we need to take more rest, we need to move more, we need to eat better, and it will keep whispering to us until it eventually has to shout when we are lying in the bed of a hospital.  That is why so often, we wait until those moments before we take action.  Ironically, we do all the things that we should have done when we're well when we're unwell.  So, I think it's so important, if we want to avoid getting to that point or those points, to start tuning into our innate wisdom, to start tuning into what our body is telling us.   Helen Tupper: So, the book is full of wisdom, and I was very lucky, because I've got a PDF copy, I've got an early copy.  If I had the print copy, which I will do as soon as it is out, I will get the print copy, I will have turned over this page and I would have highlighted it and stuck a Post-it Note in.  I'd love to know your thinking behind it, but it was the page that said, "You are both the sculpture and the sculptor", and I've got a brace in, so I might not have said that very clearly for everyone, so can you explain to us what you mean by, "You are both the sculpture and the sculptor"?  Simon Alexander Ong: Sure.  So, what I mean by the statement that you are both the sculpture and the sculptor is that we don't realise that, in the fact that we are alive, we have the power to craft our life in any shape we want to, because all we're living in is the feeling of our thinking moment to moment to moment.  But knowing that fact gives us a superpower, and that is that at any moment, you and I can choose one thought over another.  That's what makes us unique as humans.  We can choose a different thought, and by doing so we open up an ocean of new behaviours, new choices, new actions, and those are our tools as a sculptor to remake ourselves, to change our identity, to change what is possible.    What the world sees is the sculpture.  The world doesn't see what's behind the sculpture, ie your mind, your world; only you can see that, and that is why you are both the sculptor and the sculpture.  What you bring to your mind, what you give energy to, you bring into your reality.  That is why, when we can harness this understanding, we are able to then bend our reality in any shape that we want to suit what is most important for us.  Helen Tupper: So, it's like you are the being and you are the belief, and those two things will feed each other?  So, if that's the case, where do we start with making sure the beliefs that we have are helping us and not holding us back?  Simon Alexander Ong: Well, first of all it's to realise that nearly every belief we hold is made-up.  It is either a belief that is held by our parents, a belief that has been shared with us by our colleagues or managers, or a belief that has been ingrained in us from society.  That teaches us that we can change our beliefs at any moment.  This is where affirmations can come into play.  Affirmations isn't a way of lying to yourself, it's a way of changing your perspective.  One of the affirmations that I started to embrace on this journey from being an employee to an entrepreneur was, "Life is always working for me, not against me".  Now, this taps into, and I'm not sure you've come across this world, Helen, "pronoia"; it taps into this word called pronoia, which is the opposite of paranoia, paranoia being the belief that the world is out to get you, that you are a victim and people are trying to wrong you.  Pronoia is the fact that the universe is conspiring in your favour, the life is working for you and not against you.  When I started to harness that belief and choose that belief as one that I wanted to build my life around, it took me on a journey from ego to humility.  So, when events happened that were not in my favour, instead of saying, "Why me?", my humility mind started saying, "What's the lesson here?  What can I learn that will make me do it differently next time?  What's the opportunity in this?"  When I came across someone that did something hurtful to me, again I would look for the lesson and the opportunity, because when working from the mindset and the belief that life is always working for me, it meant that these events were to happen on the journey to where I want to be and what I want to achieve.  Helen Tupper: Simon, I bet your coaching clients just come away feeling they have had wisdom unlocked in themselves; that is such a good point, just looking at all the situations you are in, and what can it teach you, and how can you learn from it, rather than the victim of the situation that you might find yourself in.  Simon Alexander Ong: And a bit of a practical question for your listeners, Helen, whenever we do face it, a great prompt to help us see things from a new angle is simply asking ourselves, "What else could this mean?"  So, when you face a setback, when you don't get what you want, ask yourself, "What else could this mean?"  What you will realise is that we don't live in one reality that is the same for all of us, we live in very customised realities.  How you interpret an event will be very different to how I interpret event, and different to how your friend or your colleague interprets an event.    That means that there is always another way to view it.  When you view it in a way that is more empowering, you unleash a spectrum of actions that you were previously blind to.  Helen Tupper: In the book, you talk about protecting your energy, so how you awaken it and you rewire it and then you've got this energy and now you need to protect it.  You talk about electrifying your environment.  There are loads of practical tips that you share in order to do that, and I think two that really stuck out for me were about cancelling clutter, probably because I'm looking around my desk right now and I'm seeing quite a bit of clutter and I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to take some of Simon's wise words to cancel my clutter"; and then, you talk about using music as well to tune in, how that can support you.  Could you share a little bit more with us about those for people?  Simon Alexander Ong: Sure.  I grew up in a family where my father would always get us, every weekend, to clean the house and tidy up and to be organised.  I didn't like it at the time, as you can imagine as a young boy growing up; I just wanted to go out and play with my friends and play in the parks.  But every weekend, my brother and I had to help clean the house.  Now, I didn't know at the time why we were doing this and the benefits that this would bring until, as an older Simon, I had the opportunity to visit Japan.  During my first trip to Japan, I went south to a city called Kyoto.  In Kyoto, I had this feeling of zen.  I was walking through the city and I just felt at peace, and I remember writing in my journal why was I feeling at peace in this city; what was it about it that made me feel like this?  I noticed that every restaurant, coffee house, temple and place I went to was so organised, so tidy, and people were so mindful that you felt like you were in a walking meditation when walking around this city.  So, I came back and I realised that when we have clutter-free environments, it means that our mind is also calmer to think and to focus on what is most important.  But when we have clutter in our environment, it actually increases the clutter in our mind, because we're thinking of about all those tasks; the bill that we need to pay, the trash that we need to throw out, the room that we need to organise, the washing that needs to be done.  But when you walk into a room that is clean, that is organised, that is tidy, you just feel mindful automatically.  Helen, when I wrote the book, I had the opportunity to interview Fumio Sasaki, a famous minimalist in Japan.  He said that when he eliminated nearly all of his possessions, when he sat at home, he was overcome by this sense of gratitude for all that he already had, things that he forgot when he started to accumulate all of these material possessions.  Helen Tupper: I'm slightly daunted by this one, because I have quite a few things, a lot of books and bags and shoes and two children, who are infuriatingly messy!  So, I'm wondering whether I could have a decluttered room?  I mean, I will aspire to having a minimalist space, maybe, though I do quite like a mixture of things, but I'm wondering, I think about Nancy Kline, who is somebody who's done a lot of work around coaching, and she talks about time to think.  I'm wondering whether it's about having a space to think.  You're an advocate in the book of journaling and meditation and maybe for anybody who's listening that thinks, "I don't think my home is a minimalist home", or they live with other people, children, flatmates, friends, whoever, that also are not supportive of a minimalist place to live, but maybe having a space to think that has that sense of clutter-free could be a way that people could get there?  Simon Alexander Ong: Definitely.  And I think there are always different steps to get there.  And as you say, even if the first step is just having a room in your house that is your dedicated mindful room, in which when you walk in, is completely tidy, maybe there's a station for calming music when you're there.  Some people would call that their reading room, their meditation room, their disconnection room, whatever you want to call it, maybe that is a good first step.  If you are in a family or you're living with other people, it obviously becomes more difficult to have that clutter-free environment, so it's not about being perfect; it's simply about, "How can I make being more tidy a fun activity for all of us to do, so when we do it we feel the benefits together?"  It's like, if you're a parent, getting your children involved in cooking, because when they're involved in cooking, what happens is they're more curious to want to eat more of what is on the plate when they sit down for dinner.  But if they've not had any hand in the input, they question what's on their plate.  Helen Tupper: So, just coming to the end now of the conversation, I sort of want to go back to where we started, which was the story of Simon saying he was going to be back at a certain time, and then getting lost in a hole of escapism; and in that story in the book, you talk about feeling overworked and unhappy with how it was going, and escaping in the way that you were.    I know that we've talked about a lot of different things you have done since then, and lots of ways in which you've helped other people with their energy, but what do you think has made the single biggest difference to the Simon that you are now, the energy you have now, versus the Simon way, way back when?  Simon Alexander Ong: I would say two things come straight to my mind, Helen.  One is listening to my body more, giving it more respect; and second, listening to my heart.  With the first one, listening to my body, we all know moments of the day when we are less energised or more energised, when we need to slow down, when we need to sleep, when we need to just get outside for some air, but how often do we actually listen to it; how often do we actually listen to our body?  More often, we tend to sabotage it by pushing beyond our limits.  Now, while that is fine once in a while, so if you have a deadline or a project to hit, those may be the circumstances you may need to push a bit hard in those times; when it becomes the norm, that is when your health becomes a risk.  So, listening to my body during the time of my own burnout gave me that wakeup call to start making my health a full-time priority and not a side hustle.  The second one, about listening to my heart, it taps into that saying that goes, "The longest journey that we make are the inches from our heads to our hearts.  It is never an easy journey, but it is the most fulfilling and exciting we will ever embark on".  The reason I say that second one is another one that really energised me, is because it taps into our spiritual energy.  We talk about physical burnout, we talk about mental health breakdowns, but there is also the idea of a spiritual burnout, when we are going against the talents, the skills and the gifts that we were born with, to please someone other than ourselves.  So, as I started to make that journey towards my heart to listen to it more, I had to trust it, which is very difficult, because you don't know if it's going to teach you the right things.  But what I've learnt is that, while our heart may not always take us to where we want to be, it will always take us to where we need to be, and that is what has happened so far.  And, whenever I seek that counsel, it is with my heart, because when we cultivate that relationship and deepen it, it can become your spiritual guide in life.  Helen Tupper: Thank you so much for sharing.  I feel calmer.  I've got a lot going on at the moment, Simon, and then I feel instantly calmer, with decluttering and inspiring my children and doing a bit of self-listening, taking self-awareness that step further.  So, thank you very, very much for sharing your wisdom, and we'll make sure that everybody's got all the links to pre-order the book.  So, thank you very much for your time with us.  Simon Alexander Ong: My pleasure, Helen, thank you so much for having us again.  Helen Tupper: I really hope that you enjoyed listening to Simon, I hope you came away as calm as I felt following that discussion.  I want to switch tracks a little bit now and go from Simon to Ian and talk about these 365 Ways to Have a Good Day.  We're not going to go through all 365, everybody, but we are going to deep dive into three of them that really stood out for me, and that I thought might be helpful for you to hear a bit more about.  So, here's my conversation with Ian.  Ian Sanders, welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Ian Sanders: Hey, Helen, great to be here.  Helen Tupper: I'm excited we've found the moment to talk, having been friends for a very long time, and we've got ideas to inspire people with today.  Ian Sanders: Well, it's good to be here for that slot.  And what a lovely story.  I know you shared it fairly recently on social media of how we met, through one of my previous books.  So, so lovely to be here to talk about my new one.  Helen Tupper: I also felt that it was a very Ian thing to do, because one of the things that I love about you, and one of the things that I get inspired when I follow you, is the way that you use your memories to create different insights.  I don't know where you keep all of the pictures and where you keep all the documents in your home, but it always makes me think, "I should catalogue my career in the same way that Ian does, so I have something to look back on too", but I love how you do that.  Ian Sanders: Well, sometimes I think, "Is it self-indulgent?" and like a lot of us, we had an opportunity, didn't we, in 2020, in a lockdown, to go through our stuff.  I did that and I thought, on the one hand perhaps it was self-indulgent, but on the other hand I think it does help us navigate our careers and work lives by looking back.  I know that we've got digital artefacts.  You could go back and look at when we first connected on Twitter, or whatever, but to go through boxes of old photos from my career, yeah, I love all that stuff.  As a storyteller, I'm always interested in the trail we leave and connecting the dots.  So, yeah, I'm glad that I haven't chucked too much away.  Helen Tupper: So, we might come back to what you've not chucked away in how you've written this book.  So, the book is 365 Ways to Have a Good Day, and I'm intrigued by why you wrote that book, because you've written other books, other books which I've read and think are very good, so why this book and why now?  Ian Sanders: Well, there's two parts to that.  I think the book about why I wrote this book goes back to something that happened in my work life in September 2019, when I'd just finished giving a presentation at a company away-day, so quite a common thing for people like you and me to do.  It was actually in Germany, it was in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, and I had an hour and a half to kill before the taxi would come to take me to the airport.  On the one hand I thought, "I really should catch up on my emails".  You know what it's like when you're travelling for work and emails build up?  But I also knew that somewhere down the hill, through the mist, was a lake.  I felt I had this choice that suddenly felt so symbolic and full of meaning, which was jump on the Wi-Fi or go and jump in a lake, and I did the latter.  I went down the hill, found this lake, was given a key and a map to the hotel's badeplatz, the bathing place, and it was so amazing in the blue waters of the lake.  There were no other human beings around, it was just me, there were mountains, blue sky, and perhaps hearing me talk about it now, obviously it made quite an impact on me.  You know what, it reminded me, Helen, that we all have a choice about how we spend our time, what we need to do in order to have a good day.  I know we're not always going to have a lake to jump into on a Tuesday morning, but I think what it's about is tuning into what is sacred to us.  It might be walking the dog, doing yoga, having our coffee or tea out of our favourite mug, all those little things that actually make a difference to us.  So, I suppose it rewinds to then about the importance of making the right choices in order that we can have a good day.  We're all different, aren't we?  What you need to have a good day is different from me.    But I guess the second part of your question, "Why now?", yes it did come out of the events of the last year or so, because in the first lockdown of 2020, I unearthed all these old notepads.  I'm a great journal-keeper and note-writer.  And, what was rather lovely about that was, at a time when we couldn't travel, when I couldn't go and do the things that I normally need for my own creative inspiration, I found all these notepads, which I had written in when I was on journeys, going to Amsterdam to do this, or going around the UK to give some talks.  So, I suddenly had all these nuggets of gold, if you like, and I thought, "Wow!"  What I started doing, it was quite a big job, I started writing up the really good bits from 27 notepads, going back 14 years; I started making a massive document of it, and that was the raw materials for the book.  So I guess, yeah, in lockdown, some people learned how to bake sourdough, I wrote a book, unearthed the material for a book.  Helen Tupper: So, this cataloguing of your career, before we get into the 365 ideas to inspire that are in your book, I'm actually really interested.  I think there's a 366th idea, which is this cataloguing of your career, which I think is an interesting thing that people might want to do for themselves that are listening to this now.  So, those notebooks, how often do you write in them and what are you writing in them?  Ian Sanders: So, I'm using these little notepads, and I'm using it two ways round.  So, I turn it upside down, so I've kind of got two fronts to it, if that makes sense.  In the first way round, and I'm just looking at one in front of me right now, I'm writing down some notes I made when I was on a coaching course, some notes I made watching a webinar by a poet called David Whyte, lists of things, little quotes I wrote down from a graphic artist that really struck me.  Then, on the other side of the book, I write down my weekly list, that I call Good Times, which I've been keeping since 2013.  It's not that unique to me; people talk about a gratitude journal, don't they?  I know you've talked about some of these practices before yourself.  And, it's really this list I keep, a list of all the good times.  Start it on a Monday morning, end it on a Sunday night, family, work, friends, everything, all of it into one list.  So, when I'm going through old notepads, I find these reflections and observations and stories, but I also find the data of what I was doing in that week in 2014 and why it was good, and I suppose it's giving me the data so that I know what I need to have a good day.  I think it's very easy for any of your listeners to start that habit of writing a list, a Good Times list, because it's about noticing, it's about scanning the day for the positivity.  I don't write down the bad stuff, and we all have bad days, or bad experiences at times; but it's writing down the good things and tuning into that.  I guess that keeping a track of our careers, I mean it's really interesting, we're on the Squiggly Careers podcast and, as you know, my background is very Squiggly.  And sometimes in a career that's been so Squiggly, where it doesn't always fit into those neat, LinkedIn categories, I'm really glad that I've kept little journals of some of those projects, some of those highlights, because they're not things that naturally would land on maybe a LinkedIn linear path.  So, I'm really glad I've kept it up.  Helen Tupper: Because there are so many ideas in the book, how do you envisage people reading it?  Everyone reads in a different way, but if you were designing the book for someone to read in the way that is in your mind, how do you think they would approach it?  Ian Sanders: Good question.  I think there are 365 really short chapters, I've got the book here, and there are two a page, so they're really short, and I think it's about dipping in and out.  It's 365, but I don't think it's really a book to be read like, "Oh, it's one a day"; I mean, that's the marketing promise, but let me be really honest: they're to be dipping in and dipping out.    Some of them are things that everyone can apply or take a lesson from, "Know that everything is possible", "Open the empathy valve", "Know how to deal with curveballs", "Make the most of your lunch hour".  But some of them are just really, really weird and wonderful. the story of someone I met in New York who opened up a popup advice booth in Union Square, Manhattan, to give advice to strangers!  I'm not suggesting people that read this book are going to go and set up a popup advice booth.  However, I do hope that some of those stories might inspire them about, how can they create their version of that, "Talking to a stranger in a coffee shop", "Reaching out to someone on their network and saying, 'Let's have a Zoom'", I don't know.  So, I think we're all different and some of these are really going to resonate with some people, and others might be a bit weird.  Helen Tupper: For me, when I was reading it, it made me smile, the stories.  The stories are very human, I mean all your stories are very human, it's lovely; and I smile, and some of it is funny, some of it was very warming.  I was inspired by what some people had done and how they'd acted, and then there are some things that are actually much more actionable.  It's like, "Oh, this is something that I can go and do", and I think it's a lovely blend of that.  I have picked three things that I've not told you about.  Having read it, I was like, "These are three things that I'd love to share with the Squiggly Careers community, because I think it's some things that they would find really interesting and they could go away and do.  So, I'm putting Ian on the spot here, everybody, to see if he can remember, of the 365 ideas, these three that I have picked out.   The first one is number 178 and it's, "Reach out to your heroes", and it's the story about the note that you sent to Paul Smith, Sir Paul Smith, and what happened after that.  So, I wonder if you could talk to us about that idea about reaching out to your heroes.  Ian Sanders: Thank you for picking that one; I love that.  I think sometimes in life, we've got people who are really important role models we really admire, and they might be really high profile and we think, "Well, there's no point reaching out to them, because they're so busy".  Paul Smith is an interesting one.  The entrepreneur, fashion designer, started his career in Nottingham 50 years ago.  I've always been a fan of him and I've got some of his books.  He wrote a great book of inspiration, bearing in mind the subject of this podcast, and I knew that famously, Helen, he gets sent so much stuff.  However, you might recall, because you and I go way back, I did a little booklet around curiosity about six or seven years ago.  I sent him a copy to his office address.  I got an email from his assistant saying, "Paul really liked getting your book.  He wonders whether you'd like to come and be a guest at a talk Paul's giving at the Design Museum in London?"  I was like, "Yeah, great!"  So, it was a lovely moment to go along to this talk at the Design Museum, hear Paul talk about his career.  Afterwards, you could line up to meet Paul.  I lined up to meet him.   I said, "Paul, lovely to meet you.  You won't remember me, but I sent you a book; I know you get so much stuff".  He said, "Oh, the little booklet on curiosity with the coloured photographs?"  I was like, "Yeah!"  He said, "Yeah, I loved it.  That's why I invited you".  I thought, what a class act, and he celebrated 50 years in the business in 2021, or it might have been 2020, and reading tributes from people, everyone said the same thing, "He's a really lovely bloke", and that was borne out by that story.  I think the point of that is, long shots are always worth taking, aren't they?  I mean, I might have got nothing back, but I ended up meeting him and he remembered the connection I'd made with him, and I just think sometimes we think there's no point doing these things, and if we take a chance, it can really pay off.  Helen Tupper: So, the next one for you is number 198.  It is to, "Record a laughie".  Tell us about the psychology behind recording 60 seconds of laughter on your phone?   Ian Sanders: When I was researching some ideas for the book, Helen, because I didn't want it to be all about me, I wanted to put some real value in there from things that other people had tried, other experts.  So, Freda Gonot-Schoupinsky is a health researcher that developed this idea called a laughie.  The idea is that you record 60 seconds of laughter on your phone, either as an audio track, or as a piece of video.  You play it back three times a day, and she did a body of research with a field of people from a 25-year-old to a 93, and over a long period of time, I think it was a long period of time, how people tracked their wellbeing from that.  I think we all know, don't we, that laughter gives us a good day?  You do a lot of public speaking and I do too, and I think those little moments where you get a laugh lifts you and makes you feel good.  I think what's really interesting about Freda's invention of the laughie is that, if you read this on paper without knowing about the impact of it, you might think it feels a bit contrived; but that's the whole point.  Contriving opportunities of recording it in a moment of genuine joy, if you like, and then playing it back is just infectious.  I gave it a try.  I must admit, I didn't keep it up for a long period of time, but it really lifts you!   Helen Tupper: So, my final one, not that these were the only three I liked, I loved loads of them, but this one I chose, it's number 210 and it's, "Follow the good coffee", and I've chosen this one for two reasons.  One for Sarah, who I think already does this one.  This is a very Sarah way to have a good day, it will always feature coffee, it will always feature good coffee.  She gets very annoyed with me when I settle with bad coffee.  But also, because you following the good coffee involves you looking for a "long black", which is what I choose when I'm looking for coffee.  Can you tell us a little bit more about why following the good coffee is an idea that could inspire people?  Ian Sanders: I think it's about a subject dear to your heart, which is curiosity.  I'll give you an example.  So, I had a gig a couple of years ago, where I was running workshops around the UK, travelling around.  I'd stay overnight in a city and then I'd do the workshop in the afternoon or the morning.  I'd arrive in a city like Liverpool that I hadn't been to for a while, and I'd go and seek out some coffee.  So, rather than just going to the Starbuck's in the hotel lobby, or in the conference centre where I was doing the workshop, I would be super curious and go and explore.  In Liverpool, I went down, I think it's Hope Street, near a concert hall or something, and found this amazing coffee shop, called 92 Degrees.  When I found it, it just felt like I was just so energised.  I mean, I wrote some notes in my journal at the time about the music that was playing, some people with dogs in there, and my pen had a life of its own; all these ideas flowed, because I was so much in a good place mentally and physically.  I think that following the good coffee is like a short cut for going to interesting places.  And nothing against going to Starbuck's, but it was about being intentional; actually, being intentional was a big, key part of this book.  I think it's being intentional about seeking places out.  I did a leadership programme for IE Business School in Madrid, and then I had a late flight the next day.  So, I had one of my favourite days, I had the next day off.  I wasn't earning any money, but I had the next day off before I got my flight home, and I'd heard of this coffee shop, called Federal Coffee.    I decided I wouldn't Uber it, I would walk.  I literally walked a good hour each way, and I was rewarded with this lovely place, I could have spent the whole day there.  Seeking out the good coffee is more than just about having the good drink, it's about following your curiosity with a reason, so you're not just going, "I'm just walking around looking", you have a destination.    I often see, inevitably take the side streets in these towns and cities, and I remember in Belfast in the rain, I went to find this wonderful place, called Established Coffee.  If I hadn't had that in mind, it was a rainy Friday morning, I probably would have just worked in the hotel before I got my taxi to the airport to fly home.  It gave me a reason to go and find the coffee and once I'd got to that place in Belfast, I felt like a local.  People were really friendly, they didn't look at me and go, "You're a stranger that's never been here before", I just settled in, had chats with people.  So, I love that, and it all starts with following the coffee.  Helen Tupper: I love that, I love it too.  It also reminds me of when I was in Sicily and I wasn't following coffee, I was following ice cream, because apparently there was this place in Sicily, I cannot remember the name now, but it was the world's best ice cream.  So I think we hired a car, "Right, we're going on a mission to find the world's best ice cream".  We drove well out of our way, but we saw some beautiful things, because it's beautiful countryside, and had some time to talk and reflect on this little journey.  Then, we got to this slightly random little town in the middle of nowhere where the world's best ice cream was supposed to be, and it was closed!  But it was fine, because we wandered around, then we went to a church and we saw some streets we wouldn't have seen and looked at some things we wouldn't have looked at.  And then we found another ice cream place, which wasn't the world's best one, but it was perfectly adequate.    But I just think, that being intentional and creating a reason to go to a place and talk to a person and to see something that you wouldn't ordinarily see, that is what, "Follow the good coffee", means to me.  If you don't like coffee, find your version of coffee.  It's just the intention and always having that as a focus for your curiosity, and different places for different people.  Ian Sanders: Absolutely.  It could be, follow the ice cream, find a really good book shop, go to a museum, but there's something about those little coffee shops, in the same why an ice cream shop or book shop maybe, less so a museum, which is they're not in the city centre or in a tourist area necessarily, they are off the beaten track.    Seeking them out, and I'll be honest, sometimes I've got a recommendation from locals, I might have asked on Twitter, "Going to Madrid, where do you recommend?" or I may have seen something online, but sometimes it is just genuinely about walking along going, "Shall I go left or right?" and then you've got that joy of discovery, because you didn't even know, but you feel like you've found your home in this town or city away from home.  Helen Tupper: So, Ian, I loved reading it the first time, I loved re-reading it for this podcast, it does everything that you have promised with 365 Ways to Have a Good Day.  It makes me smile, it sparks my thinking and it gives me things I want to go and do differently.  So, thank you for writing it and sharing it and talking to us all about it on the podcast as well.  Ian Sanders: Thank you, Helen, it was lovely to be here, and thank you for putting me on the spot with your favourite chapters!  Helen Tupper: I love Ian, he is such a great friend.  I'm so glad that the wonders of social media have brought us together.  I hope you enjoyed that conversation that we had together and you have taken lots away from this episode.  If you have enjoyed this, do let us know.  You can email us just at helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com, or leave us a review; it's one of the ways that other people find out about the podcast, and that's a hugely appreciated way that you can support us and all of our work on Squiggly Careers.  Thanks so much, everyone, speak to you soon.  Bye.