Welcome to episode #68. We’re thrilled to be joined by Steve Grace today.
Steve Grace is the CEO & Founder of The Nudge Group, empowering high-growth companies to thrive on a global stage with a unique fusion of recruitment expertise and powerful storytelling designed to expand your reach and impact worldwide.
He is also the Founder of Nudge Productions creating high-quality content to tell stories through every medium from creating & managing podcasts in both video & audio, newsletters production & management, photography, and documentary/filmmaking.
And lastly, he is the publisher of both Balance the Grind & Startup Life: Unscripted and host of both the Give it a Nudge and Daily Grind podcasts.
Welcome to the show Steve!
Questions
- Can you tell us about your experience with neurodiversity? I could talk for hours about this, how it affected me mentally, etc and how it affects my work, why I do what I do, etc
- When did you realize that you weren’t neurotypical?
- About 13-14 years old
- Started with a diagnosis of an extreme form of dyslexia.
- What challenges did you face?
- Ridicule, stress, being different
- Accomplished siblings
- What is it like now?
- Love it, I will tell you why
- Still finds it difficult to read. Took a while to read
- Had to learn the shape of every word.
- Finds it difficult to read handwriting.
- Found recruitment because it was all speaking (a lot easier than writing).
- What neuro-exceptional strengths are you leaning into now?
- every single one I can
- Difficult to separate the neurotypical strengths from the idiosyncratic
- Short and sweet communication
- What "work" projects are you concentrating on?
- Recruitment business
- Production Company
- Podcasts:
- Give It A Nudge: features startups
- Daily Grind: hacks to improve diet, exercise, career, sustainability
- Website
- Balance the grind: work-life balance
- Film making
- Filming war games for military startups
- The Pillars: private club
- Founders and family offices get together and build stuff
- The goal is to build 20 Canvas and 5 Atlassians
- Casual club: can wear a t-shirt; avoiding being stuffy. BYO kilt.
- How about the rest of the time? What do you enjoy doing in your off time?
- With my business Balance the Grind balance, is important to me
- Work-life balance looks different to different people.
- Teenagers occasionally want to spend time with him (at the ATM)
- Sport/exercise:
- Exercise 6 days per week
- Keystone habit
- I did a half ironman last year
- I love the ocean, live at Tamarama, learning to surf very late in life
- Media
- Travel (going away on a boat)
- What do you do to optimise productivity during your working hours?
- Get up early (how early - callback on sleep question) - sleep makes a difference to clarity
- Read for 30 minutes (though sometimes gets lured in by phone)
- High performance coffee - “before you speak”
- Green juice (reviewing them for Balance the Grind)
- Breaks up the day with movement (e.g. walk to next meeting for 1hr and make phone calls)
- Don’t spend more than 45 minutes on one task
- Drinking water - gives him a lot of energy
- Planning which I hate,
- Some standard old-school ones like doing what I hate first
- Lo-Fi Beats I am trying
- Breathwork
- Turn email off + keep phone away
- Email yourself notes
- Use Siri to email
- 4 different notebooks
- Candidate interview notes
- Client requirements
- The Daily Grind: research guests beforehand
- Ideas book
- Accountability Meeting
- Monday morning check-in with team
- Not in trouble but feel embarrassed/fulfilled if you do it
- Measurement:
- Woop band
- CGM
- What is some unhelpful productivity advice that doesn’t work for you?
- Focusing on one thing - everything is connected
- “Don’t make lists”
- COMMERCIAL BREAK
- What does your morning routine look like and how has it evolved over time?
- Get up at 5.30 am (earlier in Summer than Winter)
- Solar-powered human (moved from UK to AU for the sun)
- Drink half a bottle of water
- Juice
- Coffee
- Wake up teenagers (x2)
- Read for 15-30 mins (print them out in A4)
- Shower, shave, contacts
- Gym (3x weights, 1x run, 1x swim)
- Protein shake
- Work - no meetings before 11 am
- How is your sleep? How do you switch off at night?
- Goes home around 6 pm
- Check emails
- Work until 7ish
- Dinner
- Work until 9 pm
- Scrolling/bad TV/movies
- Go to bed at 11 pm
- Falls asleep quickly
- Can’t sleep past 7 hours
- Where can people connect with you or find your work?
- Website: https://thenudgegroup.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegrace/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevegraceg/
- Do you have any final words or asks for our audience?
- Lofi music
- Reframe any limiting beliefs
More from Focus Bear:
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Connect with Jeremy:
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nageljeremy
Email: jeremy@focusbear.io
Connect with Joey:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeycorea/
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