The Extraordinary Business Book Club

'When I went into [writing a book], people were telling me, oh, it's going to be so lonely. you're going to lock yourself in a room... nothing could be further from the truth. This was the most collaborative process from day one.' If you want to do work that matters, the unavoidable truth is that you're going to need to collaborate with others at some point. And that can be the most joyful, creative, energising experience.... but very often it isn't.  What IS it about collaboration that's so damn hard? Turns out that even with the best collaboration tools and project processes, in the end it all comes down to relationships. The good news is that you can learn to collaborate better, and Deb Mashek has spent years researching exactly how to help you do that.  The other good news is that you can bring those collaboration skills to the process of writing your book, and make it not only better but more fun along the way. Find out how....  

It's easy to get caught up in the fluff - in work and life. Whether it's focusing on the font family rather than the purpose behind the brand, the endless social media scroll rather than the deep thinking we know we'd rather be doing, or the drive to answer just one more email rather than stopping to rest, we're all guilty of losing sight of the really important stuff.  In this Best Bits episode, I look back over my recent conversations and pick out some insights from these extraordinary thinkers and writers on how we can - and indeed must - focus on what really matters. With contributions from:  Tessa Misiaszek on branding; Phil Barden on goals; Ollie Henderson on the relationship between work and life; Joy Burnford on writing as a route to deep thinking;  Alison Jones (hello) on the passion behind the writing;  Bec Evans on finding what works;  Rob Orchard on being infatuated with what you're doing; Mark Leruste on why YOUR story matters; and Sarah Sparks on why YOU matter, and why you need to look after yourself.  Food for thought, indeed. 

'I'd done a lot of reps before I started writing the book, and that helped enormously.' Ollie Henderson would like to talk to you about work-life balance. Specifically, he'd like you to understand that you will NEVER reach a state of perfect equilibrium, so why beat yourself up about it? Instead, he'd like you to consider the idea of work and life as a flywheel, working together, moving you forward.  In this conversation, he shares some deeply personal insights about what that has meant for him, and also how he pivoted not just his work/life but his approach to writing as a way of exploring ideas and building community. If you're considering starting a newsletter, launching a podcast or writing a book in 2023, this is for you. 

'How can you get to more people beyond coaching courses and beyond webinars? Well, you write a book.' Bec Evans and Chris Smith met in a bookshop and have worked with books, writing and authors ever since. As co-founders of Prolifiko they coach writers to be more productive, and as co-authors of Written: How to Keep Writing and Build a Habit That Lasts they have made their experience and expertise available for anyone who needs it.  But writing about writing is perhaps the most cripplingly tricky kind of writing - and writing with your life partner is a make-or-break relationship strategy. In this week's conversation we unpick the personal and professional strands behind their writing journey, and the importance of Peggy, their labradoodle, in holding it all together. 

'Slow journalism for us was just a way of encapsulating that feeling that when you take your time, you can do something more quality.' In a media landscape dominated by the white-hot, reactive world of social media and rolling news, it can be hard to keep a sense of perspective. That's why a small group of editors decided to do something revolutionary: create a form of journalism that deliberately avoided breaking news, but instead focused on looking back to identify the real significance of events several months after they'd happened, once the dust had settled. Throw in high-quality production values and sophisticated infographics, and you have Delayed Gratification, the flagship publication of the slow journalism movement.  Independent publishing - of books or magazines - is famously financial precarious, and in this conversation we explore the bloody-mindedness and vision that lies behind it and the joy it brings to those brave and foolish enough to take it on, and why the world needs those brave fools so badly. 

'If you give your brain a question, it can't help but go looking for answers. That's how we are designed. And when you know that, you suddenly think, well, all my job is, really, is to come up with the good questions, isn't it?' In a gratifying plot twist, I become the guest on my own podcast as Grace Marshall asks me all the tough questions about my own new book, Exploratory Writing: Everyday magic for life and work.  How can one of our simplest, oldest technologies - the pen on the page - be the solution to our most pressing 21st-century problems? Discover why just 6 minutes of this deceptively simple off-line, off-grid, off-piste practice turns out to be a powerful tool for better thinking, creativity, and wellbeing, and even diversity and inclusion within organizations.  Plus some thoughts on the crippling embarrassment of being a publisher who can't nail the structure for her own book... 

'Your story is about you, but it's not for you. Someone, somewhere woke up this morning needing to hear your story to not feel alone.' For most of us, it's hard for us to see how our personal story fits into our professional life. But Mark Leruste believes that your personal story is the 'emotional glue' that makes sense of everything you do in the world, and people need to hear it.  In this fascinating conversation, we discuss not only how you find and own your story, but how you use it for good in the service of others as a business book writer. He also reveals how he designed his own book, Glow in the Dark, as a Trojan Horse for a much deeper message.... 

'We are designed for acute episodes of stress, but what we're not designed for is chronic episodes of stress. That's stress after stress after stress, and that's what most people are living with, day in day out.' Looking back, Sarah Sparks can see that her body was trying to tell her there was a problem. But she didn't listen: she kept on working crazy hours under immense pressure while trying to be the perfect new wife, and eventually her body stepped in to give her a message she couldn't ignore: she collapsed and was hospitalized with burnout.  Since then she's made it her mission to stop other people getting to that place, with her STOP model for combatting chronic stress. As she developed her model she realised the next logical step was to face her fear of writing: the result was an award-winning book. 

Ever wondered why people don't immediately shout 'Of course!' and shake you warmly by the hand when you share your new idea with them? It's because we find new ideas hard to take on board, especially when they contradict things we've believed up until now. So how as a writer can you help people get past that initial negative reflex and take your ideas on board?  Marketer Phil Barden experienced this for himself, when he discovered that everything he thought he knew about advertising was wrong. In this week's conversation he shares how what he learned about how decision science transformed his own approach to marketing, and also how you as an author can help your readers take your ideas on board more effectively. 

'How do I .. move from being a curator to a creator? That was a big shift for me, and I think I got there in the end.' People often talk about the value of the finished book - for the author and for the reader. Less talked-about is the value of the process of writing: the connections you make as you research and discuss the ideas, the deepening of your thinking, the shift that you make as an author from consuming and curating other people's opinions to setting out your own.  Joy Burnford has been a 'curator of confidence' for many years, researching how women in particular build and sustain confidence at work, and developing her own in the process. But she realised that this is only one part of the equation: no matter how confident the woman, if the system at work is stacked against her, she cannot make the contribution of which she is capable. And when that happens, everyone loses out.  A fascinating conversation on gender equality in the workplace, but also on how writing a book doesn't just change those who read it, but its author too.