#90 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome Daily, Nick Orchard, Performance Coach

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

• What caring in the workplace means for Nick
• How burnout reshaped his life and leadership philosophy
• Practical strategies to shift from exhaustion to sustainable high performance
• How to build momentum without compromising wellbeing
• The mindset shifts that help leaders perform at their best

RESOURCES

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Transcript from the interview

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SPEAKERS

Graeme Cowan, Nick Orchard

Graeme Cowan  00:05

It’s a real pleasure to welcome Nick orchard to the caring CEO. Welcome Nick, thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here. Nick, what does care in the workplace mean to you?

Nick Orchard  00:16

I think it means a few things. I think it means having a strong connection to shared purpose. I think that’s extraordinarily important, and care is a product of that. I think permission to be radically authentic is extraordinarily important and helps people to feel seen and heard and to bring their whole selves to work. I think it also, and I think this increasingly as I go along, but is that there is present in the culture the courage to delegate authority to all levels, and so everyone is bought in and has a really powerful shared sense of ownership on the work. And probably the last thing I would say, and again, I’m coming more to this recently, I think, through research and through conversations with organizations, but it is to have a real shared commitment to get in place the systems and structures that are going to help us to show up as our best selves, to work every day. Yeah, I love all those things you mentioned, very holistic approach. I think it would be helpful for our listeners to know a little bit about your journey, because a little bit unusual. And as a former recruiter, I always used to love finding out, you know, people’s journey and decisions they made, and yours would be what I described as an unusual journey. So yeah, if you’d want to tell our listeners an overview of that’d be fantastic, of course. No, thanks so much for the opportunity. Graeme, so I had a very obscure start to my career. I started my career as a hip hop artist. This was back in 2002 and three. Hip Hop was certainly not a big thing yet in this country, and my parents probably weren’t entirely thrilled, but I had decided to dedicate my career to being a rapper. Nevertheless, that was what I pursued. And so used to go in hip hop battles. They were called so kind of competitions around the country. I was in this band, and we were so bad Graeme like we were awful. It was the most awful music. And my first start with getting media coverage of any kind was that beat magazine, which was once an institution in here in Melbourne, in Victoria, yeah, they wrote a review of my band’s gig, and they wrote a five star review. And we were like, like, we saw the five stars. Like, yes, I can’t believe it. And I said, What an incredible, amazing satire of hip hop. Like, hilarious. These guys are great. Everyone go and say them, but we were trying to be funny. We were being dead serious. So that was like, that was pretty cutting. So not a fantastic rapper, but did get the opportunity to teach in remote communities and teach rapping as part of my job, but it was because it wasn’t a particularly lucrative career that I’d chosen. I did get to a point where I didn’t have much money coming in, and I was really struggling to make ends meet, and ended up in a scenario where I didn’t have anywhere to live. And I had a trick back then, which was I would go down Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, which was where I that would have been my regular haunt, and I would try to find anyone I knew. And after the last tram had gone like I missed my tram home, even though I didn’t have a home to be going to, Can I crash at your place? They’d let me go and crash on their couch or their floor. I kept that up for a few months, and then got to a point where I had a night where I couldn’t find anywhere to stay that night. So I wandered around for the night. It was a bit scary. And I on my friend’s recommendation, who worked for a homelessness organization, he recommended that I should go into the organization that was there then called home ground, which is now a part of a bigger organization called launch. And I went in to get a referral to I thought they’d just like get me a place or something. I was pretty naive. And the woman who was my case manager said, look, I can get you in somewhere tonight, but that somewhere will be the gap wick in St Kilda. The gap week was like a notorious, like, kind of housing spot in St Kilda. And she said, Now is the time that if you have any other levers you can pull, if there’s anywhere else you can go, it’s time to go there, because a young man should not be going to this place, like, that’s not going to be good for you. And I went down just to check it out. Down fit Torre Strait, and saw there was a pretty scary crew of people kind of combatting out the France. I was like, Oh, I’m like, really nervous. And just went for a bit of a walk to kind of clear my head, and I got a phone call during this time, and it was the same phone number that I didn’t know that it called me a bunch of times in the previous few weeks, but I didn’t have any phone credit, so I couldn’t call them back. Anyway, I picked up, and it turned out to be a guy who I didn’t know, but who knew me. Called John Favaro, and John was the bass player in our. Famous Australian band called The bad loves from back in the day, and he was one of a microscopic percentage of the population who had ever seen me perform. And John said, I’ve started a nonprofit, or I’m part of a nonprofit called Living music, and we mentor young men at risk of contact with the justice system, and we help them using hip hop as a tool of engagement or music as a tool of engagement. And we’d love for you to come and be one of our mentors, and we will pay you, or be a paid role, to mentor these young men. I was like, great. Like, does it start tomorrow? And he was like, No, it starts at like, a month. I was like, I’m in this really hard situation right now. And I shared my situation, and he said, I’ll tell you what, I’m just going to advance you the money, like you just take the money for the term and go and sort yourself out and just be committed. And that was the start of my career, Graeme, and ended up spending a lot of weary nonprofit and government

Graeme Cowan  05:54

Kind gesture wasn’t

Nick Orchard  05:55

That was extraordinary. I still get to see John around every now and again and express relentless gratitude, which is having none of every time. But I’m very grateful to that man.

Graeme Cowan  06:06

And it didn’t feel right to go back and stay with your parents. You didn’t feel comfortable to do that.

Nick Orchard  06:12

I think my mum, at the time, wasn’t in a situation where that was possible. She was share housing my I had stayed at my dad’s place for a while. They had a baby who was my little brother, but big age gap. He was 21 years younger than me. And I lived at a tent in their backyard for a little while, but they weren’t super enamored with the hip hop lifestyle I was living at the time. And so that, and like in truth, I could have had a hard conversation, probably, but I was too stubborn at the time to make that happen, I think.

Graeme Cowan  06:41

And so getting back to your career, you started with this, not profit. How did that proceed?

Nick Orchard  06:48

So I went from mentoring young people during this time to teaching hip hop in remote communities, and then moving into getting very passionate about First Nations Health, and got the opportunity to work for the Victorian Aboriginal community controlled Health Organization, the peak body for Aboriginal Health. Well, I did my studies and got to work there. Worked as a team leader there for some time in the team overseeing social, emotional well being. And it was my first aspect of the caring CEO. Was my first experience of a truly incredible like amazing CEO in Jill Gallagher, who has gone on to do incredible things in Victoria, in terms of treaty and many other amazing pursuits, but just the most astonishing human and astonishing writer.

Graeme Cowan  07:34

So what? How did that translate to how she worked with you and others? What did she do or say that made her really stand out from other ladies you’d been with before.

Nick Orchard  07:46

Despite the fact that there was organizational hierarchy in house, there was no hierarchy in how Jill engaged with her team members, her staff, everyone was equal, everyone we started this off and I mentioned delegated authority, everyone had a level of delegated authority in their roles to show leadership. Their opinions and insights were just as important as each other’s, but kept everyone so beautifully connected to this shared sense of purpose around community control, within Aboriginal health organizations, within Victoria, and just that absolute connection to self determination at all times for that sector. And it was just so passionately part of everything we spoke about and part of our values. And it was just incredible to see someone with such finessing storytelling ability lead an organization.

Graeme Cowan  08:41

Yeah, there’s been a common thread with senior leaders that I’ve interviewed on this podcast. And one of the things they there’s really three things. The first is to really promote a sense of belonging. They care about belonging and people feeling part of it. And when you say, I belong. It’s a fundamental human need, and it’s hard to be a good representative of the organization if you don’t have that sense. The second is to lead with psychological safety, and that really is about not having hierarchical it’s really about encouraging people to be their authentic selves. No one had to pretend who they were. And it’s also encouraging people to try new things and to see how they go. And then the final the third element is, you know, growing together, and that’s really encouraging each other, having each other’s

back, and that nucleus really leads to great results. And, you know, even those terms weren’t even probably around with your IT WAS Jill. Was it with Jill on? Yes, you know, that’s exactly what she was doing. By the sound of it,

Nick Orchard  09:49

She was absolutely remarkable. And I must say, I’ve been very blessed in my career to work with many great leaders, but Jill has always stood out, as you know, the first CEO and the best CEO I ever had the other. To really observe up close.

Graeme Cowan  10:02

And then you transitioned into Victorian Public Service. Is that right?

Nick Orchard  10:07

I did. I worked for the Department of Health for a period of time as a manager there, and then was granted this extraordinary opportunity, which was the Brotherhood of St Lawrence. You know, essentially had a conversation with me about moving in to manage this amazing, beautiful, bespoke youth homelessness service, like world leading youth homelessness service being built and opened in Broadmeadows called the education first youth foyer, this gorgeous, like 40 bedroom, 40 apartment facility that was intentionally built around this idea of really, absolutely respecting the young people who live there and their talents, and this inherent belief in the idea that it’s the talents of young people who come to live in this space that will be their key to moving into independent living, but also living fabulous lifestyles. And had this incredible opportunity to work on that. And also a national youth employment service with two remarkable, or three remarkable people, really, one being Tony Nicholson, who was the CEO at the time, another really amazing, strategic CEO, but Professor, Shelley mellitt, who is the professorial fellow of Social Policy at Melbourne University, or at least she was, and Sally James, who was a an executive in there who oversaw the program, and what absolute commitment, again, to the empowerment of teams, to a sense of shared purpose around doing something radically different in the youth homelessness and youth employment space, and to really using that as part of a campaign to change the entire sector and game. And it really changed my mindset around the value of campaign within systems change work.

Graeme Cowan  11:44

You said before that you really helped young people discover their talents. Was there a formal process for that? You know now we have things like Strengths Finder and the via assessment. How did you help them to identify their talents and strengths?

Nick Orchard  12:00

So we had this really intentional model that was based around a series of service offers that the young people would engage in and find that talent in, around employment, education, civic participation, health and wellbeing and independent living. But it’s so interesting. Graeme, the first question, so when we would do an assessment with young people when they come in, and it was certainly unlike any other assessment they’d ever done. We would go, we would kick back in the kind of lounge room area, and the first question was, what are you good at? And a lot of these young people had never once in their lives been asked that question. And the like, it’s making the emotional talking about it, but the

emotional response it would bring out of them to be asked, What are you good at? After a year, years and years, sometimes a lifetime, of being booted around or told that they’re not worthy, was just remarkable when it started a journey that will be up to two years. And I always remember this moment where we had, there was a young man. So we had young people with all sorts of things going on, and there was a young man who was a young man who was very unwell. He was having, like, a really serious schizophrenic episode one night, and was really in an extraordinarily bad way. And I was walking around with him, it was the middle of the night, just kind of keeping him company and trying to keep him safe. And I said to him at one point, do you know why I’m here? Like, it’s two in the morning, my my wife is pregnant and she’s at home, but I’m here with you. Do you know why that is? And even through this really challenging episode he was going through, he looked at me dead in the eye, and he said, because you hold me in high regard. And that was the moment where I was very sure the model works.

Graeme Cowan  13:39

Yeah, yeah. And there’s very robust research around talents and strengths. You know, for example, gallop has a Clifton Strengths Finder, and there’s 34 strengths all up. But what they’ve found is that if you use your top five strengths every day, it’s also talents. In fact, it’s more talents, because you need to work on your talents to turn them into strengths. But what they found, if you work on your top five talents every day, you’re 600% more likely to be engaged in your work and 300% more likely to report high life satisfaction. And I’m sure you saw that. You know, saw that result when people did understand what they were good at and then started to focus in that area

Nick Orchard  14:25

100% that is so cool. I love that framing. By the way. Graeme, I didn’t know that. That’s amazing, and it brings me such hard, because there’s a process like quite often I work with people nowadays who are in a space where they’ve lost a sense of what it is that they bring, or why they’re doing the jobs they’re doing, or what they have to offer. And there’s this particular process, which we call the USP, but rather than the unique selling proposition, it’s the unicorn story proposition like which is I get them to jot down, what are the five talents or skills that you have? But not that other people say or care about the ones that you hold in the highest regard. Like, what are the ones that you go it’s pretty cool that I can do that. What are the five things that you’re most passionate about in the world, and what are the five parts of your story that feel most important to you? And if you can nail what’s at the center of that and how you let that show up at work every day, the power is extraordinary.

Graeme Cowan  15:23

Yeah, I have a good friend, Richard Buller, and he’s the chief purpose officer at KPMG.

Nick Orchard  15:30

Listen, I listen to his podcast. I listen to that. All right, so cool with you. It was fabulous, by the way, chief purpose officer. What a fantastic role,

Graeme Cowan  15:41

yeah, but he’s a good mate. We do walk regularly, usually every Thursday morning, sometimes in person, sometimes virtually, with just our air pods in but he’s now over a year into that project of

encouraging individuals to discover their purpose and then to see how it relates to Team purpose and organizational purpose. And I think, when we are in such a disruptive time and there’s so much uncertainty, rate of change is really unbelievable. It gives you a guide, you know, basically, to when choices come up. You know, does this help me follow my purpose or take me away? And it’s a very good filter, I think, to look through the things and options at carpent life,

Nick Orchard  16:26

that is such a cool filter. Did you ever hear Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech?

Graeme Cowan  16:33

I don’t think I have. So

Nick Orchard  16:35

Neil Gaiman, amazing fantasy writer, wrote Coraline and wrote American Gods, and has written lots of things, his fabulous writer, and just a very interesting dude in general, but he gave this remarkable commencement speech called Make good art, and it’s my favorite thing. I listen to it like once every few weeks. But he has this like, lovely analogy in there, when he was early in his career, and he wanted to be the writer of books and graphic novels, but knew he had to take jobs along the way. So for each job, he would think of being an author and writing these things as his mountain, which was in the distance. For each job, he’d say, Is this going to move me closer to that mountain or take me further away? Because he could take the jobs in copywriting or in being a journalist, which would help him be economical with his writing and his words, or he could take that management role, but then he’s not writing anymore and he’s not working on his craft. I thought that’s so beautiful and really similar.

Graeme Cowan  17:29

And how do you spell Gaiman,

Nick Orchard  17:31

G, A, I m, a, n,

Graeme Cowan  17:33

oh, that’s how I spelled it.

Nick Orchard  17:35

Wonderful.

Graeme Cowan  17:36

Oh, definitely check that out. I’d like to move forward a little bit, and your role at the Department of Education, and you had a wellbeing role there. How did that come about? And how did, what did you do in that position?

Nick Orchard  17:52

Sure, I came into the Department of Education, initially into the Higher Education and Skills area, but then became an executive overseeing essentially engaging students at risk, was the name of the

Sure, I came into the Department of Education, initially into the Higher Education and Skills area, but then became an executive overseeing essentially engaging students at risk, was the name of the branch, and so we oversaw all of the policy programs and kind of design things to support young people who are at risk in the school system. But that was as broad as young people at risk of disengagement, through the young people who might have been in out of home care, young people in contact with the justice system, but even some kind of scope around culturally and linguistically diverse young people as well. And it was trying to Yeah, and it was interesting coming in there, because initially that was just like a bunch of programs and things. And so it was a beautiful exercise to be able to work with everyone around what is the story we’re telling here with this work? How do these elements fit into a singular narrative which is really powerful, and it’s going to help be our kind of organizing logic or principle for driving really powerful change for young people in Victoria. And it’s pretty rare within government to be able to get kind of a mission mindset to that extent. But I was totally blessed to have a team of people in there who were very passionate and very down for the cause and who were very bought in to making that narrative possible. So it was a really powerful role, but one that I learned some really poor work habits along my journey that were very much driven by beliefs. I had a really strong sense of imposter syndrome. I had come from being a rapper into doing these kind of obscure things, and suddenly I was a very senior bureaucrat. And I was I was scared every day. I was terrified of failing. I somehow had embedded within me this idea that if I was anything less than excellent, then I was worthless and maybe not even worthy of love. I think if I am being real about how my mind used to work through those things, and I never felt as smart as a lot of my colleagues, so I believe that I had to outwork them. And I was like, I could that’s what I could do. That’s my talent. I can outwork anyone like I’m down to go seven days a week. I care about this work, and I’m ready to push in. And after covid hit in 2020 our role got a little different, which was part of our role was to send all of the young people in Victoria home and make sure they’re safe at home where they’ve been schooled, which was extraordinarily tricky. And then we also had a role in kind of supporting after the hard lockdown of the North Melbourne and Flemington flats, which was a really challenging scenario to support families who were locked down in that environment, and I made a really poor decision Graeme during that time, which was I was working probably 18 hour days, seven days a week, and I wasn’t I was I felt like I was still under and I was scared to ask for more help, and so I decided to stop sleeping for a few days, like it was an active decision. I was running on adrenaline anyway. I was like, I’ll be fine. I’m going to stop sleeping for a few days and just get on top of everything, and then I’ll be okay. And on the second day, I started finding emails that I’d sent which were perfectly fine, emails, totally reasonable, well well written, but I didn’t remember sending them, and had this eerie sense that someone else had sent them. And then the day after that, I was chairing an executive meeting with all my cross government colleagues, and during the meeting, I blinked, and when my eyes opened again, I was in my car, driving it over 130 kilometers an hour on the wrong side of the road. I live in Belgrave, which is kind of in the bush on the outskirts of Melbourne, and it was between here and another small town called Callista. So really, through the middle of the bush, driving extremely fast. Had it not been during lockdown, I fear other people would have been on the road. I don’t know what would have happened, but I had no idea how I got in there, pulled over, had a bit of a cry, and my hands stopped shaking enough to check my phone, and I saw the two hours had passed, and I had no idea what had happened. When I got home, I found out that, apparently I had ended that meeting totally normally, I, like even sent out minutes afterwards. I don’t know how I got in the car or what happened, but to this date, I remember none of that, and asked for a leave of absence. But then was, after years of pushing through, left with this really awful space to go if I’m not this person who can push through, who can go hard, who can, you know, achieve this mission, then, who am I and what am I worth? And that was a very hard conversation to have with myself.

mission, then, who am I and what am I worth? And that was a very hard conversation to have with myself.

Graeme Cowan  22:28

Yeah. And how did you start to address the imposter syndrome? How did you start to plan a new life going forward?

Nick Orchard  22:39

I, you know, the first month was extraordinarily challenging, I have to say, and I really grappled with it. Something that started to change things for me was a realization that it’s not all about work and purpose in how we go about our work and how we show up. It is we are led or we you know, the system or the way that we talk about work has us believe that, but actually, it’s so powerfully informed by our sense of self and identity and also so powerfully informed by the way we live our broader lives, our communities, our families, exercise, health, nutrition, rest, all of these things that we so rarely think About in the workplace as I had thought of time forever, as being this thing that was just like a modular slot, like I can just fill my calendar up with 12 hours a day, and then that’s just what I’ll do, and I’ll get after it, not thinking like actually, like rest might make me more efficient or better at those things, but trying to get to the heart of Having a deep held respect for the person who I am, yep, a love for the person who I am, and a belief in the person I am, and an understanding of the talents and attributes that I bring, was the hardest step, and was the first step in healing and being able to come back.

Graeme Cowan  23:59

And how did you start to do that? Was that sort of affirmations? Was it journaling or writing? What helped you to reset?

Nick Orchard  24:09

I did a lot of journaling, absolutely, a lot of meditation. I did affirmations. I did everything you could possibly imagine. But actually it’s, this will sound funny, but the thing that ended up working for me was, I’m a walker. I love walking. I live in the bush. I would go for walks, and I would just kind of chat to myself on the walk. But there was something about talking out loud that helped me be able to process things and be able to say the things that I was too scared to say to anyone else, but just to say them out loud. And I found that over time, they would start to find order in my brain and things that I would say that were really harsh and really self deprecating. If they just lived inside of me, they would kind of cling on and become beliefs. Once they were out of my mouth, I would go, Oh. Like, if someone else spoke to me that way about themselves, I would call them on it immediately. And there was something about. But began to hear them with my ears that helped me be able to work through them and start calling BS on myself about some of those things, and starting to try to find a warmer and realer space to operate from.

Graeme Cowan  25:13

In my new book great leaders, care, there’s a part in self care which is about mindset, and one of the people whose work I share is Dr Christine neffs, and she wrote a book called self compassion, and has done lots of studies around other people taking it on, but it exactly addresses what you described. You

know, we say to ourselves something we would never say to a good friend who is struggling. And the interesting thing is that self compassion has all the upside of self esteem, but none of the downside.

Nick Orchard  25:50

Yes, it’s so true.

Graeme Cowan  25:53

So the downside is self esteem is you’re up yourself, you know, you just you’re arrogant, you know, you see, it’s a win lose situation, and to be honest, it’s very stressful. With being easy on yourself. It allows you to reset, but it also shows and she has, you know, studies that reveal this, that you know you’re much better at work, much better at working in a team if you do practice self compassion. And that you know, if we practice self compassion within a great place to practice compassion, as I’m sure you’ve experienced.

Nick Orchard  26:26

It’s so powerful. I absolutely love that quote, and I can’t wait to read your book as well. I’m, like, very excited about it. I another really formative moment I think, during this period, was, Are you familiar with Jerry colonna? Is a you would love Jerry koloda. He’s this, like amazing executive coach, but he’s kind of one of the pioneers of radical self inquiry for executives. Really interesting to you guys would share many philosophies. He’s great, but he has this really powerful question that I came across, and I asked myself a lot, and the question is, how am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want? So it’s such a ripper, and it’s a hard one to answer, like that’s a real look yourself in the mirror moment, because it’s not accepting full responsibility, and it is accepting that I have a role in this, like I am buying into this, even if I’m being asked to do something, if I’m just saying yes, and I’m not having a real conversation and I’m about what a different boundary might be, or what a different way, if I’m not asserting some leadership in being able to put forward a different way of being, then actually I’m contributing to this space that is burning me out or is putting me in a really bad way?

Graeme Cowan  27:42

Yeah, that’s a great question. And at the end of the day, we do have to be responsible for our lives. We’ve played a role in getting, you know, where we are. Basically, what was the what led to the transition from a safe job, you know, in the public service, to becoming self employed. I was

Nick Orchard  28:02

so passionate Graeme about supporting other people who had gone through a similar journey to me. And I think it was interesting. As soon as I had been through that experience, people started to approach Wix are very open about it, which was probably a little unusual in government as well. Those sort of things. Normally, someone will take a leave of absence for a couple of months, and they come back, and we never talk about what really occurred there. But I had some lovely leaders who were really supportive of me, being very open about it, and people started to seek me out and started to want to have conversations about it. And I had trained as a coach a decade earlier, and coaching was a strong part of our model in the youth homelessness service and the youth employment services, and so I found myself entering into these sort of coaching relationships with people at work. And it just felt really powerful when we could start having those Convos that are a little beyond the scope of, you

know, I’m coming here with my to do list that’s stressing me out. To it said I’m coming to this conversation to have a really holistic Convo about how I understand the story of myself and my work, how I understand my sense of identity and purpose in the context of my work, and how I understand how the life I’m living outside of work is driving the person who’s showing up. And once we got to broaden that scope, these are the Convos leaders are scared to have. They’re like, I can’t talk to people about what’s going on at home, you know? But actually, it’s extraordinarily powerful, the result, once there’s permission to have those sort of that depth of conversation. And I just got so passionate, and I felt like, if I’m real about wanting to create systemic change coaching, but coaching in a way that is around changing the way that we literally work in workplaces has to be a part of that.

Graeme Cowan  29:45

Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s fantastic. What does your week look like now? How do you spend your week? What a

Nick Orchard  29:52

great question. It’s it changes a little from week to week I have because there’s kind of two elements to my role, which is, I do spend. Specific coaching of leaders are really focused a lot on middle leaders, which is where the research tells us burnout quite often emanates from. We have these fabulous, amazing, talented practitioners, but who’ve never actually been taught how to lead, necessarily. And there tends to be that scenario of they hold a lot of the work themselves and start doing it they don’t quite know how to delegate or empower and burnout not only occurs with them, but can become somewhat contagious with their team and the broader organization. So I do lots of work with teams and individuals in that space, as well as the executives they work to, and that role is partially around coaching and partially around design, so building in systems to support our middle leadership, who, by the way, you know, 75% of middle leaders experience burnout at some point. So strong incentive there to do so. But so not only do we reduce burn over burnout related turnover, but we also increase performance gains, turnover like that. So big savings to be had and big gains to be made in performance. And so my week, quite often, will be one to two sort of deep dive sessions with an organization where I’m kind of in and working with them really closely. And then the other day is coaching appointments or writing. I have the lovely pleasure of writing an email that I send out to a list every week, which is my favorite endeavor called five minute refresh. And I love taking some time to kind of craft that every week, writing has always been one

Graeme Cowan  31:26

of my favorite things, lovely, lovely. And I know that you talk about broccoli time, broccoli time, what is that?

Nick Orchard  31:36

Ah, thank you. Yeah, so broccoli time has been a total game changer for me, like a life changing thing, and it is for all of my clients as well. And actually it was something that I used in my leadership back in the day when I was an executive as well, which is ring fencing, like religiously, ring fencing the first 15 to 30 minutes of every single day. And if we think of an Eisenhower matrix, for example, and we think of the things that are in that matrix so often, like we’re just drawn. We’re first up at work. We’re hitting the emails. We’re doing the stuff that’s urgent and important. We’re getting it out of the way. But that stuff

that is important but not urgent, we’re always missing. So we’ve ring fence this time for starting and finishing a task which has something to do with our long term goals. And so it’s called broccoli time, because, like, broccoli is a bite sized investment in our long term physical health. Broccoli time is a bite sized investment in the long term health and wellbeing of our important goals. And so getting people to spend that time, and it aligns beautifully with this Harvard piece of research that Professor Theresa Amabile put out, which I love, the power of small wins, which is by starting a thing and finish a thing, finishing a thing each day, which is important and connected to a sense of purpose, we’ll see extraordinary performance and well being gains over time. And so people might go, how much of a difference can half an hour make? But that purposeful half an hour, you’ve won the day by 930, or nine in the morning, you’re already crushing it. But also it just stacks over time to amazing gains in progress and in just a sense of momentum.

Graeme Cowan  33:17

I do something like your broccoli time, but it’s just got a boring name, like me time. It is about, you know, getting up. I typically get up at 535, 45 and meditate for 15 minutes, and then I have identified my 5c the things that I want to do well, and that’s caring. It’s being centered, it’s curious, it’s constructive, and it’s chuckling, not taking life. That is cool. So usually I choose one of those for a week, and so I then think about, how can I apply this week? This week? How can I do something helpful or useful for someone else, and then the next decision is, out of all the things you’ve got on, what would have the biggest impact if you just finished one thing that day? So again, lots of overlap with yourself and that approach, but it is quite remarkable how we can be endlessly busy but not productive.

Nick Orchard  34:20

Ah, absolutely, absolutely. And it’s so frustrating. And, like, quite often I’ll go into work with teams, and you look at the calendars, I always go the calendar first, and I’ve been meetings from 8am to 6pm I can’t possibly get anything else done. It’s like, okay, well, like, let’s just immediately cut 50% of your time in meetings. I don’t care how you do it, like they’re not all important enough to be in there all the time. What’s the most important thing that you could be working on at the moment? How can you cut 50% of your team’s time at a meetings? And the answers are usually delegated authority, getting rid of duplication, empowering people in their roles, and taking a coaching approach and. And suddenly it’s like, oh, it’s like magic. I’ve got all this time, and I can be working on the things that are most important today, and checking in and finding space for creativity. I am such a proponent. I know you are too of flow flow theory, and it’s we always forget what it takes to get into flow state. We go, ah, like, I really wish I was in my flow state. The flow takes immersion and then detachment to be able to reach a flow state and to be able to enter into that space. But we forget the power of detachment, getting that space in for getting stuff done, getting some momentum, but also finding some breathing room is so powerful for

Graeme Cowan  35:36

momentum, and you can’t do that in 20 minutes. You know, you need a longer period of time to work on important stuff, and so I’m not always successful. I really strive to have no meetings in the morning. And you know, that’s dedicated. Last year was dedicated to writing the book and that sort of stuff. But, you know, concentrated effort. Can’t remember his name there, but there’s a guy who wrote a book called deep work as well. Oh yeah,

Nick Orchard  36:04

yeah, I love it. Yeah.

Graeme Cowan  36:07

Cal Newport, that’s right. And yeah, just how important have, like, two or three hours to make significant progress on something important. Nick, you mentioned a few people today that had quite a influence on you. You know your CEO, Jill. You mentioned Neil Gaiman and his TED talk. You mentioned Jerry Cologna. Are there other books or people or speeches that have had a significant impact on who you are and how you work?

Nick Orchard  36:41

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. Absolutely. Have you read Steven pressfield’s book, The War of Art? Ah, Graeme, this book is going to change your life. You are going to love this. So it’s the most beautiful book. It’s a tiny it’s like a 30 minute reader. I would have given away 100,000 copies of this book in my time, like it’s so great. It’s and it’s mirrors the art of war in its structure, but it’s about the War of Art, and it paints this concept of resistance that we all face. And he’s an author, he talks a lot about it in the context of authoring. I’m sure you may have faced this in your time writing your book over the last year, but he quantifies this idea of resistance as being almost like two magnets facing up to each other. So the closer you get to a powerful breakthrough or achieving something really exciting or important, or pursuing an important mission, you’ll feel that thing that repels you at that point. And it’s like it could be as small as I’m meant to be writing, but I feels really nice, like I might just go and get a coffee down the street. That’s gonna make me better at writing. Like I get a good write better after I have, like, a nice latte from the shop. Or it could be something really extreme, like, I’m not good enough and people are going to laugh at me, and so I shouldn’t do this thing, or I should just stay in my box. And that the relentless pursuit of moving towards resistance at all costs is such a powerful tool. And actually, in my recovery and in my work, gearing people towards moving towards resistance is the single most powerful tool that I’ve come across. I’ll definitely

Graeme Cowan  38:15

check that out. Sounds. Sounds really fascinating. It’s been great catching up Nick I can’t believe how quick our time has been, but I always finish with the same question, which is, what do you know now that you wish you knew when you were 20, your 20 year old self? So when you consider yourself homeless on the street or virtually homeless, what advice would you give that 20 year old with your knowledge? Now, it’s a really

Nick Orchard  38:48

beautiful question. I would love to go back to that young man and just tell him that he’s enough because I spent so much of my time and my bandwidth pursuing approval and pursuing positive feedback and hiding from any sort of constructive feedback, and trying to hide from myself. I would hide, at the time, behind alcohol. I would hide behind, you know, trying to just forget what was going on, but instead to believe in myself and to know that I’m enough and that I don’t need to be anything for anyone else. And the other thing I’m a really big fan of the hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick Lamar is a fascinating dude. My my beautiful 10 year old daughter Coco, is now a huge fan of his too, which is cool. And he

had this lovely quote I heard a while ago about the pursuit of craft, and it was not to pursue accolades or not to pursue, you know, any other bright, flashy things, or not to be in a hurry, but just by going deep and committing to craft, whatever your craft is, and whatever you do that the product of that will always be fabulous in the things you’re maybe hoping for. But it comes from letting go of those and just going very deep on a commitment to craft. And I think what comes of a commitment to craft is healthy habits, a lifestyle that’s conducive to a pretty small target focus, and that allows that spaciousness we’ve been talking about, and I would love that young man to have experienced that, because he didn’t until he was 38 years old?

Graeme Cowan  40:21

Yeah, well, that’s great advice for you, but also for all of us, that we are enough, and you know that once again, is in that sort of self compassion category as well, you know, just appreciating what we are and not regretting what we’re not. Yeah, I once, I once heard someone say, and I can’t remember his name, but he was very successful technology investor, and he said he suffered a lot by comparison comparing himself to other people, and was always found wanting. But what changed it for him is that if you do aspire to be like that person, you can’t just choose one part of their life. You can’t just choose wealth, you know, for example, Elon Musk, you know, wow, Could everyone have more money? But if you do that, you realize he’s also got 10 kids from six different you know, I can’t begin to imagine how hard that would be, but you can’t want to copy one element of a person. It has to be, you know, the whole person.

Nick Orchard  41:23

It’s very true. That is sage advice. And Graeme, just before we wrap, I just want to say you inspired me so much as well during my recovery, really, genuinely, I found your story, and it is surreal to me that we’re talking to each other today, but I’m so grateful to you for leading the extraordinary advocacy that you have over the last 20 years in this space where we’re so lucky for that, and I genuinely believe this country and the way that we work is a much different place as a result of your advocacy. So thank you. I really mean that.

Graeme Cowan  41:54

Thanks, Nick, that means a lot. Thanks for being part of the caring CEO. Thank you.

Graeme Cowan  42:00

Thanks for joining us today. We hope you’re inspired to strive for a culture of care that also leads to great results. If you’ve enjoyed this interview today, please rate us on your favorite podcast platform, and don’t forget to subscribe so that you don’t miss an episode. We also welcome any comments. If you’re interested in seeing details about our scalable WeCare \365 mental health training programs, please visit us at WeCARE365.com.au, our goal is to make these programs accessible, practical and ongoing. You can also find me, Graeme Cowan, on LinkedIn, and I’d love to hear from you. And finally, if you’ve come across a senior leader who has impressed you and you think they’d be a great guest, please email us at support at WeCARE365.com.au, thanks. Once again for listening today.

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