Gill Moakes (00:01.146)
Ian, hi! Thank you so much for joining me. How are you?
Ian (00:05.358)
Hey Jill, good to be with you on the Heads Together podcast. Great to be here.
Gill Moakes (00:09.818)
Thank you. I have been very excited to have this conversation with you for two reasons. One, you have already achieved one of my bucket listings, which is to write a book. And I am just, I want to hear so much more about that. But also, you have also spoken at
one of the do lectures, I believe, in the past, which is another thing that I'm absolutely desperate to go to at some point. So I'm curious about all of those things. But I wonder, can we kick off by you just introducing yourself and telling the listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Ian (00:53.838)
Yes, thank you, Jill. You know, it's funny, isn't it? Some of us have careers that are very linear and we have a job title and others have careers that are kind of adventures that go all over the place and the hard to nail in a LinkedIn kind of biography. And I'm certainly in the latter. I've had a very interesting kind of 30 year career working in organizations. Now I work for myself, have done for two decades and I'm a storyteller.
creative consultant, coach, and author. Most of my work is around storytelling, helping the world of business tell stories. But I also run some webinars on redesigning our work day, the small changes we can make every day in order to have a better day at work. So I'm very keen on how we can treat our work lives as kind of a work in progress. And...
often tweak and adapt to kind of how we do our work. And that also is the subject of my, my fifth book, 365 ways to have a good day, which is all about those little habits and ingredients that we can, that we can pay attention to in order to have a better day at work. And yes, I'm being very grateful. I mean, the do lectures had been on my radar for a while, Jill. So I was very chuffed in 2015 to
get asked to go to Wales and speak at that wonderful event. It was quite a turning point actually in my life when I look back on it. So I'm very grateful to that opportunity.
Gill Moakes (02:29.658)
Was it? I'm not surprised. I imagine being involved in that would be a turning point for anyone, even as an attendee, but to be asked to go and speak there, I think is a what an achievement. And it just I have it being I would love to go. But I think David Hyatt puts on a fantastic event from looking at it from the outside for sure.
Ian (02:56.334)
Yeah, it's something very special.
Gill Moakes (02:56.698)
So I'm yeah, I can definitely see that. I'm interested you say so 365 ways to have a good day is your latest book, as you say. And I'm curious about sorry, Lena, I'm just
I'm just gonna have to, that's my editor, I'm just gonna have to pause there for a moment because I have the most awful draft coming from here and I cannot concentrate. Sorry Ian, can you bear with me while I just do this? Sorry Lena. I talk to Lena quite often while I'm recording, she's probably there laughing head off when she edits them. Sorry.
Ian (03:30.894)
Yeah. Yeah.
You're fun.
Gill Moakes (03:42.874)
gosh, I could not concentrate.
Ian (03:45.87)
I don't know why it is. I don't think it matters, but then you've gone a bit like, a bit shaky on the, you had kind of a bit blurred, but I mean, I guess everything's fine on the audio, so.
Gill Moakes (03:55.866)
Yeah, I think yours is as well. The good thing with Riverside is because the tracks upload separately, so it doesn't matter what we see of each other. Yeah, if it's too distracting though... No, it's okay. Okay. all right, good. No, it's just my real blurry face. I actually look like that in real life. Yeah.
Ian (03:59.086)
Let's go.
Ian (04:04.494)
no. no.
No, it's fine. I'm getting used to it.
Ian (04:17.326)
We're both blurry, it's funny. Yeah, we can see it. We can see ourselves clearly, but yeah, there's a metaphor there for something.
Gill Moakes (04:22.842)
Exactly. Definitely. Right. I'm so sorry. I'm going to come back in again now. So, and I'm not going down where I was going down. And one of the things that I know that my listeners struggle with a lot is content creation. And I think one of the struggles with that is that.
It feels to some of us that there are some people who are just master storytellers. And I mean, on your website, you have this amazing section of meet the storytellers and you know, you, you just see people like that and you think, God, I just, I'm never going to be able to do that. I'm never going to be able to tell stories that way. And even if I could, I can't even think of what, what the stories might be that I could be telling. Right.
So I'm really intrigued and this was why I'm so happy that you agreed to come on the podcast because we're going to talk today, aren't we, about curiosity and how that can be a superpower. And I've got this sneaking suspicion that curiosity and storytelling are very inextricably linked. But I would love to just open up with your take, I guess, on where does curiosity fit in with...
Ian (05:39.95)
Thank you.
Gill Moakes (05:51.802)
storytelling and how does it make it easier for us to tell our stories?
Ian (06:00.91)
Well, I love that question, Jill. I love that framing. I don't think I've had it framed in that way before. And you're right. Curiosity is at the heart of storytelling because curiosity is about paying attention and noticing the world around us. And to your earlier point about your listeners who are thinking about coding content that might be a bit overwhelmed by it.
Being curious about where their attention goes and the kind of things they're interested in is a good starting point for the kind of content they can create. And I often think that there's incredible potential for all of us in all our work lives, whatever we do to tell stories about it. And I think it starts with being curious. It starts with paying attention. It starts with noticing and...
you know, whether we're an executive in an organization, whether we're running a landscape gardening business, whether we're a life coach, we all have moments in our working life that we can tell stories about. And we can do that on a daily basis. And sometimes those stories might be about how we do our work. You know, if for a lot of us that spend a lot of our working days, you know, in video meetings,
Well, it's kind of hard. Like where's the story in that? You can't talk about something. I mean, a confidential meeting with someone, but you could talk about how you like scribbling with your favorite pen and how good stationery is really important to you or the importance of your first cup of coffee of the day, or you've done yoga in the morning or your favorite bit of music to get you in a good mood. Or, you know, I love fresh flowers. I got my fresh, well, it's not as fresh as it was tulip there on the desk. You know, those little things, all that.
Gill Moakes (07:46.97)
a tulip.
Ian (07:49.518)
all those little glimmers provide story potential and they might not be stories that are going to change the world. They could be tiny little stories, but they give the outside world a glimpse of who you are and what you stand for. So I think there's incredible potential in those stories. And I mean, we can also tell stories from our lives. Stories love juxtapositions. I'm a great one for putting
posts up on Instagram or LinkedIn when I might have a photograph of me now alongside a photograph when I was a teenager. In fact, I put a I put a post up today of a photograph of me from over 30 years ago, illustrating a little post, a little point I wanted to make.
Gill Moakes (08:33.594)
I love those kind of posts. You're so right. I love those kind of posts because I think they're doing two things, aren't they, those kind of posts. So they are showing the personal, the behind the scenes. You feel like you're getting a glimpse into something personal. So that's engaging straight away. But there's also a shock factor. There's a shock. And I think that curiosity is...
Ian (08:36.494)
Hmm.
Gill Moakes (09:02.042)
we're curious about anything that feels a bit shocking. So seeing someone like 30 years ago and then today it's like, look at the difference. Or it's like, my God, they still look pretty much the same. Either way, there's like, you're gonna get like a slight shock piece out of it. And that's, that sparks curiosity.
Ian (09:13.678)
Yeah, yeah
Ian (09:23.37)
Yeah, yes, you're right. And I think, you know, we've all got those photographs, you know, whether they're on a kind of hard drive or whether we got them in a shoebox, if you're my age, and you've got those photographs of us as children or as teenagers and just hitting the rewind button and telling a story of who you were when you were growing up and what you wanted to do and whether that's aligned with who you are now or you've gone a total different direction. It is the starting point. It's a really good platform.
It's a really good platform for storytelling. And I think, you're so right, Jill, because the curiosity piece, I do a lot of work with leaders in organizations and people running businesses, and you kind of go in and you go in and meet them and you're kind of like, what's going on here in this department? And they're like, that's nothing interesting here. And it's like, I'm sure it is interesting.
if you pay attention and you're curious, and I often look at it as a metaphor, like lifting the lid, like you lift the lid on the company or you lift the lid on a department. And it's like you tell the stories of what happens within. And for those of your listeners who are one person businesses, it can do the same. You can lift the lid and you can lift the lid and, and, and talk about those things that are important to you. And, and there's story potential everywhere. And I think, I think often it's about being realistic about it. Like I said,
Gill Moakes (10:29.882)
Mmm.
Ian (10:47.15)
You could do a little short post to tell a story. It doesn't always have to be a start and middle and an end and the arc of a story and all those, some of those things your listeners might be familiar with. Stories can be really effective when they just paint a picture and they're really small. That can be as powerful as a thousand word blog post.
Gill Moakes (11:08.698)
we get over that feeling of why would anyone be interested in my story? Because I think that comes up a lot. It comes up for me when I'm thinking of sharing something personal. That's when it comes up for me. And yet I also know the power. I had a post that went semi -viral on LinkedIn, which was I posted a picture of my late husband and
Ian (11:20.238)
Hmm.
Gill Moakes (11:37.146)
and a little bit of a story around that. It was, you know, around his birthday, I think. And that just went really crazy. And it made me realize that people do want to know more about the personal side, that people are curious about the behind the scenes, the person you are. They'd much rather...
look at and read about those things than about my business coaching offers. But there's still something in me when I go to share a story that's a bit more personal that is why would anyone care about that?
Ian (12:20.302)
Yeah, really interesting, Joe. I mean, I've got a couple of reflections on that. I think the first one is that when we are vulnerable, as obviously you were in that LinkedIn post, when we are vulnerable, and we stand up, not literally, you know, on LinkedIn or on social media, and are really open about the struggles, what we're going through, it really resonates with other people, and it makes an emotional connection. We care.
And I'll go after we finished, I'll go and look at that LinkedIn post because, you know, I think what's interesting about it is that even if I didn't know Jill and I saw that post, I would get a sense of you and I would feel something for you. You go beyond being just another name on LinkedIn to we've all got our stories of struggle and adversity. And I speak currently as I, you know, going through a cancer journey and I've, when I've been open about that recently,
on social media within, you know, appropriate context, I've got a good connection from other people. And in fact, we spoke at the beginning about the due lectures when I gave my due lecture in 2015, and was very vulnerable in talking about mental health getting lost in my life.
And I was, well, I didn't kind of cry openly, but my voice cracked with emotion. That created a very strong connection with the audience. So I think there's something when we're courageous enough to be vulnerable. And I think you probably know, you know, the work of Brené Brown, who's been very, done a lot of work in this area. When we own our story and we rise strong, we say, this is me, warps and all. It's a very powerful human thing. And stories are a great vehicle for that. I think the other point,
Gill Moakes (13:40.858)
Mm.
Gill Moakes (13:52.506)
Mm.
Ian (14:05.614)
is to be perfectly honest, I think, and I'm probably guilty of this sometimes, I think there's a fine line between good personal storytelling, and kind of, what's the word, not narcissistic, but you know, self indulgent. And I share a lot. I share a lot. And I'll be honest, and your listeners can be the judge of it if they want to check check me out on Instagram or LinkedIn. Sometimes maybe I maybe I maybe yeah, maybe I do. Maybe.
Gill Moakes (14:19.002)
Yes.
Gill Moakes (14:27.322)
You know we're all going to. They're there now. They're there now looking.
Ian (14:33.87)
you know, maybe I, maybe I do too much, but, I'm very fortunate that I have a creative partner who's also my wife, who's also a very good sounding board and she's a great support, but she's a great critic. So I would say that if you're, if you've got people listening to this, they were experiment with storytelling and they're like, well, they've done quite a bit. What do we think of this? Is it too open? Is it too me, me, me, you know, having Zoe ask,
as a sounding board, like we might be going on dog walk in the morning, I was going to do a post on this. What do you think? She's a great one for keeping my ego in check. And I think that is the fine line. We've all seen those posts on LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook when someone said, look at me, me, me, me, me, me. And it's a bit of a turnoff. And I'm thinking it's, I think it's, it's, it's something to think about. And something to be aware of. But also, you know, you said,
There's another emotion that sometimes comes up is why would someone be interested in this? And that's another, that's another take on this, which I think is that I often say to people, tell the stories that you'd want to read, tell the stories that you'd want to hear. And I think if there's something in a story that moves you, it's likely it will move other people. That's the wonderful thing. We're all human. We often have similar responses to these things. So I know, sorry, I've kind of mixed up three themes there vulnerability,
Gill Moakes (15:38.554)
Mmm.
Gill Moakes (16:01.722)
No, do you know, as you said that, Ian, I don't know why, because I don't think that's the first time I've heard someone say that. But for some reason, that has just hit me like a ton of bricks. You saying that. Tell stories that you want to read, tell the stories you want to hear, tell stories about things you're interested in. I don't know why that's just affected me like that, because it really has just made me just pause for a minute and think, I don't really do that.
Ian (16:02.83)
Gill Moakes (16:31.61)
I spend lots of time trying to think of clever angles or how to demonstrate how good a coach I am by shoehorning some kind of story around that. I think, and I think that's why I find storytelling so...
hard to do and I love to write. I love writing but for some reason I disconnect the two. I love writing for the pleasure of writing but when it comes to creating content I think I try and be too clever. I'm trying to I'm trying to be businessy.
Ian (17:06.51)
Wow.
Ian (17:20.622)
That's really interesting, isn't it? I think we can try too hard. So sometimes I think when we're creating content or telling stories, we can think, right, what's our strategy? Who's the audience? What's the action we want them to take? And all those things that we know and pick up any content marketing book or any content marketing guide or storytelling book maybe, and that will be a lot of the advice. Know who the audience is. What do you want them to do as a result of hearing your story or piece of content and how are you going to reach them?
Gill Moakes (17:24.442)
Mmm!
Ian (17:50.734)
What's the language? I'll be honest, you know, I'm a storytelling expert in advertage commas, but sometimes I throw that out the window and I approach it in a much more human way, Jill, which is how does it make me feel? Does it move me? And I was going to swear like stuff the audience, fuck the audience in a good way. I mean, not, you know, not disregarding them.
Gill Moakes (18:12.81)
you can swear on this, Popcast. We love a good swear.
Ian (18:20.142)
But like forget that because that can be an obstacle that can kind of stand in our way. I thought I was going to put this post up. I can't think who's the audience and what I want them to do. But like this happened to me today. This is how it made me feel. I want to share this with the world and let's not get hampered by too much strategy or too many constraints. An old friend of mine, a good friend of mine, he's not that old friend of mine. I haven't been known for that long, but Dan Rubin.
who's big on Instagram, gave me some great advice once on social media. Cause I said, I wonder, do I put too many posts out under there? And he said, if you're excited about it, share it. So I'm not someone that has a kind of big calendar, content marketing calendar, or what am I going to be posting next Tuesday? I have flurries. I put something on Instagram yesterday, something on Instagram today. Maybe that's too many. You shouldn't put that many on the grid. People will tell me, but I'm just doing it because I feel like it. I feel excited. I've had a thought and I want to share it.
And I think I often go with that advice because when you're in it is a good place to share it because probably you're going to be more authentic in capturing, you know, you love to write, Jill, you know, if you're in the moment of some experience happened and you write it raw and you send it out raw and full of emotion rather than over polished, I bet often those are the ones that really engage people because
Gill Moakes (19:45.882)
Absolutely.
Ian (19:46.766)
We can have this perfectly written, I printed out and I've done a rewritten it, edited it, had someone else look at it in the Google Doc revisions, blah, blah, blah. Or we can put something out there which isn't perhaps grammatically perfect, but has, is slightly imperfect, but it will engage us.
Gill Moakes (20:06.394)
This is so true. So the post that I wrote and posted about Phil, I wrote it on the loo in the morning. I mean, literally, I agonize and am so strategic about content creation. And it's something I teach my clients about content creation. But honestly, I think I've taken it too far.
Ian (20:15.406)
Wow. Wow.
Gill Moakes (20:32.858)
I think I've gone too far and it's because it's put me off. That's why I haven't been, I mean, a couple of posts a week go out for me on Instagram and LinkedIn, but I'm not writing them. My VA is writing them and they are just promote the podcast. Like really lackluster content creation. And that has been intentional for a while because I felt disconnected from.
what I've actually been sharing. So I am this is, I feel this is turning into slight coaching session for me. So I apologize listeners, but trust me, if I'm finding it like engaging in this way, and it's teaching me things, I'm sure there are, they will too. Yeah, exactly. I know them pretty well. So this is such a lesson around something, sorry, Lena, I'm stuttering.
Ian (21:07.374)
No, not at all.
Ian (21:13.07)
Our audience will be as well, right? You just said that.
Gill Moakes (21:27.642)
Something else that comes up for me with this in is about sustainability and consistency, because consistency for me, I'm much more interested in being consistently good than consistently time wise, like cadence wise. And so to your point about, you know, you posted something a couple of days in a row, then you might not post something if you don't have anything to say.
really resonates with me.
How do you see that fitting in in terms of the overall quantity of content that you're putting out there? Are you mindful of that or do you really stick with that? Do you really stick with, you know what, I'm just gonna wait until something comes up for me story -wise, then I'm gonna share that.
Ian (22:28.014)
interesting isn't it? Well I mean, well I do, but I suppose I, let me be honest, I am also aware of being consistent, but I guess part of the answer to that is I'm pretty prolific. I feel I've got a lot to say and the context for me having a lot to say at the moment is not, or sorry, is related to what I'm going through in my life with cancer.
Gill Moakes (22:53.242)
course.
Ian (22:56.942)
you know, and I'm well, I should say I'm I have prostate cancer and I'm well with cancer right here right now. I'm not I'm not ill, I don't have any physical ailments. So I'm able to work in the usual way. But I suppose I am going through a process of thank you. Thanks, Joe. I suppose I'm going through a process of heightened reflection and heightened curiosity. I've talked about it last week in a little video about looking at the world through new glasses as I kind of emerge, well not emerge, I'm still in it. But as I go through this thing.
Gill Moakes (23:08.378)
and you look well, may I just say.
Gill Moakes (23:23.642)
Yeah.
Ian (23:27.79)
So I suppose I feel like I've got a lot to say, but I think you make a good point. If one is only going to post when one feels excited to, you might then have two or three weeks and nothing to say. And is that an issue? It can be, because I think if you get a reputation for being quite prolific and then people don't see you for a while, they might think, what's happened to them? Although I know some people kind of...
are aware of how some algorithms and some feeds like, for some reason, I've been seeing your posts, you know, so you never know what you might, you might have missed. But I suppose I would balance my free thinking, do it when you, you know, do it when you're minded to with be consistent and prolific. So if you're going to have a gap of a few weeks, my advice would be have a couple stored up in your story bank that you've already got all ready to go.
because you probably don't want two or three weeks with not much to post. So I think you make a good point and it's all very well me advocating total free spirit, but you probably want to be a bit more consistent than that.
Gill Moakes (24:21.53)
Yeah.
Yeah that's good.
Gill Moakes (24:33.018)
With when you are tying up that curiosity with, you know, well, what's interesting to me at the moment? Like, how do you, what's your process of noticing something you said earlier, like it's about noticing what's going on around you. It's what's grabbing your attention. What are you curious about? What's your process for getting that and turning that into?
Ian (24:59.022)
Hmm.
Gill Moakes (25:02.394)
a story.
Ian (25:08.782)
I'm loving your questions by the way, because these are great and they're really getting me thinking. I mean, I think...
Ian (25:17.902)
This is important, I think my, my driver for being curious is to be curious. End of. It's not, I'm being curious in order to have some outputs and some stories I can tell. And I think that's, I think that's relevant, Jill. It feels like it's relevant because I think I'm not worrying about what's the return on investment on being curious. I'm just fucking being curious.
Gill Moakes (25:43.226)
Yeah, so you're detaching a bit from the outcome of being curious.
Ian (25:47.022)
So I'm not worried about an outcome. I'm not putting that on it. So...
I know when I'm taking the train from Leoncy to London, often I like to daydream out the window rather than look down at my phone. I mean, I sometimes might be doing some work, so I need to look down. And, you know, I like that journey. I've taken tens and tens of time, hundreds of times, you know, looking out and spotting new things. And I did that last week and I thought, what are all these buildings by East Agen? All these huge black warehouses with no windows. And I looked it up and it's going to be a
huge complex of film studios. And my teenage son who's doing his A -levels next week, he wants to maybe work in the creative industry, isn't it? That was a conversation we had around the dinner table that night. I noticed these things. So there wasn't any ROI on that. I thought, well, I'm not going to do a little post on what's happening by Staggans and seeing these buildings. It's just about having my eyes open, I suppose. And then I said to a friend of mine who also works in the creative industries, who takes the train three days a week?
had you seen that development? And he said, no, you know, I probably, I'm probably looking down at my phone, not looking out the window. And I'm not judging that, that's how he uses his commute. But I was looking out and I suppose you asked me about process and I suppose my process is about being human. My process is about being human just for the love of it. And...
if there's a great return on investment, then in whatever way enriches my day, bring some joy, then all the bonus I think in the book, I talk about going on a family holiday. And it was kind of a big holiday. It wasn't a kind of one we do every year big holiday, a bit of a treat holiday after the pandemic to New York City with my two boys and
Gill Moakes (27:44.538)
Fab.
Ian (27:47.726)
We loved my children and we all love walking around a town or a city. We love walking. So we walked and walked. We're walking. And it was getting around lunchtime and I was kind of leading that at the time. And my wife said, where are we headed? And I said, I don't know where we're headed. Let's come around here. And we were Washington square down by Greenwich village. And then we, I said, let's just walk along here. What's here? And we kind of just followed our nose.
And I thought, what's that pretty little restaurant over there with bare bulbs hanging outside? Well, that looks interesting. And we just went down this road and found this wonderful restaurant called Bouvette, which afterwards I discovered was quite a kind of destination restaurant. And we got a, we had some eggs on toast kind of brunch and we were very lucky. They had a table. Now I didn't, I didn't know it was actually like quite an in -demand. There's a Bouvette in Paris. There's one in New York and
We turned up and have we got a table? you haven't booked? No. And there was we can share a big communal table at the back. There was jazz music playing. Me and my wife had a coffee. We had our eggs. We might have had a cheeky glass of red wine. And I just said to my boys, you know, it doesn't get better. This is life. It doesn't get better than this. Wandering around New York, you know, and it was just such a wonderful moment. And it was just it was a lovely and actually, you know, it wasn't it was a bit of a treat. It wasn't a
Gill Moakes (29:03.898)
that just sounds bloody fabulous.
Ian (29:12.782)
wasn't the cheapest place to go and have eggs and coffee, but it was wonderful experience that I'm remembering all these years later kind of gives me goosebumps. And I was talking to a friend of mine who travels a lot for business and goes to North America. And I said, we walked and walked and walked. We did like 12 miles one day. And he said, Why don't you why don't you just get an Uber to where you want it to go to? And I thought, well, I didn't want to get we didn't know where we were going. You know, we were wondering. And if you wonder,
your curiosity will be rewarded. And I think that's the point. I mean, you may make a good raise a good question about process. I think my process is to be curious in order to live a better life. And right now as I'm living with cancer, that's like more important than ever. So my curiosity is about being Ian and having a good quality of life. And if they're
Gill Moakes (30:09.338)
Yeah.
Ian (30:12.174)
If there's a return investment on that, like we had a wonderful lunch or I discovered something about the world I didn't know before, or it makes a nice little story, then yeah, that's a bonus.
Gill Moakes (30:22.554)
What a lens to look at that through. I bloody love that. Also, in the world of business today, so my listeners are mostly women, they are probably all entrepreneurs, there's a lot of coaches, a lot of consultants, people who are hung out their own shingle, to use the US phrase, and they are building their own businesses. And...
I think we get a bit drowned in the noise of the, the guru teachings around content creation and do this. And I've been guilty of this myself, of, you know, kind of hearing teachings, thinking that makes sense. And therefore I'll teach that to my clients. But what I'm finding is recently more and more, I'm just absolutely prioritizing relationships over algorithms.
And as I do that, that return on investment with the content, because for a long time, I was skeptical about the storytelling in content creation, because my business coach hat would say, Yeah, okay, so you're telling stories and people are listening, but is that really equating in money into money in the bank? Is that equating to paying clients paying you for whatever you do? Or are you just telling great stories and getting followers?
because those are two really different things. And I've recently come full circle on that back to actually if we can detach ourselves from the monetary ROI and have it be a relationship ROI. So a relationship building is the ROI. The money in the bank is way more likely to take care of itself.
Ian (32:10.99)
Hmm.
Ian (32:16.406)
you
Gill Moakes (32:21.242)
You have more people experiencing who you really are. And it's only when you know who someone really is, would you ever trust them enough to invest in them, is my opinion. So I am so moved. I just love the example and the story you've just shared about how the ROI, it's not always what you think it's necessarily gonna be. The guy who suggested the Uber, maybe his ROI on the day would be fitting in as many things as possible.
Ian (32:33.038)
Hmm.
Ian (32:50.414)
Yes, true.
Gill Moakes (32:50.778)
and ticking off all of the landmarks, right? Maybe that's his ROI. But for you, that experience, the whole experience of the walk and the meal and the jazz and the ambience and the fact that you later find out it's this really popular restaurant, which to be honest, most people probably don't rock up at the door and say, how have you got a table for four? Because it's probably booked ages in advance, right?
Ian (33:15.726)
Yeah, good point.
Good point, good point.
Gill Moakes (33:19.61)
I love everything about that story.
Ian (33:23.438)
Thank you. And I think, I was just thinking actually that, I mean, I kind of, we had another version of that just a couple of weeks ago at the end of the Easter holidays when I took the boys to, to Dorston. We were going for coffee and then we're going to walk down by the canal there in East London. And, you know, we saw across the street, which a street that we've walked down, you know, not tons and tons of times, probably eight or nine times, a kind of fence and what's behind there. And I just thought, you know, what's there? And it was this wonderful urban garden called the Dorston.
curve community garden, amazing garden on the site of a disused railway sidings. And it was so wonderful, full of color and flowers and amazing. And then my boys kind of reflected after that they went, why did we go there? And I said, it's, I suppose we just asked what's over there. And that question can be quite revealing. And you know, whether we're walking around our neighborhoods, our communities,
where we can kind of be like a tourist in our own town, just like looking at it differently or those things that we take for granted. You never know where that might lead. But I love your point about relation kind of relationship first almost and commercial second, because I have had a lot of experiences of being curious sometimes online if you like with maybe people I've followed or people I started following. And then we've
Gill Moakes (34:26.01)
Yeah.
Gill Moakes (34:36.538)
Mmm.
Ian (34:49.998)
had a connection, then we've got a friendship, then we've got a business relationship. But I didn't start those to your point, I didn't start those by thinking, maybe they can be a client. I started it through the human lens of being curious.
Gill Moakes (35:03.162)
Absolutely.
Gill Moakes (35:07.226)
I just couldn't agree with you more. I think I hear people complain a lot, you know, well, I don't know about LinkedIn because I've never got a client from it. And I think they're equating being on LinkedIn with someone just messaging them out the blue and saying, Hey, can I hire you?
I mean, that's not my experience of LinkedIn either. No one's ever messaged me out of the blue and said, hi, can I hire you? I wish they would. If you're listening to this, by all means follow me on LinkedIn and reach out to me by DM. But not one of those really long emails that just tries to sell me something, obviously. That's the other thing with LinkedIn is it's hilarious. It's like we're so down on the people who try and sell us anything and they'd be like, hang on, why am I using this platform? Or a lot of people think that.
Ian (35:30.51)
I'm sorry.
Ian (35:41.582)
Yeah.
Ian (35:53.39)
No, good.
Gill Moakes (35:55.258)
So, so yeah, I, I really think that this.
This need almost for there to be this direct ROI on everything we do is it's like, it's the train journey where you're looking down at your phone all the time. You're making logical decisions because you're on your laptop, you're on your phone, you're probably very efficiently using your time. But the true ROI is being missed, isn't it? The relationship building part.
Ian (36:16.766)
Hmm.
Gill Moakes (36:32.986)
being curious about what's going on, using that to tell stories that are engaging and start allowing people to see a bit more of who you are and what matters to you. Because that's something for me, I'm curious about what matters to people. And stories are a great way of showing what matters to you, aren't they?
Ian (36:55.566)
Yeah, and then getting that, getting that connection. When I shared my story about wandering around Greenwich Village and that really struck a chord with you. And the wonderful thing about human beings isn't quite a few people listening to this might think more with my friend about what.
didn't you go and see the sites and you could have got an Uber or got the subway around New York and gone there much quicker and didn't walk all those miles and got loads of men. So different people have different reactions. Just so happens that you and I are on the same page on that. And I think that's interesting because I'm not trying to, you know, we're not trying to appeal to everyone at the same time. I'm not for everyone, which is fine.
Gill Moakes (37:26.17)
Absolutely.
Gill Moakes (37:35.93)
No.
Ian (37:41.07)
But I think if you're interested in...
human behaviour, if you're curious, then telling stories and listening to other people's stories is a great way of making those kind of connections and reminds us about what's important to us, doesn't it? That conversation and that story perhaps I did, you know, reminds us the importance of being curious without a return on investment. Because it doesn't matter, it's just enriching your life, you know.
Gill Moakes (38:01.082)
It really does.
Gill Moakes (38:11.258)
are the best stories, those are the best stories, the best stories are ones where you enjoy the story for the story's sake but there's another layer to it where there is a message you take, someone else might not, but the message you take, you apply it to your own experience of the world.
Ian (38:32.662)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think going back to your thinking about, you know, content marketing and your entrepreneur listeners who are thinking about how they can tell stories that are also going to help their business. I think when we can take meaning from our story. So you tell a story. I don't know. So you tell a story about
Gill Moakes (38:34.202)
Those are definitely the best stories.
Ian (38:55.726)
On holiday in New York, you wandered and found this wonderful restaurant. You know, that's a story about walking around with your eyes open. It's a story about being curious. It's a story about when you wander, you know, your curiosity being rewarded. So you kind of tell the story and then you tell the meaning from it. And I think that's a nice device. That's a nice thing for people to think about when they're experimenting with telling stories is, you know, you tell a story about who you were or who you are or...
who you are now, the difference between who you were as a teenager, who you are now, and then you take meaning from the story. And I think the other thing is, the great thing about social media tools are we can really experiment with a story. You know, it's not a hardback book that's out, that's like set in stone. You can change a story, you could delete it if you think, my goodness, that didn't land well at all, or I wish I hadn't said that. You can experiment, you can see what gets,
what gets contraction? And you go, wow, everyone loved that. I'll do another one of those. I think that's, that's the interesting thing. And I think that's what I'm really, what I really was struck by Jill in your story, your story of vulnerability you told was that it hadn't been kind of planned. It sounds like you kind of wrote it off the hoof when it was your late husband's birthday. So it had meaning on that day. And it really struck a chord and you wouldn't,
Gill Moakes (40:04.986)
Yeah.
Gill Moakes (40:09.242)
Mm.
Ian (40:21.998)
You know, it's a very authentic, vulnerable story. So that's not the kind you could contrive and go, I'll do one of those a week. Because by their very nature, you wouldn't want to do that. And you wouldn't. But I suppose it does say, it does remind us that when we're vulnerable, and that when we're authentic, that's when we get traction. And I think so much in our, I don't know, it's a bit of a generalisation about LinkedIn that people talk about their successes a lot. And I've got a new job, and I've got this award, or this happened.
But of course, as humans, we're not always interested in the stories of what went right. We want to know the stories of what didn't go right, because everyone has human, that's the thing of being alive and being human is the stories of struggle and adversity. So when we've got the courage to share stories of things that went really badly, I think they land well, because we can relate to those.
Gill Moakes (41:02.65)
Mm.
Ian (41:18.99)
I tell a story in my book 365 ways to have a good day. And I think it's kind of number whatever it is. It doesn't matter if you're not for everyone. And it tells the story of when I went all the way to Madrid to give a class in association with a business school to a group of group of executives. And I thought it had gone really well. And then because it was in conjunction with a business school, they had all the participants fill out these feedback forms and da da da.
And they sent it to me, they sent the feedback form. And one of these, they were Spanish and Latin American, this cohort of executives, and someone had written alongside my session, this guy was really bad. And it was just a good kind of reminder that we're not for everyone. And me telling that story, you know, yeah, I've told stories where I've come across well, you know, but I've also told stories about where someone went, this guy was really bad, you know, and I'm like, shit, you know.
Gill Moakes (42:15.898)
No, say what you really think. This guy was really bad.
Ian (42:18.318)
Yeah, yeah. But you know, I suppose, you know, it's funny, isn't it? And, and, you know,
Gill Moakes (42:23.226)
But you're right.
Gill Moakes (42:27.002)
We're not for everybody and I don't think we want to be because if we would have to be so anemically generic to apply to, to not offend anyone, to not alienate anyone, we'd just be, yeah, we'd be personality -less. So I always say to my clients, you know, it's as important to create content that...
Ian (42:38.894)
Yeah, plans. Yeah. Yeah.
Ian (42:46.814)
Yeah.
Gill Moakes (42:54.874)
intentionally repels the people that you really don't want to work with as much as creating content that attracts the people you do. I think that's quite important. And storytelling...
Ian (43:04.11)
Absolutely. And I think those ones that are...
Gill Moakes (43:08.73)
Sorry, go ahead. No, no, please go ahead.
Ian (43:08.974)
After you. Well, I was just going to say the ones about, you know, the posts about being human and about talking about struggle, you know, whether it's me talking about mental health and cancer, or you talking about your late husband, you know, those are the stories that all often cut through. And, you know, I've done a lot of work with leadership teams, and I often cite examples of Cheryl Sandberg, who used to be chief operating officer at Facebook and then met her. You know, she talked very publicly.
Gill Moakes (43:36.506)
Mm.
Ian (43:39.438)
about losing her husband suddenly. Running on a treadmill, you know, and on vacation, like, my god. And she was open, open and talking about that in her book, open about it when she was on desert island this and you go, wow, you know, she's not just this faceless CEO of this huge global multinational corporation, she is a human being. Sacha Nadella, who's CEO of Microsoft,
Gill Moakes (43:43.61)
Yeah, she did.
Ian (44:08.59)
written on LinkedIn a post about being a father of a son with special needs and how that had opened his eyes to the importance of making products that were accessible for people and making sure in their hiring that they were more inclusive. And when leaders or solo printers like a lot of your listeners, it doesn't really matter. We just don't.
When people in the business world, in a business context, in a work context, share stories about difficult things they've gone through, it makes us human. When you share yourself and you tell the stories that matter and you act in a human way, you get engagement.
Gill Moakes (44:51.546)
city.
Gill Moakes (44:59.226)
Wow, what a brilliant, brilliant note to wrap up on Ian. When you are human and behave in a certain way with humanity, you get engagement. Like that's...
Yeah, do you know what? This is honest truth. You've made me slightly like, I kind of want to go away and write and create stuff now again for LinkedIn. It's made me sort of fall back a bit in love with doing that. Honestly, honestly, I am not exaggerating. I feel like I really want to start sharing a bit now. And I think I've got a different perspective after this conversation on, I'm not.
Ian (45:27.31)
Great! That's fantastic!
Gill Moakes (45:42.714)
I'm asking the wrong, when I say why would this matter to someone, I'm asking the wrong question. The question is why does this matter to me?
Ian (45:50.798)
Yes, yes, that's it. That's it.
Gill Moakes (45:55.258)
Yeah. Ian, thank you so much. So much. What a rich conversation. I appreciate it. And I will put the links to your book, 365 Ways to Have a Good Day, and to your website, which is fabulous as well, into the show notes. And I'm just so grateful. Thank you.
Ian (45:56.75)
Why does it matter to me?
Ian (46:17.518)
Thank you, Jill. I really enjoyed that conversation. I think that's what you call an important conversation. So thank you for hosting it.
Gill Moakes (46:23.674)
Do you know, that feels like an important conversation. I think it will be certainly a pivotal one for me. I think it will be for the listeners. So I'm very grateful. Thank you so much. Bye for now.
Ian (46:33.934)
Thanks a lot. Cheers, Joe. Bye.
