STARS REVEAL SUCCESS SECRETS
Four high achievers share the tricks and habits that have helped them through adversity and to achieve their goals
Anew book by organisational psychologist Dr Amantha Imber asks the world’s most successful people about their best habits and productivity secrets. Here four Australian experts share their top life hacks and the routines and rituals that have helped them to succeed.
TURIA PITT SUGGESTS SAYING ‘I GET TO’ INSTEAD OF ‘I HAVE TO’
If you are a morning exerciser like me, you have probably started many days when you literally had to drag yourself out of bed, reluctantly put on your gym gear and force yourself out the door to go for a run. I exercise five mornings per week – it’s become habitual. But I definitely have days when it’s the last thing I want to do. My innersloth says, “Just lie in bed a bit longer – it’s so nice and warm in here! Please don’t make me lift weights in the freezing cold garage on this horrible winter’s morning! Please, no!”.
But my inner sloth-tamer retorts, “You have to exercise! Go! Now! C’mon, I said go!”. And begrudgingly, I go and do it. Ugh. But could there be a better way of talking to myself? A method that actually makes me want to go and exercise rather than feel as though I am being bossed around by a nasty little sloth-taming slavedriver? Turns out there is.
While competing in a 100km ultra-marathon in 2011, Turia Pitt was caught in a grassfire and suffered full thickness burns to 65 per cent of her body. But surviving is the least of her achievements. Turia has gone on to become a best-selling author, a two-time Ironman and a humanitarian. And in 2017, she gave birth to her first son, Hakavai.
After becoming a mum, she became aware of her own self-talk around feeling as if she “had” to do certain things.
“I have to go clean his room or I have to prepare his food, or have to wash his clothes,” Pitt would think to herself. “When you tell yourself that you have to do things it’s really easy for you to resent them and for them to feel like an obligation and something that you don’t actually want to do.”
After reflecting on the impact that her innervoice was having, Pitt made a simple change. She started saying “I get to”.
“I get to pick up Hakavai, I get to play with Hakavai, I get to be around and I get to watch him as he grows up. And for me, just changing my language suddenly reminded me that it was an opportunity. It was a choice, and it was something that I got to be really grateful for.”
Pitt also started to use this strategy in her professional life. As part of her work, Pitt delivers a lot of keynote presentations. She often feels very nervous beforehand and gets stuck in her own head, undermining her own focus and confidence. She worries that she won’t articulate herself clearly, or that people will think she is an idiot.
“I have to really stop and remind myself that it’s not that I have to do a speech, but that I get to do a speech. It’s a pretty awesome opportunity that a room full of people potentially want to listen to me and want to hear what I have to say.”
The effectiveness of the “get to” strategy lies in the fact that it reframes the activity from being a chore to being a gift. It taps into intrinsic, instead of extrinsic, motivation. Usually, when we feel as though we have to do something, it’s like an external force is telling us to do the activity: we don’t have a choice. But when we get to do something, it reframes the activity into one over which we have control and choice: we are choosing to exercise, for example. And it makes our choice feel like it’s in line with our own values and wishes.
Reframing the task reduces time wasted procrastinating, so it’s a win-win: the task gets done and you feel happy about doing it.
Put it into action 1.
Think about a behaviour that you know is good for you but that you have negative self-talk around. It might be a healthy habit you are trying to form, such as eating more vegetables or sticking to an exercise regime. It might be about a work task you have been avoiding or procrastinating over. There is a good chance that you’ve been telling yourself that you have to do it. 2. Deliberately rephrase your self-talk into using the language “I get to do this task”. And consider how doing the task aligns with what matters to you, such as being healthy or doing a great job at work.
DAVID KOCH’S TRICKS TO BUILDING RAPPORT FAST
Building a connection with people quickly can have so many benefits for our careers. It can help us create improved working relationships with our colleagues, it can help close a sale, and it can help extend our networks. Some people make rapport-building seem effortless – it’s as if they have charisma oozing out of every pore. The good news is, making a connection and breaking down barriers is a skill that can be learned.
David “Kochie” Koch has been the co-host of top-rating breakfast television show Sunrise for nearly two decades. Part of his job involves interviewing celebrities, frequently very highprofile ones. But the challenge with interviewing famous people is that they have had media training, they have go-to talking points, and they often put up a facade when talking to the media.
For Kochie, finding strategies to build a strong connection in a short space of time is key to conducting a great interview. And from his years of interviewing, he’s found a strategy that rarely fails.
“I always ask them about their upbringing [when he interviews them on-air]. Their relationship with brothers and sisters, their mum and dad, what they did together as a family. And that helps me to get a better handle on them,” he explains.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re 18 or 80. You are a product of your family upbringing and you never, ever lose it. You can think you can, and you can pretend that you’re a different person, but you never are. And that’s where I always go to.”
Asking about family is a great human leveller. We all have one (in some way, shape or form), and we all have interesting stories to share. Yet it’s rarely a go-to topic of conversation when you first meet someone, and it’s definitely not a place that celebrities expect bite-sized television interviews to go.
“Very few people expect you to ask about their family. For example, we had Charli XCX on Sunrise the other day. Her new album cover is a bit racy. It’s a nude photo of her. She was talking about that and I asked, ‘What does your mum think of it?’ And she said, ‘I had to ring her up beforehand. I was a bit embarrassed and nervous to call her’. And that showed the human side of her and the frailty of her.”
Kochie continued to go down the family route with Charli XCX. In his research, he found that her parents lent her money to record her first album. He asked her whether she had paid them back. “She said, ‘Oh no, I haven’t’. And I joked, ‘Well that’s not being a very good daughter, is it?’ It brought down that wall of media training and made her like anybody else. Like, who hasn’t borrowed money from their parents?”
Put it into action 1.
When you are next trying to build a connection with someone in a professional setting, resist the urge to go straight to work-related topics. Instead, ask them about their family or their upbringing. By talking about childhood and family – experiences we’ve all had – you’ll be able to build
FOR ME, JUST CHANGING MY LANGUAGE SUDDENLY REMINDED ME THAT IT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY. IT WAS A CHOICE
stronger and more human connections faster.
THE POWER OF WATCHING YOURSELF BACK: SANDRA SULLY
If you live in Australia, you’ve probably seen Sandra Sully read the news. She has been doing it for 30 years. “What a lot of people don’t realise is that there is a real performance aspect to what you do,” Sully explains.
“I was told a long time ago that for every hour you’re on television, it’s the equivalent to about three hours’ work because of the energy you use.”
Sully describes it as an intense hour with lots of peaks and troughs. She will receive news updates throughout the day and will even be writing updates during the time she is on air. And the adrenaline that accompanies reporting on a big story is enormous.
You would assume that more than three decades’ worth of experience as a news presenter would make Sully believe there is little room for improvement. But on the contrary, Sully reviews her performance almost every night. She literally watches herself reading the news and looks for ways to improve.
“I appreciate the fact that you can always keep learning. I never think or know that I’m ‘there’. I always believe I can be better. When you accept that there’s a dramatic component to what you do, it’s very easy to develop ticks without really realising it. It might be referencing a monitor, turning your head, developing an intonation, or pausing.”
Sully gives reading the introduction to a news story as an example. “The first two paragraphs are structured around a number of phrases with key words that make sense of the story. The introduction is written for a reason, and it has to be delivered with the right emphasis in the right space.”
Sully is also mindful that though she is in someone’s home, they’re not necessarily watching her. They might be in the kitchen preparing dinner and have the television on in the background. “They’re often just hearing me, so I need to emphasise the key words that make sense of the story.
“My job is to make sure, at the end of the day, that I get it more right than wrong. I have to feel comfortable in myself that I’m consistently being the standard I’m proud of.”
In my role at my consultancy Inventium, one of the most powerful things I have ever done is record presentations I have given and watch myself back. I remember the first time I did this, almost 20 years ago. It was part of a presentation skills training program I participated in, where we had to deliver a 10-minute presentation and watch the recording back. It was excruciating. Imagine fingernails scraping down a blackboard and multiply that discomfort by 10,000. But it was also a transformative use of time. I had so many distracting mannerisms and verbal tics I was unaware of. And by making the unconscious conscious, I was able to eliminate the distractions so I could communicate with more impact.
In my role as a podcast host, my producer Kellie Riordan and I do “air-checks”, a term borrowed from radio. We regularly pick a 10-15 minute section of an interview and Kellie will tear it apart – in a good way – to take a really deep dive and analyse my technique and delivery, and identify what could be better. The air-check process has improved my skills as an interviewer and podcast host dramatically (at least, that’s how it feels to me).
Put it into action 1.
While you are probably not a newsreader, think about the key competencies that your job involves. Chances are that communication is part of it, whether it be written or oral.
2. Think about how you could “watch yourself back” to improve your performance. If your job relies a lot on written communication, set aside time regularly to objectively review some of the key pieces you have written. If your job involves oral communication, consider recording yourself in meetings or giving presentations and, as
horrific as it might be, watch the recording back and critique yourself. Look for verbal tics or things that might be getting in the way of you communicating effectively.
MIA FREEDMAN’S GUILT-FREE WAY TO SAY ‘NO’
I once read that the most effective productivity tip is to simply say “no”. By saying no, we avoid spreading ourselves too thin and can focus on the things that matter most.
Unfortunately, saying no more often is easier said than done. Particularly if you are a people-pleaser (like me), or someone who genuinely wants to help others as much as possible (yep, that’s me too), saying no can be hard and feel awful.
But here’s the thing: the busier you are and the more successful you become in your career, the more requests you will have for your time. Which is where learning to say no becomes even more important.
Mia Freedman receives a lot of requests. As the co-founder and chief creative officer of the Mamamia women’s media company, and the host of two podcasts (one of them daily), she is an insanely busy woman.
Freedman used to be terrible at saying no. “Like most women, I wanted people to like me and I wanted to not disappoint anybody. And so what I would do is, because I didn’t want to make someone feel bad for the 10 seconds that it would take them to read that I was turning down whatever they wanted me to do, I would say ‘OK’ just to put that off. But then what I would do is buy a whole problem for Future Me, which was I’ve promised to go to Brisbane, or do this speech, or go somewhere after work. And then that time would come around and I would really not want to do it. And it would really take a toll on me and my family.”
So Freedman found a strategy to help make saying no much easier. She started to set rules for herself and change the language she used when responding to requests.
“Instead of saying, ‘I can’t’, I say, ‘I don’t’. It sounds really subtle but it’s really important. I have rules like: I don’t do black-tie functions. I don’t do lunches during the week. I don’t do premieres. I don’t do speaking or charity engagements on weekends.”
By having strict and clear rules and using the language of “don’t”, it takes the “Should I? Should I not?” out of the equation. And for Freedman, having clear and concrete rules helps her in all aspects of life.
“I exercise every day because that’s easier than exercising two or three times a week. It’s less mental stress on me because it’s just a nonnegotiable. It’s like cleaning your teeth. Imagine if you only had to clean your teeth two or three days a week. And then every night you’d go, ‘Should it have been tonight? Oh, I don’t know’. But then tomorrow night I’m going to be tired because I’ve got that thing on. And. ‘I don’t know’.
That part of your brain doesn’t have to think, ‘Should I brush my teeth tonight or not’, because you brush your teeth every day.
“I’m one of those people that needs hard and fast rules. Otherwise, I find myself negotiating with myself. And that’s exhausting.”
She also found that when she started using the language of “I don’t” in response to requests on her time, people stopped trying to argue with her or talk her into what they wanted from her.
“When you say, ‘I don’t do lunches’, that’s very clear. But if you say, ‘I can’t have lunch on Tuesday’, the person might then say, ‘What about Wednesday?’ And it’s like, ‘How about never? Is never good for you?”’ she jokes. “It’s a clear line in the sand.”
Freedman does two other things when saying no. “I’m very honest. I say, ‘Thanks so much for the invitation but the demands of running a business and having a young family means that I just can’t do anything except those two things.’ And no one can argue when you say work and family. No one can go, ‘Aw, but please?’”
She also responds quickly.
“People are incredibly appreciative if you respond quickly. Because what most people do is think, ‘Oh, I don’t want to disappoint them so I’ll just ignore that’. But people don’t mind hearing no. They’d prefer a yes, but they’ll deal with a no. And removing the anguish of worrying about disappointing people with this strategy means that you remain the boss of your time and energy.”
I ALWAYS ASK THEM ABOUT THEIR UPBRINGING … THAT HELPS ME TO GET A BETTER HANDLE ON THEM
Put it into action 1.
Think about what your rules are when it comes to what you don’t want to do. Write them down, beginning with the words “I don’t”. For example, I receive several guest pitches every day for my podcast How I Work. To make quicker decisions, I have rules that I apply to make those decisions speedy and straightforward.
2. When someone makes a request of you that breaks one of your rules, say no by using the phrase “I don’t do X”.
3. Say no quickly. While this may feel uncomfortable at first, you’ll quickly find that people appreciate it. For me, I try to say no to requests within 24 hours. I have done this literally hundreds of times and often, I receive an appreciative response from the person.
4. Just be honest. It’s hard for people to argue with honesty
These chapters are an edited extract from Time Wise by Amantha Imber, Penguin Random House, $35. Pre-order a copy from: https:// www.penguin.com.au/ books/time-wise9781761045547