231. The Disciplined Pursuit of Doing Nothing (Replay)

Welcome, I'm your host Greg McEwan and I'm here with you on this journey to understand each other so that we can operate at our highest point of contribution. What can we learn from the world's greatest public servant and indeed the world's most experienced diplomat? Today I will share an inspiring story if that ever was one. Encounter intuitive things I have learned from them and some actionable advice for the rest of us. By the end of this episode you will be able to create space to understand others and reap the reward of this rarest of abilities. Let's begin. If you want to learn faster understand more deeply and increase your influence, teach the ideas in this episode to someone else within 24 to 48 hours. I was thinking recently about Sacha Nadella and how he has reset Microsoft on this extraordinary journey of growth and increased valuation. One of the things he did differently when he became the CEO was he re-evaluated how he would work with partners. He opened up Microsoft to be able to work with different partners all over the world. It was a key in taking that business up to the next level. I don't think the reset would have been possible without trusted partners and that's true with multinational corporations but it's also true for first time entrepreneurs and it might be worth considering whether your commerce platform is scaring away potential customers instead of converting them into lifelong fans. If you think that might be possible, you might consider trying Shopify. If you want to take your business to the next level but without burning out, sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash Greg. All lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash Greg to take your business to the next level today but without burning out. Shopify.com slash Greg. This week I had a win. I had a win because I managed to get my father-in-law to sign up for and to use successfully HelloFresh and that's not such an achievement when you think about it really because HelloFresh makes home cooking easy, fun and affordable and that's why it's America's number one meal kit with HelloFresh, you get farm fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Skip trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make cooking fun again. Now I've done it myself but to be honest and this is really true, there's competition in my house as to who gets to make the HelloFresh meal. That is something I did not expect to happen with only teenagers in the home. So kickstart a fresh for routine with HelloFresh, HelloFresh handles all the meal planning and a shopping to deliver everything you need to cook up a tasty meal right at home. They do the hard part and you get to take the credit. 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So this is why I'm such a big fan of rocket money. rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions monitors your spending and helps you lower your bills all in one place most people think they're spending about eighty dollars on subscriptions but in reality the number is closer to two hundred dollars on average and when you signed up for so many things it becomes like a non-essentialist playground streaming services you use to watch just one show or free trials for delivery you don't use it's so easy to lose track of what you're paying for with over three million users and counting rocket money customers save an average of seven hundred and twenty dollars a year stop wasting money on things you don't use cancel your unwanted subscriptions and manage your money the easy way by going to rocket money dot com slash Greg that's rocket money dot com slash Greg rocket money dot com slash Greg one of my young nephews was just asking me about why it's a good thing to have a monarch he said why is it good if you can't get rid of them if you can't vote them out how is this a good plan and I didn't get a chance to answer that question but I want to do it now because I want to try and capture if I can what her majesty the queen has meant we have seen the most extraordinary scenes over the last week and I have felt as people have the world over the profound loss of a most extraordinary individual and my nephew is not alone in not understanding the basis for the connection that so many people have felt especially if someone has been raised in the United States there is a general interest even fascination with the royal family but an almost mysterious connection to it many people have asked me what does the queen really do as if bemused a little by her role they're suggesting that if you don't do things in the forceful way you can't have power you can't have influence when your federal government consists of three branches executive legislative and judicial it's easy to imagine that those are all of the sources of power that exist in governance but there is at least one more the symbolic and while it may be less understood it does not make it less powerful there is advantage to being able to vote somebody out when you no longer think their services are in the best service of a country democracy is one of the great inventions one of the great boons of humanity and if you can achieve a constitutional monarchy which is what of course the system of government is in Great Britain then you add another layer a layer of stability that in all the comings and goings of democracy of all the ups and downs there is a constant and if that constant is somebody who happens to be full of a sense of duty purpose gracefulness then look what can happen think of the value of having somebody a single states person meet with your leader week after week after week Majesty the queen has met with the prime minister every week since Winston Churchill that's fifteen prime ministers in a row and listening to them talk about the role and relationship they had with her Majesty is really worthy of note over the last week so John Major put it this way he said and on foreign affairs she would always say if there was a difficulty with a foreign leader well I met him many years ago or I knew his father there was always a wise word to be had and those meetings with the queen were always the better part of a prime minister's week she has visited more than a hundred countries think of that experience alone the perspective that one would gain over seventy years of her reign so Tony Blair who served as her prime minister for ten years said that she personified everything which makes us proud to be British he added the queen has been part of my life all of my life from the moment I waived my little flag as I watched her as a child be driven through the streets of Durham to the honour of being her prime minister to my last meeting with her and then lunching with her at Windsor Castle for the Gata ceremony just a few months ago she has been an enduring presence of strength and stability at that lunch we sat next to each other and she was on sparkling form as we talked warm gracious humorous and spirited she was not only respected but loved respected because of the qualities of duty decency integrity and fidelity which she embodied and loved because of the love and affection she bestowed on us the next prime minister Gordon Brown and by the way there are six former living prime ministers who have been able to speak up at this moment Gordon Brown said that he admired her sense of public duty she was conscientious she was considerate she was caring she had a great sense of humor she was endlessly patient even when talking about the details of a boring budget but most of all what shone through was her complete and utter dedication to the country and the constitution it's the whole world that is in mourning because she was a compassionate dedicated wonderful public servant and nobody will ever forget the contribution she made she was a peacemaker she brought people together she listened to people she never told you what her view was on any partisan issue she wanted people to come together that's so interesting can you imagine jumping back now Tony Blair said that when he was meeting with the queen for 10 years so that's 500 formal meetings plus many many informal ones that he never got a sense of her partisan views he does not know her views on political matters imagine that 500 visits and somehow she is both useful valuable sounding board encouraging and supportive but he never understood on you her political persuasions what are the advantages of a role like that of a person like that of a leader like that David Cameron said of the monarch as our longest serving monarch her remarkable reign has lasted for most people our entire lives we know nothing else throughout those seven decades she has been a rock of strength for our nation and the Commonwealth there can simply be no finer example of dignified public duty and unstinting service and we all owe our sincere gratitude for her continued devotion living every day by the pledge she made on her 21st birthday a pledge by the way that she would serve for as long as she lived in serving the people of the Commonwealth her dedication he continues to our country has been incomparable and as such she leaves an enduring legacy it was each week a privilege to have the most unique ability he said to sit down in private with Queen Elizabeth and to be able to call on her sage advice and wise council I was fortunate to have been able to call on the knowledge of the world's greatest public servant and indeed the world's most experienced diplomat and there we have a clue as to this other kind of power this other kind of influence yes it's different than making laws or enforcing laws or dedicating about those laws but there is power in finding a space between all of that to be a diplomat to understand to let somebody else be understood to resumé another former prime minister said of her touchingly of course we never say what took place and what was said in those audiences but it was a conversation a conversation with someone who was immensely knowledgeable and understanding of the issues many people don't realize how much work the queen put into her red boxes an actual physical red box of paperwork that is given to the leaders of the British government on a daily basis so coming back to Theresa May most people don't realize how much she put into understanding the issues of the day what was going on in government and around the rest of the world and quite simply listen to this of all the leaders of all the heads of state I met Queen Elizabeth II was the most impressive now Boris Johnson who was just relieved of his post as prime minister said that the queen selflessly and calmly embodied the continuity and unity of our country we think of her deep wisdom and historic understanding and her seemingly inexhaustible but understated sense of duty relentless though her diary must have felt she never once let it show and a tens of thousands of events great and small she brought her smile and her warmth and her gentle humor and for an unrivaled 70 years she spread that magic around her kingdom this is our country's saddest day because she had a unique and simple power to make us happy that is why we loved her that is why we grew for Elizabeth the Great the longest serving and in many ways the finest monarch in our history when the current prime minister was just three days into her premiership Queen Elizabeth the Second passed away and so it fell to her to step out of number 10 Downing Street and to make an official statement it was one of so many poignant moments over the last few days that she ascended to the throne just after the Second World War she championed the development of the Commonwealth from a small group of seven countries to a family of 56 nations spanning every continent of the world we are now a modern thriving dynamic nation through thick and thin Queen Elizabeth the Second provided us with the stability and strength that we needed she was the very spirit of Great Britain and that spirit will endure she has been our longest ever-raining monarch it is an extraordinary achievement to have presided with such dignity in grace for 70 years let me just say as an aside can you imagine doing anything for 70 years can you imagine leading a business for 70 years can you imagine the challenge of leading a scout group for 70 years for being a leader in any role for 70 years is extraordinary never mind a role as enormous as this one and all of it in service she concluded this way she said as we mourn we must come to gather as a people to support King Charles III to help him bear the awesome responsibility that he now carries for us all we offer him our loyalty and devotion just as his mother devoted so much to so many for so long and here was the phrase that really took my breath away and with the passing of the Second Elizabethan age we usher in a new era in the magnificent history of our great country exactly as Her Majesty would have wished by saying the words God saved the King that combination that this is the passing of the Second Elizabethan age means something to us why is it a good thing that you can't just get rid of somebody as you can in a normal democratic process why is it a good thing to combine the stability with the changeableness of a modern democracy because then you can create something that doesn't last for just 200 years but for a thousand for a thousand years this process has gone on various ages and this one a precious age for all of us who have lived under Queen Elizabeth's reign this is the end of that era and with it so many leadership lessons and whether you're the CEO or the CEO of your own life here is one lesson that has really captured my attention as I have read and studied the statements from all of these prime ministers and in other interviews as well trying to understand what that role has looked like behind closed nobody is allowed to speak of the details in fact nobody is there but the monarch and their prime minister and that too is key to the discovery of a most important principle and to this that over the last quarter of a century of observing interpersonal communication my primary observation is that almost everyone almost all of the time listens with the intent to agree or disagree people don't even think of this as a posture they aren't aware that they're making a communication choice this appears to them to be what listening is what conversation is but when we listen with the intent only to agree or disagree every conversation turns into a competition to be right everyone with a different view becomes an opponent conversations become lived at the surface because nobody psychologically safe enough to be able to discover and uncover what's really going on under the surface in themselves or in other people we distrust the other side just think of the political polarization happening right before our eyes there are few things as painful as not being understood as mayor angelo put it there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you so when people aren't understood they have a lot of pain that comes out in terms of strained relationships lost productivity and much worse this comes at such a high cost because it keeps conversations at this trivial level people don't feel safe enough to reveal what they really mean they don't even have space to figure out what they really mean and all of that grows into something like a wall between us a walled off communication norm now contrast that communication norm with the norm established in a constitutional monarchy under the reign of queen Elizabeth II there is a scene captured in the fictionalized show the crown which puts into words this distinct different norm this is between queen Elizabeth and her mother queen Elizabeth says it doesn't feel right it's head of state to do nothing and her mother says it is exactly right is it but surely doing nothing is no job at all but her mother says to do nothing is the hardest job of all and it will take every ounce of energy that you have to be impartial is not natural not human people will always want you to smile or agree or frown and the minute you do you will have declared a position a point of view and that is the one thing a sovereign that you are not entitled to do the less you do the less you say or agree or smile or think or feel or breathe or exist the better now that's just a fictionalized account but there's something powerful there a discovery that there is a different kind of power what I have learned about interpersonal communication is that there is a space between agreeing and disagreeing and in that space lies our ability to understand each other and in that understanding is where we can connect deeply and build relationships we can solve problems and make progress we can learn and grow when we forget that space or if we don't know it exists at all as I think many people do not then we become separated and divided by our differences differences our threats because it's not the way we see it and the only option is agreeing or disagreeing when we remember that space we can begin to expand it maybe a little at first when we discover that we don't have to disagree we can just understand then we can expand that space and in that space begin to do really great things together by the time you're listening to this the funeral of Elizabeth the Great will have taken place and you and I will be living history because we'll never see an event like it in our lifetimes and by the time you're listening to this I will have flown to England that will be at Cambridge University and I will never have been prouder to be joining as I am Queen's College This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network I'm Hala Taha CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn and profit On Young & Profiting Podcast I interview the brightest minds in the world and I turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life each week we dive into a new topic like the art of side hustles how to level up your influence and persuasion and goal setting I interview a list guests on Young & Profiting I've got the best guests like the world's number one negotiation expert Chris Voss Shark Damon John serial entrepreneurs Alex and Leila Hermosi and even movie stars like Matthew McConaughey there's absolutely no fluff on my podcast and that's on purpose every episode is jam packed with advice that's going to push your life forward I do my research I get straight to the point 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