Aaron Ngan | On The Importance of Taking Action

Episode 17 of Graduate Theory is with Aaron Ngan.

Aaron is an experienced entrepreneur, public speaking coach, and career skills expert. He is the CEO of Junior Achievement Australia, helping people across the country succeed in employment and entrepreneurship.

Discover
Read - https://www.graduatetheory.com/17-aaron-ngan/

Youtube - https://youtu.be/tRji5rAibuk

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5OLCw3djo6NtYpTsVvKvSQ
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/graduate-theory/id1590633475

Connect with Aaron
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronngan/

Show Notes
00:00 Aaron Ngan
00:51 Intro
01:25 What does Taking Action mean to Aaron?
10:03 Researching vs Using information
14:07 You will never feel ready!
16:50 Aaron's experience with uncertainty when taking action
25:13 Going from 0 to 1
30:28 Mental tools for going from 0 to 1
35:51 Advice for someone having trouble taking action
39:38 Aaron Helps Talk about James' eBook
54:32 How Taking Action Relates to Careers
59:33 Aaron's Career Advice for New Graduates
01:05:05 Connect with Aaron
01:06:02 Outro

Transcript

James: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to graduate theory. Today's episode is all about taking action. How do we go from an idea, a thought into something that's tangible and interactions that we can actually. Today's episode, we dive into this framework of how to convert these things and these possibilities that seem so far off into tangible things that you can take action on today. During this episode, my guest, coach's may through one of my own problems at the moment. And so I think this will be, we be a really great resource for you, so you can go and analyze some of your problems and the things that you're putting off with this same framework that we discussed tonight, this was a really, really impactful episode for myself. And I'll have you enjoy. Today's guest is an experienced entrepreneur public speaking coach and career skills expert. He's the CEO of junior achievement Australia, helping people across the country, succeed in employment and entrepreneurship. Please. Welcome to the show, Aaron. God.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 1:12

hello? Thank you, James. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I'm excited to be on this podcast and share whatever I can. So I'm in your hands. Let's go.

James: 1:22

perfect, man. Well, yeah, today I'd love to chat about so many things. There's a lot of things that you do and you know, really closely related to careers and a lot of the themes around this podcast. But one thing I want to speak about first is this idea of taking action. Something we spoke about before you came on the today was around, you know, making that decision to not just sit on the sidelines, but actually to get in the arena and, and start doing something, start making something. So it's selling something, whatever that might be. And I'm curious, you know, what does that kind of process looked like for yourself in your life? There are any other times like that, where you really had to sort of dive in and, and make something happen.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 2:04

absolutely. I'd say like on the, on the big picture, that idea of staying in the stands or getting into the arena, that's, that's incredibly critical because this is some of the, one of the things, which is I, all the times I've been held back all the times. I felt stuck all the times. I felt like I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know, like, what action should I take? Or like, what should I try out? And, and these are, these are things when I speak with lots of young people, like in university, just out of university, even early in their careers, these are common sort of themes of what's going on. Like what's the right thing. Especially like the world's gone nuts. What do I do? Every single one of those things for myself and also for people I speak to like really I've noticed in those moments of being stuck, like what's right there is that being in the stands, being the observer and what that really looks like is I need to do all the research. Let me, let me go get all the way sash done. Let me find out all the options. Maybe let's chat to a bunch of people and let's find out what the best thing is. Can I do this? Maybe? What if I create a plan like let's like, we should create a plan. Like that's what we need to do now. Let's go create a plan all, wait, what all the different circumstances, what could go wrong? All of this comes up and there's nothing wrong with planning. There's nothing wrong with doing research, but every time I've gotten stuck, like where I'm at is, I mean this word, if I'm not taking any action and this is where I have a big challenge as well, like sometimes. When I'm out there seeing different contents in different workshops seen different things for people to, to learn by people like students, like just like your listeners who are committed to really taking their career to the next level. One of the things that I see missing the most is what are the actions to take? What are the actions today? Cause having all that theory, having all that background, having all that research, understanding why something works is, is incredibly fascinating. And it's, it's often really helpful and none of it gets any sort of impact unless someone takes action. And that's why, I guess the, the core sort of idea that like, I'm super excited to share with people. Because like I do, I do public speaking coaching. That's one of the main things that I focus on and I've seen so many articles. I've seen so many Ted talks. I've seen so many YouTube. All about here's the theory. This is how you stand. This is different ways to modulate your voice. You should pause to let things sink in for effect. And that's all really nice, right? That's all really nice. And what I used to do, and this is mirrored for almost everyone that I speak to is I'd be like, oh wow, that's really nice. And then I'd like spike. I would save the YouTube video. I'd put it to a playlist of all my educational, YouTube videos so I can refer back to it later. And then I just not look at it. And maybe 2, 3, 4 years later, I look back at that place. So I'm like, ah, that's nice. Maybe I'll do something about it. And I realized if I'm honest, actually haven't done anything. Actually haven't taken any action. And, and even though I'm someone now who I would say has, has has a decent amount of muscle and practice in taking it. I'll still give you some examples. It's not like I'm immune to it. It's not like you ever get immune to it because the thoughts just come up. Like, how's this going to work? Can I do this? Will people listen, will people sign up? And, and James, you've created your own podcast. You've created this podcast graduate theory. And there would have been a period of time between when you're like, I'm going to do this. So when you actually started it, because there was a point where you're like, I'm 100% going to do this. And then like, like for me, that was 20 17, 20 17. I was like, right. I got one or two people together. I'm like, I need to create like my own public speaking coaching program. I've been doing it unofficially. I've been doing it for various events. I've just had people in various competitions and workshops that I've run and I'd give them that coaching and they'd get great results. I'm like, I just need to put this into my own course. It's 2017. Didn't actually do anything about it. Didn't get any customers. Didn't put anything. Maybe did like one free workshop, which was really, if I'm honest, just like part of this other program which was doing, so I didn't actually create anything extra or new to test it. I just kind of was like, Hey, just come to this. And it wasn't till 2020, and we're in the middle of everything's in lockdown. No in-person meetings are happening and I'm like, you know what? Now's now's the time. Like why? Because there is no other time, like there isn't, I could, I could wait for another three years and I was like, okay, I'm going to put together the first course, who am I going to get? Like, I was running two workshops back to back, like day after day, like Wednesday, Thursday for, for real skills education. They do like entrepreneurial training for engineers in, in universities. And they, they had me come in running to public speaking workshops. I'm like, you know what, at the end of it, I'm just going to pitch it. I'm going to see who shows up. I'm going to one. The first one is a pilot program. Three, three weekends in a row, 1, 2, 3, and over six weeks, like with the Fortnite Fortnite. Let's just do it. And we had 12 people sign up and go, yeah, I want to do this. And I was like, wow. Okay. That's that's cool. And now I'm like, wow, I have to actually make this now. So in taking the action in setting the dates in offering it and offering, it was really the biggest sort of thing. Cause I was like, I don't know if this is going to flop or not. Then I discovered, okay, hold on. Now this is pulling me into action. So the action was pulling me into action because now I've got these people who've committed to taking themselves. Aren't expanding their public speaking skills. I've actually got to write this thing in a way. That's going to make a difference for them in a way that they're going to get to experience it in a way that, where they walk out authentically able to be able to speak confidently and effectively on any topic in front of any audience. Cause that was like when I worked down the promise of the. I said, like, what's the promise of this course? And like, that's it, like, you will be able to confidently ineffectively present on any topic in front of any audience. And they walked out being able to do that. And I was like, okay, now I've got something. from that course, I had two more people. They brought their friends along, they shared it with their friends at two more people. My crap. Now I've got two more customers. I need to go fill the rest of the second course, but I'm so glad that I didn't waste another three years. I was like, you know what, I'm just going to do this. Okay. What's the action to take. So that's kind of the overall theme. Cause when you take action, like I got to discover a whole lot of it. I got maybe two, three that whole two, three years. Like in those two weeks I learned more about putting together that course the structures. How do I get a payment structure in place? How do I find out what they want to accomplish? I spent, I wasted a lot of time trying to like figure out like a website, just so I could get a sales page up at the end of the course.

James: 9:03

Hmm.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 9:03

But I learned more in that two to six week period than I did in the three years of just going, yeah, I really want to do this. I'm definitely got the skills for it. I knew I had the skills for it. Logically, theoretically, I knew I had the skills, but I didn't have any proof or evidence, but taking the, taking the actual step. Now I've got the, the theory and I've discovered, you know what, this is something which I can do. This is something which I I really, I really am able to do. So I guess the first kind of takeaway or lesson for that is theory and the information and all the research that you might do, none of it's bad. Like in fact, it's often really helpful, but once you take the action, you get to know for yourself that this is something that you can do. And there's a whole bunch of other learnings and benefits, which come with that. So I guess that's the key theme to start off with.

James: 9:54

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really cool. There's so many things that like, we can go off from there, but just on what you said, just to finish that about the information and things like that. I mean, I've found even for myself, you know, I used to read a lot of books and that was almost like the thing that I did, like, you know, just try and read as many books as I could in a year. And then like, since starting a podcast and actually like doing something, you know, almost with that information, you kind of realize like, you know, I've read books on marketing, but like now I have to actually like market the thing, like market the podcast. And it's just like, okay, I probably didn't actually retain much of what I read and sort of reading it again. Now with this. Yeah, why that you would actually implement the advice, makes it a lot more effective, I think. And so I feel like you can get into an asset. They did got into that, just like reading and like researching like so much. And that almost like, like led me to not do the thing, like not use the information. And then I found like once I actually got having to use it, then like, you know, I'd almost prefer like, you know, starting like doing something and then using the information to kind of power that versus like making the information, like its own thing. I've certainly found that for myself. Like if I read a marketing book now the whole time, I'm like, Hey, how am I going to use this? How am I gonna use this? Like, whatever. Whereas if I, if I don't have something to use it for, then I'm like, okay, like nuts book, like cool concepts about marketing, like tick read. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, I think this. Even just from like a perspective of like being able to learn, having something, to like implement the things you're learning just like makes you learn way more. Even from that perspective, not even from like the actual doing of the thing, which I think is also really cool.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 11:46

Yeah. And, and look like, I really want to emphasize that this isn't a, what, like what my thoughts are, not that information or learning is bad on the country information or learning conceptual learning, theoretical learning is critical in so many different areas of, of like how we live in the world. Right. It's critical. You don't become a theoretical physicist. That's calculating, how do we get to the moon? How do we get to Mars? Or how do we deal with some of these really complex challenges without an incredibly strong foundation on those underlying theories and underlying academic ideas. Okay. So those are really critical. However, for like, what I would say is that for most people starting off their career, making that transition from. Primary school, high school educational systems into one of adult learning that experience, that taking action in the everyday aspects of our life. We've got it. We've got it the wrong way around largely because the way that a lot of people, especially recent graduate soon to be graduates have it is I need to do all the research first, so that I'll be ready. And what invariably happens is we do the research. We find out, we ask people, we look up websites, we jump on YouTube. We find out all of these different things. Some of it's confusing because some people are saying the same thing. Other people saying different things like my, my resume reviewed bias typically, but people often tell me the number one piece of feedback, which they give me is like, I've never heard anyone explain it or describe it, or put it into action in the same way that you have. I'm like, wow, like that blows my mind. But what you said is perfect because the moment you start getting into action, The moment you start taking action. You start actually experimenting, trying things out, discovering. Then you go back to those same resources. And now all of a sudden those, the actions that you take, pull forth, all of that value from those resources. You're like, okay, cool. I'm actually doing a podcast. Now I've actually got to do the marketing. Now I'm going to read this book and I'm going to get 20, 30 new ideas immediately because you actually taking the action and you're taking the action in a way that allows you to discover a bit of that world. And the more that we can actually do that combination and give people a space to do that common combination, that's incredibly powerful. And that's where growth discovery development. That's, that's where it all starts.

James: 14:07

yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I liked what you said there about, you know, like, you know, waiting to be ready, like thinking you haven't learned enough versus like,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 14:16

going to happen.

James: 14:17

Yeah,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 14:18

never be ready.

James: 14:19

yeah, yeah. I think that's really important to recognize is that, you know, these kinds of things, whatever it might be like if you just dive in and like, you're just going to learn so much. And you're just going to be out of duty. Like, I don't know, it's hard to describe, but I think that once you're actually doing it, then it becomes clear that things you have to blend and you know, you really under the, on depression to learn. And I think that really like brings out a lot more good than just, you know, sitting on the side and, and, and researching and learning. And not that that's inherently bad, but I think, you know, if you really want to maximize getting the good stuff out of these things, then it's worth

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 14:55

And,

James: 14:55

being, involved.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 14:57

and, and, kind of taking the view of like, I'm actually never going to be very, for some people that's incredibly empowering. Okay. Given I'm not going to be very ever. Okay. Why don't I just go for it for some people you could get yourself in a bit of a binder, like, and I would assert that if you're in a bit of a bind, we're never going to be ready. That's all part of still wanting to be with. Another way to look at it inside of the world of taking action. Once you take the action, you then get to discover that you are, you are exactly as ready as you are because you've taken that action and you've achieved whatever result you achieved. So you will exactly ready. You are perfectly ready to achieve that result. The difference is now that you've taken the action, now that you've achieved the result, even if the result is no one signed up or nothing happened, or it flopped. Now you've got a result that actually gives you some evidence it's outside of your head. It's in the world, you've got some results you can say, okay, awesome. I took the action and it worked out great. Or this is how many people signed up. Like for me, it was like, okay, 12 people are here. And then when I was first, and that was a, that was a free trial program. So pretty off the hook for me to be honest. But then when I offered it for the first time out of that first free program, and I like, they've got to invite their friends. Like three, four people came along. Two of them actually paid in registered. I'm like, okay, cool. That's now the new result measure. And now I can kind of go, okay. Like I was ready for that. How do I know it? Because I did it. In fact, everything that you accomplish and notice nothing, nothing gets accomplished unless you take action. So nothing gets accomplished unless you take action. And the results that you get from the action that you take are exactly precisely what you're ready for. But we try to go in our head to find out, am I ready? Am I not? I don't know. I don't know. Take the action. You will find out.

James: 16:50

Yeah. I mean, that's really cool. I'm curious to hear, cause I know that, you know, we're talking about that sort of gap now between. You know, what's the hesitation between you thinking that you're not ready and then, and then doing it, I'm curious for yourself, if there's been times where you have had that delay and you've sort of wanted to do something, but have had that doubt. And, you know, I think it's a fairly common thing, but I'm curious to hear like your experience with that.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 17:17

yeah. Like the biggest, biggest, well, the biggest and most, the most present example of that is like I mentioned before, like 2017, I remember distinctly I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do my own public speaking course. I'm going to do it. Like I've got the experience, everyone that I coach like one-on-one they do a pitch, they do a presentation. I give them the coaching and. They, they just kind of go from like, nervous to like, okay, cool. I can actually express myself naturally. Not like that fake today. We're going to talk about none of that fake sort of presenting, which you kind of get taught in high school or, or, or school, but actual natural. Self-expression like natural exuberance. I was always, I wasn't really accomplishing that with people, just not in my own course, not in my own program. And I delayed that for yeah. Two to three years to 20 end of 2020. And if I have a look back, like a lot of that hesitation was okay, how do I structure the course? How do I, well, I don't know if I'm going to structure it. Well, what do I put in? How am I going to find people to attend? How do I promote it? And if I really look back, I wasn't actually dealing with any of those questions. Why? Because there is a form of action. I'm going to write down all the things, which I'm actually uncertain about. Get clear that in fact, you know what I am certain about something I'm certain about all those things about which I'm uncertain. Right? So I am certain about something I'm certain that I just don't know a bunch of stuff. And then actually having a look, what is it going to take to resolve that? I didn't do any of that. I didn't do any of that. And this is powerful, right? Because it's not like I didn't know to do that. It's not like I hadn't done productivity courses or seeing like YouTube clips of like how to, how to live a productive life. I knew all of that. In fact, all of that theory knowledge has been out there for, for ages and it's readily available. It's really accessible. So I knew where that lack of information wasn't the key. It was just kind of like, whatever was there was like, I just didn't take the action. And even when it came up to it, one of the things which One of the things which kind of led to that was, was the, was the ways of things we were talking about this before we started the right, like, so, so in 2020 as well, one of the things which I did was, Hey, I've worked in this world of coaching and supporting and empowering young people develop their career, develop entrepreneurial skills and entrepreneurship skills develop financial literacy. So I'm very, well-versed in this space and I've spent five plus years doing it officially 10 plus years doing it unofficially or informally. And I was like, okay, well, we're going to win a global pandemic. What's something I can do. People are struggling with careers and jobs and things like that. So much uncertainty at that time. So I was like, I'm going to put up on LinkedIn, get a free resume review and I will do it on zoom and all that sort of stuff. And anyone could, anyone can do it. I was, I was really focused. I was thinking, I just get a handful of people from the Sydney area. But I ended up getting people. I think 20% of people came from like one university in the states and I looked it up like, it's, it's, it's a worldwide, like top, top 20 top 30 university. I was like, oh, I didn't know you existed. But Gordon to one of the communities there, they started sharing it with all their friends. But inside of doing that, I was like, wow, this would be a cool idea. And even then from when I had that idea to, oh, like, and I had the idea like, wow, like that would, I just knew it was going to work. I just knew it was going to work. Even then I still hesitated for a good like month. And I started noticing myself going, ah, I'll write the post tomorrow. next week. Oh, I need to figure out a scheduling system first so I can book people in. Cause I don't want. Back and forth on, on LinkedIn with taper at the message. I just want to give them a link and they can book it in a, what do I do? Oh, what if I recalled them? What's going on there? Like, should I create a template first? Should I create a template that I can give them at the end? So I just kinda noticed myself just getting caught up in all of this sort of stuff, which was just kind of delaying, delaying taking the action. And then finally, I was like, you know what, I'm going to put it out there. And I actually didn't have the scheduling link ready. I didn't have any of that, actually, that would turn that being really good because instead of posting on LinkedIn and saying, Hey, click this link. I told them, Hey, just comment down below in the chat, me, please. I want to, as you may view, where's the main review place. Something like that. The unintended effect was as they commented, their friends saw it, more people saw people who liked the post sort, and it just kind of created this viral sort of. Vile on a small scale, but like, I, my first post had about like six to 7,000 views within the first like four days. And, and about like 50 plus interactions, likes comments, things like that. And within the first kind of like three, four hours of it, I was like, okay, people are starting to comment. I need to quickly. And then like all of that arming an ongoing, like what's the right thing. It just got pretty simple really. Cause I'm like, all right, I'm on a deadline now. And I went and created the link. I was like, okay, we've got Kevin leave, we've got acuity scheduling. We've got a bunch of these different things. I'm just going to pick one. And then I found one which would integrate really well with my calendar integrated with zoom I'm like here. And then I would have done about 10 to 20 different tweaks to, to that first post to the system to all that sort of stuff. But ultimately it was all kind of in the motion in the. So, and then end of the day did about 200, 250 of those over the course of a couple of months built up a bunch of networks. So I built up a, an incredibly diverse range of just awareness of different careers different types of skills, different types of things. Nowadays I, I have people come to me and go, Hey, like, do do people pay you to do this? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. So like actually do it as a paid service now, instead of doing just the 30 minute, like we go on zoom and then I'll let you go and take the, take the action yourself sort of thing. Like actually go, okay, cool. We'll still do that. Cause I can do that incredibly fast now. And I'm going to take it away. I'm got to find out all the details, going to pull it out and we'll send you a couple of drafts and you're going to send it back. And then you have that and I'll review it as many times as you need. And like the 14, the 14 day period. And now people pay me a couple of hundred bucks to do that. I'm like, that's, that's not bad. Like it takes me like one, two hours. Maybe like half an hour of initial face-to-face work and then another hour and a half of like just going off and just doing it. But it's something which I really enjoy. And it brings in like a bit of side cash as well. And I also had like a an old friend once a, once a business, which is pretty active targeting young people. And it was building a resume, build a sort of website. And it was like, oh, I saw that. I saw those posts. I was like, that's really cool. Can you come in and record a series of short videos and w we'll pay you to, to do those. So I ended up getting a couple of grand just to do a couple of short videos that actually was like, wow. Now I get to create content as well. That's cool. Cause that's something I've been putting off as well.

James: 24:44

yeah, yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 24:46

there's no shortage of things that I put off, but I've also started to kind of go look, nothing ever happens without taking the. And sometimes it's just a case of, okay, well, what action am I going to take today?

James: 25:04

Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. That's yeah, that's really amazing. I think there's so many things I want to, I want to go off from that, but one

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 25:12

Yeah, go for it.

James: 25:13

one of them is like, August blind on that. Okay. One of the other ones was like, you know, as like I've heard startup people, they'll kind of say, you know, zero to one is like the hardest part. One to 10 is like, you know, you're still building and walking out like refining and then tend to a hundred. It's like, well, the scale. Kind of side of things. So it's certainly something where, you know, often you can be put off at the start where it's like, you've got to like go from there's. No, there's nothing at all to, okay. I find that like, I have something like for yourself, would that LinkedIn post, like, you know, you had, there was nothing. And then you had to like make the post and like, think of all this stuff. And that was almost the biggest step. But once you had the post, then it becomes like refining, you know, like you said, you made some edits to it, like, you know, working out like big calendar, that kind of stuff. Like now you actually have something it's a little bit easier to then like change this and refine it and perfect it. And then once you have something that's like, that's working well, then it's like, okay, how do we turn up the volume on this abandoned, make it into something that's which isn't much like what you've done, where you've turned it now into something that's not just phrase paid and then like there's people coming to you for this kind of thing. So I think that's really cool. Yeah. I mean, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. You know, that zero to one stage, if that's something that you've seen in your own experience where like that's just starting is often the hardest bit. And once you kind of emotion, then things that become a little bit more straightforward.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 26:45

Yeah, absolutely. There's a couple of zero to ones in that. Right. And, and the first, the first sort of like when you've actually created something, when you've actually put something out there, that's one version of like, from like, there was nothing there and now people know about it. Then there's a next step was okay, cool. Who's my first customer. Now, if your first customer, in my case, my first customer for the resume reviews, that was 200 of them, which were all for free. Right? So those were free customers. So I was getting my first free customer. Then the next zero to one was okay, who's my first paid customer. So there's different steps of the whole thing. And the moment you start to play it down, it actually becomes the, you get a bit of space with it. You get to actually kind of go, okay, you know what? I'm not. Actually having this, it would be inappropriate for me to start trying to deal with how do I get from this to making 200 K a year or, or 10 K a month or whatever. Because that's not, that's not appropriate to the level you're at now for all of those zero to ones. There's the psychological difficulty of it. And then there's the actual difficulty of it. And, and in my case, I've been very active on LinkedIn or I've been active on LinkedIn sufficiently that I've got like 8,000, 9,000 connections. Like most like majority of which I've personally met at various points over the last couple of years. And I've just been doing a lot in this space. So there's a bit of that awareness there. Now that's already built up. That's a really bank like, so when I put out something like a Richmond review, people already are like, oh, that makes. Because I built up that brand. So I actually already got a bunch of stuff there, but the difference was there was still that sort of block of like, okay, I'll do it tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll get around to it. I knew what it's going to work, but when you can take that first step and then take that next first step, like, what I really had to kind of confront is like, okay, what do I actually need to do? I really like, what, what do I actually need to do? And I realized that the only thing I actually needed to do first up was put up the post actually didn't need the, sort of, any of the scheduling. Like in fact, when's the time that I need to sort of scheduling is when I've actually got the first and especially of interest, because then I've got someone to send the expression of interest to, if I wait and delay it then I've really just delay the amount of time that people have to actually find out about it. So actually got it. Okay, cool. You know what, like I can just do the post now. Everything else I can do. When someone was like, Hey, I want to, I want to do this. I want to offer to a friend, but I wasn't like that. They came to pay for it. Like, do you have this? I was like, yeah. And then I had to figure out, okay, what am I going to charge for it? What am I going to offer? Like, what's the package going to involve? Now, if I had spent all this time early, I probably would have come up with something. But the chance that it would have been the right fit or the right sort of thing, would be actually like very close to just pure chance or at least just kind of guided by like what I think, as opposed to what I've known and experienced. Because in that situation, I had someone coming to me going, Hey, we want this, we want this actual thing. We want revise me. And I've got to ask him, Hey, what specifically you after? What sort of job are you going for? What's your sort of background and experience in getting all of that information by chatting to someone who is actually a potential customer, potential paying customer. I got to go, oh, that's actually what they is. I've got to find that from them as opposed to kind of like trying to figure it out of my head. Right. If left to my own devices none of that was going to be figured out or if it was figured out, it would be unreliable because it's my guest, as opposed to actually going, finding out from the actual people.

James: 30:28

yeah, that's a good point. Definitely. And now I'm curious to hear, you know, you know, that, you know, like taking that leap, that's zero to one, you know, what are some like tools or like mental things that you use to overcome that? Cause you know, is there anything that you sort of turn to in those situations or like perhaps like this like mental triggers that you have that kind of, you know, you sort of snap out of it and you're like, wait, hold up. Like, I've got to actually do this now. Is there anything that they can go through in that process?

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 31:02

Yeah. Probably. These are going to sound incredibly simple. So whenever there's a feeling of like being stuck and I use this when I coach people as well in either personal productivity or Korea career things, or the entrepreneurship sort of, very, very early level startup space. Like the number one thing is okay, like start by writing down a list of, okay, what do I, what do I not know? And what do I need to know? Just list it all down and what are the actions? And that's often like a kind of a step zero, then step one would be okay, listen down. What are the actions that I need to take to actually start doing that in any action, which seems particularly confusing or uncertain. Really you can actually get that. Okay. If there's this step, let's call it. Okay. I need to create a, I need to create a website. Like for a lot of people, that's like, I don't know how to do that. And including from Easter with us now put out like a bunch of different things. If that's one of the steps, okay. I need to build a website and that's step four for me. And I've gone through this. It's like, how do I do that? Now, the next step is to kind of go, okay, so get clarity on that. What are the different steps that I need to take now? What are the most helpful things that I heard from someone? I forget who I am, which is really unfortunate, but it was there's probably a book on it to be honest, was find the smallest, actionable step that you can do that takes you closer to where you want to go. So find that smallest actionable step. And then once you can find that and like ideally smallest, actionable step, just to give it some, some, some tangibility, you're talking like five minutes to an hour, max. If it takes longer than that, then it's not like a small section. We'll step. The small section will step might be like, I'm going to list out the three things which I need to go. And then you can actually go, okay, you know what, I'm going to take this step and then find out because all of the other steps, right? Like often you can find the, the first step or you can find the first couple of steps, but without actually taking those first couple of steps, you won't even know the right questions to ask for how to get to that zero to one point, that one, that first step. So what's the smallest thing you can do. And then just be like, schedule a time to do it and then do it.

James: 33:18

yeah, I think that's useful. Yeah. Cause I think, you know, do you think, let's say you haven't started something and you're looking to do something and then you're looking at like, you know, set number 10, thinking like, oh, it's going to be hard. Cause like I'm a lot. Am I going to do when that happens? Yeah. And then it's just, it becomes tricky because you, you know, you don't know what's even going to be locked at that point, but like you've said, even if you just take this, like, like I'm just going back to your LinkedIn example, you know, creating the post and then. Creating the calendar stuff is like, step two. So if you just do step one, which is literally just like, make a push on like Jane you know, that's quite easy to do and, and thinking about like, how am I going to charge money when someone like, you know, that's

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 34:02

Yeah, completely not appropriate at that stage. That's right.

James: 34:05

yeah. So, and, and, and sometimes like, you can probably get overwhelmed by thinking about that and, and just like, you know, looping on this thing and like, okay. Or, or maybe even like you think about it too much, and then it becomes a reason why you're not even doing the first step. But I think that, I

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 34:18

Another thing you can do there is his thoughts are working out. Okay. Here's a bunch of things I could do. And you know what, like, I'm going to keep on thinking about it. If left to my own devices, I'm just going to want it and all the things I could do and actually have a look. Okay. When would it be appropriate to now do those. it going to be based on time, for example. Okay. In two months time, I'm now going to have a look at that. Or is it based on circumstance? Like, okay. You know what, like when I, when I've done 100 of these Westmead views, then I'm going to start looking at how I can monetize it or how I can start offering it as a, as a paid service for people who want that. And then you can go, okay, I'm going to schedule it for that time. And I'm only going to look at it at that time, all the ideas I can't, I might jot them down. I might get them out of my head onto paper, onto digital or somewhere to keep track of it in a, in a backlog or a task list somewhere. But I might say, Hey, this is the task list that I'm only going to do once a week, for example, 100 paid or 100 free customers. And then there might be another thing. Okay. Like once I've reached 100 paid customers, there might be some new things to do, including like actually now I'm here. Like actually have a look like, what do I actually want to do here? Because what you thought you would do at that stage and what, when you're actually in that stage, they might be overlapped, but like chances are, you're going to have a whole new world of like what you've discovered in that process that you have just a whole bunch more, probably even cooler stuff to look at.

James: 35:51

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. And I'm curious to hear then, like, you know, we've like, what would your advice be to someone that's, you know, let's say they're on the fence, they've got some idea that they want to pursue. You know, they want to like start doing something like that. And they're sort of in the middle of, you know, deciding should I, should I not kind of thing? I mean, what would your advice be to someone in that situation?

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 36:17

I mean, the generic advice, and I'd love to actually ask you, okay, what's something where that's just get it really practical and tangible for the listeners. So I'll ask you in a moment, like, Hey, what's something with your life having a hearing about. Cause then we can work through that. But the, the generic advice. And really like what I'd say to people, listen to this. I actually have a look at what is the thing that you're arming and arguing about. Like, cause if you take this in, if, if listeners take this in like a theory or a concept, it's not going to make a difference. Unfortunately, it's going to be nice. Okay. Yeah. I'll, I'll review that later. Maybe I'll bookmark this podcast and come back to it when I finally want to do it. But if you have a look, everyone in their life, like, like people, we have all these things, which we are arming and hiring about. Like we don't wake out wit at least I don't wake up out of bed. And I don't know too many people who wake up out of bed default, like decisive, knowing exactly what I'm going to do each certain day. Like that takes for most people, there was a subset for most people, an incredible amount of discipline and, and training and actual development to get to that stage. So for most people, especially for most people, like w were young early in their careers including whilst they're still at United. Don't automatically aren't automatically like that. So we do have these arms and ours. And what I would say is actually find out what's stopping me. So you could write down a list. Okay. Like what's, what's stopping me. Like, what am I uncertainties wiped them all out. Number one, I'm uncertain about this. Will I have enough time, but will I be good enough? Will people listen? Like what if it doesn't work? What if I embarrass myself? I, these are just some common ones, but like, everyone's going to have their own sort of flavor. And then the second thing, and this is really powerful within startups sort of methodology is it's really powerful to get that within a startup process. You're not actually out for the answer. In fact, there's no such thing as the answer, because the moment you get the answer, like it's the only answer like this is. Can be done and this is how it should be done now. Like you've actually kind of closed off, like everything else that could have been possible. If you kept on asking, Hey, what else could I do? What else could I do? So my, my initial advice would be okay, what are some really small, easy experiments that I could do? Like a simple experiment might be, Hey, I've been thinking about launching some freeways. You may views with people just type in yes. In the comments. If like you'd be interested in finding out about that. Like, if I look back like, that's like I could have put that post up and just put up a LinkedIn poll. Yes, no,

James: 39:06

yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 39:07

it just kind of saying, and now I also know who said, yeah, so I could actually contact them. Like in hindsight, that's what I would've done. Cause that would've been so much easier than writing this. Like pretty ended up being a pretty long. I had to trim down from the, the maximum character limit for LinkedIn. I have to trim it down a couple of times would have been a lot simplified, just kind of led with that sort of initial proof of concept. But I didn't, I spent all that time arming an Allan about it, but what's the S the key thing is like, what's the smallest experiment that I could do. How would I know that experiment succeeded? And one of the really simple, easy actions I can take to have that experiment go live. Okay. And I'll ask you, like, like what's something for you that you've, you've been humming and hawing about.

James: 39:53

At the moment, one thing that. Yeah, I'm considering doing is so often with this podcast, well, not often every episode of this podcast at the end, I asked the guests, you know, what's some advice you'd give yourself if you were starting your career again, you know, the son of this year. And so they'll come up with some kind of an advice for a new graduate, you know, kind of things that, you know, just like fairly generic tips almost that, that, that gives someone. And what I'm, what I'm thinking about doing is kind of taking those things and putting them into some kind of a resource that someone could then like go and use and, and whatever, and just having them all in enabled or something like that. I think that would be like know a good way to compile a lot of the advice, kind of get a lot of the good stuff without having to listen to like all the hours of podcasting. But yeah, again, it's, it's this kind of thing where like, what's the best way to do that. Like had I even like do that kind of thing, cause I've

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 40:49

Yeah. Yeah, I get it. And how many, how many guests have you had on your podcast?

James: 40:55

I think this episode we're recording now is going to be episode 17. So probably I'll be at 20, within the next couple of weeks. Yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 41:03

Okay, great. So you love 20, 20 guests, like, so what's something which you could do that would be an experiment where you could actually find out.

James: 41:14

yeah, it

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 41:15

And we, we, we skip the step about what are you uncertain about, but like, if you want it, we can go through that. What are you inside of the bat? In fact, you said it automatically, you were like, I've never done this before. What else was there?

James: 41:25

yeah, I think

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 41:26

I don't know how to do it.

James: 41:27

Yeah, I don't know how to do it. I'm not sure if people would even, you know, if they would even download it or if it would just be a watch because it would, you know, it was obviously it's a fair bit of time investment to make something like that, especially if it's going to be

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 41:37

going to take a lot of effort. Will people download

James: 41:40

want people to know that

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 41:41

gotta be good.

James: 41:42

it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 41:45

Yeah.

James: 41:45

Yeah, I think, yeah, that was a bit of a.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 41:47

what other concerns do you have? So those are the main ones. What other concerns do you have or just uncertainties? Like, I don't know.

James: 41:54

Yeah. I don't know. Like perhaps what would be the best way to, to share it with people? Like, should it be, should I make people pay for it or should it just be free? You know, like what's, what's even like designing the actual book itself. Like how do you make it actually look good? And the aid and the writing itself, like, what's the best way to convert. Someone's answering a podcast into a text format. That's like, nice to look at it. Like, well, illustrated that kind of thing. Like, should I do that myself? What is like, do I get someone else to help? Like, you know, this

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 42:25

yeah. How do I take out all of the, the ums and AHS? The, oh, I'm going to start a new sentence in the middle of this idea, because I just had this new idea, but first let me come back to that old idea. All of that. How do I edit it? How do I illustrate it? How do I make it visually appealing?

James: 42:40

Hm.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 42:40

Should I get people to pay for it? Should it be free if it's free? What if they don't value it?

James: 42:45

Yeah,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 42:47

Okay, got it. yeah, The, and there's probably more right. You could probably come up with more

James: 42:52

definitely.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 42:52

now, have a look, right. Just getting present to all of those different things. Now that you've actually acknowledged it. You've said it out loud. You've got it recorded. You can go back and actually write down all of them. When you review this podcast later. What's what are you noticing now that you've actually said them all out loud or actually just got, just got them out. You've communicated them. Like what's what's present now.

James: 43:15

I think it becomes more clear on the things that are holding me back in there to come sort of a, not an invisible target. It becomes something that you can actually go out and investigate. So for example, like the illustrations of

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 43:30

on for a second. Can I give you, can I give you some quick coaching now when you say awesome. Yeah. So when you say, I think it's become less of an invisible target, like, is it, is it actually, or is it not like, cause I think is kind of. Thing, which we, we always say, oh, I think it's going to work. Like, like we say that so that we don't have to be on the hook for it will work or it won't, or I just, I don't know. Or it's just kinda like, oh, I'm going to try and do it. Right. It's like, that's like the thing which we say when we don't want to be on the hook for actually having to do it. Oh, I'll try. I'll

James: 44:06

very guilty of that. Definitely.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 44:08

So, so if you have a look okay. You've just acknowledged all of those different things. So what's, how does it occur to you now? What's it actually like for you now in terms of like in physical target, what's now available and take out the, I think, cause everything you said before was perfect.

James: 44:24

yeah, I, yeah, it's, it's much more clear on what I have to do and it's. that I would have to go through to have this thing finished and now much more outline and look more clear and it's not yeah, it's not so much this idea. That's, it's not something like, yeah. Massive thing that, that is almost a bit scary. It's kind of this thing we've now outlined it. It's I can see the things that, that I have to do and you can kind of mentally like, say to that possible to overcome almost as well.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 45:00

Yeah. And you was going to start talking about the illustrations. I mean, that's a perfect one to look at. So now that you've had a look at it, I've got no idea how, like, how to make it look good. What are some actions that you could now take to a find that out or potentially even better, like outsource it so that you didn't have to worry about that?

James: 45:23

yeah, would probably start with fun. Well, at least seeing if there are other books that, or other resources that are similar and see how they've gone about like the way it looks. And then I could decide, you know, is this just a, like a word doc type thing where I can just provide it? Or is it something where, you know, I need to have like fancy illustrations and like cartoons and like all this kind of extra stuff. Cause in that case you had perhaps then I would go on to like Upwork or Fiverr or one of those kinds of websites and just say what's kind of the, the the price range for this sort of thing would be and see if then it would be worth it. Or if it's worth me just learning it and having a crack myself. Okay.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 46:07

yeah. Yeah. Like, perfect. So like Y there you've, you've actually now got a couple of openings for action.

James: 46:14

Yeah,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 46:15

So it's like a quote compilation ebook,

James: 46:19

yeah,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 46:19

just see what you find.

James: 46:21

yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 46:22

Okay. Yeah. Perfect. And, and you could actually, and by the way, right, like this is the. A great example of how the questions will shape your answers. Cause you're quite one of your questions was one of your uncertainties. Was should it be free or should it be paid? Why? And then obviously you can tell that the bigger question there is, how much would it, how much should I charge? Because in the world of, should it be paid or not free is easy, free zero, but like pay. It is like, should it be$5 should be$4 should be 4 95. Should it be$10? Should it be a hundred dollars? What's the actual appropriate sort of thing. Now you've got this whole other kettle of fish. But just notice that the question shapes the value of the information you're going to get, because inside of that, should it be paid or not pay, there's actually a third option. Right. And it's probably more options, right? Like there's a third option, which could be, Hey, do I let people pay what they want? Or do I, do I give this for free to people who are subscribers and they get.

James: 47:26

Yeah, I think

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 47:27

Or do I, do I give this for people who are going to give me their email address? So that can be part of the actual community.

James: 47:36

Yeah, yeah. I think,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 47:37

So you stopped, you stopped looking at payment purely and start looking at, okay, what's the value exchange? What am I sharing with people supporting with people?

James: 47:43

yeah, yeah. It's an interesting way of looking at it. Definitely. Cause like, yeah. What's it going to be worth to someone is probably, yeah. Better than just thinking about it from my side. Like what do I want to get out of it almost? You know, rather than like, while we're like, how much is values in this sense that it's worth to someone. Okay.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 48:04

Yeah. And starting from where you're at is I is, is, is fine. It's valid, right? Because then you know that, Hey, like this is gonna, it's going to be aligned with what's important. and what you said is perfect, cause it's equally critical for the people who are going to be reading this for the people that this this product or this resource is going to make a difference too. It's equally critical to get what's important for them and really understand that like, Hey, what do they want? What's gonna make a difference. And you know what, we'll also kind of have that sort of spring up. I mean, you've got all those snippets you've got to this podcast recorded. You could just kind of spend, like, I don't know if it's at the last five minutes of every podcast, you've got 20 podcasts in a couple of weeks time you could go, okay, I'm going to spend 20 podcasts. Time is five minutes. Don't ask me to do mats on a, on a podcast. But like you could spend that time just listening through to it and actually just kind of going, okay, what are the different categories? What are the different pieces of advice? Like what if it is the same, what's different and you can kind of go, okay, we've got like five, six distinct categories of. And some people might overlap to different sectors and you'd be like, okay, cool. That's interesting. Who would benefit from this? Who would this make a difference to? And then you'd be you'd be in effect, you'd be taking some action, right? Because now you've got there, the bare bones, you've got the raw materials, you've got the podcast. That's ultimately like one of the, one of the extremely powerful value propositions for doing a podcast because you get to accumulate and you get to correlate incredible ideas altogether. And you can absolutely do that. And you can actually go, okay, it look like this, this resource was like, essentially coauthored. You got to ask permission for this. But like, most people will be like, yes. Yeah, with these people and they get their name on it and you can be like, Hey, do you want to share this out to your communities? I spread the word. Let's get more. And more people aware of like different ideas, which are gonna make a difference for, for this whole.

James: 50:12

yeah, that's a good idea. Hey, I didn't even think of that.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 50:15

I know. Yeah. So now, so now, like, so now you've seen it in action and by the way, this was perfectly did this. I want to thank you because that takes, that takes a level of courage to like live on a podcast, live on your podcast, kind of be the person who's kind of like interacting. So I really acknowledge you, James and cause really we just took something from a theoretical concept because you asked me the question. I was like, yeah, happy to answer the question. I did answer the question, but it actually came to life for you. And even this example, because it's a real example, it's a real life example. It's not hypothetical. It's going to actually come to life for, for our listeners as well,

James: 50:57

Hmm.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 50:58

like in the actual doing it. Because if we have a look like I asked you, what are the, what are the things you worried about? What are the things you are uncertain about? You listed it? We actually got, okay. Given that you're uncertain about these things given you now. We didn't physically write them down, but we list them out like, and it's, it's forever embedded in this podcast, so you can look back, right. And then you started to go, okay, hold on. Yeah, there is like, you've got, like, I kind of got this space now. It's no longer this sort of vague vapid, elusive, invisible sort of task. It's like, okay, this whole bunch of smaller things. And we actually started having a look. Okay. One example, creating, creating this resource, illustrating it specifically. What are some of the things I can do? We also explored payments and what that might even look like. So right now you've actually seen it in action. And now like, now let me ask you which, what action or one or two actions are you going to take in the next today? And make them as small as appropriate given the time you've got, because we don't have, you've got, you're a busy guy. You've got stuff on. Right. But like what's one or two actions, but you could take, what would, you will take not good. Good. It's one of those of try sort of phrases, but what's one or two actions you will take today.

James: 52:12

Yeah. I think today I can have a look at try and finding some other books. I think that'd be a good place to start and just say kind of what's the structure that they're going for. What's. Yeah, what's the style. What do they like? I think that'd be pretty informative. Kind of the things that I would want to do. Yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 52:29

Yeah. So you can do that, but all you're going to do that. Nobody says, oh, I can do that. But like, what's the action that you're actually going to take,

James: 52:36

Okay. I'm going to do that

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 52:37

I will.

James: 52:38

I will. I'll Google that. I think you got a good name for it, but you know, all the Ellie, Ellie Korea related eBooks and just the kind of structure that going full

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 52:51

Yeah. Perfect. Another one you could Google it. Like podcast, podcast, quotes, compilations, ebook,

James: 52:58

Yeah, yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 52:59

something like that. Like you could come up with a couple of them and just kind of do it. So yeah, like your action could literally be typing things into Google four or five times.

James: 53:07

yeah,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 53:09

Awesome. All right. So now you've got a clear first place to start and you don't know if there's anything bad. So this some experiment to nature you're going to get when you get and inside of taking that action. And you've told everyone at the podcast, by the time this podcast is out, you probably have done it. Well, you will have done it cause

James: 53:24

Yeah,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 53:25

it today. Yeah. And that's, that's it in practice.

James: 53:31

yeah,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 53:32

Perfect.

James: 53:34

yeah. I,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 53:34

And it's as simple as that.

James: 53:35

Yeah. I think this is cool. And like, even the thing that you mentioned earlier was like, you know, what's the smallest, like getting it down to the smallest action that

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 53:44

yeah, what's the smallest actionable step.

James: 53:46

the smallest actionable step. Yeah. I think that's really useful. Cause then it's yeah, like we've said, having this whole list of things, that's kind of vague and out there and yeah, it's hard to imagine how you would even overcome some of those problems, but really breaking it down to. Okay. What is the next step that I can take? That's something that's achievable. I know how to do. You know, I can do that. And then it's, and then the whole thing is really just the sum of all of those little steps. So yeah. Starting there will get you to the end eventually. So yeah, I think that's, that's really good. And it's something that I'll endeavor to apply more to the things that I'm doing. Yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 54:21

Darren endeavored to imply more. Just say I'm going to apply it. I'm going to apply it.

James: 54:25

Okay. I'm going to apply it more. Yeah,

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 54:28

no no more. Just I'm going to apply it. Yeah, I'm just going to apply it.

James: 54:32

Yeah. That's spot on. Well, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Well, I'd love to kind of, you know, take this, this action, this kinds of things we've spoken about and kind of relate that into a career kind of thing. And some of the things that your threads that are common in the podcast, particularly I think a lot of this stuff with taking action can be similar. Let's say it's mine, I'll be starting a project, but it might be, I'm not liking where I'm working. I'm going to look for another. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a similar process where it's like, okay, what is the next step? Okay. Maybe it's maybe it's like fixing up my resume a little bit. Maybe it's, you know, down to look at my resume for me, you know, then it's like, okay, I go and find other companies that I would want to work at. Maybe it's like connect with some of them, but a lot of these things like, you know, seeing yourself the way you are and then walking somewhere, it was just to take one career example. You know, I think a lot of

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 55:24

well, maybe it's.

James: 55:25

base things are quite simple.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 55:28

Yeah. And here's something which doesn't often get discussed is okay. Like, cause all of those things are a form of, okay, I'm going to leave the company, I'm going to leave the position. So I'll throw one out there. Like, okay. Like what would it actually take to resolve the thing? About which I'm unhappy because if I'm, if I'm not liking my job, you could start by exploring, okay, what specifically am I not liking about it? What's what's there? Is it a, is it a person? Is it a situation? Is it a as a way or a system of doing doing business? What's the actual thing. Cause often similar to, similar to when we looked at that hesitation and before, like the uncertainty is often, it's this sort of vague sort of thing. Why we actually, like, I feel uncomfortable, therefore it sucks. Right? And I'm not just disagreeing that it sucks. Right? It probably does suck. In fact, for a lot of people, it's one of the, it's a major cause of stress. Like not, not having that sense of happiness or fulfillment at work, it is a major cause of stress. Right. And actually having a look, okay, what's actually there. What am I upset about? Who am I upset about? Like, what is it there? What are the questions? And then you could apply the same sort of things. Right. Okay. What are some of the things. That I could do, or if I don't know what to do, what could I find out about how to resolve their situation? Now this would be let's. If you actually do enjoy a couple of things about the business, cause most people don't go to a company that they don't have at least one or two things, which they enjoy about it. Like the majority of people are like, okay, cool. So it might be what the company does, what the company is out to accomplish might be the type of work so you can kind of get, okay, hold on. I did join this company for a reason. I should, I, should I up and go maybe, maybe like that is one of the options, right? I'm not discounting that, but having, having a look at okay, like what, what is it, what would actually, what would it actually look like? Not just for me to be able to tolerate this now, because there's a certain level of like, it's gonna start a sock that it's going to bit. And you tolerate that as you go to the guest, the point of like, man, this is almost unbearable. I got to get up, got to do the west, make the, do this sort of stuff. And most people in that situation, their results also kind of going from here to like, ah, just like, as you, your dissatisfaction with work increases your productivity and output tends to decrease for the majority of people. Now, if you let that go on for too long that can have an impact on your future career, because if they call up for a reference and you haven't been just kind of like doing what you need to be doing, then that can kind of cause this sort of downward spiral and it's often talked about in the a let's let's get the new job, let's do all that sort of stuff. I'm always happy to talk about that. In fact, that's what most people talk to me about, but having a look at, okay, why am I unhappy? Why am I dissatisfied? Like, what is that actually about? And what could I actually explore? What are some of the options? What could I find out about resolving. Who could I speak to? Who can I share this with? What could actually get done? Because in a lot of situations, like in a couple of steps, like chances are someone doesn't know that you upset. Someone doesn't know that they you're unhappy. And if you communicate like authentically and openly, Hey, it might still end up resulting in you leaving. But now you've got the opportunity to actually shape your environment to how you actually wanted, what's going to make a difference for you. So that's, that's something which I would actually recommend.

James: 59:04

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really good advice. I think. Yeah. That's this whole idea of like naming the things that you're struggling with and working out exactly what they are is really critical. Like, regardless of whether it's a taking action in the situation, or if it's like, you know, these kinds of things where something isn't going so well, you know, it really making those problems visible and you know, and what's facing them directly is really important, I think. Yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 59:32

it's super powerful.

James: 59:33

Yeah, cool. I like this a lot. Yeah, I wanna, I know we've spoken for a while now and I want to ask, you know, we can probably wrap this conversation now, but I want to ask one more question before we go on. And that's something, you know, we've spoken about with, with the, know, what I do with all the guests to this question, right? Is, you know, you starting your career again today. I mean, you've done all this kind of stuff. Like public speaking, coaching, you're an entrepreneurship leader you know, facilitating workshops, you know, you do all this kind of really wide range of, of, of things. And, you know, you see so many young people going through this stage from uni or from school to uni to work, you know, this whole you know, this whole period, I'm curious, what would be some advice or some, some really key principles that you would, you would give to people going through this transition into their first full-time role.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 1:00:27

perfect. The number one piece of advice I would give is share what you're up to share it with your family, share it with your friends, share it with your network. Just tell people, Hey, this is what I want to be doing. This is the type of work. This is what excites me about. Share that with as many people as possible. And inside of sharing it with people, things are gonna happen, right? Like people are going to be like, oh, Hey, have you heard about this job opportunity? Have you heard about this volunteering opportunity? Have you thought about joining this hackathon? Have you seen this thing? People who are in that same sort of journey are going towards something else might be like, Hey, I, I'm also doing this. Let's catch up. Let's connect, let's collaborate. And you might learn from them. You might contribute to them and inside of sharing what you're up to and what you're out to accomplish, which could be like an early stage of creatives. Like, Hey, I really want to be an amazing product manager. I really want to be an amazing systems engineer. I really want to be an amazing a junior HR manager. I really want to be an amazing anything. And so like Korea here, like you can start to kind of get, Hey, what excites me about. And it doesn't have to be this big aspirational, amazing sort of thing. Right. And it doesn't have to be like, Hey, I'm joining, I'm joining Tesla to create the brand new next, like powered smart home battery, motor motorcycle, whatever it is, right. It doesn't have to be this incredible. That's going to go to miles by the way. It's not, it doesn't have to be that light. You could have a look at your early stage career. It'd be like, okay, look like what I'm out to. What I'm committed to is like, Hey, I'm committed to really discovering the world of finance. So I can make a difference to the everyday people who use company X's services. And as you share that, as you start to explore that not earlier two things will happen. Like you will start to deepen your awareness of like, Hey, what am I actually wanting to do? So that will naturally happen. You deepen it. The more conversations you. The deeper it'll get for you. The more that you explain it or share it with people. They're like, oh, that's interesting. Tell me about that. The more you'll, it'll be real for you. And the more that your environment can kind of start to pull for, Hey, James is the person who does that podcast. Of course, I'm going to like, if I, if someone comes up to me, of course, I'm going to recommend him to him. It would just make sense because your sharing, what you're up to is the number one thing that influences your environment. That could be a post that could be in conversations like, Hey, what have you been doing or what you've been up to? How's it going in Australia is the equivalent of saying hello, but please don't actually tell me how you're actually feeling or what you're doing. The correct response actually is like, yeah, nothing much. How about you? But instead when you get asked that question, Hey, what have you been up to? You can actually talk about that. You can just share, Hey, like I've recorded a podcast on the week. The podcast guests actually flipped it on me, started asking me questions for a little bit. It was actually pretty cool. And out of that, look, what I'm about to create for this podcast is like, I'm really going to think about how do I create more and more value for people because I'm committed that the listeners have graduate degree podcasts and the community that we're building really experiences having the best possible resources and the best preparation and the support and guidance that they need so that they can take the action in their lives to take their careers to the next step. So that's what I've been doing this weekend. So that could be, I just made that up for you, for example,

James: 1:04:16

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 1:04:18

and people will like, well, tell me about that. And then you, then it builds and then it builds.

James: 1:04:24

Yeah.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 1:04:26

So share what you're up to share what you are.

James: 1:04:30

Yeah. That's that's cool. Last certainly think, you know, we, we can all do better at that. I think, you know, just sharing what we were up to like developing on networks, you know, I think it's really, really cool. Yeah. Great. Well, yeah, thanks so much for coming on today. And it was like, yeah, personally for me, so, so valuable, thanks so much for your, your questions and helping me out with that. And I think there's a lot of great takeaways in there for people listening to this, whether it's around, you know, the smallest the smallest possible action or, you know, this idea of, of sharing with your network, I think is really, really great advice and some great takeaways there. But if people want to get in touch with you and find out more about the things that you're up to, where's the best place for them to.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 1:05:10

The best place to connect with me is on LinkedIn type in my name. Aaron, no I'm into LinkedIn and you will find me or linkedin.com/i N Fords. Aragon, just one name, no dashes. That's the best place to connect a and mentioned that you came from the graduate theory podcast. I'd love to connect with you and support you with anything to do with your career entrepreneurship skills, public speaking, being able to powerfully express yourself. All of it. Please connect

James: 1:05:40

well, yeah, we'll leave that for you and for everybody in the show notes below, but yeah. Thanks so much again for coming on today and yeah, we'll be in touch.

aaron_ngan-2022-2-13__10-38-49: 1:05:49

James. It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. And I look forward to chatting with you more in the future.

James: 1:06:02

Thanks so much for listening to graduate theory. And if you want to find out more about graduate theory, please go to graduate theory.com. And if you want to hear more from me straight to your inbox every single week, please go to graduate theory.com/subscribe, where you'll be able to get emails from me every single week containing my takeaways from each episode, I look forward to seeing you there and we'll see you next week.