The Business Of Thinking

Less Is Your Competitive Advantage - Simplicity, Burnout, and Why Doing Less Gets More Done

• Richard Reid • Season 1 • Episode 26

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What if the secret to doing more was actually doing less? In this episode, Richard Reid sits down with author, coach, and keynote speaker Chris Lovett to explore why busyness has become one of the biggest threats to performance and how simplification might be the sharpest competitive advantage most leaders are ignoring. It all started with a CD case, a Fawlty Towers moment, and a one-way ticket to Copenhagen.

Chris shares how stepping on a Mark Morrison CD in 2016 triggered a complete unravelling of his life, selling his flat, his car, and almost everything he owned — before returning to the corporate world with a radical new perspective. Now working with banks, tech firms, and leadership teams globally, Chris helps people strip back the noise, protect their energy, and deliver what actually matters.

Key Takeaways 

Busyness is a badge and it's making us worse at our jobs. 

Back-to-back meetings drain decision-making capacity far faster than most leaders realise. 

The best ideas don't come from screens. 

The incubation effect, showers, walks, boredom is scientifically proven to unlock creativity. 

Simplicity is a competitive advantage, not a retreat. 

Your lunch break might be one of the highest-performing things you can protect.

Episode Highlights

  • The Mark Morrison CD case moment and the ripple effect that changed everything
  • "Entrenched narratives" - the stories we keep telling ourselves long after they've expired
  • Leaving meetings five minutes early: the smallest rebellion that becomes a cultural shift
  • The Volkswagen diesel scandal - what happens when people are pushed too far
  • JK Rowling, Keith Richards, Joni Mitchell and what boredom actually produces
  • Relentless, the business book designed for people who don't have time to read one

Timestamps

  • 00:00 Welcome and introduction
  • 01:15 The CD case moment that started everything
  • 04:14 Selling the flat, the car, and going around the world
  • 05:42 Returning to corporate life with fresh eyes
  • 09:36 The smallest act of rebellion — leaving five minutes early
  • 11:57 Simplicity as competitive advantage
  • 21:27 Mistakes caused by pushing people beyond their limits
  • 29:09 Three things to free time and energy right now
  • 33:25 Boredom, JK Rowling, and the incubation effect
  • 41:53 About Relentless — and why it tells you to put it down


🔗 Connect With Chris Lovett 

Find Relentless by Chris Lovett on Amazon, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble.

⭐️ Connect And Subscribe 

Thank you for joining us on The Business of Thinking podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe and leave a rating! It helps us bring more insightful content on the psychology of high performance. Find more about Richard Reid's work at www.richard-reid.com.

Download the first two chapters of Richard's Charisma Unlocked, audio or PDF version for free: https://richard-reid.com/master-authentic-charisma/

Production Credit: Edited and produced by @the32collective_ / https://www.the32collective.co/



SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Business of Thinking podcast. This is the place for high achievers who want more than motivation. They want mastery. Here we skip the surface level talk and go straight into the psychology of high performance.

SPEAKER_02

Hello, and welcome again to the business of thinking. My name is Richard Reid, and today I'm joined by Chris Lovett, who is a coach, an author, and a keynote speaker. And before we introduce Chris properly, welcome, Chris. Fantastic to have you here. I've been reading up about stats around stress and burnout, and it's quite scary, isn't it? You know, it's something like 79% of the UK population are estimates have had some form of burnout in the last 12 months. And I guess this sort of lends itself to some of the things that that perhaps you're going to talk about today. So I'd be interested to hear some something about that. But let's start by talking a bit about you. Tell us how you've arrived at doing what you do now.

SPEAKER_01

Oh thanks, Richard. Um it's a pleasure to see you. Uh, and thanks for for having this chat. It's great. Um, yeah, the the story starts a bit ridiculous, really. Um I stepped on a CD case. Do you remember then? Um remember when we used to collect CDs? So uh back in uh kind of 2016, 2017, um, I was living in a small flat in South London, and that flat was cluttered full of stuff. Uh and one weekend, as I was not getting rid of things, I was organising my mess or my horde of stuff, I stepped on a CD case. And for those who are into music, it was Mark Morrison Return of the Mac, uh, which was from like Blast from the Past. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is from like 1995, which gives you an indication as to how long I'd retained that CD for. Um and uh and for those of those of you who have seen Forty Towers um or familiar with the the character of Basil Forty, um you'll know that he continues to have stress build up throughout each episode of Forty Towers, and there's something very minor that takes him over the edge. Um, and for me it was stepping on a CD case, and I turned into a bit of a combination of the incredible Hulkin and Danny Dyer, and just got really angry about my stuff. Uh and the reason for it was just that my my living space was full of stuff that I didn't really need or weren't using anymore. So uh by the end of that weekend, I had sold or donated or recycled um hundreds and hundreds of things in my living space that I weren't uh wasn't using anymore. So DVDs, CDs, uh books I'd never read, video games that I'd played and completed years ago and just kept on and held on to. Um and I managed to sell some of them, which gave me, I remember the exact figure, Richard, as well. It was £156, right, which isn't a lot if you accumulate like 20 years worth of stuff. Um, and that money gave me the impetus to buy a plane ticket to go to Copenhagen, which then started an odyssey of travelling around the world. So after I'd stepped on that SCD case, I thought I've got too much stuff, and then you start to reflect back on why I have held on to all this stuff for so long, and I'd held on to a career for so long. Um, I'd lived in the same part of London pretty much all my adult life, and I was like, I think it's time to let go. So I had pretty much then sold everything in my flat, so all the kitchen utensils, cutlery, and then it was clothes, and then it was furniture, tech, all sorts.

SPEAKER_02

What what what what kind of time scale are we talking here for all this stuff disappearing?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, from I think it was February 2017 to uh July. So over that period of time, okay.

SPEAKER_03

It was a visual period.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so it was a slow, uh slowly releasing things, and with that money then gave me a pedestal and buy further plane tickets, and and then I sold my flat, sold my car, took a sabbatical, and I just had a backpack full of a few clothes, a little bit of tech, passport, and money, and off I went around the world. And it was at that point I realised that you know the classic cliche of less is more, and I went and you know, went on this massive journey around the world and had so many wonderful experiences, and it didn't relate to anything uh physically wise that I'd collected over the last 20 years. Like the t-shirts didn't matter, the video games didn't matter. I and I grew as a as an individual. And when I came back to the UK, I stepped back into real life, into the corporate world, with this new view of like, well, we don't have to be, you don't have to collect all of this stuff to enjoy the best bits of life. And as I sat on a desk with my colleagues who were just ridiculously busy, running to meet in to meet in with you know, complaining about their ever-larging email inbox and working considerably late every day, I was like, maybe this is a thing in work. So I started to let go of tasks and responsibilities that uh I've been hoarding at work for so long and realized that we can achieve so much more if we just let go of the stuff that doesn't really matter. So I implemented that at work. And here we are now in 2026 with two books, um, a TEDx talk, and um thousands of clients around the world who have simplified their not just their personal life but their professional life so they can achieve the things that matter. So from so I suppose I've got a little bit of uh to thank Mark Morrison for. If he's if he's listening, thank you, Mark. Um and but yeah, so that stepping on that CD case then caused the ripple effect that's uh led us here today, Richard.

SPEAKER_02

It it's funny how it goes, isn't it? And I'm one of the reasons I'm smiling is because I can absolutely relate to the CD. I I I did have that CD, yeah. I'm not now gonna un download, I'm ashamed to say. But no, I I I did a very similar thing. I gave up a career to go travelling, and when I was traveling, that's when I decided to become a therapist, and and and my career sort of snowballed brilliant from there. So I can definitely relate to that. And it's it's interesting, isn't it, that sometimes it's only when you step out of a system that you can see it for what it is. Yeah, when you're immersed in it, you can't see the wood from the trees.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And you get caught in all these uh what I call like entrenched narratives. So over time you keep telling yourself these stories, and whether or not they're true, if you keep repeating them, they become your truth. So things like I must have a label or I must have this title or I must earn this amount of money to be happy or to feel successful because you're in that um system where everyone is very similar. But um, I found that the the counter-cultural approach to success worked for me. And then as soon as I shared the story and the relatability of it all with like, oh, everybody's got books that they don't read that are left in their house, everybody's got clothes that they don't wear, where they create these stories of like when I do this thing, I'll wear that thing. When I lose weight, when I do that, when I go to my next fancy dress party that I've never been to in my life, I'll wear that thing. Um, so we we create all these narratives that keep us stuck. Uh and so all I've basically done over the last few years is help people just to reframe those narratives and kind of go, what could you achieve if you just let go of that thing? And I know that letting go is hard. Um, so it's uh it's a fabulous journey for people that go on it, but um, yeah, I'll be intrigued afterwards to know where where you went travelling and whether we uh crossed over at any point.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, almost certainly. But I think it's really interesting uh the the the points that you make there, and uh I'm guessing it can be tremendously uh freeing to let go of things, systems, objects. I guess it can also be quite scary as well. If you've grown up, as you say, in a system where everybody is behaving in a particular way, it's it can be very challenging to step away from that received wisdom, can't it?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, massively. And there's a there's a fear behind a lot of it, is uh it goes all the way back to like our caveman days when if we were almost like removed from the group dynamics or kind of ostracised, you didn't get access to heat or protection or food or anything like that. And and we still got that inside of us, and then we move into like a workplace system. If you say no to the authority figures, like a boss, for example, you fear there's a risk of exclusion, or I'm not gonna get offered that opportunity again, or you know, maybe they think I'm not fully on board or anything like that. But if um we reframe that now in a case of you say yes to everything, it's borderline chaos. So the kind of middle ground we reach to make it safe for people to do that is that you do the most timeless experiment where no one really is gonna notice, and it is that simple thing of um leaving a meeting five minutes early because you've got another one coming up in five minutes. So because nobody will make sense on the face of it, doesn't it? But there you go, right? And it doesn't people other people are far too busy to notice what you're doing, so actually, you're what might seem as a very small bit of rebellion to you, the likelihood is no one's really gonna notice, and then over time you start to kind of redesign um your whole approach to a sustainable working life, and so yeah, whether it is you you actually sign off on time, or whether it is you don't respond immediately to the Slack or Teams message that comes straight through your inbox and takes your attention away, is these tiny little kind of reframes that help people to create a bit more of a sustainable approach to life. And and yeah, I'm I'm trying to help teams, individuals, and organizations use simplicity as their competitive advantage because everybody is ridiculously busy. And so, how does it also a badge as well, isn't it? It's a badge badge quite often to be seen to be busy, yeah. Um, and you know, there's the stats around our health and uh burnout and various other bits are just only going one way, they're they're they're incredibly bad. Um, so how do you differentiate yourself without um impacting on your performance? And the actual approach is to just do a little bit less than everybody else because once you look at all the stats, you'll see that people waste an incredible amount of time on stuff that doesn't really matter. And if you're approaching stuff as I'm gonna deliver impactful change in a sustainable approach, brilliant. So that's what we do. We use simplicity as a bit of a competitive advantage, and it's fun to let go of stuff sometimes. So you see the waste that happens, you're like, oh well, I can stop doing something, I can stop going to that meeting. Yes, please. Imagine that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so so it sounds like what you're talking about in therapy terms is sort of graded exposure, isn't it? That actually, I don't jump off the edge of a cliff, it's gradual, gradual steps. And and I was just thinking about what we spoke about a moment ago. We we spoke about you know how people often feel threatened or scared at the idea of changing some of these things. But I guess you know, if if if as a team you can make uh a collective commitment to doing these things, or if as a leader you can set the tempo and the pace and the template for these things, I guess it potentially becomes a little bit easier, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01

That's right. And um offering opportunities for people to take work out of their day can be incredibly empowering as well. So the likelihood is that a lot of people, and I you know, I work with different organisations, and and the the the theme is tends to be the same. Everything feels important, there's too much to do, we don't have enough time, resource, energy. Uh, we're asked to do more with less. There's threats of change happening everywhere, redundancies, AI is gonna take my job, I get it. Um I'm in it every day. Um, but once you are able to regain a little bit of control over your collective approach of what you're gonna deliver and how you're gonna do it, you can then start to chip away at the things that used to be really important, like the stuff we keep in our home, but now maybe not so much. So it used to be various things I I used to love having around my my home. Um, I've put, Richard, I've put too many jumpers through in a tumble dryer so they don't fit anymore. So there'd be days where I'd be like, oh well, this is now a crop top. The world has changed, stuff has changed, right? I'm not gonna keep it just because you know one day it might be useful. That thing has changed, and the importance of that has now changed, and it's similar to our tasks. You know, maybe a year ago, that recurring meeting was really important. So we would go to it. Now something else is different. Doesn't mean you still have to keep going to that recurring meeting all the time now.

SPEAKER_02

So it is being dynamic and being mindful and more purposeful, isn't it? That's it, reflecting on things on an ongoing basis.

SPEAKER_01

That's it. And and the the good thing is that you can do that from an individual perspective without uh torpedoing your job. You can do it at such a small scale that no one will really notice, and then you can do it at scale by uh teams or even organizations giving permission from the top down and saying no meetings on Wednesdays. So some organizations do this already where they they get feedback from their people and they understand that they are they waste a lot of time where there's like too many people join a meeting or they run on for too long.

SPEAKER_02

Again, they're or no agenda, or no agenda. Or doing their thinking as they go along, you know, and and that's not uh effective for everybody's time.

SPEAKER_01

There you go, right? Um, and so you know the the stats on wasted time in meetings is is endless. I mean, it doesn't dozens and dozens and dozens of areas you can find, but um, but yeah, so sometimes it takes the the seniority to provide a certain level of permission, but from an individual perspective, you've got opportunity to not bother waiting for that, just give yourself permission to make the smallest little rebellion and leave five minutes early, turn up five minutes, um yeah, leave five minutes early, turn up five minutes late, whatever it is, that gives you that bit of evidence to know that it's safe. So as soon as you get that one tiny little bit of evidence or data to go, I did a thing, and either no one noticed, no one complained, nothing changed, I didn't get fired, right? It allows you to then do it again. And then over time, you become a cultural role model because then people start following you, and they're going to, oh Richard, you you go into this meeting today. You'd be like, I am, but because I've got one that finishes just before, I'll be about five minutes late just so I can get prepped for this one and be with you and be really present. They'd be like, Oh, it's he's really organised. How really? Whereas you know, on the the face of it, if you look at someone's calendar that is, it looks like Tetris gone wrong or right, depending on how you do it.

SPEAKER_02

Three meetings at the same time, yeah. Yeah, these these things like that.

SPEAKER_01

It is it's it's chaos. And the you know, if you're someone who is responsible for you know big products or many people and their careers and their livelihoods, and you know that you're in back-to-back meetings all day, every day for weeks, that is chaos, and and so that is not high performance. And if you and if you compare it with, say, athletes, for example, you don't see a sprinter sprinting for 10 hours a day.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely not. No, it's it's doing things for maximum impact, isn't it, rather than doing it because that's what I always do. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, and it it's interesting. So there's a lot in what you do, which is about cutting back on things. I I'm just thinking about the other side of things. You know, sometimes maybe it's also about thinking about how you protect or boost your energy. So, even things like having a proper lunch break or going to the gym or having a night where you go home on time or see your friends or your family, they're often the things that we we think about, well, I'll do that when I've when I've done this, and inevitably they don't happen or happen in the way that uh they need to. So, is some of this is also about ring fencing things? Oh non-negotiables.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I love the I love the fact you brought up lunch breaks. That's great.

SPEAKER_02

Is that we fancy that a luxury? Oh, I know, right.

SPEAKER_01

I think the lunch break eventually will die out and it'll be one of those things that we talk about to our grandkids. Oh, do you remember like do you remember when we used to have lunch breaks? It was like a blockbuster video or ringing the house phone or something like that. Um and again the stats back this up. So I think in in 2014 the average lunch hour was 43 minutes. I think now when we get into 2026 and into 2030 and beyond, the average lunch hour is predicted to be about 20 minutes. And so by the time we get old, mate, that'll be gone. Um but yeah, we've we've got this narrative and this kind of social approach where we're hopefully coming out of this kind of hustle bro culture that we had um probably around a decade. You know, lots of entrepreneurial approaches of like, you know, wake up at 5 a.m. Um hustle, hustle hard, and you'll get your rewards. Um what we're telling it to fight now is if you do that, you risk your health and your life and your relationships. So we've got this narrative around that we can get that rest after we've done a hard graft. So it's award at the end, right? But but all the data, all the science, all the case studies, they point to the different stories. Like rest recovery equals high performance. Because if you don't implement them strategically, your attention will start to drop. Um, you'll start to listen less. Uh yeah, everything will start to degrade over the course of the day. And if you're making big decisions throughout the day, and you're you know, you're strolling into your eighth back-to-back meeting at 4:30 about someone's career, you're probably only working at about 60% of your capability. Again, going back to you know, if you're a higher paid, high-powered role model in an organization, that's not good enough. And so simply having your lunch break is one of the most um kind of the most sustainable, high-performing things you can do. And it's amazing how many people skip it, uh, reduce it, uh, or even just have no breaks throughout the day at all because they feel that they must continue on this train of doing.

SPEAKER_02

Um we know that that's and it's a false economy, in a way, isn't it? To be doing that, as you say, it's diminishing returns.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Yeah, the law of diminishing returns, yeah, it's been around for centuries, right? Um I think I remember reading about that appearing, and it was about crops. And if you put more fertilizer on crops, the expectation is you just get more yield, right? Yeah, but then once tested, it was like, well, actually, you're just destroying the crops. So there was a sweet spot, and it's the same with our mental capacity, and we deep down we all know it, right? If we're working late into the night, you're looking at a an email or a slide deck or whatever it is, and it's taking you about an hour to come up with it one line, you know, at that point that you've hit the wall. And what what some of the research I've found and put into Relentless is that we've seen huge kind of organisational mistakes and challenges that have occurred because be people have been pushed beyond their limits. Yeah. So I think the the Volkswagen um diesel scandal, I don't know if you remember that.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah, where there was a massive recall and the whole sort of uh legal case.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so that was that was because people were pushed to hit deadlines beyond their normal contract hours. And there's various other examples of that where organizations have faced the problem. But the issue is, as an individual that is working over your lawyer hours, you don't recognise the mistake in the moment. Only later on does that mistake come to life when you might have moved on, right? So you might have already been celebrating that you delivered an amazing project because you worked, you know, 27 hours a day for eight days a week, right? Left the organization off, celebrated, got your next big problem. A year later, someone else is picking up your shit and kind of going, look what this idiot did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And as an individual, you don't necessarily like that connection. As you say, you've you've moved on, or or the difference is it's it's a slow build-up, isn't it? Rather than I don't do this and immediately see the results and the impact of that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, the amount of uh like clients I've coached, and I'd be like, How are you getting on? And they'd be like, Oh, it's horrible at the moment. I'm like, Why is that? I'll be dealing with this regulatory issue and this fine that we've got because someone did something wrong two years ago. And I'm like, Oh, I wonder if they overworked during that period, Richard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So you know, it's really interesting what what you're saying about you know, we're trying to pack stuff into every every minute of every day as though that's somehow given us an advantage. And clearly it's not. I mean, the other the other thing I I notice is that people tend to treat each moment of the day as being equal. And actually, you think about all of us, we've all got working preferences, haven't we? Different times when we've got energy, uh, you know, typical energy fluctuations, but also day-to-day our energy changes, and and we often lose sight of that, don't we? And think that actually it's just a case of plowing through.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, the old plow through. Yeah, I've been there. I used to do it, you know, treat every single minute as if it was super important, every single task as if it was weighted exactly the same and request. Yeah, um, I think maybe this comes from making loads of mistakes, but you get to understand how your mind and body works best. I think naturally our our rhythm tends to take a dip about two o'clock. Yeah, irrelevant on whether you've had a heavy lunch or not, and so at that time you kind of take a step back and go, right, what is the best use of my skills and experience at this time? Is it low-value admin? So, actually, between eight and one, do I do the heavy lifting in regards to my thinking? Because that's my creative sweet spot, and then as the day progresses, you know, okay, right, now it's time for emails, or now it's time for me to clear down the lower value tasks. So, yeah, there is an element of us knowing that, but yeah, I think generally that just that just after lunch, that dip, um you'll you'll know if you've gone out and done speaking engagements and you look at the time you're on.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, speaking engagement and you're like training sessions, it's it's the graveyard shift, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01

And we so we call it that because we know it. Um, and so when we're looking at uh achieving high impactful things that make a difference, just do them early. Do them early in the morning, and then do the lower value stuff when you know you've you've uh exceeded your capacity.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, makes sense. So tell us about some of the types of organizations and individuals that you work with. Are there particular industries or types of people that uh most readily lend themselves to the kind of work you do, or is it is it quite varied?

SPEAKER_01

It's all sorts, yeah. So at the moment I'm I've got a career portfolio, so I do a lot of my stuff in banks, um, which is heavily regulated, but also got a lot of uh issues around stuff doing way too many things. Um big organizations tend to get stuck in this because you've got multiple competing priorities, so yeah, financial services is is an area. Um I've got uh small tech firms, so when smaller companies are maybe under a thousand employees, it's easier to implement um organizational change so they're a bit more agile so they can shift. So if if the if the CEO or the or the power in that in that system says, Richard, you know what? I don't want any more than five people attending meetings. It's easier for it to move through the organization. Um you'll be surprised how many times that rubber bands backwards after about three months, anyway. And they'd be like, Oh, okay. We invite the sixth person and then it becomes 10, and then the time moves on. And you're like, I thought I gave you all permission to not do this. So that is constantly. That's it. Um, yeah, and then anything from individuals in those organizations to the teams in the organizations or the the organization as a whole and scale, so it really does vary, but yeah, we're trying to use that spectrum of simplification as a competitive advantage, both for your health and for your business as well.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and and you know, I'm I'm just thinking what that must be like for people when they do implement this. It it's a greater sense of autonomy, isn't it? Rather than things happening to you, you are making conscious choices about how you operate.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's the classic cliche of you know, if you're empowered and you own part of the decision-making process, you're more likely to uh to lean into it. Whereas if you are told to do something, there's a little bit of resistance that it's not your idea. So when you provide accountability and ownership to people, to say you look after your approach to work. I don't care what you do, how you do it, just make it sustainable and deliver the things that matter. And so you'll have different people who will approach that in a completely different way. And it might be that they get their energy from other people, so they love going to the meetings, or they might go, actually, I'd prefer to dip out halfway through because I know that I've got this big thing to do. So, so yeah, if every time I sit with teams, and I'm like, right, we're gonna get rid of stuff. People you see the look on people's faces, there's a bit of panic, but also a little bit of excitement. Oh, I get to redesign my own approach. Um, and when you do it at scale, um, it's fascinating to see the psychology of what happens and what people hold on to and why. So, yeah, not just the practicalities of letting things go or simplifying your work, but the layers of psychology and our human behaviours are just absolutely fascinating.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. So our classic audience for for this show is is entrepreneurs. You mentioned entrepreneurs, but also business professionals. If you had to give three pointers for things that people could focus on in order to free time and energy, what would be the sort of classic three things that you point to?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, the the first thing is you know the narratives that we've been led to believe around where you get your solutions and your creative ideas from, stop working harder. So the best places to get ideas are not at your screen, so they are out in nature, they are uh taking showers. So there's a thing called the incubation effects, so you get water. Yeah, so um, and my mate texts me the other day because I posted the thing on Instagram about if you want to get ideas, have a shower. And within an hour he texts me. I've not heard this from this guy for about two and a half years, Richard, right? And he texts me, he goes, God damn, I've just seen your Instagram post and I went for a shower to see if it would work. And I've got four ideas that are going to help you with the solution. I was like, nice to hear from you, glad it worked. Um, so and also uh napping as well. So, again, these kind of counter-cultural things give you um give your brain a different way to connect dots, which might not have happened if you just continue to look at the screen. So, wherever you get your ideas from, spend more time there. So, mine are sometimes in traffic, like driving. So, I will if I'm stuck, I'll go, well, rather than just me just ploughing through and working harder and waiting for the moment to come, I try and be proactive. Right, I'm gonna go out for a walk. I'll just listen to music, go out for a little stroll, about 20 minutes, bing, something will pop up and like, oh, yeah, that that's that wasn't exactly the idea I was thinking of. This is completely different. This could work, and so there's that bit. The second part of that side number two is get your ideas out very, very quickly because your brain is not there to store ideas, it's there to present them. Yeah, you'll go, here you go, Richard. Here's the thing, and you'll sit there and be like, That's bloody good days. Thank you, brain. And then you wander off and you'll go, I don't know, let's go to the fridge, make yourself lunch. About an hour later, you'll be like, I'm sure there was an idea there of some sort. It's just a bit flush.

SPEAKER_02

It's no frustration, you can't get it back in the way it was worse.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's the worst, it's it's the worst thing, you know, like avoid. There was something there, I have no idea what it is now, and you and you try and retrace your steps, you'd be like, What was I doing when that idea? So the plan is get it out quickly and do it whatever way you want to do it. So I tend to use voice notes or um just notes on my phone, where walking along or even on the train, something random just pop into my head and be like, that's bloody good days. Write it down and then leave it and it's gone. Um then it will disappear, and then maybe a week later you'll have another idea and you'll go back to it, and you'll be like, Oh, bloody hell yeah, I forgot about that. Now let's implement that thing. So, yeah, so definitely get your ideas out quickly. Um, you'll be surprised how many you collect over a period of time, and that's a much better collection than collecting t-shirts that don't fit or or jumpers that are not crop tops. Um, and and going back to um entrepreneurial things is uh get bored. So another kind of counter-culture thing is couldn't couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_02

You see with kids as well now that actually you're not allowed to be bored, you've got to be doing something all the time. Yeah, something organised and structured, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so the the the social narratives again that we've kind of been brought up with is um boredom is a bad thing, it means that you haven't got enough going on, um, things like that. But again, the science tells us something different. So I'll give you a list, Richard, of all the the creative things that have come out of boredom. So Rolling Stones Riff Satisfaction, that was by Keith Richards, who was sitting in his hotel room board.

SPEAKER_02

Um Joni Mitchells, I guess. Yeah, there you go, right?

SPEAKER_01

Can't get done. Yeah, um Joni Mitchell, uh, another artist, she one of her biggest hits was created while she was looking out of a window, homesick in Hawaii.

SPEAKER_02

Is it is this big big yellow taxi?

SPEAKER_01

That's the one. Um that's the one. Uh you've also got Eric Clapton, Wonderful Tonight. That was whilst he was waiting for his girlfriend to get ready for a party. Yeah. But probably the biggest one is JK Rowling, who came up with a boy who goes to a wizarding school on the train. So she was bored without access to magazines, pen, paper, on a train from Manchester to, of course, London, King's Cross, and she just had that idea because the brain was looking for variety because it didn't have anything to do, so it basically gave here's a thing, here's a thing, here's a thing, connect those, and a new idea comes to uh comes to fruition. But the the challenge is in our kind of entrepreneurial um approach is that you are bombarded at the moment with do these three things, do these three things, and then literally the day after, you'll have someone say, Don't do these three things. So it's what I call like advice pollution. And I'm conscious that I've just given three things, right? Um, but the counterculture approach is scientifically proven to work.

SPEAKER_02

Um, so yeah, and and you know, I think you hit the nail on the head. You you talked about doing, and and and what we're talking about here is is being, isn't it? That's it. It's just being so you're open to to to influence and and ideas, and when you're doing, you you can't be doing that, you can't be uh achieving that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's it. And you know, no one no one gives you props for the amount of hours of work you've done. Um, it's about the thing you have produced or the impact that you've had on people's lives or you know, the product or service that helps people do something or be better. Um so yeah, that's pretty much what you're judged on. That's the measure of success. So no one really cares about how many hours you've worked, they just care about how it is that you've helped them. So yeah, there'll be days where I'll work one or two hours, but I will come up with a a chapter for the book, and I'll be like, Yeah, done it. And sometimes, yeah, honestly, Richard, sometimes I'll I'll be sitting on the sofa um just sitting at the ball, looking at the wall, and my partner will come downstairs and she'll be like, busy day, babe, and I'll be like, and I'll be like, Yeah, I've just um I've just created a thing uh that will help like this person. Um, and so in comparison where she's been grafting all day, there's that element of like, what are you doing lazy on the sofa? Well, actually, this is my creative stuff.

SPEAKER_02

So it's a it's a guilt thing. I can remember this as a kid, you know, summer holidays, parents coming home, what have you done today? Yeah, and you know, feeling like you've got to justify your time. Um yeah, and there's me being a creative genius. Um it's you know, I totally totally agree. The other thing I find as well is sometimes when you are not trying to force an issue, in other words, when you're creating space for things to emerge, your your subconscious mind does a lot of work for you. So, for example, if I'm giving a presentation or thinking about a particular project, actually, when I don't actively think about it, but I create space, it formulates in the background. So when I do come to actively focus on something, it comes out far quicker.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, brilliant. So was trying too hard. Oh, yeah, that's that's exactly it. And I think there's elements of allowing different types of preparation. So I always uh speak to lots of different types of people who do like um speaking engagements or coaching or facilitation, and they will prep to the nth degree, and sometimes I will turn up and be like, my prep is I've had a really good night's sleep and um everything's in my bag, I'm ready to go. I've done traditionally minimal prep in like remembering your lines or remembering because I've done the prep 10 years ago, like prepping my body, prepping my mind, making sure that my energy is at the right level, making sure that um I know the audience and I can sense what needs to change in the moment. So if the audience is a little bit flat, I need to go over here, or if this particular thing isn't working, I need to you know change it. So so yeah, there is a thing I kind of uh supported people with is different types of of preparation as well.

SPEAKER_02

So yeah, and that and that's that's kind of it it's it's trust in a way, it's trusting yourself to be enough, and my sense is a lot of people don't do that. It's I've got to map this out to the nth degree because I I don't have enough confidence in myself to be able to deal with things at the moment.

SPEAKER_01

Bang on, that's it, that's it, spot on. And I think once you've done a certain amount of reps and you know how many times you've prepped and never used the stuff that you've prepped. I think that's how many times you kind of go, Well, I've I I prepped all of that, and within five minutes I ripped it up and we went in a different direction that I didn't prep for. So that's what tends to happen if you're in the moment a bit more, you're able to pivot seamlessly and quickly, yeah. Um, which helps a lot more people at scale as well.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely, and it makes me think of uh an episode I had uh uh a few months ago where I was delivering some work for a bank and it was through a third party, and all the preparation I'd done wasn't actually what the client wanted. And when I turned up there and asked them what you want to get out of today, it wasn't any of the things I've been told about. And it really was about trusting myself to be able to deal with it actually, you know, not blow my own trumpet, but they they absolutely loved it because we we dealt with what was happening in the moment, yeah, and that's the preparation, you know, you've prepared for the pivot.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and I think that's probably where we're at societal-wise and in in in business because things are changing so quickly. Um, people who are able to work uh and move forward in that ambiguous approach um will be probably the ones that have more comfort and success because I remember like having to make everything perfect before making that next step. I think those days are gone now. I think you're gonna just have to just move forward without having all of the answers, without knowing what might come next. But just having that I guess that bravery and that courage to step into the space and kind of go, I don't have all the answers right now. I've got a rough idea, but between us we'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_02

And I think a lot of things more it's always been important, but I think more so as as we go on. Yeah, things change so quickly, don't they? Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01

Like like my jumpers that have gone through the tumble drive. I had to pivot.

SPEAKER_02

I I need to see some photos of you in these in these uh contents. I think I think the audience is crying out.

SPEAKER_01

Well, if you follow follow me on Instagram, uh no, they were promises, promises. That's it. I remember I remember looking at it again. Oh dear, yeah. That's uh gonna need to get myself a new jumper. Um I'm like, that's the third time I've done this. What is going on here? Is this a is it a machine thing or is it a me thing? Ah, it's a me thing, but yeah, I won't be doing that again. Yeah, I think there's one common denominator, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Fantastic. So tell us tell us a little bit about the uh the book. So you you you mentioned Relentless. Talk us through briefly what what it involves, who it appeals to.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so Relentless um is the second book. Um and the the background is I I failed English when I was younger, Richard. So when I was in school, um I had a fascination with creative stories. Um deep down I wanted to be a um a football journalist to combine my passions of uh watching football and writing and writing. So um, so I did an English literature course and I found it. And so that story of like you are a failure, you can't write anything, stuck with me for decades until I started writing some articles about the whole decluttering journey. Then at that point, it started to resonate with people, and then it clicked. So at you know, 37, 38, I then started writing my my first book called Discovery Less. Literally, after doing that, was then I went back into the workplace and started to discover this whole approach to simplification. And I came up with a title called Relentless, which kept the theme of less is more and what the that term I heard from many, many people. How are you getting on? How you feeling? Oh, it's just relentless. And I'm like, Thank you for that. So true, yeah. I'll give you royalties for that title, thank you. Um and so um, so I started writing it about 2022-23 time, and I had all of my the teams I was working with, the team I was in at that time, clients of like, what is it that they are really struggling with? And it was time. So I made a book for busy people who don't have time to read a book.

SPEAKER_02

So it so is this something you can sort of dip in and dip out of and yeah, yes, nuggets.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so um so Relentless is a a book that a business book that has less pages and less words. Than your average business book, plus it's also encouraging you to put it down. So, again, going back to the whole kind of counterculture approach, most books will be oh, I picked up, you can't put it down, or the you know, the thicker it is or the bigger it is, it must be more important. Um, so mine is the opposite because people just don't feel like they've got the energy or the time to sit there for three or four hours after a hard day's graft because they've got to go and pick the kids up, they've got to make dinner, they've got to care for elderly parents, um to read a business book to help them be a better leader, better whatever. So um, so there's 20 odd chapters in there, and each one is five minutes. Like five minutes to the to the point.

SPEAKER_02

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01

So you can literally go to the toilet, read a chapter, and in that chapter you'll get two or three little nuggets of ideas that you can then go and try. Some of the ones we mentioned earlier, about like you know, leave a meeting five minutes earlier, or don't be the first person to respond to a group message. Um, that will then start your own little personal revolution and how you can create your own.

SPEAKER_02

It's not a massive time commitment, is it? Five five minutes to read a chapter. That's it, that's literally it. Most people can do that.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and because it it's business books can be really boring. Um, so mine is layered with humour and self-depreciation, self-deprecation. Um so it isn't just necessarily like, oh, this guy has gone and worked in corporate or being an entrepreneur or whatever, and then telling me what to do. It is literally mistakes that I've made, issues that other people have um seen and been through that I've then pulled in, kind of gone, oh, there's this guy who said that he didn't have time because he was in meetings all week. Great. Here, here's what a challenge that everyone faces. Here's what this person so it's relatable, yeah. Yeah, immediately relatable. Um, and yeah, there's ridiculous stories in there as well that people will laugh at. So it gives people that little bit of hope. So for the first time, hopefully, people pick up a business book and kind of go, I've got time to do a chapter. This will give me a little bit of laugh as well, away from the drudgery and the burnout and the stress and exhaustion of hard week that's coming up. Um, so yeah, so it's a relief, and at the same time, it gives you just enough that you can go back into your work and make your week a little less shit than it was last week. Yeah, yeah, and that's what we all want, isn't it? That's it.

SPEAKER_02

Where can people find out about the book?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so anywhere you would buy books, um, so Amazon, uh, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, wherever. Um, so it's wherever you would buy books.

SPEAKER_02

Chris, it's been fantastic today. Really, really enjoyed it. And and so many things that resonate with with the way that I think and the way I work, so even even better from my perspective. Um, any final any final thoughts for for people before we we sign off for today?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thank you, Richard. That's been great. Um, so yeah, so simplification as a competitive advantage might be the way that you work yourself out of burnout, out of stress, out of drudgery. Um there's plenty of stuff that plenty of places that will tell you to do more. So I think now is the time for less. So I had a friend say, um, oh, what comes next, Chris, for you? And I'd be like, less comes next. So just think about what is it that I can let go of before I start doing my next thing. Um, and you'll find yourself hopefully having a lot more of a simpler, uh, more meaningful and more fulfilled life and professional approach as well.

SPEAKER_02

Chris Lover, it's been fantastic. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00

My pleasure, sir. Thank you. This is the business of thinking. Mastery doesn't end here. See you in the next episode.