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Drowning in obligations, tasks and responsibilities that multiply faster than you can clear them? We've been taught to solve problems by adding more - more effort, more resources, more systems. But what if the answer is actually subtraction? 

I recently sat down with Donna McGeorge, keynote speaker and bestselling author obsessed with helping people reclaim time and space for what really matters. She's written 15 books (five of them bestsellers), her ideas have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Fast Company, and she's known for cutting through corporate waffle with sharp truths and practical frameworks. We discussed her latest book Red Brick Thinking and what she shared completely shifted how I think about problem-solving.

Donna shares her famous Lego bridge exercise that reveals why we're approaching problems all wrong, and introduces the concept of "addition bias", the tendency that's keeping us overwhelmed despite our best efforts. She explains why creating space doesn't mean doing more, and what we need to let go of instead.

We explore the three types of red bricks weighing us down in business and life, and how identifying them creates room for what actually matters. Donna walks through the shift from asking "What can we add?" to a question that changes everything about how you prioritise and make decisions.

If you're consumed by busyness, this conversation is your permission slip to stop adding and start subtracting. The space you create might just reveal the opportunities you've been missing.

LINKS:

Connect with Donna:

Website: https://donnamcgeorge.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnamcgeorge/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dmcgeorge/

Connect with Janine:

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Are you.

Oh my God.

I, I always love getting you on this podcast.

Everyone loves our conversations, but the reason I'm super excited about our

podcast today is I've had a little bit of a insight preview into the latest.

Bit of genius writing from you, your brand new book, red Brick Thinking, and

I think it's the very thing that so many of our listeners need right now, whether

they are working in organizations or they're running their own, their own show.

This book is just a game changer.

So I wanted to get you on because I want to talk to you about your book, and I

wanna give my listeners the inside scoop on everything that this book is all about.

So thank you for gifting me my, your time.

'cause I know you're a very busy woman and you're in demand, you're

talking on stages all over the place.

so thank you for finding some time for our listeners.

So listen, yeah.

So let's jump into it.

So, so red brick thinking, right?

Um, it's, it's become a word.

Well, it's become a phrase that I'm using.

Some people in our world are using quite regularly because you've been bombarding

us with it for a number of months now.

So it's become like the vernacular.

But, but for those people that have made go, what the hell

are you two talking about?

Come on, throw it at us.

What, what is this book all about?

And, and why?

From your perspective was, did you have to write this book?

Because it's a bit of a shift from what you've done previously.

I mean, there's an anchor there, there's a, there's a reason behind

it that leads to your other stuff, but this is such a different book

for you, which is why I'm so excited.

Tell me more.

Yep.

So, just a little bit of history.

Originally I was meant to be writing the fourth book in the, it's about time

series, which is my meetings and one day refund, all of that, that stuff.

Um, and then partway through writing that I, it's like, it's

like genius descended on me and.

It's not like this was a new idea.

It was the same idea of been having nearly my whole career and whole life.

Uh, but it just crystallized into one kind of thought.

So when I wrote the one day refund, I was doing a lot of research

into how do we create space, more space and capacity for ourselves?

And I stumbled across this study done outta the University of

Virginia in the US that talked about something called, um, addition bias.

Where when we are presented with a problem.

Our instinct is to add, and so how this looks in workplaces

is we've got a problem.

Let's add a policy, procedure, meetings committee.

We just add a bunch of things to try and solve the problem.

How it looks in small business is, I have a problem, well, I better get

another product, get onto social media, do more to see if that creates change.

And it resulted in me running a little exercise that I'd do in workshops

where I had a little Lego bridge and one leg was longer than the other.

And I'd give people a few extra bricks and I'd say, how would you fix this?

And right on cue, people would just start adding bricks because

that's how you solve problems.

But the, the longer leg that was making it crooked had a

little red brick at the bottom.

And very few people thought about taking the red brick away.

And that was the genesis of red brick thinking, which is when we're presented

with a problem, we asked first, is there something I could remove

that could also solve the problem?

And so then I labeled it red Brick Thinking, and then the

whole world exploded around this idea of red brick thinking.

And so, yeah, interesting conversation with my publisher that was, oh, I

think I wanna write a different book.

Um, and it.

Literally due out any second.

So that's how it came about.

I love that story.

I've heard you share, uh, from stage about, I think it's the

swan, is it the Swan Match Company?

Swan Vest.

yeah, yeah,

the one.

Can you share that one?

sure.

So Swan Vest is a European match company.

They were originally British and then I think the Swedes

bought 'em out a few years back.

But back in the sixties, they used to have two striking strips on

each side of the matches or so, a strip on each side of the matchbox.

Apparently back then, people were very, dedicated to being

able to, strike a match for many.

Position.

and some bright spark, pardon the pardon, says, um, what would happen?

Do we, do we do we need two striking strips?

What would happen if we removed one?

And so the company was like, oh gee, that's a good idea.

So they removed one of the striking strips off the matchbox,

and of course, nothing happened.

no customers complained.

In fact, people didn't even notice.

The majority of people just assumed there was never two strips and just

thought they were going a bit nuts.

But the only thing that happened is the organization saved truck tons of money.

And so the lesson out of this story, which I also love, is what's the striking

strip in your life that if you removed it.

No one would even notice.

And my own personal experience of this is, you know, I used to think that

I had to post social media every day and people got very used to seeing

me do my little Teacup Chronicles.

And so I started to think, I wonder what happen if I only did

a Teacup Chronicle once a week or once a fortnight or once a month.

Um, and guess what?

No one's noticed, no one's complained when I do do one.

They're all for it.

Uh, and so that was an example of me taking the pressure off

myself and removing that strip or removing that red brick, in a

way that no one noticed, right.

mm Absolutely.

Why?

Why do you think that it's such an Im?

Because it's a simple idea, but a really powerful idea in terms

of, as you're talking about it, I'm going, yeah, that makes sense.

That absolutely makes sense.

You know, we look at, we add things to what, more apps to our phone.

We're constantly seeing new things online, and we go and chase that.

Uh, we're always adding, adding, adding.

So it makes absolute sense.

this idea that you are sharing about red brick, think your business

talk about your life, your decision making, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's a simple idea, and yet the same time people aren't doing it.

Why?

Why do you think that this book is so needed right now?

We're living in an era more than ever of more.

that we, we just keep adding more.

I, see it when I do work with organisations around strategic

planning that we go offsite, we fill up our walls with flip charts

full of great initiatives, and no one ever says, what are we gonna

stop doing to make room for this?

The poor old teamsters, there's a presentation.

Here's our new strategic plan.

And everyone goes, that's just piling on more work for me.

this instinct is nearly hardwired into us.

I mean, you've done it.

I've done it.

We've all gone down the street.

To get a car and a milk, can we come back with three bags of groceries and a kayak?

Particularly if we've been

to, Aldi's, right?

That middle aisle in Aldi's gets us every single time.

it's, it's almost like we, we cannot not do it.

And so the, the alternative is to pause.

Ask the question, is there a red brick we can remove?

And the technical term for this is strategic subtraction.

Is that it now has to be part of how we think about the world as well.

As much as we do strategic addition and planning and creation,

we've, we've gotta start thinking about what can we stop doing?

And, it is, it's really hard.

No one gets, uh, employee of the month award for saying, Hey, I

reckon we should stop some stuff.

Right.

Uh, no one gets that.

So it, it's, it's part of systemically how we do the world.

Now, the reason for this book, and the reason this is so important is

we are in an epidemic of, burnout.

Uh, we're in an epidemic of mental health crisis.

People are overwhelmed, overworked, and over it.

And unless we can figure out ways.

For people to have more space and capacity, they're not gonna be able to

sustain it more than ever, more than ever.

Uh, right now.

Yeah, and what I love about your thinking around this is.

It's not just from the productivity space or the workspace.

You even talk in your book about, you know, the generational piece

or the cultural piece like this.

All the stuff, all the baggage that we are carrying.

Your suggesting that we actually need to start red bricking various

parts of our life to create that space to be able to move forward.

Can you share a little bit more about that?

So I reckon we all walk around with an invisible backpack

and it's carrying stuff.

Some people call it baggage, whatever you wanna call it.

So mine is, um, already got resentment at three meetings yesterday.

That should have been an email or, you know, I'm carrying around an intention

to read War and Peace that I've been carrying for 10 years worth of vacations.

Or I'm irritated at the person who invented reply alts.

I'm carrying that and that's heavy.

I'm also carrying things like guilt grudges.

obligations that we just build up over time and, and sometimes they're from

routines and rituals and habits that we, you know, we've been doing our whole

life, which let's face it could take 10 years of therapy to unravel, but.

Often, particularly if anyone's listening who might be an oldest child, oldest

daughter only child, you'll know that you have a weight of obligation for you.

You contracted for stuff that you never realized you contracted for.

And so when we, when when people would ask me about, you know,

I'm feeling so overwhelmed.

I'm like, well, what are you carrying in your head?

What's the stuff that you're constantly thinking about?

And a lot of it, yeah, there was some work stuff, you know, meetings I gotta do,

projects, I have to do, stuff like that.

But holy cow, there was a whole bunch of it that's just either emotional red

bricks or cultural red bricks, which are so, so emotional are the grudges, the,

the guilts, the things that we just carry.

Um, sometimes relat.

Um, and then there's the, the, uh, cultural ones, which is

the way it's always been done.

The cultural morays that we just go along with, that we never question.

And then the structural ones that sit a lot in organizations around

the systems, processes, policies, all that sort of stuff that they're.

They're so embedded that, that it takes real courage to

identify and remove one, right?

Because you're gonna ask a hard question.

So it's not just, you know, strategically subtract a meeting

or say no to an invitation.

You know, red, red bricks are e everywhere.

Yeah.

absolutely everyone.

And knowing you, you re researched the bejesus out of your content.

So what I love about your writing, Donna, it's not in my language,

a whole load of brain farts.

There's, the depth, the research, the evidence behind it.

And I know, 'cause I've have been fortunate enough to have a

opportunity to read a preview of this.

Um.

So many awesome stories in there.

What are a couple of your favorites that, in your mind justify, explain,

give the evidence as to why this concept of why red brick thinking

needs to become something we all do?

Where's, where's the evidence?

Well, most of it, a lot of it comes from, um, my personal experience

working in coaching clients, right?

Where, you know, uh, for an example, a female, a woman,

uh, came into an organization.

She inherited a team.

She inherited meeting cadences.

She inherited policies and procedures, and there was one meeting

that she would, uh, have every.

Every week.

It was a two hour kind of whip meeting, but she noticed people had all their

cameras turned off, that they'd only chime in when they felt like it was relevant

to them or it was their turn to speak.

And so she asked, what's the value of this meeting?

And no one could explain that to, they couldn't figure it out.

None of them thought it was interesting.

So she said, well, let's just stop it.

Let's just stop the meeting.

And she said, but I'm not taking it outta your diaries.

I'm gonna leave it in your diaries because I wanna leave that two hours a week in

your diary for you to focus on things that our future selves will thank us for.

Give us some space and capacity to think beyond just the always

urgent and always proximate.

That is the normal working life.

And it's a bit of a Cinderella story because they ended up solving a massive

problem that had been around on a product for a long time, and they turned

a product around and it was, she says, to this day, you'll never convince me.

So that's a little bit of, um, anecdotal evidence, uh, if

you will, but there's piles of evidence that say when people have.

Space and capacity to think whether you're, in fact, rocket

scientist, Einstein's been talking about it for years, giving

himself some space and capacity.

So they give themselves 15 to 20% of their week to just daydream.

Um, in fact, the new research around daydreaming and boredom is

fascinating and the connections they're making to mental health.

issues.

So, so, and you all know this, when, when we get bored, our brain

wanders, our mind wanders, and it starts asking great questions like,

as deep as meaning of life and as shallow as what's for dinner, right?

But it starts asking deep questions.

And this particular study hypothesized that if we don't start making

space and get used to boredom.

Again, this is gonna cause even more mental health issues because we are

not giving ourselves a chance to ask our ourselves important questions.

And so there's a lot of studies that show, and most of my work has always

been around creating space and capacity.

Um, why we need to remove things from our world, so we have the

space for the important stuff.

And what I, um, uh, I mean just even that concept space, it's, it's interesting

when you, you and I have quite a few people that we hang around with

together and we talk a lot about big picture thinking, et cetera, and that,

the interesting thing when it comes to space is the counterintuitive that I'm.

Seeing is people are filling, like you've said, filling the space.

It could be they're going away and they wanna see the agenda by the hour.

Or, you know, you, you're running a workshop and what

does it look like by the second?

And yet you and I have both experienced the opportunity that exists when you

actually create space for conversations, space, space to actually question.

and again, what I love about Red Brick thinking, your book

It's almost a book for everyone.

And you've written this book so differently, anyone that knows your

work, your work traditionally is a, a teaching style book, but you've written

this, it's almost like a call to arms.

It's like, come on, if you want to change things, start taking

some ownership and here's how.

you've got different elements of it.

Can you, can you just share with our listeners.

A little bit more about how you've structured.

I'm, I'm talking about that back end of the book when you're talking

about the different ways of, Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the, so just kind of to touch on the thing about space, you know, years

ago I facilitated an offsite it was a two day and one of the afternoon

sessions, uh, before the big dinner that they always do on a two day offsite.

And there was probably about 30 or 40 people at this one.

I blocked it out and said it's game time.

And they thought I was gonna do some kind of metaphoric game where you

end up, you know, what's the, what's the leadership lesson in it all?

And I said, no.

I willed in a trolley full of board games and footies and tennis rackets

and stuff, and said, just I want you to go and spend three hours with your

colleagues just hanging out together and use the board games as well.

People said it changed their life.

They never make space for that.

And, and it was like, the reason we need to do that is we fill these agendas.

I reckon red bricking agendas is a absolute critical, uh, thing we could do.

So, so that kind of leads me into the way the book was structured.

I really wanted to move away from.

One of my, constant readers and fans.

He didn't realize what he was saying, but he said, oh, I loved honor's

books 'cause they're tip books.

And I thought, oh Gene, I think that's minimizing them a bit.

However, he was probably bang on 'cause they are like little

training manuals, uh, in a book.

For me this time, it was like, this is a manifesto, this is a movement.

This is something way more meaningful.

And it sits, uh, this is above productivity.

This is not a, a productivity piece.

This is a how do we fundamentally shift our way of thinking, you

know, about, about ourselves?

And, and so it's, the three main sections are, there's one section that's

talking about the red brick revelation.

Which is the moment that we realize that removing the red brick on the

little bridge, ah, that aha moment.

You know, and I talk in there about agency and I talk about attachment, uh,

which are two key aspects of why we keep.

Accumulating stuff.

and actually it's, it's, uh, increased attachment and lack of agency is

probably to be more meaningful.

And then the middle part of the book are those three kind of areas of,

uh, different types of red bricks.

So emotional, cultural, and structural.

So emotional are things like obligation and relationships, cultural, more

fell into that category, stimulation.

That, you know, we, we can't sit for five minutes without,

you know, reaching for a phone.

and structural are all the systems and processes and and stuff.

So the second section is there's 15 different types.

Now there's probably way more than that, but we did 15 for the book.

In fact, one of the chapters we had to ditch, uh, was a really good one.

on, oh gee, I wish I could remember that now.

Anyway, it'll come to me later.

You've read brick tea.

I read Brick Dead.

Well, I do that.

You know, I actually knew that because you know, the human minds having ideas,

not storing them, it's all, it's all written down, so I don't need you.

So there we go.

And then the third part of the book is about the red brick revolution, which

is the actions we need to take, you know, so spotting the red bricks, you

know, questioning why we had 'em in the first place, removing them, uh, then

feeling what it's like when you're let go of stuff and then talking about it,

sharing, sharing it with, with others.

I have no doubt there's people listening going, oh my gosh,

this is exactly what I need.

And of course you're gonna go, all go and buy the book.

but I'm also imagining many people are listening, okay.

How, how, which is that final bit there?

Could you expand a little bit.

on That last bit of me?

I don't, Yeah.

And even if you've got an example,

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How do you spot 'em?

So if you're working in an organization, it's like you can spot

them by you how you feel, right?

So there's something you're about to do and you're like, your

shoulders drop and your eyes roll and you, you've got a big sigh.

And it's not because you don't like doing it, but the chances are you're like, I

don't even know why we do this anymore.

Why do we have to do this report?

Why do we have to have this meeting?

Why do I play this role, um, in, in some way, shape, or format?

And so the first step is to just pay attention to your state.

Now, another way to rec recognize, how to spot them is to, go to the person

who's been in your organization.

If you work in a big organization who's been there three months or less.

And go and ask them what are they bewildered by?

You know, what do, what do we do that you go, I wonder why they do it this

way, because they're probably red bricks hiding in plain sight for you.

Right.

So, I reckon there's, right now if you went into your calendar,

there's probably half a dozen red bricks just in meetings alone.

But I don't wanna minimize it by saying it's only meetings.

Sometimes it's projects, you know, zombie projects that.

Wander around organizations just sucking people's brains out, right?

So.

Why do we keep doing it?

The sunk cost fallacy comes into it, right?

We've already invested this much money.

We, we should continue.

Right?

So these are the, these are the questions.

So Atlassian, they do a, a every year they retire or graduate projects.

Um, so people are allowed to nominate projects that they don't think are

adding any more value or didn't do what we hoped that they would do.

I wish more companies would do this.

And so they then are nominated for just.

For quitting, because then that makes space for more.

Um, I have heard, uh, organizations do zombie project Amnesties, where

you can nominate, uh, projects.

So the first thing we've gotta do is spot them and have a culture where

it's okay to spot them because the next part is we've spotted what

we think could be a red brick.

Now let's ask the questions, why did we do it in the first place?

What was the original intention behind this?

Is it still giving us what we thought it would?

Would anyone notice?

Mm.

If it went away right, would anyone actually notice?

And so let's answer those questions.

'cause it's not just about willy-nilly getting rid of stuff that I don't like

doing, or it's not, it's not about that.

It's really about does it add value?

And so then, then we remove it.

And judo, a lot of people get very nervous in organizations stopping things

and removing things and they, you know, the fear around that is very high.

And it's mostly the fear that someone's gonna notice or complain or whatever,

but I promise you, no one's gonna die if you stop a project or get rid of

an initiative that wasn't working.

Um, and the the real trick is to actually get rid of it.

Not just pause it or not just, maybe it's just like completely get rid of it and

get it off people's agendas straight up.

And then that creates the space for people to notice the difference

and then use the time for things that are adding more value now.

You know, please, if you're listening to this, I want you to apply all the

usual safety, regulatory government requirements, all the things that you

have to do because you have to do 'em.

I mean, wouldn't we all just love to go and red brick, a few

government departments just quietly?

but you still have to do some things, right?

I can't just red brick doing GST because I don't like doing GST

and it absolutely makes me roll my eyes every month to do the bas and

slump my shoulders and all that.

But I can red brick it in the sense that I can outsource it

to someone who loves it, right?

And so in a small business, there's a great question to ask.

What's consuming all your time?

So there's another way to spot it.

What are you spending too much time doing that an expert could do?

Now, of course, there's often a cost associated with that.

What would happen if you outsourced it?

What would it free you up to do?

but I think one of the biggest things that people overlook with this is the feeling.

It take a moment to feel what it was like to let that go.

To feel the weight drop off your shoulders, to drop

that backpack to be lighter.

Yeah.

Feel and kind of relish that.

And then of course, because they're creating a revolution, spread the word.

Get more people using it.

Use it as a verb how to red brick.

We need to red brick This.

What could you?

Red brick.

I read brick.

This today.

Red brick.

Red brick.

Red brick.

Do you reckon you can, um, use this concept in your own life too?

My personal life.

in anyone listening.

So it is not just work, is it?

You

could

no.

no.

No, no, Think, think about your weekends and the amount of times you get to, to

four o'clock on a Sunday and your weekend starts because you've either had a bunch

of family obligations, you've got kids doing sport, you've suddenly gotta clean

the house 'cause you're flat out all week.

And so there's aspects of our personal life that are easy.

In fact, most of our emotional red bricks.

The guilt, the obligations, the grudges, the the roles, responsibilities,

and things that we take on.

They're mostly in our personal life.

And so I have plenty of conversations with my coaching clients who

talk about their weekends.

They never get a break, you know, someone always wants a piece of them.

So like you've gotta start negotiating with your kids mates, families around.

You drop 'em off at soccer, I'll pick 'em up right now, if you love

watching your kids play sport, that's completely different.

But if it is causing the angst, and you don't wanna go every weekend

to Nanas for a BA dinner, right?

But somehow, or you know, every time there's a family

gathering, everyone expects you to bring your homemade brownies.

you know, it's like, well, why, why wouldn't you red bricks?

And I didn't, I didn't that with the client actually.

I said she, she literally, that's a literal story where she said, oh God.

And every time I go to one of these family things, I've gotta take my

brownies, and they take me owls to make.

I'm like, why don't you just go buy 'em?

No one will even notice.

In fact, they might even like them better.

So just like, so stick 'em in the same old container that you always take them in.

But just pick 'em up at Woolies on your way home and just take them.

She said no one noticed.

No one noticed.

They weren't her homemade brownies.

Mm.

That's what I used to do when the kids were at primary school.

I remember we've got a, a client that you and I both know, and, uh, she's the

only daughter in a family of boys and she used to share her frustration with me

every Christmas because the expectation was that she and her mom would be in

the kitchen doing all the cleaning.

And she, little did she know, 'cause this would've been like three years

ago, she went, I'm not doing it anymore.

So she read Brick Christmas and she went, she looked around.

I'm not doing it.

If you want me to come over, I'm turning up with my kids.

I'll bring this one plate.

Everyone else bring a plate and everyone's gonna be allocated a cleaning up duty.

And it's exactly, She now I'm thinking about it, is she read Breach

She read Brick Christmas.

Um, and the thing about that sort of stuff is.

When did that start?

Now unfortunately, it's a bit gender related that, you know, let's make

a cup of tea and everyone looks at the woman in the room to put

the kettle on and you know, right.

So it is, there is a bit of gender stuff there, but there's an obligation

there that I'm curious about and.

We had a similar thing with Christmas that it was just expected that you would all,

all get together always for Christmas.

Now, we were a bit bit better about certain roles.

We shared the load a little bit more, but I didn't wanna have that.

So I remember we started just going on holidays for Christmas.

We literally would go to Fiji.

For Christmas day, and the first couple of times we did it, we had such pushback

from the family, how could you do that?

You'll be lonely, you'll regret it.

It's like, no way.

Sitting, you know, suffering cocktails by the pool on Christmas afternoon,

was fantastic and so much so that when Emma, my daughter, we started having the

conversations around what's happening with Christmas, I said, I never want you to

feel obliged that you have to come to us.

you know, if Kim's family has more attachment to it, we're not that attached.

We'll see you at some point.

So when we've tried really hard not to repeat the next generation

of obligation, it's so heavy.

The red brick of obligations so heavy.

It is.

Do you think, um, that obligation is because people are just finding it?

Is it in the business of life that where it's easier to add versus to subtract?

It's easier to say Yes.

versus say no?

It comes back a little bit to what you were talking about at

the beginning of actually we need space to think and make decisions.

and again, it's.

I'm feeling and sensing this isn't just for us as individuals, whether

it be family, life, business, but I'm also seeing it bigger scale.

you know, you can take this up to, to country, global level that, that we

need to actually just start red bricking instead of adding, adding, adding

and not being able to find solutions.

It's, it's, but It requires that space to be

able to

determine

does.

doing.

It always seems to come back to space for me because how do I know what to red brick

if I'm not giving myself the space to.

Contemplate what needs red bricking?

I mean, I read Brick the news years ago 'cause I was sick of

watching all the palava, on telly and, you know, so that maybe, does

that put me in a bit of denial?

Maybe.

But my life is much more peaceful without, and it gives me space

to think about, other things.

But I mean, it's, it's straight up a classic government.

Thing that the, you know, we'd have a problem, we need a policy, and often

with a policy comes potentially a whole new department to solve the problem of

when, you know, what could we remove.

So I often think about, I think they did a great job, a great couple of examples

of PO government policy, where they read bricked was in Melbourne, the tram system.

The amount of fair EVAs who were in the city because they were either visitors

or they'd come out from work and they'd left their card or the whatever it was,

it was very difficult to buy tickets.

And so rather than continuing to find and adding more, what do you call em?

Conductors on to fine you for not having your ticket.

They said, well, what if we just removed the need to pay in the CBD?

And so they created the free trans zone.

And the level of fair, I mean, there's still always gonna be fair EVAs,

but for the most part people are honest and they tap on and tap off if

they're outside of the free tram zone.

But it changed how people use that amazing public transport, uh, system.

So, yeah, I'm, I'm always really curious about, you know, things like legalizing.

Marijuana.

I'm not necessarily saying we should all go out and smoke pot or anything

like that, but the amount of effort and energy that's put into policing

stuff that if it wasn't illegal, how much difference would that make?

Right.

So

That's that questioning piece, isn't it So, what is your

ultimate wish for this book?

What is your hope for this book?

I'd love the, the concept, um, if the book does this, that's great, but

really it's about how do I touch the lives of the, of, of the most amount

of people with this idea, really.

So I think this is, you know, to quote Ted, I think this

is an idea worth spreading.

I think, uh, the more people that know about it, the better.

If I touched a million lives with this, knowing that each of those million

people could then touch more lives, that would, that would just be amazing.

and of course I would love the book to sell.

That's, that goes without saying, but for me, it's like.

we've gotta start doing something fundamentally different, because we

can't keep going on the way we are.

It's just not sustainable, um, at so many levels.

I'd love everyone.

I'd love to see it in the vernacular where people start, you know, you see online,

you know, oh, I read brick this today.

Or you're hearing it in organizations saying, I think we

need to have a red brick meeting.

'cause we got a lot on and we gotta figure out what to red brick in the

next quarter so that we can do the focus on X, Y, Z. I'd love to see that.

Well, if, the anything of looking at the evidence of how this is starting to show

up online, how it's starting to show up in the mutual contacts, colleagues that.

we have where I've just read Brick there.

it's becoming part of the vernacular.

I don't think it's going to be that much of an impossible feat

that this does become a part of it.

now we are gonna put in the show notes how to find you.

Anyone listening here, highly recommend you check it out.

Donna McGeorge online on LinkedIn and her website.

all of the details are there in terms of, um, how to grab a copy of this book.

how to get Donna into your organizations to support and help Red Brick, the

thinking in your organizations as well as, really starting to potentially.

Speak to your teams about, uh, how to take ownership in red brick to fundamentally

get more momentum happening throughout.

any final words, Donna, for our listeners?

Look, I think my final word is often the same in just about all the conversations

I have with people is that red bricking, um, is a future self activity, right?

So the things that you've read brick now mean that your future self will thank you

or your future self is that much better.

So sometimes we read brick stuff and we think, ah, I dunno that I'm gonna get the

benefits of this right away, but actually.

The more you pay attention to red bricking things and some of the decisions that you

make about what you red brick today means that your future self is gonna be so much

better off, than they are now if you do.

Yeah.

And isn't that what we want?

As you say, do the things now that your future self will.

Thank you for something I that Donna taught me years ago, something that

I make decisions with now, and now I'm overlaying the red brick thinking

what could possibly go wrong.

It's apart from lots of awesome space to be able to create magic.

Donna McGeorge, good luck.

Although I don't think you need it with this book.

I know it's gonna be a bestseller.

I know it's going to change a lot of people's personal lives, but

also professionally, how they pursue their career or business goals.

I can't wait to see it on shelf.

For those of you that are watching this on YouTube, you can in the background,

let's see the cover of Red Brick Thinking.

Um, and we will absolutely put links.

In the show notes so that you can grab, be one of the first to grab a copy.

I don't think you're gonna be able to avoid it.

It's gonna be absolutely Everywhere.

Donna McGeorge, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for sharing your genius with the world, and uh, Thank you.

for just giving us this time today to enable me through my little.

Portion of the world to support the people that are following me.

You are amazing and can't wait.

Congratulations on what is gonna be a best seller.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

My absolute pleasure.