Today’s guest is the author of ‘Clarity: Clear Mind, Better Performance, Bigger Results’. Jamie Smart is an internationally renowned writer, speaker, coach and consultant who shows individuals and organisations the unexpected keys to clarity; the ultimate leverage point for creating more time, better decisions and more meaningful results. 

In addition to working with a handful of coaching clients and leading selected corporate programmes, Jamie runs professional development workshops for business leaders, trainers, coaches and consultants.

Listen to this conversation to learn how to develop a sense of clarity, how to lean into your intuition, and how we can all cultivate our innate creative talents. 

Links mentioned:

JamieSmart.com

Jamie Smart LinkedIn

Clarity: Clear Mind, Better Performance, Bigger Results

The Little Book Of Clarity

The Little Book Of Results

Colin Hunter 0:07

Hi, folks, and welcome to another episode of leadership tales podcast. delighted to be joined by Jamie smart today Jamie is goes back way back with myself he was a coach, a friend. And he did a three day intensive coaching session with me where we went into some of the practices that he will talk about today. But some simple key things that helped me to fall out of my own thinking, to really think about what is important in my life. But he unfroze a lot of my thinking in the way he talks about things. And it's fascinating to hear today that when people talk about flow that he was in a flow with me as a client at that time. But actually some of the principles come to him in that moment and think about it in a different way. So you'll hear a bit of that today, you'll hear some of the stories that he tells that have been powerful for me. He's an author of a book called Clarity. He's also got the little book of clarity. And he's got a book called results. So he's well worth a listen to enjoy this as much as I do just talking to the man. So Jimmy smart. Jamie, I'm delighted you could be on with us today. Welcome. Oh, it's

Jamie Smart 1:21

great to be here call in and I'm really excited about your book, too. It's a really great accomplishment.

Colin Hunter 1:26

I think we were actually talking about it when you know, we were starting to work together. It's I think it was in my mind at the time. So it's great for you to be here. I'd love everybody to hear a bit about you though, because you've got a fascinating backgrounds, and a journey that you're still on, but maybe just give them a potted history of you just so we know who you are. Yeah, sure.

Jamie Smart 1:47

Colin Hunter 3:46

month retirement. I love that.

Jamie Smart 3:49

Colin Hunter 7:03

vision of you, Jamie sat on a high stool at the front of the audience, holding court, but I also have a visual of you with your handheld, and I'm feeling it again now. And we haven't spoken for a bit of time, I'm feeling now that you just can't help but relax into a conversation with yourself. But those are the principles that you're bringing to life on you in terms of how you're holding yourself and how you're bringing. So let's dig into the principles because everybody's sitting there going, Wow, okay, this sounds amazing. I want some of this. But they're thinking, how the hell do I get a bit like I was when I worked with you for three days, I'm thinking how do I not master this? But how do I take this into my life? So talk us through?

Jamie Smart 7:47

Snow. So two things that go through my mind. One is the concept that we talked about the time about the river and the flow. And I loved your analogy with when you're a child, your self correcting system, allows you to be crying or be angry, it's almost within split seconds of each other. And you use the analogy of a river flowing, which I still have and how we over life, we start to freeze that river up, talk to me, or talk people through because I'm a big believer in analogies to get people and you've got another one the teddy bear, which we'll come to Yeah, well,

here's the funny thing, calling that analogy that I used at the time with you, that occurred to me in the moment. So that came from that same capacity for insight. I literally don't remember it. So why don't you talk? Because I literally, I used it once. And I've never used it again.

Can I admit that I've been using it consistently. So no,

I'm delighted that it to me, it's one of the cool things that that can't wear that analogy came, you know, we were having that conversation. And we are in a deep space of connection. And when I'm working with a client call him, I'm looking to find my way into that deep connection with them. But I'm also wanting to model for my client, looking in the direction of the unknown, right? Because Because when I went to is, if you think about it, when when someone's either got a problem they're trying to solve or a goal they're trying to achieve, and they can't find the way forward or anything like that. The stuff that's getting in their way is all the stuff they know, like I know this and I know that I know that. And my assertion is the answer, the thing that's going to resolve it is going to come from what you don't yet know. So I want to model looking in the direction of what I don't yet know. And so that insight about the river and the icing up and that came to me in the moment from what I didn't get no. And I said it to you, it had an impact. And then I forgot about it like a minute later. That was for today only. But it had such an impact on you that it continued to kind of feed your experience. So I'd love to hear it.

So and in some ways, it's a description of this. The your analogy that time for me was that we as a child are are have a picture in your mind about the Colorado river flowing through and carving with great power, open swathes of land and cutting into rock. And then as we gradually grow that we layer on insecurities, other things that come into our mind we freeze our thinking. So eventually pretty you can imagine the Colorado frozen I don't think it ever would but frozen river with a trickle of pure thought going underneath it and then you started to get me to say so how do you want for you, thank you, how do you fall out your thinking to allow that river to flow and I use the word flow in the introduction for me is that if I don't feel that I am the Colorado River cutting through rock, and again, you you said it there, which is to find the path that is the right path. And it's not a case of squeezing hard with your your fists and thinking hard and squeezing your brain. It's that bit about falling out your thinking to find the path that's right for you. And I've used that analogy myself. But it's amazing how I've used that for coaches. And I call it almost the Forrest Gump moment where you've, I was working with Anandi Slee has been on this podcast. And we've been working together for about, I think about two and a half, three years. And I've been coaching them. And I'd be using those principles with them when it came to that Modi said in the podcast, where we sat at the final coaching session of a three hour coaching session, hour and a half in and he just went, I get it. And the reason I called the Forrest Gump is when Forrest Gump stops running, he goes, I'm going home, nobody's going. So what's the significance? He says, Yeah, I've just had enough of running I'm going home. But that principle can so clear for Andy, he doesn't need that now. Yeah, he's got it. So that's the analogy I have in my mind. Yeah,

I really like it. And you know, that thing of, I'm going to stop running, I'm going home, one of the and this may sound kind of kind of wild to people, what what I want to suggest is that we're already home, like we were, we're often searching for something that we've already got. And the and the shift is once you realise that, then then you're free to do whatever makes sense to you. And what makes sense to you might be to go on holiday or what makes sense to you might be to build a multi million pound business or what makes sense to you might be to start a charity or whatever it might be. But the tone of it, the the flavour of it changes radically once we realise we're, it's not like we're missing anything or lacking anything that we're already have what we've been looking for.

And I, I love that analogy because the experimentation pieces big for me, and it's this is this is bit where people say it's restless. So there's a negative connotation for some people, which is restless. So you don't know what you're going to get a column for is an expression I hear and people in my business Oh, go y'all go away, I'll have a chat with somebody come back and suddenly went off and do something different. But there is this piece about being restless experimentation. But with clarity and falling out your thinking allows you to be deeply as you talked about idea you talked about deeply insightful, with clients in that space of restless is a powerful place where you're comfortable just holding a space with them. And do that talk to me about the the piece which I love because a lot of people can't go there because they're holding on to something and use the analogy of a teddy bear with it. And I don't know if it's the right point of bringing it in, but I still hold on to my teddy bear moment with you where I suddenly realised Yeah, that's the teddy bear. That's a teddy bear. That's a teddy bear. Yeah,

it's so interesting. So so you know little children, we we give them you know, a teddy bear or a blanket or a pillow or whatever it might be, that's kind of often referred to as a transitional object. When they're growing up and, and the child holding the teddy bear, they feel a sense of comfort and peace and security from that teddy bear. And if you accidentally like leave it in a hotel when you're on holiday and come on without it, the kid freaks out because they haven't gotten to tell you and they they feel like the source of their security and well being is somehow being taken away. But but as adults, we we can see that 100% of that experience of security and well being comes from within the child that comes from their, you know, psychological and physical properties. So the teddy bear, aside from having, you know, a fluffy coat is it's neutral, it's neutral you could you could literally give the baby a sama bin lot in doll or Saddam Hussein dollar or whatever you like. And it would have the same effect because the it's coming from within the child. But how many of us as adults think it's somehow different when it comes to the teddy bear of money, or partner or job or physical health or any of the other things that we sometimes chase after? It genuinely seems to us like our feelings of security, peace, comfort, well being belonging are coming from those adult teddy bears of money, job accomplishment, praise, validation, all those Teddy Bears, you know, the teddy bears that we long for are the teddy bears we don't think we could do without. And there's a way in which often as we go through life, it's almost like life and our psychology conspires to show us that we don't need them. I saw a video by Ray Dalio. So for anyone who doesn't know the most successful hedge fund manager in history, managing, you know, billions of millions of dollars. Dalio said in his career, he's ended up working with a lot of people who have gone bankrupt. And he said, What happened, and often very, very financially successful people who have then taken a wrong turn and gone bankrupt. And he says, What happens at first is that it's like, it's the end of the world, it's disastrous, and they're very frightened. It's like they said, and then usually within a relatively short period of time, a matter of months, they connect with life, and they connect with what's genuinely important to them, they, and he said, ever so often, what gets awakened is love, health, appreciation for the things that genuinely matter to them, and all that sort of stuff. Having let go of those teddy bears, well, that looks to me, like the hard way of doing it, the easy way of doing it is to recognise that they're teddy bears in the first place. I'd rather realise that their teddy bears than have life, you know, kind of pounded into me. Sort of like, you can do this the easy way or the hard way. And it's like, I'll, I'll go for the easy way where possible plays

Thank you very much. Yeah, as a Scottish Presbyterian, who, you know, has been brought up to believe that you've got to experience bad times to have good times, you know, I'd rather just learn how to have the good times and flow with it. So yeah, and that. And it's interesting, because, you know, when we talk about bankruptcy, I've coached quite a few people whose parents have been bankrupt. And as children, they've been impacted by it. And they still hold on to that. There, I've seen the pain it caused. And therefore, I don't take risks because of it. And some of these people want to start their own business. And I can't because I remember there's pain. So there's a transference of something there, which as a leader, I want to come to a leadership piece is massive, because that risk taking, you know, risk being wrong. And the principles in the book, how do you as a leader, fall out of your thinking and create flow to allow other people not to be impacted by our beliefs and our histories as well?

What it's such? It's such a good question, you know, there's a article that was published in the Harvard Business Review, called how your state of mind affects your performance. What these researchers did, they interviewed over 700 leaders as in senior executive roles across the world. And they gave them a simple list of states of mind. And they got them to track which states of mind drove high performance and which states of mind drove poor performance. And the states of mind that drove high performance were calm, happy, energised, those three states of mind. And the states of mind that drove poor performance were frustrated, angry, tired, stressed. And what they found was that in both cases, if the leader was in a calm or happy or energised state of mind, that was picked up by their team, it was like it radiated. And if if the leader was frustrated, angry, tired, stressed, that was picked up by their team. And so it wasn't just the leaders performance that suffered, it was the whole team's performance that suffered. And it was the whole team's performance that benefited when they were in that more calm, happy, energised state. So what I call it as the impact elevator when I'm speaking to executives, I just showed them this list and I say, where are you spending your time at the moment because that's going to be having a direct influence on your team and the results you're getting. And so it's kind of counterintuitive, but a what may seem like a trivial shift in state of mind can have an out of proportion, impact on results. And so So I think the first step with that, for anyone is to recognise its importance because if someone looks at that and goes, Oh, I don't have time for that hippie nonsense that well then, then it's gonna be hard to benefit from it. But if you're like, you know what, they're onto something, then that that gives us a doorway to go okay, let's let's focus on this. Let's see what happens when you're spending 10% more of your time and kept calm, happy, energised, 20 3040 50% of your time and calm, happy, energised. What's the impact of that behind your organisation and your results? So I don't know if that's speaks to your question, but

it does. Yeah, I mean, for me, it's about the curious and playful. So even if you know, the hippie nonces. And as a person who probably 10 years ago, if you'd said I was going to be doing headspace meditation, or I was talking about falling out, you think it whatever it is, I would have gone red rubbish, you know, I was a driven achiever in your language, I was driven that you read that. So there is that experimentation about being curious having a go. And seeing, I always put it back to the experiment I did for my 360, I used to do a 360 every year. And I tried, I thought, one year, I'm just going to be starting to talk around saying I'm a control freak, I'm a control freak, and control freak. And that's all I put out into the world was I'm a control freak. And you made a bit of fun of it saying and if you take the controller, the controller free call you've got as the freak 360 feedback all the time it came back, every said control control control control freak, was the message to the next year, I tried and put something positive out there about it, whether I believed it or not just putting in positive. And again, it came back. So there's something in here about being aware of your downtime, and some of the almost leadership is language from market, what you put out in your language, your body language, and your demeanour that has a massive impact, you say?

Yeah, well, I would say so. And I'm what I'm going to suggest is that the, the feeling you're in the state of mind, you're in will automatically influence your body language, your verbal language, the, the subtle and not so subtle messages that people pick up from you. So there, there are basically two, two kind of approaches to it. One is the outside in approach and the outside and approaches, okay, you'll learn powerful body language, and you learn how to use the words that are, you know, going to have the most, and you do your best to be positive all the time, that can have some effect, but it it takes a lot of energy. And this is how I put it in my first book clarity. It's like, I asked people, have you ever pretended to have a cold, like to call in sick to work or something, if you have pretended to have a cold? It's like every every, almost everyone's pretended to have a call. But suddenly, the thing was pretending to have a cold is it's hard work. And it's not very convincing. But if you actually catch a cold, man, the symptoms emerge effortlessly takes no effort at all? Well, well, to me, it's the same with a positive mindset. And it's the same with leadership, you know, trying to do the the movements and sounds of leadership is hard work. And it's not that convincing. But if you catch the mindset, it's effortless. And it communicates very, very credibly. Because you've you're actually being real, you know, the key as I see it to authentic leadership is just being yourself. And so many of us have been taught that we need to be someone else that, that who we are, isn't enough that we're too weird, or our ideas are too off the wall, or that we're not quite enough of that sort of thing. And my message to everyone is actually that the most valuable thing you can discover is who you really are, and then and then share that with the world. Because there's a there, you know, you you set it as curious and playful. Well, those are, to me curious and playful, are authentic aspects of, of who you are what you're like. And when you allow that out into the world that has its own intelligence, there's, there's an intelligence that's there, and, and everyone's got their own flavour of who they really are. And when we, when we allow that into the world, there's an intelligence there that that guides us so that the way I see it calling is that your authentic way of being has its own intelligence and its own reasons for existing. And when we let that out it, it takes us places that we may never have imagined, you know, I would never have imagined that I'd be a best selling author that I'd be going and speaking at conferences around the world, that I'd be teaching something that's so gratifying. And that's having such an impact in people's lives. 2030 years ago, if you'd have told me that I'd be like, What are you on? I would never have imagined that. But just by tapping into that authentic sense of direction and desire and waking up to you know, who we really are. All of that has emerged and who knows what else you know, who knows what else is in the post for you and for me, as we follow that authentic path, and it's

interesting because we can go and talking and talking and talking and I feel like I'm getting my my therapy for the day when I do this. Every time I talk to you I get a sense. I wanted to pick up on the authenticity because this is one of these words that a lot of leaders out there go authentic, you know, everybody says to be off But I can't be my authentic self. But there's a piece about the definition of authenticity. And I think it's for many of our at London Business School said this, that authenticity is about a journey of growth. And I think what you're saying, so I want to just clarify, as you are authentic, and you let it flow and you're curious and you play, then you're even your authentic self just finds its own path that cuts its own path into the world. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I absolutely am saying that, what I'm going to suggest is that your your authentic self, has been there, from, you know, the moment you're born. And so this is about that cutting of the path is about that authentic self and finding greater expression in the world. And, you know, the, the nature of society is, the society exerts a pressure on us to conform, and which is important. And the authentic self exerts a pressure to express who we really are, and to be ourselves and that sort of thing. So there's a dynamic tension there, between the two, when I work with people in all kinds of different walks of life, but particularly in the business world, actually, it's almost like the pressure to conform has got a little is that muscle has got a little too strong. And the authentic self needs a little bit more coaxing to come, I'll never forget it, I was working with a CMO in a blue chip company. And the amount of insecurity that this chap had about what his fellow directors would think if he did very basic things to how he organised his office and that sort of thing, then like, man, there's some growing up to do there.

Yeah. So it is interesting to use that because it's a growing up, but actually, it's going back to what he was initially that will allow him to be successful so

and that the growing up is about courage having to be yourself, in a world where we're being told that we really should be like everyone else, it takes courage to be ourselves.

So what just I always remember the video that we were first together and I saw you on Sky News and your you were talking about Daniel Sturridge, I believe scoring his first hattrick for from Liverpool, if I remember rightly, and you're doing that, and, and for a lot of people, wow, bearded Sky News talking about his book. But But for you, that's not your pinnacle. That's not how you measure your success? How would you measure your own success?

I'll give you two answers. The first answer is to let you know what mission I'm on. But because what I realised back in 2009, when I saw Oh, these are principles for psychology, what I saw was that for the rest of my life, I was going to be sharing this understanding with people because it's what the world needs, you know, we're our technology has come on by leaps and bounds where we have the most incredible technical power available to us at the moment. But we're still using the same habits of thinking and social structures that we were using in the Middle Ages. You know, if we look at the amount of tribalism there is on, you know, that's been spawned by Facebook and social media, and so on, that's running on software that's that they were using 500 years ago, right? That, that, you know, fear of the other and all that sort of thing. So at a time, when we have this unprecedented technical technological power, we need an upgrade in our wisdom, we need an upgrade in our understanding of our mind and how it works. So it looks to me really, really important. So my, my mission is to awaken people to the truth of this understanding and to and to show them how to share it with others. So I love hearing about the people, you're coaching to see it for themselves, because there's this incredible ripple effect, you know, calling my vision is of me being out of a job because everyone already knows that we're like, yeah, smart, we know we got the memo. And the evidence for that. It's like the first generation of children born to people who already know this stuff, just like you and me were born to people who already knew about the fact of germs, I see a generation of children born to people who already know the fact of who they really are, where experience comes from. But it turns out those kids are already being born. So I speak to parents every day whose children are growing up in a home that has this feeling in it. So that connects to how I measure success. My My mission is to awaken people to the truth of this and show them how to do the same for others. How I'm measuring success is through the the feeling I'm living in, like the the experience that we had in our three day coaching intensive the feeling of that I'm wanting to bring that into every aspect of my life and I'm very grateful, you know that I get to have that sense of well being Find peace and clarity and flow in my coaching, and in my teaching and in my relationship with my girlfriend and not so that I'm with my daughters and so on. I'm wanting to bring it into every aspect of my life. And there are still aspects where there are teddy bears getting in the way right? aspects of business, oh, my god don't have to deal with this again. So for me, I mean, I have lots of the other kind of measures of kind of, how's it going that you might think, whether it's, I don't know, bank balance, or reach or that sort of thing. So I use some of those markers as well. But actually, a buddy of mine, Chapman, once said, and stopped me in my tracks, he said, the feeling you're living in is all you get, the feeling you're living in is all you got. And not all you're gonna get is literally all you got. And part of how I've repurposed that statement is the feeling you're doing business. And so you can ultimately, you know, two years ago, or, you know, December 2019, we had all our plans for what 2020 was going to look like, but we got what we got. And ultimately the the experience of life that you're living in and doing business in and working in and connecting with your family. And that's what you get. So that's how I measure success today, except when I don't,

yeah. And I think it's this humility piece and transparency piece that is not easy to do this. And occasionally it comes back into your life, I was on the call this morning. So it wasn't supposed to be an all team call. But I popped in and then when I went on, they were all happy this fantastic chat, engaging social report. I knew the purpose of that pulse as we call it was to do so what am I doing today and sharing and they weren't doing it. And I went into this stupid mode where I just went Okay, so let's go on to the purpose of the call today and killed, killed the mood killed, you know, the talk of dogs and everything else. And I sat there afterwards going, why did you do that? Why, you know, so I'll live with that for the rest of the day. But it is that even if I practice it, we catch ourselves it will creep up on us and we'll fall into the old thinking sometimes.

And it's the nature of this is sometimes you see it sometimes you don't don't

it's brilliant. Jamie what's next for you then what's what's happening with you that we can people can find you on

what's next I'm you can find me at Jamie smart comm or on all the usual social media places. Jamie smart comm is my handle on most of them not on LinkedIn, but I'm easy to find on LinkedIn. I've got podcasts. So if you want to listen to more of my ramblings, I've got four books out all available on Amazon and clarity, The Little Book of clarity results in the little book of results. We're doing things to reorganise the business at the moment. So I've got lots on my plate to do with that running, you know, coach training programmes and doing one to one coaching with executives and that sort of thing. So I've got a pretty full plate at the moment. But I feel very grateful to be able to share an understanding that's had such a difference in my life and is making a difference to other people too.

So I would just like to say thank you for coming into my life. Thank you for the three day which was amazing and had a massive impact on me but also to share today. What I love is the journey continues for you continues for me. And I wish you luck in your mission because I think it's the most valuable thing out there for people to grab hold of. So thank you.

Oh, thank you calling and thank you for inviting me and well done with the book.

Thank you. Yeah, it could be might be wrong, but we don't know but at least it's called be more wrong. So I'm okay with that. I can screw up. Jamie Smith, thank you very much. Cheers

folks, I was amazing, Jamie smart, great conversation. Every time I talk to that man, I get something different out of the conversation. And what I love today was the flow of the concept of flow and how when he's with his clients in a coaching scenarios in flow and therefore it's about him falling out of his thinking, truly listening to the person in front of them and working out how you make the best of that situation. Teddy Bear, the Colorado River will always stick with me so grateful to Jamie to be here today. Look forward to welcome you back to listening to another episode. The leadership tells podcast soon