This transcript has been edited for clarity and checked against the available source transcript and recording. Filler, false starts, and obvious transcription errors have been corrected without changing the speaker’s meaning.
James: Hello, and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s episode is all about taking action. How do we go from an idea or a thought into something tangible and into actions that we can actually do?
In today’s episode, we dive into a framework for converting these possibilities that seem so far off into tangible things that you can take action on today. During this episode, my guest coaches me through one of my own problems at the moment.
I think this will be a really great resource for you, so you can analyse some of your problems and the things that you’re putting off with this same framework that we discuss today. This was a really impactful episode for me, and I hope you enjoy.
Intro#
James: Today’s guest is an experienced entrepreneur, public speaking coach and career skills expert. He’s the CEO of Junior Achievement Australia, helping people across the country succeed in employment and entrepreneurship. Please welcome to the show Aaron Ngan.
Aaron: Hello. Thank you, James. It’s an absolute pleasure to be here. I’m excited to be on this podcast and share whatever I can. I’m in your hands. Let’s go.
James: Perfect, man. Today I’d love to chat about so many things.
What does Taking Action mean to Aaron?#
James: There are a lot of things that you do which are closely related to careers and many of the themes around this podcast. But one thing I want to speak about first is this idea of taking action. Something we spoke about before you came on today was making that decision not to just sit on the sidelines, but to get in the arena and start doing something, making something or selling something, whatever that might be.
I’m curious: what has that process looked like for you in your life? Are there any other times like that where you really had to dive in and make something happen?
Aaron: Absolutely. In the big picture, that idea of staying in the stands or getting into the arena is incredibly critical. All the times I’ve been held back, felt stuck or felt like I don’t know what I’m going to do—I don’t know what action I should take or what I should try—these are common themes when I speak with lots of young people at university, just out of university or even early in their careers. What’s the right thing?
Especially when the world’s gone nuts, what do I do? In every one of those moments of being stuck, both for myself and people I speak to, I’ve noticed that what’s right there is being in the stands, being the observer. What that really looks like is: I need to do all the research.
Let me get all the research done. Let me find out all the options. Maybe let’s chat to a bunch of people and find out what the best thing is. Can I do this? What if I create a plan? We should create a plan. That’s what we need to do now. Let’s create a plan. Oh, wait, what are all the different circumstances? What could go wrong?
All of this comes up, and there’s nothing wrong with planning or doing research. But every time I’ve become stuck, I’m in this world of not taking any action. This is where I have a big challenge as well. When I’m out there seeing different content, workshops and things for people to learn—students just like your listeners, who are committed to taking their careers to the next level—one of the things I see missing most is: what are the actions to take? What are the actions today? People can have all the theory, background and research, and understand why something works. That is incredibly fascinating and often really helpful. But none of it has any impact unless someone takes action. This matters particularly for students and listeners who are committed to taking their careers to the next level: they need to know what they can actually do today, not only why the idea works.
That’s the core idea I’m super excited to share with people. I do public speaking coaching; that’s one of the main things I focus on. I’ve seen so many articles, TED Talks and YouTube videos all about the theory: this is how you stand; these are different ways to modulate your voice; you should pause to let things sink in for effect. That’s all really nice, right? What I used to do—and this is mirrored by almost everyone I speak to—was think, “Oh, wow, that’s really nice.”
I would save the YouTube video and put it in a playlist of all my educational YouTube videos so I could refer back to it later. Then I just wouldn’t look at it. Maybe two, three or four years later, I’d look back at that playlist and think, “That’s nice. Maybe I’ll do something about it.” If I’m honest, I realised I actually hadn’t done anything.
I hadn’t taken any action. Even though I’m someone who now has a decent amount of muscle and practice in taking action, I’ll still give you some examples. It’s not like I’m immune to it, or that you ever become immune to it. The thoughts still come up whenever you’re about to put something into the world: how’s this going to work?
Can I do this? Will people listen? Will people sign up? James, you’ve created your own podcast, Graduate Theory. There would have been a period between when you thought, “I’m going to do this,” and when you actually started it, because there was a point where you were 100 per cent going to do it.
For me, that was 2017. I got one or two people together and thought, “I need to create my own public speaking coaching program.” I’d been doing it unofficially at various events. I’d had people in competitions and workshops that I’d run, and I’d give them that coaching and they’d get great results.
I thought, “I just need to put this into my own course.” It was 2017, and I didn’t actually do anything about it. I didn’t get any customers or put anything out. I maybe did one free workshop, which, if I’m honest, was just part of another program I was doing, so I didn’t create anything extra or new to test it.
I just said, “Hey, come to this.” It wasn’t my own program, and it didn’t give me a real test of whether people would choose what I had created. It wasn’t until 2020, when everything was in lockdown and no in-person meetings were happening, that I thought, “You know what? Now’s the time.” Why? Because there is no other time. I could wait another three years and still be asking the same questions. I decided, “Okay, I’m going to put together the first course. Who am I going to get?”
I was running two workshops back-to-back, on Wednesday and Thursday, for Real Skills Education. They do entrepreneurial training for engineers in universities, and they had me come in to run two public speaking workshops. I thought, “At the end, I’m just going to pitch it.”
“I’m going to see who shows up. I’m going to run the first one as a pilot program: three weekends over six weeks, with a fortnight between each. Let’s just do it.” We had 12 people sign up and say, “Yeah, I want to do this.” I thought, “Wow. Okay, that’s cool. Now I actually have to make this.”
Taking the action, setting the dates and offering it was the biggest thing, because I didn’t know whether it was going to flop. Then I discovered, “Hold on, now this is pulling me into action.” The action was pulling me into action because I now had these people who had committed to taking themselves on, expanding their public speaking skills. I had to write this in a way that would make a difference for them and give them the experience of walking out authentically able to speak confidently and effectively on any topic in front of any audience.
When I wrote down the promise of the course, I asked, “What’s the promise of this course?” That was it: you will be able to confidently and effectively present on any topic in front of any audience. They walked out able to do that, and I thought, “Okay, now I’ve got something.”
From that course, people brought friends along and shared it with their friends. I had two more people. “Crap, now I’ve got two more customers. I need to fill the rest of the second course.” I’m so glad I didn’t waste another three years. I decided, “I’m just going to do this.”
What’s the action to take? That’s the overall theme. When you take action, you discover a lot. In those two weeks, I learnt more than I had in those whole two or three years about putting together the course and its structure. Suddenly the practical questions were real rather than hypothetical. What should the sessions contain? How do I get a payment structure in place?
How do I find out what they want to accomplish? I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out a website just so I could get a sales page up at the end of the course.
Aaron: But I learnt more in that two-to-six-week period than I did in three years of just saying, “I really want to do this.”
I knew I had the skills for it. Logically and theoretically, I knew, but I didn’t have any proof or evidence. By taking the actual step, I discovered that this is something I can do. The first takeaway is that theory, information and all the research you might do aren’t bad. In fact, they’re often really helpful. But once you take action, you get to know for yourself that this is something you can do. A whole bunch of other learning and benefits come with that.
So I guess that’s the key theme to start off with.
James: I think that’s really cool. There are so many things we can go into from there, but I want to finish what you said about information.
Researching vs Using information#
James: I’ve found this even for myself. I used to read a lot of books; that was almost my thing, trying to read as many books as I could in a year.
Since starting a podcast and actually doing something with that information, you realise: I’ve read books on marketing, but now I have to market the thing, the podcast. I probably didn’t retain much of what I read. Reading it again now, with the idea that you will actually implement the advice, makes it much more effective. I feel like you can get into an endless state of reading and researching so much that it almost leads you not to do the thing or use the information.
Once I actually had to use it, I found I’d prefer to start doing something and then use the information to power that, rather than making the information its own thing. If I read a marketing book now, the whole time I’m asking, “How am I going to use this?”
If I don’t have something to use it for, it’s just, “Nice book, cool concepts about marketing, tick: read.” From the perspective of being able to learn, having something in which to implement what you’re learning makes you learn much more.
That’s before even considering the actual doing of the thing, which is also really cool.
Aaron: I really want to emphasise that I don’t think information or learning is bad. On the contrary, information and conceptual or theoretical learning are critical in so many areas of how we live in the world.
You don’t become a theoretical physicist calculating how we get to the Moon or Mars, or how we deal with some of these really complex challenges, without an incredibly strong foundation in the underlying theories and academic ideas.
Those are critical. However, for most people starting their careers and making the transition from primary and high school education systems into adult learning, experience and taking action in the everyday aspects of our lives, we’ve largely got it the wrong way around.
Many people, especially recent or soon-to-be graduates, think, “I need to do all the research first so that I’ll be ready.” Invariably, we do the research, ask people, look up websites and jump on YouTube.
We find all these different things. Some of it is confusing because some people say the same thing while others say different things. You can keep moving from one source to another, trying to decide which one is right, without ever creating the experience that would make the advice meaningful. With my résumé reviews, people often tell me, “I’ve never heard anyone explain, describe or put it into action the way you have.”
That blows my mind. But what you said is perfect, because the moment you start taking action, you start experimenting, trying things and discovering. You have a situation in front of you and a reason to distinguish what is useful. Then you go back to those same resources, and the actions you take pull all that value from them.
You’re actually doing a podcast and have to do the marketing. Now you’re going to read this book and immediately get 20 or 30 new ideas because you’re taking action in a way that lets you discover part of that world. The more we can combine those things and give people space to do so, the more powerful it is. That’s where growth, discovery and development all start.
You will never feel ready#
James: I liked what you said about waiting to be ready and thinking you haven’t learnt enough.
Aaron: It’s not going to happen. You’ll never be ready.
James: That’s really important to recognise. Whatever it might be, if you dive in, you’re going to learn so much.
Once you’re actually doing it, the things you have to learn become clear, and you’re under pressure to learn. I think that brings out much more good than sitting on the sidelines, researching and learning.
That’s not inherently bad, but if you really want to maximise what you get out of these things, it’s worth being involved.
Aaron: Taking the view that “I’m never going to be ready” is incredibly empowering for some people: given I’m never going to be ready, why don’t I just go for it? For others, it could put you in a bit of a bind. I would assert that if “We’re never going to be ready” puts you in a bind, that’s all part of still wanting to be ready. Another way to look at it in the world of taking action is that, once you act, you discover you are exactly as ready as you are, because you took that action and achieved whatever result you achieved. You were exactly ready.
You were perfectly ready to achieve that result. The difference is that now you’ve taken the action and achieved a result—even if no one signed up, nothing happened or it flopped—you have evidence. It’s outside your head and in the world. You can say, “Okay, awesome.”
“I took the action and it worked out great,” or, “This is how many people signed up.” For me, 12 people were there. That was a free trial program, so I was pretty much off the hook, to be honest. But then, when I offered it for the first time after that free program, they could invite their friends.
Three or four people came along, and two of them paid and registered. I thought, “Okay, cool. That’s now the new result measure.” I was ready for that. How do I know? Because I did it. Notice that nothing gets accomplished unless you take action.
The results you get from the action you take are precisely what you’re ready for. But we try to go into our heads to find out: am I ready? Am I not? Take the action. You will find out.
Aaron’s experience with uncertainty when taking action#
James: That’s really cool. We’re talking about the gap between thinking you’re not ready and then doing it. Have there been times when you’ve had that delay—when you’ve wanted to do something but had that doubt?
I think it’s fairly common, but I’m curious to hear about your experience with it.
Aaron: The biggest and most present example is the one I mentioned before. In 2017, I distinctly remember thinking, “I’m going to do my own public speaking course. I’ve got the experience.” Everyone I coached one-on-one would do a pitch or presentation.
I’d give them coaching, and they’d go from nervous to, “Okay, cool. I can actually express myself naturally.” Not that fake, “Today we’re going to talk about…” style of presenting you get taught at school, but actual, natural self-expression and exuberance.
I was accomplishing that with people, just not in my own course or program. I had evidence that the coaching worked in competitions, workshops and one-on-one conversations, but I still hadn’t turned it into an offer of my own. I delayed it for two to three years, until the end of 2020. Looking back, a lot of that hesitation was: how do I structure the course? I don’t know whether I’ll structure it well. What do I put in? How will I find people to attend? How do I promote it? I wasn’t actually dealing with any of those questions. Dealing with them would itself be a form of action: writing down everything I’m uncertain about.
Get clear that I am certain about something: I’m certain about everything I’m uncertain about. I’m certain that I don’t know a bunch of stuff. Then look at what it will take to resolve that. I didn’t do any of it.
Aaron: This is powerful, because it’s not that I didn’t know to do it. I’d done productivity courses and seen YouTube clips about how to live a productive life. I knew all of that. That theoretical knowledge has been available and readily accessible for ages.
I knew lack of information wasn’t the key. I simply didn’t take action. That distinction matters: I could have watched another productivity video and felt as though I was addressing the problem, even though the knowledge was already there. One of the things that ultimately led to action was something we discussed before we started. In 2020, I had worked in coaching, supporting and empowering young people to develop their careers, entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy.
I was well versed in this space, having spent more than five years doing it officially and more than 10 years doing it informally. I thought, “We’re in a global pandemic. What’s something I can do?” People were struggling with careers and jobs amid so much uncertainty.
I decided to put a free résumé review on LinkedIn and do it over Zoom. Anyone could take part. I thought I’d get a handful of people from the Sydney area, but about 20 per cent came from one university in the United States. I looked it up: it’s a worldwide top-20 or top-30 university.
I thought, “I didn’t know you existed.” It got into one of the communities there, and people started sharing it with all their friends. That was far beyond the handful of Sydney participants I had imagined. Even though I knew the idea would work, I still hesitated for a good month. I noticed myself saying, “I’ll write the post tomorrow, or next week. I need to figure out a scheduling system first so I can book people in. I don’t want to go back and forth on LinkedIn with people over messages.”
“I just want to give them a link so they can book. What do I do? What if I record them? Should I create a template that I can give them at the end?” I noticed myself getting caught up in all this stuff, which was simply delaying action.
Finally, I decided, “I’m going to put it out there.” I didn’t have the scheduling link ready. That turned out to be really good, because instead of posting on LinkedIn and saying, “Click this link,” I told them, “Comment below, ‘Me, please. I want a résumé review.’”
The unintended effect was that, as they commented, their friends and more people saw it. It became viral on a small scale: my first post had about 6,000 to 7,000 views within the first four days, with more than 50 interactions, including likes and comments. Within the first three or four hours, people started commenting and I had to act quickly. All that umming and ahhing about the right thing became pretty simple.
I was on a deadline. I went and created the link. There was Calendly, Acuity Scheduling and a bunch of other options. I picked one that integrated well with my calendar and Zoom.
I made about 10 to 20 tweaks to that first post and the system, but ultimately it was all done in motion, in action. I did not need to predict all those tweaks before publishing; the responses showed me what needed to change. By the end, I had done about 200 to 250 reviews over a couple of months and built up a bunch of networks.
I built up an incredibly diverse awareness of different careers and skills. Nowadays, people come to me and ask, “Do people pay you to do this?” Absolutely. I now offer it as a paid service. Instead of doing only the 30-minute Zoom call and letting you take action yourself, we’ll still do that, because I can do it incredibly fast now. Then I’ll take it away, find all the details, pull them out and send you a couple of drafts. You’ll send it back, and I’ll review it as many times as you need within a 14-day period. People now pay me a couple of hundred dollars to do that. That’s not bad: it takes me one or two hours, perhaps half an hour of initial face-to-face work and another hour and a half doing it. It’s something I really enjoy, and it brings in some side cash. An old friend runs a business targeting young people that was building a résumé-builder website. They said, “I saw those posts. That’s really cool. Can you record a series of short videos? We’ll pay you.”
I ended up getting a couple of thousand dollars to make a few short videos. I thought, “Wow, now I get to create content as well. That’s cool,” because that’s something else I’d been putting off.
Aaron: There’s no shortage of things I put off, but I’ve also started to recognise that nothing happens without taking action. Sometimes it’s just a case of asking, “What action am I going to take today?”
James: That’s really amazing. There are so many things I want to explore from that.
Going from 0 to 1#
James: I’ve heard start-up people say zero to one is the hardest part. From one to 10, you’re still building, working things out and refining; then from 10 to 100, it’s about scale.
You can often be put off at the start, when you have to go from nothing at all to having something. With that LinkedIn post, you had nothing.
You had to make the post and think of all this stuff, and that was almost the biggest step. Once you had the post, it became about refining it: making edits and working out the calendar. Once you have something, it’s easier to change, refine and perfect it.
Once you have something working well, you ask, “How do we turn up the volume?” That’s the scale side of things. It is a different problem from creating the first version and learning whether anybody wants it. That’s what you’ve done: you’ve turned it from something free into a paid service, with people coming to you.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that zero-to-one stage. Have you found that starting is often the hardest part, and that once you’re in motion things become more straightforward?
Aaron: Absolutely. There are a couple of zero-to-one moments in that. When you’ve created something and put it out there, that’s one version: there was nothing, and now people know about it. The next step is, “Who’s my first customer?” In the case of my résumé reviews, the first 200 were all free customers. Then the next zero-to-one moment was, “Who’s my first paying customer?” There are different steps in the whole thing.
The moment you start to break it down, you get some space. You can focus on the zero-to-one question that matches the level you’re actually at, rather than carrying every later question at once. It would be inappropriate for me to start trying to work out how to get from here to making $200,000 a year or $10,000 a month, because that’s not appropriate to the level I’m at. For each of those zero-to-one moments, there’s the psychological difficulty and the actual difficulty. In my case, I’ve been sufficiently active on LinkedIn to have 8,000 or 9,000 connections, the majority of whom I’ve personally met at various points over the last couple of years. I’ve done a lot in this space, so that awareness is already built up. It’s banked. When I put out something like a résumé review, people already think, “That makes sense,” because I’d built that brand. I already had a bunch of things in place: awareness, relationships and a history of working in that space. So the actual difficulty of reaching people was not the same as it would be for somebody starting with no network. But there was still that psychological block: “I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll get around to it.” I knew it was going to work, but to take that first step, I had to confront the question: “What do I actually need to do?”
I realised the only thing I needed to do first was put up the post. I didn’t need any scheduling. The time to sort that out was when I had the first expression of interest, because then I’d have someone to send it to. If I waited, I would only delay the time people had to find out about it.
I understood: “I can do the post now and everything else later.” When someone came to pay for it and asked, “Do you offer this?” I said yes. Then I had to work out what I was going to charge and what the package would involve. If I’d spent all that time earlier, I probably would have come up with something, but the chance of it being the right fit would have been close to pure chance. It would have been guided by what I thought, rather than what I’d learnt and experienced.
In that situation, I had someone saying, “We want this actual thing. We want a résumé.” I could ask, “What specifically are you after? What sort of job are you going for? What’s your background and experience?” I got that information by speaking with an actual potential paying customer.
I discovered what they actually needed from them, instead of trying to work it out in my head. Their job target, background and experience shaped what the package needed to contain. Left to my own devices, none of it would have been worked out—or, if it had, it would have been unreliable because it was my guess rather than something I’d learnt from actual people. I might have built a detailed offer, but whether it fitted the person in front of me would have been largely a matter of chance.
Mental tools for going from 0 to 1#
James: That’s a good point. When taking that leap from zero to one, what tools or mental strategies do you use? Is there anything you turn to in those situations, perhaps a mental trigger that makes you snap out of it and think, “Wait, hold up. I’ve got to do this now”? Is there a process people can go through?
Aaron: These are going to sound incredibly simple. Whenever there’s a feeling of being stuck—and I also use this when coaching people in personal productivity, careers or very early-stage entrepreneurship—the number one thing is to start by writing a list: what do I not know?
What do I need to know? List it all, along with the actions. That’s step zero. It makes the uncertainty visible instead of leaving it as one large feeling of being stuck. Step one is to list the actions I need to take to start. For any action that seems particularly confusing or uncertain, you can break it down further until it becomes something concrete.
Let’s say the step is, “I need to create a website.” For many people, including me, even though I’ve now put out a bunch of different things, the response is, “I don’t know how to do that.” If building a website is step four for me, I ask, “How do I do that?” The next step is to get clarity: what are the different steps I need to take? One of the most helpful things I heard from someone—I forget who, unfortunately; there’s probably a book on it—is to find the smallest actionable step that takes you closer to where you want to go.
To make “smallest actionable step” tangible, it should take between five minutes and an hour at most. If it takes longer, it isn’t the smallest actionable step. It might be, “I’m going to list the three things I need to find out.” Then you can take that step and find out. You do not have to map the entire route in advance. Often you can identify the first step or two, but without taking them, you won’t even know the right questions to ask to reach that zero-to-one point. The information created by those first actions will shape the steps that follow.
Aaron: Find the smallest thing you can do, schedule a time to do it, and then do it.
James: I think that’s useful. Let’s say you haven’t started something, and you’re looking at step 10 and thinking, “It’s going to be hard. What am I going to do when that happens?”
It becomes tricky because you don’t even know what things will look like at that point. Going back to your LinkedIn example, creating the post was step one and creating the calendar was step two.
If you just do step one, which is literally making a post on LinkedIn, that’s quite easy. Thinking about how you’re going to charge money isn’t appropriate at that stage. Sometimes you can become overwhelmed by thinking about it and looping on the issue.
Perhaps you think about it so much that it becomes a reason not to do the first step.
Aaron: Another thing you can do is work out: “Here’s a bunch of things I could do, and I’m going to keep thinking about them if left to my own devices.” Look at when it would be appropriate to do them.
Will it be based on time—“I’ll look at that in two months”—or circumstances—“When I’ve done 100 of these résumé reviews, I’ll start looking at how I can monetise them or offer a paid service to people who want that”?
You can schedule it for that time and only look at it then. I might jot the ideas down, get them out of my head and onto paper or a digital backlog or task list. But I can say, “This is the task list I’ll only address once I reach 100 free customers.”
Once I’ve reached 100 paying customers, there might be new things to do, including asking, “Now that I’m here, what do I actually want to do?” What you thought you’d do and what you want when you reach that stage might overlap, but chances are you’ll have discovered a whole new world in the process, with a bunch of even cooler things to consider.
Advice for someone having trouble taking action#
James: What would your advice be to someone who’s on the fence? They have an idea they want to pursue and want to start doing something, but they’re deciding whether they should.
What would your advice be in that situation?
Aaron: I’ll give the generic advice, but I’d also love to ask about something in your life that you’ve been hesitating about, so we can make this practical and tangible for listeners and work through it.
To people listening: look at the thing you’re umming and ahhing about. If you take this in as theory or a concept, it won’t make a difference. It will just be nice: “I’ll review that later. Maybe I’ll bookmark this podcast and come back when I finally want to do it.” We all have things we’re hesitating about. At least I don’t wake up and get out of bed automatically decisive, knowing exactly what I’m going to do each day. For most people, that takes an incredible amount of discipline, training and development.
Most people, especially those who are young, early in their careers or still at university, aren’t automatically like that. We do have these hesitations. Find out what’s stopping you. Write down a list: “What’s stopping me? What are my uncertainties?” Write them all out. Will I have enough time? Will I be good enough? Will people listen? What if it doesn’t work? What if I embarrass myself? Those are common ones, but everyone will have their own flavour.
The second thing, which is powerful in start-up methodology, is to recognise that you aren’t looking for “the answer”. There’s no such thing. The moment you decide there’s only one answer—this can be done, and this is how it should be done—you close off everything else that might be possible if you kept asking, “What else could I do?” My initial advice is to ask: what small, easy experiments could I run? A simple experiment might be, “I’ve been thinking about launching free résumé reviews. Type ‘yes’ in the comments if you’re interested.” Looking back, I could have put up a LinkedIn poll.
Aaron: Just “yes” or “no”. Then I’d also know who said yes, so I could contact them. In hindsight, that’s what I would have done. It would have been much easier than writing a post that ended up so long I had to trim it to LinkedIn’s maximum character limit.
I had to trim it a couple of times. A poll would have been much simpler and led with that initial proof of concept. Instead, I spent all that time umming and ahhing. The key questions are: what’s the smallest experiment I could do, and how would I know it succeeded?
Aaron Helps Talk about James’ eBook#
Aaron: And what’s one really simple, easy action I can take to make that experiment go live? What’s something you’ve been humming and hawing about?
James: One thing I’m considering is that, at the end of every episode of this podcast, I ask guests what advice they’d give themselves if they were starting their careers again at the start of this year. They’ll offer advice for a new graduate—fairly general tips that could help someone.
I’m thinking about taking those answers and putting them into a resource that someone could use, perhaps an e-book. It would be a good way to compile the advice and get much of the good stuff without having to listen to hours of podcasts.
But what’s the best way to do that? How do I even do it?
Aaron: I get it. How many guests have you had on your podcast?
James: This episode will be episode 17, so I’ll probably be at 20 within the next couple of weeks.
Aaron: Great. You’ll have 20 guests. What’s an experiment you could run to find out? We skipped the step about what you’re uncertain about, but we can go through that. In fact, you said it automatically: “I’ve never done this before.”
What else was there?
James: I don’t know how to do it. I’m not sure whether people would download it or whether it would be a wash, because making something like that is a fair time investment, especially if it’s going to be good.
Aaron: A lot of effort. Will people download it? Will people know they’re going to get it?
Aaron: What other concerns or uncertainties do you have?
James: What would be the best way to share it with people? Should I make people pay for it, or should it be free? How do I design the book and make it look good? What’s the best way to convert someone’s podcast answer into a text format that’s nice to look at and well illustrated? Should I do it myself or get someone else to help?
Aaron: How do I take out all the ums and ahs, or the moments when someone starts a new sentence in the middle of an idea because they’ve just had a new idea, then goes back to the old one? How do I edit and illustrate it? How do I make it visually appealing?
James: Should people pay for it? Should it be free? If it’s free, what if they don’t value it? There are probably more. You could probably come up with more.
Aaron: Look at all those different things. Now you’ve acknowledged them, said them aloud and recorded them.
When you review this podcast later, you can write them all down. What do you notice now that you’ve said them aloud and communicated them? What’s present now?
James: The things holding me back become clearer, rather than an invisible target. It becomes something you can investigate. For example, the illustrations—
Aaron: Hold on for a second. Can I give you some quick coaching? When you say it has become less of an invisible target, has it actually, or hasn’t it? “I think” is something we often say: “I think it’s going to work.”
We say that so we don’t have to be on the hook for “It will work,” “It won’t,” or “I don’t know.” It’s like saying, “I’m going to try to do it.” That’s what we say when we don’t want to be on the hook for actually doing it: “I’ll try.”
James: I’m definitely very guilty of that.
Aaron: You’ve acknowledged all those different things. How does it occur to you now? What’s it actually like for you in terms of that invisible target? What’s now available? Take out “I think”, because everything else you said was perfect.
James: What I have to do is much clearer. The things I’d have to go through to finish it are now outlined more clearly. It’s no longer an idea or massive thing that’s almost a bit scary.
We’ve outlined it. I can see the things I have to do and recognise that they’re possible to overcome.
Aaron: You were going to talk about the illustrations, which are a perfect example. If you have no idea how to make it look good, what actions could you take to find out or, potentially even better, outsource it so you don’t have to worry about it?
James: I would start by seeing whether there are similar books or resources and looking at how they’ve approached the design. Then I could decide whether it’s a Word-document-style thing I can provide, or whether I need fancy illustrations, cartoons and all this extra material.
In the latter case, perhaps I’d go to Upwork, Fiverr or a similar website, see what the price range would be and decide whether it’s worth it, or whether I should learn and have a crack myself.
Aaron: Perfect. You now have a couple of openings for action. Search for something like “quote compilation e-book” and see what you find.
Aaron: Perfect. This is a great example of how questions shape your answers.
One of your uncertainties was, “Should it be free or paid?” The larger question is, “How much should I charge?” In the world of whether it should be paid or free, free is easy: zero. But paid raises other questions: should it be $5, $4, $4.95, $10 or $100? What’s appropriate? Now you have a whole other kettle of fish. Notice that the question shapes the value of the information you’ll get, because beyond paid or free, there’s a third option.
There are probably more options. Do I let people pay what they want? Do I give it free to subscribers? Do I give it to people who provide their email address, so they can become part of the community? You stop looking purely at payment and start asking, “What’s the value to people?”
James: That’s an interesting way to look at it. “What will it be worth to someone?” is probably better than thinking only from my side about what I want to get out of it. How much value will it offer someone?
Aaron: Starting from where you are is fine and valid, because then you know it will align with what’s important to you. But it’s equally critical to consider the people who will read it and whom this product or resource will affect.
It’s critical to understand what’s important to them, what they want and what will make a difference. You have all those snippets recorded. If they’re in the final five minutes of every podcast, and you’ll have 20 podcasts in a couple of weeks, you could spend 20 times five minutes—don’t ask me to do maths on a podcast—listening through them. Ask: what are the different categories and pieces of advice? What’s the same and what’s different? You might find five or six distinct categories of advice.
Some people might overlap across categories. Then ask: who would benefit from this? Whom would it affect? In effect, you’d be taking action, because you have the bare bones and raw materials in the podcast.
That’s one of the most powerful value propositions of a podcast: you can accumulate and correlate incredible ideas. You can say this resource was essentially co-authored with these people—you have to ask permission, but most will say yes—and include their names. You can ask, “Do you want to share this with your communities? Let’s spread the word and make more people aware of ideas that will make a difference.”
James: That’s a good idea. I didn’t even think of that.
Aaron: Now you’ve seen it in action. I want to thank you, because it takes courage to do this live on your own podcast and be the person interacting. I really acknowledge you, James. We took this from a theoretical concept because you asked me the question.
I was happy to answer it, but it came to life for you. Because this is a real-life example, not a hypothetical one, it will come to life for our listeners as well through the actual doing of it.
I asked what you were worried and uncertain about, and you listed those things. We didn’t physically write them down, but they’re embedded in this podcast, so you can look back.
You found that space. It’s no longer a vague, vapid, elusive, invisible task; it’s a collection of smaller things. We looked specifically at illustrating the resource: what are some things I can do? We also explored payments and what they might look like. Now you’ve seen it in action. What one or two actions will you take today? Make them as small as appropriate given the time you have, because you’re busy.
What one or two actions will you take—not could take, because “could” is one of those “try” phrases—today?
James: Today I can look for other books. That would be a good place to start: see what structure and style they’re using and what they’re like. That would be informative about the things I’d want to do.
Aaron: You can do that, but are you going to do it? What’s the action you’re actually going to take?
James: I’m going to do it today. I’ll Google early-career-related e-books and look at their structure.
Aaron: Perfect. You could also Google “podcast quote compilation e-book”. Your action could literally be typing four or five searches into Google. Now you have a clear first place to start, and you don’t know what’s there.
That’s the experimental nature: you’ll get what you get by taking that action. You’ve told everyone on the podcast, so by the time this episode is out, you will have done it, because you’re doing it today. That’s it in practice.
James: I really like this. What you mentioned earlier—getting it down to the smallest actionable step—is useful. When you have a whole list of vague things, it’s hard to imagine how you’d overcome some of those problems. But breaking it down to, “What’s the next step I can take?” gives you something achievable that you know how to do. The whole thing is the sum of those little steps. Starting there will eventually get you to the end. That’s really good, and it’s something I’ll endeavour to apply more to the things I’m doing.
Aaron: Don’t “endeavour to apply it more”. Just say, “I’m going to apply it.”
James: Okay. I’m going to apply it.
How Taking Action Relates to Careers#
James: That’s spot on. I’d love to take the ideas about action we’ve discussed and relate them to careers and some common threads in the podcast. Much of this material about taking action can be applied similarly.
It might not be starting a project. It could be, “I don’t like where I’m working. I’m going to look for another job.” It’s a similar process: what’s the next step? Maybe it’s fixing up my résumé or asking you to look at it. Then I can find other companies where I’d want to work and connect with some of them. To take one career example, many of these things are quite simple.
Aaron: Something that isn’t often discussed is that all those actions assume, “I’m going to leave the company or position.” I’ll throw out another question: what would it take to resolve the thing I’m unhappy about? If I don’t like my job, I could start by exploring what specifically I don’t like. Is it a person, a situation, or a way or system of doing business? What’s the actual thing? As with the hesitation we looked at before, the uncertainty is often vague.
“I feel uncomfortable; therefore, it sucks.” I’m not disagreeing that it probably does suck. For many people, not having a sense of happiness or fulfilment at work is a major cause of stress.
Look at what’s actually there. What or whom am I upset about? Then apply the same ideas: what are some things I could do? If I don’t know what to do, what could I find out about how to resolve the situation?
This is particularly relevant if you enjoy some things about the business. Most people don’t join a company without at least one or two things they enjoy about it. It might be what the company does or aims to accomplish, or the type of work. You can ask, “I joined this company for a reason. Should I up and go?” Maybe that’s one option; I’m not discounting it. But what would it look like not merely to tolerate this?
There can be a progression from “It’s going to suck a bit, but I’ll tolerate it” to “This is almost unbearable. I’ve got to get up, do the résumé and make a move.” For most people, as dissatisfaction with work increases, productivity and output tend to decrease.
If you let that continue too long, it can affect your future career. If someone calls for a reference and you haven’t been doing what you need to do, that can cause a downward spiral. People often frame the solution as, “Let’s get a new job.”
I’m always happy to talk about that; in fact, that’s what most people discuss with me. But ask: why am I unhappy or dissatisfied? What is it actually about? What could I explore? What are the options? What could I find out about resolving it? Whom could I speak to?
Whom can I share this with? What could get done? In many situations, chances are someone doesn’t know you’re upset or unhappy. If you communicate authentically and openly, it might still result in you leaving, but now you have an opportunity to shape your environment towards what you want and what will make a difference for you. That’s something I recommend.
James: That’s really good advice. Naming the things you’re struggling with and working out exactly what they are is critical. Whether you’re taking action or something isn’t going well, making those problems visible and facing them directly is really important.
Aaron: Yes, it’s super powerful.
Aaron’s Career Advice for New Graduates#
James: I like this a lot. We’ve spoken for a while and can probably wrap up, but I want to ask one more question—the one I ask all guests.
If you were starting your career again today, what would you do? You’ve worked in public speaking coaching, entrepreneurship leadership and workshop facilitation, and you see many young people move from school to university to work. What advice or key principles would you give people making the transition into their first full-time role?
Aaron: The number one piece of advice I’d give is to share what you’re up to. Share it with your family, friends and network. Tell people, “This is what I want to do. This is the type of work and what excites me about it.” Share that with as many people as possible, and things will happen. People will ask, “Have you heard about this job or volunteering opportunity? Have you thought about joining this hackathon? Have you seen this?” People on the same journey might say, “I’m also doing this. Let’s catch up, connect and collaborate.” You might learn from or contribute to them. When sharing what you’re doing and setting out to accomplish early in your career, you could say, “I really want to be an amazing product manager or systems engineer. I really want to be an amazing junior HR manager.” You can start to understand what excites you. It doesn’t have to be a huge aspirational thing like, “I’m joining Tesla to create the next powered smart-home battery motorcycle,” or whatever it is.
It doesn’t have to be something incredible that’s going to Mars. In your early-stage career, you could say, “I’m committed to discovering the world of finance so I can make a difference to everyday people who use Company X’s services.” As you share and explore that, two things will happen. You’ll deepen your awareness of what you actually want to do.
The more conversations you have and the more you explain it to people who say, “That’s interesting. Tell me about that,” the deeper and more real it becomes for you. Your environment also starts to recognise, “James is the person who does that podcast.”
If someone approaches me, of course I’m going to recommend him. It makes sense, because sharing what you’re up to is the number one thing that influences your environment. It could be a post or a conversation: “What have you been doing? What have you been up to?”
“How’s it going?” in Australia is the equivalent of saying, “Hello, but please don’t tell me how you’re actually feeling or what you’re doing.” The standard response is, “Nothing much. How about you?” But when you’re asked what you’ve been up to, you can actually talk about it.
You can say, “I recorded a podcast this week. The guest flipped it on me and started asking me questions, which was pretty cool. From that, I’m going to think about how I can create more value for people, because I’m committed to ensuring Graduate Theory’s listeners and the community we’re building have the best possible resources, preparation, support and guidance to take action and move their careers to the next step.
That’s what I’ve been doing this weekend.” I just made that up for you as an example. Someone will say, “Tell me about that,” and then it builds. Share what you’re up to and what you’re about.
James: That’s cool. We can all do better at sharing what we’re up to and developing our networks. Thanks so much for coming on today.
It was personally so valuable for me. Thanks for your questions and for helping me with that. There are many great takeaways for listeners, whether around the smallest possible action or the idea of sharing with your network. It’s really great advice.
Connect with Aaron#
James: If people want to get in touch with you and find out more about what you’re doing, where’s the best place for them to go?
Aaron: The best place to connect with me is on LinkedIn. Type my name, Aaron Ngan, into LinkedIn and you’ll find me, or go to linkedin.com/in/aaronngan—just one name, no dashes. Mention that you came from the Graduate Theory podcast. I’d love to connect with you and support you with anything to do with your career, entrepreneurship skills, public speaking or being able to express yourself powerfully.
All of it. Please connect.
James: We’ll leave that for everybody in the show notes below. Thanks so much again for coming on today, and we’ll be in touch.
Aaron: James. It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. And I look forward to chatting with you more in the future.
Outro#
James: Thanks so much for listening to Graduate Theory. To find out more, please go to GraduateTheory.com. If you want to hear more from me in your inbox every week, please go to GraduateTheory.com/subscribe. You’ll receive weekly emails containing my takeaways from each episode. I look forward to seeing you there, and we’ll see you next week.