This week on The Digital Download, we're challenging conventional wisdom about motivation with our special guest, Simon Hartley. As the Founder & CEO of Be World Class Group, Simon brings his extensive experience in elite sports psychology to help individuals and organizations achieve their best.

While many believe motivation is straightforward, Simon reveals the complexities and misconceptions surrounding it. He will share insights on the real drivers behind peak performance and how to harness them effectively.

Join us as we discuss questions like:

* What role does purpose play in driving success?

* Why is passion not enough to sustain motivation?

* What are the common pitfalls in motivating teams?

* How can organizations better understand and leverage individual motivators?

Simon Hartley has spent over 25 years working with top-tier athletes and organizations, helping them achieve and sustain world-class performance. His unique insights into human psychology and motivation provide valuable lessons for anyone looking to elevate their performance.

We strive to make The Digital Download an interactive experience. Bring your questions. Bring your insights. Audience participation is highly encouraged!

This week we were joined by our Special Guest -

• Simon Hartley, Founder & CEO of Be World Class Group

This week's Host was -

• Rob Durant, Founder of Flywheel Results, a proud DLA Ignite partner

Panelists included -

• Adam Gray, Co-founder of a DLA Ignite, and

• Tracy Borreson, Founder and CEO of TLB Coaching & Events, a proud DLA Ignite partner

Transcript of The Digital Download 2024-07-19

Rob Durant [00:00:02]:

Good morning, good afternoon, and good day wherever you may be joining us from. Welcome to another edition of the Digital Download. I got it, folks. The longest running weekly business talk show on LinkedIn Live, Now globally syndicated on TuneIn Radio through IBGR, the world's number one business talk, news, and strategy radio network. Today, we're understanding how pear shaped motivation outperforms. We have a special guest, Simon Hartley, to help us with the discussion. Founder and CEO of Be World Class Group, Simon has extensive experience in elite sports psychology, helping individuals and organizations achieve their best. But before we bring Simon on, let's go around and introduce ourselves.

Rob Durant [00:00:59]:

While we're doing that, why don't you in the audience reach out to a friend? Ping them and have them join us. We strive to make the digital download an interactive experience so audience participation is highly encouraged. Alright. With that, introductions. Adam, would you kick us off, please?

Adam Gray [00:01:21]:

Hi, everybody. I'm Adam Gray. I'm cofounder of DLA Ignite. And, just the title of this particular show had me hooked. That's a a fantastic, fantastic title. So I'm thrilled to be here, and a very elite bunch of us today. So it looks like

Rob Durant [00:01:40]:

there's just That's true. Thank you for that. And, Tracy, good morning and welcome.

Tracy Borreson [00:01:46]:

Good morning, everyone. I will take the eliteness. That sounds fun. Also, I love pears, So I'm super excited to see where the zip code goes. I'm Tracy Borreson, owner of TLB Coaching and Events. We're trying to bring authenticity back to the marketing industry. It's it's it is I mean, I wish it wasn't such a project. It's a pretty big project.

Tracy Borreson [00:02:11]:

Yeah. And I'm super excited to be part of this elite 4, which is kind of fun because if we're talking about sports, sports methodology, then it's good to be in the top 4.

Rob Durant [00:02:23]:

Especially with the Olympics coming up. This will be interesting.

Tracy Borreson [00:02:26]:

It's true. Although, I will say, for those of you who don't know, I'm Canadian and, like, Canada always performs pretty dismally in this in the Summer Olympics. We're more You do okay in

Adam Gray [00:02:36]:

the Winter Olympics, though.

Tracy Borreson [00:02:37]:

Yeah. We're a Winter Olympics country. But Well, it's winter all year rounder. Right?

Rob Durant [00:02:44]:

Alright. Excellent. And myself, I am Rob Durant, a, founder of Flywheel Results, a proud DLA Ignite partner. And, I too am excited for today's topic. As I said this week on the digital download, we'll speak with Simon Hartley. With more than 2 decades of working with top tier athletes and organizations, Simon will share his unique insights into human psychology and motivation, providing valuable lessons for for anyone looking to elevate their performance. With that, let's bring him on. Simon.

Rob Durant [00:03:23]:

Hey. Hello. And welcome.

Simon Hartley [00:03:25]:

Hello. Good morning to you. Good afternoon to, those of us this side of the water.

Rob Durant [00:03:29]:

Yes. Yes. Thank you. Simon, let's start by having you tell us a little bit more about you, your background, and what led you to where you are today.

Simon Hartley [00:03:39]:

Yeah. Sure. So my background is

Rob Durant [00:03:41]:

sports psychology, working with sports teams and

Simon Hartley [00:03:42]:

athletes traditionally, helping them win medals and pick up trophies. But I I discovered, and it's probably about 20 ish years ago, that I discovered sports psychology is probably the wrong term. Really, it's human psychology. And I've I've discovered that whatever works with athletes works with anybody. It's the same stuff. It's human stuff, not sports stuff. If it works with a sports team, it'll also work with any team. So more recently, I've been applying what I still think of as sports psychology outside of the world of sports as well.

Simon Hartley [00:04:15]:

It's got a really generic application.

Rob Durant [00:04:18]:

Excellent. Simon, I wanted to start with a foundational question. What do you mean when you say motivation is pear shaped?

Simon Hartley [00:04:29]:

I might disappoint Tracy here because it's not really to do with the fruit at all. Although, I like pears as well. Pear is an acronym, and I I found over the years that simplicity sometimes takes a very long time to find. And

Rob Durant [00:04:46]:

for measurement

Simon Hartley [00:04:48]:

yeah. For many, many years, I've been asking people not not why do you come to work? Because if you ask that question, it's, it's a headline question. You tend to get a very simple answer. I need the money. You know, we've got kids to feed, need to keep a roof over our heads, all of that sort of stuff. If you ask a slightly different question, why do you come here, and why do you do this stuff with us? Then you start to understand why people do what they do. And I've been interested in why people do what they do, what motivates them, what drives them, but particularly within a professional context, what drives them within their workplace? And when I asked that question initially, I thought I was getting 100 of answers back. I'd hear people talking about, you know, we make a difference.

Simon Hartley [00:05:33]:

I really enjoy the team that we've got. I love winning. I love that sense of achievement. I need to get paid or I love the luxuries or I want the security, whatever it is. 100 and 100 of different answers. And it took me a long time. It took me probably 15, 20 years to figure out that actually there were only 4 answers in a slightly different guise. So the the acronym pair, essentially, it it it categorizes all of those answers.

Simon Hartley [00:06:04]:

So to the p of pair is purpose. Lots of people will talk about coming here because we make a difference, because because we change lives, because this stuff that we do is important. It matters. Maybe it has an impact on the world. It has an impact on society, and we understand why that's important. And there are lots of occupations that I've come across where people really aren't driven by the money. I mean, in in the UK, particularly, you probably wouldn't take up nursing if you were money orientated or money motivated. You probably wouldn't take up teaching on that basis either.

Simon Hartley [00:06:38]:

There are lots of people that do incredible things within the voluntary sector. There's an organization based in the UK called the RNLI, Royal National Lifeboat Institute. There are lots and lots of people working on a voluntary basis who are risking their lives every day. They're not getting paid a penny. So they're not money orientated, money motivated. They're probably purpose driven. So purpose is one of the 4 main drivers of human motivation that I find, but it's only 1. And, if I was to sit down and have a conversation with Simon Sinek about his start with why principles, I'd say I don't disagree with you.

Simon Hartley [00:07:17]:

I just think it's too one dimensional. Many people are driven by purpose, but lots aren't. And that's why it's one of the dimensions, but it's not all of the dimensions of motivation. So p is the first. Enjoyment is the second, which is our e for pear. And that can be enjoyment from all sorts of angles. It doesn't necessarily mean we enjoy what we do. It could do.

Simon Hartley [00:07:40]:

Some people do enjoy the task, but some don't. I mean, some people clean toilets for for a living and things like that. They probably don't enjoy the task, but they might enjoy other elements of it. They might enjoy the team that they work with. They might enjoy the culture, the environment around them. For a lot of people, they enjoy the challenge of what they do. I've spoken to loads and loads of engineers who don't like easy stuff. If it's easy, it's boring.

Simon Hartley [00:08:05]:

They want the challenging stuff. They want the difficult stuff. So maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's variety. Maybe it's being able to be creative. There are lots of elements that give us enjoyment in what we do. And for some people, that enjoyment's paramount. The a is for ambition and achievement.

Simon Hartley [00:08:23]:

It's the understanding that we're really good at this. We might even be the best at what we do. We're improving. We're progressing. I'm progressing as an individual. The team's getting better. I'm getting better. You know, we're performing at a high level, and there are a lot of people.

Simon Hartley [00:08:38]:

And I found loads in sales interestingly who don't really care about what they sell, and they don't necessarily enjoy the process of selling, but they enjoy being top of the leaderboard. I know lots of athletes who have probably fallen out of love with their sport, but they haven't fallen out of love with winning. They still love winning. And so there are a lot of people who are a motivated, ambition and achievement motivated. And the final piece of our pair jigsaw are is recognition and reward. So it could be reward in a sort of fiscal sense. It could be dollars and cents, pounds, shillings, and pence. It could be awards, not rewards.

Simon Hartley [00:09:18]:

It could be prizes, things like that, or it could just be recognition. It could be the pat on the back, the thank you, that that sort of sense we get that we're recognized for being good at what we do, and and that people aren't grateful for it. So in combination, I find that, honestly, everybody that I've asked this question to comes up with an answer that fits into those 4. So I'm starting to think if we understand these 4, it gives us a way of some gearing motivation. We we can start to understand our own to start with. We can start to know how we're motivated primarily. We can understand other people's motivation, the people that we work with possibly. We can understand what's primarily driving them so that we can, motivate them better.

Simon Hartley [00:10:03]:

But we can also create a more motivating environment that works for everybody.

Adam Gray [00:10:09]:

That it's really interesting that so, obviously, as you were listing those those four main categories, I'm sure everyone on the show was thinking, yeah. Yeah. And that's me. Alright. That's that's me. Actually, that so so I I guess it's normal for everybody to be a bit of all of those. You know, no no nobody doesn't like being rewarded or recognized. Nobody doesn't want to do something without purpose.

Adam Gray [00:10:37]:

Nobody doesn't want a sense of achievement. Although that may not be the primary motive. So so do people have a very obvious primary motivator? Or are you like, well, I'm I'm I'm in a p and an a?

Simon Hartley [00:10:51]:

Yeah. And, actually, your observation is spot on. I think a bit like personality type, if you look into personality type, there are 4 main personality types. We are all all 4 of them, but to different denominations. So there will be one that's strongest in us, one that, you know, reflects us best, And it's the same with motivation. We're all driven by all 4. But if we were really honest, we'd say one of them probably is a stronger driver than than the others. And one of the ways that I, I find really helpful to understand it is to almost think, you know, what's the acid test? If I took one of those away, how motivated would you be? You know, if we took reward away or we or we said, right, we're gonna half your salary or we're gonna half your, your benefits package or whatever, how much impact would that have on your motivation? For some people, they'd say, yeah.

Simon Hartley [00:11:46]:

It probably would have been, but not not massively. Because if I'm really purpose orientated and and I still understand that what I do is important. What we do is important. You could double the salary. You could half the salary. It's not it's not gonna have a massive impact. It won't have a sort of life or death impact on my, on my motivation. There are others though, you know, if this is your primary driver and we took that away, your motivation would dry up really quickly.

Simon Hartley [00:12:13]:

If you were incredibly purpose driven and actually your organization started to lose its sense of purpose, It started to become too bottom line focused, too ruthless about, you know, the the the pound shillings of pencil dollars and cents and and driven only by profit, you would probably think, do I really wanna be here? I think I might find somewhere else. I think I'll do something else. It's the same if you're really driven by enjoyment and and the environment around you isn't quite what it used to be. If it if it's not that really good positive, environment, if you haven't got a great team around you, if you don't enjoy the vibe, if you don't enjoy what you're doing, if that disappears and you're really e driven, then you'd probably think, I I think I'll move on. I'll look for something else.

Adam Gray [00:12:59]:

So so are are people because again, you know,

Rob Durant [00:13:02]:

I've only got a very singular view of this where

Adam Gray [00:13:04]:

if you've got you know, you've worked with many, many people. But I've always found when I've been introspective about myself, I've always found it really difficult to identify what my motivators are because, as you said, you know, we're all all 4 of these things. Yeah. So, you know, do you do it for the money? Absolutely, I do it for the money. Okay. Well, you're not gonna get paid this month. Okay. Oh, well, clearly, it isn't the month.

Adam Gray [00:13:26]:

Well, it is the month. But it isn't the month. And then, for each of those things, it's like, they're all important. And I'm sure they're all important for everybody, each of those each of those things. So so is is this something where it's possible to analyze yourself? Or is it something where everyone around you is much better at spotting what type you are?

Simon Hartley [00:13:48]:

I I that's a real another really good observation. I think we probably have a a decent view, but sometimes we need a way of scrutinizing ourselves. So I put a little this is both an assessment and a self assessment tool around this, and it's so so simple. I can't sell it. It's too simple. And it so you've got 10 blocks. Call them 10 LEGO bricks, whatever. You got 10 blocks.

Simon Hartley [00:14:16]:

As long as you've got 1 in each of the columns, you know, 1 in p, 1 in e, 1 in a, 1 in r. You can put the others wherever you like as long as it accurately reflects what motivates you. Now the trick with 10 is you can't evenly space them. So you've got to decide. And some people may go 4321. Some people may go 3322. You know, however you, place them is up to you, but it has to accurately reflect what really drives you. Now you may have one set.

Simon Hartley [00:14:51]:

And if you ask somebody else, tell me what you think drives me. They may have come up with something different. That's fine in my view because what it does is it opens up a brilliant conversation. Mhmm. Ah, why do you say that? Why do you see that? And the the thing about motivating, I think if you ask people, they won't tell you what really motivates them. And it's not because they're lying. It's because they don't truly understand it themselves. If you look at choices and decisions that they take and the actions that they take, that probably tells you what really motivates them.

Simon Hartley [00:15:28]:

I I

Tracy Borreson [00:15:28]:

have a Go ahead. Sorry. Finish that then, but, like, I have a question after that.

Simon Hartley [00:15:32]:

No. No. Go. Go. Go.

Tracy Borreson [00:15:35]:

So I'm thinking of an employee that I once had who was like very clearly to me a recognition and not specifically from a, like, financial reward category, but from a, like, team recognition perspective. She did this and I could see how that, like, lit her up when, when it would happen. And so as a leader, that was something I was like, okay. This is something I'm gonna make sure that I can do for her because, well, I can't always give raises and things like that. I can always give team recognition when things happen. So I think it's interesting to compare how people might self assess themselves to how people outside might assess you, but my my question is have you seen that like the the motivations change for people like do they change throughout a career or do they seem to be like kinda this is who you are and it stays pretty consistent through your existence?

Simon Hartley [00:16:37]:

Yeah. I think it does evolve. Actually, I think personality type evolves as well. I don't think that's fixed. What I have noticed is that changes in your life situation on have an impact on your motivation. And I've seen people sort of who were quite, reward driven when they first came into a workplace. They probably often come out of a university or education. They they wanted the paychecks.

Simon Hartley [00:17:08]:

They were interested in the commission checks. They wanted the luxuries. They wanted to buy themselves the car or get themselves the house or take themselves on holiday, whatever. And that that motivation lasted for a while, but when they got comfortable, they needed something else. I I I noticed it kicked back in again some of the time when they become parents, and they think, oh my god. We got more mouths to feed. And then that kicks back in again. And often when people are in their sort of fifties ish and they've got a few in in the UK, we'd say a few quick behind them, you know, a little bit of money behind them.

Simon Hartley [00:17:49]:

They they've maybe got a pension pot or whatever. A lot of them will say, I'm not doing this for the money anymore. I don't need the money anymore. I'm now doing this for purpose, or I'm doing it for that sense of achievement or whatever it is. So there are fluctuations over time and understanding when a major life event happens that our perspective may really change. I think during COVID, a lot of people, it almost shook if we took our our ten blocks, it almost shook them for a lot of people, and they kind of landed back in different places. Mhmm. Because we reassess things.

Simon Hartley [00:18:23]:

I know that when we've been through some major life events, particularly when, my wife lost her mom and things like that, we started to question, well, how important is the money really? Is that really what's driving us? Is that really important? Is there something else? So

Rob Durant [00:18:41]:

Are you familiar with Dan Pink's drive?

Simon Hartley [00:18:45]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Durant [00:18:45]:

Yeah. He talks a lot about, you know, money is a motivator only to a certain level and and so on. And a lot of what you're saying, resonates there.

Simon Hartley [00:18:55]:

And and actually, when you dig under the surface even of of money, I'm I don't think it's the actual quantum amount that's the issue for for many people. I've worked in Premier League football, where players get paid a fortune, and some of them still feel like they're not being paid enough. And it's because they're not comparing themselves to a teacher or a surgeon or a or a nurse or whoever. They're comparing themselves to another footballer, and they're probably saying, yeah, but I work harder. I I create more for the team. I'm I'm in the first team. I'm on the team sheet, you know, all of that sort of stuff. And therefore, they're thinking, it it's all about feeling like you are fairly remunerated for what you do.

Simon Hartley [00:19:39]:

So I don't feel like it's fair because I give more than they do, and they get paid more than I do. So so even when we dig under the surface of of the the r, the reward element of it, we've got to understand what's really going on with people to know what's what's truly driving their motivation.

Rob Durant [00:19:57]:

What happens when, say, your AP working with a bunch of colleagues that are still in the the a or the r type of mentality. They can't fathom that you don't think the way that they think. And, typically, we can't fathom that anyone thinks differently from us in that regard. How do you get along?

Simon Hartley [00:20:24]:

And this this, I think, is one of the biggest traps for leaders, the biggest trap door that they fall down. They expect that their team are motivated in the same way that they are. So if they're massively purpose driven, they probably stand on their their soapbox. They talk about purpose a lot. Purpose is really important. But if their people aren't purpose driven, it's not gonna stick. It's not really gonna have an impact on them. I know a lot of sales directors, managing directors, CEOs who are very, very reward driven, and they they expect that incentives and commission checks and bonuses are gonna motivate everybody.

Simon Hartley [00:21:04]:

They're done. Not everybody's wired that way, And and they're surprised when they increase the incentives and nobody cheer it. You know, nobody cheers. And and so we've got to understand that understanding our own is fine, but we need to understand how our people are wired or else we're gonna miss them motivationally. We're gonna do some things we think are gonna work, and they just won't work.

Tracy Borreson [00:21:29]:

And, Simon, would you say in, like, the teams that you've seen regardless of whether it's a sports team or a business team that there will be people who are driven by each of the different categories? And so it's not really about creating a team that are all ambition driven. It's about being able to, like, have the practice of figuring out who fits where and creating a quote, unquote reward package that includes all of the drivers of motivation.

Simon Hartley [00:21:59]:

And and that actually is the shortcut answer here that we can create an environment that works for everybody. We can then create an environment that's got 4 strong pillars of motivation. So we've got a really good sense of purpose. We understand why we do what we do, why it's important, why it matters, why we have to do it well. We can also build a a really great environment. We can take on great challenges. We can make sure it's fun. It's enjoyable.

Simon Hartley [00:22:27]:

It's stimulating. It's varied. Give people creative license. We can do all of that stuff. We can have a really great sense of achievement because we know that what we do is great. We know we're getting better. We're developing ourselves. We're developing our people.

Simon Hartley [00:22:41]:

We know that every day we're we're taking a step towards excellence, and we can make sure people are recognized and rewarded for what they do. It's it's and it it's not rocket science. But so often when I talk to leaders, business leaders, sports leaders, educational leaders, you know, any field, I talked to them about, okay. Let's have a look at your environment. What do you see? How strong are these pillars? The chances are that at least 1 or 2 of them have got some shaky foundations. They're not really there. We've probably paid attention to one of them, but we've sort of ignored the others. And it also, going back to our previous conversation, usually matches the motivation of the leader who assumes that purpose is all important or rewards all important, whatever.

Simon Hartley [00:23:26]:

They're following their own motivations. They built a super strong pillar in that area and largely disregarded the others.

Rob Durant [00:23:33]:

When you were talking about the leader and purpose driven, I I immediately envisioned, Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society standing on top of the desk. And all of the students there, yes, they bought into it, but imagine that in a a work context where we've got this leader who's up there motivating, and the students are, yeah, we're all for that, but we have student loans that are due. And then I thought about, Maslow's hierarchy. How does that play into, effect where I am on on the needs being met and serving, my purpose in someone?

Simon Hartley [00:24:15]:

Well, going back to the previous conversation about the fluctuation between these, there are periods in our life where r is more important to us, the recognition, which in Maslow's world would say, well, we're we're missing a a step on this on our pyramid here. We haven't quite got that level of, of comfort that we like. We haven't got the security. We haven't got the financial stability. We haven't got the sort of the physical, element sorted. So so so if we haven't got that, then we're probably not gonna move on to the others just yet. Once we've got that one, then we might start looking at the others more. And, equally, when the spotlight goes back onto it and we don't feel like we're we're secure, we'll probably be more focused on reward again.

Tracy Borreson [00:25:03]:

Well, and I feel like in that scenario too because I I have a friend who talks about how, like, Maslow's Maslow's hierarchy really should have been a circle and not a pyramid which is an interesting perspective. But I think it's interesting from a motivator perspective because we will all like, we all need that specific level of financial security, right, to pay for food and and housing and things like that. But I I don't know and, like, Simon, you would know better than me, but my experience of that is that that's not necessarily still your, like, motivator. Right? Like, you're gonna choose that, but that isn't the thing that, like, motivates you to do good work. It is just the thing you need at the base level of the pyramid. And I could still feel unmotivated at work because I don't have enjoyment and enjoyment is my motivator.

Simon Hartley [00:25:54]:

Yeah. Is that is

Tracy Borreson [00:25:56]:

that true?

Simon Hartley [00:25:57]:

Yeah. And again, human beings are all different. So you will see people who will take on, a a probably a lower paid job to find an environment that they really enjoy or that really develops them or pushes them. I can remember many, many years ago, talking to a friend of mine who's, multiple Michelin star chef. And he was talking about a few decisions he'd made fairly early on in his career to take lower paid opportunities, to actually take a backward step in, in career development. So to go from a sous chef to chef de party, which is a move down, because he wanted to find a better environment, which was more enjoyable, that he felt more passionate about, but also that developed him more so that he felt like he was improving as a chef. Mhmm. Because those were more important than the paycheck.

Simon Hartley [00:26:50]:

I mean, yes, he still needs to get paid, but he took a a significant, you know, in percentage terms, a significant drop in salary in order to get the development, the input, the enjoyment, the passion back. Because, actually, he knew that whilst it might be a backwards step today, it's gonna take him where he wanted to be. And he wanted to be the best chef he could possibly be. He'd he'd heard about these Michelin stars, didn't quite know how to get one. But but he knew that the Michelin star in its own right is great, but it's a sign that you're progressing. You're becoming a better chef. It's just it it's it's a little milestone that you pass. It's a badge that you get given along the way.

Simon Hartley [00:27:30]:

It's not an end in its own right, from his point of view, but it's a sign that you're on on the right tracks.

Adam Gray [00:27:38]:

So I I see a lot of people that kind of shift from

Rob Durant [00:27:44]:

job to job. You know, they're moving between companies either at their choice or at the company's choice, and,

Adam Gray [00:27:52]:

a lot of kind of

Rob Durant [00:27:54]:

dissatisfaction in terms of their careers. So I guess that a starting place for you to really think about career and your happiness at work is to understand what is it that drives you and motivates you.

Adam Gray [00:28:07]:

So how should somebody begin to think about that? How what what are their first steps in terms of thinking, okay, here's who I am. So to fulfill my potential and make me happy, these are the the prerequisites for that.

Simon Hartley [00:28:22]:

So just by going through the 10 blocks to start with, I think that gives you a a good,

Rob Durant [00:28:27]:

a good

Simon Hartley [00:28:28]:

framework. Then to ask yourself a couple of questions like, you know, if he is strong, what is it that really drives your enjoyment? I know personally that variety is key. I know that challenge is key. I know that being able to have creative license is key. If I didn't have those, would I enjoy it as much? Definitely not. No. The team around me, yeah, that is important. But if you took those things away, I'd stop enjoying what I did.

Simon Hartley [00:28:59]:

In terms of the purpose, I know that my real sense of purpose comes from knowing that what I do has a positive impact on others. If I can't see the positive impact it has on others, I'd start to get demotivated. I need to know, you know, get that feedback that tells me the thing I did had a real, positive impact on somebody else's life. Then I get that real sense of purpose. So when you kinda dig under the surface, you can understand it quite a lot about yourself and what really drives you. And then you can start to identify environments that are likely to match that, where you've got a really good fit between what really drives you and what's within that environment. And although, I work for lots of clients, you know, I work for myself, but, you know, I I choose the engagements I take on. I I learned many, many years ago to choose my clients carefully, choose the projects carefully, and I I I'm quite picky about what I take on and what I don't take on.

Simon Hartley [00:29:59]:

I know that when I do engage with something, it's because I know it's gonna be really beneficial for me and them. I'm gonna really enjoy it. I'm gonna bounce out of bed thinking, oh, this is you know, look at what I've got on today. It's fantastic. Look at these great people I'm gonna work with rather than, oh, god. Do I have to? Well, I suppose I do because we've got bills to pay. You know, that that's not a great space for me to operate in. That's I won't ever be able to give my very best if I'm crawling out of bed rather than leaping out of bed.

Rob Durant [00:30:29]:

I can't help it. But when you talk about the 10 blocks, I'm wondering what the best score is. I know that's the wrong mindset. But what do you do when you encounter people that think like that?

Simon Hartley [00:30:44]:

So, to me, the best score is the honest score. But I I also think there's a there's a real strength in having a strong foundation rather than just one strong pillar. Because one strong pillar, in my view, might be strong, but it's also vulnerable. Because if something erodes it and I've I've seen athletes who have got all of their chips, all their blocks stacked in the, achievement column, and then they stop winning. Well, it doesn't take long for the motivation to disappear because that's really what they were in it for. I've seen lots of salespeople who had all their blocks stacked in the reward column, and the economy took a turn. The the sales dried up. The commission check dried up with it, so did their motivation because it was too one dimensional.

Simon Hartley [00:31:31]:

So to me, kinda good is honest, but good is also about having a a real foundation to it. And and and being able to understand it enough so that you know before it dries up that it's vulnerable. So you can see the changes in the world around you and think, oh, that could impact my motivation.

Rob Durant [00:31:53]:

And if I'm one set of numbers, but am willing to work on myself and improve, what's the set of numbers I should be working towards? Or is it more just try to to to have it more evenly spaced.

Simon Hartley [00:32:13]:

I think we can usually, we can strengthen all of our pillars, and we can we can dial into these pillars more. Probably just by being a bit more aware and a bit more intentional. So one of the things I do, around purpose is to just remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing. Even on a task by task basis, that it's not just a thing to do on the list. There's actually a reason for it. There's an importance for it that, you know, this task matters. Doing it well matters. Just doing that, I find, really increases my my sense of purpose.

Simon Hartley [00:32:52]:

The e pillar for me one one of the things I noticed and I I I'll say I learned this the hard way. Brackets, painful way. A few years ago, I wrote a fictional book, and I thought it would be relatively easy because I'd already written 8 books. What I didn't appreciate is that writing fiction is the reverse opposite from writing nonfiction. All of the rules that apply to nonfiction don't apply when you're writing fiction. In fact, they hinder you. So one simple example, if you're writing nonfiction, you tend to tell. If you're writing fiction, you're supposed to show but not tell.

Simon Hartley [00:33:31]:

And I learned the hard way that I was an absolutely terrible fiction writer. So I I I wrote, so I wrote a draft. I I redrafted it into a second draft. I thought it was pretty good. I sent it to an editor. I got some feedback, and the he he sent it back in an email. The subject line on the email read book feedback brackets, brace yourself. And his opening line was

Adam Gray [00:33:58]:

That's not that's not the headline you want really,

Rob Durant [00:34:01]:

is it?

Simon Hartley [00:34:01]:

Really not. It's really not. No. I I knew that there was something up when I read that. And then his first line said, I'll give you the good news first. The good news is, technically, you have a story because you've got a start, middle, and end. That's where your good news finishes. And he he laid into me with the feedback.

Simon Hartley [00:34:19]:

I knew that he was gonna be honest, and he really was honest. So I quickly started to learn the book's not great. I'm not a great fictional author, and I was finding it difficult. You know, I would sit down and it was like wading through treacle trying to get these words out of me. When I read it back to myself, it didn't feel good. You know? It it didn't read well. So I went for a long time knowing that I was terrible at it and finding it difficult, And that's not a good combination for enjoying what you're doing. Over time, I started to increase my skills, know that I was better at it, and and this happened over the course of years.

Simon Hartley [00:35:02]:

So eventually, I I ended up publishing my 12th draft, and it took 7 years, the journey, from probably a one out of 10 when Greg first gave me that feedback to, what's now sort of an acceptable level to publish. And and I noticed that there are these sort of these, spectrums that work together. So as my skills increase and I know I'm getting better at it, I start enjoying it more. So I'm rubbish at it. It usually goes with I hate it, and I'm great at it usually goes with I love it. And if we wanted to love it more, we'd probably need to feel like we were better at it. So if we can increase our skills, then we can get ourselves into a better place. So when you start to understand really what drives these, you can engineer some of them, the feeling of achievement.

Simon Hartley [00:35:54]:

If if we know we're getting better at it the the interesting thing about achievement is we can be getting better, but if we don't look for the improvement, we never realize it. And there are loads of people who have who have improved, but because they've never looked for their progress, they don't feel like they've improved. I I described it almost. I was talking to somebody who rode across the Atlantic, and they said, when you're rowing across the Atlantic, most of your experience when you look out at the boat is to see just ocean for 360 degrees. And he said it without the GPS, you wouldn't know if you were just off the coast of the Caribbean or just off the coast of the UK because all you've got is ocean, 360 degrees. Now most people have got that experience of their own development. What they saw yesterday is the same as they see today is the same as they see the day after. In their experience, all they've got is challenges.

Simon Hartley [00:36:50]:

They don't realize that the challenges have changed and that they're they're not challenged by the things they were challenged by. They've they've got other stuff that's now tough. So so they've got that that view. And if we don't plug into the GPS, we don't realize how much progress we're making. It's that that sensation of I've still got a long way to go, but I haven't bothered to check over my shoulder to find out how far I've come.

Adam Gray [00:37:15]:

So how do we plug into that GPS then?

Simon Hartley [00:37:19]:

By by recognizing, looking for the progress. You have to look for it to see it. Sometimes you can you can get it through data. Sometimes it's through feedback. Sometimes it's just through observation. But, you know, because we don't look for it, we never find it. And the the recognition reward pillar, a lot of the time, again, it's about plugging ourselves in. For for some people, their recognition is there.

Simon Hartley [00:37:48]:

They get positive feedback, but they're they're so modest about it. It sort of ends up just falling off them. They don't they don't actually absorb it and feel it. And and I was talking to a group the other day about it probably took me 20 ish years of of working in a professional capacity before I stopped saying, oh, before when somebody gave me positive feedback, instead of saying, oh, oh, it's nothing. It was nothing. I actually just said thank you. It took me about 20 years to say thank you. That's really kind.

Simon Hartley [00:38:20]:

I'm glad you enjoyed it. And beforehand, what I've done is they they they offered me this little gift. And, essentially, I said, oh, could you pop it down there on that table, and I'll get to it later. Rather than saying, oh, that's brilliant. Thank you very much and unwrapping it. Oh, that's lovely. Thank you. Most people do that when they get compliments.

Adam Gray [00:38:40]:

Right.

Simon Hartley [00:38:41]:

And so

Tracy Borreson [00:38:41]:

if we if

Simon Hartley [00:38:42]:

we don't tune into that, we never get the r for recognition.

Tracy Borreson [00:38:45]:

Carnegie program, they make you sit and listen to people appreciating you, and all you're allowed to do is say thank you. Because you're you're right. People don't practice the skill of receiving appreciation. Yeah. And it was, like, really interesting exercise because everyone was super uncomfortable. And you have to practice being comfortable, which is crazy to think about, like, how many of us are actually uncomfortable with receiving appreciation. But that leads into really not being able to have access to that GPS.

Simon Hartley [00:39:23]:

Completely. So yeah. I mean, they're simple things. None of it's rocket science. But, of course, like most great simple things, they're rarely done. People don't do that stuff very, very often.

Adam Gray [00:39:34]:

Well, I I think that's partly because they don't understand it today. You know, when you go into the workplace, or actually just into the world in general, you nobody explains the secrets. Nobody explains the rules of the game.

Rob Durant [00:39:50]:

So the very concept, you know, as I'm older,

Adam Gray [00:39:56]:

potentially wiser in some ways, I see now how pivotal

Rob Durant [00:40:01]:

confidence and motivation is to getting people to do the things that they need to do for them to be successful, because part of

Adam Gray [00:40:07]:

what we do is coach people and hopefully empower them. When I was in my twenties, the idea of motivation is like, I pay you. You turn up. You do your work. You go home. It really is as binary as that. And the idea that that I go to work and I don't actually have a particularly good time, suck it up. Either either live with it or move somewhere else.

Adam Gray [00:40:31]:

You know, you're not you're not manical to the place.

Tracy Borreson [00:40:34]:

There's still work environments that aren't like that.

Adam Gray [00:40:36]:

Yeah. But but but what's what's amazing is that that and and I think the the modern environment is very different because people openly talk about purpose. And you know, when when people say, why should I come and work for you? It isn't, well, because I'm gonna pay you every month. It's, okay, and what else? Well, I'll pay you more if that's what it takes. No. No. You're missing the point. It isn't about the money.

Adam Gray [00:41:01]:

It's about other stuff. And and I I think that that we're in a very different environment to where we were 20, 30, 40 years ago. But how how do people learn about this stuff early on enough in their career? Because I'm sure, you know, you would be the first to admit, Simon, that if you knew when you were 20 what you know now, things would have panned out very, very differently because you would have understood the rules of the game and what actually got results. And, you know, I've I've I've said this many times that that, I was amazed when I was first in business for myself. I was amazed that people who were not as good as me, not as clever as me, didn't work as hard as me, didn't have as good a product as me, were more successful than me.

Rob Durant [00:41:46]:

I thought, well, that's not fair, which of course isn't. But it it's not

Adam Gray [00:41:46]:

written anywhere that things are gonna be fair. So so so how do young people learn about this stuff?

Simon Hartley [00:41:57]:

Yeah. It's a really good question. And I I think there's more information available. So for those who are hungry, there's probably an easier way to find it than there's ever been. But how much of it's built into the curriculum? Not a lot. There really isn't still. And it's it's one of my big bugbears. Even I mean, my my kids have just finished school and just finished their, their sort of tertiary education, about to go off to university.

Simon Hartley [00:42:27]:

They've got, personal social health education classes. Apparently, there's resilience training and stuff like that built into the curriculum still. It really doesn't, in my view, do the job for which it was intended often. It's it's probably more of a tick bucket box exercise in most environments. So, yeah, I think life experiences are the ultimate teacher on this one. But if we can make the information more readily available so that people can find it. Those who are searching probably will, but I think you still have to be able to search. And and, interestingly, one of the things that I I I sense because, you know, my my, girls are part of the youngest generation, the emerging adults.

Simon Hartley [00:43:14]:

They're actually not very good at searching things. I've I've I've noticed that because they they access TikTok and things like that, things just sort of appear in their feed. They don't go looking for them. So they're not particularly good searches, but those who are, there's more ability to find it. As this stuff starts to pervade through social media, maybe it becomes more mainstream. Maybe it is the thing that pops up in their TikTok feed. But ultimately, I suspect that's how they're gonna learn it. They're not gonna learn it at school.

Adam Gray [00:43:43]:

But but isn't that a really big issue that needs addressing? Because, you know, what young people learn in school and formal education actually bears little alignment to what they need to know in the real world. And and I I remember, many years ago, I was at a business networking group, and this guy that had been, like, massively successful stood up and he said, these are my 4 secrets for success. I was like, everyone, oh, sits forward. Okay. Gone. And, you know, number 1, smile. And then he explained why. Number 2, be on time.

Adam Gray [00:44:18]:

Number 3, say please and thank you. And number 4, always do what you say you're gonna do. Now these things are blindingly obvious. You know? I'd rather do this with someone that's courteous and shows up on time and and it's pleasurable to do business with them. But the full enormity of this stuff is not stress to people. You know, what you're what you're taught in school is, here's how you solve a quadratic equation with with a pencil and paper. But everyone in the world's got a smartphone now. More people have got a smartphone than a toothbrush.

Adam Gray [00:44:48]:

So a lot of these skills that are really valuable from an academic perspective have little or no practical application in in the real world. Yeah. And the skills that people do need, you know, you need to be able to express yourself. You need to be able to understand who you are. You need to understand what your strengths are. You need to be able to talk to you know, these are skills that are never taught. And so many you know, we see so many people that are massively talented that they fail to believe that they are. And and it's heartbreaking to see these people that are stumped or something that they hate getting none of these pair things, because they're they're they they find kind of find themselves annexed in their career, unable to see just how valuable they are to the world.

Simon Hartley [00:45:38]:

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's absolutely true. I suppose when I look at one of the roles that sport plays, and particularly the academic sort of youth development programs around sport, There's an understanding that most athletes who are in those programs won't make it to the very, very elite level. You know, it's it's built to be a very, very steep pyramid. That's how it's designed. Statistically in professional soccer in the UK that we call football, less than 1% of of the kids who go through those academy systems end up making it as a really high level professional player. So I'm looking at well, so what's the role of that system? And it's to develop people.

Simon Hartley [00:46:27]:

You know, they might go on and play football or rugby or whatever they go and play. They might be be athletes, but they might not be. And they probably won't be if you look at the statistics, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't give them a lot of other education that they probably won't get at school. So fortunately, athletes who do come through those systems end up having quite a lot of education around sports psychology, how to manage your mind. And and actually, when when you look at kids who come through those systems as opposed to kids who don't have that experience, a lot of them when they come out the other end have probably got more practical tools than the kids who have only studied the academic educational curriculum. Mhmm.

Adam Gray [00:47:08]:

And and I guess if you're Sorry. I just I just wanna say, I I guess also if you're in, like, a mega competitive thing, like a sporting arena, it also teaches you resilience because you're not always gonna be told yes. You're not always gonna be a winner. And dealing with the disappointment is so important throughout life. Isn't it?

Rob Durant [00:47:26]:

Yeah.

Simon Hartley [00:47:26]:

And and we've, I've often reflected with coaches that one of the things that we do here is we can teach people how to lose as well because they're going to. They're gonna lose in sport. They're gonna lose in life. That's gonna happen. You know, one of our big jobs here is to help them when that does happen. You know, when we're when we're looking at developing people, and one of the projects that, is sort of about 7 years in at the moment with a big football club in Europe is all about helping them not only recruit on character, but develop character in their players so that we not only develop good footballers, but also really good solid human beings. Human beings who could don't wanna be successful in anything, really.

Tracy Borreson [00:48:11]:

This is something that was coming up for me in this conversation because I think a lot of times we put pressure on our, like, formalized systems to be able to deliver everything. We expect that the education system can deliver all of these things and be as quickly evolving as the human race actually is, which I think to date we have proven is not true. Systems are much slower than humans. But there are a lot of humans who have this type of knowledge who are listening today who are like oh yeah this is great like and there we we all have our ways that we can share that with people. We can share it in a social media post. We could also one of the things that I I have a 6 year old and so and and I'm all about authenticity. So these types of things are things that we practice at home and there are also things that he takes to school. And sometimes we've had scenarios where he's like, no one else gets this.

Tracy Borreson [00:49:13]:

And I'm like, yeah. Well, no one else has learned it yet. So, like, we can share it. But I think, especially from a giving this gift to the next generation, I think it's interesting for each of us just to look at how can we ask these types of questions. Right? Like, as a hiring manager, could you ask questions about what motivates people? Even for me, right, with kids in the playground or maybe 6 year olds don't quite know how to answer that question in that framing, but there's things like you you see them run a race and there's kids who want to win the medal and there's kids who want to cheer for their teammates and there's like all there's a lot of this that is observable which we talked about at the beginning and I think it would be interesting for everybody to take away and just be like what's one way I could help people understand what their motivation is, and we could make a pretty big impact that way.

Simon Hartley [00:50:14]:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And, fortunately, this stuff isn't massively complicated. It's it's pretty simple stuff. So it's not difficult to absorb ourselves. It's not difficult to share with other people. It's not difficult to get that understanding to translate, to a much wider audience.

Simon Hartley [00:50:34]:

So, yeah, fingers crossed. We'll all start to understand their own motivators a little bit more, and and also appreciate how other people are motivated and be able to help them, especially when they're in the times when they might be finding things tough.

Rob Durant [00:50:49]:

Mhmm. Simon, you work with a lot of world class sports organizations. And you said recently you've worked with, corporations as well. My gut tells me that when you're working with corporations, let's say the general public, you're going to have a wide variety of people motivated by different things, different sets of 10 Legos, if you will. Yeah. How much variety do you find with world class sporting organizations? They've all gone through those academies and so on. Are they very similar in their motivations? And is that similar or different to top performing, non sports organizations? Yeah.

Simon Hartley [00:51:38]:

I think that there are patterns within sport. I would tend to find a lot more people who are, a motivated, their their achievement ambition motivated in elite sports environments. And not just on the playing side, on their coaching and and management side as well, that that would tend to be a regular trait with elite sports environments. And it's one that we've got to be quite careful of because, as I said earlier, if everybody's motivated by winning and we're not winning, then that's it could cause us problems. We might need to tap into other, elements of pair in order to keep the motivational environment high. So especially if we, you know, for for a lot of athletes, there's quite a long road that you have to take before you get to that point where you can genuinely win at the highest level. It'll take years years years in some cases to get to that level, whether you where you're winning consistently at the level that you want to be. So understanding how we get that motivation for the long haul, as I call it, and and keep motivation stable and enduring.

Simon Hartley [00:52:47]:

Not for for some people, it's sort of, it's a little bit like a firework. It's really bright for a couple of seconds, you know, loads of motivation for a couple of seconds, and then it's gone. That's not gonna work in most environments. Not not if we wanna be successful. We need stable and enduring motivation that's that's not going to fluctuate massively depending on whether we win today or lose today, and and it will keep going for years years years. That's the kind of motivation that's gonna take us, into the the higher echelons. Brilliant.

Rob Durant [00:53:18]:

So many more things we could dig into. And I know earlier in the episode, you said you could not monetize because it's so simple. We'll talk offline. I I see you need to you need to do exactly that. Simon, this was great. Where can people learn more? How can they get in touch with you?

Simon Hartley [00:53:39]:

So I I much prefer, if possible, to actually connect with people. You know, I think you and I connected on LinkedIn. I love connecting on LinkedIn because you can actually spark up conversations that way. I'm also on x as world class Simon. So, you can follow me there or YouTube channel, Simon Hartley on the YouTube channel. But, yeah, I I much prefer to connect where possible. So if anybody's keen on connecting, that works for me.

Rob Durant [00:54:04]:

Excellent. Thank you. We now have a newsletter. Don't miss an episode, guest show highlights, beyond the show, insights and reminders of upcoming episodes. You can scan the QR code on screen or visit us at digiadownload.live/newsletter. On behalf of our panelists, to our guests, and to our audience, thank you all.

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