The Not So Breakfast Show

Send us Fan Mail MWM: Hope Is Not a Strategy  Every time you find yourself saying "I hope sales improve" or "I hope that changes," recognise that hope isn't a strategy - you're just gambling with other people's lives and your business outcomes. Join Ish and Sacha as they unpack this famous business school line (spoiler: Sacha didn't coin it, but she uses it...

Send us Fan Mail The Working Genius Model Episode Overview Ish has just been certified in the Working Genius model and is excited to share this powerful framework for understanding team dynamics, project workflows, and personal energy. In this episode, he unpacks the model live with Sacha, who's just received her results and is wrestling with what it means to not be naturally gifted at someth...

Send us Fan Mail The Core Question What conversation has been sitting in the back of your mind, taking up mental bandwidth? Why We Avoid Conversations Hoping it will just go away Fear of conflict or discomfort Lack of preparation Emotional reactivity The Two Negative Outcomes of Delay Option 1: Extended delay Physical effects: not sleeping, overthinking Builds up exhaustion When you finally have i...

Send us Fan Mail Is It Good? Is It Bad? It Just Is: Lessons in Resilience Fresh off a 17-hour flight from New York and jetlagged beyond belief, Sacha joins Ish to talk about resilience, mental fortitude, and adapting when things go spectacularly wrong. This episode is raw, real, and packed with stories about handling crisis situations—from emergency room visits in New York to water landings in Fij...

Send us Fan Mail MID WEEK MINI: Check the Question Before You Answer Ever start talking and hope your brain catches up with your mouth? Yeah, we've all been there. Join Ish and Sacha as they share the power of the pause and the phrases that help you actually answer the question being asked (not the one you think you heard). Key Phrases to Have Ready: "Before I answer, let me check - are...

Send us Fan Mail MID WEEK MINI Your team is doing amazing work - but does anyone else know about it? Join Ish and Sacha as they explore how to build your team's credibility beyond simply stating "we've been working on this" and actually spotlight the individual contributors doing the heavy lifting. Key Takeaways: Move beyond collective "we" language - call out individ...

Send us Fan Mail Mid-Week Mini -The Power of Microfeedback Stop saving up feedback for formal reviews and start creating momentum shifts in real-time. Join Ish and Sacha as they break down why waiting six months to give someone feedback is completely unfair and how those little "you've got something in your teeth" moments can transform your team's performance. Key Takeaways: Gi...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 235 Show Notes Ever wondered if you should start a podcast? Spoiler: you probably should. Join Ish and Sacha as they unpack why podcasting isn't just about creating content - it's about developing a critical set of skills, building your personal brand, and creating a living, breathing business card that works while you sleep. From the power of editing to the lega...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Ish and Sacha dive deep into the power of reflection for leadership and career growth. They explore why the skills that got you to where you are today may not be the ones that take you to the next level, and share practical exercises to help you identify and develop your superpowers. Key Topics  Why leaders need to maintain a growth mindset regardless of their lev...

Send us Fan Mail Sacha's texting furiously about house purchases while declaring busyness isn't impressive ("it makes you stupid"), while Ish has prepared a leadership trivia quiz based on their own podcast transcripts because he's "a man of action." This leads into a conversation about the gap between good intentions and actual follow-through, featuring uncomfor...

Send us Fan Mail Sacha's drinking her Moody probiotic soda (unofficial sponsor, awaiting payment confirmation) while stress-managing through tomorrow's house auction, ready to burn all the styling company's cushions in a cleansing ritual. Ish has been executing decisions at breakneck speed this week, discovering both the benefits and the "oh shit, should've thought of that...

Send us Fan Mail Your Roman Empire (And Why Your Brain Won't Shut Up) Sacha's wearing her new Temu t-shirt ("More Spaghetti Less Upsetting") after finally breaking her months-long resistance to fast fashion retail therapy, while Ish has discovered a new level of ChatGPT skills can solve tech support problems in minutes that actual support teams can't solve in days. This sp...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 230: Stop Being So Shit (A Leadership Manifesto) Recording at actual breakfast time for once, Sacha's successfully navigating life without peanut slabs through strategic fruit substitution and emergency dried fruit protocols. This leads into a conversation about whether we need more leaders or just more people willing to improve their performance and help each other o...

Send us Fan Mail Ish has discovered the joy of AI video creation, pumping out caveman presentation ads that make everyone laugh, while Sacha's fresh from speaking to the RV crowd about her bus childhood (finally an audience that gets it). This leads into expanding their coaching toolkit beyond their beloved "Not So Breakfast Show" model with five coaching styles that all convenientl...

Send us Fan Mail  Laptops, Notebooks, and the Art of Meeting Presence Sacha's fully dressed this week (an achievement after last episode's Jedi robe situation), while Ish has been designing corporate off-sites and pondering the eternal question: what does your choice of meeting tech say about you? From notebooks to laptop barriers, this conversation dives into how showing up intentionall...

Send us Fan Mail Sacha appears in full Jedi regalia (aka her dressing gown) because house staging has banished all her warm clothes to boxes in the attic, while fake dried flowers now populate her formerly book-filled shelves. From this perfectly timed example of "not feeling it" comes a conversation about practical strategies for showing up when motivation has completely abandoned ship....

Send us Fan Mail Episode 226:  The Gap Between Expectation and Rain-Soaked Reality The episode opens with something completely unprecedented: Sacha starting the show with a ChatGPT-generated script about disappointment. Three minutes of AI-crafted banter later, both hosts are thoroughly weirded out and decide to start over properly - leading to a deeper conversation about disappointment, expectati...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 225: Decision Fatigue  Sacha's sparkling from her early morning gym session (not traditionally a morning person but aging into it), while Ish admits to being in bed by 8:30pm because everyone else was out. From this perfectly matched energy mismatch comes a conversation about decision fatigue - plus Sacha drops a challenge that might just produce New Zealand's ne...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 224: The Hour of Fails and the Power of Reflection Join Ish and Sach for the discovery of the dreaded F8 button, and the ultimate podcast fail -doing an entire show without hitting record. But from this beautiful disaster comes a conversation about reflection, journaling, and learning from our daily experiences (including how to properly operate recording equipment). Main...

Send us Fan Mail Listen, laugh, and learn as we share our latest thoughts on staying relevant, contemporary leadership, and doing life right. Ish Cheyne is the Head of Fitness in New Zealand for global fitness juggernaut Les Mills. Sacha Coburn is the co-owner and Head of Helping at Coffee Culture, a leading group of boutique coffee shops. If you haven’t come across it yet, Working Genius is one o...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 222: Coffee Culture Chronicles - Building Community One Cup at a Time Sacha's broadcasting live from her Antarctic igloo (aka Christchurch in winter), complete with puffer jacket indoors, preparing for this week's Momentum conference, where she's the lone woman among a lineup of "bros and me." This leads into the fascinating origin story of Coffee...

Send us Fan Mail Not So Breakfast Show - Episode 221: Say What You Mean Without Being Mean Ish and Sacha are live and in-person for only the third time in 222 episodes. Today's topic: how to challenge ideas and give feedback without being mean, plus how to receive that feedback without taking it personally.  Also, the irony wasn't lost on anyone that an episode about "saying what yo...

Send us Fan Mail  Episode 220: Once Upon a Time... The Power of Story in Sales Ish opens with a ChatGPT-generated fairy tale intro featuring "the evil rental property™" as the villain tormenting Sir Ish, while Sacha reveals her big news: after 13 years in Hamilton, she and Chris are moving back to Christchurch! This house-hunting adventure becomes the perfect segue into exploring why sto...

Send us Fan Mail Special Late Night Edition: The secret life of a Juice Hustler Ish stays up past his bedtime (a whopping 8:12 pm!) to chat with Sacha's friend Aarti Bhanderi-Shah, who went from corporate law to driving around London with a car full of cold-pressed juices, pitching to 300 cafes in two weeks. Now a nutritionist, Aarti shares why sleep might be more important than your kale smo...

Send us Fan Mail Episode 218: When Shame Hits Different (And WhatsApp Groups Become Weapons) Sacha returns from Fiji with a tan and a trauma—being unceremoniously booted from a Harvard WhatsApp group with 160 people, then discovering they had a whole discussion about her "eligibility" while she was locked out. What starts as a petty digital drama becomes a masterclass in understanding th...