2 Pages with MBS

Michael’s new book How to Begin: Start Doing Something that Matters is now available at www. HowToBegin.com. During the first phase of the pandemic I experimented with a type of online gathering, which I called Cocktails and Questions. After getting myself a cocktail, five people in my circle would gather, and we all had six minutes to reflect on a question I had sent them the day before; they wou...

Michael’s new book How to Begin: Start Doing Something that Matters is now available at www. HowToBegin.com. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be the CEO of a massive company? What do you do? What do you worry about? Michael Bungay Stanier is joined by his friend Dig Howitt, CEO and President of Cochlear, a medical device company that helps people hear and be heard. They have a conversation...

Michael’s new book How to Begin: Start Doing Something that Matters is now available at www. HowToBegin.com. It’s launch week for How to Begin. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this book - mostly love - for about a year and a half, so it’s pretty exciting to finally stumble into the sunlight, blinking and going, “It’s arrived! It’s here!” And that’s why today’s guest is so perfect; Jesse Fin...

Michael’s new book How to Begin: Start Doing Something that Matters is now available at www. HowToBegin.com. Today is January 11th, 2022 - it is the day my new book, How to Begin: Start Doing Something That Matters, actually arrives in the world. This is probably no surprise to you, because I have been mentioning it on the podcast; so, today, I thought I’d bring you a short, but hard-hitting, inte...

In anticipation of the new book’s launch in January, we’re reaching into the vaults to pull the best episodes for you. Want to preorder? Go to HowToBegin.com On a scale of 1-10, how good of a person are you? Yeah, tricky question. And even trickier: Is the person you think you are the same as the person who actually shows up, day-to-day, in life? Dolly Chugh, as well as being one of my favourite p...

Michael’s new book How to Begin: Start Doing Something that Matters is now available at www. HowToBegin.com. I was in a mastermind group for about 15 years - we were a gathering of people who had something in common, but there was also a lot we didn’t have in common. An enduring friendship from that time is the one I have with Eric Klein, someone who is very precious to me, someone I love having i...

In anticipation of the new book’s launch in January, we’re reaching into the vaults to pull the best episodes for you. Want to preorder? Go to HowToBegin.com The belief that we have free will and that we are in charge of what goes on around us is mostly an illusion. Our decisions are rarely our own. For good or ill, most times we are nudged into ways of behaving. Author and Professor of Behavioura...

In anticipation of the launch of Michael’s new book, we’re reaching into the vaults to pull the best episodes for you. Want to preorder? Go to HowToBegin.com This won’t, unfortunately, be news to you: Each year, we consume the resources of 1.6 planet earths. We’re diminishing the environment, exhausting biological capital … and heading towards, well, who really knows... Is there hope? Yes. Is it u...

Ainsley Brittain is my co-conspirator at MBS.works; pretty much the other half of the company. She’s a lovely person, friend, and colleague, and since we are both full-time, full-hearted, and full-brained workers on this project, Ainsley has actually influenced the book, making her the perfect guest for today’s ‘How To Begin’ episode. Get‌ ‌book‌ ‌links‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌at‌ https://www.mbs.work...

In anticipation of the launch of Michael’s new book, we’re reaching into the vaults to pull the best episodes for you. Want to preorder? Go to HowToBegin.com  We are all investors. Whether it concerns our time, our focus or our money, we choose where we want to put it. When you invest, the first question always asked is ‘What is the rate of return?’ What if the question was ‘What does the most goo...

Writing a book can be lonely, scary, and confusing, but one of the things that has been brilliant about writing How To Begin is my friend, Jenny Blake. She’s been a friend of mine for many years now, and I feel like our friendship has only deepened within the last year. Since we think similarly, we’ve been encouraging each other to write a book, and when I thought of the small number of people I’d...

Michael’s new book How to Begin: Start Doing Something that Matters is now available at www. HowToBegin.com. When I was in Lisbon recently, I had one of those lovely moments of meeting a kindred spirit. It’s not the same as meeting someone who’s interesting or lovely, instead, there’s a recognition of ‘you and I, we are similarly weird and interesting.’ I gave Steven D’Souza my book, and he gave m...

Octavia Goredema is many things; a British woman thriving in LA, a career coach, a champion for women, and a Member of the British Empire. You may be familiar with her, as she’s been on this podcast before. We met when she wrote me an email complimenting one of my books, and we’ve enjoyed a precious friendship, since then. I only hope that she has more nice things left to say about my writing. Get...

Michael’s new book How to Begin: Start Doing Something that Matters is now available at www. HowToBegin.com. We’ve probably all had the experience of someone else resisting one of our brilliant ideas. Do you remember how that feels - not being seen or heard? You know what’s almost as irritating, perhaps even more so? When you’re the person resisting your own good idea; you team up with the status...

Mark Bowden and I have known each other for at least 15 years. He’s a great friend, and a wonderful host, plus he’s written a number of books including Truth and Lies, a title I helped him come up with. And Mark has helped me brainstorm titles for my books as well, so who better than one of my dearest friends to join me in kicking off this new series? Get‌ ‌book‌ ‌links‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌at‌ htt...

Michael’s new book How to Begin: Start Doing Something that Matters is now available at www. HowToBegin.com. ‘We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,’ is a quote I often come back to. It reminds me that we’re creatures of the systems in which we exist. We are defined by our relationships, both inside and outside of work. The question I sit with is: What’s needed to find, carve out, and...

I had a few nicknames growing up; Flat Stanier after the book series Flat Stanley, which was shortened to Flat Stan, and eventually, just Stan. One of my best friends through high school and university was also a ‘Michael,’ and one of his early nicknames was Davros, a villain from Doctor Who, but in the end, Michael Bachelard just became Bach.  Michael Bachelard is now an award-winning author and...

One of my first business trips was to Scotland, and it was more like a nightmare rather than a dream come true. I was there because a big soup company wanted me to come up with their next soup sub-brand, and we all know that good stuff happens by finding a way to sit down and talk to people.  I could have used Susan Weinschenk’s help back then because she is an expert in human behaviour and what m...

Briefly, at The Australian National University, I was a member of AIESEC, an international group of economics students. There were good moments, but I eventually had the realisation that these weren’t really my people; they just didn’t have a similar lens on the world, to me. So, I assumed that all economists were the same, until a few years ago when I read a wonderful book called Obliquity. It wa...

Where did we get this idea of ‘the youth will save us’? What a burden for them, and what a cop-out for us. Of course, young people can be brilliant, ambitious, and capable of extraordinary things … if we let them. However, we mustn’t forget that we, too, need to be a force for change.  DeNora Getachew is the CEO of DoSomething.org, an organisation that helps youth engage for social impact, to make...

One of the influences on my life is a man called Simon Bailey. He was a visualiser; he’d show up with his box of coloured pens and paper, and as I tried to describe the ideas and solutions bubbling in my brain, he’d draw them. That would spark new ideas for me, which I’d try to build on, and we would do this dance of imagination and creativity together. I’m only realising this now, but he’s one of...

At the ANU Law School, I wrote a thesis about applying English Literature theory to reading laws: ‘How have what we learnt about reading the texts in the world of Shakespeare, Patrick White, and Jane Austen, tell us about how we might read legal texts?’ No one understood it, I barely understood it, and I was writing the thing! I knew there was something there, but at the boundary where these two w...

I’m an accidental entrepreneur. I started Box of Crayons about twenty years ago because I had just been fired from the job I had, and I was slowly coming to realise that I was largely unemployable - not because I didn’t have some skills, but because I wasn’t good with bosses and hierarchy. I’m also a barely-adequate entrepreneur. Both companies I’ve started have had some success, and just keeping...

It irks me to confess this, but I am still in thrall to my to-do list. I’ve been writing about how not to be busy for 20 years, and I have thoroughly, completely, and annoyingly failed to take my own advice. The truth is, I get a rush from getting stuff done, and believe me, I’m aware of the irony. The thing people thank me for is not my tasking, but my thinking; figuring stuff out, me trying to m...

I’m a reader. Not only do I love books, I love to read them in an old-school way: my eyes and the book’s pages in front of me. But, it occurred to me that the really old-school way of reading books is to be a listener. The truth is, some books just shine when they’re read out loud.  David Gardner is the co-founder of The Motley Fool, the organisation that prides itself on the practice of conscious...