The Fink Tank

Ever meet someone’s family and think, ah, that explains everything? Mum, Col, and his eldest son Deakin came to visit us in Wellington. Our collective Fink quirks, gathered in the McKay family home (portmanteau options include FcKay or McKink, pronounced with relish), were suddenly much more visible to me than usual. We like to imagine we’re all unique, self-made individuals. But truthfully, most...

Ever noticed that the less you care about something, the easier it is? Everyone wants to grow. Almost universally, we want to improve and upskill, we want to look back on our journey and see how far we’ve come. And yet, we’ll reliably prevent ourselves from improving by locking ourselves away, playing small, and avoiding risks. I have no particular interest in getting good at disc golf, but funnil...

Do I want to eat more Twisties? If they’re within arms reach, apparently yes. But actually, no. We’re on the way to pick up a planishing hammer (bonus points if you have any idea what a planishing hammer is. I didn’t), and Col has a huge open packet of Twisties in the centre console. After a few mouthfuls I’ve had enough sickly orange grubs, yet I lack the self-control to stop shovelling them into...

Have you tried just… being better? Col ’s recent poll revealed what many of us already know. Most people admit they’re bad at marketing and sales. We avoid it. Instead, we lean on referrals and word-of-mouth. We hoping the quality of our work speaks loudly enough to bring in the next client. Col thinks many of us would be more successful if we focused less on blaming “bad marketing”, and more on b...

Who cares most about my expanding bald patch? Me. Nobody else gives a shit. Except it’s kinda news to me. Some recent video footage really tells it like it is! When else do I see the back of my own head? Video shows us as we truly are, not as we imagine ourselves. One of my jobs is helping people get comfortable with how they show up on camera. It's tricky territory, and most people find this...

Yes, that’s custom lycra at Burning Man 2012. PLOT TWIST at 90 seconds. And yes, there’s a genuinely useful business lesson hiding in there. In this week’s Fink Tank, we argue why you need to bang on about your core messages way more than feels comfortable. Because the thing you’ve repeated 100 times? Your audience has maybe heard… once. Which is once more than you wish you’d seen the moustache I...

If my over-45s football league refereed themselves, every second match would end in a fist fight. But in Ultimate Frisbee, that’s literally the rule. Even at the elite level! Players call their own fouls. They debate it on the field. And at the end, the opposition gives you a Spirit Score. Like Uber ratings, but for sportsmanship. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Strong spirit. Weak deodorant.” And it works. Their u...

Our mate Luke’s son Henry lost footy 62-1. It was also... a good close game. What?? Sometimes the scoreboard tells one story, but the game tells another. Watching from the sidelines, the contest was fairly even. Henry and his teammates were solid in the midfield, and defended well. But they couldn’t kick goals. Cue clunky segue to Col taking us through the five critical components of running your...

This is not a story about grit or perseverance. It’s about how the tiniest, dumbest mistake can unravel our best-laid plans. Col trained for ten years to master Frisbee. Then forgot to bring water. You’re a seasoned speaker with a dazzling slide deck.  But forgot your clicker. I’m mid-zoom with 150 people, nailing my presentation. Then my hard drive ran out of space. Col reckons The Checklist Mani...

Here’s how a $32 second-hand unicycle changed Col’s life.
 For 15 years, Col did what so many of us do: * Sat at the desk. * Felt guilty for not being productive. * Refused to leave the desk until “enough work” was done. * Got… nothing done. One day, he bought a $32 unicycle on eBay.
 The rule: when the work stalled, he was allowed to get up and ride it for as along as he wanted. If he came back t...

Do you go to high school reunions? My recent Eltham College reunion surprised me in the best way. I LOVED it. I wasn’t popular at school. I had a couple of decent friends, but never belonged to the "main" groups. When I got to Uni there was no looking back. My flimsy high school connections dissolved instantly as I smeared myself in the Melbourne Uni social life smorgasbord. Those Uni ma...

How nervous would you feel if you had to spin the webcam around and show us the rest of your house? And your life? If you’re hiding the mess, the quirks, the chaos, this episode is for you. Most of us are hiding things we deem unprofessional. Col Fink ’s Zoom background is neat and tidy, complete with a colour-coded bookshelf. Beyond the curated frame? Some friendly sheep, an untouched woodpile fr...

There might only be two fish in the sea. This is good news if you’re one of the fish. Leadership coach Belinda Thomas told me she felt like she was swimming in a huge ocean of competitors. Her confidence was down. I said “Sure, there’s a million videographers too. How many do you know?” And she said… “Two.” If Belinda needs a videographer, she’s not choosing from a teeming ocean. She’s fishing in...

KP’s been to SEVEN OLYMPIC GAMES as a performance psychologist. I had no idea until yesterday. That is RIDICULOUS. For the first couple of years I knew Dr Kirsten Peterson , she never mentioned she’d been to the Olympics SEVEN TIMES. She was an engaged participant in my Be Less Shit on Camera course during that time, creating videos talking about her work. I still didn’t know! It felt like she act...

One 2003 ski trip. 50 mates. Plenty of dickheadery. And a warning about forming strong opinions from weak evidence. In this episode of The Fink Tank, Col and I talk about the beautiful human habit of overthinking the anecdote and underthinking the maths. About how we love to build worldviews from tiny, noisy data points, and then swear they’re true. Humans are notoriously poor at assessing probabi...

People are weird. Our lives of abundance have meant we often feel compelled to satisfy ourselves in illogical ways with our hobbies.  Col is three sheds deep into a scientific enquiry into how humans often love buying stuff more than they like having it or using it. This episode is a sprawling ode to that deeply relatable, slightly unhinged truth. Humans have strange and dumb ways of finding joy a...

Some childhood beliefs leave quietly. Others wait until you’re an adult to slap you in the face. The moments of realisation tend to stick in the mind, too. I turned beetroot red during my turn for roll-call in grade 2. It’s pronounced Penelope, not Penny -lope. (Mispronouncing words you learned reading is a whole sub-genre here. Good luck, Siobhan) Col ’s primary school mate Tim thought bands play...

Your workshop isn’t a suitcase. Stop overpacking it. You’re trying to provide value. So you cram in every model, every framework, every brain nugget you’ve ever loved. The result? A learning day that’s chokkas. No space to breathe. No time to reflect. No energy left by 2pm. In this episode of The Fink Tank, recorded during the lunch break on the second day of Col 's 2 day summit, we talk about the...

It started with our shit original band and stupid holiday videos. Now it’s keynotes, coaching, and feature films. Compound interest isn’t just about money. In this mid-summit episode of the Fink Tank, Col and I chat about the cruel human condition of being overly critical of our progress or growth. About how we underplay our past accomplishments in our journeys toward mastery. This whole room of s...

Eight years ago, I deleted an entire keynote I’d just filmed for Tracey Ezard . Not a file. Not a clip. The whole keynote. Gone. Like a magician, but sad. It felt career-ending. Tracey, somehow, was kind and forgiving. I, in return, filmed her next keynote free-of-charge and built a shame-fuelled foolproof backup system. It has never happened again. Mostly because I now treat footage like a live o...

Day one: everything clicks. You’re in the zone. Day two: same task, same brain… suddenly you suck? Even experts like Adam Voigt and Kirsty Lush can turn in the occasional clanger. It happens. They’re still legends. So are you (probably). Before a bad day spirals into a full identity crisis, try this: Change the space. Change the feel. Change the day. It might be the context that’s off. Not your co...

Ever watched someone speak, lead, or perform and thought, “Wait… that’s it? I could do that!” Except of course, you couldn’t. This episode of The Fink Tank is about deceptive simplicity. Watching mastery is often marvelling at how simple it looks in its final form! And it works both ways, because here’s the thing we forget: The stuff that feels easy to you now is usually the most valuable to someo...

I sat down and gave myself a good hard talking to. Literally. On the Fink Tank matching chairs. In Budapest! My voice sometimes comes out of someone else’s mouth. If it’s one of my brothers, it’s often the exact sentence I would have said. In a voice that sounds exactly like mine. In the days of landline phones, someone calling the Fink house couldn’t tell which of the four male Finks in the house...

Most people do the wrong prep for public speaking. Here’s a better approach 👇 1. Already have 5 different appearances in front of a thousand people booked across a single weekend. 2. Treat it like a Q&A, even if it isn’t. Step 1 might be out of your control, but step 2 isn’t. After some top-shelf sibling dickheadery to open this episode, Col elaborates. He reckon most people would rather see...

“Now you know why I keep saying the same old shit”  Colin Hay, writer of Land Down Under and other global hits, isn’t just a great songwriter. He’s a great story teller too.  At his lives shows, he respects the audience by playing the hit songs. We’ll indulge some new or deep-catalogue songs mid-set, but don’t you dare deprive us of Who Can It Be Now! He respects the audience by telling the hit st...