Heart Leadership

In his latest book, Heart Leadership, business mentor and leadership expert Ian Berry talks about the progress from the mind of leadership to leading with the heart. It’s an interesting update on leadership styles and more timely than ever given our experiences with the pandemic, lockdown and often, leading from afar with more teams working from home. It’s also a powerful framework for self-leadership.

This is a special episode #114 of the Ideas Architect podcast – the first in over two years – and a worthy topic.

Resources

Ian has a lot of resources and you can buy his book on his website at IanBerry.biz

I previously spoke with Ian Berry on the Ideas Architect Podcast here.

Download Podcast Episode

Download the podcast episode here

Transcript

Geoff McDonald  00:00

Hi Ian, welcome to the show.

 

Ian Berry  00:02

Thank you, Geoff. I really appreciate the opportunity and nice to be able to see you for a change.

 

Geoff McDonald  00:08

Yes, absolutely. I was looking at my notes. The last time we spoke as a podcast was back in April 2015. Things have changed since then.

 

Ian Berry  00:21

There you go. I think that podcast is still on my website, actually, because it was a good, wide ranging interview, I thought. So. Hence, I’m happy to have a chat again.

 

Geoff McDonald  00:32

And of course, the prompt forward is this. So your fabulous new book, and I do think it is fabulous. I think it’s kind of that beautiful next step in what you’ve been talking about for a long time here. So it’s ‘Heart Leadership – Become the wise leader you want to be’. And that’s really what we want to talk about today. Where did the book come from, what’s it about, how people can get it, maybe even how you produced it, and whatever else comes up in the conversation. So tell us about your book.

 

Ian Berry  01:03

Well, I mean, it’s like everything. It’s an evolution, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a journey. And it really, I guess, began back… I can remember the date, actually, it was September the 15th 2017, my wife that day received her registration as a marriage celebrant.

 

Geoff McDonald  01:21

Oh, wow.

 

Ian Berry  01:21

But it was also the days where she received a cancer diagnosis. And it wasn’t grim and she immediately went into treatment. And you know, the drugs almost killed her. I tell the full story in the book. But it sent us both on a journey to explore not so much what’s in our head, but what’s what’s in our hearts.  We found doctors, there’s a few exceptions, but we found doctors know about trauma and drugs, but they don’t necessarily know a lot about well being. They don’t necessarily know what’s in our heart. And what we discovered on that journey, Carol, particularly searching for her own answers, which in the end led to her getting well.

 

Geoff McDonald  02:02

Good.

 

Ian Berry  02:03

We discovered the folk at Heart Math. We discovered in numerous different angles that the heart knows, we just got to learn to listen to it first and tell our brains to be quiet. And you know, I think like a lot of blokes you know, that was my modus operandi. I was used to following my heart, because that’s what I’ve been doing over 30 years, when I first left the corporate world and started out on my own, I really was following my heart. But very soon my head took over and you know, and I think that was the way for a lot of people. And so I began to explore this idea of tell my mind to be quiet, listen to my heart first. And I discovered in my own experience that my heart knows.

 

Geoff McDonald  02:50

That’s spectacular. And I really love that that it was kind of like you were jolted into a different awareness around it. So yes, I’ve been going along and there was no need to question a lot of stuff.

 

Ian Berry  03:02

That’s true. I mean, I was, as you know, we were quite comfortable. And now we were, you know, things were going. But then as Carol got better and I started to work with this more personally, then I reached out to some of my clients and began to workshop, some of what was new ideas and new material from my past works. And I’ve been thinking about, because long before Coronavirus, I made the shift to doing most of my work online. And so I was already zoomed, zoomed in, long before the virus. I started workshopping with a few people who I thought were really open to this idea of heart leadership. I also co-created a program last year with a colleague, Susan Furness, about ‘strategic heartistory’, as an alternative to strategic planning. And that really that conversation, along with many other conversations really, I guess, made me aware that heart leadership was actually at the core of all of my work and that I should be paying more attention to it and the more I spoke to my close clients about this, the more that became the case. A book started emerging. I began with a with a mnemonic because I was helping the people I was working with remember it and so I began with harmony with yourself, seeking harmony with other people and with the planet, listening to your heart, listening to your mind, then engaging your hands and the consequences of all that was happenstance. Being the word I discovered had a ‘H’ in it, which helped the mnemonic but it means ‘coincidence or serendipity or synchronicity’. And my clients really loved the model. And so, the book really emerged using that model. And it flowed you know, I wrote the book in about six months.

 

Geoff McDonald  05:17

That’s pretty good.

 

Ian Berry  05:19

Which, you know, previous books have taken me a lot longer than six months, as you would know yourself having written, what have you written, I think 10 or 12,

 

Geoff McDonald  05:27

Something like that.

 

05:30

Up until this moment, I had found, I was very disciplined, you know, I’ve been writing 500 words a day for 40 years. Most of it’s rubbish and doesn’t go anywhere. But the discipline, but I always found writing books and writing articles, and so on, I’ve found it hard work. But hearing my heart first, first of all, really focusing on being in harmony with myself, and then listening to my heart. What I discovered was a flow to my writing, and all of a sudden, writing wasn’t that hard anymore?

 

Geoff McDonald  06:04

Ah, that’s interesting.

 

Ian Berry  06:07

And it just flowed. I mean, one day, I was running from my car to be serviced. In two and a half hours, I write 5000 words,

 

Geoff McDonald  06:15

Oh, wow. You should do that every week.

 

Ian Berry  06:16

That’s never happened to me ever. But the whole thing flowed. And then I put the Working Draft out to 25 or so people, including yourself. And the feedback I got was that it could be a little bit more together. And that some of the things about the heart were clear, but not so much the lining up or the flow to the head and the hands. And so I did some more workshopping with my clients and ended up with the final book. I also added a prologue and an epilogue to the original Working Draft, which kind of pulled it all together more. And most people have said, there’s a flow to it that wasn’t there in the Working Draft.  And I’m very happy with it now. I’ve personally sent out, I sent out the 50th copy this morning. I’m signing just 100. And I sent out the 50th one this morning. And it’s also selling quite well on Amazon and other places. I’m very pleased with the journey to get here and what’s happening now.

 

Geoff McDonald  07:34

I think it’s an interesting twist, isn’t it, you set out to write this particular book, in the leadership domain. But here, you’ve got this beautiful example of how it’s freed you up with your writing. And the way I hear it, and I’d love to get your comment on this is that it’s, when I’m in my head, I’m trying to get it right. And there’s all this rational stuff trying to say this is the right thing, or that, and I need arguments for it. But when I’m kind of in my more heart or intuitive space, it’s kind of, I’m freer for it to be my opinion about here’s what I just think the next move is.

 

Ian Berry  08:13

The brain is a wonderful instrument. It’s you know, it’s a marvel. It’s brilliant at ‘how to’ but what I’ve discovered it’s not so good at the ‘why’ and the ‘what’. Whereas the heart is the ‘why’. And you know, as we know from Simon Sinek‘s work and other folk starting with why is key.  What I learned that when we hear our hearts truly, we stop second guessing ourselves. And then we can move to the mind and engage with our minds. Because that’s the ‘how to’, there’s a lot of past value in our minds, but the heart is coming from the present that’s another thing that I learned. The heart’s ‘the now’ It’s the reality of now and accepting the reality of now.  One of the stories that I share in the book comes from one of the heart leadership enthusiasts who’s a member of my regular groups, Brad Smith, he talks about, you know, rather than a new normal, he talks moving ‘from normal to now’ and that’s one of the stories that I share in the book. I think that’s really true the heart is the present moment. It’s about the ‘why’ and the ‘what’ the head is more the ‘how’ and of course the hands then you know, work out ‘the who where and the when’.

 

Geoff McDonald  09:35

I really like that you haven’t thrown out the head it’s kind of this meshing of it to say, the head by itself is very useful, but not enough. What we actually need to do is mesh it in with the heart.

 

Ian Berry  09:47

True. So I think this is natural flow, heart-head-hands. Lots of people have used that process that metaphor and I originally found it on the internet. There’s lots of people have used that idea. But I haven’t come across anyone who’s used the idea in the way that I have to suggest a flow. Yeah, but also to suggest a wholeness, you know, a coherence, if you will. Starting with harmony, I think I’ve met lots of leaders in my time I’ve, I’ve worked with more than 1000 leaders, one on one, some really great ones. And one of the things I’ve learned through the experience of working with other people is that a lot of people haven’t focused on the whole self, they focused on the business, or even the head, the numbers, all that stuff. And we need that. But we miss out on a whole lot of other important things. And so the idea of heart leadership is to put it all together and it says, lead from your heart, lead with your heart, but coming from a place of being in harmony with yourself. Then engage the head and so on.

 

Geoff McDonald  11:07

Yeah. So where does emotion fit in here? So we’re not saying head motion hands, hearts got a different spin on to just emotion. It’s not pure emotion. Is that accurate?

 

Ian Berry  11:19

Well, look, I think it’s a feeling, you know, which could be an emotion but in the book, I talk about the heart qualities, which I first learned from the Heart Math folk, and in the book, I talk about eight such qualities. And it’s a, it’s a quality, you know, it’s a, so it’s more than an emotion. I mean, one of them, of course, is love.

 

Geoff McDonald  11:42

Yeah, we’re not allowed to talk about love in business.

 

Ian Berry  11:46

Well, look, I think Stephen Farber is right. His latest book is called ‘Love is just damn good business‘. And I think he’s absolutely right. And I talk about love from the perspective of the ancient Greeks use of it. I mean, they had, everyone knows Eros. And Agape probably is the two famous ones romantic love and spiritual love. I came at it from the word ‘philia’, which means affectionate regard. And what I’ve discovered that when there’s affectionate regard for colleagues in the workplace, that performance improves. And I’ve been measuring this now for a very long time. And the more affectionate regard there is, and the more genuineness there is, and it involves some of the other heart qualities to them. As I say I use eight in the book, another one of them is appreciation. Another one is kindness. Another one is compassion. So these are more than emotions more than feelings they’re actually ways of being.

 

Geoff McDonald  12:50

Yeah. I’m kind of poking a little bit here, because traditionally, business was all about moving stuff around. And so we have this very transactional language about it. Whereas what you’re getting down to is the heart of sorry, the heart of us, actually talking people to people. It’s a huge shift in itself.

 

Ian Berry  13:15

In a way, I call it you know, ‘who before do’. You know, it’s really about? Really, we’re human beings, as as many people have said, not human doings. Yeah. And the focus in most businesses is about doing. And I think the focus should be more about being and then let people do their own thing. Because, you know, we don’t need to be told what to do, even though this is what the industrial revolution, that’s still the hangover. And I think there’s crazy talk, you know, about a fourth industrial revolution. I think it’s nonsense. We don’t need any more industrial revolution. What we need is a Human Revolution.  Some writers like say, Gerd Leonhard, or, you know, Kutarna who wrote The Age of Discovery, I forget his co author, [Ian Goldin] but that they reckon that there’s a new Renaissance happening since about the 90s. And I agree with them, that this new Renaissance is a shift away from as it was back in the 15th century, that was away from feudal systems. It was away from dogma and doctrine that control people, which is what the Industrial Revolution did. Yep, it was moving away from that it was focusing on people being true to themselves, finding their essence – the way I described in the book – and then being left alone to do it, because we don’t need to be told what to do. When we’re following our hearts, and yet most of the workforce is about being told what to do.

 

Geoff McDonald  14:50

And for a knowledge worker who knows stuff up here and spends a lot of their time interacting with other people. That makes perfect sense because the knowledge worker is the expert in something. But they don’t want to be told what to do. It might be a case of, we need to go down that path. But telling them exactly what to do is going to ruin our game for them.

 

Ian Berry  15:10

Well, that’s about that’s how authoritarian places work. Yeah, I mean, the knowledge work was a Drucker term. And it might have been relevant in the 1950s. I don’t think it’s relevant anymore. We’re not knowledge workers. One of the bits of research that I quote in the book comes from Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who’s a neuroscientist. And a lot of her work was based on her own experience recovering from a stroke. And she says, we are feeling creatures who think,

 

Geoff McDonald  15:42

Aha, okay, good. So instead of a knowledge worker, what are we?

 

Ian Berry  15:49

Yes, we need knowledge, but in my opinion, we need more wisdom.

 

Geoff McDonald  15:54

Okay, Great,

 

Ian Berry  15:57

I think we know, you know, because these days, everyone is getting skills training, you know, if people are not being given the skills at the workplace is not going to last long in the 21st century. And so people have the knowledge, they have the know-how. But what we need more of is bringing, you know, the best version of this one of a kind self that each of us is, bringing that person to our work. That’s a whole different ballgame.

 

Geoff McDonald  16:27

So what are some tips, tricks, suggestions, you can say? How can I do this today? What would you suggest?

 

Ian Berry  16:34

Well, I think first of all, it’s just learn to listen to your heart and keep your head quiet. Yeah, one of the ways that I practice is myself, I was lucky in during a recovering from illness many years ago to learn meditation. So I already knew how to quiet my mind. But we have this constant chatter going on, it looks like this person sitting on our shoulder going, that won’t work or, you know, whatever it is, some people call it the inner critic. So it’s telling that person to be quiet. I even had to say it out loud for a while. Just say, Look, you’re not needed right now. And just really focus on my state of being. Yeah, you know, was I really coming to the situation, from a place of love, from a place of kindness, from a place of appreciation, etc. And when I was really sitting in that place, I would then engage my hand and my head in my hands to work out what’s next.

 

Geoff McDonald  17:40

Yeah. Beautiful.

 

Ian Berry  17:42

So it’s just that simple exercise.

 

Geoff McDonald  17:45

It’s kind of keep repeating that cycle of keep coming back to that space.

 

Ian Berry  17:50

Yeah, it is a hence, hence, harmony, heart, head, hands, happenstance.

 

Geoff McDonald  17:56

I really like happenstance, as in, not just the way you came about it, like it was kind of a spontaneous thing. But it actually does put you in the moment, rather than constantly be in the head and trying to plan things forward. I think we can be much more authentic, more engaging, more present to other people as well.

 

Ian Berry  18:17

Well, wonderful, wonderful piece of wisdom that I use in the book that came from Viktor Frankl who his version of therapy logotherapy he called it but he wrote the manuscript for that in Auschwitz. I mean, enough said,

 

Geoff McDonald  18:35

It’s hard to get your head around that, isn’t it?

 

Ian Berry  18:37

But one of his beautiful pieces of wisdom was that between stimuli and response, there’s a space. And in that space, he said, lies our freedom. I just think that’s a wonderful, I mean, that’s when wisdom and knowledge you don’t know that you have to be that. And the more I work with this, something would happen. stimuli comes in, and I would take that moment, which is 90 seconds to really feel it in my heart, and over time it took me 18 months, not to respond from the head, but to respond from the heart. And what I found was that happenstance happened more often than not. I found a flow, you know, to things, I found myself less anxious about things that I might have been in the past. One of the interesting things for me is I stopped. I’ve been a make it happen kind of person for all my life. But this process has changed me. I’m now more letting it happen.

 

Geoff McDonald  19:53

Haha, that’s a big change.

 

Ian Berry  19:55

You know, some of the old habits you know, they still arrive occasionally. I mean, no one’s perfect, but there’s a lot more flow a lot more letting it happen. And even in work, you know, I sort of made a decision, I really only want to work with people who are enthusiastic about heart leadership. And as a consequence, you know, some people who weren’t dropped off, you know, they just disappeared.

 

Geoff McDonald  20:24

And I think that’s a really good thing, by the way.

 

Ian Berry  20:27

Me too. I mean, it’s a lot easier than firing them if they just disappear. But you know, what remains now is a core group of people that really want to do the work. And of course, for me that that’s energizing, ou know. I’m a fan of Jason Fox‘s one word and my word this year is ‘energized’. And a part of its come from this regular group of people who really want to dig as you know, and keep on digging into this idea that we lead with him and from my heart.

 

Geoff McDonald  20:57

And I’m guessing if you’re letting things come, rather than forcing them, you’re actually conserving your energy at the same time.

 

Ian Berry  21:05

There’s no question about that. And as you know, I’ve had my own health challenges. And one of the things that I’ve had to do is to really work on conserving my energy. And a consequence of that, I have to take these drugs to keep my melanoma at bay. And as a consequence, I can get really fatigued if I don’t watch myself. And what I’ve learned, even though I’m working about a quarter of the time I once did, I’m 10 times more productive because I don’t have this baggage around, about worrying about, you know, stuff that used to worry me in the mind before.  And I really am able to approach most things with a cool head, as I say, no one’s perfect. And we zip back into the old way sometimes. But the more I work at this, the happier I get, the more contented I get. And the less doubt and the less worry, I have. Wayne Dyer called them life’s two most useless emotions, I think it was pretty. But I’m having a lot less doubt and a lot less worry, by only using my mind to help me to do things. But I’m focused on being the best version of me first, and then move to the do.

 

Geoff McDonald  22:24

And you’ve been workshopping this with a lot of clients over quite a long period of time as well, what sort of things are showing up for them?

 

Ian Berry  22:31

Well, I think the surprising thing for some is the practicality of all of this, it actually leads to better results quicker. Which was not something that was expected. It’s led to, you know, better home life for lots of people, you know, the stress of being locked in, which has been the case for most of my clients, some of them with young children. It’s helped them to cope with that, and all of the things that go along with that a lot better than what would have happened otherwise. It’s reduced anxiety with people.  It’s helped people, I think we all have a degree of imposter syndrome. You know, we say ‘why me?’, the more we lead, and the more success we have with learning, the more we ask ‘why me?’. And a lot of my clients have felt that disappear, and that they’re more comfortable in their own skin. One of the biggest ones is that they’re not second-guessing themselves as much as they used to. Which I think is a byproduct of you know, what we’re talking about?

 

Geoff McDonald  23:48

Yeah, one of my favorite books from a few years ago was by John Kay, who was a professor at the London School of Economics, and the book was called Obliquity. And if you think about the word ‘oblique’, his premise was, we get our results indirectly. And it’s kind of this really interesting thing you’re talking about here that normally we go down the productivity path, and it’s all about I’ll do this more efficiently and all the rest of it. But what you’ve pointed to is, if you shift the way of being that stuff kind of just gets taken care of. Is that a way of saying it? It’s all correct?

 

Ian Berry  24:23

Yes, I think that’s right. I haven’t put it in such language. But I think in the book I talked about because what I’m in my work is about helping people to become the wise leaders they want to be. In the book, there are three pillars to that. And because I think the best workplaces that I’ve seen, are where people feel valued, where people live the values and where there’s a focus on value, delivery and exchange. So those three things valued values, value. The three foundations that lead to those things are people leadership, process innovation and progress sustainability. And it’s this progress sustainability that I think addresses this idea of progress rather than outcomes. I was a person focused on outcomes my whole life. I’m not anymore. I’m focused on following a process or as Seth Godin, called it a practice – a book I recommend, by the way, his latest one The Practice – because we’ve all got a practice. It’s our way of being and our way of doing and Seth’s work has helped me to really fine tune that for myself.  And one of the consequences is, we keep progress visible. So we’re less worried about outcomes more focused on progress. I talk about The Progress Principle in the book, which was what I learned from Teresa Amabile, her husband, Stephen Kramer, who wrote that great book, The Progress Principle. And I referenced that a little in the book, it’s this idea that we keep meaningful progress visible. And I think that’s really that’s really powerful.

 

Geoff McDonald  26:12

Absolutely. That was the key thing that came up when I was writing about Done and productivity. The number one piece is around motivation. And the key to motivation is some sense of movement towards something.

 

Ian Berry  26:27

Yep, same thing. Yeah. And I think also where we are in the 21st century, you know, hopefully sooner post Coronavirus world, I think meaning has become, you know, a key for most people. And finding meaning in your work, I think is what’s the quest for lots of people. And when we lead from our hearts, and we focus on the person, that we’re looking in the mirror and competing with that person, and not worrying about competition with anyone else, and being in harmony with ourselves, and then hearing our hearts, then engaging the mind, and then, you know, doing our work. I think it’s one way to achieve more meaningful work. And that’s, that’s been a common thread with the readers of the book so far, but also the people that have been working with for some time.  And even people that are kind of, you know, new edit one member of my group, Laura, whose story appears at the end of the book, I mean, I think she’s been a heart leader for a lot longer than what she might feel, but she talked to this, like a duck to water. Because it’s very human. You know, and I think what we’ve been taught, is really in-human in so many ways, you know, we’ve been taught that you must be taught what to do that, you don’t speak until you’re spoken to, and all these things that are a hangover from a different world. And I sense that one of the ways to peace in the world. In fact, I quoted this, out there in various places yesterday, because the words of AJ Muste came to me yesterday when I was just contemplating. And he said, ‘You know, there is no road to peace, peace is the road.’

 

Geoff McDonald  28:30

We’ve got it down the wrong way most of the time.

 

Ian Berry  28:32

And I sense that people want more peace in their lives. And heart leadership is a pathway to greater peace. And a consequence of that peace is in many ways a paradox is we do better work.

 

Geoff McDonald  28:50

Yeah. That’s the side effect piece isn’t. My comment to you was that it was timely because I felt it made more sense in the Coronavirus, the pandemic and in lockdown. Is that accurate? Or do you think it’s kind of like, is this going to make more sense going back into the office surrounded by people? Or does it make more sense now? Or is that just the wrong question?

 

Ian Berry  29:13

Well, I’m really I’m working towards helping people to not go back to normal. You know, we had to drive out to Melbourne yesterday, Carol and I, and you know, the smog’s back and all the traffic bullshit is back. And why would we do this to ourselves? Yeah. And so I don’t want to go back to that world. I’ve got a couple of clients where up to 50% of their workforce don’t want to go back to the office and they’re facilitating that kind of process. I think we’ve got to find find something new and different, and valuable and meaningful to do in CBDs. Yeah. Now, in my own view, the move to cities was a giant mistake made by civilization.

 

Geoff McDonald  29:58

Yeah, or it ran its course, it was useful for a while.

 

Ian Berry  30:03

It’s definitely done. Yeah, a lot of people, of course, their livelihoods were based on all those workers. And so we’ve got to find a different way. And I think there’s many options and you know, City of Melbourne’s, you know, a great thing that I mean, there are lots of things, there’s more dining out on the footpath now, for example. So it’s an experience. And I think that it doesn’t mean cities have to die. It just means that they have to live differently.

 

Geoff McDonald  30:33

Yep. The next evolution. Thanks.

 

Ian Berry  30:36

Next version. And so I don’t want to go back to normal, you know, I think airlines have got to really take a hard look at themselves, their business model is not viable. You know, their industries don’t exist without government handouts. So that to me says something’s wrong with the industry. So the needs that needs to be rethought. We don’t need to be flying all the time, as as we’ve proven over the past year. You know, I think the fossil fuel industry is another one, they don’t exist without government subsidies either. And they don’t employ as many people as they make out. And so there’s this whole, you know, there’s paradigm shifts that I think are happening, we did not need a fossil fuel industry, we should have been transitioning 30 years ago, or even longer. And I think the inevitable of those things will come and we will end up transitioning away from those kinds of things. And all the BS that goes on in the political sphere about those things will disappear. I sense. And that’s another, I think, an outcome of focusing on human beings. So like, you know, talking about Renaissance, earlier, one of the dogma of right now, is that data is the new oil and technology is the answer to everything. Well, no, it’s not. And, you know, I’m always amused by artificial intelligence, because it’s artificial. I’m amused by these things.  Now, of course, you know, there’s wonderful things that happen as a consequence of artificial intelligence, with the vaccine was created using artificial intelligence. So I’m not knocking artificial intelligence. But my point is, technology is not the answer, if it doesn’t enhance the human experience. And so I see a more human world in 2021 and beyond. And I think people that are focused on being in-human, whether that’s a president inciting violence or whatever it might be, I think that’s an old world. And that world is disappearing at a fast rate of knots. And I hope it can that disappearance continues to accelerate.

 

Geoff McDonald  32:53

And I think that’s probably a good segue into why people need the book. Because what I’m hearing is the layers that it can actually impact things. This is not just about, I’ll do this differently. It’s about live differently, see the world, create the world be with people differently. And it has all these ripple effects. It’s not just about you, and your work and your productivity. It’s not just about how you interact with your clients, customers, family, but it has this ripple effect of we’re actually going to think about some of these things like climate change, leadership, politics differently as well cities. So it’s a big shift.

 

Ian Berry  33:31

And some of those, you know, as Buckminster Fuller, he was on to this a long time ago, you know, it’s not about necessarily creating something that’s new. What it is about is, is maybe building on something. But as a consequence of something that is new or something that works in a different way old things become obsolete. And I see this, you know, very much. The future is the way of leading as in an authoritarian, dictatorial telling people what to do. I think methods like heart leadership will make those old ways obsolete.  I think one of the one of the biggest things that I say this right at the start of the book, and this has become the key to my work. And that is that doing heart leadership, my way will not work for you. But the model is something that you can learn to use in your own way, your own best way. I say in the book that what I say is important, but it’s nowhere near as important as what you hear yourself, say to yourself, and who you become and what you do next. And so although it’s, you know, it is a model and it is a process and all of that it’s really designed to help people to apply the learnings in their own best way not not my way.  And I think that’s also a new thing and leadership. It was always many, many consultants and authors and so on… take these seven steps and you’ll be a zillionaire sort of thing. Well, I think that’s an old world. New world says, here’s the principle, learn to apply that principle in your own best way.

 

Geoff McDonald  35:19

I’ve had people asking me how to how to write books. And it’s like, well, you’ve got to find your best way. Here’s my the that works for me. Try it out. But you’ve got to tweak it twist to find your way. So just on that, how did you write your book? What was your strategy?

 

Ian Berry  35:33

Pretty much I stayed with the, you know, writing every day. But then it became more than 500 words, but I’d really try to write 1500 words a day, that was my, my aim. Which is about five A4 pages. And I tried to write without editing and just go back to it later. But I had a process in mind. And then to put that together in the Working Draft. And then once that’s done to get it out to people for feedback, and input. And then probably the critical place is the editing, I’m blessed that I’ve got two good editors one is a person who has read my work for more than 30 years. And the most important person is my wife, who knows me better than anyone else. And when she tells me this doesn’t make sense, I got to pay attention.  So it’s really working working through that. And I think one thing I’ve learned, you know, this, it’s having having the ideal reader in mind all the time. You know, will this be valuable for them? And so they’re the kinds of things and I think then the publishing too, I mean, Carol’s taken over the publishing process. In the last two bits, we went through Ingram Spark, which is a distributor place. Carol learnt the process. But what we’ve what we’ve discovered is that if you get it right, you can basically have your book out in the world, in their case, they’ve got more than 40. distributors. So once you get once you get it right, and you get it uploaded to the Ingram site, in our case, it was on Amazon 24 hours later, Because they’ve got the process, right.  And Carol’s worked out how to do the Kindle versions, and so on, you know, as well. So I think if you spend the time working out how it works and that’s what she’s done, which is freed me up, I just focused on the writing. I don’t have to worry about the other stuff. Because it, you know, it did my head in, where she’s, she’s willing to work at it until she, she finds out how to do it all and then it becomes a flow from there. So this is the second one we’ve done with Ingram Spark. And this time, it was a lot easier in the first the Kindle version which of Heart Leadership which comes out soon. It was easier than the last one and I’m sure the next one, because this is part of a series of 12. So I’m sure that by the by the time we get to the next one, it’ll be even easier.

 

Geoff McDonald  38:20

Perfect. So where can someone get a copy of heart leadership?

 

Ian Berry  38:24

Well, if they want the signed version, there is still 50 of those. I’m only signing 100. So there’s still 50 of those. They can go to my website and sign up for the event that’s on the 24th of February. Overseas folk, it takes three to four weeks I’ve discovered in the Coronavirus world to get things so I will send people a PDF so they can read it before the seminar so that that gets them the signed copy. If you want to buy it normally it’s available via my website. It’s in Book Depository in the UK, for example, which is my favorite bookstore. It’s in Booktopia in Australia, It’s on all the Amazon‘s. Basically just Google it. But if you want one of the one of the 100 signed ones go to my website.

 

Geoff McDonald  39:16

And what’s your website address?  IanBerry.biz I A N – Berry B E R R Y dot BIZ. That’s it. Perfect. Well, great to talk to you. And I think we could have talked for another five hours just pulling out all the pieces and putting it back together. But I but I’m guessing I reckon you’ll agree with this that reading it is the first step. But going off and doing it and being it and living it and practicing it is the key.

 

Ian Berry  39:48

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I really appreciate the opportunity Geoff.

 

Geoff McDonald  39:53

My pleasure, great to have this conversation, even though I’ve read the book, and we’ve had some discussions about it. It’s great to return to it and just explore it in different ways. I’ve enjoyed that as well.

 

Ian Berry  40:04

I must say, too, when people go to the website, even if you don’t get the book, as I was writing the book, I recorded a whole lot of videos. So there’s 24 videos. Basically, it’s a course, you know, one every fortnight say. And I also did 24 podcasts, the videos are all under five minutes. And the podcasts are all under 10 minutes. So even just listening to one of those videos, one of those podcasts or watching one of those videos would tell people whether the book is for them or not. That’s stuff that’s available – just people go to my website, you’ll see there’s a tab that says Heart Leadership Resources. That’s where all the videos and podcasts or that’s where you access them from.

 

Geoff McDonald  40:47

Yeah, and I’ll just warn the listeners in advance. There’s a lot of other good stuff on your website. So you might want to allocate a little bit of time just to explore or at the very least, bookmark the page so you can come back.

 

Ian Berry  41:00

Yeah, look, I’ve tried to make my website as a resource center for people interested in Heart Leadership. That’s what it’s designed for. So yeah, there is quite a bit of stuff there. But I’ve tried to segment it now. So that Heart Leadership resources has got its own page. But it’s a nice way to see whether the book might be for you before you buy it.

 

Geoff McDonald  41:24

Yeah. Perfect. Well, thank you for being on the show and great to talk to you.

 

Ian Berry  41:29

Thanks very much.

 

Geoff McDonald  41:30

Okay, bye.

 

Ian Berry  41:32

Bye.

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