Inner Pathways

First published 21 March 2024

What will you do with your Jellybeans…?

In January, my book club read ‘Diary of a CEO’ by Steven Bartlett.  If you haven’t heard of him, he is worth looking up – the Diary of a CEO podcast has given me lots of little nuggets of inspiration – there are hundreds of episodes available on Spotify and YouTube (and likely many other platforms too!) so you will most likely find at least a few to be of interest.

Last Friday, I finally met one of the members of my book club in person!  We only live about 45 minutes apart but had never quite gotten around to a proper meetup.  We met for food and a show… the ‘show’ was Steven Bartlett’s ‘The Business & Life Speaking Tour’.  My only complaint was that there wasn’t a pause and rewind button like there is on the podcast!!

The premise of the evening hinged on the concept that business and life are both like climbing a mountain with 5 broad categories – Start, Growth, Mature, Quit, Death.

I don’t intend to cover all the points from the show – mainly because I didn’t take detailed enough notes to do it justice (really wishing I had as there are parts that in the moment I thought ‘wow – this is huge/inspiring/mind blowing’ but unfortunately I don’t now remember the details!).

There are a few things that I do remember enough that I want to share (most likely with my own spin/take on things as I have forgotten his exact wording!)

Are you a Who or a How person?

When you are faced with a new challenge, what is the first question you ponder? Does it start with ‘Who‘ or does it start with ‘How‘?
I realised I tend to go for the How question.  How can I do this, what do I need to learn or work out so that I can do x?  I am going to say I am in good company as Steven Bartlett mentioned his girlfriend tends to ask How first!!

He did precede that by mentioning that he was now a ‘who’ person along with many other wildly successful business owners (so I may be pondering ‘how’ to switch!). 
Talking about the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people to fulfil all the roles you need to be filled.  This then helps to get the best out of you and your ideas and, your life in general. 

Who you surround yourself with is crucial to your success and mental wellbeing, and this is a fantastic reminder that you don’t need to do it all yourself.

And, from a business perspective, whilst I can do a lot of it myself, and it might seem easier, quicker, cheaper to just work out how to do something and get it done, that probably isn’t the bet use of my time and resources.  Working this way will take me away from where I excel/shine and the parts of my work that fuel me (actually working with my lovely clients!) – so some big learning/reminders for me there (and hopefully for you too?).
I have no plans to outsource writing these wee notes though!

Filling your 5 buckets

This was a concept he had included in his book – we all have 5 buckets.  The first 2 are the most important that you have control over – Knowledge (what you know) and Skills (what you can do).  It is so important that we fill these buckets and keep toping them up (life long learning anyone 😉)

The next 3 fluctuate depending on what you are doing and what stage you are in your life and business. Our knowledge and skills will overflow and then fill: Network (who you know), Resources (what you have) and Reputation (what the world thinks of you). 

I am not sure that I can think of a time when all 5 of my buckets have had the same quantity in them – and I know that these 3 have fluctuated massively for me over the years – life likes to empty them when you least expect it – so keep working on those first two.  

The book states that it’s important to make sure you fill your buckets in the right order – I was glad of this reminder as it was the first chapter in the book and while I vaguely remembered the concept the details were really fuzzy.  If offered a job or a contract – make sure there is space to learn and develop and it’s not all about the kudos and reputation, as these can easily be taken away but no one can take away what you have learned and turned into skill.

Jelly beans

Coming back to the title of this post, the show wrapped up with the sharing of a video about how we spend our jelly beans.  This was touched on a little in the book. 

If you imagine that everyday you walk in to a casino and up to the roulette wheel, you have 24 chips and you must choose what to do with every single one of them.  You will not win any more chips and you can not leave until you have used them all.  

You may have already guessed that those chips represent the hours we have in a day.  Once they are gone, they are gone, we get to choose how we spend them and so perhaps it is important to choose wisely.

Likewise, this video talks about a jellybean equalling one day. What do you want to do with your remaining jellybeans?

If you want to explore any of my key takeaways in more detail and what they mean for you and your life, please do leave a comment or head over to the contact page.