Effort Over Outcome: Lessons from Mike Robbins on Personal Growth and Education

Speaker A 00:00:00

When I was on teams where we actually cared about each other and valued each other and rooted for each other, we actually played better.

Speaker A 00:00:08

Remembering those aspects of common ground that we have as human beings is a good place to start.

Speaker A 00:00:13

And I think we can often get so caught up in, you know, so many things that at the end of the day, don't matter.

Speaker A 00:00:21

Hey, how do I deal with the fact that, like, my parents got divorced and my dad's not around and my dad has bipolar disorder and we don't have a lot of money and, you know, none of that stuff was coming up at school, sometimes turn to my wife and I go, what the hell are we doing?

Speaker A 00:00:35

Like, is this really the best way for us to educate our kids?

Speaker A 00:00:39

The best AI in the world and the best technology can't recreate human emotion and human empathy.

Speaker A 00:00:49

Give it everything you got.

Speaker A 00:00:50

And whatever happens, whether you're on the basketball court or in the classroom or in life, like, you can live with the result.

Speaker A 00:00:55

And I know for myself that even when I fail or things don't go the way that I want them to, if I know I've put forth the effort, I can live with the result.

Speaker B 00:01:06

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor, and welcome to the Education on Far podcast, the place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

Speaker B 00:01:19

Listen to teachers, parents, and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all.

Speaker B 00:01:27

Hi, Mike, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Far podcast.

Speaker B 00:01:31

Great to speak to a fellow podcaster.

Speaker B 00:01:33

Great to speak to somebody from across the pond, so to speak.

Speaker B 00:01:36

And what I'm really excited about is the fact that this idea of that we're all in this together.

Speaker B 00:01:41

I think from an educational point of view, the idea of linking education to the real world, to jobs, to being in the community at large, the more that's joined up, the better.

Speaker B 00:01:51

And at the moment, they're quite siloed.

Speaker B 00:01:53

So I think this is going to be a fascinating conversation.

Speaker B 00:01:54

Thanks so much for being here.

Speaker A 00:01:56

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker A 00:01:57

I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker B 00:01:59

So let's give a little bit of an insight into what is.

Speaker B 00:02:03

We're all in this together.

Speaker B 00:02:04

I know it's a podcast, it's a book, but sort of, where did the idea of the intention start from?

Speaker A 00:02:11

Well, for the last almost 25 years, Mark, I've been speaking here in the US primarily, although I do spend a little bit of time over in the UK and Europe from time to time.

Speaker A 00:02:20

But a lot of my work focuses on teamwork and collaboration.

Speaker A 00:02:25

I actually wrote the book a few years back both to talk about and share some of the research that I'd been doing for the previous 20 years on teamwork and collaboration, but also in response to just the divisive nature of life here in America and around the world, that I just sort of felt like I think we've lost our way and sort of have forgotten about all the common ground that we have.

Speaker A 00:02:48

So that was sort of the impetus for the book when I wrote it.

Speaker A 00:02:51

And in some ways, it seems like it's more relevant than ever right now, even than when I wrote it a few years back.

Speaker B 00:02:57

It's amazing how that sort of circle keeps going round, isn't it?

Speaker B 00:03:00

The wheel keeps spinning and then, like, so you end up in the same place as well.

Speaker A 00:03:04

Yeah.

Speaker B 00:03:05

So tell me, how much of it was just based purely on what you've just described, but also the idea of, obviously, I know you've been a professional baseball player, so that idea of working as a team, the fact that to get the best out of people, you kind of have that sort of common goal and camaraderie, Is there sort any synchronicity in that?

Speaker A 00:03:24

Absolutely.

Speaker A 00:03:25

You know, I mean, I grew up here in the U.S.

Speaker A 00:03:28

you know, in the San Francisco area where I still live.

Speaker A 00:03:30

And, you know, my young life, Mark, was focused on school, obviously, but sports and baseball, which I know is not a big sport in the uk, but it's quite a big deal over here.

Speaker A 00:03:41

But the thing about it that, you know, I mean, I love the game and I loved playing and I loved competing.

Speaker A 00:03:46

But so much of the.

Speaker A 00:03:48

What I learned all those years as an athlete had to do with our human interaction with one another, as strange as that might sound.

Speaker A 00:03:55

Because when I was on teams where we actually cared about each other and valued each other and rooted for each other, we actually played better.

Speaker A 00:04:02

Even when I was on some teams where we had really good talent, but we didn't have that human connection and we didn't actually sort of bond as human beings.

Speaker A 00:04:11

It actually impacted the way that we played.

Speaker A 00:04:13

And I somehow thought this was, you know, specifically related to sports.

Speaker A 00:04:18

And then I got out into the real world after my baseball career ended due to an injury, and I realized, oh, no, this is a human phenomenon.

Speaker A 00:04:24

It's not just a sports phenomenon.

Speaker A 00:04:26

You know, and even thinking back to school to your point, and so much of the work that you do in the basis of this show, I remember spending a lot of my time growing up in school wondering, like, why the hell am I learning these things?

Speaker A 00:04:38

How does this relate to my life and anything I might do professionally as well as just my own, you know, human emotional experience?

Speaker A 00:04:45

Like, I never quite understood how it all connected.

Speaker A 00:04:48

So, so much of my work over the last two and a half decades has been about how do we connect some of those human dynamics with how we connect and collaborate with each other and how do we focus on the things that really matter most?

Speaker B 00:05:01

And what do you find is the, the key to that?

Speaker B 00:05:04

Is it understanding that everyone needs to at least be aware of it?

Speaker B 00:05:07

And I guess to sort of start by thinking we're all interconnected and as soon as we're pulling in the same direction, it's, it's going to be better than the individual parts because I guess once that snowball starts to go, it's just going to keep self generating.

Speaker A 00:05:21

Yeah, there's absolutely.

Speaker A 00:05:22

That's a huge part of it.

Speaker A 00:05:23

And I also think, as simple and almost corny as it sounds, it's just like remembering that, you know, we're fundamentally pretty much the same as human beings.

Speaker A 00:05:33

I mean, I've traveled all over the world, I've met people from all different types of backgrounds and different races and ethnicities and, you know, religious perspectives.

Speaker A 00:05:43

And again, there are definitely significant differences, obviously depending on where we find ourselves in the world.

Speaker A 00:05:49

But as I say, you know, when we get down below the waterline on the iceberg a bit, I mean, there's joy and there's pain and there's gratitude and there's sadness and there's excitement and there's fear and there's sort of the whole range of human emotions.

Speaker A 00:06:02

And I feel like whether we're talking about a sports team or a business team, or we're inside of a school, or we're talking to young people or people who are much older, it's like remembering those aspects of common ground that we have as human beings is a good place to start.

Speaker A 00:06:17

And I think we can often get so caught up in so many things that at the end of the day don't matter.

Speaker A 00:06:23

Again, when I think about education, it's like I would raise my hand when I was in high school and just ask, when am I going to use this in my life?

Speaker A 00:06:31

And to my teacher's chagrin, as they would roll their eyes and basically look at me and say, just shut up and read the book and take the test.

Speaker A 00:06:39

But it's like, well, how is this relevant to life?

Speaker A 00:06:42

And I think that's true in work as well as in school.

Speaker B 00:06:45

So let's take that point because it's an absolutely fascinating one.

Speaker B 00:06:48

Looking back now, like I say, a couple of decades on, what do you think was relevant?

Speaker B 00:06:53

And, and I guess that may or may not be the two plus two or however far math took you or whatever.

Speaker B 00:06:59

But are there sort of skills around it?

Speaker B 00:07:01

Are there, is there something you now think, yes, without that school experience, good or bad, I probably wouldn't have been able to have, I don't know, taken the journey that you're on, let alone be successful or whatever that sort of is in inverted commas.

Speaker A 00:07:13

I mean, I, you know, I went to a public.

Speaker A 00:07:16

I went to public schools all growing up here in the US and not, not great schools, to be honest.

Speaker A 00:07:21

I had the good fortune of going to Stanford University when I went to college, and I got to play baseball there and got, you know, a great education.

Speaker A 00:07:29

But I would say for me, the things about school that were most important, it was the socialization, it was being around other kids who were different than me.

Speaker A 00:07:38

It was learning about so many aspects of just interacting.

Speaker A 00:07:43

I raised by a single mom with an older sister, so I was learning things at home, but to me, that was as valuable or more valuable than what I was learning in the classroom.

Speaker A 00:07:51

I do think education is important, obviously.

Speaker A 00:07:53

I think learning how to learn is important.

Speaker A 00:07:55

I think some of the subjects, whether it was math and science as well as history and English and humanities, I think those things do matter.

Speaker A 00:08:03

The thing that I felt like was missing from a lot of my education, and while I do think we do a bit of a better job these days, I still think it's missing from a lot of education is there wasn't a lot of in those days, especially social, emotional learning, there wasn't a lot of, you know, I wanted to know, like, hey, how do I deal with the fact that, like, my parents got divorced and my dad's not around and my dad has bipolar disorder and we don't have a lot of money and, you know, none of that stuff was coming up at school.

Speaker A 00:08:28

Obviously, that's all very personal by nature.

Speaker A 00:08:31

But I was just like, where is that class?

Speaker A 00:08:33

Or, you know, if I'm interested in asking a girl on a date, but I'm scared to do that.

Speaker A 00:08:37

Like, nobody's really talking to me about what that's about.

Speaker A 00:08:40

Again, not that there necessarily needs to be a formal class, but I feel like, you know, I'm 51 years old now and was going through school in the 80s and graduated high school in the early 90s and was in college in the mid-90s.

Speaker A 00:08:52

Like, we weren't talking about a lot of those things at that time that I felt like were relevant to my life.

Speaker A 00:08:58

And I wished that I had more insight and awareness about those things back then.

Speaker B 00:09:03

And I think now, even with like, say, a little bit more sort of targeted lessons along those lines, they're also very sort of structured or very kind of predestined.

Speaker B 00:09:12

I'm not the, the free time that you need to kind of like you say, ask the questions, even if it's in a private space or a kind of a, certainly a safe space to be able to, to do that's really important.

Speaker B 00:09:23

And, and also I do have conversations on the show about the kind of, the sort of, the setting, the, the landscape and the environment to learn.

Speaker B 00:09:31

And on one, on one side of this, it's kind of, you know, are young people at home being fed, are they looking after an adult, are they, are they being neglected or whatever that happens to be.

Speaker B 00:09:42

And then they come into school and it's just about being safe, let alone about being sort of learning, which is, of course, is, is an extreme situation.

Speaker B 00:09:51

But I think what you described, many more people will be able to identify with because like you say, if you're, if you've got those butterflies and you're wanting to ask someone out on a date, that's probably more front and center of your mind than what your math lesson is or whatever you happen to do in school.

Speaker B 00:10:05

And even if you just understand a little bit more about how that's part of your life, it's going to give you the skills you need.

Speaker B 00:10:11

Obviously, maybe going on a date, but more importantly, in terms of being able to see how your education day, despite all of this, is still working, because I think we can all safely say that doesn't necessarily change as you start to leave school and go into work.

Speaker B 00:10:23

So understanding how it fits in the fabric of your life is such a key area.

Speaker A 00:10:27

Totally.

Speaker A 00:10:28

And you know, my wife Michelle and I have two daughters who Samantha, our older daughter's 19, and Rosie, our younger daughter, is 16.

Speaker A 00:10:34

So I've now been watching this unfold with them through their own educational journey.

Speaker A 00:10:40

Our oldest daughter is in her first year university out here in California where we live, and our younger daughter has a couple more years of high school.

Speaker A 00:10:47

And, you know, look, these kids also had to go through school during the pandemic and spent, you know, a good solid year plus at home doing school on zoom.

Speaker A 00:10:56

And I don't know, I mean, I have so much appreciation mark for educators and how challenging it is to educate young people in this day and age, even with all the technology and all the information that we have, I just feel like life is complex and there are so many layers to it.

Speaker A 00:11:13

And I think, you know, in my work, when I'm doing a lot of work in the business world, in the corporate world, and even when I speak in education, what I'm trying to focus on as much as I can, again, is that common humanity.

Speaker A 00:11:25

Can we speak to people as human beings first?

Speaker A 00:11:28

Again, as simple and as corny as that might sound.

Speaker A 00:11:31

But again, whether we're educating, you know, eight year olds in school or we're talking to, you know, corporate executives who are much older than that, at the end of the day, how we really influence people, whether we're trying to teach them or manage them or motivate them, is on a human level.

Speaker B 00:11:48

I think for me as well, the, the issue with some education from terms of that management and leadership areas, the fact that people, you know, you go into school, you want to make a difference, you are a teacher, you get promoted to a head of department, you become a senior leader, you know, blah, blah, blah, until you get to whatever part that you finish off.

Speaker B 00:12:06

But I don't know how much real quality education goes into making you a good manager.

Speaker B 00:12:13

You probably were great teacher, you might have an understanding of our education, but you very quickly become not an educator and you are a manager and that's a very different skill set.

Speaker B 00:12:24

And so take us into sort of that sort of correlation between that and like say within that business world, where of course they might start from that manager role but not quite understand it from the other side.

Speaker A 00:12:36

Well, look, I think in education, to your point, there are a lot of challenges with that, but even in the corporate world, I'm always amazed.

Speaker A 00:12:43

You know, people get promoted into management in the corporate world because they're good at their job, not necessarily because they're good with people.

Speaker A 00:12:49

And then they give you a job and they say now manage people.

Speaker A 00:12:51

And it's like what?

Speaker A 00:12:52

It's its own separate job with skills and challenges that are like, okay, you know, you take the average salesperson who's good at selling and then now manage the salespeople.

Speaker A 00:13:01

Often the best salespeople are terrible sales managers.

Speaker A 00:13:04

And then in education the same thing.

Speaker A 00:13:05

Someone's really good at teaching and then they get promoted into a management or administrative position.

Speaker A 00:13:11

And all of a sudden it's like, this is a different deal.

Speaker A 00:13:13

I'm now, you know, when I talk to a lot of administrators in public education here in America, whether it's, you know, in secondary education or people who are educating much younger people, they'll all often say, do you miss being in the classroom?

Speaker A 00:13:26

And a lot of them say, I do.

Speaker A 00:13:28

You know, and again, there's more money, there's more prestige.

Speaker A 00:13:31

But that's where sometimes sort of the ego as well as the system or the structure takes over.

Speaker A 00:13:36

And it's like, you know, what exactly are we doing and what's the motivation?

Speaker A 00:13:41

I mean, I think another challenge in education, and you probably know this better than I do, is that a lot of people are really smart and really well educated.

Speaker A 00:13:48

But the further along you get in education or the longer you've been doing it, sometimes the more disconnected from the real world you are.

Speaker A 00:13:56

And I love educational institutions from universities all the way down.

Speaker A 00:14:01

And as we all know, it's not necessarily the real world.

Speaker A 00:14:05

And so we're not always preparing people for the real world.

Speaker A 00:14:08

And if we're staying sort of in the insular world of academia, that is indeed very true.

Speaker B 00:14:14

And, and I'm curious in, in when, when you sort of go into businesses and organizations and obviously you're sort of training them in the way that you describes, but do they sort of give you an insight into the, into what sort of new employees or new people coming into the organization are struggling with?

Speaker B 00:14:33

And is there sort of a correlation between that and maybe what they're not being taught at school or some of those skills that they're not aware of?

Speaker A 00:14:41

Well, yeah, I mean, look, these days I do a lot of work with companies in Silicon Valley, just given where I live and what I, you know, where I grew up and the tech world and what's happening in technology these days, especially with artificial intelligence, and then everything we've been through over the last five years, through the pandemic and just the way work has changed, it's almost impossible, quite frankly, for the education system to prepare people for what they're going to walk into in today's world.

Speaker A 00:15:08

And look, I listen to and talk to a lot of really smart people.

Speaker A 00:15:11

People are a lot smarter than I am.

Speaker A 00:15:13

And everyone is basically saying about AI, like we don't really know where this is going.

Speaker A 00:15:17

It's very exciting and quite frankly, terrifying because there's so much happening right now.

Speaker A 00:15:24

And I was at a conference about a year and a half ago and one of the co founders of OpenAI, who, you know, created ChatGPT, was there and he said this was a year and a half ago.

Speaker A 00:15:31

He's like, we're like, in 1990 of the Internet right now.

Speaker A 00:15:34

And when he said that, I turned to a guy next to me and I was like, I didn't know what the hell the Internet was in 1990, you know, but so we're still in such the early stages of this.

Speaker A 00:15:42

I think the reality is both people who've been in technology or just in business for a while, especially younger people coming in newly.

Speaker A 00:15:52

There's a lot of nobody really knows what's happening right now phenomenon, which again is both exciting and scary.

Speaker A 00:15:58

And so I think companies today are really struggling to some degree, especially just given, you know, think of how we work right now relative to how we worked even eight, 10 years ago.

Speaker A 00:16:10

It's a different deal.

Speaker A 00:16:12

You know, most jobs of various types, even if you're not in technology, there's some aspect of hybrid working, if not, you know, working from home, which again, works for life.

Speaker A 00:16:21

And it's easy, you can walk the dog and take the kids to school and, you know, work in your sweatpants.

Speaker A 00:16:26

But it's also challenging in terms of both human connections, but also getting the training and the mentorship and the support that you need.

Speaker A 00:16:33

If you go into the office every day, it's not a guarantee you're going to get trained and mentored and supported, but at least there's other humans around you can ask questions to and go, what the hell does this mean?

Speaker A 00:16:42

But when you're sitting at home in your apartment or your, you know, your flat or your spare bedroom and going, I don't have a clue what I'm doing right now, it's a little harder to schedule the zoom call or send the slack message or reach out to someone to get the support that you need.

Speaker B 00:16:56

Yeah, and I was chatting to someone earlier today actually and we were talking about that kind of the thing you can't quite quantify, you know, the, the human interaction, which is non verbal, you know, the fact that you're just sharing a shared space, the fact that, you know, we're having a conversation here, but it's very specific.

Speaker B 00:17:11

You know, we said hello, we start recording and, and we, we take it as we do.

Speaker B 00:17:16

Had we been in person and we'd had half an hour before and we'd sat and had a coffee and caught up and I would have known your children's names or whatever it happened to be, but there's something about that virtual way that you don't have that kind of depth in the same way, which despite the content or what he might have been talking about, that that human connection just is different and it has to be by, by design, really, for sure.

Speaker A 00:17:38

I mean, I think the things that we thought of as superficial, you know, 10 years ago, you know, the.

Speaker A 00:17:43

Again, working, whether it's in education or in business or anywhere.

Speaker A 00:17:47

Hey, how's it going?

Speaker A 00:17:48

How was the weekend?

Speaker A 00:17:49

How are the kids?

Speaker A 00:17:49

How's the dog?

Speaker A 00:17:50

What's happening, all of the little things that happen in between the formalized nature of meetings or classroom settings or whatever.

Speaker A 00:17:57

Again, I mean, think of education.

Speaker A 00:17:59

My daughter actually, again, she's in her first year university and her last term at school that just ended.

Speaker A 00:18:05

She was talking to me about she had two in person classes.

Speaker A 00:18:10

She had one asynchronous class that was just sort of self paced and she had one class that she was taking on Zoom virtually.

Speaker A 00:18:18

And I asked her how it went and she said, I'm not going to do any more Zoom classes if I can help it.

Speaker A 00:18:23

I didn't like it.

Speaker A 00:18:25

And I said, really?

Speaker A 00:18:26

And she did some classes when she was, you know, in high school on Zoom, and she said the async class was okay because I could sort of, you know, do it at my own pace.

Speaker A 00:18:34

And I've done some asynchronous classes and I've learned how to do that.

Speaker A 00:18:37

And she said, but in person, even though sometimes I'm tired and I'm annoyed and I'm cranky and I don't really want to go sit in the lecture hall and listen to my professor, she's like, I have to be more engaged.

Speaker A 00:18:47

When I was on Zoom, it just felt weird.

Speaker A 00:18:49

She's like.

Speaker A 00:18:49

And I kind of had PTSD remembering the COVID days when I had to do all my classes on Zoom.

Speaker A 00:18:55

But it was just interesting to hear that was her perspective.

Speaker A 00:18:58

And I do think something gets lost and something gets missed when we're not together.

Speaker A 00:19:01

Now, look, it is nice you and I can have this conversation with you in the UK and me in the San Francisco Bay area and we can record it and people all over the world can listen or watch.

Speaker A 00:19:10

That's fantastic use of technology.

Speaker A 00:19:12

But in terms of our human connection, in terms of our relatedness to one another, it is different.

Speaker A 00:19:18

With me here in my office and you and yours and us clicking on Zoom and saying hi and then clicking off at the end, versus if we got together in downtown London or downtown San Francisco and sat face to face with one another, had this discussion.

Speaker B 00:19:31

Yeah, And I think that's key, isn't it?

Speaker B 00:19:33

Because I think even what you perceive to be the case can be better or different in that point of view.

Speaker B 00:19:39

Because as you were just saying that, I was thinking, yeah, thank goodness for the technology.

Speaker B 00:19:42

Otherwise we're not having this conversation.

Speaker B 00:19:44

Or it'll be by mail.

Speaker B 00:19:46

It would be back.

Speaker A 00:19:47

Exactly.

Speaker B 00:19:48

So that's a real positive thing, and there's no downside, really to that.

Speaker B 00:19:51

But like you say, if we happen to both be in, in.

Speaker B 00:19:54

In the Bay Area and we didn't decide to meet up, then I think that's a wasted opportunity because I could be sat in a hotel room, we could have the same conversation, but then, like, say, the, The.

Speaker B 00:20:03

The things that we could actually then have developed or, or.

Speaker B 00:20:06

Or like, say that human connection in that particular way would be different.

Speaker B 00:20:10

And I, And I can.

Speaker B 00:20:11

It's like, say, it's fascinating that your daughter kind of understood that in a, In a way, like, say, from a learning point of view, but I think we can all identify with that in whichever part of our lives that come up.

Speaker A 00:20:23

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A 00:20:24

And look, when it comes to education, even in the business world, I mean, there's a lot of content that's available.

Speaker A 00:20:29

You know, I have created courses virtually and we've done, you know, digital programs and things, and that's all great again, for scalability and for reach and for functionality and.

Speaker A 00:20:40

But I have found, again, over 25 years of being in, you know, aspects of adult education, for lack of a better way to describe it, there's something that happens when we do get together in person.

Speaker A 00:20:51

Whether it's 10 people sitting around a table or it's 1,000 people at a conference altogether, there's something that happens in the interaction with the human beings that I think matters and how that relates back to education as well.

Speaker A 00:21:03

Again, great teachers aren't just smart.

Speaker A 00:21:06

They don't just disseminate information.

Speaker A 00:21:08

They actually care about their students.

Speaker A 00:21:11

Right.

Speaker A 00:21:11

I mean, I think about the best teachers that I ever had growing up, it wasn't that they were the smartest people ever.

Speaker A 00:21:16

It's that they actually both cared about what they were teaching, so they brought some life to it, but they cared about me and my fellow students, and that actually made it come alive, even if it wasn't something that I was necessarily drawn to.

Speaker B 00:21:30

And I think that's where, I mean, this is always a dichotomy when we, when we talk here on the show, is the fact that, you know, the silver bullet to change what school looks like.

Speaker B 00:21:38

I mean, it probably is overdue, but it's not changing anytime soon.

Speaker B 00:21:41

The tanker takes a long time to shift.

Speaker B 00:21:43

Even we know the world of AI is going to change everything.

Speaker B 00:21:45

And all of that said, but it's that kind of finding that sort of gray area where we can make a difference.

Speaker B 00:21:51

You know, the idea of project based learning, you know, if you, if you just take something you're passionate about that you want to explore, then you know, doing maths to create important spreadsheets and budgets for something, you know, writing a presentation, having to speak, do a video, do a blog, finding out the resources that you're going to need to do it, working as a team to maybe present or at least create something that you're going to share.

Speaker B 00:22:17

You're still doing the same education, but it's in a way that's really valuable not only to that, to you in that time, but you going forward as well.

Speaker B 00:22:24

And it's going to be different than it is maybe when you leave school, but it's certainly a lot more relevant than just sitting down like say, waiting to sort of okay, what's next?

Speaker B 00:22:34

And this information just coming at you because we know that's just a long way removed from, from even what people are doing now, like say little.

Speaker B 00:22:41

And what's going to be going in the in future.

Speaker A 00:22:44

Totally, yeah.

Speaker A 00:22:45

And I think, I mean one of the issues we have here in the US and again, it may be a little different in the UK and other parts of the world, is just the economics of it, you know, public education versus private education.

Speaker A 00:22:56

But I even think about like my mother was a teacher, she passed away several years ago.

Speaker A 00:23:00

But you know, I've talked about this for quite a while now and I don't hear a lot of people talking about it and it gets into some sort of dicey territory.

Speaker A 00:23:09

But I do think one of the things that's happened in the United States especially is that teachers don't make enough money.

Speaker A 00:23:14

It's very expensive to live in lots of places like where I happen to live.

Speaker A 00:23:19

And we don't value educators in the same way.

Speaker A 00:23:23

And for several generations, as women started to work more in America, there were basically three jobs you could have as a female for quite a while.

Speaker A 00:23:33

You could be a nurse, you could be a secretary, or you could be a teacher.

Speaker A 00:23:36

Those were the primary professions for females for quite a long time.

Speaker A 00:23:41

And a lot of the most talented, most creative, most interesting females went into education because they had some autonomy, they had some capacity to impact and make a difference.

Speaker A 00:23:53

Now, fast forward to today.

Speaker A 00:23:55

One of the many benefits of today's world is that women have so many more options and opportunities for where they can work.

Speaker A 00:24:02

And what's happened, I think is we've Lost a lot of talent that previous generations went into education that now don't couple that with the fact that teaching isn't respected in the same way as a profession.

Speaker A 00:24:14

And the money that you make in a lot of places like where I live, you can't really support yourself on a teacher salary unless maybe you're a single person with no children.

Speaker A 00:24:23

And so again, there just becomes some functional challenges that get in the way that make it difficult.

Speaker A 00:24:30

And we also have the issue here in America where it's like, there's so much pressure in certain communities, like where I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, that these kids have so much pressure on them about secondary education, about going to college.

Speaker A 00:24:43

And the cost of that is extremely high now.

Speaker A 00:24:45

The competitiveness is off the charts.

Speaker A 00:24:48

And it's like I sometimes turn to my wife and I go, what the hell are we doing?

Speaker A 00:24:51

Like, is this really the best way for us to educate our kids?

Speaker A 00:24:55

I don't think so.

Speaker B 00:24:57

And then you have to have that conversation about, we think this is the route.

Speaker B 00:25:00

Like, say if your daughter's gone to university, you know, do you not go even though you want to, because there's another route?

Speaker B 00:25:06

Or despite all of that system being in place, great, if you want to go, because it's going to be fantastic.

Speaker B 00:25:12

But you need to be aware of what this means.

Speaker B 00:25:14

You know, like I say, in terms of your well being, in terms of if you're just playing the game, because without that degree, without that Master's, without that PhD, it's going to be harder to do all those things as well.

Speaker B 00:25:24

At the same time, you know, you know more than many parents about the skill set that you're going to need in order to be productive and get a great job and work in an environment that you really want to.

Speaker B 00:25:35

So I think understanding all of that, which is hard as a young person, say you can have those conversations more as they get older, but you know, it's harder when they're younger.

Speaker B 00:25:42

And you mentioned the economic side of it, and you're absolutely right in terms of the salaries and the way that the profession has gone.

Speaker B 00:25:49

But I think the other thing about the economics is the fact that actually so much of what school is now being developed into is actually childcare as well.

Speaker B 00:25:59

It's that kind of, they need to be in school for this amount of time because mum and dad or whoever's looking after children need to be at work that amount of time in order just to maybe make ends meet.

Speaker B 00:26:09

So, you know, shortening the, the school day and having more Other things that are going on at clubs that are outside of school even, or, or different people coming in, or, or however you want to describe, or however you would create it in an ideal world.

Speaker B 00:26:22

How you practically will put that into place is, well, it's literally like chalk and cheese, isn't it?

Speaker B 00:26:29

And so you can't change it easily.

Speaker B 00:26:31

So therefore, let's not change it at all.

Speaker B 00:26:32

Seems to be kind of where we're heading.

Speaker A 00:26:35

Totally.

Speaker A 00:26:35

And yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A 00:26:37

And look, I mean, even the conversation about artificial intelligence and sort of what comes next over the next five, 10 years, I mean, I've said to both of my daughters, look, the way that I talk about education in our house is like, look, education's important.

Speaker A 00:26:51

Mom and I value education.

Speaker A 00:26:52

We want you to engage in your education.

Speaker A 00:26:55

And there is a part of it that's kind of a game.

Speaker A 00:26:58

Like the grades.

Speaker A 00:26:59

Again, do we.

Speaker A 00:27:00

Would we rather you get good grades than not good grades?

Speaker A 00:27:02

Of course we would.

Speaker A 00:27:03

But the reality about grades is, I've talked to both of our daughters.

Speaker A 00:27:06

It just gives you more options.

Speaker A 00:27:07

The better grades you get, the more options you have, both while you're in school.

Speaker A 00:27:11

And as you think about going to university, going to college, and in terms of the college system, again here in America, it's like if you go to a more prestigious college, then again, it's about opportunities and options.

Speaker A 00:27:22

You might have more opportunities and more options for employment.

Speaker A 00:27:26

But the reality is, again, when you talk about, like, what do you get your degree and what do you major in?

Speaker A 00:27:31

I mean, there's so many professions that are currently being disrupted that will be disrupted.

Speaker A 00:27:36

So I was talking to someone the other day and he said his daughter, you know, wants to go to law school.

Speaker A 00:27:40

He's like, but I'm trying to tell her, I don't know what the law is going to look like in the next five or 10 years.

Speaker A 00:27:44

With artificial intelligence, there might not be a lot of need for lawyers.

Speaker A 00:27:47

And even when I talked to someone in Silicon Valley last week and he was saying that software engineers are really concerned right now because there's a lot of things coming out saying that artificial intelligence going to be able to write most of the code.

Speaker A 00:28:00

And for the last 40 years, we were a software engineer that was one of the most, not only stable, but just best leveraged jobs.

Speaker A 00:28:09

You could have that skill set.

Speaker A 00:28:10

You can kind of write your ticket anywhere because everybody needs good software engineers.

Speaker A 00:28:14

But that may not necessarily be the case.

Speaker A 00:28:17

So I say all of that, like, I feel like education is going to be even more important, but like so many things.

Speaker A 00:28:22

It's also going to be trickier to navigate, to figure out, well, what's the value proposition of this all the way around for everybody involved?

Speaker B 00:28:31

You bring up a really interesting point.

Speaker B 00:28:33

I was invited to a breakfast with the founder of Cambridge Spark, which is an AI apprenticeship and an AI related company.

Speaker B 00:28:44

And this came up is the sense of even is coding as a software engineer, is that going to go completely out the window?

Speaker B 00:28:52

And he made a really interesting point that absolutely, AI will be able to do all manner of things that maybe you could do or couldn't do, but it'll just save time or however that route develops as we go forward.

Speaker A 00:29:03

Right.

Speaker B 00:29:03

But you need the people to understand the first principles of all that, to make sure that what's being created by AI is what you want it to be, or that you have control over whatever or how you start to implement it has really good, solid foundations.

Speaker B 00:29:18

Yes.

Speaker B 00:29:18

And I thought that's really key because it's not that you, like, say you may not ever code, but you need to know how to code to therefore use the new tools that are going to come in order to make it what you want it to be.

Speaker B 00:29:29

So you've got real ownership of what it is that you're developing.

Speaker B 00:29:33

And those are the sorts of conversations which everyone surely must be having.

Speaker B 00:29:37

And like I say, I'm not sure you're ever going to hear it in school at the moment, but that's going to be much more important than even doing coding, which there probably isn't enough coding going on in school anyway, let alone anything else, as we sort of go down that rabbit hole.

Speaker A 00:29:48

Totally.

Speaker A 00:29:49

And I do think, I mean, again, I'm biased in this way just given my work and what I've focused on for the last 25 years, but also even my upbringing, I actually have believed for a long time that emotional intelligence is so important.

Speaker A 00:30:01

And still, while I do think we value it more today than we used to, I still think it's undervalued.

Speaker A 00:30:06

And both what you're talking about, conceptual understanding, first principles, and whether we're talking about technology or math or science or more of the STEM side of things, or we're talking about things that are a little more, you know, kind of humanities focused and sort of liberal arts education, I do think that some of those quote unquote, soft skills, and I've said for years, soft skills are hard.

Speaker A 00:30:29

Those soft skills are going to become even more important in a world in which so many of the hard skills get disrupted or, you know, AI agents or robots can do those things for us.

Speaker A 00:30:40

I mean, we've seen this happen over the course of history.

Speaker A 00:30:43

Of course, there are so many things that don't exist now that did exist not that long ago because technology came in, disrupted it, and all of a sudden we don't need people to do those things anymore because the machines can do it now.

Speaker A 00:30:55

There's a lot of things that we've considered sort of safe and sophisticated that now might fall into that category.

Speaker A 00:31:03

But I still think at the end of the day, to your point, like, the best AI in the world and the best technology can't recreate human emotion and human empathy.

Speaker A 00:31:14

And so bringing that, I mean, that's so much of the foundation of the work that I do when I'm working with managers and leaders.

Speaker A 00:31:19

It's like, look, being smart and knowing your stuff and getting more training and education is important, but at the end of the day, when people think about the best leaders they've ever worked for or the best teachers they've ever had, it's usually less about their intellect and their skills, and it's more about the human connection they had with that person.

Speaker A 00:31:35

I trusted them.

Speaker A 00:31:36

I felt like they valued me.

Speaker A 00:31:39

That's not about intelligence, that's not about education, that's not about reputation.

Speaker A 00:31:43

Because everyone I know has worked for someone who has a very impressive CV or resume but was a jerk and wasn't very nice to them.

Speaker A 00:31:50

And it's like, I don't care how smart that person was, I don't want to be around them.

Speaker A 00:31:54

Right?

Speaker B 00:31:54

Yes.

Speaker A 00:31:54

And at the same time, you've probably worked for someone who might have been smart and talented, but like, their empathy, their compassion, their understanding, their ability to connect with you and motivate you, that's the thing that really made the difference.

Speaker B 00:32:06

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker B 00:32:07

And I think that there's one other point that ties into all this we've been talking about in terms of the economic idea and time and the way that we want to share our life is that I think Bill Gates recently had turned around and said that, you know, AI and that sort of thing.

Speaker B 00:32:23

Can we be replacing teachers, replacing doctors?

Speaker B 00:32:26

You know, we'll only maybe need to be working two days a week.

Speaker B 00:32:30

I think I saw recently as well.

Speaker B 00:32:31

And then I thought, oh, what's that?

Speaker B 00:32:33

What does that mean?

Speaker B 00:32:34

And then I thought, well, that sounds fantastic.

Speaker B 00:32:36

If we can actually have a life where we don't need to work 9 to 5 or 12 or 14 hours a day, but we can still survive as a race, you know, we can still make Ends meet.

Speaker B 00:32:45

If we need finances or however the world might look, then that's a really positive thing.

Speaker B 00:32:50

It's just that people can't imagine that that's the case because I need the world to look like this in order to earn this money, to live like that.

Speaker B 00:32:56

But of course, as soon as you're thinking outside the box, then all of a sudden the wheels come off.

Speaker B 00:33:01

But could be in a really positive way, not necessarily just a negative way.

Speaker B 00:33:04

But yeah, it kind of struck me that that's really sort of key to a lot of what we've said so far.

Speaker A 00:33:09

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A 00:33:09

I mean, I do think the notion of being, you know, look, most change, we seek and fear at the same time, right.

Speaker A 00:33:16

As human beings, we want things to change.

Speaker A 00:33:18

It's exciting, but it's scary because we don't know what it involves necessarily.

Speaker A 00:33:22

And I think we're at a moment right now, you know, we've been through massive amounts of change, especially over the last five years.

Speaker A 00:33:28

I think these next five years are going to be massively disruptive, hopefully in different kinds of ways than the last five years have been.

Speaker A 00:33:35

But, you know, that goes back to the notion of all of us being in it together.

Speaker A 00:33:40

Like, I remember when my book first came out and we were right, going into the pandemic, people were asking me, are we really all in this together?

Speaker A 00:33:47

Like, it doesn't feel like it.

Speaker A 00:33:48

We're all separated and people are freaked out.

Speaker A 00:33:50

And, you know, and I said, well, I think it's more like we're all in the same storm, but we're in different boats.

Speaker A 00:33:57

And in some ways, if we think about that in the most positive context, it's like, can we connect with the boats of the people around us?

Speaker A 00:34:03

Can we learn from each other?

Speaker A 00:34:05

Can we lean on each other?

Speaker A 00:34:07

Can we all acknowledge, especially when we're going through times we're like, this is scary and weird and different, and I don't really know exactly what the rules are of this new game, but to me, it's like doing that with other people that I know and trust and care about is not only easier, but makes it more likely that I'm going to be effective in getting through whatever comes up.

Speaker B 00:34:26

Yeah, and I love what you said before about, you know, the.

Speaker B 00:34:29

The main teachers that have a big impact to the ones that make you feel differently or they see you or they kind of really do that.

Speaker B 00:34:34

Because I think that's a theme that's really come to sort of a lot on.

Speaker B 00:34:38

On the show, and it makes so much.

Speaker B 00:34:40

No one's ever to mind and said it's how they may be learned.

Speaker B 00:34:43

Two plus two.

Speaker B 00:34:43

It was always about inspired me in some way or it made me feel like something's possible.

Speaker B 00:34:47

And even people who said, you know, it wasn't actually my teacher, I just took a class or someone that I knew within that, which is, yeah, I love it when those themes keep coming back.

Speaker B 00:34:55

But I mean, is there a piece of advice that you've been given or a piece of advice you might give your younger self, knowing that sort of would like, say, with that sort of two decades hat on?

Speaker B 00:35:04

And I always slightly caveat those to the fact that I know I probably wouldn't have listened to myself, given that advice earlier on.

Speaker B 00:35:10

But if you haven't heard it, then you never know what's possible, do you?

Speaker A 00:35:13

You know, I had one of my favorite teachers in high school was also my basketball coach, and even though I was primarily a baseball player, played basketball too.

Speaker A 00:35:22

And this man, Don Lippy, who I'm still close with to this day, he was actually a history teacher, although I had him for a leadership class because I was one of the student officers.

Speaker A 00:35:32

So.

Speaker A 00:35:33

But his whole philosophy of life, both as a basketball coach and even as a classroom teacher, was about effort.

Speaker A 00:35:41

And he would say to us all the time, like, the only things you can control in your life are your attitude and your effort.

Speaker A 00:35:48

Everything else is some version of out of your control.

Speaker A 00:35:51

And so he taught me in those days when I was 16, 17 years old, and I didn't fully appreciate the lesson, but it made more sense as I got older of just like, give it everything you got.

Speaker A 00:36:03

And whatever happens, whether you're on the basketball court or in the classroom or in life, like, you can live with the result if you know that you gave your full effort.

Speaker A 00:36:10

And that doesn't have anything to do with talent or skill or ability.

Speaker A 00:36:14

It has to do with just a willingness.

Speaker A 00:36:16

And I had a chance to spend a little time with Coach Lippy not that long ago.

Speaker A 00:36:20

He since has retired, but the NBA All Star Game was here in the San Francisco area last month, and the NBA happens to be a client of mine.

Speaker A 00:36:29

And so I got some tickets and I invited Don Lippy to come with me.

Speaker A 00:36:32

And it was so great just to see him and catch up.

Speaker A 00:36:34

And we were reminiscing about some things, but I was able to thank him for, you know, not only what he taught me as an athlete, but as a student and just as a human being.

Speaker A 00:36:43

And I think about that as a father.

Speaker A 00:36:44

I think about that in my work now and I try to impart it and it's not again, some kind of like we have to work from noon, you know, from morning till night, every single day.

Speaker A 00:36:53

But.

Speaker A 00:36:53

But I do think that piece about effort is a really important one and that we get to choose how much effort we put forth into things.

Speaker A 00:37:01

And I know for myself that even when I fail or things don't go the way that I want them to, if I know I've put forth the effort, I can live with the result.

Speaker B 00:37:10

Yeah, I love that.

Speaker B 00:37:11

It's a great story.

Speaker B 00:37:12

And I think also every person listening knows, have I really done everything that I can?

Speaker B 00:37:18

And there might be a trade off, you might decide that actually I couldn't for whatever reason.

Speaker B 00:37:21

And that's fine.

Speaker B 00:37:22

But I think we inherently know that actually had I given an extra 10%, I've done the extra half an hour, kicked an extra ball, whatever it happened to be, it actually might have just made that difference.

Speaker B 00:37:32

And that's a conversation with yourself, isn't it?

Speaker B 00:37:34

That I think we can all do in whichever part of our life that happens to be.

Speaker A 00:37:38

Yeah.

Speaker B 00:37:39

Is there a resource you'd like to share?

Speaker B 00:37:41

And this can be professional but also personal.

Speaker B 00:37:43

Anything from a song, video, podcast, book.

Speaker B 00:37:46

But yeah, something that you found interesting that people might be interested in hearing.

Speaker A 00:37:50

You know, it's interesting.

Speaker A 00:37:53

There's two TED Talks that I tend to go back to and watch, and they were done quite a long time ago.

Speaker A 00:38:01

One is the one it actually wasn't delivered as a TED Talk.

Speaker A 00:38:04

It's a graduation speech at Stanford University, where I happen to go, that Steve Jobs gave many years ago, I think back in 2005 or 2006, obviously before he passed away.

Speaker A 00:38:13

I think he died in 2011.

Speaker A 00:38:15

But he talks about, you know, sort of.

Speaker A 00:38:18

It's hard to connect the dots looking forward, but you can connect them looking back.

Speaker A 00:38:21

So I recommend that one.

Speaker A 00:38:22

And another one was given by Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity again many years ago.

Speaker A 00:38:27

I think that TED Talk was back in 2009, but I watched that TED Talk several times.

Speaker A 00:38:33

Every time I'm writing a book, I always watch it just because it reminds me of the power of creativity.

Speaker A 00:38:37

So those are two sort of classic TED talks that I would recommend everybody check out, if you haven't already.

Speaker B 00:38:43

Yeah, I think reminding people of the TED talks is really key because there are lots of people who I mention them as if everybody watches them and everyone knows about them, but that's not always the case.

Speaker B 00:38:51

And I think that tying in, especially with creativity is a really, really important one.

Speaker B 00:38:55

Yeah.

Speaker B 00:38:56

So thanks for that.

Speaker A 00:38:56

Yeah.

Speaker B 00:38:58

Now, obviously, the acronym FIRE is important to us here, Education on fire.

Speaker B 00:39:02

And we talk about feedback, inspiration, resilience and empowerment.

Speaker B 00:39:06

What is it that strikes you either word for word or is it is a group of words when you see that?

Speaker A 00:39:13

You know, I mean, I was talking about Don Lippy, my high school basketball coach and teacher, just a few minutes ago, and I think.

Speaker A 00:39:20

I think that to inspire people, to empower people, and really to create that sense of resilience, feedback is necessary.

Speaker A 00:39:29

And look, it's hard to give feedback, it's hard to get feedback.

Speaker A 00:39:32

Most of us, myself included, squirm a little bit, but I just think when we think about the teachers and the coaches and the managers and the people who've had the biggest impact in our lives, usually they gave us some feedback, even sometimes feedback we didn't necessarily want, but it's so important to do that.

Speaker A 00:39:50

And I think if we can give and receive feedback with a sense of love, with a sense of care, with a sense of compassion, it's much more likely to land.

Speaker B 00:39:58

I kind of think that sometimes actually having a feedback class would be really good just to take the emotion out of it, to take everything out of it, because, like, say, the power in it is absolutely amazing.

Speaker B 00:40:09

But so often there's a personal kind of angst, but like you say, on both sides of that coin, and I think anything we can do to help and support people, that word particularly, I think is really key.

Speaker B 00:40:21

So, yeah, thanks for pointing that one out.

Speaker B 00:40:23

Yeah, amazing.

Speaker B 00:40:25

I always love the fact that when I can have conversations which aren't just necessarily within the education space, because I think we all are in the education space, whether we're teachers, whether we're coaches, we've got children that have been through it, we've been through education, so it's not like we're.

Speaker B 00:40:40

We're not all involved.

Speaker B 00:40:41

And I think having these conversations as a.

Speaker B 00:40:44

An interconnected idea of what the world needs, of what learning is and how it fits in, is a really powerful one.

Speaker B 00:40:50

So, Mike, thank you so much for being here.

Speaker B 00:40:52

Thanks for sharing all that wisdom and just tell people where they can go and find out more about you and get involved.

Speaker A 00:40:58

Well, thanks for having me.

Speaker A 00:40:59

I appreciate the conversation, I appreciate what you do.

Speaker A 00:41:02

The best place to connect with me and my work is at our website, which is mike-robbins.com Amazing.

Speaker B 00:41:08

Have a great day, enjoy the sun out there.

Speaker B 00:41:10

We've got a little bit of warmth here in the uk, so I'm going to have that.

Speaker B 00:41:13

It's something to hold on to even when ours disappear.

Speaker B 00:41:16

So, yeah, really appreciate your time.

Speaker A 00:41:18

Thanks.

Speaker B 00:41:19

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.