Ged: [00:00:00] So the next step obviously is you’ve gotta read the book. But that’s still not enough because unless you use what’s in the book to change behavior, all you’ve done is spent a lot of money on paper
And welcome back to Cardcast, the podcast where Milan and I pick a card at random from a deck of cards just like this. A deck of cards that Milan has designed, well, conceived, designed, and built. We pick a random card, and that’s the topic for today’s conversation.
So let’s shuffle the pack and let’s see what we deal out
Milan: Okay. This is an interesting… I don’t think that we had a joker card before, this is the first time. And this is a card which is really about the cards, right? It’s it’s a card about learning, and it’s talking a bit about where this whole thing came from and why is it looking the way, the way it is.
So maybe let’s start talking about learning in general and, you know, learning for CEOs and then maybe I’ll get a [00:01:00] chance to plug in the card system itself a little bit.
Ged: As, as coaches, you know, we, we value learning. I mean, one of, one of my core values is lifelong learning. And you know, I’m, I maybe take it a little bit too far. I probably read at least a book a week, if not more. But I passionately believe that learning is, is, is the easiest way to develop yourself both mentally, spiritually, from a business perspective, from a personal perspective.
You know, it’s, it’s just the, the, the most effective and productive way of, of learning. And that’s one of my core values, so I look for CEOs who are also keen learners. ‘Cause if they’re not learning, they’re probably not really, really ready to be coached. They’re probably not coachable. W- what have you found?
Is, is learning part of the-
Milan: Abso-absolutely. Like, c-come on, like, you know, bring in a coach because you want different results. Get different [00:02:00] results, you need to change your behavior, right? You won’t get different results with the same behavior and the same approach. And in order to change your behavior, you have to learn, you know? Whether it’s a new skill, whether it’s a new technique, whether it’s a new tool whatever it is. So you know, I, I have a saying that, you know, you talk to me, you get a reading list, right? And you know that every time we, we have an episode that we drop in, you know, names of books. Like, you have a bookshelf, I have a bookshelf behind us.
You know, we’re both, both avid, avid readers. We expect to some degree that even from our business CEOs and their leadership teams, like, you know, one book at a quarter is an absolute minimum. Like, come on. Like, what kind– What are you doing if you’re not reading? And I think that we talked about this in the prioritization, right?
When you know, usually in the first conversation with a, with a prospect or with somebody who is considering coaching, in the mentoring situation, [00:03:00] as soon as we figure out where, where is their, you know, number one problem to attack, I would throw book at them and say, “Well, call me back when you’ve read it,” right? Some of them never do, and that’s okay.
Ged: Yeah, indeed
Milan: Right? Because like, you know, if you can’t– If you, if you won’t prioritize solving that problem to the degree of, you know, making time, you won’t find time, you have to make it to, to read and learn. Or even if it’s an audiobook, I don’t care. Or go and get, you know, Notebooks LLM to give you sort of an abbreviated version.
But, you know, find a way to absorb that knowledge because if you don’t there is no helping you. Simple as that.
Ged: There’s so many books out there and so many podcasts and so many courses that any CEO or leadership team member could spend time on. How, how do you choose where to go with your learning, and how do you make it stick?
Milan: Yeah. So two, two [00:04:00] levels. So what, what I ch- what I do is probably the same thing that you do, meaning that, you know, we’re talking to other coaches all the time, and people mention, “Oh, I read this and it was really helpful.” So I have ever-growing reading list that is– that has tendency to go– to grow faster than I can chip away at it from the, from the top, and I’m sure you’re similar, similar to that. When it comes to suggesting materials to our clients, that’s where you use the judgment, right? It’s it’s our job to read faster than they do. So we can help them and say, “Oh, this is the book for you to read next because it’s gonna have the biggest lift on, on your current situation.” and when we don’t talk to them, right? When it’s when it’s up to them, that’s where the cards come in, right? Because it’s, it’s sort of their job is to look through the cards and say, “Oh, this might be actually relevant to me.” And then they can spend the three to five minutes to read of what’s going on. That’s, you know, considered a micro learning. And then if that resonates, [00:05:00] then there is always a rabbit hole, right? You have the tools, you have other, other related cards. You might have a link to a book. Because really it’s not about whether to learn, it’s about what to read next or what to consume next, what to do next. What’s gonna have the biggest b- the biggest lift again, and that’s that’s how, you know, the cards were created in the first place. First for me I’m terrible at taking notes, right? I can either pay attention or take notes. I can’t do both at the same time. That goes back to college. But so I started, you know, n-noting things on the cards and then then I think you said like, “Well, it’s great, but what is this card about?”
So I started writing them and, you know, here we are, seventy cards later.
Ged: So the cards, they didn’t start out as a product that you wanted to produce. That, that was the start of your second brain, in effect. You know, getting ideas and concepts and thoughts out of your mind onto paper so that you never lost them. So that, that was the genesis of the [00:06:00] cards. Is that right?
Milan: Yeah, pretty much because you know, I have a pretty good sort of contextual memory, so you give me a trigger and, and things will appear. So the cards were helpful in that, you know, I would go through them, through the original ones. I have to find the original hand- hand-drawn deck. But you know, you, you sort of go through that i- in a…
Like bef- before a session, I would go through it and say, “Oh, this is a topic I should probably use. This is a tool that would make sense to, to do,” right? But then other coaches and and clients saw me doing that, and they were like, “What the hell is that?” So I would show them the cards, and they would say, “Well, that’s pretty, but does not help me,” because, they didn’t have the context that was in the back of my mind.
So I started writing the article behind each card and, you know, then you saw it and said, “We should make a podcast out of it,” and here we are 42 maybe, 43 episodes later, which is ridiculous.[00:07:00]
Ged: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s gone a l- come a long way. I remember that night in Vancouver at the end of our conference where you showed me the cards and yeah, out of that conversation came a podcast and the packs of cards.
Milan: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Ged: Yep
Milan: Yeah, I might… I wonder if I have the very original ones here somewhere. Let me see. Yeah, probably somewhere, but not, not particularly handy, so I won’t
Ged: So
so whilst you’re looking for the cards we, we started talking about learning and going straight into books. And you, you mentioned your long reading list, and I’m sure many CEOs and leaders, they, they have this stack of books either by their desk or by their bed. And you know, the, the, the stack of books always gets taller, it never gets shorter. And when I speak to CEOs and I set them a book at, as a, as a reading task, and I’ll say to them, “So, you know, buying a book or being given a book is just the start.” Now, you… [00:08:00] It’s not enough. You know, you can have a tower of books, but if they’re unread, all you’ve done is invested a lot of money in paper.
Milan: Yeah, absolutely
Ged: So the next step obviously is you’ve gotta read the book. You know, you’ve gotta buy the book or acquire the book. You’ve gotta read the book. But that’s still not enough because unless you use what’s in the book to change behavior, unless you use what’s in the book as a way of i- implementing, you know, what’s in the book, implementing that as a change in what you do all you’ve done is spent a lot of money on paper still.
And not every book is gonna change your life, and that’s okay. Now, I, I go about reading books with very much the frame of mind that if I find one thing in that book that I think I can take away and apply or teach to someone else or coach to someone else, then reading that book was probably worth it.
And there’s been very, very few books that I’ve read that made me think, [00:09:00] “Hmm, I got nothing from that.”
Milan: Yeah, yeah. A-a-and you know that that is close again to, to the idea. So, you know, because very often it’s one sentence, right? And to be perfectly honest, you finish reading a book and you are like, “Oh, this could have been three pages.” Right? Because the publishers are relentless. Like, if it doesn’t have fi-50,000 words, we are not gonna you know, print it. So you’re like, you’re done after your 15 pages, and then you’re like, okay. Ob-obviously not talking about present company authors, but you know, I think, I think we all had that experience and say, okay, how many different ways you could find to say the same thing because that book has that one carrying idea. And then you have a book that has 70 of them, and then what, what the hell do you, do you pick up, right? So, sometimes there is a card that is inspired by by that one sentence in one book. And some books [00:10:00] have you know, five, six, seven cards related to them because they have that many profound concepts that can be used.. Then the idea is that if we can, within the, you know, 300 to 500 words, which is the amount of text in, you know, one, one card article, that CEO that one tool that they can use today to make their life a little bit easier or to empower somebody there, whether it’s, you know, delegation tool, whether it’s a you know, ability to recognize a problem, whether it’s a different thinking pattern.
That one thing that they can grab from the morning, you know, fr-from reading that card over coffee it then we’ve done our job. Yeah, I’m just trying to find a– I’m just trying to find a particular card, and of course, it’s escaping me for some reason. Maybe
Ged: So the cards are really, they’re, they’re micro-learning in the wild. And whether you’re choosing a card because it’s a topic that you’ve just encountered or had problems [00:11:00] addressing it could also be just one you pick up at random. And like I know that it’s a practice that I’ve started doing with my CEOs.
I bring a pack of cards and I go around a table and get everyone to pull a card out at random, and then and, and they get… If they don’t like the first one, they get another chance to pull out another one. But then we have a very short conversation about that card. And it’s, it, it, I- I use it as part of the, you know, the cohesive part of a, a session.
You know, we, we share something, something personal, something of, something about vulnerability, something that’s sort of in a, is maybe close to us. You know, and then we have a more open conversation around the topics of the card. And you know, and if we get four or five cards out and discussed in, you know, five, 10 minutes, then that’s, that’s a good use of that time
Milan: No, that, that’s fantastic. I’m so happy to hear that. You know, I just was in a, in a whole day working session with a client the CEO… I, I was talking about and I mentioned the cards, and he immediately pulled out the te- the pack, started [00:12:00] listening to it. “Oh, that one.” Right? And then he was telling the rest of the room and say, “Hey, this is what I do.
I would just, you know, pull the card out before meeting and, and look at things and say, ‘Oh, we should really talk about this today.’” And that, that gives me a massive satisfaction because it feels like, like that it is one of my mentees come back to me and say, “Yeah, you know, this is my morning coffee ritual.” Just to go through, you know pick up a card, read that, see what… And, and, you know, because even if you don’t get anything, you just wasted three minutes. Fine. Right? But it’s, it’s interesting. Sometimes the universe, you know, serves you exactly what you needed to read right now, and that’s sort of the idea of the CEO Game website as well, where, you know, you get a daily draw. You can, you know, it, it will guess what might be relevant to you today. Or you can get the cards delivered by email and, and things like that as well, because, you [00:13:00] know, not, not everybody wants to fuss with this and then have to scan the QR code to get to the text itself, right? So I’m looking for a different ways of delivering this to people. And then of course, if you read a card that is mentioned in the podcast episode, then the, then the Cardcast episode is just one click away.
Ged: So the cards started off as your, your second brain as as it were. But the, but it’s now multi-format and like you, you iterated through some of those formats, but, you know, what, what are all those formats? We’ve got the physical deck of cards like this, but what, what are the others?
Milan: Yeah. Well, we have the, we have the Cardcast, right? Which is really generally one, one card per episode, unless we have a guest and we want to, we want to cover a, a broader topic. And then the CEO Game website
Ged: S- so this podcast? Yep
Milan: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Then, then we have the the CEO Game website, where again, it’s the same content.
You go there, you see, you know, you can you can do it electronically. It’s it’s quite mobile [00:14:00] friend- friendly as well. And then think I can say that yes, there is a book in the making, but that’s probably good half year away, I don’t think, I don’t think it will come out it in ’27 ’26. I think it’s a ’27 thing. First we’ll get the the website all dialed in and, and everything, everything with that. Other formats, maybe. We’ll see. Any ideas? What else can we do with this?
Ged: Oh, I, I don’t know. I don’t know. I, I, we should, we should take that thought away because you know, from where, you know, the genesis of where it started was very, very humble. And you know, we don’t, it’s, we don’t want it to take over the world, but we also wanna get it out there as much as we, as we can.
So,
so
so, my-
Milan: The feedback from people who are using it is that it’s helpful And you know you were talking about your values and my my values are around around help so as long as people find value in it I will be looking for ways to get it in their hands and to get get the content consumed in [00:15:00] in whatever way is the most convenient to them right
Ged: Yep. So a C- a CEO gets a pack of these cards in their hand. How should they use them? You know, what was your… When you created them, what was your intention?
Milan: So raran pull one randomly is one idea obviously Just hey this is this is interesting you can play it with your team There is actually a little card with a suggested g rule of a game which it doesn’t have a winning person but it ha a winning player but it has a winning card which really the idea is that that card would be the topic that seems to be most relevant for people in the room in that place And then online there is sort of the oracle thing so you can use it as a tarot reading thing Like hey these three cards this one looks the most interesting or what does these these these cards mean together You know you can you can be really playful with that But ultimately you know you end up picking that [00:16:00] one card that resonates with you most at the moment and reading that and hopefully picking that one tool that’s going to be useful that same day and then for every single day after that
Ged: So was your thinking that, you know, someone would pick up the card and they would ask the question that’s sort of, you know, captured in the card? Or is it, would you expect that person to tell the room what they thought that card was about? Or is it just to spark a conversation? Or, or, or all of those things.
You know, it could be all of those things
Milan: Well wwhat I would have people do randomly because you know as as you know you know you you have you have the card and then you know on the other side of the card the the logo is actually a live QR code that takes you to the text of the card you know you can Oh this is the card that’s interesting What is this about You know you scan it you go to the you go to that page and then you know everybody can read it and then have the conversation right That’s the that’s the That’s why it’s just three to five minutes That’s why it’s so short so it [00:17:00] can be easily make part of made part of a meeting and pick that one thing and then you can have the discussion or you can draw several cards on the similar topic and then divide and conquer and then you know bring the conversation in as you know sometimes it it’s about it’s about a conversation It’s about what not necessarily the ideas in the card but what does it spark How do you then take that and say Oh this is what we can do better This is what we can take take away from it including that Hey we completely disagree with this But even that is a trigger of potentially very healthy thinking that will help you move your team and organization forward So all there is to it It’s really not that complicated
Ged: S- so if someone likes the idea of these cards, how would they get hold of a copy? Because they’re not available for purchase at this point, are they?
Milan: Well you know you can you can come to the CEO Game website and contact us and you know we’ll figure it out Yeah they’re not on Amazon or anything like that [00:18:00] but you know they’re they’re printed in sufficient quantity that they can be delivered to those who want them And yes we will be working on the distribution eventually to make it easier But you know the easiest way is to become a coaching client and then you just get them for free right
Ged: Well we should have a, we should have an episode on that as well. Get a coach. Hmm
Milan: Yeah yeah exactly we might I have a funny feeling that there is a card on that so we’ll probably have that episode eventually
Ged: Okay, so microlearning in the wild. I, I love that sort of, that concept. You know, one topic, go down a rabbit hole in three to five minutes. You know, learn from what you can- well, learn what you can from the people in the room and the conversation you have around that topic. And some of those topics will be well familiar to you, well-known to you.
Others will be new, but the card takes you to where the learning is. Microlearning in the wild
Milan: I have to start using that It’s a it’s a very very fun expression Yeah especially given the you know graphic topics of all the forest animals and the wilderness So that makes that [00:19:00] makes a lot of sense So thank you for that nugget
