‘Almost every experience that I have is a story that I’m going to tell.’
We often think of great leadership as ‘magic,’ but the truth is that’s a convenient excuse. Great leaders aren’t born that way – they become great by leaning in to what John Amaechi describes as ‘ a very boring set of skills and a huge amount of personal effort’.
John’s own background in the NBA showed him that the most extraordinary athletic achievements are the result of dull, consistent, mundane practice. That makes greatness accessible – though not necessarily easy – for anyone who chooses it.
One of the most fundamental skills of leadership is storytelling, and John is a master at turning the raw material of daily experience into stories that connect, challenge and inspire. He has a model of storytelling that I guarantee you’ll never forget. And why turn stories into books? Because books force the ‘so what?’ question. And that changes everything.
John’s linktr.ee: https://linktr.ee/itsnotmagic
John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amaechi/
Alison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-alison-jones/
The 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge: www.proposalchallenge.com
Alison Jones: I am here today with John Amaechi, who is an organizational psychologist, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, a chartered psychologist with expertise in human resources, and a professor of leadership at the University of Exeter Business School. And he’s the author of the bestselling The Promises of Giants, and his latest book is called It’s Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders, which is a great title as well.
But it’s lovely to have you on the show, John. So first of all, welcome. Good to see you here.
John Amaechi: is a pleasure. Thank you.
Alison Jones: And let me ask you about that title. It is, it’s a, it’s a great cover, by the way. If you’re looking on YouTube, you can see the cover there. It’s Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders. Why is it do you think that we are so keen to pretend that extraordinary leadership is somehow magical? What’s going on there?
John Amaechi: There’s probably, but there’s multiple things. But immediately my mind goes to two that I think are primary. One is that the role models we have out there who have extraordinary positions of power are so epically bad. And I don’t mean necessarily malevolent or evil, but… because we can probably think of people we might imagine are malevolent or evil, who also have great power, but…
Also they, if they are not, that they are so, so brilliantly good at abdicating any responsibility that we might have tried to bestow to the title of leader whether it be in government or in business or anything else or in communities. And so that’s the one side. The other side is because when we imagine powers to be magical in nature, it is luck of the draw who gets them, and no amount of personal work will allow you, you can learn a few tricks, but you’ll never be a proper magician. And what a wonderful excuse that is for all of this. And I…
Alison Jones: …it lets us off the hook, doesn’t it?
John Amaechi: I’ll just not bother. I wasn’t born with the magical, I don’t know, pick the communication skills of Barack Obama, or I wasn’t born with the, I don’t know, the humanness touch of, of Brian Cox or I wasn’t…. all of a sudden, all the excuses are there for you to say, well, if only I was genetically bestowed or magically endowed. I think those two things in, there’s more probably, but those two things in combination are very powerful. We can say, who are the role models out there? You are telling me that it’s ordinary and every day, and yet, where are they?
And on the other hand, I, I like the idea that they’re magical. because then I can just say I wasn’t you know, I was born without powers.
Alison Jones: Which does also ‘other’ leaders, which makes it easier for us to sort of stand in the stalls and throw popcorn at them and criticize, and all the things that are much easier to do than actually step into the arena.
John Amaechi: Yes. Yes. But also this, it’s, it’s interesting that the language of leadership, this sparks, because you said arena and it’s, it’s a, it just struck me that that word comes up very often when we’re talking about leadership, because leadership is, right, it, it is inextricably tied with this kind of weirdly masculine, weirdly alpha masculine narrative.
So, you know, the other excuse is, well, I can’t possibly be a leader because I don’t shout enough. Or I’m an introvert. Or something else. And what I was trying to convey in part, in a little bit of frustration with some of my coaching clients who used to say. It’s easy for you, you’re magic when I would diffuse a conflict in their, you know, in their offices somewhere.
I would see a conflict. I would, I’m an in-house coach in a number of organizations. I’d walk into a room. I don’t have any more information than anybody else, but I’d use some very basic skills to deescalate in the moment. It doesn’t solve the problem right there, but it just deescalates. And they were like, well, it’s easy for you because you are magic.
And that magic might be some qualification that I have or some, some, some kind of inherent magic, but it’s a great excuse. Well, why can’t you do this? Well, the difference is a very boring set of skills and a huge amount of personal effort.
Alison Jones: Let’s talk about the boring, because I think this… and you’ve talked about this through The Promises of Giants as well, and, and I’ve heard you speak on it and it, it’s such a, it’s such a deeply unsexy and brilliant aspect, no offence, when you just talk, it’s, it’s the mundanity of it. It’s that you, there is no sort of magic wand.
You don’t, as you say, stand up and be anointed as a leader. You just do really basic fundamental things consistently, conscientiously. So just, yes. What, I mean, give us some examples.
John Amaechi: Well, you, you set it up perfectly, right? So this is one of the pre, one of the things that. I’ve learned from, from my past career in sports, right? And, and I don’t think, like many men, that everything in leadership relates to a story about sports. But one of the things you do learn is how utterly exceptional outcomes, the stuff that you see elite athletes do that just, it literally is impossible for, for us mere immortals, is born of building blocks of utterly onerous, dull, mundane stuff.
And once you connect that, you realize that almost everything exceptional comes from that. And it’s the same in academia and it’s the same in business, and it’s the same in governance and anything else. And so it is simple things like for example, authentic presence.
And I, please know, everybody who’s thinking this is not about that, that straight jacket of, what’s it called? Executive presence, is that what they call it?
Alison Jones: There is, there is a thing called executive presence.
John Amaechi: Yes, it’s not the straight jacket of that. You do not have to look like somebody else. You do not have to speak loudly. You don’t have to use your hands in a certain special way, but there is a power.
It’s very present for psychologists because almost our entire power is the idea that when we talk to you, you know that I am here now with you, undistracted by what else might be going on in this world. Here I am with you. There is real power. The people we pay attention to are the people we care about.
People think we care when we pay attention. There is power in simply helping people to understand that you’re paying attention to them. And so that’s one of those skills that’s so simple, energy expensive, by the way, really hard work in a day full of interactions with people.
Alison Jones: And in a world where we’re all doing too much and there’s so much distraction around actually. A commodity anymore. Absolutely. A decision every second to take to, to show that you are attending to, to be present, to focus on the person.
John Amaechi: In part, that’s why it’s so powerful,
Alison Jones: Yes.
John Amaechi: That’s, that’s, it’s the idea that if some, if you are… nobody’s fooled in a workday, it doesn’t matter whether you are the, in the hierarchical sense of things, the lowest of the low, the newest in the organization or the most senior. If you’re choosing to pay attention in the moment, there isn’t any other human being who doesn’t realize that there is a cost to that, that there might have been alternative things you could do in that time than listen to them in this moment, and the act of choosing to listen is a sign of your connection. That connection is part of what teaming is built on. And so it’s very fundamental, very kind of viscerally human in that way.
Alison Jones: Because the cost to you implies the value of the other person. Yes.
John Amaechi: As it does in almost everything, right? When we think about how we operate with our partners, our, our loved ones, it is the way we put ourselves out, even in the small ways, making sure, I don’t know that a small domestic task is done before our loved one gets home. Making sure that a cup of tea is, one of my love languages is tea, making sure that a properly…
Alison Jones: …that’s very Stockport John. That’s very…
John Amaechi: …a properly bronze-coloured cup of tea is, is really, you didn’t, you know, my partner doesn’t drink tea. The idea that you choose to make it despite the fact you are not going to have one yourself is a little put out that says, huh, you matter.
Alison Jones: Yes. You just touched on the sport connection and that idea that it’s, you know, that the, the brilliant performance, the moments of magic are, are built in the very, very dull, you know, repetition. And there’s something interesting about that. You know, we talked about the, it’s not an innate thing, and there are skills that we have that others don’t you, that you, you are of, of a height that allows you to play in the NBA, you know, so that there’s sort of, there are factors that play into that aren’t there, which I think is really interesting.
John Amaechi: For sure. I, I think it is important to acknowledge that I probably wouldn’t have played in the NBA had I not been six foot nine. But it is also important to acknowledge that being six foot nine didn’t facilitate me playing in the NBA.
Alison Jones: A necessary but not a sufficient condition.
John Amaechi: Right. So that’s, that’s the piece. So normally in the space of leadership, what we’re talking about is the idea that the things that you are missing will make your work more energy expensive or the things that are not, you know, I have no issue communicating with sometimes very large groups of people, but the cost is enormous.
I write in the book about, and this self-reflection piece where I suddenly realized I, I could monitor my heart rate with my watch and if I watch my heart rate while I perform, it’s this unbelievably low. I think I, my resting heart’s like rate like 55 or something like that, it’s unbelievably low. The second I finish my heart rate shoots up into the top zone it could be in and I start to sweat because everything has been contained in that moment in my focus on the people in front of me. But then once I suddenly realize, it’s like when I get off the stage or when I hear clapping, I suddenly realize what I’m doing and my body’s like, no, you hate this. And so it’s just an energy expense that comes with it because I am an introvert as opposed to an extrovert.
But it doesn’t mean that extroverts are any better at interacting with large group people than introvert.
Alison Jones: It’s a lovely example of how you manage yourself in situations where you wouldn’t necessarily choose to put yourself as well. And I know you’ve, you’ve talked in the book, and I think you’ve talked before about the fact that you manage your physical, your body language very carefully because it would be very easy for you to intimidate somebody across the room for you.
And there’s something very… those constraints that turn into our superpowers. I think that’s really interesting because you have developed a style very much of your own that is so contained.
John Amaechi: I, I think part of leadership is really wanting power to be effective, and I think part of being an effective leader is understanding your power and curating how it pops out to the world around you. Understanding that as a six, nine, a hundred and sixty kilo, that’s mixing metrics I think, but as a very tall, very heavy man, and black man too,
when I shout it… the room shakes. I do this, I do this thing sometimes where I’ll, somebody will say, oh, it doesn’t really make a big difference, and I will change my pattern around them. So I, if I’m, if there’s a group of, you know, say round tables where people sat around them, whilst I will walk through them while there’s an exercise going on, if I’m just speaking to them, I stay forward and front, and I move laterally, but never get too close. And oftentimes when, when I get this rejection of this idea that, oh no, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to curate your power. I’ll just walk very slowly and purposefully. And instead of having my shoulders dropped and natural as I often do while I’m talking to people, to convey something very intentional that I am safe and it is fine, I’ll raise my shoulders up and stand to my full height and then just walk slowly towards them and then cross my arms and it’s palpable in the room.
And people are like, all right then, I get it. And that’s, but that’s the power of all leaders, right? Because people think that’s just me, because I’m a giant. But your title of leadership makes you a giant.
Alison Jones: Yes. And being aware… so, so much of this that we’re talking about comes down to self-awareness,
John Amaechi: Mm.
Alison Jones: And so much of that comes down to reflection. So you, you talk about, and you, you build this into the book, you weave it through the book. I want to talk about how, how you write and how you put it together.
You didn’t at any point say, writing is a really, really powerful tool for this, which is I’m a bit disappointed about. But I’m to just, I’m going to extrapolate that. I’m going to say, tell us about that power of reflection.
John Amaechi: AndI did mention I think that writing with a real pen is more effective than typing,
Alison Jones: Yes…
John Amaechi: …but I…
Alison Jones: …it’s different, isn’t it? The physiology…
…of it.
John Amaechi: I think I could have emphasized it more. I take…
Alison Jones: …so do I John. So do I.
John Amaechi: Yes. No, I, because I do believe that writing is important. I think part of the problem, and this is kind of a, a non-sequitur, but part of the problem is that I don’t enjoy writing.
Alison Jones: Oh, interesting. Go on.
John Amaechi: I, books are not what do they call it? Something of love. Labours They’re not labours of love for me. They are very difficult. I am constantly second guessing myself. I, my brain, while wonderful in many ways, that are nothing to do with my education in the kind of weird, odd way that it works, it really works for interpersonal communication because the looping nature of my conversation.
My sister, who, who’s very, very smart, often says that I’m the kind of person who defines stuff by what isn’t what it isn’t, and not what it is, which can become a bit relentless in writing, even as it…
Alison Jones: …bit elliptical.
John Amaechi: Yes, I’m not saying that you are, sounds great when I’m talking to you, but in a book it’s like, can you just tell me what you are saying? And so I find it quite hard and that’s probably why I underemphasize it. But in reflection. Not just running it around in your head, but actually considering writing it down as you suggest is so important.
But I also think that that is how we take things from just being memories to being experiences, how we take them from things that exist in our brain that might, might or might not ever be recalled again to items in our brain that can be, without wanting to, again, use this ridiculously war mongering language, weaponized so that they can be used. Almost every experience that I have is a story that I’m going to tell.
Alison Jones: And that library of experience you talk about in the book the story. Yes. So sorry I interrupted.
John Amaechi: No, no. It’s so great though. It’s just so great that, and I don’t know when this switch happened, but I, I’ll tell you what, it was before the Promises of Giants, but I couldn’t tell you. It was, it feels like it was many years ago, but something happened and I was just like, oh. It wasn’t just, it was a revelation for me, I was like, this is informative about my assumptions, who I am, but with the work that I do. What a wonderful way to illustrate something dry that I’ve been trying to say to people. I’m a scientist. I love stats and I love research, but not everybody loves to hear you cite stats and research and that I’ve just had this experience that explains the exact thing that I’m talking about.
And so I love this. In the book, I talk about an experience with two baristas which really highlighted my own… as a person who’s right on, or thinks he’s right on, it just highlighted my own stereotypes, because I was surprised by the depth of the conversation happening at six in the morning between these two baristas.
And what I loved about, it’s, both of them were speaking English, but neither of them spoke English as a first language and neither of them spoke the same first language. And here they are, communicating in another language, something, I thought really complex, nuanced and interesting. And I thought it was surprising in part because they were baristas. So I just thought there’s nothing to them.
Alison Jones: And, and it’s almost like you didn’t see them and they were talking about not being seen, but in a sense they weren’t seeing you because they’re having this conversation and the guy is giving you a coffee but not looking at you. And you, you have that moment where you hold the coffee just to the moment where he does look at you and, and there’s that lovely, suddenly everybody’s seeing everybody.
John Amaechi: it was, it was really a beautiful moment. It just, it’s a thing. It’s… the reason it’s in the book is not because it’s the only example I could think of. It was just, it’s got such gravity that it’s like, it’s a memory that keeps pulling me back. And now I walk into a retail environment, now I walk into an office front desk security, and all of a sudden it’s like there’s a gravity around that instance because of that thing.
I’ve got a little book. I don’t have it here, but it’s in my bag. And so when I walk into a new office, I ask the names of the security and front desk and, and. I write them in this book because I have a bad memory and otherwise they’ll be gone. And it takes a couple of times visiting before I don’t have to look it up anymore.
But it’s like that all comes from that one experience.
Alison Jones: That’s amazing. And your story, so there’s the beauty of that story, which I just, I’m sitting with for a moment, but there’s also the craft of that. And you’ve got a lovely metaphor in the book about storytelling that, that the, the plane. Just tell us about the plane
John Amaechi: Oh yes.
Alison Jones: Because I think it’s a really helpful thing to remember when you are trying to tell a story.
John Amaechi: Yes, I don’t know. I was very, this is one of those reasons I hate writing because I was mulling over this as if it’s all just too much. But it, it’s simply the idea that… I fly a huge amount. I looked, I’ve got this app called Flighty, and it tells me about my flying. I’ve flown four times around the world this year.
Alison Jones: Whoa, this year?
John Amaechi: This year, and it’s not, it’s not done.
It’s just, I mean, I’m, I’m on a day trip to Dubai tomorrow. Clients matter. But this is this. So I’m, I’m often on planes and I, and I take it for granted, I can often fall asleep even before we take off. But there is this thing when you look around at people who are new to it or excited about it, or tense about it, and you realize that people have expectations of the nature of a flight.
And so what they want is …, I look around and I see how frustrated people get when we’re sat at the gate. We’re just sat here. Why aren’t we going yet? We’re all boarded. We’re ready to go. And that’s the equivalent of starting your story and lingering and meandering as I’m doing right now at the beginning part without people… because people are thinking, even right now, they’re saying, could you tell us a story.
Alison Jones: We’re looking forward to hearing that. Yes.
John Amaechi: I’m demonstrating exactly what happens. Nobody wants to be stuck at the gate. Nobody wants to be going round Heathrow on the ground. People want to get to take off and take off, and they want to feel some kind of pushback into their chair. They want to feel something that tells them there is thrust behind this bad boy.
Slightly dangerous, but lifting…
Alison Jones: We don’t know where it’s going. Yes…
John Amaechi: …don’t know where it’s going. Right and, and then there’s this moment of epiphany where you clear the clouds and things get flat. And people think that in storytelling there must always be some kind of trouble. But the fact is that people remember flights that don’t have turbulence as much as they remember flights that have turbulence.
They just remember them very different ways. One is good and one is bad. And in this world, I talk a lot about Poirot in the book because I don’t think people realize that stories with predictably positive endings are, are very powerful in times of, of trouble and turbulence. So you’re at this level, there might be a little bump two, but everybody needs to know that it’s still safe.
But then you get to the point where, you know, right, we’re close landing the, the pilot with that predictably gravelly voice is telling you that we are about to land. And do you want to know? Now you’ve been indicated that this story’s going to end, it must end, and it must end with swiftness, but not scary. So you don’t want to dive like a, like you are heading towards the, the ground like a bullet.
But you do want to get down quickly and then land safely. And people do, in the case of storytelling, want the landing to be such that it compels them to clap.
Alison Jones: It’s a great way to finish it.
John Amaechi: You know, something will get you laughed at if you do it on a plane. So I’m not advising it. But for storytellers, that’s what we want. We want to land down in such a way that we make people go, we probably don’t have time for this, but many years ago I gave a speech at a a school in Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley has this crisscross of trains that have no no gates, no, no level crossings. It’s just open. And unfortunately because of the impetus for, for learning and getting into these great universities and getting into these great companies that are all based up there, the incidence of suicide in some of these schools is absolutely incredible. I wasn’t told before I arrived that three students in the year prior had killed themselves. And, and that to me was a, an abdication of duty. But I remember telling a story because I knew I had to pull a whole group of people and I looped and looped and I remembered that there had, there was going to be turbulence because I had to address this elephant in the room.
And when I landed there was this palpable relief from the people in the room. It was like, it was one big group therapy session. Because I’d taken them on this journey that felt safe, and when I landed, it felt like they’d really gone somewhere important.
Alison Jones: Yes, and even just the, the idea that. You start and you finish and there’s something of, I mean that sounds ridiculous, but I see so often people start a story loop and then they sort of abandon it and it’s like leaving your passengers in midair. You can’t do that. You have to bring them down.
John Amaechi: That is so perfect. It is. As if you’ve been ejected from the plane I’m just… still floating there wondering and often watching the plane disappear into the distance and it’s…
Alison Jones: …you can’t move on because you need to know the end of the story.
John Amaechi: I need to know.
Alison Jones: Yes. You have obligations as a storyteller. Yes. That’s brilliant. I want to come back to, you said about the labours books aren’t a labor of love for you. I get that. And you’re very good at them. And you’ve done a few now. So what, why? Why do you do them? What do they do for you?
John Amaechi: They force a bit of discipline into my otherwise wildly rambling narrative style. They force me to, to do the ‘So what’ piece that’s so important. Because sometimes I think stuff is just interesting to talk about, but I’m also aware that busy people in very powerful or consequential positions in organizations, they want to know, so what? I’m telling you about mentoring today, so what?
My rambling style doesn’t always have all the cogent points that busy people require. It’s, it’s engaging it and it. I hope inspires and pulls people along and helps them to understand themselves better. But it doesn’t always hit the so what so succinctly.
I think if, if left to my own devices and I’m very structured in my coaching and advisory, but I just think I’ve got more room to be more circular and more flowy and poetic before I get to the point. The book is important because I can get to the point at every chapter. And there is a ‘principles into practice’ piece where it’s like, if anybody’s asking, what can I do? The answer’s right there, this is what you can do. And you don’t have to do all of them, but pick one. Work on one, deliver one, and then pick another one. And I don’t mind if people read this book in a chapter and then stop and work their way through all of those before they move on. I think perhaps less enjoyable to do it that way, but I just want to have something that’s in one place.
I remember that’s how I felt about my first book, Man In the Middle, which is not a good book. I would’ve written a better first book now. I think everybody would say that, but I did. I was so worried about my story becoming little soundbites captured from news clippings and TV interviews that I was doing.
I wanted to make sure that if people were going to talk about me, even if it was derogatory, they were going to have the story, my story as I wrote it in one place.
Alison Jones: That’s, so you’re taking charge of the narrative and you’re also, and that works not just for your personal story, because most of us don’t have a personal story quite as extraordinary as yours, but it works for the, the teaching. I think your book is a very good model for how you translate something that’s done in person in the room experientially into something that can change behaviour when you are not in the room, it invites the reader in and it sort of demands reflection and action from them, which I think…
John Amaechi: …that’s exactly right. And that’s, that’s the hope. I like it when people enjoy my rhetorical flourishes and the, the way, there are some points, when I read, when I was reading the book for audible I would read it and I’m like, Ooh, that was clever. I was like that.
I really, really, very much enjoyed the turn of…
Alison Jones: …who wrote this?
John Amaechi: And then there were points when I read, I was like, oh. I wish I’d said that differently, but I think there is something about having it all in one place so people can consume and see it in context. That’s really powerful.
Alison Jones: Yes. It’s powerful for you, I think, as the author, as well as as the reader. So, yes, it’s really interesting. Oh, I want to carry on talking to you all day. I can’t, so I’m going to draw in with my, my questions because nobody will forgive me if I don’t ask you, John, if there was just one tip you could give to somebody who’s at the start of this journey, what would you say to them? The writing journey.
John Amaechi: I don’t, this is, this is hardly groundbreaking, but everyone has a kernel of something. I, I don’t think it’s true that everybody has a book in them necessarily, or a book that they want to share with other people, but everybody has a kernel of something that, the gravity thing, that their mind keeps returning to and THERE is something about the book.
Michelle Mahdon, who’s the person who wrote the Foreword for this book, she was the one who did a piece of research that is really the gravity around this for two years. It just, it was there and my mind was constantly drawn to it. So if you want to start writing, attend to that place where your mind continually returns as a place to start.
Alison Jones: Yes, that’s a great tip, and I’m just going to augment that a little bit because you talk in the book about the importance of carving out the time to read good stuff, and I think it’s when you’re doing that, that then there’s little… things fizz in your brain and the new connections are made and the fascination builds.
John Amaechi: A hundred percent. I, I don’t understand how you can be an incurious author.
Alison Jones: Mm.
John Amaechi: How you can be, I certainly, you can’t be an incurious leader, I don’t think, but I am enthralled in a way that I wasn’t in grad school. I am enthralled by all the stuff I don’t know. It is thrilling to me that on a regular basis, I just did it today, I did a panel with a group of other experts. I did it the other day with this, this bloke who’s a friend of mine, a professor, and I was like, I was writing notes and on on while listening to him on the panel, and it wasn’t an affectation. It was like, this is such good stuff. I’d never thought of that. I didn’t think of it that way. That’s the way to start.
Alison Jones: Yes, put yourself in the way of it. That’s brilliant. And also, John, recommend us a book you’re not allowed to recommend one of yours. I will do that at the end. I hope I’ve been doing it throughout,
John Amaechi: You have for sure.
Alison Jones: You read so widely. I’m really interested. What would you recommend that people read if they haven’t, it doesn’t have to be a business book.
John Amaechi: Oh.
Alison Jones: Oh, yes. That’s, that’s suddenly blown the field open, hasn’t it?
John Amaechi: It has. I’ve got, oh, this is so cool. I don’t, hmm. So. So I was just handed this. I knew George Raveling, who was a…
Alison Jones: …What You’re Made For.
John Amaechi: What you are made for: Powerful lessons from a life in sport. George Raveling was a really cool guy. Really good guy, cool guy coach. Amazing. It won’t just, it’s not going to appeal just on the basis of being sports because I don’t care about sports.
Really good. Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele. I’m on it…
Alison Jones: …gorgeous cover.
John Amaechi: Oh, right, he did. Oh. It’s been used as a tea stand. You can see the tea stains.
Alison Jones: Only the great books get that accolade, right?
John Amaechi: But it’s so good. It’s, it sits here all the time. And then this one, this one I think is a book for our time.
Alison Jones: One Day.
John Amaechi: One day when it’s safe though, and there’s no personal downside to calling the thing what it is when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will always have been against this.
Alison Jones: Wow. That does sound like a book for our times. Well, that I think we all got value for money there. Thank you, John, that if you were looking for your to-be-read pile, to be augmented at Christmas, then you’ve just had three brilliant recommendations. Thank you so much. And John, if people want to find out more about you, more about the work that you do, where should they go?
John Amaechi: So the easiest thing to do, let me see if this is going to work. The easiest thing to do is to go to, on this QR code here, which will take you to my Linktree, which is down here, and that will let you see a couple of videos that I do and reach out to us and also see my LinkedIn where I am, sadly, for those of you who don’t like social media, prolific.
Alison Jones: Unfortunately, if you are listening to this rather than watching it, you’ll have been going, what? I don’t know what just happened there. I completely missed that. So I will
John Amaechi: I should, I should probably read it out, read out the link. The, the link tree is going to the regular link tree site and it’s https://linktr.ee/itsnotmagic.
Alison Jones: Brilliant, and I’ll put that link up as always on the Extraordinary Business book website, the, the show notes there. John, thank you so much for your time today. I’ve loved talking to you and I’ve loved just, I dunno, following… it’s not often you get people from Stockport smashing life in quite the extraordinary way that you have.
So I feel a, a great lead of civic pride in this. It’s marvellous.
John Amaechi: Something in the water, the Mersey.
Alison Jones: Well, most of us seem to have missed it, but no, it’s, it’s brilliant and and your books are, not magic obviously, but extremely well done and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed them. So yes, keep doing what you’re doing.
John Amaechi: I will do, and thank you so much for this, you, you really sparked some thoughts to me in this conversation. I love that. I love that. Thank you.
Alison Jones: That’s what we’re here for.
