Maria Matarelli & Peter Stevens

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:30

Welcome, Peter and Maria to Agile to agility podcast, they usually start by asking a question, who is and then but I’ll skip it. I think I’ve only skipped it one time around and I’ve really wanted to start with a question, key question from your book, Personal Agility, unlocking higher purpose, alignment and performance. And the question that you ask in there is, what really matters? So, maybe could you answer that question for me? If somebody asked you, what really matters, how would you respond? 

Maria Matarelli  01:11

Are you going to go first, Peter?

Peter Stevens  01:17

The beauty of what really matters question is, it provokes one of two responses. Either you know and it just rolls off your tongue or you have no idea and there’s this long silence that you offer to pass the talking stick to someone else unless you draw your own conclusions. You know, this is actually a question that well, I mean I started doing Personal Agility or what we now called Personal Agility back in 2016. And somebody asked me once, what is your North star? What do you navigate by, what do you care about life? And I thought that was a really intriguing question and I made a column for it on my board and I just left it blank for about two months. I really had no idea what to put in there and then one day, it just kind of came to me and in a moment, it’s random, pivoted. And so for me, there are a couple of things that are on my board, one is health and happiness. 

Okay, we say time is your most valuable currency and health is your most valuable asset because, well, time you only get to spend it once. And your health, if you lose it, you may not get it back. Okay, so that’s kind of, you know, having, sometimes we use the term work life balance but it’s really about making sure that your health you know, that you’re healthy and that you’re balanced. And that you can that you can function because if you can’t do that, you know, nothing else matters, okay? So that for me is very high on my list. You know, the other thing is, you know, kind of family and existence, you know, making sure that all that hangs together. Switzerland, everyone’s got to pay the light bills And Switzerland is famous for its electric light bills. So that gives me some, you know, keep the machine running. You know and ultimately, you know for me, Personal Agility is like a baby. And you know, Maria and I have been working on the book now for I guess, about four years? And we had an intensive phase for about two years and then we started seeing the cases of what people were doing with Personal Agility. And then we started collecting case studies and you know, we realized that there are millions of people who could benefit from Personal Agility. 

So you know, what I have, come number one on my list is Personal Agility is bigger than me. Okay, that’s kind of a reminder that well, yes, I’d like Personal Agility to be a thing but it’s not about me. You know, it’s about millions of people whose lives could really be much you know, measurably and obviously better. Okay? And that’s what I care about, is that somehow Personal Agility is going to get out there, you know, there are already some samples of it but I hope that a lot of people are going to be able to benefit from what Personal Agility has to offer.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  04:00

Yeah, I hope we, I do want to talk about Sharon, Sarah and Pete. As far as what you’ve, as case studies but yeah, what about Maria, what about for you, what really matters for you?

Maria Matarelli  04:14

Yeah, so for me, health and fitness is number one. It used to be something not on my radar at all and I realized that it needed to be up at the top, sustainable business, relationships and happiness and then also financial freedom. So really keeping an eye on, you know, a lot of times we’re so focused on achieving goals, we don’t necessarily look at what would make me happy or what would provide fulfillment in my life. And so, one of the things that I really appreciate is that when Peter and I started talking about this concept of what really matters, it was 2016. And I remember it was in the Western Grand in Munich, Germany at the scrum gathering. 

We were in the lobby and he asked me that question and I realized that nothing that I thought that mattered had mattered at all. And so that’s where it just became my priority because I realized that health wasn’t even on my radar and that needed to be number one. And then happiness later trickled in to my list and that was after conversation with Alastair Coburn. And we were talking about where’s the joy, where’s the fulfillment, where’s that? And I was so focused on achieving goals that I wasn’t really enjoying the journey along the way. And so those have been a couple of profound realizations I’ve had over the years that have helped me really get that clarity and be able to see that on my priorities now.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  05:31

Great. Where does DJing fall into that, the fun and happiness?

Maria Matarelli  05:35

It absolutely does, it used to be. One of my, you see my number two thing was DJing and you don’t really change what really matters too often. Though, once the pandemic hit, it didn’t seem like there were many opportunities for DJing. And I realized that it was probably a good opportunity to shift to look at, you know, the relationships with the people I value in my life. But then also, I have happiness grouped with that because I recognize you have to have happiness in yourself first before you expect to have that from anyone else around you. And so yeah, DJing absolutely falls under the happiness.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  06:10

Yeah. That is awesome in like, just reading through a book and some parts, I’ve read some pirates, as I didn’t have enough time, you know? But it was really like, helpful for me like to go through this and you described this concept of Personal Agility system as Pass, I’m not sure how you pronounce it. And you talked about it as a friend and I felt like it’s almost friend and a coach type of, because the type of question that was getting me to think about is something that you will have with a really good friend, that’s also a coach, in a sense, where they’re getting you to think about these things. Could you maybe talk about the Personal Agility system and describe to the audience what it is and maybe we can start there?

Maria Matarelli  06:59

Yeah, so the Personal Agility system is a coaching based framework, simple framework for being able to identify what really matters. And we have some ways that you can do this, some tools that we put together. So we have the priorities map, which is really looking at what are the things that really matter? You know, why are you using the Personal Agility system? 

Why are you making a change in your life, looking at what’s important, what’s urgent, what’s your plan for the week and you can triage between those things to come up with what that plan is. And then as you start to do things, we have the breadcrumb trail that emerges, where you’ve been, which is an indicator of where you’re going, if you do things the same. We can step out and get a picture of like, that larger view of what we call the forces map, looking at these driving forces in your life of what really matters, it’s really like the North Star of where you’re heading. And then there’s several other tools we’ve come up with along the way. So we have a stakeholder canvas, being able to interview and create alignment with people around us. 

This framework scales to the work context, as well as the basis for leadership framework and you’re looking at, you’ve some powerful coaching questions or coaching canvas. And then looking at the alignment compass, are you in alignment with the things that you say that matter and this all is in the cadence of a weekly cadence? Are we invited to celebrate and choose, celebrate what you’ve achieved and choose if you want to continue doing that or do things different? So, it’s really all about creating that visibility and inviting people to take that powerful moment to pause and reflect. Are the things that I’m doing every day, every week, every month, are these really the things that really matter to me and are they getting me to where I want to go? So, that I’m not just achieving the things I want to achieve in the short term but also not losing sight of long term goals and be able to make steady progress toward those.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  08:50

Yeah, it was great. I also liked the aspect of the weekly, kind of asking these things weekly because I used to do this you know, with myself. And I would use the you know, the wheel of change in a sense to ask myself you know, around like, you know, quarterly but I think it’s very powerful when you ask these questions weekly almost, you know? It reinforces this alignment and priorities and you know, the forces map and the breadcrumbs like, you know, by just doing the same things. And as I was reading it, I was you know, kind of processing in my head and it really resonated with me. And I do want to come back to some of these tools that you talked about. Another thing that maybe stood out that I would like to explore is about optimal, you said the Personal Agility is about optimizing your actions to align with what really matters. Could you maybe just talk about that, what you mean by optimizing your actions? 

Peter Stevens  10:02

Sure. So, you know, if we look at you know, what came before Personal Agility, there were things like getting things done and there was personal Kanban. And you know, you could also say there was Scrum and a couple of other things. And you know, once upon a time, the world was simple and we thought we could do everything, you know? And all we had to do was get organized so we could get everything done. And the problem, well maybe that was true a long time ago but today, the world is just so complex with social media and everything else, you know? And with work from home, there’s not much distinction between, you know, when you’re working and you know, when you’re not working, there’s just so much stuff coming at you. 

Okay, and so one of the things that’s become really important is this whole concept of making sense. Okay, and so I think, you know, well, Personal Agility is really different from what came before. It’s not about organizing the work, it’s about getting clear on what you care about. And then saying, well, how can I spend more time on the things that I care about and less time on the things that I don’t, okay? So, you know, in business, the word we use is alignment, I think it was Lisa Adkins, who talked about being in alignment with yourself. Okay, you create, you know, you’re able to answer the question, what really matters? And then you could look at what you did and say, well, how does that match up with what really matters? Okay? 

Now, that could be a question to beat yourself up with or that could be a moment of clarity, where you say you know, I’ve been spending time on things that don’t matter and I want to spend more time on things to do. Okay? So, maybe I’m going to turn off the social media app during you know, and watch something I care about. Last time I had that conversation was yesterday afternoon with someone, so you know, these are real things. And they give you awareness of where you are, what you’re doing and how it relates to the bigger picture.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  11:51

It does and like, I was thinking, as you know we teach you know, classes through Scrum Alliance and like, I do this podcast, I started writing a book two years ago that you know, I started a podcast because I stopped writing. It is an excuse not to write but you know, as I was reading the end going through, you know like, you know, I was asking myself these questions like, what’s important to me? Like, you know, is it making money or like, you know, I love these podcasts and the ability to talk to people, I don’t make any money out of it. 

It’s just, I enjoy it and it’s one of those things, it takes time to both prep, it takes time to add, I do all the editing myself. And it was one of those things where, you know, it makes me happy. I love it, I enjoy it, you know and how does this align, you know as far as priorities, what I want to do. And one thing that came, I don’t know if you talked about it in the book explicitly but it’s about options, right? Like, what I want to have is options, like, hey, you know, I want to do this, I want to you know, go to Croatia, Montenegro and spend time there and work. Like for me, it was just kind of thinking through as I was going through this and saying, well for me, what matters for me is options, having options.

Peter Stevens  13:14

If you look at personal combat, they call you know, they have a list of things that you could do, they call it options. So you know, what are your options? And you could do all of these things and you know, what are your options is actually a very powerful question, I like that question a lot. In Personal Agility, we use the term possibilities, okay? You know, and possibly options to me is, you’re in a difficult situation, you could do this or this, it’s a relatively convergent question. Whereas what you know, what are your possibilities for me is much more of a divergent question, you know? 

Okay, you’ve got lots of possibilities, okay? And so then, you get to reflect on your possibilities and you know, the first thing, kind of the first tip I got was the Eisenhower method, where you talk about you know, what’s urgent and what’s important? You know, the Eisenhower at the time was either General at the army or president of the US and basically anything that wasn’t urgent or important, he could delegate and most of the stuff that was just urgent or just important, he could delegate as well, as we focused on the most important and the most urgent. And that was great except for you know, you and me, we don’t have an army working for us so we don’t get [inaudible 14:24]. 

So, stuff that’s not urgent and not important, well we’re gonna have to push it off. Okay? And so this is the whole triage and what came much later is and this is the work life balance thing, as people started saying, well you know, like, with your podcast, I’m doing things because they make me happy and that’s the only reason I’m doing them. Okay? But actually you know, if you’re not happy, what are you? Well, you’re probably on the road to burnout and so the idea that you know, as you’re planning your life, you’re a fully valued partner in the process that you get to think about what makes you happy. So, that was actually one of the biggest changes to Personal Agility since its original creation, was to not just ask what’s urgent and what’s important but to ask what’s going to make you happy? And then you know, so you look at your possibilities and then you think about them in you know, through these different mirrors or from these different perspectives. And then say, well, of all the things I could do, what do I want to get done this week? Okay? [cross-talking 15:21]

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  15:20

Well, that we can, I think that question of you know, what makes you happy in the sense of like, it’s so easy like, especially I feel like, since we’ve been kind of COVID to just kind of keep doing like, in a sense, it’s constantly changing. And like it, I feel like before, I had a less hectic life in a sense like, I would have loved more breaking, when it could be just me but like, just stepping out and saying, what really makes me happy? What is the you know, what are the possibilities of you know, increasing that whatever it is, is really powerful? And I think I don’t know, from your perspective, like and how do you in the book, encourage people to actually, it’s all good that you know, we have this framework but it comes down to self-awareness. And say, I need to pause and ask myself these questions because I don’t have a coach necessarily that’s there that I have. So what are your, you know, kind of thoughts or recommendations on how people can use the book to remind themselves, maybe have the book somewhere visible. Or I saw by the way, they also have the personalagilityinstitute.org and the framework’s there. So, I want to come back to that but back to the question in the sense of like, how do we remind ourselves to ask ourselves these questions about Personal Agility? 

Maria Matarelli  16:43

Yeah, so we always we often talk about how there’s often too much to do and not enough time to do it. And so, one of the things that’s really powerful about Personal Agility is that, instead of just looking at limiting your work in progress, we want to look at limiting the number of initiatives in progress. And so, that’s where that question, what really matters comes into play and it’s so powerful. Because if you aren’t just going along with the flow, we often just get you know, blown off course and we use this powerful metaphor of life is the ocean. And if you are the captain of your ship, then you try to get to a destination, let’s say it’s Jamaica, well there could winds, there could be a heavy current, there could be other things that delay you from getting to that destination. And so, we use this metaphor as a powerful reminder to think about, hey, am I on my way to Jamaica? 

Is there anything that I’ve done that has blown me off course or that maybe I haven’t even noticed? And so with Personal Agility, being this kind of framework, that reminding you to get back on course, it really is there to reflect back to you? What are your actual actions compared to what it is that you say is important? And so like, if you go 2, 3, 4 weeks and you say health and fitness is the number one thing but you haven’t done anything for that, interesting? Now, I have the opportunity to reflect and say, is it that I just haven’t gotten around to it? And I need to figure out a better way to set myself up for success or have more accountability or is it really not that important to me? And should I reevaluate what really matters? And so, you know, it really is a kind of framework that reflects back to you as I think the navigation metaphor is one of those things that helps. 

The powerful question of what really matters, helping us reset and you make sure that we are on the right track. And then, we talked about you know, even things like multitasking, the greater the number of initiatives that you’re working on at once, the less likely you are to make a mile of progress in any one area because you’ve only got an inch of progress in every area. And so, we remind people through some of these concepts that hey, you know, you are the captain of your ship, you get to choose, you are plotting the course. And if you’re off course, we invite you to pause, reflect on that and make that decision. Do you want to change where the course is going or want to get back onto that course?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  19:08

Yeah. No, I mean it’s really and I encourage people to, I don’t know, when is the book going to be out?

Maria Matarelli  19:16

I was looking at, I believe it’s going to be around the end of March, we’re publishing in the business agility Institute. So, it’s in final editing right now.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  19:23

Great. Well, just for me, like again, you know, as I said you know, I don’t promote, I just tell people how it is but it definitely helped me like you know, going back to my book in the sense. Like, I keep making excuses why I’m not writing and I keep saying it’s important but I’m not doing anything about it. And it made me think well, like?

Peter Stevens  19:46

This is the whole concept of the breadcrumb trail, if you don’t spend any time working on your book, when is it going to get written? Okay? And that’s how you can see, you know, and we’ve had these moments ourselves, where we say you know, it’s been a while since we’ve written it anything on the book? We still want to write the book. Yeah, we want to write the book or do we still care about you to make it? Yeah, where’s your, [cross-talking 20:07]?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  20:10

Well, that’s the thing and I think you can really, you’ll be able to relate to this. You know, I work with a lot of partners in a sense of you know, the teaching classes and things like that. And like, I’m giving up my dates and I’m putting out doing my own classes and I’m prioritizing that. And I keep saying, like well, I need more time to write a book, I need to be more and those are the breadcrumbs that you’re talking about in a sense. Like you know, so what I’ve started doing even like, you know, months ago, when I was thinking about you know, what I want to do is, I said like, I need to change in some way what I’m doing if I want to finish this book, right? And I think your book was a good reminder and almost helped me reset and almost refocus and remotivate myself to focus on what matters to me and which is, finishing that book. 

Peter Stevens 21:06

I like that message. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  21:07

So it is, at least for me, it had an impact just as I went through. You also talked about five elements; purpose, celebration, choice, emergence and kindness. Could you maybe talk about those five elements a little bit and discuss that concept from Personal Agility system?

Peter Stevens  21:30

Okay. Well, let’s start with purpose. Okay, you know, purpose is kind of the what really matters question. And if we think back to that navigation metaphor, why are we doing this? Okay, Simon Sinek says, start with why, why are we doing this? Well, that ‘why’ is your destination, that’s Jamaica. Okay? And then, you know, how do we get to Jamaica? Well, we need to navigate okay, back before there was GPS, well, you would have the North Star, maybe the Orion’s belt and your clock and you know, by looking at the North Star and by looking when the sun went down or when Orion belt said, you can figure out where you are. 

Okay and that lets you know and then you plot your course and you can, you know, make your way over the ocean. And so, that’s kind of the metaphor of Personal Agility is that, well, if you want to be somebody, if you want to achieve something, if there’s a purpose, you know, align your actions to what you know, what you want to do. So, you’ve always got purpose, it’s kind of giving you context for making decisions. Now, celebration is about being kind to yourself. Okay, so many people have an authority figure from their childhood or maybe from work, say you are a bad boy or whatever. And you know, and it’s interesting, when you get things done, ‘done’ is something you can celebrate, okay? So, what we try to do is encourage people to think about what are the things that they got done, you know, even if they’re little things on a week to week basis. 

You know, and they could be like, celebrating time you spent with your partner or celebrating something you did, just because it makes you happy, okay? Because these can actually be you know, glue and cement that kind of holds you, it holds you together in difficult times. And you know, the other thing is, life happens a lot faster than you can change, sorry, life happens faster than you can plan it. Okay, so you’re going to get into a situation you know, if your son knocks on the door and has a skinned knee and needs some you know, doctoring and needs some, you know, love and attention? Obviously, you’re going to drop what you’re doing and deal with it because you know what else you got to do. So you know, and if your boss calls or your customer calls, it’s kind of the same thing. So obviously, things are going to be different than what you planned but you still got things done. And you’re always you know, kind of like what they say in the retrospectives, you’re always doing the best you can. So, you made the best decisions you could, celebrate what you got done. And it’s amazing, you know, by having an emphasis on celebration, you know, you’re just happier. Okay?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  24:06

Well, we talked about teams having like, in Scrum, you know, celebrate at the end. And like, I think it’s a motivational factor that’s tied to that purpose, like you said. 

Peter Stevens  24:17

Absolutely. And one of the greatest things in Scrum is this concept of ‘done’, it’s really easy to celebrate stuff that’s done. Discussing stuff in progress is intensely painful, especially. So, you know, and that’s really informed, you know how I do Scrum is we say, hey, let’s concentrate, you know, let’s concentrate on getting things done. Let’s concentrate on having things to celebrate and that just makes the morale so much better.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  24:42

Yeah. It’s that reinforcing loop in a sense, like, I want more of this, right? It feels good in a sense. Let’s celebrate and let’s do some more of this stuff, so yeah.

Peter Stevens  24:52

Yeah, now choices about options, okay? And you know, there are all these things that you could do and it’s your boat and you’re the captain of the boat and you’re the owner of the boat and you get to decide where to go. So you know, choose, you know, it’s your time, valuable currency, you get to spend it once. But you can also be intentional about and that’s very often, you know, you talk to a lot of people about, well, why didn’t you write your book? 

Or why didn’t you do this, they said, well I had to do this and I had to take care of the kids and I had to go to work and I had to earn money and I had to do all the things I had to do and that’s all true. It’s all true but you still have a choice about how you use your time, not every minute is dedicated to you know, whatever, you know. So, there’s a fine line between an explanation and an excuse, okay? And just by saying, I’m going to make the choice, I made a choice to attend to my son’ skin knee, that’s a choice, I did it, it was the right thing to do. And all of a sudden, you’ve got a different attitude. Okay? And again, you know, you sit up, your shoulders are out, you know, you feel like you’re in command of the situation. And you know, it’s a very different thing to be the captain of a boat in the storm with a passenger of a boat in a storm, very different experience. Okay? And if you don’t believe me, try sitting on the backseat of a motorcycle on the mountains.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  26:16

No, it definitely is. And you know, I know how, I recently was talking to a friend and first of all, it’s crazy how time flies but like having kids. And like, how that has changed my perspective and things and you know, having passengers versus, so that influences the purpose, that influences how you celebrate, that influences the choice. The Emergence is the next one, could you maybe talk about that?

Peter Stevens  26:43

Yeah, emergence is a fun one. This is something that’s really only emerged over time that we kind of realized. So if you go back to, well, maybe let’s start what is emergence, okay? Emergence is how individual things come together and interact with each other to form something bigger than themselves. Okay, so we can think of a group of people that come together to form a team, okay? You see this at the atomic level, you know, atoms come together to form molecules, molecules come together to form organic structures, organic structures make up DNA. 

You know, they combined with other, you know, we got emergence everywhere. What’s interesting, what we discovered about Personal Agility, Personal Agility is not a process to follow, it’s a series of questions to ask. Now, the idea was you asked them, you’re set to yourself but you can also ask them to other people. And it turns out, if you ask clarifying questions, if you ask powerful questions, if you you know, really focus on surfacing information you know, rather than debating, all sorts of interesting things happen. Okay? So you know, by asking the right questions and this is where Canvas has come in and you know, what we’ve really discovered is that you can shape how a group of people come together, you can create alignment, so that this group of people become something bigger than themselves. Okay? And you know, if we go back to like, the circle close when I went back, I was looking at the Agile Manifesto recently, the first value; individuals and interactions. 

I don’t know if the inventors I mean, they’re all very smart people. So maybe they thought of but you know, individuals interacting with each other, that’s the basis of emergence. Okay? And this is actually how Personal Agility becomes a leadership framework is, you know, is by thinking actively about how to do you know, how to guide and shape the emergence of your organization. So it’s like, one very powerful example of this is Netflix, you know, they have their corporate culture, it was quite revolutionary when it came out. How do you deal with expense reports? How do you replace the manager who’s controlling your expense reports to make sure the money is well spent? They had a very simple rule, spend the money, expand company money as if it were your own, they’re guiding the interaction, okay? And by having the simple rule of engagement, okay, so we do a lot with that, we start with some very simple ones. Like, listen before you talk, ask before you tell and when you ask, ask a clarifying question. All of a sudden, you give these guidance and that just shapes the behavior and really amazing things happen when you can shape the behavior. This gives you the tools to create alignment, that’s kind of the holy grail of you know, organizations in a big company or organizing a big company.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  29:30

It is interesting and I think, you know, maybe it’s for separate discussion but emergency, you know, in general, I think alluded to it but there are some guardrails, when you have any type of you know, system. So, there are some boundaries to every you know, system and I think emergence like, you know, in this instance, the boundaries are like, you know, your future goes back to that question, you know, what really matters? And you’re working emergence within those boundaries of what really matters, it’s not, you know, emergence, you know, uncontrolled but in a sense or unfocused, it’s really within that question of you know, how are things emerging within what matters to me?

Peter Stevens  30:21

Having this what, you know, this concept of what really matters, okay, you know, having a clear goal. This enables the organization to focus on something and if you’re doing something entrepreneurial, if you’re trying to you know, make a dent in the universe, you know, having this clear goal, you know? If I were working in SpaceX, I would expect the key question at SpaceX to be something like, how does this help us get to Mars? And you know, all of us say, you got this one question and all of a sudden, you’ve got this lens to say, is what we’re doing productive or not. Okay? And so, I think that there’s a lot of, you know, power in clarity of purpose. There’s a lot of clarity in simple rules of engagement. I had a bit of an ‘aha moment’ about this couple weeks ago, you know, one of the classic examples is, you know, flocks of birds. Okay? And you know, there’s a nice video from course design, which explains, you know, how a vergence works and they talk about you know, how does a flock of birds stay together?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  31:20

Simple rules, right? 

Peter Stevens  31:24

Pretty simple rules, fly in the general direction of the bird next to you, don’t get too close to the bird next to you, don’t get too far away from the bird next year. Okay? Rules, keep the flock together. Okay? Now, it turns out, if you look at how say, an organization works with its management, you see those same three rules in place. Okay, you know the management is kind of like, the structure that’s kind of all moving together, holding itself together, don’t get too close to the guy next to you, don’t get too far away and kind of keep moving in the same general direction. This makes a lot of sense.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  31:57

It does, just that in some organizations, the guardrails are too strict in a sense where that allow for bigger emergence. What about kindness? The kindness is the fifth element. 

Peter Stevens  32:15

Maria, you want to take kindness?

Maria Matarelli  32:17

Yeah, so this is where we realize that you know, with a lot of different work systems, there can be, did you get it done or did you not get it done, right? And that feeling of a failure if you don’t complete and so we really look at the Personal Agility system as a kind of framework, it’s there to remind you what you said was important, which you may or may not have done. And you know, even if you didn’t get all of the things done that you had planned for the week, that’s okay. 

Look at what did you get done, we still want to celebrate what was achieved, even if it wasn’t planned and then this is the opportunity to choose, right? And so, if you’re not satisfied with the things that you did last week, you don’t want to carbon copy that to the next week but we get to choose differently and we get to choose differently every single week. And so, it really is a kind of framework, just reminding you what you said was important, bringing you back to those things that really matter. And then giving you the option to say, do I want to continue going, you know, toward this North star, these things I said that matter? Or do I want to actually made a conscious decision to change that? And so it’s not supposed to be, did I get everything done or not type of approach? It’s, well hey, let me look at what the reality is of the situation and you know, understanding why did that happen? 

What are the other factors or forces in my life that are pulling me in different directions? Are these the things on my forces map, are these other things to consider? And so really, it’s there to reflect back to you as a mirror and we have the problem solving questions where it’s like, hey, why did I not get this done? Is this still important to me? What are possibilities of things I could do toward this? And then we have an opportunity to reset every single week?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  33:59

Yeah and like another thing that made me think about and kind of Maria, you said it in the beginning that it’s a coaching framework, right? And one of the things with coaching is that, you can’t coach somebody that doesn’t want to be coached, right? So in this instance, you know, the book is really, you know, for those people, I guess that are serious about asking these questions and staying on top of it. And you know, to come back to what I was saying in like, my example is like, well you know, how serious do I want to take these questions? 

As far as how serious do I want to take my question of what really matters to me? Because ultimately, if I don’t take that question seriously, then I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and probably good or bad. You know, I don’t have a necessarily a framework for improving, it’s just like more reactive and I think you know, with this framework, it’s more like, it gives you a very flexible coaching way to a powerful way to ask these questions and to weekly address them. So I think that in my opinion, that’s really what’s powerful about it is that, you have a framework here for yourself, if you truly want to improve. And you’re serious about it, in my opinion, you have it there, it’s just you know, do I want to do it or not is a personal choice, right?

Maria Matarelli  35:34

And this is one of those things where I see you get out of it, what you put into it, right even more so with the Personal Agility system. If you are looking at your priorities map on a regular basis throughout the week, the more that you add to your priorities map, the more insights that you have, when you create your alignment compass and say, am I aligned with the things that I thought that I wanted. And so, it’s really a powerful reflection back and so yeah, I mean, it’s being able to take that step that like, that pause that we’ve talked about like, take that step back and really reflect. And if we don’t pause, we will absolutely most likely be reactive in life because there’s so many other things happening and so many things that can get us driven off course. And one thing that has kind of become like, more of a thing to take note of is, there’s some things you can do to set yourself up for success, such as your environment that you’re in and the people around you. And you are more likely to stay on track with your goals when you’re around more like minded people that have similar goals. 

Even just health, for example, if you have friends that eat whatever they want and order food from whatever restaurant, it’s only a matter of time before you’re smashing a pizza next to them, right, versus friends that are often ordering healthy food or wanting to go out and do something outside or go running or do something active. You’re most likely then going to be doing that with them and so there’s other things that we can do when we take that step back to look at what are the other factors that might be influencing my ability to stay on track with the things I say are important. And then we can make those conscious decisions and those choices, do I want to put myself in that position or in that situation, where I may or may not make the choice that’s going to serve me best? And so, it really can start to be very powerful when you take that big step back and look at that bigger picture.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  37:26

Yeah, I mean it really is and I couldn’t agree more like, you know? I remember like coming to United States and my parents would, the only thing that they worried about is who I hanged out with, not what I did, just who I hanged out with. And I can see like, you know, with some of my friends that, you know, ended up in jail versus and like, why my parents were specific about you know, like, they knew, I guess as parents, you know? So, I think that that definitely, at least resonates with me, too. Maybe, you know, to come back, you know, you talk about your three cases. Sharon, Sarah and Pete, could you maybe describe, these are real people that went through this, you know, maybe pick one of them and describe or tell us their story, how they use Personal Agility? In a sense, answer their question, what really matters to me and align to that question?

Maria Matarelli  38:28

Yeah, you know, I think Sharon was one of the first people that sort of kicked off. Peter and I are starting to gather case studies, I met her here in the Tampa, Florida area. And I actually got into the backseat of her Uber, she was driving for Uber and she was working five jobs, was barely getting by, barely able to cover her rent. We started talking, I had just flown in and arrived at the airport, just give me a ride home. And as we were talking, she was telling me about what she did and she had just started, she wanted to be a private chef. 

She wanted to have her own cooking show on TV and she had these big dreams but had no real idea how to go about it. And as she’s talking, I was like, man I feel like I could help her and I’m like, I don’t know if I should offer or not. And by the time that she dropped me off at my place, I said, you know what, why don’t you come over to my place on Friday. It was three days later, I said, I’ll help you shoot a cooking show, we can create a YouTube channel and that’ll create your portfolio. I just want to eat the food for free and so that’s how it started. I got a free private chef, I started working with Sharon on you know, getting out there more with what she really wanted to do, which wasn’t driving Uber, which wasn’t doing all these other odd jobs. It was really being able to step into her gift of being able to cook and by the time that we launched a cooking show. 

You know the holidays came around and she started doing catering, she got so busy that we didn’t really even have time to shoot the cooking show anymore. And she started asking me all these business questions because she also said, she had this goal of losing a bunch of weight. She was over 300 pounds when I met her then I was like, well hey, let’s work out together. So, we started going to the gym together and she’d always start asking me these business questions, I was like Sharon, you know, this is what I do for a living, right, consulting? Like, you know, I could really help you if we really sat down and looked at this properly and I actually started teaching her Personal Agility. And one of the things that emerged over time was, I feel like I could have taught her agile and she could have done okay in business with that. However, there were so many roadblocks in her life, in her personal life, that I don’t think she would have gotten the same results, had it just been here’s a framework or methodology on how to get the business work done. There was a lot of internal healing and trauma that she had to overcome from years of being in relationships where she was physically abused, sexually abused, being put down, never had anyone told her that they believed in her, ever, never had anyone tell her they were proud of her, not having anyone that was supportive, that actually thought that she could do what she believed and dream that she could do. And so, as I started working with Sharon, within the first year, she brought in over six figures, she went from being negative in her bank account with over $700 of insufficient funds fees to clearing over $20,000 in a month. And then, she went on to land a six figure client where she’s now a private chef for a billionaire. And so, it’s like, look at what’s possible with absolutely possible, when you know what really matters, she actually took post it notes, put them on the dashboard of her car because she was driving Uber of what really matters. 

So, she put them every single day and then we started meeting every week and going through it and doing the celebrate and choose event. And then she and I realized we both hadn’t gotten as much progress toward our health and fitness goals is we wanted, even though they were the number one thing on our priorities map. So, then Sharon came up with an innovation on the Personal Agility system and she invited me and another friend of ours to do a shared priorities map together for just health and fitness. Sharon lost over 55 pounds, I lost over 15 and our friend Jen lost, I believe, over 25 or 30. And so, what we realized was, this is so incredibly powerful, much more than just getting work done, getting things accomplished. It actually goes so much deeper when you ask what really matters. And you go deeper into, you know, what are the real reasons that I’m not getting this progress. And Peter and I write in the book about procrastination, distractions, all the things that could sneak up that get in the way that you don’t consciously realize. And a lot of times what we see, especially with adults is it’s putting everybody in front of yourself, especially those with kids and it’s okay to care about your family and your kids. However, if you’re not at your best, how can you be at your best for everyone else, if you’re always doing everything for everyone else. 

So, it’s okay to put yourself first, your dreams first and what actually ended up happening was Sharon had several children that were grown in their 30s, that still relied on her heavily, they are now seeing by her example, they’re taking more responsibility. They’re getting their lives more in order, instead of her doing it all for them. They’re seeing her lead by example, by watching her follow her dream.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  43:18

Exactly and it’s part of, there’s so much stuff in a book that, like you mentioned, you know, some of the things that you know, distract us and like, I really do encourage people, whoever’s listening to you know, read the book. And also, another thing that I haven’t thought about but I think you just gave me an idea is like having somebody else actually go through this process with you. And the idea of you know, start with yourself, you talked about in the book about agile, how to be agile executive and how to be an agile organization. 

But I think, you know, we have to start with ourselves before we start working on our businesses and our organizations. We do have a little bit of time here and I wanted to, I accidentally stumble up on Personal Agility Institute as I was looking for questions and things to ask you, could you maybe talk about just you know, where people can find more information. I’ll update the information in the description so they can get to those links also, when the book becomes available but what else? You know, for closing here, what would you like to share with the audience? And there’s plenty of templates, resources that I saw that you have, so?

Peter Stevens  44:39

Yeah, so one place to go, a couple of things you can, you know, find on the Personal Agility Institute website, the first is that you know, if you’re a registered user, which you can do for free, we have a whole dashboard full of tools. You know, our tools are all creative commons and they’re available so that you can start to you know, either in printed form or electronic forum, we got a Trello template, you know? There are all these things that you can download and get access to, there’s also the guide to Personal Agility, which you can get for free, you know, which is kind of the basics of how it works. 

The next thing, you know, you notice correctly that most of our case studies, they had a coach involved. Okay, now there might be a little bit of self selection here going on but I actually think that this is a pattern because you know, having a coach, you know, having someone to ask you the questions, sometimes it’s just a celebration partner, you know? So like, I’ve been doing this with my wife for quite some time now and you know, we really find that just helping each other focus and knowing what’s going on in the week is just great for our stress. You know, lowering our stress and preventing conflict and recognizing issues early so that we can, you know, find solutions before they can become critical. So one thing, which I would suggest is to reach out to an ambassador, okay? You know, we’ve got 30 ambassadors or so around the world, you know, all of them are authorized to teach you Personal Agility in a coaching context. Some of them are authorized to offer courses, although right now we’re focusing more on the coaching aspect because that’s where the really awesome transformational stories come from. And you know, so I would say that these are probably you know, the Personal Agility Institute website is the place to start. You know, there are free tools, there are coaches and they’re also of course offerings that you can sign up for. Did I miss anything, Maria?

Maria Matarelli  46:33

Yeah, you know that’s really it, Peter. I think, you know, check out the body of knowledge, read through the case studies, the results that people have gotten are absolutely incredible. And so, you know, after Peter actually was in the US a few years ago and Sharon was like, I’d like to cook you dinner. And he’s all quiet like, I just want to say thank you to you and Maria for Personal Agility, it has completely changed my life. And that’s where we got the idea to start documenting more and more case studies and we suspected that we were on to something, we started using Personal Agility and sharing with others, what has emerged that I think really impressed and amazed me was the application in the business context. 

Yes, it works for the individual but it also works so incredibly well, as far as how it can be applied when you really focus on what really matters in the business context, rather than 40 initiatives, can we ask what really matters and actually get the top, the best ones, the most revenue generating ones. And we have stories from people that have almost gone bankrupt to turning their company around and being in the green today, consultants completing 24% of projects on time to over 90% of projects completed on time. A company that launched during the pandemic and hit a $35 million valuation and completed a three year roadmap in one year’s time. And so, the stories, the case studies that you can see, you know, our ambassadors represent across over more than 10 countries. So, you know, being able to reach out to someone in your area, see the stories of what’s worked. And really, we encourage people to start to ask these powerful questions to themselves, of what really matters and look at ways to get started themselves.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  48:12

Yeah, you know, you just made me think about you can use it, you know, with teams and align personal goals of individuals with teams and there’s so much that you can do. Well, I do want to you know, at some point, have you come back because I feel like we could have discussed this, you know, for how long but I just wanted to kind of I was, as I told you motivated by going through the book and just you know, getting my kind of thoughts together and asking that what matters to me? So if you’re open, I’ll definitely maybe, you know, once the book is out, we can talk again and maybe, you know, dive into someone, maybe you can show me some of the tools. Or maybe we can do one of those, like, Ask Me Anything with people but I definitely would like to explore more because I think there’s a lot that we didn’t discuss and that we could actually show to people and you know, maybe share with people.

Maria Matarelli  49:06

Yeah, I would love that, that would be great.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  49:10

All right. Thank you, anything? What would you like to leave us with, maybe just a couple of thoughts, anything for now?

Maria Matarelli  49:18

What I would say is, you know, for people, if everything matters then nothing matters. And that’s a phrase that Peter and I say all the time because there are so many things happening in life and we’re getting hit left and right. It’s hard to not be reactive and I think that sometimes people need to be reminded that you are the captain of your ship. And you do get to choose, you can set boundaries, you can let people know how to treat you and so I believe that we’re in more control than we think sometimes, even though we think we’re getting like whisked away by our schedule. And so, I just really want to encourage people to think about you know, what really matters and encourage them to take that time to just pause and reflect because it can really help you re-shift your focus and it’s completely transformed my life. And the way that I look at everything that I do in a positive way and it’s not just about the achievement, it’s about the joy and fulfillment at the end of the day. And so, can we focus more on that and around gratitudes and can we focus more on how can I do more things that make me happy? Because then, most everything else will fall into place after you know that?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  50:31

Yeah. No, that’s a great message and what about from you Peter, from your standpoint?

Peter Stevens  50:37

I was kind of thinking about this, I got to think about what really matters, my God, there’s so much I got to do. Breathe, you’re doing just fine and you’ll figure it out. Okay? You might figure it out by, you know, really thinking about it. You might figure it out, I mean in my case, I didn’t really think about it, it was just the question was there in front of me and then one day, bingo, I knew. Okay? So, you know, if you don’t find the answer to that question right away, don’t worry about it. You know, just look at how you spend your time, look at how you want to spend your time, look at how you end up spending your time, you know? And you’ll start to see you know, pieces will start to fall in place, okay? And it’s an iterative process and it’s okay, if you don’t get the right answer on the first try, you know, navigation and the navigation is all about what you’re going to not where you’re coming from. Okay? And you know, once you figure it out, then things will snap into place.