Self-trust and identity are at the center of this conversation with Lester Clowes, executive coach and author of Stop Lying to Yourself.

Lester Clowes spent a decade running a school system before building a coaching practice around the exact motivational content he used to be hooked on himself. His new book, Stop Lying to Yourself, examines the quiet lies capable, organized people tell themselves right up until nothing changes.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Promise debt: How years of small broken commitments to yourself compound into a negative balance — and why that balance, not your system, is usually the real problem.
• Act as if, not fake it till you make it: The difference between performing someone else's identity and architecting your own, and why one has an off-ramp and the other doesn't.
• Self-trust vs. self-reputation: Why the feeling and the record are two different things — and why feelings always snap back to match the record, no matter how good the pep talk was.
• The desert: The unglamorous middle phase between enthusiasm and momentum where most people quit, and why learning to act independent of your feelings is the whole game.
• Seasons, not sweeping change: How naming what season you're in — and giving it a boundary — restores the agency that an over-engineered system can't.

If you've built the system and you're still, four years later, the same person — just better at being busy — this conversation is for you. It pairs well with Erik's solo episode on agency versus the illusion of control if you want the fuller framework behind why control was never really the goal.

Connect with Lester:

• defytheaverage.com

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Creativity, rest, and mindset are at the center of this conversation with Natalie Nixon, author of The Creativity Leap and Move, Think, Rest.

Natalie Nixon has spent two decades as a creativity strategist advising Fortune 500 companies on innovation strategy — work she calls being a "creative whisperer to the C-Suite." She's the founder of Figure 8 Thinking, and her two books make one connected argument: creativity means toggling between wonder and rigor, and rest isn't procrastination — it's fuel for better thinking.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Rest that looks like nothing: Why Natalie assumed her best thinking — staring out the window, taking a slow walk — was procrastination, and what finally convinced her it wasn't.
• Wonder and rigor, not "creative types": The real definition of creativity as a toggle everyone already uses, and why "I'm not a creative person" misses the point entirely.
• The 90-second daydream break: The neuroscience of the default mode network, and how a short, timed pause can unstick a problem that's had you stuck for hours.
• What her father taught her about rest: A weekly Saturday ritual that was equal parts self-care and discipline — and why the work still got done anyway.
• Flourishing over productive: Why the right question about AI isn't "how does this make us more productive," but "how does this help us flourish."

If your calendar rewards constant output and treats stillness like a red flag, this one's for you.

Connect with Natalie:

• Figure 8 Thinking

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

This Podcast is Powered By:

• Brain.fm - 20% off your first month
• Descript
• Descript 101
• Castmagic
• Ecamm
• Podpage
• Rodecaster Pro

Grab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist:

http://beyondthetodolist.com/blinkist

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.