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My guest for Episode #126 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Dr Amantha Imber, she is an organisational psychologist and founder of behavioural science consultancy Inventium.
She and I share a belief… “Work doesn’t have to suck!” As it says on the front page of her website.
Amantha is the author of two best-selling books: The Creativity Formula and The Innovation Formula.
She’s the host of a podcast: “How I Work.”
In today's episode, Amantha tells her “favorite mistake” story about tying her achievements to self worth. How did she discover that pattern? What did she learn and what did she do about it?
We talk about that story and other topics including:
- Positive framing (start doing) of habit change vs. negative (stop doing)?
- I first learned of you because of a piece you wrote on LinkedIn that I really enjoyed… it was titled: Your “Failure Resume”
- Why did you frame that as an experiment?
- Amantha's failure resume
- Experiments — others coming along with you — how many?
- “My Year of Better”
- “My natural inclination was to hide my failures.” Why was that?
- As a child, you said: “But in addition to being competitive, I was also a perfectionist.” Why is that combination of perfectionism and competitiveness a problem?
- Tell us about your firm Inventium
- Like Samantha, Without the S — name of an album you released?
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- Full transcript
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Automated Transcript (Likely Contains Mistakes)
Mark Graban (0s):
Episode 1 26 organizational psychologist, Dr. Amantha Imber.
Amantha Imber (6s):
Yeah, a very fundamental mistake that I made for many, many years, the majority of my career, is linking my achievements to my self worth.
Mark Graban (21s):
I'm Mark Graban. This is My Favorite Mistake. In this podcast, you'll hear business leaders and other really interesting people talking about their favorite mistakes because we all make mistakes, but what matters is learning from our mistakes instead of repeating them over and over again. So this is the place for honest reflection and conversation, personal growth and professional success. Visit our website at myfavoritemistakepodcast.com. For links to Amantha's firm, her books, and more, look in the show notes or go to markgraban.com/mistake126. Thank you again for being here and listening today.
Mark Graban (1m 3s):
Our guest today is Dr. Amantha Imber. She is an organizational psychologist and founder of the behavioral science consultancy, Inventium. So Amanda and I share a belief. It says on the front page of her website work, doesn't have to suck. And that's something I've believed and agreed with for a long time. Amantha is the author of two best-selling books, The Creativity Formula and The Innovation Formula. She is the host of a podcast called How I Work. So with all that, Amantha welcome to the podcast. How are you? I'm
Amantha Imber (1m 39s):
Very well, Mark. How are you?
Mark Graban (1m 41s):
I'm doing well. I hope I didn't make any mistakes there in the introduction.
Amantha Imber (1m 47s):
Perfect.
Mark Graban (1m 50s):
And listeners might be wondering, where are you joining us? Or they may have a guess, but where are you joining us from today?
Amantha Imber (1m 57s):
It's really, you guessed Australia. You are absolutely correct. And most specifically, Melbourne Australia possibly known for being the lockdown capital of the world, because we spent about 265 days all up in lockdown. So there you go.
Mark Graban (2m 13s):
Are you doing okay from that?
Amantha Imber (2m 16s):
Yes, I am. I am. Yes. The, you know, yes. Millions of people have been emerging instead of finding, finding their freedom again over the last month or sorry. So that's been very exciting and also overwhelming for a lot of people as well.
Mark Graban (2m 32s):
Yeah. So I don't know if a pandemic mistakes are locked down, mistakes will be on the agenda today, but, you know, I appreciate that, that you've written openly about mistakes and we'll come back and talk about this later on for the listeners. I, I discovered Amantha in her work because of a really interesting and thought-provoking articles. She wrote on LinkedIn about what she calls a failure resume. So I'm going to ask you to, to talk about that and elaborate on that a little bit later on, but, you know, as we always do, Amantha we kind of dive into the key question to get things started, you know, looking at the, the work you've done, what would you say is your favorite mistake?
Amantha Imber (3m 14s):
There was so many to choose from, but I would say a very fundamental mistake that I made for many, many years. The majority of my career is linking my achievements to my self worth. And whenever I would achieve something, I would, I think mistakenly believe well, that makes me a better person that makes me a more likable person. And, you know, that should make me a happier person and a more confident person. And, and, and that is a really big mistake to make that. I see a lot of people instantly, even people on my team at Inventium make.
Amantha Imber (3m 55s):
I think when you're a type, a high achieving kind of personality type, it's really easy to, to link those two things together when really they should be separate. Like you, you are not your achievements. You are a person outside of that. And I remember I read this great blog from Seth Godin many years ago, and he said, confidence, confidence is a choice. And I always used to think that confidence was something I earned when I had enough achievements under my belt. And that really stuck with me. So that I think is a very fundamental mistake that I have made. I still make that mistake, but I think I may get blessed in terms of linking my achievements to my self-worth.
Mark Graban (4m 41s):
So back to the Seth Goden thought, I guess the idea is, you know, the confident confidence hopefully comes more from your character and your abilities and potential, not just what has been achieved.
Amantha Imber (4m 56s):
That's right. Like it's not, it's not this end point. Like I remember when, when I was younger, I was in my mid twenties and I'd been headhunted for a job in advertising where I was working at the time as a consumer psychologist. And I was based in Melbourne and a big ad agency had approached me to work in Sydney as a senior strategist and a consumer psychologist. And I was very excited, but I was convinced that they hadn't read my resume my properly and that they were making this big fatal error employing me for quite a senior role when I just felt like I didn't have the knowledge or experience under my belt. And I remember before I started that job in Sydney, I caught up with this guy.
Amantha Imber (5m 41s):
I knew who was one of the only other consumer psychologists that there was in Australia at that time. And he was always someone that seemed really confident in his ability. And he had more years of experience than me. And I said to him, well, I asked at what point did you just start to feel really confident in your ability as a consumer psychologist? And he said to me, I still don't. I just fake it. I pretend to be confident. And then people trust what you say. And that really stuck with me. It's like, oh, so I'm not going to hit this end destination where I suddenly feel confident. I suddenly feel like I have all the answers and that's actually okay.
Amantha Imber (6m 25s):
So that was a bit of a revelation for me.
Mark Graban (6m 28s):
So it sounds like you've touched on that. I was going to ask, how did you discover this habit or this pattern of linking achievements to self-worth? Was it, was it discussions like that? Were there other things that were eye opening to you? Amantha
Amantha Imber (6m 45s):
Yeah, there were a few things. It was definitely discussions like that. I became aware that when I would catch up with friends and they would go, how are you? The first thing I would think of is what have I achieved since I've last seen them that I can share in conversation because that will make them like me more. And, and I also experienced the same thing. So I separated and divorced from my now ex husband a couple of years ago. And so that's been an interesting dating as, as a, you know, as, as a woman in her forties.
Amantha Imber (7m 26s):
And I became aware that on some dates, I would feel the need to talk about my achievements because I feel, I felt that that would make me more likable. And I learned that we'll know people like you for who you are and your values and how you treat them as opposed to what you've achieved. And I think it was just reflecting on conversations that I'd had in, in those two sort of scenarios. And funnily enough, not so much with work conversations that, that really hit home on that point for me. Yeah.
Mark Graban (7m 58s):
'cause, you know, looking at, at your, your track record between education and being an entrepreneur and an author, it sounds like there are a lot of achievements that you could use as a foundation for self-worth. So, so having, you know, being, being successful, even if you have your doubts of, you know, gosh, am I the right person for these roles, or am I the right person for these clients? So if you could just share a little bit more of the reflection of even with success coming, you know, to this, this recognition that, you know, self worth comes from other factors.
Amantha Imber (8m 42s):
Yeah. I think it's, it's like, it's been, I would say it's a constant battle because while I've come to this realization, it's not like that just solves everything and makes everything easier. Like now it's, it's almost like before I catch up with a friend, you know, I'll, I'll sometimes reflect on, oh, what's what's happened. And, you know, if they ask how I'm going, like what, what will they share? And that, that might sound weird, but like I'm quite introverted. And so I do, I do think about these things and, you know, before events that I go to I'm like, what will I talk about with people?
Amantha Imber (9m 25s):
And I guess it's like, instead of defaulting to achievements, I will maybe think about, well, what are some interesting stories that have happened to me that, you know, that, that someone else might find interesting as opposed to thinking what have I achieved? Yeah.
Mark Graban (9m 41s):
So, I mean, how would you describe the impact of this, this mistake of, let's say, for example, you know, talking about achievements will make this, this hypothesis of talking about achievements will make me more likable. Like, did you, did you w where, where were the things we realized, like, you know, moments where you realize that it's not playing out that way, that would lead you to, like you said, try to avoid repeating that as often, that, that mistake, if you will
Amantha Imber (10m 9s):
Just thinking if there were moments, I know that there were moments where I realized I'd changed. So I had this experience a few weeks ago, and then it repeated itself with another friend. So I walked with and went on a walk with a friend a few weeks ago, and he said, what have you been up to in the last couple of months? And I said, I'm actually like, this is the first weekend I've had in a while where I haven't been working because I've been writing a book I'd been on deadline. And I submitted it to my publisher, like a couple of weeks before I met with him.
Amantha Imber (10m 50s):
And he said, what? You're writing a book. And for me, that was like, that sounds like a, you know, just like in innocuous comment, oh, I forgot to tell him I was writing a book, but the book was a big deal. It was a, it was a book deal with Penguin who are obviously a big publisher. And it's hard to get book deals with big publishers because they only publish so many books every year. And I'd actually failed to tell him that I got offered a book deal, you know, six or eight months prior. And I thought that's real progress for me because normally I'd be leading with that story because that's going to make me more likable because I've got this like book deal.
Amantha Imber (11m 30s):
But the fact that I did it, it made me go, that's actually really cool. I feel quite proud of the fact that he didn't know about this thing. And then I had the same thing happened with another friend who I caught up with and, and, and the book project came into conversation. I can't remember how, but I just completely failed to tell them that this big thing had happened many months ago. And we'd had several catch-ups since, but I just hadn't mentioned it. And that made me feel like I'd made some progress.
Mark Graban (11m 58s):
Yeah. And you know, it's progress is a good thing. You know, I'll take progress over perfection, at least in terms of expectations. You, you talked earlier about how you, you know, you try to change and developing new habits or getting rid of old habits can be difficult. One other question, before, you know, we talk about failure, resume and other, other things, I'm curious, your thoughts as a psychologist, as a behavioral scientist, thoughts or advice you might share with the audience reflections on trying to develop new habits and, and, or getting rid of old habits, things that are helpful in that regard.
Amantha Imber (12m 38s):
Goodness, may I've, I've read a lot about habit change and like, it's an area that I'm so fascinated by. I think the best advice that I've heard would probably come from BJ Fogg. So he's behaviorist works out of Stanford and he wrote the book, Tiny Habits. And I interviewed BJ on my podcast, how I work maybe a year and a half ago. And like he he's into forming new habits through just making them really tiny.
Amantha Imber (13m 18s):
So things that take less than 30 seconds to do, and it really easy to do and tying them to things that we're doing already. So for example, if your trying to create the habit of flossing, your teeth every night, you probably brushed your teeth every night. Right now that's already an ingrained habit. So BJ would say, we'll link the new habit that you want to try to the old one, but just make it tiny. So he would say after you brush your teeth every night, just floss one tooth, which sounds crazy. But the thing is, once you start flossing, one tooth, you'll naturally expand on that habit, which I love. And the other thing that I love about how he frames up habit changed is the keto habit.
Amantha Imber (14m 0s):
Sticking is linking it with positive emotion, because you want to do things that make you feel good. You know, that's why, you know, we, we, people compulsively check social media because we get that dopamine hit when we get new likes or follows or whatever. And so if you can, you know, if with the toothless thing, example, like, just go yay, or, you know, like some celebrator, he kind of act that makes you feel good when you do that new thing that will make that habit more sticky.
Mark Graban (14m 33s):
So I hear you're saying, is framing something in terms of developing a new positive habit might be more helpful than saying I'm going to eliminate an old habit. So let's say framing might be from a negative, you know, I'm going to stop eating badly. And instead of it, as I'm going to start eating well and celebrate, let's say the one piece of broccoli that then leads maybe to a whole plate of broccoli.
Amantha Imber (15m 2s):
That's definitely, I like that way of looking at it. I think something else that I think is very helpful when it's about trying to stop a behavior is read some research. That was, gosh, I'm just trying to, I think trying to think of which university it was Ferrari, but it was a, it was from a marketing department where they were looking at the impact of self-talk on interestingly consuming, more healthy foods. And in this particular study, it was that set up an experiment with people were taught a strategy to help encourage healthier eating.
Amantha Imber (15m 43s):
And the strategy was to take away from junk food. They were taught to either say, I can't eat a junk food or chocolate or something specific like that versus I don't eat junk food or I don't eat chocolate. So just one simple word difference in terms of the strategy that they were taught. And what they found is that the group that were taught to say, I don't eat junk food, where, what was something like 50% more likely to pick a healthy snack at the end of the experiment? So at the end of the experiment, everyone left, they were offered a healthy muesli bar or a chocolate bar upon leaving.
Amantha Imber (16m 27s):
And yeah, those that said, I don't eat junk food. We're 50% more likely to pick the healthy snack, the healthy Bob. So I think when we're trying to like, not do something, framing it as I don't do this is very effective because it becomes part of our self identity and psychologically speaking, we don't want to do things that clash with our identity. So that's a little trick for trying to not do behaviors.
Mark Graban (16m 57s):
Yeah. Okay. That's, that's very helpful. Amantha so I wanna talk about your failure resume and that move of publishing that publicly, or at least as public, as let's say, LinkedIn gets us a forum and you know why you wrote it. And I thought it was interesting that you framed it as part of an experiment. So I wonder if you could share with us more about that.
Amantha Imber (17m 20s):
So it was initially part of an experiment I did in early 2020 before the pandemic changed all our lives. And I began as a psychologist. I raised so many research findings about how to improve our life. And I thought I'm going to turn myself into a human Guinea pig. And every couple of weeks, I'm going to try a new strategy and see if that changes things. And then I sort of put that out to my networks and had about 1500 people go, yes, I, to be on that journey too. And they, you know, kindly completed lots of surveys along these experiments that we're trying to change various things. And one of the experiments was riding a failure as you might, the idea being rather than write a traditional resume, where you talk about everything, that's great about yourself and all your achievements.
Amantha Imber (18m 7s):
This was about writing, about what have been the key and most pivotable, pivotal, most humiliating, terrible, awful failures that you've had in your life. And you could just limit it to work, or you could open it up to your personal life as well. And writing about those failures and then also writing about what you learned from those failures. So that was, that was the concept. And the thinking behind that is that if we can actually label and talk about those uncomfortable things, they actually, it actually de-intensifies those things for us. And at the same time, Bruce resilience. So that's the research, if you like behind the merits of writing a failure resume.
Mark Graban (18m 51s):
So it, did you get feedback from others? Did other people share their failure resumes publicly or with you?
Amantha Imber (18m 59s):
Yes, a lot. So many people, so many people, and it was really amazing. And at the time when I first did my failure resume, so I repeated the process a few weeks ago, but when I first did it, I shared my failure resume with my team at Inventium this in the spirit of sharing. And, you know, as, as a leader in the business, and just like without asking every single person decided to also write a failure, as you may, and share that with the team. And it was really beautiful, like at the end of the week when everyone had done that and I wanted Bain asked clearly, unlike, you know, you know, spontaneous, I think we all just felt this common sense of closeness to each other and like the trust and the intimacy between the team members had just really gone up quite significantly through doing that exercise.
Mark Graban (19m 51s):
I mean, you know, I've done a little, I, I should go and write more of a failure resume. I'll share a link to yours in the show notes for people. But I, I, I, I, I was the initiator and editor of a book project maybe about five or six years ago. And that book was called Practicing Lean because I work in a field, we use the term lean is this business improvement methodology. But the idea was to write about an early failure in your career. So in a way, it was a precursor to doing my Favorite Mistake podcasts. And I shared a couple of mistakes that I had made in the spirit of reflecting and sharing. Here's what I learned from it. Here's what I wish I would have done differently as a way of trying to show some grace towards others who are maybe early in their career and making mistakes.
Mark Graban (20m 39s):
And then I had 15 other people share at least a portion of their, we didn't call it a failure resume, but I, I think a very similar concept and, and people have said, it's helpful because the one habit I was trying to change was being judgemental toward people who were making a mistake early in their career, how do they not know any better? What they don't. And I think that was a healthy thing to, to reflect on and maybe listeners will we'll write and share some failure resumes with us.
Amantha Imber (21m 13s):
That'd be cool.
Mark Graban (21m 15s):
But I love this idea. You talked about these different experiments and they do. Do you remember how many different experiments you found? Like, it seemed like there could be a book here or each chapter is about one of your experiments that these things worked for you or not.
Amantha Imber (21m 32s):
Yeah. So I think I got to about seven experiments in, and then COVID hit and that completely changed the focus. So I'd called the project my year of better. And I think if you Google my year of better, and then my name at that, you could probably find a link to where all those experiments and the data is sitting, but then I, I kind of, you know, focus changed and I stopped that, but it is actually a project that I'm thinking of coming back to possibly with a potential collaborators. So, so watch this space because I'm very into the idea of self experimentation.
Amantha Imber (22m 15s):
I just get so much joy from that.
Mark Graban (22m 18s):
And that, that sort of, that, that comes through both in the way you wrote about these mistakes and the learning and the way you're talking about it here in, in that piece. One thing that you said was that your natural inclination was to hide your failures. So why, why, why, why was that? What were some of your reflections about that habit of trying to hide mistakes instead of being open about them?
Amantha Imber (22m 43s):
It comes back, I would say to this tendency to link myself worth to my achievements and sorry if I were to admit my failures and mistakes, then people would think less of me was the logic that I used in my brain when actually I think the opposite is most definitely true. And, you know, I think as a leader, like the, you know, I mean, I feel like, you know, talking about being vulnerable as a leader has just become a bit of a cliche and it's so overused, but, you know, there really is something, you know, very important, I think, to just being really open and just human with, with your team, like not only will that improve just the general connectedness that you have, but I just think it makes you more effective as, as a leader, like not having to, you know, wear a mask to work or anything like that.
Mark Graban (23m 41s):
And you mean more of like, not, not a COVID physical mask. Yeah. Cause
Amantha Imber (23m 45s):
Piece,
Mark Graban (23m 47s):
You talk about more of it, more of an emotional mask that you were wearing.
Amantha Imber (23m 50s):
Yes, exactly. Yeah. It's not a physical mask, although that can be good as well for COVID safety, but not a metaphorical mask in this case.
Mark Graban (24m 3s):
So I'm not a psychologist. So by asking about your child's childhood seems like a, you know, a stereotypical sort of, you know, therapy question, but in the piece, you kind of, you brought this up, like where do you think some of these patterns developed coming out of childhood? You, you described yourself as I'll ask you to elaborate on this. Of course, but the one other thing that stood out to me and in a resume, I saw some of myself in this, in addition to being competitive, I was also a perfectionist. So I was wondering if you can share a little bit more about why or how you just, how, how, how you came to see that as maybe a bit of a problem or a mistake.
Amantha Imber (24m 44s):
Yes. So I was, I was very, I was very competitive, really from an early age, from primary school. I remember one of the other people that I went to school with her name was Bonnie Smart, and she definitely lived up to that surname. And I felt like she was my arch nemesis and on any test in primary school. And my God who's even thinking about test results in primary school, but I was, and I was like, guttered, if Bonnie did better than me, but yeah, I was also a perfectionist. And, you know, like if I got an, a for something I'd think to myself, but I didn't get an a plus, like, why didn't I get an, a plus and I'd beat myself up for that.
Amantha Imber (25m 31s):
And look in terms of where did that come from? I mean, I think that, you know, children learn a lot from their parents. You know, my parents are both high achieving in, in their respective fields. Mom's a psychologist, dad's an engineer, you know, they're both incredibly clever, clever people. And I also think of my self is a parent to a seven and a half year old girl. And I think it's, it's really hard when you identify yourself as someone that, you know, that strives to achieve to not impose those values on your child or your children.
Amantha Imber (26m 16s):
I think that kind of happens unconsciously. Like, you know, I mean, my daughter's only in year two at the moment. So, you know, academic results, you don't, and not really a thing that, you know, that, that she's kind of, you know, thinking about or worrying about, but I'm very aware of my own biases that I put on to, you know, like when I say a report card, it's like, I want her to be exceeding expectations. And so if she's just meeting expectations, my inner voice is like, well, why what's wrong? What should I do? But it's like, nothing's wrong.
Amantha Imber (26m 58s):
Like she's not you and stop imposing your beliefs. Sorry. I think it's really something that I try to think about a lot as a parent. And I think that for people that are like me and can relate, you know, I think it probably is to a large extent passed down by just the environment that we grow up in and what's valued.
Mark Graban (27m 20s):
And you know, I'm, I'm not a parent, but I have heard and seen articles where your, what you're saying comes to mind this, this discovery that it's better to praise children for trying hard or working hard than it is to praise them for being smart. Because one of those is one of those things is a behavior. One of those things is to some level innate and Y Y Y you know, take the credit for being born with, you know, a certain level of capability. Is that something that you've thought about as a psychologist and, or as a parent
Amantha Imber (27m 58s):
So much mark, like, I love this, like in terms of fixed versus growth mindset. And I am very, yeah, I'm quite obsessed with the idea of not calling my daughter clever or going. You're so clever. Like, you're so smart, but it's all about trying. It's like, I'm so proud of you because you tried so hard. I'm really proud of you because you were really struggling with spelling, but now you've really put in effort to, to, you know, to, to, to learn how to spell these words or something like that. So it's all about the effort that is put in and how hard she's trying, because they're the things that make us better.
Amantha Imber (28m 44s):
Whereas it's quite useless and quite damaging for me to go, oh, you're so clever. You're so clever because then if she thinks she's clever, she maybe will discount the idea of having to work to achieve things.
Mark Graban (28m 58s):
Well, you mentioned, you know, two people, I would love to interview her on the podcast, not just BJ Fogg, but when you mentioned, you know, growth mindset or the book Mindset, Carol Dweck is I think somebody who is, I don't know, patron saints, not the right way of saying it, but this idea of growth mindset is one of the key ideas behind the type of people who are willing to come on here and talk about mistakes and growing and learning and trying hard and not always being perfect, but, but getting better through, through that process. So that's a reminder, maybe I'll, I, I need to, I think I did reach out to, to her once, but I'll, I'll be more persistent.
Mark Graban (29m 40s):
I'll, I'll focus on the effort. Not say the podcast is clever. She should want to be on it. And I take that as encouragement, Amanda. So I think
Amantha Imber (29m 54s):
That's right. No, not me berating you, you can do it.
Mark Graban (29m 58s):
I can do it. I will. I will. I'm jotting that down to a, to try again. And if any listener has a connection to make an introduction, I will certainly take some help though, beyond my effort. So our guests, again, here, Amantha, Imber, you're from, Inventium tell us a little bit about the type of work that you do, who are the clients that you work with?
Amantha Imber (30m 21s):
So we're at behavioral science consultancy. We've been around for 15 years now and we, we help people broadly speaking perform better at work, but the sort of specific work that we've been involved in a lot is particularly helping knowledge workers. So people that are paid to use their brain for a living get better at doing deeper focused work in the age of digital distraction, helping them think more creatively and innovatively about the problems that they're facing and, you know, really navigating this future of work that is completely different to how we thought it would be two years ago. Like how do we get the best out of hybrid teams, which is, you know, really the way of the future, where we're not all going to be co located five days a week.
Amantha Imber (31m 7s):
So that's the sort of work that we do. And look, we largely work with corporates. We do work all over the world and we work with a lot of multinationals. Like we've done work with companies like Google and Apple and Lego and Deloitte, and, you know, all sorts of organizations that, you know, really, you know, really kind of, I guess, value going, how, how can we get the best out of people and also help people enjoy their work more in the age where our attention span is, is literally six minutes. That is how long the average person goes. You know, without checking email or instant messenger, six minutes, according to research from rescue time,
Mark Graban (31m 54s):
You've kept my attention for a 30 minutes here without peeking at email or my phone or social media, no need for, for that dopamine burst. And hopefully the listeners have been doing the same, especially if they're listening while they're driving, you know, the, that the, that driving and listening is multitasking enough. Of course. So I'll put a link to Inventium in the show notes, Amantha's website is real easy to find it's amantha.com. That name thankfully was, was available for you because, Hey, have you ever met another? Amantha probably not.
Amantha Imber (32m 32s):
Actually I have. So while I was doing my doctorate in organizational psychology, I was pursuing a career as a musician as well on the side. And I, I did actually have a couple of Amantha's get in touch with me through finding my music, which was very strange. So yes, but that is it. I think they were possibly in America. So there you go.
Mark Graban (32m 55s):
And the, that, that album was named like Samantha Without the S, which is how you would describe your that's perfect. I haven't listened to it. I needed to get it on Spotify.
Amantha Imber (33m 8s):
There's no way it is nowhere to be found. It was literally just before iTunes took off when I was working on that. So yeah, that can't be found unfortunately, well, fortunately for me,
Mark Graban (33m 20s):
Well maybe someday at amantha.com, there might be a music section, but for now you can learn more about her books and her work. And final question for you at the podcast, how I work, what, what kinds of topics do you cover on that podcast?
Amantha Imber (33m 36s):
Yeah, that, that podcast is for, you know, maybe people that are like ask that are really, you know, striving to always get better and improve. So I interview some of the world's most successful people like BJ Fogg, like Adam Grant, Dan Pink come show business would be familiar with those names. And I unpack like, how are they using their time differently to the rest of us mere mortals? So it's very tactics and tools and strategy based because I want to know what are they doing differently to, you know, use their time. So, well, sorry if you're into that kind of stuff. You'll probably like how I work.
Mark Graban (34m 16s):
Well, I think people listening here to my favorite mistake will find that interesting. I'm going to go check it out. So encourage people to go find how I work. Amantha Imber as the host there, Dan Pink has agreed to be a guest here on My Favorite Mistake because he has a new book coming out and he's talking a lot about sharing failures, learning from failures. So I'm looking forward to, to having him on here, but I've, I've enjoyed very much the chance to talk with you. Amantha that seems like a rude thing to thank a podcast guest, by think talking, talking about a future, a future guest, my focus here in the moment of,
Amantha Imber (34m 56s):
But Dan is very exciting. He's a great guest
Mark Graban (35m 0s):
And Dan does great. So, so are you, so I hope everyone will check out amantha.com and go check out her piece on the failure resume again, I will link to that in the show notes, and maybe we'll, we'll get another wave of failure resumes, and maybe people sharing those on LinkedIn as well.
Amantha Imber (35m 20s):
Thanks so much for having me, man.
Mark Graban (35m 21s):
Thanks. Thanks for being a guest. Well, thanks again to Dr. Amantha Imber for being such a fantastic guest today, to learn more about her and to find links to all of her work. Look in the show notes, or go to markgraban.com/mistake126. Always. I want to Thank you for listening. I hope this podcast inspires you to reflect on your own mistakes, how you can learn from them or turn them into a positive I've had listeners tell me they started being more open and honest about mistakes and their work. And they're trying to create a workplace culture where it's safe to speak up about problems because that leads to more improvement and better business results. If you have feedback or a story to share, you can email me myfavoritemistakepodcast@gmail.com.
Mark Graban (36m 2s):
And again, our website is myfavoritemistakepodcast.com.