In Year 12, my teacher Mr Matthias gave us some homework- to research the word watershed.
What’s a watershed?
Imagine a mountain where rain falling on one side flows into one river, but the rain falling on the other side flows into a completely different river. The line separating those two paths is called the watershed.
You might have heard the phrase ‘a watershed moment’. It’s a point where life changes direction. The good news is, you don’t need to wait for a capital b Big life moment for this to happen.
You can wake up today, go for a coffee and have a watershed conversation, where the way you see the world changes in an instant. (Or, as Hanson would sing, in an mmmbop).
For example, last year I took myself to an urgent care clinic because I had a tiny splinter in my right foot. I couldn’t put any weight on it.
While the doctor worked on dislodging it, he mentioned he used to be an engineer. He didn’t switch to medicine until he was 39 years old. I remarked, “That’s a pretty late career change.”
He said another doctor had given him this advice: “Look, in five years, you’re going to be 44 anyway. So, do you want to be a 44-year-old doctor, or a 44-year-old who is still wishing they were a doctor?”
What a line! Time is going to pass anyway. You might as well spend it building something your future self wants, right?
That quote reminds me to attack the moment/now even harder than I used to (it was a good jump-start to get cracking on the next book). Memento mori!
While watershed conversations can hit us in random moments, we’re lucky sometimes when the best ones are captured on audio.
I wanted to share 3 specific podcast conversations that were watersheds in my life.
I had the idea last night, after listening to an episode of The Diary of a CEO. I haven’t tuned in for months, but I picked this episode at random and #mindblown…which is why I’ve featured it as #2 on this list.
1. Jenny Blake on Smart Passive Income (Episode 249)
SPI 249: Pivoting: How, When, & Why to Do It with Jenny Blake
I first started listening to podcasts in 2017. I remember a rainy commute into work when ❤️ Jenny Blake’s bright voice came through my headphones talking about career pivots.
At the time, I thought the solution to my career stunt was to find a new job. This episode was a watershed for me.
Jenny’s framework breaks a successful pivot into four stages:
Plant: Identifying your core strengths and what success looks like one year from now. This is the foot that stays firmly on the ground.
Scan: Looking outward for people, projects, and opportunities.
Pilot: Running small experiments to test a new direction before you commit.
Launch: Going all in.
Two things I took to heart back then.
A pivot is not a 180 degree turn. You don’t burn it all down and start from scratch. You double down on what’s already working. For me, this meant I didn’t need to chase a new job. Actually, there were elements I liked at work but I didn’t really recognise what those things were, it’s worth doing a stocktake first.
Focus on planting first - go through a process where you get honest about your strengths and what lights you up. After learning this, I did my Clifton Strengths profile, and felt an enormous wave of relief. Ok, phew, I’m not a weirdo… I can embrace my natural tendency to work, and that can become my superpower (btw my Top 5 are 1. Ideation 2. Activator 3. Maximiser 4. Postivity 5. Futuristic - What are yours? LMK in the comments).
Also, Jenny said career restlessness itself is worth paying attention to - she felt like she was having a quarter-life crisis every two years and assumed something was wrong with her.
But it’s not a bad thing to feel restless. No need to avoid it! It’s okay to ask “what’s next?” more often.
Here’s a few other conversations we’ve recorded over the years.
2. Dr Martin Picard on The Diary of a CEO
My toxic trait is that I make many decisions on pure energy/”the vibes”. Even when I have hard data, like Google Maps telling me where to go, I still over-rule it thinking i know best..!
If I make a massive decision and someone asks “Why did you do that?” (a completely valid question), I feel comfortable responding with, “Because I felt like it.”
I have a bias for making a decision and moving on, rather than hanging out in limbo. In some way, there’s just a deeper knowing/trust that it’s the right thing to do in the moment.
Up until recently, I know that sounded very “woo-woo.”
Then I listened to Dr. Martin Picard on the DOAC, who has spent ten years researching mitochondria and psycho-biological energy at Columbia University. He gave me some scientific validation for what I was doing (phew!).
Here are my some of my fave takeaways from the episode:
You are a walking resonator
Martin Picard shares that you aren’t your body; you are the energy flowing through it. When you hold a clear vision strongly enough, you become a resonator, and that energy pattern leaks out of you: in your tone of voice, in your attention, in the care you look at people with. Yes, it’s “the vibe”.
He said, “It’s like a symphony. When it’s on tune, people who want to come on board feel the feeling, and it gets amplified.” Science calls this entrainment which is an internal signal so strong that it pulls others into your orbit.
The Reality distortion field
In 1981, Apple engineer Bud Trible coined the term Reality distortion field to desribe the way Steve Jobs had the “almost hypnotic ability to convince everyone around him to believe practically anything…Even that you could bend time”. If you told Jobs a task would take six months, he’d say “you can do it in two weeks,” and through sheer conviction engineers often did, “rewriting their own understanding of what was possible.”
Jobs held an energy and conviction so strong that other people’s energy reorganised around it, and their sense of what was possible shifted to match his. As Steven Bartlett puts it, convincing someone is really just getting their energy to change shape.
When I advise leaders on driving change, I always start there. You have to live with the conviction and belief, an emboided feeling that it’s a good idea yourself. If you aren’t convinced, it’s very tricky to convince anyone else, no matter how slick your ADKAR process is.
Other cool ideas in the episode
Energy needs something to push against to become meaningful. If there’s no resistance, there’s no growth.
Mitochondria are super social and collaborate - this was fascinating.
Oh, and he also talks about reversing grey hair growth!
3. Alan Weiss on First Time Facilitator
This was my first ever conversation with Alan Weiss. A couple of years into running my business, author Michael Bungay Stanier told me to read Alan Weiss’s Million Dollar Consulting, promising that if I did, I’d never go hungry again. Naturally, I invited Alan onto my podcast.
What was supposed to be an interview quickly turned into a coaching call..!
About twenty minutes in, I realised I had a few things wrong. It was the watershed moment of my business life. Three key things stood out back then (and still do):
Marketing is the business: We aren’t in the business of consulting; we are in the business of marketing. Marketing isn’t a side-hustle or an administrative chore - it is 100% of the game. As Alan shared: “When I’m advising clients, I’m marketing. When I’m on coaching calls, I’m marketing.”
He told me, flat out, that my business model was wrong: I was delivering too much. In Alan's world, if you're on site running the session, you're a pair of hands. If you're advising, you're a brain. And a brain is low labour, low travel and high fee.
Selling the input, not the output: I was positioning myself as a person who runs workshops. Alan explained that when a client rings and asks, “What’s your day rate for a workshop?” the correct move is to answer with a question: Why do you want a workshop? What are you actually trying to change? Nobody is better off because you sat them in a room for six hours, they’re better off because their business improved after you left.
Since that chat, Alan has continued to be an incredible mentor to me. You can listen to over 25+ conversations on our YouTube Talk the Walk playlist, and he also wrote the foreword for my next book, Work Fame.
Work Fame update
One milestone already ticked off... the 10-copy bonus has officially sold out. 🎉
354 copies have already been pre-ordered leaving 647 to go before my ridiculous goal of 1,001 by 30 September. THANK YOU!
Pre-orders are one of the strongest signals to retailers that a book is worth stocking. More pre-orders can lead to wider distribution, which means the book has a better chance of reaching more people.
That matters because Work Fame is a set of ideas I’d like to see shape more workplaces in a positive way.
The 50-copy bonus is still available. It includes your company logo on the Wall of Work Fame and a virtual Lunch & Learn with me for your team. Hit reply and email me if you have specific questions about this offer.
🌴
Okay, I better finish up packing for a work trip to my most fav city in the world, Bangkok!
I’ll be back in your inbox next week, sharing some reflections on the multi-lingual workshop/gala awards experience we hosted over there (you can follow behind the scenes on my IG @leannehughes.
Give this post a ‘Like’ (hit the heart 💙) if anything stood out for you.
Leanne ‘Scientifically-backed’ Hughes
P.S. One of the most fun parts of my next book has been planning the Brisbane Work Fame red carpet party. For your exclusive invite on 16 October, pre-order your copy of Work Fame and complete the form at getworkfame.com.
I’m so honored to make these top three watershed convos, Leanne!! What a tremendous gift you’ve been in my life ever since, too 🥹🙏🥰