An email about emails?

The irony isn’t lost on me. But if your inbox is always running the show and you’d like to get on top of it, this is one email you’ll want to pay close attention to.

Here are some Zen-like thoughts for your inbox at work:

*** Your inbox doesn’t create your mood. Your mood creates your inbox

*** Your inbox will ALWAYS be full and there will ALWAYS be another email to reply to. If you spend your time fighting these two basic facts of corporate life, you’ll be fighting for the rest of your career. The question isn’t how to empty your inbox. The question is how to stop losing sleep over the fact that you never will

*** Your emails are not the problem. Your thinking about them might be. As Hamlet (Prince of the Inbox) once said: no email is good nor bad but thinking makes it so

*** Urgency doesn’t exist in the real world. It only exists in your mind and the minds of your colleagues

*** You cannot pass or fail your inbox

*** The more seriously you take an email, the more serious that email becomes

*** Emails are invitations, not obligations. Just because someone is asking you to take on their problem doesn’t mean you need to

*** Don’t prioritise emails based on how you feel about them. Responding to an email so you feel less anxious, more in control or so you can take something off your plate is conflating relief for getting the right thing done. You don’t need to deal with your emails to find relief. You can find relief right here, right now without anything changing in your inbox

*** You are not your inbox and your inbox is not your job

*** Nothing in your inbox has the power to make you feel anything. A noisy inbox doesn’t have to feel noisy and a frenetic inbox doesn’t have to feel frenetic. Those feelings are coming from you, not your inbox

*** Not responding to an email is still a response

I’d like to think that in a monastery somewhere in Tibet, a Zen master is sipping a cup of green tea while reading this email and nodding along sagely. And even though his inbox has 47,000 unread emails, he sleeps just fine.

But you don’t need to move to a Tibetan monastery to stop losing sleep over your emails.

You don’t even need to change a single email.

My coaching is a way to find peace, calm and clarity at work without changing anything about your job.

If you’d like to find out more, all the details are here:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com

To fulfilment,

Tom

During the workshop, I spoke about the idea that more effort = better results.

This is the ethos which many a boardroom swears by. But in my experience, “success by addition” isn’t just faulty but also a brilliant way to end up running on fumes with nothing to show for it.

If adding more was the answer, the people going at it hammer and tongs would be the happiest. But it usually doesn’t pan out that way.

Hence the idea I put forward in the workshop:

To find happiness, success and fulfilment, don’t add.

Subtract.

My workshop came to mind a few weeks ago as I flicked through an article buried in the coursework for a 15 month executive coaching apprenticeship I’m dutifully working my way through.

The article featured author and coach Tim Gallwey.

Tim’s most famous for his “Inner Game” series of books. But he didn’t start out as the big-name figure he is today. He started out coaching tennis. And he was standing on the court one day when he noticed something strange:

His student’s tennis game was getting better even though Tim hadn’t started coaching yet!

As the lesson went on, Tim noticed that whenever he doled out advice about where to stand or how to grip the racket, his student started overthinking and playing worse. But when Tim stopped trying to help, the faster and more naturally his student made progress.

That’s the insight Tim’s “Inner Game” book series is built around.

It’s the idea that the role of a coach isn’t to pour knowledge down a coachee’s throat but to remove what gets in the way so the coachee’s natural ability, clarity and confidence can shine through.

It’s also the insight which underpins Tim’s famous formula that Performance = Potential – Interference

i.e. that the game of life is a game of subtraction, not addition.

I mentioned earlier that I read about this in an article from my apprenticeship.

I’m supposed to be carving out 6 hours a week from my day job to study for this apprenticeship. Yet for the last three weeks I’ve racked up the grand total of diddly squat.

By Subtraction Method standards, I guess that means I’m three weeks ahead of where I should be.

Whatever the case, if you’d like to read about Tim’s counterintuitive idea that the more we add, the more we get in our own way, you can check out the very same article here:

https://researchportal.coachingfederation.org/Document/Pdf/2965.pdf

To fulfilment,

Tom

You already know how you’ll hit that deadline.

Sure, you might not know that you know.

But every fibre of your being has got you covered today. And if you let it do its thing, you’ll find yourself moving from task to task, from email to email and from call to call by instinct alone. Almost as if each step makes the next one so obvious that it’d be daft to do anything else.

Perhaps this approach to your deadline sounds like a recipe for disaster.

But I say this as someone who used to be so in my head about how I’d hit a deadline or finish a tricky project that there was simply no space for that obvious next step to bubble up. So I couldn’t find that state of flow which I know now is always available, always present and always has my back.

I’m sure you have your own examples too.

Examples of projects which were already a car crash. Projects past the point of no return and where no amount of brute force or gritted teeth would help. So you had no choice. You had to drop all your unhelpful thoughts, focus solely on what was in front of you and let the perfect action arrive at the perfect moment.

More planning, more control and more willpower won’t help you today.

What will help is subtracting those and trusting you have everything you need already.

Good luck!

If you’re tired of grinding your way through deadlines and you’d prefer a simpler, more natural and more effective way of approaching your work, that’s exactly what I help people with.

All the info is here:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com

To fulfilment,

Tom

Various words filtered back into my hungry inbox.

Words like playful, light-hearted, philosophical, different, useful, hopeful, funny, interesting, challenging, low-key, friendly, inviting, entertaining, quirky, warm, generous, wise, joyful, whimsical, relatable, engaging, provocative, punchy and humorous.

But one word a loyal reader sent back made me raise a suspicious eyebrow.

That word?

Inciteful.

Now, I know my daily emails poke at a few sacred workplace cows. You won’t find many CEOs subscribing to my dangerously sensible ethos that clear thinking is the #1 performance lever. Nor will your mentor likely agree that before you climb the career ladder, it pays to check your ladder is leaning against the right wall. And I’m almost certain that Compliance won’t be thrilled with my suggestion to trust your judgment over their latest snazzy process.

But I didn’t realise my emails were actually inciting a full blown workplace mutiny!

So are my readers suddenly leaving the office at 5pm on the dot? Are bosses up and down the country being confronted by staff who seem suspiciously calm? Or has it got even more out of control? Has my newsletter incited employees to commit the ultimate act of workplace rebellion:

Treating work as something they do rather than something they are?

I emailed the reader back and asked him what he meant by “inciteful”.

You'll never guess what.

Turns out there’d been a small typo.

He meant insightful, not inciteful.

Although thinking about it now, I wonder if there’s even that much difference.

Once you start thinking for yourself about work, you realise there’s more than one way to do it. And once you realise that, you’ll start looking for the way that works best for you.

So perhaps “inciteful” was more insightful than the reader realised.

Whatever the case, if you’d like to read about a few people who’ve done just that (i.e. ignored the usual workplace scripts and built work their way instead), you might like the new guide I’ve put together called How To Work Your Way.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is NOT a guide about how to quit your job.

If anything, it’s the opposite.

It’s a collection of conversations with some of the most interesting and unconventional thinkers on work I've come across. Thinkers like NYT bestselling author & pilot Jenny Wood, neuroscientist & ex-Googler Anne-Laure Le Cunff and founder of the underground journal New Escapologist, Robert Wringham.

All of whom share ideas to help you find more freedom and fulfilment in the office.

I’ve been talking up this guide for the last few days.

But today, these emails stop.

Come Thursday, my first ad to promote the guide hits a major newsletter (100,000+ subscribers – I’m very excited!) in an attempt to lure people onto my daily emails just like cheese in a mousetrap.

So if you’ve been reading my emails with a mild curiosity or even a nagging itch but you haven’t got around to pulling the trigger, just hit reply, say “Work My Way” and I’ll send the guide straight over to you for free.

This is last chance saloon.

Tomorrow, something different.

To fulfilment,

Tom

I wanted to check if Paul was okay with me including my 2025 Paul/Tom interview in a new guide I’ve created called How To Work Your Way.

I know I’m biased.

But I genuinely think How To Work Your Way is one of the most useful resources I’ve created since I started writing this newsletter almost four years ago. Especially for anyone who wants to ditch the posturing, permission-seeking and invisible rules of work or simply find a bit more choice and freedom in their job.

But I knew the guide wouldn’t carry the same punch without Paul.

Paul’s book The Pathless Path has been one of the biggest paradigm shifters in my life. And I don’t say that lightly. Reading the book felt like a chink of light finally cutting through a fog of career dread and desperation. And even though he might not know it, Paul has been a constant cheerleader every step of the way since I started this newsletter, started coaching and returned to the 9 to 5.

THIS is why I wanted Paul’s interview in my guide.

So what did he say when I asked him?

Did Paul say “Thanks Tom. I’ll workshop this idea with my team and revert”?

Did he reply “Let me find out how a successful author is supposed to respond to requests like this”?

Or did he come back with “My instinct is yes, but I need to check what my instinct ought to be”?

As it happens, Paul said none of these.

His response?

“Cool idea Tom. Let it rip”

And let it rip I have.

I’ve written about How To Work Your Way in my last couple of newsletters and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of readers who’ve asked me to send them a copy.

But I figured there might still be a few of you who missed those emails and would like to grab the guide for yourself.

Inside the guide, you'll find Paul's interview alongside five more interviews with workplace rebels who've completely rethought their careers.

If you’d like to grab a free copy of the guide, just reply with “Work My Way” and I’ll shoot it straight over to you.

To fulfilment,

Tom

Whenever we serve her a bowl of porridge straight from the stove or hand her a freshly cooked roast potato, Baby Grundy reaches up, grabs her precious cargo, brings it to her mouth and then starts to blow. Three or four blows later, the food is promptly shovelled into her mouth.

You might be wondering what’s so strange about that.

Well, here’s the thing:

Baby Grundy does exactly the same when we give her yoghurt from the fridge or even a slice of mango straight from the freezer!

I guess she’s watched me and Lauren blowing food often enough to clock that whatever food is in front of her, it deserves a few blows.

So food = blow as far as Baby Grundy’s concerned.

Of course, that’s not how it works.

Not by a long stretch.

But Baby Grundy isn't the only one who does this.

For instance, how often do we adopt rules about work without ever checking where they came from? Or even if they're true?

I mean rules like "busy equals important", "long hours equals commitment", "a successful week must include some stress", "a stable salary equals security", "optimise your career, not the life it's meant to serve" or "you need to sound like you belong here".

Take that last one for instance.

Just the other day, Lauren and I were chinwagging in Fort Grundy’s kitchen. And while I can't remember what we were nattering about, I do remember telling Lauren that I’d “circle back” to her later.

Lauren’s eyes widened almost instantly as she sputtered “What did you just say!?!”

She'd clocked that I’d slipped into work mode.

Of course, I never meant to use corporate slang like that. And even though Lauren didn’t say another word, the look on her face said it all. She didn’t want Tom the Banker in Fort Grundy’s kitchen. She just wanted Tom.

Anyway, I know these office rules might feel professional and responsible.

They might feel like they’re the only way too.

But most of the time they’re not. And while Baby Grundy will grow out of blowing on ice cold food, workplace rules can linger for decades if we let them.

We don’t have to let them though.

If the rules we’re following at work aren’t working, we can change them.

That’s where my new guide How To Work Your Way comes in.

The guide shows you how to stop following the workplace rules you never agreed to in the first place. These are the rules that shape your working hours, your ambitions, your identity, your take on success and perhaps most importantly of all, who shows up at home when you finally close your laptop.

How To Work Your Way is a collection of interviews I’ve published over the past year with some of the most original thinkers questioning the rules of modern work.

We’re talking about people like Robert Wringham (who founded the Escapology movement), Jenny Wood (whose NYT bestseller Wild Courage flips the usual advice about how to get ahead at work) and Simone Stolzoff (whose book The Good Enough Job takes apart the usual workplace rules one by one).

I’m about to run a bunch of ads in various newsletters to plug How To Work Your Way and find some new subscribers in the process.

But before I do that, I wanted to offer you the chance to pick up the guide right here, right now, for free.

If you feel trapped by the rules at work and you’d like to loosen their grip, I think you’ll love How To Work Your Way.

To grab a copy, just reply to this email with “Work My Way” and I’ll send it straight over.

To fulfilment,

Tom