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Amantha Imber

How I Work

A Education , Business and Careers podcast

#29 in Education · 🇦🇺 #88 in Education · 🇳🇿
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About the show

You know those annoyingly successful people who seem to have it all figured out? Time to steal their playbook. Organisational psychologist Dr Amantha Imber gets world‑class achievers to spill their secrets - the daily strategies behind their success through to life hacks and productivity hacks they’d rather keep to themselves. We’re talking practical tips for boosting your output (including clever AI tools and shortcuts that’ll make you look like a genius), managing overwhelm without losing your mind, and optimising both work and wellbeing. No motivational fluff. Just battle‑tested tactics from people who’ve cracked the code.

Newest episodes

Prioritisation and saying no: the best advice from the How I Work archive

25 min

Saying no to a bad idea takes no effort. Saying no to a good one is where prioritising gets hard.  Too much to do, everything feeling urgent, and no clear idea of what to let go of: this is the problem I hear about more than any other, and it comes up constantly with our clients at Inventium. It has also been my own problem more than once.  So I went back through the How I Work archive and pulled together the most useful advice I’ve collected on prioritising and saying no.   By the end, you’ll have a handful of strategies, weekly rituals and actual sentences you can borrow to protect your time for the work that counts.  ** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **  You’ll hear from:  Laura Mae Martin, Google’s executive productivity advisor and author of Uptime, on why she tells executives to cut really good things, and the difference between having the time and having the energy  Adam Grant, organisational psychologist, Wharton professor and author of Give and Take, Think Again, Hidden Potential and Vibe, on the planning fallacy and the question that helps you pick one number one priority each week  Sahil Bloom, author of The Five Types of Wealth, on the third-party observer question he uses to find the gap between your stated priorities and your real ones  Sahil’s “twice as long, half as rewarding” test for new opportunities, plus his monthly think day  Adam Alter, professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and author of Irresistible and Anatomy of a Breakthrough, on his 20-minute weekly audit of where your energy is actually going  Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours, Off the Clock and Tranquility by Tuesday, on why she plans her week on Thursday mornings and how it can make your weekend better  Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations...

What is an AI skill (and why you should care)

10 min

**Join our AI Mastery program: https://www.inventium.ai/ai-mastery **  You’ve typed the same instructions into AI for the third week running, tweaked the wording slightly, and got a slightly different result again. It’s tiring, and it makes the output hard to trust.  Meanwhile, the tools you may have built along the way like GPTs and Gems are starting to disappear, and a new term keeps turning up in every major AI platform: Skills  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I get into what a skill is, why the platforms are backing it, and how to tell whether one of your own tasks is worth turning into one.  What you’ll learn:  Why skills are showing up as custom GPTs and gems fade out  What separates a skill from the tools it is replacing  Whether a skill you build in one tool will work in another  How to spot a task that is a good fit for a skill  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.   Find out more about Inventium’s AI Mastery program here: https://www.inventium.ai/ai-mastery    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.  Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.     My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)   If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newslette...

How to make your frequent flyer points go further in 2027

36 min

You've spent years collecting frequent flyer points. Then you finally go to book a flight, and somehow the seats you want are never available. Or the points required seem ridiculous. Or you give up and pay cash anyway.  As it turns out, collecting points is only half the game. Knowing which airlines to book with, where to look for reward seats, and when to use your points can make a difference of tens of thousands of dollars.  In this episode, I sit down with Steve Hui and Steve Pirie-Nally from the Flights Club (also known as iFlyFlat) to find out how people who really understand frequent flyer points actually use them. We get into why two airlines can charge wildly different amounts of points for the same journey, how to find business class reward seats that seem impossible to book, and how everyday expenses like rent and tax bills could be earning you points towards your next trip.  If you've got a growing pile of points but haven't quite figured out what to do with them, this episode could be worth a lot more than you think.  ** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **  The Steves and I discuss:  Why business and first class flights can offer far better value for your points than other rewards  How the same journey can cost dramatically different amounts of points depending on which airline program you use  Why finding reward seats is a bit like fishing, and how having more than one airline program gives you more chances to find a good one  How to earn points on expenses like rent, ATO bills and payroll using payment services such as pay.com.au and Sniip, and when the fees are worth paying  What's changing with credit card surcharges and points earning, and why one of the Steves has started using a debit card for some purchases  The bank accounts that reward...

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All episodes

The newest 50 of 765 episodes

Prioritisation and saying no: the best advice from the How I Work archive

25 min

Saying no to a bad idea takes no effort. Saying no to a good one is where prioritising gets hard.  Too much to do, everything feeling urgent, and no clear idea of what to let go of: this is the problem I hear about more than any other, and it comes up constantly with our clients at Inventium. It has also been my own problem more than once.  So I went back through the How I Work archive and pulled together the most useful advice I’ve collected on prioritising and saying no.   By the end, you’ll have a handful of strategies, weekly rituals and actual sentences you can borrow to protect your time for the work that counts.  ** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **  You’ll hear from:  Laura Mae Martin, Google’s executive productivity advisor and author of Uptime, on why she tells executives to cut really good things, and the difference between having the time and having the energy  Adam Grant, organisational psychologist, Wharton professor and author of Give and Take, Think Again, Hidden Potential and Vibe, on the planning fallacy and the question that helps you pick one number one priority each week  Sahil Bloom, author of The Five Types of Wealth, on the third-party observer question he uses to find the gap between your stated priorities and your real ones  Sahil’s “twice as long, half as rewarding” test for new opportunities, plus his monthly think day  Adam Alter, professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and author of Irresistible and Anatomy of a Breakthrough, on his 20-minute weekly audit of where your energy is actually going  Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours, Off the Clock and Tranquility by Tuesday, on why she plans her week on Thursday mornings and how it can make your weekend better  Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations...

What is an AI skill (and why you should care)

10 min

**Join our AI Mastery program: https://www.inventium.ai/ai-mastery **  You’ve typed the same instructions into AI for the third week running, tweaked the wording slightly, and got a slightly different result again. It’s tiring, and it makes the output hard to trust.  Meanwhile, the tools you may have built along the way like GPTs and Gems are starting to disappear, and a new term keeps turning up in every major AI platform: Skills  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I get into what a skill is, why the platforms are backing it, and how to tell whether one of your own tasks is worth turning into one.  What you’ll learn:  Why skills are showing up as custom GPTs and gems fade out  What separates a skill from the tools it is replacing  Whether a skill you build in one tool will work in another  How to spot a task that is a good fit for a skill  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.   Find out more about Inventium’s AI Mastery program here: https://www.inventium.ai/ai-mastery    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.  Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.     My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)   If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newslette...

How to make your frequent flyer points go further in 2027

36 min

You've spent years collecting frequent flyer points. Then you finally go to book a flight, and somehow the seats you want are never available. Or the points required seem ridiculous. Or you give up and pay cash anyway.  As it turns out, collecting points is only half the game. Knowing which airlines to book with, where to look for reward seats, and when to use your points can make a difference of tens of thousands of dollars.  In this episode, I sit down with Steve Hui and Steve Pirie-Nally from the Flights Club (also known as iFlyFlat) to find out how people who really understand frequent flyer points actually use them. We get into why two airlines can charge wildly different amounts of points for the same journey, how to find business class reward seats that seem impossible to book, and how everyday expenses like rent and tax bills could be earning you points towards your next trip.  If you've got a growing pile of points but haven't quite figured out what to do with them, this episode could be worth a lot more than you think.  ** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **  The Steves and I discuss:  Why business and first class flights can offer far better value for your points than other rewards  How the same journey can cost dramatically different amounts of points depending on which airline program you use  Why finding reward seats is a bit like fishing, and how having more than one airline program gives you more chances to find a good one  How to earn points on expenses like rent, ATO bills and payroll using payment services such as pay.com.au and Sniip, and when the fees are worth paying  What's changing with credit card surcharges and points earning, and why one of the Steves has started using a debit card for some purchases  The bank accounts that reward...

The prompt that shows what your AI actually knows about you (and it’s less than you might think)

11 min

Your AI greets you like an old friend, then hands back something painfully average. Sometimes it even refers to a job you left two years ago.  What your AI knows about you and what it simply assumes are two very different things, and the gap between them shapes every answer you get.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I look at what is actually sitting in your AI’s memory. We cover how to see it for yourself, how to correct it, and the blind spot that keeps good-sounding assistants from doing great work.  What you’ll learn:  The one prompt that shows what your AI really knows about you  How to fix memories that are out of date or just plain wrong  What to do when you need your AI to properly forget something  Why very long chats can make your AI lose track of you  The biggest blind spot between knowing your job and knowing how you do it  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.   Find out more about Inventium AI’s training programs at inventium.ai    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.  Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.     My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)   If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical an...

How to master difficult conversations at work, with Tim Duggan

39 min

Around 80% of us will avoid conflict if given the chance, and Tim Duggan was firmly in that camp.  In this episode, I sit down with Tim, author of Clear In Tension: How to Get Better at Conflict, to explore how we can all handle conflict with more skill and less dread. Tim spent 15 years running the media company Junkie Media, mediating other people’s disputes, all while dreading conflict himself.   We walk through his five-step CLEAR framework, two listening techniques you can use in your very next tough conversation, and what the four symbols tattooed on Amanda Knox’s arm can teach us about finding common ground with anyone. We also talk about why some conflicts will never be solved, and why that is okay.  If you have a hard conversation looming, this episode will leave you feeling calmer and far better prepared.    ** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **   Tim and I discuss:  What Tim learned from becoming an accredited mediator, and why the only way to get comfortable with conflict is to practise it  Box breathing as a discreet way to calm your nervous system mid-argument  The CLEAR framework: clarify what matters, listen generously, explore what’s underneath, align on a shared direction, and reset your story  Mirroring and looping, two simple listening techniques that make the other person feel genuinely heard  The difference between positions and interests, and why uncovering someone’s hopes, fears and concerns can solve the problem  The four symbols Amanda Knox has tattooed on her arm as her recipe for a difficult conversation  Why “agree to disagree” is not a failure, and when walking away is the healthiest option  How to rehearse your first line before delivering bad news, a tip I used myself when I had to let people go in 2024  The research on co...

Still arguing with AI over a bad first draft? Try these 4 tips

13 min

Do you still have a prompt formula saved somewhere, maybe an acronym from an Instagram reel that promised better answers from AI? You paste it in, swap a few words, hit send, and what comes back still misses the mark.  Years of typing a few keywords into a search box have shaped how we talk to AI, and that habit might be costing you time and patience.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I look at why prompt formulas took off, what has changed since, and how to brief AI so you get better work back with far less back and forth.  What you’ll learn:  Why prompt formulas became so popular, and why they matter far less now  What AI memory changes about the way you brief it  The old search habit that quietly works against you  A better way to give AI the background it needs  How to get AI to question your idea, not just your draft  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.   Find out more about Inventium AI’s training programs at inventium.ai    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.  Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.     My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)   If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to a...

REPLAY: Feel like you’re always behind? Chris Guillebeau has a fix for your time anxiety (Part 1)

24 min

**REPLAY** Do you ever get the sense that no matter how much you do, you’re still running out of time? Like there’s something you should be doing, but you can’t quite figure out what it is?  In this episode of How I Work, we sit down with New York Times bestselling author Chris Guillebeau to talk about a feeling so many of us carry but rarely name: time anxiety. From guilt over unread emails to the pressure to leave a legacy, Chris shares the practical strategies that helped him stop chasing time - and start living with more calm and clarity.    ** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **   In this episode:  What time anxiety is—and why so many of us feel it without even realising  How Chris let go of the pressure to leave a legacy  A weekly “time decluttering” ritual that can clear your calendar  Why “just prioritise better” is the worst advice  The bold email strategy Chris swears by (even if it ruffles a few feathers)  Why leaving 10–15 minutes of buffer time between commitments can change everything  Key Quotes: “You have to decide for yourself what is enough.”   “It’s not about being an email ninja - it’s about understanding what matters.”  Connect with Chris on Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn and his website, Listen to his podcast Side Hustle School, and check out his latest book Time Anxiety.    More from How I Work If drawing clearer lines between work and the rest of your life is something you want to go deeper on, I have put together a Spotify playlist of my favourite How I Work episodes on exactly that. Listen to the playlist here.   My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagram (https://www.ins...

Your prompts are stuck in 2025. Here are 5 fixes

12 min

Some prompts have been with you for a year or more. They open with a grand persona for the AI, add a few rules in capital letters, and finish with a request to think it all through. They worked well once, and lately the results feel slightly off.  The AI models have changed, and a few of the habits we picked up in 2024 and 2025 now work against us.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through five ways good prompting has changed as of October 2026. You will come away with a simple way to tighten up the prompts you rely on most.  What you’ll learn:  What a persona really changes in an AI response  When a goal and a finished example beat step-by-step instructions  Why asking AI to think through its answer can backfire  How to add emphasis without boxing the AI in  What a good checklist looks like before AI hands work back  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.   Find out more about Inventium AI’s training programs at inventium.ai    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.  Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.     My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)   If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to...

REPLAY: Why you feel busy all the time (even when you’re not), with Laura Vanderkam

36 min

**REPLAY** What would you do with four extra hours a day? Probably say you don't have them. But according to Laura Vanderkam, one of the world's leading thinkers on time, they're already there. You're just not seeing them.  Laura has tracked her own time for 11 years. She's run large-scale time-tracking studies with hundreds of participants. And what she keeps finding is the same thing: the stories we tell ourselves about our time are almost always wrong. The tasks we dread feel longer than they are. The free time we insist we don't have keeps showing up in the data.  In this How I Work episode, I sit down with Laura to dig into what 11 years of time diaries actually reveal, why tracking your time for just one week can make you feel dramatically better about your life, and how to reclaim those post-dinner hours that most of us write off as dead time. Laura is a bestselling author of many books on time and productivity, and her latest, Big Time, is one of the most practical and perspective-shifting reads I've come across in a long time.  If you've ever ended a weekend convinced you had no time to yourself, this conversation will change how you see the week ahead.    ** Free your team from time-consuming procurement tasks. Discover smart business buying, where unmatched selection meets AI-driven tools to simplify complex processes so you can focus on what matters most. Learn more at Amazon.com.au/howiwork **   In this episode, Laura and I discuss: Why tracking your time for a single week raises time satisfaction scores by nearly 18%, and what's actually driving that shift  The gap between how people think they spend their time and how they actually do, particularly for those who work flexibly or check email on weekends  The concept of "golden hours" and why the four to five hours between dinner and bedtime are far more valuable than most of us treat them  How to tell the difference between a complex life and a chaotic one, and the circus metaphor that reframe...

Your custom GPTs and Gems are going away. Here's how to save them.

7 min

Who keeps moving my buttons? You know the one. You finally learn where everything lives, and overnight the menu has been rearranged, the feature has a new name, and the thing you spent months perfecting is on a list of things being retired.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I make sense of the latest shake-up: what is replacing GPTs and Gems, when the lights go out on each platform, and how to back up your hard work so none of it vanishes without warning. You'll leave knowing what to save, what to convert, and when.  What you'll learn:  Why GPTs and Gems are being retired  What skills are and why they're taking over  The deadlines to put in your calendar now  The first thing to do before pressing any migration button  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.      How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.  Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.     My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)   If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/   Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.   Get i...

The Work Edit: The AI skill that saves me 200 minutes a week. Here's how to build yours.

33 min

Twenty minutes doesn't sound like much. Multiply it by ten sales calls a week and it adds up to more than three hours spent on a task that someone, or something, else could be doing.  Now think about how many tasks like that are hiding in your own week, repeated so often that you no longer notice them.  In this Work Edit, I sit down with Stephen, an organisational transformation advisor with more than 20 years of experience. Stephen uses Claude every day for client research, interview synthesis, first-draft deliverables and thought leadership, but he knows his approach has been sporadic. He wants a deliberate setup without signing up for 12 different tools.  I share how I'd restructure his projects, how I catch the writing habits that make readers suspect AI wrote the whole thing, and the tools I rely on every day. Then we zoom out to a simple one-week exercise that reveals which tasks AI should be taking off your plate for good.  If you use AI daily but suspect there's far more value on the table, this conversation will show you where to look.  Stephen and I discuss:  Why very specific projects, GPTs and skills tend to outperform one big, broad project  How to train an AI on your voice using your best work, and why a separate anti-AI writing skill adheres better than one long instruction set  Why I always write the first draft myself, and how I use AI as an editor afterwards  The AI tells that make readers switch off, and why even writers with their own genuine style can get caught by them  The tools in my daily stack, including Granola, Whisperflow and Superhuman, and how I handle disclosure when AI is taking notes in a meeting  The one-week task log that shows you what to automate, and how a 20-minute pre-call task turned into a skill my EA now runs  How recurring tasks, like a weekly actions recap or a daily AI news researcher, can run without you prompting them    If you would like more tips on getting more value from AI, check out How I AI. Every week,...

AI is a terrible brainstormer (until you do this)

13 min

You ask AI for ideas and get a tidy list of ten, each one praised as being brilliant. The tempting move is to grab the first one that looks decent and get on with your day. The catch is that you've handed over the thinking, and what comes back tends to look a lot like what everyone else is getting.  AI can be a far better brainstorming partner when it sharpens your thinking instead of replacing it. The difference comes down to how you set it up and what you ask it to do.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I unpack how we use AI as a brainstorming buddy at Inventium. You'll leave with a way to brainstorm that produces ideas built around your business, your customers and your goals.  What you'll learn:  Why AI's ideas tend to land close to everyone else's  The context AI needs before it can help you brainstorm well  Four techniques that keep you doing the ideating  How to get AI to put the questions to you  The bonus prompt that makes AI ask something of you first  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load    Download Inventium's Brainstorm Buddy skill here:   https://amantha-imber.kit.com/brainstormbuddygpt  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    If this episode got you thinking about how to brainstorm with AI, listen to my interview with the Exploding Kittens CEO about his working-with-AI ritual for generating great ideas. Listen to the full episode here.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.   Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you neve...

The 7 types of rest you need, and how to find the one you're missing, with Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith

39 min

One surgeon takes his boat out onto a lake, screams until he can't scream anymore, and then cries. It is how he recovers from a job where patients die and he can't fall apart in front of his team.  That is what emotional rest can look like for one person, and it is only one of seven types of rest that most of us have never thought to separate. Which raises this possibility: you might be resting effectively in one area while a completely different part of you runs on empty.  In this episode, I sit down with Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith, the doctor behind the seven types of rest framework and author of Sacred Rest, to unpack what each type of rest actually is and how to tell which one you are missing. I share how I scored on her Rest Quiz, and we test the theory against my own life, from a joyful community singing night to nature walks with a friend.  If you keep waking up tired after a decent night's sleep, this conversation will help you work out what is really missing.  Saundra and I discuss:  The three-question morning energy check-in Saundra uses herself, and how some of her clients set an AI up to ask it for them  The seven types of rest  Why mental and emotional rest are the two areas where people score highest for depletion, and the gender pattern Saundra sees  The signs of a mental rest deficit  How suppressing emotions at work drains your energy, and what an emotional rest deficit can look like in everyday life  How one activity can restore several types of rest at once, from yoga to a phone-free dinner table  Saundra's annual rest retreat weekend with girlfriends  How mirror neurons help explain why some people leave you drained  Two simple sensory rest snacks you can do today, including one that involves your phone settings  Key quotes  "We don't recognize how much energy it takes to suppress emotions."  "Creative rest at the very heart of it is the rest that helps to awaken awe and wonder inside of us."  Connect with Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith on Instagra...

Your AI gets dumber at 60%. Here's the free fix.

10 min

Some of us have a favourite chat thread we keep coming back to, adding a bit more context every time we open it. It feels efficient, like you're building up a work buddy who really knows your stuff. But every extra message quietly chips away at how reliable that thread becomes, and by the time you notice, it's surprisingly hard to pull it back.  Knowing when to walk away from a chat, and how to take your best thinking with you, is one of the most useful AI habits you can build.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I unpack why long chat threads lose their way and how to move your work into a fresh chat without leaving the good stuff behind.  What you'll learn:  The point in a chat thread where AI becomes more likely to hallucinate  How to think about the lifespan of a chat thread  The simple way to carry your work into a new chat, and where it falls short  What a strong handoff brief includes, and why its opening lines matter  The signs it's time to start fresh, even before AI goes off track  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Download Neo's handoff skill here: https://amantha-imber.kit.com/e53f183014  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.      How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.  Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.     My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram...

The Work Edit: 3 evening strategies to actually help you switch off

30 min

You've read the books. You've locked the phone in a drawer. You've set a hard cut-off at 8 PM. And none of it has lasted more than two weeks.  That's exactly where Shaun found himself. By day he's a senior corporate strategy leader at Bupa, and by night he's the volunteer operations manager for a junior footy club responsible for 450 kids across eight teams. The systems he runs at work are tight. The systems he runs at home? Nowhere to be seen.  In this Work Edit, I sit down with Shaun to figure out why the productivity habits that protect him in his corporate role have never made it home, and what it would actually take to change that. We get into AI knowledge agents, ghost mode, setting expectations as an act of generosity, and a specific gratitude practice I think is worth trying even if you find most of them a bit naff.  If you've ever been brilliant at boundary-setting for everyone else and terrible at it for yourself, this one's for you.  Shaun and I discuss:  Why Shaun's corporate productivity systems work flawlessly at Bupa but have never crossed over into his volunteer role or home life  The AI knowledge agent idea: how building a self-serve FAQ for 450 families could cut the stream of evening messages and remove Shaun as the constant bottleneck  Staying in your lane: why context switching between work mode and parent mode leaves you doing neither well, and the simple question that helps you catch yourself doing it  Ghost mode: the difference between locking your phone away and actually choosing to be fully present, and why that reframe matters  Setting expectations as an act of generosity: how a simple autoresponder or comms window can relieve the guilt of not responding instantly, without making you seem rigid  Three good things: a specific gratitude practice, grounded in research, that quiets a busy work brain at night, and why doing it with your kids makes it even more powerful    More from How I Work  If you related to Shaun's struggle with an a...

The 4 recurring tasks you should hand off to AI permanently

12 min

Most people treat AI like a vending machine: you show up, you ask, you wait. But what if there's another way to use it, one where the work gets done before you've even thought to ask for it.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I explore scheduled prompts: what they are, why they're worth setting up, and how to actually write one that works.  What you'll learn:  What a scheduled prompt is and how it differs from a regular AI conversation  When it makes sense to run a prompt in the background rather than in real time  The kinds of recurring tasks that are well suited to scheduling  How to know when a scheduled prompt has actually run  Neo's trick for writing a prompt worth scheduling again and again  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/  Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.  Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com...

Steal Jane Lu's system for delegating without losing control

33 min

Hiring someone is one of the highest-stakes decisions a founder makes. Get it wrong and you can lose time, money, and momentum. And after 16 years of building Showpo from her parents' garage into a nine-figure business, Jane Lu is the first to admit they still do not always get it right.  But across all those hires, she has landed on one single biggest red flag she screens for, and it is probably not what you would expect.  In this episode, I sit down with Jane Lu, founder of Showpo, to talk about what that red flag is, how she structures interviews to surface it, why she has built her whole leadership philosophy around being a lazy CEO, and the distinction between dopamine tasks and dividend tasks that explains why so many of us feel busy but stuck.  Jane and I discuss:  How Jane treats her calendar as her external brain, scheduling everything from supplements to podcast links to make good habits frictionless  The difference between dopamine tasks (inbox zero, Slack notifications) and dividend tasks (the work that compounds but offers no immediate reward) and how to stop letting the former crowd out the latter  Jane's content creation workflow and how she gradually built a small team of offshore editors to take the process off her plate  What 16 years of hiring has taught her about misaligned values and ego as the biggest red flags to screen for, and the specific interview questions she uses to uncover them  The accidental lesson in delegation that came from leaving her business to go to a music festival, and how it revealed what systems and a trusted team can do when the founder steps back  The case for being a lazy CEO: building the right culture, setting up strong systems, recruiting well, and then genuinely getting out of the way  Key quotes  "Being lazy is setting up the right systems and processes and really trusting your team."  "The biggest red flag I personally look for when it comes to the wrong people is ego."  Connect with Jane Lu on Instagram, L...

3 signs it's time to start a new chat thread

10 min

You've put in the work on your prompts. You know how to give AI the right context, set the right tone, ask the right questions. But then, mid-conversation, something shifts. The AI starts making things up, forgetting what you told it five minutes ago, contradicting itself.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I unpack what is actually happening when AI gets unreliable mid-conversation, including how to read the warning signs that tell you it is time to close a thread and start fresh.  What you'll learn:  Why AI gets unreliable mid-conversation, and what's actually going on  What the 60% rule is and why it matters  Which file types quietly eat through your context window  The warning signs that it's time to close a thread and start fresh  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/  Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes. ...

Why planning 60% of your day is the most productive thing you can do, with Cyril Peupion

29 min

There's a specific kind of exhaustion that comes not from working hard, but from never quite feeling like you've worked on the right things. You finish a full day, maybe a long one, and yet the projects that actually matter haven't moved. The inbox is cleaner, the meetings are done, but the needle hasn't shifted.  Cyril Peupion has spent two decades coaching executives on exactly this problem, and his diagnosis is consistent: the issue is the gap between where leaders want to go and what they actually spend their time on.  In this episode, I sit down with Cyril, author of Work Smarter, Live Better and his latest book Less Achieves More, to work through his practical framework for closing that gap. He has trained more than 5,000 people across 19 countries.  Cyril and I discuss:  Why high performers prioritise by impact rather than by deadline, and how to train yourself to do the same  The quarterly big rocks process: how to choose two or three genuine priorities and find the courage to subtract everything else  The weekly planning ritual Cyril recommends, including why you should look at your big rocks before you ever open your calendar  The ideal week exercise that helps leaders reclaim 40% of their time without guilt  How to plan for the unplanned by deliberately blocking reactive time in your day  The four Ds (delete, decrease, defer, delegate) for handling the urgent stuff without sacrificing what matters most    Key quotes  "If you work 10 hours a day, you cannot plan 10 hours per day. It's a recipe for disaster."  "I'd rather start my planning from the ideal and then adapt it than start my planning from an open sheet and let everything take control."  Connect with Cyril Peupion on LinkedIn and his website. Check out his latest book Less Achieves More.    If this episode resonated, I also recommend my conversation with Sabri Suby on the subtraction method, where he shares how he ruthlessly outsources anything that isn't his highest value work. You can...

Quick Win: The million-dollar moment that tested Catriona Wallace’s integrity

8 min

When Dr Catriona Wallace was offered a million dollars to take out her nose ring, she didn’t hesitate. Her response wasn’t defiance - it was clarity.  In this Quick Win, Catriona shares how she dealt with the sexism and double standards she faced as a tech CEO, from being told to “brush her hair” to being offered a million dollars to look more like the kind of leader investors expected.  Her story is a reminder that staying true to yourself is sometimes the most strategic move you can make.  Catriona and I discuss:   The moment Catriona was offered $1 million - if she removed her nose ring  The everyday misogyny she faced while leading a listed tech company  Why she refused to compromise, even when it cost her  How staying authentic became her greatest advantage as a leader  The ripple effect of saying “no” from self-respect, not rebellion  KEY QUOTE:  “The moment you start to compromise and change, more things will compromise and change — and you lose who you are.”  Connect with Dr Catriona Wallace on Instagram, LinkedIn, and via her website. Check out her book Rapid Transformation for more on how to embrace change through technology and leadership.  Listen to the full conversation with Catriona here    My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)   If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe   Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.   Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au       Credits:   Host: Amantha Imber   Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Work Edit: When gratitude becomes entitlement, and how to reset it

33 min

You give your team something rare. A four-day week. Flexible hours. Real breathing room. And for a while, it works beautifully. Then, gradually, the gratitude fades. The expectation creeps in. And suddenly, the gift feels like a given.  This is one of the more uncomfortable paradoxes of building a genuinely good workplace: the better the culture you create, the faster it becomes the new normal. And once people stop noticing it, they start resenting any friction that interrupts it.   This episode is part of The Work Edit, a format where I sit down with someone facing a real professional challenge and we work through it together. My guest is Marilla, who has spent eight years building Equality Media and Marketing, a 30-person agency where flexible time is a core part of the culture. Marilla came to me with a challenge I hear a lot from leaders of genuinely good workplaces: what do you do when your team starts taking the culture for granted?   If you lead people, this one is full of things you can take straight into your week:  The goat story: an ancient parable that explains why people stop appreciating what's good, and how to use it as a leadership tool  Why Inventium runs a Four Day Week policy reset every one to two years, and the specific questions that make those conversations productive  Why checking emails for 45 minutes feels like "working all night", and what that distortion does to team morale  What to do when one or two people are quietly poisoning the culture, and when to stop trying to bring them around  The "deal or no deal" conversation: how to give people a genuine choice about whether they're still on the bus  The single question I ask before any team-wide pep talk, to make sure I'm not just avoiding a direct conversation I need to have  Key quotes  "All I can control is how I approach the conversation and the messages that I deliver. I can't control how that other person is gonna react."  "Is this about the minority or the majority? Because tha...

Quick Win: How to rebuild trust at work when its broken

7 min

Trust doesn’t rebuild with one big apology. It grows back quietly - through small, consistent moments that prove you mean what you say.  In this Quick Win episode, my teammate Aly Solly and I share how we rebuilt trust after one of Inventium’s toughest years. Together, we discovered that trust isn’t restored overnight - it’s rebuilt in small, deliberate ways that show care, honesty, and vulnerability.  Aly and I discuss:  The moment a leadership wellbeing survey sparked real vulnerability  Why openness - when it feels uncomfortable - can transform a relationship  How showing up consistently matters more than grand gestures  The “ugly cry” call that turned a breaking point into a rebuild  What to do when you’re trying to repair trust at work    KEY QUOTES “Trust doesn’t hinge on one big apology or grand gesture. It’s built through the small stuff - the check-ins, the honesty, the willingness to be vulnerable.”  “You don’t wait for the perfect moment. You just start showing up consistently and with care.”    Connect with Aly Solly on LinkedIn.  Listen to the full conversation with Aly here.    My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/  Connect with me on the socials: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amanthai  If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe  Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.  Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au  Credits: Host: Amantha Imber Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The two numbers that predict whether you'll actually hit your goal, with Jia Jiang

32 min

Every productivity guru will tell you the same thing: set realistic goals, or you're setting yourself up to fail. Jia Jiang did the opposite. He told the internet he'd sell 10,000 copies of his new book in 100 days, sold about 3,000, and is now going around calling it one of the best things he's ever done.  He's not being delusional about it either. He'll tell you straight up that part of him wishes he'd hit the number. He just thinks failing loudly beats succeeding quietly, which might explain why only 9% of people who make a New Year's resolution actually stick to it. Most of us are setting goals to feel good for five minutes, not because we've figured out how to actually get there.  In this episode, I sit down with Jia Jiang, the entrepreneur and speaker behind 100 Days of Rejection, a YouTube experiment that became a TED Talk with more than 10 million views. We talk about his new book, Easy Discipline, and how he turns huge, terrifying goals into something he can actually control day to day.  If you have ever downgraded a goal so you wouldn't have to feel bad about missing it, Jia is about to make you rethink that entirely.  Jia and I discuss:  Why Jia deliberately sets goals so ambitious he is likely to miss them, and why a public near miss beats a comfortable target  The one action goal: how to turn a big, uncontrollable ambition into a daily input you can fully control  The inspiration index, the two numbers Jia tracks on every project, and why you need both the outcome and the input  The Mover's Manual, and how changing his physical environment lets Jia get three to ten times more done in an afternoon  Reverse AI: what happened when Jia started deliberately training himself the way AI models are trained  The letter he wrote to Steven Bartlett after being turned down for Diary of a CEO, and why he published it anyway  Key quotes  "I'd rather fail my ambition publicly than letting it die inside privately."  "When you are already rejected, you have nothi...

Quick Win: The hidden reason AI isn’t delivering value at work, according to Dom Price

6 min

AI might be saving you time, but if you don’t know what to do with that time, it’s not worth much. In this Quick Win, I’m joined by Dom Price, who spent 12 years as the Work Futurist at Atlassian. Dom shares a powerful reminder: saving time with AI is meaningless unless you know how to reinvest that time intentionally. After watching organisations roll out sophisticated AI tools without upgrading the human system around them, Dom explains why people often use their newfound hours poorly - and how a single, deliberate question can transform the return you get from AI.   Dom and I discuss:  Why organisations focus on AI tools but forget the human system that actually uses them   The surprising behaviour Dom saw when teams became “35 percent more productive” - including a huge spike in meetings   What happens when people gain time but aren’t guided on how to use it  The small mindset shift that helps you reinvest saved time more wisely  The reflection question that turns AI gains into genuine value: What’s the most valuable thing I can do with this time?   KEY QUOTES  “I don’t care what you saved. I care what you did with it.”   “Take a moment before filling that space. Ask yourself: what’s the most valuable thing I can do with this time?”   Connect with Dom Price on Instagram, LinkedIn and his website.  Listen to the full conversation with Dom here.   My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe  Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.  Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au  Credits:...

The Work Edit: How to scale a consulting business without growing the team

32 min

Hiring feels like the obvious next move when a business starts doing well. More people, more capacity, more revenue. The logic is so clean it barely needs questioning.  But the businesses with the smallest teams are sometimes the ones making the most money.  This episode is part of The Work Edit, a format where I sit down with someone facing a real professional challenge and we work through it together. My guest is Lisa, who has spent four years building The Culture Ministry, a diversity and inclusion consulting business. She came to me with a question I hear constantly: how do I scale?  What followed was a conversation about why growth doesn't have to mean hiring, what a proposal win rate above 60% is really telling you, and why a well-designed experiment beats any polished strategy framework.  If you run your own business, or you're thinking about going out on your own, this one will give you plenty of tips to apply.  Lisa and I discuss:  Why hiring more people often grows revenue but not profit, and how Inventium is having its highest-profit year ever with a smaller team  The single line in your profit and loss statement that signals when it's genuinely time to hire  How AI has reshaped businesses, and the surprising place it creates new bottlenecks rather than removing them  What a high proposal win rate is actually telling you about your pricing  The Inventium ROI guarantee, and the slightly awkward question worth asking past clients about what you should have charged  How to treat a market shift as an experiment to learn from, rather than a personal failure  Key quotes  "If you are getting the majority of your proposals accepted, I would say you're not charging enough."    My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  If you are looking for more tips to impr...

The prompting mistake almost everyone makes

11 min

How much of your week goes into fixing what AI just handed you? Not writing from scratch, just cleaning up, correcting, and nudging a draft that looked fine for about ten seconds before you actually needed it to work.  That endless back and forth has a name. We call it slop fixing, and there is research suggesting it is quietly eating close to a full day of our working week.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I get into why this happens and the two very different ways of working with AI that decide whether it does. You will hear the difference between gunslinging and architecting, what a proper brief actually sounds like, and how to have a conversation with AI before you ask it to build anything. By the end, you will be getting version one at 90 percent instead of 20.  What you'll learn:  What actually separates AI slop from work that lands  The difference between gunslinging and architecting with AI  What a proper brief for AI actually sounds like  How to have a real conversation with AI before asking it to build anything  Why version one can land at 90 percent instead of 20  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagr...

The 3 questions that reveal whether someone is actually motivated, with Dr Justin Coulson

36 min

Every manager and every parent has met the same wall. Someone who won't engage, won't budge, won't do the thing, no matter how hard you push or how much you offer.  Dr Justin Coulson has spent two decades inside the research explaining why pushing and bribing rarely work, and what actually does.  Justin is a psychologist, bestselling author, host of the TV show Parental Guidance, and father of six daughters, and his work sits inside self-determination theory, one of the most evidence-based bodies of research in psychology.  In this episode, I sit down with Justin to unpack the three basic psychological needs that shift someone from doing something because they have to, to doing it because they're genuinely on board. We also get into his early morning breathwork practice, why he believes boys are the solution rather than the problem, and a story involving his wife, a health retreat and a news website that will make you want to throw your phone into a river.  If you've ever managed someone who just won't engage, or parented a kid who won't do anything without a fight, this conversation will change how you think about motivation altogether.  Justin and I discuss:  The four levels of motivation, from extrinsic to intrinsic, and why chasing intrinsic motivation in a team or a family is setting the bar too high  The three basic psychological needs, relatedness, competence and autonomy, and why autonomy is often the linchpin  Why "autonomy" doesn't mean freedom, and what it actually means in practice  The three simple questions Justin uses with his own kids and with employees to work out where someone sits on the motivation continuum  How he uses breathwork and carbon dioxide tolerance as a daily practice in building resilience  What's really going on with boys today, and why Justin believes a healthy model of masculinity is the answer  Key quotes  "When people understand the value in the activity, when people buy the why, they will choose to do it autonomously, whi...

Do these 2 things if you're worried about AI and the environment

16 min

There is a quiet guilt a lot of people carry every time they open ChatGPT. Somewhere between the headlines about data centres and the vague sense that AI is somehow worse for the planet than everything else we do without a second thought, it becomes easier to just feel bad than to actually work out whether that guilt is warranted.  Nobody hands you the comparison points. Is a heavy day of prompting worse than a night of Netflix? Worse than a round of golf? Nobody says.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I go looking for the real figures. You will hear how an hour of heavy AI use stacks up against an hour of Netflix, why American golf courses use far more water than AI data centres, and the two things you can personally do that make a genuine difference, including one that has nothing to do with AI at all.  What you'll learn:  How an hour of heavy AI use actually compares to an hour of Netflix  Why golf courses use more water than AI data centres, and why nobody is calling to ban golf  What separates the environmental cost of training AI from simply using it  What governments, companies and individuals can each actually do about AI's environmental impact  The one everyday habit that beats cutting your AI use altogether  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out now. Y...

Are you an insecure overachiever? Oliver Burkeman on why success never feels like enough

36 min

There's a particular kind of tightness that creeps in when the world feels unpredictable. We tidy the to-do list, tighten the routine, optimise one more thing, all in an attempt to feel a bit more in control.  Oliver Burkeman has a word for this: clenching. And he reckons it's squeezing the life out of us, even when it looks a lot like productivity.  In this episode, I sit down with Oliver Burkeman, New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks and Meditations for Mortals, and former writer of The Guardian's This Column Will Change Your Life, to talk about his forthcoming book Aliveness and what he calls unclenching, learning to loosen your grip on certainty rather than white-knuckle your way through it.  We get into flexible goals, why urgency is so often someone else's agenda in disguise, and how to stop tying your self-worth to your latest achievement.  If you have ever hit a goal and felt the satisfaction evaporate within minutes, this conversation will change how you think about ambition altogether.  Oliver and I discuss:  What "clenching" is, and why our instinct to grip tighter in uncertain times actually backfires  The insecure overachiever trap, and why hitting a goal rarely feels like enough for long  How Oliver's open list, closed list approach stops you drowning in fifty half-started things  Setting a "no later than" time instead of a strict start time, and why looser goals often get more done  Why urgency is so often someone else's agenda in disguise, and how to tell when it is genuinely yours  What Oliver actually does with the emails he has not gotten to yet  Key quotes  "If you have this feeling of aliveness, even the most difficult challenges are copeable with, and if you don't have this feeling of aliveness, even the most impressive accomplishments are kind of worthless."  "You will do enough, because you will do everything that it's within your capacities and your energy levels and your talents to do, and that just by definition...

What you should never paste into AI

14 min

Before you paste that customer list, that blood test result or that contract into your favourite AI tool, it's worth pausing for a second. Whatever you hand over doesn't just disappear after you get your answer. It sits somewhere, and depending on the tool and the settings, it might be doing more than just answering your question.  Most people have never actually checked what happens to their data once it goes in or thought about the difference between what's fine to share and what's better redacted first.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I work through what's actually safe to give AI and what's better left out. We cover how to check your settings so free tools aren't training on your data, how to de-identify sensitive things like health results and contracts, the rules that change once you're at work, and the one question to ask yourself before you upload anything.  What you'll learn:  How to know if AI is quietly training on the data you give it, and how to switch that off  The one question to ask before you upload anything to AI  Why work and home should be treated completely differently when it comes to AI  What to redact from contracts, spreadsheets and client files before sharing them  Where the line sits between using AI as a sounding board and relying on it too much  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss a...

Part 2: The loneliness of leadership no one warned you about, with Christian O'Connell

34 min

There is a version of leadership that looks effortless from the outside. The one where the leader always has the answers, always holds the vision, always appears composed. And then there is the version that happens in private, at 5:00 AM, when your mind is rehearsing every possible failure and no one can see it.  What surprises most people is how often those two versions belong to the same person.  In part two of my conversation with Christian O'Connell, breakfast radio host heard by hundreds of thousands of Australians every morning, we get into the parts of leadership nobody talks about publicly. Christian opens up about the loneliness of leading a team, the night he finally put his thoughts on a whiteboard and told his people the truth about how he'd been feeling, and why he believes his next book will be about leadership because nobody warned him how hard it would be.   If you have ever found yourself carrying something heavy at work and deciding the most responsible thing to do as a leader is keep it to yourself, this conversation will make you question whether that instinct is actually protecting your team or just protecting you.  Christian and I discuss:  Why confidence is the wrong thing to aim for before you speak in public  What happened when Christian finally stopped pretending everything was fine with his team  The one thing that does more for a team than any solution or action plan  Why 5am is the worst possible time to trust your own thoughts  The David Letterman line that changed how Christian thinks about taking risks  Why Christian considers himself an accidental leader, and what he's doing about it  Key quotes  "Confidence is something that catches up. Momentum is more important."  "It's a beautiful thing, leadership. If you get it right, it's a path of aliveness and transformation. If you get it wrong, it's the opposite."  Connect with Christian O'Connell on Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn and his website. Tune in to The Christian O’Conne...

Agents, Projects, and Skills (oh my!): A no-fluff guide on when to use each one

13 min

The AI world has has done a spectacularly bad job of naming things. Agents, GPTs, gems, notebooks, projects, skills - you'll find a completely different word for what is essentially the same kind of tool. Agents in one place, GPTs in another, gems somewhere else. Different names, similar ideas - and no handbook to tell you that.  But the tools themselves are not that complicated. Once you know what each one is built to do, knowing which to reach for becomes straightforward.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I cut through the jargon and map out what Agents, Projects, and Skills actually are, how they differ from each other, and which one to reach for depending on what you need to do.  What you'll learn:  Why agents, GPTs, and gems are the same kind of thing (just with different names)  When a project is the right choice over an agent  What makes a skill different from a long prompt  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to impro...

Part 1: Christian O'Connell on the habit that means he never runs out of stories

28 min

** Grab tickets for The Energy Game Melbourne launch (29 July, 6:30pm) here and order The Energy Game book here.**  What if the stories you're most afraid to tell are the ones people most need to hear?  Christian O'Connell has spent 28 years pulling stories out of strangers on live radio. He's had two number one breakfast shows on opposite sides of the planet. And yet off-air, he still catches himself at dinner with his family thinking he hasn't said anything funny in a couple of minutes, and that inner critic starting to spiral.  In part one of our two-part conversation, I sit down with Christian to explore what he's learned from nearly three decades of live storytelling - and why most of us are telling our stories all wrong.  Whether you tell stories for a living or you just want to hold a room for 30 seconds at a dinner party, this conversation will give you a completely different way to think about why some stories land and others don't.  Christian and I discuss:  The woodshed: the note-taking habit Christian uses so he's never stuck for something to say  Why the stories you least want to tell are usually the ones that land hardest  The two levels inside every story, and why most of us only ever tell one of them  The physical test Christian uses to decide if a story is worth sharing  Why the best storytellers relive rather than retell, and what that looks like in practice  How speaking anxiety comes down to one thing, and it's not what most people think  Key quotes  "Vulnerability is the currency of great storytelling. If there's no vulnerability in here, there's no real connection in it."  "The more you dial into the particulars of a story, somehow it becomes more universal."  Connect with Christian O'Connell on Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn and his website. Tune in to The Christian O’Connell Show and check out his latest book Unscript: The Radical Act of Being Yourself.    My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: http...

The three questions to ask before picking an AI platform

16 min

You see another article. "This platform just changed everything." And suddenly, the AI platform you've been using for months feels completely inadequate. You wonder if you're behind. You wonder if you should switch again.  Neo and I have had this conversation more times than we can count, and it's one of the questions we get asked constantly at Inventium AI. Which of the four major AI platforms, Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, should you actually be using?  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through the three questions you should ask yourself before committing to any platform, then go through each one in turn to unpack where it shines and where it falls short. By the end, you will have a clear enough picture to make a call, or at least know which one to try next.  What you'll learn:  The three questions to ask before committing to any AI platform  Why your data's location could rule out certain options entirely  Which platform actually plugs into your daily work apps  How pricing models are shifting in ways that could blindside your budget  What to weigh before moving your whole company over  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com...

How to get your energy back without overhauling your life

46 min

** Grab tickets for The Energy Game Melbourne launch (29 July, 6:30pm) here and order The Energy Game book here.**  If you're someone who keeps saying yes when you should say no, or who has never once thought of rest as a skill worth building, this conversation will give you a starting point that doesn't require overhauling your life.  This is part two of a two-part crossover with the This Is Work podcast, hosted by Shelley Johnson. In this episode, Shelley and I go deep into the science-backed strategies from my new book, The Energy Game, covering all three categories: boost strategies that take less than five minutes, rest strategies that are genuinely restorative (not just fake rest on the couch), and protect strategies that stop your energy leaking in the first place.  Because knowing you're burning out is one thing. Knowing what to actually do about it is another.  Shelley and I discuss:  A surprisingly simple post-meal habit that stabilises your energy for hours  Why the thing most of us do to wind down at night is not actually rest  The acupressure technique from cancer recovery research that changed how I think about fatigue  What happened to my creativity when I stopped filling every quiet moment with podcasts  The tapping technique I used to conquer a phobia, and why it works for stress too  A three-question filter for deciding what to say yes to, inspired by Adam Grant  The worst speaking gig of my life, and the list I started that night  Key quotes  "Have you ever woken up in the morning and thought, 'I'm too busy to scroll Instagram today'? No. There you go. So you've got time to rest."  "You don't have to overhaul your life to get your energy back."  Connect with Shelley via LinkedIn, or through Boldside’s Instagram and website. For more conversations on meaningful work, sustainable success, and showing up as your best self – check out Shelley’s podcast this is work.    If you're jumping in fresh, part one is waiting for you. We cover the war...

Cowork explained in 10 Minutes

16 min

You've probably seen Cowork mentioned inside Claude, or perhaps you clocked the headlines when Microsoft folded it into Copilot a couple of weeks ago. Either way, the question people keep asking is simple: how is this actually different from just chatting with Claude?  The answer comes down to files, time and money - three things that change quite dramatically once you move from chat to Cowork.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I unpack exactly what Cowork can do that regular chat can't, how to know which one to reach for, and what the new Microsoft version means if you're a Copilot user.  What you'll learn:  What actually changes when Claude can touch files on your own computer  The simple test for deciding between Chat and Cowork for any task  How Cowork differs from Claude Code, and who each one is really built for  Three lesser known Cowork features worth exploring  What Microsoft's version of Cowork does differently, and what it costs  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newslett...

The warning signs of burnout I missed for nearly an entire year

40 min

** Grab tickets for The Energy Game Melbourne launch (29 July, 6:30pm) here and order The Energy Game book here.**    What does it take to realise you've hit burnout? For me, it wasn't a dramatic collapse. It was a fantasy about being hospitalised just so no one could contact me, and the hardest decision I'd face would be lime or raspberry jelly.  When I shared that thought with a friend who is also a clinical psychologist, she told me she'd heard it so many times she had a name for it. That moment of recognition, equal parts relief and horror, was the beginning of understanding just how depleted I had become.  This is part one of a two-part crossover with the This Is Work podcast, hosted by Shelley Johnson. Shelley asked me all about my year of burnout, the early warning signs I missed, and what I found when I went looking for a way out that didn't require completely overhauling my life. We also get into The Energy Game, my new book, and the framework behind it, including the four energy types, the three energy accounts, and why the phrase "I'm tired" is actually making it harder to solve the problem.  Shelley and I discuss:  The "getting hit by a bus" fantasy: what it signals about how depleted you really are, and why a clinical psychologist says she hears this constantly in private practice  The three early warning signs of burnout that I missed for months, covering the physical, mental, and emotional dimensions  The push through paradox: why working 60 or 70 hours a week can make you progressively less productive until everything goes on strike  Why the four energy types (achievement addict, over-committer, perfectionist, and people pleaser) are seasonal, not fixed, and what it means when you take any of them to the extreme  Why thinking of energy as one big concept makes burnout harder to solve, and how splitting it into three separate accounts (physical, mental, emotional) gives you somewhere to actually start  The minimum viable dose philosophy behind T...

What is tokenomics, and why should you care

12 min

If your organisation has moved its AI licenses onto a per-use plan, every single chat thread your team sends is now adding to a bill. Some companies are already burning through their entire IT budget for AI within the first couple of months of the year, and most staff have no idea their usage is costing anything at all.  It doesn't have to be a mystery. There are simple habits, from which model you default to, to what time of day you send your first message, that change how far your usage actually stretches.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I unpack tokenomics, the economics of how you actually use your AI. We get into how usage limits work across the major platforms, why the timing of your first chat each day matters more than you'd think, and what changes once you move from a personal plan to an enterprise one.  What you'll learn:  What tokenomics actually means and why it's suddenly everywhere  How Claude's usage window works differently to ChatGPT and Copilot  The simple morning habit that changes how far your usage window stretches  Why enterprise billing is shifting, and what that means for your team's budget  What managers should be doing before token usage gets out of hand  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here...

Behind the book deal: How a book goes from pitch to print, with Penguin Random House's Izzy Yates

54 min

** Grab tickets for The Energy Game Melbourne launch (29 July, 6:30pm) here and pre-order The Energy Game book here.**  Writing a book is hard. But getting a publisher to say yes to your book? That is an entirely different challenge, and one that most aspiring authors know almost nothing about.  What actually happens when a proposal lands on a publisher's desk? Who else needs to sign off before an offer is made? And in a world where anyone can ask AI to explain any topic, why has "great content" stopped being enough on its own?  This one is a little different from my usual episodes. It's a recording from a live webinar I did with Izzy Yates, head of Penguin Publishing Lab at Penguin Random House Australia, who has published my last three books, including my newest one, The Energy Game.   We unpack the full journey of a book, from proposal to bookshelf, including how Penguin's internal acquisitions process works, why pre-orders matter far more than most people realise, what actually gets retailers excited, and whether you can land a deal without a big platform.  If you have ever thought about writing a book, or you are in the middle of writing one right now, this is the conversation I wish I had heard before I started.  Izzy and I discuss: What made my first book proposal stand out, and the key ingredients Izzy looks for in every strong proposal  The formula publishers use to evaluate a book: the quality of the idea multiplied by the size of the author's platform, and why it's more nuanced than it sounds  Why authors who weave personal story into their content are having more success than those who rely on expertise alone  How Penguin's two-stage internal process works, from publishing meeting to acquisitions meeting, before any offer is made  The full editorial journey from first draft to printed book: structural edit, copy edit, and proofread  How titles and covers are developed collaboratively, and what the team considers when landing on a final design  Why...

Which AI model should I use for which task?

16 min

If you've ever stared at a model picker and wondered whether to click Flash, Sonnet, Opus, Instant, or Think Deeper, you are not alone. These naming conventions are genuinely confusing, and most people just pick something and hope it works. The stakes are higher than they might seem, though. Token misuse has left some companies with eye-watering AI bills, including one case where a single employee ran up a $500,000 tab in a month.  The good news is that there is a simple mental model that cuts through all the noise, and once you have it, choosing the right model for any task takes seconds.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through the four major AI platforms, Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot, and break down exactly which model to use and when. We also get into tokens, usage limits, and why matching the model to the task matters far more than most people realise.  What you'll learn:  Why ignoring model numbers and reading the small print instead saves a lot of confusion  What Fable and Mythos are, and why you can't use them right now  How token usage works and why the right model choice protects your access  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linked...

The two AI mistakes hurting your team's productivity, with Dom Price

40 min

We're using AI more than ever. And yet, according to research from Glean's Work AI Institute, only 10% of Australians say AI is significantly improving organisational performance.  The truth is that most organisations have done what Dom Price calls the "Woodstock theory" of AI adoption: build it and they will come. Throw the tools out there, hope people figure it out, and wait for the productivity miracle that never quite arrives.  In this episode, I sit down with Dom Price, former Atlassian work futurist and one of the sharpest thinkers I know on how organisations actually work. Dom joins me off the back of new Australian research showing the enormous gap between AI adoption and AI impact, and we dig into exactly why that gap exists and what to do about it.  If you care about building genuine AI capability in your team rather than just looking busy with AI, this conversation will make you rethink where to start.  Dom and I discuss:  The "Woodstock theory" of AI adoption, and why most organisations are getting almost nothing back for their investment  Botsitting and botshitting: two new terms that capture exactly what's going wrong with how we use AI at work  The minus one, zero, plus one framework for figuring out where AI actually belongs in your organisation  Why managers are becoming the unexpected bottleneck in an AI-enabled workplace  Dom's board of directors inside Claude, and how he uses it to catch his own blind spots  The question Dom asks every leadership team that almost no one can answer  Key quotes  "If you have inefficient and ineffective processes and people systems, and you layer in AI, you are doing stupid things faster."  "Most of the businesses I work with in the ASX, their human operating system's Windows 95. So you might have Claude 5.9. You're using Ferrari-style horsepower in your technology, but the way your humans and teams work and meet and make decisions... all those things are Windows 95."  Connect with Dom Price on Instagram, Li...

The early warning signs of burnout you're probably ignoring (feat. my new book The Energy Game)

21 min

** Grab tickets for The Energy Game Melbourne launch (29 July, 6:30pm) here and pre-order The Energy Game book here.**    You have the calendar colour-coded. You time block. You deep work. You have iterated on your to-do list more times than you can count. And yet somehow, you are still exhausted - falling further behind, producing less than you know you are capable of, and wondering what on earth is wrong with you.  Nothing is wrong with you. But the solution you have been sold almost certainly is.  This episode is a little different. It is an excerpt from my new book, The Energy Game, read by me, and it picks up close to the start of the book where I get into how we ended up in this energy crisis in the first place, and how to spot those early warning signs of chronic depletion before they tip into full-blown burnout.  The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can pre-order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M    Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)  Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)  If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha.substack.com/  Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.  Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au  Credits: Host: Amantha Imber Sound Engineer: Martin Imber  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Always chasing the next achievement? Jennifer Breheny Wallace has a better way to measure your life

37 min

There is a question most of us skip past entirely in our daily lives: do I actually matter? Not "am I useful?" or "am I successful?" but do I matter, as a person, independent of what I produce or achieve?  It sounds simple. But the research suggests we are terrible at actually living like the answer is yes.  In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Breheny Wallace, journalist and bestselling author of Mattering, a book that unpacks why so many of us have tied our sense of worth to our output, and what it costs us. Jennifer has been researching this topic for nearly a decade, and her work is one of those rare combinations: rigorously grounded and deeply personal.  Jennifer and I discuss:  The two sides of the mattering equation: feeling significant versus being useful, and why both are essential  The crumpled $20 bill story and what it teaches children (and adults) about unconditional worth  The "impact file" and why what goes in it might surprise you  Three different paths you can take when envy hits, including one called mudita that reframes another person's success as your own  What managers get wrong about mattering, and the small everyday moments that actually move the needle  The 30-second nightly practice that can override your brain's negativity bias  Key Quotes  "Mattering is found in the small everyday moments of life. It was never the big moments, it was the small moments."  "We all crave to feel needed and relied on. Letting young people know that you are valued for so much more than your achievements, you are needed here, you have a role in this world."  Connect with Jennifer Breheny Wallace on Instagram, LinkedIn and her website, and check out her books Mattering and Never Enough    If you enjoyed this episode, I think you'd love a chat I had with bestselling author Daniel Coyle on how to avoid small talk and the questions that create real connection. Listen here.   My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy...

Quick Win: The creative secret behind Exploding Kittens’ thousand-idea design retreats

6 min

What happens when a team generates a thousand ideas - and kills most of them within minutes?  In this Quick Win, I speak with Exploding Kittens co-creator Elan Lee about how he and his team turn chaos into creativity during their quarterly design retreats. Over three intense days, they generate, test, and ruthlessly discard ideas - all without bruising egos.  Elan shares how he’s built a culture of trust where killing ideas isn’t failure, it’s focus - and why showing your team it’s safe to let go might be the most powerful leadership move you can make.  Elan and I discuss:  Inside Exploding Kittens’ quarterly design retreats  Why Elan ditched the “yes, and…” rule for “no, kill it”  How to create psychological safety in creative chaos  The leadership habit that helps teams detach from their ideas  Why rejecting ideas fast can unlock better ones  KEY QUOTE  “All the best ideas start out as terrible ideas - they just need room to evolve.”  Explore Elan’s games at explodingkittens.com and connect with him on Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn.   Listen to my full conversation with Elan here.    My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/   Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)   Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)   If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe   Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.   Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au       Credits:   Host: Amantha Imber   Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Work Edit: Struggling to say no? The method I use that makes every decision easier

29 min

In a portfolio career, requests have a funny way of multiplying. A speaking gig here, a board invite there, a coffee catch-up that sounds valuable but drains you for days. The answer to all of them is technically "yes" right up until the moment it isn't.  Katie is 18 months into consulting and a portfolio career, and she came to me with a problem a lot of people share: she's getting busier, she cares deeply about protecting time for values-driven work, and saying no is a muscle she's still building.  This episode is part of The Work Edit, a format on How I Work where I sit down with someone facing a real professional challenge and we work through it together live.  We cover my yes triage framework, the no club concept, the to-don't list, the never again list, and a simple rule called the next Tuesday test.  Katie and I discuss: The yes triage: three questions to run every request through before deciding, and why you need a "hell yes" to at least two of them  Why saying yes out of flattery or guilt is so common, and how to catch yourself doing it  The no club: how a small group of trusted colleagues can give you the objective perspective you can't give yourself  The to-don't list and how to use it monthly to protect your energy from the things you already know drain you  The never again list for the spectacularly bad decisions you keep forgetting you made  Why a slow no is not polite and why a fast no within 24 hours is almost always the kinder move  The next Tuesday test: how to reality-check a far-off commitment by imagining it was happening this week  Key quotes  "A slow no is actually unkind because the other person is just waiting and probably following up when they could already be finding someone who'll say yes."  "What all these strategies do is reduce cognitive load. There's no longer a decision to make. There's just a rule to follow."    My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Conn...

8 tasks you should never do manually again

15 min

**Join the AI Agent Bootcamp here: https://www.inventium.ai/learnvirtually-agents**  You have access to AI. You probably use it a fair bit. And yet there's a good chance you're still manually scrubbing through meeting transcripts, tabbing between LinkedIn and Google News before every sales call, and spending 20 minutes writing an executive summary for a paper you just finished writing.  That gap between having AI and actually letting it take things off your plate is where a lot of time quietly disappears.   In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through eight tasks that knowledge workers should never have to do manually again, and what it actually looks like to hand them off to agents.  What you'll learn in this episde:  Which meeting-related tasks are the easiest to hand off to an agent  How to build a pre-meeting briefing agent for sales and business development  Why editing and proofreading agents need very specific instructions to protect your voice  Where inbox agents are most useful, and what they can and can't do for you  How to think about agents when comparing options before a purchase decision  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm. Want more practical ways to put AI to work? You can now follow How I AI separately on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.   My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://...

What watching 20,000 auditions teaches you about getting attention, with Big Brother and The X Factor creator Maz Farrelly

35 min

Most professionals are terrible at talking about themselves. Not because they lack substance, but because no one ever taught them that being interesting is a skill, and that skill can be learned.  Maz Farrelly has spent decades on the other side of that problem. As the executive producer behind Big Brother, The X Factor, and Celebrity Apprentice, she has auditioned over 20,000 people, had her content watched more than eight billion times, and once broke Twitter deliberately. In this episode, I sit down with Maz to unpack what the TV industry understands about attention that most professionals never learn, and how to bring that same thinking into the way you pitch yourself and show up in any room.  Maz and I discuss:  Why you have about 10 seconds to earn someone's attention, and what TV producers do with that window that most professionals don't  The one word missing from almost every professional pitch ("so that")  Why adapting your introduction for every room you walk into isn't being fake — it's understanding your audience  How to share your credentials and achievements without sounding like you're bragging  The case Maz makes against performed humility on LinkedIn, and better alternatives that actually build trust  Why Maz banned email entirely on Dancing with the Stars UK, replaced it with two 10-minute standing meetings a day, and had only four phone calls across 100 shows  What Gogglebox taught Maz about the power of doing the exact opposite of what everyone else in your industry is doing  Key quotes  "If you can help people, you need to show off. Because I need to be able to buy you, and I can't buy you if I don't know you exist."  "The first line's job is to make me read the second. It's so obvious, and hardly anyone does it."  Connect with Maz Farrelly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and her website.    My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https...

(BONUS) The psychology of the pitch: what TV producers know that salespeople don't, with Maz Farrelly

10 min

We put someone on the moon in 1969. We didn't put wheels on suitcases until 1972. The problem was: Nobody had stopped to notice the problem existed in the first place.  That gap - between the problems people will tell you about, the ones they'll only admit after a drink, and the ones they don't even know they have - is exactly where Maz Farrelly operates. In this bonus conversation with the executive producer behind Big Brother, The X Factor, and Celebrity Apprentice, we get into the practical mechanics of walking into a meeting and already having the room on your side before you've said a single word.  If you have a pitch coming up - for an idea, a budget, or yourself - this episode has something useful in it for you.  Maz and I discuss:  The "warming up the room" technique Maz uses at the start of every pitch meeting, and why it works  How she used reverse psychology to make network executives desperate for the idea she told them she wasn't going to pitch  Why the smartest operators don't sell — they make themselves buyable  The three layers of problems your clients have, and why cracking the third layer is where the real opportunity lives  The suitcase story: why solving problems people don't know they have is the most valuable thing you can do in any industry  Why Maz brought too much cake to a Microsoft meeting, and how it made her go viral inside the building without spending a cent on advertising  What "sticky information" is, and why it determines whether anything you said in a meeting actually matters  Key quotes  "The smart money doesn't sell. The smart money is bought."  "Hope is not a strategy."  And if you haven't listened to the main episode with Maz yet, start there. It's all about how to make yourself impossible to ignore. Listen to the main episode here.  Connect with Maz Farrelly on Instagram, LinkedIn, and her website.    My latest book The Energy Game is out on July 7, 2026. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M  Connect w...

The agent that Neo uses every single day

14 min

**Join the AI Agent Bootcamp here: https://www.inventium.ai/learnvirtually-agents**  You type a research question into your AI tool, get back a perfectly serviceable answer, and still feel like something's missing. The output isn't wrong, exactly. It just didn't quite hit the mark. The culprit, more often than not, is the prompt you started with.  The good news: there's a smarter way to approach this, and it doesn't involve becoming a prompt engineering expert.  In this How I AI episode, Neo and I walk through the agent Neo reaches for more than any other he has built: the Research Prompt Builder. We get into how it works, when to use it with a thinking model instead of deep research, and how pairing it with NotebookLM can get you genuinely well-briefed in a fraction of the usual time.  What you'll learn in this episode:  Why your research prompt matters more than the tool you use  How Neo's Research Prompt Builder actually works before any research begins  When a thinking model is a better choice than deep research  How to go from a raw research output to a proper briefing using NotebookLM  Practical AI tools for productivity and focus  Real-world AI workflows used by high performers  How to use AI at work without burning out  Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load  Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams.    And here are links we promised:  Download the Research Prompt Builder agent here: https://amantha-imber.kit.com/41cec7c48c  NotebookLM (notebooklm.google.com) - Google's learning tool that lets you upload up to 50 sources and generate a podcast episode, ask questions, and get cited answers from your own documents.    How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm....

The Work Edit: Everyone is using AI to apply for jobs. Here's how to stand out.

29 min

Knowing how hiring works does not prepare you for what job hunting actually feels like right now. Today’s guest, Nicole, found that out the hard way. She has spent 30 years on the hiring side of the table. She has interviewed hundreds of candidates, read thousands of applications, and knows exactly what good looks like. So when she re-entered the job market after a six-month sabbatical, she found herself starting from scratch.  Nicole, a senior executive, knew how the game used to work. What she didn't know was how much it had changed. AI-generated resumes flooding inboxes. Applicant tracking systems filtering on past performance. Three or four hundred applications for every role, most of them indistinguishable from one another. The playbook she had built over decades wasn't quite fitting the game anymore.  This episode is part of The Work Edit, a new format on How I Work where I sit down with someone facing a real professional challenge and we work through it together. Nicole came to me wanting help with the part of job hunting that was giving her the most trouble: getting from application to shortlist. We get practical about what actually works right now, from why a written application might be the weakest version of your pitch, to how to use AI to run your own mock interview and genuinely sharpen your performance in ways most people never bother doing.  If you are currently in the job market, or know someone who is, this one is worth sharing.  We discuss:  Why the job market has shifted so dramatically in the last few years, and what that means for experienced candidates re-entering the workforce  How applicant tracking systems work and why they tend to filter out people with non-linear careers or future-focused skills  The case for treating your job search as a sales role, and what that reframe actually changes about how you show up  Why a short video pitch cuts through in a way that a written application simply cannot right now, and what makes the differen...

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