Guest: Dominic Price, Work futurist at Atlassian
Published: October 9th, 2025
Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

‍Episode summary

A masterclass in how to lead persuasive, effective change, especially when dealing with skeptical executives.

Dominic Price is a work futurist, recovering chartered accountant, and for 12 years, one of the key voices shaping teamwork at Atlassian. Dom is irreverent, mischievous, and as you're going to tell straight away, he really cares about doing great work.

This conversation is a lot of fun. You’re going to love Dom's honest, raw thoughts—while seeing that underneath his amazing charisma and confidence, he’s got a massive heart.

Key topics

• 🗣️ A masterclass in facilitating persuasive meetings with executives.
• 📌 The key leadership reminder Dom keeps stuck to his computer.
• 🤖 Why AI isn't the next "transformation," but one of the hardest challenges we'll face.
• ⚖️ Invaluable wisdom on burnout, balance, and life’s real KPIs.

Top quotes

“Don’t make anyone more productive or efficient until you ask: are we even doing the right things?”

“AI is transformative…I don’t think it’s a transformation…you’re signing up for exploration in perpetuity.”

“When I get short-tempered and busy...I don’t get curious, I get furious. So I keep a post-it on my screen: less furious, more curious.” 

“Open with a real example and go first: share three things that went wrong and three that went right… then ask, ‘Which of these resonate?’ It lowers defenses and starts honest sharing.”

 “If I don’t invest in my kids this week, I won’t know for years…but when I find out, I’ll never forgive myself.”

Resources

• Download the One New Zealand Case Study
• Book a Platform Demo

Full episode

Dominic Price: The reason I think this is probably going to be the hardest challenge is it impacts your people, like your human capital. It impacts your ways of working, right, your operating model, your rhythm, your cadence of how you work, and it impacts your technology stack. And the guy next to me just keeps on looking at me like a proper pinstripe suit, nice shirt, tie. He's got the leather attaché case, like full shebang. And I took my headphones out at some point and he looked over at me and he's like, 'I'm always afraid of the guy in a T-shirt.'

And I was like, why? And he said, I'm conforming, but you don't give a f***.

Mike Courian: Welcome to Shapeshifters. The podcast on a hunt for passionate individuals who are discovering and rediscovering the best ways to transform people and organizations for good. I'm your host, Mike Courian, and it's great to be with you.

In this episode, I'm speaking with Dominic Price. Dom is a dad, husband, and futurist. He's a recovering chartered accountant, something I can definitely relate to. He's a one-time tech consultant and he's genuinely fascinated by human ways of working and teams. He's irreverent, mischievous, and you're going to tell straight away, he really cares about doing great work.

The episode was recorded just prior to him finishing up 12 years at Atlassian. In this conversation, Dom's going to give you his masterclass in leading persuasive, effective meetings, especially with execs. He's going to tell you his key leadership reminder that he has stuck to his computer. You'll hear why he doesn't think that AI is the next transformation, but why it will be one of the hardest challenges we've faced. And you'll hear some invaluable wisdom on burnout, balance, and life's real KPIs.

I found this conversation a lot of fun. I think you're going to love his honest, raw thoughts, while seeing underneath his amazing charisma and confidence that he's got a massive heart. So, let's jump into the conversation. Well,

Mike Courian: Dom, welcome to the podcast.

Dominic Price: Mike, I am really looking forward to this conversation. I think we're gonna have some fun today.

Mike Courian: I have this friend that started at Atlassian a little while ago and I wonder, um, is most of the team remote? So are you at home right now?

Dominic Price: I'm at home. It's weird. We try not to use the word remote because it changes every day. So my team is distributed, right? So my team is in Germany, US and India. So whether I'm at home or in the office, it doesn't actually matter. What matters is, how do I build connections with them to have the important conversation, which often for me means being at home because I can work different hours. The last stat I saw, between 30 and 35, 40% of people on any given day go into one of our offices. So it's not a... because people are always like, is it hybrid? I'm like, no, because there's no requirement. It's not two days on, three days off. It's not structured in that way. It's, hey Mike, you're an adult. Do, do whatever you need to do to get the job done. And you're like, what, an adult? Shit, that's controversial.

Mike Courian: Wait, so you mean I can actually just be trusted?

Dominic Price: Yeah, it's so weird. And then like when I trust you, how many layers that adds to you? Like good layers that add to you. Cause you're like, well, if you trust me, I'm not going to take the piss on expenses. If you trust me, I'm not going to... like, you go the extra mile because trust is reciprocated. It's bizarre. The hard thing I find is I spend half my time outside Atlassian with our biggest customers. And so that's like a shock, because it's like cold water therapy, because I have my nuances and ways of working and ways of talking, ways of communicating at Atlassian, I'm like, everyone's like this. And then I walk into some random bank or Telco, and I start speaking and I'm like, why is everyone so shocked? And they're like, fuck, you really speak your mind, don't you? And I was like, what, what's the alternative? Is the thing I said untrue? And they're like, nah, it's just like spicy. And I'm like, I don't even...

Dominic Price: what that means anymore, because my spice and your spice are completely different.

Mike Courian: It is interesting though that it's just so, it's still so constrained.

Dominic Price: Oh, yeah.

Mike Courian: I don't know how long it will take that culture.

Dominic Price: Right. I had when I flew down to Melbourne last week for an event, and I was just sitting there on the flight down, you know, minding my own business, you know, headphones in, listening to an average podcast. And the guy next to me just keeps on looking at me, like, proper pinstripe suit, nice shirt, tie, he's got the leather attached case, like full shebang. And, and I took my headphones out at some point, and he looked over at me and he's like, I'm always afraid of the guy in the t-shirt.

And I was like, why? And he said, I'm conforming, but you don't give a fuck.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Dominic Price: And I was like, oh. He said, have you ever thought about how much of a message you wearing a t-shirt in a boardroom would convey? And I was like,

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: No. I honestly haven't thought about that. But now you've planted that seed in my head, that's like the flip-up. I thought I was turning up and not fitting in. And what you're saying is by not caring about that, that's some kind of flex.

And I was like, I'm just wearing a t-shirt because it's more comfortable. I'm shit at ironing. Like, there's not, there's not that many thought processes going in my head. But it's fascinating that the flip is, that flip has occurred.

Mike Courian: But do you know what I think's so interesting is often these, so these like unexpected intimidation factors or unexpected reversals. Because you're like, I'm actually feeling more comfortable. I'm thinking about it less.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: Like it wasn't even on my mind. And then they're going, they're hypersensitive, hyper aware, trying to like work it all out and you're like, no, no, no, no, no, you don't need to work it all out.

Dominic Price: Well, that common thread of when someone tries to work out your logic and you're like, oh, there isn't any. I haven't thought this through as much as you are analyzing me. I just do the things I do and I don't even think about them. But the depth of your analysis.

Dominic Price: It's really impressive.

Mike Courian: Yes. Yeah, and so, here we are where some of us get to be free and a whole bunch are still in the process of trying to let go. Or they're trapped, because I won't, I won't blame everybody. Sometimes the culture is… Yeah, can you actually tell me what percentage of, uh, like people you speak to externally, if we're running with this metaphor, how many are still just deep in a culture where they're really trapped?

Dominic Price: I don't, I don't think it's actually that many. I think it's actually a little bit more subtle than that. I think some of it is learnt behavior. There's learnt behavior, which is I feel trapped, but you're like, are you?

And then the ones that always throw me a bit of a curve ball are the ones who are like senior leaders in an organization, they've been there for 10 years and they tell me how bad it is. And I'm like, if I was to map out that equation, you created that culture. So, how is it you're whinging about the thing that you kind of created? And they don't feel like they, oh no, I'm the passenger. And I'm like, nah, your seniority, that long tenure, you co-created that. So, it's funny, I I I I feel like most leaders I work with have got more agency than they realize, but it's a lot easier to play the victim.

Mike Courian: Yes. Because then you don't have to be responsible.

Dominic Price: It's like, it happened to me, or this woe is me. And also like, I think Australia is quite, well, weirdly, like, culturally, like, if I think about whenever I go back to the UK, like I'm from the north of England, in the north of England, you're not meant to like your job. So the idea is, if you clock in on a Monday, clock out after work, you go to the pub, you drink moderately during the week, then Friday night's your big binge. And your job is to whinge about how bad your work is. Like, because it's always unfair and it's unjust and it's terrible. So, whenever I fly back and I'm like, it's really awkward. I quite like my job.

It's like, what the… I'm like, I actually, yeah, no, sorry. Like really guilty- guilty. Like I actually…

Dominic Price: I'm happy. And then I'm like, and here's the agency I've got to do the things I want to do. And it's not that I love 100% of my job. There's parts of it that are annoying. That's just human nature. But on the whole, at the aggregate level, I do. And when I explain that, people are like, no, that's not a concept. So that it's not that that doesn't exist, it's just not acknowledged in that environment.

Mike Courian: It's so interesting. And so, how did you end up in Australia?

Dominic Price: I sat having done three years at Deloitte in London and I was sitting having sushi with my boss at the time, a wonderful gentleman by the name of Ravi Joshi. And Ravi was like, hey, I think you're thinking of leaving, and I don't think you should leave. And I was like, funny you mentioned that. I am thinking of leaving, but I don't know what I want to go and do. And each job I looked at was like, meh, like nothing, nothing got fire in my belly. So I felt like I, I didn't realize at the time, but I was running away from something rather than running to something. None of it excited me.

Anyway, we had sushi, and we had a chat. He's like, I want to, I want to explore something on the weekend and I'll come back to you next week. I was like, oh, good. So the next week, he's like, hey, I've made some calls. I think you should try doing the same job you're doing here, but do it somewhere else. So everything else is the same, just a different location and see if that gives you the learning curve you want. And I'm like, I didn't even think of that as a possibility. I just thought if you didn't like what you did, you changed it. Turns out I was trying to change the wrong things, good life lesson there, but um...

Mike Courian: But also back to Friday at the pub. You were trained to do that.

Dominic Price: Trained to do that, right? It's indoctrinated. So he, so he comes in the next week and he's like, right, New York or Sydney? And I was like, are we going on holiday, Ravi? I don't think we're that close. He's like, no, your job that you're doing right now in Deloitte in London exists in New York and Sydney.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Dominic Price: And I thought New York felt too much like London. So I'd go to Sydney. And the idea was I'd go for a year and a half. I'd grow my hair out. That's worked really well. I'd get fit, not done that yet.

Dominic Price: I learned to surf, and after 18 months I'd returned to England and just be like, "Yeah, I'm super cool, I'm a surfer now." Um, and I kind of got to Australia, I was like, I quite like it here. So, there was never a plan to stay. I'm, I never had a mood board with Sydney on it. Um I never had this, I never watched Australian shows and like, oh, I hark after those times. I don't surf, right? I don't fit into that equation, but something intangible about it when I got here, I'm like, yeah.

This works. So 22 years later, I'm still here.

Mike Courian: Love it. And that's sort of my story. I didn't get the, uh, agency of choosing myself, but my dad had this inclination that we were going to pack up from Southern California and we were moving somewhere far away.

And New Zealand ended up being that place. And 24 years later, still here. And so, I'm a man of no country though, because I, when people meet me, "Oh, how long are you visiting for?"

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: I've been here most of my life. I think I'm gonna stay a bit longer.

Dominic Price: Right. I'm with you. So the the there's a hard trigger for me and because my wife's also English, but when we had the kids, we're like,

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Dominic Price: Are they Aussie? And we're like, well, they are, because they're born in Australia and they'll probably only ever live in Australia. But they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're they're surrounded by very English things, right? They've got English parents. Uh, we've got English friends. We've obviously got Aussie friends, but I'm like, it's not like we're in the Outback. Like we're in Manly, like it's hardly like challenging the Australian uh environment. Um, but then I was like, hang on. What does that make us, what does that make us? Because I'm like, well, I'm 47 now. I've been here for 22 years. Is there a time when that ticks over when I feel more Australian? Because so many, so much of my roots and my heritage is still English.

It's, I've not, I've not got hatred for that. I've not run away from it, but it's also not, it's quite a foreign concept because it's familiar, but that's not the life I live.

Mike Courian: Yes. Yes. It's just the same as I feel.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: Because

Mike Courian: It's so easy for somebody to assume my identity as American, but I'm like, actually I've moved a long way from that now.

Dominic Price: Yeah. Yeah, the assumption bit. That's the assumption bit. It's like now, like once someone hears that first twang, they're filling all the empty gaps with assumptions. You're like, actually about three quarters of those are untrue. Like I, I, I know more sheep than I know people. Like I like but no one's going to, no one's going to tap into that without being curious first about who you are and your background.

Mike Courian: Yeah. Yeah. Do you, how often do you meet somebody that you're like, okay, this is a curious person. Because something we've learned in our business is a lot of people, that's not actually a place they love to be. They love executing, they love running with something that's pre-established, but there is something different about enjoying the whys and the ambiguity.

Dominic Price: Yeah. The thing I've started to focus on recently is polarity. So instead of curiosity, I'm like, who are the people in my life that can hold two opposing views in their head at the same time?

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: That's really attractive, right? Someone who can go, I think this, but that also might be true and I'm like, oh, right that. That's what's getting the arousal muscle going . Tell me more about that. Like, how do you compare those two? That's a conversation. Where I get turned off is conversion.

When someone's like, I'm I'm curious about this thing, this singular thing, and I'm going to convert you to my belief because I'm I've I've been so curious about it, I'm now right. And I'm like, nah. And so what I've realized is I don't want to engage in that because conversion I don't find interesting, but open conversation and exploration, that is. Now, you can call it I I I still call it curious. I've got a post-it note on my screen here that says, less furious, more curious.

Because I have realized that when I get short tempered and busy and run down or distracted, I don't get curious, I get furious. Mike, where's that thing? I told you.

Dominic Price: to do it. Like, we spoke about this on Monday, right? and instead of being like, what's happening with you, what where's that up to, what you've learned? I'm like, why is it not done, right? So I know being personally furious can trump my curiosity quite easily. So I've got that on a post-it note to just remind me, like not to fall into that trap.

Mike Courian: Yeah. Yeah, and I also think wonderful things I've noticed in myself come out when I'm curious. Why are they being so pushy about that opinion?

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: Why are they having so much emotion to this decision?

Dominic Price: Yeah. Well what, just just what's going on, just just just turning a statement into a question is the simplest form. And I use that with myself and my team all the time. Like, we were talking about something last week, and it's a really hard thing we're talking about. And instead of going down that path of solution mode, I was like, just imagine, if we had to do it, how might we?

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Dominic Price: Just just and it's almost like, well if we had to, but suddenly you're like, oh my god, the whole mood, the whole, the whole vibe changed.

Mike Courian: Yeah, yeah, everybody's all of a sudden lets go of their clenched fists and goes, okay. Okay, what if I love that. If I had to.

Dominic Price: If I had to. And suddenly you go from, but it won't work. Cuz because the whole thing was, we've done this before, it won't work. And I'm like, okay, potentially true. But if we had to, and we wanted to make it work, and the deadline's fixed, by the way, but there was no recourse for how scrappy and random we wanted to be, how might we? And I was like, well in that case, right? And and and all that creativity came out.

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: But it's fascinating how, and I think if we'd stood there and said, hey, let's all be more creative. That wouldn't have happened, right? So it's not, it's like empathy. I always say to people like, the more you say the word empathy and vulnerability, the less you are. Because they're not, they're not words that you say, they're actions, right? They're wherever I hear a leader go, I'm going to be vulnerable now. I'm like, you're probably not. If you've had to announce it, you're probably not.

Mike Courian: I love that. It's so true.

Mike Courian: All right, I'm gonna take us back a few steps. There's a way to answer this question where you'll think about it a lot. I'm kind of more interested in the fast answer. And I'm getting a sense that Dom, that Dom's going to be good at fast answers anyways, but three words that describe Dominic Price.

Dominic Price: Uh, irreverent, uh, energetic, and frustrated.

Mike Courian: And what are you frustrated about right now?

Dominic Price: Everything. I'm constantly frustrated. So I have this tension between not caring and caring, which always leads to this underlying frustration, right? So I, I, I like the perception that I don't care because it enables me, it can form a superpower to go, I'm just going to be me and I'm going to get on with stuff and be joyful on my own and confident in my own skin and all that jazz. And then you're like, well, I'm human, of course I care, right? And then it feels like this violent swing. And that violent swing causes frustration because you don't get answers. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm, I'm quite comfortable in ambiguity, but every now and then you're like, it's nice to have, you used the word foundation before. Sometimes it's nice to have these little foundations. And the swing from I don't care to I do care to I don't care, is part of who I am. And so I, I don't want to fight it, but I also want to be honest that it does lead to a lot of underlying frustration.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Dominic Price: It's like an example, am I ambitious? Yeah. Like most of my friends will say I'm really ambitious. But then ambition to me would be like CEO or running my own company. Like, so like here's the thing, but I'm like, actually right now, the balance I have with the work I do and being a good partner to my wife and being a good dad to the kids, I'm like, okay, so that's, that feels like a good balance, but oh, does that mean I'm not ambitious anymore? I've, do I need comfy slippers? Am, am I relaxing on a comfy chair now? I'm not. But, but it's this, this, this violent, like it feels like a violent swing of, of again, the polarity of voices in the head, the underlying

Dominic Price: and uh emotion that that leaves me with is frustration because you don't get answers, right? You get movement but not answers.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

My version, it's interesting because I was going to say, "Oh, I wonder if there's a superpower in here for you around this frustration." Now, I wonder if this lands at all. I have a lot of strengths that are just full, insatiable curiosity, learning, and rabbit holes. And then uh if I was using StrengthsFinder language, my fifth strength is responsibility. And it's a complete ugly duckling. Because I'm off in the clouds, imagining things, and just in these wonderful worlds, and then responsibility is just always nagging me.

Dominic Price: Does it work like an anchor, though? Like is it because anchors could be both positive and negative. Like some anchors I find are really grounding. Other anchors I like, bugger off, like you're stopping me making progress.

Mike Courian: Well, I think it's a bit like your frustration, and this is why I related to it, is because it is my tether.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: But at the same time, I don't want to be tethered. It's just like, I was having so much fun, and now you're like, okay, yeah, I do need to get that thing done. Or like, no, I think we could ideate more here. And it's just like, no, actually, the ideas you have are more than good enough. And it's like, I know, but that part, that part sucks. I hate doing that part. I hate the doing it part. Let me just play. And so it's that funny tension.

Dominic Price: Is that not part of me? I'm always, again, curious. Well, I've probably used the word a lot, but I'm always curious to say that is that just part of the balance of life?

Mike Courian: Well, it is, but I feel really distressed by it. Like, like it just sucks. It feels like it sucks all the time. And maybe maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just naming real life.

Dominic Price: It's more of an acceptance. No, but I'm like, I'm like, I'm um I'm a great starter. I'm a terrible finisher, right? So occasionally, occasionally I look at stuff and go, god if only I had finished that. Or I get frustrated because I start a document and I share

Dominic Price: I people critique it and I'm like, you're critiquing it because the pixels aren't perfect, not because of the content. So I like to share raw stuff. You are up to send finished stuff, but I'm not a finisher. That's going to take me forever. I'm not going to do it, someone else can do it. Someone else finishes it and then gets the credit and I'm furious.

Mike Courian: It's so so right. Yeah. It's so so familiar.

Dominic Price: I'm like, am I gonna, am I ever going to be a good finisher? Or do I just acknowledge that there's a role for starters and therefore I don't get the credit for finishing it. And I just need to accept and be okay with it, but then call out what is the recognition I deserve for starting, right? And in that example, I've probably got 10 of those in my career and I'm like, I just need to be okay that my DNA makes me perform nine out of 10 in this environment, two out of 10 here. Do I want to get better at two out of 10? And if I do, I accept it's only ever going to be a three. It's never going to be a nine because it's just not in my core skill.

Mike Courian: What are the things where you're like, yeah, this is where I contribute a lot to the team. This is where the team draws on me. Like what are your superpowers?

Dominic Price: I, um, I have an innate ability to walk into a room with a group of very busy, distracted, intelligent senior executives. I have an ability to make them warm really quickly and just loosen up a little bit, take the edges off. Yes. I have an ability to make them laugh. I have an ability to make them share and feel comfortable sharing. And I have an ability to make them realize that the way they're working is wrong and they need to do it better without ever feeling threatened. It manifests in very different forms. I do keynotes, I do workshops, I do exec sessions. Like, here's all the things that I do. Essentially what I'm trying to do is to say, hey, I've got some knowledge and wisdom. I'm going to share some of that as examples to make you feel like you're not alone, because you're not alone. You're then going to share yours. I'm going to help you interpret them because it's not that you did something bad, it's that something bad happened and you were there. and in interpreting them, we can find a better way of doing it. So when we have this scenario again,

Dominic Price: how do we do it better? And I'm going to call BS on that so early and so abruptly, but ideally not in a way that our experience is organ rejection. So in the last eight years, I've had organ rejection once, and I'm okay with that. Like, I've got to push the boundaries, and the one time it happened, I was like, this is happening. The room is not happy. The room is not warm. The room is very negative and very defensive. I've got it wrong. And I'm okay with that. That's a good statistic. But for me those challenges, if I leave you with mediocrity thinking that you're fine, I've failed. If I leave you feeling doom and gloom that you can't do anything, I've failed.

And somewhere in the middle is you going, the way we did it wasn't right. There's a better way and I feel confident that I can do it. The gift I leave is some level of agency that you can work your way through this. And I can, I'm here to help and amplify, but I'm not going to do it for you. And and and that's that's essentially what, how you'd name that as a superpower, I don't know. But when I get deployed doing that, you see the value prop completely change. Right? And then I see, how am I pulling these people in and getting them to contribute in a way that's safe. That is essentially what I do. Um and it's super valuable because others aren't doing it. It's the scarcity that makes it valuable. And I don't know if the skill set itself that's like revolutionary. It's the very quick outcome you get with a group of execs who are like, damn, that I I don't know that that accelerated something that was going to take a while otherwise.

Mike Courian: So, you said a couple of interesting words.

I mean, it's just leadership in one regard, what I'm hearing you say, but it's quite, it's quite interesting. It's almost like uh facilitating because you're bringing something out of a group. Yeah. You're leading a group. It sounds like it's very time-bound. Like you've got this fixed period of time with

Dominic Price: always time-bound. Always time-bound. Yeah.

Mike Courian: You know what I mean? There's time pressure. So there's an interesting aspect to that. I feel like you must do actually quite well under under a bit of time pressure because

Dominic Price: Yeah, I don't feel it.

Dominic Price: No, you exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So it's like constraint-based innovation doesn't phase me. I'm like, okay, I'm, it's actually easier. You're like, cool, I've got half an hour with these people. Let's run. Like, it's not, I've got 30 days, let's ease into it. It's like, I've got 30 minutes. Like we were and in those 30 minutes, I want to walk away knowing I've made a meaningful impact, but my measure of success is, do you feel that? The younger version of me used to measure my performance. And then I realized that was non-consequential. Right? It's not my performance that matters. It's like, how did you feel? How did you react? Like how predisposed do you feel now to take action? And then what I've learned along the way is that the more serious I am in that approach, the less outcomes I achieve and the more playful I am, the more outcomes I achieve.

Mike Courian: Yes. Yeah, yeah, okay. So, you talked about knowing, just then you mentioned, you alluded to like kind of, you can feel the momentum. You kind of know that you're heading in the right direction. Is there, are there particular, um, go into that a bit further for me. Like, what does that feedback loop for you? What are the things you're noticing in an executive when you know you have them?

Dominic Price: Or when you know that they're tracking. Yeah. So I'm, I'm looking for, I ignore, there's basically three signals I'm looking for, right? I, but I ignore the zeros, because the zeros are just noise. So I'm looking for the minus ones and the plus ones. The plus ones are leaning in. They're smiling, eyes open, they're leaning in, they're involved. You can see they want to ask a question. You can sense that curiosity, again, body language, their tone, the way they phrase something, even the way they introduce themselves. Like rapidly around the room and you're like, hi, I'm Mike, I look after procurement. Okay, Mike's going to be a problem in this session. I need to bring, Mike has no mojo, right?

Mike Courian: Are you then focusing on Mike?

Dominic Price: I'm going to bring Mike in. I'm going to, like, not focus. I want to bring Mike in, and my sense is Mike is low mojo.

Dominic Price: But it's not, I can't drag Mike in because he knows he's meant to be here and he's physically turned up. So, he's kind of willing. He's just lost the fire in his belly. So I need to just reignite Mike's fire, right? And so it could be provocation, it could be a truism. That often works well, I might Mike, been dealing with a company similar to this. You know, the person in your position was struggling with the following three things, and you're like, you got me.

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: Right? So Mike Mike goes from grumpy to bloody hell another session to hang on, this one might be a bit different.

Mike Courian: Yeah, you might have something here for me.

Dominic Price: Yeah. But what I'm looking for, and this is actually, I've tried to train some of our sales teams on this. The minus one or the plus one. So the plus one, the lean in's fine. The minus one is they're on the phone, right? They're on the laptop, they're heavily distracted. You can tell the eyes aren't there, they're not making that sort of contact and engagement. And with them, it's normally me trying to plant curiosity in them, right? And so there's a senior leader I was working with recently and I just called them out. I didn't call out their action, because that's going to just close them down even more. I'm like, hey, what does this session have to give you when you walk out, you're like, that's the best session I've had this week.

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: Give me two or three things. Because I'm like, once you've articulated those, you're in, because now you've said it, you're now holding me accountable. We've created a game where you think you're setting me a challenge. I'm like, bring it on, let's do it. And I'm like, cool, I reckon we can do two of those three.

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: Are you willing to contribute to help me get to them? Yeah, cool. All right, let's do it.

Mike Courian: Right. That's so interesting because all of a sudden they're set up to go, I'm going to watch now.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: Because I want to see if you do if you follow through.

Dominic Price: 100%. 100%. And actually if they're, I actually worked this out a few years ago. If their desire, if their only desire is to watch me fail, they're still engaged. I'll take that. Right? But if their desire is he's failed already, so I'm just going to get this email done. And there's no value in me from that. So the farthest I've been there is in a session where I was like, I don't believe anyone needs their laptop.

Dominic Price: this session. And so if you do need to do anything on your laptop and your phone, I'm going to ask you to excuse yourself from the room. For the benefit of the people that are contributing.

And there was just like, everyone looking at each other and very slow. And anyway, so everyone's kind of just for the laptop. There's one exec, closed the laptop but just left it a little bit open. And I was like, I called it out. I just again, joke, humor goes a long way. I'm like, if you try and look at an email, that's more obvious, because you're going to have to go sideways. Like, you've not made it like if you want to do it, maybe just like pop the phone. And everyone kind of had a chuckle like, like, there he goes that, that last instant pin, did it. And I said nothing, nothing important will happen in your email in the next hour. Or your Slack, honestly. And so again, just bringing a little bit of humor to them and then straight back like these are the three things we want to cover. Again, message checking, is that what you think we're here for? Mike, you said before, the intent, is that covered? So it's constantly just checking, but looking for the ones, how do they help me and amplify me? And looking for the minus ones, how do I bring them in?

Mike Courian: It's so interesting you describing that need for people to be present. Mm. And it's such a bizarre thing we trick ourselves into doing, thinking that keeping some sort of tab on the latest update is gonna make a difference. And it's just like, a conversation that you're present in for 30 minutes, maybe an hour, there is so much, there's exponential potential. And it's so, it's so crazy that we can't, like we're such funny creatures that we can't get our heads around like an hour of me really being here is going to be so much more valuable than any sort of nannying or babysitting I can do to my notifications.

Dominic Price: I think, I think Mike, I think it's like this game of corporate Whac-A-Mole. It's like, there's almost a lot of, I'm gonna say…

Mike Courian: Why are people more rewarded for doing the Whac-A-Mole?

Dominic Price: They're more, they're more recognized. Like, and I think the currency of immediate gratification has gotten too high. If I'm an exec.

Dominic Price: and I ping you, you respond, right? That's never said out loud, but if that's the assumption, what you're actually saying is, my random ping to you is more important than our biggest strategic initiative. That's what you're asked. And like, oh no, I'm not saying that. No, you are. Because if you expect an instant response, you're saying, if I'm stack ranking initiatives, the number one strategy for this company is responding to a C-Suite exec that's got a need for a dashboard or a random report or a question they can't answer. And I don't think that's true, but that's the behavior you're displaying. So I think the dissonance is the things we say we do versus the behaviors we have.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Dominic Price: Right? I just had a leader recently who was like, you know, our organization is all about trust, you know, frontline leaders, we trust them like spouts about all the right stuff. They book a workshop and I walk in and I'm like, there's a cast of like 50 in here. My immediate radar is like this is too many, but I'm like, again, be curious why there are too many. And like the third person to introduce themselves are like, I'm their boss and they're there and I'm like, well why are you? Which one of the three of you do I need? I don't need three people in the chain of command. Which one of you has the agency or the accountability to make the call of what we're discussing today? And all three of them look at each other. I'm like, okay, so clearly, what you said you had as a set of behaviors, right? Or our aspirations even are quite different from reality. So I'm like, well, you talk amongst yourselves, and when we've gone around the room, I only want one of you left here. Whichever one's going to contribute. I don't feel like I need three of you. Because there is more than one in that situation. It's less. Less fidelity.

Mike Courian: And so, another word you actually said a few times was keeping the space safe. So that psychological safety element.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: What are your keys if you were to try and name sort of the foundational things you're trying to do when you're trying to create safety? What do you think some of those are?

Dominic Price: It varies, but there is like a bit of a playbook there. So most of the sessions I'm running are with external

Dominic Price: people. And all I have to do is to put myself in their shoes. Here's a guy from another company, he's probably trying to sell me something because everyone else who walks in this room, whether they're subtle or not, is trying to flog me something. And so I'm like, I need to allay their fears early on. I'm not here to sell you anything. I'm not, and I'm honestly not. And actually, I'm here to help you. So what I do is I go first. So I'm like, I want to share another customer example of how I've helped them or an organization similar to yours but different. And by the way, these are the top three or four things that they're struggling with. Right, once we've got to the end of the session, do any of those resonate? And I know two, maybe three, or maybe all four, right?

And so it's just like lightening the room to go, we're all human. None of us have got our shit together. Everyone's got stuff going on. And by the way, I'm not going to talk about best practices in this session because I don't believe they exist. They don't exist, they're a fallacy. There's better practices and there's ways that you work and I want to help you be the best version of yourself. I don't think you should be copying Spotify or Meta or Google because you're not them. So do the best version of you in your industry, your space. How might that look? And suddenly get them involved and engaged.

So telling them I don't have the answers helps sort of bring that vulnerability in. Giving other examples is like, well, okay, this guy's willing to share and he's not all rose-tinted glasses. He's shared three things that go wrong and three things that go right. He's quite rounded. He's not trying to sell me anything. This isn't a weird infomercial whereby I buy a ShamWow and I start cleaning the caravan at the end of it. So it's not that. So, you know what? I'm gonna lean in a little bit. And so all I'm looking for in the first five or seven minutes is the first lean in, right? It's not the end of the workshop. I do not judge myself at the end. I judge myself six minutes in. Are they more in or more out? And if they're one degree more in, brilliant. I need to give you another degree and another and another, right? And so it's actually quite slow progress, but by the end of it, they're fully sharing.

Dominic Price: So it's weird that I think people see psychological safety as binary, like, do you have it, yes or no? But there's a colleague I know who likes tests for psychological safety at the start of the workshop and I'm like, once you've, once you've done that and people say they haven't, what do you do? I assume we haven't got it and I have to build it. You're calling it out, which is bold and brave. You now then need to do something to activate that before you even start the workshop. So inadvertently, you might just end up getting to the end and going, we built psychological safety but we didn't solve any of the pressing problems we have. Feels like a bit of a miss. Um, like a nice gift but not the one I wanted. So I'm like, if I just see it as part of that role, how do I make people feel one degree more comfortable every five minutes?

While still being willing to call bullshit pretty loudly and proudly early on, because I actually think that is a builder of psychological safety. Me going like, me calling out the exec saying laptop, just, that actually builds psychological safety. Now people go, oh controversial. That builds safety cause I'm like, I'm, I'm not here to take, take passengers, right? I'm, I'm here to do this properly and I want you all to be present and participate and if you're not, leave the room. That sets an expectation that you're here or you're not and actually that builds that safety to go, oh, this guy's not messing around. Like, this is a real workshop. Not serious, I'm not suited, I'm not yelling, right? But in a playful way, it's like, sets that tone.

Mike Courian: And you're just showing that you're intentionally leading. And I think what's also interesting is there's a bunch of other things that get named in these funny little acts. Um, you may be hierarchically high, but right now, I'm asking you to actually be part of the table. Yeah. And also like, um, oh, oh, he's asking somebody important to lean in and so it does create this sense for the rest of the group of going, oh, he's helping us be equals here. That, I just think there's so many interesting things that happen in a small moment.

Dominic Price: Yeah, I think over time, what I've got more comfortable with isn't, I don't think I've ever been a perfectionist, but in a workshop you can't be a perfectionist. Like it's not every single person needs to be leaning in 100% and and like all those requirements would, you'd never start.

Mike Courian: But those were the zeros you were describing. Zeros are okay.

Dominic Price: Yeah. Zeros are okay. There's gonna be a few people sitting on the fence. I'm like, that's fine. It's all good. Like, and and you do you, but I'm like, I I want to listen for those signals from the detractor or the attractor and find a way of moving them. And you'll move wherever you move. Hopefully we're all moving in the same direction. So, but they're the ones I need to call out.

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If we painted a picture, right now, I have no sense of what your job even really looks like. What are the key elements in a week for Dom?

Dominic Price: Um, essentially at an aggregate level, my job's made up of three components. And I feel like if you were to draw a Venn diagram, I think they actually complement each other really quite well.

One part is, uh, uh, in Atlassian helping us scale, right? So my team, we do little bits with our teams, we parachute in and help our teams, mainly around helping them be better at how they do teamwork, right? Uh and we do that because we want to practice what we then go and preach, right? If I've not got that live experience, I don't feel authentic doing the second part of the job, which is getting on stage or podcasts or events and going telling the story.

Dominic Price: story of what we've learned. So, we have a belief at Atlassian that if we land on something decent through exploration or experimentation, we should just share that with the world, right?

Mike Courian: And it's like, it's like team playbooks. Is, yeah, team playbooks and examples of that?

Dominic Price: And there's a whole thought leadership and papers and examples and templates where like, if we land on something and it works, more often than not for the majority of the team, we're just going to share it with you, right? And the more we can enable you, like knowledge isn't power. So the application of that knowledge is power, and that's on you, not on me. So, me sharing it is not a loss or a creation of value.

Mike Courian: Right.

Dominic Price: Yes. We go and tell that story on stage. An example right now, my colleague Sven, um, based in Germany. He's our kind of AI guru. So he's helping a lot of our internal teams play with that. He's helping some of our customers play with it. Then he goes and stands on stage and says, hey, imagine a world where AI agents are your teammates. What does that look like? How do we need to change how we feel and act and behave and work? Like, he's exploring that as a, it's going to happen. How do I help prepare you with that? Right? So, the second third is like that you probably call it evangelism or whatever. Like out on stage is telling the story.

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: My, the bit I enjoy the most is that the middle third, right? Which is the one that's talked about the least, which is where one of our customers, existing or future goes, something you just said resonated with me. You, you , you sparked, you triggered me. We need your help because we're in a mess. Can you come and do the thing that you said you do? Can you come and do that with us? And we're like, hell yeah. Because that's the real story. So, what I learned a few years ago was exploring and experimenting with Atlassian's easy. We've got values, we've got founders, we've got things that just lend itself to that.

We could do that with our eyes closed. Doing that in a 200 year old bank with 50,000 employees, I'm like, ooh. So what I've realized is I'm quite sick, right? I love nothing more than a thankless challenge. So, I spent a week down in Canberra, uh, late last year with government agencies going, here's how we see modern work and the future of work, and I believe we can help you. And they're like, we are, we are beyond help.

Dominic Price: right now. Like, I know government agencies are highly bureaucratic and political. I think I'm not saying copy it. I think there's some sentiment or spirit in this. Imagine if we could infest the 600,000 civil servants, the employees of the private sector in this, how amazing that would be and they're like, oh, sod it. Like, let's give it a try, right? So we start to explore that. So that third is me going sleeves up, in with a customer and that can be anything from sales. So I work a lot with our sales teams who are like,

we have a set of execs, they don't know what the future of work looks like. Can you come and help paint a picture and do a workshop because in six, nine, 12 months, we think we might sell them some software, but we need to build a trusted relationship around what not the features of the product, but what the product does, right? A product helps you do better teamwork. Me sharing the features of that ain't going to cut it. So how do I talk about the environment, the people, the practices, the leadership styles that are better for modern day teamwork. So that customer side is everything like sales. Most of it is activation, right? It's, it's, it's normally a, a LinkedIn, right, direct message and then it flashes up on my mic, oh, where are you? Oh, fascinating. and like, hey, so like, off the record, here's something that's going on right now. and by the way, like the narrative goes, I had an example of this late last year, a CTO from a large organization said, we've had all of the four big four consultants through a revolving door in the last 10 years. They've charged us between 20 and 40 million dollars each and we are left with a lot of PowerPoint slides and not much transformation. So I can't willingly, hand on heart, sign up for another transformation, except my company really needs to transform. So, can you come and do that? And I'm like, let's, let's have a chat. Like, no promises, but also, I'm not asking you to sign an 18 month contract with me for 20 million dollars. I'm saying, get your people in a room, give me a chai latte, and let's have a chat. Right? Let's just let's just, and if there's value there, we'll have a second chat, and if there's not, go on your merry

Dominic Price: Right, Mike? It's it's not cost me anything, but how do we build that progressive delivery of value? And how do we get you to unleash your potential for your teams? Because if you do that, everyone wins.

Mike Courian: What I like though is I can see the flywheel between the three things you do, because you've dogfooded it internally, you're sharing about your successes. People get to hear about those and identify where they need that. And the whole thing goes around. I would dig in further here, but I'm going to send us back to something you said earlier. You, you brought up the almighty Future of Work. And I guess I have two questions. As it stands today, where do you see or what do you see the future of work being? And how quickly is that definition changing at the moment as these new revelations come?

Dominic Price: It's, I mean, you can answer that in so many different ways because if you zone into the right now, it feels massively chaotic, huge, steep learning curve, a lot, all that jazz. But then I kind of take a step back and I'm like, I remember all the hype around the internet. I'm like, "Oh my God, what's your internet strategy?" Like no one talks about that anymore. That just wasn't a thing. So you look at all that fanfare and it, in the immediate moment, it feels like a lot, but when you take a step back and look at the data over a longer period of time, I don't know that it is. And so my stance on this is that AI is transformative. I don't think it's a transformation. And that's really technically controversial in the market right now. Everyone's trying to sell the transformation. Mike, your company, where's your AI strategy? All of sudden there's a transformation. Here's what you look like in 18 months, job done. I'm like that doesn't exist.

I think we're signing up for exploration and perpetuity. That's a new muscle for most leaders. I'm like, that's a fun area to play. So yeah, interesting. I think as a challenge, the reason I think this is probably going to be the hardest challenge is it impacts your people, right, your human capital. It impacts your ways of working, right? Your operating model, your rhythm, your cadence of how you work. And it impacts your technology stack.

Dominic Price: And if you look at the last three transformations, they were one of those three, right? Everyone did a culture transformation at some point in the last 20 years. Everyone did an agile or lean or something transformation, and then everyone's done a digital transformation. So they've done them separately and you're like, ah. So this AI one, it doesn't sit in a function or a department, it's pervasive in the world. And that conceptually is hard for a lot of people. There's a fascinating thing right now that's really got me intrigued, not excited yet, but intrigued.

The startups, scaleups, mid-sized companies that I'm working with are adapting infinitely faster than the 100, 150 year old, 50,000 person employees, right? And so I had two conversations two days apart recently. I had a CEO of a Fintech startup and he's like, here's where we rolled out agents, here's what we're doing, like he explained everything that they've already done and I'm like, wow. Yes. Like you're not hype cycle, you're doing it. Next day, CTO of a giant bank who's like, we're thinking about maybe looking at possibly investigating the opportunity around, and you're like, well you've caveated the hell out of that. So what you're saying is in 18 months you might play with Gemini or you might play with like, with any AI tool from any of your vendors. I'm like, really? You know people are already doing it. So the sheer amount of change that those giant organizations have to go through, they have not contemplated that, and they don't have that muscle. If we're being deadly honest, right? They've not got that adaptability. So I don't know how that's going to change the leaderboard of companies if those SMBs, those scaleups suddenly get a head start because they're way more adaptable. And I think I've shared it with a few people. I think adaptability and learning velocity are the superpower of future businesses, right? The ability to take an insight and apply it is the superpower, not how many insights you get, or how efficient your machine is, but how quickly your machine can pivot.

Mike Courian: And thinking about that.

Dominic Price: situation when organizations don't have that velocity. How do we start to help people fall in love with its adaptability? But there's this interesting thing that I have a lot of friends that are teachers, high school teachers, and they're describing this phenomenon of AI is like, it's like Google, but it actually tells me the answer. It just doesn't, doesn't give me a range of answers. It tells me the answer. And they're developing this reflex of not being a collaborator. It's the answer book, but it's a dynamic answer book. So this is fantastic. I don't even have to think. And some of the best talks I've heard are like, no, actually, it's not that at all. The most wonderful thing about this technology is the collaboration, and the partnership, because you are the director. Like you are the, you are the genius.

Mike Courian: Yeah, we've we've we've we've we've we've we've we've we've all become orchestrators, Mike. Like if we imagine our role now is orchestrators.

Dominic Price: Exactly. Yes.

Mike Courian: We've got the superpower at your fingertips. You're like, oh, that's a very different mindset than we've been trained on.

Dominic Price: Yes. And so I don't know how, like, what's your hunch on how we start helping people? Because some people don't like being adaptable. So that's a big, big learning curve. Some of us enjoy it. What do you think about how we help people like, or what is the skill that we need to

Mike Courian: I think I, I think, I think everything you've talked about in the last hour, mate, it all, all comes into play. So, if you think about it like this silly example, but let's say I, I write a long prose document and I want to make it more brief and more concise, and I put that into any AI tool and it gives me the answer back. Option one, I copy that answer and I send it to you because I know you like brevity. Brilliant. In that example, I have learned nothing.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: Or, in fact, what I have learned is I can still write long prose stuff that I've always written. I'm not good at brevity. And that that's not the learning curve that me and you are after here. If I look at what the AI did and I'm like, huh. It shortened my opening sentences.

Dominic Price: It's a little bit the language, the paragraphs are shorter, and feels snappier. I'm going to try and get closer to that next time.

Then the AI is not my worker, it's my teacher. And you're like, huh, right? And then you upgrade that to go, I'm actually going to ask you a question like, here's the type of persona I think I'm dealing with, and here's the message I'm trying to convey, is there a better way of or another way of doing this? And we start to engage in a two-way conversation. You're like, oh. So now the content is improving, I'm getting more context and I'm learning. And you're like, oh my god, that that's the nirvana I think that we all feel like we want.

But let's not underestimate the mindset shift that for my entire career, like I started working in the year 2000, so 25 years, I've been the operator of the keys. I'm the master, the keys are the servant.

Mike Courian: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Dominic Price: And and I watch people using any form of Gen AI right now and I'm like, stop Googling, right? So, not what is the capital of France, but more as this conversation, this exploration, this what might be, how could we go random at the edges, but play with it.

And so I think when you see people do that, you suddenly realize that you can harness this potential. And we're seeing that in corporations with, and there's a whole load of organizations we're working with that have rolled out our AI tool. And you're seeing the ones go, grab it, explore, contract, explore, and you're creating a wonderful thing. And you see others go, here's the problem I've had for the last five years, I'm going to jam AI into it. And you're like, please don't. Like, please don't make anyone more productive and don't make anyone more efficient. Just, I really want you to ask yourself the question, are you even doing the right things?

And that's the step that's missing, right? You talked about it before, like, your curiosity is what might we do with this, but what most leaders are doing is, here's the problem I've got and I'm going to fudge AI into it to make it faster. And you're like, well you're just doing stupid things faster. So please don't. Like that's, that's going to kill rainforests. So just like calm down if you were to

Dominic Price: reimagine the world and your business model, where would you lay AI agents in and what does that look like for the human workforce and the outcomes we achieve together? That's a great conversation, but it's a different approach. There's um, a company I'm working with right now, we did a whole lot of workshops with them. One of the outcomes was that they went back to their last three years worth of business cases where the net present value was zero or negative. So they'd all declined.

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: And they laid on AI and said, if the ROI conversation was tricky because there was a large amount of human cost and agentic AI is marginal cost of zero, which of these business cases would we now approve? Right? And about half of them got approved and they've put them into place.

That has not made anyone more efficient or anyone more productive. But it has opened a new addressable market that they previously said no to because the ROI wasn't there, because there were too many humans in the loop. They can now address that market. And you're like,

Now, when I share that with execs, they're like, the genuine freeze. They're like, I can't even contemplate that. And I'm like, because you're thinking about the problem you have and you're jamming in. This is just, give yourself a hot minute. Just give, like, you're a really smart, experienced, seasoned leader. Just give yourself a hot minute. Just pause and go, if we'd had this three years ago, what would I have done differently? Right? And it's the same for all technology changes. Just like, pause. If I had this superpower right now, how would I change what we do and why we do it? No, here's a problem I've got and I'm just going to jam it in.

Mike Courian: So, what's the thing that when you get an opportunity to speak, you're feeling most in need of getting up on the soapbox and making sure people are aware of it?

Dominic Price: There's a, there's a common thread of things in there, but it's, it's anything where, um, the headline would be anything where we have an old approach to a new problem. So, the minute someone says like, blah, blah,

Dominic Price: uh, productivity. I'm like, that's a terrible measure from the 1920s and irrelevant right now. When someone goes, yeah, I need my business to be more efficient. I'm like, argh, no you don't. Argh, I can't. You can be efficient at doing the wrong thing, you can be stupid. Like you need to be more effective. Like, I I I I want to help people see the other way and the better way. And I find what's happening right now, I'm going to blame any book that's been written about measurement, right, is my kind of, argh, right, where they're like, and most things that I care about in life can't be measured.

The things that I really care about in life, there isn't a NPS score, right, there isn't a stat, there isn't a viewership or a reach or an eyeballs, right? And I think corporations and businesses as a whole have got obsessed with what they can measure. Yeah. And because of that, we end up measuring efficiency. We end up measuring productivity, even though we can't measure that. And I'm like, if you were to pause, do you actually care about those things?

Like, do they actually really make a difference, like, every single article I read right now is, if I roll out this version of AI, I'm going to be 30% more productive. I'm like, cool, what impact does that have? Yeah. Are you, are you faster to value? So you're getting more customers delighted so more revenue. And they're like, no, no. I'm like, cool, are you learning velocity? You're adapting quicker and you feel more relevant? No, no, no we're just more productive. I'm like, but where is that manifesting? This stupid phrase you're using, what's actually happening? And so I get quite early at these throwaway statements around measures and impact that I think are archaic. And I think as a society in 2025, when we've got a mental health epidemic and whatever else, we can do better than measuring productivity. Like, we've got to be smarter to have a balanced scorecard view of if I, Mike, if I make you and your team 30% more productive, but you're all burnt out, that's not a win. Right? So we've got to look at the trade-offs a lot better.

Mike Courian: Have you, how close to burnout have you ever been or have you had that part of your story?

Dominic Price: Yeah, several times. I would say I don't think I ever actually have. I've been pretty close. Last, last year...

Dominic Price: me and my wife took on everything. So we had, you know, at the time, 18-month-old twins, living in a rental, doing a giant renovation, and we got married.

Mike Courian: And you started a podcast.

Dominic Price: Yeah. Oh, yeah, and that, and trying to excel at work and, and, and, right? So you fit all those things in. And like I got to the end of the year and I was like, I'm, I'm happy to do nothing in 2025, just survive. We'll be fine. And I think because I rely, and my wife's a nutritionist so she readily reminds me of this. I rely so much on adrenaline to do what I do.

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: The byproduct of that is when I stop, I have adrenal fatigue, and my body just goes, no. Right? So when I'm on the stage or doing the workshop or in the airport, I'm like, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. Right? And then you get back, you're like, yeah, this is what I did, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. And then you sit down, you're like, oh, I'm, so I and I said to her the other week, I'm I'm in a fog. Like I was just in this fog because I just ran on adrenaline doing events, flying around the world, and love, I genuinely, I genuinely love what I do. So it's really hard at that moment to ever pull back. But I do plan these moments to stop and then I stop and I'm like, ah, I think I might have taken on too much. And I'm like, how many times do I need to say that to course correct and manage that a bit better? And it's just, man, it's just one of my ailments. I think I'm, I'm going to say fortunate. I'd say very fortunate. I've got a handful of really good, uh, friends who are confidants. Uh, one friend who's my best man at the wedding. Most Saturdays, nearly every Saturday morning, we meet and we do a 13 kilometer walk, and we just talk crap. And but anything, anything, like, it's open slather, right? And that's like our mental health walk. We started it in the pandemic, we've kept it. But having guy friends, just to talk openly to, um, became aware more recently that male mental health is a different beast to female mental health. And there's so many guys that I know that don't have an outlet to talk. And if they don't talk, they ruminate in their head, and I think that's when mental health takes a downward spiral.

Dominic Price: I will. So, I think I've had moments where I've been close and I've either pulled back or managed it. But it's something I've become more and more aware of. And it's not something I want to be solving when it's certainly with the kids. I don't want to break down and then have to recover. If I want to, I'm always going to push the boundaries, like accept who I am, but I don't want to ever have that have a detrimental effect on them.

Mike Courian: I can really relate to that phenomenon of, I don't know how tired I am until I stop. And it's a it's it sounds so weird saying it out loud because you're like, of course you do. And you're like, but it is when those hormones are surging, they sustain you in this way that you're just like, I'm ready. Let's just keep going. And you're and but it's not all taken because you are having fun.

Dominic Price: Oh, I love it. This is the thing.

Mike Courian: It is energizing. And so it's as tricky as you like, you will see that adrenal burnout is happening, but it's also not entirely happening. And so it just could fall into the trap.

Dominic Price: No, no, it's a hamster wheel. Cuz cuz when I'm in that zone and I'm like, oh, there's the audience, and there's the work, and there's all the things. Like it's self-fulfilling and I get energy from it and I'm happier, like I'm joyful, I'm more positive. And it's not I I know I can't always do that, but I'm like, there is that moment and then you stop and you're like, oh, and then what I said to my wife actually when we got married, I was like, what I don't want to happen is energetic, vibrant me is on stage and moody, foggy me is at home. Right? That's not fair. Like you can't be the mothership where I dock to recharge and I'm like, I'm better now. See you later. Yeah. Yeah. That's not the work. You still need to get, you know, a great part of me to be a good partner and a good dad. Right. So we've worked on that over the last year to make sure that balance is there, but it's that it's taken a lot of work.

Mike Courian: And it's like unlearning a crazy amount of stuff because that data driven corporate culture is constantly doing the opposite of trying to create balance.

Dominic Price: You just touched on something that I want to, I want to just double click on because I think it's important.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Dominic Price: The, the, the time zone difference between corporate Dom and Dad Dom. And that's the same for corporate Mike versus home Mike. If I don't invest in a thing at work this week and it fails, because I didn't invest in it, I get punished for that this quarter, right?

Mike Courian: Yes.

Dominic Price: So it's an immediate hit. If I don't invest in my kids this week, I will not know that for years.

Mike Courian: This is good, Dom.

Dominic Price: But when I find it out, I will never forgive myself. Whereas, you know what? If I screw up at work, I'm like, I'm not going to get fired. I can't be perfect at everything. Like, it's weird how the immediate gratification of work makes it feel heightened, but actually you're like, the thing I'm really going to be measured on, right, when my days are ending isn't that, that KPI for that quarter. It's ‘was I a good dad, and a good parent, and a good husband’, right? It's all those things. And you're like, so like, how have we got our investments, right? It's not always a time investment. I've come to realize it's energy investment, not time.

Mike Courian: It's especially hard when you love what you do.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: Um and I think you've just sparked an idea for me of there is another bucket. So it's not just these buckets that I pour into. I think something that I need to acknowledge more is that what I do at work is a key way that I express who I am.

Dominic Price: Yeah. That's you're relevant. That's, that's you being you.

Mike Courian: Exactly. And and and not everybody has that privilege of Friday night at the pub.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: Uh, that that is not people trying to say, hey, during the week, I became me. I got to express myself more.

Dominic Price: No, they're not. They're not doing that. They're not having epiphanies.

Mike Courian: But for some of us luck into it, some of us have to be brave and make a bunch of changes to get closer to the center, but but I think for me, I'm just recognizing that

Mike Courian: I do also need to go, okay, now work isn't just work. It is also this place where I get to express myself.

Dominic Price: Yeah.

Mike Courian: Like, I want to say like vocation, like, who who am I? And like how, like, and and and it a vocation doesn't have to be work. But sometimes a lot of it is worked out in this space and place.

Dominic Price: Those things are way more interconnected than we ever give ourselves credit for. I had the chat, I think just after we had the kids with my wife and I was like, you know what? I could, I could probably take a domestic job in Australia, earn a decent salary. I'll be around more but traveling less. And she's like, where would you work? And I rattled off a few companies and she's like, would you be happy there? And I was like, no, but like if that meant I could be around for you and the kids and she's like, I don't want you around more if you're unhappy.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Dominic Price: And I was like, what? And she's like, the two things are connected. Like, let's accept you have to travel for work. Like, it's not ideal, but you do, but when you do, you come back and you're in the zone. Because you've got to do the thing that you love doing. That's the, that's the dad that we want around. The one that's buoyant and full of life and joy and like, what can we do? Not the, it's 9 o'clock. I've got to clock in and go and sit at my desk and do my day's work. Cause she's like, the money's not going to make us happier. So if you're if you're genuinely not feeling that you're getting to be that true self like you would just express there, and you're not expressing that, that's not a spiral any of us want to be in if we don't have to be. And some people have to be that and that's like keeping a roof over your head or whatever. Uh I'm fortunate enough where I don't have to, so I get to make that active choice.

Mike Courian: Oh man, I just, I love that. Okay. I think that's us. Thank you, Dom. It's been great to be with you. Uh, maybe one day I'll get to have you back on and we'll get to do round two. There's...

Dominic Price: lot lots more to unpack. If you're ever in Sydney give me a shout, we'll uh we'll grab a cup of or a beer.

Mike Courian: I'd love that. Awesome. Thank you, Dom.

Dominic Price: Cheers mate. Thank you. Have a good day.

Mike Courian: And that wraps up this episode of Shapeshifters. Thanks so much for being with us.

Mike Courian: We really want this to become a two-way conversation. So, we would love for you to send in any questions or comments that this episode has prompted. You can do that by emailing shapeshifters@makeshapes.com or if you're listening on Spotify, you can drop it into the comment section. We'll be incorporating these questions and comments into future episodes.

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Until next time, I'm Mike Courian and this is Shapeshifters.