The Experiment Mindset #author Tamsin Simounds

 The Experiment Mindset: Unlocking the Science of Personal Growth

Your next breakthrough starts with one experiment.

You've done the courses, listened to the podcasts, made the plans. But you're still stuck in the same patterns. The problem isn't your ambition — it's that you've been trying to think your way into change when you need to experiment your way there.

The Experiment Mindset offers a radically different path. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience, behavioural psychology and over a decade working with leaders and founders, leadership expert Tamsin Simounds reveals how real transformation happens: not through what worked for someone else, but through discovering what works for your brain, body, and life.

Apply the Three Levers of Change (Psychology, Physiology, Environment) to create sustainable growth

A science-backed, story-rich guide for ambitious professionals, emerging leaders and anyone tired of fluffy advice. With practical frameworks, real-world examples and actionable experiments you can start today, you’ll learn how to evolve through change — one small, courageous test at a time.

Author Tamsin Simounds is a leadership expert and keynote speaker whose expertise has been featured in Thrive Global, Smart Company, Business Chicks and Women’s Agenda. With a decade of lived leadership experience and another decade coaching leaders, she has worked across industries from big banks and fast-growth tech startups to social enterprises and small businesses.

To connect with Tamsin ...
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamsinsimounds/
https://www.instagram.com/tamsinsimounds/
https://trade.wileydirect.com.au/portfolio-items/tamsin-simounds/
https://trade.wileydirect.com.au/portfolio-items/the-experiment-mindset/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Tans and Simons, welcome to Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Thank you for having me. It's exciting to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Oh, my pleasure. Congratulations. I have a I got a sneaky copy of your book, and I've got lots of marks in it because this book is right up my alley. The experiment mindset. Tell us all about it.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

The experiment mindset kind of fills the gap between what people want, what people know, and what they repeatedly do. I've been working as a leadership and organizational development coach for a decade now. And increasingly, particularly over the last few years, I've noticed a few patterns emerging. And the experiment mindset came in answer to those things. The first one was that I'm working with senior executives, founders, people that are on paper really successful. But when they come into my office, what I quickly find is that they're successful on paper, but feeling pretty miserable and stuck. The second thing that I've noticed is that people are so smart. They've got all of the information. If I try and take some kind of advisory role and say, you know, have you read this book, heard this framework? Inevitably people are saying to me, Oh, yeah, yeah, I've read that. I know that. Well, what we know and what we do just aren't necessarily connecting. Uh and the other thing that I found is if I'm working with a leadership group or a team, one of the things that I say at the start of that engagement would be, show me a strategic plan. What is it that you're working towards? And there it often comes with this preface of, oh, we're a couple of years into this now, so a lot's changed. Like it doesn't necessarily fit what's actually going on. So our old way of approaching learning and growth just didn't seem to be working anymore. And so I set about finding out, well, what's going on here? And the first thing I noticed is this research that I did around what's our personal development spend? How is that changing and growing over time? And I think it's obvious to most of us that that is increasing, you know, so significantly. It's up to around $60 billion a year that we're spending in this personal development space. But in Australia, particularly in the workplace, Gallup's research on thriving of human beings in the workplace, it's going the other way. So we've got this personal development spend increasing and the thriving of people going down. We've got all of this information at our fingertips. We should be the smartest, fittest, healthiest, most emotionally intelligent people going around. And we're just not. So that's where the experiment mindset fits is why is this happening? But also most importantly, what can we actually do about it? And I found that the model of experimentation fits with how human beings actually learn and grow. And the old way of doing growth, uh goal setting actually doesn't. And that's how we find ourselves here.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah. And Tamson, look, I was, and the audience here knows, you know, I do work in the corporate world, so I definitely understand and acknowledge what you're saying, is absolutely what I'm seeing as well. Um, why the book? So, what I mean, you've got it all in your head and you're working with clients. Is this your first book to like tell us about you as an author and what we need to know?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, well, look, the why the book's an interesting question. I'll get there in a minute because it was a bit of an accident, to be honest. But this is what happens when you take action in the direction of where you're wanting to go. So I myself have found myself here, you know. I was in my 20s, so I was started in the medical imaging world. That's where I grew up in my career. I was on the tools doing X-ray and ultrasound, and I found myself in a leadership role really early. And it was my struggles with leadership that had me trying to work out how I can uh thrive in an environment where I'm barely just surviving. So I did all of the leadership development I could, did all of the reading, still wasn't changing. So it was my own experimentation around how am I going to make this work that got me to the point where I started doing leadership development in the first place, you know, some kind of academic study in there as well. Uh, so that's where I found myself. Uh, I started a leadership coaching program 10 years ago, and that has evolved into where I am now working with leaders and organizations to help them get the best out of their selves and their people. And it was my coaching practice that led me to discover the experiment mindset approach. I was kind of naturally doing it with myself to get myself out of a funk, um, and then started using it with clients of how do I get people to actually take action in the direction of where they're wanting to go. And then I started talking about it on stage. So I do um kind of speaking as well and keynotes, and I was on a Speakers Bureau website, the ICMI um Speakers Bureau website, and uh Jordan Lott, uh uh commissioning editor for Wiley, was snoofing around to find out, you know, what are some cool concepts? And she just reached out via email and said to me, Oh Tim said if you ever thought about writing a book. And uh to be honest, yes, I had, but I thought it would be 10 years from now. I thought I needed to have, you know, more information, more darts in a row, as we all do, like literally what I talk about in the book is about that. Uh, and so I said yes. And as soon as I did the framework uh for the book and put it down of what am I talking about and why is this important now, it just smacked me in the face of like this is a really important book for this moment in time. Uh, and I'm incredibly proud of it. I think it's uh a really valuable book and something that can help people shift through the time that we're in.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah. And you know, it's funny, I you know, I always make lots of marks in the books, but you know, this is a conversation that I have firsthand with with others in in the corporate world. It's about accepting the stage you're in. And I really enjoyed reading about that because you know, I talk to people who are 20 years younger than me, who want it all, um, who, and that's great, but you know, as we know, like you explained your career journey and your shifts and your it, you know, you can have a plan and have a plan, but also there's different stages of that plan, and you don't need to have it all at once. And I think um, yeah, like that's that's a that's something that's continually resonating in my corporate world. Um, and yeah, you you know, you touched on that in the book and you you work through that. So that's great content. Who who um who who is buying this book? Who are you aiming this at? And it's it is for anyone who's you know needing that mindset shift and understanding, but who, yeah, who's your who's your ideal target?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

It's anyone who's want who feels a bit stuck in their life and is wanting to make a change. So people who love consuming content, you're plugged into all the podcasts, you're reading all books, but you've got this deep down understanding that you're not necessarily following through. And perhaps you know there's something more in store for you that you want something bigger, but you're almost a little bit scared to look at it because it feels too far away from your current reality. Those are the type of people that I am talking to. There's lots of stories in the book about people who have made changes in their lives, and some of them are quite small and quite personal, um, or big and personal, and some of them are big career moves, you know, going from the corporate world into running your own business or consultancy, like what I've done, shifting or shifting careers, just making a kind of iterative steps from where you are to that place that you thought was never possible for you. And as someone who stood in a medical imaging room and said to someone in my 20s, I'm just never gonna be that type of person who loves what they do. Like I was stuck stagnant in my 20s, thinking it was all over, right? To get to where I am now and to look back, and it's happened not all at once, right? It's through a series of iterations from myself in like a putting myself in uncomfortable situations, learning from them and then taking that next step. And I see that over and over with people, and now I've kind of given them the mechanism to be able to do that. So it's yeah, for anyone who knows that they want to be somewhere that they're not, uh to enable them to take action.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah, and it does surprise me the amount of people who yeah, listen to lots of podcasts, but it's almost safe to just keep listening and keep buying books. You know, it's like you said, it's that in some cases for some it's a leap, and others it's a small, a small shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

I think unfortunately, we think that a lot of information should be helpful to us, but it's become like this high-quality procrastination tool. Yeah. I feel like I'm progressing because I'm gathering more information, but I'm not doing anything. And I actually think it's keeping people stuck for longer rather than moving them forward. We've got access to better decisions because we've got more information, but we don't get wiser unless we actually act on the information.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, so true. Congratulations. Uh, thank you so much for joining us. If we're watching, listening, seeing this on LinkedIn, and we're curious about your book. Where do we go? How do we connect with you? You're on LinkedIn, you're on yeah, point us in a direction of where we should go to get curious.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, look, I spend most of my time on LinkedIn and Instagram, just at tens and Simmons. Um, I've got a website, tansandsimmons.com, if you're interested in kind of coaching, consulting, or speaking, or just want to have a look at that in general. And you can find the book in any of your good bookstores, Airport, um, online, Booktofia, Amazon. Uh, and yeah, reach out to me if you've read it, because I am so loving hearing from people who are resonating with a book and running their own experiments and seeing where it goes.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah. Well, look, I've already promised this book. I I I I never I never keep books. Everyone kind of knows that about me. I read them and I but I'm I'm gonna hand this on to someone who I was chatting to them about, and I said, you know what, I'm gonna give it to you. So I think um I'm I'm exciting. I was excited to read it, but I'm just as excited to hand it on to someone who, you know, is a bit stuck.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Love it. Thank you. Thanks for sharing it.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Thank you so much. Cheers.