How do you butter your bread?
It sounds like a ridiculous question, but stay with me.
Watch the whole recording here.
Think about the butter you buy. You probably know the brand without thinking. You know where it sits on the supermarket shelf. You might have been buying it for five, eight or ten years. But when was the last time you actually stopped and asked yourself why?
That simple question gets to something I’ve become increasingly fascinated by after more than 25 years in business. How much of what we do is genuinely considered, and how much are we simply doing because that’s the way we’ve always done it?
It’s not really about butter, of course. It could be your toothpaste, the route you drive to work, the way you manage your inbox, the meetings you hold every week, the way you recruit, lead your team or deal with a difficult conversation.
Somewhere along the way, a decision becomes a habit. The habit becomes a routine. Eventually, the routine becomes a program we run without even noticing.
Autopilot is incredibly useful. Our brains are trying to make life easier for us. We don’t need to consciously rethink every tiny decision every day. The problem comes when that efficiency creeps into areas that deserve our attention.
There can be a real cost to autopilot.
My dad taught me that in a way I’ll never forget. He had spent most of his adult life relatively sedentary. He’d worked incredibly hard, provided for our family, smoked for most of his life and enjoyed a drink. Health and fitness simply weren’t a big part of his routine.
Then a mate rang me about trekking the Kokoda Trail. I’d previously promised Dad that if I ever did Kokoda, I’d do it with him. I knew the chances of him actually doing it seemed pretty slim, but I asked anyway.
To his credit, he went to the doctor, got himself checked and decided he was going to give it a crack.
He gave up smoking and started training.
About 12 months later, Dad, a group of mates and I successfully trekked Kokoda. Watching him complete it was extraordinary. Since then, fitness has become a normal part of his life. He even became a volunteer firefighter, raced up Crown Towers in full firefighting kit and threw himself into group training.
I’m enormously proud of him. But the story also leaves me with another question.
What did he miss during all those years before something caused him to reconsider the program he was running?
That’s the uncomfortable part.
We often already know what we should do. We know exercise matters. We know sleep matters. We know we should look at the numbers in our business. We know we should delegate. We know we shouldn’t avoid difficult conversations.
Information alone rarely changes behaviour.
Awareness is different.
There’s a big difference between knowing something isn’t ideal and suddenly recognising what that behaviour is costing you personally.
Business owners are particularly good at this. We can ignore a problem for two years, finally deal with it and congratulate ourselves for being decisive.
We tell ourselves we’ll review the process when things quieten down. We’ll work on the business when things settle. We’ll focus on our health when life isn’t so hectic. We’ll spend more time with the family when work slows down.
The trouble is, things don’t magically slow down.
Busy isn’t necessarily the problem. Busy stops us being aware.
When we’re constantly moving, we stop noticing. We become so efficient at completing the next task that we forget to ask whether the task, process or behaviour still makes sense.
That’s why I think we need to stop obsessing over the macro for a moment and pay more attention to the micro.
We all want the big outcomes. A healthier life. A stronger business. Better relationships. More money. A great culture. More freedom.
But those outcomes are built through hundreds of tiny behaviours nobody sees.
If I want to exercise consistently, saying “I want to be healthy” doesn’t help me much. What helps is choosing a protected time in the morning, getting to bed earlier the night before, setting out my clothes and making it as easy as possible to get out the door.
The same applies in business.
Culture isn’t simply a set of values on the wall. It’s returning phone calls, doing what you said you would do, starting meetings on time, giving feedback, holding people accountable, saying thank you and following through.
None of those things feels particularly revolutionary. Together, they matter enormously.
The challenge is that behaviours that once helped us can eventually hold us back.
When you start a business, doing everything yourself might be necessary. You know the customers, the product and how you want things done. Then the business grows and you keep doing everything yourself because it worked before.
Success becomes evidence. Evidence creates confidence. Confidence creates repetition. Repetition becomes habit. Eventually, the habit becomes part of your identity.
“I’m just someone who likes to be across everything.”
Maybe.
Or maybe you’re running an old program.
I hear versions of these programs constantly, including from myself. I don’t have time. That’s just how I am. I already know. I’ll do it one day. It’s working, so why change it?
That last one can be particularly dangerous.
Working and working well are not necessarily the same thing. Working and sustainable are not the same. Success can actually make us less curious because when nothing hurts badly enough, there’s less reason to pay attention.
The businesses and people who keep moving forward seem to understand the balance between stability and flexibility. We need consistency, discipline and routines. Without them, there’s chaos. But we also need enough flexibility to ask whether those routines are still serving us.
The habits that got you here may not be the habits that get you there.
So where do you start?
Not with a dramatic reinvention. Start by noticing.
Notice that you always answer emails before doing important work. Notice that every problem comes back to you. Notice that you avoid a particular conversation. Notice that you always hire the same type of person. Notice that you keep telling yourself you’ll exercise tomorrow.
Don’t judge it. Just get curious.
Then question it. Is this still serving me? Does it still make sense? Am I doing this deliberately, or simply because it’s familiar?
If the answer makes you uncomfortable, run an experiment.
Don’t promise yourself you’ll change forever. Try something different for two weeks. Walk for 20 minutes each morning. Let your team solve more problems without you. Spend ten minutes planning tomorrow before you leave work.
Make change small enough that you can actually test it.
One of my favourite questions is simply: who does this better than me?
Find that person. Ask how they do it. Talk to people outside your usual circle. Listen to someone who sees the world differently. You don’t have to copy them, but their perspective might expose an assumption you didn’t even realise you were carrying.
That’s one of the reasons I love people’s stories. Behind the different businesses, personalities and circumstances, there are often remarkably similar human patterns. We’re all running programs. Some are brilliant. Some are outdated. Some simply need to be questioned.
So next time you’re standing in front of the butter at the supermarket, maybe choose a different one.
Not because it’s better.
Simply because, for one moment, you’ll have to make a conscious decision.
Then ask yourself a bigger question: what program am I running that deserves to be challenged?
If this struck a chord, I’d love to hear what you decide to question. Grab a coffee with me, have the conversation with someone you trust, or simply start noticing what you do on autopilot. That awareness might be the smallest change you make today, but it could be the beginning of something much bigger.