Episode 5: The agency owner's inner journey – featuring Tom Nixon

What's my motivation? It's a question that all agency owners need to address. But when we do, the answers tend to go only skin deep. Typically they might be: 'Because I want to do great work' or 'Because I want to make money'.

It's only when we delve a little further that things get really interesting. 

Tom Nixon has dived deeper than most. Having set up a hugely successful social media marketing agency, he became fixated with questions of motivation and fulfilment. The results were remarkable.

In this episode Tom describes his journey from freelance techie to agency owner to business mentor, and how along the way he uncovered what was really driving him.

Whether you're considering starting an agency or already have one, you should tap in to Tom's wisdom. You'll be all the better for it. 

Transcript

 0:06

JA: Welcome, everyone, to this KitchenTable Community Podcast. And today I have thrilled to have in front of me. Tom Nixon who is a coach and advisor to founder led organisations he's not, I should say the obvious choice for an interviewee for the kitchen table community podcast because he's from a big agency background, and he works with business owners who probably it's fair to say Tom have larger businesses than the type of businesses that are members of our community. But I think that a lot of what you have to say a lot of your practice carries across to sort of small micro businesses that are members of our community. So welcome, and thank you for the taking the time today. So Tom Could you briefly reprise your career to date. 

TN: Yes, sure. Thanks john It's a pleasure to be here and building on your intro I'd say that yeah whilst I do work with organisations that are sometimes larger than the organisations in your community, the principles that we're going to be discussing are basically universal, so it's just as applicable to a small agency as a, as a larger one. And my journey started out as a, as a freelancer, I was originally a techie building websites, if I'm really honest turning my hands at anything, I thought I could get paid for it in the early days. I levelled up a little bit when I teamed up with my business partner well after a couple of years, and we formed what then became a virtual agency very similar to the, to the model that that you're promoting and we began to work with clients using freelancers to help us deliver projects mostly websites to clients, and then slowly we started to actually build a team so we went from having freelancers to having people working in house for us in an in an office which gradually, which gradually grew, and then in 2008 we had a big pivot of the business. We spotted the trend for social media starting to really come online around 2007 2008 and decided we would take a punt on this idea that social media would become a bigger industry in itself. Fortunately for us, that did that did happen and that propelled us from working with very small, local clients to very large clients like Coca Cola in Europe and the Barclays group and various other governments and nonprofit clients.

JA: And this agency was called Nixon McInnes. That's why you and your co founder. 

 2:48

TN: That's right. Yes, correct. yeah I guess we weren't we were pretty well known for being yeah probably the person for a period of time the largest agency that was dedicated to providing social media services. And then I, I exited that company in 2011 I sold some shares, it wasn't a big Silicon Valley megabox exit but it was enough for me in my early 30s to, to not have to earn any money for a few years and to be able to travel the world, which for me at that time in my life was like winning the lottery so I went off and had some other adventures. And then the really interesting thing was watching from afar as the company continued to do well for a while, and then started to decline, quite rapidly and watched it, entering all kinds of all kinds of problems things were not running smoothly there the company had really lost this way. And that eventually drew me back to Nixon McInnes after after two and a half years, there was a quite a tumultuous time. My business partner, then left the company I came, I came back, somebody new was promoted to becoming the managing director of the company and we, we managed to turn the company around in about, in about six months, taking it from heavy losses back into back into profit, and then attended the company's second big pivot, which was actually a real disaster, you know, this is what I learned a lot about pivoting companies. And really what I realised very quickly was that to change your company you need to change one thing at a time, you might change the product or service you're offering to the same client base or maybe you offer the same products or services to a different market, if you try and change all of those things at once. That's called a new business not a pivot of a, of a business, and I made the really difficult decision to close that company, in the end, and we were fortunate enough whilst it was very Messier at times to be able to close the company really well, free up time and resources for the new things and not drop any balls with clients make sure everyone was paid everything that they were that they were owed and so it was

 4:50

that cool roller coaster of being a founder, that got me interested in the journey that founders go on through these through these ups and downs, and to make sense of some of the principles that dictate whether a founder is successful in realising the idea, they've set out to, to bring into the world at the beginning. And that's what I advise our clients on now. So being a founder, the journey that you that you go on being clear on the vision, how to build an organisation around your vision so that you can actually have a good chance of seeing it happen. And then took to finish the story of my previous company after closing down the the agency, it was kind of more like blowing apart a bit really so we we spun out some bits that were that were still full of life, the main thing was our conference meeting which was a conference on making business fit for the 21st century.

JA: Which is an absolutely brilliant event, and probably my favourite day of the year so if anybody listening has not heard of meaning conference, you should absolutely go because it's a brilliant and inspiring event every year in November, in Brighton it's no it's not a global event right. 

TN: No, it's very much 

JA: Well I mean in terms of in terms of its its its reach, I mean you've got, I mean when I've been, you know, from all over the world coming 

TN: yeah that's absolutely true. So there are speakers from around the world and people do travel far far and wide. We're really proud to bring to bring people to brighten our home city to think about the future. The future of business and making it fit for the, for the times that we that we live in, so many conference which started out as an internal project and next to mckinnis is now an independent company run by run by Louise ash and all sorts of other things popped up, I ended up starting a software startup as well which is which is still, which is still going called map to my colleague Max and john started an organisation called Wild Things where he's doing all sorts of interesting things around leadership organisations conflict resolution and other bits and pieces. So yeah, so it was an interesting lesson actually that even when you close a company that can actually be an incredibly crazy creative thing to happen. Whilst at the same time it's been a very difficult thing to go through. For many people as well. 

JA: I mean what I find fascinating and compelling about your story is that you, you started running a digital agency but you got so interested in questions of leadership and company culture that that actually became your career and you even sort of tried to pivot the company in that direction.

TN: yeah that's that's absolutely right, there was a real a real pivotal moment in our history was when will and I came across a book called Maverick by Ricardo Semler, which looks horrifically dated now the cover of the book needs to choose their managers not managers choosing their, their people getting rid of clocking in and out machines and security checks, all kinds of things. Yeah, we that we started to be inspired by next weekend is became a bit of a living laboratory for trying out new ways of structuring organising working we ran many many experiments, some of which were very successful and others of which were a real disaster and that's that's learning right. And so yeah so it's fun to help people to build on the good stuff and to avoid the many mistakes that I made on my own journey. Well yeah, 

JA: I mean you throughout your career you realise the importance of culture to a company, and just spin back a little bit and this company culture is a term that's bandied around a lot, and particularly in the agency world it's, it has

gathered as having a very high value but my experience, and no doubt Yours is the idea of what company culture is sometimes gets lost. And positive company culture, ends up being seen as you know about having a table tennis table and a beer fridge. What really is culture about? Could you explain that, because I think it's absolutely critical to all agencies or businesses really that they root themselves in a culture and that's something I failed to do for years . But give us your vision of what culture really means.

 9:10

TN: Yeah, well, the way I would do this is to really lean on someone much smarter than myself a chap called Peter Sankey he's a very famous management consultant and thinker, in this space. And one thing he talks about is there being these three layers that form organisational culture. And the very surface layer is exactly as you described it's things like you have a bit you have a beer fridge that says something about your culture a foosball table. You might have certain working practices as well or even lack of practices like a lack of clocking in and out machines there's something about your culture, financial transparency that really that stuff is just the surface level because underneath those things are a set of values. So, if you have no fixed working hours or people setting their own pay it shows that you value autonomy, for example, and with values, it's really important to know that these are not the values that just came out of a workshop that a consultant ran for you the printed on the wall of the office. Those may or may not be true they may or may not be actually authentic, what really counts is the true values. And some of these things might not be you know necessarily really, really positive. But understanding yet the true deeper values that an organisation has to underpin the practices and the artefacts of that culture is important. But then a layer deeper than that, you have the unquestioned assumptions that underpin those values. So what are your assumptions about about people and how people are and how people connect to one another, those are the things that drive the values that drive the artefacts of the culture. And as such, developing culture and holding a really good culture is more than anything else, it starts with inner work within us. So we start with culture seeking okay how are we going to design the office, we're gonna have a foosball table, we're going to have a pool table you're starting at the surface level, you have to start off by understanding your own assumptions about people and about, about the world as well and about our place in the world. So it's an inner journey, and even a spiritual journey, I think, to really understand your own set of beliefs that drive everything that you that you do. And then, finally, a thing that I learned on my own journey as the founder, is that these assumptions about people and about the world and these values that really in any human endeavour are centred around one individual. And that starts with the originating founder of any human endeavour. And what you see and what I see in the many dozens of organisations that I talked to and work with is that you see the the character and personality for better and for worse, as the key individual reflected in everything else in the culture. So more than anything else you need that person to do the inner work on themselves you look at any company that's got that's got problems any of the organisations that we see in the media are engaging in all sorts of destructive behaviour in communities and in the world, and you'll see that that's a reflection of the person who's really responsible for the culture there. So, you know, my advice to anyone listening to this who's thinking about starting their own organisation and their own culture is to begin by looking inward and thinking what do I really believe about myself about people about about the world and starting to really question that where those beliefs, come from and maybe challenging some of those beliefs. And that's a real a real key to them, building a successful productive creative culture

 12:52

that begins from you and draws in other people.

 12:55

JA: What if your values are a bit askew. You know what I mean, I was very fortunate in my journey because, although I didn't give these issues any real thought when I started, it turned out that my, you know my coordinates were set in a fairly healthy direction and that when I began to really address the questions of culture I realised actually by default and by happenstance got the basics, at least most of them right but you know if you are, shall we say,

not the easiest person if you're if you're, you know you've got sort of major issues that you might not have addressed in yourself, what, how can how can you stop yourself from going down the wrong route. 

TN: Yeah, well, first of all, it's about just committing to the the importance of your own self development along your journey and just starting to be humble enough to recognise that all of us bring bring baggage usually from our past that affects how we how we show up in the world in the world today. To give you a really personal example, example of this when I started my first company I had such a strong drive towards towards freedom and autonomy and agency in the, in the world. And there was a lot that was really powerful in that and that those assumptions that I had that people wanted to be free wanting to be autonomous led to a lot of the successful things that we did at that organisation. So that's great but then there was a shadow side to that as well, you know, and the way to think about this there was like a very quite childlike voice within me that was kind of saying something like, I don't want anyone to ever tell me what to do I don't ever want to be controlled, which also meant I don't really want to be accountable for anything I don't want to commit to anything. And unless you deal with that as the linchpin of culture, you'll find you create a culture of that around yourself but at times in excellent mechanics we had real problems with accountability with people being very willing to take lots of lots of freedom but we weren't all really committing being being accountable and at times when we didn't need to really be a bit more locked down to getting something done, then that wasn't always happening, and it would be very easy for me to start to blame it on other people, common mistake that leaders make was, they'll blame things on their employees and people who just don't take enough responsibility. They don't care enough, you ask those employees the same question, they'll blame the management actually everyone's doing the best, and only thing they know how to do, but the way out of that loop of blaming starts with people looking at themselves so I had to do some work on myself to say write this freedom and autonomy thing where does that really come, where does that really come from. And I needed to process that myself and when I was able to do that I was able to let go of some of this, some of this baggage and I'm not quite so hung up on it today, which I hope will stand me in good stead as I build, as I build new business. 

JA: It's interesting. I'm nodding along here because, and we've not had this particular conversation before but this is very similar for me I'm massively value, my freedom, and it's one of the reasons I set up an agency of this type, kitchen table agency where you work alone, allow people to work alone you realise from your own experience that when people are left alone they do their best work but then there's also this question of accountability. And I, I've struggled with the same things, and I have to admit, I'm fortunate in that I got to staff were brilliant and are very accountable, and without me having to guide them. And I'm lucky that all the freelancers that work with are similarly, responsible but if they, you know, had they absorbed more of my way of working and been on the same defaulting as maybe then it could have created a lot more problems. But I think it's so interesting. I mean it's another thing I wanted to talk about the, the power of autonomy and if you do want to get the best out of people you trust them. Leave them alone. They spending, when it comes to creative work. And you completely shoot yourself in the foot if you try and control them. Beyond that case, have them under constant critical scrutiny.

TN: Yeah, absolutely. And one of these underlying beliefs

 17:42

that's really useful has been around for a long ime so in the in the ‘60s in a book by McGregor, he talks about Theory X and Theory Y about people, some of your listeners will be will be familiar with this. But it's the difference between looking at how we think people on the whole behave, and what they what they need and what they value and how they show up in the world. And on the one hand you can have a belief that people are inherently lazy, they don't really want to work their work if they're have, they have rewards dangled in front of them like money like money or threat of punishment. If they don't do what they're told that they're not really creative, they need to be given direction and told what what to do, or on the other hand you can believe that all people inherently are creative have the ability to be creative, even if they're not demonstrating it right now, but that's a natural human drive to create that people can be responsible and want to be responsible, they can find intrinsic motivation in what in work they don't need to be motivated by extrinsic rewards or threats of threats of punishment, and you get a very different set of outcomes and you'll build a very different culture depending on what your, what your belief system belief system is. And I think you know when people do have the circle Theory X theory about people that people are essentially lazy and on and on, creative, that probably comes from their past from how they were from how they were treated in the past, perhaps, the bad, bad bosses, or they've seen people behaving that way because they were in such a toxic working environment that of course people did as little work as possible, because they weren't given the space to be to be creative. 

JA: Let’s change direction of the conversation slightly. How do. How can a company's culture, be realised through what they actually offer how do we how do we bring the values that underlie the company culture and the main tenets of that culture into what you're actually selling in those in those, the services that you're selling.

TN: Yeah, sure. So, the first thing to do is just to get clear what the what the values and what the what the culture really is. Another useful model that I use a lot of the time from a guy called Niels Flieging, is that he talks about the culture of being something more like a shadow, so you can't directly, change your, your shadow, if you if you're looking at your shadow like I don't like the shape of that you have to look at yourself and think how do I change the shape of my myself but then the shadow will reflect that. So the culture is like a result or it's symptoms of other things that are that are going on. So the first thing is to do work on yourself and to get clear on what your values what your assumptions are about, about people and really starts with process and unravel things that aren't going to serve you really well. And then you can use that as part of your effectively a design brief for everything else that you design so when you're constructing your, your products your services and internally when you're evolving your own internal organisational operating system and your working practices that you that you use, you've got a set of design principles, underneath. Underneath that, and if we look at companies that really excel in design like Apple for example they have a certain set of design principles like they value things being incredibly simple and easy and easy to use. So I've been clear on that principle is really helpful. So that when a design engineer is building something, they know that that's the path, they have to follow. So thinking of it as like, yeah, design very is really helpful. 

JA: I mean I don't want to talk about my business too much but I think it's my own journey here was quite instructive in answering the question that I just asked, which is that, you know, I wanted to build a business that allowed me personally, flexibility. And after a while I realised that actually what our primary offer to clients was that very thing, flexibility. So they were you know they were freed from retainers they were, they had a run of all the writers that we could give them. We could work at short notice. We could have people working on their premises. Flexibility was built into everything we did and it was primary part of the offer and that became very attractive to clients. 

And I realised you know this this was this a grown out of me and my own my own requirements for flexibility. And then you're also offering that to the people who work for you. Because I'm employing freelancers and giving them a good deal of flexibility I mean they want the flexible lifestyle anyway but also giving them loyalty and treating them in the way that I wanted to be treated myself. So I mean, my business is a very simple one. The model is very simple, but it was really apparent to me in the evolution in the company and that that was absolutely central so that the values and the kind of the culture that grew up almost by default to begin with, was centred on my own needs, but it was absolutely core to what we're offering the clients. 

TN: Yeah, that's right. So the way to frame what you've described there is that there's a value there around flexibility so it's really useful to have that value in mind when you're when you're pitching to clients when you're serving clients when you're briefing, people who are working, who are working for you. And then underneath that value of flexibility you probably have a deeper belief or need or yearning if you like for balance in your life, perhaps and freedom and a belief yeah that people need to do to do lots of things in their life and not be too locked down, and that's useful to really recognise that and check with yourself but that's definitely true for you because our values and belief systems can evolve over time as we as we get older and we develop ourselves, personally. And then there's also something really interesting about also dealing with the opposites. So what I mean by that is if you look at what let me ask you the question What is the opposite of flexibility?

JA: Rigidity it's about being, you know, being tied to a desk from nine to five, having somebody looking over your shoulder so it's about rigidity it's about being under scrutiny. It's kind of being in, you know, mental lockdown.

TN: Yeah, exactly. And so what I would say is that to really to really embrace flexibility you also have to build a relationship with rigidity, as well because there will be occasions when rigidity is exactly what's needed because you can have all kinds of unhealthy things aren't bolded, everything is just unquestionably 100% of the time about flexibility, because without any sort of rigidity. There aren't clear boundaries, for example and boundaries are really really important to withhold, but to withhold appropriately so it doesn't mean going to the opposite end of the spectrum. So again, this is a big part of the inner work side of things to know what you really value the most, but then also learn to integrate the opposite of that. So for you it might be this dance between flexibility and rigidity and boundaries, perhaps, for me it was about freedom and autonomy, on the one hand and about being kind of trapped and locked down and fully committed and accountable only on the other. And when you deal with both ends of the spectrum, then that's like a bit of a personal level up yeah because you can then you can be resilient, no matter what the situation throws at you. Because in running your own business yes you can be hugely free you can decide to change the direction of the company. You've got no boss, telling you what to do. And yet, other times it can be incredibly rigid and people feel like you have to be able to be resilient in those times, and also be willing to make choices that will that will lead you down a path of rigidity for a period of time, if that's what's needed to take your business, business forward. So yes so working with these opposites with these polarities is really a really powerful way to develop yourself and develop a healthy culture. That's not so weighted towards certain values that they run into trouble. 

JA: Yeah, well I again going through my own journey, it was years before I wrote down the ground rules basically ground rules for clients and ground rules for the people who worked for us you know we now have a set of clear rules for freelancers which, you know, thankfully they were pretty much all abiding by beforehand but you do get situations where the unwritten rules are breached and at that point you need to write them, right?

 26:35

TN: Exactly yeah rules can be powerful things to actually unlock freedom, if they use if used appropriately, sometimes they're called enabling constraints. So in a game like football for example you know we have a big rulebook so that you can then have a really fast flowing creative fun game if you if you remove too many of the rules from football it would actually become become less interesting to watch that was that you add too many roles into a game or into an organisation, you end up with effectively with bureaucracy. And that's a real power of creating good culture is that the appropriate things, more often than not can happen automatically. whereas without good culture, the only way to do it is through strict enforcement of rules through incentives and disincentives, which yet, which is almost a definition of bureaucrac.

JA: Yes behaviour modification theory isn't there yet what used to be practised in rather grim children's homes. 

TN: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's not the environment that's going to get the best out of people, and be a good place to work and creatively, bring your own vision to life. 

 27:49

JA: I want to talk about difficulties when every every company has difficulties, it might be a job gone wrong, angry client. It might be something catastrophic like a major financial meltdown, losing major clients and so on. You've been through that journey. What are the lessons you got from that.

TN: Yeah, well I can share, I can share one personal story actually through one of the most difficult moments went through which is actually the moment after making the decision to wind down the company. And so there was a you know a period of time where everything was was up in the air, there was some quite scary scenarios about how things might might play out. And at that time, a good friend of mine Charles Davis, asked me, he said, What's the single most important thing for you to remember during this time when it was like everything is at stake. Lots is beyond your, your control and I had to think really hard about it. And at first I thought about the values of the of the culture, and then I realised there was something even deeper than that which was about, integrity, and I think I sent him something like this and integrity that people expect from this company that's beyond them deeper than our stated values that we that we write on all of our materials, and that people expect to be to be treated to be treated well and with, with respect, and so forth. And then he asked me a really difficult question. He then He then made me, we taught up how much money I had. So he's alone so what do you what do you work he said you know what do we got what do you got to say, we got a, we got a home that you that you own and I thought this was really strange but I wrote it out and I said these are all your assets right yeah so he maybe taught up how much I had so I figured it out. And I wrote the writing number down. He then said what's more important to you, that number, and that money or your integrity. And I thought how she got these got me here because the only truthful answer was my integrity because I felt without my integrity that would be been truly bankrupt. And I felt that I could, I could lose every penny that I had but if I didn't lose my integrity, I'd be able to get rolling again. But if I lost my integrity but kept my money. I would have, I would have nothing. And so that was a really quite powerful realisation for me about asking what is really truly most important, and those are big trade offs because you know, losing everything I've got would have had very big, very big impact on my on my life. But the confidence that that then gave me and the clarity that game gave me through those difficult times was huge and it made me I personally put a lot more on the line than I had that I had to get me through it. One example of that was an employee who the company closing couldn't have come at a worse time for him, he just taken on a big mortgage to move house and his wife and his wife was pregnant and then going to have their, their first their first child so at that, at that moment that person losing their, their job was a really big deal, and he was really worried about his mortgage, and at the same time I really needed this person to help with the wind down of the company we were going to continue to sell and deliver work, right to the end and so I I offered that employee I said if the worst comes to worst, I'll pay your mortgage for you for for a period of time, even if I have to pay that to pay that personally. And you know, I'm not, I'm not a millionaire so that's not a straightforward thing for me to do, but it was, it was the right thing for me to offer at that moment, because of the need for integrity that I had. And you know unfortunately the way things the way things panned out with the company stayed in the back, the whole way through we eventually closed the company still with money in the bank which we shared with people who'd stayed till the till the very end that I never had to pay that person's mortgage they're always able to pay it pay it themselves. But yeah, you can make some quite big decisions when you when you when you tap into what's truly most important for you and that can help you get through the difficult times, and find resilience

 31:55

in those difficult times,

 31:56

JA: let's talk about money. When we sell a business. We're trying to make a living. We want to make money. But our relationship with money can get quite complex.

TN: There's something really fascinating when you talk to a founder of any endeavour you can imagine, within just a few minutes, they'll start talking about money. Almost, almost certainly in one way or another, it's an inescapable topic when people are trying to build organisations or bring a creative idea into the world. And interestingly the, the research the models that I leaned on heavily in my work with founders, led by a guy called Peter Koenig who's an industry he lives in Zurich in Switzerland. He actually spent 30 years studying

 32:44

and figuring out the fundamental nature of money and the human relationship to it, and to summarise 30 years research in a, in a few seconds. Here's how to think about it is that, as human beings we project, all kinds of powers onto money. So you might believe that money is security money is freedom, money is an enabler. Or perhaps you believe that the money is something negative like money is evil money is a blocker monies is a trap. And the really interesting thing is that money is none of those things inherently money has no fundamental nature of its own good or bad, it has no will of its own to do anything, good or bad. And yet, it can be the thing that pulls us off course, because when we're making decisions about which direction we go with our businesses. We can be either trying to do the thing that makes the money work that we believe will make us free or secure or enabled, or we can do the appropriate next step towards our creative vision, and the fascinating thing is that it's incredibly personal we all have different stories about what money are we have our own little collection of stories and facts about what money is, again, it usually comes from our childhood and from our upbringing from our previous experiences how money was when we were at home as kids, as kids. And yet it can have a huge bearing on the decisions we make and how we live our lives how we build our organisations, as, as adults, and so it's a really powerful exercise to start to ask yourself about what do I think money

 34:20

really is what are my stories about money. And first of all understand that they're just stories, there's no inherent truth and that's what money really is. Show me someone who thinks that money is freedom and what you're really looking at is a person who really wants to be free and really values freedom and is perhaps terrified of being trapped.

 34:40

And so the natural response to that for that person will probably be well I guess I need to make loads of money and then I have financial freedom. People say that's a lot of work and actually that that sense of freedom might never come I've talked to people with vast amounts of money who still feel insecure who still feel trapped, because it's not the money that gives them that what they need to figure out is what's going on for them personally, about where their story about security freedom, whatever it might be comes

 35:06

from, and process that internally. So just as I had to do with my story about freedom to learn to be okay. And feel free with them without money because it's perfectly possible and I talked to many people with very little money still feel very free, because it's an internal feeling it's not something external, but also knowing that I can be okay if I'm trapped because at times we're all trapped and it's okay to be trapped and, and committed. So yeah so starting to get to the bottom of yeah your relationship with money and starting to question some of these basic assumptions that all of us have about what money really is, can be a very powerful way to become more self aware, but most interested in be more creative, because if you're not following the money then instead you're following a creative vision. And now the important thing to say is that, that doesn't mean to not think about money

 35:59

at all.

 36:00

And I definitely have made this mistake in the in the past, and I think it was one of the things that led us to closing my previous agency is that we stopped worrying about money to such an extent that we stopped really managing money, really well. So money is certainly an element that you need to manage carefully I'm not saying to people

 36:19

don't engage in any sort

 36:20

of budgeting activity and have the appropriate financial controls in place. But the important thing is about not being guided by the money not letting the money tell you what your next step should be instead your creative

 36:31

vision tells you what the next step should be.

 36:35

And if that seems a little bit esoteric and give you a really simple example of this was from a moment where I was looking at an annual budget

 36:43

for the company. So it was the

 36:46

typical big spreadsheet that had the months of the year as columns, and then all of the things we were planning to invest money and spend money in our expected revenues down the rows. And I found that when the finance director had crunched all of the numbers and presented it to us, my eye was immediately drawn down to the bottom right corner where the net profit for the year was going to pop out, and it was a really small number, and unconsciously without thinking at all. My reaction was, well that number doesn't excite me very much. And luckily I had my colleague, it was my colleague max there at the time actually who called me and he said, so is it the money that decides whether you're excited or not. And the truthful answer was that was that no of course it doesn't what's really exciting is what kind of year are we going to have what are we actually going to do is it going to be impactful is it going to be fun exciting worthwhile. Are we going to be happy. Are we going to make our clients happy, because we, it's easy to make a budget more profitable you strip out all of the interesting investments you cut your costs down you drive everyone much harder. That's certainly possible to do. And so, perversely if we actually re engineered the budget to supposedly have a more exciting profit figure we probably would have had the least exciting year that we've ever had. So that's how easy it is to be to be pulled off course. So understanding what this need for excitement is that I had, and where that comes from, and what the true ways to deliver excitement, really are is a powerful exercise to perform So once again, it takes us back to looking within us within ourselves about what we truly believe what we truly need and want in the world. And we're likely to get a better result if we do that.

JA: you mentioned the word happiness. And my experience is we, we, maybe get too hooked on happiness. And actually, perhaps what we should be looking for is fulfilment. Do you make that distinction. 

TN: Yeah so fulfilment I would see as being about do we have a chance to have our needs. In life, met and so as humans we have many, many needs and if we have a chance to meet those needs. Then we then we feel fulfilled. Personally I don't have a problem with the CETA with the pursuit of happiness, I think partly the problem of the movement towards happiness at work because it's become a bit of a cliche, but that doesn't mean that underneath that there isn't some real substance, my friend Alex Carroll, who causes up there, the chief happiness officer, one of the leading experts of happiness at

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work in the world you know what he talks about is that the key to happiness at work is is how you feel about work on the whole you feel that that work is something you want to you want to do, it's how you feel about work on a Sunday night, knowing that you've got a working week ahead of you and you're on the hold of beans you had about work 

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feelings that you would want to have more of more of the time they're not so a feeling of satisfaction or feeling of joy, perhaps, then that's happiness or work it's not necessarily one singularly isolated attribute, but I think yeah the pursuit of happiness is fine, where people get pulled off course as there's this idea that people should have stars in their eyes and they're walking around like brainwashed zombies with a perma grin on their face and that that's happiness at work because to be fully human and be fully whole means accepting the full range of human emotions, whether those are emotions that we would choose to have or emotions that we wouldn't necessarily choose to have are still part of the human experience it's okay to be sad sometimes it's okay to experience sorrow and greed. These are natural things but they're probably not things we want to experience, most of the time when we're at work, you probably want to experience other emotions. And so yeah the movement of happiness at work I think is really valid positive emotions are generated when people feel they have their needs in life met, so people have an innate desire to be creative people don't necessarily recognise this and in many cases is stamped out by the education system that their kids are forced into, most of the time.

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Brene Brown who's a great, a great hero of mine talks about creativity that's unfulfilled as being malignant. So if people aren't being created, it's luring away at them inside even if they don't recognise it and waiting to get out. And so yeah so finding ways for people to truly have their needs met and to be honest and have a chance to explore what their needs are, is a really powerful thing to do. 

JA: And being as we're all aiming for happiness with none of us can have it all of the time. But if we set our coordinates towards being fulfilled – fulfilled in work which obviously involves a lot of happiness but it involves all those other things that lay below happiness, being met. So, creativity, the need for recognition, and so on, that that, I think, you know, my experience is if you, if you look beyond happiness to fulfilment, then you're, you're probably on longer term, an easier course psychologically.

TN: Yeah, and they're not they're not mutually exclusive right and so I think Yeah, working with needs is a really is a really powerful way of doing it, I really recommend looking at Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the nonviolent communication movements, work on the feelings and needs. If you Google inventory of names, you can find a really big long list of fundamental human needs, and it's quite fun to look at that and pick through the list and go, what needs Do I really feel I've got right now because they change moment to moment circumstances but I like where you're in tune with what you really need. And I like where you connect and empathise with other people's needs is a great way to feel more connected to other people to yourself, and you've got a greater chance of fulfilment because how can you fulfil something if you don't know what the thing is that you're trying to fulfil.

JA: And in among all this going back to the bottom line if you can address these things then generally will have a positive effect on the bottom line. 

TN: You mean the financial bottom line? 

JA: Yeah. 

TN: Well, to me, the financial bottom line is never the point, you know, my, my belief is that setting people on a, on a creative path in life. So the bottom line for me is are you living a creative life where you're having ideas and seeing those ideas, be realised in the world, and then finding ways certainly to get money flowing in an ounce of your endeavours and in your life in such a way that your ideas do become realised that to me is the main is the main point. Because focusing on fulfilment your needs and creativity is not necessarily going to make you rich or have a bigger financial bottom line, but i would i would bet that it will give you a much better chance of dying happy than just dying wealthy. When we look at the you know the top they're very famous studies on the top regrets of the dying, the very basic, fundamental human things like I wish I'd allow myself to be happy I wish I hadn't cared so much about what about work about career. Whereas people who, who get towards the end of their life, and look back, of all their incredible endeavours they were involved in things they started or things other people started that they supported in some way, and felt Wow, that was really worthwhile. You know, they die without a huge amount of money, I would, I would wager they'll probably die or die with a smile on their face,

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JA: A perfect place to end– Death. That's brilliant. Thanks so much, Tom, that is hugely instructive. And anybody listening to this who is considering setting up a kitchen table agency or maybe already has one, please please take on board these lessons, it's the big deep stuff that underlines your business journey that is going to make all the difference. If you address it properly. So Tom fabulous to talk to you. Thanks so much. Good luck with your continuing journey. 

TN: Thanks john and good luck to you as well.