Episode 42 Change Leadership comes with responsibilities to be a guide not a dictator - Christopher Fox Founder - Managing Partner Syncresis

Another thought provoking conversation on the challenge that business owners and managers face when it comes to adopting new technology.

The challenge is always knowing whether an idea is a distracting shiny object or a strategic initiative to advance the businesses position.

Christopher Fox is a thought leader in the world of finance and has a unique perspective on how to tackle the ideation and adoption of ideas. 

Christopher works on developing the strategies and plans to ensure the ideas are in line with the values and culture of the business.

There is a growing interest in the digital finance world that eventually will impact on how small businesses exchange value and currency and there are opportunities to experiment with ideas to stand out from the crowd in your market. 

Christopher Fox - Founder and Managing Partner Syncresis

 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophergfox

Website  https://www.syncresis.com

Stephen Sandor CEO Inspiring Business
Inspiring Business website - www.inspiringbusiness.net

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Transcript

Christopher Fox: 0:02

Just going into it and saying, you know, you're here. And now I want you to be here. That is typically where calls for change will fall flat. Whereas if you are on this person of saying like, No, I believe that I have a better way of doing this and a better way to get there, then you are now responsible for figuring out how to take people there, right? Because you're, you're a leader, you're not a dictator, you can't just tell people well, now from from now on, you will do x this way instead of that way. It's really figuring out how to how to guide people from where, where they are to where they need to be. And what does that mean in terms of very pragmatically what what behaviors and actions will be different in this imagined future? But also, you know, what are what are some of the kind of, you know, emotional and some sometimes in a larger company, it's the, you know, the internal politics are also a factor. What are you really asking people to give up when you ask them to give up their old way of doing things?

Inspiring Business: 1:14

Welcome to inspiring business with your host, Stephen Sandor, the podcast that inspires business owners to find their genius and future proof the business's value.

Stephen Sandor: 1:25

Welcome to the inspiring business podcast where we hope to inspire you the business owner, and provide knowledge information, you need to create a business that is scalable, and ultimately, independent of your daily involvement. I hope the information you're about to hear helps you navigate towards your success. My guest today is Christopher Fox, who is the Founder and Managing Partner of synchronous communication strategy firm that gives clients the tools to share their thinking, their story and their passion for change in the world of finance. for over 15 years, Christopher and his team have helped dozens of financial innovators around the world show up and shine as thought leaders, his clients range from FinTech startups to global institutional banks. Christopher is a thinker, writer, speaker and motivator and holds a PhD in French literature, which was not what I expected. Welcome to the inspiring business podcast. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. I'm really happy to be here. It's something I've been looking forward to all week, in fact, yeah, me too. We've had a couple of conversations prior to this. And yeah, the subject matter that we're going to be talking about is, is I'm sure the listener will get lots and lots of value from that. Before we do that, Christopher, perhaps you could just give us a little bit of your story and how you got here today.

Christopher Fox: 2:49

Sure, sure. So So you started off with I think the first surprising fact, which is that I actually came into the world of business through kind of a crooked path, I started off my professional life. In academia, I got my doctorate in French literature, and I taught at the university level for two years. And as much as I enjoyed a lot of aspects of that particular work, I realized that the academic environment just wasn't for me, you know, for for all sorts of reasons in terms of just the speed of change, or the kinds of cultural norms that are common within the academic environment, I really, really just wanted out. And what I did was, took the baseline experience that I had, as someone who reads a lot, writes a lot researches a lot, all the kinds of things plus being a teacher and mentor, and thought about, well, what what are the nearest equivalents in the world of business, and, you know, clearly that maps to the world of consulting. So I took a role in a web development company where I was responsible for content creation, content development, content strategy, and over time, being at that company for several years, as my skills grew, and I got more and more involved in projects at the strategic level, not only doing the work, but figuring out what work needs to be done. I eventually decided that this is something that I could really go off and do for myself. So after working in that consulting firm for several years, I decided in 2007, that I would start my own firm called synchronous and synchronous. This would really take all of the focus that I had had on content and marketing and communication strategies, and bring that together as a set of services that would offer a value to potential clients. Now, when I started the business, I was actually focused on a range of industries. I had clients in health care, consulting, education, consumer goods, technology, it was really anyone who was interested and willing to work with this brand new firm was was a good enough client for me. And I think that's kind of a common place to be when you first start off your business. I mean, it's something that where you, you really need to think about how to generate early stage revenue, it's harder to be choosy in what you do. But over time, I decided that the firm would really be best served by focusing in on one very specific industry area. And that's financial services. It's an area that I touched on, in my support for other clients, especially in the business consulting world where I was working with consultants who are consulting with banks, insurance companies, private equity firms, etc. And I decided to focus the business in on that I took not exactly a hiatus, but I ended up taking what worked out to be a full time role with a company that had been a client. And I did that for about 18 months, got really, really in depth into the inner workings of that particular bank and a lot of the core issues in institutional banking. And once I felt that I had learned enough from that role, which was about two years in total, I refocused exclusively on St. Francis. And since that time, so now we're talking about five years ago, I have done 100% of my work. And you know, the work that the team at St. Versys works on as well focused in this area of financial innovation. That can be with a FinTech or cryptocurrency firm, or, you know, some of these new companies that are emerging around areas like decentralized finance defi, that can be any companies from there, all the way to some of the largest global banks that are also working very hard to innovate within a wide range of financial areas.

Stephen Sandor: 7:25

Thank you, well, I'd love to dig deeper into the impact or your thoughts around the impact that crypto currency will have on businesses, and in particular, our audience, which is the the smaller end of town? Sure, and how they might be able to, you know, be early adopters or innovators in that space. And take advantage of that position. Because that's what small businesses, you know, because of their size, they're able to do that. Before we do that, though, I just love to retrace your history a little bit. You know, you started when you said that you started and you took on all comers, like as local small businesses, revenue is king or cash is king. And then obviously, there was the revenue enabled you to be able to be a little bit more selective in what you wanted to. So in hindsight, for the, for the listener, who is potentially in your situation, you know, they might be looking at, they might be working in a larger organization, they may be running their own small business. And looking at, at those options, would you have done it differently?

Christopher Fox: 8:54

That's a that's an interesting question. My first instinct is to say probably not all that differently, what I might have changed is making decisions a little faster. I think I would have been ready to go independent earlier than I was, but I sort of, you know, sat on the fence for a while and agonized over you know, how secure will this be financially? And what kinds of problems might I cause for myself? When I don't have you know, big mommy and Big Daddy bringing me all the business as this company, I have to go out there and do it myself. No, that's that. That is a leap of faith, for sure. And it took me a while to prepare myself both kind of mentally and emotionally but that also financially for taking that leap. In hindsight, I probably could have done it a year 18 months earlier than I did. And I would say similarly to a lot of decisions that I made this this similarly this decision around focusing in exclusively on financial services, I would have been ready to do that earlier than I did. And I played a lot of mental games second guessing myself as to whether focusing in on this one niche area would end up, you know, cut, basically cutting off my legs for no particular reason other than deciding to focus. It actually, it ended up growing my business enormously my revenue over, I would say, you know, approximately a year, between making the decision and running with that decision for about a year, my business actually tripled. So I was worried that it would take many years, and it would take quite a, you know, a significant amount of work to recover the lost revenue of all these clients that were no longer aligned to this vision of working only in financial services. And the opposite turned out to be true. And in hindsight, I wish maybe I'd been a little bolder, a little faster in making those decisions. You know, I suppose I'm glad that I'm, that I waited and that nothing bad happened. So kind of just the reality test have, you know, of that situation working out pretty well in my favor. But I do think I could have overthought it a little bit less, without being on the wrong side of the line and undertaking it.

Stephen Sandor: 11:30

Yeah, and you're never sure which way? It goes. Because, you know, as you're, as you're talking, I'm going, was it the fact that you had the reputation in the marketplace? Because you had broad experience and the revenue and confidence to then specialize? You know, was that the emotional place that you were? Or was it the fact that the that if you had have made a quicker decision, whether you would have been able to position yourself as the expert in that really narrow niche? Because no one didn't know that? No one knew about you?

Christopher Fox: 12:16

Yeah, I think there's, there's a logic to that, in the interim period, between thinking about making the decision and actually making a decision, I definitely did have the opportunity to build out my own experience my own skill set and build out a little bit more of a revenue cushion so that the business could be healthy, in this period of kind of like winnowing down scaling back, once projects or relationships, got to a certain point, you know, let letting them age out, right, rather than trying to figure out how to renew them and stay engaged with that client. So yeah, I think I think there is something to that idea that, you know, building in that time, and building in some of those other safety mechanisms was valuable enough, it's certainly didn't do any damage. I don't think I missed out on any major opportunities, or oh, I just, I should have done it. I think really, what I'm saying is that I could have done it earlier. And succeeded, as you know, as eat I don't want to say is easily that's not really the right word, but with as few obstacles as I encountered. And you know, I will also say that there's, I'm, I'm a big believer in planning and strategy. I'm a big believer in natural talent, there are things that people just really, really good at, and they go out and do and if they have the kind of the right mindset around that they can convert that into business success, but I'm also a big believer in luck. And I won't pretend that I had this this grand strategy where I knew client by client exactly how I was going to get from point A to point B. I did have a certain amount of luck being you know, the right time right place and right offer rather than something that was extensively planned.

Stephen Sandor: 14:26

The think it was Lee Trevino or Gary Player, I'll have to check this my facts because I've said this a couple of times, and I can never remember which one it is. But they they golfers and and they I think it was Gary Player that said it is the harder I practice the luckier I get. Yeah. So that's that.

Christopher Fox: 14:47

That's a perfect example of hindsight. I wish I had said it that that clearly and that simply.

Stephen Sandor: 14:53

So the entrepreneurs that I've worked with, have you In my estimation, their success has come about because I call them the lazy entrepreneurs, you know, they are really clear on what it is that they want to do. But they're also equally clear, if not more on what they don't want to do. And they're really happy to get other people to do it for them. Whereas my tendency is to be far more conservative, far more reserved, far less risk taker. So I guess that's why I'm in the role that I'm in. And I'm supporting entrepreneurs who make big bets. And my job as their, you know, coach, consultant business advisor is to, is to increase the percentage of, of the bet, right, so that they, I'm not going to stop them from embedding. But we're just trying to get better at the conversion of the bets, right, so let's get it to 80% instead of 50%. So with your experience, in running your own business, and now working with the, with this innovative area, what are the what are the counsel that you provide? Your clients? And how do you get them into, you know, making the complex, simple?

Christopher Fox: 16:16

Yeah, so it's, it's definitely a journey for a client, whether that client is an individual entrepreneur, or, you know, the founder and CEO of a relatively small, an earlier stage company, or, you know, someone who's a senior leader within, you know, within a very vast organization of 10s of 1000s of people there. I think there's initially a journey that people need to take. And I know that metaphor is overused, but it's just so easy and available, right, you know, right at the tip of the tongue, to get from a point of being a practitioner, all these things that you do on a daily basis, and they become really automatic to you that you, because of the knowledge and experience that you have, it just seems as simple and obvious as turning on a light or making a meal if you're a relatively good cook, or all these different things. Whereas in fact, there there are so much insight and knowledge inside the work that you're doing, and only takes that step back, to look at yourself from maybe at arm's length to say, oh, no, in fact, I have developed some really insightful perspectives on this particular aspect of cryptocurrency or this particular aspect of corporate bonds, or what you know, whatever little slice of the financial world my clients have mastered. It's then turning around and saying, Well, look, there's there are all these insights in here about how to make the processes and the challenges in that area better. And if all I need to do is take a step back and say, Well, what are those insights? And then how can I not only practice those insights in the in the work that I do, but explain an advocate for those insights, so that I'm actually taking my view of how I think the world that I work in can be better. And I'm advocating for that. Now, I'm not just doing it at my own desk, in my own world, but I'm actively communicating it as an advocate for change. And I really do believe that I think that it's a shift in thinking for a lot of people to say, you know, am I truly an advocate for change, am I an agent of change, and in the world that I work in, you know, people tend to be fairly, first of all, fairly focused on their own work, fairly humble. And also, you end up taking a lot of things for granted, right? You grow this expertise for 15 20 years, and all of a sudden, all these things that for anyone who's outside of it would be completely blown away by I've never thought of it that way. I've never heard of that. Never done that. And you just do it like breathing and learning to to look at the work that you do, and figure it out, kind of turning it inside out. So that the insight and the innovation is visible. And you're advocating for it out there in the world is, you know, as I said, it can be a bit of a journey or a bit of a process. But it's a I think it's a really important stage to get to not just because then you are able to have more impact in the world. You have more marketing impact, more credibility, all these different things. But I think it also I think there's a personal benefit of as you reflect on what you know, and how you do things. You become more knowledgeable and better at doing those things.

Stephen Sandor: 19:58

Yeah, it's a balance. Isn't it between confidence and confidence in hubris? You know, and I, you know, the stuff that comes out of my mouth, sometimes I go who said that? Because you're just what I think is, to your point, you know, what I think is obvious and common sense. And why wouldn't you know that? And people who haven't yet been through, you know, my experience, they just, they've never heard it in those terms. And the same with me, you know, I'm, I've worked for large organizations and as a consultant and in the management space within those organizations, and I'm coming out and running a small business, and sometimes I go something to me, which for them is so obvious, right? And to me, it's like, it's a revelation. And so yeah, it's, I guess it's the context in marine. So with, you mentioned, change, and no one loves change, right. Everybody says they love it, or like they like it, some people do. But I think out of chaos and, and calm, I think everybody loves to have a little bit more calm in their life, particularly over the last couple of years. So how do you? How do you work your way through the adoption of change and making it so that it's a natural? It's a natural progression, as opposed to, you know, slamming slammed down the, you know, a completely different track that we've been going on for the last 10 15 years.

Christopher Fox: 21:51

Yeah, that's, that's, that's a great question. Because I agree with you that people like to talk about how much they value change. And then their approach to it shifts pretty dramatically once you ask them to make a change a very different set of of emotions and behaviors that emerge at that point. But, but as far as how to traverse that process successfully, I think that one of the first things that you have to do is mapped out what that change really is, what what change, are you really asking for? Are you just asking for people to push a different button in a different on on our website? Or in a piece of software? Are you asking them to change the fundamentally the way they work and the way they do things? Are you asking them to change the, you know, the, the ultimate way in which they understand the work that they do, and there's there are lots of different levels of change. And the point that I'm trying to make is that, in order to help people go through that change, in a way that has, you know, that minimizes the obstacles and minimizes the resistance, I think the first thing that you need to do is figure out in a lot more detail than people usually do, what change you're actually asking for, and what is it? What are the stakes of that change in whether it's a behavioral change, or an attitudinal change or an emotional change? Just going into it and saying, you know, you're here. And now I want you to be here, and I'm not even gonna pay attention to what happens between A and B. That is typically where calls for change will fall flat. Whereas if you are on this person of saying, like, No, I believe that I have a better way of doing this and a better way to get there, then you are now responsible for figuring out how to take people there, right? Because you're your leader, you're not a dictator, you can't just tell people well, now from from now on, you will do x this way, instead of that way. It's really figuring out how to how to guide people from where, where they are to where they need to be. And, you know, what does that mean, in terms of, you know, very, very pragmatically, what what behaviors and actions will be different in this imagined future? But also, you know, what are what are some of the kind of, you know, emotional and some sometimes in a larger company, it's the, you know, the internal politics are also a factor. What are you really asking people to give up when you ask them to give up their old way of doing things? I think the more that you understand that, as someone who's calling for change, the more you can also successfully lead people through that muddy murky area in between A and B to a point where the benefits of that chain He was not just changed for its own sake, it's changed for a reason begin to become clearer. And you actually get to realize those benefits.

Stephen Sandor: 25:09

Yeah, in a previous life I, I was employed as a 32 year old to come in to be a change manager. And I had no idea what I was doing. Absolutely. And 12 months later, I was sacked for very good reasons, right. But that started that started my journey. And I I like the word journey, I think it's really easy. I know, it's overused. And it's a cliche now, but I like it. Because it is a journey, you know, life is a journey. And so each of each of the ports or places that you that you drop into along those journeys create the fabric of of you, and what surrounds you. One of the things that I see with a lot of people who go into organizations, as the Change Manager, however they're described, is that they see their role as trying to fix it. Yeah, it's broken. So I'm here to change it, when in fact, if you look around at the organizations that I'm sure you know, you look around at the organizations that you're working for, you go, this is not broken. This is this is a very successful business. And it's innovation is its success. And so therefore, you no change is a necessity. So it's it's acknowledging the people in the organization and the efforts that they've made to get the organization to that point, and then asking them to be a part of that whole process, which is what you were talking about, in that in that leadership. The question now, particularly around, defy, and, you know, this new world that is coming. And, you know, I see it as the world was flat, until we were able to see it as round. Right. And so I, this is my view of, of where it's crypto and I am not an expert in this in this space, but I'm I'm trying to become one to understand it. So could you give us an insight, your insights into where we are now with crypto, and what impact will it have, in your view of of how businesses transacted over over time?

Christopher Fox: 27:44

If I had 100% certainty on the answer to that I would be positioning myself to be a very, very wealthy man. So I certainly won't say that I have the perspective on that to give them the most definitive answer, but But I will tell you what I am seeing out there in the world, which is, you know, all of these very, very early elements of the world of crypto, whether whether it's, you know, cryptocurrencies that are available that can be used for purchases and other transactions, or whether it's other ways of using the digital ledger, the blockchain technology that underlies crypto, I don't think any of those things will survive for their own sake. I think the path to future where those things are kind of normalized and regularized is a convergence between the world of you know, very slow, traditional, regulated, boring, I mean, I'll have these kind of dark, dark grey words of the of the normal financial system, those two, though that has to be something that the world of crypto converges into, because in order to make safe and reasonable bet, that says an investment manager, for example, you can't have assets that are as volatile as crypto assets can be and assume that that's kind of like the bread and butter of the assets that you manage. You can't take take small business example. I would be deeply uncomfortable taking a payment from a client in lesser known cryptocurrency, because I have no idea what I'm being paid. I we could agree on something that was $1 equivalent of what seems to be close enough to what I would charge for that work in fiat currency and by the time the work is done, if it pays off, maybe I'm doing really, really well. It could also be financially disastrous, so So that lack of predictability within the world of crypto is a huge barrier for it becoming regularized and brought into the global financial system in any coherent way. And I think it will remain very, very marginal. And as much as people talk about it, and as much press as it gets, if you look at the overall footprint of financial assets in the world, it's still it, even at trillions of dollars, it's still very tiny. And for it to become regularized into the broader world of not only currencies, but equities, fixed income, all of the different components of you know, what constitutes a financial asset, rather than a real asset. You know, it's going to have to merge and some of those efficiencies that it brings that I can send you cryptocurrency, here I am, in California, and you're Australia, in Australia, right now, it's, it's not the most impossible thing. But there are some bumps in between, if I were to pay you for something, or vice versa, there are some bumps in getting getting the funds back and forth across the ocean. And it's it's even in a very digitized banking world. So those kinds of efficiencies that are brought by crypto and by the enabling blockchain technology will begin to be assimilated by the global financial system. But I still think it's, that's the direction that innovation will take not that crypto and decentralized finance will overthrow the world or traditional finance, but it will end up being assimilated to really for better outcomes on both sides.

Stephen Sandor: 31:57

I'm no spring chicken. And you know, and I've been through, in Australia, at least the mining boom of the 80s in the stock market crash in 87. The bond, you know, the bond and stock market crash in the 90s, then the web, you know, the World Wide Web in 92 95. You know, people going What is this? And then, you know, 2000 comes along. And all of a sudden, there's a platform out there called the World Wide Web that people are starting to adopt. And then there's protocols that are written on top of it. And then there's applications and so and then we went through the.com boom and bust. And it was the people that were making money out of out of those situations, where were the lemmings chasing the quick profit because they saw somebody, you know, running after that and making money. And there was an old, you know, before Uber came along, you caught taxis everywhere. And when the taxi driver was telling you to buy stocks, that's the time that you should be selling, right? It's just like, you know, no, get out of it. There's obviously, and I'm, again, I'm not the expert like you, I think there will necessarily have to be a convergence of these two ecosystems, and somehow they will blend. But there are opportunities here. And if we think about specifically, you're working in the banking world, or the you know, the finance, finance industry, the listener is running a small business, and where are the opportunities for them in this space? To look for the, I guess, the canary in the mine? In looking for that opportunity? What? What do you see?

Christopher Fox: 33:58

Yeah, you know, I think the opportunities are the opportunities to experiment. So, you know, as a small business owner, you know, everything that's happening in the world of NF T's, you know, you could think of an experiment or like, well, you know, what, what, what am I offering or delivering, that could be repackaged and tokenized as an NF T and, and, you know, potentially creating a market around it. So, you know, for me, for example, I don't feel like I'm giving anything away here, but one of the things that I often consider is, you know, is, is there some element of like a master class community or, or something like that, that could be tokenized as an NFT. And, you know, I meant that token, and people purchased that token and, you know, maybe when they're done with the process, instead of them just ending like, Okay, well, I've been through you Your three month program, your six month program, whatever it is, and I'm done. And I've gotten all the value and all the knowledge that I've built, what if they also had an NFT, that they could then sell that hopefully at higher value, because the more people are doing it, the more valuable it will get, they can sell and then then I get some percentage of that sale as well. So that there's a piece of it that fits my business model, in that it's a it's an additional revenue stream for synchronous. And there's a way that the end user benefits because now they have something that not only did they did, they get all the value of what they've learned. But they have a thing that they can go sell. It's it's kind of, you know, a much more sophisticated version of well, now I've read your book, and I brought it to the US bookstore, and I sold it for 20 cents, it's it's a much better version of this. And that's just one example of like their think thinking about well, what what can you do with all of these new platforms? And does it make sense to fold in some kind of experiment around it?

Stephen Sandor: 36:07

Yeah, and for those who are not familiar with the terminology, and if T it's non fungible token, and there's 1000s of websites and YouTube videos, so we're not, we're not going to try and educate you here on on what that is. Yeah. And that. And that's fascinating, because you know, that I'm working with a couple of other colleagues, and we're looking at a platform, we're calling it you decide whether it's a community of businesses who, through the blockchain or through some form of exchange, create some value around it, and, and the, the whole technology of, of the blockchain and the smart contracts and all of those sorts of things, you know, that they're their opportunities. So for those listeners, who those of you listening who are interested in that whole technology, as I said, there's there's plenty of information on on the web. So there's obvious opportunities in this new space. I was talking to you, before we started about the chasing the shiny object, versus versus, you know, consistency or, or being more conservative in your thinking. And I just wondered if we could just go down that rabbit hole, right, that, because everybody goes into the shiny object is the rabbit hole that you don't want to be chasing down, but that's where the opportunities lie. Versus consistency. And if you are, if you are consistent, then you know, that consistency will last until the competition comes and runs you over because you're moving ahead. So how do you balance that?

Christopher Fox: 38:08

Yeah, I think I think that's a good question. I think it's partly tied to making sure that your approach to chasing these shiny objects is somewhat intentional. In other words, it fits some set of values or interests that you already have, it's not a completely brand new or seemingly random interest compared to where you're starting from. So I think that I think that's a piece of it even having in mind the idea of well, what what is that logical next move, or that next thing that I could do? So, you know, for example, I would hypothetically talking about, you know, figuring out a way to create a synchronous token that people could buy in exchange and they get access to the knowledge and the coaching and the practices around thought leadership that we offer until they don't need any more and then they go traded off on on a secondary market for that, that token, right. That's, that's an innovation. I don't I don't know whether I will actually do it. But it's, it's still within the realm of possibility, even if it's kind of out there. Creating NF T's to sell music that's recorded by sinker says team members would be a shiny object that are you know, all of a sudden we're doodling and we're creating these these funny little digital icons and characters and emojis and things like that and going off and selling a pack of syncretism. Oh, geez, that people could buy into that would be outside of what really makes sense. It's certainly doable. And the fact that I even came up with it as, as an example, it's an implied confession that I at least thought of it at once. But I'm not doing it versus these other things which are doable and aligned with this broad idea of this broad mission that I have around helping innovators position themselves as thought leaders so that their innovation really lands in the market and succeeds and gets traction, and helps them grow. Like that's the, that's the core of what we do at synchronous, and we're doing it within finance. So any anything that feels reachable from that platform, is something worth considering anything that would require me to reach to the point where I fall off the platform in order to get that far would be just not aligned, and something that I wouldn't necessarily pursue.

Stephen Sandor: 40:59

And I think it was sort of coming full circle here with the strategic planning. You know, I'm you, I think you and I both prefer to be a little bit more strategic little bit from forward thinking, maybe a little bit more conservative in our in our thought processes. I believe that you, you need to be comfortable when you pull the trigger. So if for me it, I need more information. Because I know that when I've pulled the trigger early, they typically haven't worked out all that well. And so pulling the trigger late, they haven't all worked out well either, because I've I've not benefited from, from that slowness in decision making. So, you know, that whole being for an entrepreneur to be far more strategic in their thinking more deliberate and intentional, I really love that whole concept, that visualization of, you know, it's a part of the potential future of the journey. And, you know, and getting really, really clear that it does, actually, you know, meet that. So I think that's fantastic advice. Christopher, I'd love to invite you back, you know, maybe six or 12 months time to actually see whether in fact, the NFT, that you've thought about, actually brought that to life. But in the meantime, thank you very much. I really do appreciate the insights that you've brought today, I think there's a lot of thought provoking. You talk about being a thought, helping people becoming thought leaders, I think you're one of those people in this space leading with thought. So thank you very much. I really appreciate you being the guest here today. I only have one more question to ask you. And it's something that I ask all of my guests, and what is it that you're curious about?

Christopher Fox: 43:01

So there are a couple of things. It's such a good question. If, if anyone saw the video behind us and saw the one chunk of my library, there's there's multiple ones in different rooms in the house? It's a tough question for me to answer curious about so many different things. But I guess, let me just come up with two really simple ones. So on the business side, because the work that I do is, you know, it's about thought leadership, but it's really within this broader context of marketing. And I'm really always very curious about what is our moral responsibility as marketers, because we're out there, and we're like, we're, we're calling on people's attention, and we're calling on people's resources. And I don't mean something as simple as well, you shouldn't be putting lies or false claims out into the world like that. That's beyond basic, and not what I'm talking about. But it's really about, you know, what are we really asking from people? If you create this piece of thought leadership, that's, you know, it's a five page paper, it's pretty, it's full rich with insights and all these different things, when you launch it out into the market? What are you really asking people for? You're asking people for their time and attention, and you're morally responsible for how that time and attention gets used. And I'm fascinated by that topic. It's it can seem very abstract, but I think it ultimately does tie back to taking responsibility for for high quality, for truthfulness, for insight for all these different things, so that the time that you've asked for from your audiences will be time well spent for them. I think that that moral responsibility, I think about it a lot at that intersection between responsibility and attention seeking because I'm marketing kind of just attention seeking in another state of clothing. So I'm really curious about that. On a personal level. Well, I'm always obsessively curious about falling empires. So, um, you know, think thinking about a reading about researching about what was happening in a, let's say those last 100 years of Rome, like, did people know it was falling apart? How do they know it was falling apart? What was it like, you know, the day before and the day after that historian say, Well, this, this is the date of the fall of Rome, like, what was the difference between the day before and the day after? I'm really fascinated by that. And, surprisingly, they're there lots of different perspectives from various historians on whether that was a true phase shift where people, you know, was very different, tomorrow versus yesterday, or just kind of a subtle change that people weren't really even aware of until hindsight, 1000 years later, you look back at that history, starting with the Renaissance, where people started to look at that history again, and said, Oh, wait a minute, something big changed here. And I'm really fascinated with that. I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of resonance with what's happening in today's culture with loss of literacy, loss of cultural cohesion, the types of turbulence that we're seeing there, I think there are a lot of lessons in these falling empires and Rome, Rome, which has been one example that I think is culturally closest to where we are now. But of course, there are, you know, there are many, many, many other empires historically from you know, whether you're talking about the ancient near east or other areas that had that, that same kind of that same trajectory of peak to downslope to fall. And it fascinates me and I think it it brings a lot of insights as to what's going on right now. And a lot of curiosity,

Stephen Sandor: 46:55

Absolutely. And there's a podcast waiting to be had on that subject. You know, the current the current state of the world, and what are the lessons that because history repeats itself, right? It always knows where humans, where's this bag of bones that have all these human failings? So yeah, that that is that is fascinating. Christopher Fox, thanks so much, again, for being my guest on the inspiring business podcast. Yeah, thank you for having me. It definitely met my expectations in terms of what I was looking forward to this week. So I appreciate the great questions, and I'm grateful for the time.

Christopher Fox: 47:41

Thank you.

Stephen Sandor: 47:43

Well, another thought provoking conversation on the challenges that business owners and managers face when it comes to adopting new technology. The challenge is always knowing whether an idea is a distracting shiny object or a strategic initiative to advance the business's position. Christopher Fox is a thought leader in the world of finance and has a really unique perspective on how to tackle the ideation and adoption of ideas. Christopher works on developing the strategies and plans to ensure the ideas are in line with the values and culture of the business. There is a growing interest in the digital finance world that eventually will impact on how small businesses exchange value and currency. And there are opportunities to experiment with ideas so you can stand out from the crowd in your market. We spoke about the adoption of change and to be effective, a change leader needs to be a guide, not a dictator. My goal is to help business owners get the most out of their business, whatever that means to them, could be performance, time, profit, or getting it ready for sale. In my corporate career of over 25 years, I've been the manager at the coalface who has been asked to find and implement the change to achieve the objectives. And over 15 years as a business advisor, I've seen how things can blow up. If you chase the right improvements at the wrong time. I created the scale to Success System to guide and support the business owner through the potential disruption as improvements are sought. If you're frustrated with having your business controlling you, or not sure what your next performance improvement step should be, contact me through the link below. I offer an exploration call so we can talk about what might be a better alternative for you. If you've enjoyed this conversation, go ahead and subscribe and you'll never miss the weekly episode. I'd also appreciate a review on your favorite podcast platform, as that helps spread the word. My name is Steve Sandor and there are plenty of additional reasons It says on our website at WWW dot inspiring business.net And we are across all the socials. Thank you for listening and my wish, as always is to inspire and energize you to take action so you too, can make a difference in your and other's lives.