The Transformative Storyteller, Simeon Quarrie - CEO of Vivida

Simeon Quarrie, CEO of Vivida and an award-winning international speaker, discusses his journey from starting a business at 16 to becoming a multimedia storyteller for major brands like Apple and Google. He emphasizes the importance of blending creativity with technology, delivering work to the highest standards, and listening to the right voices of support. Simeon's transition from wedding photography to corporate storytelling was facilitated by his ability to tell compelling stories and his dedication to excellence. He highlights the value of understanding one's strengths and leveraging them for future success.

Action Principles 

Pick one to do this week: 

1. Blend passions. Stand out in the marketplace by uniquely combining your interests. ACTION: Explore ways to combine your passions or interests into a possible career strength.
2. Focus on quality. Deliver work to the best of your ability to open up future opportunities. ACTION: Pick one task you’re responsible for and look for ways to improve the quality of your work.
3. Listen to your most valuable voices. Surround yourself with the right voices of support, especially your most valuable customer. ACTION: Determine who those people are and listen to their recommendations for improvement.
4. Learn about yourself. Discover your strengths and leverage them for long-term success. ACTION: Schedule time to consider your strengths, write them down, and identify patterns.

Guest Resources

Learn more about Simeon Quarrie by following him on LinkedIn.

Suggested LinkedIn Learning Courses

Discovering Your Strengths

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com

Transcript

Simeon Quarrie: 0:00

Could you apply the same approach to do some storytelling on this corporate strategy? And I said, Yes. Then they told me what it gave me the buzzwords. And I said, what is that? So the answer is yes. I will find a way.

Dave Crenshaw: 0:18

In this episode, you'll get to know Simeon quarry, the transformative storyteller, and you'll hear the story of how he turned his passion for both technology and the arts into a multimedia business that serves some of the world's biggest brands. I'm Dave Crenshaw, and this is my success Show. Welcome back, friends, to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show. This is where I speak to some of the most successful people I've met in my life's journey. I'm on a mission to find universal principles of success that you can apply immediately and that my family can apply immediately. If you're not familiar with me, I'm a best selling author. I speak around the world of Fortune 500 companies, and I've taught millions of people how to be successful through my online courses, especially in my courses on LinkedIn learning with this show, I wanted to do something different. I was thinking about, how could I create a legacy that would help my children succeed? I thought, wow, I know all these amazing people. Let me find some principles that I can teach them and that will help them succeed in their life. Then I thought, Well, why not share the experience with you as I do that, and my goal is to interview people who have multifaceted success, so not just career or financial success, even though those are very important, but that they also have balanced lives and have fun and and spend time with the people that they care about. And I'm looking for things that you can do right now, not a year from now, not way off into the future, but today, this week, so that you can make my guest success story a part of your success story. So as I'm interviewing today's guest, look for something you can do. And boy, the person I'm interviewing today, I've gotten to know him through the last few years. We've done some things together, and I have such a high degree of respect for him and his craft. Simeon Corey is the CEO of vivida and is an award winning international speaker. Recently, he was awarded the UK creative entrepreneur of the year award, and his contributions to learning, cybersecurity and inclusion are world renowned. Simeon has addressed audiences for leading organizations such as canon, Apple, LinkedIn, HSBC and Google, where he shares his vision for using storytelling and innovation to make subjects such as cybersecurity accessible and engaging. He dedicates his spare time as a board member of the ideas Foundation, which helps young people enter the creative industry, Simeon. It's been way too long since we spoke last, my friend, thank you for being on the show.

Simeon Quarrie: 3:01

Thank you for having me, longtime fan of your work and what you do, what you talk about.

Dave Crenshaw: 3:06

Oh, well, thank you. Myself in the same direction to you. I really love what you've done with video, with storytelling. It's always entertaining. I you like to take some risks, which I think is really fantastic. But you just have such a personable presence in everything that I've seen you do. And so I've been really excited to do this interview. Great to chat with you. And where are you located today?

Simeon Quarrie: 3:32

Some the audience will naturally know London. If you drive down to the south of the country by about an hour and a half or so, I'm quite close to Salisbury and Salisbury cathedral at the moment, and I'm sitting here in the studio, so whilst what you see, and for those of you in the audience that can't see, I'm in a kind of a dark studio environment with lots of kid around me with a light that just illuminates me by myself, just so that you can concentrate and I can concentrate.

Dave Crenshaw: 4:00

Yeah, it looks very mysterious, but also just, of course, perfectly framed, because you're a master of video. So let's just dive right into this interview. And I always ask every guest the same question to start off, which is the question we all got asked when we were young, what do you want to be when you grow up? What did you want to be in your formative years, let's say your teenage years. What did you think you were going to become in terms of your career?

Simeon Quarrie: 4:27

Do you know, for me, actually growing up, I think there was a lot of uncertainty about what I was going to become. I wasn't sure, partly because I couldn't quite identify what I was what I was good at, or the things I felt I was good at. I didn't I couldn't see a pathway from a work perspective.

Dave Crenshaw: 4:43

Now, when I was doing research, you started a business when you were 16. Is that accurate?

Simeon Quarrie: 4:49

Yeah, you have done your research. How did you dig? Now, I love it, yeah. So I think partway through my journey, I realized that the thing I really. Enjoyed was anything that was kind of creative. So I enjoyed the anything to do with graphic design. I loved the internet. I enjoyed gaming, and so with the first business that I was asked to get involved in, it was as a designer, like a web designer. It was right back at that point in that kind of 1996 1997 the internet was just forming. So of course, getting involved in design, I got to work out where those graphics that could load with load bandwidth, dial up connection, where they could be placed, and how they could be positioned. So that was kind of my inroad into work business, but also starting to understand what I truly, really enjoyed,

Dave Crenshaw: 5:44

and what did you learn during that time? Let me preface this question, I remember a mentor saying to me, the secret to success in entrepreneurship is to make sure that it's your second time. What he was implying by that is you kind of have to have a business that doesn't go so well the first time, and learn from it, and that helps you in the future. So I like that you did this so young, when you were 16, what did you learn from it that helped you in the future? It was

Simeon Quarrie: 6:12

important to love what you do. I didn't actually do that really for commerce and the money side of things. I think what we wanted was to create something that people saw and had impact. And what I learned was that I just got lost in the process of development and developing an audience. So I learned to dig directly into that. I guess the bit that I learned on the other side of it was to find a way that was that offered value that people would pay for when we were doing this as like a, you know, a business with some of my other peers in the, you know, the class, along with a Business Studies teacher, it had a social enterprise type of feel to it, Right? Almost a charity, charitable esque type of field. So the the money making wasn't the the main aim. However, naturally, as we started to get involved in, you know, I started to grow up, I needed money and I needed revenue. And it became very apparent that I needed to find a way of linking the two things, the thing I was passionate about, but also my need to sustain myself and eventually sustain others.

Dave Crenshaw: 7:24

So that brings up a great point, Simeon, and this is something I've talked to my kids about, in particular my son who who's got some ADHD, which is the idea of feed the valuable obsession. And I think that's what you're talking about by valuable obsession. I mean, it's something that you're passionate about, you're interested in, but it's also valuable, meaning the market has said there is value behind this, and we want to pay for it. It sounds like that's sort of where you started to form the beginning of your career,

Simeon Quarrie: 7:52

yes, but I have to admit, I wasn't necessarily, I didn't think about that so early on. And in some ways, I think that's okay, because the key thing, I think, was starting to understand one myself, which was key. I had to learn what was valuable. But I only I to be honest. I learned that over time, and it took me some time to be able to scale that value. So look at the very beginning I was doing design work, and of course, that design work is done on a bit of a day rate, and then it scales up and it becomes a project. And it took me much, quite a while before I was, wait a minute, actually, I don't need to think about things in terms of projects where I hand over all the IP I can do it and create something where I own, or the business then owns the IP. And I think that was a real journey in understanding that, that value proposition,

Dave Crenshaw: 8:50

did you go to university after secondary school?

Simeon Quarrie: 8:54

I did secondary school, I went to college and I did at college, I worked and I worked kind of understand computers. I did computer science, and then I didn't go to university. And I didn't go to university because culturally, it was not something that was encouraged. I was brought up in a very religious household where college was seen as an environment that was fraught with risk, and so my way of increasing my skill sets and talents at that university age was actually to get involved in educating myself to self teach. So a lot of the things that I have now as a skill set and a talent is self taught.

Dave Crenshaw: 9:42

You mentioned how you were studying computers, and yet you what you do is so creative based, so art based. So were you starting to marry the two? I did. Also saw that you were a photographer for a time. Was that taking place while you were studying at the. At college. So

Simeon Quarrie: 10:01

if I think about the my pathway into, I guess, the creative sector, when I was in college, I thought I really wanted to do the highly technical element, which I loved, the programming and understanding, the databases, etc. And there was one particular piece of coursework, because we call it here in the UK, like a practical examination that taught me a lot about myself. They said, you're going to use Microsoft Excel, and you need to use macros to come up with an app, like an application. And I turned Excel into the equivalent of paintbrush. And for many of your viewers, you might remember an application on Windows, Windows 3.1 it was like paintbrush, where you would click and you would be able to draw and paint pictures.

Dave Crenshaw: 10:50

This is old school here. This

Simeon Quarrie: 10:52

is really old school. This is really old school. Dating me. What I did is, if you imagine, if you visualize this in Microsoft Excel on the left hand side, you had cells which were a color palette, and if you clicked on one of those cells, let's say the green cell, the macro meant that any other cell that you would click on in that spreadsheet would change color to green. So I turned Microsoft Excel into paintbrush and submitted, Oh, wow. What that taught me about myself is this that I love the technical and I have a technical mind, but my fire is lit by creativity. And so I blended the two. So what you now see is this that I was always building up that creative element. But then also I was really quite technical, whether that meant that I was technically really strong at execution, or whether it was really focusing on my creative sensibilities. And this, that sense of style, sense of might be brand, or how you get across a message, it ended up being for me, myself and my identity ended up being about the intersection between the two,

Dave Crenshaw: 12:05

which now is so valuable, right? That's a huge part of the world that we live in with YouTube and social media and everything. People wanting to share their brand, people wanting to develop their own career. What a valuable blended skill set for you to have, yes,

Simeon Quarrie: 12:25

and I think that the intersections between two, ideally three things, is often where that that value occurs.

Dave Crenshaw: 12:37

So you started to develop this unique perspective of blending these interests together. What did that do in terms of your first career? As you left college, where were you working?

Simeon Quarrie: 12:48

When I was in college, someone spotted my technical skills and asked me to set up an Internet service provider back in, you know, literally, I left college, and the day I walked out, I stepped straight into a job where someone trusted me with hundreds of 1000s pounds, what ended up being well over a million pounds, to build an Internet service provider in the.com boom, which ended up being a bust, but it taught me a lot about creating something that attracted people. So we attracted 70,000 people in a very short period of time. I got my 15 minutes of fame, and I learned a lot from doing that. I exited out. When I say, exited. No, I didn't exit. I left and I went back into my bedroom. I was a bit disillusioned with the fact that I'd just been part of this business. We grew quite quickly. I delivered for the organization what they wanted, but I realized that I didn't truly believe in what I was building for them. So I went back into my bedroom and I became a graphic designer for a time. Interesting.

Dave Crenshaw: 13:46

Yeah, that was my question when I heard that story was, did you feel fulfilled? Because there wasn't much of a creative outlet. It was only technical during that time, right?

Simeon Quarrie: 13:58

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Talking to you, like talking to a therapist and, like, bring back so

Dave Crenshaw: 14:02

many of these. That's the best compliment someone can give me. That is my goal here.

Simeon Quarrie: 14:08

You're gonna get it a lot of me today, you're 100% right that that was one of those key learnings from that stage of my career. So this learning was in a very short period of time. So I did a number of a year or two where I learned about my passion and the technical. Then I went to another which was largely about the technical, and I went then back to the bedroom to end, you know, I'm just going to keep working on myself. Keep it small. Eventually, I ended up, yeah, going into weddings, of all things, wedding photography and filmmaking. And that came because I had a year where I really struggled. I just got married. I got married really young, and my wife at the time was a nurse, and the business just dried up all of a sudden, and that some of it was to do. With the, you know, the economy at that particular, that particular time, I was stuck. I was I felt a bit ashamed of myself. I just got married. She had married this entrepreneurial person, and all of a sudden there was no income. And I remember thinking, I am going to use these creative skills, and I'm going to try something different, but I'm going to be highly creative in an area that doesn't normally get the level of creativity I wanted. But I was also attracted by the fact that if I was to book a wedding, I would be able to see that I had money coming up in July, even though we were sitting in February or or may, for example. And so I could see a bit of the future with income coming, but I could hopefully find a way of being highly creative as a result, so that those budgets would get bigger. But I wanted to do it really just for a temporary period of time, not as my my end game.

Dave Crenshaw: 16:04

How did you feel about the sales process of that? I know a lot of people who are creative typically shy away from the whole concept of sales, yet if you're in a wedding photography business, you've got to hustle, right? You've got to find customers. You've got to get referrals. So was that difficult for you, or were you quite comfortable?

Simeon Quarrie: 16:26

I loved it. The reason I loved it was there's a part of me this still exists today. This is therapy. I know that I want to see people's reaction to something that's being created. So having a couple enter into my studio, and then being able to see their reaction as they look through a portfolio, and then I would be able to story tell off that work, I loved that, because I could see their appreciation. And that's actually the point where the storytelling element really clicked for me, which became my third pillar, in a way, became my main pillar, because at the very beginning, my shoots were like most other wedding photographers or videographers, and sure, I had a shallow depth for field, and it was technically great, but it was lacking story. But when people were coming in to see me, I was trying to tell stories based on what had happened at the wedding. Then I thought, what would happen if I actually deliberately entered the wedding environment with storytelling in mind? And that changed everything.

Dave Crenshaw: 17:36

How did you do that? What did that look like at first? What

Simeon Quarrie: 17:40

I did is I went in the day searching for a story, a thread. Now, the challenge with a wedding is you kind of know what the outcome is going to be, but there are these threads, these other storylines that happen along the way. It might be it's raining and rain was the last thing they wanted. But actually, if you start to follow that thread, it becomes quite exciting. What's going to happen, how's the bride going to feel, what's the reaction going to be? And you start to get all these brilliant shots, because you're focusing on telling the story, but linked with the rain, whether it be using a reflection in the puddle, getting shots of people in their expressions as they're running in trying to keep themselves dry. So that was a basic level of storytelling. However, I realized the power came when I started to interview my customers or clients in advance. I would sit them down, I'd get them to talk about themselves, and I would start to be like we're doing now, like chat, find out their origin stories. From that, I found out their own story and their narrative, and I would also find these other little threads and these anchors that my team, because it grew to a team, once this started to take off, would be looking for Fall throughout the wedding day and because that happened, in terms of that growth, but also people noticing that we were telling stories, we started to form an audience, and at that stage, we were going viral every week, because people were waiting for the

Dave Crenshaw: 19:14

story well, and it's so Important now we live in a world where storytelling has become almost a survival skill, a critical skill for our career, and you started understanding this and mastering it at an early time, I want you to pause and share something with us for a moment about that. How do you find the story? Because I think a lot of people are like, I'm just gonna put up a picture of something, but that's not necessarily telling a story. How do you take something that seems mundane or every day and drill down so that you find the story in the midst of that?

Simeon Quarrie: 19:58

I think if. You are the teller, which is a role telling the story. The first thing is, often it's the listening. Now, sometimes that listening is via research. In an ideal world for me, because I tend to work with people or organizations, it's directly asking those open questions. I think that's the key thing, is it starts off with that listening. And I think if you start to notice what storytelling structure is, it then means that it's easier to find that story. So for example, you will know that we will have often an inciting incident, something that happens that means that someone decides to do an action or go somewhere that they would not have done had this thing not happened and incited that action. Then you then go on this journey which is full of obstacles in the hope that you get to the end goal, once you understand that that's the simple version of a story structure. As you have conversations with people, you'll start to identify it, even if they don't know it themselves, and then you're able to leverage that to have the impact or drive the purpose that you need to

Dave Crenshaw: 21:20

I love that, looking for the inciting incident and then how that drives the story to come to life. When did you make the transition away from being a wedding photographer, videographer to more towards what you do? Now,

Simeon Quarrie: 21:37

a client of mine wasn't a client until later, but they invited me into. It was actually Barclays Bank, huge bank, so on the 33rd floor, which is where they hold a lot of their conferences, they invited me in, and I was a bit intimidated. I'm like, I bank with Barclays. I have no idea why they're meeting me. It's definitely shouldn't be about my bank balance. It's not in the black a lot, and it's not too far in the red. It made no sense to me, but I was definitely happy to be there. And I sat around this board table, and one of the directors said to the others in the room, have you seen the wedding video that's in Venice? I was confused, and someone said, Yes. Did you watch the video Josephine? That happened in any year where they told the story of the of the dress? Yes, did you watch the story about such and such? It became apparent that these individuals had actually watched a lot of the Vedas content that was wedding content, and they were reciting the stories, wow. And turned around to me and said, you see what you did there? We watched wedding videos that we're not when none of us are getting married, but we're aware of your content. Could you apply the same approach to do some storytelling on this corporate strategy? And I said, Yes. Then they told me what it gave me the buzzwords. And I said, what is that? So the answer is, yes, I will find a way. And then the unique approach ended up being, is that the leader ended up being this place that you would come with a concept that I wouldn't understand. In reality, maybe the main organizer, the whole organization, the whole organization wouldn't necessarily understand, but we would use storytelling to make it digestible, understandable and engaging. And that was the moment that it clicked. And over time, we then transitioned from doing the wedding storytelling into telling stories that were seen by larger audiences, and importantly, had greater value for that organization. So of course, the project sizes were drastically different, and then that correlation between value that you mentioned earlier, creativity started to click to a different level, and we started to act on that.

Dave Crenshaw: 24:02

And it's the work that you did in weddings and how you developed that skill and became an expert at storytelling that opened that door. Right? Because you were honing your craft, you were getting better at it. And then, thankfully, someone had the insight to say this can apply somewhere else, but that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't become a master of storytelling in the wedding industry. First, to

Simeon Quarrie: 24:31

add another point that I think about, which I think is really key whenever you're working, deliver it to the best of your ability. I could have said I was working in graphic design. I had helped build a startup, and now I'm doing wedding work. This is beneath me, and I'm going to just do it to a simple standard match the rest of the market. But what I decided to do. Was I had my own core values of what I expected of myself. I forgot about what everyone else was doing and delivered it in my own way to the highest standards possible, which then ironically meant that when a large organization looked at it, whether it was a Barclays ended up being a Unilever and cannon. Actually, that's how I became an ambassador. They saw the work because the standard was of a commercial grade that transitioned from one to another. They made the link in their head. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 25:31

that's fantastic. There's a turning point that occurred here, which is, now you're starting to do commercial work. How did you let go of weddings because that has been had been lucrative for you. It had been working. How did you finally make a full transition away from that?

Simeon Quarrie: 25:51

It was tough, because I wanted and needed the revenue, and I had a certain amount of staffing that was based on the levels of income that we had, and we had built up the size of the wedding so that they were actually more than some commercial jobs. At the start, it was a client of mine. We went out to dinner and said, Look you at the moment, you're leaning so much on the crutch of the wedding work that you're not fully engaged in taking the risk you need to take on the commercial work. And so he encouraged me to take the leap of faith, and I ended up stopping totally the wedding work, and then I ended up being all in and it was scary. It was tough. The income dropped drastically for a time, but I stuck with it, and eventually it then went up, and then, you know, naturally, far outweighed what we had been doing from a wedding side of things. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 26:51

that's a big risk to take, but you had the faith to do it and persevere through that.

Simeon Quarrie: 26:58

I think that's where having the right voices around you as support is really important. One of the challenges I had, personally is partly it's maybe cultural. Many people resonate with not necessarily having a network around you that you feel that you can lean on for advice. So when this client, and for me, these clients, were really important they would then have these conversations that were unlike conversations I was used to having, you know, talking about entrepreneurship, taking risks, working with organizations, etc. And so those relationships were, were highly valuable, which is why I think I focus on having or taking so much time and having those conversations with the younger versions of myself, because I realize how important they are to moving. Then it was me, but now it's them. Forward.

Dave Crenshaw: 27:53

You said the right voices of support. Who were the right voices of support for you?

Simeon Quarrie: 27:58

I think the voices I needed the most was from those that were in my ICP or my my ideal client or customer profile, because they knew and had an understanding of where I was trying to get to. They had a really good understanding of what we were delivering at that particular time, I have great supportive wife and family around me, so that's been great. I find that those that are within your team or organization, they will often be very supportive of what you are doing now, because there might be their livelihood might be the use of their talent is based on what you're doing now, the moment you start to think ahead, for some that are in your circle, that actually denotes risk. So I've actually learned to not over index on those who may be employees in a team, if you're talking about future strategy. An example of this, Cornell now end up being one of my best friends. He was an individual who saw me doing wedding work, and he knocked on my door and said, I would love to support you as an assistant. And He came and he volunteered for free, and he helped me on a number of shoots. He was so good, so talented, that I employed him. Then he got involved in the wedding work, and it was transformative for me, because he had now me to grow the business. I was transformative for him, because he grows, grew skill under my mentorship, until a stage where he his skill set was just brilliant for the moment, I decided I wanted to stop doing weddings, he was in total disagreement, and our friendship fractured for a time, and we separated. Why? Because he wanted to keep the business going as it was, because that's what served his interests, as a relationship with me being his boss. But then. Coming into a friendship. If I had over indexed on that, I would not have moved the business forward. We parted ways, and there was a moment when our friendship was frosty because of that, but later on down the journey. Now, whenever you see clients we're working with, it's Cornell that's now working with us side by side, and our friendship is now a true friendship, and I now keep that in mind whenever I'm looking to keep growing on that journey, to make sure that I'm listening to those right voices. And those right voices are not necessarily based on proximity, not necessarily based on those who are closest to you or those who are already in your circle.

Dave Crenshaw: 30:43

Oh, that's so profound. There are two things I want to call out on that and draw attention to. First is in everybody uses a different term, and I have a book called The Focus business. I call it your most valuable customer. Listen to your most valuable customer. They are the people who are paying the most, they're buying the most, and their opinion is what matters most. And you always want to continually get their insight so that part of it is fantastic. The other thing is understanding that entrepreneurs and employees are driven by two different things entirely. Entrepreneurs are driven by risk and reward. If I take this risk, I can see the payoff, and they're willing to take those risks and make those changes, just as you did to transition away from wedding work. Employees are mostly driven by stability and security, and so they don't want to see a lot of change. They're not quite as interested in these big things, because, hey, that could change their income. Neither is right nor wrong. In fact, I feel like the push and pull between those two things is essential for success, and your story illustrated that so so beautifully. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah, you're 100%

Simeon Quarrie: 31:57

right. I totally agree.

Dave Crenshaw: 31:59

So you still have people on your team, people you still manage and lead. Oh, yes,

Simeon Quarrie: 32:05

absolutely. Now, through what we're doing, you know, the team has grown. It shifts and changes because we, our key aim is to keep blending storytelling with technology and the creative process. And you can imagine that we've our Tech has changed. We've moved from we've worked with virtual reality and crafting and telling stories where we place people directly in the story, to then crafting interactive experiences that scale those things that we were doing back when I was in that boardroom with Barclays, has now changed and transitioned a lot. So we're always innovating, and so the team grows, and sometimes that team has to change in order to facilitate the change that is going to happen next.

Dave Crenshaw: 32:48

What have you learned from from hiring and leading a group of people like that?

Simeon Quarrie: 32:54

The thing I've learned is not to focus on hiring people that are exactly like you. The reason I say that is because I'm creative, and I feel that if I dug deeper, there would be traits, or, you know, elements that would point to a condition and to ADHD, so my mind creates these sparks right in these these ideas, and then what I'm able to do is I'm able to create the prototype. I can create systems and models. But what I don't do is I'm not the person that will maintain a system. So often, when I find myself talking to people, I may form a very quick relationship with someone who I can bounce off the creative ideas and the sparks are flying, and it's like, you know, we are creatively making love, if you see what I mean. However, I now know what I need is the individuals within the team who will be the reins, or they will be the individuals that will be able to look at a system and a model I've put together and be able to use that as a mold to go and create really consistently, and they're Happy staying in that space. So I've learned to identify where my weaknesses are or my differences, depending on how you want to look at it, and try to recruit for that. Talk

Dave Crenshaw: 34:33

to me a little bit about your personal life. How do you make time for fun? How do you make time for family?

Simeon Quarrie: 34:39

I struggle truthfully, with making time for fun. The reason I hesitate is because I have a lot of fun doing what I'm doing. That's one of the lessons that I learned very early on. So if I find myself with spare time, I end up tinkering and I end up. Playing, and I end up creating, and then that thing I'm creating ends up becoming a thing that we end up working with. So I feel like I have crafted a role for myself and a business whereby the things I find fun I'm actually doing for work. I struggle sometimes to find what that thing is outside of work. And I think that's one of the things with creativity, right? Is it work or is it just part of your natural desire to craft and to and to shape? There's

Dave Crenshaw: 35:33

an interesting book that I don't know if you've come across it. It's a by John Cleese creativity, a short and cheerful guide. And it is. It's exactly what it is. It says it is. It's a short and cheerful guide. But one of the things that he talks about is the value of how play promotes creativity, so doing something outside of work helps you solve problems or come up with creative ideas that maybe wouldn't have occurred if you were just forcing yourself I'm going to sit down and be creative. Is that something that you found to be true for you?

Simeon Quarrie: 36:09

Yes, it is. I think I work in two modes as part. There's one mode where I respond really well to constraints and time and pressure ends up being one of those constraints. The challenge is, is that that reward system can drive you totally in the wrong direction, from a personal perspective, and to your point, I think I've recognized that, and do allow time to give myself space to see what happened. And that's how I think of it. Rather than it being having fun, I think of it as providing and creating space, because that's where my true creativity often comes out.

Dave Crenshaw: 36:50

I think we could talk about this for a long time. I'm fascinated about the creative process and how you're how it's working for you, and what you've been doing.

Simeon Quarrie: 36:59

Yes, I think that, you know, look, creative process is something that can, in some ways, can be taught. The bit I've had to learn is to create that space, but also to allow myself to be in different places and different scenarios, because I'm in the studio right now. Ironically, this is no longer my creative space, because the moment I'm in one spot for a period of time, it doesn't spark off new ideas, because everything around here is fixed. So I know that I need to be placed in different environments with different people, and yes, that can sometimes be a family or a different type of playful activity, interesting.

Dave Crenshaw: 37:44

I like that idea of placing yourself in different environments to stir creativity. I hadn't thought of that before, but that's really clever. Where do you see yourself in your business five years from now? What's the what's the plan that you see ahead as the visionary?

Simeon Quarrie: 37:59

The vision for me is to scale the impact of what we do and what I do by still keeping that unique blend of that creativity, that storytelling and then also the technology. The aim for what we do now is to change the way people are educated in organizations leaning into the younger version of myself, actually, as you've reminded me, I'm actually going back to the original in some ways, elements of the original business that I was involved in when I was 16. It was involved in, you know, providing an educational resource for people that was different and it was unique. And that's what we've now really started to stumble on, is learning from all of these different ways in which people learn, the way people absorb stories, and how beneficial it is, I can now see a really exciting way that we can really scale that to reach 1000s and 1000s of people.

Dave Crenshaw: 39:00

That's exciting. I'm going to be looking forward to seeing that progression. Okay, so here's the point Simeon, where, unfortunately I have to start wrapping up. But what I do with every guest that I interview, and I know you've heard some of the interviews, is I like to summarize possible action steps that someone can take. The idea is that someone listening does something today or this week, not not a month from now, not a year from now, something they do immediately to make your success story a part of their success story. So I'm going to suggest three of them, and then I'd love for you to chime in at the end and add one potential action they could take. Sound good. Sounds great. Okay, the first is going back to the beginning of your story, how you blended technology with creativity. And I would invite someone listening to this to say, are there a couple of things that you're really interested in and passionate about that don't seem to connect with each other? And then ask yourself the question is. Are a way that I could connect them together, and within that you might find the genesis of an interesting career turn, or something that you can do that makes you truly unique in the marketplace, like Simeon has done. The other one is that concept of delivering to the best of your ability. Simeon was doing that with the wedding videos and the stories that he was telling with that. And he was doing it, the term that he used was at a very commercial grade, meaning it's the highest possible grade. And him doing that with weddings, it opened up the opportunity to do it for brands and major companies. Had he not been doing it to the best of his ability, that opportunity wouldn't have been there. So I would invite you to say, What could I do to do a little bit more to increase the quality of the work that I'm doing, so that it opens up the doors in the future, and then that one concept of listening to the right voices of support, how you were listening to people to help you understand what strategic choices you'd make in the future. And in particular, listen to your most valuable customer. Listen to that person who's going to buy what you want. And even if you're not an entrepreneur and you're listening to this, ask yourself, Who is my customer? Is it my boss? Is it the boss that I want to have? Is it the company I want to work for and try to get that opinion and that will guide and influence some of your future career choices? All right? Simeon, those are my three. What would you add to it?

Simeon Quarrie: 41:36

I love those three. I love those three. What I would add is, what are you learning about yourself? As you listen to my story, you'll notice that I ended up learning a lot about myself, whether it be the things I was exceptionally interested in, the things I was gravitating towards, and then once I understood how I worked, I was able to lean into that so revisit elements of your childhood, the jobs that you've had in the past, what you're doing now, and write down on the piece of paper, look for those patterns, those things that you notice about yourself, so that you can use that to your advantage, to become an unfair advantage in future. I

Dave Crenshaw: 42:26

love it. What a great principle. Thank you so much, Simeon for sharing your wisdom and your knowledge with us. I greatly appreciate it.

Simeon Quarrie: 42:34

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to listen in all of your future episodes as

Dave Crenshaw: 42:40

well. And what's the best place for people to go if they want to follow you, they want to keep track of your work and be inspired by you. Where would you like them to keep in touch with you?

Simeon Quarrie: 42:49

LinkedIn is probably the best way. Simeon quarry on LinkedIn or on Instagram, okay?

Dave Crenshaw: 42:55

And in case you're just listening to this, quarry is Q, U, A, R, R, I, E. Thank you very much Simeon and thank you everyone for listening. Remember, it's not just about the inspiration that you receive from hearing Simeon story. It's not just about the knowledge you gain, but it's about the action that you take. So please do one thing as a result of what you heard from Simeon today, and you'll make his success story a part of your success story.

Darci Crenshaw: 43:30

You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show, hosted by my dad, Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated research and assistant production by Victoria bidez, Sound Editing by Nick Wright, voiceover by me Darci Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan Brady via pond five. Licensing, please subscribe to the Dave Crenshaw success show on Apple podcasts Spotify, wherever you like to get your podcast. If you have a suggestion for someone my dad might like to interview, please send it to guests at Dave crenshaw.com and please don't forget to leave us a five star review. See you next time you.