Rebels Get Results In Business | Joe Leech

From studying neuroscience to teaching kids to coaching some of the world’s most ambitious CEOs, Joe Leech has taken the scenic route to leadership coaching – and that is exactly why his perspective lands so hard.

In this MarketPulse episode, Joe unpacks what really happens inside the minds of high-performing founders and executives. We talk about the myth of the perfect CEO, why rebels get results, and how human-first design thinking generated billions in extra revenue for brands like eBay, Marriott and Money Supermarket. Then we go deeper – into burnout, broken balance, a startup that looked perfect from the outside but was quietly destroying his life, and the moment he chose family over fame instead of chasing the next headline.

Joe explains why profit always follows people focus, how visionaries and integrators need each other, and why so many exits leave founders feeling empty rather than free. We explore the wheelbarrow test for success, impressing both your eight-year-old and eighty-year-old self, and the patterns he sees in leaders who build something meaningful rather than just something big.

If you live with ADHD or other forms of neurodiversity, this one will hit even harder. Joe shares why ADHD can be a genuine superpower when harnessed well, how to burn your to-do list and build the right support around you, and why breaking every industry rule might be the smartest move you ever make.

If you are a CEO, founder or senior leader who looks successful on paper but feels constantly under pressure, this episode is a permission slip to create your own rules, design work around humans, and redefine what winning actually means.

MarketPulse Links

YouTube – https://youtube.com/@marketpulsepodcast?sub_confirmation=1
 Podcast Website – https://marketpulse.javelincontent.com
Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/4B2U7ZzPwHChBv0RlF3p9n
Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketpulse/id1749867828
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketpulsepodcast

Joe Leech – Guest Social & Contact Info

Get Access to all 197 Strategy Questions Top CEOs Ask: https://mrjoe.uk/strategy-bank-197-strategy-questions-top-ceos-ask/

Email – joe@mrjoe.uk Mr Joe Leech
Website – https://mrjoe.uk

Thanks for listening!!

You can catch us on all major podcast directories - New episode every Wednesday at 3pm UK time. Give us a subscribe to make sure you don't miss out!

We're also on YouTube!

If you want to feature as a guest, and you're either a business owner who does most of their own marketing, or you're a marketer with a passion for sharing your knowledge, current trends and adding value, reach out to me directly.

This show is brought to you by Javelin Content Management.

We're a husband and wife team who specialise in helping fascinating people launch amazing podcasts, where we extract all of the content 'juice' by squeezing their episodes and repurposing the clips.

We manage podcasts across lots of industries and sectors for our clients, specialising in hosts with ADHD and neurodiversity (like us!)

We also work with existing podcasters who just want to get the hard work off their hands, or who are finding the whole process tiring and dull!

Transcript

Paul 0:05

What happens when a neuroscientist teacher and a product strategist turns his attention to the minds of CEOs? Almost sounds like a running joke but it's not. It's true And Joe leach known professionally as Mr. Joe. is a leadership coach to high performance CEOs across the globe from Fortune 100 and FTSE List of Giants to rapidly scaling tech startups with a background in neuroscience and psychology. Joe began his career as a teacher before moving into the world of technology and product strategy. Over 2 decades, he helped companies such as eBay, Marriott and Money Supermarket generate more than$20 billion in additional revenue. Through strategic design and digital transformation. After leading global product teams and launching his own venture Joe, recognised that the hardest business problems were the human ones, burnout, misalignment, and leadership blind spots. And that realisation led him to shift his focus entirely to CEO coaching. Today, Joe works with visionary founders and executives navigating pivotal moments from funding rounds to exits. Helping them sharpen their strategy, rediscover, balance, and lead with clarity. Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe 1:23

Oh, it's good to be here, Paul.

Paul 1:24

It's a fantastic bio. We've had, we've been blessed with some amazing guests, but I love your story more than almost anyone I've ever met. It's a, it's an amazing story. I can't wait to dig into it. And I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna get right into it. I'm just gonna get straight into it. What led you to be a teacher?'cause that's a calling for a lot of people.

Joe 1:43

I mean, it can be. I think it can also be a. I am not sure what else to do with my life. I'm gonna go into teaching thing really as well, and that was definitely true. For me, it was something to get me to maybe somewhere else.'cause studying neuroscience was fun and I really enjoyed it. But what, back when I did it in 97, it was all about brains of snails and flies. It was all very basic stuff and I really didn't, that really didn't excite me. The human side excited me. But you know, the brains of a snail can only really, I couldn't really do a PhD in that, so it felt like a time for me to do something different and I'd always enjoyed working with kids, especially the little ones. And so teaching just felt like something I could enjoy doing for a little while rather than it being a career. It's something I thought, oh, I can do that. And it also, which was great about it, allowed me to travel the world a bit. So it was definitely something that fitted me at the time, and I really enjoyed my time working with kids. Absolutely. was interesting about it is the skills that I learned. From teaching more than anything I learned kind of academically or probably professionally since have really stayed with me. They're the most useful ones that I still use today.

Paul 2:47

That's amazing. That's amazing. And obviously when you traveled, that's where you picked up your stage name Mr. Joe, right.

Joe 2:53

That's right because yeah, my surname was difficult for, taught Spanish kids, I taught Japanese kids and they couldn't, they struggled with my surname. So yeah, Mr. Joe was always much easier way of me being known. And yeah, my surname, which didn't quite fit, also showed what my frustrations were with the whole teaching system because lots of head teachers didn't like me. Being known as Mr. Joe. they thought it was kind of too familiar and not really having this, the separational distance from the kids, which of course drove me crazy and was part of the reason I had to leave was I loved the kids. I did not enjoy the bureaucracy of working in schools. That was the bit that really, I felt kind of. Dragged me and the kids' experiences down a lot. Really. And the experience of education, I think is as important as the learning really. Because if you're not, if the kids aren't enjoying themselves, learning is doubly or triply hard. If they wanna come to school and enjoy the time and the experience there, they'll learn no matter what. But if they don't want to come to school, then oh my gosh, as a teacher, it's like an uphill battle then,

Paul 3:53

really Yeah,

Joe 3:54

I, that wasn't for me.

Paul 3:57

I think there's a lot of education stuck in how we've always done this. And the status quo and there's only one way of educating people, which baffles me beyond belief that we can be so naive to believe that there's only one true way of educating people, which involves this really drawn out hierarchical structure and exams every other month. It's an awful way of educating.

Joe 4:18

yeah, and it's interesting, there's a lot of parallels with the business world as well because there's often a belief that there's only one way. And I certainly get this from the CEOs that I work with. There's only one way to do it, right? This is the

Paul 4:28

way Yeah.

Joe 4:28

right? You have to be guy with the cigar in the corner office telling people what to do, barking commands, being distant, you know, being untouchable, almost never getting things wrong, which is the classic model of a teacher. Maybe minus the cigar. But you know, it's the classic model of a teacher really, that you kind of have to be perfect all the time. And the reality is none of us are, and both teaching and leadership are imperfect. And actually that's where the beauty is really is in the beauty of imperfection when it comes to humans, because that's where the joy is really, that we're all

Paul 4:59

Yeah. different

Joe 4:59

We all do things differently and that's okay. And think what's interesting, certainly with the CEOs that I work with, once I get to know them a little bit. You know, and then we've got up, build up a level of trust. The question always comes, Joe. I'm like, yeah. They're like, am I doing this right? And I'm like. why does it matter? Right? There's no right or wrong way of being a CEO. the way you are and who you are dictates really who the business is and how you operate, a lot of it is really building the structures of the organisation around the individual who leads it, because then you're gonna get the most from both sides of that because they've hired the CEO to be in that seat because of certain traits and characteristics. So they should absolutely shape the role and the

Paul 5:39

Yep. in the business

Joe 5:39

to them because that's ultimately what's gonna lead to success if they're trying to do things. Somebody else's way or the way of, you know, how c you think you should be a CEO or the kind of stuff you used to read in the, you know, those 1980s business books, you're never gonna succeed. And so the new generation of CEOs that are coming in, that are taking over from the baby boomers are kind of realising that, Hey, I can do this differently. I've got permission to do that. And that's the most wonderful thing about being a CEO is you can literally change anything. You are the boss.

Paul 6:07

Yeah.

Joe 6:07

And so when you start to shape things in the way that, that, meet you and meet the modern. The modern world, things change. You know, when things change, results get better. Ultimately, at the end of the day.

Paul 6:20

Yeah, and I think, you know, if you look to the sports world, you see some excellent examples of parallels of that. And I work with a sports podcast and what a lot of the coaches who are on there who've worked with the top footballers through the years have said is, you know, the greatest players that we've worked with. Do things their own way, not the way they're supposed to do things and achieve better results as a result. They do it in spite of having a set of rules and how things should be done. And I think that's a beautiful perspective to have. It's, and it definitely appeals to my rebellious nature. I love it. I love being a rebel. So like it's still a long jump though Joe from being a teacher and neuroscience and psychology to being involved in the tech industry. So. What was that journey like? You know, what was the moment you decided enough, enough as a teacher, and what was your thought process to find the next step?

Joe 7:09

Yeah, so I think what I've realised, looking back on myself, I've always been pretty intentional about the choices that I've made, is that I think, you know, that first choice of studying neuroscience was probably. The biggest, what's the right word? Probably my most Ill thought through choice.'cause it was really hard, right. Really academically difficult

Paul 7:24

Yeah. thing

Joe 7:25

to study. And ultimately, yeah, I mean it's quite interesting that people love to talk to me about the neuroscience, but it's not really something thats Useful. And I think it taught me a lot about studying that is I came out and. went ok I'm really only qualified now to have a PhD, or do a PhD in snail brains. That's really not something that's gonna allow me to thrive in the world. so what was useful and interesting about teaching is it gave me a bit of. Focus in terms of that, but also gave me a way of thinking about what my next step was gonna be and really planning and being intentional about what I was gonna do next. And so everything I've always tried to do in my life has been, yeah I mean, there's always been opportunities that have come my way and there's a certain element of luck, but I've always, I suppose, tried to optimise my situation for the best possible luck to happen to me. So what happens during my teaching is I thought, right, you know what? I really love the internet. I really love. Computers and technology. I, you know, had a computer since a really early age, I could think a lot of our generation had, and I thought, I really wanna work on that. I love the, in the internet was, you know, taking off, this was sort of 2002, 2003, I was a teacher. I thought, I wanna do that. I wanna get involved in this internet thing. This is really exciting. I went back to university again and I did a kind of dual, a master's course, which was split 50 50, 50% in terms of human behaviour human communication specifically, and 50% computing. And what it really kind of taught me and the course was very practical. It was like we're looking at how humans communicate with each other and how we communicate with technology and how the two are vastly different. And they certainly were back then and that kind of unlocked a lot of the challenges that were there with really early technology, that it was just a. to use, right? The first wave of the internet was just dreadful in terms of user experience. And so that master's course set me up for really, and there was an element of luck there for the wave of, I suppose, wave two of the internet where really businesses started to get serious, like version twos of all their websites. And that's really where I took off. So I went from that master's pretty quickly into working with organisations that had realised there was a business opportunity there but knew things could and should be better. And I really helped them shape their technology to be more human focused and focused more on the human side of it. Where really version one was much more around, wow, isn't this cool? We can do this stuff. The second version was really around, well, let's make this fit for humans.

Paul 9:44

Yep. i was

Joe 9:44

very lucky to work with kind of, you know, very early versions of eBay Marriott hotels with the trainline. In fact, I designed, you know, fully designed version two of the trainline when that got. You know, from basically A database vomited onto the screen to something that people could actually use.

Paul 10:02

Yeah. and what

Joe 10:02

was interesting about that experience is it showed me alongside that if you design for humans and give humans what they want. Do you know what the business numbers follow? They always follow and that was really, and has been my kind of, I suppose, north Star over the last 20 years, is if you focus on the human element of everything that you do, you will get business success. You know, you'll get the money, you'll get the results that you want. If you just really focus on the human needs of your customers, which is where I started, but now much more when I'm working with the CEO, the human elements of. Certainly themselves, but also their leadership team their wider team. You they're 2 3 10,000 employees. If you can focus really on the human element of every single part of your business. your gonna be successful. there's only so much you can do with technology, with systems, with spreadsheets. Don't get me wrong. You know what measured gets done. But really ultimately in the human area is where success is generated and will be that for a long time to come, regardless of this AI wave or not. That's really where success is gonna come from. So the work that I do and have done over the years is really about honing in on. Well, what's the real human question at the heart of this? Let's answer that. If we answer that human question, hey, then everything suddenly becomes a lot easier and we know exactly what we have to do.

Paul 11:22

Yep. I align with that. I align with that. And I think, you know, if I think back to my retail days, and I was a bit of a nightmare to work with, if I'm honest. As a leader, I was very rebellious, very, I had to understand everything to be able to buy into it. But one of the things I refused to buy into was that I'd be driven solely by numbers. The numbers. I still do. I'm in ADHD, so it didn't really, my brain doesn't really like the numbers and I'd know the top level figures that I should do, but I'd spend all day training people and coaching people and developing people, and it used to really, I'm sure I was so frustrated to be managed by these people because they just wanted me to know my numbers and to lead through the numbers. And they come in and they couldn't pick a fault with the store.

Joe 12:04

Oh, I love that.

Paul 12:05

they, but I didn't know the numbers, so they would be massively frustrated with me. But yet the, and so they struggled to do anything about it because the store's running, right? Like how they almost couldn't get their head around it and I couldn't really explain what he was doing. I was just bumbling along doing what felt right and what it was enjoyable. And I think that's something that I see reflected in a lot of modern businesses who are doing really well, is that they Almost couldn't care less about their numbers. You know,

Joe 12:30

Oh, I mean, they care. I think what's interesting is you're right, so 2 points to that. Number 1 rebels get results. They do because they, as we've talked about They do things differently. They do the things their own way and they get results, which ultimately is what important is what is important. Outcomes are much more important than any kind of process that you put in. And it sounds like for you, you were rewarded for your outcomes. And that can be quite hard for many organiations because they, especially when they get big, they put processes in to make sure things get done properly. And often those can quash. innovative thought and innovative ways of doing things.

Paul 13:03

Yep.

Joe 13:03

reality is you need both sets of those things in your organisation So there's a good I love a great system called the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And it describes humans really roughly going into two buckets. You have visionaries. Like you and you have integrators and you need a combination of both of these sorts of people. You need visionaries who can say, Hey, wouldn't it be amazing if we did this, or, I've got this great idea to do that. You have people who can come up with the interesting, rebellious, different ways of running an organisation, and then you have the integrators who are like. I see you. I know how we can do that. I've got the processes to do that, the spreadsheets to get us there. You need that combination of somebody

Paul 13:40

Yeah. you

Joe 13:40

who's an amazing at coming up with the ideas and coming up with the ways of doing things, but ultimately you haven't got the skillset to follow that through and that's okay, right? You just Yeah. a team around you that can do the follow through. So many of the founders that I work with, certainly founders are absolutely like that. the mean, it's so interesting on the journey I have with been coaching a lot of founders is we go on this journey of about, you know, maybe six weeks in, I'm like, have you come across ADHD? Have you heard of this

Paul 14:08

Yeah.

Joe 14:09

And you know, I'm quite sensitive about it'cause my, you know, my daughter does, my wife is in that is is also a wonderfully ADHD and I see in the founders and often what I come into is when I'm working with founders, they hit that point where their business is growing and. That, that visionary part is less important in that situation, right? They do need to be on top of the numbers. They do need to be creating a process led business that can scale.'cause ultimately scale is about process, and they're frustrated that they can't do that, right? They've

Paul 14:37

Yeah. got

Joe 14:38

They haven't got a to-do list. They've got, you know, no structure in their life because that's always held them back. And so a lot of what I do is help them get people around them who are not like them, who are the people who integrate and build the processes around them. So one of the goals I always try to get to with most of, well, the fact, well, all the CEOs I work with is. no to-do list, right? You should not have a to-do list, right? Those to-do lists are for integrators, for people who are great at getting things done, you pass that part of your brain and that part of your thinking to somebody else That frees you up, number one, to be much more revisionary. But number two, all those frustrations you talked about. They're no longer your problem anymore. You're not working up at 2 o'clock in the morning going, what are the numbers? Is that spread? It doesn't matter because somebody else is on top of that.

Paul 15:22

Yeah. your

Joe 15:22

free to do the strategic stuff to say, wouldn't it be amazing if we did that? Or How about we change this? Or you are coming up with the ideas and focusing on those ideas and purely running the visionary part of the business, but you've entrusted the process, the structure, the day-to-day, the finances onto a team of people who can.

Paul 15:41

And do it better than you ever would, right? Yeah. And so stepping back to your career then, so you've stepped out, you've worked with some amazing, huge names, some smaller startups, and everybody in between. But then you went through a bit of a trialling time for yourself, right? Like it's you stepped into your own startup with a team of friends

Joe 15:58

Yeah, I mean, always with these things, you only look back on it and see that it was a tough time. Yeah, so I kind of, for so long, I built businesses for other people. And I, you know, it kind of got to that point where it's like, Hey, I think I've got the appetite to do this myself. And so I did, I met two other people friends of mine, and we had an idea. And the idea was around,'cause we all had young kids at the time, and the idea was really, we'd build a platform to help busy working parents manage the chaos that is their lives. Right? You know, 2 working parents, 2 busy work calendars, 2 3 kids, you know, and all of the, in between those kids schedules as well. It is a

Paul 16:35

Yep.

Joe 16:35

is a

Paul 16:36

lot

Joe 16:36

for everybody to manage and it ends up ultimately sitting often on the shoulders of the mum who has to coordinate. the across all of these people's lives, and that's exhausting.

Paul 16:46

yep

Joe 16:46

so we wanted to build a set of tools that would help ease the pressure on the family. So, you know, there would be less mistakes in terms of forgetting to pick a child up or, you know, no surprises in terms of Egypt Day tomorrow, and you haven't got anything prepared. You know, all of those traps that we fall into as a parent, We wanted to build a set of tools that would just make parenting much less of a burden than admin side of it. So you could focus on the fun stuff. And of course it was an idea that was, as soon as we, talked about it, people were like, oh my God, I need this in my life. And it was fantastic, right? We had so much

Paul 17:15

Yeah. buzz around

Joe 17:15

what we were doing and we built a kind of early stage prototype. We took it to the market. People were like, this is amazing. We love this, we love the idea of this.

Paul 17:24

and

Joe 17:24

we started to raise some money. this was sort of, my daughter was what about 2 at this point? Yeah, we are looking to raise some money. So at this point then I had a startup. I was al also working in consulting to pay the mortgage. I'd published my book. So I was also on the speaking circuit, traveling around the world, speaking at big conferences. So if you looked at me from afar there, I was on the stage at the Barkin. There I was, you know, closing$1.2 million in seed funding there. I was, you know, with amazing startup there. I was working with you these amazing companies like HelloFresh. I had it all, like, it felt like I had it all. But, you know, not surprisingly I was doing that kind of, I had to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to work on the startup, you know, then I was getting my daughter up after that.'cause my wife, you know, as I think so many of us parents do, was struggling with, you know, parenting, was getting bad migraines. So I was kind of doing a lot of, you know, a lot of. Childcare and then just flying off the, you know, flying off for a week. And leaving my wife, you know, it was just really completely,

Paul 18:20

Yeah.

Joe 18:21

Unsustainable, the lifestyle that we had. And my wife, you know, incredible woman, looked to me know one day and was like. Joey, I don't really, I don't really, you know, I don't feel like we're spending any time together. I don't feel like I really know you. You're not happy anymore. You know, I put on loads weight. It was just a really difficult time, it kind of was a realisation to me that I, oh my need to make a choice here.

Paul 18:44

Right.

Joe 18:45

I've got all of these avenues of success here and I've got my family, and it felt like a choice at that point. And I was like, well, I don't want to have to make that choice. So, yeah, I we didn't take the money for the startup race, so I left the startup. I just kind of went back to basics at that point. Really. I just cut out all the unnecessary stuff, all the travel, everything really. And just went back to kind of being a good husband, being a good dad, and just, you know, getting enough money to pay the mortgage. Just simplifying my life again. And yeah, it was a real wake up call for me and I for a long time and I still do really felt, feel like it was a bit of a failure really. Feel like I should have been able to do it all when reality, looking back on it, I know that was really impossible to have been great at all of those things at the same time.

Paul 19:31

Yeah. Balance isn't always possible.

Joe 19:34

No, and I think is a misnomer, and it's something I use in my coaching is Is, it's more of a blend, right?

Paul 19:39

Yep. theres

Joe 19:40

only so much of you, you can't, and balance feels like there's some sort of perfect zen state, and that's never the case, right?

Paul 19:45

Yep. none of us

Joe 19:45

ever get balance in our life. There's always some part of chaos somewhere. It's just a blend and that blend changes and it comes and it goes. But ultimately it's a beautiful mess. Parenting and working at the same time and trying to get some sort of balance from that gets you to the point where you're trying to get the unobtainable at that point, or any of us need, the most precious commodity of any human is time. and if you're not spending the time in the right places, thats when things go wrong. spending enough. Time as a husband or as a father or as a leader, that's when the danger comes back and hits you, and that certainly was true for

Paul 20:24

me Yep. Yep. I think it's a. It's a fantastic story, joe There's a lot of lessons that we can all probably see reflected in ourselves at times, but also learn for the future as well. And I guess that's something you also see a lot reflected in the CEOs that you work with, right? Like, it's the same sort of challenges that they're dealing with. So with that in mind, how do you know, there's a lot of coaches out there, let's be honest. It's a big space. There's a lot of people doing it. How do you separate yourself from the crowd? What's your niche?

Joe 21:29

so for me, I only work with a very limited number of people, so I work with up to 8 CEOs any one time. I'm very selective about who I work with, so to work with me. We have to do generally one or two coaching sessions for us to really understand if we are a good fit. It has to be a hell year on both sides of that. So I'm very selective in terms of who I work with. So I met the coach of the day who had the upwards of 80 clients, which for me was bewildering in terms of. hows it possible to be able to serve 80 people properly without it kind of becoming really cookie cutter? So I only ever work with 8 people, and I am extremely tailored and bespoke to every single individual that I work with. I meet them at their level. What does that mean? Number one I'm expensive. Reassuringly expensive, I like to call it, it means that when I work with somebody, I give them my full attention,

Paul 22:20

Yep.

Joe 22:20

and that's means me fully understanding thier wider context and what really they're trying to achieve. So I don't come in with like cookie cutter methods or processes or, you know, stuff that I've, you know, downloaded off the internet that sound like, you know, coaching 101 Really what I do is help. Bring the people I work with their future into sharp focus.'cause often it's a bit of a blur, right? You know, I'll be happy when I sell my business, or I'll be happy when we reach 20 million in ARR I'll be happy when I retire. There's all these future versions of what happiness looks like for these people. And so a big part of what I do is bring that future into sharp focus and understand, well what does happiness and success mean to you? Right? sure. It's comfort from being. Having a certain level of money. But the reality is, you know, the Beatles told us money's not everything. Right? Can't

Paul 23:11

Yeah. money can't

Joe 23:12

buy you everything. The reality is you need to understand what success means for you in terms of, you know, fulfillment and happiness. And so a lot of what I work on is looking and bringing that future state into now. So if you are. A CEO of a mul, huge multinational business, maybe working 70 hours a week dreaming about retirement. You know, maybe you've got, and I know this sounds really cha for a lot of people, aren't they? I know CEOs who've got like 3 sports cars that they just haven't got the time to drive, like ridiculous stuff. And the reality is any of us really should be enjoying. The things that we have, the time that we have, making the most of what we've got, not putting off enjoyment at some point for the future. So a lot of what I work on is really making it success feel effortless. So really taking the effort out of it, meaning that you can enjoy life while you are enjoying your work. Really rather putting off that future state of I'll be happy when to bring happiness right into what you do now. You know, classic one I was working on recently with the CEO was he had a really bad relationship with his teenage son. And he's like, you know, I'm gonna sort my relationship out with my teenage son in 2 years when I finished this particular CEO gig that I've got. And the stark reality is that we spend, 95% of the time we spend with our children is in the first 18 years of our li of their lives 95% of the time. And so if you've got a poor relationship with your teenager, you need to fix that now. Not in 2 years time because you've given up so much for that. And if you look back on your life, you are not gonna remember those busy crazy times as being, you know, being a leader and CEO, you're gonna remember the time you spent with your kids. so the reality of it is. Truly understanding what makes each human tick and making sure they've got all of the right things in their life, from professional success to marital success, to parental success, to all of those things. It's gotta be a complete picture. So I work across all elements of somebody's life to make sure that they are successful everywhere. That there's the ability for them to be able to be successful in all parts of their life. Because the reality is that most of us are really only ever successful in one or two. If we're really lucky and it's a real gift that I can give to the people I am, is that I work with, that we can look at all of the elements of their life and bring success into all parts of what they do. And that's what I really enjoy doing the most, is working with somebody's whole life to make sure that they are really getting the most from everything that they're doing.

Paul 25:39

It reminds me of one of the videos from your YouTube channel which I'll still talk about almost, I'd say weekly with someone each week. Right? And that is the, there are only two people in your life that you need to impress. I'll let you share the story, but it's a story I shared with my 8-year-old son the other week, and he really got it. He, I could see the light bulb moment just for him, even at his age was, which was incredible.

Joe 26:04

I think with all of these stories, these come from other people as well, so I learned that one from the Great Man. It's Rich Vinton, but yeah, it's like you, there are only two people you need to impress in your life, one of which is your is 80-year-old you and 8-year-old you. And if you look at those two elements of your life, when you're eight years old, you've got all this excitement about your future. Yeah, I wanna be an astronaut, or I wanna be an archeologist, or I wanna be a YouTuber or something. You've got these great dreams of what you want to become. And so if you, most of us now, you look at our lives, it's like, well. Would 8-year-old, you really be really excited about what you are doing, you know, and I think that's really important. Would they look at you and go, yeah, cool. Or whatever word would you'd use as an 8-year-old to describe the life that you are leading now

Paul 26:47

Yeah.

Joe 26:48

and then 80-year-old you is what's looking back. And that's all about legacy and impact. So with 80-year-old, you look at you and go, why are you working 80 hours a week? Why are you not spending time with your. Family. Why are you not looking after all of those thousands of employees in your organisation? That's such an opportunity to create a lasting legacy is looking after the 10,000 employees you've got, why are you not spending the effort and the time doing things that really matter and making a difference? You know, earning money honestly is pretty straightforward. If you put the right things in the right places at the right times. The strategic process element of running a business is. It's possible. If you put yourself at the heart of that in terms of what it is you're trying to achieve from an impact point of view, you're gonna be much more successful. So you need the 80-year-old you to really feel proud of the things that you've achieved and the 8-year-old you to look at you and go, yeah, you are doing good stuff. I really like what you are doing.

Paul 27:44

So you've worked with. Founders who are on their way to exit, and you've worked with others that have exited more than once. What patterns do you see in how that perceived success changes the people that have gone through the exit?

Joe 27:59

I think exit's a big, it's a moment of truth, and many of us have big moments of truth in our lives. You know, we probably all know them from like having kids or a big career shift or a new job. These moments of truth really make a difference. There may be only half dozen to a dozen of them in our lives, and one of them is selling your business. Right. At that point can achieve a lot and you can achieve a lot. You know, you can do things, you know, you can remove. Any kind of financial worry for the future. for these moments of truth, you've really gotta plan and be in intentional about them. I talked about intentionality at the start. A lot of what I work on with the leaders I work with is intentionality. So yeah, you wanna sell your business, right? How much do you wanna sell it for? And they kind of pull a number out of the air. Thinking it's a number that sounds really impressive and it often is. reality of wanting financial independence in the future is knowing what you want your life to be like in the future. You work backwards from what you want to know, how much money you need. Therefore, you can look at, well, what's the right amount for me to be able to sell my business for? So I feel comfortable going through this transaction.'cause if you ever do sell your business, you're not gonna sell. You know, maybe you will sell two or three, but that's extremely unusual. Most people only really get one swing at this. it's being really prepared. When you sell your business to know what's on the other side of that, right? What you want life to be like on the other side of that, versus what a lot of people do is just focus heavily on the transaction and then the transaction's done, and then they're like, oh, I'm done now. Right? Oh, that's it. Right? Oh, okay. I didn't quite get the money that I'd hoped for. Oh, I wish I'd got a bit more. Maybe I need a bit more, or I've gotta get another job now. Or, you know, there's lots of things that they hadn't really thought about or. they get probably more challenging, which I think a lot of people maybe struggle to understand, but a lot of people here are quite ambitious. Listening to this podcast is that point where you are kind of 35 40and you've suddenly got 20 plus million. You don't ever have to work again and. There's no forcing factor in your life, right? All of us here have to get up every day and go to work. We have to plan our careers. We have to think forward. That's a real forcing factor to get you outta bed in the morning. if you are a really driven, ambitious person, and suddenly on a Monday morning, you know, you get up. There's not much to do. I mean, there's only I was working with a founder recently. I'm gonna swear now, so do feel free to bleep this out. He said to me, God, there's only so many fucking yoga classes I can go to. I'm bored. it's deeply unsatisfying. If you've been the

Paul 30:18

leader

Joe 30:18

Yeah.of a buisness andd you've been very ambitious and suddenly you don't need to be anymore, that can be quite a depressing and difficult time for you. So you need something to focus on and to do. And so actually, I think, a lot of us, you know, we buy lottery tickets thinking it'll be amazing if I win the lottery. The reality is that some of the worst things that can happen to you is you win the lottery. Yeah, sure, it's great and you can buy a house and a Ferrari, but we've all heard the stories of lottery winners who kind of, you know, whose lives have gone to nothing. You see the same with celebrities. When they get famous, they almost certainly get a drug habit because suddenly fulfillment isn't there. You've done it. You've done this now, so life again, I talk about success. is really important for you to define. So I talk about it with the people I work with, you know, I was like, and they're like, I'm like, what do you want? They want, I want success. And I was like, great. Okay. So if I was to come around to your house now and dump a wheelbarrow of success on your front lawn, would it look like? And they're like, oh. Money. Oh, it'd be money. I'm like, well, what else? Oh yeah. What else would it be? And as soon as you sort of shift the conversation away to what successful life looks like for you.'cause again, the money part is pretty straightforward, right? That's a big part of my coaching is getting people to money. Often the biggest challenging part is really getting success outside of that as well. Right? Success in what you are doing. so if I ask people, what's in that wheelbarrow of success that I'm dumping on your front lawn, if you know what that is? Then you can intentionally work towards it. If you don't know what that is, it's really hard to know how to work towards it. You've gotta, you know, if you're throwing a dart, a dartboard, you've gotta know what you're hitting.

Paul 31:47

Yep. Yeah, it's it comes back to intentionality, right? It comes back to that focus and drive. And I think, you know, we talked earlier on about neurodiversity, and I know there's a lot of people who start their own business. A lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of founders, a lot of very successful leaders who are neurodiverse which kind of helps them levitate to the top it Magnifies the skillset that requires that level of leadership. And then I can imagine, you know, not having anything to get my dopamine fixed on for the rest of the day because

Joe 32:20

Oh my

Paul 32:21

has done somebody else's problem now.

Joe 32:22

off the rails. You've seen kids who get bored, who need their dopamine fix It's the same with adults, right? It's the same thing. Definitely.

Paul 32:28

neurodiversity can be quite debilitating, right? It's not all wonderful. It's not all, amazing news for everyone, but for those that can harness it, that have developed the ion strategies, it's somewhat of a superpower, right?

Joe 32:41

Oh, I mean, it definitely is a superpower, really. And again, if I look at the leaders who I've worked with, the most successful ones have had that superpower. right? what it gives you is that ability to get, talk, I mean, there's a few of them we can look at, right? So add ADHD allows you to be hyper-focused on something. If you've got a goal in mind and a focus for that, that can be really, can be real forcing factor for you as well. So a good example of that is I work with leaders. I'm like, well, what's your goal? Right? And they're like, oh, well we want to get to 20 million revenue next year. Maybe they're at. 10 or 15. I'm like, great, but let's call it 30, shall we? Right? So I think getting to 20 is gonna hold you back. I want you to get me to 30. Let's develop a plan to get us to 30 million.'cause I think everything you're doing to get us to 20, yeah, great. But it's all incremental. Let's work on focusing that to double your revenue next year versus incrementally increasing it. Right? How can we do that? it's using that person's superpowers to go, oh. Yeah, for us to get to 30, we'd need to do this. and Suddenly ping the ideas there. You can kind of see it. So a lot of what I do is open possibility, right? So one of

Paul 33:51

Yep. the biggest

Joe 33:52

problems that I talk about with people is they've got, we create our own universe we create our own rules in our head. I talk about it like having like a big glass jar around your head, right? You create your own universe, your own set of laws of physics in this world, How things work. Yeah. Oh, it's possible to go from a business of 5 million to 6 million a year. That's possible, right? That's in my universe. That's, those rules are possible. I've seen that happening. Oh, it's possible for me to sell my business for 6 million when you know that it's, I'm getting this much revenue everywhere. And we had set these rules for ourselves or other rules, like, you know, for me to get to that 30 million, I need to hire 25 more people. We always have these rules of physics that we have in our own world, a big part of my job is smashing that universe of open and breaking all those rules and saying, well, let's not adhere to those rules that you think should be true. How would it feel like to get to that same number of revenue with the same people you've got? How would we do it we come up with a different approach to doing something?'cause again, there's lots of ways or. that you should take to run a business now, or you should do this, you should go and get to the bank and you should have a business plan and you should do this, you should do that. And the reality is those are just rules put in place by other people. You don't have to adhere to them. And as soon as you, you are allowed to break the rules, you know, rebels get results. As we talked about before, it's,

Paul 35:09

Yeah.

Joe 35:09

absolutely encourage my leaders that I work with to break the rules. Not legal ones, but you know, the rules around how things should be done. And as soon as you challenge and break the rules, you open up so much more opportunity in terms of where you're gonna go next and what is possible for you. And the brilliant thing about Neurodiverse people is. You know that they often have the ability to have that much wider view, hold a much wider context, hold a lot more in their head about actually what's going on. That most people, the most normal people can, and that is incredible superpower. When you're really focused on down on something equally it can be really crippling.'cause that can also stop you like, oh my God, I can think of a thousand ways why

Paul 35:51

that won't work Overwhelm. Yeah.

Joe 35:52

I mean, yeah. Right. That's fantastic superpower. Let's just park that one for a little bit now and think about the thousand ways this could work and hone down on a few of them are actually gonna be great for you.'cause that is an incredible superpower. The worrying of our brain. That means we're all different and we'll all approach a problem in a different way. all I, all my job is to do is to help you break the rules, to really unlock what it is you think you can do to be successful. I've done that with so many leaders over the years. You know, businesses that have gone from a million in their first year to 10 million in their second year. I'm working with one at the moment. And, An international technology agency, right, where everybody told him it's a service business. You can't sell that for more than double annual revenue. He's currently selling it for 4 times annual revenue. All of these rules that you hear from the experts should be broken and that can really unlock the future of what you are going on. So I've been working with a quite a large FTSE listed building business at the moment buy what looks like to be a larger competitor themselves, and they wouldn't have thought that was possible. But they've put the structures in place to buy somebody who's actually slightly larger than them in the business they want to go into.

Paul 36:59

Yeah. there's

Joe 36:59

gonna be challenges there for them, but they've unlocked the potential of doing something different that just felt or too audacious or too dangerous. They've actually figured it out because basically I've given them permission to try different ways of thinking, and, hey, do you know what those things work?

Paul 37:15

Yeah, it's unexpected. I love it. So then before we draw this episode to a close joe and I wanna thank you very much for your amazing contribution today I thoroughly enjoy all our conversations, but if you could wave a magic wand and. Make one single mindset shift for CEOs of today, what would you do? What would you have them change?

Joe 37:36

I think for me it's about letting go of. The shoulds and the rules that they think they should adhere to, right? The stuff they read in Harvard Business Review every week, there's stuff they read on the internet about how you should do it. If the reality is you need to create your own path forward. If you're playing somebody's else's game, you're never gonna be successful, right? You, they're always gonna be you at their game. You need to create. Your own game and your own rules of doing things, and suddenly that unlocks so many different ways of doing it. So my number one thing I'd suggest you try and do is look at the rules that you are not questioning. Look at those rules that are out there that you think are solid, that can never be broken, and try and break them because you only get success when you break through the barriers that somebody else has put in place, right? That's what the best leaders always do. so just challenge it. Challenge assumptions, challenge questions. Often I work with a lot of leaders who've got a whole raft of advisors around them. They've got a board of directors, they've got a mentor for this, they've got a, you know, an advisor for that. And they're getting all this advice all the time from all of these people. a lot of it sounds like shoulds and coulds and possibles, but the reality is it's really hard to know and to break through that. So I would always challenge everything that comes your way. Rules, assumptions, ideas, thoughts, everything. Just challenge it all the time. And the more you challenge, the more it'll unlock your thinking about different opportunities and different ways of doing things. And you honestly, it's also a lot more

Paul 39:06

I love it. I love it. Ask why and why not at the same time.

Joe 39:10

Love that. Yeah, absolutely.

Paul 39:12

Paul Brilliant. So if anybody's kind of listened along to today joe and they're curious about what they can do next to find out more about working with you or who you work with, where would you send them?

Joe 39:20

So I'll tell you what I have got, which is. something that your listeners might find useful because a lot of them are in buisness anyways, I've got about a hundred and well, I find it's 197 of my best questions for developing a strategy, for creating a new strategy, reviewing an existing strategy, pushing your strategy to the next level. It's a free download and I've got that on my website and I'd love to be able to give that to your listeners today and to kind of get their feedback on how they'd use these questions to better refine their strategy.

Paul 39:50

Fantastic. So is that a link that we can send people out or, yeah put

Joe 39:53

that in the show that's a free

Paul 39:54

download Brilliant.

Joe 39:54

for anybody out there who wants to, you know, just sharpen their strategic edge by asking better questions.'cause honestly, that's my job and I've shared my best questions to, with all the CEOs that I have worked with to better sharpen their strategy.

Paul 40:08

Amazing. What a gift. Thank you very much, Joe. It's very kind and we'll make sure that goes in the show notes. Paul Brilliant. Joe, thank you so much for your time today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for listening or watching along, depending on where you found us. And as always, if you've got an idea for a guest, a suggestion for a topic for the show, feel free to send it in. And lastly, if you haven't already done so, I suspect you have, but if you haven't, give us a subscribe. Appreciate it massively. Thank you.