#0021 ALASTAIR GILL - DESIGN THE LIFE YOU WANT!

Welcome to the Creative Nowhere Land Podcast. 

Now, I've always wanted the Creative Nowhere Land podcast to be a useful resource for people. So it seems fitting that on this episode, we're lucky to be joined by an expert in people, professional thinker, problem solver, leadership advisor, and coach, Alastair Gill of Alchemy Labs. 

Al uses his creativity in a very different way, juxtaposing his creative degree with a seemingly unrelated master's in hr, Al has gone on to do groundbreaking work in his industry, disrupting and changing the way that huge companies like giffgaff, Beavertown, and Just Eat to name just a few, optimise and get the best out of their people. 

You might be thinking, How does that all apply to me?

Well, Al's knowledge and skillset aren't just for high-powered CEOs or big businesses. It can be useful for you as well, whether you're an artist, entrepreneur, or anyone for that matter, looking to get unstuck. Take control of your life and achieve any of your goals.

In this episode, we discuss Al's incredibly interesting journey, and even better than that, Al gives us a powerful list of things that any of us can implement into our lives to try to be the best or better versions of ourselves. 

So if you've got a goal that you wanna achieve and to 'put a dent in the universe' as Al puts it, then you might wanna take some notes, as Al is about to explain why you already have the tools to design your own life. And you can paint your picture layer by layer.

You can either make an excuse or you can make it happen. 

Check out the links below to Al's Instagram and The Alchemy Labs Website as you listen.

ALCHEMY LABS LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alchemylabs/

AL GILL LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alastair-gill

ALCHEMY LABS WEBSITE: https://www.alchemylabs.co.uk/

Transcript

Meeting Alastair Gill of Alchemy Labs

Speaker 1 0:01

Hello everyone and welcome to the Creative No-Wilam podcast. Now, I've always wanted the Creative No-Wilam podcast to be a useful resource for people, so it seems fitting that on this episode, we're lucky to be joined by an expert in people, professional thinker, problem solver, leadership advisor and coach, alistair Gill of Alchemy Labs, one of my best mates for 25 years. We both did our art degrees together, but Al went on to use his creativity in a very different way, juxtaposing his creative degree with a seemingly unrelated master's in HR. Al has gone on to do groundbreaking work in his industry, dis disrupting and changing the way that huge companies like Giffgaff, beavertown and Just Eat, to name just a few, optimize and get the best out of their people. You might be listening thinking how does that all apply to me? Well, al's knowledge and skill set isn't just for high-powered CEOs or big businesses. It can be useful for you as well, whether you're an artist, entrepreneur or anyone, for that matter, looking to get unstuck, take control of your life and achieve any of your goals. In this episode, we discuss Al's incredibly interesting journey and, even better than that, al gives us a powerful list of things that any of us can implement into our lives to try to be the best or better versions of ourselves. So if you've got a goal that you want to achieve and to put a dent in the universe, as Al puts it then you might want to take notes, as Al is about to explain why. You already have the tools to design your own life and you can paint your picture layer by layer. You can either make an excuse or you can make it happen. So enough of me, let's get into it. Wow, thanks for doing the creative no alarm podcast. That's a good start, isn't it? We were sat here before going. How do we start this? I mean, we've known each other a very long time. We went to university together, so it's almost like 20 something years since we've been friends, and this feels like a quarter century, quarter of a century.

Speaker 1 2:39

Would you describe what you do as professional thinking? Partly, yeah, partly. I suppose you could say that yeah, okay, I guess. My question after that is how do you describe what it is you do? Yes, good question.

Speaker 1 2:55

The simplest way to describe what I do is a leadership advisor and coach. What that means is I work with leaders, I work with their teams leaders, I work with their teams and I work with their companies and I coach them to do many things. Often it's to do with growth to be more productive, to make more money, to be disruptive, to stand out. That's, in simple terms, why I do. There's a lot of complexity under the hood, but simple terms coach leaders, advise leaders. And what has qualified you to coach said leaders?

Speaker 1 3:31

Because, let's be honest, we went to uni together and we both did highly creative degrees, but you have taken your creativity but used that in a different way. Yeah, it's pretty mad really. But until you look backwards towards the question, what qualifies me as Territory's Leaders is the last 25 years of my life coming out of art school, traveling the world, working for governments. So let's go back to that. So you came out of uni and in your mind then you'd done three years of a creative visual communications degree. Your mind, yet you're going off traveling. But did you still at that point think, right, yeah, I'm gonna go off, be an illustrator, be an artist, be a creative? No, I did not even think what I'd be visually communicating in the future. I have to do the viscom degree. I did not. It was literally. I've always done art g A level, foundation degree. I never thought what came next.

Speaker 1 4:29

So I stumbled out of art school with a half decent degree and I didn't know. I was young, naive, had a part-time job, living with my mates, but none of that was gearing going. Oh, I've got this art degree, I'm going to pick up a paintbrush, I'm going to start to illustrate, I'm going to start to use the skill sets that I've learned. No, I didn't. To be brutally honest, I didn't think. Actually I'm going to be an artist. I knew I wanted to do something creative. I know I loved illustrating and drawing and stuff. I loved being around artists more than anything. But I also knew there was other things I needed to do. I'd just been with my mates for 15 years doing art and exploring. I knew I wanted to see more of the world. I knew there was more. I knew there was more out there. There was something.

Speaker 1 5:16

Art wasn't pulling me in to go oh, I'll do a fine art degree, I'll be a fine artist, do an illustration degree, I'll be an illustrator. That was probably to do with a bit of the off-boarding of university. Just for the layman listening, what do you mean by off-boarding? So as soon as you finish the degree, you finish your dissertation, you finish your final show. There wasn't any help whatsoever to go. Here's how you make it in the world. Here's how you work in industry. Here's how you get a job, like when you come out of the military. Get you back into civilization. We've spoken about this before on podcasts, a lot of these higher education courses. They get you thinking, go wash your ideas and da-da-da, but the grand scheme of things, they don't ever show you how to run yourself as a business, as an entity.

Speaker 1 5:57

Yeah, and I think also, when I finished art school, I was still in this, dare I say, following my nose emergence open this. There I say following my nose emergence, open up to discovering the world, knowing there's more out there. I knew I was in discovery mode. Looking back at it now, I wasn't going to use that. I was like what's next? Where does this evolve? Open to inspiration from everybody? Someone been traveling, showing me her photos. I was like, yeah, that's me, let's go. I was just seeking adventure, seeking fun. I'd love to be more friends, but I knew there was.

Speaker 1 6:29

I guess the essence of an article is research, the essence of like go and see shit, go and see the world, go and do stuff, and I was like, wow, I need to do this. Looking back in retrospect to me, I wanted to see the world, where to travel and spend more time. Best mate, it's like it was like a no-brainer, and I was just looking back at it now You'd call it an emergent strategy, where you just, yes, man, you try everything, see what sticks. No way was I going straight into working as an illustrator. I knew there was more I needed to do. I didn't consciously know that, subconsciously, but, like you say, in hindsight, knowing you're in discovery mode and it's about the inputs that you were giving yourself, I was like, yeah, that's enough, I've done this. Now I'm off. But I didn't know what and I was open to ideas from whoever was in my vicinity. So I do my work as a full-time waiter, so I do this, so I do this.

Speaker 1 7:19

I saw loads of people finishing university and jumping straight into great jobs. I just followed my nose and see what opportunity was presented in front of me and said yes, and just didn't really listen to everyone who was trying to tell me what to do. I just went, had a bit of fun, very laid back at that time, as you remember, very chilled out. So it gave me. There was no pressure, no pressure on me to do anything, and it wasn't even the best time. It was probably the only time in my life I wasn't putting any pressure on myself to do anything.

Speaker 1 7:48

Young, you got a whole life ahead of you. I'd already done one more year of degree than most we have to do a foundation. I've worked for another year after a hard school to have some sort of thing way of making money to pay for traveling and then just trust the universe, see what emerges. Go see stuff. What sort of impact do you think? I mean, we can't go to every location that you traveled to, but what sort of impact did you come back with as a result of you doing this traveling, and where did you go? What did you see? I don't, we don't need a itinerary, a breakdown, but is there any key moments that were important in that journey that made you come back and reconsider situation? Yeah, yeah. So essentially travel all the world and I learned the world for like about a year and a half or so South Africa, thailand, sydney, all that sort of stuff, australia.

Speaker 1 8:35

So the big moments were the biggest moments when I got back and had no money, no job, no car, back to my parents in a curfew and I'd had the freedom to travel the world. I had nothing, and that's when I really dawned upon me. It's the wake up for me to go oh fuck, you've got to earn, you've got to make money. If you do stuff, you're no longer a student. I'm going to bursary and I learned this traveling. So when the money ran out, no one else ringing home. Will you go home? Some real core lessons to like? If you want the fun to continue, you've got to pay for it. So whether it's scaffolding and sitting in the blue mountains with some big maoris, or whether it's being chased by brown snakes on a pepper farm while picking fruit, like, you do what needs to be done. You can no longer ring dad for some money or slap it on a credit card. If you want the gold, you've got to do the work. So those are the big moments, not the places I saw. They're very, yeah, lovely inspiration.

Speaker 1 9:32

It's the moments that started to shape me and this was like a bit of a factory for me. That chilled out. My young artist didn't know how the world worked. To suddenly, oh shit, work ethic, oh okay, I've got to earn. And then coming home and be like oh well, you've got the rug pulled from under you. I met my wife while I was traveling, so I couldn't just go back traveling again. You have to start thinking how am I gonna make money? I'm gonna pay for this, no one's there to help me. There's no loan, I'm out of the education system, don't need to wait for any more. You then have to start thinking how do I pay for this life and that's a key factor is massive, not only the pain for your life, but also meeting me abby while you're traveling. Right, yep, key moments wasn't planned.

Speaker 1 10:18

Obviously it's sort of like, wow, as I say yes, you're open to you. Go traveling and finish uni. You don't know what the university to you're open to. You go traveling. You finish uni. You don't know what the university is going to deliver. You go, you're open to ideas. You see things.

Speaker 1 10:29

I think that is probably one of the most crazy things I've done. It's not the producing, it's the sort of the processing, the seeing stuff, being inspired by stuff. It's the best part. It's actually the best thing about high school. It was going to the galleries and seeing other people's work and flicking through the catalogs and doing stuff. It's not, you preferred that to the doing. Uh, a little bit, a little bit. The doing was always sort of like I love, you love the doing as well. But if I had the choice, I think that is the inspiration I love. I know they come hand in hand, but that's interesting though you know. Knowing what you do now, yeah, I think most helping other people, businesses, leaders, grow, build, but that you were more rather than the doing, the creating and stuff. You enjoyed the research, the story, the viewing.

Speaker 1 11:13

I didn't at the time actually flashing back to art school when I threw my toys at the pram because they were forcing us to have a pile of sketchbooks of every single size, yeah, and do all the research, and I just wanted to do the final piece and move on, because I had the idea and I wanted to produce. Had the idea got brief? Had the idea? Yeah, just wanted to crack on. So there was something at art school that changed me to go no, you need to have a six foot high of sketchbooks off the floor, of all sizes, from a6 to a3, with loads of research, loads of justification. But it's so.

Speaker 1 11:42

I learned to love both sides. Actually, I learned to love the research, not the execution. I was going to say because, knowing that obviously you've gone into a more thinking-based role, the research element, the building the sketchboards, the thought behind it, rather than actually the execution of you having the final piece in your brain. Yeah, that's probably quite an evolution of me as an individual, because these are always vivid terms of juxtaposition, juxtaposition of the two, the thinker and the doer. The thinker can overthink, the doer can just do things that don't need to be done. So say, this is where I was learning to. These are on a continuum. You need to pay both off each other. There's times when I've just executed stuff and got shit done and got it shipped and it's been wrong and it's mistaken. There's times when I've overthought stuff. But this was the moment when I started to realize there's two parts, this and actually sometimes I can be doing all the thinking, doing all the research. Sometimes you need to go into execution mode and just get shit done. But actually that's what the art degree taught me is that just do the thinking, do the research, get the work done and find your sweet spot and figure out how much thinking you do need to do. I think we're sort of jumping around a bit.

Speaker 1 12:53

So when you got back from traveling, in this situation of back in your parents' house, this freedom's taken away from you you don't really know what you want to do. You've got no job, you've got no money. What are you thinking about to get yourself out of that situation? Or what are you doing? Thinking versus doing? I can picture it now. I wasn't thinking, I was doing whatever it took to get down to Seab. That's all that mattered. So I needed to earn money. So should we just explain further? I mean your now wife, who you met travelling, just to explain further. I mean your now wife, who you met travelling. Abby was down London, yep, and you're based up in the Midlands when you both come back from travelling. So you've got kind of this long distance relationship and it's all about just getting down to see her.

Speaker 1 13:35

Looking back at it now, I'm like, well, what was the most important thing for me right then Is Ab, my girlfriend and now wife. So all efforts had to go on getting down to london and not needing money. So you just do what it takes. That's what traveling taught me. Not sitting there, going. Oh yeah, I need to do. Start doing some. Whatever my degree was, make the money, make it happen. So I just traveling I think I was a recruiter, my mate already was a recruiter it sounded quite good, so I just did that. Left bangladesh and Fyberclough, jumped on the number 9 straight into Birmingham, jumped on the National Express straight to Victoria, jumped on the Tube back to Uxbridge, spent the weekend with Ab and that was my life for about a year.

Speaker 1 14:16

Looking back here now, it's a really good skill to have to be like know what's the most important thing to you right now and spend all your time focusing on it. I didn't even fuck what else was going on. I didn't pine why I wasn't in south africa anymore. It's like ab get down. Everything else is a means to an end. See what emerges like. This is important, this is fun. Trust my guts, make it happen. See what emerges and if it works, it works. Doesn't it doesn't. Don't overthink it. Know what what's important. Go and do it. Yeah, that was my year, but most people say it was fucking sorry existence.

Speaker 1 14:49

So the words were back home, no money. It's great to see your old mates again and everyone's asking what you're going to do with life and you start to go oh my God, what am I going to do, focused on that. And then the next thing emerges, which is work. So she was asking do you want to move down? So I did I don't think I told you, I didn't tell anybody, I just did it. I just went. I said I'm gonna move down to london.

Speaker 1 15:13

So I'm still laid back at this time, traveling mentality, worry about the next city. I don't have money. Next city, next city, next, to keep it going one step at a time. This is a really good approach. I'm worry where your feet are, not what's happening next. That was me.

Speaker 1 15:28

Then I moved out living with her and she's like you need to make money now. Honeymoon season's over. This is fun. You need to make money and it's bloody expensive down there. It's not around here, where we're from, it's serious cash. This isn't swanky stuff, it's just everything suddenly is so much more expensive. So you have to step up or step out.

Speaker 1 15:49

So I I thought what do I know? I was pretty shit in recruitment. Oh, I do art. I've been travelling. I pull two and two together and started doing some paintings. Got down Camden Market, started selling them five o'clock in the morning, got the door for free, sold a few.

Speaker 1 16:06

Wasn't really rewarding, didn't pay for the rent, realized I had to start thinking a bit differently. I need to start thinking how do I maintain the standard of living living with ab down in london? Luckily she's a recruiter. She got me a job in local authority healing the council, but the passion wasn't there for the art. Yeah, I loved it. I loved it. But you also got the contradiction of you needed to make some money Balancing a lifestyle with that. There's no funding. I'm not living with my mum and dad anymore. I'm going to contribute to the rent. I'm not going to live off ab.

Speaker 1 16:37

But I did fall out of love a little bit with the commercialisation of me painting stuff to sell and the people are coming around and knocking it owing an r-rings. I probably could have pushed it a bit more, waited a bit longer and I was okay, I'm just painting what sells. Okay, it's not selling like I wanted to sell. I haven't got time, so just quickly moved up. So I'll get a job. So that's easy. I was just working with authority hr probably quite good at that because it's different to recruitment and then everything started to change.

From Art School to World Travel

Speaker 1 17:07

Why do you think everything started to change when you started working in HR, within the council environment as well, because to most people, even to external people friends, family, peers you might have gone. Well, why is Al working for local council? Oh yeah, you've got the perception of working local government council worker, all of that stuff. I never really cared about that. It was a means to lens at the time and it was another adventure and everything I do when I was working on a farm in australia, working in a bottle factory. I'm here in sydney for 12 hours a day working with council. I'm just giving away all the final ways to have fun and I've had some brilliant friends.

Speaker 1 17:42

Then I learned so much and I just throw myself into it. Wherever I am, wherever my feet are, I embrace it. I really don't like it. If I have two bad weeks in the room out, I quit, but I could always find some sort of excitement in it and I started to realize even in this environment everyone doesn't really get. There's some great people and I started to really understand how java from a people perspective. Okay, can you say more about that? Because obviously I mean not obviously, but audience might not even be aware of what HR is yeah, so what was it about working in council, in HR specifically?

Speaker 1 18:16

Can you explain a little bit about what HR is and what sort of things you were doing, and what was the love actually that you found for doing hr within a council. I guess this is where I discovered my love. My love is the right word, but by passion, enjoyment from people, essentially what hr is in a company, hr department is responsible for people, the hiring of people, the developing of people, the firing of people. Everything related to people is hr. So I was like, wow, I love people. I seem to have this sort of gnat to love conversations with people and maybe to build rapport with people rapport. We like what I said. So I said, wow, okay, there's something here. It's not selling. Our recruitment was. I just rode the wave and then they offered to pay for me to do a master's degree and it locked me in for a couple of years. So again, I just said, yes, well, I must agree, no chance I'm going to be able to do that. No one's ever successfully done it at the council and passed it. But I did it with a friend. We started to have bigger dreams. Then we could start to see there's a, we could do things differently. We can run HR differently.

Speaker 1 19:25

Hr is traditionally focused on not apparently not right with people, but the more negative side, when someone messes up or dealing with problems. Dealing with problems, grievances, a misconduct, and I was of the belief that why are we doing this? There's folks. What's right with people? There's a better way of doing this. We started to where where are you getting that idea from? Like just h is traditionally let's focus on. We're just problem solvers, which is essentially what creativity is. What was it that was making you think about the benefits that you were seeing? I saw the problems as rubbing up against my approach. I was like, wow, why are people like this? There's got to be a better way.

Speaker 1 20:00

And then I started doing the masters and the masters opened the doors Say more to be a better way. And then I started doing the masters and the masters opened the doors say more. What was it about the masters that opened your eyes about what hr could potentially be? You start to understand the theory of what's possible. Masters level is a different sort of level. It's like you are becoming the expert and you start to go above what's operating currently. So all those hunches that I have and pushing back on the reality, the Masters just confirmed that there is another way.

Speaker 1 20:30

And at the same time then, during the Masters, I then started upping my reading, starting getting really into business, psychology, behavioural science, economic and then I realised my love for learning, my love for discovery whether you transfer from research into learning and applying it to HR. I then came out, finished the master's, passed with a friend and then we just started applying it all. We're just like kids, applying all these different ways of doing things and started seeing the results, whether it's different approach to write some HR policy or doing a restructure or just how to communicate within local council or the local council. While we're going through. This is 2008, during the recession. But then we had our wings sort of clipped a little bit because you're like young kids, with all the new ideas, the more creative way of doing stuff.

Speaker 1 21:20

Looking back at it now, this is when I suddenly realized there's something here, that creativity, that research, what I got from art school, that learning. But it's funny, can I just point you there. It's funny that at art school you didn't want to do the research. I've got the idea, I want to make the final piece and now you've found this love for the research, the theory almost. But that's the arrogant young kid who thinks he knows it all and actually the magic you're seeking is the work you're avoiding. I learned to love that and the masters really refined it as a wow, and I just became a prolific reader after that.

Speaker 1 21:54

Ultimately, all the masters teachers use critical analysis. You never get taught that before to question the status quo. So you look back oh, I was quite. Challenges the status quo, our school plus master's degree. You've got rebellious art students who question the status quo but often may not know why. Then the critical thinking, critical analysis, which is you're supposed to question the status quo, pick stuff apart and then you go into reality.

Speaker 1 22:20

But then you have the ideas. You're not there going this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. You go this is better, here's a different way. And is that where you think your background in creativity helped you? Yes, in developing ideas, solutions, rather than yes. That natural approach of tackling creativity is just about solving a problem. There's a piece of art photograph, there's a movie. It solves a problem, it delivers value for somebody or something. So, whether you're solving problems in a physical way or sort of just a verbal way, I suddenly started to. I didn't think about it, I just went with it.

Speaker 1 22:56

But looking back at it now it's like, wow, it gave that art degree a bit more meaning of how it could be applied rather than just being oh, you're the wacky artist who went travelling. Okay, what are you going to do with an art degree in the commercial world? Did you find that a little bit? Did you feel like your art degree was a little bit redundant? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, until you saw this almost correlation between the two. I love that. I love, I think. Looking back at it now, I love the underdog, because you don't get the attention Even sometimes. Being from Birmingham, a natural underdog, art school council, going against the grain, not caring what other people think, all these different things. Yeah, I guess it's easy to see these correlations and patterns in hindsight. Yes, but I think what happened ultimately is that I was forced to learn how to to apply the skills that I found natural. So the creative skills, the art school skills. I didn't care what other people thought about doing an art degree. I was just focused on what's right in front of me.

Speaker 1 23:55

Looking back now, things just started to emerge. There wasn't some deliberate plan, would you say. You've opened doors for yourself in that respect, yeah, I think sometimes the doors get open. It's your job to just slam your heel in and get the door ajar and then you've got it, you've got. Sometimes you've got to because we are sat here talking about local council and people are probably sat there going well, some guy who works in hr and local council, why have you got him on? And I was like, well, because that's not where it. No, that's all. That's the start of the journey, almost, isn't it the new journey? When I do tour, often I start off with the line I'm a Brummie, I'm a dad, I'm a two-point-sized dictator at home, and I learned everything about HR on the coalface in local government during a recession, when it couldn't be any harder. So it's sort of my social proof to go. Actually, I've done the real tough stuff in HR. I've got the art degrees from a creativity point perspective. Without those I would not be able to do what I do now. So I guess what I'm trying to do is I want you to start name dropping, because once you left local council, this is where much bigger doors started to open for you, right, yeah, and the skill set that you've developed? I'm guessing, yeah, looking back now it's a bigger door, because where it ended up at the time, it was just another door. So I left land government.

Speaker 1 25:15

I remember writing something down why I wanted to leave what I wanted. Everyone was telling me I'd never leave. What did you write down? I want to work in a company that invests as much in me as I do in it. And I was on the balcony in our hotel in Ibiza where we'd just taken Matilda one of her first holidays. She had a daughter, she was two and a half, and I just wrote it down. I go, this is what I'm after.

Speaker 1 25:37

Got back, someone called me, acquired a junior job, first HR hire in a startup-ish company, and everyone was telling me you'll never leave local government. You'll never work for a big corporate. Your CV's tarnished. You've got an art degree in local government and a big gap when you went travelling. The CV's not perfect, but I didn't care, so I went for it. And what was that? It was GIFCAF. So it was a small little mobile firm. I hadn't even heard of them at the time. I had to keep it clear and I was in a serious HR meeting where we were just about to fire somebody. I was in a suit I had to run out of that meeting, walk into this office that blew me away, which is all sort of, dare I say, lava lamps and beanbags and cliche Startup. Everyone's in t-shirts and shorts. I'm there in a suit, quickly, with my tie off and everyone's on laptops. Completely different environments. More art school in the corporate world. About 30 40 people there in Uxbridge in a let office above hurts the higher company, so they're quite put a five, six year old company mobile phone trying to disrupt the mobile market.

Speaker 1 26:46

Do things differently Because, as we sit here now, everyone GIFGAF is a household name, isn't it? But can you just give me a little bit of a timeline? How long ago is this when you first went into GIFGAF? So people can get a 2015, early 2016,. I started GIFGAF, yeah, 10 years ago. So I, I started GIFGAF, yeah, 10 years ago. So I walk in.

Speaker 1 27:05

The one thing I do at every interview or tells me I over prepare, I over research. I put in the most prepared person in an interview because I care. I was like this is my chance. This is a chance to get out of the council, and I've done this through my life. If there's a window of opportunity, a sliver, I will take it, I'll do the work, I'll be on point, I'll practice all the questions. I'll do what it takes. I'll work harder than anybody else because this opportunity won't be given to me again and I look like a idiot because I'm in a suit and I walk in interview with the ceo, his laptop's on a couple of books. We sit in an interview room, tough questions, but our passion just shines through. He saw a way. I was the first people hire, hr hire Wanted to do things a bit differently.

Speaker 1 27:55

What fit in with a disruptive company and it just serendipitously lined up with my belief system around the future of HR. All these things that you've been learning, trying to implement in local council but maybe being shot down. This was the place. This was someone just going. This is a gift horse. This is like wow, you are now going to try all the things. You believe that someone's going to go give you a shot. Yeah, we don't want HR like HR. We've got to do things differently. What does that look like in GIFGAF? Tough, without me taking most of this time on this podcast, but it's essentially.

Speaker 1 28:29

Gifgaf was a disruptive growth business that needed to make money. It needed to do things differently and rebel against the status quo of what mobile networks were. To take you back to 10 years ago. Mobile contracts they're like you pay 150 quid a month, you come back from holiday. It was just archaic, a bit like how banks were. So they needed to do things differently.

Speaker 1 28:50

And gift gap realised they had something special. Like all start-ups do all companies do. They have an idea, they find the product, market fit. They go out to customers. Customers love it or hate it. Then they start growing and they just don't know what to do. So they have to start hiring people. And they start hiring more and more people. So it's like a club filling up with more and more people. Then suddenly you don't get to catch up with those people anymore. So suddenly you realize actually we've got something special here. They call it the secret sauce.

Speaker 1 29:16

There's something magical happening in this room that nobody else can emulate, and that isn't the product and that isn't the technology and that isn't the marketing and that isn't the brand. It's the people. People define a company good people, bad people, communication every problem is a people problem. So they knew this, but they didn't know what to do. So they needed someone to figure this out on the fly with them and that, essentially, was my job to go. Actually, how do we build? We were building a better mobile company. We're doing stuff that nobody ever has done before in mobile and technology no contracts, no contact centers. This is a while ago and completely disruptive, so you'd expect it to behave differently under the hood.

Speaker 1 30:01

So, from a people perspective, like you just start questioning how you do I'm not going to go to the boring hr stuff but you simply create an environment where people can do their best work and get out of their way and you suddenly realize all the problems you have in the corporate business world are self-imposed by bullshit rules that don't even need to exist in the first place. Can you give us a small example of that? Okay, let's give us something really simple. Like at the council, you'd have to clock in and clock out your hours on the timesheet and an Excel spreadsheet when you got in, when you went for a piss, when you left, and clock it all up and send it to your boss to prove that you've done your hours. If it was done by when you'd done the hours, had you done the work. We didn't need to monitor where everybody was.

Speaker 1 30:44

We suddenly realized actually we want to build a great company that does great stuff and moves fast, and to do that you need to have people who, psychologically, are passionate about what they do. Obviously, on my master's, I'd learned all about the psychological contract and the psychology of discretional behavior how to get people to do more than they're paid to do. How do you get people to do more than they're paid to do? How do you get people to do more than they're paid to do? If you love anything, you always well, it's that thing, isn't it? If you don't work a day in your life, if you love what you do, you don't stop. You don't know. Oh, it's five o'clock, so that's one of the simplest of terms clocking in, clocking out, you could argue. Now the same dilemma is happening with where they work. Do we need an, an office? Do you work from home? Who cares? It's about the output. How do we create an environment where people do the best work of their life? The company is successful in whatever terms you define that.

Speaker 1 31:33

This was growth, money, revenue, profit. And how can you do that in a way that people aren't treated like they are out of the industry era? The world is changing. Most companies operate and most of the world operates as if we're still in the industrial era, clock in, clock out. You are paid for the time to input the work In a more knowledge era that we're in now, where it doesn't matter how long it takes. Take the boiler person that comes over and fixes your boiler. Do you care if it takes 10 minutes or 10 hours? It doesn't matter if it charges 100 quid, you want as long as it's fixed, it's. It's that old analogy, but now we're in this economy.

Speaker 1 32:13

So gif, gaf, gave, was the. What was that like for you to to start implementing the ideas? Was that exciting for you? All the ideas that you've been wanting to do on the masters that almost have been shot down in local council? It was exciting in a petrifying way, but was it a sort of a validation of? Oh, I get to see this in action Now, retrospectively, at the time when your boss, the CEO, who you meet every week, is then asking you to do something that you may have never done before, and they're the answer to how do we become the most engaged company in the UK.

Speaker 1 32:51

In other words, how do we make sure our people have more love, passion, sense of belonging whatever word you want to use for this company, because we know that that correlates with being successful and happy people. Happy company happy is the right word psychologically engaged and committed Wow, that's quite an expansive question that I can't answer in a one-to-one. But guess what? What did I do? Went home, worked like a fucking trooper, researched it, read it. That's why my house looks like the British Library, book after book after book, to find the answer. Spoke to anybody I knew who knew a slither of the answer. Again, going back to these research things that you didn't like at university, that's now almost like the passion and heart of your job. Yeah, it's like art school. Obviously I knew the answer. I thought I knew the answer. Here's the brief. There we go, paint it. Answer here's the brief, there we go, paint it. But actually these are complex problems. How do we solve a complex problem?

Speaker 1 33:50

In hindsight, this is a bit of an off piece question. In hindsight, if you have this joy for the research and stuff in the past tense at university, do you think it would have been something very different that you would have come out and done, potentially, with an arts career? Definitely, I don't know first, and that first would probably open some different doors and I probably would have sort of a masters in art ironically, which one hr degree was and probably gone down. More of a pure art route maybe, but that's the butterfly effect, that's the fork in the road, it's the ripples. I wouldn't have changed it for the world, but it's so beautiful.

Speaker 1 34:26

Looking back now and joining the Ducks, you know, wow, all these random detours that seemed illogical and random at the time. It was just my gut going lean into it, let's go with this Makes sense and are so beautifully unique to me. Now, just the art degree. Masters in hi. These are polar. We know in our the juxtaposition of two completely different things can produce something completely beautiful.

Discovering HR and Finding Purpose

Speaker 1 34:55

The innovation is putting two different things in two different worlds together and mixing something up. Whether it's heston bloom and talbot is baking his ice cream, it's, it's that. And I was just doing this. I was just drawn to what I liked, what I wanted to do, not what anyone was telling me to do, and just going with the flow and sales were quite arrogant at the time, but actually just beautifully naive and very lazy. Just follow my feet, follow my heart, don't ever think it.

Speaker 1 35:21

And when the fun stops, stop, I mean because you were at GIFGA for a long time, weren't you? And quite an integral time within the company, as it was growing from this relatively small, unknown business to the behemoth that it is now. Yeah, money terms you're talking, I don't know, probably 10x in size and finished on half a billion in revenue. So how much money it makes in a year. But you'd expect a company of that sort of size to have thousands of people. We've still had like 200 because of the research we've done around dunbar's number, this professor from oxford who says that groups of people, once they go above a certain number, become inefficient.

Speaker 1 35:58

So we built a lot of gif, half around small little groups. Teams shouldn't really be bigger than a five. Any more than five a committee can't make a decision, companies shouldn't be that much bigger and all these things that everyone else was doing. So we weren't actually that clever. We just saw what wasn't working for other people and went how can we move fast, have fun, be engaged, get stuff done, because really high-performing people and successful people don't want to have hoops to jump that don't make any sense, like approval processes, budget meetings. Computer says no. They just want to be given the stuff to do their job and get on with it Like parents. You don't have to cut them all the kids. You've got to create the boundaries, really the environment where people can do their best work. And that's the kind of stuff I learned and I now take that to how do we create the ultimate environment for individuals to do the best work, teams to do the best work? And if you play around and think with this, you can stop operating like a local government or a corporate company and you can do your best work. But I know what you're going to ask next.

Speaker 1 37:05

But it comes down to being creative and being able to go against the grain. Most creatives like to go against the grain. I remember art school. It's where everyone dresses in their own quirky quirky in their own unique sense because they want to go against the grain. They want to be ahead of the trend, they want to capture the zeit. They are the zeitgeist before the trend See what goes big. You look at what happened in an art school. You see what the trend was coming next. So you suddenly know, oh wow, I was taking this into the world of work. So I was comfortable being uncomfortable. I was comfortable trying things. I was lucky enough to have the permission to try it by reporting straight to the ceo so he didn't have to micromanage.

Speaker 1 37:48

And when you say in a massive company that's got thousands and thousands of employees, that probably wouldn't happen. No, it wouldn't happen. It wouldn't happen. In the, in local governments, you weren't even allowed to talk to people above your level, not in your department. Really, it's just, you don't go and speak to the head of planning and it's just. Oh wow, this is like industrial era way of working, archaic, like you say, everyone's following the plan, no one's questioning the plan. So I did rumble a lot of people the wrong way, in council, everywhere.

Speaker 1 38:19

Really, what I like is when you, when you start asking questions, no one asks questions. Why are we doing this? I asked the team why we're doing something. They've been doing it for seven years, don't know why they're doing it, don't know what it's for. It says, wow, it's madness. You ask questions. You want to get to the fundamental truth of the problem. Because you want to get to the truth of the problem, I want to solve the solution. But some people just want to clock in, clock out. That's fine. No criticism there. I wanted to HR better, build better companies, design better lives. And actually that's where the art school comes in Design, the beauty of design, and, ironically, one of the things I sell is design thinking, the stuff I did naturally now sell that into business.

Speaker 1 39:00

What was the catalyst for you and how long were you at GIFGAF and what was the catalyst that went right? I've done my time here. It's time to. So I so there for five and a half years, which was, it's, probably a career's worth of work, because I was like it's like dog ears. The stuff you get through in that time is that because it's a startup and it's finding its way and it's still got that experiment, it's not got the routines and the the methods in place. There's a bit of that and it's the people you're with. So you're on a rocket ship. It's going fast and it's part of it. It's like, if you imagine you're you, my dad always said you join a growing business that you don't really need to do much, you're just growing with the business. You'll ride the wave. But in a growing business that people are growing as well and you start to really compound your progression, your learning, you go wow, you start to really see yourself pull away from where you were last year. So five years of GIFGAF were like dark years, so that was like a 20-year career.

Speaker 1 40:01

The stuff I did, stuff you got involved with, because you've got access to senior people who just want to crack on and get stuff done and I didn't really think about it Again. To answer your question, why did it come to an end? It's because all of the stuff that I've done has come to an end. I used to create a bit of a diary where I used to ask myself each week am I inspired, am I learning, am I having fun, are there things that are important to me? And as soon as one of those goes, I address it. So there's two of those, those I address it. If all of them go for a certain period of time, I address it. And that means pull the ejector seat and sometimes, when you're growing at a growth company, you may outgrow the company. If you won't grow out, outgrow the company, you can either coast and do things with your eyes closed or go on to the next adventure. So so in what way did you think you outgrew Giffgaff?

Speaker 1 40:52

Well, most companies go through what you'd call like an S-curve of development. They grow really quick and they plateau off and they have to come up with a new product and go again. Giffgaff was getting to the point where you are pretty big. People were paying more attention to us In the headlines a bit more. We're on the TV a bit more. The parent company, o2, and the grandparent telephonic were paying more interest because we were a big part of what they do. So then we started to meddle. Then along came the merge between Virgin Media and O2. I was like, well, that's an exit point. This isn't going to be the kind of place that I'm going to be able to continue to do my best work in the creative sense. But do you think you've done some of your best work at GIFGAP For them? I think I've done the best work for them.

Speaker 1 41:37

I think you either build stuff, maintain stuff or dismantle stuff in the corporate world, and I was a builder, hence the creativity. Design stuff, build stuff that's why you see founders sell their companies and exit, and stuff. That's why you see founders sell their companies and exit and a few people who are respected and admired had moved on. So that's another flag. You have to watch the signs around you, what's happening. You have to take control of your own life and design it so as a wall.

Speaker 1 42:03

It's really hard to quit a job that you love. But covid helped because that gave me the opportunity to start to think and plan my next move, because when you love something, you're really busy and doing something, you don't really think about what next. I never did, I never thought about what next fucking loving what I'm doing. Stick at it as soon as the love goes and the phone goes. Then I'll go figure out. Yeah, it's great when you're young, that's a good when you're older, because it's too big a gap in the middle. But to me, gave me this opportunity to reflect on what's really important and to start to apply all these skills to what I've learned and what was really important for you at that moment family. Probably by far I've done my career. I feel like I'd moved away from being the artist, the council worker. I've got a big name on the CV that was growing, that I could ride the wave of, and it's still a great company now and the people there are running it. It's brilliant. So, wow, I've now left.

Speaker 1 42:57

But while you were at GIFGA, that opened. Being the head of people at GIFGA opened some doors, whether that's corporate speaking or events or things like that, right, yeah, well, that's what happens when something gets famous. Yeah, everyone wants a piece of you. Everyone wants to know how. Why, exactly? It wasn't me. You learn this when you leave a big company. It's not you, it's the company they want to gif-gaf, sell some of them gif-gafs here. So, yeah, he opened some great doors and Said yes to all of them. Some of them I didn't ask permission for. What was some of the opportunities that arose, personal opportunities, almost for you, as a result of Speaking gigs. It's a gift. I've got famous as a successful business.

Speaker 1 43:40

People wanted to know how to operate under the hood, because my master's degree was a HR degree, I started embracing the HR community and they wanted to know what I was doing differently. So I started going to events, speaking at events, which was new to me public speaking. Were you quite a groundbreaker in that HR world at that point? Everyone sort of doing it in that similar archaic fashion that the council was, oh, yeah, groundbreaker. Yes, thanks, mate. I'll put that on my LinkedIn. Yes, I'd say actually the disruptor, but I had the confidence I was no longer that young kid who'd go. We can do this different, we can do this better, but not knowing how, why, or having the credentials to back it up. I'm doing it. I've done this. So they got me in to speak about my work.

Speaker 1 45:00

How do you create a company, how you implemented all these things, how do you build an engagement strategy? What do you use? How come you don't have any tribunals tribunals when it goes really bad and the employee takes a company to court and you're in front of a judge. Yeah, it's an employment tribunal. And what sort of numbers are you speaking to? Is this thousands? Yeah, thousands, actually. Please just remind me.

Speaker 1 45:23

One of my last really big speaking gig was on the stage where we graduated at university, at the centenary hall in Birmingham. It was just mind-blowing. I'm just about to go on the stage before the CEO of Big Issue did the closing keynote for a HR director conference. I'm in Birmingham, my hometown where I graduated, and it's this massive imposter syndrome. Really, am I just doing something differently? What's so special about what I do?

Speaker 1 45:50

But once you've done something differently and it works, that is useful, because often people don't know. Even now. If I knew someone was like the answer to the problem I currently have. If someone told me that, it'd save me doing the research. It'd save you a lot of time so you suddenly don't have to get over yourself and go like it's no longer you on stage with an idea. It's you on stage with an idea, with proof, with a story, and you're just telling people not, here's a better way, here's how I did it. Yeah, so here's what we do. Here's how we do it. Open source it, borrow and steal. So when you do one, people start asking you to more. Start building your network. It's great for your credibility, doors start opening and even though you've achieved it, there's still, like you said earlier, that level of imposter syndrome a little bit. It's never going to go away.

Speaker 1 46:42

I asked my CEO this Giff, one of the greatest speakers I've ever worked with. I was like Ash, does the imposter syndrome go away? Do the nerves ever go? He said no, you just learn to roll with them and you end up doing bigger and bigger gig. The nerves will always be there.

Speaker 1 46:58

I got lucky. What'd you do in that? Do you reframe in that situation? Reframe the imposter syndrome as oh, this is just something new, rather than because we talk about that a lot? I also got lucky that just before some of my biggest speaking gigs, I got married and I was the best man.

Speaker 1 47:14

So I had two of the biggest speeches of my life to give, one, luckily with you. So actually that was if you can do that, you can do anything. That's a group of your friends. The best man speech was like one of the hardest you can do. That you can talk to a group of people and never go see you again. In a small room can be more complicated than a big room, because I can see your face coming to expression or your body language a group of thousands of people. But our best man speech was still probably the greatest speech exactly. So, on the back of that, speaking gigs are no problem, yeah.

Speaker 1 47:42

So, yeah, I did a year of them and, like you say you do over prepare for everything. Yeah, I would say over prepare at the last possible minute. So why the last possible minute? Uh, I never knew why. That was just me, yeah, leaving everything to the last minute. So I was the last to do this, the last of that, but I always got a dunch. So people always say you be prepared more, you'll probably get better grades or you'll have so much potential, all this sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 48:07

But then I realized I needed to use that and actually, the more and more I researched into it. I use this in my work now that anything important that can be delayed should be delayed until the last possible opportunity. So if you're doing a presentation, doing it early would be logical. Getting it done, tick done. But, john's, please, is our beautiful book about this really really short book about creativity and just leave it to the last possible minute, because you're maximizing the opportunity for ideas and often an idea comes to you the last moment.

Speaker 1 48:40

So there's something I've learned to embrace my natural approach and laid back last minute, joe, and actually that was a something where it was beautifully useful for creativity. So what I do now is I deliberately don't give myself enough time and I'm slightly out of my comfort zone. So I'm slightly out of my comfort zone under pressure, yeah, so I deliberately put myself out of my comfort zone in regards to can I do this? Feels a bit uncomfortable, could break me not. Oh, this is easy and not enough time. It's called parkinson's law. So your work will fill the time you give it. So, yeah, without going to that. So, but looking back at that, that was just natural creativity last minute. Turn it in late. Imagine if you had more time turns out. If you have more time, it wouldn't be any better. You'd procrastinate more.

Speaker 1 49:27

Yeah, I'm sure they did some experiment where there was an art or craft teacher that told one half of the class they've just got to produce as many pots on the pot as well as they possibly can. And then they told the other half of the class you've got to produce one incredible pot at the end of the season or end of the semester or whatever it was, if we're talking in American terms, and the quality of the people that produced and produced, and produced, and produced were far higher than the ones that sat there and ruminated and, oh, I could do this and I could have this curve in the vials and I could have this. I think they're essentially and it's also that, on by doing over and over again, you iron out the mistakes that you made when you first put some clay in a pot. Yeah, if that's the analogy we're going to go. Yeah, exactly, I think.

Speaker 1 50:08

Reflecting on my career, I think I'm one of those unpick creativity and unpick research. It, prove it, justify it and create a method for it, because it's what the business world needs. It lacks, and that's creativity. So I think I've spent a lot of time researching what I knew and anyone who went to art school and just naturally does leave things to the last minute how they come up with these creative ideas, the thinking, the research, the sort of mulling over, the chewing over all these things that are surprisingly in an art school. Everyone's like, oh, this is how we are. I throw'm afraid this is how everyone behaves. You suddenly get to step yourself into a different room, a corporate room, a business room. They are, I guess, the worst frowned upon, the best desired, because it's the one thing that you don't often associate business with being creative, being corporates of being creative. So how does that creativity translate then?

Speaker 1 51:07

Did you have a plan as such when you left gift death or was it again one of those things? I'll just follow my feet and see what. This is where you've got more at stake. I've got kids, I've got a house. You can't just follow your feet so much. And yeah, because you've got matilda and rowan at this point. Yeah, two kids got a mortgage, so you gotta go. Well, I still need to have a bit of jump and the net will appear. It's one of the best advice I've got when I was leaving leap and the net will appear Thanks, robbie. And also have a bit of a plan, a bit of an idea of your options. And this then comes back to my. Now I've done other side connections, the creative strategists. You're just weighing up all the different options. You're doing the research.

Speaker 1 51:47

So what were your options when you left Bicka? My options were go work for a bigger company, become a people director and a bigger corporate, be a consultant, work for another consultancy firm set up. On my cell I started mapping out all the things I could do, because some of you are in demand You'd map out your final piece. Map out it's like a strategist does now. Here's all the options on the continue, what I could do. And then I just started thinking about them. I just started to go lockdown, made it hard to test some of them, but I knew then I wanted to leave because I'd seen what was next.

Speaker 1 52:18

You put in this research skill into place again around your options, again your research strategy, creativity, whatever you want to call it, it's the same sort of thing. You're seeing what's available to you and picking the best option. That's interesting, the best option for you. It's quite liberating because you can see where your back stops are and where you can fall back on. And then you have to take a leap of faith. And what was your leap of faith? Just quitting, just quitting with six months worth of money.

Speaker 1 52:44

And the plan was just see what came next. Start reaching out to my network, telling them what I'm doing. And as soon as you tell them what you're doing, they're like oh, you don't want to forgive Jeff anymore. Oh, can we have a conversation about this? And that was my hypothesis and that sort of worked. So who was calling you up? Well, it seems quite serendipitous at the time, as if it was planned, but it wasn't. It was like when you're working in a big company and everyone wants your advice, you know that you don't charge them because the company's paying you. So it's constant free advice, free dinners, free consultancy, free man's calling up can you help? Soon as you quit, it changes for the better, for the worse. People then go oh, you've quit, gift guy. And hopefully they say oh, can you help me? Yeah, cool.

Speaker 1 53:30

So I had a call from my old boss, from gift guy uh tom, who was the one of the founders, brand director, and he was like how, like, what are you doing now? What are you up to do? You want to meet my boss? And he was at the brewery beaver town and I was like, yeah, cool again. What I did next went to research, road research, tom's boss and knew who he was. I knew who knew him. Uh, I spent time but did some research, like thinking about it, and this is a window, this is a door, I'm gonna take it. And beaver town again a brand now most people, especially in the uk, will know. But at that point, trying to compete in a huge alcohol market yeah, massive, like you've got brew dog, I suppose I opened the door first.

Speaker 1 54:14

They went particular paths and then logan sent a beaver town and did it in slightly different way, different approach good beer, great beer, actually gonna do well, the product's great, company's great, and then again got to a similar sort of size. So when I met logan and they were at a stage where they had similar to when I joined gifco actually which if you start a company you don't know if you're gonna be successful they call it finding the product market fit. Same as an artist you produce some work, you don't know if anyone wants to buy it or not. And so that's what happened with Beaver Town. They got to the point where, wow, we're pretty big, and so they were so big. They were at the point where Heineken got involved and Heineken had just bought half of their business. Wow, which enabled them to build their huge, ridiculously big brewery in Enfield, which enabled them to grow even quicker and faster. So they're at a pivotal stage.

Speaker 1 55:08

Tom has been there for a few years building the brand. That's what he did Brilliant, probably one of the best brand people I know, absolutely phenomenal. What's his name? Sorry, tom Rainsford. So Tom built Givgaff's brand. That was him. He was one of the founders, he was your guest, he was the brand. Yeah, good looking old of him. I know I'm out. Yeah, yeah, let me, let me see what I could do. So tom was building the brand. You have nicola and a few others building the beer. So that's the product.

Speaker 1 55:36

And again, what tom realized and london realizes often nobody's looking after the people. You're hiring more people, hiring more brewers, like if I've hired more engineers. Then suddenly you get to the stage where is everybody? Why is there so many people? Why are nobody listening? Who's that? Who's she, who's he?

Speaker 1 55:51

You go past that Dunbar's number, past the Dunbar's number, wow, and then suddenly people don't scale like everything else does. You can sell more beer, open more outlets, get more lawyers on the road. Technology, fire up more the road. That are the technology fireable, service high-bore engineers, people. The more people in a room becomes more complicated to communicate. Getting work done relies on communication. So as a business evolves, how people operate have to evolve in it.

Speaker 1 56:15

So they knew we need to get out. So we need to solve this culture we need. We haven't got a culture, we need to build it. We don't. Anybody knows culture and you've proven you can do that.

Disrupting Corporate Culture at Giffgaff

Speaker 1 56:23

So I've done it with tom before. Tom was only one I know man, so I met them. We had a couple of conversations. Then I met jochen from the heineken side and told him what I know what's what you were doing at beaver town? The same, similar or different to what you were doing at gift gas? And if so, how? Because obviously different products. But is the, the method still the same? It's similar. This is very similar to an artist who creates a new era of work Can't think of one off the top of my head, but sort of like Van Gogh when he did the one of the Japanese stuff. It's got elements of the same, but it's a different company, different conditions.

Speaker 1 57:00

You've gone through COVID this isn't cookie cutting. My mentor, covid, this isn't cookie cutting. I made it to the senate to be beautifully, brilliantly, and he went oh, you need a second album. So you've got to write a second album. How you build a company and how you do all these things are so different. Now, because of covid, the company's different. You go from mobile to brewing the world's different. This is during, just at the end of covid, breweries weren't doing too well, not a a bad second album, though. Beavertown, oh, exactly, phenomenal. So it's like, wow, yeah, I've got Beavertown on the CV and just lent into it. Go, no preconceived ideas. I've got a load of experience of how we do this, but I'm not going to be. We did this at GIFGAP, so we do this.

Speaker 1 57:41

You have to go in, you learn, you understand the business, the problems. So research, figuring out the fundamental problems, what you need. You're not here to quickly come in and build a culture. You have to go and understand what the problem is and understand the business and understand how beer is made and understand how it all works and how all the teams work to spot all the problems and spot all the mistakes or spot all the opportunities to improve it. The old-fashioned term is get the barnacles off the boats. So if you want the boat to go faster, take the barnacles off the boat. You don't need to just put bigger engines in. So there's a little bit of that. Let's have a look at this. That's an interesting. But look at how the people system works. Watch your culture.

Speaker 1 58:25

What are the things we did at Gift Cafe that could work here? What you need and as a company gets bigger, it needs clarity, it needs to be aligned. So everyone needs to know what are we doing here? Are we just making beer? Or is it extraordinary beer drunk on earth? What is it? What's our purpose? What's our story? Who's Logan?

Speaker 1 58:50

Some people are probably joining and never meeting logan, not knowing who he is and what he did and what his story and how he created billy patel. Everyone else knew that. So it was kifka, but you have to codify it. But, like you say, as the business grows, they just see the, the successful business. They don't see the logan in a shed toasting beers on his own going. Is this even going to work? Exactly, you start to become. I would just make him beer. It's the same as every other brewery. So as you get to this inflection point, as the business grows, I see it's the same as if you had a family once you passed. Once you pass two kids, it becomes absolute chaos. You have to adapt.

Speaker 1 59:18

What systems do you think that were the most useful that you were helping to implement within beaver town? Clarity as you get bigger, you need to be clearer and that clarity needs to cascade. Corporate term. Everyone needs to know what are we doing? We're not just making beer. Why are we doing it? How are we doing it? So everyone needs clarity.

Speaker 1 59:40

How do you, as a, the head of people or whatever it is, make sure that everyone has got that clarity? I'm in there, I was going in a slightly different. So the head of people or whatever it is, make sure that everyone has got that clarity. I mean there, I was going in a slightly different so the head of people at GIFGAR. If I was full time when I went across to Beaver Town, it was through my own company, alchemy Labs, so I was one advisor working with the leadership team, so I wasn't in a full time job, so I was just advising them on what they needed to do and then doing it because I had nothing. Them on what they needed to do and then doing it because they have nothing.

Speaker 1 1:00:06

So we started putting the things in place that we know were important when you got to that scale. So even just how you all come together in a theater style community environment to talk about the business, some businesses would just talk about charts and numbers and sales. Other businesses talk emotional, storytelling, exciting. So you have to start to put these in place. You've got 200 people. Does that depend on the character traits of the people working in the business? Yes, whether you go, oh, we need to do a bit more statistical and charts wise, or we need to give these people a story. Or yeah, you, you have to come in and start thinking about do people really care about this business? We've got to a particular size. We've hired like crazy. We've only just getting going. Is everyone invested in this, as some people are Not just the founders, and after the answer's no, as you get bigger, you have to start looking at the data, asking people, running surveys, trying to understand the pulse of the business, to go actually.

Speaker 1 1:01:03

Do you know why BFAT exists? Do you know what's expected of you? Do you know you're contributing part to this and you start unpicking this and getting some data, getting some insight, and you start to realize what are the things that need to be done. You start to you ask the people. Really simple terms. You ask the people, you do the research, you find the problem. Yeah, you do the research, you find the problem. Yeah, you do the research, you find the problem.

Speaker 1 1:01:24

Ask the people a certain set of questions, spend time with them. You watch, you learn, you go actually you play that to the big bosses. Good luck, you want to grow. You want to make more money, you want it to be easier? Well, some of your people haven't got a clue what they're doing. They've been managed by people who don't know where we're going. They don't know what the year plan is. They don't know what the strategic plan is. They don't know what the numbers are. They don't know what products are coming down the pipeline. They don't know who logan is. They don't know this. They're just a hamster on a wheel. They're not the way to be told what to do. So all you're doing is aligning that.

Speaker 1 1:01:57

And that came from I learned in hr. So every problem is a people problem and every people problem is often boiled down to a miscommunication problem. So if you don't get the outcome you want when you're in a conversation with someone, it's probably down to you, not them. But in this world, how often do you have another conversation with someone? He didn't fucking get it. I was his fault, it's her fault, blame, blame division. Once you embrace that you are the problem and you are the opportunity, you can change how you communicate it, how, when, the timing of the delivery of your ask, the influence, the persuasion of it and this goes back to the psychology you were talking about wrapped up within hr. I'm guessing how you deliver something. It's I mean, I'm a crew. It's like the shit sandwich is one that I would say. Yeah, you know, two compliments surrounding some bad news. Yeah, you're really great, matt, but it's like the shit sandwich of feedback.

Speaker 1 1:02:52

You start to realize the composition of creating a great company, and a company is just a collection of people. If a company is a collection of people who are focused on making beer, making mobile, making phones, making settings, whatever it is, that's their job. To create those people, to efficiently create value for the markets, the company profits so they can stay in employment. Simple, but people are people. People are about shit going on in their lives.

Speaker 1 1:03:20

The world's crazy. There's so much going on. So you've got these dare I say irrational resources in a crazy. There's so much going on, so you've got these dare I say irrational resources in a business. There's so much going on with all these needs. They can't be treated like a machine switch off, switch off. We don't work in eight hour, nine hour days or whatever it is anymore. It's always quite crazy. So you've got to figure out what the conditions are you need to create With business so those people do their jobs, get them done in the least amount of time, so the business wins, the people have a life, they can go home and everybody wins.

Speaker 1 1:03:53

And as the business gets bigger, this becomes more and more complicated and you think you know what you're supposed to be doing. So the number one question when I've done any survey is you ask people do you know what's expected of you? So anyone who works for you if anyone's got anyone who works on do they truly five out of five, ten out of ten, hundred percent know clearly what's expected this week, this month, this year? Often it's not. Most people are flying by the seat of their pants, waiting to be told what to do, just waiting for the paycheck at the end of the paycheck. So if you can increase the amount of how clear people are on what they're doing, guess what? They can just get on with doing it. You don't have to monitor them, they just get the job done. They can work from home, they can do all this sort of stuff. So increasing that metric directly correlates with the engagement of the people, which directly correlates with making more money.

Speaker 1 1:04:40

And if you make more money, everyone's happy. It's sort of that simple. You look at the metrics, you look at the research. You're constantly tweaking. It's not as simple as happy people, happy business. So essentially that's what I was doing at Beaver Town and what I did at GIFGAF and what I do through Alchemy Labs at the moment. What other brands have you found yourself with? Because we should talk about now, because obviously now you have your own entity, alchemy labs. Yeah, so alchemy labs was set up after living gift gaff, beaver town were the first clients. I was mostly there for three months, stayed there for two years and just rolled on because then the merchant business growing business.

Speaker 1 1:05:16

If you're good at what you do, you end up sticking around and go, hey, how can you do this? Hey, I can do this. So I really got to test out some of the things because I didn't want to be a one-hit wonder. And, like we said, great second album, great second album. I was feeling like an imposter. I had to prove it to myself. You leave the big company, are you anybody? I think we're still the same. I'm self-produced. It's like you realize, it's not you, it's the brand, and you start to then go down this route. So you have to prove it again. The world's changed, just cannot do it again. Awkward second album. So did it? Lent into it that opened some more doors, stayed there for a couple of years, did some work whilst I was there, and then what I really started to do is go. What difference do I make? What do I bring? Because I'm no longer a job, I'm a contracts and day rates. I'm going to put a price and essentially, with what you do, the rate on investment, the return on investment, is somewhat invisible.

Speaker 1 1:06:13

The oh, the, the contentness of the happiness of the people in the company. How do you measure that? Or well, um, or is it all measured by output? If they've got a higher output, like you say everyone in the company, usually if they're happier they'll work harder. Yeah, it definitely goes deeper than happiness. It's about true engagement, because you can be happy but not productive, happy but not successful. It's deep, it's engagement, it's psychological commitment. So if you believe that you're 150 people, if you increase their psychological commitment, their engagement with the business, they will do more work Not more work, actually better work. Well then I can help you. If you think people are just a resource, you can turn them bad, binge and purge, use up.

Speaker 1 1:07:02

If you look at the term human resources, do you treat people like resources for humans? Yeah, I could have gone down the roads of working with businesses and I'll go in and fire loads of people. I'll do restructures, I'll make loads of people redundant, I'll cut costs, I'll save you millions of quid. I can get rid of people and make sure you're not in a tribunal, jesus. No, that doesn't go in my belief. So I'll only work with the companies who think there's a better way. I think there's a different way. If they don't, I don't care. I'm not working with them because it's not going to work. So a lot of businesses because they. We treat people like resources clocking, clock out, micromanaging, spyware on your laptops to watch your keystrokes, all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 1:07:42

But really, if the belief of being really clear on what we're doing, really clear on why this business exists, really clear on where it's going, really clear on what matters and really clear on what your job is towards that. Hey Matt, this is your job. Here's where we're going. You're super important. You're a vital cog in the wheel. Don't do all these different things. Yeah, focus on this. So focusing people on the problem and getting this stuff out of their way. As a company, you can move so fast as it cuts through bureaucracy, all that sort of stuff. Yes, arguably it's invisible, but most investments are nowadays. But it's impactful. Does that become tricky if you're pitching to new clients that perhaps don't know your worth or your social proof as it is, or most of your clients coming in because they've already seen what you're doing.

Speaker 1 1:08:32

Some you often don't know how to pull out the big dogs and say I've done this, but that doesn't always guarantee the work. Often people come in to you with a problem what we were talking about earlier. When you burst a water pipe in the house, you've got a problem. You just want someone who's got the solution. Who knows how to solve it. It's priceless. Someone who's done the work before someone who can do the job. There's the same idea. By doing it, you've given yourself that social. You've given yourself the permission and the credibility to go. I've solved your problems before. I've solved problems like yours before. I could potentially help you.

Speaker 1 1:09:09

And Giff Gaff great first album, beavertown's second album, and then you had a couple of if we're going on music analogy you've had some EPs where you've done big gigs During Beavertown. Beavertown took up a lot of the time I was getting work from Ernst Young. I did some stuff with them, did a keynote talk, all that group of their partners living from all over the world and they were staying at a lovely place in london and I had to do the opening talk and closing talk but ultimately what they wanted. They had a problem but I had a solution to. They were busy. They wanted to know what the future of work looked like. Give me the tips from what you've learned and all these businesses that are successful and how we need to operate as leaders. So you put everything together. You put all your lovely tracks together from your past two albums and put a little set list for them. So to say so, I did that and started working with just eat in amsterdam design thinkers in am, and then started picking up some work, because a core part of my job isn't just corporate work. That's one side, it's the corporate work.

Speaker 1 1:10:11

You work with businesses, I transform companies, work with teams and I coach individuals. Often the individuals I coach tend to be leaders in teams and companies, and all the problems are the same. You're unlocking creativity, you're unlocking growth, you're solving a problem. Problems are the same. You're unlocking creativity, you're unlocking growth. You're solving a problem. People are busy now, companies are busy now, teams are busy now, but they're busy, often doing the wrong stuff that doesn't produce. Imagine a factory super busy, smoke coming out of the turrets, loads of things happening, but what's coming out on the production line is like one little thing Very inefficient. But what's coming out on the production line is like one little thing very inefficient. So I sort of help companies design better places to work. I help teams unlock their greatness and I work with individuals to help them be the best versions of themselves. That sounds quite cliche, but we get in our own way. And all of these things I discovered at bb townado, gifgaf, with the component parts to what I do. So I've picked up more work with other clients. Finastra, brilliant tech firm in the banking sector, huge company, did loads of work with them with their leach development programs.

Speaker 1 1:11:18

My next question then, as you're doing this under the banner of alchemy labs, what does alchemy mean to you in this context? It's quite close to the true definition of Alchemy Labs. What does alchemy mean to you in this context? It's quite close to the true definition of alchemy. That's why I picked it, not because it's just AL and ALCH. It's something which is misunderstood. It's turning something that perceived no value into something of great value, turning lead into gold. It's a little bit of smoke, a bit of magic, a bit of art, a bit of science. You won't truly understand it, but you want the outcome. So sometimes the most complicated things in this world we don't understand. So just because you can't measure, it doesn't mean it doesn't matter. That's how I would say it. Other people would say if you can't measure, it doesn't matter. I can't remember which management guru said that. So my alchemy is that, and I think it's a true reflection of what I do.

Speaker 1 1:12:06

Is you have a complicated problem? Trust me with the solution. This is the journey we have to go on, but is the alchemy related to the fact that you're then mixing that creative thinking with business, corporate thinking? Put every, if you think about every time someone comes to you with a problem so you're an individual comes to be with a problem. A team comes to you with a problem, a company comes to you with a problem, the solution will have to be something creative because otherwise they would have tried it themselves, so it would have been logical. Well, they can't come up with ideas. You can't tell me a team of 150 people can't come up with ideas, so it's not just some. Oh, let's start, get a guy from art school could be creative. Sometimes the answer to all of those problems will be a creative solution, but often they already have the answer. A lot of the time the people who are doing the job have the answer. They're just too scared to share it.

Speaker 1 1:12:58

All of the work I did at gifgaf, a lot of it was me just crowdsourcing the solution. I'd say more what do you mean? Just going out to everybody and getting as many different opinions? Really really. Yeah, really really. Simply because GiveCommerce can really put the base of business. So my boss would say we need to be more innovative. So I'd put a card on everyone's desk saying how can we be more innovative and put it on a post box on my desk. By the end of the week I'd I stand up in front of the whole company.

Building the Second Album at Beavertown

Speaker 1 1:13:22

And this year it's about innovation, about doing things differently, breaking rules, being disruptive and we're doing some disruptive stuff and the leadership team have got some disruptive stuff. We want to know what you want to do, really empowering. Write it down, answer some of the postcards, stick it under the mirror on the way in, put it on my desk, put your name on it, if you want, and we'll start playing around with it. And a lot of the work came from that. It wasn't me, it wasn't some idea. I cooked up by reading my books or doing some research. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes it was a bonkers idea from the CEO or the CRO or what have you.

Speaker 1 1:13:54

But you're using the people to test it. You're hive-minded. You've got 150 brilliant people. You're giving them a problem. You're asking to come up with a solution. Yeah, so creative doesn't mean art school. Creative means how you think. These are engineers, designers, ux designers, technologists. All of them are solving problems. So the skills are the same Creativity, problem solving, problem solving, problem solving. So using those skills and allowing the business to solve the problem by using more creative solutions, figuring out which solutions are viable and which aren't.

Speaker 1 1:14:26

So, whether you're coaching a team or working with a company, what's the problem? What is the real problem? What Elon Musk said, the fundamental first principle. The first principle thinking what's the fundamental truth of the problem. Let's get that, not the surface level shit, the real problem. And then let's come up with all the different options creatively, using everybody's mind, to solve that problem, and then we will start figuring out what's viable and test them all. That's how successful businesses operate and that's how successful teams operate. That's how successful individuals operate. You could say scattered and guesswork. In the corporate world we call it A-B testing or experimentation. But if you're not rapidly prototyping or rapidly experimenting on different things, if something's successful like a chat-up line in the old days if it's successful, you use it again, if it's not, you drop it. That's how companies operate and that's what we have to create an environment of problem-solving, creative solutions, empowering people to move fast. And that's the same as if you work with an individual. How can you come up with more ideas to solve the problem? What's your problem? What are the options we can apply to solve that problem? Let's increase those options. Then let's see what's viable. Then let's start trying them out. Try, then. Let's start try them out. Try this, try this, try this and if it sticks, scale it, if it doesn't drop it.

Speaker 1 1:15:49

I took that approach to coaching people to help people run their selves and experiment and be successful. Does that lead us nicely on to? Because, let's face it, I think, from what I understand of the creative no land podcast audience, they're artists, creatives, entrepreneurs, goal setters. Yep, they want to achieve things. Yep, is there something that we can go through together that might be of? Not top tips, but a list of things that perhaps audience members who are starting up their own business, wanting to pursue their art career a bit more as a business rather than just a hobby yeah, I don't know quite what we'll call them, but Al's thinking points of the day yeah, yeah, I have done a lot of thinking and I've got some ideas and some thoughts, but essentially that's what people pay me for. Now that people senior leaders will pay me to coach them on how to be more successful.

Speaker 1 1:16:48

Well, I'm not going to pay you, but I want you on the podcast. Well, I'm here. Exactly that's what I want. I want the listeners to be able to. You want it Right, I didn't say it like that. I want 25 years of friendship. 25 years of friendship resulting in anyone that listens to this podcast getting some really useful information or things to them to think about, whether they are a solopreneur, a startup company, someone who's simply got an idea of how they want to live their life a little bit differently.

Speaker 1 1:17:17

The answer to your question is yes, but let me just frame it about this first. So we've talked a lot about my sort of commercial stuff, my giveuff stuff, the Beavytown stuff, the big corporate stuff, and I know a lot of that may not be relevant unless it's something to your audience, but it gives social proof, because essentially a lot of the work I do now sort of 50-50, is with individuals directly. So, whether it's startup founders, whether it's entrepreneurs, whether it's leaders in corporate businesses who just need to get unstuck, they want to grow and ultimately they, whether it's leaders in corporate businesses who just need to get unstuck, they want to grow and ultimately they want to find a better way. That's a good analogy get unstuck and after this that we need to get out of our own way and we know the answer. And also, ultimately, all the coach does sometimes is coach people to get that answer answer out. Sometimes I'm mentored. Just tell them and go hey, we did this, try this. So I do a lot of that. So I really focused this on that.

Speaker 1 1:18:07

You don't want to really know how to build a corporate engagement strategy. Let it be useful for any of your audience. So, in no particular order, I'm going to rattle through some stuff. These aren't your seven tips to success. Go through them, that kind of stuff. What this really is is here's some stuff to try. Here's some stuff to think about, to potentially get yourself unstuck to. Yeah, just get out your own way. If you're that's what that's one of them we'll get on to. That is like here's some stuff that I wish I'd read at the very, very start to start thinking about, start researching, to drop into production, so to say, into testing. So perfect, that's what we spoke about this the other day, and you can tell me if they land you being relentlessly useful, exactly.

Speaker 1 1:18:52

But I think the most important one here is for an individual who's a creative, starting their own business, wants to make the jump of hobby into making money. Be successful, doing anything in life is knowing the price, and what I mean by that is we don't risk. We want to be safe home mentality, stay in company, don't leave your local town. It's scary out there. So just be really clear. If this is for you, just know the price of the journey you're about to go on. Just know what this may entail, because we're in a world now where everyone's telling you oh, it's easy, sign up to this, follow this bullshit on instagram. So you have to be really, really careful of that is knowing the price, and what I wrote is double check. They'd be really clear on what you want. So you've got to know with a little pushback. How do you know the price without putting yourself in that position? This is what I was just about to say. You have to be really clear on what you want. You don't need to know what's going to come down the line, but it's definitely going to cost you and it's definitely going to be hard and it's definitely going to be uncertain and it's definitely going to push you. So is this truly what I want? Yes, right.

Speaker 1 1:20:00

So the first thing, before you go into this and you have to think about why am I doing this? So pin it, anchor it to why I need to get away from the life I'm living now. I need to provide for my family. I need to live in London. Just figure out what that looks like. I need to make a name for myself. I need a legacy. I need to prove my dad wrong. These are all common things. I need to show people I'm not a loser. And these are all common things. I need to show people I'm not a loser. And these are all things I've heard of a character. So know your why, without quoting simon sinic, know your why you're going to do this? Because that'll give you the protection for when shit gets real and it gets hard. Yeah, the barometer of how much you want it. Start there, write that on a piece of paper. Why? Because most people give up when it's hard and you've got to know why not to give up and push. And if it's just because you'll throw the towel in the first hurdle, if it's something you really want to be, make a name for yourself in the art scene or business, put a dent to the universe. People aren'm going to believe you need to push through. That's that. I think that's super important.

Speaker 1 1:21:15

Second most important point, so obvious do the work, do the fucking work. What's the quote you said earlier about the magic you're looking? Magic you're seeking is in the work, avoiding I don't know anybody successful, in whatever terms you want to define it, who doesn't graft, put in the work. It's underestimate. Produce, the work of all the prolific artists. Produce, produce, produce. I can't say that enough. Talk about it, live it, breathe it, work, work. If you don't like doing the work. Question the first point. Well, it's like we go through creativity as a verb. Yep, you've got to do the verb. Yep, do the doing, do the work.

Speaker 1 1:21:55

Next one this is from the tech world. You are the product. So what do you mean by that? So, once you realize that you are a product, do you think about yourself as a product? People are buying you, people are buying me. In the world that is emerging of AI, personal brand and individual reputation will be killer. So is that people buy from people. People buy from people. People buy from reputation. People buy from personal brand. People buy from you. So, if you are the product, your company is the product. If we operate companies and teams like products and we optimize them to be successful, why shouldn't we optimize an individual? So, once you start thinking about yourself as a product and productizing yourself product, not the greatest word, but it works in tech.

Speaker 1 1:22:41

A product, how do you sell it? How do you market it? How do you develop it? Where do you seek feedback from? Who are your customers? How do you maintain it? How do you fund it, your? How do you fund it? Your company yourself? How are you improving yourselves? By these tiny metrics that are each one? By asking someone oh, how was that for you? What was the experience of that like? Did that hit, put it in art terms, when the art came? Was it wrapped nicely? Did it have a nice certificate of authentication? All those elements? Yeah, like a company, would you think of the experiments that Amazon runs and Meta runs? It's like constant experimentation. That's what you said. There's an A-B testing almost on yourself. So start experimenting. But if you're a product and it's not working, try something different, thinking about yourself as a product or a company. Start operating like a company. Not I produce the work, I sell it. Why do people buy it? Start operating like a company. I produce the work I sell it. Why do people buy it? Start thinking about how you develop it yourself, how you're seeking feedback, how you're segmenting your market.

Speaker 1 1:23:38

I think Wiz talked about this. Who's your personas? Who do you sell to? What's your ideal client? Well, that's a lot. All these things is how a company would operate.

Speaker 1 1:23:47

Just start thinking about yourself as a product. How do you sell the products? How do you make the products? How do you come across when you're selling those products? How you know yeah, all of that's really interesting. That's, it's big.

Speaker 1 1:23:58

But I'm only giving you the yeah. I mean, that's look, that's for people listening to go away and think of yourself as a product in those elements. Do you know what does, what does? I've got a small little company and I sell these little jewels to these people. I want to go big. I've got an ambition. I know why I exist. I know what I'm doing. How can I do it better if I was a product? My business is a product.

Speaker 1 1:24:19

And think about even the people who sell products don't think that the company is a product. First step would be to make that really easy is get feedback. Get feedback on yourself, your work, your products and then use that. Yeah, that's great advice. So it's a rapid prototype being based on feedback, and whether that's asking 150 people to write an answer on a postcard or you're sending people a google forms, yeah, get out your own way is the next one. Or get out your own head. I was playing around with what one is.

Speaker 1 1:24:52

Is that essentially all the problems I've come up with when I work with myself and I work with humans is their biggest competition is themselves, is the imposter syndrome, the overthinking, their fear of failure. There's a reason why people don't like public speaking. It's the greatest fear over spiders and whatever. It's the fear of being laughed at and ridiculed and getting it wrong. Well, you're showing yourself to everybody, aren't you there exactly? And it's the same on social media.

Speaker 1 1:25:24

But once you get out your own way, get out your own head, and you realise, won't you be able to give a fuck about you as much as you care about? Honest? No one gives a fuck about you as much as you care about you and no one cares what you think? Well, I can give you the prime analogy to creative no-one and the social media me getting in front of camera, doing all these videos, all these things is so new to me and I watched myself doing it and I was like cringe, everyone's going to think I'm a twat. And then I had to remember how fast I scroll through social media. Yeah, you always see my stinker, but I like it exactly.

Speaker 1 1:26:01

So once you realize that nobody cares, which is a bit difficult to take, yeah, um, but you have to freeing. You have this liberating, but you also then have to go up. In this time where people's attention is scarce, how, how do I make them care? I've got to work harder to make them care. So how do you make them care? Get out of your own way, stop tripping yourself up. You are your biggest competition and often, if you mess stuff up in life, you mess stuff up in work. Often it's a human thing. It's a human decision decision. You've made a poor decision based on limited knowledge, or you've let a bias creep in, or you've let imposter syndrome take control, self-doubt. You know it's quite a big one, but I think it's a. Get out your own way is half of it and the other half of it fits with.

Speaker 1 1:26:52

The last point about you are the product. Is that? Take these phones Every six months, or what have you? You update the operating system. Are you updating your own operating system? Are you improving your quality of thinking? Because your quality of thinking improves your quality of work. And how do people improve their quality of thinking? Well, us all.

Speaker 1 1:27:12

We went on our trips. We saw work. We went to see Warhol in Prague. We gave ourselves inputs. Yeah, increase your inputs.

Speaker 1 1:27:19

Read different things, increase your scope. Don't just read the same paper. Read different fields, try different stuff. If you're not happy with what you're doing, if you're not learning. Someone said to be learning is the new pension. So you have to be learning as much as your product is learning, otherwise your business will outgrow you. So my big bit of advice, once you've got out your own way, is start learning who you are. This is a lifelong journey. What makes you tick? What makes al different? Why we're different to you, why do we operate differently? All these different things.

Speaker 1 1:27:54

Dive into the psychology, dive into the psychometrics, because it's really liberating All those things. When people say, oh, you're too chatty, you're this, you're this, so you're like Pacey, you're always walking. All those things that make you weird, make you actually super special. That's what makes you you. And once a piece of paper says that when you say psychometrics, is that like the big five or more average, the Myers-Briggs or those sorts of things? There's plenty of them.

Speaker 1 1:28:17

I use Gallup's strengths. I'm a strengths coach, she's in fitness, she's in psychology, so I was right with people rather than wrong. And is this something that we? And look into it. But you have to start learning about yourself and essentially understanding your strengths and your weaknesses. To improve yeah, to optimize your performance. To optimize yeah, to get out of your own way. So an overthinker needs to get out of their own way and stop thinking. So they need to put a rule in place where, once I know 70% of the solution, I act Like I've always read loads of books. I don't buy another book until I've acted on the last book or thrown it away. So you have to start realizing that you are going to trip yourself up, whether you know it or not. The psychology of how people are the biases that we only know a little bit about at the moment. We just need to optimize who we are, be the best version of yourself.

Speaker 1 1:29:13

I often say that how can matt be the best version of himself? What's his strong at? When does he do his best day at work? What was the best day of his life. How do we have more of them? That's so simple. How do we have less of the shit days or the good days? What was happening about day I was having a good day? How to do that?

Speaker 1 1:29:27

Learning, learning, learning, learn about you, try different things, see if it works and doesn't work. Constantly developing, constantly developing. Yeah, that's what I mean. This is what we discuss it a lot. We're in evolution. We're a constantly developing bundle of cells and I feel sorry for the people that are very stuck in their own routines and won't get out of their own way. Where you start with evolution survival of the fittest but it's the ones who are most adaptable to change. Part of getting out of your own way is what I've learned is my old CEO said this and it stuck with me forever, which is that I think this is super useful to getting out of your own way.

Speaker 1 1:30:08

You have to hold strong opinions loosely. Strong opinions loosely held. Be prepared to be wrong in this world. Now it's like forget about your ego. Hold your opinions loosely. Have strong opinions. No one wants weak opinions. Have strong opinions until someone presents the new data. We did.

Speaker 1 1:30:26

Debate training. It's beautiful. You learn how to debate and just listen to what somebody's saying. We weren't taught this. Just listen to what somebody's saying, we weren't taught this. To listen to what someone's saying and not go no, you're wrong. No, actually, that's really interesting, right? I was just about to say this. But you know what you're right because what you're doing you're learning. It's not about being right, it's about learning.

Speaker 1 1:30:44

So optimized learning means the price of that, because you have to be prepared to be wrong. That's hard for people, yeah, yeah, and that's because we live in a time where we all know enough to know why we're right, but not enough to know why we're wrong. It's actually another thing. Price of all of this is you have to be able to embrace being uncomfortable, because the creative work happens we all know this the artists when it's slightly uncomfortable, when we're feeling the doubt creeps in. So do things that make yourself feel uncomfortable but are aligned with your direction of travel. Come, for zones will kill you. When we're feeling the doubt creeps in, so do things that make yourself feel comfortable but are aligned with your direction of travel. Come to zones that will kill you. Yes, exactly, use the difficulty. So this comes from Michael Caine All right, holiday. The obstacle is the way his lovely book there's a lovely clip from Michael Caine.

Speaker 1 1:31:30

All creatives know this is that one of the factors that frame creative isn't money, isn't people, isn't resource, it's constraint. So embrace the constraint the lack of money, the lack of resource. Use what you've got. Use where you are, use the difficulty. And the reason I say this and I do this with a lot of coaches people are like, yeah, when I've got a gallery, when I've got a house with three kids and a pool, when I, when I, when I, when I, when I, no, no, no. Start where your feet are. Start now. Start with what you've got. Just do something. Use the difficulty. That difficulty is unique to you and the answer is on the other side. Cut the excuses, own up to the problem. Yes, you haven't got what someone else has got. You haven't got their money, their resource, their privilege, their access, their job, their CV. Start by starting. Use the difficulty.

Creating Alchemy Labs and Client Success

Speaker 1 1:32:23

Next one is build your board. The boardroom board of advisors is as an individual, just check the people around you. I always say, roger Federer, his peak of his game had like 10 coaches on all these different component parts. Every sports person executive has all these different coaches, help with their nutrition and thinking and finance. Just check, if you're going to go on a bit of a journey, that the people around you have been where you are going. If it's, you're just some of the five people you spend the most time with yeah, there's a beautiful quote about that, with a few spare words, it was yeah, repeat. But it's like have they got the knowledge? Have they traveled the path you're about to go? We've surrounded by creatives in front of ideas. I don't need that. Come on. Well, we can call it another round. I need a logistics guy. I need this person I need. How do I realise these ideas? Yes, so before you diagnose yourself and go mad and it's my fault, just double check that the people around you are the right people. That's what I'm saying. Digital friends, just start thinking about the network. Just start thinking about who's been on the journey I'm about to go. You can shortcut stuff. Who's got a skill that I'm going to have to use? Yeah, have I got coached? All these sort of things Super, super useful, because these are sort of like weapons to protect the battle you're about to fight. Any few more Dream big.

Speaker 1 1:33:47

I've written down a treasure map is, as a side. Yeah, dream big, design your life, design your adventure. You're all creatives who listen to maps before podcasts. So design your life, apply your creativity, create the life you want is kind of one of the things as part of the explore, inspire, create. So dream big. So we're not coaching people. You go through like a coaching model, which is often what's the goal, but what's the reality, what's the outcome? What's the way forward? Which is often what's the goal, what's the reality, what's the outcome, what's the way forward? But most people are stuck on the goal. What's the future? Look like what's good, look like what's five years, look like it's 2030, I'm sitting with you. The creative people are pretty good at that because they can picture, but they haven't thought about it.

Speaker 1 1:34:23

So start thinking about why is the dream? Get on a train and hope it's going to get somewhere nice, you figure out before you get on a journey where it's going to, hopefully, a destination. Just be really clear and go really big. The best way I would do that is just think about what your life looks like. You wake up in the morning, who's around, what are you doing? So start thinking about what true success looks like for you.

Speaker 1 1:34:50

Dream big, be punchy, and if it doesn't feel slightly uncomfortable, you're not dreaming big enough. But again, it's easy to have the dream. How do you action it? All the other little bits? You sort of have to have the direction of travel. You have to get out your own way. You have to have a plan. You have to start. You have to be surrounded by people that are going to help you. All these things are things to sort of try. I've got a couple more. I think they're all useful, mate.

Speaker 1 1:35:16

A shortcut to it is don't take advice from anyone who hasn't got what you want or hasn't been where you're about to go. Yeah, that's great. So figure out who's got what you want, who's got the job you want, the life you want. It's like who's got that? Ask her, ask him. They may not give you the answer, maybe luck, but they will give you some goal and try it. Put it into your AB test.

Speaker 1 1:35:40

I love this quote. I use this a lot and these aren't just cliche quotes you put on Instagram. These are things that I will take people through in a coaching session. This comes from Jimmy Avine. Dr Dre take people through an encouraging session. This comes from Jimmy Avaya and Dr Dre their beautiful Netflix documentary Defy Ones, is that Jimmy Avaya said racehorses have blinkers for a reason. That's beautiful, that's a lovely way of putting focus. Yeah, we are very, incredibly unfocused and disciplined and distracted at the moment.

Speaker 1 1:36:08

The amount of people who say to me they haven't got time. So I say to them, them, you look at their diary and you go. I say, show me your diary, show me your screen time, show me your screen time on your phone and I'll flip it round and I'll scroll down and I can see you squirming the seats. I don't do that, yeah, but it's an awakening that most people will go. I haven't got time, I couldn't possibly look at his work. Let's look at the social media. On screen time, we go, wow, that's 20 hours we could be. Or back in the day, it was the people that used to tell you oh, I haven't got time to go to the gym. But I can tell you everything that happened on EastEnders or Coronation Street and I'm like, well, that half an hour that you spent watching that.

Speaker 1 1:36:46

If someone says, make an excuse, we'll make it happen. If your screen time on social is 20 hours a week, fine, but how about make it 18? Then make it 17. Just chip away at it a bit. I'm not saying you shouldn't be on social media, so it's clear 1% better every day, exactly, exactly. If you've got your phone pinging and dinging like if our phones are pinging and dinging phone as it flashes up or my phone as it flashes up we get distracted from the conversation. We're off course. We should have just had our blinkers on and turned ourselves to airplane mode, exactly. But if you don't know where you're going and that's not aligned with your dream a lot of people will go through the day with the blinkers off, solving all these distractions and missing the finish line. So actually, if you don't know where you're going, it doesn't really matter. Spend your whole day distracted because you'll feel like you've ticked off your task list. You'll do the stuff which is useful and productive.

Speaker 1 1:37:36

This hit the dopamine made you feel good, but did it really move the needle or get you close to that uncomfortable? What can I do today that will benefit future me? Yeah, the corporate world used to call it BHAGS. Used to call it b-hags horribles or big hairy, audacious goals. I would never use that b-hags big hairy, audacious goal, jones style. What is the really uncomfortable goal here? Right, guess what, as soon as you say uncomfortable goal, most people would avoid yeah, this is uncomfortable, yeah, and it's be like oh, let's just do the easy work, I'll answer a few emails, uh, or maybe I'll just do this and I won't set up the exhibition, or I won't, yeah, something similar is like lick the frog mentality you should always do the shittiest job first. Yes, exactly, but knowing what the shittiest job is to get you to that angle, yep. So this is why the dream big know where you're going, know what the price of admission is, know that you're ready to pay it. B-hag yeah, you cut that one out.

Speaker 1 1:38:31

Big, hairy, audacious goals yeah, this is really important, I think, from a corporate perspective, not corporate team perspective, work perspective no interview of scouts, no interview of soldier, same rule. What's that mean by that? It's quite a big theory, but it's something I discovered when I was working with Beavytown and I worked with a few clients who their brief is I want to be innovative, but we don't want to risk the house. Right, so we've got a really successful product. It's doing really well. We want to be innovative, but we can't have everyone go crazy.

Speaker 1 1:39:08

So you should have realized when you're a one man band, one person band, a small company CEO stands for chief everything. Obviously you have to do it all. You have another luxury of just I can relate to that. Yeah, the hierarchy. Yeah, you report to you. I'm the editor, I'm the podcaster on the interview on the market, on the account and further down the line. You'll do less.

Speaker 1 1:39:29

But the important part of work is you've got to know when to find new stuff, explore like a scout or like an artist that's created new ideas. Well, you have to know when to exploit Exploit may be the wrong terminology, but when to be a soldier, take advantage of the things you can do. So a good way of looking at this is that you have to. When I was younger, you have to apply an emergent strategy of saying yes to everything. So increase your scope, widen that lens of opportunity to increasing your luck factor and then, seeing what I like, when something I know I like sticks, put it into a more deliberate strategy. So how do I optimize and make sure I spend a lot of time around doing this? How do I have a career and you start with your A-B testing. You start, you're trying loads of things. You're only going to be successful if you've tried a lot of things. If you want a great idea, write a hundred ideas. It's that way. That's how they used to do it in the ad world. So do a lot of work, load of experiments. That's how it sort of works.

Speaker 1 1:40:35

Edison would say you can look in history, there's loads of that. The magic of being a scout. Be out there looking for the pioneer, whatever reference you want setting put, but when something lands, reel it in. Stop being a scout, stop looking for new stuff, stop looking for shiny new toys. So because the blinkers are, exploits is the wrong word about the fb comfortable with the way I exploit, get that to market. So, in other words, loads of people like my post, loads of people like my products, loads of people like this work at my exhibition. Because that's it, poor photographyography exhibition, this piece of work everybody like, that one gets front and center. Price goes up. Do more versions of that. See what people like. Exploit it, maximize it, optimize it. Those two behaviors are completely different. When you're a scout, watching everything, experimenting, I want to see everything. Yeah, there's no outputs, there's all pure inputs.

Speaker 1 1:41:33

Or would you say you're more of a soldier now than a scout? I wouldn't say 50, 50. It depends, but the way the world's changing so quick you have to be scout mode, soldier mode. Often I say artist mode, soldier mode. You have to sort of know there's different modes you need to be in, you have to switch into that mode. Leave it out a good example successful beer, nickel absolutely phenomenal. You don't want a bunch of scouts around there tweaking it, playing around with the recipe, messing it up.

Speaker 1 1:42:00

It works. Keep it out as is. Lock it down. Get the normal corporate people working on this. We need a bit of a working party to go off and find some adventurous new lands. Where's's the pioneers? Off you go. Go do some mad shit, come back. Look at the data. Move the needle. Okay, what if we put a bit more effort and money into this needle? Same with social media advertising. Put it out there what works. If it works, throw some more money in it. Investment yeah, you have to widen that scope of input. But then you have to put that input into production. And if it's just you and a small team, you then have to know when am I switching into this mode?

Speaker 1 1:42:44

Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, a big venture capitalist firm out of San Francisco, wrote an essay on this british guy about makers and managers schedules. So makers have a different schedule to manager, soldier, scout. So just have a clear line. When do I need to be in this mode? When am I trying new stuff? When am I off, exploring, inputting new information? When? When am I processing Then? When am I seeking the feedback from it? Because often we're like oh, that was amazing, everyone loved my work, everyone loves you. Everyone loves you. You've been so successful. What did you do with it? I love it. What do you mean? Love it? I'm back out, trying new things. Stop trying new things. Stop trying a new toy they loved you. Go with it. Scale it. Idea test scale. That's how a tech firm works. So I think that's super, super important, because often we trip ourselves up to if you're too much scout, oh, I'm an artist. I've got to constantly be innovating and coming up with new ideas. We've talked a blog on it. We've talked about it.

Speaker 1 1:43:49

Before doing and thinking, you've got to know how to balance the two Balance in poor Balance, the two, optimising the two we all like to put ourselves in. I'm a doer, not a thinker. I'm a scout, not a soldier. I'm this, I'm that. Well, if you're a pure soldier. You're only going to get so far you need. You either need to pay someone to be a scout or you need to stop your business and go back into soldier work or go back into corporate. It's not for you. Yeah, you either have to do both of them or pay someone to do it for you. It's that sort of simple. And if you're not willing to get out your comfort zone, try this sort of stuff, and I've learned to love both sides and know when when to be in each one. It's still better. We're not perfect. I'm still obsessed and overthink, and then I still go straight to the solution when I haven't done the thinking, because I'm like even this, you can jump to some conclusions, but I think that there's a lot there. Oh, there's a hell of a lot. I mean and I think all of those are going to resonate or hit with the audience that we've got, I'm sure, just simply because there's so much good information in there find your, why do the work, get out of your own way, make them care, appreciate difficult, building the board, dream big, focus and scout a soldier. I mean, so much is going to resonate.

Speaker 1 1:45:10

Sounds like the contents of a book, doesn't it? Yeah, it does, it does. When's the book coming out? I'll ask. I had to write it. But the purpose for this is, if someone's telling you, here's the seven tips to success, it's just generic, yeah, it's. It's clickbait almost, isn't it? It's like you've got to tune it and balance it for you. That's why this was hard.

Speaker 1 1:45:30

So, okay, well, let's look at what's common with everything I've ever done, whereas normally it'd be in the particular lies the universe a lot of time. Exactly. There's some stuff to play around with, there's some stuff to try. There's some stuff to go. Hopefully, there's some stuff in there. People like if I hate that, that's fine. There's one or two things going quite like that. I'm going to try that. I'm going to unpick it a bit more. How could that apply to me? My business, exactly.

Speaker 1 1:45:56

Even if someone takes one element of this and takes it away, and it can benefit, and that's what we want, isn't it? Yeah, so don't take any of it. Yeah, sod you the lot of you, sod the lot of you. That's what was the point in us doing this podcast. Anyway, dude, I think we've spoken about a lot of really good stuff there and again one of your phrases relentlessly useful. I think people are going to find this so useful. So we do have a closing tradition on the creative noel and podcast, which is that we like our guests to leave us with some sort of quote or inspiring quote that resonates with you for some reason. I mean, you've given us quite a lot of good quotes throughout that already, and also someone in your network who I think would be an inspiring guest.

Speaker 1 1:46:34

What was the brand guy from? I'll try. I'll try Tom, if I can get Tom, but I've got it now. I've got quotes. I have like a thousand quotes on my phone that I've stored, but this one feels relevant because it's for wacky races.

Speaker 1 1:46:47

Dastardly, don't just stand there and do something. I used to say to Matt we can often stand there too long. Sometimes you've got to do something. It's just, yeah, think a bit, then act. It's funny. Actually, that's one of the things my boxing career the longer you stand there, the more likely you're going to get punched. So don't just stand there, do something. What's that Tyson quote? We all have a plan. Until I get punched in the face, yeah, but I think that's quite nice and then that's great. Don't just stand there, do something.

Speaker 1 1:47:16

I think the easy thing would be nominate a really creative person to go on this podcast is quite commercial, like tom, but actually I think she doesn't know this. But one of the most creative people I know is my wife and she runs a business. She wouldn't even say she's creative, but I think it takes some of my stuff to a different sort of level because she has to think on her feet and she has to run a business and she doesn't see it from a creative necessarily. She's being creative, she's, she'll see, it's problem solving, but it's the same thing. So I think, if you can get Ab on this podcast, I think, yeah, I think it could be a little bit different.

Speaker 1 1:47:55

I think that'd be an interesting route because, abbie, as I say, you wouldn't probably consider yourself creative in that sense we badge creatives and we badge strategists and we badge problem solvers and we badge engineers and it's like you break it all down and it's off to the cinema process. But she is a successful businesswoman who runs her own companies. She must have had hurdles, problems to solve Every day and they need to be corrected Every day, but she just wouldn't class herself as a creative Interesting. And she has a great creative background. She's got a business background, straight from school straight into work. Not that this thing can bollocks out. Just work hard with it. Don't just stand there, do something. She's already done stuff. I'm the one standing there. So I think, from a dynamic perspective and a disruptive perspective, I think she would be really useful, especially for those that have just set residents.

Speaker 1 1:48:44

Well, I can't wait to get Abby on, because I love Abby and you and your family. You're one of my best friends, so I'm very pleased that you've come on the creative noah land podcast. And, yeah, I just want to say a big thank you for coming on. We've been through a lot together and you are always one of my go-tos when I need some rational thought process. And what am I even doing? Should I start a podcast now? Yeah, just don't just stand there, just think about all those invoices back here.

Speaker 1 1:49:13

But but that's the genius, isn't it? We studied at the same university, did creative thinking, but we've taken our creativity in very different paths and I think that's an inspiring thing for listeners to see here that it doesn't always have to be paint on a page to be creative. No, you have the tools, as you have the tool in on a page to be creative. No, you have the tools. You have the tools in your back pocket to design the life you want, and you can paint the picture layer by layer, bit by bit, and that's, I think, a perfect place for us to end it Lovely Design the life that you want, exactly.

Speaker 1 1:49:45

Thanks, man, nice one dude, appreciate you being on. Thank you for listening to the creative noah land podcast. If you found anything inspiring or useful in this episode, please consider subscribing or maybe sharing the episode with a friend. Anything you can do to help promote and support creative noah land is so beneficial and I really appreciate it. Check out the website and sign up to the newsletter to be the first to know of everything that's going on here in creative nowhere land. Thanks again for listening and until next time, explore, inspire and create better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way, and so, therefore, it's so important to this question what do I desire?