Adam Jennings Helping Creative Leaders Thrive - From Stunts To Stories

What if the most valuable creative tool you own isn’t a camera, a canvas, or a deck, but your ability to tune into the right beat at the right moment? Adam Jennings joins us to map a life spent chasing story—across theatre catwalks, design studios, and coaching rooms—and to share how empathy and self-belief can turn messy, human work into steady leadership.

We dig into his theatre origins at the Oxford Playhouse, where he learned the whole stack: marketing calls that go nowhere, programming complexity, and the heat of a follow spot trained on Cinderella’s slipper. That precision, he says, is not about perfectionism; it’s about serving emotion with care. From there, Adam unpacks the habits that keep creatives resilient: tiny resets that stop spirals, a quiet practice of telling yourself “I love you,” and the humility to accept praise without deflection. His philosophy is simple and demanding—help people grow, then step back so they can keep going.

We also push into artificial intelligence with clear eyes. Adam insists on the full phrase—artificial intelligence—because words shape thinking. He argues much of what dazzles us is imitation, not mind, and warns about agents emailing agents while hallucinations compound. Yet he holds a hopeful line: if we offload drudgery, humans can focus on climate, equity, and care. That future needs leaders who create space for slower conversations, kinder cultures, and better bets.

Adam’s new seven-part video series, Signals, tackles the shifts already here—AI, budgets, hiring—and turns them into practical conversation starters. His globally charting podcast, Awaiting Approval, dives into the human side of creative leadership with voices from Apple, Paramount, Microsoft, Visa, and more. If you’re navigating creative teams, change, or your own confidence, you’ll leave with insight you can use tomorrow: make people bigger than their problems, and let love—not fear—set the tempo.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps more curious listeners find conversations that move the work forward.

Transcript

A Portfolio Career In Creativity

Childhood Cinema And Storytelling Roots

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Right. So here we are. Adam, sir. I am very, very grateful that um and I don't know where you found the time. I genuinely do not know where you have found the time because what you do is incredibly visible. It's very, very um not just entertaining, but so needed, particularly um at this time. Um, and especially your fairy friends who I can hear one in the background, which is awesome. Um, so what I'd like to do, because it's just normal, if you just want to introduce yourself and just give us a an update as to just who you are and what is it that you do right now. Well, hello everybody. Uh I have worked across pretty much every creative discipline over the last three decades. Um started off in something entirely different, but from a design perspective, um, I've gone through agency and client side for small, medium, and large organizations. I've been incredibly fortunate to work not just with some amazing names when you look at my portfolio, um, but some amazing people and teams as well. So the easiest way of describing what I do now is helping other creative people to grow. Be that through mentoring, be that through coaching, be that through consultancy, be that through rolling my sleeves up, joining a team and figuring stuff out with them in the weeds. Um uh, as you know, you've been a fantastic uh guest on my podcast. I have a podcast that is um a design podcast about the messy human side of creative leadership. Joel's episode is currently the latest episode as of filming. Um, and I heartily, wholeheartedly recommend anyone listening to this to go and listen to that. After this, stay with this one first. Then if you only listen to one podcast today, let it be this one. If you listen to two, let it be this one and Joel's one. Um You're too kind. So I, you know, all sorts of different hats. No pun intended, because I'm currently wearing uh a branded hat. Um I am. Look, it's right there. You can see it if you look really hard enough through your speakers. Um so there's all sorts really, but I think you can best encapsulate me as someone that helps other creatives grow. Um I have been I have been described by some people in the past as a creative fixer, uh sort of dropped into an organization or a team or a project that needs some help, let's put it that way. Fixing the problem and then bouncing onto the next problem, um, which I still do. I'm still very hands-on. I've just recently jumped out of a project and I'm into another one this week. So, you know, that side of things doesn't stop. Um but it's all helping people grow. People, organizations, teams, projects. That's really that's really my uh my thing. Where did it all start though? So what were you doing as a rug rat? Uh I was pretending to be a stunt man. Uh I've told I've told this story before, um, but I'll happily tell it again. As a as a young kid, I was fascinated with movies.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Uh it was just such an instantly an instantly recognizable storytelling.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Something that I could um not recognizable, instantly relatable. But it just it really struck a chord with me. The the ability to tell a story, and I didn't understand this at an intellectual or a craft level back then, obviously, but it resonated with me to see an amazing vista in a movie uh at sunset, the story that immediately instantly tells. You don't need words, you don't need sound, and that really struck a chord. Um and I I I grew up on like Fred Astaire movies and the Road 2 movies and things like that. Like I spoke Bob Hope and Bing Crosby and um White Christmas, like every year White Christmas was on the telly whilst we put up the Christmas tree and did the Christmas decorations. I love that movie.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Right.

DIY Creativity Without Gear

Theatre Beginnings And Work Ethic

Follow Spot Magic And Craft

Self-Compassion And Empathy In Leadership

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Right. Uh and so, and consequently, now my children have grown up having White Christmas fun in the background when they do the trio. I recently spent time with my daughter, and as we were cooking, I think we were baking uh cookies, uh, we were singing songs from White Christmas. You know, it's just this kind of language that has passed down through generations now. Um but yeah, I've I always loved those kind of those kind of movies, especially, you know, looking back now, black and white films, there's an element of storytelling that is missing, so they have to be even more uh clever in how they describe the mood of something. They have to use lighting or composition. Now, with colour, obviously you can add that into the mix. It's another layer, another level of the storytelling. And so, you know, I was just always fascinated with it. And as a kid, obviously, the idea of I knew everything that I saw was fake. I knew if someone flew through a window, it wasn't real glass. I knew if I saw blood, it wasn't real blood. I knew if I saw someone being um, like Indiana Jones being dragged along the dirt track behind the Jeep, you know, it's not him. It's not real. There's a whole bunch of people behind the plane where we sit, uh, filming it and recording the sound and doing me just makeup and saying, no, we need to redo this again and all this kind of stuff. So I knew all of that, and I was fascinated with it. I was fascinated with how that works. The the ability to create something out of nothing. Um, and as a kid, I had a sort of particular fascination with stunts and action. And um, for a long, long time I kept saying to my mum, for my 18th birthday, you know, this is when I was like five or six, and I knew I knew maybe a little bit older. It was before we moved, so probably eight or nine. And I knew because my sister had turned 18, that 18 was a big deal, and you're gonna get a big present and you're gonna have a big party. So I knew that was coming up. And I can remember for years saying to her, all I want for my 18th is for you to arrange for me to get thrown through a plate glass window. Like uh like a stunt. I I'd seen it. They have these crash mats the other side, they can jump through, everything bursts everywhere, it looks amazing. And I for years and years and years, I wanted that experience. I did think about jumping off a building with one of the decelerator things, but at the time I was afraid of heights, so that was not going to be like later on that I wanted that. But but the point was I wanted to be in that story. I wanted to be totally in that world. I wanted to be part and parcel of it, even if it was just for a moment. And it doesn't matter what kind of it didn't matter what kind of uh movie it was, it didn't matter what genre, it didn't matter what the story was. When a movie grabbed me, it really grabbed me. And so from that early age, the idea of being part of that story and telling other stories just it didn't become a part of me. I truly believe it was already there. Truly, truly believe that. And it kind of unlocked it. Um and so the obvious thing, you know, then as I got older and and went to secondary school and they start doing school plays and things like that. And so uh uh, you know, and nativities and carol concerts, and I was always quite happy to stand up in front of the school and do a reading in an assembly or a part in a play or what have you. I enjoyed it. I liked doing that. Uh, and I can remember one school assembly where um oh, I can't remember her name now. I think Mrs. Her name was something like Mrs. Coleman, uh a fantastic teacher and like a proper teacher name as well. Yes. She stood up and she started to read something, but she had a she had a sore throat. She could hardly get the words out. And without thinking, uh uh, and I was probably 11 or 12 at the time, without thinking, I just stood up, walked to the front, uh, took the card out of her hands gently, and just read the rest of it for her, and then went and sat back down. And when I left, that was maybe the the the first or second year of second. And when I left, you know, six or seven years later, I can remember her coming up to me and thanking me for that, that that had touched her and stayed with her. Um, and that consequently has stayed with me. And so I think you're starting to see those building points of storytelling, of wanting to be immersed in a world of kindness, of wanting to help other people, not through wanting a medal or praise, but just through, well, that's what you do, isn't it? Someone's struggling, and you can do something to help them, so you go and do something to help them, you know. Um, so that's that was really it. I mean, I was also drawing a lot. Uh, I would love uh I can remember, and I've still got them somewhere. I didn't have a camera as a kid. I would have loved a camera. I can ever again, this was like eight, nine, ten years old. Um, but I can remember drawing, uh, I drew a spaceship on a piece of paper, and I knew about animation. I knew that it was one frame after another after another. So I drew a spaceship on a piece of paper. And then I drew on the same piece of paper the next frame. So it was a spaceship kind of exploding. So I then like drew over it slightly more, and then I did it again and again and again. Um, and I still got that single piece of paper where all the frames all were there in one. Wow. Um just because I wanted to, I wanted to animate this, I wanted to create this story, I wanted to create this moment, but I didn't have the equipment, I didn't have the technical capability to do it. So I just did it and in my head imagined what it would look like going from one bit to another to another to another. So, you know, the the the element of creation was always there for me. Um and and illustration and drawing. Uh, I did watercolour. My mum liked to paint with watercolours, so I did that for quite a while. And uh I know it's something I would love to pick back up again because I haven't I did a few pieces of work a couple of years back. I did some packaging for Penguin Random House and uh BBC Worldwide for some audiobooks for um Um Barchester Chronicles, a re-release of the Barchester Chronicles. Uh, and I painted the covers, I did watercolour paintings uh for the for the covers of the audio CDs and then scanned them in and added all the graphical titles and whatnot. Um, and I really loved it. Uh and I thought, yes, I absolutely must do more of that. And that was about 12 years ago, and I haven't touched a brush to end. So to answer it to kind of sum it all up and answer your question, I think those formative years for me were little um shards of light into how it would all combine in the end. And my career has not been linear, my my path has been a little bit over here, and then a 90-minute return over there, and then we could wiggle back to the middle a bit, and then we could fly off over to this bay for a couple of years, and so on, and so on. Um, so I think it's a very sort of uh portmanteau career, and I think you can see that in the early years where I'm interested in all these different facets of storytelling. I'm genuinely stunned because you you've mentioned things there that are so okay, it's all in the creative space, but they are so diverse. But there's a thread, there's a thread there in it, and it it it is all storytelling, but every single bit of it is how can I tell a story, whether it's a single aspect of it or how to combine many different disciplines in order to facilitate that. Um, but very visual, very, very visual. Um at that point, anyway. Um wow. I think and that that reminds me of something you're saying about how to facilitate it. That has really stood me in good stead. We didn't have a huge amount of money when I was a kid, and I definitely didn't have tech. Like as a young boy, I didn't have a camera, I didn't have access to anything like that. I had an old tape recorder, you know, and I can remember actually I'd completely forgotten this. I can remember recording stories onto tapes, just spoken word stories. And whenever I needed a sound effect, I would figure out how to make sound effects. For example, for one of the stories, I uh I think I talked about a car crash. I think it was a car crash, and I got bits of foil, crumpled them up and dropped them onto the tape recorder where the microphone because it was like a little built-in, you know, those old 19 tape recorders. Yeah. And you drop it onto the microphone, and that sounded like glass breaking and metal crunching and what have you. And so there was always, there was always, okay, I haven't, I haven't either I didn't know how to do a thing, so I just figured out how to do it, or I didn't have the means to do the thing, so I just figured out a different way of doing it. Um and I was I was often on my own as a kid. So it wasn't like I could go to an adult and say, hey, how do how do you do this? You know, they they at the time I understood it that they have their thing to do, and and so don't disturb them, you know. So I just got on with stuff. Um when you were saying about facilitating making that story, it reminded me when I was, well, I must have been 18, 17 or 18, um, no, 16. I had I got a Saturday job at a local theatre. So I was earning a tiny pittance, but I was earning some money. And um I used that to buy a camcorder, a little high-eight camcorder. I used it then eventually to buy a little TV, and then I used it to buy um a video editing desk that you could do titles on. Well, like um like looking back at it now, I mean teletext and CFAX, these were amazing. Um, but to me at the time, I had a studio. I could film something on the camcorder, I could put that through the editing machine to help me add in music from CDs. I could add titles to it, I could overlay them. There were all sorts of different effects. There was a kind of marquee scroll text effect and all sorts. So that meant I could start to make little short movies, just silly little ones, and I could add titles to them. So they looked professional, you know, they had credits at the end, and it was just like written by Adam Jennings, shot by Adam Jennings, directed by Adam Jennings, starring Adam Jennings, and Baxter, the dog, you know, like it was things like that. Um, but I the thing that I distinctly remember uh that you that your phrase reminded me of was uh I had a cable coming from the CD player, and I had a socket in the editing machine, and they were both male, as it like male to female cables. And I figured out that if you put a piece of blue tack on the desk, you instead of instead of the cables being like this, that's not going to work on audio, is it? Instead of the cables being like tip to tip, usually with most headphone jacks, there's a little black band around the around the connector of the male part of the lead. Yes. If you if you align them that the tip of one is lower than the black line and the tip of the other, and put embed those into the blue tack and then fold the blue-tac over the top to hold them in place, you've got a connection. So I didn't need to buy uh an adapter or a different connection. I couldn't afford any of that. So I just figured out how to make it all work. Um, and sometimes it didn't work, but more often than not it did. Uh and I I loved that. And I found, and I know I've mentioned this to you in the past, but I found that I had what I thought was this happy coincidence that, and this has happened so, so many times in things that I've made. I would film something without any kind of soundtrack in my head. And then I would overlay a piece of music, and it would just fit perfectly. Uh, a recent example, this new series I've made, Signals, I found a piece of music on, I don't know, Pexels or something something like that, Pixabay, I can't remember what it is now, but like a free piece of music. I've dropped that in and I love it. It's very emotive. And there are these little ping moments at the beginning of the track that work perfectly for the idea of signals. And the very first one I did, I did a rough cut of me sitting down, picking up the microphone and saying, looking at the camera for a beat, and then saying, hi, I'm Adam Jennings, this is Signals, blah, blah, blah. And I just I liked the pacing of the video with no soundtrack. And then I found this piece of music like a day or two later, dropped the piece of music in, didn't need to move anything around. The ping happened just before I came on screen. It was perfect to then for this for the uh for the music track to kind of reduce in volume, for the voiceover to come in. And that has happened so, so many times in my life where I've made something, and then I've just found a sound effect or a piece of music or something, and it just works. And for for years, years and years and years. I mean, I'm talking, you know, I'm talking like at the time I was, like I say, 16, 17, 47 now. And so for all those years in between, I felt like I've just It just just happens. It's just a natural happy stance. And it was only yesterday when I was thinking about this that I suddenly thought maybe it isn't, maybe it isn't a happy, lucky chance thing. Maybe there's something internally in me, a storytelling beat, that just is there and just guides me in a way that I don't know about consciously. And just helps me understand these this is the pacing, this is the beat of this particular thing. And then that's in my head when I then go and find the music or what have you. But I just don't know about it. I get it. I totally get it. There's for people who are highly, highly empathetic. And I think you've touched on being highly empathetic already. You know, helping out the teacher at school because she dropped a piece of paper, and instantly you're thinking, I can help there. Now it wasn't about, I'm going to take over the show. It was crikey, where can I, where can I help? And that's what it was about. And that's an inc not incredible. It's it's it's just a genuine example of empathy. And I think not everyone, because I don't know, I haven't got the data, the engineering side of my brain wants to go off and do some more research, wants to find out more about this. Um, but I get it. I get it. I mean, I can be doing a piece of music and all of a sudden stuff just comes, it just flows. I'll be writing stuff just comes, it flows. I'll be looking at a service design project. You know, I'll see the primary, maybe you know, not even the secondary research, and all of a sudden, boom. And you kind of go, okay. And all of the rest of it. Um, but genuinely, that's the first time I think I've heard somebody be so forthcoming about that spidey sense. That's all of a sudden it's literally yesterday that I had that thought. I was filming the last episode of this new series, Signals. And um, I shot all of that, and then I was I sat down to edit it, and it happened again. And I thought, ah, but that's because you're using the same track. You've done seven episodes now, you're using the same track. And then I thought, no, because each episode, the voiceover is different, the pacing is slightly different, the location is different. There's something here, and uh I'm on a big journey, I'm a big personal journey, um, and have been for a long, long time, to be more complimentary to myself, not in an arrogant way, not in a public way, in an internal way. You know, um, I do believe, I'm kind of paraphrasing someone, I don't know who said the original quote, and they're I'm sure they said it far better, but I do believe that the person that we listen the most to is ourselves. The biggest, the person that has the biggest impact on ourselves is ourselves. Allow myself to introduce myself. Um that's another thing I can easily go and How long does it take to tune into that? I'll tell you when I've finally figured out how to do it consistently. That's my point. That's my point. But I think I think here's the here's the truth in it all. Here's the helpful truth in it all. I don't think you need to do it consistently. I don't think you need to be perfect at it. I think you just need to every now and then catch yourself. Say, hey, dude, stop, stop belittling your efforts, stop belittling the successes you've had. You're doing really bloody well. And I'm really proud of you. And I love you. And that's all you need to say to yourself. You just need to look in the mirror and say to yourself, I love you. Nothing else matters. And everything else comes from that. I for the for the longest time, and I've said this on one of the awaiting approval episodes, for the longest time I had a real issue with that idea of put the gas mask on yourself before you, not gas mask, say this every time, put the air mask on yourself before you help others. Yes. And that's just felt so alien to me. But over the last two years, I've really got it. I've really understood why you do that. How on earth are you meant to help somebody else if you don't help yourself first? And it's not about putting yourself first. It's about ensuring you can do what you need to, what you should do, what you want to do. If you don't look after yourself first, you can't do that for anybody else. And so, you know, that idea of just looking in the mirror, when you catch yourself being down on yourself or having those negative thoughts, just finding a mirror and looking at yourself and saying, I love me, you've got this. You don't need to go into a bigger conversation. Well, put it this way, I don't now, I don't need to go into a bigger conversation. And that's taken a long while to to get to that point. And I'm by no means uh perfect. I still find myself going down rabbit holes of of of self-destruction, but I'm finding it gradually easier and easier when that happens to stop myself, to notice it, first of all. That's the that's the that's the biggest struggle is to notice it. And then to do something about it. Either look in the mirror, tell yourself you love you, and then go and dance like a nutter to a piece of music, or sing as loud as you want some song that you love, or go and find a dog or a cat, give them a cuddle, or find your loved one and give them a cuddle, or go for a walk and get some fresh air, or go for a swim, or splash water on your face, or eat your favourite food and say, sod it, I don't care. Just do something for yourself and break that cycle. It doesn't need to be something huge. Just a little a little something to treat yourself, to say, well done. And that might be as simple as just sitting down for five or ten minutes, having a snooze, drawing something, like whatever it is, having a can of coke, a can of coke, and a back of chips. Like whatever you whatever you want to do. You know? Uh now I want to be really clear. I'm not suggesting this over and above therapy in whatever modality is an essential part of healing. Uh, and I'm a huge uh uh supporter of therapy. I've I've attended many, many therapy sessions of various different modalities. And um uh and I think it's essential, depending on on what's happened to you or what's going on in your life, that you get some professional help with that. But the way you can, in addition to that, the way you can help yourself is by doing the things that I've I've said. Not quite sure how we got onto this, but I love it. It's it's it's awesome. It's exactly a story that matters. Um, it's one of the many, many, many reasons I've been very, very selfish and selective about whom it is that I not just want to have a conversation with, but where is, and it sounds incredibly cliche, how can you do the greater good? And there are elements, I mean, I'm not practicing Sikh, um, but there's this ethos in Sikhism, which is um seva. And and essentially that boils down to you're just gonna help everybody. Your your existence here is fundamentally um predicated on your ability to help. Right? And naturally, of course, of course, all of the religions, um, large and small, and in between, they they carry that same sentiment. Um that you know what, umpinjubby, and there we go. It's and I I'm not I don't hold any religious beliefs, and I don't hold anything against anyone that does have faith, um, as long as they're not uh belittling somebody else or barraging somebody else in order to to elevate their own status. You know, we all we all look for something in life that is that explains things, that gives us answers and gives us help. And if faith is is what gives that to you, then I I I send you love and wish you well. Um it's not for me. The only thing that I do take from any kind of faith, and it's ex you know, it's a sort of um core part of what you're what you're saying there, is do unto others as you want done to yourself. Yeah. That's the only thing that we need in life. It it covers everything, you know? Do you want to be burgled? No, don't burgle somebody else. Do you want to be attacked in the street at night? No, don't attack somebody else in the street at night. Do you know what I mean? Like, do you want to have um someone copy your ideas? No, don't copy other people's ideas. Like, it's not rocket science. It's a very, very simple way of living. Wouldn't it be a beautiful, beautiful world if we all lived in that way? Even more beautiful than it currently is. I think we'd I'm kicking myself of phrasing it that way because I'm playing into that narrative that everything is broken. There's a huge amount wrong with the world right now. No, I don't think you have, with respect, Adam. I don't think you even touched on that. Um, but because of your general awareness and it's that e-worthing empathy, um probably I'm not going to speak for you, right? But and apologies for cutting you off. But I don't I don't think that's the case. Um Thank you. I just, you know, there are some terrible things happening in the world right now. So I read a post uh on uh LinkedIn recently and I thought it was spot on. Again, I could it was a mutual connection, which is why I can't remember who posted it. Um but she said this is not normal. None of this is normal. It's not normal to look at your feed and see someone getting shot and then scroll and see a dog bouncing in a garden and then scroll and see another angle of someone getting shot and then scroll and see a recipe and then scroll and see uh some jewelry for sale, and then scroll and see a third angle of someone getting shot. None of that is normal in in all of the layers from from what you hold as most important, I would argue, someone being shot for no reason is not normal and shouldn't be happening, all the way through to the juxtaposition of that shocking, disgusting act next to an advert for jewelry or next to a funny dog video. Or like none of that is normal. And I think we need, I think we really need a huge reset. I don't know how that happens, I don't know what that looks like, but I think we need to we need to have a a sit-down globally and say, things got a bit out of hand. This is not how life should be. There's massive equality, there's huge, disgusting things going on in the world. Let's let's all just sit down and and talk about this, shall we? Maybe you all go to therapy. Like, let's let's just sort this shit out once and for all. Do you know what I mean? I think we're all evolved enough, or we should be. Interestingly, uh a very dear friend of mine, who's incredibly uh well um read and and hugely compassionate and empathetic, she said that, and I'm again I'm gonna paraphrase and she will have put it far more eloquently, that humans as a species, the amount of time that we have existed, we're still toddlers in the so we we haven't yet learned empathy as a species. We're still in that state of this toy is mine and I don't want to give it to you. Or I want that toy that you've got, so I'm just gonna snatch it. As a species, we're still very, very, very young. And I wish we could just hurry that up a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Hmm. That's um I'm taking that in.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

That was quite a large segment, and I'm grateful for it. But I'm taking that in. You're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

There's so much, so much going on, but the one thing I love about being a human is that no matter what nonsense is going on, you know, I can still find at least one other person to have a chat like this with. And you know, it's one of those tea and cake.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

I used to write a lot about tea and cake on LinkedIn. Everyone thought I was mad and they were right.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Um but sometimes that's all you need. Sit down. Have some tea have some cake. Please let it be lemon drizzle. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

It's it's okay if you if you're a carrot cake kind of person, it's alright. That's fine. That's fine as well. Shade here. You know, um, just don't ever give me all grey because yeah, then we're gonna fall out.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

But conversations matter. Conversations matter.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Um and that was just bloody gorgeous. The way that you find paraphrasing other folks, that's normal, that's as it should be. Um but the creative elements within everyone, and I think everyone's got it in them. Sometimes it's buried really, really deeply, but eventually it does manifest. And empathy is not a bad word. I wish, I wish to God, I could remember the lady's name. I've reached out to her just before Christmas, and then I had this awful Logie, which I'm still suffering from, but it's getting better. Um, and her, from what I can make out, purpose is to promote empathy. Um, there's another guy who I'm still editing his episode. Uh Unbeknown to me, he was at Shell, um, kind of left when I joined. Um, but he left a megacorp and his whole USP is love. He works with the UN and lots and lots of other places, and you know, um, and his name escapes me now as well. God, what's wrong with me today? Um, but made films and everything else, and um I'm really looking forward to publishing that as well. But everything is a balance. And I know I've said this on on your show, and everything is a relationship, and we need conversations.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

We need to have calm, open conversations.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

And what what I find frustrating is and I think you started to articulate it, and I probably interrupted you. Everyone's scrolling, you know, someone's been shot, okay, cat video, something else has happened, okay, dog video, da da da da. It's it's everything is quick, everything requires an instant response, and cognitively we are unfortunately conditioned. Okay, I need a dopamine head every 20 seconds. And Hardy, who's a mutual bud, Hardy Cd, a Format 3 fame, everybody else, awesome young man. Um, I know it irritates him when I call him young man, but that's why I enjoy it. And he was on Dubba and he said something which was so, so cool. He's really bored, and I'm gonna I'm paraphrasing, he's really bored with everyone talking about looking out, you know, the user, they're this, they're that, da da da da.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Because we everyone needs to start looking in. Oh, it's just that's bang on. Yeah. Because if you're not looking after you, how are you gonna help anybody else? You're not going to do that.

Social Feeds, Trauma, And A Needed Reset

Balance, Conversation, And Everyday Kindness

AI As Artificial Imitation And Uncertain Futures

SPEAKER_01 38:07

You'll be a burden to somebody else. And you it all it all comes together, right? How are you gonna help somebody else if you don't help yourself? Put the mask the the oxygen mask on yourself before you help others. Uh lift yourself up in order to lift other people up. Recharge in order to be full of energy to go and do the thing. Like it it all comes full circle. It all comes back to looking after yourself and supporting yourself and being your biggest champion. Because the second that you can start to believe in yourself, again, not in an arrogant way, in a normal, natural, human way. Exactly. To believe in yourself, then the knocks aren't quite as hard. That thing that someone says that, you know, two years ago would have sent you spiraling, they say it now. All right, fine. That's you are clearly rightly so entitled to your opinion, that is it. I appreciate you sharing it with me. Water off the duck's back. You know, and you can only reach that point when you do have that inner confidence. And there'll still be knocks, there'll still be things that that hit hard or hit deep, but you'll be better equipped to deal with them. And I would love, I would love, you know, if if nothing else, I would love for anyone listening to this to take that away. You are all, all of you, you listening to this right now. You are worthy of being heard, you are worthy of being seen, you're worthy of being loved and held, and most. importantly you're worthy of all of those things from yourself and I would I dearly dearly hope dear listener that you take that away if nothing else awesome awesome awesome awesome now I heard you went to drama college no no I uh I auditioned for oh god I don't know how many um I I worked in theatre for a long time uh I did train uh in various degrees uh as an actor and worked as an actor in theatre and in and in uh film uh for a lot and voice for a long time um but I never got into drama college um there were two or three that I loved that I was called back for but in the middle of all of that my uh mother and stepfather had a huge car accident uh that left them in hospital for months and so as a teenager I was on my own for that time um and so it just threw everything out it threw it threw my A levels out it threw going to university out it just all um uh it was just this sort of overwhelming uh perfect storm that threw everything out so I and like I say I'd I already had this Saturday job at the theatre because I wanted to go into acting I wanted to go into that world um and so the more I did that Saturday job and the more I met people the more I realized uh probably quite arrogantly like I don't need to do the training side of things like there are specific things that I don't know techniques I don't know and technicalities I don't know and I can learn those I can go to people and I can find those out but I have that innate ability to tell a story to understand how, where the beats are, what descriptions to put in to to get an emotional response and all of that kind of stuff. I understand that. So and this industry works on who you know like a hundred percent who you know and so I felt it was more important to as I was starting to get into that industry it was more important to just stay there and work hard and make contacts and make friends and gain experience. And actually it was a really good ground for running my own businesses later on because I started off working in the box office. Well no actually originally I started off doing work experience uh as a teenager up in the offices which meant making teas and coffees and photocopying and all of that. But then I was working with all the departments you know I was working with marketing and I under I could see how marketing happened and okay cool there's a delivery of posters right you need whoa you need that many posters to market a show for one week. Okay that's interesting. And then I would go to fundraising like wow you have to make that many calls a day in order to get a pittance of fundraising okay wow that that's that's really super interesting. And then you'd be working with with uh a sort of management theater management on the administrative side and like wow this is complicated there's a lot going on here and then you'd work on the artistic side in terms of the management of like programming and how does it you know and so for the for those two weeks of work experience I was super lucky that I got such a wide range of of experience and knowledge so quickly and and I loved it and I loved the people there. And so um I asked if I could have a job. And when I was 16 they gave me a Saturday job in the box office. I wasn't allowed because I was only 16 I wasn't allowed to work on the actual machines and sell tickets. So I had these books that were like these huge tomes basically that were postcodes. And then I had these enormous printouts of people in their uh um in their a ticketing system that didn't have postcodes or had partial postcodes and so I had to manually find the person find the address go to a book find the address find the postcode correct it or not depending on what it was on paper on those like dot matrix printout X uh Z fold pieces of paper. Oh my days. But it didn't matter because I was in that place I was in that world and I was meeting all the staff front of house and the staff backstage and the actors that would come in and the company the touring companies that would come in I was meeting all of them and then when I left school um they offered me a job they offered me the job of the grand title of theatre assistant which was General Dog's body but I loved it. So let's let's let let's be let's be clear general's dog General Dog's body universally you were a runner not quite no quite no no no I was I was maybe half a peg up from that a p if you will up from that days um uh so my my remit was initially was you know answer the phone open the post uh make things happen for all the departments front of house that need stuff happening for photocopying arrange things um uh pantos coming up the cast is coming in okay or we need this guy needs a taxi from here to there like you've got to find accommodation for this person you've got to get a new version of the script to that person that kind of stuff um but the role I I guess I made the role evolve over time um they in between me doing work experience and me starting as theatre assistant they they lost their work experience program the the woman that did run it moved to a different theatre and no one picked it up after that and I had such a good time with that that I volunteered to put that in place. So I then came up with a program uh a two-week program for each person who did work experience where it was agreed with various different departments that they would have whatever uh um uh a candidate I guess was there for that week they would have them for these two days they would take them through XYZ it was a much more structured thing so that um the departments weren't overwhelmed they weren't thinking oh God we've got another kid that we've got to take through they knew okay I've got two hours on this day where I'm gonna show them the rigging or whatever it might be. And so I put that in place grew that and then this was a touring theatre in Oxford so 90% of the shows that came through were other people's shows. They would always put on their own pantomime every year and then they started to to grow and put on maybe one or two shows of their own yeah. And for the pantomimes I would always come out of the admin offices and I would go and be a follow spot operator. So I'd sit right up in the ceiling with those massive dirty grey lights that you would then manually pivot to follow someone uh with a beam of capacity was this theatre can you remember the Oxford Playhouse Oxford Playhouse oh my god and so I would and I would love that you were part of the show in in your own way. Again it was that being immersed in that story um first show that I did was Cinderella and I had to do most of the time when you have a follow spot the edges of it are feathered right so it's not a harsh line it's a soft circle of light that you put on someone and as they walk around the stage just for those that don't know what it is so someone's on stage they they walk on you turn your follow spot on it's a soft feathered ball of light that will illuminate that person and a small area around that person. And it gives a bit of visual focus to telling the audience this is where you should look. And if they walk across the stage you have to slowly pivot your follow spot which is this bloody huge great big piece of equipment that is like the sum in a box. Yep and it's really really hot. So if you if you have if you put your hand on the wrong thing you burn yourself. So you have to move this across at the pace that that actor is walking at that time because it won't be necessarily the same pace as last time. They won't necessarily go to the same spot on the stage as last time. So you have to manually do all of this and and then as they walk off you have to turn the light off. You at the same time you're wearing these things called cans, sort of headphones with a microphone on and you can hear the CSM, the the company stage manager giving you cues, giving other departments cues for lighting for sound, for flying the rigs in, for actors, for the band, whatever it is all of this is going on in your ears as well. And the reason that most of the time a follow spot is feathered around the edge is so that you don't have to be pinpoint accurate on coming in and bringing the light up on someone who's just come in because there's no it's not like you've got a kind of laser dot to help you find your mark. You have to get accurate at knowing where this thing is going to point to uh and the first show I did most of the time my light was was feathered but the part where Cinderella runs up the stairs and her slipper is left on the stairs I had to do an unfeathered tight spot on the shoe. So normally the beam of a follow spot by the time it reaches the actor on the stage you've got it so far out that the beam will be above the top of their head and below their feet. Sometimes it's waist ahead but most of the time it's sort of full body you have a hell of a lot of leeway in getting that accuracy right when it's that big and feathered. When you have to crop it right down to just being almost the size of a shoe and it's not feathered so it appears like a kind of magical circle of light with a very hard edge around the shoe and you have to hit that mark the shoe's going to be in a different place every time because it falls off her foot. That was an incredible moment of creating magic for children. Like absolute magic. And there were other amazing things in the show you know ponies appearing on stage and and people appearing and disappearing behind a gauze and all these kind of magical wonderful stage effects that as adults you can appreciate the magic behind it but you know the technicality you know how it's done but as a kid like whoa and so the having that opportunity I was so grateful for that um you know and and those plantos would go on for oh I can't remember how many weeks now, but weeks and weeks like hundreds of shows. You know I'm one of there is a bunch of us designers who have done amazing things and this is very I feel very um un British putting it this way but solid I've done things that have been seen by cumulatively have been seen by billions of people around the world I've designed things I've created things. Nobody knows my name I'm not a big name. I'm not a Johnny Ive or what have you like and that's fine. I'm I'm really I really don't mind that um as long as the work I'm doing is successful and is eliciting the correct emotional response I'm happy and unpaid I'm happy yeah the payment thing is yeah it's kind of yeah um but you know there are so many of us that put so much love and care and attention into something but that's the thing it's the love the care the attention which is almost you know table stakes but then how do you get to be in a space where you can facilitate all of these things and I think your story from the get go again pun totally intended it's all about the story it's all about the holistic it's all about the end to end. It's thinking considering iterating validating all of the above and sorry go ahead no no sorry I didn't mean to interrupt and I think you know that um some business people have realized that yeah they need capable folk who can take that holistic view and distill research and you know da da da da da da da da da um long time coming and whatever we'll see where it goes but it's becoming a lot more clearer to me why why Adam Jennings because you're such an empath you clearly are diligent but diligent in so many things that's that's very rare in my experience. It's very very rare good thank you I really appreciate that and I I want to take that in because ten years ago this would be the part where I would do a knob gag and like not take this in, you know and I'm learning to do that because it's really important. It's really important to hear when someone says something and I really thank you it's you're incredibly kind and I really appreciate you saying that um and it comes back to what we're saying about being kind to yourself once you've started to let yourself say nice things to yourself you can then open the doors up to hearing the nice things that other people want to say about you. And unless you do the first step I don't feel like you're ever really fully going to be able to do the second. So I really appreciate that. Thank you. You are more than welcome um I've just remembered something with the follow spots. Yes it's and it's a pro tip for exclusive pro tip. Listen up here I've never shared this publicly before listen up listen up it's coming so you're sat up in the roof you're maybe I mean it depends on the theatre obviously I guess I was about 60 foot up above the above the audience the I joked and said it's like a sun in a box. It is incredibly hot that light it's really really warm. And that space up in the roof is usually really warm because there's a whole bunch of other lights up there with you and all the heat and everything of the audience is all coming up. In between usually with a pantomime you do two shows a day and in between those two there's a very dear friend of mine Jason who was company stage manager. He and I both absolutely loved Butterscotch Angel Delight absolutely loved it and I said I could probably eat a washing up bowl full of it and he said there's a pro tip coming up he said that he could as well and someone challenged us to see a washing up bowl full of Angel Delight butterscotch flavor fastest falls between the two shows we someone made two whole washing up bowls of Angel Delight the cast and the crew all got around in the green room someone had a stopwatch oh my days they timed us I genuinely can't remember who won um but it was it was brilliant fun. Gave each other a hug everyone clapped laughed and all had a good time oh it's time to time to get ready new show second show of the day starting in half an hour off we go everyone you know getting to make up costumes or positions or what have you so uh I start climbing the the ladder up into the roof space and you there are these down tree ways that you get on your hands and knees in this particular theatre that you got on your hands and knees to crawl through to then go and sit down on this little cushion next to this huge hot piece of equipment that you sit there for for the whole show. You come down in the interval but you sit up there for the whole show whether you're it's your time or not and I got warmer and warmer and warmer and this belly full of angel delight got warmer and warmer and warmer. So my pro tip is don't eat a washing up bowl full of angel delight butterscotch flavor if you're about to go and sit next to a follow spot for an hour because you will feel very very ill and you there's nowhere up there if you if you're gonna be sick there's nowhere up there to be sick other than a 60 foot drop down into the audience below you. So I didn't I wasn't I wasn't ill but I was very very unwell and there's a there's a great tradition in the theatre when especially around pantomimes if you miss a cue or if you mess something up you're fined five pounds that all of that money goes into a pot and at the end once you finish the get out which is when you strike all the set and you bring it all you pack it all up take it all down once you finish the get out you all go to the pub and that money of finds a fine pot uh goes to paying the beer tab. And uh that day I think I had three or four finds because I was so sluggish. Yeah. So uh awesome exclusive I've never told anyone that story before publicly for a split well longer than a split second I thought that was a glorious segue into how you got into special effects thankfully not oh my days meeting Jason for a coffee in a couple of days I'll remind him of that story and see uh see if it also brings a kind of queasy look to his face insane absolutely insane so okay it's one question that I'm asking everybody um this wonderful wonderful thing called artificial intelligence and I've taken a bit of a deep dive academically um and I've continued that learning myself and the more I find the more I uncover the more uncomfortable I get um what's what's your thought on this new technological paradigm

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

I have a multitude of thoughts about it.

Hopes, Fears, And Human Purpose

Love As A Framework For Conflict

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

And I think I don't know if most of them, but a lot of them are troubling. I think we very often I don't think we should truncate it to AI, first and foremost. I think we should keep saying artificial intelligence because that's what it is. It is artificial. In that, you know, we think about artificial intelligence, we think, ah, yeah, it's a robot. It's a robot that can do and think and all these things. No, what we're saying is it's not intelligence. It's artificial intelligence. It's mimicry of intelligence. It's not intelligent. It is a facsimile of intelligence. It's artificial. You use ChatGPT to answer something, it's not answering you. It's producing an artificial response. It's very, very good. It looks like a real one, but it is an imitation of a response. It's artificial. And so I think the more that we truncate it to AI, the more we remove ourselves from understanding this is not real. Not yet, anyway. It's not real. It's not intelligence. It is a it's an impression. Um so that's something that plays on my mind heavily. The where we go is also something that plays on my mind, like where we go from here. Because AI is having a negative and positive impact across every single industry. And then the negative impact are way more people are out of work and way more people are going to stay out of work unless something changes quite drastically. We also have a perfect storm at the moment of wars going on and you know, food shortage, and like blah, blah, blah, like uh a financial crisis, like everything. Like there's that's all happening all at once. Um, and I'm not I'm not clever enough or or clued up enough on the economic side of it to understand to what degree that race for AI and the rapidly changing pace in tech is impacting everything else. But I'm damn sure it is, all filtered into each other and having knock-on effects to each other. Um but where do we go from here? What happens when we reach general artificial intelligence? What happens then? You know, people talk about, oh, well, we'll have a universal living wage from where? From what? I read an article the other day that was like, oh, agents are brilliant. They're gonna, you know, you apply your agent to your Office 365 and it'll look through your outlook and it'll respond to your emails in your tone of voice. That's gonna be brilliant. And the article completely missed the point because it was saying humans are gonna email you and your agent will respond to those humans. No. If you are using the agent, they are using the agent. So an agent will email you and your aim at agent will respond. And at the moment, when you look at two systems talking to each other, with each back and forth, the hallucinations get more and more and more and more. There's that example of uh feeding the picture of the rock into, I think it was ChatGPT, and asking it, replicate this picture exactly and doing that over and over again, and it goes from a photographic image of the rock to this weird abstract illustration through many iterations, where it was tasked with just reproducing it exactly. And that is what happens with these conversations as well. When you have two agents responding to each other on an email, right now, that conversation is going to get out of hand really quickly and will be utterly useless in X number of iterations, X number of back and forths between the two agents. Um, I would love for someone to prove me wrong on that, but I fear that the technology is just not there yet. Um so what happens when we do get there? What then? Oh, we're always gonna need humans, oh, we're gonna need the human input we're gonna need. Yes, but what happens when we get to general artificial intelligence? If that does what everybody who is sharing warning signs, if that does what they are saying it's gonna do, what then? What do we do then? How are we gonna make money to buy things, to buy food? Are we gonna go back to growing our own food and barter it? Like how does this all work? I don't understand, I don't see. I think that's the problem. I don't see what the vision is. We've been through these huge revolutions before many, many times, but they've always happened over a much, much slower pace than this one is happening. So they give that gives you time to start envisaging what the future might be and then planning towards it and working towards it. It's much like a concept car. You look at them and you think, whoa, I can't imagine that in production. And when it actually gets to production, it's kind of toned down a bit because you've had the time to figure out, well, yeah, like we went a bit, way a bit far with that concept, and so we've kind of pulled ourselves back. We haven't got that time right now. We don't we don't have that ability to create the path forward because the tech is changing and and taking leaps and bounds. Uh and yes, it's not doing that on its own. Yes, humans are are pushing that change, and and yes, we could keep on top of it all. But honestly, it's exhausting. And why, like, what is going to happen? I would love for AI to be inserted into our lives in a way that is actually useful. I would love for it to be right now, when we look at our day-to-days, we see whatever tasks we've got at work as like super important and they have to be done by us. And then there's a whole bunch of stuff that could be done by AI. You know, and typically that split is sort of uh repetitive tasks, productive production tasks, that kind of thing. But actually, I think if we were really honest with ourselves, most of the things we do for work aren't really that important in the grand scheme of things, and they could be done by an autonomous system, which would leave us humans to sit around the fire and think about and find solutions for the things that are really, really challenging, like climate crisis, for example. Like those are the things that we need to figure out and fast, not how do I get a better return from my CRM system? Do you know what I mean? And we're so focused and so worried about these things that we find important, but then they're really not the bigger picture. So my hope is that AI frees us up as a global society to think about those really, really important things and have time to figure out solutions for those. My worry is it's not gonna go that way. But I I can't, I can't yet picture what the future is gonna be. And I think that's the most unsettling thing of all. You know, we, regardless of of what age you are, up until very recently, we all had roughly the same idea. We go to school, we're gonna get a job. We're either gonna go to college first and get a job, or we're gonna go straight into the workforce and get a job. We'll work up a ladder and we'll reach a certain point. Maybe we start our own business, maybe we work for somebody else, doesn't matter, whatever is works best for you, and then we'll retire and we'll go golfing or on a cruise or um have a holiday or run a little cake shop in a village somewhere, or like whatever it is. And it feels like all of that is going, and I don't know what is replacing that. I'm not saying necessarily that change is bad at all. It's just I quite like to have at least a vision of what that change might be whilst we're heading into it. And at the moment I can't see what that is, and that's troubling. That was a very long answer. It was a very long answer, but an eloquent one, and apologies for interrupting you halfway through that. Um I'm broadly in agreement with you. I think, you know, we are on a road to nowhere right now, but the thing is um everyone seems to be more comfortable than not, varying degrees of what your definition of comfort is, of course. Um, yeah, no one's jumping off this road. I don't I don't see people jumping off of this road. I see a lot of good voices from the academic world, from the creative world, from the technical world requesting politely. Um, hang on. Oi, you hang on a second. Um where are we going exactly? Yeah. Uh I I keep hearing these whispers, these rumors, um, that that we're we're going to arrive at this utopian place.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:11

Um I'm I'm not I'm not seeing it. Yeah. Have you ever seen the movie Wally? Unfortunately, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:25

Not one of my favorites, but yes. All of us on a massive spaceship orbiting the earth until it's safe to re-inhabit. There is a part of me, there is a part of me that is very worried that that actually has a critique on where we're heading, that's pretty spar on. Do you know what I mean? What can we do about it? Love. Gotta have way more love in the world. That has got to be the answer. You know, we we're human, so we're flawed. We're human, so we're gonna have greed, we're gonna have jealousy, we're gonna have uh anger, we're gonna have mistrust, we're gonna have misunderstanding, we're gonna have misalignment. How do you get past all of those things? Love. I I don't I don't wish harm or ill on anyone. There have been some people in my life who've hurt me deeply, but I don't wish any harm on them. Why? Someone does something bad to you, so you do something bad to them, so they do something bad to you, so you do something bad. How has that gone historically around the world? Not very well. Someone does something bad to you, you of course must acknowledge that and must heal from that and tell them what it's done to you. But retaliate, forget it. Do whatever you can to find compassion and find love in yourself for that person. Someone has a different point of view to you. Sit and listen to it and then be respectful. Send them on their way with love. Just because they've got a different perspective on something, just because they've got a different opinion on something. That doesn't mean you need to attack them. Just send them on their way with love. It's it's it's so simple and yet so incredibly difficult.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:33

Agreed. Agreed.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:36

But I could not agree with you any more than that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:39

It is as you say, simple, but we make it so complicated.

Signals, Podcast, And Coaching Offers

Final Laughs And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

On that note, I think that's a splendid way of moving on to our conclusion. What's next? What's next for you, sir? What have you got in the pipeline? Well, um, as of today, uh by the time this this episode goes live, I suspect the whole of my new video series, Signals, will be live. It's a seven-part series of shorts. Sorry, I didn't get that. What's it called? Signals. Signals. Signals. Signals. Signals. Signals. S-I-G. M-A-L-S, full stop. Uh it's a seven-part series on tuning into things that are already changing, um, covering things like AI and budgets and uh hiring and all sorts of kind of delicious topics and my thoughts on them as conversation starters. Uh, so that will be going live from today. Uh, you can find that on YouTube. Just search for uh Grow with Adam Jennings on YouTube, uh, likewise on LinkedIn, uh, and Instagram and TikTok and all the other places where you find stuff. So that's going live now. Uh we're currently mid-broadcast of season two of my podcast awaiting approval. Uh, like I said earlier, it's a globally charting design podcast about the messy human side of creative leadership. Uh, some absolutely amazing guests in seasons one and two from the likes of uh Apple and Paramount Pictures and Microsoft and Visa and HSBC. Um, and then uh the current episode right now is this fantastic, uh insightful gentleman called Joel Girl with a hard G. And you'll, if you've heard the episode, you'll understand why I'm emphasizing that. Never so that uh so the rest of that season is uh still to be broadcast. That season two will run until the end of February. Uh season three is already in the works. I've already got guests lined up for that. Um, and then uh the rest of, like I said earlier on in this episode, the rest of what I'm doing is is about helping other people grow, um, be that team members, be that projects, be that organizations. And I do that through a number of outlets, through mentoring one-to-one, through coaching one-to-one. Uh, I have a course on leadership called Supercharged Creative Leaders that helps you uh elevate your leadership game. Um, and whilst the course is specifically marketed towards anyone in the creative industries, it's actually relevant for anyone in any industry. Um, takes my 30 years of experience and downloads it into your toolkit uh over eight hours. It's done as a cohort, so you get to meet at uh at most five other amazing people who all have similar challenges and goals to you. So you start to build a network of connections, and then once you've passed the course, you're then um inducted into the kind of alumni of all the people that have been through it. So there's a huge Slack community that you get to join and meet all these other amazing leaders. Um, and you have a lifetime's worth of access to me to ask me on that community on Slack any questions that might come up, and we can chat through it. Um, so there's that. Uh, and then I'm still very hands-on uh as a creative leader. Um, like I said, I'm I'm kind of parachuted into organizations where things aren't going quite according to plan, and they need someone with a bit of seniority and experience who's been there and and seen that particular misstep before and knows how to course-correct it. Uh, so typically those engagements are shorter. I jump in, I fix something, I work with the team to level them up. So make sure that once I leave, it's not going to happen again. They know how to fix this and any other kind of knock-on effects. Uh so those are really the kind of in a nutshell, the range of things I've got going on. Um, there are more video series in the works. I will be producing more of those. Uh, not more signals, not more out of the woods, which is another series that's available on YouTube, but something different, um, which I can't wait to kind of um get deeper into that. Um, and if you want to find out any more about any of the things that I've been talking about, if you just head to adamjennings.com, and everything is linked to from there. My mentoring, my coaching, the supercharged creative leaders program, the awaiting approval podcast, the signals video stories uh series, the out of the woods video series, it's all it's all linked to from there. So just adamjennings.com. Um and if you want to connect with me, trot on to LinkedIn and find me there.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:41

Bloody awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:44

And remember, if you're gonna sit next to something really hot, do not consume a washing-up bowl full of butterscotch Angel Delight beforehand. Probably in general not a good idea to eat that much, ain't uh Angel Delight. Don't know. I I've I've been known to consume vast quantities of strawberry Angel Delight. Uh it gives me an instant headache. Fake strawberry flavour always gives me an instant headache. Like cheap coffee.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:18

Well, there you go. Adam.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:22

You have been utterly brilliant, utterly amazing, and I am utterly grateful that Hardy introduced us. You're very welcome. Thank you so much for inviting me on. I've had a really great time, and I've you've brought up some memories that I had completely forgotten that uh fill me with a fondness of looking back at various times, and uh I really appreciate your insightful questions of of uh visions of futures to come. Uh, and I can't wait to hear more of the DARBA podcast and other guests that you have coming on. You, sir, have a fantastic rest of the day. Cheers. Bye bye.