Virtually Anything Goes - a Made To See Podcast
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It's in th ename: Virtually Anything Goes.
Virtually Anything Goes is a MadeToSee.com podcast
Virtually Anything Goes - a Made To See Podcast
From Breakdown to Breakthrough: The Radical Truth About Leadership & Failure | Charles McLachlan
The Leadership Conversation That Challenges Everything You Think You Know
Join Lev Cribb on the Virtually Anything Goes podcast for an extraordinarily candid conversation with Charles McLachlan, Founder of the CEO Growth Academy. This isn't your typical success-story interview. It's a raw, honest exploration of failure, mental health, vulnerability, and what leadership actually means when you strip away the corporate facade.
Three Truths That Define This Episode:
Charles shares his journey from being "basically unemployable" to building multiple businesses and becoming a sought-after executive coach. But the real story lies in what happened between those milestones: a catastrophic mental breakdown at 17, three years in psychiatric hospitals, electric shock therapy, and the terrifying prospect of permanent institutionalization. This experience taught him the most valuable leadership lesson of all: working harder and smarter won't solve every problem. And trying will destroy you.
Why We're Failing at Failure:
Charles exposes how our obsession with defining success implicitly defines failure, yet we have no cultural mechanisms for engaging with it. From Premier League managers to politicians to corporate leaders, everyone pretends failure doesn't exist. This denial is massively damaging. Charles argues for mourning failure, acknowledging it openly, and building cultures where vulnerability replaces toxic positivity.
The VUCA Framework Reimagined:
Forget vision, clarity, and agility. Charles proposes responding to today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world with vulnerability, unity, community, and acceptance, i.e. a framework that transforms how leaders operate and creates space for extraordinary results.
Plus: The CEO who almost died chasing success, why "leadership" might be a delusion, the power of followership, and Charles's painful exit from a family business that taught him everything.
This conversation will change how you think about success, failure, and what it means to lead.
Subscribe for transformative leadership conversations!
Charles McLachlan is the Founder of the CEO Growth Academy, as well as InspiredCEOs, and the Portfolio Executive Community. Connect with Charles McLachlan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesmclachlan/
More info at:
CEO Growth Academy https://ceogrowth.biz/about-us/
FuturePerfect https://futureperfect.company
Portfolio Executive Community https://PortfolioExecutive.biz
Lev Cribb is the Founder and Managing Director of Made To See, a UK-based Video and Livestreaming Agency, specialising in the strategic and tactical use of video across B2B organisations. Lev is also the host of the Virtually Anything Goes podcast.
Made To See: https://madetosee.com/
For more information, content, and podcast episodes go to https://www.madetosee.com or our YouTube channel @madetoseemedia
I realised from a very young age I was basically unemployable. I didn't want to work for other people. I wasn't suited to the sort of corporate politics. So anything I did had to be something where it was my thing.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, audio listener. This is your host, Lev Cribb. Thank you for choosing this episode featuring our guest, Charles McLaughlin. If you prefer video, you can also find all of our podcast episodes on YouTube or on our website at matec.com. But now I'll get out of your way and hand you over to, well, me. Hello and welcome to the Virtually Anything Goes podcast. This episode is part of our leadership story series where we speak to leaders from a variety of different backgrounds, including AI, healthcare, software, strategy, executive coaching, and others. And if you like what you hear or see in this episode, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of our upcoming episodes, and of course, check out our previous episodes too. Today I'm talking to Charles McLaughlin about his story into leadership, what got him to where he is today, and which obstacles he encountered along the way. But we'll also talk about how he helped others to succeed and grow in leadership. With more than 30 years of experience, Charles has helped develop an international IT services consultancy for Anderson. He built two companies from scratch and supported two companies into the Tech Fastjack 100. Charles is the founder of the CEO Growth Academy, an executive coaching company which he has been running since 2018. And under the banner of Future Perfect, Charles is building a community of portfolio executives who are taking control of the second half of their career. Charles McLaughlin, very warm welcome to you. It's wonderful to have you on the show.
SPEAKER_03:Great to be here.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Excellent, thank you. If this is your first time listening to the Virtually Anything Goes podcast, stick around until the very end, where I can uh turn control over to Charles, uh, where he can ask me his virtually anything goes question. This can be any question at all, and I won't know what it is until Charles asks me. Uh, so it could literally be anything. Uh the only caveat is that Charles will have to answer the same question after I have given my answer as well. Uh so Charles, um, as I mentioned, with Future Perfect, you are building a community of portfolio executives who are taking control of the second half of their career. But what can you tell us about the young Charles McLaughlin? Was he a leader from a young age?
SPEAKER_03:I don't think so. No, I think I was always seen as somebody sitting in the background, noticing, not saying very much. And then for some reason, if you don't say very much, people think you're wise. If you think you're wise, then they'll ask your advice. And so I was never the upfront leader, but often I think I had a lot of influence. And um, I enjoyed that, you know, it wasn't very exposed, sit quietly in the corner, and then sometimes I get involved in helping people to navigate really difficult, complicated situations, and it I sort of recognized that that was a way of leading that really suited me.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, fast forward, we are here today, and and the young Charles McLaughlin has now had a long career. Um, what can you tell us about your journey into leadership? Was it always planned, or or were there particular forks in the road, whether they were intentional or not, that got you to where you are today?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'm just going to interrupt you because I don't believe in careers anymore. So if I'd had seen this as a career, then that would suggest that at 18, when I went to university, I'd know what I'd be doing now, and all my life would have been oriented to the wonderful experience I'm having in my life now. That was absolutely not the track case. When I was 18, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, tried a few things, and then found a passion. So sorry, um, not careers, but ask the question again.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I suppose you know, how did you get to where you are today? Were there were there particular um avenues that you went down that perhaps were expected or unexpected? Um how did you end up where you are today?
SPEAKER_03:Um I think there's always been three things that have been really important to me above anything else. And the first was I realized from a very young age I was basically unemployable. Um, I didn't want to work for other people. I didn't want to, I wasn't suited to the sort of corporate politics. So anything I did had to be something where it was my thing. The second thing is that I began to realize that there is something powerful about building businesses because they have a power of multiplication. My father was an academic, he spent his whole life spending other people's money. Um my mother was a homemaker, she spent her whole life spending other people's money. She'd actually started a small business, but the only multiplication they made was to have two children, which, given they were two adults, wasn't really multiplication, it was steady stay. So there's something about business which allows a seed to grow and flourish, and from one seed you can get a hundredfold. So that has always excited me. And I think then the third sort of principle that kept me going all the way through is, and I didn't realize this until I was much older, but there's something inside me that loves teaching people, loves writing training courses. Um there's something very didactic about me. So accidentally, all the way along the way, I've ended up doing that thing. And when I got to about 50, I realized, okay, so this is the thing I love doing. Let me do more of it. But that was an accident, really. An accident waiting to happen.
SPEAKER_01:How did that how did that accident happen? What how did you first notice it or how did it first come across?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I was invited by a couple who'd founded one of the very first executive coaching and leadership development businesses in the UK. And they said, Charles, we're now ready to prepare our business for sale and retire. So will you come in and work out what we need to do? Because you know something about business. We know a lot about executive development, but you know something about business. So I came in and started doing some work, and I'd started working with them, and they said quite quickly, actually, why don't you become the CEO of this business? Because then not only can you think about the plan, the strategy, but you also implement it, and then you will propose things that you're actually going to get done. So what happened is I said, if you want me to be the CEO of this business, and I spent my whole life being a consultant and a software engineer, then to be credible in front of your clients and in front of your team, I need to go on these programs to learn what an executive coach is and how to do leadership development, how to facilitate groups. So I got this sort of free education as part of the package, and that's where I really understood for the first time how much I love teaching people. Because I could see that coaching and mentoring and this facilitated learning that happens in workshops was something I loved doing, I loved the outcome, and actually I was quite good at it. So that was a seminal transition.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting how how you can fall into something perhaps when you didn't even expect it. Um when you and I first spoke about you joining me on this podcast for an episode, um, we we talked about the topic of failure. Uh, but it's not really a topic that um you would typically come across on on LinkedIn or in keynotes. Uh, it's not something that's talked about, even though we probably all have to deal with it at some stage uh of our life. Um why is that topic so important? And especially if we're here to talk about leadership, which is so often associated with success. Why is failure so important to talk about?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I just think we're in a world where all of the culture in every context, not just the corporate culture, is about setting ambitions, creating plans, having strategies, trying to deliver outcomes. So everything we do in our lives is about defining what success is. And we've got very good at defining what success is, and there's you know, there's whole management schools which are about getting better at defining what success is. In the charity sector, they've built bought into this whole impact story, which is again about defining success. I think we're useless at recognizing that whenever you define success, you are implicitly defining failure. And so we, but culturally, because we deny that by defining success we're defining failure, culturally have no mechanisms, mindset, way of engaging with failure at a personal, community, and corporate level. And so that disconnect, I think, is massively damaging for us personally, for the teams we work with, and for the enterprises and organizations that we take responsibility for. I was very struck um hearing a football manager whose team had not done as well as it could have done, saying, basically, we failed. We failed to achieve, we didn't play well enough, we need to do better, we got it wrong, it was useless. That's what he chose to do. Not something you hear very often.
SPEAKER_01:That's true.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and I felt actually that created a foundation for him to turn around the team that he worked with.
SPEAKER_01:Because he he drew a line in the sand, he didn't just continue in the pursuit of the success that they perhaps weren't achieving. Or uh, why do you feel that was the thing?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think mainly because he'd created a culture within his team that we are going to acknowledge failure. We're not gonna make excuses, we're not gonna pretend it hasn't happened, we're gonna acknowledge failure, we're gonna mourn it together. I think there's something about mourning failure, because every failure is us is accompanied by a loss of what you hoped would happen. So we're gonna recognize it, go through the emotional journey of mourning it, and then we are equipped to go forward in a different way rather than being in denial.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's interesting. And and do you do you see that um as a mindset developing in today's world, business world, or do you see that diminishing even further?
SPEAKER_03:I don't think so. I mean, I think I don't play football, I'm not really interested in football, but I would say that in the Premier League, the half-life of a football manager is pitiful. Their ability to stay much longer than one full season, very constrained, particularly if they're brought into sorts of outer mess. And you know, a new manager comes in, they have a relatively short honeymoon, and then they're not then everything that doesn't happen right after that is failure. And I think we're equally brutal with our politicians, they come in, and irrespective of what you think of them, within three to six months of getting there, within three to six months of getting there, they have their whole performance is measured against the article of failure, and they're condemned for failing. Yeah, their job then is to pretend they haven't failed, or to deny they failed, or say that failure is due to the people who were there before, or to claim they haven't failed as badly as the people who were there before. You know, the whole dynamic I think is is unhelpful.
SPEAKER_01:I I agree. Uh it reminds me of an example actually of um one of our early clients who brought us on to establish a webinar program for them. And the executive sponsor, uh the the VP of EMIA at the time, um told us, you know, asked us how long would it take? And we told them, well, probably you know, to establish it about a quarter to see first results and promotion and and so on, probably another quarter, to really realistically evaluate something and draw conclusions from specific insights, probably another quarter or two. Uh and that felt, you know, it's a year. And that felt quite daring to say, well, it's going to take a year for you to see some results. Of course, you could see some trends and results earlier on, but to really make a call on how well it's it's going, it would it would take a year. And he um he turned around and said, Well, I'll give you air cover for 18 months. And that simple sentence was transformative because we were able to not just implement and roll out and and start measuring, but we could actually draw proper conclusions because it realistically it was a year after that initial six-month that two-quarter rollout that we could actually have a full view of the data as well. And paradoxically, we were able to launch quicker because we knew we had the air cover. We weren't trying to cut corners to try and get results quickly, we were accelerating quicker at the beginning, and actually the the results were were better because they were more prepared and and more in line with a longer-term strategy. So um there is definitely benefit in uh you know allowing for longer periods of time for somebody to prove themselves because otherwise it might usher in failure by default if I'm not giving them enough time because I might cut corners.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and it reminds me of um a podcast I used to listen to regularly called the The Comedy Controllers, and basically it was interviews with BBC people who'd been involved in the the comedy output of the BBC. And what came out again and again is in the past, producers would bring people in and they would allow them to do a series, whether it's on TV or radio, and the first series sort of might sort of kind of work or not, but they would still give them a second series because they believed that now they're on the first series, they could might be able to get the second series right. Whereas I think now the culture is very much we do a pilot, if the pilot doesn't look like it's work, we'll bin the entire project.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Feel fast. Um just taking that a step further in terms of not just what is happening within organizations, but I suppose around it as well. And yeah, there's a lot of concern currently, I think globally, really, around uh factors that affect us all, whether it's socioeconomic, political, macroeconomic, technological, health-wise. Um, and and there is a um an acronym that you told me about called VUCA, I hope I'm pronouncing that correct, VUCA. Tell us a bit more about that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think in some ways it's a great and simple way of explaining why there is so much failure, and why in this world defining success rigidly up front is just a fool's errand. So it stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. And it was a military despitary doctrine developed by the US military post-second world war. And they realized that you know set peace battle plans in the era of Vietnam, etc., that just didn't hack it anymore. What you had to do is find a way of responding and engaging with this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. And they said the way to do that is to have a very strong vision, to, in terms of complexity, develop real clarity, in terms of ambiguity, build to respond with agility, and then in terms of uncertainty, build understanding. So that's how they saw things would respond. And I think that was a relatively good way of them be able to talk to the sponsors in politics about how they're going to go about things. Um, and it made a radical difference to the way they pursued their battle plans and engaged with operations and so on and so forth. It's great. But I'm not sure that response works anymore. Um because I think actually things are even more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous than they've ever been. And so what I'm suggesting is that in response to volatility, actually, as leaders, we need to express vulnerability. We need to be able to have a relationship with our teams where we say, actually, we don't have all the answers. I don't have all the answers. We don't have all the answers. So let's just accept that I don't have all the answers, and it means I will sometimes get things wrong, and sometimes things will go very badly wrong. But that's just the reality, and I want to create a culture in which people can be vulnerable to one another about what they don't know, what they can't do, and what could go wrong. And then in relation to uncertainty, the most powerful thing that I think we can do is build unity of purpose. So let's all spend a lot of time and energy ensuring that irrespective of whether we have agreement about the destination, we still have unity of purpose. And in relation to this complexity, endless analysis, clarity, etc., is not actually going to work. What works is engaging community, the wisdom of the crowds, if you like, the organic response of a community, rather than trying to believe that you can just analyze yourself out of the problem. And finally, the risk of responding to ambiguity with agility is you just end up constantly spinning your wheels, you're constantly doing these course corrections. And what I would suggest is a better response to ambiguity is to live with an attitude of acceptance. So acceptance is an attitude that I can't know everything, I can't solve everything. There are some that not everything is an A or a B. We're living in a world where I need to accept some things are outside my control, some things are things that I can influence, and some things I have got personal agency. But that's as far as it goes. And with that acceptance, actually extraordinary things start to happen. If you as a leader are offering a vulnerability, if you as a leader have brought unity of purpose with the people that you work with, if you as the leader are relying upon the richness of community to bring responses to evolving situations. And if you as a leader are practicing personal acceptance and encouraging people in your community to find their own way of acceptance, then extraordinary things happen. And when I started to look at this, I realized that you know this is a very ancient wisdom. If you look at the first century AD, there was a group of people who were living in a very complex political and economic situation in a tiny little country at the edge of the Mediterranean with a Roman uh empire, a local governor, complex um religious environment, which you know would make some of the aspects of the way the Taliban operate feel very familiar. And yet, this individual group of built around him a set of people who understood the power of vulnerability, understood the power of unity of purpose, understood the power of community, and understood how to accept what was outside their control while still feeling they had agency to make a difference. And you know, that turned into a worldwide movement which has been adopted, which is now part of the way that about 2.3 billion people in the in the world used to think about their lives. So I might make it fashionable by using VUCA and coming up with this magic framework, but the truth is this is a wisdom that was first expressed almost 2,000 years ago.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I I'm sure there will be l people listening to this who um are leaders, uh, who probably intellectually can relate to what you said and understand it as well. And they start with a V and you talk about vulnerability, and they might say that's too radical. I can't do that. I I can't be where I am today and be vulnerable. I have to be a strong leader. I can't possibly go down that route and you know whatever follows with the UCA after that, but let's just start with a V. I just can't do that. What would you say to them if if they if they feel like that?
SPEAKER_03:Um all I can do is tell the story that I experienced when I came really as a computer geek into an organization that had a hundred thousand fee-earning professionals across the world. I was brought in as a senior manager, which in those days was just one step below partner, um, and asked to perform to help that organization build a technology-based consulting practice in the UK. So think about where I was. I'd never been involved in professional services, I had no idea what it meant to work with a whole bunch of accountants because most of the people there were accountants by training. Um, I knew nothing about consulting. Um, I knew something about writing software, and they wanted me to come in and pitch to clients, to build project teams, to create a community of software developers, to lead some of the thinking about next generation technologies in a completely alien environment because most of my life I'd been running my own business. So, what could I do? Well, what I could do was be sufficiently vulnerable to the people who worked with me and for me that they would help me out with the experience they'd had from being there since they were 21 years old, and I was now in my what was it, late 30s. They could help me out because they understood how this thing works, they understood how to make a proposal, they understood how to monitor manage and motivate a team, they could do all these things that I couldn't do. So they helped me out with all of that stuff. What I did was give them the hope that we could build a world-beating technology services business from scratch, and give them the unity that we're all in this together, and actually foster a community which turned into 10,000 software developers across the professional services organization. Um, and in order to nurture that community, they literally flew me around the world. I had a 10-day period where I got on a plane in London, went to Japan, they stopped off in Hawaii, went to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington, New York, and back to London. Round the world over 10 days. So was a success. Well, three years into this, sorry, two years into this, they said, Charles, you should be writing a proposal to become a partner. I said, Okay, well that's fine. A year later they said, You haven't done it, Charles. I said, Well, I don't I don't really know what all this stuff is. So again, by being vulnerable, there were people within the organization who did, in effect, the partner application for me and acted as my sort of political advocates to get me to become a partner, and I became a partner in this firm. Well, was that through I Can Change the World kind of heroic leadership? No, it was just me being there around them and saying, I believe in this stuff, come and believe in this stuff with me. Let's build a community of people who believe this stuff too, and let's accept that there's some things we can change, something we can't, and help me out. Because if I become a partner, then perhaps you can do more of the things you'd love to do. So all I can say is it worked for me.
SPEAKER_01:I I I guess it's really interesting listening, listening to you there, because what you're describing is that vulnerability as a way of bringing people along, which aligns with what you said on the um you know the shared vision and the shared purpose and so on as well. Um and it lets people in, uh it's not a wall, it's a it's an open door, isn't it? And and people will participate in that and it builds teams, I suppose, uh, which is ultimately what you did, I guess, with establishing the the Yeah, but it wasn't a strategy, I just had no other choice because I knew I couldn't do this now. So absolutely. And and but if if somebody's thinking perhaps they aren't on that wavelength and they are trying to look at, well, maybe I should be, and if they perhaps reflect on what hasn't worked out well, and perhaps they were more of a um walled leader as opposed to a an opening the doors and bringing people along on the journey leader, then this is an example that they can look to to say, well, actually somebody else has done it, it has worked. It wasn't just a flash in the pan, you clearly did very well with with that approach. Um, and you're teaching that to others now as well. So there is, as you say, there is there is hope and there are other ways. Um and perhaps this is even a competitive um advantage because I suspect a lot of companies will be, especially in the current climate, driven by you know KPIs and and and targets and you know short lead times to to achieve those things, um and doing things differently because it will ultimately set you apart and give you give you an opportunity to succeed, perhaps where others who are taking all a very similar approach as each other might not be succeeding. Would you would you agree with that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that's true. And one of the things I learned when I was involved with this coaching company was there's something called the Peter's principle. And the Peter's principle is that everybody gets promoted beyond their level of competence. So the truth is every leader gets to a point where they don't know what they're doing because you get promoted until you don't know what you're doing. So a strategy of vulnerability, when you get promoted to something where you don't know what you're doing, seems to me to be a much better response than to be in that place where you're there struggling with imposter syndrome when the truth is you are an imposter, you've been promoted beyond your level of competence.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's interesting. And I think I think it'll resonate with a lot of people. And and you know, I suppose for anybody, we're recording this, but uh and we're not live, but anybody who is listening to this, if you're relating to this, drop as a drop as a message and tell us what you're thinking about that because uh I think it is quite challenging and and and could be quite, I would imagine, quite nerve-wracking to think, well, I might have to do things differently and I might have to step out into a space, perhaps in an uncertain economic environment where I take a an even bigger chance than I would normally do um by by taking this slightly different approach. Um but I'd love to hear what people are thinking about this if you're listening to this. Um do share your thoughts with us. I mean leadership during these times must be increasingly challenging. There are so many different going things going on. We can't really control any of them, or at least not certainly many of them. What in your professional experience have you learned, I suppose, over the years that you are now applying? Have you had any early learnings that you've taken along with you in your career? Or sorry, your your journey, your professional journey, that help you now, other than what you've just shared with us there? And perhaps it's things that you've learned from other leaders and how they approach things.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I had a wonderful mentor when I was at Anderson who was a very experienced developer of consulting businesses. And he said to me, Charles, just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. It's not the right thing to do. And I suppose what he was saying is, accept that we're in a world of the art of the possible. And in a partnership context, you know, I would be coming to him, tearing what little hair I had out, and saying, but it's obvious, you know, we should be doing this. It doing anything else is just stupid. And he'd say, you may be right, Charles. In fact, you are right, but just because the other thing they're proposing to do is wrong doesn't mean it's the wrong thing to do. We're living in the world of the art of the impossible. Um, so that was really significant for me, I think. Um, because for so much of my life I just thought a bit like Spock. No, it's logical.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, it's it's it's it's fascinating. Um I'm I'm as you're as you're talking, I'm trying to reflect this on myself, and I think there's a lot to think about for myself as well. Um we we obviously you know spoke before we uh before we started with this episode, and you've given me permission to ask you about your personal story as well, because that obviously plays a role in how you develop um professionally uh for anybody. Um so I appreciate your willingness to and openness to talk about the kind of personal side of your life as well. Um have you experienced failure in your personal life, which has then also impacted your professional journey and and and what personal situation would you say had the biggest impact on how you developed in leadership? And maybe if I can add one more point, have there been any situations that perhaps started out as a, on the face of it, as a bad situation, um, that then be turned into something good as a result of how it progressed?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I suppose there's two or three things I think of, but perhaps one of the things that made the very biggest difference to me right at the beginning of stepping into um the world of work. So I was about 17. Um, I got fed up with being at school, I'd done my exams, I'd got my university entrance, and so I said to the school, look, fed up with being at school, why don't I guess why can't I just leave early and go and get a job? So I went and got a job. Um, and they put me in an aircraft hangar, which had um a nuclear reactor in one corner and two particle accelerators in the rest of the hangar, and they sat me in a room with one of these very early computers, proper computer, and said, write some software to analyze what happens from the particle acceleration. So I thought that's great. Um what actually happened was around Christmas, so yeah, shortly after Christmas, I was picked up off the streets of Oxford because I'd literally gone mad. The police thought maybe I'd taken some illegal substances, but I hadn't. So I was locked into a psychiatric hospital. I was given massive doses of drugs, and three months later I'd come out, gone back to work, and everybody thought I could go to university and I'd be fine. Um, I just had an episode, you know. But what actually happened was although I got through the first year of university, I then had another episode, and it took me three years to recover from that other episode. And I think in the context in which I lived, this was a massive failure. You know, a rising star who got an award to go to Cambridge University in a highly desirable college had just crashed and burned. And the real prospect at one point in that following three years was that I'd never leave hospital and I'd become what we used to call in the hospital dribblers, people who've had so much long-term psychiatric care and um uh drug intervention that they just wander they shuffle around and dribble. It's a very real possibility. So, in some ways, you know, that was a personal cataclysmic failure. Um, and I think in some ways it was worse then because we don't have because we didn't in those days have the celebrities coming out and talking about their ADHD or their depression or whatever. It's no longer sort of it was not at all socially acceptable to admit that you'd had a catastrophic mental breakdown. Um, and even worse was to admit you'd had electric consultative therapy, because you know, isn't that what they did to the um creation of Frankenstein? You know, it's not a great advert for the rest of your life, so it was meant to be this sort of hidden secret. Um and I think the most important thing it taught me was that it was an illusion for me to believe that I could solve every problem in my life by working harder or working smarter. Because when I did that, I I moved myself closer and closer to another catastrophic breakdown. Um, and so what did that failure do? It got me to realize that I might be clever, I might be determined, I might be hardworking, but actually that's not going to solve all the problems in my life. Um and um I don't always remember that. It's very easy to get back into this mindset that everything can be solved by working smarter and harder and longer, you know, all if that everything can be sorted by that. And actually, for me personally, and I think generally for people, that's a recipe for disaster.
SPEAKER_01:You you what is the alternative that you took away as that might solve this if it's not working harder and smarter or or longer? Did you did you find something that was an alternative to that?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think just at one level, recognizing acceptance. So, you know, although I might have thought I was a superhuman spot character, I'm not. So just accept my own limitations, be able to share those limitations with the people around me, and also not to necessarily feel I need to bind to somebody else's definition of success that then drives me to work harder, smarter, and longer than actually is physically, mentally, and spiritually good for me.
SPEAKER_01:And you're not the only one, I suppose, in that space. I mean, there's there's you see regularly folks on LinkedIn who post, sorry, I've been away for you know three months, six months, twelve months, uh, you know, and and share about their real burnout, uh, especially as you as you get into leadership. I suppose that is that is a real prospect, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03:It's interesting the language you use, isn't it? The acceptable thing is to say burnout. You use the language burnout because in some ways that says I've been working so hard that you know, and been so fiery that I've consumed all of my resources. If they said I've had a catastrophic mental breakdown and I've been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for three months, and nine months later I'm just about finding a way to live in this world. I'm not sure that'd be such an acceptable story to put on LinkedIn.
SPEAKER_01:Do you think it ever will?
SPEAKER_03:Who knows? I mean, I don't put it out on LinkedIn as part of my LinkedIn profile, but I have been prepared to put some articles out there that talk about this story because um actually I think it's important to make it acceptable, but also at some very fundamental level, don't really care what other people think about me. I just accept you know who I am, and then other people have to deal with that. And if they don't want to, well at least there's somebody in my life who does.
SPEAKER_01:You you said you said when you when we when I asked you this question, you said there were sort of two or three things that come to mind. Is that is it are there other things, other other situations that perhaps personally happened in your life that affected how you pursue your your professional success?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean I think this is a bit more, if you like, professional, but um I got to a stage in my life where I was wanted to seriously build a business, and I found a business partner who was five or ten years older than me, apparently had built some businesses successfully before, and we started to build this business, and we had a really interesting time over three years, and we built up this software development services business to about 50 people, and we actually created a product that we'd lined up for somebody to buy that would have given us a very nice exit and would have given me an ongoing role. And my business partner, who was the majority shareholder in the business, shut the business down. I had no ability to control it. All that work that I'd done over the previous three or four years was zeroed pretty much overnight. And I suppose, you know, that was a really catastrophic failure for me. Not necessarily because, you know, I didn't get the money, um, although I did end up in quite bad debt as a result, but because I'd had this vision of success, and I felt it had been taken away from me. I was just so close to getting there, and I felt it'd been taken away from me. And it did affect me very badly. Um, but there were two things that I think came out of that. One is now looking back on it, I realized there was something about that business partner that I hadn't realized that meant that actually, constitutionally, he was unable to allow a business to grow beyond a set of people that he could directly control. So it was never going to succeed. Um, and the second thing is there was a serious business dynamics that I observed, which had been really valuable to my later life. But most importantly, it created a transition point in my working life where I had the opportunity to get married, I had the opportunity to get married and become a grandfather on the same day, which was a little bit unusual. Um, and I had the opportunity to find a new way of working, which ultimately brought me into this big professional services organization that I would never have ever worked for in any other circumstances. So that failure created opportunities that I wouldn't ever have had. And that failure gave me learning, which I've been able to offer to other people ever since. Um, but it was still a failure, and I think the temptation for some people is to recast it as a success. Well, the success was I built it to 50 people. Well, the success was I learned how to do this stuff. Well, the success was, you know, um I turned myself around after it and had a successful career at Anson. Well, the success was X, Y, or Z. To me, that is the fallacy of taking the criteria of success that I set out with and then redefine the criteria to turn failure into success. And I think fundamentally that's dishonest, and fundamentally, emotionally, it just messes you up because you don't get the opportunity to mourn the loss of that dream. You deny that it was ever your dream. Well, it's a little bit, and I'm not, you know, I'm not talking from experience here, but it's a little bit like saying to a mother whose child dies with infant Cot syndrome, well, it's all right, really, you know, you successfully gave birth to a child and you showed all your love to it, and you couldn't have done anything different. It's not a helpful conversation because what really that person needs is for you to mourn with them rather than deny the pain and failure that they are feeling.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I suppose everybody copes differently, don't they, with adverse situations? And I suspect it comes down to the personal situation. People find themselves in your personality, your background, and so on as well. Are there particular steps that you take or that you follow to deal with situations like this? Whether that you've learned those from those past experiences, or if you've if you always had these these coping mechanisms, or is that something that you developed over time, or is it just on a case-by-case basis?
SPEAKER_03:I think I've fallen into the tr all of the traps that I've described to you about how to cope badly with failure and try and redefine it as success. Um all of the above have been the coping mechanisms. I think where I've got to is it works for me much better to confront the failure, to come to some kind of acceptance of that failure, to grieve the failure, and then look at where I am today and imagine what I want the future to be. So that's where I've come to. Um, and sometimes accepting the failure takes a very long time, sometimes grieving the failure takes a very long time. It probably took me 12 months to grieve the failure of the uh of the business that I was kicked out of, perhaps a little bit longer. Um and sometimes it's really difficult to imagine the future without that success that you relied upon.
SPEAKER_01:It reminds me of something that I read on LinkedIn actually only a few days ago, where an agency owner um described a similar situation to what you described, where their uh business partner um had used a lot of the agency's funds, in fact, most of them had made them insolvent, and they had to close the the business down. Uh and they didn't know until because they were the financial controller as well, um, and they just didn't know until it was too late. And what was interesting was not only had they built in, you know, clearly a successful uh agency, successful company, but also the comments on the post where they first of all shared that vulnerability that you know that this has happened and they had to address it obviously, um, which they didn't have to do publicly, but they felt that was the right thing to do. So describing some of that vulnerability that you mentioned, but also the situation they found themselves in. But then you read the comments underneath, and you might expect customers and others to say, well, this is a massive failure, how dare you! And you should have you know uh double-checked and you should have been aware. But actually the comments were you know, you you can you can build back, you can start afresh, you know, you are the kind of person who can do this, and you know, you've done it once, or perhaps it was twice, you can do it again. Um, and I think even in the post itself, the person said, Um, you know, I may or may not be able to, but yeah, I will certainly try, but it'll it'll take me a little while, and it might not be straight away. And it's I suppose that mourning period that you described there as well. So I do see that what you describe reflected in in that story as well. But it it is it is daunting, isn't it? Um because we we don't, as you say, we we define everything for success, not necessarily for failure, we don't necessarily plan for that side of things. Um and that's why I suppose there is there is hope for everyone, but there is also a a saying in in mining, I think it is. Um you're either a meter away from a million bucks or a million miles away from one from one buck, you know. It it's you you don't necessarily know until you get there, so you have to keep going. Um you shared how you know the the advice you take of your own experiences, but what what advice would you have for somebody else who is perhaps uncertain about their role in leadership or or kind of their uncertain about their success in leadership, whether it will happen or or whether they're having success right now. Any advice for them?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think I'd start with have a long, hard think about what success means for you. Because I think too often in corporate life, other people define success for us. We buy into that definition, and then we pursue a path which actually, if you get to the destination, doesn't represent success for you personally. So for many years I worked with CEOs of smaller businesses who started out life as founders, and their motivation was I have this passionate idea I want to build. I want to have more control of my life, and I want to build a business that I'm in charge of. Fantastic. Is I'd say, so if I could show you how to build your business faster, better, more surely, would you like to come and join my group? And they said yes. But actually, really, the important work that was done in that CEO group was to move from how I can get to this level of turnover or this exit capital value, to move the conversation from that to what is my real criteria of success? Is it exiting with 20 million pounds and sitting on the beach for the rest of my life, even though I've broken all my relationships with my family and um I'm completely isolated, except and the only future for me is to spend my time with other millionaires. So let's rethink what that definition of success is. And then why? Why did you start this business in the first place? For most of the people who are these founders who are passionate about an idea, the why was I want this idea to express in the world, make a difference to other people, build something new, solve a problem, whatever. So the why was actually their motivation. And they could have done that in another business, but part of their why was, and I want to do it myself. I want this to be a business that serves me. And too often what I'd seen happen was that they ended up being enslaved to the business they thought was going to be their source of freedom. So now you get them to ask the why, and you asked to get them to ask the why about the business and the why about them personally, and the why about the family that they're a part of. And suddenly success can look like something radically different. And there was a guy who was brought to our group by his business partner who was really worried about him. And he'd said, No, Charles, I've tried to get him to engage with an industrial psychologist, I've tried to get him engaged with um somebody who's going to look at his health needs, I've tried to do this and that and the other. But he never will go. Maybe, I said, you could say, come to this group because it's going to help you to be more successful in building your business. So he came to the group. Within eight weeks, he literally was flawed. Something had happened which meant he couldn't stand up. He went to his doctor, and the doctor said, This is just a warning sign. If you carry on the way you are, you're going to have a heart attack or a stroke and be dead. Because what you're doing is you're getting up at four o'clock in the morning to engage with your software development teams in India. You're taking your daughter to school and then going to the office, and you're working all the way through the day, you're coming home for supper in the evening, and then getting up and working from eight until after midnight to deal with your clients in the US, not taking any exercise, you're eating junk food, and you're alienating your daughter and your wife, who for some reason has stayed with you. Basically, you're destroying every single aspect of your emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual condition. And so that was the warning that he got from his doctor. I went and saw him and I said, Look, try this. Try taking a Christmas holiday with your wife and yourself, and turning off your phone, turning off your computer, and spending two weeks having a wonderful Christmas holiday. And so he said, okay, I'll give it a go, Charles. They went to Paris, had a great time, went to New York, had a great time, did all of the things you can do if you've got a bit of money to enjoy life in Paris and New York over Christmas, stayed over New Year's and New York, which is an experience in itself, and then came back to the UK. His team could not believe that he'd turn his phone off and hadn't answered an email for two weeks. But now he had the possibility of a life. Now he'd redefined success as getting to know his daughter, showing the love he actually had for his wife and enjoying a family life together, and showing enough love for himself that he would look after himself, start cycling to work, start eating properly, et cetera, et cetera. So, what had happened in that journey? He'd come to me with a definite success, which was about turnover and exit value of his business. And because reality had confronted him in a very dramatic way, he had an opportunity to redefine success in terms of a family life, his own health, his own future, and caring for the team that he had around him. And yes, build a business, but that wasn't the be-all and end all.
SPEAKER_01:And we didn't call this series the success series, we called it the leadership series. And I suppose indirectly within my thinking, there must have been an assumption of well, leadership isn't necessarily just about success. There are other factors that come into it as well. It's not just commercial success. There is the human side of it, there is the failure side of it, there is the interpersonal connection, whether that's at home or at work. So there is a lot more to leadership than just success. What is it you I suppose you described it a little bit, but what is leadership to you? How how would you define it?
SPEAKER_03:There are so many leadership books out there that I've almost sort of become an become an anti-leadership guru because I think what I'm beginning to feel is it's not about becoming a better leader. This cult of leadership is in some ways a Western post um reformation obsession with an individual being this heroic person who makes all the difference. So if I'm actually coming to a place where I think it's not helpful to talk about leadership, all of these conversations about leadership are ultimately futile. What is worth talking about? I think the place I'm coming to very slowly and with huge reluctance, um it's not about leadership, it's about how you can be a better follower. Because any leader should be accountable to somebody else. So actually, the ultimate measure of their leadership is really their capacity to be the right follower for the person they're meant to be following. So if you think about a heroic leader like Churchill, he is identified as a heroic leader in Britain during the Second World War. Look at his history before then, he was an absolute nightmare. He was a lousy follower. Um he got kicked out of his party, he couldn't say what party he's in, he went and did this campaign, um, which was a complete failure, you know. Until he was in that moment available for the nation, he demonstrated that he was a completely useless leader. And actually, what happened with, in my view, the coalition that enabled Britain to fight the Second World War is he was surrounded by people who were prepared to follow at any cost. It wasn't about him being a leader, it was about the quality of the followers that came around him. And you know, the the Prime Minister he kicked out because he'd given in to Hitler chose to come into his cabinet and follow Churchill, even though he was seen as this failure. Um and what happened there, you know, I think for Churchill, being a leader was an absolute nightmare for him. I mean, he had his own psychiatric problems. He talked about the was it the The dark dog, or whatever it was, you know, he had his own psychiatric problems, massive depression. It was actually the quality of the people who were followers that meant we won the Second World War, not the fact that Churchill was a great leader. So, yeah. Yeah. What do I think about leadership? Probably it's a delusion. Followership is what we should really be focusing on.
SPEAKER_01:Interesting.
SPEAKER_03:And even Churchill, when it was accountable to the King and to Parliament.
SPEAKER_01:I suppose we we uh in one of our other episodes we will talk to somebody um who is uh who studied philosophy, um considered himself to uh um an amateur philosopher, and one of the in-philosophy leadership styles that are defined within philosophy is uh servant leadership, where you know the the the the the the followers are I suppose put at a higher sort of important level of importance than the than the leader, and the leader supports their needs and is in that sense a support um uh a servant leader. Um and I've I've I've seen this in other organizations, very large organizations as well, but I suppose to degree that's what you're describing is there is a leader, you know, whether that's a a church or somebody else, but it is about the team surrounding them that are unable to do well that ultimately make the difference. I've got one question for you for which is slightly different. Um you have a tag in uh a LinkedIn tagline, and it states, making your future work with freedom, joy, and more opportunities to offer life, uh love to those around you, and that that is the key to CEO and portfolio executive development. I'll read that again because I didn't quite get it right. Making your future work with freedom, joy, and more opportunities to offer love to those around you, and that that is the key to CEO and portfolio executive development. Why do you believe this so strongly that you put it on your LinkedIn tagline?
SPEAKER_03:So this phrase making your future work was a sort of gift. Um, because it's partly about making your future and it's partly about your future work. So that's what's quite helpful as a sort of tagline. But freedom, joy, and love, I have a very strong personal need for freedom. I'm prepared to sacrifice an enormous amount to have personal freedom. Um, so for me it's really, really important. But also, as I started to look at corporate life, I began to feel that in many, many situations, the relationship that people have with corporate life is not freedom, it's slavery. It's not that they joyfully turn up to work every day, but actually it's a toil. And it's not a place where they feel loved or they can offer love or care to the people around them, it's a place where they're dominated by fear, which I think is sort of anti-love, if you like. So, in some ways, yes, these are three things that are really important to me, but also they're a way of saying in your corporate life, look at the dark side, look at the slavery, toil, and fear that is engulfing so much of what drives your behavior and your corporate culture. So I think that's really where it came from. Um what is joy? Well, in some ways, the joy is not about being happy, joy is being able to carry that sense of well-being despite the circumstances, and so those things really are authentically important to me, but also I suppose I put them there because they're a challenge to the corporate world that many of the people I want to support face every day.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's been an absolute fantastic and and insightful and challenging conversation, Charles, because it didn't at all go in the direction I thought it would. Um which is always great because you know you can you can anticipate certain things and certain outcomes and certain answers. Uh but what you shared has been has been has been different and I think really, really enjoyable to listen to and and really challenging as well. But we're not done yet, though. We do still have the virtually anything goes question, which if you're new to this podcast, is where I turn control over to Charles. Charles can ask me a question, it can be any question he likes. He hasn't shared this with me beforehand, so it'll be entirely new. When you hear it for the first time, I hear it for the first time too. Um I have to answer it no matter what it is. Um but my safety net is that Charles will have to answer the same question when I have to when I've after I've given my answer. So, Charles, this is where I strap myself in. I will hand over to you. Uh and please let me know what your virtually anything else question is.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think what I wanted to ask you most of all is what was your most painful failure?
SPEAKER_01:Anywhere, uh personally or um or professionally.
SPEAKER_03:Most person most painful failure. You define the context.
SPEAKER_01:Um that's a great question. I do want to be honest, I'm just trying to think. I thought about this earlier. I think I think in my personal life, I think I've I've been blessed in the sense that I think there is not really something worth mentioning. But in in in in in in my professional life, and it could have impacted my private life as well, um, my wife and I decided to uh we we had we had our our son uh at that point we we we moved from London up to initially Manchester uh and then on to where we are now in Lancaster. Um and we had just had our um our second child. Um I'd changed jobs. Um initially I was working remotely in London and then um moved to um moved to a company in Manchester. Um and it it's it it's all seemed you know to be a great offer, uh a great opportunity, it's closer to home, uh it meant you know less travelling down to down to London. Um and it turned out that after two weeks, probably I knew already that um that was probably not the right decision to make. And it took me a long time to um find an alternative. Um so after about I think 16 months or so um with the company we came to an agreement that um it wasn't working out. And and and that in itself would have been a sort of you know a hard enough thing to admit. Yeah, you've you've upped sticks, you've moved your family, you've got a a newborn child, you've got a quite a young child there, um, and it's just not working out. You made a mistake. You, you know, in in that sense, you can define it as a as a failure. Um, and I called my wife and said, I've you know, we've we've parted ways, um, the company and and and I, and and um I'm coming home. And she said, I mean, I won't show what she said, but uh, you know, clearly there was concern over, well, okay, but we've got a a newborn and and a young child, what we're gonna do? Um, and especially because I'd been you know looking at us at an alternative, um, and I hadn't found one in a while, so there was no immediate prospect of of finding anything, you know, anything quick, any, uh, any quicker either. So um that was uh quite an uncertain time, and and that was quite painful, and that could have impacted us personally quite a lot as well, uh, financially, um, or in other ways. Um but and uh it relates a little bit back to what some of the things you said earlier, it's um it opened the opportunity to, it opened the door to do something else. And what that other thing was, this was in 2016, was I started this business that I run now, um, where we now help you know our clients, where we um have a great team, um, and that's fulfilled me more than any previous role really has because it is something that I started and um that we continue to build together as a team. So it did lead to something else that I probably would have not done otherwise. Um so out of that that painful experience, um, and it was painful for a while, um, came something that was that was good ultimately. Um but I think that was probably the most painful bit because it was so uncertain and and you know there were dependencies that um you worry about, don't you, as a father and and and as a as a husband as well. So that's um that's probably something that you know you will probably not ever really forget. You will learn to live with it and it's fine and it's in it in in the past, but you know, it'll always always be there and and and present in your mind. So I think that's probably the one that um that springs to mind for that question. Um thanks for asking that. It's um it's it's it's uh I mean I've I've I've told the story before, but probably not ever so publicly. So um uh perhaps now is the right now is the right time. Uh let me turn that question over to you. What's uh what's been your most painful failure?
SPEAKER_03:I think I mentioned to you the fact that I got drawn into this coach training executive development business. And I thought this was the dream come true. Yeah. Put in as a CEO, I'd never been a CEO before. I absolutely believed in the product, I absolutely believed in the mythology, I thought there was huge potential. It was the beginning of the birth of this whole coaching industry. You know, they they they'd got there five or ten years before anybody else, and it was just about to explode. Um, and I thought, Charles, you really hit the jackpot this time. Um but there were there was two things going on that became more and more obvious. One was this wasn't a business ready for sale, this is a business that needed radical turnaround. So I set two and turned it around. That's fine. Um rebuilt the products, rebuilt the cash flow, rebuilt the capital, rebuilt the team. Great. But the second thing that I hadn't realized and hadn't really taken account of was this was a family business. I thought I knew what it was like to be in a partnership business, that's fine. And I sort of realized the do's and don'ts of this. I'd worked in a in a small entrepreneurial business with a determined leader, so I sort of thought I knew how that worked. But I was completely blindsided by the what was that this was a family business. And when I mean it was a family business, the founder, the sort of knowledge leader who'd started the business, had brought her husband in to be the sort of head of operations and head of finance. The woman who was the receptionist and did the books was the woman who'd been the childminder for their children. Wonderful woman, but you know, family connection. In the office, the person who did all of the website development was actually their son. The woman who did all the CRM was the girlfriend of that son. Within the office, they were also providing a facility for their other son to build an IT services business, so we're giving them free space. And then finally, the thing which completely blindsided me was there was another, I suppose I call them partners. There were these four key people who built the business together who were like partners. One of them was um about 15 years, perhaps 20 years younger than the founders, and he'd in effect become their adopted son. They were prepared to countenance all sorts of misbehavior and all sorts of shenanigans and still hold him tight as their adopted son. Not a formal arrangement, but from a sort of relational point of view, he had all of the aspects of an adopted son. So when I wrong-footed myself and did something that has upset this adopted son, then I didn't realize that that was going to be the reason I got kicked out of this business. So I thought I'd done a great job, restored the business, created the possibilities for a real future, filled the business book with a business, the business with a book of business. I came into the office on a Monday morning, I was given a black bin liner and told put my belongings in it and leave, hand all my keys back and leave. So that was pretty painful. But worse than that, they then wouldn't pay me the money they owed me for about six months' wages. So I went out the door with no money. And then I had a very painful 18-month period where we were living in central London with almost no money. Um, in fact, we had to move out of a flat to a room in a shared house. And my wife said, you know, after I hadn't got any work for a while, because I shut down my network by doing this full-time job, Charles, at least go and try and get a job at McDonald's. You know, get out there and earn something. So dutifully I filled in my uh application form for McDonald's, wouldn't even get an interview. Well, okay, you can't get a job at McDonald's. Go go and find a pub that's looking for somebody and go and work behind the bar. So I went to this pub, they'd been advertising a job, went in there, said, you know, very happy to work behind the bar. What do I need to do? And they said, You're too old to work in this pub. So then she said, Well, okay, you might be too old to work in a job in the pub, you might be disqualified from working at McDonald's. There's a sandwich shop open just down the road. Go there, and they're looking for somebody to have an interview with them. So I went and had an interview, and they said, Yep, okay, we'll give you a trial session, which basically means you go and work for them for a morning, and if they like you, they'll give you a joke. So I went there and I worked for them in the morning. My job was cutting up lettuce with a very sharp knife. Didn't sound too demanding, except I cut my finger, bled all over the lettuce, and was not invited back. So there I was. Not only had I been sacked from this job that was, I thought, the job of a lifetime, but also had failed to be able to provide for my family, and I couldn't even get a job at McDonald's, or pull a pipe behind a bar, or cut up lettuce for a sandwich job. So, yeah, that was very, very painful.
SPEAKER_01:But you overcame it.
SPEAKER_03:I got through it. I don't think I overcame it, I got through it. Something, something then turned up.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But I don't think I overcame it. I mean, it just something turned up. The next thing happened. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thanks for sharing that and being so open. And you you've been you've been open and and honest throughout this entire conversation, which I appreciate. Um, and I think it's, as I said at the start, it's given us a a direction for this conversation that I wasn't anticipating. Uh, it has made it more uh excit uh interesting um you know to to listen to, to think about, to be challenged by. So I hope it's been the same for our listeners as well. Um and I really appreciate you being on. Uh, thank you for joining us on this episode. How can people get in touch with you if they'd like to talk to you?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think the first thing I would say is don't ever buy a used car from this man. That's that's not a great deal. But if people are interested in what I do, then the simplest thing is to find me on LinkedIn, Charles underscore McLaughlin, or to look for portfolioexecutive.biz. And there's an opportunity to connect with me and talk to me through that. But yeah, it's been great to be here and to see how you're able to create an opportunity for I think for me to say things I wouldn't normally say to anybody, actually.
SPEAKER_01:I'm pleased to hear it, and I'm pleased you did, because um I think there's a lot of things anybody can take away from it. And uh I really appreciate you being on. And if uh as a listener, you uh this was your first episode, please subscribe so you missed um don't miss any of the upcoming episodes. And of course, there are more episodes also on mate to see.com um or search for the virtually anything goes podcast. But um, for now, Charles, thank you again, and of course, thank you to our audience for watching and listening as well. Uh, we hope that you'll join us for another episode at some point soon um and you know where to find them.
SPEAKER_00:In the meantime, thank you very much and take care of the joining us on this podcast. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. For other interesting topics, go to your favourite podcast platform or watch the video versions on YouTube. Just search the virtually anything goes podcast. See you next time.
