WONDROUSLY DIFFERENT: UNCORKED with ANDREW LEITH

What if the life you’ve built isn’t truly the life you’re meant to live? What if everything you believed made you “successful” was merely a carefully crafted facade—one that’s been stifling your true potential?

In this UNCORKED episode of the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast, Tim Windsor sits down with Andrew Leith, a former corporate sales executive who traded boardroom conformity for radical self-discovery, uncovering and embracing his neurodivergence, understanding the hidden costs of fitting in and the liberating power of embracing his wondrous differences.

HERE'S SOME OF THE THEMES AND QUESTIONS THIS EPISODE EXPLORES:

The prison you don’t know you’re in—and what happens when you finally escape.
Ferraris vs. Tractors—Why leaders must stop treating all employees the same?
The Evil Spell of Sameness—How is it killing creativity and innovation in business?
Tension Creates Greatness—Why you need challengers, not yes-men, on your team.
Taking Off the Mask—What happens when you stop playing the game and start living?

This isn’t just a conversation; it’s a call to action. Whether you’re a leader, a creative, or someone who feels they don’t quite fit the mold, this episode will challenge you to stop performing and start becoming.

Listen now and ask yourself: What mask have I been wearing, and am I ready to remove it?

Tim Windsor
the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast – Host & Guide
tim@uncommodified.com
https://uncommodified.com/
 
PRODUCERS: Kris MacQueen & Alyne Gagne
MUSIC BY: https://themacqueens.com

Transcript

PLEASE NOTE: UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast episode transcriptions are raw text files and have not been proofed or edited. They are what they are … Happy Reading.

© UNCOMMODiFiED & TIM WINDSOR

[00:00:00] 

Hey, my friends, welcome back to the Uncommodified Podcast. I'm Tim Windsor, and I want to welcome to the show today, Andrew Leith. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Tim.

Awesome. It's gonna be great. Now, now, just full disclosure, I met Andrew through a common friend of ours, Tom Heber, and Tom introduced us, and the first time we spent time together was at a Charity scotch tasting event.

So that was pretty cool. That was a lot of fun. We had a great time there and I've had a chance to connect with Andrew a couple of times and I'm really fascinated by who he is and his story and that's what we're going to explore tonight. But of course, it's an uncorked conversation, Andrew. So I had prepped you for this.

So what are you drinking tonight, by the way?

Oh, I have some Glenfiddich Blender Select, actually. And, I wanted to point out that it is in the very, very ceremonious St. Andrew's Crystal Glass that was purchased, uh, during a Scotland adventure a couple of years ago, uh, from the St. Andrew's Old Course. So, cheers.

That's good stuff. Well,

[00:01:00] you drinking

well, you know what? I got a bottle of a bourbon that I haven't had before for Christmas from a friend of mine. It's called Brothers Bond, and it's a straight bourbon whiskey. It's actually a mash that includes rye as its second highest ingredient. Of course, if it's a bourbon, it's got to be primarily made with corn.

52%, I believe, or more. Primary grain beyond corn is rye, so it tastes very much like an old Canadian whiskey, because obviously Canadian whiskeys were rye. So cheers to you, my friend.

And that's whiskey with an E for anyone that's paying attention.

There you go. And I got bourbon with a B. So, so it's like today's episode is brought to you by the letters B and W and E. It's like, it's like, we'll be Bert and Ernie and see how that works, my friend, tonight.

I like it. You

Hey, yeah. Awesome. Hey, listen, Andrew, tell my, my listeners a little bit about who you are and tonight we're going to explore your [00:02:00] journey because you've been on this amazing journey and you and I have collided.

Our lives have collided at this time. And so, um, who are you and what do you think brings us to this moment tonight of talking together?

know, I think that's a great question. Um, like you said, the first time we met copious amounts of fun and whiskey, um, which is always a, uh, a combination for, you know, great discussions. And I think that's sort of what erupted at the table, um, during that event and really just getting to know each other.

But also, you know, I think it was great uncorked is such a great. Uh, way to explain this conversation, and that's exactly what happened that night. Right, a bunch of guys just sitting around talking about, um, everything and anything, but kind of being unbridled and not, you know, overly Crafting our words, just letting it fly, and I think that was sort of, to me, what was the special sauce of that night, was we all just sort of, um, sat around, and although we didn't have really a lot of history [00:03:00] together, we had some fantastic conversations, and were really transparent about a lot of things that I could say I don't often talk about, so, although we may talk about some of them tonight, who knows?

Yeah, absolutely. It was a great conversation and it was a fun evening. And, uh, actually I bid, I bid on a awesome, uh, um, awesome conversation. Prize, you know, it was a charity auction. So I bid on this prize. That is a private scotch tasting for 20 people that I'm going to host in my home and it's going to be a lot of fun.

And of course, Andrew will be one of my guests there and we'll have a lot of fun doing that. So, so Andrew, a little bit about yourself. Uh, where are you from? Uh, what's brought you to this moment? I mean, you're on a journey. You know, you've come out of a real corporate world experience. Uh, but a little bit about who you are and your journey.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Tim. Um, so yeah, Andrew Leith, born Southern Ontario, spent most of my life here, uh, went to school here. Most of my career is also resided in [00:04:00] Southern Ontario, although I've done some work in the southern United States as well. I'm mostly working in high technology and software. I worked for Rogers for a while.

I worked for a couple of large multinational software companies, ultimately working Tim. a little bit beside Vista Consulting Company, which was where I really cut my teeth in sales enablement and started sort of developing some of these methodologies that I've been teaching over the last time. But I don't think that's really the story that you're looking at getting at.

So the next part of the story is really the, you know, potentially an interesting, you know, um, divergence from that very, I think, Uh, vanilla corporate story that could be told by probably any, any person in corporate America right now. So, uh, as life does throw us curveballs, um, I was actually in a training session with a group of executives.

Um, sent them off on a break. Uh, at that exact same time it felt like something inside of me burst. And that's exactly what happened. When I went to the hospital, I realized that I have something called [00:05:00] diverticulitis, which affects your intestines. My intestine had perforated, and I had gone septic, and they removed 12 inches of my intestine in an emergency surgery.

So, as large things in our lives often are, it was the catalyst for me taking the step to understand more about myself. You know, if I've jumped off the highest cliff I can think of and survived, you know, jumping off those bottom rung, so it's really not, shouldn't be that big of a problem. So, um, my whole life knew that I thought a little differently than everyone else and was kind of intimidated and scared by that and never really took the steps to find anything more about it.

But once I went through that Uh, with my diverticulitis, I realized that, you know, it wasn't that daunting of a task, and I started investigating what I now know is my neurodivergence. So for people that don't know what neurodivergence is, uh, it's a way to describe people that think differently than what would be described as neurotypical people, and that includes things like ADHD, autism, and Asperger's, dyslexia, dyspraxia, [00:06:00] Um, OCD, PTSD, they're calling them the invisible, not invisible minorities, although it does kind of make us invisible minorities, makes us the invisible, um, detriments, I'm sorry the word's not coming to me right now, but disabilities, invisible disabilities.

So that's another term that you'll hear thrown around about neurodivergence.

so you go on this journey, you're, you're in the corporate world, you have this event, this health event that starts to get your attention. Through this you begin to go on a journey and recognize maybe there are some other things going on and the way you look at the world, you're looking at the world differently.

And this starts you on a journey of self discovery and then ultimately really begins to call you somehow out of the corporate world that you're in and you get a Uh, you get a passion, you get a desire for something very different. So how does that transition start to happen? Cause that sounds a little [00:07:00] bit like stepping out of a plane at 30, 000 feet.

It kind of was, but I just basically decided that, you know. If you're gonna dive, you might as well just dive, right? And so, um, how the story goes is about two and a half years ago, um, I started investigating my diagnosis, went through my diagnosis, um, kind of went through the seven stages of grief, um, you know, self loathing and all of these other things until I come out the other side and I feel somewhat rejuvenated.

And at that time, I don't want to say I was disenfranchised because I love revenue and I love leadership, but I now found this new burning passion in helping to advocate for other neurodivergent individuals who are maybe about to embark upon the same voyage that I've gone through or other people that are like me that don't even know there's a voyage that they're on.

You know, they're in the middle of the sea on a ship, uh, you know, sailing or coasting along not even realizing that that's what's happening. And that was sort of like what happened for me. So I find [00:08:00] out I have ADHD, I start to investigate what that means for me, and I realize that a lot of the things that I kind of held dear about who I was, some of the things that, to be honest, I thought were kind of unique about me, ended up basically being traits of someone that has ADHD, and, you know, someone that's neurodivergent.

Um, and so So, as I investigate this, I realize that I've basically created mechanisms in my life to navigate away from things I didn't even know were happening. It sounds, it sounds weird, but imagine that you think differently, but you don't know you think differently. So you're, you're the problem for one, it's very self deprecating, you know, that's like kind of like this prison that you put yourself in that you're never good enough because you're trying to live up to these perfectionist expectations that aren't achievable.

You know, and I started to realize that I had actually been, and this is, you know, you never got to meet this guy, but I was really buttoned up when I was an executive. Like, very buttoned up. I wasn't creative. I wasn't allowing my personality or [00:09:00] my genuine persona to come through. And I certainly wasn't being vulnerable.

Uh, and you know, I think that ultimately those were my biggest downfalls. Although I had a successful career in leadership, I could have been, I think, exponentially better had I adopted some of those other things. And if you know anything about ADHD, this wasn't a conscious decision. It was like a conglomerate of all of these little things that happened in my life that told my ADHD brain, don't act like that.

Don't, don't be that guy. Don't be creative. Don't have big ideas. You know, you're just going to get slapped on the wrist. So just toe the line and you start to build this persona of the person who they want you to be. The difference is I think everybody does that. For me, I can at least say, with my ADHD, it was a subconscious or unconscious decision.

I didn't realize that I was putting on a mask to exist in this corporate world. I was just doing it, and then ripping it off when I came home, and I'm a professional musician, and I'm a writer, and I do all of these amazing things [00:10:00] that no one in my business career would probably even believe, because I wasn't allowing any of that to shine through.

And I certainly wasn't talking to anyone about it.

That's interesting. And, you know, it sort of really does tuck into the world that I've been exploring for a long time, this idea of uncommodified or uncommodification, because, you know, I think that all of us at some level are sort of coached in or cajoled into this idea of sit down, shut up, fall in line, follow the rules, and whether or not we have other sort of a subset of things going on, whether we're neurodivergent, whether we've got another thing that's aching to get out for whatever reason, I think a lot of us find ourselves at a moment in time in our life, in our career, where we're beginning to realize that we're taking on a persona.

We're taking on, uh, this life and this character or caricature of who we are for the benefit of fitting in, falling in line, being successful or whatever. And I know for me and I know for others, as I've talked about this with them, [00:11:00] you know, when you have this epiphany, whatever, whatever. Calls you towards this it is tremendously freeing to be able to say you know what this is who I am And I'm gonna learn to love myself in this and I'm gonna become the full expression of who who I am Regardless of what has brought me to this moment, so it's got to be tremendously Fearful at one level, but also tremendously freeing when you start to have this revelation

The funny thing is, was like, imagine being in that prison, but not knowing you're in that prison, and then all of a sudden stepping outside of the prison and turning around and going, that's where I was living? Like, that's honestly what it was. I'll tell you a very unique analogy. Um, I was on a podcast a little while ago, um, and it's, The analogy for the name of the show is, it's called Inside the Pickle Jar.

And what that basically means is when you're a pickle inside the jar, you don't know that you're a pickle. So you're green [00:12:00] and bumpy and stinky and like, you feel out of place. But then when you get outside of the jar and you look at the label, you're like, Oh, I was a pickle. I was supposed to be all of those things.

all along and I feel like that is very indicative of my journey and being on the outside looking back and going like, A, wow, how did I even get here to be very honest with you, like knowing that I had this propensity to

live outside of the box, live outside of the norm, but force myself or created what I called mechanisms to be able to exist within the box. But I'll tell you, here's my analogy about thinking outside of the box. And it's a co analogy, because we talk about playing nice in the sandbox, and we talk about thinking outside of the box.

So let me throw an analogy for you, Tim. You, me, and three other executives are sitting in the sandbox. We're all getting along. We're utilizing all the tools in the sandbox. We've got the most amazing castle in the middle of the sandbox. But Andrew's kind of like distracted, and [00:13:00] he's looking out into the wild yonder.

Because Andrew can see that we're in a sandbox sitting on a beach and he's wondering why we're sitting inside of a sandbox when we have access to all the sand around us. And I feel like that is a great way to explain how people with ADHD think. Our minds don't tether us to the box. We do not by nature put.

walls around ourselves. Unfortunately, we, we are self deprecating, so we come up with great ideas and then sometimes talk ourselves off the ledge. But those ideas usually flow pretty freely, and it has to do with the confidence level of the person who's having them, as to whether they're shared or, or maybe the receptiveness of the audience is, is just as important.

But, I think it's an interesting analogy that, you know, we're sitting here, Happy to utilize all of the tools and happy to utilize the communication strategies that people are putting in front of us but we can think of ten other ways to [00:14:00] do it.

Interesting. First of all, I love the analogy. And again, if you're listening, I always say you're listening for a reason, you know, maybe you feel a little bit like that. Maybe you are a person who's sitting there doing something with a group of people and you have this revelation that there's a lot of sand outside of this constraint, that we could be listening Building with that we could be playing in that we could be moving into.

And, you know, again, if maybe you need to ask yourself what's beyond the boundaries that you've created and are the boundaries actually as helpful as maybe we think they are. I mean, it's a really fascinating way of looking at it. So, so, Andrew, here's here's a question you so you get to this moment. You know, you're working in a corporate world.

Imagine that means that you're doing fairly well. You're, you know, getting a paycheck. It's all quite consistent in your life. All this stuff's happening. And then you start having these thoughts. They, they're, they're a little bit, uh, a little bit scary at first, but you start seeing the possibility of potentially living free, living more [00:15:00] unfettered and becoming more of the Andrew who, you know, you are.

Um. How do you start walking that out in your life and your career? How, where, where does it take you in your next part of the journey?

Okay, so, almost at the exact same time that my mask came off, unfortunately some of my favorite people in the organization that I was working with were exited. And I could see that the writing was on the wall. And What I was definitely disenfranchised with was running through the corporate hoops. Uh, I, I, I could now clearly see who the great leaders were and who the people were who were just Trying to put up the numbers, or just trying to go through the paces, and I wasn't really having a lot of it, and to be honest with you, I, I had a long conversation with the Human Resources Department there, and although I didn't express that I was going through something in my personal life, I believe the conversation basically went, I'm not sure I can work for this guy, [00:16:00] and thankfully they talked me off the ledge a little bit and said, hey, you know what, let's see what we can do, but ultimately it was, maybe four months after that conversation that I had just, My passion wasn't there and, and I realized that I was no longer passionate about helping that organization get to the next level because they had um, drastically deviated from the path that we had set out previously and new management obviously was not there.

was trying to, you know how you've probably experienced this before in your consulting days, new management comes in, they hire you Tim because they want to make a great change. But ultimately really what is it they want to do? They maybe want to put their thumbprint on it, right? They want to leave their legacy.

And unfortunately that's kind of what was happening here, but provided the perfect transition opportunity for me to take the knowledge that I had gained in the software. uh, world, working with VistaEquity, understanding how to rapid scale software departments, how to build sales departments that could grow exponentially, and put that to use [00:17:00] with clients that I've been consulting with.

And this is sort of the next and final piece of the puzzle is. the coaching side. So, um, right around the time that I left the organization, I had already been consulting for a couple of years, uh, really could see the value in adding coaching to Octant. So, went back to school, started building, uh, all my credentials to get my executive coaching distinctions, went down to Kansas in July of last year to finish all of my proctored and in person, um, uh, studies while I was in that class.

And I still Confer with a number of the people that were in that class. It was the first time I talked about my ADHD in a public setting. In July of 2024, it's now, you know, January of whatever year it is. I know we're not supposed to timestamp,

okay. We're, we're, that's okay. We're January 2025 and that's

January 20 So it's been less than a year since I've literally said to someone outside of my dinner table that I have ADHD.

And part of [00:18:00] What has really pushed me forward is, two of the people in that room have reached out to me to tell me that that was the catalyst for the start of their journey. And to have someone circle around three, four, six months later and say, hey that really resonated with me, it took so much strength for you to do that, but it helped me to find the strength to move forward with my diagnosis or to understand more about me, um, It's hugely empowering, not only to the individual, but to be very honest, empowering to me to understand that this platform that I'm using and this voice that I've been given is not falling on deaf ears.

And I guess maybe that's part of the fear, like you were talking about fear, is A, they're going to roll their eyes and they're going to laugh at me, which, as crazy as it is, Up until my diagnosis and I don't want to hinge everything on my diagnosis, but you have to understand it was really a very self deprecating time in my life before my diagnosis and Afterwards I realized that all that self deprecation was just noise.

It was head trash It was static that I didn't need to listen to [00:19:00] and I honestly now I just turned down the volume So when you're in my session and you roll your eyes at me two years ago I would have taken that. I would have taken it right on the chin. I would have thought, man, this is not hitting home for these guys.

I really should have re evaluated how I'm delivering this, X, Y, and Z. Now, especially when ten of the people in the class are giving me thumbs up or nodding their head and one person's rolling their eyes. I almost feel bad for them. I understand that there's something in their way between them and the message that they were there to learn that day.

And I can't help them with that. They need to figure out how to navigate around that roadblock and maybe they can circle back to the message. But damned if I'm gonna feel bad about the fact that they can't receive the message, right? That's like your TV being mad at something, like it's,

Hmm.

it's irrelevant.

No, it's good. And you know what? I mean, what I love about it is you obviously are getting really comfortable in your own skin. You're finding your way. And this is, you know, I think this is maybe part of what, you know, attracted [00:20:00] me to have this conversation and that, you know, when we met, it was pretty clear that you are just a guy who's becoming very comfortable.

within yourself and with who you are. And I think that's such a powerful thing because I think a lot of people, you know, I've met a lot of people in my life and I met a lot of people who are just frankly not comfortable in their own skin. And, and, and unfortunately, some of those people grow old in that state.

They, they go through their whole life where they've never really been able to settle in to who they are. And I think that's a, that's a tyranny. That's a terrible, terrible tyranny where, where people for some reason can't find this acceptance of themselves and figuring out how do I get comfortable in the In the presence of my true self, and again, if you're listening in, I just want to encourage you, you know, you know, I think this is a journey.

We're all on to figure out who we are, who we're not again. We're so [00:21:00] conditioned from things around us that sometimes we can lose ourselves in the midst of this. And it's what I like about your story, Andrew, because you're starting to find yourself You're starting to figure out how to operate and be your most authentic self, but you're also recognizing that as you do, it actually becomes this sort of, sort of this siren's cry, you know, for people to sort of get out of the boat themselves and experience something That they've been longing to experience.

And so now you're doing this, you know, in life, you're doing it in business. Uh, now you're in your own business. So you're setting the tone of what this is going to look like. And you're starting to explore this. So I'm interested to know, like, what are the lessons that you think you're learning for yourself?

That others need to hear, either other people, employees in the companies, or maybe, you know, leaders in companies, you know. What are you [00:22:00] learning that you think they need to understand and learn about this journey so they can actually move forward in their own?

So, I'm going to speak to two groups of people, and although this message should hit home with everybody, I'm going to specifically address two different groups of people in that. I think for the executives out there, you need to understand that vulnerability actually creates strength in leadership. And that is a lesson that I didn't realize throughout the majority of my leadership career.

And the funny thing is, is I can help people to become great leaders but couldn't realize myself the value in being vulnerable. So I was training people who were infinitely better at being vulnerable than me to be great leaders and they probably surpassed me by the time they walked out of every training course I, I trained.

Because I lacked the, maybe even at the time, lacked the ability to be able to drop the mask to be vulnerable. Like that would have, that would have been a [00:23:00] really hard thing for old me to do. Honestly, it's so weird and like for anyone who's listening like I'm not certifiable like I'm not crazy But to look at these things and think I didn't know myself I didn't understand how I viewed the world it kind of does make you feel a little off your rocker, but it also provides great introspection and the opportunity for us to realize that In leadership, yes, understanding ourselves is hugely important because that's where it starts, but understanding our employees is paramount.

You cannot assume that, you know, I think you and I have talked about this, Tim, my analogy about the tractor and the Ferrari, right? Ferraris If we're a Ferrari, if we view ourselves as a Ferrari, we tend to view everyone else in the world as being a Ferrari. They're a high performer, they take high octane gas, they run at 200 kilometers an hour, they go go go.

If I'm a tractor I tend to view the world as tractors. I'm methodical, I get things [00:24:00] done, I'm dependable, I do all of these things. But if I take a tractor and put it on the racetrack, it no longer becomes dependable and hard working and all these things. And if I take the Ferrari and put a plow on it, it's no longer all those great things that a Ferrari was.

If I, as a leader, start telling everyone that they're tractors and we're on a racetrack, I'm in trouble. And adversely, if everyone's on a racetrack and we all of a sudden have to go to the farm, I want to know who the tractors are on my team. And let's face it, just like cars, there are Priuses, there are semis, there are dump trucks, there's everything under the sun.

So who are we as leaders to predispose the individual unique traits that our employees have and only cater to those? Like it kind of almost sounds ridiculous when you paint it like that, right? But it's how the majority of leaders lead. What do leaders say? I lead my team. Well, if you lead your team, you have a single rule set of how you're leading.[00:25:00] 

Individuals who may all require individual upkeep. So to take that analogy a little further, Ferraris and tractors, potentially similar cost, maybe we'll say a million dollars for each or half a million dollars for each. Each need a specialized mechanic, each have four wheels, each take gasoline. But that's kind of where the similarities stop.

Just like human beings, we have eyes, we have ears, we have a mouth, we have arms and legs. But that's kind of where the similarities stop. And why? Do we look at accommodation as something negative that is only going to bring us potentially up to the status quo? If you know someone with a Ferrari, then you know that it costs about 10, to change the oil.

How do you know that? Because they tend to brag about it. So if I have a great employee who requires me to spend an extra half an hour or an hour with them every week, and they exponentially outperform everyone on the team, As a good leader, would that probably not be the best use of my [00:26:00] time? But who thinks like that?

Nobody.

Yeah, they don't, you know, and it's interesting because this is the challenge I think around this subject matter is that again, we are, we always, we, we, we want to understand and we want to under, uh, we want to honor diversity yet. We are unfortunately bound to homogeneity. We are bound to similarity.

We are. We have a familiarity bias from a neuroscience perspective. So people who are like us and are familiar, we tend to trust more. We tend to honor more all these things that happens. And yet We understand that diverse teams that have different perspectives that, you know, I often say to my my clients, you know, truth is omni dimensional.

It's like my hand. You know, it looks different to me than you. You see knuckles. I see a palm. And so the reality is, is that we get stuck in these these these worlds where we want to see difference. We want to be able [00:27:00] to honor it. But yet everything in us Transcribed It's sort of moving towards sameness, homogeneity, and predictability.

And I love what you're talking about as you, as you just use, and you've used this term several times, this idea of being unmasked. You know, when I, a couple of years ago, when I released my book on commodified there, one of the things, as I studied. People who really caught my attention over the years, people that I've come to call the uncommodified, people who are standing out and standing up for positive reasons in their world.

As I began to look at their character traits, one of the character traits that actually struck me about them was they were unmasked. People and I remember, you know, when I was writing that chapter, I was thinking about this analogy for me where, you know, when I was a kid, my mom always, you know, she would go and she put her makeup on, you know, it was the 70s and she'd go in and she put her makeup on.

And sometimes I'd want to go out early and I'd say, Mom, can't we go out? And she'd say, well, I have to put my face [00:28:00] on. Now that's how she described putting her makeup on. I have to put my face on. And it was like she couldn't go outside the house until she put her face on. And I think what I've learned over the years is I did that for many years too.

I put my face on and I think the face on is really the mask. It's, it's this thing that mirrors what I think people want to see about me, how they want me to act, who they want me to be. And so, you know, I think the, uh, the uncommodified, the people who are moving towards their more true, authentic, unique self are taking off these masks and saying, this is who I am and I'm doing the same.

And then we're finding value in our difference and we're figuring out how to come together. And this is exactly what you're talking about. And so, again, if you're a leader of a team, here's the challenge. Are you rewarding? Sameness. Are you rewarding, you know, homogeneity or are you [00:29:00] actually honoring rewarding diversity, diversity of thinking, diversity of perspective,

Right. Yes man versus contrarian.

correct.

Yeah, because I tell you something for many years. I mean, think about it. You know, everybody says they want somebody to challenge them, but let's not believe all that bullshit. They don't. They want somebody to challenge them. Sort of. If you do it all the time, you're going to be have a certain label. About who you are.

Yeah, I yeah, I get that label a lot. I'm sure you got that label a lot So so let me ask you so best advice. Let's say Let's say, let's take a couple of people groups. I've got a child who clearly is showing uniqueness. There's a difference in them, and I'm trying to figure it out. What do you think the best thing I can do for them is?

I got an employee who's showing difference, who seems to always be the one with the different perspective, something different. How do I, sort of, how do I honor that and understand it? And how do I navigate through that?

[00:30:00] Um, I'll answer that question, but then I do want to go back to something else. I think the best thing for any leader is to ask. Right? We can't, we can't be diagnosing our staff. We shouldn't be diagnosing our children. But that doesn't mean we can't be asking if, how people are receiving the ways that we're communicating with them.

So, asking your employee, is there anything that I could be doing better? Is there anything that I'm doing that's throwing you off your game? I tend to call you by phone. Do you like that or would you prefer an email? I tend to want responses immediately. Would you prefer if I gave you a couple of hours to think about it?

These are questions that if we ask our employees under a very open and understanding forum where they know that this is, they're not going to be judged by giving you the right answer. So that's up to the managers and the leaders to create that culture. But once you have that open culture you should be able to ask these questions and Hopefully your employees have the faith in you as a leader to know that you're going to make the difference.

And here's the one [00:31:00] thing I'll say to any leader out there. You can't ask and then not act. You cannot ask and not act. Please, anyone that's hearing this, I'll say it again. Please do not ask people how you can make their lives better and then not act. Because you are actually doing the exact opposite of inclusivity and you're making people feel on the outs.

You've actually made someone take the confidence to be able to to communicate something to you that they don't feel comfortable doing because they were trusting you, and then if you don't make good on your end, they honestly are starting to question your entire relationship with them. So, please, I've had that happen to me in the past.

Please, don't, don't ever do that. The one thing that I wanted to go back to, because I think this is hugely important, and as a leadership coach, this is something I want to hammer on. Do not hire Only like minded individuals, make sure that you hire contrarians. What's a great way to pressure test your team?

Because we are all going to say, well we don't do that, I don't hire people like that. [00:32:00] Colby is a fantastic assessment. So, one way that as coaches that we use to benchmark and, and get a sort of ground zero for our clients is to use assessments. So that we can. Quantify what we're speaking to rather than just talking in hypothetical terms.

What Colby does is it looks at four aspects of a team, and defines who you have in those different roles, and ultimately what it would say is you should have opposing thoughts in the different roles, and if you have bilateral, you probably don't have great decision making because you probably have a lot of yes men that are reporting up to a CEO that are toeing that line.

To be honest, they may have been hired for that exact reason. It just doesn't always produce the best results. So, although that creates arduous conversations, Tim, you and I both know nothing great ever happened without a little bit of a fight, right? So

And you know what, it really reminds me of the book, Adam, you know, Adam Grant is such a great thinker. And he wrote a [00:33:00] book called Think Again. And it's a great book. And if you, again, if you're listening and you've never read Adam Grant's book Think Again, you need to read it.

And one of the things he talks about this idea, he talks about this idea of thinking like a scientist, but he challenges leaders to create what he calls a challenge board. And basically it's a group of people who are going to challenge the shit out of you, who are going to, I mean, what a great idea. And I think again, know, we, we understand philosophically that balance is created or we find the middle by pulling equal and opposite on directions hard.

So the problem is, is that to your point, when we get a team that's all seeing everything from the same place, we can't pull ourselves across and back and find that the tension that creates greatness. There is.

that. Tension, for anyone that's calling, this is the quote of the night. Tension creates [00:34:00] greatness.

yeah, yeah. And you know what? I hate, I hate it on one level, but I recognize it. And the one thing for me in my own journey in my business, you know, I worked as a solopreneur most of my career, most of my business. And in the last couple of years, I guess four or five years ago, Amanda, my partner joined, joined what I do.

I now also have my, my daughter in law, Emily works for me. And I'll tell you some, I think that I'm better today than I was four or five years ago. I think I do better things. I think I create better things. And part of it is the tension. Now, on one level, I hate it because, uh, you know, I like to live in my own echo chamber and I think everything I do is fucking amazing, so, you know, I don't really want somebody to tell me it's

to that!

Yeah. Yeah. I don't want somebody to tell me it's shit. But, but you know what? I, there's been so many times where the, in the wrestle, In the tension in the pole where Amanda has said, Yeah, but Tim, what if you saw it this way or, you know, I think we shouldn't do that. [00:35:00] I think we should do this. And at first I want to say, you know what?

Screw you. This is my business, you know? And then I realized actually, in the end of it, we found something better because of the tension because of the wrestle because because of the difference now on my team. It's a small team still, but there's some difference before it was just me. And, uh, you know, You know, I fell in love with my own ideas, and I didn't challenge myself, of course, in the same way.

So, I'm finding something very interesting, and I think, obviously, you found it as well. And we could talk all night, and we could go on forever. Obviously, we won't do that to my audience. But listen, Andrew, I got a question. So, you've got this unique way of looking at things, at life, at business. You know, you're involved in lots of different things.

I mean, I, you know, I, I I've sort of peek into your world now on social media. You're always somewhere doing something. You know, you do a lot of stuff for the community. You're, you're, you're really, uh, investing in the community and the business community locally here. But let's just say somebody wants to [00:36:00] get ahold of you.

Maybe they want some personal coaching. Maybe they, maybe they want to understand the wisdom and the power of diversity. Maybe they want to release the, the wisdom, you know, the greatness of tension. for their team. Um, how do they, how do they find you? How do they hunt down Andrew and, and get ahold of you?

Awesome. Fantastic question, I really appreciate that. I'm pretty active on social media, predominantly on LinkedIn, because that tends to be where my executive Customers or clients are, are spending most of their time. Um, I do also, like you said, get out into the, um, community. So if you're in Southern Ontario, I'm sure I'll see you at some networking event.

Um, but really, if you go to my website, which is octanteag. com, uh, you can see what we're doing there or connect with me on LinkedIn. And, and ultimately, I think it, you know, you talked about this before is, you know, just being, having a pulse on that professional development. button and understanding who's out there and what [00:37:00] resources are available widens our scope and allows us to understand sort of.

What directions we, we can gravitate towards. Like, I've taken more methodologies than I can even count at this point and, you know, I think it's important for people to find the professional development avenues that provide the most benefits for them. And that's where, with Octant, we try to take a couple of different approaches.

We do coaching, we do consulting, we do training. But ultimately, like, just like this, Tim, it's a conversation. I love talking to visionary people who have great ideas. are looking to bring them to reality. I've worked in software and technology. So rapid scaling and revenue generation is hugely, you know, something that's been in my wheelhouse.

And, and then again, just really understanding our employees and trying to maximize the potential of each individual person and not looking at people as a department or cogs in a department, looking at them as individual machines that all together make something that's greater. And, um, so yeah, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or, or.

[00:38:00] Anywhere, right? But, uh, mostly OctantEAG. com, or LinkedIn. Uh, you can search me under Andrew Leith, and, uh, Octant is also on LinkedIn as well.

Awesome. And you know, Andrew, I want to say this. I mean, you know, you and I don't know each other that well yet. I imagine that we're going to continue and I hope that we continue to get to know each other. You know, the one thing again, if you're listening, I, I want to point out, you know, I, I, By nature, I am not that social, which I know seems strange if I say to people this, they don't really believe it.

They don't get it. But, uh, so up until my early 20s, I never went to a public event. I never. I never went to a dance in high school. I never went to a public event. I never did public speaking. I was afraid of crowds. Actually, as a child, I had a terrible speech impediment. I had to go to speech therapy. What I do today is very different, in some ways, to [00:39:00] own journey.

And one thing That I've learned over the years is that when you collide, when you collide with another human and there is connection and there's collision, not in a bad way, but when your lives collide in a certain season, there's often a reason. There's a, there's a reason why the universe sort of brings certain people into your orbit in a, in for a You know, in a season, sometimes it's seasonal and you know, I, I, you know, the time, the night that we first connected and it's kind of interesting because Craig, Craig mentioned, who, by the way, is the one who gave me this bourbon, uh, Craig mentioned was at this event as well.

And if those of you who will listen to my podcast, you know, that I've had Craig on many times, Craig is, you know, what I like to call my resident leadership historian. And we chat about history and leaders and all the things that Craig's into. And Craig's a great friend of mine and known for 30 years and.

Uh, Craig was at this event and Craig [00:40:00] and I had gotten together on the weekend. We had sort of an after Christmas Christmas with our wives, uh, my wife Pam and his, his wife Marcia, who have been friends for a long time. And we were chatting about you actually, Andrew, and we were saying, you know, you know, we love, you know, get Tom connected us all.

We had such a great connection. I really appreciate Tom as an individual. He is a brilliant guy and again, a real connector and, and just wanting to. to have his life collide and touch others lives. And you're that kind of person as well. And I just want to say that I really appreciate the fact that you're on this journey, but, you know, I want to say to you, Andrew, I think as much as you're on this journey for yourself, you're on this journey for others.

And as you become more your authentic self, you move more into, you know, whatever Whatever reason you're here, whatever, again, whether that's by evolutionary circumstance or by some other kind of thing that that controls everything. [00:41:00] I don't know. But, but, you know, I really believe universal coincidence. I don't know.

Big bang. I don't know. More soup soup of the soup of the universe. Whatever happens. What I what I think is going to happen at the end of the day, Andrew, is that Two years, a year from now, two years from now, you're going to begin, you're going to look back and you're going to see more and more just this unfolding story.

And as you see that, and you become more of who you were meant to be, you're going to awaken and unlock these things and others. And, and, you know, we're at a time right now where we're in this sort of strange. Time in our history in North America, you know, we've got a lot of tension going on in our societies and politically and all this We have companies we have we have we have governments and companies sort of dialing back on whatever diversity equity inclusion means and and and all this stuff's going on, but you know if we Aren't careful, we're gonna learn, we're gonna lose.

What we've learned and what we've learned is, is that [00:42:00] difference is fucking wonderful. There is something wonderful about difference, and if we're only seeking sameness, if we're seeking, I call it the evil spell of sameness, if we're only seeking sameness, we're gonna fall under an evil spell and it's gonna

You can make the same thing in different colors.

Correct. It's it's it's not going to be quite good enough. And so listen, Andrew, keep on your journey. Keep encouraging leaders to find that a unique quality in themselves and others because it is super beneficial. And so I got this question for you. I always like to end my podcast with this question. So and you will your answer.

You'll answer today differently than you would have five years ago. But https: otter. ai You're most uncommodified and yourself when you're bringing into a room that unique quality of who you are for the positive benefit for you and others. What? What do you think you're doing in that moment? Uh, [00:43:00] that is uniquely you.

So I think, for me, what's the unique thing that I bring to this conversation that has been spoken to ad nauseum? I think I bring the creative side, now that I'm out the other side, I bring this creative perspective to an old conversation about leadership and revenue to understand that differentiating your inputs will differentiate your outputs, similar to what you said, right?

Like, like will attract like, same will breed same. And so, I feel like the second thing I was going to say earlier when I was going to address the second group, which this tees me up perfectly, is for the neurodivergent people out there, embrace your superpower. If you're, if you're, if you have Asperger's and you're great at numbers, go all in.

If you're ADHD and you've got great ideas, find someone who appreciates it. If you're hyper creative, utilize that. [00:44:00] These are going to be things that AI can't touch in a world when AI can take over everything. So, I think that ultimately, neurodivergent people are standing on a precipice where they have the opportunity to reach out for greatness, but they have to take the opportunity to to express what they need to be great and leaders need to be receptive to those requests.

The one other thing that I wanted to say to tee you up or because you teed me up so well was if there's anyone out there, any leaders, any executives even anyone working for a corporation that this conversation resonates with you Um, I not only do coaching and consulting but I professional speaking has been a platform that I've been utilizing to get this message out.

To as many people as possible. I'll do anything as small as a lunch and learn, or a team meeting, to a keynote speech, or a breakout session. If you like what Tim and I are talking about here, and you think that this could have value at your corporation, reach out to me. Let's have the conversation, and if [00:45:00] I can build something great for your team, to help them see the value of all this, that's literally why I get out of bed in the morning, so.

Absolutely. You know what? I think that's really speaks into that unique contribution that you have. You have Your unique contribution, I think, in any room is going to be to stand up and to live uniquely and call others to do that. And I think that is really important. And, again, if you're listening, you're listening for a reason.

I really appreciate that. And so my challenge to you is ask yourself, what does this mean to you? How do you live within the full uniqueness of who you are? How do you take off your mask? You know, maybe the first question is what mask are you wearing? You know, are you wearing a mask, uh, that you need to take off?

Is it unhealthy? Is it unhelpful? Uh, is it, uh, is it Something that you gotta, you gotta ask yourself. Is this actually the real me and we are encouraging you to find your real self and to take off the mask that people put on you. You put on yourself or you've allowed your society [00:46:00] or your business to put on you so that you could be acceptable because it's time to get unmasked and become unashamed of who we are for the positive benefit of others.

And as you do, I'm going to challenge you. Um, yeah. You know, email me at Tim at the uncommodified. com, uh, or, uh, look me up on social media, send me a demand. Let me know what you're thinking as a result of this conversation and Andrew, thank you so much for your time tonight. It's a great conversation, um, and I'm looking forward to having many more of these and many more scotches with you, my friend over the years.

Thanks again guys for listening. Cheers. Have a great day. Thanks for listening.

Hey, my friends, welcome back to the Uncommodified Podcast. I'm Tim Windsor, and I want to welcome to the show today, Andrew Leith. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Tim.

Awesome. It's gonna be great. Now, now, just full disclosure, I met Andrew through a common friend of [00:47:00] ours, Tom Heber, and Tom introduced us, and the first time we spent time together was at a Charity scotch tasting event.

So that was pretty cool. That was a lot of fun. We had a great time there and I've had a chance to connect with Andrew a couple of times and I'm really fascinated by who he is and his story and that's what we're going to explore tonight. But of course, it's an uncorked conversation, Andrew. So I had prepped you for this.

So what are you drinking tonight, by the way?

Oh, I have some Glenfiddich Blender Select, actually. And, I wanted to point out that it is in the very, very ceremonious St. Andrew's Crystal Glass that was purchased, uh, during a Scotland adventure a couple of years ago, uh, from the St. Andrew's Old Course. So, cheers.

That's good stuff. Well,

you drinking

well, you know what? I got a bottle of a bourbon that I haven't had before for Christmas from a friend of mine. It's called Brothers Bond, and it's a straight bourbon whiskey. It's actually a mash that includes [00:48:00] rye as its second highest ingredient. Of course, if it's a bourbon, it's got to be primarily made with corn.

52%, I believe, or more. Primary grain beyond corn is rye, so it tastes very much like an old Canadian whiskey, because obviously Canadian whiskeys were rye. So cheers to you, my friend.

And that's whiskey with an E for anyone that's paying attention.

There you go. And I got bourbon with a B. So, so it's like today's episode is brought to you by the letters B and W and E. It's like, it's like, we'll be Bert and Ernie and see how that works, my friend, tonight.

I like it. You

Hey, yeah. Awesome. Hey, listen, Andrew, tell my, my listeners a little bit about who you are and tonight we're going to explore your journey because you've been on this amazing journey and you and I have collided.

Our lives have collided at this time. And so, um, who are you and what do you think brings us to this moment tonight of talking together?

know, I think that's a great question. Um, like you said, the [00:49:00] first time we met copious amounts of fun and whiskey, um, which is always a, uh, a combination for, you know, great discussions. And I think that's sort of what erupted at the table, um, during that event and really just getting to know each other.

But also, you know, I think it was great uncorked is such a great. Uh, way to explain this conversation, and that's exactly what happened that night. Right, a bunch of guys just sitting around talking about, um, everything and anything, but kind of being unbridled and not, you know, overly Crafting our words, just letting it fly, and I think that was sort of, to me, what was the special sauce of that night, was we all just sort of, um, sat around, and although we didn't have really a lot of history together, we had some fantastic conversations, and were really transparent about a lot of things that I could say I don't often talk about, so, although we may talk about some of them tonight, who knows?

Yeah, absolutely. It was a great conversation and it was a fun evening. And, uh, actually I bid, I bid on [00:50:00] a awesome, uh, um, awesome conversation. Prize, you know, it was a charity auction. So I bid on this prize. That is a private scotch tasting for 20 people that I'm going to host in my home and it's going to be a lot of fun.

And of course, Andrew will be one of my guests there and we'll have a lot of fun doing that. So, so Andrew, a little bit about yourself. Uh, where are you from? Uh, what's brought you to this moment? I mean, you're on a journey. You know, you've come out of a real corporate world experience. Uh, but a little bit about who you are and your journey.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Tim. Um, so yeah, Andrew Leith, born Southern Ontario, spent most of my life here, uh, went to school here. Most of my career is also resided in Southern Ontario, although I've done some work in the southern United States as well. I'm mostly working in high technology and software. I worked for Rogers for a while.

I worked for a couple of large multinational software companies, ultimately working Tim. a little bit beside [00:51:00] Vista Consulting Company, which was where I really cut my teeth in sales enablement and started sort of developing some of these methodologies that I've been teaching over the last time. But I don't think that's really the story that you're looking at getting at.

So the next part of the story is really the, you know, potentially an interesting, you know, um, divergence from that very, I think, Uh, vanilla corporate story that could be told by probably any, any person in corporate America right now. So, uh, as life does throw us curveballs, um, I was actually in a training session with a group of executives.

Um, sent them off on a break. Uh, at that exact same time it felt like something inside of me burst. And that's exactly what happened. When I went to the hospital, I realized that I have something called diverticulitis, which affects your intestines. My intestine had perforated, and I had gone septic, and they removed 12 inches of my intestine in an emergency surgery.

So, as large things in our lives often are, it was the catalyst for me taking the step to [00:52:00] understand more about myself. You know, if I've jumped off the highest cliff I can think of and survived, you know, jumping off those bottom rung, so it's really not, shouldn't be that big of a problem. So, um, my whole life knew that I thought a little differently than everyone else and was kind of intimidated and scared by that and never really took the steps to find anything more about it.

But once I went through that Uh, with my diverticulitis, I realized that, you know, it wasn't that daunting of a task, and I started investigating what I now know is my neurodivergence. So for people that don't know what neurodivergence is, uh, it's a way to describe people that think differently than what would be described as neurotypical people, and that includes things like ADHD, autism, and Asperger's, dyslexia, dyspraxia, Um, OCD, PTSD, they're calling them the invisible, not invisible minorities, although it does kind of make us invisible minorities, makes us the invisible, um, [00:53:00] detriments, I'm sorry the word's not coming to me right now, but disabilities, invisible disabilities.

So that's another term that you'll hear thrown around about neurodivergence.

so you go on this journey, you're, you're in the corporate world, you have this event, this health event that starts to get your attention. Through this you begin to go on a journey and recognize maybe there are some other things going on and the way you look at the world, you're looking at the world differently.

And this starts you on a journey of self discovery and then ultimately really begins to call you somehow out of the corporate world that you're in and you get a Uh, you get a passion, you get a desire for something very different. So how does that transition start to happen? Cause that sounds a little bit like stepping out of a plane at 30, 000 feet.

It kind of was, but I just basically decided that, you know. If you're gonna dive, you might as well just dive, right? And so, um, how the story goes is about two and a [00:54:00] half years ago, um, I started investigating my diagnosis, went through my diagnosis, um, kind of went through the seven stages of grief, um, you know, self loathing and all of these other things until I come out the other side and I feel somewhat rejuvenated.

And at that time, I don't want to say I was disenfranchised because I love revenue and I love leadership, but I now found this new burning passion in helping to advocate for other neurodivergent individuals who are maybe about to embark upon the same voyage that I've gone through or other people that are like me that don't even know there's a voyage that they're on.

You know, they're in the middle of the sea on a ship, uh, you know, sailing or coasting along not even realizing that that's what's happening. And that was sort of like what happened for me. So I find out I have ADHD, I start to investigate what that means for me, and I realize that a lot of the things that I kind of held dear about who I was, some of the things that, to be honest, I thought were kind of unique about me, ended up basically being traits of someone that has ADHD, and, you know, someone that's [00:55:00] neurodivergent.

Um, and so So, as I investigate this, I realize that I've basically created mechanisms in my life to navigate away from things I didn't even know were happening. It sounds, it sounds weird, but imagine that you think differently, but you don't know you think differently. So you're, you're the problem for one, it's very self deprecating, you know, that's like kind of like this prison that you put yourself in that you're never good enough because you're trying to live up to these perfectionist expectations that aren't achievable.

You know, and I started to realize that I had actually been, and this is, you know, you never got to meet this guy, but I was really buttoned up when I was an executive. Like, very buttoned up. I wasn't creative. I wasn't allowing my personality or my genuine persona to come through. And I certainly wasn't being vulnerable.

Uh, and you know, I think that ultimately those were my biggest downfalls. Although I had a successful career in leadership, I could have been, I think, exponentially better had I adopted some of those other [00:56:00] things. And if you know anything about ADHD, this wasn't a conscious decision. It was like a conglomerate of all of these little things that happened in my life that told my ADHD brain, don't act like that.

Don't, don't be that guy. Don't be creative. Don't have big ideas. You know, you're just going to get slapped on the wrist. So just toe the line and you start to build this persona of the person who they want you to be. The difference is I think everybody does that. For me, I can at least say, with my ADHD, it was a subconscious or unconscious decision.

I didn't realize that I was putting on a mask to exist in this corporate world. I was just doing it, and then ripping it off when I came home, and I'm a professional musician, and I'm a writer, and I do all of these amazing things that no one in my business career would probably even believe, because I wasn't allowing any of that to shine through.

And I certainly wasn't talking to anyone about it.

That's interesting. And, you know, it sort of really does tuck into the world that I've been exploring for a long time, this idea of uncommodified or [00:57:00] uncommodification, because, you know, I think that all of us at some level are sort of coached in or cajoled into this idea of sit down, shut up, fall in line, follow the rules, and whether or not we have other sort of a subset of things going on, whether we're neurodivergent, whether we've got another thing that's aching to get out for whatever reason, I think a lot of us find ourselves at a moment in time in our life, in our career, where we're beginning to realize that we're taking on a persona.

We're taking on, uh, this life and this character or caricature of who we are for the benefit of fitting in, falling in line, being successful or whatever. And I know for me and I know for others, as I've talked about this with them, you know, when you have this epiphany, whatever, whatever. Calls you towards this it is tremendously freeing to be able to say you know what this is who I am And I'm gonna learn to love myself in this and I'm gonna become [00:58:00] the full expression of who who I am Regardless of what has brought me to this moment, so it's got to be tremendously Fearful at one level, but also tremendously freeing when you start to have this revelation

The funny thing is, was like, imagine being in that prison, but not knowing you're in that prison, and then all of a sudden stepping outside of the prison and turning around and going, that's where I was living? Like, that's honestly what it was. I'll tell you a very unique analogy. Um, I was on a podcast a little while ago, um, and it's, The analogy for the name of the show is, it's called Inside the Pickle Jar.

And what that basically means is when you're a pickle inside the jar, you don't know that you're a pickle. So you're green and bumpy and stinky and like, you feel out of place. But then when you get outside of the jar and you look at the label, you're like, Oh, I was a pickle. I was supposed to be all of those things.

all along and I feel like that is very indicative of my journey and being on the [00:59:00] outside looking back and going like, A, wow, how did I even get here to be very honest with you, like knowing that I had this propensity to

live outside of the box, live outside of the norm, but force myself or created what I called mechanisms to be able to exist within the box. But I'll tell you, here's my analogy about thinking outside of the box. And it's a co analogy, because we talk about playing nice in the sandbox, and we talk about thinking outside of the box.

So let me throw an analogy for you, Tim. You, me, and three other executives are sitting in the sandbox. We're all getting along. We're utilizing all the tools in the sandbox. We've got the most amazing castle in the middle of the sandbox. But Andrew's kind of like distracted, and he's looking out into the wild yonder.

Because Andrew can see that we're in a sandbox sitting on a beach and he's wondering why we're sitting inside of a sandbox when we have access to all the sand around us. [01:00:00] And I feel like that is a great way to explain how people with ADHD think. Our minds don't tether us to the box. We do not by nature put.

walls around ourselves. Unfortunately, we, we are self deprecating, so we come up with great ideas and then sometimes talk ourselves off the ledge. But those ideas usually flow pretty freely, and it has to do with the confidence level of the person who's having them, as to whether they're shared or, or maybe the receptiveness of the audience is, is just as important.

But, I think it's an interesting analogy that, you know, we're sitting here, Happy to utilize all of the tools and happy to utilize the communication strategies that people are putting in front of us but we can think of ten other ways to do it.

Interesting. First of all, I love the analogy. And again, if you're listening, I always say you're listening for a reason, you know, maybe you feel a little bit like that. Maybe you are a person who's sitting there doing something with a group of people and you have this revelation that there's a lot of [01:01:00] sand outside of this constraint, that we could be listening Building with that we could be playing in that we could be moving into.

And, you know, again, if maybe you need to ask yourself what's beyond the boundaries that you've created and are the boundaries actually as helpful as maybe we think they are. I mean, it's a really fascinating way of looking at it. So, so, Andrew, here's here's a question you so you get to this moment. You know, you're working in a corporate world.

Imagine that means that you're doing fairly well. You're, you know, getting a paycheck. It's all quite consistent in your life. All this stuff's happening. And then you start having these thoughts. They, they're, they're a little bit, uh, a little bit scary at first, but you start seeing the possibility of potentially living free, living more unfettered and becoming more of the Andrew who, you know, you are.

Um. How do you start walking that out in your life and your career? How, where, where does it take you in your next part of the journey?

Okay, [01:02:00] so, almost at the exact same time that my mask came off, unfortunately some of my favorite people in the organization that I was working with were exited. And I could see that the writing was on the wall. And What I was definitely disenfranchised with was running through the corporate hoops. Uh, I, I, I could now clearly see who the great leaders were and who the people were who were just Trying to put up the numbers, or just trying to go through the paces, and I wasn't really having a lot of it, and to be honest with you, I, I had a long conversation with the Human Resources Department there, and although I didn't express that I was going through something in my personal life, I believe the conversation basically went, I'm not sure I can work for this guy, and thankfully they talked me off the ledge a little bit and said, hey, you know what, let's see what we can do, but ultimately it was, maybe four months after that conversation that I had just, My passion wasn't there and, and I realized that I was no longer passionate about helping that organization [01:03:00] get to the next level because they had um, drastically deviated from the path that we had set out previously and new management obviously was not there.

was trying to, you know how you've probably experienced this before in your consulting days, new management comes in, they hire you Tim because they want to make a great change. But ultimately really what is it they want to do? They maybe want to put their thumbprint on it, right? They want to leave their legacy.

And unfortunately that's kind of what was happening here, but provided the perfect transition opportunity for me to take the knowledge that I had gained in the software. uh, world, working with VistaEquity, understanding how to rapid scale software departments, how to build sales departments that could grow exponentially, and put that to use with clients that I've been consulting with.

And this is sort of the next and final piece of the puzzle is. the coaching side. So, um, right around the time that I left the organization, I had already been consulting for a couple of years, uh, really could see the value in [01:04:00] adding coaching to Octant. So, went back to school, started building, uh, all my credentials to get my executive coaching distinctions, went down to Kansas in July of last year to finish all of my proctored and in person, um, uh, studies while I was in that class.

And I still Confer with a number of the people that were in that class. It was the first time I talked about my ADHD in a public setting. In July of 2024, it's now, you know, January of whatever year it is. I know we're not supposed to timestamp,

okay. We're, we're, that's okay. We're January 2025 and that's

January 20 So it's been less than a year since I've literally said to someone outside of my dinner table that I have ADHD.

And part of What has really pushed me forward is, two of the people in that room have reached out to me to tell me that that was the catalyst for the start of their journey. And to have someone circle around three, four, six months later and say, hey that really resonated [01:05:00] with me, it took so much strength for you to do that, but it helped me to find the strength to move forward with my diagnosis or to understand more about me, um, It's hugely empowering, not only to the individual, but to be very honest, empowering to me to understand that this platform that I'm using and this voice that I've been given is not falling on deaf ears.

And I guess maybe that's part of the fear, like you were talking about fear, is A, they're going to roll their eyes and they're going to laugh at me, which, as crazy as it is, Up until my diagnosis and I don't want to hinge everything on my diagnosis, but you have to understand it was really a very self deprecating time in my life before my diagnosis and Afterwards I realized that all that self deprecation was just noise.

It was head trash It was static that I didn't need to listen to and I honestly now I just turned down the volume So when you're in my session and you roll your eyes at me two years ago I would have taken that. I would have taken it right on the chin. I would have thought, man, this is not hitting home for these guys.

I really should have re evaluated how [01:06:00] I'm delivering this, X, Y, and Z. Now, especially when ten of the people in the class are giving me thumbs up or nodding their head and one person's rolling their eyes. I almost feel bad for them. I understand that there's something in their way between them and the message that they were there to learn that day.

And I can't help them with that. They need to figure out how to navigate around that roadblock and maybe they can circle back to the message. But damned if I'm gonna feel bad about the fact that they can't receive the message, right? That's like your TV being mad at something, like it's,

Hmm.

it's irrelevant.

No, it's good. And you know what? I mean, what I love about it is you obviously are getting really comfortable in your own skin. You're finding your way. And this is, you know, I think this is maybe part of what, you know, attracted me to have this conversation and that, you know, when we met, it was pretty clear that you are just a guy who's becoming very comfortable.

within yourself and with who you are. And I think that's such a powerful thing because I think a [01:07:00] lot of people, you know, I've met a lot of people in my life and I met a lot of people who are just frankly not comfortable in their own skin. And, and, and unfortunately, some of those people grow old in that state.

They, they go through their whole life where they've never really been able to settle in to who they are. And I think that's a, that's a tyranny. That's a terrible, terrible tyranny where, where people for some reason can't find this acceptance of themselves and figuring out how do I get comfortable in the In the presence of my true self, and again, if you're listening in, I just want to encourage you, you know, you know, I think this is a journey.

We're all on to figure out who we are, who we're not again. We're so conditioned from things around us that sometimes we can lose ourselves in the midst of this. And it's what I like about your story, Andrew, because you're starting to find yourself You're starting to figure out how to operate and be your most authentic [01:08:00] self, but you're also recognizing that as you do, it actually becomes this sort of, sort of this siren's cry, you know, for people to sort of get out of the boat themselves and experience something That they've been longing to experience.

And so now you're doing this, you know, in life, you're doing it in business. Uh, now you're in your own business. So you're setting the tone of what this is going to look like. And you're starting to explore this. So I'm interested to know, like, what are the lessons that you think you're learning for yourself?

That others need to hear, either other people, employees in the companies, or maybe, you know, leaders in companies, you know. What are you learning that you think they need to understand and learn about this journey so they can actually move forward in their own?

So, I'm going to speak to two groups of people, and although this message should hit home with everybody, I'm going to [01:09:00] specifically address two different groups of people in that. I think for the executives out there, you need to understand that vulnerability actually creates strength in leadership. And that is a lesson that I didn't realize throughout the majority of my leadership career.

And the funny thing is, is I can help people to become great leaders but couldn't realize myself the value in being vulnerable. So I was training people who were infinitely better at being vulnerable than me to be great leaders and they probably surpassed me by the time they walked out of every training course I, I trained.

Because I lacked the, maybe even at the time, lacked the ability to be able to drop the mask to be vulnerable. Like that would have, that would have been a really hard thing for old me to do. Honestly, it's so weird and like for anyone who's listening like I'm not certifiable like I'm not crazy But to look at these things and think I didn't know myself I didn't understand how I viewed the [01:10:00] world it kind of does make you feel a little off your rocker, but it also provides great introspection and the opportunity for us to realize that In leadership, yes, understanding ourselves is hugely important because that's where it starts, but understanding our employees is paramount.

You cannot assume that, you know, I think you and I have talked about this, Tim, my analogy about the tractor and the Ferrari, right? Ferraris If we're a Ferrari, if we view ourselves as a Ferrari, we tend to view everyone else in the world as being a Ferrari. They're a high performer, they take high octane gas, they run at 200 kilometers an hour, they go go go.

If I'm a tractor I tend to view the world as tractors. I'm methodical, I get things done, I'm dependable, I do all of these things. But if I take a tractor and put it on the racetrack, it no longer becomes dependable and hard working and all these things. And if I take the Ferrari and put a plow on it, it's no longer all those great things that a Ferrari was.

If I, as a leader, [01:11:00] start telling everyone that they're tractors and we're on a racetrack, I'm in trouble. And adversely, if everyone's on a racetrack and we all of a sudden have to go to the farm, I want to know who the tractors are on my team. And let's face it, just like cars, there are Priuses, there are semis, there are dump trucks, there's everything under the sun.

So who are we as leaders to predispose the individual unique traits that our employees have and only cater to those? Like it kind of almost sounds ridiculous when you paint it like that, right? But it's how the majority of leaders lead. What do leaders say? I lead my team. Well, if you lead your team, you have a single rule set of how you're leading.

Individuals who may all require individual upkeep. So to take that analogy a little further, Ferraris and tractors, potentially similar cost, maybe we'll say a million dollars for each or half a million dollars for each. Each need a specialized mechanic, each have [01:12:00] four wheels, each take gasoline. But that's kind of where the similarities stop.

Just like human beings, we have eyes, we have ears, we have a mouth, we have arms and legs. But that's kind of where the similarities stop. And why? Do we look at accommodation as something negative that is only going to bring us potentially up to the status quo? If you know someone with a Ferrari, then you know that it costs about 10, to change the oil.

How do you know that? Because they tend to brag about it. So if I have a great employee who requires me to spend an extra half an hour or an hour with them every week, and they exponentially outperform everyone on the team, As a good leader, would that probably not be the best use of my time? But who thinks like that?

Nobody.

Yeah, they don't, you know, and it's interesting because this is the challenge I think around this subject matter is that again, we are, we always, we, we, we want to understand and we [01:13:00] want to under, uh, we want to honor diversity yet. We are unfortunately bound to homogeneity. We are bound to similarity.

We are. We have a familiarity bias from a neuroscience perspective. So people who are like us and are familiar, we tend to trust more. We tend to honor more all these things that happens. And yet We understand that diverse teams that have different perspectives that, you know, I often say to my my clients, you know, truth is omni dimensional.

It's like my hand. You know, it looks different to me than you. You see knuckles. I see a palm. And so the reality is, is that we get stuck in these these these worlds where we want to see difference. We want to be able to honor it. But yet everything in us Transcribed It's sort of moving towards sameness, homogeneity, and predictability.

And I love what you're talking about as you, as you just use, and you've used this term several times, this idea of being unmasked. [01:14:00] You know, when I, a couple of years ago, when I released my book on commodified there, one of the things, as I studied. People who really caught my attention over the years, people that I've come to call the uncommodified, people who are standing out and standing up for positive reasons in their world.

As I began to look at their character traits, one of the character traits that actually struck me about them was they were unmasked. People and I remember, you know, when I was writing that chapter, I was thinking about this analogy for me where, you know, when I was a kid, my mom always, you know, she would go and she put her makeup on, you know, it was the 70s and she'd go in and she put her makeup on.

And sometimes I'd want to go out early and I'd say, Mom, can't we go out? And she'd say, well, I have to put my face on. Now that's how she described putting her makeup on. I have to put my face on. And it was like she couldn't go outside the house until she put her face on. And I think what I've learned over the years is I did that for many years too.

I put my face [01:15:00] on and I think the face on is really the mask. It's, it's this thing that mirrors what I think people want to see about me, how they want me to act, who they want me to be. And so, you know, I think the, uh, the uncommodified, the people who are moving towards their more true, authentic, unique self are taking off these masks and saying, this is who I am and I'm doing the same.

And then we're finding value in our difference and we're figuring out how to come together. And this is exactly what you're talking about. And so, again, if you're a leader of a team, here's the challenge. Are you rewarding? Sameness. Are you rewarding, you know, homogeneity or are you actually honoring rewarding diversity, diversity of thinking, diversity of perspective,

Right. Yes man versus contrarian.

correct.

Yeah, because I tell you something for many years. I mean, think about it. You know, everybody says they want somebody to challenge them, but let's not believe all that bullshit. [01:16:00] They don't. They want somebody to challenge them. Sort of. If you do it all the time, you're going to be have a certain label. About who you are.

Yeah, I yeah, I get that label a lot. I'm sure you got that label a lot So so let me ask you so best advice. Let's say Let's say, let's take a couple of people groups. I've got a child who clearly is showing uniqueness. There's a difference in them, and I'm trying to figure it out. What do you think the best thing I can do for them is?

I got an employee who's showing difference, who seems to always be the one with the different perspective, something different. How do I, sort of, how do I honor that and understand it? And how do I navigate through that?

Um, I'll answer that question, but then I do want to go back to something else. I think the best thing for any leader is to ask. Right? We can't, we can't be diagnosing our staff. We shouldn't be diagnosing our children. But that doesn't mean we can't be asking if, how [01:17:00] people are receiving the ways that we're communicating with them.

So, asking your employee, is there anything that I could be doing better? Is there anything that I'm doing that's throwing you off your game? I tend to call you by phone. Do you like that or would you prefer an email? I tend to want responses immediately. Would you prefer if I gave you a couple of hours to think about it?

These are questions that if we ask our employees under a very open and understanding forum where they know that this is, they're not going to be judged by giving you the right answer. So that's up to the managers and the leaders to create that culture. But once you have that open culture you should be able to ask these questions and Hopefully your employees have the faith in you as a leader to know that you're going to make the difference.

And here's the one thing I'll say to any leader out there. You can't ask and then not act. You cannot ask and not act. Please, anyone that's hearing this, I'll say it again. Please do not ask people how you can make their lives better [01:18:00] and then not act. Because you are actually doing the exact opposite of inclusivity and you're making people feel on the outs.

You've actually made someone take the confidence to be able to to communicate something to you that they don't feel comfortable doing because they were trusting you, and then if you don't make good on your end, they honestly are starting to question your entire relationship with them. So, please, I've had that happen to me in the past.

Please, don't, don't ever do that. The one thing that I wanted to go back to, because I think this is hugely important, and as a leadership coach, this is something I want to hammer on. Do not hire Only like minded individuals, make sure that you hire contrarians. What's a great way to pressure test your team?

Because we are all going to say, well we don't do that, I don't hire people like that. Colby is a fantastic assessment. So, one way that as coaches that we use to benchmark and, and get a sort of ground zero for our clients is to use assessments. So that we can. Quantify what we're speaking to rather than just talking in hypothetical [01:19:00] terms.

What Colby does is it looks at four aspects of a team, and defines who you have in those different roles, and ultimately what it would say is you should have opposing thoughts in the different roles, and if you have bilateral, you probably don't have great decision making because you probably have a lot of yes men that are reporting up to a CEO that are toeing that line.

To be honest, they may have been hired for that exact reason. It just doesn't always produce the best results. So, although that creates arduous conversations, Tim, you and I both know nothing great ever happened without a little bit of a fight, right? So

And you know what, it really reminds me of the book, Adam, you know, Adam Grant is such a great thinker. And he wrote a book called Think Again. And it's a great book. And if you, again, if you're listening and you've never read Adam Grant's book Think Again, you need to read it.

And one of the things he talks about this idea, he talks about this idea of thinking like a scientist, but he challenges leaders to create what he [01:20:00] calls a challenge board. And basically it's a group of people who are going to challenge the shit out of you, who are going to, I mean, what a great idea. And I think again, know, we, we understand philosophically that balance is created or we find the middle by pulling equal and opposite on directions hard.

So the problem is, is that to your point, when we get a team that's all seeing everything from the same place, we can't pull ourselves across and back and find that the tension that creates greatness. There is.

that. Tension, for anyone that's calling, this is the quote of the night. Tension creates greatness.

yeah, yeah. And you know what? I hate, I hate it on one level, but I recognize it. And the one thing for me in my own journey in my business, you know, I worked as a solopreneur most of my career, most of my business. And in the last couple of [01:21:00] years, I guess four or five years ago, Amanda, my partner joined, joined what I do.

I now also have my, my daughter in law, Emily works for me. And I'll tell you some, I think that I'm better today than I was four or five years ago. I think I do better things. I think I create better things. And part of it is the tension. Now, on one level, I hate it because, uh, you know, I like to live in my own echo chamber and I think everything I do is fucking amazing, so, you know, I don't really want somebody to tell me it's

to that!

Yeah. Yeah. I don't want somebody to tell me it's shit. But, but you know what? I, there's been so many times where the, in the wrestle, In the tension in the pole where Amanda has said, Yeah, but Tim, what if you saw it this way or, you know, I think we shouldn't do that. I think we should do this. And at first I want to say, you know what?

Screw you. This is my business, you know? And then I realized actually, in the end of it, we found something better because of the tension because of the wrestle because because of the difference now on my team. It's a small [01:22:00] team still, but there's some difference before it was just me. And, uh, you know, You know, I fell in love with my own ideas, and I didn't challenge myself, of course, in the same way.

So, I'm finding something very interesting, and I think, obviously, you found it as well. And we could talk all night, and we could go on forever. Obviously, we won't do that to my audience. But listen, Andrew, I got a question. So, you've got this unique way of looking at things, at life, at business. You know, you're involved in lots of different things.

I mean, I, you know, I, I I've sort of peek into your world now on social media. You're always somewhere doing something. You know, you do a lot of stuff for the community. You're, you're, you're really, uh, investing in the community and the business community locally here. But let's just say somebody wants to get ahold of you.

Maybe they want some personal coaching. Maybe they, maybe they want to understand the wisdom and the power of diversity. Maybe they want to release the, the wisdom, you know, the greatness of tension. for their team. Um, how do they, how do they find you? How do they [01:23:00] hunt down Andrew and, and get ahold of you?

Awesome. Fantastic question, I really appreciate that. I'm pretty active on social media, predominantly on LinkedIn, because that tends to be where my executive Customers or clients are, are spending most of their time. Um, I do also, like you said, get out into the, um, community. So if you're in Southern Ontario, I'm sure I'll see you at some networking event.

Um, but really, if you go to my website, which is octanteag. com, uh, you can see what we're doing there or connect with me on LinkedIn. And, and ultimately, I think it, you know, you talked about this before is, you know, just being, having a pulse on that professional development. button and understanding who's out there and what resources are available widens our scope and allows us to understand sort of.

What directions we, we can gravitate towards. Like, I've taken more methodologies than I can even count at this point and, you know, I think it's important for people to [01:24:00] find the professional development avenues that provide the most benefits for them. And that's where, with Octant, we try to take a couple of different approaches.

We do coaching, we do consulting, we do training. But ultimately, like, just like this, Tim, it's a conversation. I love talking to visionary people who have great ideas. are looking to bring them to reality. I've worked in software and technology. So rapid scaling and revenue generation is hugely, you know, something that's been in my wheelhouse.

And, and then again, just really understanding our employees and trying to maximize the potential of each individual person and not looking at people as a department or cogs in a department, looking at them as individual machines that all together make something that's greater. And, um, so yeah, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or, or.

Anywhere, right? But, uh, mostly OctantEAG. com, or LinkedIn. Uh, you can search me under Andrew Leith, and, uh, Octant is also on LinkedIn as well.

Awesome. And you know, Andrew, I want to say this. I mean, you know, you and I don't know each other that well yet. [01:25:00] I imagine that we're going to continue and I hope that we continue to get to know each other. You know, the one thing again, if you're listening, I, I want to point out, you know, I, I, By nature, I am not that social, which I know seems strange if I say to people this, they don't really believe it.

They don't get it. But, uh, so up until my early 20s, I never went to a public event. I never. I never went to a dance in high school. I never went to a public event. I never did public speaking. I was afraid of crowds. Actually, as a child, I had a terrible speech impediment. I had to go to speech therapy. What I do today is very different, in some ways, to own journey.

And one thing That I've learned over the years is that when you collide, when you collide with another human and there is connection and there's [01:26:00] collision, not in a bad way, but when your lives collide in a certain season, there's often a reason. There's a, there's a reason why the universe sort of brings certain people into your orbit in a, in for a You know, in a season, sometimes it's seasonal and you know, I, I, you know, the time, the night that we first connected and it's kind of interesting because Craig, Craig mentioned, who, by the way, is the one who gave me this bourbon, uh, Craig mentioned was at this event as well.

And if those of you who will listen to my podcast, you know, that I've had Craig on many times, Craig is, you know, what I like to call my resident leadership historian. And we chat about history and leaders and all the things that Craig's into. And Craig's a great friend of mine and known for 30 years and.

Uh, Craig was at this event and Craig and I had gotten together on the weekend. We had sort of an after Christmas Christmas with our wives, uh, my wife Pam and his, his wife Marcia, who have been friends for a long time. And we were chatting about you actually, Andrew, and we were saying, you know, you know, we love, you know, get Tom [01:27:00] connected us all.

We had such a great connection. I really appreciate Tom as an individual. He is a brilliant guy and again, a real connector and, and just wanting to. to have his life collide and touch others lives. And you're that kind of person as well. And I just want to say that I really appreciate the fact that you're on this journey, but, you know, I want to say to you, Andrew, I think as much as you're on this journey for yourself, you're on this journey for others.

And as you become more your authentic self, you move more into, you know, whatever Whatever reason you're here, whatever, again, whether that's by evolutionary circumstance or by some other kind of thing that that controls everything. I don't know. But, but, you know, I really believe universal coincidence. I don't know.

Big bang. I don't know. More soup soup of the soup of the universe. Whatever happens. What I what I think is going to happen at the end of the day, Andrew, is that Two [01:28:00] years, a year from now, two years from now, you're going to begin, you're going to look back and you're going to see more and more just this unfolding story.

And as you see that, and you become more of who you were meant to be, you're going to awaken and unlock these things and others. And, and, you know, we're at a time right now where we're in this sort of strange. Time in our history in North America, you know, we've got a lot of tension going on in our societies and politically and all this We have companies we have we have we have governments and companies sort of dialing back on whatever diversity equity inclusion means and and and all this stuff's going on, but you know if we Aren't careful, we're gonna learn, we're gonna lose.

What we've learned and what we've learned is, is that difference is fucking wonderful. There is something wonderful about difference, and if we're only seeking sameness, if we're seeking, I call it the evil spell of sameness, if we're only seeking sameness, we're gonna fall under an evil spell and it's gonna[01:29:00] 

You can make the same thing in different colors.

Correct. It's it's it's not going to be quite good enough. And so listen, Andrew, keep on your journey. Keep encouraging leaders to find that a unique quality in themselves and others because it is super beneficial. And so I got this question for you. I always like to end my podcast with this question. So and you will your answer.

You'll answer today differently than you would have five years ago. But https: otter. ai You're most uncommodified and yourself when you're bringing into a room that unique quality of who you are for the positive benefit for you and others. What? What do you think you're doing in that moment? Uh, that is uniquely you.

So I think, for me, what's the unique thing that I bring to this conversation that has been spoken to ad nauseum? I think I bring the [01:30:00] creative side, now that I'm out the other side, I bring this creative perspective to an old conversation about leadership and revenue to understand that differentiating your inputs will differentiate your outputs, similar to what you said, right?

Like, like will attract like, same will breed same. And so, I feel like the second thing I was going to say earlier when I was going to address the second group, which this tees me up perfectly, is for the neurodivergent people out there, embrace your superpower. If you're, if you're, if you have Asperger's and you're great at numbers, go all in.

If you're ADHD and you've got great ideas, find someone who appreciates it. If you're hyper creative, utilize that. These are going to be things that AI can't touch in a world when AI can take over everything. So, I think that ultimately, neurodivergent people are standing on a precipice where they have the opportunity to reach out for greatness, but they have to take the opportunity [01:31:00] to to express what they need to be great and leaders need to be receptive to those requests.

The one other thing that I wanted to say to tee you up or because you teed me up so well was if there's anyone out there, any leaders, any executives even anyone working for a corporation that this conversation resonates with you Um, I not only do coaching and consulting but I professional speaking has been a platform that I've been utilizing to get this message out.

To as many people as possible. I'll do anything as small as a lunch and learn, or a team meeting, to a keynote speech, or a breakout session. If you like what Tim and I are talking about here, and you think that this could have value at your corporation, reach out to me. Let's have the conversation, and if I can build something great for your team, to help them see the value of all this, that's literally why I get out of bed in the morning, so.

Absolutely. You know what? I think that's really speaks into that unique contribution that you have. You have Your unique contribution, I think, in [01:32:00] any room is going to be to stand up and to live uniquely and call others to do that. And I think that is really important. And, again, if you're listening, you're listening for a reason.

I really appreciate that. And so my challenge to you is ask yourself, what does this mean to you? How do you live within the full uniqueness of who you are? How do you take off your mask? You know, maybe the first question is what mask are you wearing? You know, are you wearing a mask, uh, that you need to take off?

Is it unhealthy? Is it unhelpful? Uh, is it, uh, is it Something that you gotta, you gotta ask yourself. Is this actually the real me and we are encouraging you to find your real self and to take off the mask that people put on you. You put on yourself or you've allowed your society or your business to put on you so that you could be acceptable because it's time to get unmasked and become unashamed of who we are for the positive benefit of others.

And as you do, I'm going to challenge you. Um, yeah. You know, email me at Tim at the uncommodified. com, [01:33:00] uh, or, uh, look me up on social media, send me a demand. Let me know what you're thinking as a result of this conversation and Andrew, thank you so much for your time tonight. It's a great conversation, um, and I'm looking forward to having many more of these and many more scotches with you, my friend over the years.

Thanks again guys for listening. Cheers. Have a great day. Thanks for listening.